Hirsch's Log
All in all, this was a very good experience (except for the terrorist-related
disasters on Tuesday). We, the Golden Stag Players, went to the festival with
the intent of learning about Commedia, and improving our performances. I think
we came away with that and a lot more, as we made friends, particularly with
the I Sebastiani folk, we had a lot of good times, and hopefully some good
memories. We didn’t implode while there, which was good, as most of us
were living in tighter quarters than we’re used to, with more people around
us than we’re used to. I expect that when we get together in November for rehearsals
we’ll be fresh, and full of interesting ideas for improving the show, and the
performance in January will be that much better. So, I would say this was well
worth the expense and hassle, and all the various things that went into it.
The folk at The Austin Commedia Society deserve a lot of credit for throwing this together. It wasn't an easy task, but it did work ...
Juan's Log
Right now there are a lot of us who are saying to ourselves “Never, Never, Never
Again.”
I’ve always enjoyed being a people watcher and
years ago I had strongly considered psychology as a career instead of computers.
I have never let go of that interest in psychology.
Take a large group of people united in a goal and
put them together under stressful conditions and you’ll get an interesting
psychological study. This has certainly been one.
The Golden Stag has always been a group of people
who were more then just a troupe. Acting Troupes come with egos and attitudes
and in-fighting which just has never been a trait of The Stags.
Does that mean that there weren’t problems? Hell no.
There were plenty of problems and plenty of tempers. There was also plenty of
desire to be the best we could be and learn as much as we could.
Yes, push came to shove, but when the pushing and
shoving was over, we still pulled together and did the best damn show we could do.
So while lots of us are saying “Never, Never, Never
Again”, I also know that around the end of summertime next year, lots of us
are also going to be saying “What are we doing for this year’s performance?”
It’s going to be many of the same people saying both things.
One final note to the populace of The West:
Going through my thoughts during this trip, I
have to keep coming up against the realization of why we did this.
We did this because we wanted to make ourselves
better. We did this because we wanted The West to benefit from the knowledge
and experience we would get. We wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this without
the support of our fans in The West.
More to the point, The Stags would not have existed
for this long to begin with if it were not for the support of our fans in The West.
So I encourage any one of you who read this to
approach any one of us in The Golden Stag Players and ask us about our experiences
and what we learned. Just be prepared to have more information dumped on you
then you were probably expecting!
I would like to thank everyone who donated to
our trip and bought our T-Shirts. All of you helped make this possible.
LONG LIVE THE WEST!
Master Juan Santiago, OL