You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2007.
I shall say it again: when they say a night at the Opera, they mean it.
See, I’ve just returned from I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Eastman Theater. A very good production, the acting was good and the singing was amazing; the plot is more or less the story of Romeo and Juliet with a few twists. Nothing too shocking, like them both living at the end, but more subtle things. Like killing Juliet’s father rather shockingly right at the end.
The whole show was borderline avant-garde in that they had it set in a futuristic setting but kept the content entirely classic. They altered the staging, costuming and set to follow a theme of the effects of war and such. Through the whole thing they used various quotes to punctuate their points (mostly during scene changes, which was an exellent idea). One such followed as such,
“So we must love while these moments are still called today,
take part in the pain of this passion play,
stretching our youth as we must,
until we are ashes to dust,
until time makes history of us.”
In other news I finally did something that I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while, which is clean out my buddy list. I keep names from simply people I’ve never talked to, but just collected their screen names in case someday I might need to contact them, to people who have just plain drifted out of my life. I’m the type that usually has trouble deleting things. In a fashion I’m an information packrat. I don’t know what I’d do without Apple Stickies.
The truth is that I got tired of reading certain peoples away messages and never talking to them. That’s the end of that, right? The last time I tried this I got shot down, but hopefully I follow the trend that life seems to be taking me and move on.
Hopefully.
I’m in a rather strange mood. I finally got my Mexican food, a day late, but nonetheless it was still delicious. I didn’t get to sleep until late last night because I just stayed up thinking; I covered a lot of mental ground and in the end I only came to a few conclusions:
- I should keep a journal. I’m terrible at it, I know, and I’ve tried more times than I would like to admit, but something’s telling me it would be an asset to have one.
- One of my biggest problems is that I have made it a habit to go back and fix mistakes. It’s a tough one to keep, especially when you can’t actually do it. I do it memorizing lines, playing music, in my essays, etc. It’s probably one of the reasons I don’t keep a journal.
- I have a very guilty conscience. In a vain attempt to appease this I’m thinking of writing letters to people before I graduate from high school, just explaining things or to simply be friendly. I’m a terrible letter writer, so we’ll see which is more powerful; the power of guilt or my inability to write letters.
I finally got the okay to do Brigadoon this summer. I’m excited.
It really hasn’t been all that long since I last did a ‘10 people’ thing, but recent events make me want to do another one. Perhaps tomorrow.
Title: There has to be a bridge on the way to grandmother’s house, it’s just implied. See, “Over the river,” so unless they’re fording it there would have to be one. Ergo, there is a bridge.
Rehearsal was brutal today, to put it plainly. Mr. and Mrs. Izzo decided to switch off playing ‘good-director, bad-director’ and in the end the only thing I learned is that Mr. Izzo yells louder. Now, I understand that at a certain point in just about every show a director has to lay down the law and, as Mr. Hedges would put it, “Raise our level of awareness.” The difference here is that he never yelled.
I respect the Izzo’s for their direction, but it would really help if they communicated between one another. People complain all the time that Cz and Banner have issues in communication, but it’s worse when you have two directors working on one scene and telling the actors to do two opposite things. Like today, just about everyone got ripped a new one for not having their lines down. Well, I hammered acts III and IV because we worked V last Friday and thought we’d start at the beginning. Which we did, but then we jumped to the end again. Then Mrs. Izzo said that scripts could be used on stage to keep the flow of the scene up, but I was yelled at later for having it. Peachy. We have, what, thirteen rehearsals left? That’s pressure, but it’s not impossible. I don’t mean to complain, but this is just how it has to be.
Afterwards was the fun part. The Lovers went out for lunch, and along the way we changed our minds several times about where we where going to eat. Eventually we ended up in the city at the India House. Good food, good times.
