White Rabbit, Red Rabbit

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The Ensemble Company in residence at Penguin Point Productions (1700 Oviedo Mall Boulevard, Oviedo, FL, 32765) presented White Rabbit, Red Rabbit written by Nassim Soleimanpour.The set was just a small card table with two glasses of water, some chairs, and a step stool. The empty bookcase had a tiny penguin on the top shelf. The internationally acclaimed play is an audacious experience and a potent reminder of the transitive and transformative power of theater. Beyond that, I can not say any more.

The premise is simple…

No set.

No director.

A sealed script on stage.

A different performer each night.

The Orlando performers were, David Lee, John DiDonna, Beth Marshall, and Roberta Emerson. I experienced the incomparable performance by Beth Marshall. As a reviewer, I have been sworn to secrecy. The plush white rabbit on the show poster might be deceiving. This was definitely a play themed for adults.

I can say that there were 50 people in the audience and I was audience member number 20. Beth pulled a POTUS saying she wanted to count for herself, since she needed to know that she had more audience members that the two previous shows by David and John. I wrote that number on the sketch in case it was important. After the show, I was told by people who had seen multiple interpretations, that Beth managed to linger and stretch the play a half hour longer than the two previous performances. She had a knack for letting the words sink in.

I can say that after the play I had an amazing in-depth conversation with Ed Anthony. Both of us recounted memories of people in our lives whom we wish we had helped more. This heated personal exchange was clearly fueled by the thoughts triggered by the theatrical experience we had just been through. We were left with a desire to step up and help others in this trying experience called life.

Weekend Top 6 Picks for August 17 and 18, 2019

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TSaturday August 17, 2019

Noon to 6pm Free. Mexican Gastronomic Festival “Ven a Comer”. Lake Eola 512 E Washington st, Orlando, Florida 32801. Come
out and celebrate the best Mexican food festival known to Florida! The
Mexican Consulate in Orlando and LCHA host our 5th Annual Mexican
Gastronomic Festival! We will have all your Mexican favorites Tacos,
Elotes, Aguas Frescas, Guacamole and so much MORE! This is our 5th year
show casing the best Mexican food in Florida, represented by many of the
beloved Mexican restaurants here in central Florida! We want you to
come celebrate with us! You won’t want to miss the Guac contest and
Margarita contest!

4pm to 6pm Free. Hoodstock Saturday Market. The Barefoot Spa 801 Virginia Dr, Orlando, Florida 32803. The Hoodstock Saturday Market is no ordinary art stroll. 

7pm to 10pm Free. Black Cow Jumps into the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation. Heller Hall Winter Garden Heritage Foundation 21 East Plant, Winter Garden, Florida 34787.

Black
Cow Jumps – Orlando’s Experimental Theatre Project in association with
the Winter Garden Heritage Foundation explores theatre through reality
in a mindful and sometimes comedic portrayal of the characters we play,
as we try on the shoes of maturity. Human Improv. Life’s Soup.
Complimentary wine, cheese and crackers!

Sunday August 18, 2019

10am to 4pm Free. Lake Eola Farmers Market. Lake Eola Park, 512 E Washington St, Orlando, FL 32801.  

Noon to 3pm Donation based. Music at the Casa. Christine MacPhail. Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum, 656 N Park Ave, Winter Park, FL 32789. Members
of the public are invited to visit our historic home museum on a Sunday
afternoon to listen to live music and take a tour of our historic home
museum and the James Gamble Rogers II Studio by trained docents. 

10pm to Midnight Free but get a coffee. Comedy Open Mic. Austin’s Coffee, 929 W Fairbanks Ave, Winter Park, FL. Free comedy show! Come out and laugh, or give it a try yourself.

The Battle of Townsend’s Plantation Civil War Festival

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The Battle of Townsend’s Plantation Civil War Festival took place at Renninger’s Mount Dora Flea Market and Antique Center (20651 US-441, Mount Dora, Florida, 32757.) This live
Civil War Re-enactment featured living history exhibits, folk music, weaponry
demonstrations, authentic camps and Sutlers, full scale artillery,
cavalry and soldiers in time-period uniforms, weaponry, a Civil War era
Dress Ball, and more.

I always feel at home sketching in a Civil War camp since my analog way of documenting the scene with a sketch fits in with the time period. I remember while doing this sketch a young boy in uniform stood behind me watching my progress. He frowned and was very serious, but was quite transfixed. The folks in camp needed to get ready for the battle taking place later in the day and the boy was called away for a cannon firing drill.

