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Welcome to the World of Shelly Laurenston
Badger To The Bone
In A Badger Way
Hot and Badgered
The Mane Event
The Beast in Him
The Mane Squeeze
Beast Behaving Badly
Big Bad Beast
Bear Meets Girl
Wolf With Benefits
Bite Me
The Unleashing
The Unyielding
Pack Challenge
Go Fetch!
Pride World Connections
UNEDITED/UNPROOFED EXCERPT:
With his thumb marking the spot in the book he was reading, Ski walked down the hall to the front door. He pulled it open and smiled at the woman standing there. "Well, hello."
Erin didn't reply. She was too busy staring up at the sky.
Curious, Ski stepped past the doorway and stood beside her, looking up. He growled in annoyance before yelling, "Bear Ingolfsson, you put that Raven down right—no! No! Not like—"
Stieg Engstrom landed facedown, and both Ski and Erin cringed at the sound of it. The crunching.
"Oh, God," Erin muttered, "I think he killed him."
But Ravens were made of tougher stuff. It was never easy to kill a Raven and Ski knew it. The Protectors had been trying for centuries to lay waste to the Raven Clan with very little success. They were not immortal, but Odin had given them incredibly hard heads and strong bones.
Even now, Engstrom was moving, using his arms to push his body up.
Bear landed behind him, pulling his white wings into his body as he did.
"What were you thinking?" Ski demanded. "Unleashing your wings during the day? Attacking a Raven unprovoked?"
"I was provoked!"
"The way he looked at me was filled with provocation."
Ski didn't even have time to roll his eyes at that bit of ridiculousness because Stieg had pushed himself off the ground and, face bloody, was charging Bear.
Bear tried to grab the Raven around the waist but just as his arms reached out, Engstrom's entire body flipped up and over the much bigger man until he was behind Bear; Engstrom's arms wrapped around Bear's throat in a move that would kill most Protectors pretty quickly, but Bear had a neck so thick it was hard to find shirts that fit him properly.
Ski desperately tried to separate the pair, but they were snarling and growling at each other; Engstrom trying to kill Bear; Bear trying to toss Engstrom off so he could kill him.
"Stop it!" Ski ordered. "Both of you! Now!"
Then they all froze, none of them willing to move.
The Crow had climbed up Bear like she was climbing an old redwood and pressed the rune-covered blades hand-forged by Vig Rundstöm against the jugulars of Stieg and Bear. And while her hands were busy with her weapons, it was Erin's exceptionally strong thighs that kept her attached to an unwilling Bear. There would be no shaking her off.
Even worse, one slight move of that blade would bleed both men out in seconds. And they all knew it.
Also, this was Erin Amsel. Not Kera. Not Jace. Not even Chloe, who was more of a puncher. But Erin Amsel.
The woman had gutted Thor once, a move he still hadn't forgiven her for, even if it was at a Valkyrie party where he got drunk on mead and then got a little "handsy."
"Gentlemen," Erin practically purred, no anger in her voice at all. She was enjoying this. "Don't tempt me to put a stop to this the only way I know how. Let's all just calm down."
Neither man budged. Even Bear, who was beginning to turn an interesting shade of blue.
Erin looked first at Engstrom. "You know what I'll do to you," she said, immediately dismissing him and focusing instead on Bear. "And when you're dead," she warned, "I'll make sure to burn your books. Every. Last. One. Of. Them."
Always worried about the books the Protectors safeguarded with their very lives if necessary, Bear quickly lifted his hands off Engstrom's big arms. But the Raven still didn't back off . . . until Erin pushed her blade against his throat. Not enough to kill him, but enough to get her point across.
A thin line of blood trailed down his neck. Shocked, he unwrapped his arms from Bear and stepped away. He touched the spot where she'd cut him, his hurt and angry gaze locked on Erin's face as she climbed down from a coughing Bear.
"You . . . you . . ."
"What? You thought I was kidding?" Erin asked Stieg. "You two were acting like assholes." She turned away from the sputtering man and faced Ski. "I need a favor."
"I need to talk to Tyr. Can you summon him?"
"Oh, a summoning ceremony isn't necessary. He's in the backyard playing with Jace's dog."
"Your god just . . . hangs out here?"
"Yeah." Ski shrugged. "When he can."
Erin began to say something else, but seemed to change her mind, walking off with a shake of her head into the house.
Bear and the Raven began to follow, but Ski quickly stopped them. "I'll just say this once . . . Jace is in the library. If you two get into it when she's this concerned about her friend, you risk the books," he pointed out to Bear. "And you risk having her tear the skin from your hide and the wings from your back, Raven. Understand?"
With mutual Viking grunts of agreement, the three men entered the house and went to see what Erin Amsel could possibly want from the mighty god Tyr.
Erin walked through the Protectors' house, amused at the way they all seemed to sense her presence. They came out of rooms, down the big, marble stairs, heads peeking around doors. She felt like a fox walking into a hen house and making all the herding dogs panic.
Erin stopped at the big library. It was the biggest library she'd ever seen in a private home and the largest room in the entire mansion. She was sure the Protectors had gutted a large portion of the wing so they had a lot of space for their precious books.
Erin appreciated the work they did. She'd always liked old books. She liked how they felt in her hands, the binding, the paper, the artistic quality of each one. But she didn't let the Protectors know that. It was much more fun to torture them, which was why she faced the big glass doors of the library and cracked her knuckles. That was all she did.
But apparently that was all she needed to do. Because she was suddenly surrounded. Several of the Protectors stood right in front of the library, ready to sacrifice their bodies to her flames if it meant saving their books.
Now that was devotion.
Laughing a little, she moved on, walking down the hallway until she found sliding glass doors that led her outside to the backyard.
That's where she found the Protectors' "mighty" god Tyr. On his back in the grass, Jace's funny-looking puppy standing by Tyr's big head, licking the god's laughing face.
It was not what Erin expected, but she had to admit, it made her feel much better about her choice of which god to talk to.
She'd started walking toward him when a hand clamped on her arm and pulled her back.
"And where do you think you're going, young lady?"
Young lady? Really? "To start some shit!" she replied eagerly. "Wanna come with me?"
Clucking his tongue against his teeth, Haldor wrapped his arm around Erin's waist and carried her back into the house. "You will not bother our god with your . . ." He struggled to find the right word, so Erin decided to help him. "My beauty?" she asked, grinning. "My charm? My effervescence? My . . . je ne sais quoi?"
"No," he replied, voice flat. "None of those things."
"What's happening?" Stieg asked as he came around the corner, his hand still pressed against the tiny wound she'd given him on his throat.
Good Lord. What a big Viking baby!
"I'm trying to prevent this demoness from irritating our mighty god Tyr," Haldor informed Stieg. "And what are you doing here, non-thinker?"
Erin bit the inside of her cheek to stop the laughter, but wow, did she love the way Haldor had spit that out . . . like it was the absolute worst insult he could think of.
"Is Tyr back there?" Stieg asked her.
"Yes," Erin replied. "And he is literally playing with Jace's dog. Literally."
Using his free hand, Stieg pushed Haldor aside and used his body to force Erin back into the yard. She stumbled past the threshold.
Tyr looked up from the puppy nowon his lap. "A Crow?" he asked, his voice making everything sort of . . . vibrate.
Erin briefly wondered if the scientists who monitored California for earthquakes were staring at their fancy controls and wondering if the "big one" was coming right at that moment.
"What's a Crow doing in the sacred space of our books?"
"Big reader of books, are ya, Tyr?"
"Be nice," Stieg warned, holding the sliding door shut with his hand while the Protectors on the other side tried to pry it open.
"I was nice."
"No. You were sarcastic and mocking. Try something different. And no juggling or fist fights."
Stieg was right. They needed Tyr. So she took a deep breath, let it out, and moved closer to the very moral and upstanding war god—a combination one simply did not hear about very often.
"I need information. And I think you're the only one who can help me."
Rubbing the puppy's ears, the god looked directly at Erin, and his eyes narrowed in recognition. "Oh, it's you."
She shrugged. "It's me."
"Skuld's vicious little fire starter."
"I prefer flame master."
"Of course you do."
Tyr placed Jace's puppy on his shoulder and stood. A nd the god kept standing. He wasn't even in his "true" god form. He was in his mostly human one. And yet he was about eight feet tall and so wide.
Like the Great Wall of China.
And that wall was now standing in front of and over her, staring coldly down into her face.
Except for his size, Tyr looked more like an ex-roadie for Led Zeppelin or Alice Cooper. He had on a very worn T-shirt with the logo from the Heavy Metal movie, torn black jeans, and black steel-toed boots. He'd braided his gray and brown hair into one long plait that rested casually over his right shoulder and his face had one big scar from his cheek down across his mouth and under his chin. So deep his thick beard couldn't even cover it. The hair had refused to grow. He had runes tattooed on his neck and arms, and the right hand that had been torn off by the wolf Fenrir was replaced by a metal glove, also covered in runes.
The god couldn't be more Viking, even in his modern—for the seventies—clothes.
"So what do you want, little Crow? What do you want to ask the mighty Tyr?"
And humble! Just like most gods.
Erin sighed. She'd hoped for better from the lesser-known god. "I need your vast knowledge."
"There's a library full of vast knowledge right in there. Why bother me?"
"I'm not a big reader," she replied.
Tyr stared down at her. "Who admits that? In public, I mean?"
"Plus, I'm not allowed in your precious library. Your men are very bitchy about it, too."
"Maybe you shouldn't threaten them so."
"I'm a Crow." She grinned. "That's what we do."
Tantor Media (Audio)
Magnus Pack
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Call of Crows
Long Island Coven Series
Dragon Kin Series
HOT AND BADGERED Now Available in Mass Market Paperback
THE BLACKSMITH QUEEN Now Available
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^ やればやるほどディスクシステムインタビュー(前編). Nintendo Dream (Mainichi Communications Inc.). August 6, 2004, (118): 96–103 (日语).
^ 2.0 2.1 Chris Kohler. Q&A: Metroid Creator's Early 8-Bit Days at 团体. Wired: GameLife. Condé Nast Digital. 7 April 2010 [26 August 2010].
^ Famicom 20th Anniversary Original Sound Tracks Vol. 1 (Media notes). Scitron Digital Contents Inc. 2004.
