The Daegu Theater Troupe

This past weekend marked the debut performance of the Daegu Theater Troupe. A couple of months ago, my friend Kristin suggested forming a group for those of us who enjoyed theater in our college and high school days, and this weekend, we put on our first show. It was a 24-hour one-act marathon, and it was hugely successful. Here's how it worked:

-There were 6 groups, each with an average of about 4 people.
-On Friday night, all the participants met downtown and were divided into the 6 groups.
-Each group had one writer, one director, and 2-4 actors.
-The meeting took place at 10:30, lasted until about 11:00, at which point each group's writer went off to write a 10-15 minute script.
-At 9:30AM the next day, and after the writers had stayed up all night long writing, the directors and actors met with the writers. After an initial read-through and discussion of the script, the actors went to work learning it.
-Throughout the course of the day, we were able to spend some time on the stage that we would be performing on, as well as discuss any lighting effects with our technical guy.
-At about 11:30PM on Saturday night, after roughly 14 hours of rehearsing, each group put on its show in front of an audience of around 150-200 people.

My group's show was really neat. I was afraid that all the scripts were going to be juvenile comedies, but our writer actually put together a pretty dark piece. I played the main role of a prison inmate on death row for the gruesome murder of several people. I was basically a psychotic killer who liked to shove pencils through people's heads. The other 2 characters were a prison guard and an artist commissioned to paint my portrait. Our show actually had a dramatic twist at the end; it turned out that my character was actually also a guard, and our prison actually had no prisoners yet (it was brand new.) Myself and the other guard liked to pass the time by messing with people.

Like I said, the show was hugely successful and great fun. There will be another show of some kind in the not-so-distant (I hope) future, and there are also branch-off groups forming within the troupe. For example, some people are planning on organizing something along the lines of an ImprovEverywhere stunt. If you aren't familiar with ImprovEverywhere, they are a group of actors, who are between jobs, who stage random scenes of...well, total randomness. For example, one stunt they pulled was to have around a dozen people break out into a musical in the middle of a crowded food court in a mall. The video is here: http://improveverywhere.com/2008/03/09/food-court-musical/
The top of the page is pictures and a summary of the birth of the idea, putting it together, etc. To just watch the video, scroll down towards the bottom of the page. You should also check out some of their other videos, some of them are really hilarious.

In other news, I bought a plane ticket to Thailand, which I will be visiting with some friends in late February. This is the start of the summer months (I think) in Thailand, so I am looking forward to sprawling out on some tropical beaches in 90-degree weather while the whole of Korea wallows in its frozen dreariness.

Also, today was my last day of outright teaching my least favorite group of classes. Every other Tuesday I have four 1st-grade classes, each of which I am convinced were spawned in the bowels of hell itself. Today was no different, they were little demons as usual. One class was so bad that I took the entire class down to the hallway outside the teachers lounge, had them kneel up against a wall, and put their hands in the air for almost the entire 45-minute period. This is about as far as I am allowed to go in terms of corporal punishment (it is also as far as I am willing to go; hitting a child is unacceptable in my opinion.) Fortunately, they will be testing the next time I am supposed to see them, and shortly after exams the semester will be over, at which point I have roughly 2 months off!

Hallelujah.

Hope Restored

It's difficult, but I can remember the exact moment that I was last proud to be American. It was a little over 7 years ago, during the week of September 11th: I was in the car listening to a story on the radio about a homeless man donating the $1.67 that constituted his net worth to the relief efforts. I remember thinking to myself, never in my life have I ever been more proud of my country, and of people in general. September 11th showed humanity at its worst, but it also showed humanity at its best, and it just so happened that the best was being represented by Americans.

And then March 2003 came around, and everything changed. I watched in anger as our President, a man who was elected despite losing the popular vote in 2000, invaded a sovereign country on what turned out to be nothing more than a whim. I watched in horror as congress passed and later re-enacted the Patriot Act, the most flagrant violation of civil freedoms and common decency this country has seen since Jim Crow. I watched helplessly as one of the greatest and most inspiring documents the world has ever seen, the Constitution, was shredded on the altar of fear, and one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history descended upon us. And in 2004, I watched in shame as our country re-elected George W. Bush.

I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but the simple truth is that for the past 7 years I have been wallowing in lament of better days, as have many Americans. Hell, "better days" seemed like a luxury at this point. But today there is something to be proud of. Today there is something to be hopeful of. Today, we have shown the world that Fairness and Equality are more than just words we inscribe on courtroom doors: they are ideals that have come to hold more significance than our legacy of disparity. And it is with great temerity that I once again look forward to better days.

Congratulations to the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, and to all who helped elect him. Thank you for making me proud to be an American once again.