Summer of Brotherly Love Wrap-Up

No more brotherly love for me. Soon, anyway.

This afternoon I turned in my casebook. I got some feedback from Becky, and she said it is well-organized and it should be helpful. I was pleased by this feedback. When asked what I could've done differently, it was basically this: LESS PROCRASTINATION. Who would've thought that I would be a procrastinator?... This past week has been pretty intense because of putting together the casebook. Don't get me wrong, it was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be, but it was down to crunch time and I needed to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time. A lot of the work that I actually needed to do involved printing. Since I don't have a printer where I am staying, that meant I had to compile all of the information I needed and print, print, print. It was pretty time-consuming to have to do it that way, but those are the breaks. I feel like I did a lot of work before, but it was definitely a full-time job this week. I'm tired of even thinking about it!

This summer was definitely worthwhile! I made a lot of very valuable contacts that I will hopefully be using in the future. After turning in my evalutations for Philadelphia Young Playwrights, I made a phone call to the education director, and she said they are always looking for Teaching Artists, and that could be a possibility if I wanted to come back next year. Interesting possibility! I also told Becky that I would be open to still evaluating plays that she wanted to send to me. No matter what, I'll be able to keep busy, I think.

I think that's pretty much all for my wrap-up. It's definitely been an experience!

Fin.

Almost done!

So, I have 13 days until I get on a plane and head back to Iowa. I can't believe I have less than two weeks! Today is probably my last day at my Qdoba job (thankfully), and I can't wait to just get down to business and be able to completely focus on my casebook. I haven't gotten nearly as much done as I would've hoped to by this point, but I have a fair amount of information collected.

Other than the fact that it's crunch time, there isn't a whole lot that's new. Yesterday I got to sit in auditions for the show they are currently casting about wrestling, ethnicity, America, and capitalism. Yeah, it's a really freaking cool show, to say the very least. I wish I could be in Philly during the run! But alas, that would be rather expensive. Anyway, we sat with the artistic director of the theatre and the director of the show (only one person, by the way), and watched auditions (I even helped run them) and talked in between about what we thought and what he thought. The discoveries were pretty awesome. Most of the people were good, but of course at the end of the day there were only a few (maybe 4 total) people that he may even consider for the two roles, and he still has some people to look at. I learned a lot in that few hours: even more about what makes a good audition monologue and the kinds of things directors look for while casting, and how truly important it is to just go audition even if you know that you're not particularly right for the part. Amongst our talking, I found out how many people he knows in theatres all over the country and realized what a great opportunity I have to get work at so many theatres I would've never even imagined working at before. Amazing. And that's only one person in the office!

I've been getting side work, such as for the two weeks prior to this one, I was babysitting for a family who was working at the PlayPenn conference (new play conference). I knew I was babysitting for an actress and a sound designer/composer, and I knew they were living in New York, but I found out shortly after starting that he has a show opening up on Broadway soon! Way cool. I think he said previews start in October and the show opens up in November, but I don't remember. I didn't talk much to the woman about her work, but I didn't hear anything about Broadway work. Either way, I know they're both working their butts off and working in theatre, which rocks. It was way cool, and their son was fun to be around for two weeks. Now I'm just doing theatre work and cat-sitting for someone in the office while he's on vacation visiting family.

I have two more plays to evaluate for my Philadelphia Young Playwrights stuff. I'm hoping to get that done really soon so that I'm just done worrying about it and can focus on my casebook. Next weekend I'm taking a daytrip to NYC, and I'm SOOO excited! I can't believe I'm so close to leaving and going back to Iowa. It's so weird!

UPDATE! (A long time coming)

I haven't updated in a LONG time. Whoops. I guess that's probably because there hasn't been a whole lot new going on. Well, there is but things were not moving quite as fast for a couple of weeks there. I did some reading and evaluating for Philadelphia Young Playwrights. I still have 3 evaluations to write and a little bit of editing on one (I received a little feedback since it's my first time working for them). I have been trying to keep up with my work at the theatre, but I've also been trying to work and pay my bills. Tough stuff, especially when my job is not incredibly ideal. I am, however, going to start doing a little bit of babysitting, which will hopefully cover enough that way I can pay my bills and also take a trip to NYC before I have to come back to Iowa and still be able to eat and do a couple of fun things.

