May 12, 2007 -- Taking the Magic to the Mediterranean -- 14 day Repo Cruise! Part 2

[NHdisneylover]

That sounds like my kind of "social component"!! The problem is, well one of them anyway, my oldest son is basically non-verbal. He doesn't have spontaneous speech, he only parrots or repeats. Throw in my other autistic son and my two very bright girls and every outing is an adventure!!

Thanx for everyone's kind words. I will be researching all weekend.

That group would be quite a challenge! We were fortunate to be in an excellent magnet school in Michigan for a half year before we moved here (Kelly, by chance have you heard of Webster Elementary in Livonia, MI? It is fairly well known among people who work with certain types of children). They taught "the two ends of the bell curve." Worked really well, as so many of the social/emotional needs of gifted and emotionally impaired kids are similar to one another. Mairka was buddies with an autistic girl who had a very limited vocabulary (I'm thinking it was about 30 words). They had such a nice time together. I tell you, that school was the one thing that made moving here so hard. I hated to give a place like that up.

 

[elderfam]

Of course they had to come on the day my school decides to cut my services for my boys. My 11 yr old tests as a 12 month old with autism and they're telling me he is costing our district too much money!! Now I have meetings with everyone on the board , teachers, therapists, you name it. Anyway, I know there are a few homeschoolers out there. Do you mind if I ask a few questions during our trip? On a beautiful relaxing sea day of course! Thanx for letting me vent. I should be getting all excited about this trip,and know I'm just all upset.

This has to be very upsetting. I hope your are able to work something out and look forward to meeting your family on the ship.

 

[elderfam]

EEK! I am dying to read the reviews of the real thing tonight. Take notes adn enthrall us with your lively description of the tragedy (always thought Midsummer was a comdey 'til now).

DITTO! This story is far better than anything on TV...hum, there's an idea Put it on TV!

 

[tig82174]

Erik--While we are on the ship please tell Rio how cool Puck is. Marika tried so hard to convince him to be Puck for Halloween last year, but he wasn't going to do it (she so wanted to be Tatianna--but they always insist on coordinating for Halloween). In all fairness he has never seen Midsummer performed. We thought he would get to see the local high school production this spring (hopefully better than Laura's ) but it is on May 11-12. Hmm--I think we may have another engagement Can anyone recomend a good movie version?

WHAT?!?! He won't do Harry Potter AND he wouldn't dress as Puck for Halloween?! Take his temperature .....and tell him I said he's a sick sick child!

Puck is my "fall back" Halloween Costume. If I don't have anything to dress up as, and I decide to dress up, then I always go as one variation of Puck or another! I probably have 4 different Puck outfits.

As far as a film version....there is one that was made not too terribly long ago starring Michelle Pfeiffer as Tatiana and Stanley Tucci as Puck...and I think Calysta Flockhart is in it as one of the human women, too, but I can't recall which one. I haven't seen it in years.....although if I am recalling correctly the production values are high but I was otherwise unimpressed. Also I specifically remember not being that pleased with Puck because they cast him as a Pan or Mr. Tumnus style Faun character, i think, with horns and goat legs....and I never pictured Puck as a Faun but rather as an imp or a fairy (my Puck costumes all have wings because I love fairy wings!)


Erik

 

[AuntyBrat]

DITTO! This story is far better than anything on TV...hum, there's an idea Put it on TV!

Ok, seriously, I am charging my camcorder and going to try and record it tonite. One it will give me practice and two, NO ONE WILL BELIEVE ME if I don't have documented proof!!! It's like spotting Big Foot...sounds interesting, and people believe you saw something AnD they just think you need to get new glasses!!!

Maybe I can get an online account and I can post the more interesting parts, like the flapping girl, the loooooooooooong drawn out periods of dead silence, and then people who just walk off stage because they don't know their lines.

I will see what I can do so we can ALL enjoy the experience first hand!!!

Warning - I will NOT be responsible for people who slip into comas, experience retenal burning, busting a gut laughing, or inadvertantly flushing out their sinuses because liquid comes out their nose while watching this 'production'.

 

[AuntyBrat]

Also I specifically remember not being that pleased with Puck because they cast him as a Pan or Mr. Tumnus style Faun character, i think, with horns and goat legs....and I never pictured Puck as a Faun but rather as an imp or a fairy (my Puck costumes all have wings because I love fairy wings!)


