ps- marat/sade

oh, yes.
opening went well!

the post threw me a bone, and some other critics liked it quiet a bit. i'm not in the mood to find reviews and link.

you can check out some pictures here, here, and here. that lasts set has one of me showing my typically well concealed goofiness and anime eyes.

show cntinues to run through next weekend, so get your tickets here.

too much. (part II)

see that fine pair of preppy bags*? yeah, i only own one of those. the other sitting next to it belong to my #1 girl... my cousin. she drove out thursday for a very last minute visit.

it was great!
while this visit was the exact opposite of my mum's in terms of amount of stuff smooshed into 2.5 days, it was just as enjoyable. highlights...

i took jess to Plato's Diner in College Park. she declared their ravioli The Best Ever.

we shopped. well, window shopped. very little buying was done. we just looked at baby stuff at buybuy Baby and Ikea and hit The Container Store as well. there was some buying at Ikea. jess thought it was pretty amusing that she (the pregnant lady who doesn't even really like wine) was buying wine racks.

i bought an underwear drying hanger thingy that looks like a green octopus. it is absurd, but i love it.

speaking of absurd things you love, we had a nice visit with our aunt, uncle, and cousin. we even bought along rW to be judged by them. (ha.) there was dinner and conversation. and wine. we took a trip to the "art gallery" to see our little cousin's photos from her art show, and rW got to look at a box of old 45s my uncle had in the basement.

speaking of rW, he took jess and i out for italian on saturday night. he and i don't usually have pasta so we sort of had to hunt to find a place. we ended up at Ottelo's in dupont. i think the whole Ottelo's experience need its own highlights section.

• through a series a judgement errors, we ended up in dupont on the day of the Pride Parade. this would have been fine, and maybe a little fun, if i had not been confused about the location of the restaurant. we had to cross the parade twice because of my 'oops'.
• our aunt called in the middle of our wandering and confusion and left a message saying she hoped we did ot get caught in the parade. thanks, AUnt C. but at least jess can go home saying she saw drag queens, lesbian hot-rodders, and the gay square dancers.
  
• by the time we got to Ottelo's, it had started to rain and we were sort of soaked. it took us some time to recover, and the wait staff seemed too anxious to make us order 3 minutes after we waked in the door dripping.
• my arugula and radicchio salad was the best ever.
• did i mention the attentive wait staff? they were super friendly and great, but i found them edging on annoying. we had 2 waiters, the host, the water server, and a runner from the kitchen all after us. and they were making me feel self-conscious and high maintenance because they would bring me things i didn't ask for like i was acting like a princess to get them. at the same time, they were teasing me! i am not a fan of being teased by people i don't know.
• all that being said, the food was good and they were super nice, so i would probably go back. i think i would just not wear a dress and hope more frumpiness would help.

finally, i am excited jess got to come out now because i wanted to see the little baby bump. she didn't look pregnant the last time i saw her, so this was sort of cool. i should get to see her one more time before the big arrival day. it seems silly, and i know she is having a baby, but seeing the change makes it sink in more.

oh, yes. and reminds me that there is a lot of knitting to be done! the knitting updates won't be as frequent because some of this baby goodness is going to be a surprise.

which reminds me, i have finished the knitting on 2 store models. now i just need to sew them up. yay!


*for the record, there is nothing wrong with owning a preppy bag. i will say the preppier navy and green belongs to jess and the cream one is mine--a gift from jess at her wedding rehearsal dinner.

my latest

last weekend i opened a brand spanking new musical: Looking for Roberto Clemente. i loved working on this show. i love watching it. i adore the cast. the design is adorable, and the message of the piece is fantastic.

but, hey... don't listen to me, go read the washington post review. theye even have two pictures. yay! click on the "next" button in the frame and you cn see the second one.

if you want a better view of all of my design, take a look at the short video Imagination Stage put out to promote the show.

go see some children's theatre. it may surprise you!

Looking for Roberto Clemente
at Imagination Stage
by Karen Zacarías (book) and Deborah Wicks La Puma (music)
directed by Kathryn Chase Bryer

April 12-June 1, 2008
Sign interpreted performance May 11 at 3:30
Enjoyed by ages 4+

World Premiere of a rock musical about baseball and heroes
The year: 1972. The place: Pittsburgh, where legendary baseball player Roberto Clemente is at the top of his game. Sam Kowalski and the neighborhood baseball-playing kids are in an intense competition to win the chance to meet Clemente in person. But it is their hero’s fateful off-field actions while aiding natural disaster victims in Nicaragua that teach the kids about what is more important in life than winning. “Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on earth.”--Roberto Clemente

buy tickets here.

cast: Zack Colonna, JP Illarramendi, Derek Manson, Don Mason, Erika Rose, Matthew Schleigh, and Chris Wilson.



