I’ve already blogged about the awesome modular tables. Now I’ll talk about the whiteboard wall. This morning I wanted to help my students understand why, in Oedipus Rex, the characters say things like “I wonder when Creon will get here. Look, there he is. I can see from his face that he’s got an answer…
My daughter is a Oompa Loompa and a “bad nut” squirrel in this show. Stage Right kicks off a new group of theatrical productions this weekend with the ″sweet″ part of its ″Sweet, Hot and Wild″ season, an adaptation by Richard George of the classic Roald Dahl story, ″Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.″ The story…
Sticky note found inside the cover of a used copy of Measure for Measure (which does not feature a character by that name). Similar:My understanding of biased polls is… (choose one) AmusingDon't Like Hamlet? Now's Your Chance To Rewrite It”It’s not really fair to say, ‘Look at t…CultureWhat TV journalists did wrong — and the New…
Through our local theater school, our children have gained confidence, seen first-hand the value of hard work, mentored younger children, learned from gifted and generous teenaged role models, and had a lot of fun. Oh, and they’ve also done a lot of singing, dancing, and acting. Thirteen-year-old Peter reads voraciously for pleasure, on topics ranging…
I was amused by this little note on the production blog for Seton Hill University’s upcoming production of The Tempest. Notes From 3rd Reading | SHU Tempest. The armchair reader of the script would not have to think about this kind of detail. The production blog also includes reference photos that the designers are using…
David Mahokey of Dunbar, a senior at Point Park University, and Greg Kerestan of Greensburg, a senior at Seton Hill University, wrote the 20-song score and script, respectively, for ″In Control,″ a musical that focuses in part on Mahokey’s real-life battle with bone cancer. Two free performances of ″In Control,″ directed by Anthony Marino, artistic…
The layout of this display at the Carnegie Science Center almost makes it look like the Maria duplicate in Metropolis came before Karel Capek’s play RUR (which was written in 1920, first performed in 1921). Similar:The Battle (TNG Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 8) A Ferengi plots tricks with Picard's former …A Ferengi set on revenge…
My daughter, as the wizard, with her talented castmates, in our local theater school’s preteen summer camp musical. Similar:Create Joy with Content Management System Hexcodes for Canvas LMSI spent about 30 seconds eyeballing the …AcademiaIf you want to work with words, then journalism courses are very practical options.AcademiaOne wild place. (Sunday.) NatureAnother delightful caricature by…
Students are starting to contact me asking about books. I will have the course websites up in a week or two, but for now, here are the textbooks. LA101 “Seminar in Thinking and Writing” From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Text and Reader, Second Edition (ISBN 978-0-312-60141-6) The SF Writer, Fifth Edition (ISBN 978-0-205-75197-6) EL200…
My plan is to publish on this blog an electronic edition of a libretto about once a month in formats you can read online, on your smart phone, or on most ebook readers. In some cases I’ll also be able to provide digitized images of piano/vocal scores for at least a few songs. Additionally, for…
My 13yo was Horton the Elephant and my 9yo was the Sour Kangaroo (with attitude). Similar:I get a little workplace gift as the academic year closes.I get a little workplace gift as the aca…PersonalRebooting “Rossum’s Universal Robots” for the 21st century“It is over three hours long, and it is …CultureMy more or less daily 10cm…
Doug Reside writes an informative blog about the digital legacy of the author of Rent. Like paper palimpsest drafts in which a revision is written over an early text (which is itself still visible), Jonathan Larson’s Microsoft Word files provide scholars and artists a fascinating glimpse into his creative process. For textual scholars practicing genetic…
3/2/11 8:48:24 About to start livetweeting the musical #AnythingGoes. 3/2/11 8:51:09 Bing Crosby, Donald O’Connor. #AnythingGoes 3/2/11 8:51:56 I saw the Gonzaga High School production in the 80s. Haven’t seen is since. #AnythingGoes 3/2/11 8:52:58 Any excuse for a song. Plot? We don’t need no steenkin’ plot. #AnythingGoes Similar:Twitter, Fix Your Cropping AlgorithmWhen given the…
I finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn this afternoon. I had never read it before, but on its reputation as a wildly popular autiobiographical novel, i put it on my syllabus. I wanted something that would cover urban literature, class & gender, and also be a good test case for New Historicism. The last…
My kids really enjoy the classes they take at Stage Right, a performing arts school in Greensburg. Its first class opened in 1998 with 12 students. Now the studio in Greensburg has as many as 180 students at a time, stages several student productions a year and has a professional season in which students work…
The F. Scott Fitzgerald story “Head and Shoulders” features this unfamiliar phrase, spoken by a young actress who, through an unimportant plot contrivance, invades the study of a bookish progeny: “I knew a girl,” said Marcia reminiscently, “who went on the ten-twenty-thirty when she was sixteen. She was so stuck on herself that she could…
#BuckRodgers was fun. Looks like The Music Man is next. Shirley Jones, Robert Preston, Buddy Hackett.#TheMusicMan Cash for the merchandise, cash for the button hooks… Love the traveling salesman opening number. #TheMusicMan It’s like rap, but it’s white guys rhyming about credit and sales territories. #TheMusicMan Hats! Hats and bow ties. Go ahead, surprised and angry salesmen,…
Is Amy Chua a tiger mother, for forcing her daughters to practice music four hours a day, and denying them sleepovers? David Brooks thinks not: “Practicing a piece of music for four hours requires focused attention, but it is nowhere near as cognitively demanding as a sleepover with 14-year-old girls.” Chua is applying to her own…
What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child…
Like Caryn Thurman, I came to Cats (the musical) late, after studying and teaching the more “serious” works of T.S. Eliot. While Thurman’s interpretation is not necessary for us to understand and appreciate Cats, it’s still an appealing thought. It’s also worth noting that Grizabella is one of the only characters in Cats that does…