Acting Class

Eryn's acting class is closing in on being over.  She's been at the Children's Theater Company taking a Percy Jackson-based class.  They've been learning to deliver monologues and lines from the book.  It's aimed at 3-5th graders, so I think it may be a bit on the young side for her, but a good way to get her toes wet.  The next class is aimed at 6-8th graders and focuses on tools of acting, so she's going to have to buckle down a bit.  If she's serious about acting, then by next summer (not the upcoming one, 2015) she should be capable of auditioning.

Thursday lessons have been a good daddy-daughter time.  I get out of work an hour early (dubious - it's still after 8.5 hours - it's just not keeping to "core hours") to pick her up at school, catch a Slim 5 at Jimmy John's sandwiches, and then get to the MIA to hang for a little while over a cup of coffee before class.  I get a lot of reading done while she's in class, at least when the other parents aren't snoring loudly in the parents' lounge.

During one class, they took them all backstage to see how they handle getting people around, accommodating live music, raising parts of the stage, etc.



I spent the time wandering around taking some photos.  If you've been back stage once, you've been backstage a million times.  I'm not sure a professional would agree - but I don't have the background to appreciate the subtleties.  Still, a much better rope setup than in my high school.


How to act like a toy solider.  Just try to find a class that has that sort of versatility.

The Wong Kids

Yesterday we went to The Children's Theater Company to see The Wong Kids in the Secret of the Space Chupacabra Go!  We've been picky about what we add to our season tickets - they're not longer the more inclusive package that was gift to the family when I became a manager, but the more limited season tickets appropriate to Eryn's age - but this one sounded fun.

The description says: "Meet the Wong Kids, typical teenage brother and sister that just discovered their hidden superpowers. This rock-‘em, sock-‘em, sci-fi space adventure, that’s part Phineas and Ferb meets A Wrinkle in Time, pits the squabbling siblings against the evil Space Chupacabra in a heroic plight to save the universe. Sophisticated and full of irreverent humor, Wong Kids combines the hipness of manga and anime with a fantastic voyage of tenacity, courage and in the end, true friendship."

We saw A Wrinkle in Time, and it wasn't A Wrinkle in Time.  I remember AWIT as being ungodly whiny.  Horrifically whiny.  Make me want to gouge my ears out angsty whiny.  This was anything but.  It was fun.  Exceptionally well acted.  Clever.  And the staging/production complemented a good story and a great sense of humor to make it all gel.  The slowest moments were when Violet had to face her own fears of having no friends made manifest, and her concern that she wanted to be just like her non-Asian friends.  But those were fairly short asides in an otherwise fast-paced production and gave it some foils for the humor.  Phineas and Ferb - that's a good comparison if they worried a bit more about being nerds.  But that's why they have a supercool Platypus spy in their tale, so it's obvious they're cool even if they don't know it.

My wife asked me what I thought at the end and my response was that it was the best retelling of The Neverending Story I'd ever been to.  She was confused, but I pointed out there was a dragon, a rock creature, a creature that was sort of hunting them, wolves, another world, and the prospect of nothingness.  Fortunately, they made Atreyu and the Childlike Empress a team and took away the helplessness of the empress and made her the stronger, active character.  And then they made it a good story, and funny, and not sickening.

Best thing we've been to at the CTC in a long time in terms of originality.  I particularly enjoyed the meteor shower and the end of the dragon's part in the story.  I suspect we might see that dragon again come Shrek later in the season.

Cultural Dissonance

The last two nights have something of a weird dichotomy of cultural experience.  On Wednesday, I went to Plankton at the Trylon with Kyle.  It was part of their viewer-selected Trash Film Debauchery series, and the guy who requested the movie was in the audience.  If you're not familiar with it by the name Plankton, it also goes by the title, Creatures from the Abyss.

