An Interview with Asher DeForest

Here it is on soundcloud! 

Interview with Asher DeForest for Understanding Plays final project. Background music is Calm River by Lesfm on Pixabay.

Good Heavens! review

 Giant nerds rejoice! Daniel Repp’s new play Good Heavens! is a feast for anyone hungry for niche astronomy facts. Good Heavens! is all about the life and times of Johannes Kepler (You know, like the NASA telescope?), a German astronomer in the 1600s. He was trying to describe why the planets moved through the night sky the way they did, and also trying to reconcile his steadfast christian beliefs with fact, all during the protestant reformation.
As a new work, there’s a lot of refining to do before Good Heavens! will appeal to an audience wider than giant nerds. The narrators, Hypatia and Guillaume, are other historic astronomers used as a framing device for the action of the play. They’re extremely cheesy and stilted and the jokes they make don’t enhance the experience. The main plotline stands all on its own without their help. There’s also a B plot in the second act about Kepler’s mother. The connection was there, as he was using the same logic techniques for defending his mother in court as he was for proving why the earth goes around the sun. However I didn’t find that was necessary or furthered the story. It might do better as its own fact-dense mini play instead of being a part of this one.
The production itself was on Zoom, being a product of Hell Year 2020. Truly an awful medium that did Good Heavens! no favors. This play has potential, but only on a real stage. The actors truly did their best to seem like they were riding in bumpy carriages or studying by candlelight, but there is just no suspending disbelief over Zoom. The facts and ideas presented in this play were bogged down due to being delivered by talking heads in little squares. Repp could totally get away with so much dialogue and nigh-on astronomy lectures if only we were in a real space. Making use of a projection screen with animations would do wonderfully to illustrate the concept of planet’s elliptical orbits. And a competent sound designer could see the idea of a planet’s distance from the sun being musical intervals and take it to brilliant creative ends. Seeing a lowly Zoom performance of a script that aims so high is like seeing The Creation of Adam rendered in crayon. It’s all there! It's just not great yet.
Unless you’re a giant nerd, an educator, or an ex-planetarium volunteer, I can’t recommend seeing Good Heavens!. But if a revised edition ever comes out in person on a stage, you bet your butt I’m seeing it.

Good Heavens! on Youtube
More about the Kepler telescope (which retired in 2018)
Daniel Repp's website

Work in progress: needle book for costuming lab

 I have this felt needle book I sewed and embroidered for my friend last Christmas. This quarter, we have to make a needle book for hand sewing practice in my costuming class! I'm planning to modify this one to meet the requirements of the project.

I used running stitch for the page and cover binding. To sew the inside pocket to the front cover, I used blanket stitch- this is one of the few times its functional! I don't know what you would call this stitch for the sun. Whip? Satin? I'll find out. It seems that having a button on the front is a requirement. I'll probably add a yellow button to the sun, covering up that starburst.

That yellow patch on the inside cover is the pocket. It also covers up the ugly side of my embroidered sun. I'll have to do some real fanangling to get a button on the cover without sewing the pocket shut. And page 1 is all my sizes of needles! Left is sewing needles, right is embroidery needles.

Page 2 and inside back cover. For the lab project, the book needs some way to store thread (the project is actually called "thread cozy"). I don't like how the thickness of my regular spools will keep the book from closing all the way, so instead I'm going to wrap thread around something flat. Embroidery kits have those flat spools for winding your extra floss around, but I don't have any with me right now, so I might make a few out of paper and find a way to attach them.

Expect a new post as I complete the project!

This is a test post

 

note: this file is RAW. next time, upload a JPG or a PNG. raws take a long time to load.