Thanks to my participation in a program designed to help students transfer faster, I have to attend a monthly meeting with other faculty in the program, people from the math department and counselers and other English teachers and (this time around) a sociology professor. We share how the students, who are rigorously tracked for their performance, are doing, particuarly those who are doing well and those who might be in danger of failing. You learn a great deal about what's going on in your students' lives, and it does give you a better context for understanding why sometimes they are having difficulty in your class. It usually turns out that they're having difficulties in all of their classes.
On Thursday, when it was my turn to share, I talked about only three students who are having difficulty. One is passing but barely, mostly because she can't shut up talking long enough to pay attention. Another is earning a low "D" right now, and I think it's because of her limited proficiency in the English language. The third student has had one problem after another this semester, causing her to miss 11 class sessions. We've met 22 times as a class so far, so you can do the math yourself to figure out why she's not doing well.
When I shared this with the group, several people jumped in to tell me that I should drop this student from the class. (They're usually very good about telling you how you should run your classes, by the way.) In theory, I understand and even accept their rationale for doing so. However, this student keeps e-mailing me to tell me what's been happening--the latest is the death of her grandmother--and asking me not to drop her from the class. I've told her how she's doing in the class. I've explained to her what she's missed so far and how much work it will take for her to make all of that up in the very few weeks we have remaining. I have, in other words, kept in contact with her and not dropped her. I shared with the group that I think the student, as an adult, has to make the decision, not me. She still thinks she can come back to the class and be successful after everything that's happened. I know that the odds are against her, but if she wants to try, that's her call to make. And I said something to the effect that a student who knows that she/he is going to fail has as much right to stay in a class as one who knows that she/he is going to succeed.
When the next teacher started to give his report, he commented on who was doing well and who wasn't, and he said that he was going to drop a student who had missed fewer classes than my student had because, as he put it, "I don't want my students to fail." Naturally, he glanced quickly in my direction, accusing me nonverbally of wanting mine to do that very thing. Now, I ask you, is that what I said?
Am I wrong for letting a student make up her own mind about her classes? It's not as if she doesn't know how much difficulty she's going to face because I have told her. I've even given her a printed grade report that shows her the grade she's currently earning. So why should I tell her that her grandmother's death and the other problems she's faced make her ineligible to stay in my class now? I don't want her to fail, but I also don't want to treat her like she's a child with no ability to make a choice on her own.
This is my last semester working in this program. I've been involved in it, off and on, for about eight of the fifteen years I've been at my college. I've enjoyed it, for the most part, and I know that it's a very successful program for the students who participate in it. But I'm feeling very burned out by it. I just want to teach "regular" classes for a while, classes where I don't have to act like some sort of substitute parent for a student who's a grown-up. I'm weary of being asked to do what I think amounts to coddling students a bit too much, maybe I'm not that good of a fit for it any longer. Apparently, some of my colleagues would agree.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
A Memory
In the spring of 1998, Partner At The Time and I went to New York for Spring Break. Ostensibly, we were going with a group of opera students from my college. They were going to spend the week going to various operas and museums. PATT and I were going to see just one opera, Der Meisterzinger von Nuremberg (or something close to that), four hours of Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera House. What we wanted to do instead of seeing a lot of opera was to see a lot of Broadway shows. So we did tourist things during the daytime, and in the early afternoons, we made our way to the TKTS booth in Times Square and selected a show for the evening. It was a great week.
The hottest show in town that spring was a revival of Cabaret starting Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson. I thought we should take a chance on tickets, so we stopped at the office for the Roundabout Theatre Company and stood in a very long line. Most people were walking away disappointed because the only seats left were what were dubbed "obstructed view." The other tickets you could purchase were for weeks or months in advance. I asked what views were obstructed and was told that some dancers would be above us at certain points in the show. I figured it was worth the risk and bought two.
