Reading the post on Jamiahsh’s blog about his favorite things, I started to respond to his post then realized I probably had enough information for my own post, so here goes.  While I was in a school play when I was 7 and in the chorus of one when I was 10, theatre didn’t really enter my vocabulary until I was 16, before my senior year in high school.  Here are some of my milestones and interests in this regard:

Cheaper by the Dozen [note: link is not my production] (yes, it was a book, play, and movie before Steve Martin came along…) was a play my church at the time did as a student show.  I got to play the role of a 10-year old (I was 16 at the time, but then none of us were younger than high school) and had such a blast at it I would delve into theatre big time after this.

Scapino! was the first show I acted in in high school.  I played the part of Argante.  Very fun, and probably the most interesting audition I had ever.  This included theatre games and improv in addition to a little singing and script reading.

South Pacific was another high school show I didn’t try out for since it was a musical (hadn’t been bitten by that particular bug yet), but it was the first and only show I ever played in the pit orchestra.  I used to play trumpet but I wasn’t very good at it.  I never could get past moving my jaw as I played, a big no-no in technique.

Bishop of Aahs was written in-house (in-church I guess) as a parody of, you guessed it, Wizard of Oz.  This was the second show I did at my church and the second show that opened new doors for me, this time into musical theatre.  I played one of several “munchkins” (teenage kids).  Unfortunately that’s about all I remember of it.  Of course we sang munchkin songs with new lyrics.  Of course I started trying out for musicals after this.

Finian’s Rainbow was the first community theatre show I ever performed in.  Well, it was youth community theatre and not really a very well-run group (though it still exists today).  Anyway I was just in the chorus for this one, but hey, chorus members are people too!  After this show I would start private vocal lessons.

Phantom of the Opera was a show I have never been in, though I did do a different Phantom about 12 years ago.  Rather, this was the first professional musical I heard on CD, and later saw in Chicago.  This would be the only musical I listened to for awhile, though I did eventually broaden my horizons first with other Andrew Lloyd Webber shows including the dreadful Aspects of Love, and later with other shows.  Les Miserables would become my new favorite a few years later.  I still want to be in that show- come on, release the amateur rights already!

Speaking of Les Miz, it was the first and only show I ever auditioned for professionally.  They never called me…

Grease was a show I was in twice and didn’t perform even once.  Both times the rights were pulled when the tour came to town.  If you ask me, the second time the group should have done it anyway- pulling the rights is just evil.  Once give, the publisher shouldn’t be able to go back on it.  The first time they lost the rights immediately and so were able to do another show with the cast they had (Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?).  This became the first show I had a solo song in.  I was never told what role I had in Grease, though a friend tells me it was a combination of the Teen Angel and another role.  The second time I was actually asked to be in the show and was given the role of Roger.  We made it about halfway through rehearsing before we lost the rights.

Little Shop of Horrors… Okay, let’s not talk about this one.

Oliver! was a show I had a huge interest in at one time (I still have multiple CDs of this show).  I did try out for it a couple of times previously, but just a couple of years ago it became the first show I ever had a true lead in.  I was offered the role of Fagin, and according to several people I did an outstanding job at it.  Life has kept me from community theatre since, but I have been doing drama at my church so it hasn’t been all bad.  Next show…?  I would like to do Secret Garden I think, but who knows what the future will bring?

I never before realized what a great month July is. Not only does it bring the birthday of a very good friend (and the up-coming birth of the couple’s fourth child) but also many Superman related anniversaries

• July 1, 2004: Marlon Brando (Jor-El from Superman – The Movie [Blu-ray]) dies of lung failure at age 80
• July 4, 1924: Eva Marie Saint (Martha Kent in Superman Returns) born
• July ?, 2008: Baby C (future SuperFan) born
• JULY 10, 1914: Superman creator Joe Shuster born
• July 11, 1972: Michael Rosenbaum (Lex Luthor on Smallville – The Complete First Season as well as the voice of The Flash on Justice League Unlimited – Season One (DC Comics Classic Collection)) born
• July 22, 1939: Terence Stamp (General Zod on Superman and Superman II – The Richard Donner Cut) born
• July 26, 1959: Kevin Spacey (Lex Luthor from Superman Returns (Two-Disc Special Edition) born
• July 29, 1982: Allison Mack (Chloe Sullivan of Smallville) born
• July 31, 1966: Dean Cain (The Man of Steel, himself from Lois & Clark – The New Adventures of Superman – The Complete First Season) born

Happy birthday (or deathday as it were) to all.

