OSF 2

Last time I finished off talking about The Tenth Muse, so this time I'll start with The Heart of Robin Hood.

Left to right: Little John, Marian (in disguise), Robin and Will Scarlet.

I loved it.

I should note that I've loved the Robin Hood stories since I was quite small. My dad used to read them to me and I grew up playing Robin Hood in various parks and my backyard, pretending to be him or Marian, reading the stories, and watching the Errol Flynn movie about 20 times.

Yup, that's the one.

So I was already a fan.

Truth be told, I was a little nervous going into the play. What if it wasn't good?

But my worries were totally unfounded, because it was fantastic!

The play starts off with Robin and his men as bloodthirsty cutthroats who haven't quite figured the whole "giving to the poor" thing, but still have a generous reputation. Marian and her servant Pierre try to join them, since Marian really doesn't want to marry Prince John (such a creeper) and might have to anyway, but when she discovers Robin's true nature she decides to set herself up in opposition to him as "Martin of Sherwood," who really DOES do the giving to the poor thing.

Meanwhile, Prince John raises taxes to fund his own private army and take over the country and two children get involved after their father refuses to pay...

The thing I really loved was that this play had some really funny moments but was also very scary. The danger to Marian and the children was very real, and it had some heartbreaking moments. But it balanced that with good humor and great acting.

The set was pretty awesome too. It was in the Elizabethan theatre, which is outdoors, and they were actually using the same set for three forest-themed plays: Cymbeline, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Robin Hood. 

Lastly, we saw My Fair Lady.

It was a good musical, and they staged it well, but something about the story just didn't sit right with me. In case you don't know, My Fair Lady is about a speech therapist who makes a bet with his friend that he can pass off a Cockney flower-seller as a lady via speech lessons. The speech therapist was a little too much of a jerk for me to sympathize with, but it was still a good musical.

The staging looked a little weird initially--two pianos in the middle of the stage?--but they pulled it off really well.

Fun fact: There's this song called "On The Street Where You Live," sung by somebody who's just fallen in love with the main character, Eliza Doolittle.

(For context, she's just been to the horse races. Under the instructions to discuss only the weather and people's health, she made a few drastic faux pas, such as mentioning her Cockney father's gin addiction [it was about his health...])

The guy in the play totally overacted this. It was hysterical! He was running around and lying down on the stage while singing.

My dad told me that that number was actually written just as a filler, because the horse-race sequence was pretty elaborate and the stagehands needed time to change the set! It was written just so the guy could stand in front of the curtain and sing while they moved stuff around behind him.

Yay for fun facts!

My favorite character in My Fair Lady was probably Eliza's reprobate dad. He's completely morally bankrupt, but he freely admits it, and he's also really funny.

Probably my favorite song in the entire thing.

OSF

Greetings from Ashland, Oregon, where the smoke from the nearby fires has finally abated! (Mostly.) (It had to wait until right before we went home...)

We drove up over Sunday and Monday, stopping overnight at Dad's brother's house. That was fun because I got to see my aunt, uncle and cousin who I very rarely see. Then we arrived on Monday night, with our first play set for Tuesday afternoon.

I don't know if you've ever been to Ashland. It's a very beautiful town. I'm not sure if I'd want to live here full-time, but I love visiting. There's a great green garden called Lithia Park, where the ducks roam freely and the river rushes over rocks and boulders. I love walking through it, and occasionally hauling my cello out to try and make a little money. (A few years ago I got $30 in an hour. No such luck this year--$3 in just under two hours.)

And the plays! The real reason my family comes up is for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We saw one play per day this week, and all of them were wonderful.

Play 1: The Taming of the Shrew in the Angus Bowmer theatre.

The Angus Bowmer is a big indoor theatre. It's very versatile, set-wise. This year I saw three plays in it, each with a radically different set.

Taming was set in a sort of late-1950s New Jersey amusement pier. The music was rockabilly, and the clothes were often ridiculous. The language was thoroughly Shakespearean, but that was about it for the Bard.

Taming is always a hard play to pull off these days, so I've heard (this was the first time I've seen it). OSF did it really well.

Taming was set in a sort of late-1950s New Jersey amusement pier. The music was rockabilly, and the clothes were often ridiculous. The language was thoroughly Shakespearean, but that was about it for the Bard.

Warning: Spoilers.

Basically,  there’s this girl called Bianca who has two suitors. She’s not allowed to get married until her older sister, Katherine, does. The problem is that Katherine is a “shrew”—she’s not very pleasant to be around. She’s a total wildgirl who tortures her sister and scares off any prospective suitors. I liked her.

 A new guy called Lucientio comes to town (in this case Padua) and falls head-over-heels for Bianca (this is in addition to her two suitors). Then Petrucio, who was a tough, tattooed biker dude in this version, arrives looking for a rich wife. One of Bianca’s suitors convinces him to go after Katherine. Petrucio and Katherine, who he calls Kate, don’t exactly hit it off, but they’re certainly a match for each other—no one else would have either one of them.

