Author: Dale

Beginnings

Posted on by Dale

Today I purchased the domain lacunagroup.org, so in about a week we will have our own website.

It will consist of a front page, with articles and calendars, with two blogs: the group blog, and Marc’s theatre training blog. Something to look forward to, besides the start of the William Blake workshop.

re: said workshop, we will begin working on Wednesday, January 24, 7:00 pm, at the Newnan School of Dance, on three pieces from William Blake: “The Sun & Moon Circus Soothes the Wakeful Guests,” “The Man in the Marmalade Hat Arrives,” and “Two Sunflowers Move Into the Yellow Room.”

We will work on these pieces on Wednesday nights, with perhaps some building sessions on weekends.

Probably on Tuesday, May 1, we will present the entire work again, this time with the three mocked-up pieces, for the movers and shakers whose responsibility it will be to produce this project. Then we’ll make decisions about moving forward from there.

For a full account of last week’s First Look see here.

For vocal scores and mp3s of the three works, see here.

Exciting beginnings

Posted on by Dale

Tonight, the octet who will sing through what is essentially the premiere performance of A Visit to William Blake’s Inn will meet at my house to nail down the entrances and exits of the music, plus the actual notes of “Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way.”

This is exciting, folks. Tomorrow night, we throw open our doors and invite others to witness what could be the beginning of a fabulous, long-lived, widely-known theatre piece. Do not miss it!

Another way to look at it

Posted on by Dale

I’m going to start out more simply. As usual, Marc has amazing things to say, but he writes at such length that one hardly knows which part to respond to. (Pardon, Marc.)

I do appreciate Marc’s comment that what we do onstage does not need to detract from the music/poetry. That said, I think we have plenty of opportunity to dazzle the audience, and may develop more: I can always make more music to stretch things out.

Case in point: “Two Sunflowers Move into the Yellow Room” probably should contain minimal dazzlement during the main song, but there’s nothing that prevents us from adding a Ballet of the Sunflowers which takes the main theme and extends it into a bigger piece.

Two things happen there: it lengthens the program a little bit, and I do think 34 minutes is too short, and it gives more children stage time. That’s the thing we’ll explore over the next few months.

But to make this brief and open up for comments, I don’t think we need any kind of plot/script/frame to make it work. There’s a sense of movement through about a day and a half in the whole piece, and I really think that’s all we need to offer the audience. I think I’ve said this before, but one instructive model is that of Cirque du Soleil. They may set up a barebones storyline at the opening, but the following two hours is just one visually arresting image after another. Connectivity? Not so’s you’d notice. Logical plot? None.

William Blake’s Inn: the beginning

Posted on by Dale

On Wednesday, January 10, anyone who is interested should come to the Newnan School of Dance at 7:00 pm. We will listen/look at the complete Visit to William Blake’s Inn.

Interested in what?

  • hearing the complete music
  • discussing the possibilities for performance
  • hearing more about how we’ll work on this
  • setting up a schedule to work towards performance

What will we do?

  • Dale will project the score onto a screen and play the orchestrated work. There is about 34 minutes of music at this point.
  • Dale and Marc will discuss a structure for moving forward.
  • We will discuss the possibilities for turning this into a fullscale production, eventually leading to an international performance along the lines of Achievers International’s involvement in Scottish Opera’s Tale o’ Tam.
  • We will set goals and a schedule for the next three months.

Feel free to invite anyone you think might be interested (vid. sup.).

Monster Make-up blog

Posted on by Dale

Max and Courtney are these two guys, see, and they got their hands on an old book, Dick Smith’s Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-Up, published in 1965, and they’re going through it and doing all the projects. It’s just too much fun!
You can follow their efforts at http://makemonsters.blogspot.com/. I myself have them in my Sage RSS feed so I can keep up with their progress.

Meeting, 5/11/06

Posted on by Dale

[filed by Billy and Nan]

Kim and Michael, Craig and his son Michael, Billy, Nan and William, all met tonight at our house. We had an active session of truth-telling and some general discussion on what the group is doing and has done (nothing new here).

The floor is now open for discussion.