Author: David Gorsline

Forthright

Amy Harmon profiles David Campbell, a contributor to new Florida state science education standards.

“Faith is not based on science,” Mr. Campbell said [to his class of 10th-grade biology students]. “And science is not based on faith. I don’t expect you to ‘believe’ the scientific explanation of evolution that we’re going to talk about over the next few weeks.”

“But I do,” he added, “expect you to understand it.”

A hopeful sign

Amy Gardner reports:

…the Federal Transit Administration authorized project managers to begin major construction on the Orange Line extension [of Metro]…. The FTA letter does not guarantee full funding of the project…. But state and project officials interpreted the letter as an encouraging development, a further signal that the project’s near-demise earlier this year is behind them.

What Makes for a Good Blog?

Via kottke.org, Merlin Mann explains why my blogging will always be mediocre:

2. Good blogs reflect focused obsessions. People start real blogs because they think about something a lot. Maybe even five things. But, their brain so overflows with curiosity about a family of topics that they can’t stop reading and writing about it. They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person’s obsessions take them?

I’ve got just too many categories in my sidebar.

Theories of the Sun

Longacre Lea’s new production is a lyrical brain tickler, a serio-comic mystery packed with erudition. Perhaps too well-packed: at a running time of three hours, the piece is on a par with much of the work of one of the playwright’s touchstones, Tom Stoppard.

In the fall of 1963, Elizabeth and Barbara Sweeny, ostensibly daughter and mother, travel to an obscure French pension to consult in discretion with Dr. Giraud (played with hilarious sniffy eccentricity by Jason Lott) to learn the cause of Elizabeth’s mysterious affliction. The only other guests in this small hotel are a CIA-ish American and two playwrights: Tennessee Williams drinking incognito and the yet unpublished Stoppard himself. While the opening scene suggests Stoppard’s Travesties, the hotel’s smugly efficient proprietor (nice work by Daniel Vito Siefring) speaks with an accent more in keeping with one of Sir Tom’s adaptations of Molnar.

Elizabeth soon meets the shadowy Mr. Asher (oh-so cool Michael John Casey), who explains that he is a collector of sun myths from cultures around the world. In his evening visits, Asher tells several of these to Elizabeth, and each is a lovely bit of writing, a set piece for the cast/ensemble to illustrate choreographically. Unfortunately, it’s only in the story told solo by Casey that the play’s solar fables really shine.

The play, premiering in this production, needs some tightening. There’s an awkward transition in the second act that reveals the facts of Elizabeth’s complaint to the rest of the guests. However, the arc of Elizabeth’s journey is compelling, and its resolution (with its whiff of another master of contemporary fantasy, Craig Lucas and his Prelude to a Kiss) is quite satisfying.

  • Theories of the Sun, by Kathleen Akerley, directed by Jonathon Church and Kathleen Akerley, Longacre Lea, Callan Theatre, Washington

Counter melodies

Susan Elliott gives recognition to another unsung contributor to the musical theater: the orchestrator. Orchestrators are needed even for revivals, perhaps moreso.

Downsizing is the norm these days, mostly because of space and economics. “We’re being asked to write for smaller and smaller bands all the time,” [Michael] Starobin [orchestrator of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins] said. “Everybody’s oohing and aahing about South Pacific, but nobody’s saying: ‘Hey! Let’s use big orchestras again.’ Producers don’t want to put money into the music; they’d rather spend $3 million on the scenery.”

Incorruptible: an update: 4

S. FoyIt’s been about 10 days since we closed Incorruptible, the last show of the season. In the brief interval before the one acts festival opens the 2008-09 season, the Stage honored actors and designers for the just-closed season, and Leta picked up the directing award. Good on ya, mate.

Lessons learned from this project:

  • I need to me more specific about what and when to accomplish during dry tech time. We got everything done, and by the time actors arrived for wet tech, things went more or less smoothly. But beforehand, there was a little too much milling around before I got down to asking lights “So what cues do you have for me?” Perhaps the trick is to schedule separate time slots for props, sound, and lights.
  • Props always kill me. I was much better prepared this time, especially once I got the table maps set up. But we did have some last-minute scurrying. The last thing I did Wednesday night before preview Thursday was weighting and tying the body bags.
  • Following practice at RCP, I use numbers to cue lights and letters to cue sound. It’s not quite as necessary at the Stage, because I don’t have to pass cues to lights: I’m running the board myself. Next time around, I would skip some letters that sound too much alike: we had two cues at the end of show where a lot is happening designated M and N, and sometimes my sound op was confused. Also, I figured out that sometimes it makes sense to letter more than one effect—like a fade-down followed by the next music track on a CD—as just one cue.
  • I’m going to recommend to the Stage that they invest in a wireless headset system. It’s not important within the booth, but it would assist communicating with (a) the director during wet tech and (b) box office staff on show nights. We spend too much time literally running back and forth from the house to the booth.
  • I have an old PDA with a voice recorder that I used to use when I was acting. It would have been handy to have it around for this show.
  • A small video camera trained on the lobby doors. I can’t see this area from the booth, so I can’t see latecomers making their way to their seats just as I drop the house lights, nor can I ever be sure that the doorkeeper has closed the lobby door.

