"'We hold these truths to be self-evident,' they said, 'that all men are created equal.' Strange as it may seem, that was the first time in history that anyone had bothered to write that down. Decisions are made by those who show up. Class dismissed." -- President Josiah Bartlet, (as written by Aaron Sorkin), The West Wing, Season 1: episode 22 "What Kind of Day Has It Been?"

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably i nterrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated: Column 1 Georgia:      Button Gwinnett      Lyman Hall      George Walton       Column 2 North Carolina:      William Hooper      Joseph Hewes      John Penn South Carolina:      Edward Rutledge      Thomas Heyward, Jr.      Thomas Lynch, Jr.      Arthur Middleton       Column 3 Massachusetts:      John Hancock Maryland:      Samuel Chase      William Paca      Thomas Stone      Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia:      George Wythe      Richard Henry Lee      Thomas Jefferson      Benjamin Harrison      Thomas Nelson, Jr.      Francis Lightfoot Lee      Carter Braxton Column 4 Pennsylvania:      Robert Morris      Benjamin Rush      Benjamin Franklin      John Morton      George Clymer      James Smith      George Taylor      James Wilson      George Ross Delaware:      Caesar Rodney      George Read      Thomas McKean       Column 5 New York:      William Floyd      Philip Livingston      Francis Lewis      Lewis Morris New Jersey:      Richard Stockton      John Witherspoon      Francis Hopkinson      John Hart      Abraham Clark       Column 6 New Hampshire:      Josiah Bartlett      William Whipple Massachusetts:      Samuel Adams      John Adams      Robert Treat Paine      Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island:      Stephen Hopkins      William Ellery Connecticut:      Roger Sherman      Samuel Huntington      William Williams      Oliver Wolcott New Hampshire:      Matthew Thornton

Photo by Nick Falzerano

Monday I sent the new headshot (left), from last week's session with Nicholas Studios, to The Human Race Theatre Company for the program and webpage for the show.

To show my vanity, I must say this fellow over here on the left seems to be a year, or perhaps decade, or so older than the guy sitting at this keyboard. How'd that happen? Alternatively: Who put that picture of the my-dad-look-alike over there? Not that I don't like the photo, or a lot of others from the session.

Meanwhile, line study, more specifically, line memorization, starts in earnest today. I had some intentions to start earlier, such as over the weekend-getaway, mini-vacation I just had, but, the plans to work on the lines then was tentative at best -- and I did not get to it; so-oh-well.

The update quicksand is getting looser and is now up to my waist; and I may sink a little lower before it's over. I still have photos from the excursion from the weekend before to sweeten, and now I have photos from this past weekend to deal with next. Then, I'm coming up on the third weekend-getaway, mini-vacations this weekend -- this one being my next Chicago trip, this time to see the new play, The Roommate at steppenwolf.

So, who knows when any of the posts will be up......

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Last night, at my computer in my hotel room.

Right now I am on my Chicago weekend-getaway, mini-vacation. Technically, as I post this, I am not actually in Chicago, but rather, I'm about 45-minutes to an hour away, in a hotel off of I-65, in Indiana.

I get on the road to Chicago shortly after I post this entry. I'll spend the day in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. As I wrote a little while ago, much of my day will be at The Lincoln Park Zoo, then I'll have a dinner with local Chicago actor and theatre dude, Rob Koon, then I'll spend about 100 minutes at steppenwolf seeing the new comedy, The Roommate, directed by Ms. Phylicia Rashad.

The photos and recounting of this weekend is, of course, queued behind the excursions of two weeks and one week ago. I have at least now sweetened all the photos from two weeks ago -- there were a lot of them. Now, on to last weekend as soon as I can get to it. And, of course, I'll be piling photos from this weekend onto the heap.

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~~IN ORDER OF OCCURRENCE~~

Third weekend-getaway, mini-vacation down. The pics and recounting of the first one will be up tomorrow or Wednesday.

              unless, of course, it isn't.

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Sunday, June 24, I drove over to the Columbus Museum of Art and spent mid-morning into late afternoon there. That Sunday just happened to be a free admission day, so, since I purchased my admission ticket the day before, on-line, I now have an opportunity to go back. I'll wait until maybe this winter to let what's on exhibit change up a bit.

The featured exhibit up was "A Measure of Humanity, which will end September 16. Some of the photos I post here are from that -- photography was encouraged. *That link to the exhibit may be dead after it closes.

