Kathleen Mulligan      back to top
Tuesday, February 1, 2000
Had our first How Do I Love Thee performances on Tuesday.

I must admit it was great to do a new program! It's also one of my favorite programs, and I always enjoy performing it. It was a beautiful day. Perfect weather for some outdoor Shakespeare. I had a great session with the Shakespeare class improvising Shakespeare, and spent part of lunch talking with junior Ann, a budding thespian.

Thank you to all the students who have been coming up and talking to us about the shows. It means so much to hear your kind words, and to know you are enjoying the work we are doing here.

Okay- we did the ultimate tourist thing last night and attended a Luau. How could we leave Hawaii without that experience? The three of us threw ourselves into it and were determined to have a great time AND make total fools out of ourselves! I think we did a pretty good job at both. I did a hula on stage--very badly, I'm afraid.

Hope all of you can catch How Do I Love Thee and Win, Lose or Draw over the next couple of days if you haven't seen them yet!

Have a great day, Iolani.

Friday, January 28 - Monday, January 31, 2000
I haven't made a journal entry in a few days because David and I left early Saturday morning for the Big Island (thanks to Ty who took us to the airport at the crack of dawn).

Friday was a great day that culminated with the lovely birthday party for Mr. Keables (where David and I were presented with a beautiful book of pictures and notes from a kindergarten class!) and our evening performance afterwards. It was a great celebration, and we felt lucky to be a part of it.

Friday began with a memorable experience for me. I taught my Shakespeare Improv class, and, because of a change in the schedule, the class was made up of a group of 7th graders and a group of seniors.

At any other school two such different groups would have spelled disaster. However, it turned out to be a pretty amazing session. The seniors were incredibly supportive and inclusive of the younger students, and the 7th graders rose to the challenge by conducting themselves with maturity and creating some wonderful "Shakespear-ese". My thanks to all the students in that class. You really enforced what I already sense about Iolani. This is a very special place.

Our weekend on The Big Island was more than we could have hoped for. The best part was standing 20 feet from a red river of lava as it headed towards the sea. There's something you don't see every day!

Monday started another great week of performances and workshops. We worked with the lower school cast of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is going to be a great show! One young actress told me afterwards "I always fall off the stage!" My advice: "Don't do that!"

David and I headed to the North Shore after classes and watched the sunset from Puu O Mahuka Heiau. Of all the places I have been in Hawaii, that was it for me. It is a place of huge power and beauty, and we were able to be there in complete solitude. I want to go again before we leave!

Now it's Tuesday morning and David and I look forward to sharing How Do I Love Thee with Iolani today! More later!

Thursday, January 27, 2000
This day will be remembered as the WINDY day! No one here seems terribly fazed by the gusts, but we mainlanders are expecting to blow away at any moment!

It was another great day, though. A bit of a hectic beginning, as there had been a little confusion about the schedule and we arrived for our first performance 5 minutes before we were supposed to start! With the help of trusty Tyrone and fantastic Cyrus, we set up in record time as the youngest of Iolani's population filed in for The Noodle Doodle Box.

Tea for Two sounded a bit scratchy due to lack of vocal warm-up, but other than that it went off without a hitch. David and I love performing for that age group. They are totally open, and enthusiastically leap into the imaginative world of theatre without a moment's hesitation.

We had a little time for questions afterwards, and my favorite came after we had answered that yes, we DO love Shakespeare. A very >small girl in the front row raised her hand and asked "If you love him, why don't you MARRY him?" I hadn't heard that one in awhile...

After that the three of us led 2 discussions with the students on our adaptations for The Great American Novel. It was so interesting to hear the comments and insights of the students, and to learn how they were affected by the piece. We encourage them to share more of their feelings and questions with us throughout our stay here.

By 3rd period the wind had begun to kick up, and I had the benefit of some real weather for for Ariel's description of the storm in The Tempest. Another wonderful lower school audience!

David and I headed to Pearl Harbor after school, while Tyrone headed to the golf course.

