24 hour play project, Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the stress!

     This weekend, my theater company posed a challenge to it's members: Starting at seven PM on Friday night, and finishing at seven PM Saturday night, members were asked to write, cast rehearse, memorize, and finally perform three different plays. I'm proud to say, everyone rose to the challenge, and had an amazing mount of fun doing so!
     Here's how it went: at Six Pm Friday night, everyone met, then signed up for, and were assigned jobs. three people were given the job of writer, three directors, about 18 actors and about half a dozen technitions. At seven o'clock, the writers were given three parameters that each script had to include, that way, writiers couldn't bring in anything they had been working on. Our three parameters were:

1. The line "that's what she said"
2. A small wooden box (which was pulled from the props area)
3. The sounds of an alarm going off (which was also provided to them.

     From that moment until 4 am (9 hours), the writers were in a flurry, locked in a room with a 48-cup pot of coffee (which lasted us the 24-hours). Meanwhile, on the stage, the techies had begun their work. They faced two challenges, one of which are inherent to the 24-hour play project, and one that comes from our regular season. The challenge from the play-project was that they needed to prepare sets and hang lights for all of the shows, but they didn't know what the shows would be! So, they had to do lighting and scenery designed to be as open and versatile as possible, with only a few mumbled hints from the writers (who you just didn't talk to, don't you know how busy they are?!?!)
     What that really meant was developing brilliant repertory plots (that is, designs equipped to be adapted to multiple shows). We had a guy named Topher from way out of town, from about an hour away to do lights with us. It was really interesting for everyone to see how Topher handled lighting in a new space, and I'm sure other people learned a fair bit about design from him. (I had honestly never considered footlights in this space, but they were Fantastic!)
     Meanwhile the set team was trying to mask everything off, to keep the audience from seeing all of the backstage business. The set crew had to deal with all sorts of hassles like that, but they had another challenge, presented to them by our regular season. See, we're also putting up two shows this year, and both of those shows have their own sets. So, not only did they have some flats screwed to the stage, bolted in place and immobile, but they also had almost all of the other stock materials attached to each other and in storage as the other set. Basically, they had about four flats and a big bunch of curtains to make the theater into a useful space. They did. In fact, they (okay, I started it while nobody was looking) took a door frame off of one of the sets and clamped it into the set. (Don't worry, I put it back when we were done!)
     Eventually, at four AM, the directors arrived at the theatre. The writers handed over three brand-new scripts to the directors, who had about an hour and a half to read the scripts and cast them from the collection of actors we had. There were a lot of debates between the directors, bickering over who got who, and so forth. They decided their casts and sent emails to every cast member, with a copy of their script attached. The actors then printed out their scripts, and arrived at 6:45 Am to start rehearsals.
     Then for the next twelve hours, the shows were on a rotating rehearsal schedule, sharing the stage, cramming lines, studying, studying, studying, and rehearsing for hours on end. Oh my goodness, I didn't mention the countdown! Over our heads, all day, starting at seven PM, a gigantic countdown loomed over our heads, ticking down the time until the curtain opened.
     At seven Pm, the audience had all arrived, the countdown reached zero, and the curtain opened. Three shows performed, and did an amazing job. (okay, again, I totally flopped, after 24 hours without sleep, I completely forgot EVERY line I had. EMBARRASSING!) Anyway, Everyone (but me) did an amazing job, and the audiences loved it. Then, we struck the shows in a half an hour, and everyone ran home as fast as possible to immediately crash into bed and fall asleep.
     The next day, a few people met up, and there was not a single person who had anything else to talk about. There was even a movement to start another 24 hour play project that night. All in all, it was a huge success, everyone learned something, the world received three new plays, and everyone went home happy and tired. It was a huge success, and everyone really enjoyed it. Topher also brought in a very nice camera with a timer, and recorded a timelapse of the entire process. Hopefully, sometime in the next couple weeks, I'll be able to get my hands on the timelapse video, and I will post it here for you all to see!
     So, dear readers, what do you think of this project? Excited? Curious? Tell me in the comments section!

