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shiftyskip · 5 years

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Edward James “Babe” Heffron

The real Babe Heffron:

Edward James Heffron was born on May 16, 1923 to Joseph and Anne Heffron in South Philadelphia. He was the third of five children in his Irish-rooted family. He had three brothers: James, Joseph Jr., John (called Jake or Jack). He also had one sister named Anna Margaret. He attended a Catholic elementary school, but his parents could no longer afford it after a while and in high school, Babe attended public school Southern Philadelphia High (which he called Southern). He dropped out in his third year, to help with finances. Babe took up betting on horses. Every penny he got off of a horse race, he gave to his mother.

Babe used to rough house and play football when he was younger, but one day he hurt his hand playing. He says that “my hand and fingers contracted to the wrist and curled under, and I was in excruciating pain from my wrist all the way up the arm.” The pain would come back whenever he used his hands too much. The pain would stay with him for decades, even after the war.

His friends decided to rent a room, fix it up, and make a dance hall called the Shindig. He and his friends were at the dance hall on December 7, 1941.The brothers decided to tell their parents before enlisting. His father had a talk with them the next day, without their mom. Babe states that, “He told us that we had to fight for our country and for the freedom of those less fortunate than ourselves. He made it clear he wouldn’t accept a slacker for a son and that he was expecting us to do our part.” His father had previously served in World War I, so Babe knew what was expected of him.

Babe enlisted in August of 1942. His brother Joe was drafted into the Army while Jake and Jimmy were in the Navy. His call to service was on November 7, 1942. Which his official date of when he went on Active Duty. Babe was working at a shipyard in New Jersey at the the time. His job was to help fix up ships to become aircraft carriers and he hadn’t told them about his enlistment. His boss handed him a 2B slip, stating that he did not have to serve because his work served the war effort. Babe ripped it up in front of him. In Babe’s words: “I wasn’t going to shrink from my duty to my country. If my brothers, neighbors, and friends were all going, I wasn’t about to stay behind.

Babe went through Basic at Fort Eustis in Virginia, he was not a Toccoa boy. Meaning, Babe didn’t have the absolute joy of training under Sobel.He was assigned to B Battery, an anti-aircraft unit. He was promoted to a tech corporal and helped prepare future officers for officer candidate school. When he had arrived, he instantly put in the paperwork to become a paratrooper, but was told to finish Basic Training first. Six to Seven months later, he was given the okay and was on his way to Fort Benning, Georgia. Babe was not in Jump School until January of 1943. In Fort Benning, he was put with 1st Parachute Infantry Regiment, K company.

Night life was limited. The boys spent most of their time by reading, listening to one man’s radio, or talking about home. Lights out was at 10:00 PM and they were up by 5:00 AM. When they did get to have some more time, Babe and others went to the Bama Club nearby. One day, a wife of an officer hosted a competition. Her best jitterbug partner got a bottle of champagne. Babe went up and danced with her. He ended up winning the competition.

In jump school, Babe made a new best friend, Johnny Julian. Johnny was from Alabama and both men thought the other talked weird since Julian had a strong southern drawl and Babe did not. Babe said, “He was clean-cut, believed in God, believed in everything I believed in, believed his was coming home. We could talk to each other real easy.” Babe and Julian also became friends with J.D Henderson. Together, the three made a pact, that if one died the survivors would have to tell the parents. The trio stuck together through Jump School.

Babe loved jumps, even though his hands provided extra difficulty. He enjoyed the beauty of the day jumps, but disliked the night jumps. Night jumps were dangerous and one night, a plane crashed, killing all the men inside the plane. The night jumps were cancelled at the camp and the men were transferred to Camp Mackall for their final jump. Babe got his Jump Wings in March.

He was transferred to Camp Shanks, preparing to go home one last time before heading out overseas. In May of 1944, Babe was headed out overseas. When they reached, Liverpool, England, they had learned that the 101st and 82nd had jumped into Normandy. Babe was not part of the D-Day jump, instead he was a replacement for the troops who didn’t return from that jump. Babe, Henderson, and Julian were all transferred to Easy Company once they returned.

Easy Company’s barracks were in the middle of Aldbourne, England. Babe was told to visit Bill Guarnere. Guarnere, also from South Philadelphia, noticed that when Babe walked in, he walked like a penguin. This walk was like a duck, side to side, which Guarnere recognized as the South Philly shuffle. Guarnere and Babe only lived a short distance from each other in South Philly.

Babe learned that replacements were not easily accepted. Toccoa Men wanted little to do with the replacements. They had trained together, jumped together, fought together, and mourned together. They didn’t want much to do with a replacement, didn’t talk to them and sure as hell didn’t want to fight with one. Babe was assigned to a Toccoa vet’s gun squad, Joe Toye’s. Joe Toye, unlike the others, didn’t give a damn if Babe was a replacement and accepted him. Chuck Grant was another Toccoa man that accepted Babe easily, even gave him a new nickname: Jigger. Guarnere was also often with Babe, going out to pubs and dances. Even so, Babe stuck with his fellow replacement friends, Julian and J.D.

Babe and his friends enjoyed their time in England. Babe was often jitterbugging with girls and dancing away. They went to several different dance halls and other places. Even when they were supposed to be watching over the shed that held their chutes, Chuck Grant and Babe never made it to the shed. They never did. They were always off somewhere, enjoying a pub or two.

During his time at Aldbourne, Babe’s girl back home, Doris broke up with him. She dumped him in a letter because she’d found another man. Babe didn’t much care about it. He hadn’t even visited her before he had left for England on his last weekend pass, saying that a previous weekend with her had been, “the most boring few hours [he] could’ve spent.” The world had a funny sense of humor, because the plane Babe boarded to jump into Holland, was named Doris.

Babe was eager to jump. Babe made the jump into Holland on September 17. The jump in Holland went easy. Babe helped one mad who’d broken his leg during the jump off the field, but other than that there was not much, if any, combat. The Dutch greeted the paratroopers in celebration. They loved the paratroopers and called them angels from the sky. In Son, they received word to take Eidenhoven. On the route there, a Dutch woman gave Babe a baby carriage for him to carry his supplies in. He did so until Popeye threw his weapons in, then Babe made him push the carriage.

His platoon was the first to enter the city, and he instantly set up his machine gun by a footbridge, facing an entry way into the towns. Dutch underground members asked to attack the Germans instead, and Babe allowed them to. When the Germans appeared, the Dutch attacked them and killed all but one. The injured German was taken as a prisoner, but first a woman asked where he was hurt and when he pointed to his shoulder, she beat him with a hidden brick in her pocketbook and screamed something along the lines of evil at him. Babe said that it made his day.

