Greetings from Elsinore

Tonight we open Hamlet. Yesterday’s 2 p.m. preview performance was followed by a four-hour photo call, some of the results of which are posted with this blog entry. The call was primarily for Cyburbia’s portfolio, but I was enlisted to do “color commentary” shots while Cyburbia shot documentation from a fixed position. We hope to have an HD-quality two-camera DVD of a recent dress rehearsal eventually.

Video is the only way to properly convey Cyburbia’s work since all the scenes involve motion video, either as live feed or animation. When the DVD arrives, I’ll rip it and post some clips to YouTube. Meanwhile, you’ll just have to take my word and these photos as evidence of how effective Cyburbia’s new media and David Castaneda’s lighting are. Lynda Clark did double-duty as Gertrude and costume designer, as did Tom Dalton, who plays Claudius and designed our sound. My ancillary contribution has been photography and a T-shirt design. We double-dutyites look forward to doffing our extra hats tonight.

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Ham 37

The poor get poorer …

I couldn’t help overhearing the conversations that took place yesterday morning between the owner of the Java Express here in Sanford and his cook. Right now, they’re trying to figure out how many paper coffee cups and plastic lids they need to buy to get them through the end of their work week. The supplier that used to sell them overstock cups and lids has no more overstock, so now they’ll have to find another supplier and pay a higher price. I gather from all this that Java Express can’t afford to buy more than a one-week supply of such materials at a time.Billions of dollars to wage a war against fictitious “evildoers,” billions more to bail out huge financial institutions crippled by self-inflicted wounds, billions more to bail out manufacturers of ugly, unreliable and inefficient automobiles … and on and on … while the fish at the bottom of the food chain slowly suffocate. It’s true, I suppose, that Americans are too soft and too timid to overthrow their own government. I know I am. Would that it were not so.