Practical Vs. Visual

     SO. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but I for one, am very fond of the genre "Steampunk". I like the anachronism, I like the brass, I like the grit, grime, and grease. Seriously, I'm nuts for Steampunk. Unfortunately, if what I have seen from everyone on the internet (okay, maybe not everyone, but the more influential players) I have completely different interests in what Steampunk is. See, When I think of Steampunk, I think of the industrial revolution, when practicality reigned, and aesthetics came after the function. Giant, powerful machines, designed with elegance in their mechanisms, form following function.
     However, it seems to me that the prevalent interest in the broader Steampunk audience is more in style. As far as my eyes can tell, most Steampunk enthusiasts focus on sticking bits of gears onto just about anything, regardless of whether or not the gears serve any function. To me, that's sortof the opposite of what the Steampunk movement is about, I understand that gears, brass and leather all look great together, I love that look,   but I think that it's an insult to steam machines to tack mechanical elements onto things for looks. Old steam machines are about the most efficient use of energy and material. I mean, look at THIS! Smooth fluid movement, not a part wasted, nothing aesthetic, just efficiency! That is what Steampunk is, a celebration of design, of human ingenuity, and top hats!

EDIT: At the request of a reader, I slapped together some picture of my preferences on steampunk! Check that out HERE.

OOPS.

     Dear blog readers, It seems i have been tragically neglecting you. I'd like to offer, not an apology, but rather an excuse, because i am childish.
     This week was the first week of my theatre company's summer season, and it has been a very exciting week. This summer is the first time we have been financially in a position to do TWO plays! We're doing Steve Yockey's Cartoon!, and David Auburn's Proof. But more excitingly for me, I am directing Cartoon!, and it is my first time directing! It's very exciting, and I am learning a lot, so with any luck, it will give me some hilarious insights to pass on to you, dear readers. This week, however, it is just giving me ulcers. ;)
     Thanks for your patience, I will try to have something exciting for you in the next week or so!

Fixing School Libraries.

     I've spent a couple of days now over the last couple of weeks working with my mother at the library where she works. It's an elementary school library, which means that at the end of the year, most of the work she is doing is handling, cataloging, and storing textbooks. What I've realized while I was helping her is that the entire textbook system is completely ridiculous, and needs to be re-vamped. My brother has written on the subject of the broken education subject HERE, and while I agree that incorporating games into the curriculum is a great way to encourage students to learn, I think that starting with the books they are learning from is the way to go about fixing education. So, here I go.
     Next week, Google is launching its Chromebook, a laptop based on the new Chrome OS. I've been using a Chromebook to update this blog since I started it, and today, it gave me an idea for a complete new infrastructure for books. The basic idea is that Chromebooks operate entirely in the cloud, using only the internet to do its work, rather than depending on built in storage space.
     Every year, the library spends more than $200 per student on textbooks. Now, let's imagine that rather than spending that money every year, the school invested it into Chromebooks, which cost about $200 each. The laptops would be bar coded, inventoried, and checked out, exactly the same as the textbooks, but the secret is that the books would be designed specifically for the purpose of education. Every Chromebook is designed to link to a central server on campus, and on that server is the entire curriculum, every textbook is digitized, the workbooks are webpages, the homework comes in emails, and multiple choice grades itself.  Students would keep their laptops through the course of the year, charging them in class, and if the teacher requires it, using their 8-hour battery overnight for homework time. The Chromebooks are designed with built-in 3G connectivity, which means that students who cannot afford internet at home could register for the 3G through the schools, so they could do homework.
     Two years ago, the elementary school upgraded it's math curriculum, to the latest standards. (I'll talk about the quality of the standards another time) The school had to buy entirely new books for every student they had. If, however, they were using Chromebooks, all the curriculum update would take is the installation of new software on the central server, saving literally tons of paper every time the curriculum is updated. On top of that, the next year, the publisher told the school district that the math they had used for the year wasn't the right set, and sent them an entirely new set of papers! That's another ton of paper wasted, as well as more trouble for librarians! With Chromebooks, if there was a mistake like that, The solution would waste, at most a case of CDs, and at least, nothing, because the update could come over the internet, just like updates on any program on your computer.
     A lot of people worry about students (especially elementary age) being on the internet. That's entirely reasonable, but the Chromebook can be developed to have network controls to keep students on a safe-network, so that the computer can only connect to the school's server. Or, pending parent sign-off, etc. the book could be allowed onto the full internet, or have various levels of parental control allowed.
     Another interesting aspect of the Chromebooks is the centralized login. To log on to Chrome OS, you enter in your Gmail address and password, and all of your information is linked to that. For this system, the students (and teachers, staff, etc.) would each have a login account, which would store grades, homework, bookmarks (literal bookmarks in the e-books, for example) it could have links to a student's favorite educational games attached to the account, or a list of reminders on the home page for upcoming events, or homework. The real advantage of this is that without having to have the student's actual laptop, the parents or teacher of that student can look it up from literally anywhere that there is internet, regardless of whether or not they were using a Chromebook. Students could also use their home computers to do their homework, if one is available. On the other side of that coin, since every laptop is identical, and can all use the same accounts, if a student forgets (or "forgets") their Chromebook at home, the teacher can simply have a few spare laptops in the class. The students can log in and do their work anyway.
     Now, I'm not saying that libraries should be abolished, or that all books should be burned, or anything silly like that. Rather, I'm suggesting that we ditch the business model of replacing books every two years, and only buy books that have a genuine lifespan. If we focused on a system that is built to last rather than being recycled (or sometimes thrown away) every two years, we can focus on the education, and not the money-making. The budget required for books would be cut in half (there would of course need to be some laptops replaced each year) and all of that money could be spent on other things, like after school programs, or art supplies. The Chromebook cloud computing system could make our schools more efficient, less expensive, and more fun for students, and who wouldn't want that?

