I’ve been on vacation. Not the traveling kind, but the kind where you decide to do the day to day as usual, but with as little expenditure of energy as possible, to power down the brain, sit out in the sun as if I had solar panels attached to the top of my head, waiting for the batteries to recharge. Brain on hold, blog on hold.

The batteries aren’t totally recharged, but there is enough power now for the brain to make some fluttering attempts at joining thoughts together.

I finished acting school for the quarter and I have five weeks of my six week break left. Sword class is done. I passed my test, barely, but passed nonetheless. You might be thinking to yourself, oh, she is being hard on herself, I am sure she did quite well. And even I thought that myself, but when the test examiner says to you concisely, I am passing you, but it is a low pass, you just squeaked by, it’s hard to take it any other way.

The test was soooooooo loooooooong. I thought that because the three fights we did were about 2- 5 minutes a piece we should be done in about 10 minutes, and of course we had the time to watch everyone else test. And the first part of the test did indeed go by quickly. The second part of the test was a different story.

The visiting instructor/examiner (a fight teacher can’t test his own students, so they shipped one in from the East Coast) gave us some new choreography on the spot, ran us through it, corrected us, let us work on it for a bit, and then we did it in front of the class. Basically we were being tested on how well we picked up the choreography and followed instructions and took correction.

This is why I passed the test. I managed to pick up the broadsword choreography pretty quickly and take the corrections well. The Rapier and Dagger choreography was a different story entirely. Both my partner and I had trouble with it. We had to keep calling him over for help. It was very footwork specific, and I wasn’t getting it. When we performed it in front of the class we had to do it molasses in January slow, while everyone else went fast.

We passed the R&D because we took time to go slow and took all of his notes into account, so even though it wasn’t fighting speed he appreciated our effort.

I was so drained by the end of class. I had gotten there early at 10:30 to practice with my partner, since he had to be out of town the last few days before the test and we couldn’t practice. Then we had the performance part of the test, then the second part of the test. We didn’t finish until about 4:30. I hadn’t brought enough food. I had a pounding headache. My body hurt from using it to much. Oy! Sword fighting is hard work! Don’t let anyone tell you different.

On an up note, I did meet someone who actually reads my blog. Who knew people read this? Aside from my family that is. Anyway, this person is a Freehold student who is going through the first progression of classes, and so was interested in reading my blog. She came up to me at the end of the performance and asked if I knew who Smarly (that’s my clown name) was. And I of course did, and then we chatted a bit before i was whisked off to the second part of the test. She also came to the after class farewell gathering because she knows Heidi, who helps with the testing and also taught our class when Geoff was out.

So another quarter down. I am going to go and see the Meisner final performances tonight. Some of the people I started with are finishing the series tonight, so I am going to see them. It will be interesting to see how they have improved, and maybe give me a glimpse of what’s in store for me, assuming of course I get in.

I’ve been rather overwhelmed with school lately.  The Stage Combat test is only ten days away.  I am nervous.  We haven’t gotten all our scenes and choreography down.  Or I should say that we have the fight choreography down, we just haven’t gotten the talking part down.

At least we finally have scenes now.  That was the hard part. Then we had to edit them down to fit the fight.  I did a version, which was WAY to long.  Luckily my partner took on the task of integrating the talking an fighting bits, and worked it down to something sizable and doable.

Even so, we had to cut more out last night, and rearrange things. We had a practice session, the first where we really got to try out the talking and swashbuckling together.  We only got through the broadsword fight, but at least now I feel like there is some hope.  This Saturday we will work out the unarmed fight and the rapier and dagger fight.  We are running those together into one scene, so that adds another layer of complication in trying to work out the transition from one to the other.  I’ll see if I have to start panicking again after this next class.

On the Voiceover class front, I have a big homework assignment.  I have to come up with six to eight clips to use in voiceover demo reel.  Basically recorded audition pieces. I have to look for things that will highlight my type of voice, and the kind of work that I would like to do.

I think I would really like to do audiobooks.  It seems like it would be fun.  I’m sure it isn’t really, but neither is filing and photocopying and sitting at a desk all day.  I am sure it is hard work, but at least you get to be a bit creative, and I hear the pay is pretty good.  Plus I think it is something my voice might be suited to.  If you’ve read my earlier post, you will hear that I have a good narrative voice that sounds really, really “normal”.