I also need to make sure that the Stage board gets these recommendations.

I shall like to read from you

Latest spam over the transom. I’ve highlighted the most incomprehensible sentence, if you can call it that.

Hello ! You probably will be very much surprised to my letter.
And where I could find your electronic address. One of these days I
was registered a dating site . And today to me from him there
has come the reference with your address. In it it was spoken, that we
with you harmonious pair. And I have decided to write to you this
letter. My name Michelle, me of 27 years. My growth of 170 sm, my
weight of 53 kg. I live in Russia, in city Zvenigovo. I like to travel
various places. I was in such countries of Europe, as Finland, Poland,
Latvia. I traveled as the tourist. You should not have excitement be
relative that we not beside. I am woman, that if I shall like man for
a meeting i shall reach him. Besides in our days it is not a problem
to travel. I don’t worry about it and I can do it, it is possible to
have relations with the person of other part of the world. It is very
interesting – other culture, thinking, traditions i like new places.
Probably you can learn Russian woman. I hope you will not be
frightened also we shall continue our acquaintance? I the quiet,
romantic girl. I want to meet in the life the present love. In my
opinion, At all a variety of nationalities occupying our planet. In
the world there is that unique person, With which I can find happiness
and family rest. My dream, it to create family, To leave in marriage
for remarkable the man, to give birth to children. And together with
the favourite person To aspire to bring up ours with it children that
they became the most remarkable people. Actually I very modest girls
and vulnerable. To me to not like, when people to face speak one, And
behind a back another is completely. And I think, that from the very
beginning of ours with you of acquaintance. We should be fair with
each other. I have no enclosed picture of me in this letter. I shall
send you a picture of me in the following letter.

If you are interested, write to my e mail: [redacted]

And you as well as I want to meet the present love in the life. That I
think to us with you it is necessary to begin ours with you
acquaintance. Who knows, it is possible we are really harmonious with
you. Also we shall create the best in the world a pair. I hope I shall
not stay without your attention. I wait for your answer, Michelle.

Leta says that this would be a great cold reading exercise at auditions. It’s less intelligible than “Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.”

Mishmash

The street name signs in Fairfax City constitute the most egregious mess of colors and styles in the metropolitan area.

generic black and whiteThe smaller intersections are marked with generic black on white signs, with or without block numbers. These simple, functional signs are similar to those used in Arlington County.

plain blueconventional overheadUp on the busier thoroughfares, the signs switch to white on blue. Most use a readable but pedestrian all-caps sans serif. Overhead signs use “Freeway Gothic” in mixed case.

blue and green There is a pinched condensed font that suggests credits on a movie poster. (Unfortunately, an example or two of this developer-friendly sign can be found in Reston, too.) The contrast with the white on green is particularly ugly.

olde timeyold and newIntersections in the old town center use signs with a scrolled border and a decorated serif, but recent traffic re-engineering is replacing these with the ordinary overheads.

one-off This example, missing the street type and the block numbers, appears to be a one-off. Notice the brackets for the crossing sign for University Drive, which is missing.

blue and white You can even find a few examples of this jaunty mixed-case sans serif, shown here with an afterthought black and white locator.

nouveau riche This blue-bronze sign for a new subdivision of starter McMansions is especially galling.

too muchpileupBut the worst specimens accrue to the recent dual-designation within the city of U.S. Route 50, which follows Arlington Boulevard, Lee Highway, and Main Street, as “Fairfax Boulevard.” This led to the creation of these red-white-and-blue decorative contraptions. Notice the oops-addition of a sign for Blake Lane, which was extended to this intersection about 20 years ago.

retrofitMinor intersections were fitted with smaller versions of the ungainly, squareish Fairfax Boulevard signs.

Related: My pedantic nuthatch posts from ’05 and ’06 on street name signs in Reston, Fairfax County, Lake Barcroft, Alexandria, Arlington, Bethesda, and the District.

A mystery: 2

In a proper name that includes a numerical designation, when do we (or most of us) pronounce the name as a cardinal and when do we use an ordinal? For instance, we read Elizabeth II as “Elizabeth the second” but Super Bowl II as “Super Bowl two.” Is the distinction just people vs. everything else? Don’t names of ships sometimes use ordinals and sometimes cardinals? How about horses, like Canonero II?

(Prompted by a momentary misreading of Discoverer I as “Discoverer the first” [Only Revolutions, p. 291S.] Conversely, our friend David refers to Shakepeare’s best-known history play as “Henry five.”)