Babe had many close calls in Holland. In Nuenen, a tank caught on fire and all of the men inside had died, leading it to be driven into the ditch next to Babe. How he escaped, he doesn’t remember. Later on, he thought he was hit but Buck Compton has been hit in his butt, tripped over a wheelbarrow, and hit Babe’s leg on his way down. Guarnere and others eventually rescued Compton.

To escape the Germans, Babe had to get over a 6 foot hedge. To get over, Babe had to back into German fire and get a running start. As he jumped, his rosary came off of him. Sheehy grabbed his jump jacket and pulled him over the hedge. Babe, reluctantly, was about to leave his rosary behind, but found it inside his helmet. His mother had given him the rosary before he left and he was determined to carry it through the war.

Then he had another close call as the Germans shelled a cemetery he was standing in. One last one was when he was stuck in a ditch, with Germans firing at them. He went to return fire when Guarnere kicked him backwards and back into the ditch, saving him from getting shot while Guarnere himself still stood in the fire. Another close call was in October. Babe witnessed Joe Toye and Jim Campbell go into enemy territory. Toye had called for Babe, but Campbell stepped up instead, telling Babe to stay back. Campbell was hit in the back with a shell and died instantly. Toye was wounded pretty badly. But Campbell stuck out in Babe’s mind, for he had taken the hit for Babe. Babe never forgot him.

One time, when stopped by a river, Babe fell asleep by his machine gun. When he woke up, another paratrooper was peeing on his gun, since it was too dark to see. Babe started screaming and yelling, ready to kill the man. He never did shut up.

Babe was on the front lines for 73 days in Holland. When they reached Mourmelon for their rest. All the boys who were left after Holland got dysentery. Bill, as Babe envies, missed this because he had been hit and taken to a hospital. Even with dysentery, the men continued to train and work. In December, they had all received weekend passes to various towns when Bill ran in with the news that they were leaving, the Germans had broken through the Ardennes. Their weekend passes were off and they were headed into one of the worst winters Belgium had without winter gear. They had no combat gear, no ammo, no supplies. They were headed, unprepared, into the winter.

They arrived outside of Bastogne in the early morning. Their greeting was disgraceful to Babe. They encountered American soldiers fleeing. These soldiers tried to convince them to turn back. It was a disgraceful sight for the men to see. Medical supplies were extremely limited after this. On the way up, the 101st medical company was captured, but Babe offered to go get more supplies with another soldier. On the way back, when dark gave them cover to move around, Babe suggested they take a shortcut through the woods. Babe fell into a hole he didn’t see in the dark, snowy forest. Below him, a voice asked, “Hinkle, Hinkle, ist das du?”

Babe scrambled out of the foxhole and yelled, “Hinkle your ass, Kraut!” And then he ran.

Babe attended Mass in the snow one day when Father Maloney came up. They took communion in the snow and used the Father’s jeep as an altar. Skip Muck was in front of Babe once, after the communion, Babe said: “At least if we die, we’re going to die in a state of grace.” Skip agreed with him.

They lost track of days out in Bastogne. It was a despairing, never ending situation. But the boys were determined. Babe states that, “If our general would have said, “Drop your weapons,” I don’t think a man in the 101st would have surrendered. Wouldn’t have happened. I think they would have gone against his orders. As bad off as we were. as cold as we were, as hungry as we were, I don’t think an American Airborne soldier could throw down his gun.” The armored division, according to Babe, likes to believe they saved the Airborne at Bastogne. But Babe says all they did was end the siege. The paratroopers were there before, during the fighting, and after the fighting.

Joe Toye and Babe had another close call on New Year’s Eve. At exactly midnight, the artillery started shelling the Germans. But the shells started falling short and were landing right in front of Toye and Babe’s foxhole untl Toye called the men in charge and told them to aim better. Turns out, Joe Toye has shit luck, because he was hit in a German air raid by shrapnel the next day. He came back the next morning.

Eisenhower, much to the dislike of the paratroopers, decided to launch an offensive on Foy and Noville. This extended their stay in the bitter cold, when they thought they were going to be relieved soon. Needless to say, not many were happy.

The same day, January 1, Babe received word Julian had been hit. Babe ran to where Julian was. The Germans had shot him through the throat and whenever someone tried to move towards Julian, they fired at them. Babe couldn’t get Julian away from the Germans. Julian had wanted his class ring, wallet, and watch to be returned home if he died, but Babe couldn’t reach him. Julian died in the snow and Babe couldn’t reach him. When the Germans were finally pushed back away from Julian, his patrol members told Babe he could visit Julian’s body if he wanted. Babe couldn’t do it. He refused because he couldn’t stand to see Julian that way. His only relief was that Julian hadn’t suffered long.

Times were tough for Easy. Although Toye came back January 2, the day after Julian died, the same day Hoobler accidentally shot himself and died. Babe says he was gone before they got him out of the forest. January 3, it started snowing and the boys went back into their foxholes in the Bois Jacques forest. They had just reached the foxholes when the Germans started shelling them. Toye lost his leg in the shelling and Guarnere lost his leg trying to help Toye. Babe tried to light a cigarette for Guarnere, not sure how to help the men. He thought they were both going to die. But a kid in a Jeep pulled by with ammo, Jackson pulled a gun on him and told him to take Guarnere and Toye back, probably saving their lives.

January 10, the Germans shelled them again. When the shelling started, Babe was talking to Penkala and Muck in their foxhole, which was a short distance away from his. As the shelling began, Luz ran by. Penkala and Muck yelled for Luz to join them in theirs. But Luz dove into his own. Shortly after that, a shell exploded directly in Penkala and Muck’s foxhole. When Luz and Babe went over to their foxhole, Babe says that it wasn’t normally like how they went, they just evaporated. There was little left, if anything. “They has just vanished into thin air.” Babe, even while mourning the loss of his friends, couldn’t help thinking that it could’ve been him. Babe believes that Muck, much like he said in the communion together, died in a state of grace and he thought of Muck with every communion afterwards.

