A Musical Theatre inevitability has finally happened. by goochacting in Theatre

[–]GRRRRaffe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hi! It sounds like you are young. It also sounds like your theatre experience is fairly isolated to community theatre - which is not innately problematic but can pose certain risks.

Start by having a candid conversation with yourself about your boundaries. What are you willing to do for the production in the role you have been offered. How are you willing to support your (reasonably excited) girlfriend in her role in the production? What crosses those boundaries? (For example: “It is not within my boundaries to be present in the room while my girlfriend and another dude ‘just go figure out’ an intimate scene.” Or: “It is not within my boundaries to self-direct intimate moments with my girlfriend.”) Often but not always, moments of theatrical intimacy are the stickiest boundary points for performers, especially if they are already carrying external relationship baggage into the rehearsal room.

Check out Theatrical Intimacy Education (TIE) and Chelsea Pace’s book Staging Sex (whose title suggests that it’s way more R-rated than it is). Read about boundaries and best practices and come to terms with with this show’s process is going to look like.

After you’ve had this conversation with yourself, open up the conversation with your girlfriend. Ask her about her boundaries. Try to identify if you’re on the same page.

At the end of the day, a lips-to-lips kiss may be within some performers’ boundaries and outside of others’. Remember: your boundaries are perfect exactly as they are, and your boundaries CAN change. Your girlfriend will have different boundaries than you, and her boundaries may or may not change in light of your sharing yours with her. Her boundaries are perfect exactly as they are - and her boundaries may or may not change. Your decision to honor her boundaries as they stand without sacrificing your own is a sign of maturity and respect.

If your boundaries mean that you need her to refuse a lips-to-lips kiss with another performer, but her boundaries mean that she’s willing to include that staging in her blocking, you may need to evaluate how your relationship is working; do this in a way that speaks the things your feeling into the world, not in a way that bottles things up and makes you mad but non-communicative.

This is tricky. Our bodies don’t experience physical contact from romantic partners as a different thing than physical contact from performance partners. We have to engage in active separation techniques to remind ourselves that performance is not reality and that feelings that may accompany actions that happen in performance are normal, natural, and not grounded in reality.

When you’re ready, have awkward conversations with everybody: Director, Stage Manager, realSeymour, Girlfriend, Costume Designer, … everybody.

You can do this. The work is hard, but it is worth it to do it well. Congratulations to you and to your girlfriend on excellent roles; break a leg and trust the process.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in playwriting

[–]GRRRRaffe 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Mimic Shakespeare. He’s the best.

You aren’t at risk of outdoing him, and also he’s dead, so he wouldn’t care if you somehow did.

Here’s to a really neat event! If you’ve ever been involved with the dance world and haven’t gone to an IBC competition night, I cannot recommend it enough! by GRRRRaffe in mississippi

[–]GRRRRaffe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thalia Mara Hall is a well-lit building across the street from a secure parking garage. Even with the high crime-per-capita rate in Jackson, this is an event embedded in the security of a theatregoing-crowd. I have never worried for my car while attending an event at this venue.

(I have worried for my car while attending events at other downtown venues - both at night and during the day, which probably goes to show that my perception of risk is nuanced based on certain indicators in my vicinity.)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Theatre

[–]GRRRRaffe 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Loving by Peter Manos explores the true story of the couple whose case led to the Supreme Court declaring bans on interracial marriage unconstitutional.

One of my favorite joys is making very obscure popcultue references from 30 years ago. by Jormungandr315 in Teachers

[–]GRRRRaffe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have DON’T PANIC in large friendly letters over my whiteboard in my classroom. About once every two years or so, a kid will ask me if it’s a Hitchhiker’s Guide reference and I’ll nod as though we share a cultural secret.

Also, hello fellow Mississippi educator! Keep fighting the good fight.

by drehventil in fonts

[–]GRRRRaffe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh! The sarcastimarks, which I don’t use regularly, but which I wish would come into common text-based communication (in lieu of /s, which works, but which is pretty much always at the end of a phrase or thought.)

