All of these coneflowers are the result of the two original plants (planted years ago) self-seeding. They’ve also spread to areas beyond this garden bed. One has sprung up down by the hose, others pop up here and there in front of the bed. The same with the coneflowers in the bed under the living room window and those in the big garden bed and the beds on the far side of the house. If you can grow them where you are, I strongly recommend them. They’re tall, sturdy, and bloom for a long time.
I also have yellow coneflowers and white coneflowers here and there in the big garden bed.
Today might be the one day where we have no rain. What?? Is that possible? I’m going to take advantage of it and do some weed whacking and a wee bit of mowing in the corral area. Then I’ll work on my painting. Oh, and wash towels, vacuum, etc.
Don and I were talking about our time at the Old Globe this morning. Don, of course, has an even longer association with it than I do, working there as an apprentice when it was part community theater and part professional theater (in the summers.) We were lucky. I was lucky. I moved out to San Diego at the height of its best years, when Jack O’Brien was the Artistic Director and Craig Noel, who founded it, was still part of what was called the Triumvirate: Jack, Craig, and Tom Hall, the Managing Director. I’ve worked at a lot of theaters in my time, but I’ve never been a place that was so magical, where there was a community of artists and employees that was a family. When I moved out there, they welcomed me with open arms. I was wrapped in their collective embrace. The work being done on all three stages was consistently excellent. Jack, who is one of the most brilliant and inspiring artists it has been my pleasure to know, had so much charisma and talent that well-known actors routinely dropped everything to come and work there. That doesn’t happen so much nowadays. Sada Thompson, Marian Ross (who was a longtime friend of Craig Noel), Marsha Mason, John Goodman, Victor Garber, Neil Patrick Harris, Cherry Jones, Seth Green, Robert Foxworth, Michael Learned, Robert Hays, Daniel J. Travanti, Harold Gould, Hal Holbrook, Peter Krause, Dakin Matthews, Mariette Hartley, Megan Follows, Richard Easton – are just a few of the people I worked with during my time there, along with so many names you might not know, but who are highly respected actors with talent that would knock your socks off. Everyone wanted to work there. Much of that was due to the Globe’s reputation, and to Jack, specifically. We felt that we were doing something noble, something important, and the reactions of the audiences confirmed that.
I guess it’s on my mind because I chatted, via email, with Jack this week. He’s busy writing a new musical, the second volume of his autobiography, he’s brilliant and funny and thriving – at the age of 82. I’ve never met someone with more energy. In the last couple of years, both Don and I have written Jack at different times thanking him for everything. I learned so much from him. So much. I had two great pleasures, besides working with actors and seeing a show take shape. They were Company Call, when all the actors, designers, and staff that were working for the summer season, specifically, though it was done throughout the year, met in the main theater to be introduced. I cite the summer season because that’s when all three theaters were up and running. I looked forward to Jack’s opening remarks, as well as those of dear Craig Noel. Jack’s words were inspiring and glorious – every person in that room was an integral part of the greater goal and we were made to feel that way by Jack’s amazing words. And every person working, whether onstage or off, was introduced.
The other was table work. Table work happens at the beginning of rehearsals. The actors and director and dramaturg and text coach (me) sit around a table and work their way through the script; clarifying, questioning, researching, offering ideas as to interpretation. The most stimulating table work sessions were for Shakespeare – and the Globe was known for its productions of Shakespeare. I learned so much. It’s one thing to study the text in an academic way – that’s valuable, of course – but it’s another to study it in an active way, in a way that will eventually help it come alive on the stage. The reason I know so much about Shakespeare is rooted in my time at the Globe, where I sat at the feet of brilliant minds who knew their stuff. And the reason I have gone on to work on so many Shakespeare productions when I thought of myself as predominately a dialect coach, is because of the unofficial training I received at the Globe. I know my stuff.
I’ve gone on and on. But I was so fortunate to have been there at what I think was the pinnacle of that theater’s long existence. I’ve seen more recent productions and they’re fine and sometimes not so fine, but they are not, unfortunately, of the caliber and brilliance that I routinely saw when I was there. Theaters change, artistic directors leave and are replaced. And so it goes.
Grateful to have been there, to have chatted with both Jack and Darko this past week, to have been in the presence of greatness.
Stay safe.
Happy Saturday.
A wonderful post. I’m thinking part of the magic was that everyone was valued, and introduced.
When you give everyone a stake in the success of the production without egos dominating it creates an environment for excellence.
One, Sada Thompson, I loved her work. I had not thought of her for years.
Two, dramaturg?
What wonderful memories for you and Don, full of shared experiences.
Thanks for sharing with us.
A dramaturg is a literary editor who deals with the history of the text of a play, often working directly with playwrights and new plays.
Thanks so much, Jan!
Stay safe.
Very interesting. You were very lucky to experience that kind of magic. Good for you for working so hard.
Thanks, Kay.
Stay safe.
We’ve been inundated with rain, too. We put our money down for a fence replacement in February, and the fence was finally finished this last week. I hope your Mama Robin is doing well.