By Mid January, they advanced on Foy. The well-known story of Speirs saving the day in Foy. They dug in outside of Foy. When they were preparing to advance on Noville, Babe found he could no longer use his hands without splitting pain. He couldn’t hold a gun anymore due to the pain. He had even tried rubbing ice onto his hands to loosen them up, but the pain was too severe. He was in the hospital for 5 days and 4 nights because his calcium was too low. During his hospital stay, he encountered a nurse from South Philly. She said that he looked like an old man. “That’s what war will do, turn a nineteen-year-old kid into a man.” Due to the fact Babe’s hands were so bad, there was nothing the doctors could do. Babe had to go AWOL to get back to Easy, much like his friend Guarnere had earlier in the war.

He hitchhiked his way back to the company. When he got back, Easy was sent to Hagenau to hold the line up there, but they stayed in houses this time. They spent a few weeks there, crossing the river nearby and capturing German prisoners (Jackson died on one of these trips). They had been fighting for two and a half months by the time they were finally relieved and taken back to Mourmelon.

By the end of March, Easy Company was heading out again. They were headed to Germany, the Ruhr pocket near the bank of the Rhine River. The men were going from house to house to search out Germans. Babe had nightmares about for years about an incident that happened on patrol. His orders were to clean out one side of town, when he stumbled upon a bomb shelter. The procedure was supposed to be throwing a grenade in the bomb shelter and then kicking the door open. Babe felt he shouldn’t throw the grenades, and he told the others not to and kicked the door open. He stumbled upon a girl about 20 years old, with toddlers and an old couple was behind her. Babe had nightmares about what would’ve happened if he had thrown the grenade first and accidentally killed them. He says he wouldn’t have been able to live if he had killed them.

On another patrol, Spina and Babe stumbled upon several men in the house. They had a small jar of money with them. Babe and Spina took the money, which the other men claimed was a payroll, and the next day gave it out to displaced persons (recently liberated from camps) after church. They’d earned it.

They stayed on duty till the end of April. After that, Babe and Easy Company were on their way to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. They stopped in Landsberg for a few days, where they learned a Concentration Camp was located. When Easy arrived, the sight was devastating. In his words, “If any of the guys didn’t know why we were fighting, they knew then.” He continues later, “If anyone tells you the Holocaust didn’t happen, or that it wasn’t as bad as they say, no it was worse than they say...It wasn’t fair.”

Easy Company soon continued after helping liberate the camp and made their way up to the Eagle’s Nest. As they went. they passed many German soldiers surrendering and many dead SS officers. Some took their lives, other times the French killed them, and Easy let them have that. On May 5, Easy took Berchtesgaden and were the first ones in the Eagle’s Nest. There, with little resistance, they looted and drank to their hearts content. Babe didn’t like the drink choices very much, so he didn’t drink much. But he says he did have a glass of Hitler’s champagne.

On May 7, Babe was directing POW traffic when a car pulled up to him. A German general and colonel sat in it. The general was driving the colonel. The colonel told Babe that the general, General Tolsdorf, wanted to surrender to someone of equal rank and asked Babe to find someone. Babe told him to get out of the car. The general got out of the car and saluted to Babe. Babe didn’t salute back and sent the general on his way to Colonel Sink with another lieutenant. Babe then searched his car and took anything of value with him. Babe later learned that this specific general had been in command of the German troops in the Bois Jacques woods.

May 8, 1945 the war was over. Easy Company left the Eagle’s Nest and went to Saalfelden, where Babe looted and got a gold sword with a swastika engraved on it, encrusted with stones. He took it with him. They were transferred to Kaprun, where they stayed for several months. There Babe met a small, Polish girl, Annie, from a DP camp. (This was common among the troopers and some even married the women in the camps) Sadly, at the end of July, Babe had to leave. Easy Company boarded a train for France, but somehow Annie had found his train. Annie chased after him, with a small suitcase, and the boys hung Babe out the boxcar by his ankles. Annie gave up chasing him after a while.

In France, Babe did his last jump, this was a qualification to receive jump pay. The man before him hesitated and when Babe got him out of the plane, Babe had jumped wrong. He was facing the wrong way (towards the motor, not the tail) and his ropes were tangled. Babe panicked and started saying his Hail Marys. He eventually got his legs untangled, his chute opened, and he landed safely.

Babe was discharged in December of 1945. He arrived back home and meet his brothers, Jimmy and Joe, and his father at a local bar. His mother had suffered a heart attack while he was gone, but she had recovered. Babe went to work when he got home. He only worked 2 jobs, and both of them were with Guarnere. He worked at the waterfront as a cargo checker and clerk. He worked there for 27 years until his retirement.

Babe returned to playing football every weekend. He played on a team with other veterans from the war. He played with that team until he was 32. He also went back to betting on horses. There’s even one named after him in Ireland. The horse is Babe Heffron, and it jumps hurdles. Babe was pretty amazed by the fact he had a horse named after him.

A year after the war, Babe went to go find Bill Guarnere. Babe found him shooting dice in the street. Babe immediately jumped on him, forgetting that Bill was wearing a prosthetic leg. Bill told him that he had thought he was the cops at first. Babe and Bill went out for a drink, Babe met Bill’s wife. Babe and Bill were inseparable after that. They attended Easy Company reunions (which Bill started and ran for 60 years) together, went to Europe many times together, worked together. They worked on construction projects and each others houses together. Bill copied Babe’s phrases, to the annoyance of Babe. They even got arrested together. They went to an Holocaust memorial dinner together, where they met survivors of the Concentration Camp Babe helped liberate. Bill was Babe’s best man at his wedding.

Babe married Dolores Kessler when he was 37. She had three kids from a previous marriage, Dolly, Harry, and Bobby. Two years later, Babe and Dolores had a daughter named Patricia, who they called Trisha. Trish called her godfather, Bill Guarnere, Uncle Bill.

Babe’s hands healed 23 years after he first got home. His hands never bothered him again. He figures his body was lacking something, and after drinking a lot of milk, he got it. He was never told what was wrong with him.

Babe couldn’t face Julian’s mother for 12 years. He finally contacted her and he visited her at her daughter’s house nearby. Babe gave her the regimental scrapbook, the only one he owned. Babe broke down, while Julian’s mom remained tough. “She was a better soldier than I was,” Babe said. “I knew Julian was looking down on me saying, “Good job, well done.””

Band of Brothers was published and soon the HBO series was in production. Babe and Guarnere were brought out to meet their actors, who they had only had phone conversations with. Robin Laing, a Scottish actor, was playing Babe. Babe had some concerns on how Robin would play him, especially with the South Philly accent, but they vanished when he met Robin. He even teased Robin about the Philly Accent, but told Robin that he did fine. According to Babe, Robin sounded just like him. Robin even had rosary beads and scapular, just like Babe in the war, which touched Babe dearly.

