Award ceremony at the 2010 Poetry Out Loud regional, Fergus Falls, MN. Thomas McPhee (on far right) took first.

Thomas qualified for the state finals last year (along with MAHS student Alex McIntosh), so we had the good fortune to attend last year’s event. The quality of the performances was really exquisite, and I highly recommend the event to any fans of poetry and literature in the area.

Tim Ostby (the other MAHS student this year) placed fifth at the regional. Congratulations to him and all the other students that performed last night! While there were fewer competitors at the regional than last year, the quality of the performances was considerably stronger, and the venue (A Center for the Arts in Fergus Falls) was vastly better than last year’s (a classroom at a regional community college).

Thomas McPhee, David Johnson, and Tim Ostby at the 2010 Lake Regional for Poetry Out Loud. Thomas took first, and Tim took fifth.

A huge thanks to David Johnson, drama coach and english teacher at MAHS. Dave’s been a huge influence and support for Thomas in both theatre and Poetry Out Loud. It’s greatly to Dave’s credit that MAHS has had a student in the state finals of Poetry Out Loud each of the last four years (which is every year MAHS could have competed), with two in last year’s finals. Further, every MAHS student that’s gone to state has placed in the top 6: Anika Kildegaard took 2nd in 2007, Mary Hu won the state competition in 2008 and went on to the National Finals, and Alex McIntosh placed 4th and Thomas McPhee 6th in 2009. In fact Morris is the only high school in the state to place four students in the top 6 from 2007-2009, with no other school has placing more than two. Not a bad track record for a small rural high school. Thanks a ton to Dave for all his support and assistance!

The three of us saw an excellent production of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus two weeks ago at the Mercury Theatre (see WeatherGirl’s excellent report), and last night we saw the companion piece, Julius Caesar.

One of the cool things they’ve done is use an all male cast for Coriolanus, and an all female cast for Julius Caesar. Both groups did a great job, and it was wonderful to see how quickly we came to see them as their characters, regardless of their gender. No particular effort was made to act like a man/woman, so no camp voices or crotch scratching. The focus instead was on the text and the characters, and they did a really fine job, showing how a powerful, honest delivery of the text can sell the characters irrespective of the physical bodies they inhabit.

I was also struck by how contemporary the language sounded in Coriolanus. Often Shakespeare can sound very Shakespeare, and you’re constantly reminded that you’re watching something old. Here, however, the (unaltered) text came off as much more contemporary, a tribute again to the quality of the cast and direction.

One might reasonably wonder why they chose to use these mono-gender casts. A decision was made to do Shakespeare’s two roman plays (Colchester is, after all, the ancient roman capital of Britain), while independently a list was being gathered of company members who wanted to participate in this fall’s season. The company list was roughly an even split on gender (a good sign and certainly not to be assumed, even today), while (not surprisingly) the list of parts was greatly imbalanced in favor of the gents. The two women that were organizing the productions (each directed one of the two plays, and assisted with the other) decided to boldly go, and chose to cast both plays along gender lines. Based on the performances, listening to the cast talk about their experiences, and the reviews, it must be regarded as a great success.