So - Wednesday I will be magically appearing in DC. Depending on the availability of couch and the adorability of cats, I will be relocating to NY at some point later in the week (Thursday through Saturday). And my current plan is to be in NY until around New Years, and then DC until just before my classes start back up on my birthday. That was very thoughtful of you, Mary Baldwin College, but just because something is Shakespeare related doesn't mean it makes a great gift for me =P
Here's the big question: any of you wild and crazy kids doing anything for New Years? Not counting romantical evenlings with your SO. I don't need to hear about that. I mean things I can invite myself to. Although I guess I could invite myself on the date, but that's not quite the same thing. But I promise I'll dress up nice. Anyways. I don't have a set plan or time-frame for making the NY-->DC switch, and I figured that finding out about any group events would be a good first step to making a decision.
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I haven't really written that much about going to school here. I'm doing very well at the classes. For the first time, I've had the thought that procrastinating on an assignment might actually have hurt the quality of the work - this may cause changes in my work habits in the future. Maybe not. I really enjoy the program as a whole. I'm glad I went here instead of going for a PhD somewhere. That may cause issues down the line when I need to get a job, and make generally teaching Lit. at the college level a lot more difficult, but I'm actually
working with the texts at a practical level that I wouldn't even be thinking about at a doctoral program. Becca sent me a paper the other day that made me miss literary theory, but theory doesn't lead to people liking performances of Shakespeare. Sad but true. Or at least, it doesn't operate on the same level as, "See these lines here? I think they're delivered to the audience. Here's why. And here's what that does for the rest of the scene and the rest of the play." Sometimes I feel a little silly when I realize how
basic some of the stuff that really impresses me is for the students with acting backgrounds, but then I watch some of them try to deal with the text in a more standard literature type way, and the need for all the cross-training becomes pretty clear. I'm never going to be an actor, but I think the program is correct to make everyone take Acting I. I feel a little bad for some of the students who are here just because it's a random MFA program. Not because they're losing out on Teh Wondar of Teh Shaxper, but because a lot of what happens must be a waste of time for them. Especially for actors who aren't planning on going primarily into Shakespearean work. Must be frustrating.
I won't be here to see them, but there are only two more performances of
Antony and Cleopatra this season, and then it's gone for however many years. I can't even begin to describe what a loss this seems to me. Ayla probably understands. David Bevington (whose name graces a major edition of Shakespeare's works) was overheard at the Blackfriars Conference saying it was probably the best
A+C he's seen. It's weird to think that there are wrong and right ways to put on a play (instead of just better and worse), but they do everything so very right. Where it's sad, where it's funny, where the improbable moments are when the play feels
real even though you've been backstage and you know the actors and remember the lines. When I saw it this weekend, I wound up in the center balcony while Cleopatra and her attendants hoisted the dying Antony up into the monument. Iras backed into me when Antony died. As an audience member, you don't get any closer than that.
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I'm dum, I keep editing this post because I love the ASC.
Here's a big article about how the whole thing started and where it's going. I think I may actually be done this time.