Centre for Release :

cool.

Just realised I haven't updated in ages, but i still selfishly read other peoples posts. so: time to update.

It looks to be another big year, but this one holds more optimism. Last year was trying, a few major things to deal with, but ok. Am currently in rehearsals for Once Upon a Coffee with Marcela. It's one of the most enjoyable and challenging plays i've been in, devising, writing and rehearsing all at the same time. gets very confusing at times, but it's taking shape and looks to be a nice production, would love to see people there if they can make it. I certainly have a new appreciation for coffee.

Am moving into a flat over the weekend, it will be a nice relief after living home over the past year. It was needed (living at home) but so is this move. Should be a fun flat and reasonably cheap, we'll be having a party so will keep you posted. It's north of uni, but still close so it's good.

I'm also really excited about having only 1 year of study left as I thought I would have another 1/2 or or whole year after this, but it looks as though I have been keeping up and will graduate with the rest (YES!!!!).

post style might change as just started rocking out to some music. here comes freestyle non editing ...

pause to think what to write about ... hehehehe

ok, here it comes ... off the top

never gonna stop, keep on rocking,
off the block, like a new kid
 theior coming back or so i hear
that is something to really fear
but hold tight because through the night you hear a bump,
a thump, a stump a monster jump,

and so on ...


what else?

 just feeling good right now, probably the best thing to report. and sneezed awesomely. and listening to mc hammer.

The Loopen Experiment presents:

Once Upon a Coffee

• a playfull look into our daily cup-

a theatrical exploration devised and performed by Damien McGrath and Marcela
Restrepo.


Christchurch, - February, Wednesday 13th - Friday 15th 2008 - The
Wunderbar 19 London St,
7.30pm.
Show followed by live music. Tickets:$12. Limited seating. For bookings email
bookings@loopen-experiment.co.nz
or phone 021 105 7417

"Fancy a coffee sometime?".  A familiar phrase in the New Zealand
coffee and dating culture. Once upon a latte or cappuccino many relationships have flourished into fairytale romances... The latest play "Once Upon a Coffee" by Christchurch's own Loopen Experiment
takes a look at the role of coffee and how it has become a significant part of our lives. This play tells the story of Mia and Hayden's relationships with coffee and each other and how their links with
coffee may ultimately destroy their relationship.
This play merges New Zealand with the Latin American coffee culture and touches on the consumerism of coffee, which shows the stark contrast in the way that we live compared to coffee farmers.

Masks, dolls, music, poetry, and even coffee tasting all combine to create a unique theatre experience. 'Once upon a coffee' is an amusing and dynamic play that intends to take a fresh look at our daily fix.
Discover and explore the deeper origins and dark side to our daily fix and take part in an experience to find out more about where our coffee comes from. Experience theatre and a caffeine hit with a difference...

Check out the official Media Release for Macbeth.

So just got back from returning the scaffolding from the set, which means that Before My Eyes has finished. it was fun, really fun. working with rob and helen is like trying to work with insane monkeys, but really fun insane monkeys. Rob can be quite forceful at times, but if up front with him he's cool. I have to say that trainspotting and this production have been the absolute highlights for this year. both of them totally enjoyable and well recieved. Even though BME was a mission for the small scale production it was, it was well worth the effort. I know i definately need to upgrade my organisation programming, but hell it came together in the end with some major help, which i am incredibly grateful for.

next is the mission for university and to salvage what is left of the this years papers. something had to give during this period and well ,sadly it was uni.

So,

This week has been absolutely crazy. I had a production yesterday with the B.Ed class. It took some major effort from our class but we pulled it off. Something I think training drama teachers lack is experience in productions and this is endlessly frustrating when they come up with ideas which would be great for film but theatrically near impossible. But in the end it was a very interesting production and everyone pulled their weight. It's strange but our tcol year has finished already! nothing but uni until next year as far as that goes.

Before My Eyes has also been a crazy adventure. quite a difficult task to rehearse, direct and pull together a show, but it seems to be going well. Rob and Helen have written some great scripts, but not before time! still, there is some good work being done. It's a very satisfying process though - writing, workshopping and rehearsing a script. We are one week out and by all acounts I should be panicking, but I know it'll be fine, which reminds me - COME AND SEE IT!

i've been laughing at this for the last couple of days

i'm so tired ... but battlestar galactica is on soon.

.. such a nerd.

just went to the gym and powered up so hard all the equipment burst into flames!

Yo,

So today i went tennis playing with pete and gina. it was so much fun i think i transported to a fifth dimension, but then it was my serve and i came back to the planet. So, in conclusion, it was lots of awesome combined with wow factor yes!

Admiral Ackbar was on last night, he was outstanding, as always. He's so intuitive, i love it when he realises "it's a trap!", fuck he's cool! he can also dance really well.

don't really know what else to write about so I'll just finish with a LASER SERVE!

just spent the last day and half doing a bizzare film for a team entering the Entree competition. It should be friggin funny when it's finished.

