Tag Archives: berkshire theatre festival

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

2003 Year-end review

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Hooray for 2004! Time for the 2003 year-end review…

-2003 rolled in with winter term, rebuilding the furnace, and blissful blissful free time. Sitting quietly and watching D Flo, Brendan, Eric, and others play Gauntlet for 12-18 hours each day was like heaven. Heaven I tell you!

-Spring term was quiet front-loaded, and I remember most of the beginning was spent preparing for SETC, which was a great and fun experience. I’m really glad I went, and hope to go again this year.

-Getting the job at Berkshire was a great relief in the spring, because it meant I had no foreboding worries about the summer. It was also helpful that my scheduling for school worked out perfectly, and that I was able to get my first choice in campus housing for the next year. That spring term really was apologizing for all the hard stuff I’d had to do before, I think.

-The summer and The Berkshire Theatre Festival. I’m so glad i took that internship; I learned so much, had tons of fun, and that’s where I met and developed my initial friendship with Carleton.

-Fall came around and school was tough, but I started dating Carleton, which was a big deal for me. Like, it goes down in the “Notable events of Lisa’s Life” section.

-New Year’s Eve. Hanging out with Brendan and Maria. Playing video games. I always have a rough time at New Year’s parties, because I don’t drink, and many of my friends who do would rather do that than sit and play video games. This year I decided to have fun, and I feel bad for not seeing Darren or Will, but I will see them again, and I actually had fun this year! Woohoo!

2004 is looking out to be scary and exciting, as graduation and for-really-real life is right on the horizon. I’m ready for it, though, i think. Hope everyone has a great year!

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Home at Last!

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After a grueling 15 hour drive, Whitney and I got out of the car only to be greeted by that pleasant sound of crickets and tree frogs and night bugs which had been so noticeably absent from Massachusetts. I have never felt so very happy to be home.

I arrived safe and sound (with the exception of my Achilles tendon, which was bugging me all last week, got worse at strike, and which Ken () suggests I get looked at so I don’t end up unable to use it properly. A crippling leg injury is certainly very low on the “Things I Need Right Now” list.)

I was going to make a big list of things I learned this summer, but as I am still pretty tired from the trip, and as Brendan is bouncing all over the walls waiting for me to come over and visit, I’ll put that off to a later time (I’ll also get around to the rest of those interview questions, I promise!)

It’s going to be a busy week, with unpacking and updating websites and preparing for school, but I know one thing to be true: Carleton gave me Dynasty Warriors 4, and I plan on spreading its addictive powers to every friend I can summon, muahahaha!

::ninja backflips out the window (carefully, due to her injury of course)::

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Weekend adventures

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The weekend has been packed full, but of fun and games instead of changeovers, so it’s all good.

Most of the UConnites ventured back to school, so the Festival is a bit more empty now. I woke up Saturday morning very puzzled because someone was in my room (Katie-Bug had moved into another room, so I was confused), but it was just Ali. She’d come to say goodbye, which made me very happy, and bestowed upon me the tricky mission of taking care of Thumbs, and making sure he doesn’t drink too much.

Carleton also left that day (I’m on the ancient beast of a prop shop computer), which made me sad, but we got to hang out a bit before he left. We even finally beat Nitrous Oxide on normal, so that sort of completed the summer. He’ll be back for this coming strike anyhow, so it won’t be so bad.

That night, us remaining folk had a Slumber Party in Ripley Apartment, complete with Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and a bit of Silent Hill 2 thrown in for good measure. It opened up a whole new door of opportunity for scaring the bejeezus out of Sara.

Sunday, we bid farewell to LambChops, and promptly went on a shopping trip. As everyone is gone and I’ll have little to do this week, I decided to take up knitting (after a quick lesson from Katie Bug, I’m on my way to a new scarf, made of llama wool to honor Ian, and so that I can wear it in the winter when Jeff wears his alpaca jacket, and we can match, or something). Shopping would have been fun, but I didn’t realize that Thumbs was a for-real shopper, and had to go into EVERY SINGLE STORE just to find a stupid sweatshirt.

Anyway, there was dinner and icecream and a bonfire and fun times the rest of the evening. Marshmallows and everything.

Agenda for the week: knit, rest, research, and prepare for the going-home. My brother will be visiting soon! Yea!

Personal Blog

Tinkerbell’s TinkerHut of Lurve

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Whew! It’s been a busy few days, hence the lack of updates, but oh well, we’ll catch up!

First off, visitors. Dave Clark visited me on Thursday, which was totally awesome. My parents have been in town all weekend. They’re going to see Assassins tonight, then leave tomorrow morning. It’s been fun–we got to go to an air show, to Six Flags, to the Berkshire Museum to see the William Morris exhibit AGAIN! Plus, I’ve been eating quite well since their visit.