What an excellent decision it turned out to be. The front rows of the show were set up as tables at a cabaret itself, so we had one all to ourselves. We were about 10-15 feet away from the stage itself, and members of the cast frequently walked by us on the way to the stage. In fact, at one point, Alan Cumming (as the Emcee) stood next to us while waiting for his cue. He turned and looked at us and winked. Hey, it's always nice to acknowledge the gay members of the audience, I'd imagine. The only part of the show we couldn't see was the dancing done by a couple of people above us on a metal walkway; in all, we missed about 30 seconds of something that wasn't integral to the plot.
The show was spectacular, an amazing recreation of Berlin's night life between the two World Wars. Cumming was great, a real scene-stealer. And Natasha Richardson was so beautiful and fragile as Sally Bowles, the singer who can't seem to make good decisions in her life. It's a part that allows actresses to show quite a range of talent, and Richardson did not disappoint. PATT and I both jumped to our feet at the end of the show to applaud her and the rest of the cast. Later that year, when she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, we cheered again (this time in our living room, though).
This past week, Richardson passed away after suffering a head injury in a skiing accident. I've thought several times then of that magical night in New York more than a decade ago. It's a special relationship that theater performers have with the audience. They know when they are loved, and they can sense when the crowd is on their side. Richardson was a gifted performer: a great actress with astonishing depth and a talented singer as well.
Richardson comes from a long line of actors and performers. Her mother is the always amazing Vanessa Redgrave, and her father is famed director Tony Richardson. Her aunt is Lynn Redgrave, and her grandfather was Sir Michael Redgrave. Her sister is Joely Richardson, perhaps best known for her performance as Julia on Nip/Tuck. Natasha was also married to another great actor, Liam Neeson. She was surrounded by so many talented people throughout her life. It was perhaps inevitable that should would demonstrate the same skills as an actor that they possessed; it was in her blood.
Natasha Richardson didn't have the traditional career of a movie star, perhaps, but she really didn't need to when she could perform on stage and in the movies with equal ease. She always brought to her roles a sensitivity that made you care about her character. I will always treasure having seen her work as Sally Bowles, particularly her performance of "Maybe This Time," one of my favorite songs from that show. Its words have haunted me since hearing of her passing.
The hottest show in town that spring was a revival of Cabaret starting Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson. I thought we should take a chance on tickets, so we stopped at the office for the Roundabout Theatre Company and stood in a very long line. Most people were walking away disappointed because the only seats left were what were dubbed "obstructed view." The other tickets you could purchase were for weeks or months in advance. I asked what views were obstructed and was told that some dancers would be above us at certain points in the show. I figured it was worth the risk and bought two.
What an excellent decision it turned out to be. The front rows of the show were set up as tables at a cabaret itself, so we had one all to ourselves. We were about 10-15 feet away from the stage itself, and members of the cast frequently walked by us on the way to the stage. In fact, at one point, Alan Cumming (as the Emcee) stood next to us while waiting for his cue. He turned and looked at us and winked. Hey, it's always nice to acknowledge the gay members of the audience, I'd imagine. The only part of the show we couldn't see was the dancing done by a couple of people above us on a metal walkway; in all, we missed about 30 seconds of something that wasn't integral to the plot.
The show was spectacular, an amazing recreation of Berlin's night life between the two World Wars. Cumming was great, a real scene-stealer. And Natasha Richardson was so beautiful and fragile as Sally Bowles, the singer who can't seem to make good decisions in her life. It's a part that allows actresses to show quite a range of talent, and Richardson did not disappoint. PATT and I both jumped to our feet at the end of the show to applaud her and the rest of the cast. Later that year, when she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, we cheered again (this time in our living room, though).
This past week, Richardson passed away after suffering a head injury in a skiing accident. I've thought several times then of that magical night in New York more than a decade ago. It's a special relationship that theater performers have with the audience. They know when they are loved, and they can sense when the crowd is on their side. Richardson was a gifted performer: a great actress with astonishing depth and a talented singer as well.
