Laughter and Chaos

Hi folks. I'm not usually one to send out appeals for charitable donations, but this weekend I'm making an exception. Many of you already know that I fancy myself a Shakespeare nerd and that I've gotten deeply involved in community theater over the past few years. With all the pandemic response going on, lots of businesses that we like and care about are in trouble, but one of the hardest-hit sectors is the arts.

There is no substitute for the experience of being in the theater watching a live production. And right now that's impossible, so lots of companies are trying hard to pivot to bring some of that magic to the online world. But if you're a professional theater company, the tip-jar donations and the Patreon subscribers aren't paying the bills. Not the same way that houses full of audience members do. This goes double for some of the most famous professional theaters in the world. Broadway is dark right now.

And so is Shakespeare's Globe in London.

I've been to the Globe a handful of times; it's practically a pilgrimage for me. I even got to watch Measure for Measure there – not my favorite play, for sure, but the experience of sitting in the box seats at the Globe watching Shakespeare was absolutely magical, and I am desperate to do it again some day.

But the Globe is in trouble. They’re a non-profit that doesn't receive any funding from the UK government. They're entirely sustained by donations, merchandising, and ticket sales, and right now, there are no ticket sales. It's said that when the playhouses were closed by the plague, Shakespeare wrote King Lear. Me? I get to act in it. And you can watch.( Read more... )

Yes, I am the sort of nerd that you can ask to write a prologue for your Shakespeare production that incorporates all the usual pre-show announcements (exits, bathrooms, intermission, auditions for our next show, please donate, etc.), in iambic pentameter and incorporating the sonnet form, and yeah I can probably turn it around for you that same day.

Just call me Peter Quince, I guess:

BOTTOM Not a whit! I have a device to make all well.
Write me a prologue, and let the prologue seem to
say we will do no harm with our swords and that
Pyramus is not killed indeed. And, for the more
better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not
Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver. This will put them
out of fear.

QUINCE Well, we will have such a prologue, and it shall
be written in eight and six.

BOTTOM No, make it two more. Let it be written in
eight and eight.

Er, okay, maybe I'm Bottom.

A story so over the top, if it weren't true, you'd accuse me of making it up. ( Read more... )

The Pillowfort.io admins have decided to re-open Round Four beta invites. Hit the link to sign up.

That was a very large weekend, full of joys, triumphs, and hard things too.

Friday evening I drove coraline and E to the airport. 5:30pm on Friday is not really when you want to be heading to or from Logan, y'all.

Friday night I stayed up late writing the screenplay for my 48 Hour Film Project team. I got to bed around 2am, which is much earlier than I expected to.

Saturday was the annual meeting of the Star Island Corporation, which is not usually all that eventful, but does involve reconnecting with many people I don't get to see often enough.

I had dinner with several of them afterwards, including a wide-ranging conversation about the use of AIs / neural nets and "algorithms" in modern society, the way that biases propagate from programmer to program, the philosophy of postmodernism and how it turns facts from binary "true / false" things into more of a spectrum of truthiness... there was a lot.

Today was, in theory, the easy day, although the Bruins lost their playoff series ignominiously.

But T@F's Steering Committee meeting went very well and we learned some things about ourselves.

Our 48HFP film got completed and successfully submitted on time. I think it's pretty good! You can come see it at the Somerville Theater on Tuesday May 15th! We're in Screening Group "C".

And then I got to attend a BARCC Bystander training class, which was challenging and thought-provoking and really interesting, from both a personal and an organizational perspective.

Fall over go boom, now.