Roberto was a pretty amazing human being. Read a bit about him, and i am sure you will see why some call him the last true sports hero.

s.m.r.t.

i never update my blog. or knit. but i do get some sleep and i am trying to read a book when i can. i am not the lamest person in the world yet.

(see! i can't even do that right!)

at least the washington post gave me some love. oh, and my mom. she loves me too. at least she still says it even though i have been a bad daughter and not been calling her daily in the past couple of weeks.

the picture is the realization of the
sketch i last posted. fun, huh?

see, my lameness has a good cause behind it.

ps- there were other (mostly) good reviews for the show, but i am not feeling in much of a gilding the lily mood. i am happy with the work, as are my colleagues. that is enough.

thanks, peter.

i forgot to check the Washington Post yesterday! and it is a shame because peter gave us a rather solid review. i even got a little shout out that my aunt will appreciate.

love the picture.
go see the show.

now showing

last weekend i opened another show, and it is running through February 2. the details...

Life's a Dream
by Pedro Calderon de la Barca
Adapted by John Barton and Adrian Mitchell
Directed by Alexander Strain
Produced by Journeymen Theater Ensemble
playing at Church Street Theater

cast: Maggie Glauber, Rex Daugherty, Eric Messner, Brian Crane, Theo Hadjimichael, Lindsay Haynes, Jim Jorgensen, Jesse Terrill, Andrew Vergara Retizos, and Mary C. Davis.

check it out.
no, really. i designed the same show with a different company about a year ago, and i am much happier with this design. and i really enjoy watching the show. i know, i know.... but kitty... Spanish Golden Age drama?

just go, it is worth it.

listen to the City Paper on this one. you can also go read about how it really isn't as golden age-y as some would like over at DC Theatre Scene.... you know... in case you are still reeling from the last time you saw a bad production of Fuente Ovejuna.

and i realize this is going to make me sound ungrateful, but i have to say it.

my costume design is not 17th century Spanish.
just had to clear that up since the DCTS reviewer gives many impressive facts about the period, and i wouldn't want it to be misleading to folks who see the show. (hey, but like a good bra... i am supportive!)

no 17th century.
not Spanish.
those clothes are made up creations that blend the play's origin (Spain) with its setting (Poland) and liberally borrow from a fantasy style composed of elements of the Mongolian plains, late 19th century Algerian Jews, traditional Nordic knitwear, Native American, Byzantian, Indian (dot, not feather), and West African styles.

yep.
that is indeed a small insight into the way my mind works.

down with the d-to-the-k

i saw the cover of this book and i knew i had to have it. i have two great graphic obsessions: skulls and argyle. look at the model in the foreground! i was ready to swoon. then i noticed that he was pretty attractive as well....

anyway.
we will discuss the books before the knitting.

i think the book is just great. when it comes to a book with patterns, i have a formula to determine if i can buy it. a loose leaf pattern costs (on average) $5. so i look through the book and determine if there is one pattern for every $5 i spend that i will knit.

let me say that this book has well over the required 3 patterns to let me buy it. the accessories are fantastic. hats, scarves, socks. wow. (the lucky socks are one of my favs). the sweaters are 6 of 1, half dozen of the other. it is all about personal taste. i can say that i looked through the sweaters and said "i know a guy would would wear each of these". they aren't all geared toward the same man... but you don't get bogged down in heavy colorwork or the absurd numbers of cables that most handknit men's sweaters strive for.

all this being said, there are a few big fat duds. like the stripper pole scarf... it is an illusion knit scarf and the image in the illusion knitting is a woman on a stripper pole. i would need to be seriously compelled were that to ever be cast on to my needles. as far as i am concerned, neither love nor money would compel me.

the beer bottle pillows are pretty lame as well. i wouldn't knit them for a man because they are a sizable enough project that you would need to be serious about him before casting on. and if you are that serious, there is a possibility that the pillow could end up on your couch one day soon. this is not a good thing.

lest you think i have gone over to the other side and lost my taste for kitsch, i will say the knitted lucha libre ski masks are pretty cool. i think this comes from my midwestern upbringing. if it is cold enough that you actually have to wear a ski mask, it should be amusing.

back to the cover.
i covet the double-knit argyle scarf. as i mentioned, i love argyle, and i really want to learn to double-knit. double-knitting is not hard in theory, nor is it easy in practice. go here and scroll down to see a video of it being done.

