Shakespeare Feat. Dessa
The one brain worm from earning two graduate degrees in Shakespeare I really can’t cure myself of is the compulsion to pair up songs with Shakespeare plays. and on a drive home I was struck with the idea that surely there is a perfect Dessa song for every one of Shakespeare’s plays.
So I assigned each play a different song (no repeats, or hesitations) and honestly, they aren’t too bad. Some of the histories are a bit of a stretch, but overall I feel very confident in these pairings.
COMEDIES (Link to Playlist)
- All’s Well That Ends Well feat. DIXON’S GIRL
“You’ve got to be big to treat pretty girls bad”
One of my favorite songs by Dessa, DIXON’S GIRL is about rooting for the scorned woman, which if that isn’t a plot summary for All’s Well I don’t know what is. - As You Like It feat. BOMBS AWAY
“Thew myself with the coin / If this thing works / I’ll land first / Live to tell”
Rosalind-the-Overthinker’s struggle to let go is a core theme of the play (at least in the ways I like to think about), so a song about going all in without knowing the results for sure just fits. - Comedy of Errors feat. CHILDREN’S WORK
“My father was a paper plane / My mother was a windswept tree / My little brother’s nearly twice my age / He taught me how to meditate / I taught him how to read”
This song really captures what it is like to have a sibling, so of course it goes with the sibling play! - Love’s Labour’s Lost feat. I ALREADY LIKE YOU
“Don’t be shy / I already like you / Don’t care what you drive / I’m attracted to the IQ” I love this song so much and hate this play, but they fit together really well, and honestly it would be a very fun lively way to start the show. - Measure for Measure feat. FIRE DRILLS
“‘By definition you can’t make a difference / If the big ambition / Is simply standing sentry to your innocence / That’s not a way to live / That can’t be what a woman is / That gives her nothing to aspire to / What that is / Is just a life of running fire drills”
No Comment Needed - Merchant of Venice feat. SOUND THE BELLS
“Put all your paper maps away / Mercator here can’t help.”
Something about the inevitable feeling in this song pairs with the way bad luck for the characters of the play just looms in the background. - Merry Wives of Windsor feat. JUMPROPE
“Don’t let ’em talk that down / It’s still jumprope now”
Something about the female camaraderie and playfulness of this song makes it a really lovely fit for the Merry Wives. - Midsummer Night’s Dream feat. GOOD FOR YOU
“I don’t bring this up lightly / Do you think that I might be / Someone you can’t forget” I just really need to see a confident and bold Helena sing this. - Much Ado about Nothing feat. MATCHES TO PAPER DOLLS
“I still get chills when you talk to me / But the years pass by now in twos and threes / These thrills ain’t as cheap as they used to be” - Taming of the Shrew feat. THE BULLPEN
“In the room with thugs and rap veterans / Why am I the only one who’s acting like a gentlemen?”
A song calling out men for policing and judging women? For talking a big game and not delivering? Yes, I am going to make Kate sing the hell out of that. - Tempest feat. THE CHACONNE
“Safe in your study / Going grey / You’re at your best / When you’re alone / Above the fray / With your chaconne”
It’s a play about obsession, so it gets a song about obsession! - Twelfth Night feat. SHRIMP
“Always a bridesmaid / Never an Astronaut” just fits Viola’s vibes. - Two Gentlemen of Verona feat. BLUSH
“You liked me in theory / I liked you back in practice” is so Julia coded it HURTS - Winter’s Tale feat. MINESHAFT II
“He knows how bad he acted / Knows he can’t have you back / But the fact is he can’t be happy when you’re angry / And you’re so angry”
The way this song talks about the price of forgiveness and bitterness captures the heart of Winter’s Tale.
I have the other ones assigned, but don’t have them all typed up and out. But, I am really proud of the match for HENRY V, so stay tuned.
Protected: A Precarious Situation
I’m Turning 30
As the great poet of our time Bo Burnham once said, “Now, I’m turning 30.”
I am ready to be done with my 20s. Thinking about everything that has happened in my life since I turned 20 makes my head spin. Twenty things that happened in the last decade, in no particular order:
- I finished undergrad at Messiah College.
- I finished grad school at Mary Baldwin University, earning two masters degrees.
- I moved to Virginia.
- I worked at a Montessori school, Cranberry’s, Crucible, and Mary Baldwin University, in addition to a lot of random side gigs.
- I worked as a director and actor professionally.
- I started my copy editing business.
