It feels later than it is

But it is still plenty late. So in the interest of not faceplanting on the keyboard, a brief synopsis:

Early to work again. Had to make up for not recovering from eye dilation yesterday. A test meant to run for 2 hours ran overnight.

Much pressure from engineering to "no-bug" a bug, based on misinformation. Much pressure on myself because the test to show these bugs takes more than an hour, and there are three of them.

Lunch at Carl's Jr - phone and ultrabook both showed their IP connection is broken. Boo. Hiss.

Saw an event notice on FB about City Lights having an evening of short locally-written plays tonight at 8, which worked well since I needed to stay late at work anyway. It was a messy rainy slog to downtown SJ, but so many friends were there and the plays were all very entertaining. Reviews tomorrow.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
???

Spring Shorts

Last night's impulse was slogging through horrible rainy night traffic to get to City Lights in SJ because just at the right time someone posted in FB that it was their night of shorts. Five short plays, one scene rather than 1-acts, all by local authors. I had no idea who the authors were, or who was in it, so was pleasantly surprised that my "daughter" Helena, was one of the playwrights. In 1984 she played Charlotte, the undertaker's daughter to my Mr. Sowerberry, undertaker in TheatreWorks' second or third production of Oliver!. We also served on Menlo Players Guild's board of directors together and their play reading committee. We see each other from time to time at The Usual Places.

In the audience was Elizabeth, who was my director's assistant for a show in Santa Clara Players in 2003.

Also there doing some acting were glow-in-the-dark Cindy, one of the folks who kept me from bailing on Lyric Theater's Babes in Toyland a couple of years ago; and Pat, who was in a Santa Clara show in 2003 I ran lights for. The cast party was at her home, and I fell in love with her sister, who unfortunately lives in SoCal and probably thinks I was stalking her. It's complicated.

So, the shorts:
Family Jewels
by H. G. Clarkson
dir. Jeanie Smith
Diane (Lucinda Dobinson) and hubby Will (Chuck Phelps) are dressed in their best for an important appointment. Will convinces Diane to take the shortcut through the dark alley, where they are attacked by a man with a big knife (Keith C. Marshall). ( Spoiler alert )

A good basic idea, but needs work.

Faith
by Lisa Kang
dir. Jeffrey Lo
An Asian woman (Kymberly Schieferstein) appears framed in a doorway above and to the left of the main stage. She places a bowl on the ground and freezes. She stays frozen until the last line of the play. On the stage, in a livingroom set, are Kalli (Kathleen Park) and her SO Bill (Jason Arias). ( spoilissimo )

Kathleen rattled off her lines too quickly, and there was not enough connection between her and the old  woman, but other than that it worked well. I loved Jason's performance.


The Devil's in the Details
by Margy Kahn
dir. Cara Phipps
Katie (Mandy Armes), a young woman, comes to old woman Jude's (Pat Cross) house to take some measurements and look around now that the loan approval is in its final stages. ( spoiling )

Very well written, I love the way Jude remains matter of fact as the plot gets more and more twisted. Pat totally nailed the part.

Club Gastro
by Ross Peter Nelson
dir. Rachel Bakker
It's Julia's (Cindy Powell) birthday, and her Best Friend Suzette (Sara Trupski) brings her to the decadent Club Gastro, where the women are shown by the Maitre D (James Barker)  pictures of the "chefs", and get to choose just one for the evening. They choose older, dapper Devon (Ron Talbot). The rule is "look, but don't touch". We find out this applies not only to the chef, but also ( Read more... )

The acting was superb. I wanted to take Suzette home with me. Cindy was her usual glowing self, Ron was just perfect as the waiter and James' accent really made the role. I would love to see this as a scene in a longer play.

Minerva And Melrose
by Martin A. David
dir. Linda-Ruth Cardozo
Melrose (Tony Cirimele) is supposed to be sitting on the toilet, next to a padlocked door with a half-window open in it. They did not have a toilet handy, so he was in a chair next to a makeshift toilet paper holder. They also didn't have a door, just a frame. And they did not have anything to be a wall between the toilet and th livingroom. Minerva (Danielle Perata) is in the livingroom.

There is no plot. Minerva is like Lucy Van Pelt, trying out various roles (she starts with radio/tv newsperson) and talking a blue streak. At some point she hands Melrose an apple, which he devours, and apparently that is why there is a window in the door. ( Read more... )

It was twice as long as it needed to be. Except for the amusing words Minerva invents, there isn't much to this play. Both Danielle and Tony did as much with the script as could be done, and she looked pretty hot in the black stretch pants and neon pink T, but I don't see this scene going anywhere.

All the scenes were entertaining one way or another, and I love seeing new works, especially snippets, so yes, it was worth the trip.

Calendar Boy

Took my time getting to work this morning, but did check work email when I got up Just In Case. Plowed through a lot of test cases, some with the help of my Russian buddy, who knows all. 1-on-1 with boss was mostly to talk about my progress getting engineers edumacated to what really happens at the customers' sites. And he reminded me that Sunday is the big Songkran festival at the Thai temple. And he talked me out of going to the one in San Bruno, which apparently is, like Berkeley's, just another house in a neighborhood.

Lunch at China China, the Chinese-Japanese-Korean buffet.  Almost drove to MV to pick up the replacement car alarm remote, but it was still looking wet out there. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe Saturday.

After work took the Ultrabook to Starbucks, wrote the short plays review, and when they started straightening chairs and wiping down tables at 7:50, I figured they were getting ready to close at 8. So I packed up, time to go home anyway, and peeked at the sign - they are open till 10:30. Nice to know.

Edit add: I forgot to explain the subject line. I spent an hour or more plugging the dates of events for my July Thailand trip into Google calendar and a notepad file I keep on the phone. The purpose of the drill was to see if there was enough free time to get to Phuket for a couple of days. The answer is yes, if I blow off the final dinner, or return on Wednesday instead of Saturday. The latter would only cost me three days of PTO under our current system. Which may not be our current system for very long.

Plans for tomorrow:
Work
YOTB