One of the myriad reasons (along with our participation in various plays and thesis

festivals) Clara and I have been slow to post lately is that we are actually getting deep down into the nitty gritty of putting things together. Our days consist of sewing projects and paper cuttingand pop-up construction and making lists and having fittings and checking out costumes and going over it all again. It is a time in which much work is being done, but there is not much to say about it all.

It is, however, a particularly exciting phase in the process. There is a nice sense of things coming together--particularly

as we make put actors in costumes and make final decisions--alongside all the looming possibility of the projects left to

accomplish. We've got most of the actors who play women

costumed, the Countess' dress is coming together nicely, the boot covers are well on their way, and Clara has prototypes of two of our pop-up settings--not to mention the countless paper medals, plumes, snowflakes, and other bric-a-brac

we've been producing in fits and starts as the whimsical desire to make paper crafts strikes us.

And I am turning my own thoughts to all the day-to-day work of directing: finalizing cuts to the script so I can get it out to the actors, planning rehearsal schedules, and taking endless notes in preparation for the work.

Soon, we will begin having finished projects to show, but in the meantime, here are a couple photos from our costume fittings.

Helena's final

transformation

The Widow

Pop-up Books and their Engineers

In a time when e-readers are becoming more popular, pop-up books and the field of paper engineering mark an important contrast to an increasingly digitized world. In a pop-up book, paper is not the passive canvas on which the text provides meaning, paper is a sculpture, a dancer, a story in itself. I'll be posting several posts on pop-up books, but this first one is mainly to educate about some of the important paper engineers working in the field today. If you click on these artist's names the link will take you to their websites all of which include "how-to" sections, to make your own pop-ups at home.

Robert Sabuda is the world's most popular pop-up artist. Besides some beautiful original works such as Christmas Alphabet or Winter's Tale, he has created pop-up re-tellings of familiar tales such as Alice in Wonderland (left) or Beauty and the Beast or the lyrics to America the Beautiful (above). He often works primarily in white or solid colored paper, which really shows off the stunning artistry of his work.

David A. Carter is a paper engineer and illustrator who has done some really lovely abstract pop-up art for readers of all ages. His more recent books feature bold colors, in dramatic, innovative designs showing off a beautiful intricacy of design as well as some spreads of absolute simplicity. White Noise is book partially about the sounds paper makes as it flutters, or folds, or flaps, or saws. The spreads are united by a free-verse poem which dallies with the sensual beauties of paper. Pictured right is 600 Black Spots, a beautiful book containing exactly 600 spots for those interested to count them all. It's reviewed with more charming pictures of this girl here: http://intheknowmom.net/?p=6856 

Matthew Reinhart works a great deal with Robert Sabuda collaborating on some of the Candelwick pop-up encyclopedia books, such as Encyclopedia Mythologica: Gods and Heroes. He has also illustrated some classics such as The Jungle Book (left). His Pop-up Book of Nightmares, and Pop-up Book of Phobias lend a darker side to the realm of pop-up books for adults. 

Bruce Foster is another name which means a great deal in pop-up circles. He does some beautiful work on pop-ups in a large variety of projects. Perhaps most famous for Harry Potter: A Pop-up book based on the Film Phenomenon, he has also worked on an incredibly beautiful work on Angels, which is soon to be released, and a book holding paper models of some of the greatest architectural wonders of the world. 
 
 I'll post some more about pop-ups soon!

Thesis Festival

This past week we the MLitt/MFA program held our thesis festival, a marathon of scholarship where every MLitt student and every MFA dramaturgy emphasis presents his or her thesis in a combination of scholarship and stagecraft. Though I will be posting some more about many of the ideas in this thesis, I thought I would share Cass Morris' excellent summaries of all of the presentations so that you can read about my most presentation as well as the other exciting work going on in this program.

http://americanshakespearecentereducation.blogspot.com/2012/02/2012-mlittmfa-thesis-festival-session-2.html

Picture by Ralph Alan Cohen, for more pictures of the festival go to the program Flickr account: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbc_sap/