Later that day, we sat on the sidelines as the battle unfolded. There were so many rebels and so few Union soldiers. In the end the rebels took the field which was covered with the bodies of the fallen. It was a bloodless massacre. A surgeon’s tent was littered with limbs that had been amputated. Fortunately, those limbs were plastic replicas. Today in America we are terrorized by the sound of gunfire. These muskets took quite a bit of work to reload, requiring minutes of stuffing the powder charge down the barrel and setting the flint. Soldiers just stood and fired at one another. Today, we run because high powered assault rifles fire hundreds of rounds per minute. The internal wounds from assault rifles are something no civil war doctor could ever have faced.

Orlando Artist Critique at Barefoot Spa

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The Orlando Arts Critique run by Parker Sketch is a monthly meeting where artists and people interested in participating in the local art scene (curators, gallery owners, event coordinators, art appreciators, and anyone else interested in art) gather and talk about art.

It is free and friendly.

The format is that there is an open invitation to participate as a “showing” artist. There is enough time to talk about approximately 15 artist’s work at each session. It is encouraged that the art is very recent, or is relevant to the artist’s current work.

The artists gather as a group of peers, regardless of age, medium, experience, or art genre. There is usually space for an additional 15 participants that aren’t showing art. So there is usually about 20 to 40 people attending this event and talking about all the art.

The primary goal is to have meaningful, positive, and helpful discussions about what the artists are working on. Networking, socializing, and learning about art opportunities in Central Florida is encouraged. The goal is to elevate everyone’s productivity and exposure through helping each other.

Central Florida is exploding with a vibrant art scene. There are so many people doing amazing art that often the people in the art community aren’t aware of what is happening around town. Any artist of art appreciator is always invited come and attend one of the sessions. The Facebook event invitation is usually posted about 2 weeks before the event, and registration through the Facebook invitation is mandatory to make sure that we have enough time and space to respect all of the participants. Join the Orlando Art Critique Facebook Group to stay up to date. The last critique was August 5, 2019.

Steampunk Industrail Show at Renningers

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I grew interested in the Steampunk Industrial Show at Renningers Mount Dora Flea Market and Antique Center (20651 US-441, Mount Dora, Florida 32757) when I found out that Phantasmagoria
would be appearing throughout the day. Phantasmagoria is a local theatrical troupe that presents unique and spectacular blend of storytelling, dance, large
scale puppetry and aerial work, fire performance, live music and stage
combat. Phantasmagoria has been wowing critics and audiences alike
since its premier. First created in 2010, each production
offers new stories taken from the diverse centuries old literature of
horror and the macabre.

When Pam Schwartz and I arrived at Renningers, we made our way immediately to the main stage which is decorated with a large electric guitar.  A musical act was on stage and Vera Vermillion held a Parasol Dueling contest. The contest was as comical as might be expected. Contestants would stand like ace sword fighter and their weapons were parasols. I sketched a lovely contestant in a black bowler, corset and umbrella. She ended up being the winning contestant.


After the dueling, a Steampunk DJ started to mix the tunes for the crowd. The sky was turning grey and I kind of wished we had brought a parasol from our car parked a distance away. As it started to sprinkle we dashed towards the car finding any possible cover along the way. when we got to the car the sky opened up and it poured. There must be a steampunk invention that can protect from the rain.

The Mikado: A Concert Version

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On opening night of the Mikado, The Orlando Taiko Dojo demonstrated the traditional art of Japanese drums known as “Taiko.” Taiko
drums were used in battlefields and have been used in religious
ceremonies and festivals for over 2,000 years in Japan. Besides learning
the techniques of playing the drums, students learn about other
essential values in life like respect, manners, concentration, tenacity,
and teamwork. I had sketched them before. So I saved my sketching for the Mikado performance. Producer Theresa Smith-Levin and Nicole Dupre did an incredible job making this a cross-collaborative experience, with a historical exhibition by the Orange County Regional History Center, as well as art adorning the lobby.

The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan is a fun, lighthearted opera about romance in ancient Japan. Nanki-Poo (Bryan Hayes) arrived in Titipu disguised as a peasant and looking for Yum-Yum (Tamir Hernandez Rosa), a young girl he fell in love with several months earlier. However, she was already set to marry Ko-Ko (Stephen Cauley). Naki-Poo, in his despair, contemplates suicide. Ko-Ko persuades Nanki Poo to let him behead him instead. To clinch the
deal, Ko-Ko even agrees to let Nanki-Poo marry Yum-Yum, providing he
agrees to be executed in one month. However, Ko-Ko can’t kill anything, not even a fly.

This
production had some modern twists with references to Facebook and
Puba, first lord of the treasury, lord chief justice,
commander-in-chief, etc (John Segers) references his grand
ancestry discovered with some help from 23 and Me. Through
collaboration with the Asian American community in Orlando, Central
Florida Vocal Arts in partnership with Space Coast Symphony Orchestra
used this work as an opportunity to celebrate Japanese art and culture
via this satirical work.