Erik

Ok, see dealing with the same thing with this production. Originally had him as being a woods type fairy....green pants, brown vest, leaves and such attached to help camo him into the back ground. NO, 'director' (and trust me the term is used really loosely, greeters at Walmart provide more direction than this teacher) wants him to be goat boy, and me, I am fresh outta pashima shawls to donate to the costume cause!!! So we take some old ratty fur coats and shave the fur off, and use spray adheisive to attach it to light brown pants. Looked good, director wanted him to look kinda ratty. We thought he looked good. Apparently not, so the director is going to make his pants himself! Good luck dude!!! Anyone want to bet he is wearing the pants we made tonight??? Anyone???

 

[gydell]

Ok, seriously, I am charging my camcorder and going to try and record it tonite. One it will give me practice and two, NO ONE WILL BELIEVE ME if I don't have documented proof!!! It's like spotting Big Foot...sounds interesting, and people believe you saw something AnD they just think you need to get new glasses!!!

Maybe I can get an online account and I can post the more interesting parts, like the flapping girl, the loooooooooooong drawn out periods of dead silence, and then people who just walk off stage because they don't know their lines.

I will see what I can do so we can ALL enjoy the experience first hand!!!

Warning - I will NOT be responsible for people who slip into comas, experience retenal burning, busting a gut laughing, or inadvertantly flushing out their sinuses because liquid comes out their nose while watching this 'production'.

Maybe the jumbotron is available one night!

 

[tig82174]

Ok, see dealing with the same thing with this production. Originally had him as being a woods type fairy....green pants, brown vest, leaves and such attached to help camo him into the back ground. NO, 'director' (and trust me the term is used really loosely, greeters at Walmart provide more direction than this teacher) wants him to be goat boy, and me, I am fresh outta pashima shawls to donate to the costume cause!!! So we take some old ratty fur coats and shave the fur off, and use spray adheisive to attach it to light brown pants. Looked good, director wanted him to look kinda ratty. We thought he looked good. Apparently not, so the director is going to make his pants himself! Good luck dude!!! Anyone want to bet he is wearing the pants we made tonight??? Anyone???

Yuck...sounds to me like the root of the problem with your show(as would probably be my intuitiv guess anyway) is an icky director.....that probably lends to why things aren't comign together, people don't know lines, dress rehearsals and tech runs aren't done the way they shoudl be, and the overall vision is off. BLAH! (Where's that vomitting smiley when you need it?!?! )

Your first image for Puck sounds more on for me....if you really analyze Puck he's largely invisible for most hte entire play to everyone except Oberon and to one other fairy for a brief moment...so the idea of him blending with the surroundings is dead-on. And he's also most fun and mischievious when he's popping in and out of trees and flitting about....and goat legs make for a difficult flitting, let me tell ya! (have you ever seen a goat try to climb a tree? not pretty!)


Erik

 

[NHdisneylover]

Gotta agree with Erik and Laura here. Puck is NOT a faun. He is a sprite/fairy. I love Mr. Tumnus (another great series of books there--at last both my kids like those. The yare so special to me that my HS graduation present was a nice leather bound set), but it just isn't who Puck is.

Show the botched production on the Dumbotron? Might be a bit too racy with all that whitie tighty flashing going on But I gotta say, I am longing to see this (kinda like seeing Act 3 of Noises Off).

 

[AuntyBrat]

Yuck...sounds to me like the root of the problem with your show(as would probably be my intuitiv guess anyway) is an icky director.....that probably lends to why things aren't comign together, people don't know lines, dress rehearsals and tech runs aren't done the way they shoudl be, and the overall vision is off. BLAH! (Where's that vomitting smiley when you need it?!?! )

Your first image for Puck sounds more on for me....if you really analyze Puck he's largely invisible for most hte entire play to everyone except Oberon and to one other fairy for a brief moment...so the idea of him blending with the surroundings is dead-on. And he's also most fun and mischievious when he's popping in and out of trees and flitting about....and goat legs make for a difficult flitting, let me tell ya! (have you ever seen a goat try to climb a tree? not pretty!)


Erik

Yep, that's the problem I have...A tree climbing goat!!!

