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From Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization for the American professional not-for-profit theatre community.

World Theatre Day was created in 1961 by the International Theatre Institute, and is celebrated annually on March 27 by ITI Centers and the international theatre community, various national and international theatre events being organized to mark this occasion. One of the most important of these is the circulation of the International Message traditionally written by a theatre personality of world stature at the invitation of the International Theatre Institute. The first such message was written by Jean Cocteau in 1962.

The International Message for World Theatre Day 2008 was written by Robert Lepage.

English Translation:

World Theatre Day, 27 March 2008

International Message by Robert Lepage

There are a number of hypotheses on the origins of theatre but the one I find the most thought-provoking takes the form of a fable:

One night, at the dawn of time, a group of men were gathered together in a quarry to warm themselves around a fire and tell stories. All of a sudden, one of them had the idea to stand up and use his shadow to illustrate his tale. Using the light from the flames he made characters appear, larger than life, on the walls of the quarry. Amazed, the others recognized in turn the strong and the weak, the oppressor and the oppressed, the god and the mortal.

Nowadays, the light of projectors has replaced the original bonfire, and stage machinery, the walls of the quarry. And with all due deference to certain purists, this fable reminds us that technology is at the very beginnings of theatre and that it should not be perceived as a threat but as a uniting element.

The survival of the art of theatre depends on its capacity to reinvent itself by embracing new tools and new languages. For how could the theatre continue to bear witness to the great issues of its epoch and promote understanding between peoples without having, itself, a spirit of openness? How could it pride itself on offering solutions to the problems of intolerance, exclusion and racism if, in its own practice, it resisted any fusion and integration?

In order to represent the world in all its complexity, the artist must bring forth new forms and ideas, and trust in the intelligence of the spectator, who is capable of distinguishing the silhouette of humanity within this perpetual play of light and shadow.

It is true that by playing too much with fire, we take a risk, but we also take a chance: we might get burned, but we might also amaze and enlighten.

Robert Lepage

Quebec, 17 February 2008

(Translated from the original French)

Original French Message:

Journée mondiale du Théâtre, 27 mars 2008

Message International par Robert Lepage

Il existe plusieurs hypothèses sur les origines du théâtre, mais celle qui m’interpelle le plus a la forme d’une fable:

Une nuit, dans des temps immémoriaux, un groupe d’hommes s’étaient rassemblés dans une carrière pour se réchauffer autour d’un feu et se raconter des histoires. Quand tout à coup, l’un d’eux eut l’idée de se lever et d’utiliser son ombre pour illustrer son récit. En s’aidant de la lumière des flammes, il fit apparaître sur les murs de la carrière des personnages plus grands que nature. Les autres, éblouis, y reconnurent tour à tour le fort et le faible, l’oppresseur et l’oppressé, le dieu et le mortel.

De nos jours, la lumière des projecteurs a remplacé le feu de joie initial et la machinerie de scène, les murs de la carrière. Et n’en déplaise à certains puristes, cette fable nous rappelle que la technologie est à l’origine même du théâtre et qu’elle ne doit pas être perçue comme une menace, mais comme un élément rassembleur.

La survie de l’art théâtral dépend de sa capacité à se réinventer en intégrant de nouveaux outils et de nouveaux langages. Sinon, comment le théâtre pourrait-il continuer d’être le témoin des grands enjeux de son époque et promouvoir l’entente entre les peuples, s’il ne faisait pas lui-même preuve d’ouverture? Comment pourrait-il se targuer d’offrir des solutions aux problèmes d’intolérance, d’exclusion et de racisme, si, dans sa pratique même, il se refusait à tout métissage et à toute intégration?

Pour représenter le monde dans toute sa complexité, l’artiste doit proposer des formes et des idées nouvelles et faire confiance à l’intelligence du spectateur capable, lui, de distinguer la silhouette de l’humanité dans ce perpétuel jeu d’ombre et de lumière.

Il est vrai qu’à trop jouer avec le feu, l’homme prend le risque de se brûler, mais il prend également la chance d’éblouir et d’illuminer.

Robert Lepage

Québec, le 17 février 2008

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Week tra la la.

So, I have not divulged my thoughts upon this public blog for a long time and now that the link has been advertised in the newspaper, maybe I should spell check it a couple of million times.

We opened, wahoo! This is why I have not returned to the blog for a while, I have been mucho busy with the stressful time consuming aspect of opening a production. Arcadia has proven immensely popular in Lexington. YAY! It has broken all AGL box office records so far.(Editor's Note: We set an AGL single day box office record on Friday, hopefully before we are done, Arcadia will have set box office records. But we do want our Becky to stay peppy!) This weekend resulted in Mr Sherman running behind to the back of the stage to grab more chairs as the theatre was over flowing with people! Obviously there must be a reason for this sudden influx of theatre patrons. Could it be the superb writing of Mr Stoppard, or the wonderful reviews, or the fact there is a real live brit on the stage (sorry, I had to get that in for my own narcissistic pleasure... I think that is my favourite word, or maybe it is the only long word I know, its not even that long, only 12 letters... oh my, I have gone off on a tangent.), or maybe its the wonderful set design, or gorgeous costumes, or mixture of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, (I have to stop saying that, there is no sex or drugs or rock ‘n’ roll in this play, whoever witnessed the early morning news the other day I apologise for saying sex on live TV and lying about what the play is about, I am going to try and recover my fault and say it was a marketing deploy.), or maybe it is the bloody tortoise... sorry mummy Croom, the tortoise deserved that swear word. Plautus has received so much media attention it is unbelievable! Everyone aw’s and goes google eyes over him... come on!!! He has not put any work into the play! He just gets spoilt and everyone’s attention and new plants for opening night when all he does is walk and sit. I can walk and sit! Stoopid tortoise. But he is a cutie isn’t he and if he generates this amount of revenue then I say lets put him in every production!