Richardson comes from a long line of actors and performers. Her mother is the always amazing Vanessa Redgrave, and her father is famed director Tony Richardson. Her aunt is Lynn Redgrave, and her grandfather was Sir Michael Redgrave. Her sister is Joely Richardson, perhaps best known for her performance as Julia on Nip/Tuck. Natasha was also married to another great actor, Liam Neeson. She was surrounded by so many talented people throughout her life. It was perhaps inevitable that should would demonstrate the same skills as an actor that they possessed; it was in her blood.
Natasha Richardson didn't have the traditional career of a movie star, perhaps, but she really didn't need to when she could perform on stage and in the movies with equal ease. She always brought to her roles a sensitivity that made you care about her character. I will always treasure having seen her work as Sally Bowles, particularly her performance of "Maybe This Time," one of my favorite songs from that show. Its words have haunted me since hearing of her passing.
Friday, March 13, 2009
5600+
At about 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, I reached a milestone. You may recall that last fall I started listening to all of the songs on my iPod in alphabetical order by song title. I finished on Thursday morning. What had started with Ella Fitzgerald's "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" ended with Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" (preceded by Alison Kraus' lovely version of the same song from a tribute album). So 5600 plus songs later, I've managed to go through my entire catalog of songs.
I managed to discover that I had two copies of several songs, so that means I could clear out my playlist a little bit. I also found out that some songs had not downloaded properly and would not play the way they are supposed to play. Those also get deleted. It isn't that I need space or anything. I bought an iPod that has a capacity of 160GB. I have a long way to go before I fill that up.
As I've stated in previous posts, sometimes you realize just how many different versions you have of a particular song when you listen to them this way. I have, for example, four singers doing their take on "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me": Dusty Springfield (of course), Elvis Presley, John Barrowman (courtesy of his biggest fan, my friend N), and Shelby Lynne (courtesy of my friend C). Listening to Dusty and Shelby sing the song almost back-to-back just heightens the intensity of Lynne's tribute album to Springfield's greatest songs. And there are four versions of "You Go to My Head" as well: Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Keely Smith, and Rufus Wainwright. Does it get any better than this?
I think after I've deleted the duplicate songs and found some more "stable" versions of the songs that are currently unplayable (like "Young Hearts Run Free" by Candi Staton, which I love but which I have yet to be able to download successfully), I might start the process all over again. Of course, I have a few "new" songs I want to add first, but this has been a pleasurable journey, one I'm anxious to take again.
I managed to discover that I had two copies of several songs, so that means I could clear out my playlist a little bit. I also found out that some songs had not downloaded properly and would not play the way they are supposed to play. Those also get deleted. It isn't that I need space or anything. I bought an iPod that has a capacity of 160GB. I have a long way to go before I fill that up.
As I've stated in previous posts, sometimes you realize just how many different versions you have of a particular song when you listen to them this way. I have, for example, four singers doing their take on "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me": Dusty Springfield (of course), Elvis Presley, John Barrowman (courtesy of his biggest fan, my friend N), and Shelby Lynne (courtesy of my friend C). Listening to Dusty and Shelby sing the song almost back-to-back just heightens the intensity of Lynne's tribute album to Springfield's greatest songs. And there are four versions of "You Go to My Head" as well: Billie Holiday, Judy Garland, Keely Smith, and Rufus Wainwright. Does it get any better than this?
I think after I've deleted the duplicate songs and found some more "stable" versions of the songs that are currently unplayable (like "Young Hearts Run Free" by Candi Staton, which I love but which I have yet to be able to download successfully), I might start the process all over again. Of course, I have a few "new" songs I want to add first, but this has been a pleasurable journey, one I'm anxious to take again.
Saying Goodbye
I had to get a haircut today, so I went a bit early in order to see what was left of the inventory at A Different Light Bookstore in West Hollywood. For a number of reasons, the store will be closing in April, leaving Los Angeles without any gay bookstore other than ones that specialize in porn. There will be no more browsing for titles of new and old books by favorite authors, no rummaging through the shelves of used books at remarkable prices, no readings by gay and lesbian authors. All gone now.