If you like theatre and you like New Zealand Theatre, click me!

exciting ... well I think so.

in 2008 a new Masters in Drama qualification will be offered. of course it's a few years off for me, but still very interesting and happy to see that drama is being recognised like that now.

saw transformers the other day with pete. I couldn't help but totally enjoy it, big robots fighting each other and transforming and doing their cool robot stunts. of course it's hollywood to the maximum, but it's TRANSFORMERS!

It's strange how some nights the audience will laugh at one thing, then not the other night, or choose different things to laugh at. Last night the audience were very quite and we were thinking "omg, what's happened? are we shit!?" hehe but then I thought, well, it's not really an outright comedy so of course the audience isn't goint o laugh at stuff all the time, and why should they? It has to be said that it was very weird. Each night, certain moments hit a cord and there is a reaction. Last night moments were hit and the audience sat, intensly engaged but silent. I'm not complaining or saying that they should have laughed or that they didn't get the show, I'm sure they did, audiences are very intelligent, just wanted to say that it's "weird" how that happens. 

It's the final night tonight. should be interesting, I hope certain pranks aren't followed through, one that will end with me covered in piss. 

pete and kulai are coming tonight, huzzah pop krang!

"I need a cold-cough destroying thing" is what I said. a few seconds later I was the proud owner of drugs to dry me out and help me not feel faint.

the extended season of trainspotting started last night. I'm still in awe at the fact it is selling out, in fact it was over capacity last night which is awesome! the performance was alright, though not as good as last friday or saturday.

education papers are confusing the hell out of me. and the english paper is too, but at least I enjoy the confusion in those lectures.

very long time since last wrote anything, mainly due to the business of trainspotting. Rob has the skill of basically sucking all of your time into a show, and I have surmised that it's not ALL bad. it definately brings the cast together and most importantly it gets things done. On the theme of spotting trains, it's one of the most enjoyable shows I've been involved with. the cast has got on superbly, the director(s) have been on the ball and full of enthusiasm from the start. the show itself is going very well and I'm so glad to be a part of it. some of the most hilarious conversations have taken place back stage, excellent.

Am currently working on the next loopen project The Underground Season: Before My Eyes. Just been to nebeilhiem to check out the space, just got a fresh burst of YES!

just going to rant now, as seems to be the way I can actually get anything said here, I do't want to structure anything I have to write here and why should I? so here goes...

I've been going to bed late and getting up late which I don't like doing because it makes me late for things I don;'t want to be late for, yet I still do it, must mean my body clock is out of whack, hit the back, lost track. Must get to sleep earlier, get up early, run, tackle large round lifty metallic heaviness each morning, eat healthier, live healthier become a healthy live-er of life. I keep thinking about my mum, not in a depressed way or a way that keeps me from living life, but in a way that makes me wish I was doing more, I still have this overwhelming urge to make her proud of me. I'm sure many feel that way. My mum had an amazingly creative life, she painted, made papier mache birds, handcrafted cards, watercolours, all sorts of things, I want to be able to use it somehow theatrically, not in a self indulgeant kind of way but in an interesting and artfully tasteful kind of way. I should be reading more, I should be doing all sorts of things I should I should I should, I should not!

My teaching practice went really well, I may have already talked about this, i can't remember, but it was the best out of the two tp's that i've had so far. last year was lincoln, which was challenging to say the very least. I was able to learn a lot more about teaching, how to teach and also about shakespeare, which I never really appreciated untill now. Also got to read up on some plays that had alluded me untill this year. St Andrews is a very nice school, almost too nice, but in a good way, very traditional. I got called Sir or Mr McGrath, a definate change from the hagley dayts when we could call the teacher by the first name. I like hagley, hope I can go there for a teaching practice next year. Am looking forward to graduating (which is still a year and half away) but just want this to be finished so I can get out there and start earning some real moolah .. and teaching of course!

Ooh just had an idea, have to go!

it seems to be ages between updates, but then i need more poignant or eventful things to post about i guess. The holidays are now and I am enjoying them with ferocious laziness. Well, it's not really ferocious, more of a detirmined purpose to do nothing, of course doing absolutely nothing is impossible, unless your a void, but a void is still doing something isn't it? anway, I've been watching for too many dvds so here's a list of what watched over the last 3 or so weeks ...

Guys and Dolls, River Queen, The Life and *something* of Peter Sellers, The New World, Sin City, Alien Vs Predator, Aliens, Romeo and Juliet (Di Caprio), Shakespeare in Love, Macbeth (O. Welles), Underworld, Underworld: Evolution, Napolean Dynamite ... there are a few more but I can't remember what they are.

another monster game of celebrities last night: awesome.

went for a nice long drive up the hills today, climbed over castle rock and took in chch with a mighty gaze.

an error message come up on the screen last night saying "something bad happened in the application." then gave me a file name. 

at least it was specific.

currently watching 'waiting for guffman', it's hilarious. shakespeare went alright today, i still need to kick more ass and be 'the man' in terms of kicking ass.

I stayed in bed until 2pm wading my way through colonial australia. 'True History of the Kelly Gang' by Peter Carey. now to write the essay ... *huff*

Jacob is running smooth.