If you attended a local lecture or performance (Last day to attend is Sat, Jan 4)
Name the title and setting of the lecture. Describe the experience and what it was like for you. What did it make you think about? (minimum 250 words) (Skip a line between paragraphs.)
Final Draft part one Spinning into Butter by Rebecca Gilman Melodrama October 4, 2019 Parish Players play house, Parish Players
The play’s main subject is racism in universities. It explores racism in a lot of different ways and in many different scenarios. The play talks a lot about subconscious and covert racism and how it affects people, even when they struggle against it. The play also makes you think about how people don’t think of themselves as any bad thing until someone tells them they are.
The entire play takes place inside of a dean’s office. It really expresses how many things can happen in one place. The office was extremely realistic and had many details that you noticed in each scene, for instance the candy bowl on Dean Sarah’s desk and the trees outside the window.
In many scenes the entire stage would be dark except for the spotlight on Dean Sarah, played by Jenn Langhus, while she was having a crisis. The spotlight was shone on the characters when two of them were having a discussion or argument, while the rest of the stage was black. This had the effect of making the characters the main focus. There weren't very many sound effects needed for the play, but the few used were very realistic, like the wind outside of the window.
The play starts with dean Sarah talking with a teacher about their personal relationship, and then he ends things with her. It then moves to a meeting between her and a minority student named Paula, played by Acadia Cook, where the dean is trying to help that girl get a scholarship. There is some racial controversy is that meeting and then we move to a scene in which all the deans meet to talk about racist notes that are left on an African American student’s door. Then a second meeting between Paula and Dean Sarah occurs where the student calls her racist and says she is switching schools because of her. Paula also talks about how the school meetings where the administration addresses the racist notes was found derogatory by the students. Then Dean Sarah and the rest of the deans find out who was writing those offensive notes and he has to be expelled. The night before the expulsion Dean Sarah and her professor friend have a long talk about race and how Dean Sarah is covertly racist and then the other deans find out about Dean Sarah’s racism by finding a list she made about the pros and cons of black people, and trouble continues.
All the actors were phenomenal, especially Dean Sarah. She really convinced the audience that she was racist and was trying to change. Paula also was really convincing that she was upset about how she was treated by Dean Sarah. In almost all the scenes the characters worked together. The one scene where all the deans talked about the course schedule was a little hectic, but that could have been intentional. There wasn’t much variety in vocal tones, so when players yelled it really made you jump back in your seat. It was very convincing when the characters were angry. I feel as though in most scenes the actors were just right, except for the scene where they talk about course schedules which was a little overplayed. The one other scene I thought was underplayed was when the security guard asked Dean Sarah about the people at that college. I felt as though she could have put a little more enthusiasm in it. The performance I liked the most was with Dean Sarah and the professor talking about racism. You could really see and feel the sadness and hatred she was feeling towards herself. It made you almost want to pity her. You could also see that the professor was not buying into what she was saying. The other scene I really liked was the one with Dean Sarah and Paula talking about Paula switching schools. In this scene you could really hear the anger in Paula’s tone.
I really felt as though the play made you think a lot about racism. When I think of racism I think of people yelling slurs at others of a different race and physically hurting them. I don’t think of it as much in schools, which was where this play focused attention. It also made me think about how people are so strongly affected by words. Like in the case of the African American student that was being harassed. It honestly sparked a real conversation between me and my mother about race that I don’t think we have ever had before. I just really liked how the play made you think.
"Justin Morgan's Horse: Making an American Myth" Presented by Amanda Kay Gustin November 17, 2019
This Sunday I attended a local lecture at a library in Richmond, Vermont. The lecture was titled “Justin Morgan’s Horse: Making an American Myth”. I chose to attend this lecture because my family has a connection to the Morgan horse. My grandfather is the president of the Lippitt Morgan Horse Association and still breeds Morgan horses to this day. Therefore, my mother grew up around Morgan horses. I thought it would be interesting to learn a bit more about the breed’s origin. You may have seen the film Justin Morgan Had a Horse. While the 1976 motion picture provides a simple, fairytale-like explanation of how these creatures came to be, it is far from what actually happened. Essentially all Morgan horses today came from one stallion named Figure, owned by a choir teacher, Justin Morgan. The reason why so many people are baffled by the origin story of this breed, is because most horse breeds derived from many different types of horses, each selected to contribute their best qualities to the final product. The sire and dam of Figure are unknown, though it is believed his sire was a thoroughbred. It is a common misconception that Figure lived his entire life with Justin Morgan, since Morgan named the breed. However, Figure only lived four and a half years of his 31 year life with Justin Morgan. When Morgan owned Figure, he was primarily used as a breeding stallion and work horse. People sought Figure out because of his unusually calm disposition for a stallion. After Morgan’s death in 1798, Figure was bought and sold for the rest of his life. He continued to spread his lineage as he traveled the state of Vermont working and breeding. This is a really important part of the Morgan horse’s story. If it weren’t for the constant moving around and new owners, Figure’s genetics wouldn’t have been distributed, and the breed may not hold the name it does today. Figure passed away in 1821, and a gravestone marks his burial spot in Chelsea, Vermont. I enjoyed this lecture, because it taught me a lot about why the Morgan horse is our state animal, and how the breed has evolved over the past 200 years.