Bill and Babe stayed at a fine hotel, with HBO providing an open tab, and invited the actors back for drinks. They drank those poor kids under the table and by the end of the stay, they had a $5,000 liquor bill. in the hotel, Bill and Babe gave away any momentos they could to others. One time, Babe put three shirts on, saying, “I know they ain’t gonna get me this time...”, but by the end of the night both men were in their underwear in the hotel. They had given nearly everything away. Babe even gave Robin his scapular, the very one he’d carried through the war.

Babe had told Richard Speight Jr., who played Skip Muck, about his last communion with Skip. After the communion scene, Speight turned to Robin and said, “Well, Heffron, if we die, we’ll die in a state of grace.” Babe was forever touched by Speight’s actions.

Babe, although he did not watch most of the series because it was too hard to handle, did have a guest appearance in one of the episodes. He’s seen as a cameo in Holland, when Talbert is kissing a Dutch girl.

After Band of Brothers, Babe and Bill had a book published together about their story. Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends was published in 2007.

Babe died on December 1, 2013. His ashes, along with his wife’s, were later put in bronze heart and put it a statue dedicated to him in his hometown of Philadelphia. Guarnere also has a statue in Philadelphia, so even in death the two are never far apart.

#edward heffron #profiles #band of brothers #babe heffron #Real Life Band of Brothers #real band of brothers

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youvegotyourvictory · 6 years

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Hamilton on Broadway

08.25.18

Yesterday was two months since I saw Hamilton with one of my very best friends. Making a list of some things I never want to forget.

1. I imagine death so much, it feels more like a memory

I’ve been listening to Hamilton for almost two and a half years. This line still hits me the same way it did when I was first learning the words.

2. Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now

At the most random times, this line hits me like a bus. It’s not every day, but sometimes I do think about how miraculous it is that any of us are alive. How lucky we are.

3. King George is even funnier live and the album really doesn’t do his facial expressions justice, there’s no way it could. Just.....every time he was on stage, I laughed

4. Dying is easy, young man, living is harder

I think about this line all the time. Washington says it to Alex and obviously it speaks to Alex’s character, because he’s always willing to die but never really willing to use his strengths to stay alive. He always wants to fight and is ready to verbally take down anyone he deems fit—willing to die in a war that’s never really going to be his own, just to prove himself. All of that is so much easier than living.

5. Eliza in Helpless

I already love Eliza so much—both fictionalized character and real life woman—but she’s so cute in Helpless. It’s so great to see her this in love.

6. King George saying, “Everybody!” in You’ll Be Back and people coming out of the woodwork just so they can sing along with him

7. If there’s a reason I’m still alive when everyone who loves me has died then I’m willing to wait for it

I’ve spent a few late nights thinking about this, thinking of the legacy Burr left behind—how he just wanted to keep his mouth shut and stay out of trouble, until the moment it really counted. I can’t imagine all that must’ve motivated him, knowing he was the only person he had left. Everyone around him had died, and still he wanted to keep his head down and wait for a reason to do more.

8. Tomorrow there’ll be more of us

It’s probably for the best that this song isn’t on the original cast recording because if it was I would definitely cry every time I listened to it. I can’t even begin to express how much it kills me that John Laurens died before he could lead his regiment to safety—and ultimately, freedom. And Alex’s reaction to it, his pause and then, breathless, “I have so much work to do”—his immediate need to work faster and harder than he had before. There’s no doubt anywhere that he was deeply in love with Laurens.

On Tuesday the 27th, my son was killed in a gunfight against British troops retreating from South Carolina. The war was already over. As you know, John dreamed of emancipating and recruiting three thousand men for the first all-black military regiment. His dream of freedom for these men dies with him.

9. The part of Non-Stop when Angelica and Eliza are on the outer ring of the stage and then Hamilton is talking about both of them and once he’s done talking to Angelica the stage starts moving so she drifts away from him and then Eliza comes in to view

This is really one you just have to see in person to fully appreciate

10. Jefferson in the purple suit

I have never seen an article of clothing transform someone so easily and completely. Before, Lafayette was careful, calculated, etc, but as soon as the purple suit came out, he did a total 180 and strutted everywhere, fully in control of the stage. It was like magic.

11. Hamilton’s green suit

It’s a look and probably an aesthetic choice that some people don’t care for, but boy do I love it

12. The cabinet battles

Honestly what took everything to that next level was the fact that we were in New York watching it. Hearing “You could’ve been anywhere in the world tonight, but you’re here with us in New York City” felt so....incredible because I had never even listened to Hamilton in the city before. And it was true—we really could’ve been anywhere else, but we were there, in the theatre, watching it all unfold.

13. Take a Break

One of my favorites in the play, due entirely to Alex and Angelica’s exchange in the second verse. Also, Eliza’s beatboxing and Philip’s pride when he raps for Alex is something I wish I could replay forever. Hearing the screams of “un, deux, trois, quatre, and CIIIIIIIIIINQ” was something that made all of us burst into cheers and applause

In a letter I received from you two weeks ago, I noticed a comma in the middle of a phrase. It changed the meaning—did you intend this? One stroke and you’ve consumed my waking days. It says, “My dearest Angelica” with a comma after ‘dearest.’ You’ve written “my dearest, Angelica.”

The breath between ‘dearest’ and ‘Angelica’ is so much more pronounced live and I really wish I could live in that moment for the rest of my life

I also really love how they both take the time to focus on this and show that it holds a lot of weight and meaning to each of them, and then after a pause Angelica says, “Anyway, all this to say...” completely moving on from the subject

14. Southern motherfucking democratic republicans

No need to even say more than that. Y’all already know.

Actually I lied. I didn’t remember a lot from the bootleg going into this because it had been a decent amount of time since I’d last watched the whole thing—usually if it pops up on YouTube again I just listen to the few songs I know will make me sob, the ones I really want to hear, and then I leave it alone. I think in my head I kind of wanted to save it until I could finally see it in person. Before seeing it live, I think I’d only watched the bootleg all the way through maybe two times. It just felt like something I needed to wait for. It was well worth it. Anyway, like I said, I didn’t remember much so I certainly didn’t remember the shot of Burr, Jefferson, and Madison all walking together across the stage with the spotlight on them as they sang this part. Power move.

