Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Trivia Contest

Hi All,

The results are in for July's trivia contest.

In the lead is aprilfool1959 aka Lee with 5 wins with MJHY51 aka Mickey nipping at his heels with 4 wins and LMDMum (Hannah) and ncgirl with 3 wins each. Of course, for the record and just to rub it in with Lee, I had the most wins - but I don't need season tickets so I have pulled myself out of the official contest. :-P~~~ to Lee.

In the running for the most entries are Lee and Briana with 31 plays each with Mickey right behind at 30 and Michael and Hannah with 29 each.

Remember this is a cumulative July & August contest - so the season subsciptions are still up for grabs.

By the way, in case of a tie, all those who are tied for 1st place in either wins or entries will be awarded a season subscription.

Good luck in August all. Hope you are having fun with the contest.

Jennifer

Sunday, July 29, 2007

HPCT's Classes for Kids

HPCT is launching a series of classes for children and teens. With weekday classes for HomeSchoolers, Saturday classes for grades 2 - 8 and our Teen Theatre Ensemble for grades 9 - 12, there is something for all interested Triad-Area Youth.

Teen Theatre Ensemble

Here’s a chance for the serious high school performer (grades 9-12) to train and perform as part of an ensemble. Designed for a semester-long commitment, the group members will meet twice weekly from 4-6 pm to explore methods of actor training and sink their teeth into scene work from the classics of world theatre. The Ensemble will require that each applicant audition and commit to the full semester of work.

For further information, please join us for an organizational meeting on Thursday, August 30, at 7pm at Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church's Dining Hall - 1225 Chestnut Drive. Days of the week that the ensemble will meet will be decided at this meeting.

If you are unavailable for the organizational meeting, but wish to be a part of the Teen Theatre Ensemble, you must contact Jennifer Blevins at (336) 882-2542 or jblevins@hpcommunitytheatre.org prior to August 30th.

Tuition for a semester of participation will be $300.00 and is refundable until September 4th in case ensemble meeting times do not work with your schedule.

***

Fiddler on the Roof YOUR Way
Playbuilding for Grades 2-8
Saturdays, September 22 through November 10


Students will experience all aspects of making a performance. Working in groups, students write, direct, act/sing in and procure/make their own costumes and props for a short performance that they create based on or around the classic musical, Fiddler on the Roof. The class progression is constructed to give students an experience of how to proceed step-by-step in building a play for performance. The class work will be presented in the lobby of the High Point Theatre as a pre-show performance prior to the Saturday, November 17th production of HPCT’s Fiddler on the Roof.

Grades 2-5 from 10-11:30am
Grades 6-8 from 1—2:30pm
$125 per Student
Multiple Sibling Discount = $25.00 per class

All Saturday classes will be held at Mallory Graham's Dance South - 1635 North Main Street.

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HomeSchoolers' Series

We are pleased to announce a series of classes designed for HomeSchooling students. Classes will meet weekly for 12 weeks beginning the week of September 10 and ending the week of December 3. There will be no class the week of Thanksgiving. Tuition per student for each class is $125. Multiple class and multiple sibling discounts are available.

Tuesdays: Acting

The basics every actor need to feel confident, comfortable and competent on stage. We’ll find out what our bodies tell about ourselves on stage and how we can use them to tell a story. We’ll use our voices to discover the many possibilities each of us have for becoming a character through sound. Older students will get the opportunity for scene study. The classes will culminate in showings of either scene work or examples of the exercise work engaged in throughout the session.

Class for students ages 8-12 from 1pm until 2pm
Class for students ages 13-16 from 2:15pm until 3:15pm


Wednesdays: From the Page to the Stage

Want to add Theatre to your study of Literature? Well, here is you chance! This class combines study of age-appropriate classic novels with performance work. We’ll read and discuss a chosen text (Some possibilities for younger participants: A Wrinkle in Time, or The Wind in the Willows. And for older students: Great Expectations, The Scarlet Letter or Huckleberry Finn) Then we’ll represent our favorite characters in scenes taken from the book. This class will culminate in a showing of performance work and a short writing assignment.

