DELL'ARTE

I AM DELL'ARTE BOUND! FOLLOW MY NEW BLOG FOR UPDATES ON MY ADVENTURE IN CALIFORNIA!

http://dellarteadventure.blogspot.com/

musings on a smile

"Smile" was composed by Charlie Chaplin for his 1936 film Modern Times. John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons added the lyrics and title in 1954. Nat King Cole was the first to sing the song in 1954.

Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it's breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness
Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near
That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

That's the time you must keep on trying
Smile, what's the use of crying?
You'll find that life is still worthwhile
If you just smile

musings of a heartache

I am wandering aimlessly trying to figure out what my life is supposed to be.

My heart pulls me in all sorts of directions.

Someone please sweep me off of my feet,

and save me

musings on CUTE AS A BUTTON!

So, as some of you may know I am addicted to crocheting. Recently, I have started selling my designs. I am somewhat of a small business owner (kinda). It is called CUTE AS A BUTTON.

Check out some of my designs. They have sold pretty well at the dance store that I work at and now I am starting to get requests/orders! SAWEEET!

Here are some cute slouchy hats 

flower hair clips

inside pocket

Sideways purse

musings on Pride and Prejudice auditions

So, as some of you may know, Kevin and I are directing the Peoria Homeschool Co-op's fall play, Pride and Prejudice. The project fell into my lap when Libby Snyder asked me to help out because they wanted the play to be on a larger scale than they had experience with and Kevin climbed aboard shortly thereafter. After several meetings with one of the Co-op parents who runs the theatre department (which were kindof awkward because she kept talking up her daughter so she would be cast as Elizabeth i.e. she showed me sketches of what she has in mind for the costumes, she already bought her own script and highlighted Elizabeth's lines, she has been taking ballroom dancing lessons, and told me about the numerous sets she has painted before. I know this was all coming from a good, proud-parent place, but it was hard for Kevin and I to sit through and then try to have an unbiased audition with her daughter), the audition notice went out shortly thereafter. It was interesting the different questions about monologues that came my way...like: what exactly IS a monologue, where they could find monologues, was I going to provide monologues, and should the monologues be from P&P? I tried to include a little drama lesson with each email, since I am kindof like their drama teacher as well as director.

Today was our audition day! The kids were told to bring in a prepared monologue from anything OTHER THAN Pride and Prejudice and Shakespeare and picture of themself. So, of course, several of them forgot their picture, several of them didn't know they had to memorize, and  the majority did Shakespeare...oh! and we had some Bible verses too. But that was ok. It was such a great learning experience for everyone. It now understand more deeply the importance of being able to recognize people's life energies. It was so awesome when I could tell who I wanted to cast someone as just based off of how they introduced themselves. The kids were great. They were all very enthusiastic during their auditions and callbacks.

The casting of Elizabeth and Jane was the toughest. There were two girls who could play either part well. Kevin and I had our gut instincts tell us what we WANTED to call them back for, but then we also called them back for the other role...just to see. They totally rocked both of them. We still haven't made our decision about this one yet. There are still a couple factors that we need to take into consideration. Once we have made our decision, I will let you know what went into it.

Unfortunatley we are very short numbers wise. We are in desparate need for boys (as per usual) andwe need a couple of girls. Luckily, though, we have our family (Mr. & Mrs. Bennet, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, Lydia, and Mr. Collins)...so that is a relief! I am really happy with who we have for the family (and i know once we iron out who will play Jane/Elizabeth, I will still be just as pumped). The family fell into place! It was so awesome to see this puzzle solve itself! I hope we will be able to find more students interested in theatre so we can  put on this production. It has some fun feminist themes that i CAN'T WAIT to explore. And I am sure there will be a lot of fun conversations with the girls (and the boys) during this process.

That is all for now. Exciting stuff is a head! Cliche or not, i can't wait to see what is going to happen.

musings on life as it is right now

So I recently found out that two of my former high school classmates are engaged. I know some of my peers that are already married and have started a family. While everyone seems to have their life together, mine is all up in the air. How are people able to tie up their lives in neat little packages? They seem to know who they are going to marry, what job path they are going to follow, and an idea of where they want to live. I have no idea…about anything. ANYTHING. I thought I had it figured out, or at least I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. But I realize I  am now back at square one, for the most part anyway. I can’t see the end. It scares me. I don’t want to mess up anyone’s life because I don’t know what I am doing with mine. I feel like I have already done that and regret it. I am trying my hardest to walk the line of not hurting anyone and not hurting myself…which sometimes contradict each other. But in the process of trying to make everyone happy and doing what I THINK will make me happy, I am afraid I am making the biggest mistakes of my life…but can’t do anything about it. I am afraid one day I am going to wake up and see someone living the life that I wanted to live.

                                                          I don’t know how to stop this.

                                                           Cliché or not, this is my life. 

musings on Yellow Face

Why, when Black Face is deemed illegal is Yellow Face still OK in the United States? I hadn’t really thought about this until I heard about a play called Yellow Face.  I feel bad that I hadn’t been offended by past productions of Miss Saigon and even other plays and movies such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and even Thoroughly Modern Millie where Asian characters are played by white actors and are sometimes blatantly made fun of in these plays. I used to think white actors had to play the roles of Chinese, Japanese , Vietnamese etc characters because the pool of actors didn’t have people of ethnicity to play those characters. But we do not dress up white actors in Black Face because the actor pool doesn’t have people to fill those roles.  In fact, we…including myself…wouldn’t even bat an eye at the use of Yellow Face.