^ Kohler, Chris. Oct. 18, 1985: Nintendo Entertainment System Launches. Wired. 18 October 2010.
^ Wrecking Crew (Arcade). IGN. [27 October 2011].
^ Vs. Wrecking Crew. iBomb. [27 October 2011].
^ Giffords, Kevin. Wrecking Crew (Famicom Mini 14). 1up.com. 1 January 2000. (原始内容存档于2012年7月16日).


Kathleen Finnegan » Is Your Information Safe Online?
Is Your Information Safe Online?
Technology has launched us all into a new era of information and access. Though extremely helpful, this new era requires a higher level of security, so that our platforms and personal information remains safe. Use the information below to add an additional layer of security when utilizing the internet.
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Frustrating Filmographies #1: Sidney Lumet's "The Morning After"
This is an experiment I've been mulling over for some time. It's dedicated to great directors. Great directors...who've transgressed. Disappointed. Befuddled. But not to the point of being written off entirely. In the course of long careers these filmmakers have made the occasional slip, and the intent behind this ongoing column will be to try and figure out what their motivation might have been in choosing projects that proved questionable, wrongheaded or outright embarrassing. The purpose of this experiment is not to deride, but to understand.
Woah woah woah hold it a second there chief. We're kicking this off with Sidney Lumet? Come on – the man's so prolific you've got to allow him the inevitable handful of stinkers. What's the point in sullying the reputation of the man who made Network, Serpico and recently the excellent Before the Devil Knows You're Dead? Hasn't he earned the right to create a clunker here and there? Goddammit...this experiment is controversial already.
And is The Morning After really a dud? It was a financial success, won favor with top critics like Roger Ebert and The New York Times' Vincent Canby and scored Jane Fonda an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. If we gotta start with Lumet why not use as example of his less-lauded efforts the overcooked, universally-reviled political drama Power, made for the same company (Lorimar) and released the same year? Why not A Stranger Among Us, the notoriously bad film with Melanie Griffith going undercover in the Jewish community to bust a killer? Why not The Wiz?
I don't know – while obviously blights on Lumet's largely-loved oeuvre, at least the themes of those films fit within his overall body of work. Corruption and cynicism permeate throughout Power, and its failings are purely a result of the director striking the usual bars a little too hard this time. While undeniably preachy and winded it's driven by a typically strong Lumet ensemble (including NAACP Image Award winning Denzel Washington) and supplemented by dexterous knowledge of its subject. And honestly, I can understand why the director of The Pawnbroker and Bye Bye Braverman would be attracted to a Witness-esque thriller set in the Hasidic world that doubles as a policier a'la Serpico. Even Stranger's twin 90's flop Guilty as Sin was a chance to get Lumet back into the courtroom, a stage which served him well in 12 Angry Men and The Verdict. The meal was lousy, but it wasn't cooked with the wrong ingredients.
But why would the director of such essential New York movies as Dog Day Afternoon and Prince of the City want to go out to LA to helm a tacky murder mystery/addiction drama that's ostensibly an acting vehicle for Fonda? For answers I relied heavily on Lumet's dvd commentary – and I imagine very few of the auteurs I'm going to be scrutinizing in this project are going to have the benefit of one to serve in their defense.
In the movie, Fonda plays a washed-up boozy actress in a bad blonde wig who after a hard night of drinking and insulting a "greasy diesel dyke" wakes up in a strange studio apartment next to a strange man - something her casual attitude would suggest is not new to her. What does manage to get a reaction out of the jaded former starlet as she hunts for a bottle with a drop of liquor left in it is the knife sticking out of the strange man's chest. Now how'd that get there? If the premise seems kind of antiquated for an 80s movie it's because it was liberally borrowed from Fritz Lang's The Blue Gardenia in which Anne Baxter wakes up post-binge to find herself accused of murdering Raymond Burr's sleazy Harry Prebble. The similarities between the two movies end there but Lumet has already dug himself into a hole: he's set up a specific "whodunit" (or rather "dididunit") scenario within the first scene, and nothing but full concentration on this plot is going to keep the movie at the high level of intrigue it's set for itself. Lumet defiantly (if not exactly boldy) attempts to avoid this trap by almost immediately outsourcing the story to a romantic subplot involving Jeff Bridges' former cop who Fonda runs into as she's on the run.


Oh the joy, when Julio Caezar spreads the sweetest of vibrations on these episodes. Once you press play, you'll be hypnotized by Julio's uncanny ability to seamlessly jam songs together, as if he was making a peanut butter & jelly sandwich with his eyeballs ALONE! hehe The JuliSquad deserves to hear this ear candy, so play it LOUD with family & friends, or in your lonesome on your headphones!
With the inclusion of artists like Blinkie, Reese, Tom Hall, Mike Mago, Dynoro, Snakeships, Joe Stone, MK, Jonas Aden, Lost Frequencies, Fisher, Calvin Logue, Tom Staar and more, JuliTunzZz Radio Episode 59 will make you … want to share the Episode with one of your closest friends. See what we did there? HEHEHEHEE You'll see what we mean once you have a listen. Play it LOUD & get ready to dance in the shower, kitchen, gym, car ride, in the office or on a plane! Spread Love, Subscribe and Jam with Julio Caezar. Tell a friend to tell a friend haha!


Congratulations to Min-Yu Huang on being selected for the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS) Pre-doctoral Achievement Award for 2018-19. This award is the highest honor that a Ph.D. student can receive from the IEEE SSCS. Min-Yu will be presented with this honor at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), to be held February 17-21, 2019 in San Francisco, California.
Advised by Hua Wang in the Georgia Tech Electronics and Micro-System Lab, Min-Yu conducts research for his Ph.D. thesis topic, "New MIMO System Architecture for Next-Generation (5G/beyond) Ultra-Low Latency Communication." The IEEE SSCS Pre-doctoral Achievement Award recognizes Min-Yu's major research achievements in the field of RF/mm-Wave/THz integrated circuits and next-generation low-latency systems. Min-Yu is also involved with a collaboration with GK Chang's lab under the Fiber-Wireless Integration and Networking (FiWIN) Center for future low-latency fiber-wireless networks.
Aqeel Anwar, a Ph.D. student in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), won the Best Student Paper Award at the 2018 IEEE Mechatronics and Machine Vision in Practice (M2VIP), held November 20-22 in Stuttgart, Germany. He is advised by ECE Associate Professor Arijit Raychowdhury and is a member of the Integrated Circuits and Systems Research Lab.
Anwar's paper is titled "NAVREN-RL: Learning to Fly in Real Environment via End-To-End Deep Reinforcement Learning Using Monocular Images". The paper focuses on the challenges posed by the implementation of Reinforcement Learning (RL) for the autonomous navigation of low cost drones in real environments without incurring any extra hardware cost.
In recent years, RL has been extensively explored for different type of robotic tasks. All of these previous demonstrations and approaches, in spite of their many successes, either require considerable human intervention, handcrafted algorithms or are implemented offline in simulations, where the simulated and the real endowments need to be nearly identical. This work proposes an end-to-end approach for drone navigation addressing the challenges for real environments. A suitable reward function is designed keeping in mind the cost and weight constraints for micro drone with minimum number of sensing modalities. Collection of small number of expert data and knowledge based data aggregation is integrated into the RL process to aid convergence. Experimentation is carried out on a Parrot AR drone in different indoor arenas and the results are compared with other baseline technologies. We demonstrate how the drone successfully avoids obstacles and navigates across different arenas. Video of the drone navigating using the proposed approach can be seen here.
This work is supported by the SRC and DARPA sponsored Center for Brain-inspired Computing Enabling Autonomous Intelligence. As a part of this project, Aqeel and his colleagues in ICSRL are exploring hardware designs and architectures to enable ubiquitous intelligence from autonomous edge devices to the cloud.
Congratulations to Hakki Mert Torun on winning the Best Student Paper Award at the IEEE 27th Conference on Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems. The conference was held October 14-17 in San Jose, California.
The title of Hakki's award-winning paper is "Bayesian Active Learning for Uncertainty Quantification of High-Speed Channel Signaling." His coauthors on the paper are his Ph.D. advisor, Madhavan Swaminathan, and Jose Hejase, Junyan Tang, and Dale Becker – all of IBM.
Increasing data rates in server high-speed communication busses, such as in cloud data centers, makes their electrical performance more susceptible to uncertainties in manufacturing processes. As a result, it is essential to understand channel design limitations and performance under tolerances to ensure a robust system. However, predicting channel performance under tolerances can become very straining in time, effort, and computational resources. To address this, Hakki and his colleagues present a new technique based on Bayesian Active Learning that automatically builds a predictive model from scratch, hence, does not require prior training data. While deriving the model, the presented algorithm simultaneously finds the worst case scenario to ensure channel compliancy and ranks the expected manufacturing tolerances in terms of their effect on electrical performance. The results show that the presented method provides a higher model accuracy in less CPU time compared to state-of-the-art methodologies and requires minimal human intervention.
Congratulations to Muhannad Bakir and his colleague Sam Sober at the Department of Biology at Emory University on receiving a McKnight Technological Innovation in Neuroscience Award. This marks the first time that Georgia Tech has received this prestigious honor. Out of 112 submissions, their project was one of three awarded by the McKnight Foundation. Each of the projects recognized in the program will be aimed at developing groundbreaking technologies to map, monitor, and model brain function.
The title of Muhannad's and Sam's project is "Flexible electrode arrays for large-scale recordings of spikes from muscle fibers in freely behaving mice and songbirds." They are developing a high definition sensor array that allows researchers to detect and record very precise electrical signals from individual muscle fibers. To date, this information has been gathered by inserting wires into muscles that can only detect the summed activity of many individual signals that the nervous system uses to control muscles. The proposed approach has many electrode arrays that record from a muscle without damaging it. Prior approaches relied on wires that could damage muscles when inserted, especially small muscles used in fine motor skills. The arrays are fabricated from flexible materials that fit the shape of a muscle and change shape as the animal moves. Because the arrays collect exponentially more data than prior devices, they have built-in 3D stacked circuits to collect and serialize the data before transmitting the signals to the researcher's computer; to enable such compact and very dense electrode arrays, 3D IC technology, advanced microelectronic packaging, and flexible electronic technologies are all utilized and co-integrated.
