TBT

It’s ThrowBack Thursday!  Since we are going to the first Texas A&M game of the 2013 season I am putting on a picture from 2006.  What precious younger ones!

Heading Home

We got up early and drove back to the Las Vegas airport where we ate a bite of breakfast before getting on the plane.

Some of the views as we flew to Denver…

Las Vegas…

and Lake Mead…

We boarded our flight to Nashville.

Views on this leg of the trip…

As we were approaching Nashville, these gorgeous clouds and rain were around.

Our ride home…

The Last Day

After breakfast, we headed to SUU where the Utah Shakespeare Festival is being held.

After the 2 Literary Seminars, we had an Actors Seminar where Elizabeth Telford, who is from Duluth, GA and graduated from Shorter University…

and Robert Hancock, who is from Nashville and graduated from UT,  answered questions from the patrons about their careers.   We saw them both last night in Love’s Labour’s Lost and tonight in Anything Goes.

There are so many baskets of beautiful flowers on campus as well as downtown.

Southern Utah is beautiful country.

Our last night at the festival found us thoroughly enjoying Anything Goes.

Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter .The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London. Billy Crocker is a stowaway in love with heiress Hope Harcourt, who is engaged to Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. Nightclub singer Reno Sweeney and Public Enemy #13 Moonface Martin aid Billy in his quest to win Hope. After disguises, ploys, confessions, mistaken identities, and marriage proposals, all accompanied by the music of Cole Porter, how will everything work out? Who knows? Anything goes!!

More Culture

The breakfast was another delicious one!

The patrons at the Literary Seminar are varied and many of them are able to multi-task!

We went to the Garden House for supper.

The ice cream yesterday was so good that we did a repeat today!

The evening’s activities began with an orientation and then we saw Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Here is another picture of the model of the set for the play.

Love’s Labour’s Lost, an early comedy of Shakespeare opens with the King of Navarre and three noble companions, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville, taking an oath to devote themselves to three years of study, promising not to give in to the company of women – Berowne somewhat more hesitantly than the others. Berowne reminds the king that the princess and her three ladies are coming to the kingdom and it would be suicidal for the King to agree to this law. The King denies what Berowne says, insisting that the ladies make their camp in the field outside of his court. The King and his men meet the princess and her ladies. Instantly, they all fall comically in love. Soon, the men of Navarre realize that to really pursue, the women, they must “throw their vow to the wind.” They then devise all sorts of approaches to court their ladies. The ladies are suspicious of the Lord’s intentions. After the men make a plea for the hands of their ladies, the ladies agree to to consider the proposals in a year and a day and return to France leaving the men to contemplate the realities of love and responsibility.

The Enjoyment Continues

After a wonderful breakfast at the hotel, we went to the Literary Seminar and then to the Props Seminar.  This is where we learned how they make all of the things on stage.  It’s amazing how foam, glue and cheesecloth can make very sturdy rocks!

For our afternoon meal, we went to a Thai restaurant, Sweet Basil, where we had a excellent meal of beef curry and chicken curry.

We stopped at a drugstore downtown and had some delicious ice cream.

Mike was ready to go to the evening performance before the rest of us.

Fred Adams gave an informative orientation on Peter and the Star Catcher.

I went to see an exhibit from the props department while Mike read before we went to see the play.

The farcical play PETER AND THE STARCATCHER is based on the book by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. It is a prequel to PETER PAN. The story is an adventure on the high seas and on the faraway Mollusk island. An orphan boy named Peter and his pretty, mysterious new friend, Molly, overcome bands of pirates and thieves in their quest to keep a magical secret safe and save the world from evil. Additional Characters include Tinkerbell, the lost boys, the scary but somehow familiar pirate, Black “Stache” Moustache (better known as Capt. Hook) and off stage, the crocodile.

The play uses wittingly the dialog and song-and-dance, referencing everything from Shakespeare to Starbucks in the process. At the touching end of the play, Peter, now Peter Pan(who can never grow up) must stay in Neverland and Molly, must return to the real world of London. There is the promise of future meetings between the two that will eventually manifest itself in Molly’s daughter Wendy’s trip to Neverland with Peter.

