THE NORMAN CONQUESTS - ROUND AND ROUND THE GARDEN

I JUST UPLOADED THE ENTIRE SECOND ACT OF ROUND AND ROUND THE GARDEN FROM THE NORMAN CONQUESTS

I played the role of Ruth in this production. The video quality is poor. It started out as a VHS video cassette, then I transferred it to a dvd, then I transferred it to iMovie which turns it into a Quick Time movie, then to Youtube where it lost a bit of quality. It was slightly clearer in iMovie and Quick Time than Youtube. I posted Act 2, Scene 1, Part 2 March 17, 2009 - it is the second video on this post. And have been surprised with the number of views it has received. Even some have favorited it and a couple gave it five stars. That just made my day when I saw that this week. I have a total of 9 youtube videos posted of the second act. The videos are no clearer at Vimeo. And most of the videos are over the 500 MB limit for a Vimeo free account, which is what I have there. So if you are interested in viewing them, I suggest, using the black arrow (which turns red when the mouse is hovering over it) at the upper right of the video to see them in a different window. It is slightly an improvement. To have access to the red arrow, you need to go to youtube. Double click any embedded youtube here and you will be taken to the youtube page of that video.

If you have a youtube account, you may know that you can see what people are coming from to see your videos, what sites, links, embeds and what countries and states. New Jersey leads viewers in the USA.

The Norman Conquests
by Alan Ayckbourn

The Third Play is
Round and Round the Garden
A British Trilogy
A comedy

Here I have posted embeds for
Act Two, Scene One
Four youtube videos

The Norman Conquests was playing in New York
April 23, - July 26, 2009
The play was playing at the Old Vic Theatre in London

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Act 2, Scene 1, Part 1
Uploaded by ilovemylifesblog

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Round and Round the Garden
Act 2, Scene 1, Part 2
Uploaded by ilovemylifesblog

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Act 2, Scene 2, Part 3
Uploaded by ilovemylifesblog

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Act 2, Scene 2, Part 4
Uploaded by ilovemylifesblog

If you want to see the Act 2, Scene 2 that I posted on youtube, I will embed them here eventually.

Here are the links to them:
Act 2, Scene 2, Part 1
Featuring Patti Corriveau (Stage Manager)

Act 2, Scene 2, Part 2

Act 2, Scene 2, Part 3

Act 2, Scene 2, Part 4

Or you may go here www.youtube.com/user/ilovemylifesblog
They are numbered in order.

Some reviews:

Providence Journal
Try clicking on the article and hopefully it will enlarge to be able to read it.

A paper called The Eagle

"Round & Round the Garden"
of
"The Norman Conquests"
British Comedy Trilogy

"Table Manners"
"Living Together"
"Round and Round the Garden"

Production by TIFOBET ~ The Incredibly Far Off Broadway Ensemble Theatre
Swanhurst Theatre at Bellevue Avenue and Webster Street
Newport, Rhode Island
April 1983

The video was originally shot by an early VHS video camera, therefore the poor quality. I apologize.

Cast
Sarah..........Lori Brainerd
Tom............John Chatty
Norman......Jim Ernest
Ruth...........Sandra K. Hammel
Reg............Paul Ruggeri
Annie.........Linda J. Vars
Featuring Patti Corriveau (Stage Manager)

Eventually, I plan to post the other two plays, Table Manners, and Living Together

I notice I am fidgeting a lot in these videos . . . scratching although nothing needed to be scratched. And the voice needed to be lowered. But upstage it was hard to be heard because there was a dead spot back there. So, there, I have a reason. Otherwise, the direction was barely there, so I pretty much directed myself. It would have been nice to be told to lower my voice, but I have to live with the high pitched voice....a bit annnoying.

RAFA GLIDES THROUGH AT INDIAN WELLLS ....and IT'S A BEGINNING for ME

THIS POST IS TRIPLE PURPOSE....

Rafa Nadal d Dmitry Tursunov 6-3, 6-3
Three photo credits: Getty Images

More information below my personal videos...

I have never known how to do any video editing or posting to Youtube. And after several hours of not being successful to do the simplest edit as to have a silent introduction, I tried to upload the video as is. I am waiting on Youtube to process my video. And by mistake I uploaded somehow the whole Act Two, which of course is too long.

Well, I tried again....

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Link to the video at youtube
The Norman Conquests by Alan Ayckbourn
British Comedy Trilogy

Trilogy including 1) Table Manners, 2) Living Together and 3) Round and Round the Garden.

This video is a portion of Round and Round the Garden's Act Two with the characters Ruth, Sarah and Tom.