I am so thrilled by how the Lexington public are responding to Arcadia. It is very wonderful. Thank you to all who have come so far.

I think its interesting how each actor differs with each night. Obviously every individual is affected by what has occurred that day before they reach the auditorium but I think it so interesting that each show is different in regards to how each individual actor is feeling. For example, the other day Marc and Adam were so on it and focused, displaying and immensity of talent and some of us (myself included) just pit and pattered around the stage. It was not a bad performance but the energy was not all there. I do not think this cast has ever had a bad performance, for some strange reason the Arcadia cast seems to have bonded on a level that makes everyone perform at their best. We are like one big happy cast that supports one another and frolics around laughing in the spring time. I am going to hate it when the production is over... I don’t want it to end! I will not get to see everyone’s beautiful face each week. This has been a truly wonderful and enriching experience and I have made some wonderful companions, got myself a fiancée, two new mummy’s and I feel comfortable enough to rugby tackle just about anyone in the cast when I see them on the streets. Big group hug please!!!!!!! How icky.

Anywho, but seriously (Marketing campaign) Arcadia is AMAZING! Everyone should come at least three times to truly appreciate and understand the complexities of the characters relationships and issues discussed. You will not only leave far more intelligent then you could ever possible imagine but there will be a slight tear of joy and sadness in the depth of your tear duct. Come and frolic with us in the DAC! Anyone who can prove they have come three times will get an official English thank you in the spirit of the play.

Oh I nearly forgot... how could I forget?! I had the most wonderful surprise for opening night. My father flew thousands of miles to see the opening and he has never been to America before. This proves that the show must be truly wonderful, I mean, come on. One audience member spent hundreds of pounds and travelled thousands of miles just to see the AGL production of Arcadia. WOW! He has never missed a performance of mine and I know my mummy would have been there if she could have. I love my parents. They are truly the most supportive parents a young British girl could ask for.

Anywho, this blog is far too long... my fingers hurt... must rest. Ta ta for now.

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Greetings!

The following is from Arcadia director Ave Lawyer, who also acted as her own dramaturg on the production. Though you need not be familiar with all of this, it certainly cannot hurt to having a passing familiarity with some of the concepts and ideas in the play. So read up, enjoy, and come see these ideas brought to vivid life in what promises to be a first rate production...and I promise, there will be no quizzes following the play!!

Peace and Love

Rick St. Peter

Artistic Director

March 11, 2008

Ave Lawyer's Director’s Note

“What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense.”

Rehearsal is a process of discovery. And interestingly enough, what we discovered, as we rehearsed Arcadia is that the play itself is about the process of discovery. It asks the questions mankind has been asking ever since we wiped the primordial soup of our shoes. Who are we? Why are we here? What’s it all about?

But fear not. Since it’s Tom Stoppard who’s doing the asking, the funny bone is engaged as frequently as the mind.

Part detective story, part love story, part comedy of errors, Arcadia is also a crash course in mathematics, landscape gardening, literature, Romantic poetry, the second law of thermodynamics, oh, and lest things should get dull, chaos theory. The action is set in the schoolroom of Sidley Park, Derbyshire, inhabited by the Coverly family in the early 19th century, and simultaneously in the present day by their descendants Valentine, Chloe and the ever-silent Gus.

While a wildly comic series of events unfolds in 1809 and 1812, involving, among other things, Romantic trysts in gazebos, duels at dawn, mysterious hermits, rice pudding, mediocre poets, steam heated engines and overheated aristocrats, a pair of rival literary researchers works doggedly and with haphazard success, to unravel them in the present.

Will we ever find out what really happened? Is it possible to really know the past? Is it possible to really know anything? What Arcadia taught us is it’s not the answers that matter. It’s asking the questions. As Hannah Jarvis observes, “It’s wanting to know that makes us matter.”

It doesn’t matter that we’re all looking for different things. And that being human and fallible, we don’t always get it right. That we chase after red herrings and chimera, led by our hearts as often as our heads. Faced with the possibility that, after all our striving, we may never know the answers. That the “theory of everything” will always elude us. That there will always be an unknowable mystery at the heart of things -- like a fifteen year old boy who never speaks.

But we keep looking because we want to know.

We hope you find the search as exhilarating as we do.

Ave Lawyer

Classicism vs. Romanticism in Mathematics and Physics

“What’s going on here?”

Bernard Nightingale, Scene 2

And he might well ask. Is life a series of conflicts between thinking and feeling, between order and disorder, between the Classical and the Romantic? Arcadia suggests that our personalities, our lives, our relationships, our aesthetic preferences and perhaps even our picture of the physical universe is driven by this dichotomy.

The Classical world is one ruled by the mind -- orderly, predictable, balanced, unchangeable and unchanging. The Romantic world is ruled by the heart – chaotic, irregular, unpredictable, ever-changing.

The changes in thought and taste in mathematics, physics, poetry and landscape gardening that reveal themselves as time bounces back and forth in the Sidley Park schoolroom reflect a larger shift from a traditional (Classical) to a modern (Romantic) view of the universe.

Our guide on this journey is the young genius Thomasina Coverly, who makes three amazing discoveries.

There’s more to the world than meets Euclid’s eye

She instinctively realizes that the classical geometry of Euclid, limited to straight lines, right angles and “regular forms” is too limited to be able to describe the “irregular” shapes of nature. It can describe the curve of a bell, but not a bluebell. So, by trial and error, she moves past the classical towards the Romantic, discovering what she jokingly refers to as “The New Geometry of Irregular Forms” which we today know as fractal geometry associated with Bernard Mandelbrot. And tipping her hat to what is now called chaos theory.