Next weekend I will get to go to the XPN Music Festival for the Theatre Alliance booth. I get in for free, which I certainly can't complain about. I volunteer for 4 hours and then can go around and see whatever music I want. Guster is playing that night, which is the only music I had heard of when I looked at the website. Hopefully I run into some fun new music while I'm there!

The plays I read for PYP were interesting. They are plays written by 11th graders. I may have mentioned them before, but I have read all 5 of the plays I received now and can say that it is actually pretty difficult for me to provide the kind of response and feedback they want. I'm not the kind to coddle, and that's really what they want. This isn't to say that all of the plays were all bad, because there were definitely some good ideas in there. One of the plays I read was actually very clever. However, I feel like it's not necessary to coddle and that you can provide constructive criticism without it being considered harsh. All we are really allowed to do is ask questions and hope they keep writing and consider our questions. I live in the world that if something doesn't work, someone says it doesn't work. I'm trying, though! It just takes me some time because my brain doesn't work in that way. I understand--they're in 11th grade and we're trying to keep them writing however we can.

Some of the work I did in the theatre included cleaning out old costumes. I found some gems, including a nice piece of fabric that may work as a wall piece or a faux headboard when I arrive back in Iowa and move into my apartment, a hat, a cardigan, a couple of skirts, and a couple of purses. That was a really fun day!

My casebook is coming along slowly. Procrastination is my worst enemy. I tend to do a lot of thinking before I start projects, however, and I have already come up with my layout. While I have nothing printed out, I have several articles, some websites, and some YouTube videos stashed away. All in all, it's a pretty decent start. I have to get working on that, though, and provide some tangible work in about a week and a half. My time is running out. It's so weird, because it seems like just yesterday I got here. I don't know where the time has gone.

Tuesday we're going to go through and finish our edits on the play we decided to tackle. Interestingly enough, a new draft of the script was sent to the theatre a couple of weeks ago. We haven't gotten to read it because we're still working on our own draft. We just have to enter the 2nd act edits and then I imagine we'll go through and read and see what we think. Maybe then we'll get to read the newly-submitted draft from the playwright.

Aside from all of my theatre work, I got to go to Winona, MN and watched The Tempest (which was phenomenal) and hung out with some of the Great River Shakespeare Festival folks. I even volunteered while I was there and made some root beer floats for the 4th of July festivities. The week before I left for MN, I went and saw Spring Awakening at the Kimmel Center. It was the same show that went through Des Moines earlier this season, but I didn't get a chance to see it then. I got a REALLY cheap ticket through Philly Fun Savers. They provide great discounts on tickets that change every week. I was up all the way in the Amphitheatre, but the view was completely unobstructed. I'm not going to lie--I cried a couple of times! It was beautiful, and so was the theatre itself.

I'm actually pretty conflicted. For a while I was really homesick. I was in Iowa for a few hours and hung out before I headed up to Minnesota. At the end of my 5 days away from Philly, I didn't really want to come back! Ever since I did get back, though, I'm finally starting to get used to it. Unfortunately, to get to that state of mind it took me two months. I only have 28 days left here in the city and I feel like it's not quite enough anymore! There's so much I still want to do on top of the things I have to do. Wish me luck in my final weeks. I really hope to savor every last minute. There are things about the city I think I could never get used to, like the scariness of the crime rate and going out alone at night is a big no-no, but I have grown close to a couple of the girls I've met here, and I'm definitely going to be sad to leave the theatre! C'est la vie!

New week, new opportunities :)

Okay, so I continually gush about all of the opportunities that are just handed to us as interns at this theatre, but it's just amazing what I get to do, and I feel very fortunate. So here goes (again):

Sunday I went to help with InterAct's booth at Philly Gay Pride. I didn't get to see the parade because, well, I needed sleep (stupid insomnia), and I didn't have to be at the booth until after the parade got over. After I made it through the bunches of people and made it into where the rest of the booths were, I got to interface with the gay community a little bit on behalf of InterAct. How convenient that the play that is running right now is about a gay couple adopting a baby! Anyway, that was a fun experience even though I didn't get to go around to the other booths.