Production by TIFOBET ~ The Incredibly Far Off Broadway Ensemble Theatre
Swanhurst Theatre at Bellevue Avenue and Webster Street
Newport, Rhode Island
April 1983

This video was originally shot by an early video camera, therefore the poor quality.

Cast
Sarah..........Lori Brainerd
Tom............John Chatty
Norman......Jim Ernest
Ruth...........Sandra K. Hammel
Reg............Paul Ruggeri
Annie.........Linda J. Vars

thenormanconquests.alanayckbourn.net

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The Norman Conquests ~ "Round and Round the Garden" Act 2, Scene 1, Part 2 from ilovemylifesblog on Vimeo.
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This is the same clip but uploaded at Vimeo


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UPDATE ABOUT RAFA

The Indian Wells Website has an aritcle about MARCH 17, 2009:
www.bnpparibasopen.org


Singles Match
Rafa beat Dmitry Tursunov 6-3, 6-3

Doubles Match
Bryan Brothers d Rafa Nadal and Marc Lopez
4-6, 3-6

Rafa will play David Nalbandian on Stadium 1, not before 9:00 p.m.PDT on Wednesday - March 18 12:00 a.m. USA EDT

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Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - Schedule

Printable Wednesday's Order of Play (PDF)

STADIUM 1 start 11:00 am (3 hours behind USA EST)
[4] V Zvonareva (RUS) vs [9] C Wozniacki (DEN) - WTA

Not Before 1:00 PM
[17] F Gonzalez (CHI) vs [2] R Federer (SUI) - ATP

[3] N Djokovic (SRB) vs [16] S Wawrinka (SUI) - ATP

[12] D Ferrer (ESP) vs [7] A Roddick (USA) - ATP

Not Before 7:30 PM
[1] D Safina (RUS) vs [8] V Azarenka (BLR) - WTA

Not Before 9:00 PM (12:00 Midnight USA EST)
[1] R Nadal (ESP) vs [14] D Nalbandian (ARG) - ATP

Here you can get the TV Schedule: http://www.bnpparibasopen.org/3/tournament/tv/default.asp

More picture os Rafa: www.zimbio.com/pictures
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Possible links for live streaming

http://atdhe.net/live-tv-4873.html

http://www.rojadirecta.com/

http://www.radiotennis.com/schedules.php

Also, for a fee you can watch it at

http://www.tennistv.com/page/LiveIndex/0,,11444,00.html?WT.mc_id=vb

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SOS for DARFUR
We Need Your Help
They Still Don't Get It In Washington, D.C.

Call your Senatorsand Representative

Find your elected politicians contact information at this link:

www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obama chooses Sudan envoy,

to announce Wednesday

www.reuters.com

Tue Mar 17, 2009 8:33pm EDT

[-] Text [+]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is set to name retired Air Force General Scott Gration as his special envoy to Sudan, where he has warned of a worsening crisis following the expulsion of foreign aid organizations.

"The president and secretary of state are on the verge of appointing Gration to the job," an administration official said on Tuesday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the formal announcement would likely come on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Caren Bohan, Editing by Sandra Maler)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Write President Obama

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

You can also call or write to the President:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Comments to President Obama:

202 - 456-111

or

1-800-GENOCIDE

The White House comment line is available

9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. weekdays

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To call the USA Secretary of State

202-647-6575

The USA State Department public comment line

works 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

Genocide Ends

When Enough of Us

Stand Up Against It

JOIN US
1-800-GENOCIDE
www.savedarfur.org
www.genocideintervention.net
www.standnow.org

www.stopgenocidenow.org

Movement of the Human Body and All Life is a Stage

Marco & Paulo Lorador . . . . Norman and Ruth in"Living Together"
. . . . . . . . . . . . Pictured on the far left as Ruth

Movement of the Human Body is Art

Did ANYone see Oprah today? It was like Michelangelo's "David" in Florence, Italy - but two of him in motion. WOW. Just WOW. Two brothers, Marco and Paulo Lorador from Portugal, “wow audiences night after night with their physical feats of strength and balance”. Today, they were one brief, but monumentally memorable segment of the Oprah show. For me, it was dancing. Beautiful male bodies, dancing - poetry in the movement of the human body. O-O-ah-a-a. My heart is still full from the sensual sensation. Thank Goodness I have it recorded. I wrote to Oprah on her website while the show was still on today and I asked if this portion of today’s show could be posted on her website. If not, hopefully someone will put in on YouTube.com for those who would appreciate the beauty and missed it.