(warning: for all my non-knitters... you are about to enter a scary knitting zone.)

i swatched the scarf last night, or at least i tried. woo, baby! finding the best way to hold your yarns is tricky tricky. i thought i should try the two handed method knitting one color english and one continental (i am a continental knitter... to a fault.) but that made a mess. i tried to do both continental coming off my index finger with plucking one color and wrapping the other. no-go, but better.

so now i am trying to do a more standard continental with both yarns in my left hand but the knit yarn plucked from my index finger and purl yarn plucked from my middle finger. this is very tricky for me because i usually feed my stitches up the needle with my middle finger, and ring finger was in an unfortunate accident in my misguided crafting youth that has sapped his strength to the point that he can't manage that job alone.

(end knitter's jargon)

so!
the challenges continue.
if i ever learn how to hold my yarn, i promise i won't bitch too much about the fact that the scarf will probably take me a whole year to finish. as it stands right now, i may well do better to begin tackling intarsia so i can make myself some real argyle socks.

on the opposite end of the timeconsuming spectrum, i am almost done with my final crochet project of the 2007 holidays.

not entirely unwarm

reviews are out for my latest show. the critics were not entirely unkind, but they were very honest about the script itself. Sight Unseen was Margulies first success, and it is a very young play. but as Jonathan in the script doth say... "you can't fault the artist for being young." besides, criticizing formerly celebrated works because the playwright has grown and become better seems disingenuous to me.

the reviews....

The Baltimore Sun review by Mary Carole McCauley is here. and you can read a review by James Howard here.

and here are a few pictures from the show for you to enjoy. all photos by Stan Barouh.

Jonathan (Paul Morella) and Grete (Karen Novak) in the gallery

Nick (Bob Rogerson), Jonathan (Paul Morella) and Patricia (Deborah Hazlett) in the farmhouse

Jonathan (Paul Morella) and Patty (Deborah Hazlett) in the studio

one more time with feeling

i promise that this is the last of my shameless self-promotion posts related to Reefer Madness. but, really, if i don't promote myself, then who will? ha!

first up we have The City Paper review by Glen Weldon here. it is mixed. i think the overall idea is "ehh, go see it. especially the square guy in the bow tie" (Larry, pictured at left) Keith did get props for his driving obsession with the show--simplify it so it doesn't suck the way past productions have.

the real love coming my way is from Brad Hathaway over at Potomac Stages. you can read his review here.

and i would like to take this oppurtunity to say that while Potomac Stages isn't regarded as the top reviewing organization on the planet by any means, i strongly respect one thing they always try to do--um... at least mention the design. they are an online publication so, they don't have certain concerns that are entirely unrelated to content that print publications have. like the number of inches they have been given in the style section and the cuts that will make a review fit.

so they are at a slight advantage space-wise, but i also think that they try just a tiny bit harder to touch on the whole production. and i appreciate that. i am not just saying this because this review was good for me. i am saying it because it is true. now the Betrayal review had not word one about my costumes, but they really paid some mind to the lighting, which was a starring element in that show. (unlike the costumes) and that is what i mean. they pay attention and talk more about the production then the life history of the author or carp on about past productions.

so... thank you!

remember that fiber related post i promised?

tonight!

flash!

Washington Times not as Righty as Previously Accused!!!

flash!

Pot Brassieres New Fashion Hit for 1936!

and now the stock market!
click!


the Times review is out, and they were surprisingly kind to the show. the Times pretty much pans anything slightly to the left, and you could say that political satire like Reefer madness is a bit lefty. you can read the review here.

then again, almost no one in America today gives two hoots about pot compared to say... immigration. or terrorism. so maybe the power of this piece is more quaint and entertaining than subversive.

anyway, check out the review. i get a nice healthy full sentence. funny thing is that the reviewer liked my least favourite costumes in the show the best! hm. different tokes for different folks.

heehee.
i made a weed joke.

hello Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea!

let's go to press! flash!

Washington Post Not as Lefty as Previously Accused!

flash!

Hipster Youth Love Pot and Parody!

and now the weather!
click!

erm....
let take off my 1930s journalist hat for a minute. whew! the reviews are coming out for Reefer Madness. they are mixed, but that is usually the case. the good news is that you can see a picture of Bobby and Chan! please admire her trashy make-up and ample décolletage. i adore that woman.

if you would like to read the reviews, you can Peter Marks' Post review here.

and Missy Frederick over at DCist chimes in here.

funny thing is that thehairyape introduced me to Peter before the show. this made me very nervous because who really wants to shake hands with the designer they are about to critique? we both had a nervous laugh over it and i squeaked out a little "be nice" with a giggle.

talking about looking like the girl who just fell off the turnip truck from ohio!