Resumption of Playreading

[pegkerr]

Tonight, playreading group met for the first time in, what two or three years? Or more. [Edited to add: Definitely more. pameladean thinks we haven't met since 1998 or so.] elisem decided to resume it, and she played hostess.

For those of you rather new to my journal, this is a group of friends who met for years to read plays aloud together every fortnight or so, mostly Shakespeare, but we would occasionally throw in other playwrights like Christopher Fry or Tom Stoppard. I was in the group for, oh, I don't know, at least a half a dozen years. Regular members included elisem, pameladean, carbonel, eileenlufkin, Mike Ford (John M. Ford), Lois McMaster Bujold and Patricia C. Wrede. kijjohnson attended a few times as a guest when she was in town. We had others who passed in and out of the group over the years (Kara Dalkey, for example, was excellent at comic voices, particularly those with foreign accents). It was an intense joy, to get together with like-minded literary people, gorge on delicious food, and laugh and cry over some of the greatest plays in the English language.

There had been a hiatus for a couple of years, but Elise and Mike had been talking about resuming it again before he died. We met tonight to read Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. I started thinking about the parts earlier today and realized that Thomasina, one of the leads, was about Fiona's age. So I called and asked Elise rather diffidently whether it would be all right for Fiona to attend, and Elise graciously said "yes." Fiona was interested: she's read several Shakespeare plays out loud at school, and she loved the experience. So she came along and read Thomasina. She did just fine, and she enjoyed it, and she wants to come back again.

It was wonderful. We had several new members, besides Fiona. I am delighted to include her in this activity which has given me so much joy over the years. I think it will be an excellent opportunity for her, simply for her own education, giving her the chance to socialize with some extremely bright and bookish people and exposing her to some wonderful plays and giving her the opportunity to become more familiar with Shakespeare in particular.

We missed Mike, of course. I remember how beautifully he used to read Septimus Hodge whenever we did Arcadia, as we did several times. He was just about the best reader we had in the group.

Delia asks that if we get around to A Midsummer Night's Dream that she be included (she read Helena when they did it in her fifth grade classroom).

Comments

That is so wonderful to hear

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

Your accounts of your wonderful children is the only reason I wish I'd had children.

I wasn't brave enough to take that lottery issue, mostly because I was indifferent to the whole child-rearing thing. A couple of friends have suggested that because I did a LOT of early childcare in my late-high-school/early college years (like caring for two small children for two weeks at a stretch while their parents went on vacation) i got it out of my system.

I do have some very special kids in my life: Heather Orth who is now managing a bar in Chiago, her brother Eric who is still figuring out what he wants to do, Miranda Taylor, who is basically opening Lone Star Restaurants across the U.S. (she's basically working three out of four weeks...) as an uber-manager. Samantha is almost in middle school, Ted's big boys are almost out of high school and his youngest three are very close. Plus my friend's beloved William (four?) is about to be joined by male twins some time in the next few months...

My niece has four boys but she does not want my involvement because she's in the same church as that woman in Arkansas who's had 17 children.... When they get old enough I'm buying science books. It may be extraneous because they moved to Lee's Summit, which has really good schools. (they used to live in Hickman Mills district, it was prolly safer to home-school, I had a friend who moved in with her parents in Colorado because of her son's first week in the Hickman Mills middle school summer intro.... (a girl showed up the second day with an armed gun because 'someone messed with me.")

Re: That is so wonderful to hear

[mkaout.livejournal.com]

This might be the most loaded LJ response I've ever seen.

good luck to you. yours.

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

I co-organize a Renaissance drama reading group for early modernist grad students and faculty in my department, and it's one of the most fun things ever. My diss director's twelve-year-old daughter is part of the group too, because she's theatrically inclined and fond of Shakespeare, and she is totally adorable -- it is wonderful to see kids get into Renaissance drama (and we do weird and arcane plays, so she's going to know a lot about the field before starting high school!)

[tesla-aldrich.livejournal.com]

That sounds incredibly fun! I'm glad to hear you're resuming it.

[vass]

I'd forgotten Thomasina was so young. How on earth did I forget that? When that's my favourite first line from any play ever?

Also: I envy you. I should try to set up a play-reading (or just reading-aloud) group with my friends here.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oh, do. You have no idea how much fun it can be.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I am so envious you wouldn't believe.

And I fondly remember when you guys read my "Tam Lin" at Minicon.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I do, too! That was such fun.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Should I bring copies of "Arcadia" to Farthing Party? We could read it, you know.

I read Lady Croom, and it was deeply satisfying.

[airemay.livejournal.com]

Yea for Fiona! That sounds like so much fun. :D

[jenett]

It was fantastic, and you have neglected to note that you were a lovely (and arch, and cutting, as appropriate) Hannah.

I'd thought that it was more than two or three years (because I'm sure I've been hearing wistful noises about restarting it longer than that) but I suspect Elise or someone else might be along to correct that.

[pameladean]

Playreading didn't really survive the Year That Everybody Moved, which was 1995, more or less, with excursions into 1996. We struggled along for a while, but I'm pretty sure that by 1998 at the latest, it had all stopped. So yeah, we've been on hiatus for more than a few years.

P.

[jenett]

That's along the lines of what I thought. (But there's this gap in my brain between when I moved to Minnesota - which was 1999 - and when I started spending lots of time with Elise, which tends to mess up time sense on some subjects.)

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

I love Arcadia. I saw it live in a community theatre production when I was in high school and it was utterly amazing. I bought a copy as soon as I found it on a shelf. It's great that Fiona's getting exposed to all this, and I'm glad you're having fun with what sounds like an amazing group of people.

[pameladean]

It was a stupendous evening, and I'm so glad that you brought Fiona.

Kara was actually a founding member of the group, along with me and carbonel and Pat and eileenlufkin. We also suckered Curtis Hoffman, with whom Kara was living at the time, into attending the first handful of readings, because we had too few people otherwise. It was really carbonel's idea. She'd participated in a reading put together by Nate Bucklin, who was assigned the task in a class he was taking, and she was amazed by how the play came to life even though none of the readers was at all experienced.

You're right about Kara's voices. The other thing I remember about her contribution was that, just before the thunderstorm scene in King Lear, she slipped away to the kitchen and came back with a flexible aluminum baking sheet, which she shook to emulate thunder.

I should put up my own post, rather than maundering about in your comments.

P.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I'd love to read your report on the evening, too.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

I kind of wish I lived in Minnesota because everyone in Minnesota seems to be awesome.

A friend of mine had a theatre internship way out in the Adirondacks. She and another girl really clicked, and they'd read Shakespeare to each other while the laundry ran late at night. No firm parts, just alternating lines. When she and I went to see 500 Clown Macbeth in Chicago, we spent some time on the train reading the last act and a half because I'd never finished it. We may have been the first people to bring a Complete Works of Bill the Bard to a show.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

I am so jealous! I tried so hard to organize a playreading group in college, but could never get together enough people to make it work. I stuck to reading Shakespeare out loud to myself as I walked.

Can you tell me practically how your group is run? How do you pick plays? Do people have parts? What if there aren't enough parts for everyone there?

I'd love to get something like this going for real one of these days.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I wrote a post for you, detailing how our group worked. It really is worth trying to get one started. You can't believe how much fun it can be!