She begins by picking up an apple leaf and saying “I will plot this leaf and deduce its equation.” She has obviously found the equation and explored its applications by 1812. It is what she describes as a “rabbit equation” …which “eats its own progeny”. in the homework assignment that Septimus returns to her. The "rabbit equation" is an iterated algorithm a process of equations that describe an apple leaf. (The method used to find it involves constantly feeding a solution back into the equation, like a rabbit continuously generating then devouring its offspring. This process of feedback is called iteration.

Thomasina goes as far as she can with the tools at her disposal, but somehow she can see the end result – that her algorithm will create a picture of the apple leaf. As Valentine is to discover in 2008 when he plugs Thomasina’s rabbit equation into a computer and, just as she predicted, the numbers “draw” a picture of the apple leaf.

This picture of the apple leaf drawn in this way is a called a fractal. Fractals are the visual objects which result from iterated algorithms, and they have the characteristic that they are "self-similar" in the sense that if you change their scale and look at them, they appear exactly as they did before. Each of the smaller shapes looks just like the big one, and each of theirs looks like them, and so on down the line. Thomasina’s new irregular 'fractal' geometry is beautifully suited to describing the messy bits and behaviour of the real world. Clouds, lungs, mountain ranges and cauliflowers are fractal objects, ones that reveal similar shapes and motifs at every level of magnification.

Engaged in his own research, Valentine is attempting to understand the rise and fall of grouse populations using iteration. As heir to Sidley Park, part of his inheritance is a complete set of game books detailing the precise number of grouse shot at the estate each year. He is trying to extrapolate from this to predict the populations in the future using ideas from chaos theory. Valentine is amazed to find that Thomasina was doing exactly what he is doing, except in reverse. It makes him furious to think (and he refuses to admit) that a schoolgirl in 1800’s Derbyshire could possibly be using a sophisticated modern technique like iteration.

Newton didn’t know it all

In Arcadia, simple Newtonian physics represents Classicism. Isaac Newton’s "clockwork" view of the universe considers forces between a small number of objects in a controlled environment, and provides a metaphor for control, logic, and the picture of the world as orderly and unchanging.

Watching what happens when she stirs jam into her bowl of rice pudding, Thomasina begins to doubt how completely the classical physics of Sir Isaac Newton can truly explain the world. Newton’s Laws of Motion are insensitive to time – they apply whether an object is moving in one direction or another. For example, in a movie of a ball thrown in the air, the ball follows certain rules of motion and behaves in a predictable fashion, whether the film runs forwards or backwards.

But once she stirs the jam into her pudding, Thomasina notices, it doesn’t behave predictably at all . “When you stir your rice pudding, Septimus, the spoonful of jam spreads itself around…But if you stir backward the jam will not come together again. Indeed, the pudding does not seem to notice and continues to turn pink as before… You cannot stir things apart.

She notices two things.

One that the tendency is for disorder to increase.

Two that it is doing so in an irreversible fashion.

The trails of jam move toward a larger disorder that cannot be stirred back together by going the other direction. i.e. the bowl of rice pudding goes into a disordered state that cannot be reversed.

Which leads her to believe that, (as modern scientists have proved) that all systems in the world do not follow Newton’s law. Thomasina finds proof for her hunch that some processes tend irreversibly towards disorder, in a discovery made in the field of thermodynamics.

Thermodynamics (the action of bodies in heat) is the study of heat and its conversion to other forms of energy. In a typical thermodynamic system, heat moves from hot (boiler) to cold (condenser) and work is extracted.

In the 19th century a French scientist named Nicolas Lonard Sadi Carnot was the first to discover the Second Law of Thermodynamics: essentially, that over time systems go into disordered states because heat only goes one way – it travels to cold objects and will not travel to hot objects. This means that in the creation of energy, a motor will create heat, which will be lost into the colder air around it.

Reading this in an essay and applying it to the world around her, Thomasina cheerfully informs the landscape gardener, Mr. Noakes that, because of this the performance of his prized Newcomen Steam Pump, laboring away outside the French door, will always be less than 100% efficient.

When Valentine finally unravels the mystery of Thomasina’s heat engine diagram, he understands that what she has done is essentially applied the notion of the thermodynamic arrow of time.

If time were perfectly symmetric (i.e., moved forwards and backwards as Newton suggested) then it would be possible to watch a movie taken of real events and everything that happens in the movie would seem realistic whether it was played forwards or backwards.

While a movie of the planets orbiting the sun would look equally realistic run forwards or backwards, one showing a cup falling off a table, while realistic running forwards, would be unrealistic running backwards.

Similarly, the thermodynamic arrow of time runs in one direction only, because, as The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us, heat moves in one direction only, so a system will always become more disordered over time.

Taking a typical giant step from steam pumps to the universe itself, Thomasina sees the implications of the Second Law when applied to all the atoms in the universe. If disorder increases, and heat continues to be lost, the temperature at each location in the universe will eventually even out. In the final, climactic moment of the plot, Stoppard beautifully combines the realization of death with an understanding of Thomasina's heat diagram.

Even though she is the creator of a frightening picture of mortality, Thomasina yearns passionately to dance. The heat of love and carnal knowledge, the playwright suggests, might help one avoid the empty shore.

The play ends on a life-affirming note. Though we discover with Thomasina that the world must cool and end in entropy or heat loss– it’s written in the “secrets of nature” – we discover with Valentine that there is order in the disorder. And if this is how this world came, perhaps its how the next will be born.

Classicism vs. Romanticism in the Sidley Park Garden

Hannah: “The whole Romantic sham. It’s what happened to the Enlightenment, isn’t it? A century of intellectual rigor turned in on itself. The history of the garden says it all beautifully.”

The grounds of Sidley Park, the house which provides the setting for Arcadia, are a canvas on which all three of the main styles of eighteenth and early nineteenth-century landscape gardening have at one time or another been inscribed.

