Something familiar, Something peculiar, Something for everyone!

In the style of the epically awesome author/vlogger/Nerdfighter John Green, I would like to announce that this blog post is coming to you in three parts (Beeteedubs, if you don't know who John Green is, I URGE you to go find out. You're welcome.)

Part One: OSTA Showcase.
So, for me this past weekend was basically consumed by the OSTA showcase (see one of the previous posts if you've forgotten what that means). It was an AMAZINGLY FUN time, and all three performances went extremely well. (Side note: In my past experiences, weekend performances have usually been on a Friday-Saturday-Sunday basis, but the three performances of this showcase were Thursday-Friday-Saturday...Whaaaa? I can only think of two reasons for this. 1-So the people who procrastinated on their work all weekend can catch up on Sunday, or 2-So that people who want to party after the last show can do so without being exhausted and/or hungover during their Monday classes. But it's still weird...) During the Friday night show, I was lucky enough to be able to actually watch the other one-acts featured in the showcase, which I did not perform in. They were all highly entertaining. Some of my favorites were "The Donor," in which a man goes to donate blood and gets interrogated by the extremely busy-bodyish nurse who takes advantage of all of the personal questions in the donor survey; "Perchance to Dream," in which customers who are assigned dreams by a fictional agency attempt to use inception to avoid recurring situations, like encountering their exes or having to fight off Rick Santorum's army of groundhogs; and the only non-comedic play, "Cones vs. Rods," which depicts a conversation between two people, one of whom speaks in color while the other speaks in light. It was a great experience, but I'm not really experiencing very much show-cling for it, since it was organized in such a scattered way. I'm primarily just relieved that I have one less thing in my schedule so I can focus on the OMTA showcase and "Vessel." (Oh, and classwork. That too.)

Part Two: Oh my goodness, I forgot to mention "Vessel."
Recently I auditioned for and was cast in a workshop production of a musical called "Vessel." One of the girls who is in the same a capella group as I am wrote the musical as her Senior Honors Project (she's a Theater/Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies Double-Major). It's about a young woman named Faith who, just before leaving for college, is diagnosed with MRKH, which is a type of infertility condition (I would recommend looking it up online, because there's absolutely no way I would be able to explain it coherently). Essentially, Faith doesn't know what to make of this and decides not to tell people about her diagnosis yet (including her very religious mother) and throughout the course of the play, Faith deals with the question of what it means to be "female-bodied." There are also various plotlines about her two siblings and the dynamics within her family, and there is a group of Greek Goddesses (doubling as the doctors who treat Faith) who provide commentary and insight on the action. I was cast in the role of the Second Doctor (who diagnoses Faith with MRKH)/Hera (Goddess of Marriage and Childbirth). It sounds like it is going to be a truly fascinating work...once it's done, that it. As of now it's still in the editing stages, and the purpose of this workshop is to let the playwright/directors hear it aloud and make changes along the way. There will also be some public readings for invited audiences, who can provide feedback on the piece. Then, later in the semester, there will be auditions for the actual production, which will be staged and performed in the spring. As of now, I'm interested in being a part of both the workshop and the actual production later on, but we'll see how my schedule looks in the spring. Either way, I'm so excited to be involved in this process. It will most definitely be interesting, and I'll be updating you as we go along.

Part Three: The Best Idea For A Class That Ever Existed.
So, here at Oberlin, we have something known as the Experimental College (ExCo, for short) which is a department of classes which are not taught by faculty members. They can be taught by basically anyone (student, community members, etc) who has a certain level of expertise in any given area that's not offered as a course in the existing curriculum. There are classes in a huge range of subjects from Swing Dancing to Grassroots Organizing to Storytelling to Ecology & Meditation. This semester, I decided to sign up for an ExCo class on the most brilliant topic ever: Gender and Sexuality in Disney Films (taught by a GSFS student.) Essentially, every Saturday, we attend a screening of an animated Disney film (or a double feature) and then on Sunday we meet in small discussion groups to talk about the films and how they portray certain aspects of gender indentities and sexuality. So far, we have watched "Mickey Mouse Monopoly" (a fascinating documentary about the sexual/racial/social implications in Disney films), "Snow White," "Peter Pan," "Bambi," "Cinderella," and "Sleeping Beauty." The double feature of the last two films was particularly interesting because our discussion dealt primarily with the question of what makes a "Disney Princess." We have some truly fascinating discussions in that class, in particular regarding the roles that parents/guardians play in the lives of their offspring (i.e. Bambi's parents), comparisons of the aesthetic appearances and mannerisms of different characters (i.e. villians vs. heroes), and the ways in which some characters do or don't conform to typical gender identities (i.e. the dwarfs.)

Soon to appear on Exit, Pursued by a White Squirrel, tech week for the OMTA showcase (ack!), first college midterm (double ack!), first viewing of the script for "Vessel," and at least one in depth account of a discussion in the Disney ExCo, possibly the one on this week's viewing of "The Little Mermaid" (AAAACK!)

As always, thanks for reading. Today's post is brought to you by the ObieHipster Count of the Day, which was 17. A little high for a Tuesday, considering I only had one class (but I did have to cross Tappan Square several times. So all in all, not that unusual...)