Thoroughly Modern Millie

During the late 19^th and early 20^th century anti-Asian sentiments were expressed by politicians and writers. The pollutant stereotype began in 1850s California. Asians were viewed as alien and a threat to wage-earners, and a movement began that had the goal of making California racially pure. Newspapers called it “The Yellow Peril” ( Los Angeles Times, 1886). In the 1920s,  politicians responded with the

Japanese Internment Camp c1942

Japanese Exclusion Act and the American Immigration Act, limiting the number of Asian immigrants because they were considered an “undesirable race”. In 1942 approximately 110,000 Japanese-Americans were forced into internment camps 62% of which were American citizens.   Although we have moved past these extreme forms of racism towards Asian-Americans, Yellowface gives control of the depiction of Asians in popular culture to the dominant White culture which often leads to racist Asian stereotypes and caricatures (hello Miss Swan from Mad TV).

Racist Asian stereotypes in Film and TV and Theatre include:

• The non-threatening “Oriental” with his fortune-cookie wisdom. The character was usually portrayed by Caucasian actors in its many incarnations, but Asians have occasionally taken on the role; for example Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi
• The silly Asian sidekick, with the buck teeth and 'rs' in place of 'ls'.
• The conniving evil Asian. Someone with deep mysticism and scheming ways. Murder and opium were favorites.
• The dragon lady. A sexually available/loose Asian woman who dared to try and be with the white man.
• Since the mid-1960s, the media has popularized an image of Asian Americans as the perfectly assimilated ethnic minority in the United States. This emergence of the model minority image let to a preoccupation among many Asian Americans with "good" stereotypes vs "bad" stereotypes.

Micky Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's

The 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's has been criticized for its portrayal of the character Mr. Yunioshi, Holly's bucktoothed, stereotyped Japanese neighbor. Played by Caucasian Mickey Rooney, Rooney wore Yellowface makeup to change his features to a caricatured approximation of a Japanese person.

In the 45th anniversary edition DVD release, producer Richard Shepherd repeatedly apologizes, saying, "If we could just change Mickey Rooney, I'd be thrilled with the movie." Director Blake Edwards stated, "Looking back, I wish I had never done it...and I would give anything to be able to recast it, but it's there, and onward and upward." In a 2008 interview about the film, 87-year-old Rooney said he was heartbroken about the criticism and that he had never received any complaints about his portrayal of the character.

Miss Saigon (1989–1999) is a West End musical, is loosely based on Madama Butterfly.

Miss Saigon

The setting of the plot is relocated to the 1970s Saigon during the Vietnam War, and Madame Butterfly's American Lieutenant and Japanese geisha coupling is replaced by a romance between an American GI and a Vietnamese bar girl. This musical has received criticism for what some have perceived as a racist or sexist overtone, including protests regarding its portrayal of Asian men, Asian women, or women in general.

The Engineer in Miss Saigon

Originally, Jonathan Pryce and Keith Burns, white actors playing Eurasian/Asian characters, wore eye prostheses and bronzing cream to make themselves look more Asian, which outraged some who drew comparisons to a "minstrel show". From April 1989 to May 1990, nearly 100 shows were produced under the agreement between Equity and the League of American Theatres and Producers, 33 of the shows, with 504 roles, had no ethnic minority actors and 12 other productions had only one or two ethnic actors.

Kinda makes you think of things differently, huh? Is this unethical? On the flip side, would it be racist for people of mixed ethnicity to play a White character? Is there such thing as White Face? What about other ethnicities? Are we compromising our artistic integrity?

Anywho, I am not looking to change the world, I just thought this was interesting to share. And since I am half Japanese this isn’t COMPLETELY totally cliché for me.

             

musings of a time waster

Check out this website for some premium time wasting. It is totes funny

http://grouchyrabbit.com/index.php

musings of a hopeless romantic

"The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more; that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds."
from the The Notebook

"I know you; I walked with you once upon a dream."
from the movie "Sleeping Beauty"

"You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love and love and love you."
from the movie, "Pride and Prejudice"

I used to call myself a hopeless romantic. I could come up with super romantic date and proposal ideas that were worthy of any cheese-ball romantic comedy. I was/still kinda am addicted to the warm fuzzies you get from romantic movies.  But I then would be disappointed when I wasn’t treated as well as I thought I deserved to be. At the same time, I would try my hardest to live up to the fantasy girlfriend that I imagined my boyfriends wanted. With no fault of anyone but my own, I would be disappointed when the efforts weren’t returned. Was I expecting too much? Was I setting them up for failure? Was I right to want to be treated differently? Or is he still out there?  How do I get passed my own self and appreciate what I have, or rather, maybe stop over-thinking every situation. Or how do I k now when the battle is over and to look for that guy somewhere else?

Perhaps society has given me a disillusioned idea of what love is. I constantly feel pulled in a thousand different directions of what situations SHOULD be like  or what I SHOULD think or want. So, how do I know what I want is what I, me, myself wants, or what I am pushed to want or what is realistic and what is unattainable.  Damn those romantic movies, love songs on the radio and ALL of  Disney!!! When you wish upon a star, it doesn't ALWAYS come true.

I see elderly couple that are still madly in love with one another. They still flirt and hold hands HOW DID THEY KNOW??? I see young couples with a small baby madly in love with one another HOW DID THEY KNOW??? I see couples of all shapes, sizes, races, sexual orientations, and religions in love with one another. How did they know that THIS  person is ‘the one’. How did they know that THIS PERSON would make them happy for the rest of their lives, through thick and thin? Perhaps that is what dating is for…but one could spend YEARS with a person that they aren’t meant to be with….or perhaps are,  and break it off because they don’t see the greatness they have before them. Have I messed up my life?

"When you look into her eyes, you know what kind of man you wanna be."
from movie, "Spiderman" <I WANT TO BE THIS GIRL>…is that hopeless and will i recognize it once i have it?

Hopeless romantic…or romantically hopeless? I don’t know. But I do know this was all totally cliché.