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"theater"
East Bay Center for the Performing Arts: Isabel Lyndon, Winter Shadow 2016
This winter, I spent four days at the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond, California. I shadowed Jordan Simmons (Reed ’78), but I also had opportunities to work independently, with other interns, and with various members of the faculty and staff.
The Center, which includes a theater, a dance studio, practice and rehearsal rooms, and office spaces, is housed in a beautiful renovated building. When I arrived, Ruthie, the Deputy Director of Programs, took me around the Center, introducing me to everyone we ran into. She told me what they did at the center, professionally, but she also alerted me to other details, such as: one employee made great cheesecake and another was passionate about sneakers. Everyone had an amazing set of combined skills or passions. Ruthie herself, I learned, had degrees in both social work and jazz piano, and this kind of combination was not unusual among the staff.
Founded in 1968, the Center offers on-site classes, in school and after school programs for students in the Richmond area, ensembles, performances, college and career counseling, and internships. When I visited, the Center was in a “dark week,” or a period with private lessons and rehearsals but no regular classes. Even so, sometimes I would walk downstairs and come upon a student in a piano lesson. One afternoon, the sounds of an alumni band floated up from a first floor rehearsal room to the offices upstairs. Usually, the Center offers lessons in everything from violin to West African Dance, acting to oboe, plus jazz theory, capoeira, Mien/Laotian ceremonial dance, stage combat, ballet, and more.
Presidents Summer Fellowship, Supernatural Shakespearian Webseries Part 3, Liz Groombridge
President’s Summer Fellow Elizabeth Groombridge ’16, psychology/theater major, is writing and creating a queer, supernatural webseries, “The Green’s Apartment”, based on Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It.
Final Days
After the data loss panic of the last post, the hard drive came back with 90% of the data recovered. A few shots were lost, leading to a few odd shot choices in the past 5 episodes, but enough was recovered that the series was able to be finished. And the footage for the last 4 episodes (the ones still coming out) was stored on another drive, so the project is completely out of the woods now.
Continue reading Presidents Summer Fellowship, Supernatural Shakespearian Webseries Part 3, Liz Groombridge
Presidents Summer Fellowship, Supernatural Shakespearian Webseries Part 2, Liz Groombridge
Watch Act I Scene I .
President’s Summer Fellow Elizabeth Groombridge ’16, psychology/theater major, is writing and creating a queer, supernatural webseries, “The Green’s Apartment”, based on Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It.
Bumps Along the Road
We wrapped filming on August 8th in Chicago. It was an amazing experience with so many wonderful people. The whole cast was great and did so well with their parts. It was a stressful experience, filming, because I blocked out 4 hours to film each episode, and for some episodes that was more than enough and for some it was a little short. I learned so much about directing film over the course of this project, because I've never done anything on this scale before. The more episodes I shot, the better my shot compositions became, and the more I understood how to make things dynamic on camera.
But I think what really helped me learn more about how to direct film was editing it. Choosing to edit during the process was a really good decision, I think, because by watching my footage so carefully and piecing together the narrative from different angles, I began to really understand what looked good and what looked awkward or flat. This has been an amazing learning experience for me.
Continue reading Presidents Summer Fellowship, Supernatural Shakespearian Webseries Part 2, Liz Groombridge
Presidents Summer Fellowship, Supernatural Shakespearian Webseries, Liz Groombridge
President’s Summer Fellow Elizabeth Groombridge, ’16 psychology/theater major, is writing and creating a queer, supernatural webseries, “The Green’s Apartment”, based on Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It.