Additionally: Because Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

Let me tell you a thing about the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

It’s marvelous. Eleven plays on three theaters for around nine months. The actors are consistently superb, and the the plays never disappoint. I look forward to OSF every year, and try to glean as much advance knowledge about every season as I possibly can.

For example, I found out they were doing My Fair Lady around September of last year, so I have been looking forward to this season for something way too long. I watched the previews, researched the actors, counted down the days, and finally, finally, actually went to OSF and watched the plays.

I went with a group this year, as I have every year since 2010. It started out as a thing my literature group did, but each year, more people come who want to go to OSF with group rate tickets, and this time around we ended up with about fifty people, mainly teens and a few of their parents.

So obviously there was some carpooling involved, and, once again obviously, there was a lot of singing involved in that particular process. The people in my car were really good sports about this (you’re a woman of steel, mom). I shared a ride with my friends the Wasp, the Invisible Woman, the Scarlet Witch, and Mockingbird.

(Those are real people, by the way. Those may not be their real names, but I promise I didn’t just name four of my imaginary friends.)

Heading up the group is a person about whom I have blogged before, so you can feel as though you already know her (we’ll call her Martha Smith). You may remember a few months back when I spent an entire post trying to calm myself down because someone insulted my favorite book?

There she is!

I had thought I’d passed this particular stumbling block of rage in my life; I respect this woman after all, she is very sweet most of the time, and she used to write nice things in the margins of my essays when I was in her class.

The second morning we were in Ashland, Martha Smith called us all together after breakfast to talk about the play we had seen the night before, and the play we were going to see that night (I talk about those plays here). Somehow, it turned into a talk about something else entirely.

“I read a lot of books to find the right ones for our class. One of which was Wrinkle in Time, which was completely irredeemable, no value to be found…. I just wouldn’t waste my time on it.”

Read those last two sentences again, replacing “Wrinkle in Time” with the name of your best friend, and you’ll have a ballpark idea of how I felt. And I was in the front row, man. There were people around me. So, instead of growling like a feral dog, like I did with the whole email fiasco, I turned to the Invisible Woman and mouthed “Get me out of here.” She’s a good soul, and gave me her hand to squeeze until the subject changed.

But it came back.

Days later, but the subject did come back.

We had a couple more days full of unbridled awesome, brought to life by unhealthy amounts of references to fictional universes, quoting British dramas, singing show tunes, and using My Fair Lady-inspired pick-up lines (Hey girl. I’ve grown accustomed to your face).

Thursday was our last full day, and its most anticipated-events  were showers at a swimming pool (Up until now, it had been forty-something teenagers with no showers for three days. Not ideal.) and an interview with an Ashland actor.

Our group has been doing this since 2011; we kidnap an actor as he tries to leave the theater and lead him blind-folded into our midst. We then pelt him with weird questions until he weeps. (at least, that’s what it feels like)

It’s good fun!

This year, we interviewed Joe Wegner, who played Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

One of the questions was about whether Wegner knew the actor who played the easy-on-the-eyes Robin Hood (John Tufts), whom our group had seen in Heart of Robin Hood the night before.

When Wegner answered positively, and mentioned that Tufts had recently had a baby with his wife, the girl in front of me headdesked.

Just let her head fall down on the table in defeat.

It was tragic.

I widened my eyes, distanced myself from her, and hoped that I wasn’t quite as painfully obvious when I fangirled.

And then I went home and blogged to strangers about my fangirlisms.

Hm.

Moving on?

Halfway into the interview, in between references to Game of Thrones, Zoolander, and Bruce Almighty, Wegner began to address a question regarding the actor casting process.

“Actually,”

he concluded,

“I’ve been cast for this one play, you guys might have read it; it’s actually a world premiere, Wrinkle in Time?”

Evidently, I forgot that real people were sitting around me, because I gasped like a drowning woman and adopted a facial expression not unlike the one I had on while Robin Hood was gallivanting around the stage with a certain ring.

So, you know.

He continued,

“I play Calvin.”

I got to talk to this actor afterward, shake his hand (Didn’t want to creep him out by tackling him and telling him what a perfect Calvin he would make), and ask him about who was playing Meg.

She’s perfect, by the way.

Everything is perfect.

Wrinkle in Time and Ashland and Calvin and Meg and sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows

What?

Sorry. I’m fine. Let’s get back on track here.

It’s worth mentioning that at the end of the trip, my friend Lestrade (once again: real person, fake name) talked to Martha Smith and confronted her with the beauty that is Wrinkle in Time and why it had a profound effect on her.

Martha even sort of apologized to the Madeleine L’engle fans the next morning.

Good on you, mate.

This was a fantastic trip, as it has been every time I attend. Oregon Shakespeare Festival is up there with Christmas on my list of favorite annual events. And while this trip certainly set the bar high…

I’m very excited for 2014.

Maybe I should read Wrinkle in Time again to prepare.

Because Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Hello fellow fanpeople!

I recently returned from a journey to Ashland, OR, for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

A festival, I might add, that I have been looking forward to for over a year. You can call me obsessive, but hey, at least it’s nothing I haven’t heard before. This festival has managed to be one of the highlights of every year since I started going in 2010, and it never disappoints.

To contain my fangirling into reasonable portions, this is one of two Ashland-flavored posts. This one is made up of emotions-fueled, unprofessional reviews of the plays I got to see this year, and the next post is my emotions-fueled, unprofessional personal experience.

MY FAIR LADY

I adored this production; it’s one of my favorites that I’ve ever seen in Ashland (and that’s saying quite a lot). Casting was fantastic, the choreography was superb, the stage direction was beautiful, and the lines were marvelous. Of course, Rachael Warren was just a darling as Eliza, and Jonathan Haugen’s (Henry Higgins) impersonation of a pouting seven-year-old completely done me in (that was a reference; please don’t judge me, I promise I can speak).

