Mission Accomplished

So blocking is done. We finished Thursday. Since I am in every scene of the show, for three days straight, seven hours a day, I didn't get off the stage. My legs fell asleep a lot from kneeling. It's a big relief to have that done. We are supposed to be off book on Monday.

Friday morning I found out that I was supposed to perform for a drama workshop at the Northwest Missions Conference. It was supposed to be on a volunteer basis, but they decided that a scene from the show would be more effective than a sketch. So Vanessa and I spent Friday after teardown rehearsing for that.

It went well this morning. Tasha gave the same information we were presenting in that scene in lecture format. Then we did the scene, and the group talked about what information came across better, how much can be inferred from drama without actually giving the facts, etc. Then they broke into groups and improvised their own scenes.

After that was over, we opted to stay at the conference to hear Joanne Shetler speak in a formal setting (Friday morning she'd talked with us about our characters for three hours, and the night before we'd trapped her at the table with pronunciation questions). We had to sit through an hour worth of church before she got up to speak, which I found a bit odd. They took an offering and sang some songs and a woman in the corner danced (a little distracting) and finally Jo spoke. Her talk was great, as usual - we're already familiar with the story, but it's great to hear her actually saying the words that became my lines in the show. (We use some of the same gestures. That was heartening)

After that we went around to a few booths that looked interesting, and then went home. I worked on my lines this evening, and I've got everything fairly well memorized except for John 3:16 in Balangao, which became my lines on Thursday. Tomorrow I'm taking the afternoon off and catching up on my postcards, letters and emails. Every night this week has been spent in the script.

Achi metap-ar

Achi metap-ar - will not be thrown away.

My favorite story in the show isn't even in the script, though it's referred to.

One of the most difficult passages to translate was from John 3:16 "shall not perish." Doming and Jo threw many ideas around, such as "shall not pass away" (like floating down a river?), "shall not be swept down the river" (what if they need to go down the river, and the Bible told them not to), and "shall not expire" (Like lettuce? Like wilt?). Nothing ever seemed to fit.

Later, Jo was at home with her friend Tekla and her children. In a culture of headhunters, it wasn't strange for an exasperated parent to tell their children, "I'm going to kill you!" Jo didn't feel comfortable with that, so she told a child she was going to "throw you away!" In a culture where face to face confrontations weren't acceptable, Tekla turned on her and told her never to say that to a child.

Jo was mystified. Tekla explained that killing someone took purpose and intent. To throw something away meant that it was essentially meaningless and without value. Jo had finally found the right word.

"Creator-God so loved the people of the world he gave his only child, that whosoever believes/obeys him will not be thrown away, but live forever with him."

Lookie

Favorite Quote, "Look and see what I can still do."

Just Whelmed

Just Whelmed, Again

Today was all blocking, all day. My character almost never leaves stage, so this afternoon alone I was up there for five hours. I love what I do. I'm so tired!

Tomorrow we block the rest of Act II. We got all of Act one done today. Act two is shorter, but also has the crash scene with all the (eventual) blood and screaming and writhing.

And lines are supposed to be memorized by Monday.

HeBrews

WHO DOES WHAT
A man and his wife were having an argument about who should brew the coffee each morning. The wife said, "You should do it, because you get up first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our coffee." The husband said, " You are in charge of cooking around here and you should do it, because that is your job, and I can just wait for my coffee." Wife replies, "No, you should do it, and besides, it is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee." Husband replies, "I can't believe that, show me." So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New Testament and showed him at the top of several pages, that it indeed says.......... "HEBREWS"
(In honor of our team, because it's a race to get coffee going in the mornings....)

And now we're all here

And today we finally started blocking the show! YAY!

I love the theatrical process. We still did improv - not my best skill. Although speaking of skills, my grandmother will be glad to learn I am now singing in the show. One verse from a hymn, but she was all up in arms about to call Wycliffe and demand I sing between acts. This should make her happy. Or perhaps give her more ideas (well, you're singing now -- they should have you do more!).

And I talked to my friend Mary tonight, who said I couldn't work on lines tonight until I did something fun first. So I'm blogging. I tried to go to Dairy Queen, but I've misplaced my ATM card (hopefully I didn't leave it at the kiosk last night) so no blizzards for me tonight.

Back to the grindstone!

New Quotes

I have about a zillion new quotes to put into the sidebar, but I left my notebook in my binder, and it's too stinking cold to run back and get it -- and too dangerous. Between here and Mocks there are random splotches of icelessness that come upon you unawares. So you're going along running like a drunk turkey trying to maintain speed, and all of a sudden you hit a dry patch.

It's not the ice that fouls up the system. It's the lack of it.

And P.S. Car covers are even harder to put on than take off coated in ice. Funny how heavy it gets.

Learning Lines

Today Portland was iced in. So most of us spent the morning at home watching musicals. I went out to get them from Blockbuster, but otherwise I didn't leave. Besides, I learned to drive in Washington, and experiences lovely mid-west ice storms at college. Getting my ice-encrusted car cover off took a long time. It was cold. The rest of Portland doesn't know what to do with it. I suspect it's rather like Seattle: An inch of snow sends them scurrying for chains. They hadn't sanded any of the backroads. There was gravel on the main one.

I worked on my lines tonight with Vicky. Knowing the show already has helped, although the new script revisions make it hard to remember when a line has changed tense, or been given to another character. It's coming along. Our last cast member comes in tomorrow, so we should start blocking, or at least do another read-through Monday.

Another thing I learned again today -- four cups of coffee on an empty stomach isn't a good idea.

The Dinner Theater is supposed to be presenting at a missions conference in a few weeks. We only found out about it a few days ago, and none of us know yet what exactly that will entail. Surprise!

My sister got a new job, which is very exciting considering how upset she's been about the old one.

And last night I got a chance to sing because everyone was out of the house. I need some voice lessons badly, but even worse I need real music. I was trying to remember songs I used to be able to accompany myself to, and they all ended up in the same key (The same one as Memory from Cats). I just resorted to drowning out my wrong chords, and since no one was listening, it didn't really matter.

Lots of spontaneity

Today we went into rehearsals expecting to do blocking. Instead, since the director was still working with the script, we did improv. Hours and hours of improv. It's not bad once you get going, but it's way outside of my comfort zone. I'm hit and miss. A couple of moment seemed to go well, but one scene -- where you had to react over the top to a particular sentence (The best was "may I have some pretzels"). We played statues, where the two actors onstage can't be moved until the two people behind manhandle them. And Freeze, where two people start a scene, someone else yells freeze, replaces one, and begins a new scene from the same place.

Then tonight, after dinner we played Pictionary. My team was behind the whole game (we kept rolling 1's) but two fives and a couple of good clues gave us the lead right at the end. There was a lot of screaming on our side. The other team claims they lost unfairly due to their newly acquired hearing loss. Bull.

Tomorrow we'll have a completed script, and blocking should commence. Hopefully without games. Though, I suppose being stretched is 'a good thing.'

Casting

Well, casting was announced today. I got the lead. Still getting over the shock. I wasn't expecting it...