My introduction to musical theatre was in the first grade as I sat in the high school gymnasium watching a performance of a Rodgers and Hammerstein show that I will come to later. Let me just say I was forever changed at that early age. I have to say that I enjoy a musical even more than a regular play because not only do they tell a story through dialog and action but also through music. The best musicals use that music to progress the rest of the action on stage… becoming a character all its own. Some of the greatest musicals also have a third component that I shudder to mention: d-d-d-d-ance (?) or as I prefer to call it stylized movement.

The following is a list of musicals that have found a permanent place within me. I would not necessarily say they were my “favorite.”

• Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1993 Los Angeles Cast)(the first show I ever saw on The Great White Way, also the first community production I was cast in)
• Matthew Broderick in “How to Succeed in Business WIthout Really Trying!” (I saw the ’90s revival with Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker and met them backstage… Bud Frump…. )
• Singin’ in the Rain (Two-Disc Special Edition)(classic Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and Donald O’Connor flick about the transition from silent movie production to sound. Make Em Laugh… Cosmo…hmm scene stealer)
• The Phantom of the Opera (Original 1986 London Cast)(The first professional show I ever saw my junior year in Chicago. I have seen it twice since… more for the spectacle and music of Lloyd Webber. I HATED the movie and it was not because I was not sitting in the audience of a live stage production. It was a terrible transformation from stage to screen)
• Annie (1977 Original Broadway Cast) will always be remembered as the 1992 EHS musical. And to think I auditioned for the part of Daddy Warbucks?! Daniel Francis Hannigan aka Rooster Hannigan aka Danny the Dip was my first villainous role… and now my second favorite role)
• Jesus Christ Superstar: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Album ( I have only seen the horrid ’73 movie but I am told it is the best soundtrack… one of the worst things to come out of that year… I like to think there were better things 😀 I really the role of Herrod. Lloyd Webber’s best and most controversial… maybe that is why it is his best… have I mentioned this before?)
• Jekyll & Hyde – The Gothic Musical Thriller (1994 Concept Cast)(tremendous Wildhorn and Bricusse score. Some of my favorite songs from any show. When done right can be terrifyingly fun and breathtaking. I have mentioned the rotten the best is the Anthony Warlow concept recording).
• Les Miserables Complete Symphonic Recording(heartbreaking, triumphant, humorous in a few moments, hopeful. M. Thenardier is a fun, evil, scene stealing villain… hmm…again a brilliant, almost operatic score)
• Carousel (1994 Broadway Revival Cast) (the musical mentioned at the top. Forget the rest… this is the only Rodgers and Hammerstein show to see. Why is it never done? I saw the 90s revival in NY as well. “Soliloquy” is 8 minutes of inner turmoil and indecision).

I just know I am forgetting at least one.

Broadways Best at Amazon.com

Ok, so thespianism is not a real word, but it should be!  My husband has been acting in plays since an early age, and I was even in shows way back when before the stage fright got ahold of me, so it’s only natural that we’ve been waiting for the chance to get our daughters involved in plays and community theater.  Now that our oldest has finally reached the minimum age to participate in the local summer children’s theater, we find ourselves back in the world of rehearsals 3 nights a week – yuck to that part of it.

But we are greatly anticipating her stage debut in the Phantom Tollbooth…  though judging from her audition, she is more like me on stage than her father.  Hopefully she’ll overcome her shyness because she will have lots of fans in the audience!  Performances are August 1, 2, and 3rd in case you’re wondering!

