Sun & Moon Circus (Day 237/365)

Posted on March 28, 2007March 28, 2007 by Dale

I revisited the music for Sun & Moon Circus tonight. Now you would think that I had fixed everything there was to fix with that, but no. There was the passage where the Child rings the bell above his head so loud he thought he’d wake the dead, only it was still just the English horn over pizzicato celli. Not very loud at all.

I played with several options, first adding a French horn at “‘Rabbit,’ I called, ‘come here.'” Very nice. Then I tried doubling the English horn in the first part of the phrase with the French horn, but it was too much. I doubled the celli with the horn. Icky.

Finally I doubled the celli with the violins in the second octave. Not too shrill, and just enough to make us notice that it’s “louder.” And then the French horn comes in at the end of the phrase, leading us into the lovely “No need to cry and quake…”

So that’s done.

Mostly tonight, I played with my new Moleskine New York City notebook. What a fiercely wonderful thing! I’ve written in all our theatres, the hotel, the restaurants, the museums, that’s addresses, phone numbers, and subway lines/stops. I’ve marked everything on the detailed street maps. I’ve used the translucent sticky notes to draw actual routes on the maps. I’ve used the blank pages to plan our itinerary, including travel times, a deadly omission that beginners often make.

And it all fits in my pocket. I love it.

Workshop, 3/27 (Day 236/365)

Posted on March 27, 2007March 30, 2007 by Dale

Forging ahead, Marc, Dale, Carol Lee, and Laura in attendance.

Carol Lee has finished two sunflowers:

They are quite magnificent. We began to see a lot of possibilities now for choreography. Dale suggested that we keep in mind the Silly Symphony cartoons, with their simple and repetitive patterns. They’re a lot of fun to play with, and very easy to make into characters.

Dale reported on his adventures in Hedgehog Land: he worked with Sherry Lambert’s kindergarteners again on the MMH Arrives sequence, and they’re getting quite good at it. He then tested them on some ideas he had for the Marmalade Man Makes a Dance to Mend Us, where he asked them to strike hedgehog poses on the beat. Then they played follow-the-leader, taking a step and striking a pose on the beat. It worked, so we’ll actually be able to stage both MMH pieces! He also sent letters home to the parents so they could decide whether their hedgehog would be able to participate in the May 3 performance.

Then we forced ourselves to get to work on visuals for Sun & Moon Circus [SMC].

Marc continued his study of the circular bed, the Gang in pyjamas, King of Cats as ringmaster:

That’s a magic lantern the Tiger is holding, projecting moons/stars/suns onto the circus action around them.

Carol Lee grumbled about being a three-dimensional artist (i.e., hot glue) being forced to work in a two-dimensional framework, but she approximated successively nonetheless:

Here she has the sunflowers listening to the Moon’s lounge act. Looking at this idea, it occurs to Dale that we can actually write in a vocal part for the Moon in the circus sequence, sort of a Cirque du Soleil descant thingie.

A simple image, for creatures clapping. We probably could come up with a few more, paws and fangs, to add to the mix.

After working with paint last week, Dale went digital this week, using a program called ArtRage. It’s very gorgeous, and it comes in a free version for both Mac and that other platform, from Ambient Design. There’s also a $19.95 version that has layers, worth it if you can afford it.

Here the tiger is awakened by fitful, flashing light, streaming through his window. He has managed to get his paws on a bit of it.

We do not have workshop next week, April 3, because it’s spring break and Dale and Marc and Carol Lee will be in New York City. In fact, by this time next week, we will already have had lunch with Nancy Willard!

Wonderful Car (Day 235/365)

Posted on March 26, 2007March 26, 2007 by Dale

Yes, I finally got work done. I listened through Blake’s Wonderful Car Delivers Us Wonderfully Well and made a few tweaks. Pretty subtle, but they were necessary. I think it sounds marginally better.

In other work, I dug out my personality profile from when I was a student at GHP in 1970. I find that it is the Cattell 16PF Profile. We were given this test, and then called in by the counselor (Eddie Najjar, a theatre person actually, and kin to the Mansours here in Newnan) to discuss it. He would show us our score on each item, and then we got to choose which of the synonyms on that end of the scale we thought described us.