I will find one audiobook piece, and then I will need to come up with some commercial bits.  The nice thing about demo reels is that you can totally rip off actual commercials.  You can do a McDonald’s commercial, or Ford truckcommercials.  The fact that the words are someone else’s doesn’t matter, you just want someone to hear your voice, and if you have a voice that sounds like it can sell Ford trucks, than it’s good to have Ford trucks on your reel.

My problem is figuring what sort of products I would be good at selling, then finding the corresponding commercial, writing down the text and practicing it.  Next class, this coming Monday, we are going to Jack Straw studios, where we are going to record the vocal track of our demo reel.  Later on, if we are so inclined, we can edit the bits of commercial text together, add the background music and sound effects that you hear on real commercials to snazz it up, and presto , professional demo reel, ready to send off to prospective agents and clients.

So I am going to go home tonight and watch TV, for the commercials.

Last Friday I met my theater-attendance partner up on Capitol Hill, for a lovely dinner at Boom Noodle (I love their beef yakisoba!), and then for a evening of new works at the Broadway Performance Hall. This time the new works were focused on emerging African-American artists. The show, the Creation Project 2008, was put on by the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas.

I went specifically to see my one teacher Gin Hammond, perform the first act of her new play, Returning the Bones, which is the story of Gin’s aunt. A description from the program:

In 1946 a young black medical student from rural Texas wakes up to find she has been chosen to represent Howard University in a war-ravaged Europe, for the Students’ International Clinical Congress. Returning the Bones is the true story of Dr. Caroline Montier, and how her life is altered upon visiting Auschwitz, and oh that trip taken in 1946 will be finally completed at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, 61 years later.

The staging was simple, just a few platforms stacked center stage. Behind was a screen which had photographs that related to the story, most seemed to be family photos and clippings from newspapers. Gin played everyone in the play, doing different voices, accents, and body-language as needed.

It was quite a feat to watch. The amount of material to learn, the lines to memorize, and the characters to differentiate must have been a huge task. I think it would be extremely difficult to play both sides of a conversation, trying to keep the two characters as individuals, when you are using just the one body. I find it is hard enough with another actor to pull off a scene.

There were some technical glitches during the performance, such as the photos projected up on the screen seemed to be out of synch with the storyline. They seemed to be coming in too early, and there were some sound and lighting miscues, but this was a problem that plagued all the performances.

At the end of the first act, which is all Gin performed, you were left wanting to know what was going to happen next, which is great. You’ve done your job as an actor if you leave them wanting more. I look forward to seeing the whole enchilada.

The other two performances were a dance, multimedia, and spoken word piece called Excerpts from the Soul of a Woman by Vania C. Bynum, that “explores the struggles that women face, as well as the triumphs an beauty of being a woman.”

The first part interlaced an Iraq war documentary Female Faces of War played on a rearscreen at the back of the stage, with dancers dressed as soldiers, and also as Iraqis. I liked this part of the piece the best. It was the strongest emotionally. The film set the situation and established the tone, that was then expressed by the dancers. The dancers portrayed the abuse of women soldiers at the hands of their fellow male servicemen, a point brought up in the film, the death of Iraqi civilians and children, and the grief of family members over the loss of a soldier.

The second and third parts seemed very separate from this first part, actually they seemed completely different pieces. The situation was not helped by lighting and sound miscues, which confused the audience into thinking it was intermission, and people started to get up and leave during a transition, because the house lights came on.

In any case for me the second and third sections lacked the punch of the first. There was a spoken word piece that started section two that was cool, but after that it was standard modern dance. For me: yawn.

The second piece was hiz-stare-i-cal! CoochieMagik by Christa Bell. From the program:

“CoochieMagik brings a woman’s gospel to the altar of the stage. Fusing poetic text, stand up comedy with elements of Women’s Transformational Theater and Hip-Hop, Coochie Magik is an ecstatic performance ritual that empower a new context in which women experience their bodies and sexuality is holy…”

Which is a fancy way of sayin’, “Women, love your coochie and all that goes with it.” Christa Bell had the place rolling. Her ability to transform the spoken word into something beyond, speech and into the realm of the physical amazed me. The words became entities, almost physical objects, that were arranged in towering pinnacles and sultry valleys. What does that mean? Who knows, but it was cool to watch.

Christa Bell has won the National Poetry Slam and you can see why. If you have a chance to go see this when she performs it again, do it!

So, another night of good stuff. I look forward to more in the future from the performers.

