Tell you all my secrets

Interesting improv class today.

I decided to do something different this session and started the kids off using a real ball in sound ball. About every 3rd or 4th throw, one of them tossed it back to me.

Today I took the ball away and we played the traditional way - with an invisible ball which not only changed sound but could change size and weight as it passed from person to person.

One of the kids is on the autism spectrum, so I always keep an eye out to make sure he's not being excluded in games. Then I noticed something.

When the ball went invisible, they started to exclude me. Like they didn't need me to be the person who could reliably throw and catch any more.

Interesting.

Time well spent with Mom and dad this weekend.

Friday we drove out to Girdwood to surprise Mom with dinner at Double Musky as a late birthday present. It was about a 45 minute wait but we had deep fried crawfish poppers for an appetizer. Mark has oso buco with fresh lamb, dad had a steak the size of his head, I ate alligator (!!! very yummy - kind of tough but rather like stew meat.) and Mom ordered a shrimp scampi where the chef seemed to have added the garlic, forgotten about it and added more garlic at the end just in case. She didn't say anything until it was too late to send it back. We also got deserts. I'm still working on mine.

Class Saturday went well. I tried a new game with the kids that I swiped off the Who's Line Is It Anyway? website. It's a variation on Emotional Blocks where, instead of mapping out places on the floor and you change emotions depending on where you are standing, you give the actors 3 props, each with a different emotion that they have to exhibit while in possession of the item. They really liked it and they did pretty good with it. They were great about making trading object very natural - as opposed to "I want the flowers now!" - but we need to start working on having a scene as well as a gimmick now.

Mark had a Hash on Saturday, so I met up with Mom and Dad after classes for appetizers before going to see Deathtrap. It was an interesting production. Deathtrap has long been one of my favorite plays, so I have very strong feelings about how it "should" be done. I wasn't really disappointed, but some parts of it felt overly theatrical and some needed more of a flourish. Helga ten Dorp was awesome.

We went out to dinner after that and then dropped Mom and Dad off at their hotel. A couple of friends just moved back to town and were having a poker party, so we stopped in just to say hi for a few minutes.

Sunday I canceled rehearsal so I could spend some time with Mom and Dad. We did brunch at Humpy's and then walked around downtown for a while. Dad wanted to watch football, so we got them settled into our apartment for the afternoon while we went to a Brr-lesque show planning meeting. It looks like I only have an unavoidable conflict with one of the shows this year, if I can get someone to cover me at the PAC for a show and a load-in. I really don't need one, but I have secured my brr-lesque name - Eileen Dover.

I'm supposed to be off today, but I had to run by the office to pick up disc for the PAC and do some stuff with school shows. The Diva called while I was on my way "Oh I'm working from home too, so you can get the mail, answer the email and phone messages!" I told him I would not be checking the mail on my day off. I am trying to get stuff done, though, and feeling very put-upon.

The roof right next to ours is flat. When it begins to collect pools of standing water that my father-in-law once looked over and exclaimed "I didn't know you could see Lake Spenard from here!", it's a sure sign fall is here.

The birch leaves in our neighbors yard are steadily depositing brown leaves on our porch which are steadily getting tracked into the house.

The heating situation in our apartment is odd. We are on the second floor and it should stand to reason that heat rises. During the summer it is almost never below 73 degrees in our living room. In the winter, it is seldom above 45 when get up in the morning even with the heat on. Mark had to turn the heat on Friday night because our living room had dipped to 64 degrees.

It was 67 in here when I work up this morning and there is a fine layer of ice on Lake Spenard this morning.

It's too soon!!!

We did have a fine weekend, though. I was at work all day Saturday with our first drama classes of the season. I'm teaching improv again and I'm really happy with my group. One of the girls is telling everyone else what to do and how to do it already, so we will have to work on that, and one of the boys is a little disgruntled because he was in my classes during Summer Conservatory so he already knew all of the games we worked on.

Saturday night we went to a friend's 40th birthday/Talk Like a Pirate party and got to hang out with such truly excellent people as kahteeyah, scooterpbakes, geolinguist, jdawgspi and the newly-wedded sionainn and name_omitted .

We continued beating on the joke that jdawgspi and geolinguist should get married, just because the party would be epic, until jdawgspi's date started to take offense. Good times.

Yesterday was actually sunny and a little warm. We ate dinner out on the porch to celebrate. I had rehearsal all afternoon and I went in, all low-energy and grumpy, trying to think of a way that we could work outside for a while. We were supposed to have all of the little Brownies there to work on their bits, but the majority of them did not come. Everyone was pretty grumpy and low-energy so instead, we worked extra hard on teaching them the scout oath in sign language for their first scene and teaching them how to march. That was when inspiration struck - they should go outside to march around! I'm the smartest director in the world!

In spite of our best efforts to go see a movie, Mark and I ended up bunkering and finishing season 1 of Eureka. We're poised to start season 3 of Slings and Arrows next. I can't wait. We took a break from series to watch Superman Returns last night. Mark liked it a lot. I like it much better this time, but I did fall asleep right before the exciting climatic battle. Damn meds.