I can still recall many of the trips that I've taken over the years to A Different Light. I've purchased many books there, all in the name of supporting our community. It's where, for example, I purchased all of the Tales of the City books (seven of them so far) by Armistead Maupin, an author whose work has been such a fond part of my life. I know I could probably find the same books cheaper on Amazon, but it was important to me to feel what a friend of mine in college used to call "all that great queer energy" you found in a bookstore like A Different Light. I can also recall most of the readings I've attended, and I still have signed books as my souvenirs of those days. One of my most prized possessions is a signed copy of Afterlife by Paul Monette, another of my favorite writers, that I got at a reading there only a few years before his passing.
The store was almost empty this morning. Only two other customers came in while I was browsing. Most of the books are gone, sold already to other people who want to take advantage of their last chance to own an item from the store. I still managed to pick up about a dozen books, some of which I had thought about buying for years. I know it's too late to make a difference, but I hope my purchase is a somewhat appropriate way to honor the legacy of A Different Light. I might go back just once more to look around and see if there's any way I can retain a sense of what the store once meant to the community. Even the fixtures are on sale, but I have no place to put a display rack in my living room.
Ironically, today I read in Out magazine that the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in New York City is also closing. That was one of my first destinations when I visited New York. It was the oldest gay bookstore in the United States, and it too had a strong sense of history to it. Now it and A Different Light will be gone, and our community will probably never have spaces like them again. (Yes, I still have the books I purchased in New York as well. I do keep books, perhaps longer than I ever need them.)
I realize that it's perhaps better that gay books are available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Borders. That way, people in cities and towns without strong gay communities still have access to literature about themselves. Somehow, though, it's just not going to be the same for me to go browsing "the gay shelf" at Barnes & Noble. I won't find a copy of an out-of-print novel like Butterflies in Heat or Franny, the Queen of Provincetown or the campy novels of Joe Keenan (who later wrote for Frasier) or the "Buddies" series by Ethan Mordden or the hardcover version of Jeff Hobbs' The Tourists. I picked up all of these and a few more today. That's not likely to happen again any time soon outside of a used book sale somewhere.
Maybe we're too technologically advanced to need bookstores any longer. Or maybe we don't read as much as we used to, and books are going the way of the dodo bird and I'm going to be the only (gay?) dinosaur with a library. Perhaps gay people would just rather congregate in bars and clubs; there's actually one on either side of the ADL site in West Hollywood. Whatever the reason, I will miss A Different Light. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend today, one whose equal I'll likely never see again in this town.
I can still recall many of the trips that I've taken over the years to A Different Light. I've purchased many books there, all in the name of supporting our community. It's where, for example, I purchased all of the Tales of the City books (seven of them so far) by Armistead Maupin, an author whose work has been such a fond part of my life. I know I could probably find the same books cheaper on Amazon, but it was important to me to feel what a friend of mine in college used to call "all that great queer energy" you found in a bookstore like A Different Light. I can also recall most of the readings I've attended, and I still have signed books as my souvenirs of those days. One of my most prized possessions is a signed copy of Afterlife by Paul Monette, another of my favorite writers, that I got at a reading there only a few years before his passing.
The store was almost empty this morning. Only two other customers came in while I was browsing. Most of the books are gone, sold already to other people who want to take advantage of their last chance to own an item from the store. I still managed to pick up about a dozen books, some of which I had thought about buying for years. I know it's too late to make a difference, but I hope my purchase is a somewhat appropriate way to honor the legacy of A Different Light. I might go back just once more to look around and see if there's any way I can retain a sense of what the store once meant to the community. Even the fixtures are on sale, but I have no place to put a display rack in my living room.
Ironically, today I read in Out magazine that the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in New York City is also closing. That was one of my first destinations when I visited New York. It was the oldest gay bookstore in the United States, and it too had a strong sense of history to it. Now it and A Different Light will be gone, and our community will probably never have spaces like them again. (Yes, I still have the books I purchased in New York as well. I do keep books, perhaps longer than I ever need them.)