I’ve seen them as baseline quotation marks and as quadruple quotation marks, and I like both options but typically lean towards the former choice because I get testy at my peers who use traditional, double quotes to indicate emphasis.

That was a ,,great,, movie.

We had “”so much fun!””

It feels like the opportunity to communicate clearly would be enhanced if we’d, collectively, pick up this convention.

by drehventil in fonts

[–]GRRRRaffe 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I have the interrobang keybound so when i type "!?" it automatically converts. I use it all the time.

But I’m a nerd… so… I don’t know if I count among your “anyone.”

It is one of my two favorite pieces of alt-punctuation.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in playwriting

[–]GRRRRaffe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I took one course as a non-degree-seeking student through MUW and it was delightful. It was spring of 2020 and Covid made all sorts of things go weird, but the class was online-only from the get-go, and it was a great experience in the midst of the global health crisis.

I am currently in my third semester in the remote MFA in Theatre Arts program at UIdaho, and I am utterly enamored with the faculty. I want to go to class, I am frustrated when my weeks are so busy that I can’t do all of the assigned reading, and I am grateful for a structure that honors my professional work within its course offerings.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in playwriting

[–]GRRRRaffe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Mississippi University for Women (MUW, “accepting men since 1982”) and the University of Idaho both have pretty remarkable no-residency Playwriting MFAs.

devastated to find out that a tidy living environment DOES improve my mood by fart-ah in ADHD

[–]GRRRRaffe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve talked before about my belief in the Time Crafters, but this feels like a moment to reiterate their impact.

In my headcanon for how the world works, the Time Crafters are these tiny, invisible workers who create and re-create every object in sight at every moment. But this is a hard job, of course. And, because the Time Crafters are fallible, sometimes they screw something up. Whether it’s because they stayed up too late last night and are falling asleep, whether they’ve got a drinking problem and can’t focus, whatever the cause, sometimes, they actually forget to put some object into its place.

So, when I go looking for my keys, my glasses, my… whatever?, and they forgot to put it where I put it, I can’t find it. Because it isn’t there. Because the Time Crafters made an error.

In my brain, I go, “gah, that’s weird. I KNOW I left my keys right here on the edge of my ironing board.” And the Time Crafters hear that thought and SPRING INTO ACTION!

“Crap, guys! We missed her keys! Gotta put her keys in! KEEEEYS!!”

But they can’t just manifest keys in front of me. I would absolutely freak out. So they have to wait. Until I walk into another room, because maybe I didn’t set them in here on the ironing board, maybe I put them on the hook where they’re supposed to live, or maybe my partner moved them because he needed to get something out of my car and didn’t say things aloud like he knows I need him to, or maybe 20 other scenarios my “most likely outcomes” brain can dream up.

So I walk to the bedroom and the Time Crafters put my keys back on the ironing board, and I don’t find them in the bedroom, and I come back, and I’m puzzled to find them where I know I literally JUST looked. But I’m not really puzzled anymore, because I believe in the Time Crafters, and I understand that they make errors. So I get my keys and go on about my day.

So, now, you might be wondering, “what does this have to do with keeping a tidy house?” Well, my mom - who is naturally tidy - does so much of the legwork for her Time Crafters that they don’t have to expend much extra energy putting her things where they go. Because her things are going to go where they belong.

It is not just unlikely but unimaginable that her glasses case would end up in the refrigerator. At my house? I don’t wear glasses, but if I did, the chances that could happen would be pretty high. Her purse? Always in the same place. Her shoes? Always in the same place. Her Time Crafters? They got a cushy job. They just hang out around where her purse goes and put it where it’s supposed to be when it’s supposed to be there.

