Skip to main content

Shiloh Rules

My posts this month have been very spotty (nonexistent really), for which I apologize. Recently I've been working on a play that is consuming the greater part of my life and health. As assistant stage manager, I'm basically the Cinderella of the theater: I get there half an hour early to sweep the floor, organize everyone's stuff, call out lines when the actors forget them, make sure people have their props, do odd jobs, put everything away at the end of the night, and finally, stay late to wash all the dishes. What did I say? Cinderella.

It's very time-consuming but worth it--there's a lot of fun that goes along with it and the play, Shiloh Rules, is awesome. It's a comedy-drama (I would call it a "dramedy,"  but I hate that word) about Civil War reenactors. Specifically, the 144th Battle of Shiloh--and the women in competition for the title of Best Female Reenactor of the Year. The North is represented by Miss Clara May Abbott, Union field nurse and "Angel of Antietam." Her assistant this year is Meg Barton, a college student who's in it for the extra credit. The South is represented by Mrs. Cecilia Pettison, a true mystery--no one knows where she comes from, and she seems to really live in 1862 (mentally, at least). Cecilia's assistant is LucyGale Scruggs, a FedEx route tracker whose real job seems boring and lifeless compared to the reenactment. Meanwhile, the "Widow Beckwith" (Buckie Beckwith, cookhouse provider, newsletter publisher, and profiteer) sells artifacts and souveniers--some legally obtained, most not--to both sides, and the African-American Ranger Wilson patrols the park looking for any illegal activity, seriously annoyed by these crazies who want to act out the Civil War.

The play is all women (being a women's college, we tend to do a lot of those). The comedy is highly entertaining, and the drama gets genuinely disturbing. I've had a blast being crew for this play, even if it has destroyed a good part of my physical and mental health. Blogposts will be much more frequent after Sunday the 10th, our last performance...

Moral of the story: Crewbies are overworked, underappreciated members of the theatre world who do a lot and don't sleep nearly enough. Next time you see a show--whether it's on Broadway or at a local college--look at the pretty set, listen to the sound effects, ooh and ahh at the light design, and admire the costumes and cool props knowing that there are a lot of people backstage who put that together and made the actors look good. Obviously I'm not biased at all...

In other news, I wrote a new book review--The Abhorsen Trilogy Book One: Sabriel. http://www.brighthub.com/arts/books/articles/113273.aspx

Comments

  1. haha this reminds me of Ms. Perouty with her pirate reenactments lol.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha! OMG I completely forgot about that! Never got to see any of THOSE, but I've seen some Revolutionary War reenactments. Nothing on the full-scale battle size of Shiloh Rules, though. Definitely nothing this intense...tonight the scene where Ranger Wilson is choking the hell of LucyGale was really good, and the stage blood where she gets shot looks extremely realistic. It's a pain to wipe up off the stage at the end of the night, though, lol...

    ReplyDelete
  3. hahaha I wish we could have seen her in a reenactment. It would have been EPIC! and wow, that sounds intense! I wish I could come see it. I'm glad you seem to be enjoying it :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's one of those plays where the funny is REALLY funny and the intense is REALLY intense. And yes, I enjoyed it very much. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments make me happy, so leave lots! :) I will usually reply to each one, so click Notify Me to read my replies.

Popular posts from this blog

What if Iago was a Woman?

For all that I'm a theatre major, I hardly ever talk about acting on this blog. But this project is so cool and fantastic and awesome and wicked that I just have to take a minute and tell you about it. What if Iago was a woman? For those of you who don't know, Iago is a villain in Shakespeare's tragedy Othello. He is considered one of the worst, most evil antagonists in all of Shakespeare.  Plot summary: Othello is a Moor, which in those days referred to someone from Africa. He, a black man, marries Desdemona, a white woman. Society flips its shit, but they can't exactly do anything because he's the General of the Venetian navy and there's a war on. Desdemona, unable to stay with her angry father, goes with Othello to Cyprus, which is in rebellion. A storm sinks the enemy navy and our good guys arrive safely. Iago, though, is not happy. Because Othello passed him over for promotion (and assorted other reasons that all amount to "I just want to fuck sh

Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow by Faïza Guène, a YA Book By A Young Author

Review time! Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow is a young adult novel by a young adult, so I was very interested to read it. There's also a #MuslimShelfSpace tag going around, and this review is a nod to that. The idea is that there's been a lot of stereotypes and anti-Muslim sentiment spread around, so buying and boosting books about and by Muslims can help educate people and break down harmful stereotypes.  The author is French with an Algerian background, and  Guène  wrote Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow when she was in her late teens. Although the novel is not autobiographical, she shares many things with its main character. Doria, like her creator, is the child of immigrants and lives in poor suburban housing projects.   Guène   wrote that she realized girls like herself weren't really represented in books, and felt that Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow was a way to tell the stories of people in the suburbs who are ignored by the elites of French literature. Plot: Life Sucks, Until It Doesn

Missing people around the holidays

This winter is highly unusual for many of us because of the pandemic. The holidays are often a trauma trigger in any case, beyond the simple stress of preparing the celebrations. For example, some people have bad memories of spending holidays with abusive people, while others have to deal with the grief of experiencing their first holiday without a deceased loved one.  This winter, so many people are spending their holidays sick or without those who have died from COVID-19. One of my friends used to make and boost threads about being kind to yourself around the holidays, geared towards those for whom the season is a grief/trauma anniversary. This year, my grandfather died. Later this year, that friend died. Every time I think of all the people who didn't survive 2020, I think of them and how fucking unfair that feels. In 2020, we weren't able to hold a funeral for my grandfather. The social rituals around death, designed to help us deal with it, have been disrupted. Distance is