The museum is much smaller than I'd anticipated. There's good art there, I'd just somehow expected more wall space. It seems to me that the Dayton Art Institute has more space and more pieces on display, which surprises me.

At any rate, here is some of the great art I encountered on my visit:

"Collina," by Sir Joshua Reynolds

"Female Nude," by Pablo Piccasso

"Untitled [Urban Scene]," by Hughie Lee-Smith

"The Sand Quarries at Valmondois," by Charles-Francois Daubigny

"Topographic Landscape," by Maya Lin

"Topographic Landscape" from another perspective

"Topographic Landscape" from another perspective

"Topographic Landscape" from another perspective

"Topographic Landscape" from another perspective

"The Burghers of Calais, First Maquette," by Auguste Rodin

"Sunflower," by Christopher Ries

"The Family of Man, Figure 2, Ancestor II," by Barbara Hepworth

"Torso of Venus," by Aristide Maillol

"A Gust of Wind (The Seine at Port-Villez)," by Claude Monet

"Buildings," by Niles Spencer

"Company for Supper," by Dale Nichols

"Tutein's Tomb," by Anselm Kiefer

"Tower Room, Fehmarn Self [portrait with Erna]," by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

"Brown Girl After the Bath," by Archibald J. Motley, Jr.

"1 panel from Aerospace Folktales," by Allan Sekula

"Back of Kelly," by Evan Penny

"Bathsheba" by Artemisia Gentileschi

"Freya," by Gerhard Marcks

"The Knock Down," by Mahonri Mackintosh Young

"The Knock Down" from another perspective

"The Knock Down" from another perspective

"The Knock Down" from another perspective

"Water Lilies," by Mark Tansey Full disclosure: This painting is quite wide, about 6 to 10 feet. At the museum, I was not able to stand far enough back to get the whole piece in one frame. This is actually an image downloaded from the web, so you get the whole piece in one frame.

"U.S. Musical Notes," by Otis Kaye

"Abduction of Hippodameia," by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse

"Black Flag," by James Guy

"Landscape at Fehman with Nudes," by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

"Nude Seated before a Fireplace," by Edouard Vuillard

I have more photos that I could post and that I want to post. I suspect I'll throw some up from time to time. Now, some other pics from that day, on the trip home:

As is my usual want, I saw no reason to take a major highway home -- in this case, I-70 West -- so I didn't.
Before I went home, I stopped by Yellow Springs to hang out for a while. This is Xenia Ave. from the POV of a bench in front of the grocery store.	Same bench, other direction down the street.	Getting close to home.

~~IN ORDER OF OCCURRENCE~~

Two past resent weekend-getaway, mini-vacations to post about and another one coming up. This means that I will continue to spend a lot of time sweetening photos, plus I will have more words to write about these last two than I did about the Columbus Museum of Art, and probably will, too, about the one coming this weekend.

And i got a lot of other stuff to do, as well.

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I got the email because I'm an Equity membership candidate and am welcomed to the event along with Equity actors. I'm going because: one, the workshop piques my interest; two, it's the first Equity event I've had the opportunity to attend -- I've received notices of previous events, but one or both of the physical distance or the timing were a hindrance; three, it's close enough and works with my schedule; and, four, why should I not tred into the professional acting universe whenever I can?

*) The link to The Alexander Technique was added by me

~~IN ORDER OF OCCURRENCE~~

As I find time, I have been working on the recounting of the second weekend getaway, mini-vacation, in terms of writing the prose. The photo sweetening is finished. So the second one should be up just in time for me to take number four while I try to fit working the recounting of number three into my stuff to do.

We're going with quite a few organic sound cues rather than SFX -- things like door slams and foot steps. We will be using SFX for rain, thunder, and that of the piano, whenever characters are to play such.

We also discussed the pre-show and intermission music, which we easily agreed will be classical music, most likely chamber ensembles.

There was also discussion about the curtain music. We generally decided what the feel and the tempo should be. I will attend some full run rehearsals in late July and/or early August to get a sense of how the ending of the last act is playing, which will better inform me when I pick choices for that final production music.

On a related avenue, I need to make an appointment with a particular musician/composer to curate some production music for This Random World. I should do that soon, because I'd like to have much of that sound design shored up before I go into Banned from Baseball rehearsals.