I realize that it's perhaps better that gay books are available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Borders. That way, people in cities and towns without strong gay communities still have access to literature about themselves. Somehow, though, it's just not going to be the same for me to go browsing "the gay shelf" at Barnes & Noble. I won't find a copy of an out-of-print novel like Butterflies in Heat or Franny, the Queen of Provincetown or the campy novels of Joe Keenan (who later wrote for Frasier) or the "Buddies" series by Ethan Mordden or the hardcover version of Jeff Hobbs' The Tourists. I picked up all of these and a few more today. That's not likely to happen again any time soon outside of a used book sale somewhere.
Maybe we're too technologically advanced to need bookstores any longer. Or maybe we don't read as much as we used to, and books are going the way of the dodo bird and I'm going to be the only (gay?) dinosaur with a library. Perhaps gay people would just rather congregate in bars and clubs; there's actually one on either side of the ADL site in West Hollywood. Whatever the reason, I will miss A Different Light. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend today, one whose equal I'll likely never see again in this town.
Brief Encounter
I know I tell too many stories like this, but I really do love living in Los Angeles when I can have "sightings" like this one.
Today, I went to pick up my dry cleaning in West Hollywood. When I walked in, I noticed there were only two other customers there, one man and one woman. I handed my ticket to the guy behind the counter and glanced up at the large screen TV that was playing some E! program about celebrities or something. I happened to notice the woman was also watching, and then I realized who the woman was.
Jane Lynch.
Most people probably know here from such movies as A Mighty Wind or Best in Show or The 40-Year-Old Virgin, or perhaps you know her as Charlie Sheen's therapist on Two and a Half Men. She has dozens of credits, and she's instantly recognizable. And, just to let you know, she's just as beautiful in person as she is on the screen.
I think Jane Lynch is fantastic in every movie she's in. Even if the movie itself is bad, she never disappoints. She reminds me in many ways of those great character actresses like Thelma Ritter and Agnes Moorehead and Gladys Cooper, who always shined even in bit parts. They almost always transcended the material they were given. And she carries on that tradition proudly. She was one of the best things about Role Models last year, and I really enjoyed that movie immensely anyway.
After she picked up her dry cleaning (drapes, I think), she took them to her car; I don't know, something white and expensive looking. I managed to get my clothes back and had just put them in my car when I glanced her way. She smiled and waved. Jane Lynch smiled and waved at me.
Man, I love this town.
Another Short Story about Another Student
It's been quite a week for student stories. This one isn't quite as funny as the first, perhaps, but I think it is indicative of a certain "type" of student out there.
On Thursday, I had to give a make-up exam to a student. He would definitely fall under the "fourth time's the charm" rule since he's missed every chance so far to take this exam. He injured himself the day before the test, and he had to hobble around on crutches for a few weeks. Each time he said he'd come by during office hours, he never made it. He told me last week that he would show up that Thursday, but the young lady who was assisting him with carrying his books that day apparently "distracted" (his word) him when they went to lunch together.
So I put him at a table out in the hallway and let him work. Near the end of my office hour, a student stopped by to have me look at her rough draft. Again. This is actually the third time I've talked to her about her paper. She should be in ESL classes, not regular English classes, because her comprehension is very limited. She's only been in the U.S. a couple of years and would definitely benefit from having the more specific guidance that the ESL program offers. However, she won't switch, and I expect that she will keep needing to see her teachers as she progresses through the sequence.
Anyway, after she and I talked, she apparently went out to the hallway and sat down at the table to write down what she could remember of what I said. She started to talking to the guy who was taking his test, and he actually wound up asking her for her number. Not only did he get it (both home and cell), he also got her e-mail address.
Now, I ask you, how many guys do you know who can manage to score a girl's phone number while trying to take an American literature exam? That's got to be a rare fellow indeed.
On Thursday, I had to give a make-up exam to a student. He would definitely fall under the "fourth time's the charm" rule since he's missed every chance so far to take this exam. He injured himself the day before the test, and he had to hobble around on crutches for a few weeks. Each time he said he'd come by during office hours, he never made it. He told me last week that he would show up that Thursday, but the young lady who was assisting him with carrying his books that day apparently "distracted" (his word) him when they went to lunch together.
