September 11, 2009
-
Free Shakespeare in the Park!!!
AS YOU LIKE IT
RICHARD III
The Daily News
1 This is the last night to get over to Sanborn-Skyline County Park to see Shady Shakes production of As You Like It, directed by the very talented Angie Higgins.
2 Shady Shakes finishes the summer season tomorrow night and Sunday with Richard III, directed by Ross Arden Harkness.
3 The shows are absolutely free, but parking is $6.00. The park is right up the road from the town of Saratoga, nestled in a forest with a creek and even a cool little bridge. Bring a low-back folding chair and park it anywhere and enjoy the show! Showtime is 7 p.m., although sometimes it is fun to get there early and drink in the beauty of the forest surroundings.
4 There aren’t too many offerings THAT spectacular these days, so grab a friend or eight and enjoy a rare combination of absolute excellence in a gentle surrounding, and at a price offered nowhere else.
5 In 2009, we still have some things that are immortal.
6 Moving On: I’m going to back off my annual tribute to 9/11, not because I feel it is any less important than ever, but because it gets a tad repetitive year in and year out.
7 Each year, however, I do bring in the amazing CBS documentary called simply 9/11, a film that originally began as a documentary of the life of a new NYFD “probie”, and that turns into the most riveting documentary I’ve ever seen.
8 The guys making the documentary happened to be called a few blocks from the World Trade Centers on a routine call when the first plane hit. The camera caught it, and the camera crew never stopped filming all of the events of the day in one of the most amazing offshoots of cinema verite I’ve ever experienced.
9 Each year I introduce the entire thing to students who each year move further and further away from that sad day in our nation’s history. I tell them how I walked out in my back yard that night, right here in San Jose, looked up and saw no planes in the sky, as they were not allowed. I told them how my heart sank in utter fear when I heard an ordinary rumble in the distance, and how we had no idea if our own coast was safe from whatever was happening.
10 That day changed many things in a lot of us. It was a terrifying time, resulting in a feeling of love for our country, or for our lives maybe. I thought at the time that they went a bit overboard with using it to stir jingoism and patriotic hoopla. I felt it was inappropriate, as I felt it was more a time of reflection, and of valuing things that we had, and still have.
11 I wrote a piece almost a year later, on September 8, 2002, placing it on the Drama Workshop website, which is now slowly rusting in the weeds.
12 Anyway, it was a piece that I would annually visit. It still contains my genuine feelings and reflections as the first anniversary of the event approached.
13 Here it is, if you wish to visit:
http://www.ybdrama.com/911tribute3.html14 The CBS documentary, by the way, won multitudinous awards, including 21 individual Emmy Awards in 2002, covering a multitude of categories.
15 If you could get a copy, do so and watch. Every person should, as it brings the very human story to a story that twisted and turned in all sorts of directions ever since. This one is the real deal, as it is about people living history as it unfolds, and shows us a great deal about valor, heroism, and the human spirit.
16 As you move through the day, it is important to give all of this some thought. It has nothing to do with patriotism, or Patriot Day and all of that. It has to do with a shared experience that put a lot of things into perspective, and still does.
17 Go forward today and reflect.
18 It always puts a whole bunch into perspective.
19 See ya soon.
20 Peace.
~H~
