Fall is half over

Hey all,

As the headline says, fall semester is half over. But being half over, I'm currently in my week long fall break (UP does a week break mid-semester both semesters, which is nice). September is a bit of a blur, but I'll try to remember what happened and catch you all up.

First week of school and classes start as well as auditions. We did auditions for all the fall plays Wed, Thu, and Fri; met on Saturday morning to cast all 4 plays; and I started rehearsals on Sunday night. Bang and we're off. Blithe Spirit went well. Things were looking tough about as we were getting towards the end of rehearsals and we couldn't get through the show in 3 and a half hours, but we got past that (show ran two hours, plus intermissions, once we opened). The play is about a man and wife who host a seance (so he can collect material for his new book) and the ghost of his first wife appears (only to him, but she's there and can move stuff). Hilarity ensues. It's a 1940 comedy, British, very much clever wit and fast thinking. Once the actors caught on to the style they did really well.

The show was also written to end scenes with the curtain dropping with characters on stage, and we don't have a curtain. So I decided to give myself the extra challenge of avoiding having actors and props come and go in view of the audience without it being part of the action. Mostly this just involved adding bits of business to the beginning and ends of scenes (including a fun minute long bit where the ghost messes with the maid...while one of the other actors is off stage making a quick costume change). But the third act scene break was a problem: the same 4 actors on stage at the end of scene one and beginning of scene two, with props coming on and a few hours of time elapsed. So for that I created a fast-forward montage sequence that I worried would seem really out of place in the show, but the audience, and the gentlemen who came to respond/critique the show for ACTF (American College Theater Festival), enjoyed it, so no worries. The ACTF respondents also liked the fact that I made the medium, Madame Arcati (40s-60s in the script), a 30ish year old woman (all the actors were 18-22). I'm glad they appreciated that decision, she's the most genuine character in the play even if she is a bit crazy.

After Blithe Spirit closed one of my second year grad students had his 2nd year show (and I mean right after, we struck the Blithe Spirit set Sunday and I was back in the theater Monday for his tech rehearsal...he opened Wednesday). That show also went well.

Then my theater company had a fundraiser this past weekend (basically this is all happening over the last 2 weeks). On Friday we presented 6 short plays/scenes by local playwrights, rehearsed by local directors and actors--including me, to the audience. At intermission we brought on about 10 props and asked the audience to choose 3. After the 6 plays we brought each playwright to the stage one at a time to be auctioned off. The winning bidders instantly "commissioned" the playwrights to write a new play/scene using the 3 props the audience chose (an oversized ladle, a stuffed/fake black bird, and a gas mask). The winning bidder also gave their playwright the first and last lines of dialog for the scene. Then we met with the 6 playwrights and gave them the number of actors they needed to use and they had until 6:30 a.m. to write. The directors met at 9 a.m. and were handed the scripts the playwrights had written, we cast actors at 9:30 and started rehearsing. At 6:30 we met back at the theater and the 6 plays went up at 7:30. Pretty much all of our Friday night audience came back (and brought folks) anxious to see how things worked out. The plays were funny and serious, with some biting satire. All in all everyone had a blast, though many of us lost some sleep, and we raised over $1000 for the company.

That's pretty much been the fall. Classes are going well, I feel like everything's well in hand. It's still a pretty busy job, but this year there are much fewer surprises (so far no "wait...that's my job?" moments, unlike last year). I also got a tentative promotion. I was hired as a visiting assistant professor (due to budgetary constraints) with the promise of promotion after 2 or 3 years. They've approved my promotion to regular assistant professor for next year, if they can fund the position which they won't know until the budget is approved late winter/early spring. So I may be promoted. We'll see. Even so, it's a nice gesture on their part to show that they want to keep me around.

Looking ahead, I've got a thesis student doing Much Ado about Nothing (set in Hawaii a little before the bombing of Pearl Harbor) and a 2nd year grad doing Eleemosynary, so I'll still be sitting in rehearsals, just not mine and not so often. This week I basically took Sunday and yesterday off (watched television!) and now I'm working through my to do list, grading, and catch-up projects.

Tonight I'm off to Portland Center Stage to see R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE. So it's not all work and no play.