- I loved deeper than I thought possible and felt heartbreak to the same degree. And I survived both.
- I came out as queer, to myself first and then eventually everyone else.
- I bought a house and picked out the paint color for every room.
- I planted a garden and harvested the fruits of my labor.
- I got into birding in a real way (and IDed over 100 birds in one year).
- I got on dating apps and had absolutely no luck romantically, but I did make some new friends.
- I went to Boston in the fall, which made me laugh when I realized I couldn’t truly be a member of the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.
- I got into bread baking, but not at the same time as everyone else.
- I got a dog. And two rats. And a hamster. And three fish. Not all at the same time, good gracious.
- I got a therapist. Three actually. One in undergrad, another when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and then a marriage counselor.
- I went to my brother’s and sister’s weddings.
- I met so many great people and they have turned into dear friends. Some nearly a decade ago, and some within the last year.
- I tried wake boarding one time and have the scar to prove it.
- I got four tattoos.
That is a lot of life for one decade. A lot of laughter and a lot of tears. A lot of growth and frustration and success and hardship and joy and magic. Reading that list and thinking about what Mary-at-her-20th-birthday would think of it all fills me with… something.
And then I think of what the list will look like in another decade when I am reflecting on turning 40 and thinking about me sitting here preparing to turning 30 and that really fills me with something.
I saw a TikTok that talked about getting older like an onion, all the other layers are still there. Even though I am about to be 30, the 29 version of me is still there, as is the 24 version falling in love, and the 22 version moving to Virginia for grad school, and the 19 year old version working at a diner in North Carolina for a summer, and the 15 year old version having a pirate themed murder mystery dinner party, and the 10 year old version crying at the thought of leaving her guitar teacher and moving to NY, and the 5 year old version chasing lizards on the back porch.
A song for this year has been “Becoming” by Lillian and it closes with the line “The woman I am becoming is the woman I have always been.”
Sometimes when I think about all the ways I have changed over the last decade and beyond, I get overwhelmed. But that idea, that I am just becoming more myself, brings me peace. Not only are all my previous selves still inside me, but all the nuggets of my future selves are too.
It’s finches all the way down. And up.
I am so excited for another decade of becoming who I have always been.
Jobs I’ve Worked: Shakespeare Magazine
This one stretches the definition of “job” because I never received any compensation. However, this gig is directly responsible for me ending up in Staunton, so it certainly is worth a mention.
I got this job through twitter, circa 2014 back when the character limit was still 140. Ah the good old days. Through a series of retweets, a call for stories of seeing David Tennant do Shakespeare came across my feed and I happened to have a very unlucky series of events leading up to my best friend and I getting to a screening of his Richard II with the RSC. I submitted, the editor liked it, published it, and asked if I wanted to do any more writing. Reader, I said yes.
Over the next year or so I used my status as the US Staff Writer for Shakespeare Magazine to score press tickets to shows and to conduct interviews with creatives, not all of which went to print. Regardless, it was an amazing experience. I also wrote copy for “news” stories about current Shakespeare events, most which also didn’t make it to print. Regardless, the editor gave me lots of feedback, and new British slang, like “stroppy” (it means pissy).
I got an advanced copy of Juliet’s Nurse and interviewed the author. The book was a big stepping stone on my journey to loving Romeo & Juliet.
I saw both parts of the Shakespeate Theatre Company’s Henry IV productions with Matthew Amendt as Hal and got to interview Amendt. I was working at my undergrad library over the summer and used a lunch break and the abandoned writing center offices to conduct the interview. My favorite was as soon as Amendt realized I had seen the shows he wanted to know what I thought. Really lovely.
I saw STC’s As You Like It directed by Michael Attenborough and staring Zoe Waites. I wept like a baby during the final scene. I interviewed Michael Attenborough at approximately midnight his time and he held the camera phone at a very low angle as he lounged at his house and answered all of my silly Shakespeare questions. I sent Zoe Waites a series of interview questions and she recorded her answers while waiting to board a flight somewhere.
I saw Hudson Valley Shakespeare’s productions of Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and interviewed the cast. The five person Midsummer is too this day the best small scale show I have ever seen. It dramatically altered my idea of what Shakespeare looked like. About 30 percent of the audience walked out of the show the night I was there. The cast called it “Not Shakespeare over your head, but Shakespeare between your legs.” Winter’s Tale was good too.
And of course, I saw the American Shakespeare Center’s production of Macbeth with James Keegan as the title role. I came to town and interviewed the artistic director and the founder Ralph Alan Cohen. I fell in love with the town and I came back less than a year later for grad school and I haven’t left yet.