I went this last Saturday and saw part of the NW New Works Festival at On the Boards. There were four performances the night I went. The one I specifically went to see was Pants by Annette Toutonghi, who is one of my acting teachers, and some other people I don’t I can’t name, because I don’t have the program here with me.

I ran into some people I know from acting school, which is fun. It makes me feel like I’m a cool hip person when I run into people at performances. See… I know people, I’m an actor, how cool am I? Much better than the feeling of going to a party and not knowing anyone there, and being a big dork, which is how I go through most of my life.

I always try and go see a teacher in action if I can. I saw Annette in The Women which played at ACT the end of last year. This was the second time I have seen her, but this time it is in a piece that she had written and directed collaboratively with some other artists.

I have to say I really liked it. Especially the opening image of Annette scooting off stage followed by a pair of disembodied pants. Delightfully creepy. It was a non-linear performance, with dance, video projection, music, and theatre blended together.

What was it about? Hard to say specifically, but I don’t think that was the point. The image/sense I was left with was about navigating the world and the anxieties that it brings up. If I was more intellectual I could analyze it, but I will just say that it was cool, and I liked it. I hope to see it again in some form, and perhaps a longer piece. I was left wanting more, which is the best thing you can give your audience, right?

The other performances were good as well. There were two other dance pieces. One was a lesbian feminist extravaganza called Eden Between the Lines, Chapter 1 by Shaneeka Harrell and Catherine Cabeen. The two dancers were good, sexy, the choreography was erotic and dynamic. I loved how they worked these long red ribbons in as symbolic ties-that-bind/red tape.

However the spoken word part did less for me, mostly because the message was being sung to the choir. Being gay and all, I’m all for loving whoever you want to love, equality, and gay marriage. But the message was one I’ve heard many times before, and I wanted a surprise, but that’s just me. My friend (also lesbian) who went with me, who has danced in the past and so understands these things much better than me, really liked it.

The other dance piece was OK too. This was a group piece called Junknation by the Northwest Dance Syndrome, a group of six or seven women. I like the group dancing part and I liked the music. They had these cool canisters that looked like scuba tanks hanging from wires that they swung around a bit. I wanted them to do more with that, but they didn’t.

The part I didn’t like as much was these sort of interludes, where one woman was in an “egg” like wire structure. The first time is was full of trash, and we watched as she threw the trash out of the egg. Another time a woman writhed inside the egg for a bit. These parts went on too long for my taste. Boring. I always feel like I am supposed to “get” these bits, but I don’t. Call me simple, but I like it when the dancers just leap around on stage to good music.

The fourth piece was a music and multimedia performance by Holcombe Waller called Into the Dark Unknown: The Hope Chest, which I thought was really cool. It’s apparently part of a larger piece, so if that comes around I am definitely going to check it out, and I suggest you do too.

Anyway, there is another weekend of new works performances coming up, so check it out. Also this weekend I am going to see another of my teachers, Gin Hammond, at the Creation Project another new works festival.

Go check one of these great things out.

This last weekend in our Stage Combat class, we spent the first part of class watching the certification tests of the Cornish College of the Arts students.  We have the same teacher, in Geof Alm.  They also have another fight teacher, whose name I can’t remember.

There were a lot more Cornish students, about 30 or so, than our puny class of six, which probably explains why they have two teachers and split the students between them.  It was interesting to see the differences in the two groups of students.  Each group had their own choreography for the three fights.

Geof’s students did the same fight choreography that we are doing, so it was interesting to see how they did.  Part of the choreography of the fight is acting while fighting.  This is the part we are just getting to in our class.  We have to pick scenes from plays for our fights.  Talking and fighting at the same time.

For the test the students would introduce themselves and then begin their scene/fight.  Some pairs were really good, not just at fighting, but at acting too.  The majority were either good at acting, or good at fighting, but not necessarily together.

It was interesting to see what worked in the choreography and what didn’t.  Sometimes there was too much talking.  Sometimes the talking got all mushed from the fighting and became unintelligible.  Some groups worked in short bursts of fighting with short bursts of talking, which I think worked the best in my opinion, and created a syncopated rhythm that was more interesting.

The non-Geof students, the students of Teacher X, got to do scenes from movies and TV shows.  There were three scenes from the TV show Firefly, and related movie Serenity, and one scene from Return of the Jedi.  This confirms my belief that people who like to play with swords are geeks.

