After having traveled down from the high country yesterday, I started this week in Boulder with a lunch with my friend Kate down in Denver, and it gave me a chance to drop by the old neighborhood. It all looks lush and green, and the old house is looking good.
In the evening, I got down to business with my first play of this year’s Colorado Shakespeare Festival, a version of Hamlet with several of the roles switched from male to female. While always skeptical if they do these kinds of switches as a gimmick, this for the most part worked, and having a woman do the big Hamlet speeches actually seemed to open up some new perspectives. It didn’t hurt that the actress playing Hamlet did a great job, as did most of the rest of the cast — particularly the actor playing Polonius, Rodney Lizcano, who’s been with CoSF in several of the last seasons. Another noteworthy aspect was the fighting in the sword fight scene at the end, which we very realistic and non-stage-like. The only think I didn’t quite like was that they tried to put some silly humor into some of the performances, particularly Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (who were kind of like Laurel and Hardy), but I guess it was a way to show the madness flying from super dramatic to trying to be humorous. Or perhaps, it was a link to a play I’m seeing later this week, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead with the same actors, which is more comical. All in all the production was very enjoyable. This was a less abridged version than I saw just a few weeks ago, but 3 hours flew by. I’m looking forward to the rest of the week.
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I started my milestone trip to Colorado with an early flight, for which Bob kindly took me to the airport. I drove strait up to the mountains. On the way up, I-70 had some major slow points which turned out to be due to lookey-loos because of a major accident coming down out of the mountains. WHen I got to it there were at least 10 emergency vehicles and the debris was spread over a large area. I can’t imagine anybody got out without being hurt.
After passing through some rain storms, I got up to Summit County mid-afternoon, and it was quite pleasant. I could definitely feel that altitude of 9000 feet. Just walking around too fast can get me winded. Better fittness and some acclimation are needed. I had a nice, early dinner, then I went down to the marina area to take some photographs. There were some nice clouds, and I waited long enough and got some nice sunsets behind the mountains reflecting off the lake. Another day or so up here, then I head down to Shakespeare country.
Tonight I saw the second play of the 
Along with Bill, Andy, and Doug, I saw 
Capping off a full weekend, tonight I saw this year’s 
I arose early and headed over to San Francisco to attenda a Nikon School Portrait & Lighting Workshop. I’ve been reading and studying a bit on this topic, and this was a good opportunity to get some direct training, some practical experience, and to work with real models.
After a nice dinner at Bob and Blanca’s, Bob, Blanca, their friend Jim, and I went over to see the first play in the 
It’s been 8 months since I’ve written any blog posts, which probably indicates a big drop in extracurricular fun. After a couple of months of marathon traveling for work, the summer theater season kind of snuck up on me. So I happily begin blogging again as I attended the first play in the 2017 
In an extended season running spring through fall, I again managed to see quite a bit of theater this year. I again missed only Santa Cruz this summer. I saw a total of 20 plays this year, 14 Shakespeare plays, and 5 other plays, produced by 6 different Shakespeare companies, in 3 different states. It also brings the count of live Shakespeare productions I’ve seen to 141. I also managed to knock off three more previously unseen play from the Shakespeare canon, leaving only one play that I haven’t seen.
On a cool fall evening, I saw the last play in 