This is the page that changes most often. I’ll post news, photos, links and the occasional Act As If column, just for fun. Check in every week or two and see what’s new.
April 14, 2012
More Camelot! I see it everywhere. It permeates signage, architecture, even clothing. Just wait ’til I go to the Renaissance Faire next month…
If Arthur lived, it was before knighthood existed. That doesn't mean we can't drink a glass in his honor.
Three Knights is a Bronco brand, a California wine you can find at Trader Joe’s. In this case, the three knights may refer to the company’s three founders. A wine expert once told me, “If it tastes good, it’s a good wine.” Well then, in my opinion this is a good wine.
March 24, 2012
I recorded a very short “hello” video for a panel at TekkoshoconX in Pittsburgh. The panel, led by Tommy Phillips, was called “Ryoko Rules!”
February 11, 2012
Camelot, knights in shining armor, heroes on horseback…they’re not restricted to the distant past. I see them everywhere, every day. They’re part of our modern dialogue. Here on the Updates page I’ll show you what I come across.
This one was on a road trip up highway 99 in central California. 99 is an artery between California cities and the farms that feed them. My husband and I saw several trucks owned by the Knight Transportation Company of Phoenix, Arizona.
Coming up on the semi’s flank, we began to get a better view of the logo.
There’s our brave, jousting knight!
The driver’s door had a different logo. Same guy, though, I think.
There’s been a lot of discussion as to whether a person named “King Arthur” actually existed in British history. The consensus is “probably not.” A couple of candidates fit the bill for someone who could have spawned the legends, but they led their warriors charging across the land a few hundred years before the concept of knighthood existed.
February 6, 2012
So far, so quiet. The only exciting thing that’s happened so far this month is a coyote on our street, and that happens all the time.
How about a photo?
I’m sure it was something important.
Oh. Right. I was taking a picture. I was! This is the top of Devil’s Gate Dam. My camera and I were looking out through a hole. Here’s what we saw (you can click on the picture to enlarge it):
The hole I shot the picture through was small. Big enough to lose a camera through (I didn’t) but not big enough to fall through (I didn’t do that, either).
Friday, 1/13/12 is my lucky day. Here’s the link to the video of The Ladies of Tenchi Muyo at Pacific Media Expo!
Monday, 1/9/12
Just posted a new article on Altadena Patch about famous voice actor and cowboy music star Will Ryan and the Cactus County Cowboys. What a fun show! With voice acting legends June Foray on stage and Russi Taylor in the audience, it was quite a night.
Act As If, my column about the acting business, is in re-runs in NowCasting.com‘s ActorsInk newsletter. This installment first appeared February 2, 2005.
Hamming it up.
NOR HAM NOR BACON
By Petrea Burchard
There has long been disagreement about the authenticity of William Shakespeare. “Who really wrote the plays?” people ask. There’s much controversy, and the evidence is confusing. Could a small-town boy have been so worldly, so talented, and so brilliant? No, no, it must have been someone else—someone more educated. Someone richer. Certainly not an ACTOR. An ACTOR could never have written such wonderful stuff.
It’s elitist, if you ask me. I know plenty of well-educated actors from small towns who write great stuff. Think Sam Shepard. Think Zach Braff. Think Bonnie Hunt.
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(Okay, Bonnie’s from Chicago, which is a big town. Okay, I don’t know any of those people. But you get my drift.)
It’s plausible enough that the author was good old Will. What I find difficult to believe, however, is that he was an actor. Where’s the evidence? Very little survives—you see his name on the occasional cast list but there are no cover letters to casting directors, no business cards or post cards. Since we’re talking about Elizabethan times and a smaller world—the London stage, as opposed to international cinema—the lack of printed materials would not faze me, except for one fact: Shakespeare didn’t have a headshot.
Google “Shakespeare portrait” and you’ll get over 600,000 links. There are several portraits in question, including one that’s supposedly based on Shakespeare’s skull. (Although the inscription on his grave—or what we think is his grave—says, “cursed be he that moves my bones,” someone apparently didn’t pay attention. The man’s actual head may be somewhere in France, proving Yorick oddly prophetic. This depends on which Google listing you believe.) An awful lot of confusion exists about what Shakespeare looked like because no portrait has proven to be the definitive one.
If Shakespeare had been an actor, he would have paid good money to have excellent portraits done on a regular basis. He would have made sure the painting wasn’t too glamorous, or too young-looking. He would have worn clothes that were fashionable but not faddish—something that enhanced his appearance but didn’t call attention to itself. He would have used a painter who was able to capture his essence, so the powers among London’s theatre elite would know exactly what he looked like. And, some 400 years later, we would know which portrait was Shakespeare’s because his name and contact information would be on it, right in front.
Sure, sure, he was a company member. If you needed to find him you could contact the production office of The King’s Men, the Swan or the Globe. But a busy casting director doesn’t have time for that. Surely there were other scruffy, medium-sized, slightly balding men around London who would have loved to tread the boards. If Will was an actor, he couldn’t afford not to be known.
So I think William Shakespeare was exactly whom the Stratford-Upon-Avon brochures tell us he was: a great writer, who did some acting if and when it was necessary. If he had been as much an actor as he was a writer, he’d have been famous for it, like Richard Burbage. And I guarantee you there would be no doubt about his portrait.
But no. Will was a writer. At least I like to think so.
December, 2011
Not much happened. I wrote a lot. Bliss.
November, 2011
• I loved the “Ladies of Tenchi Muyo” reunion at Pacific Media Expo! And now, here’s the video!
• And I enjoyed my interview on 91.8 TheFan.com. Check it out!