These three different styles of gardening were treated by some contemporary commentators as mere changes in fashion, and they were frequently compared with changing fashions in dress, particularly in women's dress. For others, however, they were like fashion itself -- part of a complicated story of social and political change.

The Classical Italian Garden

The formal Italian garden reflects the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment. It was probably planted by Thomasina’s great-grandfather.

Until the 1740s, the garden was laid out according to an aesthetic which saw beauty only in symmetry, in the geometrical pattern made by circular pools and the intersecting straight lines of avenues, alleys, terraces, hedges.

Hannah says: “The house had a formal Italian garden until about 1740”

“…that makes you want to weep. Paradise in the Age of Reason….topiary, pools and terraces, fountains, an avenue of limes. sublime geometry…the best box hedge in Derbyshire….”

1740-1809: The Natural English Park

The formal Italian garden is replaced by the “natural English park” for which Launcelot “Capability” Brown was famous. This was probably done at the instigation of Thomasina’s grandfather.

Around 1740 or so tastes changed and this formal Italian design was dug up and “improved” by Lancelot "Capability" Brown. Brown’s goal was to create open vistas which made the park and its surrounding countryside seem part of one harmonious landscape which ran unbroken to the horizon and beyond.

One way to make the landscape appear to flow seamlessly, was to remove anything that appeared “unnatural” or “man made” like topiary, pools and terraces, fountains and an avenue of limes. The” best box hedge in Derbyshire” was dug up and replaced by a “ha ha” (a ditch used to keep cows off the lawn.) “The grass went from the doorstep to the horizon… so the fools could pretend they were living in God’s countryside….”

This is the way the garden looks in Lady Croom’s time, and it is just to her taste.

1810 The Fake Gothic Wilderness

The Gothic Garden reflects the Age of Romance.

Lord Croom, Thomasina’s father, has hired Mr. Noakes, the landscape gardener to tear up the natural English landscape that Lady Croom so cherishes and replace it with a faux Gothic wilderness in the “picturesque” style.

As Arcadia opens in 1809, the English park that Lady Croom so admires is about to give way to the "picturesque" or “Romantic” style favored by Mr. Noakes. The picturesque was an aesthetic of irregularity, of "Romantic" wildness, in which the natural, flowing lines of Capability Brown were deliberately broken and obscured by sudden declivities, jagged shapes, ruined buildings and statuary, and the shadows of rocks and unkempt trees.

Lady Croom finds it utterly distasteful but her protests were obviously in vain, because by 1812, the process of transformation is under way, under the auspices of Mr. Noakes and his noisy “Newcomen steam pump”. . Hannah, who is all geometry and reason, hates the whole “Romantic sham” of the Gothic landscape. She particularly dislikes the fact that the Gothic landscape, when plunked down in England, stands out like a sore thumb -- stagy and fake and artificial.

“…a setting of cheap thrills and false emotion”.

The pleasure of finding things out

The men and women in “Arcadia” are driven by the same impulse as Nobel laureate Richard Feynman -- “the pleasure of finding things out”. Feynman always said that he did physics not for the glory or for awards and prizes, but for the fun of it, for the sheer pleasure of finding out how the world works, what makes it tick.

“…the kick in the discovery”…the sudden feeling, akin to an epiphany, that I had grasped a wonderful new idea, that there was something new in the world, that I was present at a momentous scientific event, no less dramatic and exciting than Newton’s feeling when he realized that the mysterious force that caused that apocryphal apple to land on his head was the same force that caused the moon to orbit the earth….

…that’s why scientists persist in their investigations, why we struggle so desperately for every bit of knowledge, stay up nights seeking the answer to a problem, climb the steepest obstacles to the next fragment of understanding, to finally reach that joyous moment of the kick in the discovery, which is part of the pleasure of finding things out.”

GLOSSARY

Arcadia. The term Arcadia is used to refer to an imaginary and paradisiacal place. In reality is was a region of ancient Greece in the central Peloponnesus. Its inhabitants, somewhat isolated from the rest of the world, proverbially lived a simple, pastoral life.

Derbyshire A county in central England

primer. A book that covers the basic elements of a subject.

grouse Plump, chicken like game birds with mottled brown or grayish plumage found in the Northern Hemisphere.

caro, carnis Latin for flesh or meat.

Onan The son of Judah in the Bible (Genesis 38:9). Onan is remembered for spilling his seed on the floor and is associated with masturbation and coitus interruptus.

Fermat Pierre de Fermat, a French mathematician and magistrate who lived from 1601 to 1665. He was a founder of modern number and probability theories.

Fermat's Last Theorem Fermat stated that the equation xn + yn = zn, where x, y, and z are nonzero integers, has no solutions for n when n is an integer greater than 2. It wasn’t until 1993 that British mathematician Andrew Wiles found a proof of the conjecture.

Eros Latin, from the Greek word eros meaning sexual love. In psychiatry, it refers to the sexual drive. Eros was the son of Aphrodite and the Greek god of love.

gazebo A freestanding, roofed and open-sided garden structure providing a shady resting place.

the picturesque The late 18th century movement driving British landscape architecture.

Sir Isaac Newton, The English mathematician and scientist (1642-1727) who invented formulated among other things, the theories of universal gravitation, terrestrial mechanics, and color. Of apocryphal apple fame.

Newtonian Refers to Mechanics, the branch of physics concerned with the motion of objects and their response to forces. For normal phenomena Newton's laws of motion remain the cornerstone of mechanics. However, Newton's laws have been superseded by quantum mechanics and Albert Einstein's theory of relativity.

Etonian The largest and most famous of England's public schools (in England, "public schools" are the equivalent of "private schools" here in the US.