So I put him at a table out in the hallway and let him work. Near the end of my office hour, a student stopped by to have me look at her rough draft. Again. This is actually the third time I've talked to her about her paper. She should be in ESL classes, not regular English classes, because her comprehension is very limited. She's only been in the U.S. a couple of years and would definitely benefit from having the more specific guidance that the ESL program offers. However, she won't switch, and I expect that she will keep needing to see her teachers as she progresses through the sequence.
Anyway, after she and I talked, she apparently went out to the hallway and sat down at the table to write down what she could remember of what I said. She started to talking to the guy who was taking his test, and he actually wound up asking her for her number. Not only did he get it (both home and cell), he also got her e-mail address.
Now, I ask you, how many guys do you know who can manage to score a girl's phone number while trying to take an American literature exam? That's got to be a rare fellow indeed.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
A Short Story about a Student
I'm usually pretty generous if a student comes to class late and wants to take a quiz even though the rest of the class is finished and ready to move on. It happens often enough, believe me.
Today, I handed a copy of the quiz to a late student and told him he'd have to go outside to complete it since the rest of the class was about to start talking about the essays that were the subject of the quiz. After he left, another student walked in late and wanted to take the quiz too. So I sent him outside as well. The second student left, answered the questions (mostly correctly, I might add), and returned to class within a couple of minutes. The first student stayed gone for more than 15 minutes. When he finally did return, I asked what had taken him so long. He told me that he had gone outside like I had told him, but he couldn't find a place to sit down because all of the benches were taken. Apparently, he thought I meant he had to go outside of the building to take his quiz, not just outside the classroom.
And all of his answers were wrong.
Sigh.
I have to keep reminding myself that the future of America is dependent upon a lot of people of that generation, not just one of them.
Today, I handed a copy of the quiz to a late student and told him he'd have to go outside to complete it since the rest of the class was about to start talking about the essays that were the subject of the quiz. After he left, another student walked in late and wanted to take the quiz too. So I sent him outside as well. The second student left, answered the questions (mostly correctly, I might add), and returned to class within a couple of minutes. The first student stayed gone for more than 15 minutes. When he finally did return, I asked what had taken him so long. He told me that he had gone outside like I had told him, but he couldn't find a place to sit down because all of the benches were taken. Apparently, he thought I meant he had to go outside of the building to take his quiz, not just outside the classroom.
And all of his answers were wrong.
Sigh.
I have to keep reminding myself that the future of America is dependent upon a lot of people of that generation, not just one of them.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Guys and Dolls
N and I went on Thursday night to see the college's production of Guys and Dolls. I know it's an old-fashioned show, but perhaps, like Minsky's, which recently played at the Ahmanson, what we need right now in these troubled times is comfort, something familiar and fun, something without a deep message. I've only ever seen the film version of Guys and Dolls, never a theatrical production, and even that experience with the movie has been a long time ago now. I had forgotten just how many good songs there are in the show and how many opportunities it presents to showcase singing and dancing and acting.
The story should be familiar to a lot of people. A group of hustlers and crooks and two-bit criminals in New York City are trying to find a place to host a floating crap game. The folks of the Save-A-Soul Mission are trying to convert these lowlifes to a life of religion. One of the con artists, Nathan Detroit, makes a bet with another, Sky Masterson, that he can't get the head of the missionaries, Sarah Brown, to go with him to Cuba. Nathan has his own difficulties, of course, what with being engaged for 14 years to Miss Adelaide, one of the performers at the Hot Box. (Yes, I'm surprised they were able to get away with that back in the 1950s, too.) He's also having little luck in finding a location for the crap game. You should know that there's a happy ending in store, given the time period in which it was first written and performed.
