A magical opening night

Well, isn’t it amazing how theater always seems to fall together at the end? It’s a mystery! But I felt pretty good about our production of “Kafka Dances” before going into opening night, so I ended up feeling great afterwards!

It started with showing up at the theater to get ready for the show and finding out that the show was already sold out! The audience that ended up coming could not have been better. They had such a wonderful energy, and from the very beginning of the play they laughed along with the show (as an audience would hopefully do, in this case!).

The cast for this show is great—all of the actors on stage have an immense amount of theatrical experience, so we all feel comfortable in the support we can give each other on stage. The cast consists of Jeff McCamish as Franz Kafka, Schatzie Schaeffers as his fiancé, Alice Welling as his mother, Mark Robokoff as his father, and me as his sister. We were directed by Dick Reichmann.

The evening closed with a reception, which was just great. To top off the magic of the night, as I was driving down my road, almost to my house, tiny snowflakes started to fall. There wasn’t enough to even stick on the ground, but it seemed to be the perfect end to such a night.

We were fortunate to receive a good review in the Anchorage Daily News, which you can read of you wish, and here are some photos from the show!






All photos from this post ©Oliver Korshin, 2005

I have a place to live in Minnesota!

Hey everyone! If you hadn’t read my entry about my future plans, then maybe you hadn’t heard I’m moving to Minnesota! I’m heading out there in January, and I’m going to be living with my aunt, who just recently moved there—and yesterday she found an apartment for us to live in! How exciting is that? It’s perfectly situated between the downtowns of both Minneapolis and St. Paul, and is technically in the city of St. Paul. The rent is good and includes heat, AC, water, and trash… considering the winter, I’m thrilled that rent covers heat as well!

I’m getting excited about the move. But moving to there means I’m leaving here, which will have to be an adjustment. I have such great friends here that I’m going to miss. I have incredibly talented friends who are going to be doing theater projects that I’m going to wish I could be a part of. I have little cousins and children of cousins that I’m going to miss growing up. I just love Alaska… I’m sure I’ll be returning someday; it just seems inevitable.

But for now it’s Minnesota ho! Well… in a couple months :)

On the brink of greatness

We’re heading into the final days of rehearsal before our production of “Kafka Dances” opens this weekend. Our official opening is on Saturday, October 22nd, but we’re having preview audiences on Thursday and Friday beforehand, so we really only have 3 more rehearsals before we have an audience! How do I feel? There’s always that part of me that thinks, “omigosh, are we going to make it?” But I do feel that things are going well. The playwright, Timothy Daly, has come up from Australia to visit Alaska and be at the opening of the play. He was at rehearsal tonight for the first time… and I was just a little bit nervous! I think we all were. I feel pretty good about what we are doing with the play, but there’s this little part of me that was worried that Mr. Daly would see what we have done with his work and be disgusted ☺ Fortunately, that didn’t appear to be the case.

I’ll hopefully be posting some pictures sometime soon, but for any of you who are in the Anchorage area, please come and see the show (it’s always nice to have an audience!). Tickets are $15 at Cyrano’s Off-Center Playhouse on D Street between 4th and 5th. You can call ahead to reserve tickets or buy them at the door. The run is from October 22nd until November 19th—so come if you can! For those of you who can’t, I’ll try and get pictures up as soon as I have some.

While I’m plugging shows, I also want to direct locals to go see Theatre for Young People’s production of “The Witch of Greythorn” at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium. This Friday, October 21st, is opening night, and they will be running for two weekends—fun and scary stuff just in time for Halloween!

Some thoughts on being sick

I’ve just recently been recovering from a cold of some sort. It seems inevitable that when the seasons change, all of a sudden I get sick. I’ve noticed a pattern I have when I’m sick:

1) I start to feel a cold coming on, but I tell myself that it’s just my imagination, and if I think positively enough I will not get sick.
NOTE: While this is not always the case, it does sometimes work, hence continuing the cycle of my thinking this every time I start to get sick.

2) I clearly get sick, and suddenly all desire and will to do ANYTHING goes out the window. I can’t even be useful in my house by doing laundry or something.

3) I start to feel guilty because I’m sick. I start thinking that I wasn’t a positive enough thinker (see note 1). I start thinking that I’ve done stuff to set up my immune system to be weak (not enough sleep, not enough down time). The tricky thing is that one of these things could be true! But often they’re not and I feel guilty anyway. I also feel guilty if I’m missing work, no matter how bad I feel. I feel less guilty when a doctor has said I’m very contagious… but then I feel bad that I’ve spent the money :)

4) Resignation happens. I’m sick and there’s nothing I can do about it… except drink lots of water and chicken broth, which I proceed to do. Once I get to the resignation part, I’m fine, and I’m typically getting better by this point.

All in all, being sick sucks. You feel physically bad, and then there is a whole hoop of emotions to jump through as well. I hope I can manage to stay healthier this flu season…

Some time I cherish... and I wish I had a garage

Well, it’s official! Today was the first day I had to scrape the windows of my car. It happens every year—the leaves start to turn yellow, the days start to get shorter… and then pretty soon it’s getting colder and I start wishing I had a garage! At least there’s not snow… yet… I think we all need to take a moment…

On a happier note, I wanted to comment on something special: the gathering of friends. I think that I’m very fortunate in Alaska to have such an extended group of friends that have become an addition to my family. It is what I most miss when I am away, and it is what I will long for once I’m in Minneapolis. This extended group of friends and I started gathering together to watch the TV show “Lost” last year. My friend Matt has TiVo, and he started storing up episodes of the show, which we would periodically get together to watch on a Sunday. It has become something I look forward to. And while it revolves around a TV show, this is not the source of the joy we have in getting together, which was emphasized when we ran out of episodes between seasons and still ended up getting together. My friend Shane commented how it feels like a family gathering, which I agree with. It starts with Matt sending out an email ahead of time, proposing the Sunday to watch and asking for ideas for food. Inevitably, some wonderful souls volunteer to provide portions of the meal, and we end up with plenty of food. We always start watching the show too late, because we’re all chatting away, but when we do get around to watching the show, we all get caught up and scream at the TV when the show leaves us with a cliffhanger. There are usually at least 15-20 people there, and it’s wonderful. I’m sure other people have similar types of experiences, but those of you in the group I’m talking about know how much I love you—and will miss you when I’m gone!