It was really A FUN PLAY. I just wish I could remember all the slap stick comedy.

Another Great Day

We started off with another Literary Seminar and had very interesting discussions.

Then it was the Actors Seminar and Brian Humphrey joined us to talk about his experiences.  He talked about growing up in Amarillo and going to Baylor University.  Sic’em Bears!! I talked to him afterwards and we talked about the theater department at Baylor and at least I knew names!  He graduated in the 1970s.

The grounds at Southern Utah University are so well maintained.

We drove to Parowan and had delicious hamburgers and onions rings here…

We drove up to the summit of Brian Head…

At Cedar Breaks, we had a Ranger Talk and he gave us information about the geology of the area and talked to us about the flowers and trees.  Many of the spruce trees in this area have died as a result of the spruce beetle, but there are younger, smaller trees are coming back.

The view from above showed the many colors caused from the minerals in the ground.

The hoo doos are always interesting to see.

We came back to the Festival and found the  SUU football team watching the Greenshow!

We went to see King John in the outdoor theater. After a very good orientation earlier, I was able to follow the story easily.

The play, KING JOHN, is not the first historical play that Shakespeare wrote, but it is the first chronologically. It is a study in succession. Queen Elizabeth, the reigning monarch during much Shakespeare’s time, would have been sensitive to the subject due to the questions about the legitimacy of her reign.

At the death of King Richard I, his brother, John, seizes the throne from their young nephew Author although Arthur’s claim to kingship is superior to John’s. King Philip of France refuses to acknowledge John as the king and promises to go to war to put Author on the throne. Just before war breaks out, a settlement is reached by Phillip’s son marrying John’s niece, which joins France and England together. Just as you think everything is over, a cardinal from the Catholic Church arrives and excommunicates John for not following papal orders when he nominated an Archbishop of Canterbury. The French king Phillip immediately breaks the recent agreement with King John and war breaks out. While the war is waging, John has Author kidnapped and orders him put to death. Author is not killed, but secreted away only to fall to his death from the castle wall in his attempt to escape. Meanwhile, John makes amends with the Catholic church and is reinstated. The war goes on and John takes refuge in an Abbey where he is poisoned by one of the monks and dies. With John and Author dead, the crown passes to John’s son, King Henry III, the French return to France, and the English swear loyalty to the new king, and the English realize that internal disputes can lead to international weakness.

More Fun

Before we saw 12 Angry Men…previous post…we had dinner at Milt’s.  The hummingbirds are always fun to watch.  They eat right outside the window where we are eating.

Fred Adams, the founder of the Festival in 1962, gave the orientation for the evening’s performance of 12 Angry Men.

Jury Action

Another play that we watched was 12 Angry Men.

12 Angry Men is a play developed from a live 1954 teleplay and subsequently a movie. It is about a jury deciding the fate of a teenager accused of murdering his father. The trial tells the story of a jury as they deliberate the guilt or acquittal of the defendant. The play is notable for its exclusive use of one set and no intermission.

12 Angry Men explores many techniques of consensus-building, and the difficulties encountered in the process, among a group of men whose range of personalities adds intensity and conflict. The play begins with an 11 to 1 vote for conviction and ends in a unanimous vote for acquittal.

The Tempest

We saw The Tempest in the evening at the outdoor theater. Before going to the play, we went to the orientation and then to the Green Show.

The Tempest, one of Shakespeare’s last plays is a comedy set on a remote enchanted island. The plot revolves around Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, as he works to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place using illusion and skillful manipulation. He conjures up a storm, the tempest, to lure his brother Antonio, who has stolen the position of the Duke of Milan, and his co- conspirator, Alonso, the King of Naples to the island. There, Prospero is able, with the help of Ariel, a spirit and servant, to bring about the revelation of Antonio's lowly nature, the redemption of the King, and the marriage of Miranda to Alonso's son, Ferdinand.

The following morning we went to the Literary Seminar where the play from the previous night was discussed.  Everyone there agreed that it was truly a magical production.

After that was over, we went to the Costume Seminar… this is the robe from King John that we saw later in the week.

We went for a bite of lunch at Ricardo’s and then to Mickey D’s…