A lot of other stuff involving Bianca and her suitors happens too, but I’m going to focus on Petrucio and Kate.

The thing that theatres have a hard time with these days is that after Petrucio and Kate get married, Petrucio uses some harsh wife-taming techniques including starvation and sleep deprivation. He finally gets her to agree with him that the moon is the sun. The thing I liked about this version is that even though Petrucio’s messing with Kate, getting her to agree with whatever he says, you can tell from the actors’ body language that she’s messing with him right back.

There’s a tricky bit at the end where Kate has a speech about how women should be obedient to their husbands. OSF softened that with body language again: There was this moment when Kate whistles and makes a “Get your butt over here or else” motion at Petrucio, the kind of thing you do to call a dog.

This play definitely wasn’t my favorite, but I did like it.

Play 2: The 10th Muse, also in the Angus Bowmer.

This one was fantastic. It's a world premier, so you probably haven't seen it. It's about this girl, Jesusa, in Mexico in 1715. She's been sent from one convent to another, to care for a sick sister (Sor Isabel, who in addition to gradually losing her sight is a bit of a rebel nun…). Arriving simultaneously are her roomates: Tomasita, an Indian of the lowest caste who will be working in the kitchens, and Manuella, a noblewoman who will be staying at the convent for several months.

The girls “enjoy the convivial chef, Sor Filomena, and try to stay clear of both the irritable Sor Rufina and the fearsome Mother Superior” (a quote from the playbill).

The girls are situated in an old storeroom, filled with useless junk and some rather useful objects as well.

Also in the room is an old wardrobe. When the girls finally get it open, they discover that it’s full of papers. Stories, love poems, plays, all forgotten—or were they hidden?

Jesusa, Tomasita and Manuella begin to act out a play in the evenings for their own amusement.  Then Sor Isabel (remember her? Rebel nun?) catches them at it. She recognizes the papers as being the work of the famous Sor Juana Inèz de la Cruz, who lived in the convent and died twenty years before. Sor Isabel thought they had been burned…

And I'll leave you hanging there. Go see the play if you get the chance!

Plays 3 and 4 coming soon, along with other exciting tales!

Art!

I draw a lot. I know I haven't posted any drawings, but I do.

So I finally got a tablet!

And I SUCK at using it.

For example:

That's supposed to be my dad in his new pyjamas and our two cats. (The cats were drawn with the cursor, not the pen.)

Normally when I'm not using the tablet, I draw stuff like this:

And this:

One of my characters. Her name is Wilhelm.

And even this:

My characters. Takes too long to explain, but I'm proud of it.

Now, I've been drawing stuff like this. 

A little sketch of my doll and my red book bag lying on my bed.  It's not blood, I promise!!

I've gotten better, though...a bit...

Here's the only other thing that's in a proper format to upload:

No one in particular, I just wanted to try drawing a girl with long hair in a manga-y style.

Whoops, looks like I forgot to get rid of some lines there. Shoot. Like I said, I'm learning. Largely through trial and error. 

The worst is when you forget to save something, ugh.

And that's what I've been up to these past few days!

Well, that and the animation class. We move pieces of paper around in front of a camera. I'm working on an adaption of Little Red Riding Hood with construction paper puppets. 

The Parking Fiasco

Mom and I were going to check out the Metro Station, because I was taking the train the next day. So we got to the parking structure, but right next to it, blocking it from our view, was a different parking structure.

"I think that's where Dad and I parked last time!" I said, pointing. My dad and I had been in the same area to see a play at a nearby playhouse.

So Mom parked in the parking garage and we exited via a gate and walked next door to check out the Metro station, which also had a parking garage. Once we'd seen it and figured out how it worked, we headed back to the car.

Only we couldn't get in. The gate was locked.

And then I saw the rather large sign that said, "LINCOLN APARTMENTS: TENANT PARKING ONLY."

While you could park there without any problems, it seems that you needed a key card to get back IN.

We were locked away from our car.

Oops.

So Mom and I took off around the parking structure to look for an open door. We probably wouldn't have found one anyway, but Mom saw headlights and we dashed back around and ducked through the gate as another car left. Yay!

Moral of the story: Be careful where you park.

In other news: I'm on Pottermore and I'm a Slytherin. I'm totally shocked: I thought I'd be a Hufflepuff for sure! Aah!

Venezuelan Beaver Cheese

I have been a bad, bad blogger, not updating in nearly a month. Sorry, guys.

Yesterday my dad and I went to LACMA to see the exhibit on Stanley Kubrick. He was a filmmaker who made, among other things, Lolita, The Shining, 2001 Space Odyssey, and Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. I actually haven't seen any of his movies, and after seeing the exhibit there are some that I really want to see and some that I really DON'T want to see.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick

They had production photographs, original props, video clips...it was pretty cool.