Looking at it now, I’m a little surprised to see that I was in the average range for Self-Assured. Geez, I was an insufferable little thing. I must have cheated on the test.

Anyway, I dug it out because I’m going to use its scales to give my little bloggers a handle on describing characters from their books. If they can see some contrasting personality traits, they can latch on to one or two to hang their writing on.

Nothing, really (Day 234/365)

Posted on March 25, 2007March 26, 2007 by Dale

Other than clean house and cook for a lovely dinner party, I didn’t get a lot done.

I did explore a to-do list kind of website, stikkit.com, which has some interesting features, but again, I don’t want to have to open a website just to keep track of all my stuff. It might be good for short term collaborative kinds of things, like getting people’s input on what restaurant to go to after the Louvre exhibit. But daily basis, I don’t think so.

I also ditched my old recipe software for a new one that is much more Mac-like and easier to use. I used to use MasterCook, but they stopped making a Mac version, fools, and it’s hard to find something that well-designed. But I think MacGourmet is going to do it for me.

I did not get to the two simple things I wanted to do this weekend, i.e., listen to the next two pieces in William Blake and polish them a bit.

A concert (Day 233/365)

Posted on March 24, 2007March 25, 2007 by Dale

Spent most of the day in spring cleaning, not my idea, but sometimes someone else will veer off on an unplanned agenda. Then all one can do is to obey.

Still, not a totally uncreative day: Masterworks Chorale had a concert up at Southwest Christian Church in East Point. We had been invited by the Southern Crescent Chorale to join them in a benefit for the Southwest Christian Care Hope House, a respite care facility for medically fragile children. Good cause, not a lot of prep, so off we went.

Beside the two adult groups, we had the Newnan High Singers and the Union Grove High School Concert Choir. Both very good in their very different ways.

Union Grove “won” (not that I regard it as a competition, but I do award points based on interesting music choices) with “Flanders Fields,” a modern, complex piece based on the poem by John McCrae. No one else even attempted to stretch the audience’s ears. We did classical church anthems, and Southern Crescent did choral chestnuts. (“Va pensiero,” anyone? Although if I were going on a concert tour of Italy, I’d think twice before doing that nation’s unofficial anthem.)

Nothing (Day 232/365)

Posted on March 23, 2007 by Dale

Alas, I got nothing. Worked on regular stuff all day and didn’t get a single thing created. Sorry.

Small accomplishments (Day 231/365)

Posted on March 22, 2007 by Dale

I didn’t have a lot of time to work on anything today. More messing around with the 100 Book Club business at school, but mostly I had promised to emcee the school’s talent show tonight. It was not an ordeal by any means, but it sucked up most of the evening.

So I settled for taking a second look at William Blake’s Inn for Innocent & Experienced Travelers. I figure now that I have a computer that can handle most of what I can think of, it’s time to revisit each of the pieces and see what I left out in each one. It’s mostly going to be percussion, which always used to (and sometimes still does) throw the sound for a loop.

For instance, in William Blake’s Inn, I’ve added a gong to the proceedings. If I get adventurous, I’m thinking about some rolled cymbals and some windchimes as well.

Anyway, it’s posted over at the William Blake page.

Bits & pieces (Day 230/365)

Posted on March 21, 2007 by Dale

Nothing truly creative today; just a lot of craftsmanship.

Continued blog training for the kids at school. I am increasingly un-fond of Drupal, the software we’re using to run this multi-blog site.

I’ve begun shooting a video for the kindergarten department, showing how a kindergartener would go about taking an Accelerated Reader™ quiz. The kid we’re using is quite the natural, generally getting it in one take. He was a bit stiff in his first shot, struggling to remember his lines. I explained that instead of trying to remember the words, remember what he wanted: “I need an AR™ book. Can you help me find one?” His very next reading was dead-on. He’s already talking the lingo: shots, angles, and today, after I shot three scenes with him wearing different clothes from yesterday (doh!), continuity.

