Pinocchio is life.

I am back! Back in the U.S., back in school, back in the middle of a semester that threatens to crush my spirit and soul.

My fall semester doesn't look to be too bad in terms of classes. I'm only taking 12 hours, the smallest amount that I have ever taken, 6 of which are independent study classes, meaning I don't have to actually attend a weekly class for them. However, this independent study means I get to spend alllllll of my free time working.

What is this independent study project you might ask... well, at Southwestern you're required to do what we call a capstone project known to others as Senior projects or sometimes just as a thesis. In the theatre department the projects we do are typically not papers, but usually performances or designs for a specific show. In my case I'm directing one of the main stages shows at Southwestern, our theatre for young audiences show, Pinocchio, by Leon Katz. Its proven to be a lot more work and stress than I ever would have imagined and I've certainly learned how important it is to be able to effectively lead and communicate with others in order to be a director. (oh the things you can't learn in a classroom...)

Interestingly enough the playwright, Leon Katz, is a former mentor of three of my professors. He is 91 and I actually got to ask him a little bit about his work through email... What he said to me is possibly the most humorous least pretentious thing I've heard from a theatre artist recently...

"In my present state of mind, I think stories like this are pure horseshit, but in my recovered seven/ eight year old mind, I still love them, and love telling them. As Oscar Wilde put it confronted by stories like this so far removed from likelihood, That's why, he said, we call them fiction. So while you're telling them, make believe you absolutely believe, and make everybody else believe like you're pretending to."

Pinocchio opens for public audiences Friday, November 20th at 7:00 pm.

http://www.southwestern.edu/departments/theatre/about/current.php

I've been to hell and back... or at least the river Styx

The view outside the "Devil's Throat". The cave has a river at the bottom of it that has no known source. Because of this, it is thought to be the River Styx.

You'll notice there are no pictures of the actual cave... this is because inside all pictures come out dark and look stupid and no one really appreciates them. So, let me tell you... the cave was dark and cold and there were creepy bats.

(And you're welcome for not posting annoying dark pictures.)

Me and Jessica after our 401 step climb out of the bottom of the cave. It was so steep!

Locals sit outside the cave and sell fresh fruit, honey, jams and herbs. My blueberries were delicious. Although, I thought it was weird that the tour guide kept referring to them as the "Rhodopi viagra".

View of the Rhodopi Mountains from the road

Most of the Southwesterners outside the cave

Me and Jill taking our stereotypical Tridelta picture.

being delta like again...

You can kind of see the waterfall next to the huge boulder... in person its a lot more impressive.

Turning twenty-one in a foreign country is anticlimactic

My twenty-first birthday was not as exciting as it might have been in America... mostly because after being in Europe for a almost two months and being able to drink whenever/where ever, buying alcohol on my birthday wasn't as exciting as it might have been. Nonetheless, I went to dinner with a couple of girlfriends and had my first legal-in-every-country-cocktail, a Cosmopolitan. (It would have been a Margarita or a Mojito, but Margaritas in Europe are disgusting and they were out of mint leaves for a Mojito.)

Before

After

After dinner I was ever so privileged to meet with my professors for a Pinocchio meeting from 9-11pm. They then felt guilty for making me meet on my birthday and so my professors bought me drinks in the theater cafe where everyone eats and hangs out. Afterward, I met up with some friends and we got dressed up and a large group of us went out to the discotheque. The discotheque is not really my thing, but here that's what you do...

Jill, me and Jessica

Also, I got a delicious banana (bread) cake made by Edward and Jill. They spent a lot of time and effort making it because in Bulgaria, or at least Smolyan, ingredients and a working oven can be hard to come by. (I'm spoiled because I also got a delicious banana bread cake before I left home for Europe. Jessica did a delicious job!)

Other pictures from around Bulgaria...

Built in the 1970's by the Communists, Smolyan, a town of less than 20,000, has the largest theatre complex in all of Bulgaria. We have all of our classes and most of our meals here. (there's a cafe downstairs)

Statue outside of the theater of Eurydice and Orpheus.

