Author: David Gorsline

Upcoming: 25

A local nonprofit company works to bring together two (seemingly incompatible) interests of mine: theater and nature. Toby Mulford introduced me by e-mail to the Traveling Players Ensemble, a summer theatre camp for middle and high schoolers based in Great Falls:

Our mission is to bring great theatre into the great outdoors. In achieving this mission, TPE is guided by several beliefs:

  • an appreciation of nature. TPE strives to link theatrical work to nature by rehearsing and performing outdoors and by producing plays in which nature is a dominant theme;
  • an ensemble is an ideal structure in which to foster creativity and a sense of community. TPE’s educational programs work intensively with small ensembles, thereby ensuring personalized attention and significant growth as an artist;
  • artistic creation is fundamental to forming one’s identity, especially for teens in their unique and complex transition between childhood and adulthood.

American Theatre magazine, in its back page interview, usually puts the question, “It’s not theater unless…” And I just realized that my answer to the question is “… you can make it work outside.” (This is why I love what Hard Bargain Players does.)

Mulford’s note to me says that the company has these festivals scheduled for the summer:

  • 16 July at Madeira School: The Miser, The Learned Ladies, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • 6 August at Riverbend Park: Love’s Labour’s Lost
  • 13 August at Madeira School: The Miser, The Learned Ladies, and The Fake Madwoman

I think I might have to collect Leta and check them out.

As You Like It: an update: 2

Co-crew chief Sara called an extra rehearsal this afternoon just to practice scene shifting, and it was worth it. Someone described shuffling the tree units, two triangular units, the double parallelogram, and the 18-foot ramp as playing Tetris. Steven and I are mainly on the tree units, and the one with the big tree maneuvers like a sailboat (even with the newly-added wheels). The confetti-spray of spike marks on the deck looks like a setup for a multi-show one-act festival.

green room doorIn addition to the usual sign-in sheet and other duty sheets that are posted on the green room door, we have two columns’ worth of scene shifting plans.

We resimplified the music for the closing dance, dropping the harmony lines. Too bad.

All that said, we had a good tech run this evening. From my side of the proscenium, I think we are where we need to be for a Friday opening.

At the park: 36

looking upstreamLizardtail (Saururus cernuus) is emerging from the wet streamsides.

eggs in the boxActivity along the north side of the main pond continues briskly, with all four boxes occupied. Box #6 is still a-building, with eight Wood Duck eggs not yet under incubation.

the view from the towerAt the downstream end of Barnyard Run, beyond the beaver dam near the observation tower (at right in this image), box #61 has hatched out 17 of 18 Hooded Merganser eggs. Several more boxes are due to hatch late this month.

crayfish chimneyA few weeks ago I posted about crayfish chimneys, but that post lacked an image. Here’s one to rectify the situation.

Two species of vireos (Vireo griseus and V. olivaceus) were heard but not seen. At least one Green Heron (Butorides virescens) was spotted over the wetland, as well as (suprisingly exposed in the open) a Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus). A birder at the tower pointed out an American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus) to me. Chickadees have taken over one of Melina’s boxes intended for Prothonotary Warblers. Virgina Rails (Rallus limicola) were reported in the past week, but we didn’t detect them today.

Pay up

Since it’s filing deadline day (even though most of us paid most of our federal income taxes months ago), Steve Almond answers the tax whiners with an essay bluntly but effectively titled, “Suck it, Tea Party: I love Tax Day.” To amplify his remarks, I would add a brief list of things for which I’m thankful, paid for by my neighbors and me:

  • Small Tax District #5 (real property taxes) pays for the fabulous Reston Community Center: natatorium and other phys ed facilities, public meeting rooms, and the spiffy CenterStage theater.
  • Income, sales, and personal property taxes paid to the Commonwealth eventually end up paying the salaries of the teachers across the way at Terraset Elementary, Langston Hughes Middle, and South Lakes High Schools.
  • Payroll taxes through the Social Security system are providing nearly all of my mother’s financial support. I’m certainly not planning on Sarah Palin’s kids to do the same for me when I retire.
  • Federal income taxes fund the National Park System. D’you think John Galt would go halvesies with you on a piece of the Blue Ridge?

Some links: 44

In a well-done piece, Paul Krugman explains the difference between a carbon tax and cap-and-trade in terms an economist understands, and in terms a politician understands. And while the former might be preferable in economic terms, a cap-and-trade system has a chance of actually happening. And that’s important:

So what I end up with is basically Martin Weitzman’s argument: it’s the nonnegligible probability of utter disaster that should dominate our policy analysis. And that argues for aggressive moves to curb emissions, soon.

Sighing like furnace

Did you ever have the feeling that a monologue was stalking you?

…poetry is a communication from our home and solitude addressed to all intelligence. It never whispers in a private ear. Knowing this, we may understand those sonnets said to be addressed to particular persons, or “To a Mistress’s Eyebrow.” Let none feel flattered by them.

—Henry David Thoreau, “Friday,” A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Beckett decoded

For most of the arcane vocabulary in Murphy, the authority would appear to be C.J. Ackerley, Demented Particulars: The Annotated Murphy, unfortunately out of print.

(l) High praise is due to White for the pertinacity with which he struggles to lose a piece.

Zweispringerspott: BlackThere are some good reproductions of the chess game with Mr. Endon in section 11. My own photographic contribution, realized with my dusty set, is the representation of the ending position, incorporating this annotation: “(m) At this point Mr. Endon, without so much as “j’adoube”, turned his King and Queen’s Rook upside down, in which position they remained for the rest of the game.” Not something easily rendered with standard notation, English or algebraic.

There’s a lot of Shakespeare lurking in the book, and in particular As You Like It (one of the characters is named Celia), but I would be utterly remiss if I did not check off the following riff in section 8:

“It is the second childhood,” he said. “Hard on the heels of the pantaloons.”

Notice that Murphy “misremembers” the quote, as do many of us, as “childhood” for “childishness.”