May 11, 2012
-
1 Somehow it’s Frideeeeeeee!!!!
2 I had bouts with morons yesterday. Won’t go into it, since many are related to being out on the road and driving.
3 So let’s just reel it all in.
4 I associate everything that is happening out there with the ending of the school year, which includes not only my own school, but parents of children in school, kindergarten teachers, principals, school bank people (always sent from heaven!), college undergrads and grads, and on and on.
5 The focus right about now is on the ending of a school year, no matter where you try to run.
6 It is annually the most surrealistic time of the year.
7 Yesterday I brought my students into the Theater to watch TheTaming of the Shrew in widescreen with full stereo.
8 What I didn’t expect was that David had his first class in the Theater to strike the Grease set.
9 I had no problem with it, since I felt lucky to have gotten to use the facility at this strange and busy time of the year.
10 He had the worklights over the stage on for safety, so the effect of the movie playing was amazingly weird.
11 Most Theater people know the effect of using what is called in the biz a scrim. A scrim is an enormous piece of cloth that if projected on, works as a screen, such as a movie screen, but if lit up brightly from the back, lights up anybody or anything there, so that they can almost appear out of nowhere.
12 So the effect yesterday was that our movie screen had Shrew playing brilliantly. In the night scene where Hortensio and Gremio were looking for a “mate” for Katharine, the kids striking the set suddenly appeared more brilliant than the film, giving Shrew a ghostly effect , with around fifteen or twenty cast members from Grease walking through the film as though they were wraiths in an odd dream.
13 David’s first class of the day evidently is his advanced Drama class, which had many of the leads and ensemble students in it. The sound of Shrew was loud and clear, but the images on the screen were of the final strike for Grease, all happening simultaneously with the first appearance of Richard as Petruchio.
14 It felt like I was watching ghosts of the past and of the present. People in my class were a bit confused, but I LOVED the effect. I couldn’t have directed a cleaner scene.
15 All this happened yesterday early.
16 It was literally the final strike of the Grease set by the Grease cast and crew coming through the film. What an effect, especially first thing in the morning!
17 Other worldly, and just right.
18 I had missed the cast party on Saturday night due to exhaustion. I stayed a while for hugs and flowers, but decided not to stay until the 12:30 end of it all.
19 My strikes always tended to be on the Monday or Tuesday following a show. I always thought that the all-nighter strikes of yesteryear were too brutal, and that tearing the show down worked better if spaced over two days. I understand that true Theater people would look down on such heresy, but I was a lot more logical, knowing full well that a strike in a high school at 2 a.m. was impractical, but done by many high school, college, and professional companies.
20 I would usually head for Joe’s with Ponch, and have Randy serve us up some Manhattans, often gratis.
21 I even looked down yesterday at the Grease strike going beautifully with Taming of the Shrew and thought that Randy might have been the author.
22 It was THAT good.
23 I really didn’t give it much thought until I awakened in the 2 a.m. to write this folderol.
24 By the end of that first class, the entire Grease set had disappeared, as had David and the Company.
25 The rest of the day the film dominated, and was as incredible as ever.
26 Moving on, Part the Foist: Cray cray.
27 Nicoley and I talked about everything being “cray cray” the other day.
28 We were two teachers trying to reconcile the unreconcilable, which isn’t even a word. We talked about how cray cray school is this time of the year.
29 I think she has two weeks left, and I really have just one and then finals, which I suppose measures out to two.
30 Shrew yesterday was amazing. The Theater swallowed up my class. I felt like William Randoph Hearst giving a private screening to Hollywood’s elite. David had hooked up the sound for me, so the sound system was awesome, and the brightness of the screen exquisite.
31 It prompted one student to say, “Mr. Harrington, we should have a movie at the end of the year up in here!”
32
33 Hmmmm.
34 You tell me.
35 There’s a reason I have a job.
36 Okay, so it’s choking into the 3 a.m. and I mightily need to have my wits about me today.
37 I think I’ll push his odd week to the back burner and move into the weekend.
38 I guess I’m just happy to be walking around.
39 It’s Frideeeeeee after all, and beautifully annoying weather.
40 Have a lovely weekend.
41 And as always, fly low.
42 Peace.
~H~
