Happy birthday, Grandma!

Happy birthday, Grandma!

Our family had a very nice Christmas weekend. Last night we had the Sahins and Hendrickses over and we had a lovely talent show. Ferat played saz and sang, Noah did a reading of a New York Times wedding announcement, Laura and Chiara sang Hammond Song, there was a rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, 'On This Day Everywhere' was performed on bottles, the Sahins did an amazing cover of 'Guns and Ships' from the musical Hamilton.

My contribution was the following documentary about a special dog named Winnie.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday, Jo!

23!

Happy Birthday, Susi!!!

Back to School

The three kids are back in school. We dropped Chiara off at Skidmore on Labor Day. Can't believe she a sophomore. She has a single this year, happy about it, the girls next door are friends from London. I spoke to her yesterday and she sounded pleased with classes and such.

Laura Started 7th grade on Wednesday, she has a new teacher this year. Though she was uncertain the first day she likes her now. I got to meet the new teacher at a class dinner last night, I liked her, she is smart and funny.

Nicky is also back at school in 6 grade, the bus ride is shorter this year and one of his friends, Charles, is on the bus with him. On the first morning the bus was 2 hours late, this morning they came in a more timely manner.

Nicky's bus

Back Home

NYC

Summer is almost over, we are back in NYC. Chandran starts school on Thursday and the kids have a few weeks left of vacation. More photos on flickr

Montreal

DC

Saugerties

The Lake

Back again

Susi left for Africa yesterday.  At the airport with teaching assistant and fellow students.  The other pic is at Swami and friends gathering  at Canandagua Lake.

Singapore "Trick-eye" museum

Poland slide show.

Fire tower of St. Mary's church. The trumpeter plays here.

Dinner at Wierzynek, founded 1364

Herrings at Wierzenyk

Market Square from Wierzenyk

Examining a menu

In the underground museum. The partial stone walls are the stalls of the 15th century market.

Ashwani and Jess consider the amber.

Really glad it rained. 

Wentzl's.
If you click on this, you'll hear the Hejnal.

In St. Mary's

Trumpeter playing the hejnal.

Fire tower

Grunwald Memorial. Barbican gate and St. Mary's in the background.

Stairs of the fire tower. Ewa and I decided to skip this climb.

We sat here on top of the market instead.

Gdansk

We are in Gdansk. I really loved Kraków. One of the best museums I've ever seen is their archaeological museum. It's under the main market square. It's the remains of the 15th century market. Also, the trumpeter was lovely. And the cathedral. And the concert we went to was fantastic.

Gdansk is nice, but more touristy. Yesterday we drove up to the spot on the coast where Ewa used to spend summers. The Baltic wasn't all that cold, and I wished I had brought brought my swimsuit.

We went to Auschwitz and Birkenau.

We stayed a night in Lodz, where Ewa grew up. It reminded me of Rochester, but more Soviet. We visited the home of an industrialist that had been turned into a museum. Our hotel was very, very chic. It was in he industrialist's factory. Now we are going to see the Solidarity museum.

I have put some pictures on Flickr.

AMND Script Feedback

Comments?

AMND Cast

Here's a tentative list:

OBERON- HANNAH

TITANIA- ELIZA

PUCK- LAURA

HERMIONE- CHIARA

HELENA- JO

DEMETRIUS- NICKY

LYSANDER- CHANDRAN

BOTTOM- NOAH

WALL- SUSI

THISBE- KAMALA

LION- KALYANI

The plan is for Susi to appear via recording on an iPad. I wanted her to be Lysander or Demetrius, but I couldn't figure out how to have a lot of complicated pre-recorded dialogue with out a ton of rehearsal, and the wall has a good speech that should work well on iPad. So Kalyani, do you mind being the lion? Everyone else has their requested role. Except Nicky, who doesn't know he's Lysander yet. 

Let me know what you think.

CASTING CALL

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream

            The YLTS (YLST? I can’t remember what it stands for) is returning from hiatus for the 2016 Summer season! I think 8/7 or 8/8 will work- let me know if there’s a preference or problem (I know- alack!- that Susi will be away, though she might consider appearing pre-recorded on an iPad). Once we cast it, I’ll adapt the play to fit and send it out before July. This gives everyone a month to get their lines down, so the play will be ready after just a day or two of rehearsals.

Let me know (in comments):

1) if you’re interested in a role;

2) HOW interested you are on a scale of 1-5:

            1= I will dress up like a fairy and dance around

            2= I can do maybe 10 lines

            3= 20-40 lines, no problem

            4= Give me 60-80 lines!

            5= I will do the unedited play as a 1 person show

3) What roles you might be interested in:

            The lovers (Hermia & Lysander, Helena & Demetrius) all have 30-80 lines  
            Oberon (5,486 lines) has been dibsed by Hannah

            Titania (less than 20)<20 lines="" p="">

            Puck (anywhere from 5-60 lines, maybe Nicky?)

            Bottom (30-50)

            Other mechanicals (Quince, Flute, Snout)(maybe some of my generation?)

We’ll do some doubling for the minor roles.

Wedding

More on flickr.

Time to move

http://www.royallepage.ca/en/property/ontario/stratford/135-cobourg-st/4603412/mls739231/

 What do you think? I could easily live in Stratford and I love Cobourg St-It's my favorite route to Festival. Someone needs to go up there and check it out. Thanks.

Happy Birthday, Sara!

Sweden Update

We had a lovely time in Brooklyn seeing Richard II courtesy of our children--a lovely Christmas

Stage at the BAM

Add caption

present. We drove there! Ashwani drove across Manhattan on Canal Street right through Chinatown. Here is a picture taken as we drove up the Bowery to Saravanaa's.


We went directly to Detroit for Mamaji's 90th.

At the birthday

Last night was the spring concert of Susi's a capella group, Vocal Point. There's video on facebook.