Being a country music fan, a recent news item caught my attention.  Seems country superstar Tim McGraw had to step in to perform security duties at his own concert.  He spotted a large man in the front row roughing up a female concert-goer, and since security wasn’t close to the guy, McGraw grabbed him up on stage to intervene in the situation.  I don’t know why security wasn’t anywhere near the front row at the time, but it seems McGraw can add something else to his list of accomplishments.  The guy already has an pretty interesting biography…  He believed his step-father was his biological father until the age of 11 when he accidently discovered his step-father was not listed on his birth certificate.  His mother took him to see his real father, baseball superstar Tug McGraw, who denied him until Tim was 18 and he realized how much they looked alike.  They remained close until Tug’s death in 2004.  He met fellow country singer Faith Hill – a country superstar in her own right – when they toured together, and they married and have 3 daughters.  He is one of the most talented and successful country singers of our time and has been in the headlines for a few bizarre incidents, including a run-in involving a police horse (his friend Kenny Chesney, a huge country star himself, was accused of stealing the horse and McGraw was accused of shoving an officer during the melee.  The two were later acquitted of all charges after it was proven that Chesney had permission to ride the horse and McGraw was trying to keep his friend from being thrown off the horse).  And now this.  What a way to get on stage to meet your favorite country singer.  And throughout the entire incident, the band played on and McGraw didn’t miss a lyric.  I really have to get to a country music concert; it’s been awhile!  Check it all out here:

Ok, it is late at night, early in the morning again.  I had about 1/2 hour nap earlier today, and I’m wide awake again…  So my list of favorite books.

1 – 4  The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Trilogy  — Tolkien

5-11  The 7 Harry Potter Books  — Rowling

12-14  The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Trilogy  — Donaldson?

15 – 20    Maybe more, but since I’m going by memory…  Isaac Asimov’s  Robot/Foundation Series  He went and tied many of his books together, I like all of them

21 A Christmas Carol  — Dickens

22 Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

23 Complete Sherlock Holmes  — Doyle

24-26  Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant  — Donaldson

27-28  Mirror of Her Dreams/A Man Rides Through  — Donaldson

29 Isaac Asimov GOLD

30 Isaac Asimov Silver

31  Chronicles of Narnia — Lewis

32  Ring World  — Niven

33  Journey to the Center of the Earth  — Verne

34 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea — Verne

35 A Wrinkle in Time  —  L’Engle

That’s a start, I can add more later

I remembered a book I enjoy yearly that was made into a movie. It was an animated movie, but it was a movie.

Long before Peter Jackson made the “Lord of the Rings” series, Rankin-Bass made “The Hobbit”. This was actually a decent handling of the book. This movie was designed as a family friendly TV movie. That is exactly what it was. There were a number of things that were different from the book, but what can you do in a 70 minute movie.

This little animated movie actually set the stage for the animated movie I wanted to talk about. Rumors were rampant about the quality of the animation for the “Lord of the Rings” in 1978. I think that is the only thing that made the movie interesting. A 132 minute movie trying to fit a trilogy the size of “The Lord of the Rings”. There was a lot of stuff left out in the 10+ hours of the Peter Jackson movies, how did they think they could do any of this justice.

Well, they didn’t. For me, the animation had some problems, mainly with the big battles. They didn’t look like they fit with the rest of the movie. Other than that, I don’t remember much about this. My problems were with the story adaptation. There were many things missing in the story (of course) and the way the characters were drawn and written, made me wonder if anyone read the book. There was no depth to any of the characters. No drive in the Hobbits. Gandalf just seemed like an angry aging wizard (standard issue). And other characters seemed flat.

Before Peter Jackson made his films I thought of getting this movie just for a collection. I’m glad I waited.

Stole this one from Tanja’s site. It looked like fun.

The Big Read, an initiative by the National Endowment for the Arts, estimates that the
average adult has read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.
How about you?

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible (multiple versions)
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Partially)
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (Not Yet)
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Marte
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure -Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’sWeb – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

I counted 41 read from this list. Some of them I had to read for High School or College,
and can not remember them. Others on the list I’ve looked at but
could not get through the first chapter. Some I haven’t even heard
of. The list is lacking Science Fiction, not even Jules Verne or
Isaac Asimov. I feel both authors have better books than the Dune
Series by Herbert

Well, mostly.  Anyway, I have returned and apparently the site I thought would link to my HPX page never did so (EDIT: there was a post there- I just missed it and so apparently did everyone else!), so there are no comments there.  In the last couple of days I have caught up on much of the internet news I read, though I still have several days of newspapers to read.  I really should give those up completely and just go to the paper’s website for the local news, and comics.com for the comics.  I was a little disappointed B.C. finally ended a few weeks ago and was replaced with a pretty bad comic about a sheep and a dog- Deflocked I believe is the title.  Of course B.C. had to go since its writer passed on a few months ago.  I will meet him once I go home myself, along with other figures like C.S. Lewis and of course the many faithful in the Bible.  Not for a long time though, God willing.