15. King George pulling up a stool so he can watch everything unfold, see all the drama as it happens, and watch Hamilton destroy his own career

I lost it at this part. I knew that he does this, but seeing it in person just made it so much funnier. Again, I think it was mainly due to really being able to see his facial expressions there. Just the thought of King George sitting there as all of this is happening in the 1700s is so funny to me and it’s just.....god it’s good

16. King George throwing Reynolds pamphlets and dancing around Hamilton was just....top-tier comedy

17. Hamilton’s black suit

That velvety suede one. If you know you know

18. Eliza’s scream at the end of Stay Alive (Reprise)

This was one of the moments I couldn’t forget the first time I watched the bootleg. No matter what I’m doing or where I am, if I’ve been completely fine throughout the rest of the songs, this is the moment that gets me every time. It’s always guaranteed to make me start crying. Not only is it heart wrenching to hear her scream after Philip has just died, but to see her yank her hand away from Alex when he tries to comfort her is something that’s been with me ever since that first watch. I don’t think I’ll ever really forget it.

19. It’s Quiet Uptown

I knew I wouldn’t make it out of this without sobbing. I usually don’t make it through the OCR without crying, and seeing it in person is so much more painful. Alex pleading with Eliza, telling her he’d change everything if he could, telling Philip that he would love where they moved to. Seeing Alex grieving, and then to see Eliza come in and be completely stoic, refusing to even look in Alex’s direction. Also the fact that literally everyone looks weary and so incredibly run down—even Angelica in her narration looks like she’s been crying for weeks.

Can you imagine?

Alex turning one of Eliza’s phrases back on her—look at where we are, look at where we started—he knows he’ll never be able to make this all up to her but he still begs her to let him in and let him try to help her.

It speaks volumes that all records state that Hamilton was never the same after Philip died—a large portion of him died that day too. Can you imagine?

Eliza, do you like it uptown? It’s quiet uptown.

One of the parts that gets me every single time, without fail: Look around, look around, Eliza.

I started crying during the last song and didn’t stop through the entirety of this one, but one part that made the tears flow faster was Eliza’s gentle “It’s quiet uptown” and Alex’s breakdown as soon as she speaks for the first time.

There’s a part in the Hamilton companion book that Lin wrote where he describes something that happened to the company during rehearsals and every time I read it I cry and cry, so I’ll just leave you with it:

The power of “It’s Quiet Uptown” was intact from its first day: Actors cried while singing it, the production team cried while listening to it, Andy couldn’t bear to choreograph it, not with his daughter, Sofia, fighting cancer, and getting sick on the way to school, and the whole family hoping the next round of chemotherapy would work. ... On November 16, 2014, Oskar and Laurie Eustis’s beloved son, Jack, died. He was 16 years old. ... Oskar and Laurie were about to spend half a year or more in the world of a show that pivots on the loss of a child. ... Two weeks later, the full company assembled for the first sing-through of the show ... when Oskar and Laurie walked in. ... Hearing “It’s Quiet Uptown” for the first time since their unimaginable loss was bound to be wrenching. It was wrenching, for everyone. When the sing-through ended, we offered words of consolation that were heartfelt but inadequate before a grief larger than anyone could comprehend. There was one thing that the Hamilton company didn’t know that day. When Lin had learned of Jack’s death, he had sent an email to Oskar and Laurie expressing his deepest condolences. He also sent them the demo recording of “It’s Quiet Uptown.” “If art can help us grieve, can help us mourn, then lean on it,” he wrote. If they preferred to delete the song, he would understand.

Oskar and Laurie did lean on it. In the rehearsal studio that afternoon, nobody knew that “It’s Quiet Uptown” was the only song they had listened to in their first week of mourning. They had listened to it every day.

20. Best of Wives and Best of Women

This one gets me every time. I know I’ve said that about everything so far, but god....this one is so meaningful.

I can’t say anything that will be better than what Lin has already said about the song so I’ll leave you with the liner notes he wrote from the Hamilton companion book:

In the musical of my life after I’m long gone, my wife Vanessa is going to be the one who steps forward as the hero. Vanessa is not particularly fond of musicals—she only likes good ones. She is not effusive in her praise, or boastful. But when I looked up from that Chernow book and said, “I think this is a hip-hop musical,” she didn’t laugh, or roll her eyes. She just said, “That sounds cool.” And that was all I needed to get started. As I fell in love with the idea of a love triangle between Eliza, Alexander, and Angelica, she said, “Can you have Angelica rap? That would be cool.”

I am someone who is so averse to travel that I wrote a whole musical about not wanting to leave my block in Washington Heights. It was Vanessa who booked us trips and time away from New York. “You don’t get any writing done here because life keeps popping up.” Thanks to her, Hamilton was written in Mexico, Spain, Nevis, Sagaponack, St. Croix, Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic—long trips where Vanessa would take me there and then leave me alone to write while she explored. She is my first audience, and she’s a tough audience, so I know if I impress her I’ve cleared the highest possible bar. She’ll come home from work and say, “Your king tune was stuck in my head all day—that’s probably a good sign.”

This started out as a note trying to explain how my wife really is the ‘best of wives and best of women,’ but I’m trying to get at something more important—this show simply doesn’t exist without Vanessa. It’s a love letter to her.

21. The World Was Wide Enough

There’s nothing I could say here that would accurately sum up this one, so I’ll simply put this:

Death doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints—it takes and it takes and it takes. History obliterates. In every picture it paints, it paints me and all my mistakes. When Alexander aimed at the sky, he may have been the first one to die, but I’m the one who paid for it. I survived, but I paid for it. Now I’m the villain in your history. I was too young and blind to see. I should’ve known. I should’ve known the world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me. The world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me.

One thing I’ll always remember: in the Hamilton documentary, Leslie Odom, Jr. is talking about Burr’s legacy, basically that he did all of these other things in his lifetime—a long war career, accomplished lawyer, worked with Hamilton on the first murder trial of the country, etc—but the one thing he’s most remembered for is being the man who shot Hamilton in a duel. Leslie talks about how much more Burr could’ve done if the duel hadn’t gone down the way it did, that it was a really sad moment in history, that Burr wasn’t a lonely man when he shot Hamilton. Burr had friends, a great job, so many things going for him, but still he chose to shoot Hamilton in that moment. Leslie goes on to say, “I think that our show is doing a really good job of...reminding us that....all of us are more than one thing.”

There’s another moment, from Lin’s episode of Drunk History, where he describes the duel and says, “And so, Burr’s the monster. And what’s ironic about that is Burr was never the monster. Burr was the cautious motherfucker who never let his opinion be known. And Hamilton was the reckless motherfucker who let his opinion be known about everything. And in the one moment where it counted most, Hamilton was cautious, and Burr was reckless. And that defined their legacies forever.”