Then Dad and I went and took a second look at an exhibit called Metropolis II. I don't remember who it's by, but it is very cool. Think the biggest train set EVER, except that it only has a few trains. Mostly it has little toy cars whizzing around. They turn it on and off every hour or so (there's a schedule with the exhibit) and there are all kinds of fantasy buildings that the cars go around. It's pretty awesome.

On our way home, Dad and I stopped and wandered around this one street with a lot of stores and stuff. We happened upon a wine and cheese shop.

As a Monty Python fan, I couldn't resist.

We went in and looked around. I grabbed a little chocolate thingy to buy as a pre-apology, then went up to the counter.

"That everything?" asked the woman ringing me up.

I adopted a faint British accent. "Actually, I was wondering...do you have any Venezuelan Beaver Cheese?"

"You'd have to ask the deli," said the woman, apparently unfazed.

I figured it would end there, but after she gave me  the chocolate thing she turned and yelled, "HEY MIKE, DO WE HAVE ANY VENEZUELAN BEAVER CHEESE?"

This was when my dad, who was looking at a different shelf, figured out what I was up to.

This blond guy comes out from the back of the shop. "Venezuelan...?"

"Venezuelan, uh, Beaver Cheese," repeated the woman.

He frowned. "I don't think so..."

Dad laughed and explained that we were just messing with them. Then we told the guy (who was actually British) about the Cheese Shop Sketch. And if you haven't seen it and this whole story made no sense to you, then watch this!

Awards Night

Thursday was my school's Awards Night.

Basically, all the students who are getting any kind of academic award get an invitation, and then we show up and they give us the award out on the lawn. We're in lawn chairs and the Head of School goes by department and calls names and whoever gets called up goes and gets their award.

I got an invitation. I had no idea what it was for, since they don't tell you beforehand. My friends Sally, Merula and Felix also got invitations.

Sally is a straight-A student. Last year she got an award from just about every department except Fitness & Wellness. Seriously, she and her sister are probably the smartest people in the school. Her older sister is like the Hermione of the seniors.

So we're all sitting in a row as the HoS calls out names and stuff. They start with the Individual Subject awards: math and science, social studies and English, foreign language and theology, fine arts and fitness and wellness.

Sally got an award in everything except for fitness and wellness, I think. She went up every few seconds and wound up with NINE awards. Wow.

Merula kept getting called up too, eventually collecting six awards. Wow.

And I just sat there, waiting for my name to be called....

Eventually, when they were giving out the English awards, I glanced down the row. Everyone had at least one award certificate except for me. Okay, Rowan, be mature. You must be getting something, or you wouldn't have gotten an invitation. 

They put Creative Writing with English, so I was really hoping...but no, no award. That's when I started wondering: Did they call me here just to humiliate me?

Then the Foreign Language awards came up, and it turns out I did really well on the National Latin Exam. So THAT'S why I'm here, I thought, satisfied. (Felix got an award for that too, as well as one for theatre.)

Then after all the Individual Subject awards, they started on the National and Regional Language Awards and the various other awards. Almost everything National and Regional goes to seniors, so I figured that was it for us. Some of the really fancy awards' winners get their names engraved into silver plates and cups and stuff, which remain at the school for posterity.

So I was watching as various seniors and a few juniors go up and get their awards, when something called the J. J. C. Award for Creative Writing comes up. Oh, it'll be one of the seniors, I thought as the HoS told everyone that this person would have their name engraved on a silver cup for posterity, and would get a wooden plaque. And then she said, "The winner is...Rowan Procter."

I was stunned.

I truly had NO IDEA that was coming. My mouth was hanging open, and as people started clapping I managed to say, "They're kidding, right?"

People kept telling me that I walked all the way up to the front with my mouth hanging open. I was in total shock.

So yep, my name is now engraved on a silver cup in a cabinet at the school. I'm the 8th person to win that award.

I also got a big wooden plaque that Mom's going to hang in the hall.

So...wow! Yeah, that was Awards Night. I was very, VERY surprised. And proud. And...wow.

See you soon!

Girl Genius Snuck Its Way Right Into My Heart

Second YouTube video uploaded! YAY!

EDIT: After exchanging emails with Studio Foglio, I had to take down the video. Turns out it was a copyright issue. Oh well, better busted by the Professors then by the Disney people for using their song. The rest of the blog post remains unchanged.

This one celebrates the comic Girl Genius, created by Phil and Kaja Foglio of Studio Foglio.

Read it here! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Seriously, read it. It's pretty awesome. The video was a lot of fun to make.

All credit for the art goes to Studio Foglio.
All credit for the music goes to the Phineas and Ferb people.

I had the idea for this when I was listening to the song and heard the line "I put up barriers/To shield my emotions" and then the dropwall in GG just popped into my head and I started laughing. Then I remembered the Wall of Thorns and a few other bits (for instance, Gil's face in "and even more when we were apart":D) and I just had to make it. So here you are. Enjoy.

On another note: This is my 31st post and I've made it to 1033 pageviews! Thanks, guys! (Not really sure if that's impressive or not...I've never had a blog before, so...thanks anyways!)