Could Shakespeare Be More Wordy?

Well, I suppose he can't since he's no longer living.
I'm in the midst of directing his comedy Twelfth Night. 
Wait. I must start further back...
In high school, I read Much Ado About Nothing and didn't really follow. Then I SAW it performed! The physical action made it understandable and hilarious.
Back to the present...
Directing 12th Night. I cut it. A lot. I kept all the parts I thought I could make physically funny as well as verbally funny and keep the storyline intact. But I still cut a lot. I did keep one part though that I suppose I could have cut or reduce. It's that of the Priest who enters to tell the group that he just performed the marriage ceremony of Sebastian and the Countess Olivia. Does he enter and say, "I just married them a couple of hours ago"? No, he says:

Joys and Despairs of Teaching After School

I'm finishing up another eight weeks of teaching in after-school programs. Talk about a love/hate relationship.

Here are the top 3 things I hate about it:

1. The kids don't necessarily like theater. My class tends to be a curiosity or a lesser of several choices of evil classes.
2. It's the afternoon and there's been no down-time for the kids. You try going to work and being around 600 people all day, and listening to an obnoxiously loud bell every hour and even more obnoxiously loud announcements blasted through the intercom, then at the end of the day having a 5 minute snack with 50 people ready to bust out of the monotony but wait! It's not really the end of the day; it's time for more work--it might be fun work but it still saps the strength. Once you're done with that, you get to go home and do more work given to you to do specifically at home. Those poor kids-they need naps. I need a nap by that time!
3. For some kids there's not a lot of commitment to come. So it means I can never really teach anything beyond a few basics, before I'm back to simple improv games. There's so little continuity. Many of the kids finish up the class thinking that theater is nothing more than what I was able to teach them.

Here are the top 5 things I LOVE about it:

Creativity Takes Time, Energy and DEADLINES

I finally finished writing 10 short scripts for 2-3 children to perform. The ones that I like the most and I think came out funnier than the others are the ones in which I had DEADLINES. None of the deadlines were imposed by a publisher or editor (too bad, eh?), but by the calendar. For instance, I got one done right before my writer's critique group. I had to have something to take to the meeting, right? I couldn't live with the shame of showing up empty-handed. But I was busy and at the last minute (or hour or so) I

The Terrible Trivium

I think I've been trapped by the Terrible Trivium! I'm always busy but some of the really important things I want to accomplish never quite get done; and some of the really important people in my life don't get visited! If you've read The Phantom Tollbooth, you know what a demon the Terrible Trivium can be. If you haven't read the classic by Norton Juster, then let me share this part from the book so you know what I'm talking about:

A Free Edit Giveaway

Ack! So I've been extremely busy with teaching theatre, directing plays, writing scripts, memorizing scripts, and my son's wedding plans. We were supposed to be on vacation starting in a couple of days. Oh, well. I've thought about how much I need to post something. It didn't get much further than that.

Now there's an opportunity to get a free edit from a person who has been an editor at Harcourt for 10 years and is now an author and I figured I'd share it here (gives me an extra entry, plus it lets you know--good deal all around!)

Go here to enter: http://deareditor.com/2012/08/23/newsflash-a-deareditor-com-free-edit-giveaway/

Good luck!

Put on Your Seatbelt & Other Constant Reminders that Should be Constant

How often did you hear your mother say, "Put on your seatbelt" or "Wash your hands" or a thousand other little reminders to help you turn into a responsible adult? (How many times have I said those things as a mom?) My mother also said, "Lock your door," right after "Put on your seatbelt." Funny, one day I turned to do what she had asked and the door was already locked. I had done it automatically. Nowadays, I don't tell my family to put on their seatbelts because they do it automatically.

A week ago I was thinking that, as a director, maybe I concentrated on projection too much. Maybe I should ease up and concentrate more on the acting as well. No, duh, right? The acting is pretty dang important. Except