22. There’s a moment that Lin took out that we don’t get to see, but I’m going to include it here anyway. Eliza, reading Hamilton’s last letter to her—the one he was writing when she begged him to “come back to bed, that would be enough.” Among his last words are these:

I need not tell you of the pangs I feel, from the idea of quitting you and exposing you to the anguish which I know you would feel. With my last idea; I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world. Adieu best of wives and best of Women. Ever yours

23. Eliza in the finale

As I said, I already love Eliza so much, but hearing this final song is something I’ll always think about.

Eliza lived fifty years beyond Hamilton’s death, something I can’t even begin to imagine doing. Of all the things Hamilton put her through, she still loved him in the end. In her own words—I am so tired, it is so long. I want to see Hamilton.

Again, during this I couldn’t help but remember the fact that we were in the very city where much of this musical takes place. All of these real events occurred in this city.

Hearing Eliza recount all she had done after Hamilton’s death is inspiring and exhausting and amazing, but the line that always got me and I knew would hit me even harder in New York City....

Oh. Can I show you what I’m proudest of? [The orphanage.] I establish the first private orphanage in New York City. [The orphanage.] I help to raise hundreds of children. I get to see them growing up. [The orphanage.] In their eyes I see you, Alexander. I see you every time.

Not only does she establish this orphanage, but it still lives on today. Eliza’s orphanage lives on in the form of the Graham Windham organization, a fact that always blows me away. She established and served as director of the orphanage for 27 years—she dedicated a significant portion of her life to this work. And to know that we were in the city where she did this, where she got to see the Hamilton legacy growing before her very eyes in the form of these children—I lost it.

Oh, I can’t wait to see you again. It’s only a matter of time.

Two months have passed and I still can’t believe I was there, really seeing Hamilton the way it was intended to be seen. I’ll never forget it, and I hope someday I’ll get to do it again.

#finally I got around to typing all this out!!#sorry for the long post I just really had a lot to say!!!!!!#hamilton0825 #text #personal

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stephaniemarlowftw · 5 years

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DRAB MAJESTY FALL INTO THEIR PRIME AND “OUT OF SEQUENCE”

Watch the new music video for the latest single to precede the July 12 release of Modern Mirror.

The release of Drab Majesty’s shimmering new album Modern Mirror is tomorrow, and the intergalactic duo is marking the occasion with a fourth and final single. The track, album closer “Out Of Sequence,” encapsulates the echoic, otherworldly undertones that pervade Modern Mirror. The world will get to hear Drab Majesty’s synth-fueled masterpieces in a live setting starting July 24, when the band embarks on a lengthy US and European tour. A full itinerary can be found below.

Watch the dangerously trippy “Out Of Sequence” video now via Paste Magazine.

Modern Mirror was recorded after a spat of intense touring alongside The Smashing Pumpkins and Deafheaven, leading Deb and Mona to decamp to the sun-bleached landscapes of Athens, Greece. Inspiring their most ambitious work yet, the picturesque landscapes and mystical beauty of the country fuels the album’s eight blissed-out tracks. The album even draws inspiration from the myth of Ovid’s “Narcissus”, using its premise as groundwork for a modern reinterpretation.

Each song on Modern Mirror is a crucial part of this fantastical narrative, in which the listener’s own self-identity has become warped and dissociated through rapidly expanding technology, losing touch with the origins of their own personalities. While its inspirations are myriad, Modern Mirror is ultimately a journey of self-reflection, nostalgia, love, beauty, and heartbreak told across eight addictive and emotional synth pop anthems – a seemingly classic tale delivered unblinkingly through the frame of the modern world.

Marking the band’s most collaborative effort to date, Modern Mirror was produced by Josh Eustis (Telefon Tel Aviv), mastered by Dave Cooley, and includes appearances from Jasamine White-Gluz (No Joy) and Justin Meldal-Johnson (NIN, Beck, M83, Air).

Modern Mirror will be released this Friday on Dais Records. Pre-orders are available here.

Catch Drab Majesty on the road this summer and fall, and stay tuned for more dispatches.

Modern Mirror — Track Listing:

1. A Dialogue

2. The Other Side

3. Ellipsis

4. Noise of the Void

5. Dolls in the Dark

6. Oxytocin

7. Long Division

8. Out of Sequence

DRAB MAJESTY — NORTH AMERICAN HEADLINE TOUR:

July 24 - San Diego - Music Box ^

July 26 - LA - The Fonda Theatre ^

July 27 - Phoenix - Crescent Ballroom ^

July 28 - Santa Fe - Meow Wolf ^

July 30 - Dallas - Deep Ellum Art Co ^

July 31 - Austin - Mohawk ^

August 1 - Houston - White Oak ^

August 2 - New Orleans - One Eyed Jacks ^

August 3 - Atlanta - The Masquerade (Hell) ^

August 4 - Nashville - Exit/In ^

August 6 - Durham - The Pinhook ^

August 7 - Richmond - The Broadberry ^

August 8 - Washington DC - Union Stage ^

August 9 - Brooklyn - Music Hall Of Williamsburg ^

August 11 - Philadelphia - Underground Arts *

August 13 - Boston - The Sinclair *

August 14 - Montreal - Theatre Fairmount *

August 15 - Toronto - Velvet Underground *

August 16 - Detroit - El Club *

August 17 - Cleveland - Now That’s Class *

August 19 - Chicago - Thalia Hall *

August 20 - Minneapolis - Fine Line *

August 22 - Denver - 3 Kings Tavern *

August 23 - Salt Lake City - Urban Lounge *

August 24 - Boise - Visual Arts Collective *

August 26 - Seattle - Neumos *

August 27 - Vancouver - The Astoria *

August 28 - Portland - Wonder Ballroom *

August 30 - San Francisco - Great American Music Hall *

^ w/ Body of Light, HIDE

* w/ Body of Light, Xeno & Oaklander

DRAB MAJESTY — EUROPEAN HEADLINE TOUR:

September 18 UK, London - Dingwalls %

September 19 UK, Manchester - Soup Kitchen %

September 21 UK, Leeds - Wharf Chambers %

September 22 UK, Cardiff - Clwb Ifor Bach %

September 24 FR, Paris - Petit Bain %

September 25 FR, Lille - L'Aeronef %

September 26 NL, Nijmegen - Merleyn %

September 27 BE, Antwerp - Het Bos %

September 28 NL, Utrecht - DB´s %

September 30 DE, Köln - Bumann & Sohn %

October 1 DE, Wiesbaden - Schlachthof %

October 2 DE, München - Ampere %

October 3 DE, Leipzig - Conne Island %

October 4 DE, Hannover - Bei Chez Heinz %

October 5 DE, Berlin - Bi Nuu %

October 11 GR, Athens - The Temple

October 15 DE, Hamburg - Übel & Gefährlich #

October 16 DK, Copenhagen - Vega #

October 17 SE, Gothenborg - Musikens Hus #

October 18 NO, Oslo - BLA #

October 19 SE, Stockholm - Fristaden #

October 20 SE, Malmo - Plan B #

October 22 PL, Poznan - Pod Minogą #

October 23 PL, Gdansk - B90 #

October 24 PL, Warsaw - Hydrozagadka #

October 25 CZ, Prague - Klub 007 #

October 26 SK, Bratislava - Kulturák klub #

October 28 HU, Budapest - Dürer Kert #

October 29 AT, Wien - Arena #

October 30 SL, Lubijana - Gromka #

October 31 IT, Vicenza - Vinilie #

November 1 CH, Martigny - Caves du Manoir #

November 2 IT, Ravenna - Bronson #

% w/ SRSQ

# w/ Body of Light

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vangold · 2 years

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Underlost - Chapter 1 - Part 2

Welp, enough of the sleeping. Lets have some fine chaos and rescuing and exploding statist-characters :P

Also we already get the first hint of it that - oh wonder in a comic of mine - not all of the surviving passengers have English as their mother tongue. No worries at least about the French guy tho. He currently panics a bit, on a normal base his English is rather fluid tho :)

#Underlost #tales of the underverse #undertale #UnderlostFrisk #Lost #Crossover #Oceanic Flight 815 #AU #Miki Kiyoshi #Undertale Comic #Jack Eustis #Lily Thompson #Dorothy Gardner #Alex Tailor #Phillip von Aschenberg #Walter Wite

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deehollowaywrites · 8 years

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gwen: the early years

This one’s for @theabhorsen, who knows Jessa Taylor’s mom has got it going on.

1991

White horse owners were easy, because all they wanted was to make money. I put on the facade they liked to see, smile and posture and bearing like pieces of armor, my voice three notches below where it normally resided and my shoulders round, soft. Clothing was armor too: pencil skirt not so fitted as to draw attention to the wrong places, but still feminine; blouse long-sleeved to mask the muscles in my upper arms; heels high enough for stature, low enough for class.

“You changed your hair,” my mother said over Easter dinner, head tilted critically. “Why'd you go and fry it like that, hon? It looked real nice long, don't you think, Alf?”

My father's mouth was full of potatoes, happily, blocking his comment. My brother laughed and filled in, “All office-girl now, Gwen. You think anybody going to be fooled?”

I ate the rest of my lamb and tried not to think about how much money I'd dropped at the salon to smooth the kink out of my hair.

The flight was late, because a meeting like the one I was bound for required some bump in the road. By the time the Delta 747 rolled onto the tarmac at Blue Grass I'd sweated through my blouse, and my eyes were blurred from reading and rereading the breeding records, the lists of wins, the connections these people already had. They didn't need me, so far as I could tell. I had one thing to sell them, and it was something they could get cheaper from a dozen trainers.

I'd been shocked and tried not to show it, on the phone when the bigwig of Honeycomb Hills said she'd send someone to pick me up. Most owners didn't bother, let trainers flying in catch a cab or rent a car, unless the trainer was someone worth wooing. My head wasn't in the proper space to believe that of her. Cars were for Baffert, Zito, O’Neill—definitely not for Gwendolyn Jackson, Eustis-born and Ocala-bred, anonymous but for a string of wins at Gulfstream and a bit of shine at the Grove. Female was bad, black was worse, black and female and single worst of all, the wives of owners believing I was there to fuck their husbands foremost and let their horses lose as an afterthought. That the Hills was run now by a woman was a small mercy, though impressing women owners bore its own set of challenges.

The man waiting with a jacked-up Ford at the exit doors was not who I'd expected, not that I could reasonably expect anyone from a family I didn't know outside of distant views into winners' circles. He shifted the sign reading Jackson under his arm and stuck out his hand as I walked up. “Miss Jackson? Jimmy Hamilton.”

I shook, kept my face smiling, let him open the truck's door for me.

“Want some advice?” he said, pulling into traffic. I didn't and I did, the parts of me that hated having to listen to what white men with superiority complexes said fighting with the trainer at my core, who knew anything Jimmy Hamilton had to say about the sport was worth hearing. “Drop the smarm before we get there.”

I sat up straighter in my seat, finding no good response for that. He glanced at me. “It might work on some people—hell, I know it works on most, but she ain't that breed.” He chuckled as I still said nothing. “Miss Jackson, we all heard about the business with Mason Munro down in Tampa. This--” He waved at me, a broad sweep from my crossed knees to my head. “I doubt that's you. And she's interested in you.”

I had never been prone to blushing, thank God. Mason Munro, that sack of rotten hay with hair plugs on top, who'd be dogging me for the rest of my career, if Hamilton's comment was any indication. It was true, you could do things at the Grove and even at Gulfstream that wouldn't fly in Lexington or Louisville, where the industry liked to play at gentility.

I folded my hands on my knees. If he wanted the real me to show up, that's what he'd get. “She's interested, and I suppose you're resentful.”

“Could be,” he said, and turned into a broad lane. “Right now, I got no reason to be anything but polite.” He squinted at me over his sunglasses. He couldn’t have been five years older than me but the sun was doing its work on his skin. “Truth be told I'd love you taking Dashndot off my hands. He ain't suited to my sterling personality.”

There was a question I wanted to ask him, one he'd probably have a more useful response to than his sister, but we were parked outside the Hills buildings and Iona was on the porch, watching.

Her office seemed a little small. I knew she was still making a name--had barely started, her and her brother--but I also knew she'd inherited a solid foundation of old money and breeding connections. The barns outside were proof enough of wealth and skill. She sat down behind the desk and regarded me. “Thank you for coming up. The flight was all right?”

“Comfortable,” I said. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“I have neither time nor use,” she said, “for—shall we say—horseshit. Let's cut right to it. What can you give me that I don't already have?”