Unfortunately, we arrived to find boats weren't going out to the memorial because of....you guessed it: WIND. We were so disappointed, as that was our one chance to visit- but we did spend some time at the park on shore, and I was incredibly moved by the film shown by The National Park Service. We also took in The Missouri while we were there- which was something David really wanted to see before our time ended here. My favorite part: standing on the spot where the W.W.II officially came to a close.

(This is getting long- I'm almost done!) We started home and ran into our first real experience with rush hour on Oahu! After about 15 minutes we decided to get off at The Pali highway, find some dinner, and wait out the traffic. Stopped at Pali lookout- incredible WINDS!!!! I had to hold onto the wall and pull myself towards the edge to look out over the valley.

After some great Thai food, we headed back to the hotel and met with Ty to work on our evening show for Friday night. Looking forward to the Friday night festivities!

Wednesday, January 26, 2000
I'm already feeling sad that the days are slipping by so quickly. We are having such a wonderful time! My third day started with 2 sessions of Page to Stage with Tyrone- a workshop designed to give students some insight into the rehearsal process of a scene (in this case "the nunnery scene" from Hamlet) I actually made a new discovery about the scene based on our work in the workshop. We followed with the first performance of Win Lose or Draw, which is a two person program that David and I created. We finished with our sole performance of The Great American Novel, which includes one of my favorite pieces of literature: To Kill a Mockingbird. Thanks for giving me another chance to say those wonderful words, Iolani. Fantastic Chinese food last night with some of our new Iolani friends. Maybe the best I've ever tasted? (And I love Chinese food!) Have a great day, everyone!

Tuesday, January 25, 2000
I had a great day today. Started out with two sessions of Improvising Shakespeare's Language, in which students are asked to make up "Shakespeare" on the spot- translating contemporary language into their own versions of how Shakespeare would have said it. The objective is to make Shakespeare feel a little less like a foreign language, and a little more like our own language. To use an actor's term: the workshop helps us own Shakespeare's language. Some students seemed a little reticent at the beginning- its a challenging workshop and really "puts them on the spot". But the journey they all made within those 40 minutes was pretty amazing. We finished up the day with 2 performances of Dear Will- our last student performances of that program the three of us have grown to love so much. We'll do it one more time as part of this Friday evening's performance. David and I climbed Diamond Head in the afternoon- what an incredible view. Ty played golf- thank goodness! He was starting to go a little stir crazy- seeing that wonderful golf course and not being able to play. Thanks for another terrific day, Iolani.

Monday, January 24, 2000
Aloha! This is my sixth tour for OSF ( that's approximately 31 weeks of touring) and I can honstly say I have never felt more welcome and appreciated than at Iolani. The students and faculty are wonderful, and their enthusiasm is infectious! As we walked to dinner last night, Tyrone said "Should I pinch myself now?" and that sort of sums it up for all of us. We feel very lucky to be here. I am looking forward to the days ahead- to working with all of the students and sharing our work with the wonderful audiences.

David Studwell      back to top
Tuesday, February 1, 2000
As predicted the weather was beautiful today.

Considering how lousy the weather is back home, our trip to Honolulu couldn't have been timed more perfectly.

Our classes and performances today all went very well. As Kathleen said, our performance of How Do I Love Thee is one of our favorites. We have been performing this particular show for over a year and it is fun to perform.

Here at Iolani we changed the program slightly to accommodate our over-lapping programs. We inserted a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream to replace Henry V which is done in our other Shakespeare program as well. This required changing some of the music we use between scenes. When we originally conceived of this program we had the Midsummer scene in with its own music, so adding it back in wasn't too complicated but required a little rethinking. I am happy to say the changes went very smoothly and my guess is that no one knew we had altered our program at all.

Friday, January 28 - Monday, January 31, 2000
I think my colleagues have covered a lot of the highlights of the last few days at Iolani, but I will do my best to add to their comments. The trade winds blessed us by dying down just in time for our evening performance on Friday.