 

[Kissimmee]

Any guess of what percentage of DIS'er's are on the sailing? I'm guessing at least 20%.



Has anyone gotten their doc's but not all of them?

We are missing doc's for 1 room for the Med. 26th sailing. How weird, you would think that those two rooms would come together and maybe the repo doc's would come separate, but to have the repo and 1 room come together and the other room come separately?

Ours came piecemeal too.

 

[Scott H]

"A social component" Sounds so simple and small. How do you feel about kids with huge, overwhelming (for their moms) social calanders? Let's see, this week has been 2 overnight visitors, two day visitors, most of a day playing with the nieghbor kids, 2 karate calsses and a belt test tomrrow, 4 dance classes, gymanstics class, a workshop at Shaker Village, a book chat at the library and a workshop at the Planetarium. Pretty typical week for my two kids.

That's what I am talking about, very good...

 

[Kissimmee]

Any guess of what percentage of DIS'er's are on the sailing? I'm guessing at least 20%.

Not sure about the Dis Boards but I calculate we will be around 15% of the passengers on the boat.

 

[Scott H]

I wouldn't be surprised if we have met before....you guys cruise so much! Plus you are DVC members, so perhaps you went on last year's member's cruise or the year before. Those are FUN!

DVC Member Cruise 2005 that's it... and prob around OKW, that is our favorite for our long trips.

 

[NHdisneylover]

That's what I am talking about, very good...

We're so busy sometimes we say we are "not at home schooling."

 

[cupcake]

I feel the blooper reel from Laura would be hysterical! Sign me up!!! I won't get into the Puck thing, except to say that the director has far bigger short term problems than coming up with alternate pants, so your Puck is so wearing the current pants! What I wanted to add is that the fear of public humiliation seems to be totally lacking. I got the lead in our high school musical way back when (West Side Story) and boy, you should have seen me diligently taking as many voice lessons as humanly possible and practicing, practicing, practicing, and then practicing some more. I was equally neurotic about the rest: I just had these awful visions of me, standing frozen up there on the stage. But hey, at least I knew how to sit down in a dress!!

I also have to add that we have a security system in our office that requires someone to get up whenever anyone needs to be buzzed in. It's the bane of our lives, as we all take turns covering when the person in charge of the security is not at her desk. Invariably, the buzzer rings right in the middle of a complicated thought that we were just about to get down, and then poof, it's gone as we haul over to the cameras for what feels like the zillionth time. BUT over the weekend, they are installing a camera and buzzer in our offices! I cannot tell you how excited we are about this. Ten years of misery, about to end!!!! Sometimes, it's the little things that really pack a punch.

C.

 

[AuntyBrat]

And can I tell you about how the teacher is NOT promoting this show at all? Not in the school bulletin, not in the marquee in front of the school, not on the school web page, nada, nothing, zip...much like his directing...

 

[BobandLee]

UMMM who took my tickers?

I think that mr. v50.net hasn't paid his internet bill.

If you try and go to that page, it says something about bandwidth exceeded.
Too many people using that ticker.

 

[BobandLee]

..Physical went well, pretty darn healthy for an old guy... BP was up a bit, nothing a vacation could fix....

...

Great news. BP? Well, we are growing older. (but not up, right?)

 

[NHdisneylover]

And can I tell you about how the teacher is NOT promoting this show at all? Not in the school bulletin, not in the marquee in front of the school, not on the school web page, nada, nothing, zip...much like his directing...

Well, if it is as bad as you say it is it may be a good thing it is not being promoted.

Having been in theater (mostly as a techie) in high school and collage and having fought to be allowed to publicize (only sports were allowed on the marquee at Boulder High way back when ) I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to the teachers and kids when it is hard to get info, on the shows. Both our local high school and the one for the next town over have websites. Both sites list lots of sports events. Neither site lists any theatrical or musical events. The kids do a great job getting posters up in town, but the website is for "competitive endevours" (as told to me by the principal when I called to ask if these could be listed as we tend to find out about them too late to work going to them into our schedule). I am NOT opposed to sports at all, I just think theatre should be treated as highly (at least when it is done by dedicated kids and staff--maybe not so much when the director is patehtic and the kids will jsut embarass themselves )