Thursday February 24

Today was a double header as far as interning goes. Bridget and I finished up the press release earlier this week and I worked on a news bulletin for the KCPA website. Thursday night, however, was significantly more fun. My play writing class went to see Sarah Ruhl's "Eurydice", a reinterpretation of the classic Greek tragedy, at the Station Theatre. We agreed to see the show together last week. Even though it isn't writing in itself, watching performance often helps shape you as a better writer. It can help shape new perspectives and get your creative drive in gear, not to mention it's pretty stress relieving. The Station Theatre, located in the old train station across from Save-A-Lot in downtown Urbana, is fairly small. The set was one of the largest I've ever seen in the building. I'd estimate less than quarter of the blackbox (a type of theatre that's, literally, a black box- there isn't a permanent stage therefore it's very flexible, but also requires some extra work depending on what the director and scenic designer want to achieve) was used for seating. The production was interesting. I wasn't wild about the lead actress. After the show we talked for a few minutes about our reactions. I thought Eurydice was portrayed as far too infantile from the beginning of the play; she didn't develop very much as a character on stage though the script itself indicates major shifts in her character. 2008 UHS graduate Chris Brown played Orpheus, the male lead. He and the remaining five members of the cast did a wonderful job. On Monday we'll do a more in-depth critique of the performance and we'll decide on a date to view the next Station production "Betrayal" in early March.