Peter Pan, though it nearly killed the lot of us, went up and is good. Keller and I, however, are caught in the middle of a tricky situation. The name of the game show is: Who Get’s Tink’s House!

The situation: Tinkerbell’s house, which looks totally awesome, has been in the eye of several wanters, but who is its rightful owner>

The contestants:

Noel–the props artisan. She built the thing. It took her forever, and she put soooo much work into constructing it. She thought it would be good to have, you know, for her portfolio, and even though she took lots of process pictures, she called dibs. She had to leave to go to school, but was going to pay us to ship it to her.

Tim–the designer. He designed Tink’s House for Noel to build. Nevermind the fact that the measurements he gave were off and his scale was wrong, it’s his concept. He saw it while Noel was building it, and said “Ohh! It’s so pretty! I want that when the show is over.”

Kate–the executive director of the company. She wants to buy it, and her word is pretty much the final one on any situation in the theater.

What to do what to do! I hope Keller and I don’t get caught in the middle too badly.

In other news, I miss Louisville, just look what kinds of shoddy things happen to local booksellers when I’m not around!

Personal Blog

Good and Bad.

I was watching a friend look at my webpage today, which is somewhat of a bizarre sensation, and she was going through my “By Others,” section. I realized how much I miss my online communities, and a wave of longing for consistent internet hit me again.

I miss the DT community quite a bit, I’m going to be so out of the loop on the message boards when I get back from the summer. I’d already been so busy at the end of last year that a visit to DTMirc was a once-in-a-blue-moon-sign-of-the-apocalypse sort of thing, but I still miss everybody, and I miss the art forums and seeing how everyone is improving. Graaaaah, I’m such an internet junkie!

Yesterday was somewhat of a bittersweet experience. On the fun side, Assassins opened and was a fine performance. It was funny, and quite dark and intense in places, which I was not expecting. Everyone laughed at the scene with the dead dog that I worked so hard to make, and I beamed all proud-like (I would show pictures, but it’s somewhat grotesque). Anyway, the show was great and things were looking up for the evening.

On the un-fun side, back at the housing complex, after the show and before the opening night party, we found Jill’s (the housing complex’s cook) cat, Linus. He had been hit by a car. Losing a pet is tragic, but losing one in such a way is incredibly wrenching. There was a group of us gathered around to comfort him. His back was broken and he was crying, as were the rest of us. Someone had gone for Jill, and she came to get him, but there are no nearby vets that are open 24 hours for emergencies. I bawled all night, out of sympathy for Jill, as she’d already lost a cat earlier in the summer, and for Linus. He was dead before the morning.

The day was drearier because of it, and was just the start. People are starting to leave for the summer, the stresses of getting Peter Pan open press harder on all the shops, people being called home because of mysterious family emergencies…it’s all a bit much to happen in one day.

At any rate, I am not overly saddened. Things will start looking back up again, I’m quite certain.

Personal Blog

Berkshire Safari

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Hooray! My journal entries are back and safe and sound. You know, living in New England for the summer has been quite an experience. I have discovered many new things and spotted many new creatures, and fortunately I’ve had my digital camera handy.

Sooo, today I thought I’d take you on a safari of sorts, and show you the many creatures I have encountered on my stay.

Wildlife of the Berkshires…

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

This and That

So the usual crew braved the elements Monday night, traveling through frightening thunderstorms to go to the usual American Chopper night hangout. We were all excited about the newest episode of American Chopper (Mikey was gonna build a bike! What’s not to love). However, we found out that when they say “On next week’s episode…” at the end of the show, they really mean “the next time we show a new episode…” Alas, reruns. To add insult to injury, next Monday they’re having a Monster House marathon. What’s up with that??? Nobody watches Monster House!! Yeesh.

Dynasty Warriors 4 is quite possibly the most fun I’ve ever had playing a video game (it’s nearing Halo as my favorite multiplayer game! Eeek!). I highly recommend it.

Yesterday, Matt (my boss) and I had to drive to Connecticut to return some prop furniture we’d borrowed from another theater. It was a nice little trip. Being in New England for the summer has made me realize a few things about my own home region that I would have never noticed before. Granted, the existence of full service gas stations was a new thing for me when I got up here, but we’ve found a few other things. To go on this trip, we had to take the shop truck, which is a clunky old thing with no AC and only a tape deck. We thought it would be amusing to get some tapes to play on the way. Now, I am from Kentucky, and Matt is from Georgia, and so we were always used to the fact that when you go into a gas station, there’s always a rack of really obscure music tapes up near the counter, with such favorites as “Ultra 70’s Funk,” “Cowboy Songs,” and “The Best of the 80’s” type music. Apparently, though, this commodity (or oddity) does not exist in New England, as we were unable to find any gas stations that sold tapes! How sad! Perhaps it is a southern thing? At any rate, we had found a Primus tape in the Prop Shop, so that kept us entertained for the ride.

