Shhhhh!

On Screen: This week at the Buffy Rewatch, things get very quiet. "Sort of too quiet?" you might ask. Yes. Definitely yes. "Hush" is on the marquee this week, which is an episode which is nothing short of brilliant in its clear depiction of the differences between "speaking" and "communicating." (Look especially hard at the simply-composed final shot.) Steve Halfyard details the structure of the music for us and the entire post is well worth reading.

That means don't skip the sections on "Doomed" and "A New Man," both of which move some major themes along.

On Stage: The class presented their live scenes from Midsummer yesterday and did quite a nice job! For this class, I'm more interested in seeing that the students have picked up on language and structure rather than professional polish. After all, you can't tell an effective joke if you don't know what the words mean. Alas, the camera was left on the kitchen counter. Today we move into the start of their final individual project by discussing design elements with Little Shop of Horrors. Not the best musical ever, but one that is both eye-catching and toe-tapping - with a Greek chorus as a bonus!

On My Desk: I've started making revisions for my last large-scale writing project of my Year of Too Much Yes. I try to work in the mornings, but with a 9 am class, that doesn't always work out. It's encouraging that I think the basic bones of the paper are strong, but switching from a script for a keynote speech to a more formal written paper requires some changes in structure and tone. (And footnotes!) I have an end-of-June deadline to create a solid draft and (today) I think I can meet that. Ask me tomorrow and you may get a different answer . . .

Next Week: A discussion of costume designs, I have much more work on my "desk project" done, and Buffy and Riley discuss (ahem) their relationship while Maggie Walsh's experiments take an even nastier turn for the worse.