Newton's law of motion Isaac Newton developed three laws of motion: (1) a body at rest tends to remain at rest, or a body in motion tends to remain in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, unless acted on by an outside force; (2) the acceleration of a mass by a force is directly proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the mass; (3) for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

John Milton (1608-1674) The English poet and scholar who is best known for the epic poem Paradise Lost, perhaps the greatest epic poem in English.

Robert Southey British writer (1774-1843) known for his Romantic poetry, criticism, and biographical works.

Lord Jeffrey Scottish literary critic and jurist (1773-1850) who co founded and edited the Edinburgh Review and was known as a harsh critic of Romanticism.

Lord Holland Henry Richard Vassall Fox, 3d Baron (1773-1840) was a British statesman and writer. A liberal Whig supporter, he was lord privy seal from 1806-7 until the fall of the Whigs. He is best remembered for his writing and his wife's literary salon gatherings.

The Piccadilly Recreation A fictional publication reviewing and satirizing literature.

Sir Walter Scott Scottish novelist and poet (1771-1832) who wrote romances of Scottish life, the most famous being Ivanhoe.

cricket pitch The rectangular area, 22 yards long, between the wickets in cricket, an outdoor game played in Britain with bats and a ball by two teams of 11 players each.

Kew A district of western Greater London on the River Thames where the famed Royal Botanic Gardens were established in 1759. The gardens contain thousands of plant species and include museums, laboratories and hothouses.

obelisk A tall, four-sided stone shaft, usually tapered and monolithic, that terminates in a point. The ancient Egyptians dedicated them to the sun god and placed them in pairs before temple portals. Hieroglyphs commonly ran down each of their sides. Many obelisks were taken from Egypt.

rill A small brook or rivulet.

Et in Arcadia ego "Even in Arcadia, there am I" (the "I" refers to death). A famous painting by Nicholas Poussin called Shepherds in Arcadia shows a group standing around a tomb on which the words appear.

Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) A British writer of Gothic novels

Horace Walpole The 4th Earl of Orford, 1717-97, noted for his Gothic romance, The Castle of Otranto (1765). Strawberry Hill, Walpole's Gothicized cottage, is credited with starting the Gothic/picturesque craze in English landscape design.

partridge, snipe, woodcock, teal A variety of plump-bodied Old World game birds. The partridge is related to the pheasant and grouse; the snipe and woodcock are shorebirds; and the teal is a duck.

hermit A person who has withdrawn from society and lives a solitary existence, often in a retreat called a hermitage.

Baptist in the wilderness . Refers to John the Baptist (8 or 4 BC to about ad 27 AD) the cousin of Mary, the mother of Jesus. He was a Nazarite and prepared for his mission by years of self-discipline in the desert.

sod A British explicative.

commode Can refer either to a toilet or a decorated low cabinet or chest of drawers.

game books Books in which the details of hunts are recorded.

Sussex A former British county located in southeastern England, on the English Channel.

D. H. Lawrence British writer (1885-1930) whose novels include Women in Love, and Lady Chatterley's Lover.

ha-ha A wall used in landscaping. From one side of the wall (the "pasture" side), it appears to be a wall. On the other side, the dirt is graded up to the top of the wall allowing an unobstructed view of lawn.

Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828) Byron's mistress who wrote Glenarron, Graham Hamilton and Ada Reis. She was infatuated with Lord Byron and was notorious for her nine-months devotion to him in 1812. She went mad after chancing upon Byron's funeral procession.

don A head, tutor, or fellow at a college of Oxford or Cambridge; the equivalent of a college or university professor.

Lord Byron Byron, George Gordon Sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale (1788-1824). The great British Romantic poet who was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement. Famous works include Childe Harold, The Prisoner of Chillon, The Corsair, and Don Juan. His heroes were lonely, rebellious, and brooding. The handsome Byron was infamous for his unconventional lifestyle and his many love affairs. One of his famous loves was Lady Caroline Lamb, the wife of Viscount Melbourne. He was born with a clubfoot and, after years of wandering through Europe, died after while fighting for Greek independence from the Turks.

dwarf dahlia A variety of plant native to the mountains of Central America, and Colombia. It has tuberous roots and showy, rayed, and variously colored flower heads.

Martinique A French island located in the Windward Islands of the West Indies. It was discovered by Columbus in 1502, it colonized by the French in 1635.

folio A large sheet of paper folded once in the middle, making two leaves or four pages of a book or manuscript. When this refers to book or manuscript made of folio pages it would fifteen inches in height.

Oxford One of the most prestigious universities in the world located at Oxford, England. It originated in the early 12th century. It employs a system of residential colleges dating from the founding of University, Merton and Balliol colleges. It is currently made-up of over thirty-five colleges. The Bodleian Library and the Ashmolean Museum are famous institutions which are part of the university.

Brideshead Regurgitated A tongue-in-cheek reference to the 1945 novel Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.

Italian garden Italian gardens of the 17th were complex in the dramatic baroque style using serpentine lines, spouting fountains, sculptured allegorical figures, and waterfalls. These were often copied in England.

Brocket Hall Residence of Lady Caroline Lamb.

Cambridge With Oxford, one of England's two most prestigious universities. Cambridge was founded in the early 12th century and might be older than Oxford. Like Oxford, it is made-up of a system of over thirty-one residential colleges. Cambridge was an important educational center in the Renaissance and of Reformation theology. Noted for the sciences, Cambridge was attended by Sir Isaac Newton.

Launcelot “Capability” Brown An English landscape architect partial to the natural English Park style. He is best-known for laying out the gardens at Blenheim and Kew.

Claude Lorrain Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) was a French landscape painter.

Virgil The Roman poet (70-19 B.C.) whose pastoral writings, The Georgics, established the classical pastoral tradition referred to by Hannah.