After that, I went to a reading of Seth Rozin's new musical A Passing Wind. It's a musical about a man who can fart at will! It was a very interesting show to see even at this stage of the process, and with a little bit more tweaking I think it could be very fun to see a full production. Josef Pujole, who becomes acquainted with the likes of Sigmund Freud, Erik Satie, Sarah Bernhardt, and Claude Monet, tries to make his name in Paris at the Moulin Rouge after leaving his life baking bread in Provence with a very, very unique act. The trouble is, however, that after Germany attacks France, it is unknown what will happen. Thrilling stuff, really. It is very full of puns and wit, though at times it is somewhat predictable. I'm eager to see what happens to it in its next draft.

On Monday I had another normal day at the office, though this time I was not stuffing envelopes. This time I was on the phone doing recruiting people based on a survey to come to a research discussion about InterAct. I don't really enjoy talking on the phone, and I despised the job I had for a few weeks at the PhoneCenter, but the people I was talking to generally had a love for theatre and really wanted to help and participate if they could. It was a reassuring experience and now I know that people are coming to the shows and really taking something away from them and want to be involved.

Today I went back to the office to finish up the survey group I was working on yesterday, and it was also our weekly intern meeting. This week we caught up on how we are doing on our casebooks. I haven't gotten a very good start, however, because I was waiting on an updated copy of my script before I began my research, but it seems to be taking longer than I expected. I just need to start on something with this copy and can work accordingly later on. Other than that, we began to tear apart the script Becky gave us and we each got 2 (very, very big) subjects to focus on in order to improve the play, and are to come up with a plan of attack before next week, and try to work out how to fix it. It needs a lot of work. A lot. It's a play about a black Muslim American who goes to school in Cairo, Egypt, and rooms with an Egyptian Muslim. The main idea is that these two try to fight stereotypes, but as of right now the play lacks focus, conflict, and character development, among lots of other things. It definitely has potential, though.

The interns also got invited to be readers for Philadelphia Young Playwrights, so we will all get to read play submissions from middle schoolers and high schoolers and evaluate them. Totally awesome opportunity anyway, but the icing on the cake was that after I read the information I found out that we will be getting paid for it! It's not much, but it will be my first paid theatre work ever! I'm picking up scripts tomorrow.

That's all I have for now. If you can't tell, I'm really enjoying my time. I guess I just have to make sure I'm using my time efficiently. So much to do!

P.S. -- In the photo is Gomez. He is my cuddly friend in the office!

The week in review...

Hello, all you (probably 2 or something) readers!

Sunday evening I went to a reading at the theatre. One of the writers in the writing group had finished a draft and we all gathered around listening and gave feedback afterward. I went with another intern, and we got to give our feedback as well. The play was about civil rights, racism, and segregation in the 1960's. The premise was that a white man accidentally shot a black teenager after he was taken by his mother to the all-white hospital. The young black boy's girlfriend was then pregnant, as was the white man's wife. The white man dealt with the guilt, but no legal repercussions, and sought out forgiveness from the boy's family, which was never received. It dealt with some supernatural things, as well! It was a good play, and it needed a little work, but it was awesome to be able to sit in and see that environment, especially since I am actually writing a play myself presently. I'm going to another reading tomorrow evening after I go help with one of the booths at Gay Pride! The reading is for a musical about farting written by the artistic director of InterAct, Seth Rozin. It should be pretty fun and interesting!

Monday was my day in the office, and I did general interny things like stuff envelopes, mail letters, print things, cut things, and got to exercise my efficiency freak ways by developing a system for everything I was doing. That was about it for Monday. I also met with Becky about my ideas for what I was writing. I almost felt guilty for exploiting my position as an intern to get special help on my play. Almost.

Tuesday we finally got to pick which plays we were doing our casebooks for. I am going to be researching the play called City of Numbers by Sean Christopher Lewis. I'm sure I've talked a little bit about it before, but it's about the Philadelphia Mural Arts program and all of the community perspectives on it and the crime in Philadelphia. I'll be doing research on that as well as hopefully being in pretty close contact with the playwright during the summer. All of the interns got the play they wanted, so I thought it was very cool that we all had something different we wanted.

Other than that, we all got to discuss next season's plays with each other and with Becky. It was interesting to be in that kind of environment. I didn't feel as though any of my ideas or opinions were off the wall, and they were respected and taken into consideration by everyone. Everyone had very good thoughts to contribute to the discussion and came prepared. After that, we went to a marketing meeting to discuss the groups that each of the plays would be primarily targeted at next season. That was an interesting meeting to sit in on. I feel very privileged to be able to sit in on all of these things and contribute and be taken seriously and have my ideas taken into consideration even though I am just an intern.

