As promised, here are the photos of me spinning
fire at the Fire Arts club. We’re getting ready for the Halloween show. I’m not
experienced enough yet to choreograph my own piece yet, but I can freestyle
burn at the beginning with the other newbies.
I had a really busy weekend for two
reasons. First, my family came up to visit for Parents’ Weekend. We browsed
Powell’s Books for a while, which is this huge bookstore downtown that covers an entire city block. I was geeking out because I found a translation of the
Greek tragedy Trojan Women done by
one of my favorite poets, Alan Shapiro. I actually met him two years ago when I
was a first-year here. We read some of his work in my poetry class, and then my
professor brought him to campus for a poetry reading. We all sat in the Frank
Manor house and had cookies and coffee together. I even got his autograph.
I then introduced my family to the wonders
that are Voodoo Doughnut, Salt N Straw, and Tea Chai Te. In addition to eating copious amounts of doughnuts and ice cream and tea, we went food-carting
and had Greek gyros and Georgian khatchapuri and more tea. Finally, we went
hiking around Tryon Creek State Park, which is a beautiful wooded area really
close to campus. I go running there often.
This is khatchapuri. It's amazing.
Also, I was in Once upon a Weekend for the
first time. Every year, the (Pause.) Journal of Dramatic Literature, a
student-run theatre publication on campus, posts a short prompt in the theater. This year's was "Standard Procedure." Students have one week to submit a short play in response to the prompt. (Pause.) then chooses five or six plays to produce. That Friday night, there is a two hour
casting/audition period. I showed up and we played improv games for an hour while the directors watched. Then
the directors went into the corner and made important decisions while we talked
amongst ourselves. Finally, we were all assigned our roles. I got the part of
Haley, who is in heaven due to death by shark attack and has to navigate the
bureaucracy of annoying and unhelpful angels to find her mother. Along her way,
she encounters a miniature pony named Beth who helps her in her journey. I had
the rest of that night and the next morning to memorize my lines, and then we
had a grand total of two hours of rehearsal in the afternoon. The show that night went really well and the whole
thing was a ton of fun. I will definitely do it again next year. I like that it's only a 24 hour time commitment and that you get to meet so many people through it. If you come to
Lewis and Clark, I would highly recommend participating. If you’re not into
acting or writing plays, then you should still definitely show up and be in the
audience. It’s always a huge crowd and it’s pretty interactive and noisy. Not
your typical theatre-going experience (if there is such a thing).
Anyway, because my weekend was so busy, I
need to catch up on some Shakespeare reading now. Stay tuned for more on life
at Lewis and Clark next week! As always, if you have questions hit me up at
jessicakostka@lclark.edu.
Best,
Jess