This being a student production, you might not think that the quality of the production would be very high, but you'd be wrong in this case. Our college does a fantastic job with sets and costumes and staging. And the casting is usually first-rate as well. The students in Guys and Dolls on Thursday were great dancers, good singers, and talented performers all around. I have to say, in particular, how impressed I was by the guys in the cast. The two numbers that are really showcases for the men in the ensemble--"The Oldest Established" and "Luck Be a Lady"--were breathtaking and received loud applause from the audience. Of course, the showstopper was the performance of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat." The young man playing Nicely-Nicely Johnson wowed the audience. I did think for a moment that he and the rest of the cast wouldn't be able to continue after the crowd started to roar its approval.
And I loved hearing Frank Loesser's songs again. Just a few of the highlights:
Not everything was perfect, of course. The young woman playing Sarah has an operatic voice that didn't gel with the singing of the rest of the cast too well at times. There were several problems with microphones losing sound, and I noticed a dancer or two lost a shoe now and then. Still, it was a fun evening at the theater. I had been working very hard all week, grading papers and doing lesson plans and teaching, and I was afraid I would fall asleep during the show. No danger there, though, given the quality of the production and of the performers in it. N and I saw the dean of the division and the faculty member who worked with the students on the ensemble vocal numbers, and they both had as much fun as we did. Sometimes, an evening of escapist entertainment is just what you need.
The story should be familiar to a lot of people. A group of hustlers and crooks and two-bit criminals in New York City are trying to find a place to host a floating crap game. The folks of the Save-A-Soul Mission are trying to convert these lowlifes to a life of religion. One of the con artists, Nathan Detroit, makes a bet with another, Sky Masterson, that he can't get the head of the missionaries, Sarah Brown, to go with him to Cuba. Nathan has his own difficulties, of course, what with being engaged for 14 years to Miss Adelaide, one of the performers at the Hot Box. (Yes, I'm surprised they were able to get away with that back in the 1950s, too.) He's also having little luck in finding a location for the crap game. You should know that there's a happy ending in store, given the time period in which it was first written and performed.
This being a student production, you might not think that the quality of the production would be very high, but you'd be wrong in this case. Our college does a fantastic job with sets and costumes and staging. And the casting is usually first-rate as well. The students in Guys and Dolls on Thursday were great dancers, good singers, and talented performers all around. I have to say, in particular, how impressed I was by the guys in the cast. The two numbers that are really showcases for the men in the ensemble--"The Oldest Established" and "Luck Be a Lady"--were breathtaking and received loud applause from the audience. Of course, the showstopper was the performance of "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat." The young man playing Nicely-Nicely Johnson wowed the audience. I did think for a moment that he and the rest of the cast wouldn't be able to continue after the crowd started to roar its approval.
And I loved hearing Frank Loesser's songs again. Just a few of the highlights:
- "I'll Know," a lovely duet between Sky and Sarah about the ways we fall in love
- "Adelaide's Lament," surely one of the funniest numbers ever written for a Broadway show, the story of how waiting for love can make us sick
- "I've Never Been in Love Before," an incredibly romantic song that just becomes more resonant each time I hear it
- "Take Back Your Mink," a real showcase for the Hot Box Dancers
- "More I Cannot Wish You," which was not performed particularly well Thursday night, but which has some lovely sentiments to it
Not everything was perfect, of course. The young woman playing Sarah has an operatic voice that didn't gel with the singing of the rest of the cast too well at times. There were several problems with microphones losing sound, and I noticed a dancer or two lost a shoe now and then. Still, it was a fun evening at the theater. I had been working very hard all week, grading papers and doing lesson plans and teaching, and I was afraid I would fall asleep during the show. No danger there, though, given the quality of the production and of the performers in it. N and I saw the dean of the division and the faculty member who worked with the students on the ensemble vocal numbers, and they both had as much fun as we did. Sometimes, an evening of escapist entertainment is just what you need.
Nutty Neighbors: A Lesson in Irony
When you are talking loudly enough on your cell phone--and doing so in the bathroom--that your next door neighbor can hear you as clearly as if you were standing next to him, you probably shouldn't yell into the phone: "WHY DO YOU ALWAYS ACCUSE ME OF OVERREACTING?!" That would be ironic.
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