The plot?  Idiots get lost at sea in a raft.  They find a yacht.  It's a pleasure yacht belonging to scientists who are a.) researching deep sea life in an area polluted with radioactive waste and b.) having weird fish sex.  The rest of the movie involves said idiots managing to get bitten/contaminated.  This ends in turning into a Ray Harryhausen-esque tentacly stop-motion fish guy.  Giving birth to copious amounts of caviar.  Growing a fish out of your back during sex.  Being subjected to a phone-sex-esque shower that's breaking down, and a weird wall sculpture that offers up nonsensical advice.  Growing a fish out your back that's forced to pinch your brain until you behave because you're still listening to your friends.  And your pregnant fiance (of a year!) shooting herself in the head with a spear gun.  I'm sure I missed something, like the flying fish that looked like they were from the Cthulu universe in From Beyond.  My favorite quotes was, "YOU HAVE NO MORE SISTER!"  That's brilliant.

A few reviews:

• http://www.bloodygoodhorror.com/bgh/reviews/05/05/2011/plankton-creatures-from-the-abyss
• http://www.badmovieplanet.com/inferno/archives/cfta.html
• http://www.badmovies.org/movies/cabyss/

This should prove to Altsie that I've go no problem with bot-capable movies that lack bots. Thanks for the comment!  I'd love a few tickets - I'll talk a few developers from work into going.

Then, on Thursday, I went to Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy at the Children's Theatre Company with Eryn and her friend Eli (pronounce it "ellie" - Eli is a her - whose dad works with me, if you consider working in the same building of 7000 people to be "works with me").  Content wise, this was probably the best play we've seen at CTC so far.  Despite being a play for kids, they didn't pull any punches.  Kids got hit by their fathers.  Children and mothers were committed to the mental hospital to die.  Grandpa died of a broken heart.  Families were uprooted.  Greed ruled.  Mom was dead and Dad couldn't talk about it. And the racial/racist part of the story line was front and center.

Mrs. Cobb was well played.  Absolutely wonderful.  So was Lizzy.  The Buckminster boy was a little too reminiscent of the whining from A Wrinkle in Time, but more palatable given the strong performances surrounding him and the engaging story line.

Eli had seen part of the show already on line, and knew that there was going to be a very loud and scary scene at one point, when Lizzie and Turner (Buckminster) are lost at sea in a rowboat in a storm (see...just like Plankton!) and encounter a whale.  She wanted to leave the theater until the scary part was over, but I convinced her that wrapping my jacket around her head would be sufficient so I could watch, and I'd let her know when it was over.  A good call, as it was impressive to see a whale head and tail appear on the CTC stage.

Harold and the Purple Crayon

Tonight we went to the Children's Theater Company to see Harold and the Purple Crayon.  Eryn's getting a little old for that sort of play, but she was interested in going and I had purchased the ticket package for this year, so that was good enough.  Next year we're hoping to swap in one or two plays for older audiences at Theatre in the Round or elsewhere.  Mix it up a bit.

I have to say, as you get older, and you have more experiences under your belt, some things just get much stranger when you make associations.  For instance, Harold and the Purple Crayon would be most accurately described by me, in a mental game of Apples to Apples, with the phrase, "Nutbuster the Ballet, but with better dancing, more singing, way better scenery, and more footie pajamas."  Why?  Because what other conclusion can you draw when there's a grown man doing interpretive dance in his pajamas?  The  only things missing were the blow up doll and the bottle of vodka.  Although I was worried we were headed to a fetish moment with the Crayon Girls each pulled out a piece of paper and slapped it on their chests for him to write on.

It really was a bit of an acid trip, going from (a grown Asian man in blue footie pajamas) singing a very "Under the Sea" song in much the same voice as Ariel, to an even more disturbing laugh that sounded almost exactly like Ariel's, to a rocket number that reminded me very much of Meatloaf singing in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, to an alien lovefest funk/disco number that brought back the acid trips that were the puppet portion of The Wiggles "Fruit Salad Yummy Yummy".

Haven't ever had the pleasure, here ya go...below. But I would recommend this play to someone my younger niece's age with an interest in music and dance. The staging was beautiful, and they did a variety of techniques to communicate how the crayon was drawing the purple line. Well done, just very weird with my play-going background.

Bert and Ernie

I strongly recommend Bert and Ernie at the Children's Theatre Company. Eryn thought it would be too young for her. And Pooteewheet and I thought it would be incredibly annoying. But it was very funny and Eryn laughed through the whole thing. A+