Ashland

So this past Tuesday, the 24th, a group of 40 grade 12's from my school and Brookswood went to Ashland, Oregon for a Shakespeare festival. We left the school around 5AM on Tuesday. Piled on the bus, went to sleep and then ended up at the border. When we got to the border my teacher, Mrs. Robinson, asked if anybody on the bus did not have their Canadian citizenship. One person puts up her hand and says she's a landed immigrant from Africa. The only thing is that she didn't seem to remember to bring her papers with her. So what was supposed to be a ten minute stop ended up being a 45 minute stop. When we got to Seattle we had to change bus drivers, so we did. We got this awesome bus driver named Terry. So after about 3 hours of having him drive we got pulled over on the I5 by a cop. A huge Canadian bus full of teenagers. We ended up getting a ticket for being 9 miles over speed limit. The stupid this is that there were many cars passing us. So that took around 15 minutes. Then we decided to take a break and have breakfast/lunch. We were supposed to be there for 20 minutes, however there was a Jack-in-the-Box and some of the guys went there. They ended up being there for 10 minutes longer than they should have been. Oh, did I mention that we couldn't really be wasting time? We had a play to get to that night and if we were late, we wouldn't be aloud in and we wouldn't get our money back. What was supposed to be a 12 hour drive (we were supposed to be at our hotel at 5PM) ended up being a 14 hour drive. We got to our hotel at 7PM. The play started at 8PM. We had to be back on the bus at 7:30. So we had 30 minutes to get checked into our hotel, have a shower (because 14 hours on a bus full of 40 teenagers and no AC kinda made you gross), and get dressed into something nicer. Keep in mind that there were 4 people to a room, mine had 5. We were tight for time, but we made it! That play, the first of 4 that we saw, was called "Tracy's Tiger". It was a jazzy musical/play that this group of actors wrote based on the short novella. It was really good. My second favourite play that we saw.

The next day we had a backstage tour of the three theaters that this group owned. It was really neat to see and hear how this group began and how they came to own all of these theaters. My favorite of the three was the Elizabethan Theater. It was their only outside theater and we could take as many pictures as we wanted. Unfortunately we never got to see a play in there because it was under construction. It was also the biggest of the theaters. The next biggest was called the Angus Bowmer Theater. We saw 3 of our plays in there. It's amazing how they can change the stage in there for each play. They can take away some stage, or add some. For every play we saw in there, the stage was different and you almost wouldn't be able to tell that it was the same place. The last theater, and their smallest, is the New Theater. Very small and intimate. After our tour we went to a little place, which is a lot like Fort Langley, called Jacksonville. We went there just for fun. They had a lot of cute stores and a nice little place to have lunch. They had one store that was full of all kinds of clocks and I felt like I could buy the entire store. The only problem with that was that I couldn't even afford one of the clocks. When we got back to Ashland we went shopping there. They have a lot of antique stores, book stores, shoe stores, and real estate stores. Yes, real estate. There was one on almost every block. It was insane. I went into one of the antique stores and found a pair of Oprah glasses for $20. They were so cool that I couldn't resist buying them. After shopping we went back to the hotel and had dinner. Then we went to the Angus Bowmer Theater and saw "On the Razzle". A very funny play. One of those that you laugh so hard that your face hurts after but in a month you probably wont remember. It didn't really have any plot, it was just hilarious.

On Thursday we didn't have anything planed untill12:30 so a bunch of us decided to go into town and get some more shopping done. After shopping we went to a prologue for the next play we were going to see: "Gem of the Ocean". The prologue was basically one of the actors (one that was in "On the Razzle") telling us the plot line, giving us all the character's names and a little about them. I liked this because when we saw the play we had an idea of what to expect and look out for. This play, "Gem of the Ocean", was by far my favourite play. It was set in 1904 and was about the African American people. Me having a fascination with these type of people might have been a reason as to why I liked it. But it was a very touching play and is one that I would definitely see again. I liked it so much that I bought the playwright for it. I started reading it on the bus home yesterday and it had some history of the play in it. I think that this play and I were meant to be because it premiered on April 28th. For those of you that don't know what that means, then I'm guessing you don't know me. After that play we went back to the hotel for a little down time and some dinner. Then we went back to the theaters and saw a prologue for "As You Like It". This was the only play we saw that was Shakespearean. But it wasn't a true Shakespeare play: no one died. It was more of a comedy. However, I did not like it. It was definitely one of those plays that repeated itself over and over again and I got extremely bored with it. The fact that we had already seen a play that day probably didn't help that much.