Once in grad school, I didn’t have the time to set up interviews and revise articles, so my work with Shakespeare Mag fell to the wayside. But it was an incredible experience and deeply formative not only in exposing me to lots of good theatre, but also in that it taught me how to think about theatre critically and trust my gut reaction. And it made me a better writer.
After earning an English degree, I was very much bogged down in weighty mediocre MLA style writing. Learning how to write like a journalist made me more concise and precise in my writing.
And finally, it taught me that Shakespeare People are overwhelmingly Good People. Every person I interviewed and interacted with was so kind, generous, and thrilled about theatre, that I knew studying and continuing to work with Shakespeare would be a good thing. And it was.
Jobs I’ve Worked: ASCTC
I am feeling incredibly nostalgic for my stints directing at the American Shakespeare Center’s Theatre Camp these days. Maybe because in the Before Times this was the time of the year I would have sent off my application and would be anxiously waiting to hear back. Maybe its because I’m starting to desperately miss the theatre and the people of the theatre.
Directing at ASCTC just might be the most perfect combination of all my passions and expertise. I get to work with kids, in theatre, as a director, on Early Modern Works. What more could I ask? Oh, also working in the only replica of the Blackfriar’s Playhouse? Yeah, I guess you could throw that in there too!
So, about that job. As a director I got to prepare my script, cast my show, and, well, direct it over the course of three weeks. Both times I worked with the pariah plays, the ones not by Shakespeare, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Trimming the tome of Volpone down to a tight 60 minute version is still one of my proudest accomplishments.
Campers ranged in ages and experience, but they were all full of vim and vigor.
Working with them I felt young and alive and quite literally like I could change their lives. If I could teach them to be proud of their bodies and to have joy in discovering how they move and work; if I could teach them they deserve to feel safe and respected; if I could teach them that kindness, generosity and good faith are some of the most important tools to bring into a collaboration; if I could teach they deserve to take up space and to have their stories told loudly and proudly; then I could change their lives.
We never had a bad day of rehearsal. I mean, yes cue-to-cues were tedious and sometimes frustrating, but I never once felt like it was a bad day. They are some of the hardest working actors I have ever worked with, who will just put their nose to the ground and do everything they can to make what I want happen. What more could a director dream of?
The first year I directed Volpone and set it in the Wild West. I taught those kids how to saunter with cowboy boots and had them sing a ridiculously perfect Eurovision song to open it. We worked on furniture management, hat choreography, and how to stage a sexual assault in a way that told the story, but also protected both the audience and actors from undo trauma.
The second year I directed Gallathea, a very gay ensemble play with gods and goddesses abounding. We practiced acting with our thighs (trademarked “Thacting”), learned how to properly draw a bow, and staged a parent disowning their child for their choice of a partner.
ASCTC has been hands down some of the most fulfilling work I have ever done.
Here’s to hoping we all get back there again some day.
(Stay home, social distance, wear a mask, be kind.)
Jobs I’ve Worked: The Convenient Deli Mart
Businesses who name themself convenient always crack me up. Like, really? That’s your best selling point? Not that you are the best, or quality, or have a specialty? Just that you are convenient.
The Convenient Deli Mart was located just outside my family’s neighborhood in NY, and for as long as we lived there they had a “We’re Hiring” sign in the window. We joked that it would take truly desperate times to make one of us answer that posting.
The summer before I shipped off to grad school was such a time. I needed a job to earn money to pay for my move to Virginia and there’s just not that much seasonal work in that area of NY. I tried several fast food chains and independent tutoring jobs, but with no luck and the summer creeping away from me, I swallowed my pride, printed off a resume, and headed to the Deli Mart.
Head high and spirits low, I walked in and asked if they were hiring. The owner (a classic Italian New Yorker, complete with a thick accent and a suit no matter the weather) came out, looked over my resume, and asked my availability. I mentioned I was only around for the summer and he let me know they (like so many other places) don’t hire seasonal help. Crestfallen and a bit hopeless, I tried to put on a brave face and exit gracefully, thanking him for his time.
Out in the car, I felt truly embarrassed and hopeless. Not as embarrassed though as when I looked up with tears on my face and saw that the owner had followed me out and could see me crying in the car. He did the two-finger come hither motion. I got out of the car and he just said, “Come inside. I’m gonna give you a job.”