A previous prototype version of the array has already revealed new insights. Previously, it was believed that the nervous system controls muscle activity by regulating only the total number of electrical spikes sent to a muscle. But precise detection done by the Emory team revealed that millisecond-level variations in multi-spike timing patterns change how muscles control behavior. The new arrays will be designed for use in mice and songbirds and will help the team understand the neural control of many different skilled behaviors and potentially provide new insights into neurological disorders that affect motor control.
Arijit Raychowdhury awarded "Innovator Under 40 Award"
Congratulations to Arijit Raychowdhury on being awarded the IEEE/ACM "Innovator Under 40 Award" at the Design Automation Conference this year. The award is intended for specific contributions such as commercial products, software or hardware systems, or specific algorithms or tools incorporated into other systems widely used by industry and academia. The impact is measured by commercialization and wide adoption of the nominee's contributions.
Prior to attending graduate school, Arijit first worked as an analog researcher at Texas Instruments (TI) for two years, where he designed the world's first adaptive mixed-signal echo-canceller for the receive-channel in ADSL modems. It used a hardware based optimizer for impedance matching and resulted in 1.5X range improvement. Arijit holds two key patents in this area and the design eventually was adopted by three generations of TI modems and was awarded the EDN design of the year award.
After receiving his Ph.D., Arijit joined Intel Labs as a research scientist where he led the design of "always-on" smart microphones, which led to a design win with BMW and led to the adoption of the technology in automotive infotainment systems. This was the industry's first hardware design that incorporated an ultra-low power microphone-sensor front-end with a fully-programmable keyword-spotting hardware.
Since joining Georgia Tech in 2013, Arijit has been exploring various aspects of power-efficient design. Most notably, his students and he contributed to the development of switched-mode and non-linear control in high-bandwidth all-digital, linear regulators – that have gained wide traction with the semiconductor companies. The design principles have been adopted in internal test-chips and system prototypes at Qualcomm and Intel.
Arijit was nominated for the award by researchers and engineers from Qualcomm, TI, TSMC, and Intel with support from Georgia Tech and the University of California, Berkeley.
Saibal joined the ECE faculty in 2007 and leads the Gigascale Reliable Energy Efficient Nanosystem (GREEN) Lab, where he advises 12 Ph.D. students and one M.S. student. The goal of Saibal's research is to design smart edge devices for internet-of-things applications. He and his students develop solutions for intelligent computing, energy-efficiency mixed-signal electronics, and secure hardware design. His group has received numerous best paper and best poster awards, and one student has received a Sigma Xi Best Ph.D. Thesis Award. To date, he has graduated 15 Ph.D. students and 7 M.S. students.
Saibal has published over 250 refereed journal and conference papers, which have received more than 8,000 citations. He served as technical program committee co-chair for the International Symposium on Quality Electronic Design (ISQED) in 2016 and 2017 and for the International Symposium on Low-power Electronic Design in 2018.
Saibal teaches courses in digital integrated circuits and systems and advanced VLSI systems, with averages well over the norms on the undergraduate and graduate levels. He has been honored twice with the Center for Teaching and Learning Class of 1934 Course Survey Teaching Effectiveness Award for acquiring higher than a 4.9 rating in a course. He has also created a new graduate course, "Digital System in Nanometer Nodes," and actively contributed to the vision of the course on "Physical Foundations of Computer Engineering," a core course for the undergraduate computer engineering curriculum.
Saibal was elected as an IEEE Fellow earlier this year. He is a past recipient of several prestigious honors including the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, NSF CAREER Award, IBM Faculty Partnership Award, and the SRC Inventor Recognition Award. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, DARPA, Office of Naval Research, Semiconductor Research Corporation, Interconnect Focus Center, Sandia National Lab, Intel, IBM, and Qualcomm.
Congratulations to C3PS Affiliates for their recognition by the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering for their exceptional educational and mentoring skills.
The Roger P. Webb Awards Program in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering recognizes the excellence of the School's faculty, staff, and students and celebrates the end of the academic year. On Tuesday afternoon, April 10, 2018 from 3-5 pm at the Klaus Building Atrium, the School of ECE will honor those people who have shown exceptional dedication to their professions and studies, ECE, Georgia Tech, and the community as a whole.
Congratulations to Tom Sarvey on receiving the 2017 Best Paper Award for the IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology in the Components: Characterization and Modeling category. He will be recognized for the paper entitled "Monolithic Integration of a Micropin-Fin Heat Sink in a 28-nm FPGA" at the 2018 IEEE Electronic Components and Technology Conference. The conference will be held May 29-June 1 in San Diego, California.
This marks the second time that a member of the Integrated 3D Systems (I3DS) Group has won this particular Best Paper Award. Tom is a Ph.D. student in the I3DS Group, which is led by Muhannad Bakir. Tom's coauthors on the paper are Yang Zhang, an alumnus of the group; Dr. Bakir; and Colman Cheung, Ravi Gutala, Arifur Rahman, and Aravind Dasu, all of Intel Corporation's Programmable Solutions Group. For more than a decade, the challenge of removing the heat from high end computing platforms has been a primary limiter of processor power and computing performance. The use of micro-scale fluidic channels has previously been proposed as a method of extracting the large amounts of heat produced by modern processors. In this work, such a liquid-cooled heat sink was etched into the backside of a field programmable gate array (FPGA) die, approximately 500 μm from the heat generating circuitry. The heat sink, only 240 μm tall, provided a thermal resistance that is approximately one quarter of that of the best air-cooled heat sinks, in less than 1/1000th of the volume. This type of cooling has the potential to unlock higher computing throughput, lower energy usage, and denser integration in datacenters and high performance computing applications.
This award recognizes an undergraduate student who has demonstrated an unusually strong aptitude for research. Jacob will be recognized at the 2018 Roger P. Webb Awards Program in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering on Tuesday afternoon, April 10, from 3:00-5:00 pm in the Klaus Building Atrium.
Congratulations to Professor Hua Wang on being named as a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society for a two-year term. A member of the faculty of ECE since 2012, Hua holds the Demetrius T. Paris Junior Professorship and leads the Georgia Tech Electronics and Micro-System Lab. Hua has received numerous internal and external awards; some of the most recent include the DARPA Young Faculty Award (2018), the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society Outstanding Young Engineer Award (2017), the Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Young Faculty Award (2016), and the NSF CAREER Award (2015).
Professor Wang's Lectureship appointment will last until the end of December 2019.
Professor Hua Wang has received a DARPA Young Faculty Award for his research project entitled "MAXIMA: Multi-Mode Hybrid Power Amplifier with EXtreme Instantaneous Bandwidth and Recursive Scalable Marchand-Doherty Load ModulAtion Network." The DARPA YFA program aims to identify and engage rising stars in junior faculty positions in academia and equivalent positions at non-profit research institutions and expose them to Department of Defense and National Security challenges and needs.
As millimeter-wave frequency applications have become prevalent in the commercial and DoD markets, there is a rapidly growing need for advanced millimeter-wave solid-state power amplifier technologies that can support high energy efficiency, sufficient output power, and high-speed complex modulations. Moreover, high-efficiency amplifiers covering extremely wide bandwidth have become a necessity, particularly for frequency-agile massive Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems, such as multi-standard 5G wireless communication.
In this project, Hua will lead the fundamental research on a completely new class of extremely-wideband-yet-efficient power amplifiers, known as Multi-Mode Hybrid Power Amplifiers with EXtreme Instantaneous Bandwidth and Recursive Scalable Marchand-Doherty Load ModulAtion Network (MAXIMA). The key technology innovations include novel amplifier circuit topologies, hybrid use of silicon/non-silicon solid-state devices, and multi-mode amplifier operations. This project will potentially achieve a new class of load modulation power amplifiers with an unprecedented combination of bandwidth, energy efficiency, and output power. Such amplifier technologies will eventually enable true "common-module front-ends" for reconfigurable transmitters and MIMO systems with "full-spectrum access" and digital beamforming for wireless communication, radar, imaging, and spectrum sensing applications.
With these computing challenges in mind, the Semiconductor Research Corporation's (SRC) Joint University Microelectronics Program (JUMP), which represents a consortium of industrial participants and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has established a new $26 million center called the Applications and Systems-driven Center for Energy-Efficient integrated Nano Technologies (ASCENT).
Georgia Tech's Center for Co-design of Chip, Package System (C3PS) led by Profs. A. Raychowdhury and M. Swaminathan, deputy director and director, respectively, both from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and with support from the Institute of Electronics and Nanotechnology, headed-up Georgia Tech's winning proposal that resulted in a 5 year, $3.5M award that will fund up to 10 GRA positions.
The multidisciplinary, multi-university center will focus on conducting research that aims to increase the performance, efficiency and capabilities of future computing systems for both commercial and defense applications. By going beyond current industry approaches, such as two dimensional scaling and the addition of performance boosters to complementary metal oxide semiconductors, or CMOS technology, the GT team seeks to provide enhanced performance and energy consumption at lower costs.
Profs. Raychowdhury (PI) and Swaminathan (co-PI) will work in the area of heterogeneous integration, with a focus on the design of high speed die-to-die networks, the incorporation of power, logic, memory and RF components on a common substrate that enables 2.5D and 3D integration.
"Our involvement in the ASCENT center provides us with unique opportunities to partner with the academic and industrial leaders to explore foundational technologies in computing. We will leverage our expertise on high-speed circuit design, device-circuit interactions and advanced packaging to address logic and memory challenges for next-generation computing and communication systems," said Prof. Raychowdhury, the ON Semiconductor Jr. Associate Professor of VLSI Systems.
This is one of the largest JUMP centers funded by SRC and will work synergistically over the next five years to provide breakthrough technologies. Other universities involved in the 13-member team include; Notre Dame (lead), Arizona State University, Cornell University, Purdue University, Stanford University, University of Minnesota, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-San Diego, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Colorado, and the University of Texas-Dallas.
Congratulations to Professor Tushar Krishna, ECE & C3PS, on receiving an NSF CISE Research Initiation Initiative Award. The title of his research project is "Enabling Neuroevolution in Hardware" and will be two years in duration.