On Friday, yesterday, we left and came home. This experience is definitely one I am glad I experienced. It was so much fun and the group that I went with was perfect. They were all the artsy type and really enjoyed they plays. This actually surprised me because when I think of people going to see plays, I think of the nerdy, smart people. But these people were all the "cool" people of the school. The 2 main leads in AIDA, Shianna and Min, came and were probably the people that enjoyed it the most. They were in a play so they understand it and appreciate it but they weren't the kind of people that I expected to go to something like this. These people surprised me and I have a greater respect for all of these people now that I see who they really are. They made this experience such an amazing one and I don't think I'll ever forget it!

My two wonderful room mates: Kate and Ashley.

A glimpse of what we were surrounded with. Ashland is in a valley and is surrounded with beautiful landscape.

The Elizabethan Theater. Once again, it's under construction but is still very beautiful.

Jacksonville was filled with old buildings as was Ashland. If you like old towns and antique shops, Ashland is the place for you!

For dinner we could either go to A&W across the street from the hotel or we could go to Albertsons (a grocery store) down the street. In order to get there you had to go over the overpass. I thought it was kind of cool that I was walking over the I5.

Me using my sweet awesome Opera glasses.

On the way home we saw the most beautiful sunset ever. It was raining, the sky was pink and there was a rainbow.

Margherita del Gerbera

So I was really bored this afternoon and so decided to look through one of my old albums. It had pictures in it that I had taken in Manitoba and I saw this picture and immediately thought "paint it". It's a flower from my cousin's, Heather, wedding bouquet.

Name: Margherita del Gerbera

Artist: Rosalynn Grace

Medium: acrylic

High Time...

...for a new post! I've been informed my my Aunt Anneliese and her daughter (my cousin) that I should update. To tell you the truth, I didn't think that anybody ever looked here anymore. So, I never posted. But a lot has deffinatley happend since my last post. I'm just not sure that I can think of all of it.

One of the biggest things is the play at my school that I was involved in. It wasn't actually a play, a rock opera: AIDA. And for those of you that think I was in the play, think again. I was way too nervous to try out so I didn't. My friend, Jenna, and I went to Mr. Fatkin (the drama teacher at our school and the play director) and asked him if we could be stage hands. We ended up being in charge of all the props. This included things like moving massive pillars on stage, getting the big props (like a boat, dock, desks...) ready to go on stage and making sure that everybody who needed a little prop had it before they went on stage. One of my good friends, Rayel, was the stage manager and so I also had the job of running around and doing stuff for her. The main thing she got me to do was tell everybody to shut up and be quiet. Oh yeah, I also was incharge of making sure everybody who needed a mic, and their mic taped on to their face. This was fun and I learned very quickly that I had to keep this tape on my body at all times: you never know when someone's going to need some! (story about that later). So I had tones of fun doing this and I'm pretty sure that if Jenna and I had decided to not show up one night, the play would have fallen apart. So I think I had a pretty big part.

If you have no idea what AIDA is, then you're going to want to read this part. Okay so there's three main characters: Aida, the Nubian princess; Radames, captain of Egyption army; and Amneris, the Egyption princess. This can get a little bit confusing, so pay attention. Amneris is engaged to Radames, has been for 9 years. Radames' army captures Aida and some of her people (Egyptions and Nubians are not friends) and make them slaves. No one knows that Aida is a princess. After being away for a few months, Radames thinks he should give Amneris a gift. So he gives her Aida. At first Amneris doesn't want her but then figures out that Aida knows her fabrics and decides to keep her (Amneris talks about dress being her strongest suit). Radames and his army catch the Nubian king. Amneris relizes that Radames is becoming distant with her and tries to figure out why. She finds out the night before her wedding day the truth: Radames has fallen in love with Aida (still not knowing that she's a princess). Aida convinces Radames to marry Amneris because she believes there is no future for them. At their wedding, a soldier comes crashing in saying that the Nubian king (Aida's father) has escaped. The wedding is stopped and they go running after him. Amonasaro (the king) gets on a boat and yells at Aida, "Daughter! Come!". Radames comes rushing in at that second and then finds out she's the princes. She turns to get on the boat when her friend, Radames' servant, gets killed. The boat leaves without her. At the end (don't read this if you're planning on seeing the play anytime soon) Radames and Aida get put in one tomb to die together because they have betrayed the princess. While in the tomb, Radames tells Aida that he'll find her, even if it takes him 1000 lifetimes. The last scene is in present times and Radames finds Aida.