Directed by Asian American director, Kit Cleto, with support from veteran opera director Eric Pinder, this production teambrought creative comedy to the stage through an outstanding cast. Nicole Dupre had hand painted many of the costumes. The lavish amount of work was astonishing. I got to see her handiwork up close on her own dress, as well as one on  Theresa Smith-Levin, afterwords in the lobby reception. Nicole’s grandmother was in the audience seeing one of her productions for the first time.

My favorite funny moment in the show came when an exuberant dancer (Geoff) leaped with balletic grace while waving a red ribbon, and an old man (Ian Campbell)
followed him waving the same type of red ribbon like it was a soggy wet
noodle, reflecting his dour disposition. There was humor and joy in the
performance, and despite the difficulties and conflicts, life seemed worth
the joy of living before our final bow. 

Sketching at Subways

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This summer I have been teaching at Elite Animation Academy (8933 Conroy Windermere Rd, Orlando, FL 32835). One of the classes was sketching on location. My main goal was to get students excited about carrying a sketchbook everywhere they go. Students were in the range of 11 to 15 years in age. The challenge with some of the younger students and even the older students was to get them to look up from their digital devices. It is disheartening to see how disinterested most students are in things other than packaged digital entertainment. My mantra became “You have to look to see.” Most students just sit and watch their hand put lines on a page finishing an abbreviated notion of what was in their head.  My uphill battle was to get them to look up and spend time to look at the world around them.

One student was particularly stubborn in that he would turn his back to the subject I had assigned to sketch, and never look up preferring to reproduce a stiff anime character he had drawn many times before. I had to play the part of the bad cop shouting about the wonder of being fully connected with the world when sketching. It was a battle of wills as I fought for his creative soul. I kept at him all morning and just before lunch he relented and started to look up. When I was maybe 11 years old I knew I had a talent, but felt it was never fully utilized. I knew where this student was coming from and sweet kindness was not the remedy.

After lunch my class went to Subway to sketch. he sat off on his own in the one good spot for getting a view of people ordering sandwiches. I explained that he should draw people as they came in to order sandwiches but he would only have a few minutes before each person walked off with their purchase. He was suddenly excited and fully engaged in the process of drawing from life. He recognized the challenges and excitement of trying to catch a moment in time. From across the room I sketched him as he had this awakening. He created an amazing sketch that afternoon with expressive figures
ordering food. He added astounding detail right down to the hair on
their arms. They were angular and fluid in just the right measure and
for the first time perspective tied the scene together.

The next day he relapsed a bit by again falling back on drawing the stiff Anime figure. After lunch we again went out to a restaurant to draw. Again he stepped up his game and focused for the entire two hours. He was drawing a man a table away as he ate his sandwich. That man became curious about the sketch and asked to see it. He then offered my student a $10 gift card. My student was incredibly thankful and cashed in the card for a soda and sweet treat. On the drive back to the studio he was extremely excited about the prospects of drawing on location. It was a joy to see him ablaze with the desire to sketch.

On the next day he again relapsed into sketching the same stiff Anime figure. Now that the class is over he needs to decide for himself if he wants to be excited about the everyday events that happen around him. He also expressed a desire to be a doctor which is a fine ambition. I left him with a quote from Mary Oliver that I hope he takes to heart…

“Instructions for living life, Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

Glimpsing the Abyss

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The Orange County Regional History Center (65 E Central Blvd, Orlando, FL) hosted Karen Osborn a research zoologist and curator as she talked about the small creatures found in the oceans. Her fascination with invertebrate zoology was contagious. She works primarily with deep sea animals. Which means collecting these creatures for study is always an adventure.

These creatures don’t live on the sea floor but in  the mid-water. These creatures come in amazing shapes and forms. They are unusual and unique. It was a glimpse int the weird forms alive in our oceans. All these creatures are refereed to as pelagic which means they spend their lives swimming. Some are single cell organisms resembling amoebas while others resemble armored military vehicles with spikes and hard forms. Many are transparent and gelatinous. Amphipods resemble insects with strange eyes and odd appendages. Many of these creatures ancestors once lived on the sea floor and they gradually moved up into the water column.

Karen is largely interested in the wide diversity of life to be found floating in the ocean’s water column. Her focus is on Natural History, as in how these creatures are similar and how they are different. She studies biodiversity, taxonomy,  and morphological variations. Most of her research is done in collaboration with the Monterrey Bay Research Institute which has two ships and two remotely operated submersible vehicles. The submersible is tethered to the operating ship at all times and the pilot and scientist sit in a control room in front of a wall of monitors watching what is happening in the deep sea below. The vehicle has 14 different cameras along with collection devices like a suction samples and a detritus sampler. An animal can be collected without it even realizing that it has been collected. There are over 25 years of oceanographic video that has been archived from these missions.