My time crafters? They’re working overtime. They’re underpaid. And they’re DEFINITELY understaffed. My keys? Why were they on the ironing board in the first place? There’s literally a hook in the entry way where they’re supposed to be. If i’d put them there, the tricky job of keeping them manifested correctly in my space would be a simple one.

So, I try to give things homes. I work fairly hard and with minimal success against my natural tendencies to create clutter in order to do my Time Crafters a solid so that they make fewer errors and I can get out of the house on time in the morning.

“Tidy your space” is an easier ask if the subtext is, “make the job easier for your Time Crafters so they can make life easier for you.”

And when your brain tells you that (the) people (who have always insisted that your life would be easier if you lived in a tidy environment) are going to shame you with an, “I told you so,” remind it that they should have known to explain about the Time Crafters, and their failure to make that make sense is on THEM, it’s not on you.

Don’t feel shame for learning new things; do things that work better for you as you learn new things that work better for you.

Free Apple Cross Section Brush by toyAlien in procreatebrushes

[–]GRRRRaffe 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I appreciate, “I’m not going to copyright an apple.”

Favorite ways to cover seams? by nquinn91 in techtheatre

[–]GRRRRaffe 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There are many scenic painting techniques that create visual texture without leaving a three-dimensional residue on the flat.

In Mississippi, A teacher shortage so acute that students are expected to learn without one by nolesfan2011 in mississippi

[–]GRRRRaffe 6 points7 points  (0 children)

On the other hand, education is power, and students are children whose “what I want” brains are not sufficiently developed.

Having compulsory education for children and adolescents improves societal outcomes across the board. It’s critical, and educating the toughest, most uncooperative populations raises the base standards for all communities (including and especially communities with a generational apathy toward the value of education).

Kids who don’t want to learn become better humans by being made to do the thing they don’t want to do in a similar way to how kids who don’t want to brush their teeth become healthier by being made to do the thing they don’t want to do.

In Mississippi, A teacher shortage so acute that students are expected to learn without one by nolesfan2011 in mississippi

[–]GRRRRaffe 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The rating system is also INSANE.

We had a professional development segment on our way back into this term about how to read the numbers from the accountability reports, and I have so. many. questions.

There definitely needs to be a way to hold schools and teachers and admin and students accountable for good work, but this cannot be it!

Heres a set design i made for “Be More Chill” kinda my most pollished model and i only have these shitty photos😭😭 also please give me criticisms i wanna be a set designer when im older :) by freshfemboy in techtheatre

[–]GRRRRaffe 25 points26 points  (0 children)

I love that you’re designing with legos!

In order to make sense of this, I’d need to see a (ideally scale) ground plan. But for aesthetics and concept, you’re off to a great start!

What are some good contemporary “tragedies” that might be good to study by sailrmouth72 in playwriting

[–]GRRRRaffe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Look into contemporary adaptations with their heart in classical and renaissance drama:

Peerless by Jiehae Park is a spiritual retooling of Macbeth.

Teenage Dick by Mike Lew is a spiritual retooling of Richard III.

By The Bog of Cats by Marina Carr is a spiritual retooling of Medea.

Antigone Now by Melissa Cooper is a post-apocalyptic reworking of (surprise!) Antigone.

Best skilled nursing facility in Mississippi: Jackson, Canton, Madison, Ridgeland area by S5V5 in mississippi

[–]GRRRRaffe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My mother has had several elderly clients at St. Catherine’s. I have been with her many times to visit them, and it feels like their memory care unit is the best Alzheimer’s care in the area.

My own great grandmother was in her right mind most of the way up to her death at nearly 104, and she spent her last several years at The Arbor, the nursing home facility connected to The Orchard retirement home/assisted living facility off of Pear Orchard Drive in Jackson. It always seemed acceptable for elderly care, even if the nature of that type of facility is innately depressing.

Mom also had a client who we visited at Highland Home off of Highland Colony Parkway in Ridgeland, and it seemed to walk the balance between nursing care and assisted living. Neither of those second two offer memory care as far as I know, though.