Over the past few years, machine learning algorithms, especially neural networks (NN) have seen a surge of popularity owing to their potential in solving a wide variety of complex problems across image classification and speech recognition. Unfortunately, in order to be effective, NNs need to have the appropriate topology (connections between neurons) for the task at hand and have the right weights on the connections. This is known as supervised learning and requires training the NN by running it through terabytes to petabytes of data. This form of machine learning is infeasible for the emerging domain of autonomous systems (robots/drones/cars) which will often operate in environments where the right topology for the task may be unknown or keep changing, and robust training data is not available. Autonomous systems need the ability to mirror human-like learning, where we are continuously learning, and often from experiences rather than being explicitly trained. This is known as reinforcement learning.
The focus of this research will be on neuroevolution (NE), a class of reinforcement learning algorithms that evolve NN topologies and weights for the task at hand using evolutionary algorithms. The goal of this project will be on enabling NE in energy-constrained autonomous devices by leveraging opportunities for parallelism and hardware acceleration. If successful, this research can enable mass proliferation of autonomous drones and robots that can learn to perform tasks without being explicitly trained.
IEN congratulates Muhannad Bakir on being named as the editor-in-chief for the Electronics Manufacturing section of the IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology. This publication is the flagship journal for anything related to advanced packaging, 2.5D and 3D integrated circuit technologies, and heterogeneous integration.
Professor Bakir leads the Integrated 3D Systems Group in the School of ECE and is a member of the Georgia Tech Center for Co-design of Chip, Package, System (C3PS).
ECE Professor, and C3PS Faculty Member, Professor Saibal Mukhopadhyay has been elevated to the level if IEEE Fellow "for contributions to energy-efficient and robust computing systems design".Professor Saibal Mukhopadhyay received the bachelor of engineering degree in electronics and telecommunication engineering from Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India in 2000 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, in August 2006. Dr. Mukhopadhyay worked at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, N.Y. as research staff member from August 2006 to September 2007 and as an intern in summers of 2003, 2004, and 2005. At IBM, his research primarily focused on technology-circuit co-design methodologies for low-power and variation tolerant static random access memory (SRAM) in sub-65nm silicon technologies. He joined the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology in September 2007.
Congratulations to Saad Bin Nasir for receiving the Best in Session Award at SRC TECHCON 2017, held Sept. 10-12, 2017 in Austin, Texas. Saad is currently a Ph.D. student working with Arijit Raychowdhury on digital and mixed-signal power management circuits. This is the second consecutive year that Saad has won the SRC TECHCON Best in Session Award in the area of power management circuits for SoCs.
Saad won the award in the Power Management track for his paper entitled, "A Reconfigurable Hybrid Low Dropout Voltage Regulator for Wide-Range Power Supply Noise Rejection and Energy-Efficiency Trade-off". This research brings together novel control techniques and their circuit implementations in reconfigurable hybrid linear regulators for wireline and wireless IO. The principal aim of this research is to demonstrate a four-way reconfigurable linear regulator exhibiting wide range PSR and energy-efficiency trade-off. The measured power supply rejection ranges from -9dB to -34dB and corresponding power-efficiency range from 87% to 56%. Parts of this ongoing research have been previously published in the International Solid State Circuits Conference, the Journal of Solid State Circuits, the IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, the European Solid State Circuits Conference, and IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference and have gained significant traction with SRC's member companies.
Congratulations to Arijit Raychowdhury on receiving the Best Paper Award from the IEEE Transactions on Multi-scale Computing Systems (TMSCS) for an article entitled "Enabling New Computation Paradigms with HyperFET." It was published in 2016 and can be found in vol. 2, iss. 1, pp. 30-48 of the publication. This article was coauthored by collaborators from Penn State, the University of Notre Dame, and the University of Pittsburgh.
When augmented with traditional transistor technology (HyperFETs), phase transition devices can enable a vast class of computing primitives, from better transistors to oscillators and spike generators. Arijit and his colleagues have demonstrated through theory and experiments how HyperFETs can impact power efficiency of a class of computing architectures and applications. This work is currently being extended and explored in collaboration with Intel Corporation.
Arijit is currently the ON Semiconductor Associate Professor of ECE and leads the Integrated Circuits and Systems Research Lab. His students and he are exploring power-efficient circuits topologies and the corresponding computing models that can enable the next generation of low-power autonomous systems.
Saad Bin Nasir's research into side-channel attack protection won the Best Student Paper Award at the 2017 IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), held May 1-5, 2017, in McLean, Virginia. This work is done in collaboration with the SPARC Lab, Purdue University (co-authors Debayan Das, Shovan Maity, and Shreyas Sen), and the Emerging Security Lab at Intel.
Suresh Sitaraman, Muhannad Bakir, Samuel Graham, Peter Hesketh, Manos Tentzeris, Chuck Zhang and Madhavan Swaminathan have been recognized by Georgia Tech with the Outstanding Achievement in Research Program Development Award for creating the Flexible Electronics Ecosystem – A Research, Development, Education, and Product Transition Program.
Shemyakina Selected to Join 2019-2020 Office of Provost's Emerging Leaders Program.


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"Something Rotten!" is a must see musical farce at Connor Palace
Theater history books refer to "The Black Crook," which opened in 1866 in New York, as the first book musical. According to "Something Rotten!," by Karey Kirkpatrick and John O'Farrell (book) and Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick (music and lyrics), now on stage at the Connor Palace, that honor should go to "Omelette."
Never heard of "Omelette?" Unless you've seen the hysterically funny "Something Rotten!" you don't realize that "Omelette" is an in-joke at the center of a farcical plot that exposes how the Bottom brothers outsmarted the Elizabethan era's literary rock star, William Shakespeare, in producing the world's first musical.
Nick and Nigel Bottom, an actor and his playwright brother, live in the theatrical shadow of the Bard of Avon. They desire to take some of the attention away from him.
How to do it? They pay a soothsayer, a maybe-relative of the famous Nostradamus, to look into the future. His predictions? Shakespeare's greatest hit is going to be a play named, "Omelette" and the next big trend in theatre is going to be musicals, where the actors sing many of their lines. So, the duo starts to one-up Will by writing a musical play about eggs.
Their efforts result in a kick line of dancing omelettes, a silly story line, and ridiculous farcical actions. The musical number "Make an Omelette," ranks with "Springtime for Hitler" from "The Producers" as one of the funniest dances in musical history choreography.
We observe Shakespeare as "a hack with a knack for stealing anything he can," who swipes not only the title, but plot devices and lines from the naïve Nigel, which turn out to be "Will's" "Hamlet." (Oh, "Hamlet," not "Omelette!") As the soothsayer says, to audible groans, laughter and applause from the audience, "Well, I was close!"
From its opening, the creative "Welcome to the Renaissance," to the "Finale," the musical is classical theater gone awry, complete with show-stoppers ("A Musical," "We See the Light," and "It's Eggs!"), encore after encore, ridiculous sight gags, double entendres, sexual allusions, and male costumes with huge codpieces, which are often used as pockets.
There are numerous references to the Bard's plays and Broadway musicals. Anyone not familiar with either of these topics might not get all the subtext. But even they will find enough to laugh about.
How can a show with a score which contains such titles as "The Black Death," "Bottom's Gonna Be on Top," "Welcome to the Renaissance and 'To Thine Own Self" be anything but be filled with ridiculous delight?
Farce is hard to perform well because of the need for broad realism where the audience laughs with the performers, not at them. Under the deft hand of director and choreographer Casey Nicholaw ("Disney's Aladdin" and "The Book of Mormon"), the cast makes the difficult look easy.
The ensemble is outstanding. Adam Pascal amuses as Shakespeare, who struts around the stage in sensual leather biker gear, the obvious superstar of the Renaissance. Rob McClure delights as the obsessive Nick Bottom whose mission in life is to out-bard the Bard. Josh Grisetti is charming as the shy poet and writer, Nigel Bottom. Scott Cote swishes with gleeful ease as Brother Jeremiah. Blake Hammond is hilarious as the bumbling Nostradamus.
The talented supporting performers all dance and sing with talent and enthusiasm.
Capsule judgment: "Something Rotten" is a theatrical treat…a wonderfully conceived and performed musical farce. Anyone who wants to go to the theater and have a great time, unburdened by a complicated plot, listen to fun lyrics, see dynamic dancing and experience two acts of non-stop laughter…this is the must see musical!
Tickets for "Something Rotten," which runs through May 14, 2017 at the Connor Palace, can be ordered by calling 216-241-6000 or by going to www.playhousesquare.org.
Labels: Playhouse Square Center
Superb "Hand To God," demands attention with laughter and angst @ Dobama
My summary review of Broadway's "Hand to God" stated, "The production is well-conceived and performed and makes for a fascinating theatrical experience."
I went on to say, "Tyrone is evil. Tyrone, he of big, vacant eyes is both disturbing and funny. Tyrone is vile, violent and demonic. Tyrone is raunchy. Tyrone is foul-mouthed." Tyrone is a sock puppet who is the anti-hero of Robert Askins' "Hand To God," a play that induces convulsive laughter while being terrifying.
Happily, my summary reaction to the New York staging also fits that of the Dobama production, where the well-written script is now being performed.
The local theatre pulls out all the stops. The production qualities…set, props, puppets, acting and staging are all top notch.
"Hand To God" tells the tale of Jason, a shy, inhibited, confused teen who lives in Cypress, Texas. His father has recently died. Both he and his mother, products of the country's bible belt, are in chaotic angst.
As an escape from reality, Jason's mother, Margery, has created a Christian Puppet Ministry with the purpose of teaching "faith and morality." Little does she know that her project will result in Jason creating Tyrone, an alter ego, which provides an outlet for the boy's inner turmoil. Tyrone becomes a permanent fixture on Jason's arm and takes on a life of its own.
The church's other teens are likewise affected. Timothy, a studly oversexed bully, not only harasses Jason, but lusts after Margery. He uses his charms to seduce her, while intimidating not only Jason, but Jessica, who Jason secretly lusts after.
Tyrone, like all alter-egos, is everything Jason is not. He festers the boy's darkest desires and becomes his destructive dominant personality. He speaks and acts as timid Jason cannot. Tyrone fights back against Timothy, he makes a connection with Jessica, he swears, rants and raves, he questions the purpose of religion. He even goes as far as seducing Jessica's puppet. Yes, a vivid puppet sex act takes place on stage!
Steven Boyer played Jayson in the original Broadway production. He was compelling in the role. Interestingly, he had an intimate relationship with the googly-eyed-sock puppet with the mop of red hair, as he personally crafted it when the show had its first reading at Pace University. Boyer went on to garner a Broadway Tony nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his portrayal.