Now this isn’t an insult, I consider myself a geek as well, and I love sci-fi and fantasy shows, movies, and books.  Now if you asked people who take stage combat why they are doing it, most would say to increase the skill list on their resume, and make them a more marketable actor, but I say, deep down underneath, it’s because they think swords are cool.  And if you perused their bookshelves you would no doubt find incriminating evidence, such as the Lord of the Rings books, or the Starwars Trilogy on DVD.

There are plenty of actors who don’t seek out stage combat until they have to learn it for a part.  Those that do, well they are geeks. Especially the ones that own their own swords.  The other day, I listened to two sword-owning guys discussing swords and sword makers and sounding so much like Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie discussing which shoes to buy. “Ferragamo?  Gucci? It’s so hard to choose, so I had to get them both! (giggle).”

School is chugging along. I am continuing Stage Combat. The test fast approaches. I believe the date is June 15th, but I am still waiting for final confirmation. This coming Saturday, we are going to Cornish College of the Arts and watch the theater students there take their tests. This way we will know what the process is like and what is expected of us. I look forward to seeing it.

I have had two Voice Over classes now. The class is taught by Gin Hammond, who taught the Voice class that I took last quarter. She is a fun teacher, and I was looking forward to this class. There are two other people from the Voice class, so I know some people which is always nice.

In the first class we all had to read some random text while everyone else closed their eyes and listened. The reader’s job was to read the text in their “normal” voice. The listeners’ job was to determine what type of voice the person had, i.e. what kinds of characters they could be, what type of products they could sell, or just overall qualities of voice.

The first woman read aloud as we all closed our eyes. I’m not quite sure that she was using her “normal” voice, as it sounded pretty radio-like and overly enthusiastic to me, but maybe that’s just me. She got feedback saying she could be a sassy best-friend, confidant, or a business executive.

The second woman read, and she had a deeper, more smoky, husky voice. She could be the best-friend too, but not so sassy, more of the “I’m concerned about you, let’s take a yoga class together” best friend. Her tones also resonated “buy a Lexus”, and I could imagine without much difficulty a surly, chain smoking waitress.

The next woman was interesting in that her voice could sound both young and old. If she got a little higher pitched and excited she sounded like a teenage girl, which was interesting since she is probably late forties. If she spoke slower and a little lower, she sounded more her age and mom-like, or perhaps also a business person.

Then it was my turn. I read my text, which I might add we didn’t see until moments before we had to read it, so I literally didn’t know what the next word was going to be until I read it. I tried to read it pretty normally, not putting a radio tone, since the point was to see what our “natural” voice was. I got done, and there was pause before feedback was given, as if people were having trouble coming up with something to say.

Then one guy said, “You voice sounds just really, really normal.” People nodded in agreement. The teacher said I would be good at narration. I tried not to read into this feedback, gee, your voice is kind of boring, but it was hard not to think that, since I didn’t get a character type. No best-friend, no business executive, no “you could sell luxury products”. I did get the quality of “trustworthy”, which is nice, I suppose, though not exciting. And I did get a last minute “you could probably do a mom” from the instructor. But I think that was thrown in to appease what I assume was a look of disappointment on my face, that I didn’t get something more interesting.

Other people seemed to have more interesting voices, and more character types. Maybe that’s why they came to this class, people have been telling them you should do voice overs, you have _______ voice, you should be in radio, you could do cartoons, etc.

Still I suppose their is a place for normal and trustworthy narration. Perhaps insurance commercials and audio-books are in my future. I won’t complain as long as it pays.

I went and saw the Highest Tide by James Lynch at Book-It Repertory Theater the other night.  I’ve been trying to hit the pay-what-you-can nights and the different theater’s in town.  I feel like I need to see more theater since I am trying to be an actor and all.

I feel a little insecure because I am not theater educated, the way a lot of people in my classes are.  They have either done theater since high-school, or went to college and got their BA in theater, or they’ve been doing community theater for years.

Me, I sort of just decided last year that I might like to try an acting class as a tool to get over being uncomfortable in front of people.  I didn’t realize that I would like it so much.  I wasn’t even sure I was going to be able to get through the first class.

People in class will start talking about plays and playwrights and others will nod knowingly.  I sit there and listen quietly, thinking to myself, I have no idea what they are talking about.   I should read/see more plays (and movies for that matter).

So I’ve looked up the pay-what-you-can nights at many of the theaters in town.  Intiman,  Seattle Rep, ACT, Book-It all have PWYC nights.  Most only let you buy tickets the day of the show at the box office, some are cash only.