Taken from the bridge that links our hotel to the theater at sunset this evening. This is why people actually live here...

Overall, I had an excellent birthday, despite being slightly homesick. I'm ready to have clean laundry again! :)

And then there were gnomes!

Created in the 1980s, these gnomes became an absurdist calling card of the political Orange Movement, an underground peaceful protest movement. There are at least 45 in Wroclaw, but these were the ones that I ran into...

This one took me two weeks to find and ironically was one of the closest to my hostel. I just didn't think to look up for gnomes...

outside my morning coffee spot

on the square

outside a pub on the square

on the mail drop outside the post office

outside a local store

A real live gnome found walking on the square

outside a local hotel

outside of the Art Hotel

outside of a church on the square

a couple of blocks off the square

right by the fountain

near the local museum

right outside my hostel window

next to the local merchant booths

outside of a local shop

in the middle of the doors of a drugstore

Next time I'm in Wroclaw I'll find the rest of them!

Bulgaria the Beautiful

I'm finally here!  I have never been so excited as to have my own room where I could take my things out of my suitcase.  My feet are happy to have their nails polished and lotion applied, my hands are happy to have time for the blisters to heal, and those around me are happy to smell that I've had a good shower. 

I got into Sofia on Thursday morning and was greeted by Sasha and Jed two of the instructors of the workshop.  Sasha I've met and worked with before and Jed I'd heard about in stories.  I got hugs from both of them and got my bags carried.  It was heavenly.  We went outside where Jared, my professor from SU and artistic director of one of the companies that runs RITL, was waiting to drive us to the art hostel where most of the students in the collective were staying.  (I'd like to note that Jared should never drive a standard.)

The art hostel was not the nicest hostel I've stayed in, thirteen of us in one room.... wow.  But it was only one night and it was fun to see people from SU and meet new students from Carnegie Mellon, UCLA and some smaller schools like SU.  There are 12 students from SU in all and I think 13 others.  Yeah.  There are a ton of us and I'm doing my best to meet new people, but its hard to avoid the Southwesterners.  (p.s. if you live in the Austin area, you can check out the Pflugerville Pflag for an announcement from Southwestern about my involvement in the program.)

We got into Smolyan, about 4 hours outside of Sofia, late Friday and checked in and got settled.  We had a huge dinner downstairs with everyone in the laboratory.  Its a lot of fun when we have these meals because there are a lot of families here.  Husbands and wives who teach together or who have just brought their significant others to participate and lots of little children running around and wanting to play games.  Its like a family reunion.  :)

The past couple of days have been some light lectures about the myth we're basing our work off of this summer, Eshu, the trickster god and the Yoruba religion, and we had an introduction to tango, a particular type of African tribal dance, and traditional greek dances that will be integrated into a workshop of Aristophanes' The Birds.  My favorite workshop has been the one we had this afternoon though where we will be working on creating pieces in "the found space" or creating theatrical experiences outside of the theater.  I've dabbled this a bit last year in my directing class, but I'm excited to go further and to be pushed with this experimentation.  The professor who teaches this is a directing professor at Carnegie Mellon and from my impression of him so far, I feel like his classes will be extremely beneficial.  

Beyond the classes, Smolyan is beautiful!  The mountains are gorgeous and surround the town.  Its been raining the past few days and as a result has been really cold, probably in the lower fifties in the day.  It should be getting warmer this week though, probably with a high of 80.  Apparently this weather is very unusual for this time of year, but I'm definitely not complaining.  

Food here is better than most places too.  I'm getting used to the heavy cheese, meats and breads.  That's all they eat here, but I've found certain things I'll eat and a good pizza place in town.  There's a cafe that's actually part of the theater where most of the laboratory eats for lunch and dinner.  It takes a long time to get food because its like one old lady making the food, very mom and pop kind of a place, but its pretty good. 

More later on Bulgaria and RITL! 

The view from my balcony today, sunny and gorgeous.

The view out the right side of my balcony when it was raining.  Hannah Rose is next door. :) 

I'm always waiting, but what am I waiting for?