Although the lights were hung for the show on Thursday, we didn't have a chance to focus them until just before the performance in the bright afternoon sun! We crossed our fingers, and, as with most everything that has happened here at Iolani, luck was with us, and the show was illuminated beautifully! ( thank you Mr. Saito)

The sound was also enhanced by the tremendous AV department here led by our new and dear friend Cyrus who also treated us to some delicious Hawaiian ice on Monday. The Hamlet talk Monday was another highlight as was the after school rehearsal of A Midsummer Night's Dream . The weather for the rest of the week looks very good so I anticipate another perfect week here at Iolani.

Thursday, January 27, 2000
What a joy it is to perform the Noodle Doodle Box for the lower school ! It was also fantastic to hear all the good questions they had for us afterwards After reading Kathleen's entry for today I am a little at a loss for what else to tell you. She didn't mention that the labyrinth has arrived! We are all looking forward to the opportunity to take our journey to the center. And Kathleen also forgot to mention that we now have lights in our performance space thanks to Mr. Saito and the master electrician Stu. So if we can just avoid being blown away we should be ready for a terrific show on Friday.

Wednesday, January 26, 2000
Rain today - and rainbows! Everyone complains that it is cold but the three Oregonians and native east coast mainlanders aren't complaining. Period seven theatre sports was terrific. We learned about character motivation and the how of acting by theatre games. Theatre sports in the afternoon with 33 first graders was a delight. I think Kathleen and I learned more about the joy of performing from our young actors. They performed there Fairy Tails to perfection and the enthusiasm was infectious. We hope they can see The Noodle Box tomorrow - we think they will really enjoy it!

Tuesday, January 25, 2000
Today was the most beautiful of our stay so far. We enjoyed chapel this morning and look forward to the labyrinth coming next week. Shakespeare Improv was fun and once again new words have been added to the English language (i.e.: slint - noun: a shoe worn by condemned prisoners.) Our audiences were again superb: listening attentively as we shared our wonderful outdoor venue with children's laughter, leaf blowers and the occasional plane passing overhead. We discovered a terrific casual and inexpensive Italian eatery this evening called Anti Pasta. What a find! Aloha

Monday, January 24, 2000
What a day! Going to work has never been more fun! Such a warm welcome and what wonderful audiences. The shows and workshops went very smoothly and we are looking forward to nine more days of the same. So far our stay at Iolani and Hawaii has been more than we could have hoped for. Mahalo everyone!

Tyrone Wilson      back to top
Tuesday, January 25 - Monday, January 31, 2000
Attended chapel this morning (Tuesday) and once again felt touched by the Keables spirit . Renewing the great feelings and honor of being here.

Have been reading some of the writing from my Images, Ideas, and the Expressive Word workshops. My gosh! Some of the most touching, lovely, and creative writing I have read from all the workshops I have ever done. Really. There is an amazing amount of talent on this campus Y' all must be doin' something right :) !

By the way I am still reading some of the work and I will get it back to you as soon as I wipe the tears away. Thank You...

Wonderful day yesterday with students and teachers discussing Hamlet in performance. I left with the feeling of almost having performed the play again. Thank you.

How dynamic, energetic, and willing to absorb are the students in the A Midsummer Night's Dream project. After an all too short hour after school with them and after having shared just a bit of our theatrical knowledge with them, I, myself, felt more "dynamic, energetic, and willing to absorb."

Monday, January 24, 2000
And they said he couldn't do it . Well, better late than ever. A golf date with Mary Kay and others has brightened the already illuminating time I'm having. Each day at Iolani brings surprises, support, wonderful exchanges, and the feeling of being a dignitary. I thank you. A slight misread of this morning's schedule sent all of us into high theatrical gear. Ah, drama both on-stage and off. Looking forward to our first discussion with students about the literary program The Great American Novel - if it's anything like the programs so far it will prove enlightening to both the students and us.