Here is my partial list (I’m sure there are more that I haven’t found yet)

May 8 - Father & Sons - ACT
June 5 - Namaste Man - Intiman
June 15 - A marvelous Party (Noel Coward Celebration) - ACT 7pm
June 26 - A marvelous Party (Noel Coward Celebration) - ACT 2pm
July 10 - Streetcar Named Desire - Intiman
Aug 17 - Intimate Exchanges - ACT 7pm
Aug 21 - Little Dog Laughed - Intiman
Aug 28 - Intimate Exchanges - ACT 2pm
Sep 7 - Eurydice - ACT 7pm
Sep 18 - Eurydice - ACT 2pm
Oct 2 - All the King’s Men - Intiman
Oct 19 - Becky’s New Car - ACT 7pm
Oct 30 - Becky’s New Car - ACT 2pm
Dec 4 - Black Nativity - Intiman

Anyway, you can see some good theater on the cheap. Most places have a minimum of 5$.  I always pay try to pay more than that (10 - 20$ depending on that week’s cash flow), because I can, it’s the 40$ I have trouble with, especially if I am trying to go to a show a week.

I take my mom with me, who is on disability and a fixed income, and she always pays the 5$. The PWYC nights definitely draw the senior crowd.  I am always surprised I don’t see more young people.  I figure this would be perfect for high school and college students, but mostly it is the gray haired group I see.

So go see some theater, there is no excuse not to at these prices.

This weekend I returned to the world of Stage Combat.  After almost a month off, I was a bit rusty.  All of us were.  But we picked back up on the choreography pretty quickly.  I was a little worried about my shoulder, since I had torn my biceps tendon a bit just two weeks ago.  I could feel the shoulder, but it didn’t hinder me any.

Since Freehold was forced to move out of their home of sixteen years just a few weeks ago, we had our class at the University of Washington in the Drama Department building.  In some ways this is kind of nice, since I can ride my bike to class.  It is two miles exactly from my driveway to class.

The not as nice aspect is that I don’t ride my bike all that often, because I am lazy, and Seattle has a lot of hills, one of which has my house on top of it, and another which has the building my class is on top of it.  Going to class was pretty good since it is all down hill until the last half mile, which is then up hill.  And of course mostly up hill on the way back.

Now if you are a serious biker, as most bike people in Seattle are, this hill wouldn’t be any big deal, but if you are me, this hill is a big deal.  I rode about half way up and then I had to get off my bike and walk, quadriceps burning and legs of jello.

I reached the top, found the building and room.  It was a nice open space, bright and sunny with white walls, really high ceiling, and hardwood floors.  So much nicer than the black box theatre/oven we were in before.

Even though it was a different space it felt like home.  Why?  Because there were acting cubes.  Ah, acting cubes, how can I sing your praises?  There were acting platforms, and step platforms, and random furniture bits, a piano.  It looked and felt like acting school. There were weird noises coming from other rooms where people were rehearsing.  Some stuff I couldn’t make out, and some opera singing, which seemed appropriate since we started off with some rapier and dagger work.

We ran through the final rapier and dagger bits all the way to the kill, which we hadn’t done before.  A little stabbing, a little throat slitting, bada-boom bada-bing.

We were assigned our partners that we will have for our SAFD certification test.  I got one of the two boys in class, who we will call Quinn to protect his anonymity.  He is pretty good, but sometimes he gets a little excited in that “I am a boy who likes to play  with swords” way, and I want to say (and do), hey, slow down a bit. Not because I am necessarily worried about him hurting me, but because we won’t pass the test if we don’t do it according to the safety procedures.

We have to find three scenes, one for each of our fights.  We have an unarmed fight, a rapier and dagger fight, and a broadsword fight.  I think finding one scene is hard enough, but now three.  Plus, now we have to talk and fight, which is something we haven’t done yet.  I’m starting to get nervous about this test

So this Saturday I saw another play. Two in one week. I feel so…hmmm, well, I am not sure what the word is I am looking for, but maybe I should start hanging out in coffee shops, and maybe I find one of my old berets. Ah berets, where have you gone? Fashion is fickle and cruel.

Artsy and intellectual I guess is what I mean. I have hardly watched any TV at all this week. Now I just have to read a book and I’m set.

I saw Waiting for Godot, the famous samuel Beckett play. It was being put on by Theatre Black Dog at the Balagan Theatre on Capitol Hill. The director and three of the cast memebers were people who were in my Personal Clown class at Freehold.

I have to say I think they did an OK job. This is a hard play to do for experienced actors, and the cast ranged in experience from this was their first play, to having a handful of plays under their belts.