Luke Wehner, who portrays Jason in the Dobama production, is every bit as proficient as Boyer. As did Boyer, Wehner makes little effort to be a ventriloquist. It matters little as the sock puppet becomes so real that when Tyrone speaks, all eyes are on him, not Jason. Tyrone becomes a real being, the devil incarnate.
When Jason tries to rid himself of Tyrone in a battle to the end, it parallels a victim of Dissociative Identity Disorder, which in lay terms is referred to as "Split Personality." He must fight to destroy the psychological issues of trauma that brought about the need for the protective device.
The rest of the Dobama cast, under the wise and focused direction of Mathew Wright, is excellent.
Tricia Bestic is correctly pathetic as Marjory, the grief stricken mother who, like Jason, needs to go through an emotional catharsis, which takes on the guise of sexual promiscuity, drinking, and rejection of the affection shown to her by Pastor Greg (David Bugher as a well-meaning nebbish).
Molly Israel (Jessica) clearly portrays another lost soul who stands up for and tries to help Jason. The duo portrays a sex scene using puppets as substitutes for their own desires which was hysterically funny, while creating embarrassment for some purists in the audience.
Austin Gonser was born to play the smarmy Timothy who undulates across the stage in pursuit of seducing Marjory, while intimidating Jason.
Benn Needham has created a multi-setting acting area, complete with massive turntable, that makes the scene changes flow quickly. Marcus Dana's lighting design enhances the varying mood changes, as does Richard Ingraham's sound design.
Be aware that the script questions the role and purpose of religion, has numerous swear words and contains several sex scenes, real and simulated.
Capsule judgment: "Hand to God" is a brilliant production, and places a spotlight on lost people caught up in their inabilities to cope with grief and abandonment. In fascination, we watch as these people lose healthy reality, replace it with abject pain, interspersing horror with laughter. This must-see staging, has to be one of the highlights of this theater season!
"Hand of God" runs through May 21, 2017 at Dobama Theatre. Call 216-932-3396 or http://www.dobama.org for tickets.
Next up at Dobama:
•April 30-May 2, 2017, Interplay Jewish Theatre presents "Now Circa Then" a staged reading about an immigrant couple on New York's Lower East Side, circa 1890. Admission is free. Donations are greatly appreciated. Reservations are requested. Email: interplayjewishtheatre @gmail.com or leave a message at (216) 393-PLAY.
•From July 13th through the 16th, Cleveland-Israel Arts Connection, a program of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, presents Roy Horovitz, one of Israel's foremost actors/directors, in "The Timekeepers" by Dan Clancy and "My First Sony" by Benny Barbash. For tickets and information call 216-932-3396 or go to http://www.dobama.org for tickets.
Labels: Dobama
"Freaky Friday A New Musical" Broadway-ready at the Cleveland Play House
Many know Mary Rodgers as the daughter of Richard Rodgers the composer of such classic musicals as "Oklahoma" and "Carousel." Others are aware that she collaborated on the musicals "Once Upon a Mattress" and "The Mad Show." Some might know that she is the mother of Tony Winner, Adam Guettel ("The Light in the Plaza").
Ask any tween or teen and they will probably relate that Rodgers wrote the 1972 book, "Freaky Friday."
Yes, that "Freaky Friday." The one which tells the tale of a mother and daughter switching bodies, which was made into three different Walt Disney Company films, including one version whose screenplay was actually written by Mary Rodgers, herself.
The musical version of the story, which is based on the original Rodgers' book, as well as the films, is set in present time Chicago. It debuted at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia on October 4, 2016, where reviews hailed it as "a polished, peppy, modern fairy tale." A production was staged at California's La Jolla Playhouse in 2017, where it had an extended run. Much of that cast is now on stage at Cleveland Play House.
Though there has been no announcement beyond the next venue, Houston's Alley Theatre, serious consideration should be given to taking the package to Broadway. It's as good as many of the present Great White Way productions.
The storyline centers on Katherine, the overworked, stressed-out mother of Ellie, a sarcastic, self-involved teenager, who lives life in constant emotional hell. Through a quirk of fate, the duo switches bodies, and then has one day to put things back. Yes, it's one day before Katherine's wedding, and both ladies are about to find out what it's like to live life in the other's body surrounded by wedding plans, school stresses, a runaway kid, burgeoning love, mistaken identities, and the loss of the device which "caused" the biological time switch to take place.
Bolstered by a dynamic pop-rock score, whose recording was released this past February, the stage explodes with farcical humor, mountains of teenage angst, and a scavenger hunt that leads to the obvious but fun conclusion.
Major songs are "What You Got," "Oh, Biology," "Busted," "Just One Day," and "No More Fear."
The book is by Bridget Carpenter (TV's "Friday Night Lights" and "Parenthood") with a score by the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning team of Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorkey (lyrics), creators of the celebrated Broadway musicals "Next to Normal" and "If/Then."
The production's high quality pedigree continues with a crew highlighted by director Christopher Ashley ("Memphis" "Xanadu." and "All Shook Up") and Tony nominee choreographer, Sergio Trujillo ("Jersey Boys" and "On Your Feet!").
Broadway star Heidi Blickenstaff ("Something Rotten!," "[title of show]" "The Adams Family," "The Little Mermaid" and "The Full Monty,") who displays a big voice and solid acting chops, is dynamic as Katherine. She flips from wrought mom to hyper-driven teen, with compelling believability and ease. Her vocal version of "I Got This" is delightful, her "Parents Lie" endearing, and "After All of This and Everything" a vocal winner. This is a star in her element!
Blickenstaff is balanced by big-voiced Emma Hunton, who appeared in Broadway's "Next to Normal" and "Spring Awakening" and reprises the role of Ellie, which she performed at Signature and LaJolle. Hunton is a special talent who is totally believable as the obnoxious teenager turned stressed mom. She has a nice touch with humor and knows how to play for laughs.
Jake Heston Miller comes close to stealing the show as Fletcher, Katherine's young son and Ellie's brother. His puppet shenanigans are delightful and line interpretations realistic. His duet "Women and Sandwiches," sung with Chris Ramirez (Adam) brought gleeful audience reaction.
The rest of the quality cast are all prime as singers, dancers and actors.
Much to the delight of the audience, many who had wondered where the orchestra was hidden as the Allen does not have an orchestra pit, the proficient assembly of musicians got a well-deserved curtain call when the back stage wall disappeared, thanks to scrim (gauze cloth that appears opaque until lit from behind and it becomes translucent), revealing them in their hiding place.
CAPSULE JUDGMENT: If you go to the theater for enjoyment, Cleveland Play House's "Freaky Friday" is your thing. If you go to the theater to see marvelous talent, in a well-directed, well-conceived show, "Freaky Friday" is your thing. If you don't go to theater but have always wondered what a Broadway show is like, "Freaky Friday" is your thing. Yes, if you don't go see "Freaky Friday" you are going to miss out on a special event!
"Freaky Friday" runs through May 20, 2017 at the Allen Theatre in PlayhouseSquare. (Rumor has it that the
production will be adding performances.) For tickets call 216-241-6000 or go to http://www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
Labels: Cleveland Play House
Farcical "You Can't Take It With You" delights @ Karamu
During the late 1920s and into the 1940s, the United States went through the great depression. Unemployment in the U. S. rose to 25%. These were drab times and, as is the case, since the arts represent the era from which they come, the theatre of that time period represented two extremes: heavy drama reflecting the negative mood of the nation and escapism to make people feel better by hiding from their angst-filled reality.
One of the classic plays to emerge from that era was Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's farcical "You Can't Take It With You."
Farce is "a comedy that aims at entertaining the audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, and thus improbable." It is also "characterized by physical humor, the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense, and broadly stylized performances." It is often "set in one particular location, where all events occur."
"You Can't Take It With You," which won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize, fulfills all of the descriptive farce requirements, ran 838 performances in its initial staging, was revised many times on the Great White Way, and has been staged by many educational institutes and community theatres around the world.
The stage show was transformed into a film which won an Academy Award for Best Picture.
The script, which is as much character as plot driven, centers on the Vanderhof home in New York. Grandpa (Greg White) decided one day to live his life by the philosophy, "don't do anything that you're not going to enjoy doing," so he goes to circuses, commencements, throws darts, and collects stamps. His massive home, besides being cluttered with "stuff," becomes the haven for a number of erratic and lovable incompetents.
Grandpa didn't like how his tax payments were being spent so he stopped making the payments. Penny Sycamore (Anne J. McEvoy), his cheerful daughter, an on-again-on-again incompetent painter, also writes plays because one day a typewriter was mistakenly delivered to the Vanderhoff residence. Her husband, Paul (Luther Robinson), whose hobby is playing with erector sets, manufactures fireworks in the basement, along with Mr. DePinna (Bob Abelman), a man who delivered ice to the house eight years ago and never left.
Then there is Essie (Maya Jones), Penny's candy-making daughter and inept ballerina, and her husband Ed (Joshua McElroy), who plays the xylophone because the house has one, makes masks, and loves to create meaningless messages on his printing press, that he includes in Penny's confectionaries that he delivers to buyers.
The house also has visits from the likes of pseudo-dance teacher Boris Kholenkov (Chris Bizub), a wild Russian who escaped that country before the revolution and hates everything, and Duchess Olga Katrina (Sue Cohen), a cousin of the deposed Russian Czar, who now works at a Child's restaurant and has a passion for making blintzes.
The only seemingly "normal" person in the household is Alice (Corlesia Smith), who is a secretary for a wealthy Wall Street stock broker. She is dating Tony Kirby (Chris Richards), her boss's son.
One evening, which turns out to be the wrong night, the Kirbys (Lou Will and Laura Starnik) come to dinner at the Vanderhof's to celebrate the engagement of Alice and Tony, and all hell breaks loose.
The Vanderhof's irrepressible maid, Rheba (Jeannine Gaskin) and her wise-cracking hyper-active boyfriend, Donald (Miguel Osborne), hysterically try to make a dinner with little foodstuffs in the kitchen, with constant frenetic trips to the local A&P, while the rest of the menagerie bumbles through saying and doing all the wrong things.