Final Draft FLIP Fabrique “Blizzard” Acrobatics December 7th 2019 The Hopkins Center for the Arts
On December seventh my mom and I attended a local performance called “Blizzard” at the Hopkins Center theater in Hanover. It was a show put on by FLIP Fabrique, a group of Canadian acrobats who used to be in the circus. As we sat in our seats the setting was very calm, the lights were dim and the theater was filled with fog. When the show started the lights went completely dark, and on stage all we could see was a piano player off on the far left side of the stage, a giant box, and a giant pole, that represented a telephone pole. All of a sudden, the music started to play and from behind the stage lit up with LED lights, revealing seven people wearing white winter coats inside the box. They did a very well choreographed dance, one of the men climbed up the pole to start the main part of the act, followed by a girl who waited for him to get into position.
While this was all happening the others brought out two large mats, just in case they fell. Then they started off the show by having the man stand on top of the poles while the women flew through the air doing flips and other crazy tricks. This act went on for a bit until it ended with one final fling and the women flew out of his hands in a backflip, landing on the mats below. The lights went dark again, and this scene was followed by a small skit that involved lots of juggling and running around. After the small, two people appeared in the original box doing a juggling act. This was definitely my least favorite part of the show, as it was not very interesting, and seemed to go on too long. After the juggling, another skit began and they all had a giant fight on an acrobats mat that you would see in the olympics. This involved a lot of flips and rolling around, and this part of the show was also very well choreographed. The performance went on for quite a while, with each act getting better and better, but one of my favorite acts was the final scene where they brought out a trampoline, and were jumping up onto the giant box from the original scene. This scene was amazing to watch as they did flips and all sorts of other tricks, jumping up as high as the ceiling. They jumped so high, that with our balcony seats it made it hard to see some of what was going on! By far this scene was one of my favorites. As the show ended and my mom and I were walking out of the theater, I remember thinking about what I would write about. Although I wrote more than was necessary for the prompt, I feel like this would be a very easy show to go into a lot of detail about. I only described a few of the scenes, but the entire show was fun and exciting, and it was an amazing experience to go and watch this performance.
To my surprise as I walked out of the theater with my mom I couldn't help but think of all the time, effort, and practice it must have taken all of them to complete each and every trick that they did. I also was very curious if when they were first starting out if they got any really bad injuries, or any bad falls.
Final Draft
ReplyDeletepart one
Spinning into Butter by Rebecca Gilman
Melodrama
October 4, 2019
Parish Players play house, Parish Players
The play’s main subject is racism in universities. It explores racism in a lot of different ways and in many different scenarios. The play talks a lot about subconscious and covert racism and how it affects people, even when they struggle against it. The play also makes you think about how people don’t think of themselves as any bad thing until someone tells them they are.
The entire play takes place inside of a dean’s office. It really expresses how many things can happen in one place. The office was extremely realistic and had many details that you noticed in each scene, for instance the candy bowl on Dean Sarah’s desk and the trees outside the window.
In many scenes the entire stage would be dark except for the spotlight on Dean Sarah, played by Jenn Langhus, while she was having a crisis. The spotlight was shone on the characters when two of them were having a discussion or argument, while the rest of the stage was black. This had the effect of making the characters the main focus. There weren't very many sound effects needed for the play, but the few used were very realistic, like the wind outside of the window.
The play starts with dean Sarah talking with a teacher about their personal relationship, and then he ends things with her. It then moves to a meeting between her and a minority student named Paula, played by Acadia Cook, where the dean is trying to help that girl get a scholarship. There is some racial controversy is that meeting and then we move to a scene in which all the deans meet to talk about racist notes that are left on an African American student’s door. Then a second meeting between Paula and Dean Sarah occurs where the student calls her racist and says she is switching schools because of her. Paula also talks about how the school meetings where the administration addresses the racist notes was found derogatory by the students. Then Dean Sarah and the rest of the deans find out who was writing those offensive notes and he has to be expelled. The night before the expulsion Dean Sarah and her professor friend have a long talk about race and how Dean Sarah is covertly racist and then the other deans find out about Dean Sarah’s racism by finding a list she made about the pros and cons of black people, and trouble continues.
Part two
ReplyDeleteAll the actors were phenomenal, especially Dean Sarah. She really convinced the audience that she was racist and was trying to change. Paula also was really convincing that she was upset about how she was treated by Dean Sarah. In almost all the scenes the characters worked together. The one scene where all the deans talked about the course schedule was a little hectic, but that could have been intentional. There wasn’t much variety in vocal tones, so when players yelled it really made you jump back in your seat. It was very convincing when the characters were angry. I feel as though in most scenes the actors were just right, except for the scene where they talk about course schedules which was a little overplayed. The one other scene I thought was underplayed was when the security guard asked Dean Sarah about the people at that college. I felt as though she could have put a little more enthusiasm in it. The performance I liked the most was with Dean Sarah and the professor talking about racism. You could really see and feel the sadness and hatred she was feeling towards herself. It made you almost want to pity her. You could also see that the professor was not buying into what she was saying. The other scene I really liked was the one with Dean Sarah and Paula talking about Paula switching schools. In this scene you could really hear the anger in Paula’s tone.