Now I have to say if I they were not in the play, I wouldn’t have gone and seen it. I remember watching the play in high school on video. I thought it was tedious and didn’t make sense. Now that I’m an adult, I thought perhaps I had missed something, being younger and all, perhaps some underlying message had escaped my youthful naivete.

Nope. I still found it tedious and it still didn’t make sense. I could see now where there was deliberate interplay of dialogue. And I sensed the tediousness was inteded to replicate what the characters were feeling. If so, it worked.

Act 1 - The characters are waiting for Godot to show up, who of course doesn’t show. A couple of other people in the form of a landowner and his slave show up for a bit then leave. Act 2 - Repeat the first day with some variations in Groundhog Day-like fashion. (Maybe Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd as Vladimir and Estragon would have worked better for me - Waiting for the Blues Brothers)

At least Bill Murray in Groundhog Day had a problem to solve. He wanted to get out of his situation, and finally did after many tries. Vladimir and Estragon just keep waiting. They talk about leaving but don’t. Entropy I suppose is one of the points of the play.

I sort of feel like I do when I see dance. I always feel like I am supposed to “get” it. People dance and wave their arms around, leap this way, roll on each other and the floor, and that is supposed to be symbolic of European opression of the female archetype in post-modern cranial fragmentation.

So on the one hand want to wear my beret and sit in my Coffee House of Intellectuality (take that Starbucks), but on the other hand I feel like if I do that I should “get” Waiting for Godot (or modern dance for that matter), and I don’t.

Maybe that’s why berets went out of style.

I don’t have much to comment on with my own acting stuff because I am on break from classes for another week or so. And the rest of my life isn’t particularly interesting, so there is no point in boring the three people who read this blog with that.

Instead I will talk about the play I saw last night, The Diary of Anne Frank at the Intiman Theatre. Now I have to say I wouldn’t have normally gone to see this play. I read the book in high school; I know how the story ends, and it’s a bit of a downer.

Still I decided to go see it because it had one of my acting instructors in it. The incredible Amy Thone, who was playing Mrs. Frank. I actually haven’t seen most of my teachers perform. I am sort of going on faith that they actually know what they are doing. As it turned out, Amy confirmed my suspicions that she does indeed know what she is doing.

The play deals with the period of two years of hiding that the Franks and the other people (whose names I can’t remember right at the moment) did from the Nazi’s during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Basically the story of eight people stuck in a tiny space for two years under the threat of imminent death if they were discovered.

When I told people I was going to see the play, they all asked me if I knew that Anne Frank was played by Lucy DeVito, Danny DeVito’s daughter. Actually no I didn’t, at least until they told me. Now often when one hears that the offspring of famous actors are giving acting a go, there is some hesitation felt, maybe a little eye rolling. Oh, did Daddy/Mommy get them this job? Are they going to be any good? Did the theatre decide they needed a name and this is what they could get? Etc.

So I was very happy to find that Lucy DeVito blows those stereotypes out of the water. She can act, and act good. She must be in her twenties, but she was very believable as a 14 year old girl. Some of this is the fact that she is short (she does take after her dad in that respect), but mostly it was the energy she radiated and the physicality with which she moved.

The play actually had a lot of laughs in it, which was a relief. Though I read the book in high school I don’t remember the details, just that they hid, they got found out, then they were sent of to concentration camps, and ended up dead. Still I found my self tearing up at various points, and definitely got some tears at the end.

I don’t know if the performances were that good, I mean, they were good, but were they that good? Or was it the associated reality that this actually happened, and the realization of the horror that these people went through for all those years, and then to know they, with the exception of Anne Frank’s father, didn’t make it.

In either, or both cases, when the house lights went up there were quite a few people wiping their eyes and sniffling. It is probably the most moving theatre I’ve seen in a long time. Not that I go to the theatre that much (I am trying to go more), but there you go.

Watching Amy Thone was interesting as well. At first I saw her and not Mrs. Frank, and I am sure this is because I know her and I was waiting for her to blow me away. She did win the Stranger Genius Award after all. But she played Mrs. Frank quietly and reservedly as Mrs. Frank allegedly was, and by the end had morphed from my acting teacher into Mrs. Frank.

I’d say if you have the opportunity to go see it before it ends, do so. It’s a good show mixed with smatterings of hope, humor, and laughter. Still, if you are an easy crier like myself, I recommend a few tissues tucked in the coat pocket.