I’ve updated the Unexpurgated Guide to GHP, and the GHP Wiki for Newbies.

I even pulled up the script to A Christmas Carol, I was amazed that InDesign CS2 could even open a PageMaker file that old, updated the fonts and layout, exported to PDF, and sent it off to Mike Funt, who for some reason wants me to spend my time modernizing all my archives (Green Eggs & Ham, anyone?) and sending them to him for his archives. But then he’s always been a selfish bastard.

Now I’m off to peruse my two new books on theatre business, both by Charles Grippo. Very clearly explained, and very scary. I did not know before, but now I do, that there is a contract for actors who have to do nude scenes.

Workshop, 3/20 (Day 229/365)

Posted on March 20, 2007March 21, 2007 by Dale

Another productive evening: Marc, Dale, Carol Lee, Laura, and Melissa in attendance.

Carol Lee brought in the latest approximation of the sunflower (no picture yet). More leaves, longer stem. Very nice. Much discussion of how to dye the elastic. Later, Carol Lee had several brain attacks on how to solve the whole stem/leaves/elastic situation. She left early to put those into practice.

Laura had her approximation of the hedgehog costume. We coerced a young dancer into trying it on.

Laura worked on improving the headpiece into a hood. The texture of the eggshell foam is perfect.

We then worked on visual images, and here are the results:

First, a visual of Marc’s periaktos on steroids:

You’ll notice the extra flaps on every side.

If you calculate carefully, you’ll see that each unit can give us nine different settings, i.e., closed position 1, open position, closed position 2, all times three.

Dale discussed going simpler for the May 3 performance, using single panels, painted on either side, used as puppet-walls. Lots of interesting choreography possibilities with the character/puppeteers manipulating the walls in space as the MMH “bustles through all the rooms.”

For Sun & Moon Circus, we had some beautiful images.

Marc continues his motif of bedtime attire.

Marc’s entrance of the Moon: a giant swing-thing, ridden by an angel.

Dale’s rather frightening Rabbit, peering through the window and reassuring whichever character. This painting is unfinished, so perhaps Dale can cuten up the bunny a bit.

Dale has the clowns as Pierrot, silver-faced and silver-gloved, playing with the planets, while above an angel walks a tightrope. (Her umbrella is out of the frame, of course.) This clown is turning back to look at us in a bit of choreography Dale says is inspired by the orchestration of the new circus music.

Marc’s idea (from comments on the Lacuna blog) about putting the Tiger, King of Cats, etc., on a circular bed in the middle of the circus gathered steam. They would be projecting sun/moon images from their magic lantern while the circus careened around them. The Rabbit could rotate the bed as ringmaster.

Moving on the Man in the Marmalade Hat, we got a couple of Toastheads:

Marc’s Toastheads, bearing banners and marching forth.

Melissa’s Toasthead, all starched flat and bearing a banner. It’s interesting that both Marc and Melissa have given them ties.

Dale had brought in some trash from Multec, foam of varying dimensions and densities. We considered that if we were able to get some whole pieces of the thinner foam, we might build the Toastheads’ costumes out of that: flat but flexible. Are their movements starched as well?

Next week: more painting/drawing/sketching. Let’s focus on Sun & Moon Circus, since that’s one we need a fairly complete storyboard projection.

Hedgehogs (Day 228/265)

Posted on March 19, 2007March 20, 2007 by Dale

Met with our horde of hedgehogs again today and began teaching them their portion of the Man in the Marmalade Hat choreography. Oh my. This is going to be quite hysterical. They sniffed and slid with gusto, they marched, they did their little jumping tours with complete adorability. Ms. McDonough, their music teacher, could not keep a straight face.

I’ve been thinking, too, that perhaps we could use them in Marmalade Man Makes a Dance as well. I’ll try playing Follow the Leader in the next session. If they can do it, then we just let Galen lead them.

Next step: get the letter prepared to go home to their parents.

Bonus: I played with our “successive approximation” idea.

Heavens, now he's blogging!?