2007: The Year in Theatre

I think I've figured out the way to get me to finish blog entries that I have been meaning to do for a while---I'm supposed to be grading right now and I've finished checking e-mail, so I need to do something else that doesn't involve marking papers. (In principle, I could work on my next book instead, but I find it hard to do much of that when I am working this hard on real work. Somehow if the number of actual work hours gets above a certain threshold, then working on my book fades into the background for another week. I have several e-mails from a few months ago with people who are supposed to give us information for stories...)

Anyway, let me talk about some of the plays, musicals, and operas (well, there was only one opera) that I saw in 2007.

The opera in question was Carmen, which I saw in December at the New Theatre in Oxford. It's actually quite a nice venue and I enjoyed the show quite a bit (and couldn't get "The Torreador Song" out of my head for several days after I attended).

The big disappointment of the year (in terms of musicals... "Leave my personal life out of this!") was Chess, which played for one night only in Hollywood and which I had been looking forward to seeing for over a decade. The problem is the acoustics were lousy and they screwed up the song "One Night in Bangkok" completely, so I need to see this musical properly at some point.

Avenue Q was extremely fun! I'm glad I finally had a chance to see that!

Along with Caltech's CPA theatre group---hey, does anyone here want to go to theatre together? I'm still trying to figure out who is into what.---I saw two Shakespeare plays (Richard III and MacBeth) in a park in Hollywood. (The plays were produced by a small indie Shakespeare company and were quite well-done. Plus, it was a relaxed atmosphere, so I dug it.) The latter was a good reminder that a particular line of Tom Lehrer's that I like ('full of words and phrases, and signifying nothing!') actually comes from Shakespeare. Then again, so do a lot of lines that I take for granted. (Did you know, for example, that Shakespeare actually invented the term "metric fuck ton"?)

With the CPA group (and Lemming), I saw All About Waalken at a small theatre in Hollywood. It gave me quite a fever, which I couldn't find even close to enough cowbell to cure. I also saw some other stuff with the CPI theatre group, such as a small play whose name escapes me. There might have been something else of note, but I can't think of it at the moment, so this will have to be it tomorrow.

I'll be seeing my first play of 2008 on Saturday: Sheridan's The Rivals, which I read back in the day in 10th grade English.

By the way, I just noticed that I have a slight redundancy problem in parts of this entry. (I think that's the story of my life...) CPA stands for "Caltech postdoc association," so "Caltech's CPA" is a bit awkward. (And I can no longer ask, "Who's the CPA now?" Do any of the Lloydies reading this remember that one? It was classy.)

On a completely different note, does anybody have any bright ideas for ancient Somerville (or Oxford) traditions that I should introduce in the near future? I was going to get my math minions to do something on pi day but then I was reminded that we list the day and then the month around here, which foiled my plans entirely. (I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those kids! And their stupid dog, too!)

Alright, I better go do some more marking. Oh what fun we have!