It's a really cute story. Gets kind of anoying once you've seen it 8 (more with the practices) times, but still a good story. Now for a few stories of everything that went wrong: on stage and off. The first one that pops into my mind happens to be on stage. It's a scene where Radames has just confesed his love to Aida and vise versa. He's supposed to give her his amulet so she will be protected. I guess you could say this is my fault, but the necklace was kind of put on before his mic was. So when he went to take it off, he happend to rip off his mic. It looked hillarious because he's standing there holding his mic to his mouth while Aida is telling him she loves him. I was right there when he got off stage to tape his mic back on. I felt so bad for the actor. The second this is about one of these massive pillars. There's 3 of them and we only use all 3 at the same time, once. Every other time it's only 2 being used. So it was perfect timing for this to happen but still very bad. Right after the scene where we used all three (which happens to be my favourite scene) was over, we go on stage and roll these monsters off. Well, the one my fellow stage crew was moving kinda lost a wheele on the way off stage. This wasn't anybody's fault in particular, there was just way too many wires and things on the ground that we roll the big thing over; it got loose. So the wheele fell off and the thing almost toppled over and pulled down the whole set with it. The bad thing is that this was one of the pillars that needed to be used again. There are 2 pillars that have an old side and a new side. This was one of those and we needed the old side again. The other pillar only has one side: a new side. I was so stressed that night because there were 4 other girls, all in grade 9, that were helping Jenna and I, and all of them and Jenna came to me to figure out what to do. It was all on me and we only had a few minutes to figure out what to do. There was nothing else we could do but use the 3rd pillar. So I tried to figure out a way to get it on the other side of the stage (where we needed it) and soon found out that that would be imposible to do. So I figured that I would just get someone to push it on from the wrong side, push it accross the stage when needed. The only thing is that there's no blackout when it needed to go on. So we couldn't exactly push it on ourselves because we were in black, not costume. So I was running around trying to find someone, anyone, who stood on that side of the stage in that scene. I finally did and asked them if they could do it. They said yes. I actually got low from thinking that much. I had to sit down for the rest of the play (only 2 scenes) and eat. It was so intense! There was also other things, like a soldier forgetting his shackles that he had to put on Aida in the end.

In a way I'm glad that it's over because I don't have to deal with things like that anymore. But I also really miss it. I met some great people doing this and I miss their pressence. I also miss just seeing the story. After watching it over and over for about a month you tend to get used to it. But now it's done, and that's sad. Here's some pictures from it:

The group: cast, crew and pit.

Me, Shianna (Aida), and Jenna. I became pretty good friends with Shianna. I helped her change twice durring every preformance and she made it known that I was appreciated, always gave me a huge hug after every preformance.

Rayel and myslef. She was so good to the cast, bought a flat of water everyday for them with her own money. She also made me do her dirty work and run around.

Aida, also known as Shianna. She has an amazing voice. For those of you out there that like country, you'll like her. She has a country sounding voice.

Radames, also known as Min. His voice shocked me. He has the kind of voice that surprises you every time he opens his mouth. Rayel and I melted every time!

Amneris, also known as Madison. I had no idea she could sing untill I came to a rehersal. She also has a really good voice. Just very quiet.

Just to show you that I wasn't lying about the mic falling off. As you can see, Shianna had a really hard time not laughing!

So, I think that's it for now. You guys better have enjoyed this. Took me a while to do! Just kidding! Glad to do it. Have a good weekend! Oh yeah, I'm going to Ashland, Oregon next week for a Shakspeare festival. If you could pray for a safe ride there and back and safe time there that would be great.