Christmas is problematic for me. Last year at this time I was playing Scrooge in A Christmas Carol at the American Shakespeare Center, and the work of it all had the combined effect of making me remove myself from Christmas but entering into its sense of renewal. Scrooge travels into the darkest aspects of his own psyche to emerge in a enlightened state. Every year I reflect more on this sense of enlightenment, of being filled with light. [Read more →]
Today is a gray morning, and the snow has left us. It is both disorienting and appealing. We are used to snow in these parts, and the lack of it sets us to believing that something is horribly wrong in the universe. Yet it is pleasant every day not to have to brush snow off your car or tromp over snow-crusted sidewalks or wear your heaviest coat. I can live with that.
For the time that I have been absent from these pages, I have been occupied by the annual ritual known as juries. Our evaluation system for assessing the progress of our BFA Acting and Musical Theatre students is to have them perform what amounts to an audition. They present two contrasting monologues, and in certain years they are required to present one classical piece of some sort. They must do at least six juries and pass them successfully in order to graduate. The jury at the end of their fourth semester is called a “barrier” jury. They must pass this jury to remain in the BFA program. Failure to pass the barrier and thus show sufficient progress means a student is removed from the BFA program and, if they choose to continue to study theatre, must do so as a BA student. [Read more →]
I’ve not seen winter for a year. Last year on tour I saw very little snow, as I spent most of the winter months in the south. These past few days have seen the first snowfalls of the winter season (not counting the “October Surprise” in Buffalo, which we did not get here in Dunkirk). I have been attempting to reverse my general pattern of behavior by arising early and going to bed sooner, and I am having some moderate success in that area. The more I see of early morning light the less I appear to suffer from SAD. This afternoon the treadmill I ordered is coming, so I also hope to match the morning with some exercise, again to help relieve SAD symptoms.
I still want to write that piece on the NYC experience, but I have put this blog on the back burner recently. But the thing I do want to say about the experience, and which I can say very briefly, is that the biggest changes I see in the city are that a) hardly anyone who lives there anymore was born there, b) the people that were born there are the least well-off, and what they do have is slowly being taken from them, and c) it now appears to be a place where people go to have careers, not lives. These are very broad generalizations, I know, but that was my experience. And so many cell phones and iPods, although I am seeing that phenomenon on campus as much as I saw it in NYC.
I have seen some theatre, but neither production I saw really did anything for me. In Buffalo the season now goes into hibernation a bit. Come January I’ll write up a spring preview of shows I’d like to see. I hope to get to see more shows as well in the spring, since I have no productions at this moment lined up for myself (and not likely to take any either given my new responsibilities).
And finally, in the “name dropping” category, I am very proud to say that Christine Estabrook, who is playing all the female parts in the upcoming Spring Awakening, is a classmate of mine from my SUNY Oswego undergraduate days. She played Kitty to my Tom in The Time of Your Life way back in 1972 or thereabouts. I’ve followed her career for some time now. She’s always terrific. Back in the late 70s her name was always linked with Christine Baranski and Christine Lahti. She graduated from Yale in the same class a Meryl Streep, and I remember going to a production of The Cherry Orchard in Lincoln Center directed by Andre Serban in which she made her Broadway debut. I have to find some way to get tickets and time to see her. Also, Jennifer Cody, who is in the midst of the Urinetown dispute in Ohio, is a Fredonia graduate. She’s a delightful person, and I’m sorry to see her caught up in that nonsense. She played Helen Keller for me in Miracle Worker, and was quite astounding in it.
Morning light catches up with you quicker than you think. -twl