Gothic novel A popular form of mystery novel written in England in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth century. These tales of horror generally involved the supernatural and were set among haunted castles and ruins . Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, M. L. Lewis, the Bronte sisters, and Mary Shelley were notable writers of this genre.

Thomas Love Peacock A self-educated English novelist and poet (1785-1866) and close friend of Shelley. He was also a clerk for the East India Company.

anchorite A person living apart from society for religious reasons. A hermit.

William Makepeace Thackeray British novelist (1811-1863 whose best-known work is Vanity Fair featuring the unscrupulous Becky Sharp.

The Cornhill Magazine A work edited by Thackeray after 1860. It concerned itself with the hypocrisy, pretensions and amoral lives of his Victorian characters.

East India Company The British company chartered by the Crown for trade with Asia from 1600 to 1858. It brought great wealth to England through the export of tea and textiles from India and had great influence in Indian affairs.

Blackfriars Area in London along the north bank of the River Thames south of St. Paul's Cathedral.

epiphany This usage refers to the comprehension or perception of the essence or meaning of something through a sudden intuitive realization

pottery gnome A curious piece of British kitsch, this is a small figure of a gnome placed in gardens.

Enlightenment This refers to the Age of Reason or the Age of Enlightenment -- the humanitarian, rationalist, liberal, and scientific thought of the eighteenth-century in Europe wherein the state was viewed as a rational instrument for human progress. This was characterized by the scientific approach taken to social and political issues and was based upon the intellectual and scientific advances of the seventeenth century championed by promoters of natural law and universal order such as John Locke, Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes and Spinoza. Enlightenment thinkers included Rousseau, Voltaire, Jonathon Swift, Hume, Kant, Montesquieu, and Lessing as well as Americans such as Thomas Jefferson.

Romantic Romanticism refers to the literary and artistic movements of the late 18th and 19th century which were a revolt against Classicism and philosophical. Romanticism champions a return to nature and revels in individuality and the heroic. In Romanticism humankind is innately good and the senses and emotions are prized over reason and intellect. Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats were all British Romantic poets. Sir Walter Scott was among the most noted Romantic novelists. Wagner, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Berlioz and Chopin are among the greatest Romantic composers of the period while the best-known painters included Delacroix and Turner.

'Childe Harold' Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, a poem written in 1812 by Lord Byron narrating his European travels. Childe Harold, was the first stormy, young auto-biographical Byronic hero, shunning humanity and wandering through life guilty of mysterious past sins.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers When his early work, Hours of Idleness, was ridiculed by the Edinburgh Review, Lord Byron answered in 1809 with a somewhat notorious satire entitled English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

Pall Mall A famous and fashionable street in London.

Kent A county in southeastern England located between the Strait of Dover on the south and southeast and the Thames estuary on the north.

Trinity One of the colleges of Cambridge University.

Harrow The prestigious Harrow School was founded by a charter by Queen Elizabeth in 1571. Byron attended this public school.

Beau Brummel George Bryan ("Beau") Brummel (1778-1840) was a British dandy who created new fashions for men. His styles included the wearing of elaborate neckwear and trousers rather than knee breeches. The term is used to refer to a fop or dandy.

Plautus (c.254-184 B.C.) Roman comic poet and playwright. His coarsely comic plays, adapted from the Greek, deal with middle-class and lower-class life and stock comic figures.

Queen Dido In Roman mythology, she is the founder and queen of Carthage. In Virgil’s Aeneid, she falls in love with Aeneas and then kills herself on a burning pyre when he abandons her.

Cleopatra ( 69 B.C.-30 B.C.) Queen of Egypt, daughter of Ptolemy XI and wife to Ptolemy XII. She joined with Julius Caesar to defeat her brother and. She became the mistress of Caesar and supposedly bore him a son who became Ptolemy XIV. When Caesar was murdered she fell in love with Marc Antony and married him. Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra in 31 B.C. and they killed themselves.

Queen Elizabeth Elizabeth I (1533-1603) Queen of England and Ireland from 1558 to 1603, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. She reestablished Protestant Anglicanism in England when she succeeded the Catholic Mary I. During her remarkable reign England became a great commercial and colonial power with a mighty navy.

great library of Alexandria Ptolemy I founded the famed library of Alexander, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was destroyed by fire in 391 A.D.

Athenians Athens was the capital and the largest city of ancient Greece.

Aeschylus The first great Athenian tragic dramatist (525-456 B.C.). Although he wrote nearly ninety plays, only seven survive. Believed to be the inventor if tragedy, he was the first to include two actors in addition to the chorus.

Sophocles The Greek tragic dramatist (c.496-406 B.C.). Sophocles was younger than Aeschylus and older than Euripides. Both a general and a priest, he wrote over one hundred and twenty plays only seven of which survived (including Oedipus Rex) He is credited with a third actor and increasing the size of the chorus.

Euripides (480 or 485 B.C.-406 B.C.). Along with Sophocles and Aeschylus, one of the greatest Greek tragedians. Of the more than ninety tragedies he wrote, only nineteen survive in complete form, including The Trojan Women.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) An ancient Greek philosopher, his writings on metaphysics, logic, science, poetics, ethics, and politics profoundly influenced all Western thought and civilization. He was a student of Plato and served as tutor to Alexander the Great.

Archimedes (c.287?-212 B.C.) An ancient Greek mathematician, inventor, and physicist. He calculated pi, devised exponential numbers, developed formulas for calculating the area and volume of geometric figures and used geometry in his study of mechanics. He is credited with the invention of ingenious devices (e.g., the Archimedean screw and various war machines) and he discovered the principle of buoyancy.

"The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne . . ." Septimus has tricked Thomasina -- this is actually a quote from Act II, scene 2 of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.

second A person who acts as an assistant to the principal in a duel.

Samuel Rogers A British poet (1763-1855) whose works include The Pleasures of Memory.

