Pictures were taken at the last performance. Don't you hate it when people take a million pictures of something, pictures you really want to see, that never emerge? Whenever a picture exists that you despise and want to hide, you can't escape it. Everything embarrassing finds its way online. Everything you want to brag about must be taken on your word, like that time I sang and danced all night with Jack Hirschman.

I miss rehearsal. Professional actors must constantly feel as if they are losing friends. I have moved a lot. I have not lived in the same place for over three years. But every couple of months imust be pretty intense.

Ever think about As You Like It?
There's a lot there to think about. But I'd like to design a poster for the UCLA Bard's upcoming production of the play, and I think that there are very few images that people remember from the play that can come through in an abstract fashion on a poster. I've been asking friends about what images come to their minds when they think of As You Like It, and most say something about the wrestling match between Orlando and the sinewy Charles.

I think I've got something now, but I must say that it has opened a veritable can of worms for me. I want to design a poster for every play. I think I just might.

First Performance

Last night, I got a lot of compliments for my performance. I think everyone gets a lot of compliments, though. The one person from whom I really wanted a compliment did not give me one. It's probably going to be the thing that makes me want to be a full-time stage actor.

Horror, Horror, Horror.

'God help thee, poor monkey'

Dani Loebs plays lady MacDuff in one of the sweetest scenes in Shakespeare's plays. Well, it starts off sweet. It doesn't end well for Lady MacDuff and her poor monkey. But it ends well for Dani Loebs. Her scream as she exits startles me every time. It is a great scream. She would be great in a horror film.

The good guy scenes in Macbeth are interminable. They drag out as we wait to see what's happening with the Macbeth's. But with Dani Loebs and Kali Peterson, things are different. We might sneak down the street to see what's going on with the spooky neighbors, but we really want to hang out at the MacDuff house.

But man, that scream!

Shakespeare Haunts Me and Everyone Else

I read Shakespeare often and gladly. I am finding that being in a Shakespearean tragedy, memorizing lines and watching others interpret theirs in ways I don't expect, germinates my reading of other plays. I dig into the Riverside and troll out new ideas about plays I thought I understood. The return to Shakespeare is nothing new, but it is always exciting, and time-consuming, to approach a familiar destination from a new direction.

Does one ever really stop reading Hamlet?

I was looking for a picture of a woman with Yorick. I know there are all-female casts all over the world performing Shakespeare plays, but I couldn't find the most popular image in drama with a woman playing Hamlet. I think this is really weird. I spent almost 90 minutes looking to no avail. You would think that feminists and other progressives, whose interest is to establish women in predominantly male roles in society, would have taken on this one by now. If I were an actress, I would demand a picture be taken of me with a skull.

Even weirder is that the one I finally had to settle on was this:::::
It is from Shakespeare production in Second Life.
SECOND LIFE!!! I have never even considered the possibilities of Second Life when it came to drama. You can be in a play without stage fright.
You can play any role because you can be any size weight or anything else. Props? No problem. Set? your imagination is the limit. Remarkable.

Shakespeare's continuing effect on contemporary culture.
I found this:::::
She's supposed to be Ariel from the Tempest.
I laughed a little when I looked at the pictures, but there is something sad and piteous about them, too. That's exactly what Ariel does in the play, so that's pretty cool.

Harold Bloom is Scary

When I was looking on things about Shakespeare inventing human nature, I found one of the scariest pictures I have ever seen. I find scarecrows very frightening. Much worse than zombies.

Don't you wish you were Harold Bloom?
Don't you wish you invented human nature?

Imagine All the People

Already, over one hundred people have confirmed their attendance. Pretty incredible. There must be some popular people in the play. It's probably because most people want to see Jessie Brownstien. It might also be because people have seen the sexy pictures of Brett Gamboa on line. Maybe they have never seen a Shakespeare play and want to start with one of the short ones. Or maybe they like the poster.

In any case, it is going to be a full house.

This is a picture of Macduff's castle in Fife.

IN SHAKESPEARE

In Shakespeare
by James Richardson

In Shakespeare a lover turns into an ass
as you would expect. People confuse
their consciences with ghosts and witches.
Old men throw everything away
because they panic and can't feel their lives.
They pinch themselves, pierce themselves with twigs,
cliffs, lightning, and die––yes, finally––in glad pain.

You marry a woman you've never talked to,
a woman you thought was a boy.
Sixteen years go by as a curtain billows
once, twice. Your children are lost,
they come back, you don't remember how.
A love turns to a statue in a dress, the statue
comes back to life. Oh God, it's all so realistic
I can't stand it. Whereat I weep and sing.

Such a relief, to burst from the theatre
into our cool, imaginary streets
where we know who's who and what's what,
and command with metrocards our destinations.
Where no one with a story struggling in him
convulses as it eats its way out,
and no one in an antiseptic corridor,
or in deserts or in downtown darkling plains,
staggers through an Act that just will not end,
eyes burning with the burning of the dead.

Poster Printed Today!

I changed my mind about the blood. I set out to make a very bright poster that seems bloody and dark. I think I am fairly successful in that regard. I also consulted Professor Booth before finalizing and printing. Posters will be available to anyone who wants to hang one up tomorrow. The handbills will be ready by Thursday.

"Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder,

Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl 's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,

With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design

Moves like a ghost."

Poster

full Play

How cool is it to see the whole play in one go?
Very.
I would like to say that everyone was wonderful.
Everyone was wonderful.

I had to leave early the second time through in order to make the Joshua Clover reading, but what I saw was amazing, and I feel like I am the only one who might ruin everything. With so much talent on the stage, I am easily humbled.