Class for students ages 10—13 from 1pm until 2pm
Class for students ages 14—18 from 2:15 pm until 3:15 pm


Thursdays: Playbuilding

Here’s your chance to do it all! Write, act direct, make props and costumes. What is your play? You decide! Working in groups, students will work on all aspects of making performance. The class progression is constructed to give students a step-by-step approach to building a play from the ground up. Each group will end up with a fully-mounted short performance created by the group. The class will culminate in a performance of each group’s work.

Class for students ages 8—12 from 1pm until 2 pm
Class for students ages 13—16 from 2:15 pm until 3:15 pm

HomeSchoolers Classes are $125.00 per class.
Multiple Class or Multiple Sibling Discount = $25.00 per class
Multiple Class AND Multiple Sibling Discount = $35.00 per class

All HomeSchoolers classes will be held at Mallory Graham's Dance South - 1635 North Main Street.

***

For All HPCT Classes:

Limited scholarships are available. Contact Jennifer Blevins at (336)882-2542 for further information.

Space is limited. Class tuition fees are due upon registration and are non-refundable (with the exception of the Teen Theatre Ensemble which is refundable until September 4th). HPCT reserves the right to cancel any class not meeting a minimum enrollment.

To register, download and mail the completed registration form with a check made payable to High Point Community Theatre to:
HPCT, P.O. Box 1152, High Point, NC 27261.

Have Questions? Call Jennifer at (336) 882-2542 or email jblevins@hpcommunitytheate.org

Meet the Instructor/Director...

Martha Mendenhall was born and raised in High Point, North Carolina. For the past ten years, she has worked both as an actor/director/playwright and also as a full-time English teacher at a small private high school in Charlottesville, VA. She has a BA in English from UNC-Chapel Hill, where she completed Honors work on Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well. She has taught and directed Shakespeare for seven to twelve year-olds each of the past ten summers, and has also directed for the teen summer camp at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia. Martha studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC; she has worked as performer with the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, and in Washington, DC.

In addition, Martha was a founding member of her own theatre company, the Charlottesville-based ensemble, Foolery. For the past two school years, Martha combined her experience and enthusiasm for both performance and academics in a series of homeschool classes for Charlottesville area students.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Frescoes in NC Mountains


If you haven't done so, take some time to drive to the NC Mountains to see the beautiful frescoes in Glendale Springs and West Jefferson. Allan Edwards and I spent the day on Saturday in the mountains - mostly tromping through cemetaries looking for Blevins ancestor tombstones.
I found the graves of my great-great-grandparents and also happened to meet an 80+ year old woman at one of the cemetaries. After talking for awhile we discovered that her great-grandmother and my great-grandfather Houston (pic to the right) were brother and sister -so we had great-great-grandparents in common.

After we trekked all the cemetaries, we drove for awhile on the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped in Glendale Springs to see the fresco at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. This beautiful fresco was painted by NC Native Ben Long. According to the website linked below Buon Fresco is the art of painting on wet plaster. The powdered pigments are mixed with water and applied to fresh lime plaster so that the pigment is absorbed into the plaster. The painting actually becomes part of the wall. It is a technique that has been practiced for centuries and reached its peak with the great masters of the Italian Renaissance.


There are also frescoes just 12 miles away in West Jefferson at St. Mary's Episcopal Church.

I promise you its worth the drive. And while you are in the mountains, say hi to all the ghosts of my ancestors.

Jennifer

For more info on the frescoes see http://www.ecva.org/exhibition/acs/commun_1.html

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

From Gracie



Will somebody tell Lola that my tail is NOT a pillow???

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Thanks Jeff - This Site Is Lots of Fun!

Jeff Poteat shared this link with me. It has videos (most are scenes from the Tony Awards or other TV shows) of many Broadway musicals.

I will keep the link up in the list on the right hand side of the blog.

Enjoy looking around.

http://www.bluegobo.com/

And until I get tired of it, I will post a video of the week below. Feel free to email me with one that you would like to highlight.

Gonna kick it off with our old friend Terrence Mann in Cats.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007