The singing was marvelous, and, at least in my opnion, did Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn (or Julie Andrews, depending on which records you prefer) very proud indeed.

And I should probably mention the cripplingly enchanting chemistry between Eliza and Henry, because if I didn’t, I would be leaving out a good seventy-five percent of the play.

Chemistry, people.

Also, feels. All of the feels. I wish I was exaggerating, but I assure you I am not. I was an emotional wreck (in the very best way) after seeing this performance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And if none of that made you want to see it, then try this: Freddy Eynsford-Hill singing “On the Street Where You Live” like an lovable stalker who’s still figuring out how to make his body do normal things like walk.

If you don’t go out and buy a ticket to this show right this second, you are the most ungrateful, wicked child who ever lived, and the angels will weep for you.

HEART OF ROBIN HOOD

Casting was fabulous, storyline was captivating, the fight scenes were a joy to watch, the set was beautiful, and there was a ring.

{Hold up for a minute and let me talk about the ring. A ring was hanging from the top of the set, just over the balcony. The play begins by Robin Hood walking out to the ring and climbing on.

I can’t even begin to describe how much emphasis this move put on his arms. Now, hear this, I’m trying not to sound like the annoying teenage girl that I probably am, but I don’t care how mature you are, if everyone who saw that play was completely honest, they would all admit that whatever they were looking at before he started his little ring performance, as soon as he hopped on, suddenly the sole thought in everyone’s head was

“Oh look. Manly beauty.”}

Kate Hurster was, as she always is, radiant in her role of Maid Marian (love this actress), and John Tufts (love this actor) complemented her magnificently as Robin Hood. More chemistry. More emotions. More Henry Higgins, actually (Jon Haugen made a few appearances). Even the kids were fantastic, not often a word used to describe child actors.

I’m not sure how this happened, but the night my group and I went, a good third of the audience was sighing girls, and believe me, there were a lot of sigh-worthy moments. It sounded like a hurricane in there every time Tufts and Hurster glanced at each other. And if you’ve been reading my blog for even twenty seconds, you can imagine that I felt quite at home.

It’s equally worth mentioning that the majority of the this production’s players adopted a Scottish accent for this play. (I knooow.) But the play is closed now, so if you just excitedly opened a new tab to buy a ticket, I can only offer my sincerest condolences.

MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM

This is not my favorite play by Shakespeare, but, that said, I will move along to the amazing part: Joe Wegner. I mean the actors. The actors were an amazing part.

The four lovers, Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius, and Helena, are my favorite bit of that play, and their respective actors brought them to life with remarkable talent.

Also, Joe Wegner. This man, who played Lysander, spent all of his stage time jumping around like the adorable cartoon character that he is and making the audience laugh until we could no longer hear the lines being recited. Wayne Carr(Demetrius) brought loads of charm and humor to his character as well, Tanya McBride(Hermia) was not only exactly what Hermia ought to be, but super-duper cute, and Christiana Clark (Helena) was a delight as the very pretty victim of a very awkward accident.

The set was beyond gorgeous. Sparkles were applied without a shred of moderation (see also: perfect), the costumes were a spectacle in themselves, and the fairies hung their very own moon. If you’re imagining something cheesy and cut-out, then STOP throw that image away and replace it with nothing but beautiful. Done? Okay, you got it.

All this to say: These shows were a very serious investment in my happiness.

There were eight more plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival  this season that I did not see (regrettably), but I’m sure they were equally exemplary. If you’ve been before, leave a comment and tell me what you saw!

And if you’ve never gone to the Broadway of the West before, consider it.

And If you’ve considered it and ruled it out for any reason whatsoever, try considering it again.

Repeat these steps until you find yourself in Ashland, standing on the bricks between the Angus Bowmer and Elizabethan theaters, thinking, “How the heck did this even happen?”

Because you’re worth it.

Self Day

People are amazing. Think about it: Souls with bodies with minds, and each one is special and unique.

Wow.

But let’s get real for a moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You don’t always want them around.

Sometimes you just want to have no one else within shouting distance. This post is to prepare you for those days, in case you receive one but aren’t sure what to do with it. I have some suggestions.

What to do when you have the house/apartment/shed in a stranger’s backyard to yourself:

• Sing. Forget talent. Sing as loudly as you can. I prefer showtunes, myself, but suit your own desires.
• Talk to yourself. All that thinking that you do inside your head when other humans are around? Say it out loud. You’ll never know how awesome your mind is until you speak it out loud in an accent that doesn’t belong to you.
• Dance. Goes well with the first option. Use a stuffed animal or a throw pillow as a partner if you feel so inclined.
• Bake. When baking with people around, you have to deal with pesky inquiries about what you’re making, whether they can eat half, and why you won’t buy ingredients yourself – but baking alone? Guess who’s eating an entire batch of cookie dough.
• Read out loud. More fun than it sounds, especially if you’re into doing different voices for each character (I’m a babysitter. Humor me.).
• Homework.
• Actually, yeah, you should probably do something productive too. It can be anything; you will feel immensely successful if you accomplish something while the others are away. But here’s the trick: you must make sure you are doing that thing when your roommate/family member gets home. Fill up the first few hours with the above activities, but within ten minutes of when your people said they’d be home, get busy. Then, no matter how much you’ve been blasting the Les Miserables soundtrack or reading Shakespeare in the strangest voices possible, it looks like you’ve been a good little boy scout all day.

Congratulations! Your day has been a success.

Now run along and play well with the others.