I really felt as though the play made you think a lot about racism. When I think of racism I think of people yelling slurs at others of a different race and physically hurting them. I don’t think of it as much in schools, which was where this play focused attention. It also made me think about how people are so strongly affected by words. Like in the case of the African American student that was being harassed. It honestly sparked a real conversation between me and my mother about race that I don’t think we have ever had before. I just really liked how the play made you think.
"Justin Morgan's Horse: Making an American Myth"
ReplyDeletePresented by Amanda Kay Gustin
November 17, 2019
This Sunday I attended a local lecture at a library in Richmond, Vermont. The lecture was titled “Justin Morgan’s Horse: Making an American Myth”. I chose to attend this lecture because my family has a connection to the Morgan horse. My grandfather is the president of the Lippitt Morgan Horse Association and still breeds Morgan horses to this day. Therefore, my mother grew up around Morgan horses. I thought it would be interesting to learn a bit more about the breed’s origin. You may have seen the film Justin Morgan Had a Horse. While the 1976 motion picture provides a simple, fairytale-like explanation of how these creatures came to be, it is far from what actually happened. Essentially all Morgan horses today came from one stallion named Figure, owned by a choir teacher, Justin Morgan. The reason why so many people are baffled by the origin story of this breed, is because most horse breeds derived from many different types of horses, each selected to contribute their best qualities to the final product. The sire and dam of Figure are unknown, though it is believed his sire was a thoroughbred. It is a common misconception that Figure lived his entire life with Justin Morgan, since Morgan named the breed. However, Figure only lived four and a half years of his 31 year life with Justin Morgan. When Morgan owned Figure, he was primarily used as a breeding stallion and work horse. People sought Figure out because of his unusually calm disposition for a stallion. After Morgan’s death in 1798, Figure was bought and sold for the rest of his life. He continued to spread his lineage as he traveled the state of Vermont working and breeding. This is a really important part of the Morgan horse’s story. If it weren’t for the constant moving around and new owners, Figure’s genetics wouldn’t have been distributed, and the breed may not hold the name it does today. Figure passed away in 1821, and a gravestone marks his burial spot in Chelsea, Vermont. I enjoyed this lecture, because it taught me a lot about why the Morgan horse is our state animal, and how the breed has evolved over the past 200 years.
Final Draft
ReplyDeleteFLIP Fabrique “Blizzard”
Acrobatics
December 7th 2019
The Hopkins Center for the Arts
On December seventh my mom and I attended a local performance called “Blizzard” at the Hopkins Center theater in Hanover. It was a show put on by FLIP Fabrique, a group of Canadian acrobats who used to be in the circus. As we sat in our seats the setting was very calm, the lights were dim and the theater was filled with fog. When the show started the lights went completely dark, and on stage all we could see was a piano player off on the far left side of the stage, a giant box, and a giant pole, that represented a telephone pole. All of a sudden, the music started to play and from behind the stage lit up with LED lights, revealing seven people wearing white winter coats inside the box. They did a very well choreographed dance, one of the men climbed up the pole to start the main part of the act, followed by a girl who waited for him to get into position.
While this was all happening the others brought out two large mats, just in case they fell. Then they started off the show by having the man stand on top of the poles while the women flew through the air doing flips and other crazy tricks. This act went on for a bit until it ended with one final fling and the women flew out of his hands in a backflip, landing on the mats below. The lights went dark again, and this scene was followed by a small skit that involved lots of juggling and running around. After the small, two people appeared in the original box doing a juggling act. This was definitely my least favorite part of the show, as it was not very interesting, and seemed to go on too long. After the juggling, another skit began and they all had a giant fight on an acrobats mat that you would see in the olympics. This involved a lot of flips and rolling around, and this part of the show was also very well choreographed. The performance went on for quite a while, with each act getting better and better, but one of my favorite acts was the final scene where they brought out a trampoline, and were jumping up onto the giant box from the original scene. This scene was amazing to watch as they did flips and all sorts of other tricks, jumping up as high as the ceiling. They jumped so high, that with our balcony seats it made it hard to see some of what was going on! By far this scene was one of my favorites. As the show ended and my mom and I were walking out of the theater, I remember thinking about what I would write about. Although I wrote more than was necessary for the prompt, I feel like this would be a very easy show to go into a lot of detail about. I only described a few of the scenes, but the entire show was fun and exciting, and it was an amazing experience to go and watch this performance.
(What I thought)
DeleteTo my surprise as I walked out of the theater with my mom I couldn't help but think of all the time, effort, and practice it must have taken all of them to complete each and every trick that they did. I also was very curious if when they were first starting out if they got any really bad injuries, or any bad falls.