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Flashcards in the gym

As of yesterday, there's one calendar month until table read.

Between now and then: line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book, line study, dramaturgy, off-book.


While I'm at The Guild doing some other needed work today, I'll also test to be sure that we can get sound to the designated speaker cable for channel 5 of our sound system, which is used for isolated sound that's either back stage or somewhere on the stage rather than from the PA speakers. It's used for such things as TVs or radios or for placing the speaker right outside a window on stage, etc.

There was apparently a problem during a production someone else did sound for. I need the channel 5 speaker for The Little Foxes so I will be trouble-shooting this today after the other work is dealt with.

~~IN ORDER OF OCCURRENCE~~

Another weekend-getaway, mini-vacation coming up tomorrow. One past excursion about to be recounted.

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Like I alluded to in the last post, we have a sound cable, usually dedicated to channel 5 of our sound board, that runs from the booth console, across the ceiling, and drops back stage, with a good length of slack. It's for isolated sounds that we don't want to come out of any of the four house PA speakers. It's so that a particular sound effect can be localized by hiding a fifth speaker somewhere on the stage, usually up stage or closer to up stage. The speaker could actually be inside a TV or a radio, or hidden close-enough that the sound appears to come from said device.

When Ryan Shannon designed sound for Wonder of the World at the end of the 16/17 season, he'd wanted to use that channel 5 setup but reported that he could not get it to work. Since that production, we've not needed it for any shows and I had not gotten around to looking at the problem. Now I want it for our show, and though I will be running a sound effect in channel 5 of the mixer, the signal won't be running though that particular cable.

When I did the trouble-shooting this past Saturday I was able to isolate the problem to the cable. There's clearly a interruption somewhere along the line, a short. The small amped speaker that we've employed for a while does work; I hooked it up to other cables that I ran from channel 5 and it works -- which also eliminated channel 5 as the problem.

I'll need to run new cable from the booth to the back stage area where I need to place the speaker. I'll run it mostly across the floor, but by way of the dressing room to back stage and then onto the stage. I've done it before, especially when we needed not only a channel 5 speaker back there (with the now defunct setup) but and additional speaker running from channel 6.

Immediately, this is for the forthcoming The Little Foxes, but I also have to think long-term. A decision about whether we try to run more cable across the ceiling needs to be made. The other both short-term and long-term issue I had Saturday was the little amped speaker we've been using with channel 5. It's getting old and has a ground hum that can be heard with any significant volume set on the speaker. I know for The Little Foxes, I may want to set the volume higher rather than lower on the speaker. I'll be running piano duets through the speaker for two actors to pantomime playing said music while sitting at a prop-piano. The speaker will either be hidden in the piano or nearby. I want the gain on the speaker higher so there's more room for volume level control from the mixer in the booth. But that ground hum.

The Eurolive B295D PA/Monitor

For a while I've been saying that we need more of these little amped monitor speakers. Right now a big reason we need any amped speakers is that only the first four channels that come out of the mixing board are run through the main power amps in the booth. The speakers at the other end of those channels don't need amplification at the speaker because they get it in the booth -- these are the four PA speakers mounted on the ceiling in the four corners of the theatre space (The Mirkin). Channels 5 though 8 aren't amplified in the booth so they need to run to amped speakers, usually meaning amped monitor speakers. Saturday, I bought a Behringer Eurolive B295D 150-watt PA/Monitor speaker, from Sound Force, just down the road from us, to replace our current amped speaker. I'll probably buy a few more in the future. The B295D is plenty powerful for our intended purpose. I can't say our old amped speaker will be retired, but it is relegated to back-up status.

Looking forward into the next DTG production after The Little Foxes, I have an appointment with that musician/composer I mentioned last post to curate some production music for This Random World. The meeting is this evening. This show is, of course, the Marjorie-Strader-helmed production for which I was originally on board to be the AD, but had to bow out of that position when I was cast in Band from Baseball. I was Margie's AD for The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin the season before last, and it was a very good experience. Under the circumstances, as I may have written here before, I'm not too bummed about having to nix this AD work, but, I still will miss the experience. At least I'm still on the creative team.

~~IN ORDER OF OCCURRENCE~~

Weekend-getaway, mini-vacation Number Four down (yesterday). The post recounting Number Two is nearing arrival; Numbers three & Four are on the to-do list.