The cabin I had was quite young and in some cases difficult.  There were two who were prone to distraction and I feel the small group time I had with them following lessons was not where it could have been.  Mine was the only cabin in fact who did not even make it to the final flag raising on Saturday morning, still cleaning the cabin.  We took over an hour to get ready, and even then I still had to go back and finish following breakfast.  But enough of the bad.  No one likes to read about that.

Every year there is something new at the camp.  The first year I was there they were finishing up the lodge where we have meals and lessons.  They had a big tent set up outside instead that year.  The second year the lodge was finished and they had a new instructional- rock climbing.  There is a small room on the bottom floor of the lodge with a rock climbing wall that extends to the roof two floors up.  That replaced disc  golf as an instructional.  More importantly, the lodge was air conditioned, and so were the cabins!  Ahh…  The third year I was there they added a zip line.  It is fun to go down it, but unfortunately after one got to the bottom there was a long hike around a lake to get back to the top.  They also added an amphitheater for outdoor worship.  This year’s addition was small, but it aided the zip line immensely.  A bridge over that lake.  No more long hike around the lake to get back.  Next year, who knows for sure, but there are plans for a baseball field and zip line improvements in the future.

The zip line was the general favorite part of camp for the kids in my cabin, but canteen time (where they could buy food and drinks, as well as have (guided) free time came in a close second.  The day was quite organized and there was much to do, including lessons, worship, small group, games, instructionals, meals, etc.  This could also be somewhat stressful as getting the kids to where they needed to be in a timely fashion when they all had needs like going to the bathroom (constantly!) and changing clothes wasn’t easy.

In the end it was nice to hear their thoughts on what they learned and enjoyed when handing out their dog tags at the end of the week.  My team was air force, so I “promoted” them from cadets to airmen.  Too bad I didn’t have wings to give them, but I did use some of my stimulus check (which I will receive soon) on t-shirts for my cabin.  I still have one left too.  Maybe I’ll take a picture of it and post it.  In fact, I will have to post some of the pictures I took at camp.  It should be relatively safe as I will not be identifying them, or the name of the camp (or my church for that matter 😛 ).  Besides, too few people actually read this thing anyway.  Look for those soon- I have well over 300 pictures and 90 videos to sort through to find some good ones.  Well, I have some more catching up to do- like reading my friend’s blogs. 😮

Following the run of any show I am involved in I go through a period of reflection and a bit of depression (just more so for certain shows). I have found that the best way to deal with this is to continue auditioning or until the next audition arrives by putting my thoughts into words. I am often asked by some people what draws me to the theatre so much and why it seem that I audition for EVERYTHING?! The best explanation I can come up with is the term play, itself. Being in plays allows us to play in new worlds. I find that the best actors and those I really enjoy working with tend to generate a playful persona, but at the same time be able to know when to work (if you want to call it that). The director is the playground monitor who tells his children (cast) what to do and when to do it… setting the rules for the game/play. When the performers are good they are rewarded and when they goof up and not do as well, they know that as well.

Each person involved in every show varies in experience. There are the more experienced who have been there and done that and can seem more comfortable in their surroundings. Then there are those who come along who may never have stepped foot on the stage who may seem shy and apprehensive but hopefully will be able to learn how to play along as well and make new friends. Of course there are those who venture to other play spaces and play in yet other’s backyards and once again become the new kid on the block. Even allowing past characters to reemerge in moments of flashback can bring laughter from some while driving others to distraction 😀 Right, Morat?  EVERYONE WINS!

So, I really do think that the world of theatre is best enjoyed to its fullest by those who refuse to completely grow up. And those who are willing to let their playful sides come out even in the most serious of tragedies there are moments of brevity.

The fun does not necessarily need to end when the curtain drops on the final call. Game nights, cast parties, and other activities can be enjoyed by those involved. As a wise old man once advised a certain android who wished to be more human: “Don’t forget… you have to have a little fun every day.” Well said.