Thomas Moore An Irish Romantic poet (1779-1852) and friend and biographer of Lord Byron. His nostalgic and patriotic lyrics include "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms".

William Wordsworth The British poet (1770-1850) who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped establish Romanticism in England.

Malta packet Malta is country consisting of three islands in the Mediterranean Sea south of Sicily. Malta became French in 1798 and British in 1800. A packet is a boat that plies a regular passenger route.

Lisbon The capital and largest city of Portugal, located in the western part of the country on the Tagus River estuary near the Atlantic Ocean.

Lesbos An island of eastern Greece in the Aegean Sea near Turkey. known for its lyric poets, including Sappho.

portmanteau A large leather case that opens into two hinged compartments.

Billets Lodging for troops

pianoforte A piano (from the Italian for soft (piano) and loud (forte).

iterated algorithm An algorithm is a mathematical or other procedure in which one element, the input, is used to produce another, the output.An iterated algorithm is a recursive computational procedure in which the output from one step of a computation is fed back into the computation again in the next step as the input. feedback The application of the output of a process or system to the input.
butts and beaters Those who serve to drive wild game from under cover for a hunter.

Relativity The Theory of Relativity was introduced by Albert Einstein in 1905. It challenges Newtonian Laws by discarding the concept of absolute motion. Instead, it uses as a frame of reference only relative motion between two systems.

quantum Quantum theory or quantum mechanics are the theories which drive modern physics. In Newtonian physical theory physical properties are continuously variable and energy travels in the form of waves. Quantum theory is based on the supposition that energy and other physical properties exist in tiny, discrete particles. Max Planck, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr are considered to be the fathers of quantum mechanics.

theory of everything Physicists and philosophers dream of a final theory to explain all phenomena.

Galileo Italian astronomer, mathematician, and physicist (1564-1642), best known as the first scientist to study the heavens using a telescope. He supported Copernicus's theory that the earth revolves around the sun which led to his persecution and imprisonment by the Inquisition. His experiments dealing with gravity challenged the accepted teachings of Aristotle and anticipated Newton’s laws of motion.

historical revisionism The rewriting of the accepted views concerning historical events and movements.

Rationalist A follower of the philosophical theory that reason is the prime source of knowledge and of spiritual truth -- not spiritual revelation, empiricism or authority.

calculus The branch of mathematics that deals with the differentiation and integration of functions of one or more variables. The calculus was developed in the seventeenth century by both Sir Isaac Newton and G.W. Leibnitz.

Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron von Leibnitz (1646-1716) The German philosopher and mathematician who, independently of Sir Isaac Newton, invented differential and integral calculus. He is also known for the optimistic metaphysical theory that we live in "the best of all possible worlds."

quarks Elementary particles which combine into neutrons, protons, and certain other more exotic particles.

quasars A class of objects which look like faint stars in a photograph, but which are actually billions of light years away.

big bang A theory for the evolution of the universe based on Einstein's general theory of relativity, and supported by several observations, including the fact that the average distance between galaxies seems to be increasing. According to this model, the universe was once extraordinarily hot and dense and has since expanded.

black holes In some cases, the collapse of star results in an extremely small region of space-time which has a gravitational field so enormous that nothing can escape, not even light.

Royal Academy The principal British fine arts organization was founded in 1768 by King George III.

Henry Fuseli Swiss-born British painter (1741-1825) whose work fused Gothic Romanticism with classicism in a fantastic, grotesque and macabre style.

Thomas Chippendale The British cabinetmaker (1718-1779)

sub rosa (Latin) Under the rose, confidentially.

PT Physical Training, the British equivalent of gym class

silvery as Job (65). Job, famously tested by God in the Old Testament.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics Thermodynamics is the branch of physics that deals with the relationships between heat and other forms of energy. The first law of thermodynamics deals with the conservation of energy. The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy cannot decrease in a system for any spontaneous process. Entropy refers to the amount of disorder in a system. An example of this is that heat cannot pass from a colder body to a warmer body, but only from a warmer body to a colder body.

infusion The liquid product obtained by steeping or soaking tea or herbs without boiling in order to prepare a drink.

Pericles Ancient statesman (c.495-429 B.C.) noted for advancing democracy in Athens. He became a great patron of the arts, encouraging music and drama and ordered the construction of the Parthenon.

Regency The style prevalent in England during the regency of George, Prince of Wales (later George IV) from 1811 to 1830. The principle trend in furnishings and architecture was neoclassical.

deterministic universe The belief that every act, decision, moral choice and event is the inevitable consequence of antecedents that are independent of and precludes human will.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English political philosopher who, in his book Leviathan (1651) he declares the pessimistic philosophy that humans are fundamentally brutish and selfish creatures.

Euclid A Greek mathematician in the 3rd century B.C. He applied the deductive principles of logic to elementary plane geometry and used this method (now called Euclidean geometry) to derive statements from clearly defined axioms. A non-Euclidean geometry was developed independently by Lobachevsky in 1826 and Bolyai in 1832.

Newcomen steam pump An atmospheric steam engine used to pump water invented in 1711 by Thomas Newcomen. A steam engine converts heat energy into mechanical energy. When water boils into steam its volume increases producing a force that is used to move a piston back and forth in a cylinder. The piston is attached to a crankshaft which in turn converts back-and-forth motion into the rotary motion needed to drive machinery.

gloss A brief note explaining or translating a difficult or technical expression sometimes inserted between lines of a text or in the margin of a manuscript.

Nicolas Lonard Sadi Carnot 19th century French scientist, first to discover the Second Law of Thermodynamics: essentially, that over time systems go into disordered states because heat only goes one way – it travels to cold objects and will not travel to hot objects. This means that in the creation of energy, a motor will create heat, which will be lost into the colder air around it. Therefore, one can never get as much energy out of a system as one puts in.

