The Garden State is at its most delightful this fourth week in April, lush with lilacs and dogwoods and thick green grass (and, at the moment, heavy rain.) We’ve just spent 2 days rehearsing my play “Spin, or Twilight of the Bohemians.” This is Centenary Stage Company’s 20th anniversary season for their Women Playwrights Series, which I’m proud to be part of–especially since Program Director Catherine Rust is not only producing the reading of my script, but playing a lead role.
As always, Day One of rehearsal was scary. (Who are these people, and what are they doing to my play?!?) Day Two brought ever-larger glimpses of brilliance from the cast, and hints of more revelations to come when we finally get onstage Wednesday night. It also showed me that the fully staged reading I hoped for is way beyond the limited prep time available to WPS winners: my play follows hard on the heels of last week’s, will be followed in a few days by next week’s, and overlaps with not only the mainstage production (winner of last year’s Susan Glaspell Prize) but a student production and a special event for children. Luckily we’re in the Centenary College’s fabulous new Lackland Center–a thespian’s dream!
Tomorrow I head for a NYC break, to catch up with old friends and other arts besides theater. Then back for a final run-through and our 7:30 PM reading on Wed. PM.
Jeff McClure – I would guess you already know that the Hawes Inn (Miscalculation photo) is the Inn where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote more of Treasure Island and is the sitnetg for the first part of the book. The Inn was there long before the bridge.- Another wee factoid about the bridge: During WWII it was draped with camouflage nets and painted in camo designs. The Germans attempted to bomb it on several occasions but the extensive anti-aircraft batteries around it (you can still see the concrete emplacements) and the apparently effective camouflage prevented it from being knocked out. It is also the fifth bridge to cross the Firth of Forth, so it is sometimes called the First of Forth Fifth or the Fifth Firth of Forth. Firth is a local modification of fjord (which is also where we get ford as in a place to cross a river. It refers to an inlet or a narrow place between an island and the mainland. In Scots Gaelic it is usually spelled Foirthe. The river’s name Uisge For (pronounced Wiskey Fore means black water because of the dark peat stain in the water. Stirling Castle, where both Wallace and Robert the Bruce defeated English Armies, was situated on the first ford above the Firth of Forth. It was at the first ford above the Firth of Forth that the Bruce defeated Edward’s Army, took his Royal Seal, and won independence for Scotland.Now you perhaps understand why the Scots could never call the Firth of Forth something mundane like Edinburgh Bay. I think they get a perverse pleasure out of saying all the Firth of Forth history lessons associated with place names that begin with the letter F in the heaviest accent they can muster.
No clue why this appeared on my blog, but it’s too interesting to delete!