Odds and Ends and This and That

We moved! This, plus visiting colleges, buying a new flute, and working on Aladdin Jr., has consumed my life these days. I did a little reading here and there. Here's what I remember:

Symphony for the City of the Dead by M. T. Anderson (about Shostakovich and the symphony he composed during the Seige of Leningrad -- Maggie was reading this for her EE and it looked interesting -- and it was)

Fences by August Wilson (read the play and watched the film adaptation -- my Lit and Performance students' summer work)

Sense and Sensibility by Kate Hamill (a play adaptation/interpretation of the Jane Austen classic -- very good -- playing at Hudson Valley Shakespeare right now but too bad I don't really have time to get there and see it)

The Chosen by Chaim Potok (the play adaptation of this is being staged at Long Wharf this year, so I might take students to see it -- there is a film adaptation too so it might be interesting for them to compare those two versions)

The Curiosities as well as The Anatomy of Curiosity (both are collections of short stories and commentary on writing by Maggie Steifvater, Tessa Gratton, and Brenna Yovanoff -- fun stuff!)

Still working on Les Mis and I booked tickets for 50 at the Bushnell for October!

Next up is work for a unit on Julie Taymor for IB Theatre...super fun!!

Fantasy vs. Reality

Still reading Les Mis, meticulously, and taking notes.

In the meantime, we started listening to a book on CD on our daily drives -- the first in the Raven Cycle Series by Maggie Stiefvater. It was interesting, and I wanted to know what happened next, so then I binge-read the 4 books. The series is fantastical but the main characters are well-drawn and believable. Overall it was an enjoyable experience.

Before that I has picked up Neil Gaiman's American Gods at the library and started it. Not sure if I will finish it, but maybe. I am interested in the story but the writing is too....boy. Maybe I prefer women writers, maybe I prefer YA when it comes to fantasy, maybe it's just not my thing. But maybe I will finish it anyway just to see what happens. But like with Game of Thrones, I will not be watching the TV adaptation. Boy writing gone TV is definitely not my thing.

Summer Break and the Reading is Easy

I have been doing quite a lot of reading lately, some pulled from the summer reading lists of my various students and some from my own prep for next year's classes.

So far, I have read

1)  City of Glass by Paul Auster but this is the graphic novel version

2) The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir written and drawn by Thi Bui

3) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

4) Fires in the Mirror by Anna Deveare Smith

5) Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

I liked #1 but loved #2 -- it was a surprising find about the life of a woman born in Vietnam who family came to the US as war refugees! Both are summer reading for other classes in the English department. #3 was a re-read but it was just as good as the first time around. #4 has been on my list for a while, and it just made me reaffirm my belief in ADS's genius. #5 is not as good as Operating Instructions -- probably because when I read that I was a young(ish) parent and that book saved me in some ways so it is up on a pedestal unreachable by other books in comparison -- but AL always has some gems about life that I'd write down in an inspirational quote book if I had one.

Next on the list is Victor Hugo's masterpiece Les Miserables. I am reading the unabridged version translated by Lee Fahnestock. It's quite the undertaking and may take me all summer, and I may intersperse it with other things. I am taking notes as I go to help me thinking about the direction of the winter musical.

Oh dear, it's 2017...oh well, let's keep going anyway

In Jan and Feb of 2017, all I did was school work (reread Krik? Krak! -- so good!) and pull together a musical. I may have done some pleasure reading, but truthfully, I don't remember.

So now it's Spring Break and I'm taking an IB class, doing grades and comments, writing a report, planning classes and perusing books for next year, and cleaning my house -- but I got some reading in too!

Here's a list of what I remember:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (a timely and enjoyable reread)

Claire of the Sea Light and Create Dangerously by Edwidge Danticat (highly recommend)

Les Miserables (the libretto -- previewed for next year)

The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Miserables by David Bellos (so interesting)

We Should All Be Feminists and Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimanda Ngozi Adichie (reading these with the teenage girl)

My Love, My Love, or The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy (for IB Lit and Perf)

Only one more day of break to go but I have more on my list to save for June!

The Classics

School has been very busy, and I haven't taken the time to update what I have been reading, so here goes:

For classes, I read Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet.

Then I read two Shakespeare-derived plays, both entitled Desdemona, the first by Toni Morrison and the second by Paula Vogel. So much more to say about these two adaptations/transformations/feminist reactions of/to Othello.

Lastly, because I went to see The Great Comet on Broadway, I read and am still in the process of reading War and Peace for pleasure. I read the up to the part the musical is based on before seeing it, and now I am continuing on from there. Truly this should count as 3 books. I am enjoying it very much, though, as a break from school-related things.

Shakespeare-Sort-of-Stuff

This week, in preparation for my upcoming fall IB Literature and Performance course, I read Freeing Shakespeare's Voice by Kristin Linklater, an acting and voice theorist I studied in my course at Yale. The book builds on her work of allowing a natural voice to emerge (as opposed to a false, forced, or constrained voice) through centering ideas about character and situation in the body, projecting the voice from there, as opposed to originating in the mind/head, thus creating voice through the throat alone. The book was a good reminder of these principles and offered a number of activities that I can use while teaching Shakespeare specifically.

I also read a farce entitled The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged). I had heard of this play and seen clips before but decided to read it in order to see if it would be something we could perform here at CA. Still on the fence.

What is a Summer without Harry Potter?

My daughter wanted to re-watch one of the Harry Potter movies, so we chose Chamber of Secrets, not my #1 favorite but I like them all. As we were watching, we were discussing some differences from the book so I decided to reread the book (so much better than the movie). This was a good precursor to what came next -- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It was interesting to revisit the characters but not really a great read. I don't know if that is due to the play form or the impulse to revisit common plot devices. Either way, it felt a bit flip/sparse/cutesy/eh. I love the long world-building descriptions of the book which were missing here with a focus on dialogue. I did think there were some interesting things going on theatrically with lighting effects and time montages, and I am glad I read it and would see a production just to see the way it staged those interesting parts. But I doubt I will reread it on a regular basis for pleasure the way that I do with the original series.