No more days off for 3 weekends, it’s going to be hard core! I think I’ll survive nicely, though. If I am lucky, I may be able to work in another internet update before the summer runs out! I miss my computer.

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Sloooow afternoon

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Sittin all alone in the props shop. Well, not entirely alone, Keller (our props carpenter) is working away in the back. We were going to go pick up some donations today, but one of us had to stay behind in case Keller needed any help, guess who drew the short straw. Oh well.

Since Tommy is opening tonight, we’re kind of slow, so there’s not much to do right now. Things will pick up soon enough, though. We’ll have to crank out a lot for Assassins and Peter Pan, but for right now, we’re not busy (hence the journal update on the agonizingly slow 14.4 K modem x_x).

I made the luckiest phone call ever the other day. I was giving Brendan a call to say “hello,” and I just happened to catch him out shopping with Ken, Evan, and Dave Clark (plus, they were at Great Escape, where Adam Watson works). I got to talk to all of them, it was great! Super bonus phone call. I miss all of them, and I can’t wait to see them when I get home. At least I’ll get to see Dave, who is coming up to see Assassins.

This Sunday we have our last day off until all shows are open. After that, we’ll have 3 changeover weekends in a row, then everyone starts leaving. I’ll be here till the 31st, though, so after Peter Pan opens, I’ll have 2 weeks where NOTHING happens. Keller and I will probably spend a few days cleaning the props shop (we’ll be the only props crew left), then it’s like 2 weeks of pseudo-vacation. Pseudo in that many of the friends I’ve made here will be gone, and that I don’t have a car, so sight-seeing may be tricky. Perhaps something can be arranged, though. My parents will be coming up, and my dad seemed interested in going to Six Flags. I’d definitely be up for that again.

So, kinda slow at the moment, but later should be fun. Carleton bought Dynasty Warriors 4, which he says to be an awesome game, so we will have a little PS2 fest sometime.

Personal Blog

DOOM!

Reason why Carleton is awesome #1: He let me use his computer to update my website.

About that Mardi Gras party, it was awesome! I was so excited to see how everyone would decorate those cheap, cheap, CHEAP masks we gave them 2 days before the party. I was quite impressed with everyone’s creativity. Go and see! Isn’t everybody pretty?

https://www.wertle.com/photos.html

Reason why Carleton is awesome #2: He has all Invader Zim episodes on his computer and has me watch them regularly.

This is important, because I totally missed out on the Invader Zim phenomenon. It ran when I was at school, and thus not watching tv, and then ended by the time I was home for the summer. Apparently, having not seen more than 2 episodes was not acceptable, so I’m getting to watch them all. The results are rather predictable–I think it’s hilarious, and I love Gir. That is all.

Personal Blog

O.o

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Carleton is awesome because he lets me use his computer to check my email! Hooray!! I’m hovered in the ‘lectrician’s office while the Stillborn Lover preview goes on above us. It has been a mostly good tech week (in spite of pesky actor notes). All went well, except for some general confusion about me having to screw a table to the floor. I will demonstrate. *ahem*

Matt (props boss): Go screw that table to the floor
Me: Okay.

*walks over to aforementioned table with screw gun to notice the ‘lectricians moving it for space for a ladder*

Me: Oh! The ‘lectricians must need to be here to focus and such.

*walks away*

Scenic Designer: Hey, go screw that table to the floor
Me: Um…I think the ‘lectricians need that space.
Scenic Designer to Lighting Designer: Do you guys need this space?
Lighting Designer: Um, no…
Scenic Designer: Okay, go screw it down then

*walks over to move table back, angry ‘lectricians say “No”, walks back to prop shop*

Matt: Go screw that table into the floor.
Me: Um, the ‘lectricians need the space.
Matt: Go wait for them to finish.

*walks back to main stage*

Me to ‘lectricians: Um, when can I screw down this table?
Carleton: GO AWAY OR I WILL TAKE THAT SCREW GUN AND ATTACH THOSE HINGES TO YOUR EYES!! RAAAAAAAAAAARRR! (fire ensues)

*note, he didn’t really say that, it was implied, I think.

*runs back to props shop in terror*

So, after much confusion, they decided that they really didn’t want that table screwed down anyway. Yeesh! Confusion is okay, though, I suppose. All is well otherwise. We are having a Mardi Gras theme party after the show opening tomorrow, and I’m all excited because I get to make a mask. There really are a shortage of costumey, mask-ish holidays in the world. Anyway, I don’t want to hog the puter too much, so I am off!