Is Don’s audition tape like a query a writer would send to an editor she hopes to work with some day or is this an audition for a specific project? Good luck to him either way. I hope new projects soon open up for you, too. Another writer friend who does freelance work is beginning to be approached for new projects again.
No, it’s an audition for an episode of a tv show. At this point in his long career, he doesn’t have to do a general audition.
Thanks, Linda.
Stay safe.
Claudia,
Your coneflowers are beautiful, one of my summertime favorites! The time you spent at the Globe sounds enchanted – you worked with many, many talented people! I often wonder if you might have known a childhood friend of mine who does costumes at the Globe. Her name is Jan Mah.
Enjoy your rainless day today, you certainly deserve it!
xo, Christy
No, I don’t know her. The last time I went back there to work – after we had moved east – was eleven years ago. So if she’s working there now, chances are I’ve never met her.
Stay safe, Christy.
Very interesting; I know so little about the theater (the ‘inner workings’ of it). Cherry Jones is a talented actress; have seen her in a lot of things but I more recently remember her from the Erin Brockovich film because I just watched it again recently.
It’s so hot. Makes my head ache. We are scalding out West. It’s a little unnerving to see the Southern Calif areas I live in, on the national-nightly TV news (like, ‘reporting from’ [the onsite reporters]).
We are doing everything we can at home to conserve electrical power and water; a double whammy; both are emergencies here. It takes some personal orchestration in the day. Don’t want the grid to go down; we’re under flex alerts; I could be medically unsafe without the air conditioning. The water situation is just dire as each day passes. We still have to get thru the rest of July, then Aug-Sept-Oct-Nov; there could be a hope for rain by December but it seems a long, long way off. Our ‘norm’ for rain is/used to be later, in Feb-Mar. (The old weather patterns no longer can be relied upon due to climate change.) Anybody you talk to in this neck ‘o the woods, we’re just all so uneasy about these heat waves (have that sense of foreboding; really puts a person on edge).
I was thinking how difficult in too many ways, the past five years or so have been, like for people in general. Freak weather (wildfire at my back door; derecho thunderstorm that hit the Midwest; of course the hurricanes, too, in the southeast; and now NYC has been deluged with rain [as has MHC] ); politics/the election/Jan 6; George Floyd; Covid. The collapse of the Surfside condo complex. To name a few. It’s a lot.
Is hard on people; stress on overload. There’s just a lot of pain out there. Look at all the unrest they’re having on air flights with passengers. (But my husband recently flew [a short hop] and had no issues.)
(Incidentally, didn’t I just read [??] that Americans are welcome back to France as long as you’re vaccinated, in which case you don’t even have to quarantine or get a Covid test [??} … ‘Paris is always a good idea.’)
So much stress. Read my post today – it speaks to some of that.
I’m so sorry you have to deal with all that frightening heat, Vicki.
As to France, we just bought a “new” car. No visits to Paris.
Stay safe.
I’ve checked in with a few people here & there who have, pre-pandemic, done lots of worldwide travel; really, no one is (so far) doing the globetrotting in 2021. Maybe driving or even flying domestically to catch up with what’s going on with relatives they didn’t get to see in 2020; but a long plane trip to another country when the world still has so much virus ..???.. and (of course it’s ‘what if’ thinking) look at people in earliest 2020 who wanted to get back to the U.S. but couldn’t with the Covid breakout (of course they all eventually did, but it was a little dicey, if I recall it correctly from travelers who were interviewed at the time once they were back on U.S. soil). I just get the feeling that quite a few people don’t want to stray TOO far from ‘home’ yet. Although it does sound wonderful; the ‘memory’ of travel. Memories are just what some of us have to rely upon for now. (Or watch Rick Steves on PBS!)
And I’m just sorry that upstate NY has to be so soggy … gosh, and another whole week of it; yikes (oh, how I wish I could smell that first rain on dusty pavement!). Dramatic weather extremes, far west/far east in the U.S.
It’s endless! Like the heat you’re coping with.
A long flight sounds too scary to me right now. xo
As you might guess, I love it when you talk theater! Indeed, it sounds like a wonderful marriage of talent, creativity, and that wonderful human quality where the company operates as a warm family and not a bunch of solo people all out for themselves. I’m so glad you both had the opportunity to have a good part of your careers with this company.
The coneflowers are gorgeous!
It was an extraordinary time, that’s for sure.
Hope Rick is feeling better, Jeanie.
Stay safe.
beautiful flowers … i’d like a yard full of them!
really glad you and don had such great work experiences … professionalism, teamwork, generosity and caring, etc. … at the globe. i hope and pray such job opportunities open up soon for don and you.
we had a storm yesterday that brought close to two inches of rain. except for damage caused in places by wind (thanking God that my family was spared), i loved it. :)
hope today is a good day.
kathy in iowa
Glad you got some rain, Kathy!
Alas, we’re getting more today and for the next five days. We don’t need it.
Stay safe.