The Deli Mart was basically your gas station convenience mart with out the gas station. The deli was a tiny galley kitchen with a flat grill, two fryers, and two sandwich prep stations. We served breakfast sandwiches, eggs, bacon, and sausages, as well as your full array of deli sandwiches and meats and cheeses sliced to order. We also had burgers, fries, and a few other fried foods. Of course, we did bagels. At the register at the end of the kitchen, we rang up all the grocery shopping items on a very much not digital register. We also sold lotto tickets. We restocked the walk-in refrigerator and checked-in deliveries. All the food was made to go.
It was a lot to learn, and in the few months I worked there I did it all.
The man who hired me was Big Joe the owner, not to be confused with Little Joe, or Joey, the manager. The rest of the staff were either kids my age, working to help pay their way through college or high school, or women who had worked there for years and were kind enough to let Little Joe pretend to run the place, or at least handle payroll and the schedule.
Unlike at T’s, at this job I was in the heat of the kitchen. There was no room for mistakes and very little grace if you messed up. In the heat of a lunch rush, Deb who ran the grill would let you know if you brought her a sandwich without a ticket and all you could do was weather the torrent of obscenities and bring that ticket to her as fast as possible. After the rush though, she would apologize for losing her temper while also reaffirming that you messed up and don’t you dare ever do it again.
The work was hot, hard, and frequently thankless. Customers were finnicky about how thick their bologna was sliced, how their lotto tickets were processed, and how toasty their bagels were. I came home exhausted and smelling like fryer grease.
But I also came home with a paycheck, and although it wasn’t much, it was enough to get me to Virginia. Big Joe even gave me a generous cash bonus when I left. My coworkers were kind, even if they weren’t always nice. And I learned to appreciate the delicacy (badumtss) of a sandwich made up of freshly sliced meat and cheese on a fresh Kaiser roll. I don’t miss much about living in NY, but I do miss those sandwiches and sometimes even that job.
Jobs I’ve Worked: Tutoring (Various)
My first tutoring job was when I was in my senior year of high school. I tutoring a 9th grader in Spanish. At the time I was in AP Spanish and president of Spanish Honors Society, and I was a very mediocre tutor to a very uninterested student.
One week, the student didn’t show up so I gave his mom a call.
“Oh! He didn’t tell you? Last week was our last session.”
And so ended my first tutoring job. All in all, it’s a weird chapter of my life that I frequently forget about, only to remember with a bit of vague sense of “Wasn’t that an odd thing.”
I got back into tutoring my junior year of undergrad, this time specifically a writing tutor and this time I was much better than mediocre.
I freaking love tutoring writing. I loved it at my undergrad, I loved it at my grad, and I loved it when I got to tutor one on one when teaching from middle school to high school to college.
At the writing center, we got students of all different majors and at all different places in their academic career. The only thing they really had in common was that none of them wanted to be at the writing center:
Students who were confident in their writing were at the writing center because their first year professor required it as part of the course work.
Students who were not confident in their writing were at the writing center out of desperation or frustration, or as a requirement for resubmitting a failed paper.
But over the course of our forty-five minute session, it was my goal to get them confident and excited about writing. And I don’t think I am being overly prideful when I say that I succeeded in most cases. Okay, maybe they weren’t necessarily excited, but I do think most of them left at least more optimistic than when they arrived, and that was enough.
Jobs I’ve Worked: A Series
With the current state of the world, I’ve been applying to a lot of jobs that I don’t really want and not getting any of them. All of this employment work has me thinking on the many jobs I have had over the course of my relatively short millennial life (18 by my count), and how each of them was great and terrible for different reasons.
I’m not ashamed of my patchwork career path and as such, thought some reflections on my jobs would be a worthwhile endeavor, and an appropriate way to avoid applying for more jobs.
So, in no particular order: Jobs I’ve Worked
Server at T’s Cafe
Sneads Ferry, North Carolina
The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college I decided to live at the beach, because why the hell not? My aunt and uncle have a great place down there with a spare room, so I did.
After calling a few places, cafes and book stores mostly, I hadn’t had much luck finding a summer gig, but my aunt took me to T’s. They had me fill out an application and told me to come back the next day.
Unsure if I was going for an interview or my first day of work, I showed up in sneakers. Which was the right call; they put me straight to work.