Oprah - the World’s Best Cheerleader

When they were poised on the stage ready to begin their “act”, no I will call it “art”, Oprah said these words:
“No, we just want a moment to look at 'thehm'. Pause. We want a moment. All take a deep breath. What in the world? What in the world? Oh my goodness. (Can’t contain herself.) We all just took a deep breath. . . . Strength, discipline and balance is the answer to how this next act is done, but even knowing that, you might not believe your eyes. Please, welcome from the Cirque du Soileil show “Mystere” - brothers Marco and Paulo.” Oh dear people, there is such beauty in the movement of the human form. I’m watching it again as I type this, just to refresh my feelings. Oprah’s jaw just dropped. My heart is beating, boom-Boom. When it ends Oprah says, “That’s amazing. Wow… wow …wow, who-o-o. That is unbelievable. Wow, wow, wow. Hello, hello, nice to see you. I was watching you and it felt . . . um, (she goes to their abs) . . . so Marco is 39 and Paola is 41 years old. . . ”

I love movement of the human body. I am drawn to it. Beautiful bodies are enjoyable, but the movement is what pulls me in . . . like nothing else. When I taught children music in schools, I taught movement as well as music. And I noticed that when I purposely moved myself in measured and intentional ways while I taught, the children could become mesmerized and pulled in. And the change in tempo and dynamics (volume) of the delivery of my words would affect the students, as well. When I would be teaching mundane information and break into singing it instead of speaking it - they loved it. I think it is human nature to love theatre on any stage. The children loved the simple drama and creative movement classes probably inclusively more than any other part of the music class. We are all drawn to beauty. I think.

If Life Is A Stage I’d Like Better Lighting
My Experience in Theatre – Oh How I Miss It

Thinking of these thoughts brings memories of experiences that I have had on stage. I miss it so much. One of the few good things of my year and a half at the fundamentalist United Brethren church-affiliated Huntington College experience was the fact that I got cast as the female lead, Fiona, in the musical Brigadoon. I remember getting a rash just before the weekend of shows began. We had two female student directors who somehow got us on the local NBC noon news program where we sang a duet. Now that I think of it, I wonder how we got a way with kissing each other on stage in such a HC stringent environment. I have almost nothing left of it but the bottom half of the poster for it. It reads that seats were $1.50 and $1.00.

Later, I continued for a while in different community theatre productions. My very favorite role was Ruth in Alan Ayckbourn’s trilogy The Norman Conquests, which included I. Table Manners, II. Living Together and III. Round and Round the Garden. I was teaching in the day and going to rehearsal every night. During this time, I have to admit that I did relegate my lesson planning and music classes to things that ordinarily I never did – filmstrips. Other teachers did this lame stuff all of the time on a routine basis, but for me it seemed such a cop-out for what the kids deserved. I had 9 classes a day and 700 students. Music teachers have never had it easy. It was tough even for a young teacher. For Norman Conquests, we had a British accent coach, Jill, who was from England. She became a friend and gave me confidence in my effort. The Norman Conquests actually has good writing. Our sets were decent. There are six characters in this comedy based around Norman, who is married to Ruth, but fancies that he is a ladies’ man. Norman attempts to seduce any other female, including Sarah, Ruth's sister-in-law, but mostly Annie, Ruth's sister, in the trilogy. Most of the acting was passable though we were amateurs, but then there was Norman. oh. I was surprised when I learned that he graduated with a theatre degree. Okay, it took me a while to find my rhythm. But, Norman never found a beat for a rhythm to call home. One night when I had to kiss him, afterward he came up to me all excited, well I think it was excitement, hard to tell with his emoting, he said something like “I REALLY thought our scene (that one with the kiss and rolling around on the parlor room floor) was so-o good tonight.” It was no better than any other time that we did it. Truly. He was just influenced by something I did that surprised him. You do what you can to make things work. But sometimes it just won’t work.

We got reviewed by various newspapers. But I never read any of them until the run was over. We didn’t get rave reviews on the whole. There was one review that I am proud of personally because it was done by the Providence Journal critic, William K Gale, who had panned Elizabeth Taylor who had been playing in Boston in Love Letters near the time. I never saw Ms. Taylor in this play, but I know she is a talent. Because we weren’t really that good as an ensemble, I was willing to take any thing close to good words on my performance. Mr. Gale saw the Table Manners show, where Ruth has it out with Sarah. “. . . (My name) . . . is properly bitchy as the uptight Ruth and she is touching when Norman turns his attentions to her and finds something no one thought existed, a soft side.”

I always got noticed in my efforts to add to a character or scene. I never felt any director I ever had directed. And my experience is not prolific but I am so grateful for it. I loved being on the stage and I loved moving the audience. You could feel it, and it would be quietly audible at times. And the best was delivering a line that brought some form of humor.

Started with the beauty of movement and ended with personal acting experiences. It’s all the same passion for me. I love theatre. And we live theatre every day. Life really is a stage. And we are each the star in our own lives. Or should be anyway. Break a leg.