New species are being discovered like a strange and exotic squid worm
that had many legs that propel the creature through the water. These creatures have amazing ways of adapting to their deep sea existence. For instance the need to smell is more important that the sense of sight so highly sensitive noses have developed with thousands of hair like cells extending out into the water column. This allows them to sniff out food from far away. Any science fiction designer could learn so much from studying these amazing creatures of the deep sea. This was a fun opportunity to sketch creatures I had never seen before.

Weekend Top 6 Picks for August 10 and 11, 2019

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Saturday August 10, 2019

10am to 2pm. Free. The History Center’s Fabulous Floridiana Auction. Orange County Regional History Center 65 E Central Blvd, Orlando, Florida 32801. Take Home a Piece of Central Florida’s Past!
As
we get ready for our big upcoming renovations, we’ve found a stash of
treasures in the museum’s hidden corners. From gargantuan gators to
magical mermaids, we got just the right amazing object to bring a true
touch of Florida and fabulous fun to your home or office!

We’re
talking about everything from massive manatees to a compact King
Kong—even the pretend claw of a giant sloth, and it’s pretty scary. In
short, a plethora of one-of-a-kind treasures, ranging in size from 6
inches to more than 6 feet, that spell out the wild, wacky, and
wonderful state we’re in.
The Fabulous Floridiana live auction,
will be led by a professional auctioneer. Proceeds benefit History Center
programs. The museum will offer free admission, and you can examine our
treasures starting at 10 a.m

Please note
that most of these props or models go back to the museum’s opening
almost 20 years ago; they must be sold “as is,” so you’ll want to check
them out before bidding.
Questions? Contact our membership director, Heidi Jordan, at Heidi.Jordan@ocfl.net
or 407-836-8559. Auction conducted by Alan Frenkel Auction and Realty,
License numbers AB3436AU1522. A 15% BP (buyer’s premium) will apply to
all sales.

4pm to 6pm Free. Young Voices. JB Callaman Center 102 North Parramore Ave Orlando FL. Teen Open Mic Every second Saturday of the Month. 

8pm to 10pm $5 Second Saturdays in Sanford. 202 S Sanford Ave, Sanford, FL. Live music event featuring 2 stages, drink specials and more. 

Sunday August 11, 2019

10am to 4pm Free. Lake Eola Farmers Market. Lake Eola Park, 512 E Washington St, Orlando, FL 32801. 

1pm to 5:30pm Free.  Family Day on the Second Sunday. The Mennello Museum of American Art, 900 East Princeton Street, Orlando, FL 32803. The
make-and-take craft table is open from noon-2:30 p.m., and docents are
available to give mini-tours of the museum. Then it’s open house in the
galleries until 4:30 p.m.  

2pm to 4pm $5 Film Slam. Enzian Theater, South Orlando Avenue, Maitland, FL.  FilmSlam will usually be held on the second Sunday of each month at 1PM at Enzian. Q and A with the filmmakers to follow screening.

Universal City Walk

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Periodically illustration instructors from Savannah Collage of Art and Design come down to Orlando to sketch in Universal studios. I met  instructor Ted Michalowski when I drove up to Scranton Pennsylvania around the time that my step mother died. While up there I reached out and found that Ted hosted a sketch event each month and I decided to join the local artist sketching. His event had local musicians performing and artist could gather to sketch the jam session. One musician played the Theremin which is an instrument that you just move your hand over to create sound. You hear this instrument in most early science fiction films. It was a fun sketch session.

After 6pm parking is free at Universal for local residents so Pam and I drove down and met Ted and several other instructors for dinner at Hard Rock Cafe. The Savannah instructors have connection which allow them to sketch some areas behind the scenes. For instance they sketched and painted characters from the Harry Potter movies without having to be pushed along with the crowds going on the rides.  After sharing sketchbooks and war stories of the challenges of teaching art, we all went outside to sketch at City Walk. I don’t visit Universal or City Walk very often so it was exciting to mingle with the tourist crowds and try and catch the bright lights as the neon and signage turned on after sunset.

Ted used bold ink line work to create gestural and intimate figurative sketches. While I sketched a view overlooking the crowds below. Ted sketched me all of the artists at work. He has a fantastic knack for catching faces and peoples poses with intimate close ups. Since this evening in the park, I have been following the work of Ron Spears whose painterly style is an inspiration. He was teaching a class in Italy and it was great to see his everyday studies. He is now painting up a storm doing loose informal studies that are a delight to see. The other artist I met this night was Stephen Gardener who’s realistic painting were also an inspiration. This is one advantage of Orlando in that talent often gravitates to this magical place.