Alice is humiliated. Tony finds the whole chaos amusing. His uptight parents are mortified and then totally lose it when Penny convinces them to play a word game with cues that have sexual connotations and reveal a great deal of embarrassing information about Mr. and Mrs. Kirby and their relationship.
To add to the chaos, the IRS invades because of Grandpa not paying his taxes, along with the feds because of the subversive messages Ed has put into the candy deliveries. And, wonder of wonders, the fireworks in the basement find this the ideal time to explode, causing the entire household to be hauled off to jail.
Of course, for those who are interested in plots coming to happy endings, all works out. Peace and harmony are restored, and Alice and Tony, it appears, will live happily ever-after.
"You Can't Take It With You" is farce at its highest level and the Karamu production, under the direction of Fred Sternfeld, delights.
Each cast member nicely conceives their role and the whole production, though a little languid in pace, and missing some shticks which would have enhanced the madness, works nicely.
The massive set, impressively decorated with era correct memorabilia, is well conceived by Richard H. Morris, Jr. and India Blatch-Geib's costume designs fit the time period.
It is nice to report that Karamu, under the guidance of its new President and CEO Tony Sias, has returned to the color-blind casting stressed by Dorothy and Reuben Silver when they were producing the organization's plays, making it once again "a joyful gathering place," where all are welcome.
CAPSULE JUDGEMENT: For those who like to go to the theater to have fun, get away from their own work-a-day world of angst, "You Can't Take It With You" is your thing. Don't' expect a professional level production, most of the cast are not Equity members, but there is enough comedy, ridiculousness, and delight to make even the Grinch smile.
"You Can't Take It With You" continues through May 7, 2017 at Simon and Rose Mandel Theatre at Cuyahoga Community College-Eastern Campus in Highland Hills where Karamu is performing as its theatre facilities are being upgraded. For ticket information call 216-795-7077.
Labels: Karamu
2017 Summer Cleveland Theater Calendar
Though it seems like it will never be here, there will be summer and the Cleveland theater scene will heat up. Here's a list of some of the offerings that are being staged.
BECK CENTER 216-521-2540 or http://www.beckcenter.org
8 p.m. evenings, 3 p.m. matinees
June 2-July 2—REALLY REALLY—A comic tragedy which was loosely inspired by the Duke University Lacrosse team scandal, in which the collegiate party of the year results in the regret of a lifetime, and one person will stop at nothing to salvage a future that is suddenly slipping away.
July 7-August 13--CITY OF ANGELS—The Tony award winning musical by Larry Gelbart (book), Cy Coleman (music) and David Zeppel (lyrics), is a tribute to 1940s film noir in which two plots simultaneously weaves between the "real" world and the "reel" world.
BLANK CANVAS
440-941-0458 or www.blankcanvastheatre.com
June 9-24—PICASSO at the LAPÍN AGILE—A conversation between Einstein and Picasso before they became well-known, in which they debate the meaning of art, the power of thought and the essence of everything, as conceived by comedian Steve Martin.
August 11-26—EQUUS—A psychological puzzle in which a psychiatrist confronts a boy who has blinded six horses in a violent fit of passion. (This show contains adult content and nudity.)
216-371-3000 or http://www.cainpark.com
June 6-25—ROCK OF AGES—The regional premiere of the jukebox rock musical featuring the songs of Def Leppard, Journey, Scorpions, Poison, Foreigner, Guns N' Roses, Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, Bon Jovi, Twisted Sister, Whitesnake, and REO Speedwagon.
August 5-6—THE MUSIC MAN IN CONCERT—Liza Grossman and the Contemporary Youth Orchestra present a concert of Meredith Wilson's musical with a score that includes "Seventy-Six Trombones," "Ya Got Trouble," "Gary, Indiana," and "Pick a Little, Talk a Little."
CLEVELAND PUBLIC THEATRE
216-631-2727 or go on line to www.cptonline.org
May 26-June 17—RED ASH MOSAIC-- An experiment in theatrical form, with interwoven and contradictory narrative threads, powerful physical action, chanting and poetic texts, which is designed not to show, but to invoke. It begins in the daily doldrums of a video game store and erupts into a fracturing of realities and parallel lives of one man as he confronts his own death/life.
CLEVELAND SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL
Free admission. http://www.cleveshakes.com
Varying locations…check site for times, dates and venue
JUNE 16-JULY 2--THE TAMING OF THE SHREW –Fortune-seeker Petruchio and shrewish headstrong Katherina, are forced into a relationship. Initially, she is an unwilling participant; however, he "tames" her with psychological torments until she becomes a desirable, compliant, and obedient bride.
July 21-August 6—MACBETH—Shakespeare's tragedy, in which a Scottish general receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth causes a bloodbath that results in his madness and death.
216-932-3396 or http://www.dobama.org
June 15-July 2--HOW TO BE A RESPECTABLE JUNKIE--Based on real-life events, JUNKIE takes an in-depth look into the troubled soul of a man caught in heroin's deadly grip.
convergence-continiuum.org or 216-687-0074
Thursday-Saturday @ 8
July 7 - July 29—NEIGHBORS--A minstrel show, family drama and tragic farce takes racial rage head-on in our supposedly "post-racial" world with shocking, savage humor.
August 25 - September 16—RHINOCEROS--Existentialist playwright Eugene Ionesco's tale of what happens when a brutish rhinoceros storms through a quiet neighborhood, infecting the townsfolk with the "rhino virus," causing them to become part of the mindless herd.
OBERLIN SUMMER THEATRE FESTIVAL
Hall Auditorium, 67 N. Main Street, Oberlin
Free admission, reservations requested—440-775-8169
For details and dates go to www.oberlinsummertheaterfestival.com
June 16-July 30—THE MIRACLE WORKER—Follows Annie Sullivan who, as Helen Keller's governess, tames and teaches the deaf, blind, mute, and completely out-of-control girl.
June 30-July 28—BAREFOOT IN THE PARK--Neil Simon's romantic comedy about newlyweds during the contentious first days of marriage, as they learn how to live together.
July 14-29—THE WINTER'S TALE-- Shakespeare's timeless romance of obsession and redemption which begins as an intense psychological drama, but midway jumps time and place to become a hilarious pastoral, and ultimately brings the two plots full circle to a magical and moving ending.
Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens (outdoor performances)
714 N. Portage Path, Akron
June 30-July 16—AS YOU LIKE IT—A Shakespearean tale of forbidden loves, banished dukes, cross-dressing ladies, and three marriages.
July 28-August 13—THE WINTER'S TALE—A comic tragedy which tells a story of royal love, revenge, injustice, and family. (Contains probably Shakespeare's most famous stage direction: "Exit, pursued by a bear.")
PLAYHOUSESQUARE
216-241-6000 or go to http://www.playhousesquare.org
See the website for specific dates and times
June 20-July 9—AN AMERICAN IN PARIS—The multi-Tony Award Winning musical, filled with wonderful music and sensational dancing, about an American soldier, a mysterious French girl and an indomitable European city, each yearning for a new beginning in the aftermath of war.
Note: One hour before each show, Joe Garry offers a free of charge Broadway Buzz Pre-Show Talk which is held in the Idea Center® at Playhouse Square (1375 Euclid Avenue). Following the June 22, 29 and July 6 performances, cast members come on stage to chat with the audience, offering a chance to ask questions.
July 18-23—THE SOUND OF MUSIC--The Rogers and Hammerstein musical story of Maria and the von Trapp children, is presented in a new production, directed by Tony Award winner Jack O'Brien.
August 15-20—MOTOWN THE MUSICAL--Motown founder Berry Gordy's journey from featherweight boxer to the heavyweight music mogul who launched the careers of Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Smokey Robinson and many more, which includes such songs as, "My Girl," and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."
TAKE A HIKE TOURS, FREE--every Thursday at 6 PM, from mid-May through mid-September, 90-minute walking tours of the Playhouse Square District, with actors portraying important historic Clevelanders from the neighborhood.
PORTHOUSE
http://www.porthousetheatre.com or 330-929-4416 or 330-672-3884
June 15-Juy 1—9 TO 5 THE MUSICAL—With music and lyrics by Dolly Parton and book by Patricia Resnick, the musical, based on the 1980 hit movie, places a spotlight on three female coworkers who confront their sexist, egotistical boss.
July 6-22—AIN'T MISBEHAVIN'—The 1978 Tony Award winning jukebox musical is a celebration of the legendary jazz great, Fats Waller.
July 27-August 13—NEWSIES--Adapted from the Disney film of the same name, the dance-centered musical follows the plight of newsboy Jack Kelly as he takes on publishing giants Joseph Pulitzer and Willian Randolph Hurst as the powerful duo attempts to endanger the livelihood of a band of newsboys.
THE MUSICAL THEATER PROJECT
http://www.MusicalTheaterProject.org for tickets and information
(productions staged in review format with narration)
June 24—3 PM—PURE IMAGINATION— Geauga Lyric Theatre--Tickets—216-245-8687--An interactive performance for the entire family with tunes from Disney and Sesame Street featuring Ursula Cataan, Jodi Maile Kirk, Nancy Maier and Shane Patrick O'Neill
June 25—3 PM—PURE IMAGINATION
Lorain County Metro Parks, French Creek Theatre--Tickets: 440-949-5200 X221 or http://www.metroparks.cc/
Labels: Cleveland Theatre Calendar
Disturbing, funny "Between Riverside and Crazy" at the Cleveland Play House
Pulitzer Prize Winner and Steinberg Distinguished Playwright, Stephen Adly Guirgis, whose script "Between Riverside and Crazy," is now on stage at Cleveland Play House, is noted for writing plays that feature racial discord and the definition of family, while examining "self-interest, self-delusion, self-recriminating, greed and amorality."
He's also a master at assigning his scripts provocative titles including, "The Motherf**ker with The Hat." "Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train," "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot," and "Lady of 121st Street." You might wonder, after seeing "Riverside," why he didn't entitle the work, "The Effect of Angst and the Church Lady."
Blurring lines between the sacred and profane has always been a specialty of the playwright. In his writings, as is evident in "Riverside" Guirgis, who is considered one of America's foremost new contemporary playwrights, does not shrink from four-letter words, explicit sex scenes and "in your face" reality.
The story centers on Pops, a cantankerous ex-cop. He retired when he was shot in the backside in a bar while he was off-duty. He did not go gently into the good night. Instead, he sued, fails to agree to the "fair" settlement he was offered, and refuses to act on the eviction notices being sent to him by the owner of the rent-controlled, Upper West Side Hudson River-view prime piece of New York real estate he occupies.
