Financial Responsability

Despite my best efforts thus far - there's only so many times it's really prudent to call the Human Resources department anywhere - I seem to be lacking one very critical aspect of the next six months of life: a Job.

The capital letter is important. Just read anything by Terry Pratchett. You'll see.

Anyway, it looks like a slightly grim first week home ahead for me. Between job hunting and job hunting, and well probably a little job hunting, I'm going to be much busier than I was originally anticipating.

Some feedback from you Loyal (Or at least Present) Readers: Should I look into a Temp Agency, or just hoof it on the mean streets of Brick New Jersey? Seriously, any feedback at all would be awesome.

In the meantime, here's hoping that victory and a steady paycheck will be mine!

-S.

Hello Dolly!

The final show of the Mount Washington Theatre Company opened tonight and it went well, I thought. Few technical glitches - though the few that were were fairly large - and solid performances all around.

Our Dolly and Vandergelder are actually a married couple who met on this stage. Naturally their chemistry is good. And her performance as wonderful. She didn't overplay the part, as is so easily the case with a role such as this, and her voice was clear and strong. Now, bear in mind that this time my vantage point wasn't the back of the house, but back stage left next to the patch board. I managed the roll-drop (called the Olio, though I don't know why; isn't a roll-drop a roll-drop?) and other flying scenery and also managed the patch box.

You might think that this sounds like light work, however, bear in mind that the olio is 20 by 12 foot painted peice of canvas suspended from the rafters on a large steel cylinder with 20 feet of inch wide steel pipe running along the base of it to keep it stretched. Needless to say, it weighs a fair amount. Flying it in is never an issue. Flying it out requires two people to make it look smooth.

Anyway, pissing and moaning aside, I thought the show did very well. The set was large - almost too large, but that's moslty with specific elements - and looks impressive. There are moments backstage when I'm impressed by how well our dock manager coordinates the whole thing.

Tonight's audience loved specific numbers so much that they applauded before the ends of certain songs - like the title number. In any event, while it's not a perfect show or probably even excellent, it's still very good and solid. There hasn't been a show so far that I wouldn't have reccomended a patron to see.

But that's all for this season folks.

-S.

A Toast

I met Brayden at SVU my freshman year in the old Student Union. He was sitting with his laptop and invited me over to look at something funny online. I believe it was a listing of French Military Defeats at albinoblacksheep.com. From there we talked and I learned that he was auditioning for the Fall show that year and he invited me over to his house to watch the movie with him and another friend of ours. I'd like to say that the third friend was Kaitlin, but that would be a lie. It was another girl who would soon be engaged and married by the end of that semester. That evening, we watched the Importance of Being Earnest in his basement.

That's the first time I ever had a real friend. In all my time at school in New Jersey and at Church growing up, I never really had what I'd call a real friend. There were people I knew, kids I would play with certainly, but I'd never have called them friend. To me, a friend is someone who is not related to you that you can talk to about anything. Someone you can always trust, someone who will help you without being asked to. And he was friend to me.

During my Senior year, Kaitlin came along and the two of them eventually got together. I may have had a hand in it because I did tell her to give Brayden a chance. He was a good guy and I pride myself on my judge of character. Well, you can see the results from that chance she gave him.

I asked him once if he loved her. And his response was, "There are three different definitions of Love in the Bible. There is the love of family members, the love of friends and finally the love of spouses. And I love her as my spouse." I might be paraphrasing a little, but that's the essence.

So here's a toast: To the Bride and Groom. May you love each other, may you live long and full, and may God bless you with success in all your endeavors. Cheers.

So here I am in New Hampshire, raising my glass to toast , and hoping that they will always live happily ever after.

-S.

Blood Brothers

Not gonna lie, I wasn't expecting to like this one. To a certain extent I still don't, but not in the way I was expecting.

To be fair, the show was written for a country that is not the United States. It's England/Great Britain, depending on your preference. The play follows the story of two twin brothers separated at birth who become friends - in separate households and classes - and eventually die at one another's hands. Don't freak out; I didn't really spoil anything. That much is revealed in the first five minutes of the show, and besides, it's theatre people: the thing is practically designed to be ruined. Off topic, moving on.

So the real message of the show is partially lost to an American audience because America does not have the same rigid class system that the UK suffers from. Apart from that, the music is pretty good and the set and lights are pretty bitchin'. Ten points to Victoria Miller, Lighting Designer, and David Dwyer, Set Designer.

My biggest issue with the show, is that half of the set changes are ridiculously fast and require a fairly large amount of finesse and we don't have the man-power nor the skill level to really execute them perfectly yet. They're not horrid; if they were my review would be much worse. Anyway, suffice it to say that the show is not perfect and probably never will be with the short run it has.

The performances were pretty good too. Apart from the sometimes poorly executed accents. Seriously people, don't do accents without a speech coach or unless you KNOW the accent. Several really cool lines were lost in translation due to shoddy accents. Despite the accents, i was still impressed by the vocal skill of the actor playing Mrs. Johnston. Those were some very low notes for a woman to sing and she hit them with clarity, good tone, and decent volume. Bear in mind, this is all just an opinion. I'm no voice teacher, director, or artist of any sort really.

The actors playing the Johnston Twins were also pretty good, and their stage dynamic wasn't what I'd call fantastic, but it was good enough that it worked. The final number of the show should bring forth a lump to the throat, if not tears to the eyes.

It's good, just not awesome and life-changing. So it's kind of like a fig newton: tasty enough to snack on, but not addictingly delicious.