That's all for now. Tomorrow I will be at Penn's Landing (!) at a Gay Pride booth all afternoon. I foresee awesomeness. And I might be able to talk about musical farting at length, but we'll see about that.

Good night!

Free WINE! Opening! Experience!

On Tuesday I went to more auditions. A note to actors choosing monologues: perhaps do not choose Hermione from Winter's Tale or Adam's speech from The Shape of Things. Those two were done a lot. And by a lot, I mean that I probably saw each of them three times in one two-hour morning session. That's about all with the auditions. As with Monday, it was a good experience to see all of the different actors and the monologues.

On Wednesday I spent the entire day at the office in case there was anything needed before the opening that night. There wasn't really anything to do, so all of the interns just read plays. I read Frost/Nixon by Peter Morgan. It's a play about the interviews after Watergate between David Frost and Richard Nixon. It was a very interesting mix of fact and fiction. The thing I thought was most interesting was the narration by different characters throughout, which was just a commentary directed at the audience.

I'm still looking forward to seeing Little Lamb at InterAct again. Apparently the final two scenes were completely cut after the first night of previews because certain things were not making sense. Eventually I'll get to see it!

I'm really looking forward to the rest of the summer. Next week we will choose which plays we're making our casebooks for, and the work will really begin. I'm excited to be BUSY again, what with my job finally about to start, as well as the research and reading I'll still have to do. Other projects are coming up left and right, too! Becky gave us a play which is a work in progress (and has a lot of work left, apparently), and we are going to read it and she will act as the playwright while we discuss ideas and ways to improve it.

Tomorrow I'll be attending a reading the interns were invited to. A lot of people in the industry will be there, and it will probably be yet another great learning experience. I'll write more about it after I go!

Ciao for now!

Theatre in Killadelphia

Today was a very exciting day for me, and I imagine that tomorrow will be just about as exciting. As an intern in the great city of Philadelphia, InterAct sent me and another intern to watch the annual auditions for the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia. Not only were we watching the auditions, but we were scouting for certain roles. While it was exciting to be able to see so many different actors audition, it was also a little bit scary because just after the first break began we were left to ourselves. There were really only a couple of actors who could potentially fit into one of the roles still available for next season, but there were so many people who were so much fun to watch. It seemed after a brief discussion before Becky left that we were all kind of on the same page and it seemed a little less daunting. Being thrown into the mix like that without much of an idea what they are looking for other than having read the scripts once was...different.

Many of the actors I saw today were SAG or AEA, and/or had received their MFA. It was a lot of fun to look at the resumes and see what these people had done and could do. It was helpful from an acting perspective as well as being helpful from a casting perspective, since I have no experience with it. I do wish that Becky had been able to stay that way Jessica and I could have had a little bit more guidance as to what they were looking for. The way it was put to us was basically that it isn't likely that anyone from these auditions will actually work for what they're looking for, but it's good to at least see what new talent there is in Philadelphia so they can put people on their radar.

Beyond all that, I've read 2 of 4 plays that I need to read probably before Wednesday. The first I read was When We Go Upon the Sea by Lee Blessing (which I talked about before). It turned out to be a very interesting play. George Bush is on trial for international war crimes the next morning and is staying in a hotel where a man, Piet, is watching over him for the night. They start talking about politics and the people of the U.S., and shortly after a woman named Anna-Lisa comes to the room to help relax him. Over the course of the evening, they talk about life and politics while they drink and do drugs. Very interesting stuff.

The other play I read was called City of Numbers (written and performed) by Sean Christopher Lewis. It is a synthesis of interviews of convicts, families and friends of victims, and community members about the crime in Philadelphia and the Philadelphia's Mural Arts program. This show would be so interesting to watch as it made me think about so many different things, like privelege and how fortunate some people are for the opportunities that are presented to them (and me). I was also forced to think of how convicted murderers are still human beings. I was so conflicted because even though I recognize these convicts are humans, and they can thrive if given opportunities, they've permanently taken away any opportunity to thrive from another human being. I love the idea that the problem of crime in Philadelphia is being recognized through this art and that it is showing that there are people who are trying to make a change by actually building a community.

Tonight I'm planning on reading yet another play, and tomorrow I'll be at auditions all day again. Very exciting! The picture at the top is one of the many murals which are all over Philadelphia.