Mark had the most exciting moment of all this weekend. He and scooterpbakes went hiking while I was at work Saturday. I got a call about 4. "Hi honey! We saw bears! A mama and a baby bear. We were almost killed and eaten by bears!!"

Thanks, dear.

ghost_light: (doing an improv ask-for) Okay. I need the name of the silliest, stupid, absolute sappiest kids cartoon movie ever aired on a Saturday.

Students: .......Hamlet?

1. What's your sign?

2. If you could be world-renowned for one thing, what would it be?

3. What are your plans this weekend?

I'm teaching an improv intensive out in Chugiak and it's too early to be clever.  Today is your day to ask me anything.

Stolen from bdonornot

Let's play some one-word-story!

I'll start...


Once

1. What is your simple 6-step plan for world domination? (thank Mark for that one)

2. What was the last live event you went to see?

3. Do you have a favorite picture of yourself? How would you describe it?

Busy day coming up - still working on Conservatory things, of course, and teaching an improv class for home schoolers. Mark is supposed to teach a monologue class starting on Saturday, but he is feeling overwhelmed and I'm pretty sure that I will end up doing it. I'm going to try to talk Don into it,though.

( Saw a back specialist yesterday. )


On the way back to the office I had the best cab ride. I was craving pot stickers but felt guilty about being away from the office that long, so I figured I would call the cab as I was leaving the mall, rush to the post office to check the mail and have the cab meet me at a store front halfway back to the mall. That way I get things done, don't have to stand around waiting and everyone wins. I didn't count on the cab pulling in just as I was passing Cyrano's the first time, so I was teasing the driver about being too quick for me and I asked him if he would mind pulling into the post office and waiting for me. He didn't, of course, and as I was thanking him he said "Don't you recognize me?" I don't know that many older African-American men, so I pretty ashamed that I didn't. I hazarded a guess that I knew him from Cyrano's and then start to apologize that I just couldn't recall when he cut me off "I'm the designated Mr. Nice GUY!"

Last night I taught a little quicky-improv thing for the Red Court and had a ball. We really just focused on thinking on your feet and building on "Yes, and" A lot of them are young and nervous, but some picked it up quick. I think it helped that the focus was on being rude and comic, so they were able to see what happened when they kept asking about one guys wife or what happened in the Baron's tent and the person just had to keep agreeing. "Is it true your wife was with _____ last night?" "Yes....and she was just warming the bed for me?"

One week of Advanced Conservatory to go. As mentioned before, we added the Regular Conservatory kids this week and they are wonderful stinkers to a man. One of them almost got me killed yesterday. I was walking through at sign-out and he yells out "I love you Janet!" so I said "Oh, I love you too." His mom WHIPPED around to stare at me. If that woman had possessed any mutant powers I would have been a little pile of ashes on the floor from the fire in her eyes. Then the little darling adds "As a DIRECTOR I love you!" and scampers off giggling like a chipmunk. It was one of the truly WTF!!!! moments I've had this year.

I'm having a ball and it looks like the kids are too. I desperately need help at the class change times though. Somehow I just can't be in 4 places to walk 4 different groups to and from their 4 separate classes (which are generally at opposite ends of the building.) Yes, put a black mark next to my name in the SM logs: there is something I cannot do. One of the first days I had to pause so a couple kids could grab their backpacks and that gave one of the boys, who's name will not be changed because he has no innocence to protect in this one, Raven, enough time to stick his knee through the railing and get stuck.

Please send sanity.

On a non-theatre note, for once, Mark and I rented a bunch of movies at Metro last week so we finally got to see The Cooler which has a fantastic documentary about how they shot William H. Macy to show the evolution of the character - how he was lit, the choice of costuming him in suits 2 sizes too big and then changing to tailored, all sorts of great things. We also saw the Gospel According to Philip K. Dick which was......well.....I liked it better because I am and fan and I had read a lot of his biographical material. It was basically just a documentary where people talked about his life and there was a lot of focus on the early 70's when he began to believe that God or an alien intelligence was communicating with him through a pink light that beamed information into his head. Interesting, but they kind of "forgot" to say who any of the people speaking were. Eventually we found captioned pictures of all of the interviewees in the special features, but while we were watching it there was a lot of "Okay...the one who keeps going on about "Phil and I" this and "Phil and I" that might be KW Jeter because I think that about the time this was made he started cashing in on Knowing Phil and writing those abominable Blade Runner sequels. And I think the woman who cried when she remembered the sound of Phil's voice must be one of his ex-wives..." I was wrong on both, though, one was a writer I'd never heard of and the woman was the one who coined the word "Kipple".

I have a Scriptless show tonight and I'm so tired I feel drugged. Just woke up this way.. I already nap once but it didn't take. I may have to give it another try.

First off, a little present for Kathy since she won't get her own damn journal and she won't see it unless I post it ;)

They like the MOOOOOOOOOOOOON!

Now that that's taken care of....2 weeks without an update. I feel lazy, but I just haven't been in the mood to chronicle what's been up with work and all and nothing else has felt important enough to comment on for a while. I know Kathy has missed the updates (since she emailed me about it ;)) so here it comes....the 2 week overview:

( What I saw... )

( What I read... )