I’m kind of excited for post-high school. I just typed that and realized I could have just said college. Meh. The point is that I hope that I get better with the whole meeting strangers and such. Going outside of my comfort zone has always been difficult, but the past show and a half have been so much more fun when I’ve started to open up to actually meet new people.
Exciting!
In other news, I went to go see ‘Letters from Iwo Jima.’ Without a doubt this was the downer of the year for me. It was a war movie from the Japanese perspective about the stand at the island of Iwo Jima. Now, it was Clint Eastwood directing, so there was no glory in this movie. There were a few touching scenes here and there, like when soldiers from both countries realized that their mothers had told them the same things when they went off to war. “Do what is right, because it is right.” Then they all died.
Ack. I have more to write about the movie, but in the end it would be easier just to say it in person. Overall, it was a good movie and if you can stomach war movies then I’d recommend you see it.
Mexican food sounds really good about now.
5. There will be more people I would rather not spend an evening with than there would be people I like.
Pretty self-explanatory.
4. The food is terrible.
Really people, it is. Half thawed brownies and dispense-it-yourself soda for $60? For that price they should be serving each couple dinner.
3. The music is profoundly terrible.
If I wanted to hear rap music and a room full of hormonal-teens getting off on one another I would go to a normal school dance.
2. I can’t pull $150 dollars out of my-… let’s say ‘thin air.’
Between the tux, ticket and dinner, that would be the total. However, I could find it in my bank account, but I figure I want to save money before college.
1. I wouldn’t have a date.
And honestly, I doubt I’ll get one. If I had a date, if only for just the evening, this might be a different story. Are there any guys out in the Rochester area who aren’t busy on May 19th, who wanted to go to the Brockport Prom and wouldn’t mind going out on a date? I didn’t think so.
There. So there you have it; the reasons I’m not going to Prom. So stop asking about it.
I miss March. I’ll have so much free time now. I’ll be able to sleep at night without worrying about micromanaging every minute of my day to get the maximum amount of return on my invested manpower.
April fools.
The weekend has been good to me; there’s been much hanging out with Fantastick people. Gates High School is certainly going to give us a run for our money in Division A for Stars of Tomorrow. We went to see Footloose and overall it was very well executed. It’s funny that they were able to pull off a senior dance in ‘83 using modern prom dresses and tuxes. The only thing I wasn’t a fan of was their scene changes and some of the set design. It makes me feel better about Brockport shows. At least we have scrims.
Speaking of Brockport shows, sounds like we’re doing Little Shop this coming fall. I was somewhat jealous when it was first announced because it’s loads better than Seussical (but compared to Annie I think I’ll live), but in the end I’m not very upset about it. Some of the people that are going to be heading this show would drive me out of my mind, so it’s all good. Plus I get to do Little Shop at Nazareth next spring anyways.
Yep, it’s decided. Nazareth is the place; I’ll be there for Music Education with a Vocal emphasis. The whole college search was really, really discouraging but the events of the past several days (and weeks) have taught me several new things. At Footloose I realized that there is two ways I tend to look at theater as a whole. One is, “I can do that,” which leaves me usually apprehensive about being involved in almost any aspect of theater. The other is “I want to do that.” I get a much better feeling from the second.
Why is there wax on the keyboard?
I also went to see a preview screening of Peaceful Warrior today. I really had no clue what to expect but as we were walking out of the theater it was just silence. It was decided that it was one of those movies where afterwards you’d do better to sit and digest rather than discuss it. When it comes out in theaters I’ll most definitely go again, armed with a notepad and pen.
Oh yeah, the title of the post… Well, I was at fye browsing, not buying (because with prices like those for CD’s the only option they leave is internet piracy) when I stumbled across the soundtrack section. When I say stumbled I mean I entered the store and made a b-line for it because that’s the only thing I actually went to the store for. Ahem. As I was looking through the ‘J’ section there were a whole bunch of Joseph recordings, but the divider said “Joseph and the Dreamcoats.” I was amused. Anyone want to start a band?