This is a man of major contradictions. At one moment he can be sweet, the next obstinate. He takes in stray people, often peppering them with money and affection, while being rejecting and stand-offish toward his son and now deceased wife. He is pig-headed and aggravating, yet amusing.
Living in the huge apartment with his son, Junior, and the boy-man's "pregnant" girlfriend, Lulu, and Oswaldo, a newly–sober hanger-on, Pops needs to take action.
Pressure reaches the boiling point when Audrey, his former patrol partner and her boyfriend, Dave, a police Lieutenant who is trying to settle Pop's prejudice case against the department for what appears to be self-interest, put pressure on Pop. The eviction notices seem to be moving toward forcing him out of the apartment. Oswaldo comes home drunk and physically attacks Pop. And the actions of a church lady, who is trying to save his soul, but may have ulterior motives, has raised a new issue.
Pop is between Riverside and crazy.
Each time you think you have a handle on what's going on, a new wrinkle in the plot evolves, causing an emotional readjustment.
The CPH production, as directed by Robert Barry Fleming, the theater's Associate Artistic Director, in his local directing debut, is well-paced, nicely nuanced, and plays the humor against the angst. The cast is excellent and nicely textures their performances, walking the thin line between comedy and drama.
Larry Marshall so well develops Pop that his naturalness makes you forget you are watching an actor portraying a role, but are peeking into the apartment and seeing reality.
Zoë Sophia Garcia is Rosie Perez-delightful as the well-endowed Lulu, bringing the right level of humor to Junior's live-in girlfriend and Pop's caretaker and sometime confident.
Yvette Ganier almost steals the show as Church Lady. Her sex scene with Pop has to be one of the funniest enactments portrayed on a CPH stage.
Dominic Colón, though sometimes difficult to understand due to a heavy accent and mumbling projection, is properly pathetic as Oswaldo, who clings to Pop as the father he desires, but does not have, yet lashes out against him when stressed.
Ken Robinson (Junior), Danielle Skraastad (Detective Audrey O'Connor), and Michael Russotto (Lieutenant Dave Caro) are all effective in their portrayals.
The set, the apartment, is a co-star of the play. Unless it is believably expansive and desirable, the production falters. Fear not. Challenged by a staging that is done in the runway style of seating, with the audience on two-sides of the stage and all action taking place in a long narrow space, between the segments of the playgoers, scenic designer Wilson Chin has created an appropriate apartment within the walls of a realistic building.
The difficulty in hearing is not Chin's fault. It is a by-product of the actors projecting in a horizontal space in which words get lost according to the way in which an actor faces. It is one of the issues faced by a director and cast when intimacy of audience to actors is placed ahead of clear sound projection which results from using runway staging.
CAPSULE JUDGMENT: "Between Riverside and Crazy" is an interesting set of character investigations within a plot which probably won't fascinate, but will instill interest. The production is excellent, the set fascinating, the laughs enough to keep attention and diminish some of the angst, and offers viewers a chance to experience seldom used runway staging.
"Between Riverside and Crazy" runs through April 23, 2017, at the Allen Theatre in PlayhouseSquare. For tickets call 216-241-6000 or go to http://www.clevelandplayhouse.com.
Next up at CPH: "Freaky Friday," a musical based on the novel by Mary Rodgers, which was made into a Disney motion picture. It is presented as part of the New Ground Festival, which lasts from May 11th through the 20th. For information go to http://www.clevelandplayhouse.com/
2017 season is about to lift its curtains @ the Shaw Festival
Those nice people from the North who are getting ready to create great theater are beaconing people from CLE to be their guests.
In Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, the "most beautiful little city in Canada," flowers are about in bloom, the wineries are getting their best vintages uncorked, the quaint b&bs with their marvelous breakfasts are ready to open, and the Shaw Festival is getting ready to raise the curtain in its various venues.
The city, which is only about 4 hours from 216/440, is a haven for those who like to see great theater, shop, eat at the wonderful restaurants, and take advantage of the very favorable exchange rate (as of April 3, 2017, $1.00 U.S.=$1.26 Canadian).
Besides theater there is golf, speedboats ply the Niagara River, bikes are available for zipping up and down the path which runs along the river gorge, ship watching at the Welland Canal is a fun side trip, and gambling and scenic viewing is available in Niagara Falls, a short drive away.
"The Shaw," as it is dubbed by the locals, is a tribute to George Bernard Shaw and his writing contemporaries. It offers dramas, comedies and musicals.
The productions are professional quality, with many of Canada's finest actors, directors and technical designers. It has been dubbed "One of the great repertory theaters in the English-speaking world.
This season's offerings include:
SAINT JOAN (GB Shaw) --May 3-October 15—The 1926 Nobel Prize winner asks, "At what point does blind faith become simply blind?"
DRACULA (Brian Stoker as adapted by Liz Lochhead)—July 8-October 14—The classic funny, sexy and scary Gothic tale of repressed erotic hunger asks, "What if your darkest fear was also your deepest desire?"
1837: THE FARMERS' REVOLT (Rick Salutin and Theatre Passe Muraille)—May 7-October 8--"When was the idea of Canada born?" When a handful of immigrant farmers who have been struggling for years to turn Upper Canada's forests into farmland find out that government has "dished out" their land, they rose up and probably paved the way for nationhood.
ANDROCLES AND THE LION (GB Shaw)—June 6-October 7—In ancient Rome, a group of early Christians wait to be thrown to the lions in the Colosseum. "For what cause would you be willing to die?" You may find out as you will join the Shaw Ensemble in creating an experience that will be different every time.
WILDE TALES (Oscar Wilde)—June 8-October 7—lunchtime one-act—A series of stories for young and old which asks, "Should we always meet the world with love, even when it doesn't deserve it?" Special note: Children, ages 6-12, can sign up in advance for a pre-show one-hour workshop with the actors that helps create the magic on stage.
THE MADNESS OF GEORGE III (Alan Bennett)—April 11-October 15—King George III may have been anointed by God, but when he starts to lose control of his speech and bodily functions it's clear that he's all too human. So, "if the Head of State loses his head, what happens to the State?"
DANCING AT LUGHNASA (Brian Friel)—May 14-October 15—In the 1930s, five women try to eke out an existence in Ireland, the land where no tears are without laughter as the question is raised, "What power or passion fills us with the need to dance?"
AN OCTOROON (Branden Jacobs-Jenkins)—July 16-October 14--Winner of the Obie Award for Best New American play is a rewrite of the 1859 Dion Boucicault play by a modern young Black man. It is full of strong language and challenging ideas and asks, "At least we don't think like they did in the 19th century any more—do we?"
MIDDLETOWN (Will Eno)—July 13-Sepember 10—In the most average town in North America, a group of average people are living average lives of quiet desperation and are forced to deal with the question, "When did we lose the ability to make real human connections?"
1979 (Michael Healey)—October 1-October 14—One of Canada's most celebrated playwrights takes on one of its least celebrated leaders, Prime Minister Joe Clark, asking, "Fight fair and go home, or fight directly and win?"
ME AND MY GIRL (Updated by Stephen Fry)—April 5-October 15—A musical which takes on the class system with charm, cheekiness and a dash of Cockney sass.
It's a good idea to make both theatre and lodging reservations early, especially on weekends. Our B&B home-away-from-home is the beautiful and well-placed Wellington House (http://www.wellington.house@sympatico.ca), directly across the street from The Festival Theatre, within easy walking distance of all the theatres, where the breakfasts are great and the furnishings lovely. I also like Two Bees B&B (1-289-868-9357), which is located near downtown. For information on other B&Bs go to www.niagaraonthelake.com/showbedandbreakfasts
There are some wonderful restaurants. Consider The Grill on King Street (905-468-7222, 233 King Street) and Ginger (905-468-3871, 390 Mary Street). Reservations are encouraged, even during the week.
For theatre information, a brochure or tickets, call 800-511-7429 or go on-line to http://www.shawfest.com. Ask about packages that include lodging, meals and tickets. Discount tickets are available for seniors and students and under 30s. Also be aware that the festival offers day-of-the-show rush tickets.
HINTS:
•Don't forget your passport as it's the only form of identification that will be accepted for re-entry into the US.
•Because of the good rate, charge everything to your credit card as many of the stores give you dollar for dollar, while banks offer you the going rate. If you pay cash, you are losing 26-cents on every dollar you spend.
Go to the Shaw Festival! Meet the nice Canadian people and see great theater.
Labels: Shaw Festival
A female "Hamlet" brings a twist to the play at Great Lakes Theater, well, almost . . .
Prince Hamlet is depressed, disillusional, and maniacal.
Having been summoned home to Denmark from school in Germany to attend his father's funeral, he is shocked to find his mother Gertrude already remarried to his Uncle Claudius, the dead king's brother, who has declared himself the king, though young Hamlet is the actual heir to the crown. Hamlet, rightly, suspects foul play.
Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is considered by many Bard experts to be his greatest tragedy script. For years, the melancholy tale of death, betrayal, family dysfunction, and revenge has been a staple on the programs of major theatres and analyzed in many a school classroom.
"Hamlet" is filled with intrigue, betrayal, deception and revenge.
On a dark winter night, a ghost walks the ramparts of Elsinore Castle in Denmark. The apparition resembles the recently deceased King. When Hamlet's friend, Horatio sees the illusion, he brings the Prince of Denmark to see the ghost, who speaks to him, declaring that it is indeed his father's spirit, and he was murdered by his brother, Claudius. The ghost disappears with the dawn, leaving Hamlet with no option but revenge.
We observe as Hamlet schemes, acts irrationally, considers suicide ("To be, or not to be: that is the question"), and comes to the realization that death wouldn't be the escape he craves.
In this, and many other scenes, Hamlet displays his personal tragic flaw, a requirement that Shakespeare incorporated, based on Greek theatrical tradition, as a trait element of tragic heroes. The Prince is unable to make decisions, and when he decides, the outcome has tragic consequences. In the play, eight of the nine primary characters, including Hamlet, Ophelia, her father, her brother, his mother and uncle all die, because of Hamlet's actions.
The play is filled with many themes, each identified by a quote.