Homebrewing update #1!

The beaker, sitting in my spice cabinet, bubbling like crazy!

As I showed you last week, I started brewing some homemade grapefruit wine. So, in the interest of keeping you fully up-to-date, I thought i'd throw you an update. Tuesday, I threw a fistful (one lunch-size box) of raisins into the jug, and then put a very ghetto airlock on the jug. The airlock lets the Co2 out of the jug, while preventing air and dust from entering. Basically, it's a cork with a hose running through it. The end of the hose sits in a beaker that I set on a shelf near the mouth of the jug. the water lets the Co2 bubble out, and keeps dust and such out. I am happy to report that the beaker has been happily bubbling ever since! The smell is surprisingly pleasant, a kind of sweet tangy smell, but with a definite smell of fermentation. Things are going great! I figure in about a week, I will move the jug into our canning closet, and let it ferment for a month or two, and bring it out to try it then!

Getting Ahead of Myself.

     As you may remember, (and probably are tired of hearing about) I hosted a contest on this blog a few weeks ago. It seemed at the time a really good way to drive traffic to the blog, and pull in some more long-term readers. Alas, I got ahead of myself with that one. It turns out that nobody entered the contest. However, rather than being sad or embarrassed about it, I've decided to do my best to learn from it. So, here, in a nice, formal bulleted list, are the things the contest has taught me:

• Contests bring in traffic in direct proportion to the number of readers you already have.

• Offering contestants a prize only works if they know that the prize is worth it.

• Nagging doesn't really work (sorry about that)

     First, the idea behind the contest was to draw a lot of interest in the blog, and get some readers. I have been (almost obsessively) studying my stats on the blog, trying to earn how things work as far as page views and visits. What I learned is that before the start of the contest, I had consistently about four readers viewing each post. With the publication of the contest, that number jumped all the way to 61! What that means, is that on average, those four viewers each brought in about fifteen readers to my blog! (and I cannot thank them enough, by the way!) SO, I managed to have 61 viewings of the creation contest posting, But, unfortunately, the mistake that post made was asking for something without really offering anything in return.

     That is to say, I was asking readers for their ideas without ever having shown them that I have the skills to make their investment worthwhile. I admit, I haven't shown my readers that I have what it takes  to make a game like the one I was asking for. OOPS. to be honest, I don't blame you guys for not wanting to chance your ideas in the big old internet. It's a scary place where people steal each other's ideas, identities, monies, etc. So, next time I try something like this, I'll be sure to offers some sort of collateral for your ideas.

     The last thing I realized is that in spite of my persistent reminders, from Facebook to tags at the end of the posts, if nobody is interested, nobody is going to post. Sorry about that. : /

To make it up to you, I am going to plot out and build a game anyway, and release it to you all for free. 

Thanks for reading!