Joseph Fourier However, the prize-winning essay On the Propagation of Heat in Solid Bodies that Septimus is reading in 1812, was written not by Carnot but by Joseph Fourier, who taught at the École Polytechnique.

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From Rebecca Pearcy

Saturday 8th march.

The snow can not stop us!

So there was a huge blizzard last night and Hayley, Shayne and I went for mucho fun around Ms Thomas’ house. The snow was immense! It just kept falling and I had actually thought maybe today’s rehearsal will be cancelled… but oh no, no one can stop us!!!!!!

And just so everyone is clear. The last blog was just in fun. Maybe I should start writing about serious things. Ok task of the day; make this blog serious. But firstly I must announce mine and Shayne’s wedding. Yes I am becoming Mrs. Brakefield. This way Shayne can fulfill his ever persistent desire of being connected to a red headed English woman and can live his years living in England as a jolly ol’ Englishman and I get to stay here, wahoo! I must express my up most admiration for everyone’s devotion to perfecting the English accent. Shayne has followed me around since Hamlet copying my every word as he goes and Lisa Thomas’s house is filled to the brim with English goodies. Anyway serious blog… deep breath… here we go.

I am really beginning to notice the huge difference a vocal warm up can make. Whenever I do not do one I sound like I have huge cotton balls stuffed in my mouth. With the ever nearing fact that we will soon be performing in the theatre, a space that is going to need all the articulation and vocal energy I can give, warm-ups are a must. I have decided at 5pm everyday I will devote an hour to a vocal and physical warm-up for all those who wish to join me. I am of course referring to the cast, not that I would object to random theatre lovers joining in but I am not sure I can secure the theatre space being open for me to do such a thing. It appears since graduating from Drama College, an institution that made all its pupils do a vocal and physical warm up before every class, I have become slack in my dedication to the perfection of my equipment and have not participated in the essential daily exercise that will enable me to reach the full potential of my voice and body. Now, once again I will embrace that wonderful technique as taught by Mr. Tony James.

That is as serious as I can be for now.

From Rebecca Pearcy

Week blah blah blah

Adam Lucky is incorrigible. (I thought it was spelt encouragable… oh dear, back to pre-school for me)

I would like to start this blog by saying I have been going through a truly insane week this past week. Insane in the context that, I, Rebecca Pearcy have slowly been going insane. I had presumed maybe it was down to a lack of sleep, or lack of vitamins or the fact that my whole life is devoted to Actors Guild of Lexington… I wake up come to work, have a lunch break, go back to work at AGL then have dinner, then go to rehearsals at AGL, then I go to bed. Even though I love it, which I do, I had thought maybe this was partly to do with my insanity. It has come to my attention that it is none of the above; it is in fact Mr. Adam Luckeys fault. Now, I am not one to place the blame, (total lie), but I have noticed that Mr. Luckey likes to entice me to act completely mental. For example, Marcie, Adam and I are waiting for our WKYTV interview and we are all very calm when Adam decides to make comments that make me laugh hysterically, jokes that I will not disclose on here due to their nature. This slowly makes me louder and louder and then he thinks it is a good idea that we practice our waltz and ending which involves him flipping me through the air, (we have yet to persuade Ave that the flip is an important dance aspect to the waltz) in the middle of the WKYTV recording studio. Of course, this ends in even more hilarious outbursts. Oh shame on us. Now the interview went fine and we were very respectable and mature and nobody saw us acting like complete wallys. However, it was at that moment where I was sailing through the air into a back bend over Adams shoulder that I thought this is your entire fault Mr. Luckey!!!! I would be on my way to becoming a mature young lady but nooooooooo, Adam decides to hinder my progress into adult life and make me the goof ball that the cast and crew have been witnessing this past week.

Ok, maybe it is not all Adams fault, maybe I have a tendency to act like a complete moron but I had promised Adam that I would reveal his secrets and let the entire world know of his secret plan to corrupt me and drive me slowly insane. THE END.

But SERIOUSLY, I would like to apologize for my erratic behavior this past week. No it is not Adams fault or enticing I think it is down to a lack of sleep and not eating the right foods. But now I am aware of it I went to the gym, ate some cous cous and now feel fine! Wahoo!

So, let us not talk about the past but the future. I think everything’s coming along quite swimmingly. We have all had our moments of brain deadness and so I know things can only get better! Why is it, there is always that one instance towards the end in the rehearsal process, whereby every actor has at least one moment where their world in the play collapses and their lines disappear from their memory. Mine has occurred through my insane week whereby others have had that day of struggle. Why was mine a whole week????!!! Oh, narcissistic, see there I go again, me, me, me….

Anyway, the future. Can I just announce scene five was fabulous yesterday?!?! I loved it!!! I thought whatever you guys did with it, it was absolutely wonderful and I was completely engaged in everything! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND scene six! PHWOR!!!! There was so much chemistry on stage that I felt the hot flushes and ripples of excitement through my entire body, go Septimus and Mummy!

Tonight is our costume parade, but I do not have a slip so I am naked underneath my see through dress, this may prove to be a problem. I can not wait to see Judy and Pearl and everyone dressed in their romantic clothes! I love Hayley’s Bo-Peep dress! O isn’t theatre fun! Next week is tech week and then we all get to sleep again, well on Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays anyhow… (Is that a word?)

PLAUTUS IS IN THE HOUSE!!!! Plautus/ Lightning/ Rock/ Aristotle/ whatever you want to call the tortoise is now a much loved member of the cast. He joined us last night and I immediately became obsessed with him. Oh, he is such a cutie!!! He just wants to walk around the table eating all the books and papers and especially the apple! I am so excited to do a proper run through with him to see what mischief he can come up with. But to be honest, how much mischief can a tortoise cause?????

Questions, comments, opinions all welcome.

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