The past few days have been interesting.  I left Poland last Wednesday.  I had a flight from Wroclaw to Warsaw, and Warsaw to Brussels.  Both flights were delayed more than a couple of hours, so I spent a good part of the day in the airport.  By the time I got to Brussels it was after 11:30pm and all of the public transportation had shut down. :(  So, I had to take a taxi to my hostel, an expensive venture, and a disappointing one when I figured out my hostel was in the red light district.  Awesome.  

So, I left Brussels and went to Amsterdam.  I met two Australian girls on the train,  gave them a bottle of water and became "besties".   I went with the two girls to their hostel, The Flying Pig, very cool with a bar downstairs and a very chill atmosphere, and stayed there for two days.  Unfortunately after checking-in I lost the two girls because we weren't in the same room, but I made friends in the room full of guys I was staying with, 3 Canadians and 2 Australians.  The Canadians proved to be a load of fun and adopted me for a couple of days, watching out for me and not letting creepers bother me.  (I don't know what it is about this part of Europe, but there are creepy men everywhere!  I've been proposed two twice, one more serious than the other...) 

Sitting in the train station waiting to leave for Milan, I actually ran into two guys from Argentina that I met on the train on the way into Amsterdam.  They too were traveling to Milan and we had the same car because we'd both purchased our tickets last minute.  

  

In the sleeper car on the train.  On the left is Fabriccio, and the other guy is Emiliano.  

Now, only one of them speaks English making conversations between the three of us interesting, but they're both incredibly nice and gentlemanly.  When we got to Milan it worked out for the three of us to share a hotel and we hung out the past couple of days.  They left this morning for another part of Italy, but I'm only here one more day before I fly to Bulgaria.  

Me and Emiliano right after we had to walk back 10 blocks in the rain.  He's picture crazy. ;)

On a side note, the last play I saw in Poland, a piece called Nefes by Pina Bausch, was supposed to have the director come speak afterwards.  They made an announcement after the show that she was sick and wouldn't be appearing.  I was disappointed because she never ever does talks and thought it would be really interesting to hear her speak... unfortunately, she died the following day from cancer.  I saw the last show she'd ever direct.  

weird, eh? 

"famous" people you've never heard of

The past few days have been filled with theatre!  Lectures, meetings with "famous" masters of the theatre, and shows.  

Can you guess which one is Tadasi Sukuki?  I bet you can...  His lecture was particularly fun... fun as in it took forever!  

I'll explain.  On Suzuki's right is his Japanese interpreter who spoke Japanese and Polish.  On Suzuki's left is the Japanese to Polish interpreter, and on that man's left is the Polish to English interpreter.  The lecture, an hour.  The actual amount said, probably about a page.  I still enjoyed his lecture, though, because of the necessitated straightforward approach of the topic. 

Richard Schechner.  He decided in the middle of his lecture to sit indian style.  He was an interesting man, very Western in his manner and approach to the lecture. 

A performance piece done in the mall after hours by the escalator. 

It was in Spanish or Portuguese, so I didn't understand some of the story, but still very interesting to watch. 

An avant garde piece done in a parking garage by a troupe from California.  The piece was called The Internationalists, the troupe Poor Dog Theatre.

The man on the far right is Ludwik Flaszen, a director, literary critic and confidant of Grotowski.  A very animated man who thinks a lot of himself... we left his lecture early. 

The talented and charming man in the orange shirt is none other than Peter Brook.  He was my favorite speaker thus far, and not just because he speaks English.

More sights from around the city...

Transition by Jerzy Kalina.  Commonly called The Anonymous Pedestrians.  These statues commemorate those who disappeared on December 13, 1981 with the introduction of Martial Law.

This reminded me of Austin. :)

A popular billboard seen around the city and a salute to wiener dogs everywhere.

A table at the Empik Cafe.  I <3>

View of Wroclaw from the bridge over the river.

More Wroclaw

A building near the park

There's definitely a gnome at the top of this picture... and don't worry, the gnome post is still coming. ;)