Now, about T’s Cafe: while branded a cafe it served diner food with a saltwater southern flair. We did serve coffee, but only cheap stale coffee made in batches. No lattes. Customers ordered their biscuits or hushpuppies–depending on the time of the day–at the counter and then when it was ready we brought the food to their table. Our customer base was 75% locals and 25% lost tourists. The interior had exposed wood paneling reminiscent of a ship’s siding, and the kiosk with all the ketchup and tartar sauce you could ever want was shaped like a little dingy.
But the building and menu was dull as can be compared to the people who worked there. For those that don’t know, Sneads Ferry is located south of Jacksonville (home of marine base Camp Lejuene) and just inland of Topsail Island. It’s long term residents consists mostly of retirees, fishers, and the families of those stationed or working at the base
T’s was staffed entirely by women, most of whom had followed marine there, and stayed behind (willingly or otherwise) when he moved on. They were salty bitches, in every sense of the phrase, and I loved them. I was also terrified of them.
After that first surprise shift, when asked how it was I said, hesitantly, “Good, but I think they might kill me if I do the job wrong.”
I honestly don’t remember too much about the work itself. I brought out food and fetched salad dressings and refilled coffees. At the end of the day we swept and mopped. While not always easy, it was simple.
I was good at the work and they were good to me. They all thought I was adorably young and naive (which I was). I made a decent hourly wage and got cash tips in my pockets.
As with all work places (at least in my experience), there was some interpersonal drama, but at T’s unlike most other work places (at least in my experience) it was all out in the open. Things didn’t fester, the offending employee just got called out and corrected. If they had an issue with it, well, everyone knew what had happened and why.
They weren’t cruel or petty, just not interested in your bullshit.
Every day around 2pm, after the lunch rush had ended and the dining room was empty, the fry cook would yell from the back asking if us floor girls wanted anything to eat. Once everyone scrounged together some food, we would all sit at one of the big tables and eat. The conversation was loud and crass and wonderful. At one such feast was the first time someone offered me weed. I declined but said thanks for the offer, to everyone else’s great amusement.
The State of the Finch 17,18
I have been woefully bad at blogging recently, and it is one of the habits I would like to engender in myself again. So, to begin with an easy post: I found this post from three years ago and it filled me with warm fuzzies. So, I thought I should do it again.
A few of the adventures and misadventures of the past few years:
2016
- I pestered the fine folks at Cranberry’s Grocery & Eatery until they gave me a job.
- I experienced my first hangover (late bloomer, I know)
- I met Kendra. (Reader, I married her.)
- I grew my hair long enough to put it in a very ridiculous pony tail
- I learned under two very different equally incredible directors as their assistant director and decided I liked it.
- I directed my first show–a staged reading of a friend’s play.
- I found Edwin Ginn and fell in love.
- I went CAMPING and discovered what a truly terrible place Salt Lake City was and how truly wonderful it is to be best friends with your sisters.
- I got to dress up like a cowboy for a show.
- I designed the promotional image for our production of Macbeth (my first–and certainly not last–foray into design)
2017
- I cut off my ridiculous pony tale #RIP
- Kendra and I got the most perfect betta fish, Mephistopheles #RIP
- I directed my first main stage production with the Mary Baldwin Undergraduate students
- I finished a really good thesis about Edwin Ginn
- I dyed my hair purple-ish and only mildly regretted it
- I earned my first Master’s degree
- K and I made a home together
- I did not look at the eclipse since we didn’t have glasses, but instead enjoyed the eclipse shadows, demonstrating incredible self-control
- I directed a phenomenal cast in what turned out to be a phenomenal production that I will never stop bragging about. (I decided to pursue directing as a career.)
- I learned how to do digital graphic design and created the promotional images for all the Motley shows
2018
- I played one of the most ridiculous characters in one of the most ridiculous plays, and even though it was the worst experience of my graduate studies we put on one hell of a show. (I decided not to pursue acting as a career)
- I got back into painting
- I met and worked with the Amazing Vanessa Morosco who reaffirmed my faith in humanity and theatre
- I finished an okay thesis about directing and earned my second Master’s degree.
- Left my job at Cranberry’s and began life outside of school for the first time.
- I got married surrounded by some of the best people in the world; we ate Chipotle and danced and all was well.
- I directed my first professional production for the American Shakespeare Center’s Theatre Camp and set Volpone in the American West because it made sense to me.
- I got my first “real” job at Staunton Montessori School, where I get to work with many fantastic pets and people
- I went to my first Pride event in my perfect little town which included a drag show at which I cried
- I went back to Georgia for the first time since I was eleven and hung out with dear friends and relived my childhood at the Coca-Cola Museum.
Flighty Finch 