Busy Bee

Remember when I used to blog?

I got a shout out from my favorite blog to read the other day. Go here to read it. Nathaniel calls my blog the best titled livejournal on the planet.

Sorry I've been non-existent. I'm directing this show right now and then this week I had a panic attack because we have four more weeks of school and I have three enormous projects due by the end of that time. I have some serious research to do.

On Thursday and Friday I lectured in the Intro to Theatre classes: Solo Performance and Performance Art. I talked about Tristan Tzara and DADA's influence on American performance, and then I talked about some of the people in the movement: John Cage, Allan Kaprow, Nam-June Paik, Carollee Schneeman, Yoko Ono, Charlotte Moorman, etc. It was fun.

Last night. Well, I told you I was in COGS, right? I joined the Congress of Graduate Students at FSU. So I am graduate student representative for my College (Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance). And last night we had budget hearings. All of these various graduate student organizations come to us and ask for funding. And we have a huge budget, which we distribute among all of these graduate student organizations, etc. We also provide funding for students who are visiting conferences and extra money for grads who are presenting at conferences.

Plus, I have been going to the theatre down here. FSU put on a new works festival called New Horizons. We have six MFA playwriting students, and all of them got a play presented. Three were presented as staged readings and three as full productions. They spread the six shows over three evenings, so I went to all three. No exciting news to report from the festival, except there was one completely brilliant play about Andy Kaufman in the mix.

I also saw A Chorus Line at Tallahassee Community College. And tonight FSU's opera school is putting on Don Giovanni, so I'm attending that.

All of this leaves no time for movies, though I have three at home waiting for me:
The Ten Commandments (the classic. it's a big one.)
Day for Night (also classic. I've never seen it!)
Shortbus (I will report as soon as I can whether it's too much like porn. I assume some people are squeemish about renting this one.)

My research is currently:
Aristotle's Poetics (which is a little bit sleep-inducing)
Kushner's Caroline, or Change (I'm researching representations of black women)
and
John Fletcher and his sequel to Taming of the Shrew

I'll be back soon. Or, at the very least, I'll try to be here more.

Aaron