Political intrigue: The king has been killed, there is a new king on the throne, one of questionable right to the seat, the deceased king's son acting erratically, something's clearly off. ("Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.")
Awareness of the process of life: As Hamlet stands at the newly dug grave which will soon house Ophelia, he looks at a skull, which the gravedigger has identified, says, "Oh Yorick I knew him well." Yes, it is the remains of Yorick, the court jester who was the young man's companion and tutor. Hamlet realizes that death eliminates the differences between people as we all ultimately crumble into dust.
Women and their roles: "Frailty, thy name is woman!" and "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" highlight Hamlet's perception that women, like his mother, are weak, as she is not even strong enough to mourn but escapes her angst by insincerely moving on. She is also manipulated by a man, unable to act on her own.
Irony is a part of life that becomes a message when Polonius gives advice to his son, Laertes, that "This above all: to thine own self be true." Yet he does not follow his sage words and both he and Laertes die because they are not true to themselves.
The script goes on with more and more Shakespearean ideas such as, "What a piece of work is man! How noble in wisdom! How infinite in faculty!" and "Brevity is the soul of wit."
Charles Fee, the director of Hamlet at Great Lakes Theater, in his program notes explains some of the artistic decisions of this production. He states, "In choosing to double cast the role of Hamlet with a woman and a man playing alternate performances, we are exploring the possibility that Hamlet's nature and his responses to the dramatic action may reveal more depth and elicit more compassion than we would experience through a single actor's interpretation."
As for a female playing the lead role, this is not that unusual. In 1775, Sarah Sidons portrayed the Prince of Denmark in British stagings, while in 1820 Sarah Bartley did an American production in the role.
Probably the best known of female Hamlets was Sarah Bernhard, who, at the turn of the century, was much praised for her performances. On the other hand, Dame Judith Anderson's 1970 Carnegie Hall performances, at age 73, were "deemed weak and ill-conceived by critics."
Joseph Papp, who established the Public Theater, explained, regarding a woman portraying the role, "''I have always felt that there is a strong female side to Hamlet --not feminine so much as female. To me that has to do with an easier capacity to express emotion. The person playing Hamlet should be able to weep unabashedly and unashamedly. There are men who can do that, but they should be young; Hamlet is a very young person, an adolescent, a student."
Papp went on to warn, ''I think most people would not approve of having a woman in the role. I think most audiences are conservative about a change of sex of any kind, and they consider 'Hamlet' sacrosanct.''
Papp may well have been right. In an intermission conversation with people at the GLT preview performance I was told by several Shakespeare traditionalists, "Why don't these people leave Shakespeare as it was written." And, "Why can't they leave things alone and not tinker with greatness."
I found Laura Welsh Berg's portrayal of Hamlet appealing and providing a different emotional dimension to the role. There was an introspection that I hadn't heard in the many, many performances I had seen before, with males performing the role.
Frustration emerged however, since the actors referred to "her" as "he," "him," and "sir," when I was aware that Berg was a female and was using "feminine" gesture patterns and vocal tonations. (As per the research on masculine-feminine studies by Sandra Bem and Deborah Tannen.)
Also, the relationship to Ophelia was confusing with the masculine gender terms. If played as a woman-to-a-woman, truly a new, a modern dimension, would have been introduced. If the intent was to stretch the interpretation, why not go all the way? (The same could be done by adding a male-male component to the male Hamlet version.)
A third issue might be the assumption that members of the audience are going to see the performances of both Berg and the other Hamlet, Jonathan Dyrud. If not, there is going to be no way to gain the appreciation which Fee explained might happen in the duo casting.
Fee's program notes also state, "Our scenic design will allow part of the audience to sit onstage, surrounding the actors, as well as on either side of the platform downstage." He explains, "For those sitting onstage the experience my feel like being in the play rather than passively watching the play."
Having some of the audience on stage was a departure. In Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the groundlings stood around the stage in close proximity to the actors. Several persons who were seated in the added seats which hugged the stage apron on two sides, expressed their pleasure in seeing and "feeling" the action up close.
On the other hand, a local reviewer who was seated on stage, moved into orchestra seats for the second act, as he said he couldn't hear many of the lines in the first act, as they were projected into the auditorium, with the actor's backs to those ensconced on stage. He also indicated that he could not see a great deal of action because of the wooden framing which blocked much of the stage and all of the action portrayed in the alcove at the rear of the center stage.
Fee nicely added some humor to the performance, which relieved a degree of the tension without eliminating the angst. The pacing was sprightly, making the long production seem short, with a high degree of audience attention.
The cast was excellent. Berg earned her standing audience curtain call. Erin Partin was superlative as Ophelia. Her "insane" scene was spell-binding. Laura Perrotta was properly conflicted as Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. David Anthony Smith nicely developed the king of Denmark, Hamlet's uncle, who killed the youth's father, into a disliked not overly-done melodramatic maniac. This added a nice realistic dimension to the role. Strong performances were also presented by Dougfred Miller (Polonius), Nic Steen (Laertes), and Christopher Tocco (Horatio).
Kim Krumm Sorenson's opulent costume designs, Rick Martin's lighting and Ken Merckx's fight choreography added much to the performance. High praise to Lynn Robert Berg and Dougfred Miller whose coaching made the speeches easy to understand.
Capsule judgement: The preview performance of "Hamlet" grabbed and held the audience's attention. Laura Welsh Berg was convincing and gave a "different" dimension to the role of the Prince of Denmark. Though Shakespeare traditionalists may scream "something is rotten in the state of Denmark" (GLT), others who see the "female" version of the play should leave saying, "Good-night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."
"Hamlet" runs through April 15 at the Hanna Theatre. To ascertain when the male or female Hamlet is performing and to get tickets call 216-664-6064 or link to www.greatlakestheater.org
Labels: Great Lakes Theatre
"Something Rotten!" is a must see musical farce at...
Superb "Hand To God," demands attention with laugh...
"Freaky Friday A New Musical" Broadway-ready at th...
Farcical "You Can't Take It With You" delights @ K...
Disturbing, funny "Between Riverside and Crazy" at...
2017 season is about to lift its curtains @ the Sh...
A female "Hamlet" brings a twist to the play at Gr...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Today's podcast takes up the question of Joe Biden and his hands and his lips and his logorrhea and whether these are disqualifying to his presidential candidacy. Also, how do you pronounce that guy's name who's lighting up the Democratic primary pre-season, the guy from Indiana? And…cars. What good are they. Noah's out but the rest of the gang is here. Give a listen.
Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new podcast from Commentary. You can find us on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Stitcher.


As the coverage of Fashion Week proves, what happens outside the shows can attract as much attention as what happens on the runway. Even Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and the rest of the old guard weigh in not just on designer trends but on what social media influencers are wearing. So it's no surprise that several forthcoming titles celebrate street style—those who promote it and those who wear it.
Self-taught photographer Cunningham, who died in 2016, was the unofficial king of street-fashion photography. He cruised the streets of New York City by bicycle, capturing its citizens' clothing and accessory choices for the New York Times. His memoir, which he wrote, revised, and secreted away to be published after his death, is interspersed with photographs from his life as a designer and professional people-watcher.
The author of 2017's Fancy Party Gowns, which introduced the picture-book crowd to fashion designer Ann Cole Lowe, here profiles street-fashion photographer Bill Cunningham, contrasting his reclusiveness with the joy he found in placing the spotlight on others.
Beginning with what the book calls the first streetwear shop—Trash and Vaudeville, which opened in Jersey City in 1972 and soon after moved to St. Mark's Place in New York's East Village—this look at fashion styles and brands encompassing punk, hip-hop, club wear, and more includes hundreds of photos as well as interviews with big names in the field, such as Shepard Fairey, the street artist and designer of the Barack Obama "Hope" poster whose clothing brand Obey was a pioneer of contemporary street art–based streetwear.


This factsheet provides information on 2014 greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in Tajikistan. Included is an overview of emissions by sector, changes in emissions, information on carbon intensity, as well as climate change mitigation targets and plans.
Tajikistan's total GHG emissions in 2014 were 11.96 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e), totaling 0.02 percent of global GHG emissions. The agriculture sector serves as the predominant source of GHG emissions in Tajikistan, with 46.3 percent of emissions from agricultural emissions, 41.4 percent from energy, 7.1 percent from industrial processes, 5.2 percent from waste, and 0% from land-use change and forestry.
Per its INDC, Tajikistan set a target to limit GHG emissions to 65-75% of 1990 levels by 2030, conditioned upon receipt of substantial international funding and technology transfer. Tajikistan also set an unconditional target not to exceed 80-90% of its 1990 emission level by 2030. Tajikistan would achieve these targets through actions in the following areas: power industry and water resources; industry and construction; land use, agriculture and gardening and grazing; forestry and biodiversity; and transportation and infrastructure.


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General information regarding our course rules and attire.
Appropriate golf attire is required for use of the golf facilities.
1. Proper footwear must be worn while golfing: soft soled shoes or golf shoes with non-metal spikes.
2. Men's wear permitted: Collared shirts or crew neck tee shirts with sleeves must be worn at all times. Shorts must be tailored and have pockets. Jeans are permitted if they are clean and non-tattered. Clothing NOT permitted: Shirts with offensive slogans, short shorts, gym wear of any kind and cut-offs.
3. Ladies wear permitted: All current fashion golf wear. Blue jeans are allowed if they are clean and non-tattered. Clothing NOT permitted: Bare midriffs, spaghetti strap tank tops, shirts with offensive slogans, short shorts, gym wear of any kind and cut-offs.
The Connaught Golf Club reserves the right to deny access to the facilities to anyone dressed inappropriately.
The Connaught Golf Club has an expected pace of play of 4 hours and 30 minutes or less. Course Marshals and Starters will be provided at peak times to help assist players in maintaining this pace to enhance the enjoyment of everyone's golf experience.
Golfers are liable for any property damage and personal injury resulting from their golf shots.
Connaught Golf Club may restrict cart usage due to extreme wet conditions. Pull carts are to be kept at least 20 feet from the greens. Power carts are to be kept on pathways around greens and tee boxes, not past marked areas in front of greens, and off slopes at all times. Abuse of these guidelines may result in loss of cart privileges.
Each guest or member must have a set of clubs (sharing of sets is prohibited).
In order to speed up the cutting of greens, we ask that the players please give way to the workers who are cutting the greens.
Find out what's happening around our club!