Despite what Jimmy had said my usual apparatus started clicking, the soft tones and empty pleasantries. “I'd find it a wonderful opportunity to work with the Hills, Ms. Hamilton, any trainer would, especially considering you've already got one of the best in-house. I'm serious about the sport and I believe I'd be a good fit--”

“What did I say about horseshit?” She tucked a loose lock of reddish hair behind her ear. She hadn't smiled since I'd stepped onto the front porch. “I didn't ask about your personality and I don't care. If abrasive individuals bothered me I wouldn't be working with my brother. What can you provide that I can't get somewhere else?”

“Florida,” I said. It was the only card in my hand, after all. “You're dug into Kentucky just fine, you'll always attract owners and trainers here, and in Louisville. You have a significant presence in New York already, courtesy of your father's proclivities. Florida...” I spread my hands on the desk. “Gulfstream is the next big thing. Guava Grove is a reliable moneymaker. It's the obvious next step.”

“I have friends in Florida,” Iona said. “Chavez in Miami, Peres in Tampa...a trainer named Andreesen's been recommended to me. So?”

“It's not just the tracks.” I watched her, her blue eyes not narrowed but wide and unblinking, fastened on me. “Even if you do retain multiple Florida trainers—and why wouldn't you—a concentrated effort there will at some point present access issues.”

“How so?”

“Ocala's arguably the best location for breeding Thoroughbreds,” I said, and hoped she wouldn't sit too high on her Kentucky dignity. Lexington people didn't like hearing that maybe central Florida’s limestone turned out stronger babies than their beloved bluegrass. “The Hills is, first and foremost, a breeding operation. You'll want to expand.”

Now she did blink, once, heavily. She wore no mascara, no makeup of any kind that I could see, not that her cheekbones needed it. “And you think you're the key to a breeding farm in Ocala.”

“Not just a breeding farm.” I breathed in. Might as well toss out everything I had. “A training center. Full service. Ocala's an hour from Tampa, four and a bit from Miami. The location would be ideal for training homebreds as well as wintering your runners here. Florida breeders, of course, would love a Hills stud in their backyard.”

Iona propped her cheek against her palm and smiled for the first time. “That's more like it.”

1995

“You're angry,” Victor said, a line appearing between his eyebrows. He traced my cheek with an index finger. “Anything I can do to make you less angry?”

“I'm not angry at you,” I said, which he knew, but which seemed important to confirm. “What a waste! Christ, Vic, I hate waste.”

“Comes of being raised on those starvation rations your dad calls dinner,” he said. He stood up from the kitchen bar and held out his arms. “Somebody tell that man his daughter's a baller and can pay for a night out now and then.”

“Someone tell him his daughter married a baller who can afford a night out every night.”

“Hmmm,” Vic said. He lifted me up from the stool and somehow my legs just found themselves around his waist. He tugged a braid of my hair, drawing it through his fingers. “I forget to mention I love your hair this way? Anyway, I kinda like staying in.”

I kissed him to let him know I agreed. It would've been easy to fall into him, let him carry me to bed and take my mind off things, but the anger steaming beneath my skin didn't want to dissipate. “Listen, if I'm angry, when Iona gets here she'll be twice as furious. I'm almost looking forward to it.”

“Iona,” Vic said, walking us backward up the hall, “is the exact opposite of dirty talk, baby.”

“I'll tell you what's dirty.” I untangled my legs from him and dropped onto the carpet. “That California motherfucker lighting horses up like they're fireworks. I don't know why she--”

He kissed my cheek, then my chin, his lips trailing down my throat. “I know you're right. But Gwennie, she won't be here 'til tomorrow.” He looked at me, eyes soft. “You can tell her all about it tomorrow.”

He was hard to resist when he called me Gwennie. He was always hard to resist, his curls and thighs that could smother a girl and his smile, every bit of him concentrated on me like I somehow deserved him.

In the morning I went to the track earlier than usual, Victor's hand slipping sleepily off my hip when I rolled out of bed. Everything in my barn was in order, thank God for small mercies, the filly who'd been favoring a left pastern the day before performing perfectly in her work-out. I leaned on the fence and waved to her exercise rider. “Bring her up, Frankie.”

When they reached the fence I ducked under and knelt, checking her wind and then her shins. “Excellent. Hand her off and get Touchandgo out here.”

“Yes ma'am,” Frankie said, and then, “Mrs. Hamilton, she looking for you.”

It was interesting to note who tacked on the Mrs. and who realized Iona was eternally a Ms. despite her married status. The nod I gave Frankie was probably more of a jerk of the head. “Noted. Please grab Touchandgo.”

If Iona wanted me, she knew where to find me.

She did find me, maybe forty minutes later, as I clocked the latest sprig of the Paradise Bay tree doing five furlongs in a minute ten. She stopped at the fence next to me and waved toward the colt pulling up. “Looking good, Gwendolyn.”

“He'll be ready for the Pacific Classic.” I looked at her sidelong to gauge her reaction. “If that's still in the works.”

“No reason not to head west,” she said. “I liked him at the Travers, and it's clear he's glad to be back home. He ships well. The weather in California shouldn't be a problem.”

Anything relating to California was making my lip curl lately, but that was my own business. After Bay Laurel's groom walked him off, Iona turned to face me. “Plenty of drama here this week.”

“It'd have been a sight less had that colt been where he belonged.”

“You don't know that,” she said. “The tests--”

“The tests will show exactly what everyone knows,” I snapped. “I'm so glad you need hard proof in black and white, Iona, really just so pleased that my word apparently means shit.”

“Your word has always meant plenty to me, Gwendolyn,” she snapped back. “The tests are gravy, paperwork for the lawyers to play with.”

That gave me pause. “Lawyers.”

“You think I'm here for anything other than to sue the hide off Rick Andreesen's back?” She tossed her head dismissively. “I trust you, I trust your work. I'm not here to check up on the state of your operation...I'm here to get what's mine.”

Some of the heat bled away from my skin. I braced my forearms on the fence. “I think we can agree I don't ask for much.”

“Certainly.”

“My God, Iona, promise me you won't use him again.” I looked at her and repeated what I'd said to Vic last night. “It's wasteful. A fine two-year-old run into the ground for no good reason? I can't work here and watch that.”

“Trust me,” she said. “Andreesen won't be within five yards of our barns ever again.”

“Righteously should've been mine to begin with,” I said, since we were all getting in our feelings. “I had room. I can't think why you went with--”

“You’re overworked,” she said. “There’s more in your string than I like to give trainers, frankly. You’ve had a good year so I let it slide, but Righteously would’ve put you in the weeds with everyone else suffering too.”

“I think I know my own limits.” My hands clenched on the rail, and I forced them open, circling a scratch in the white-painted metal. “I’ve been making you money since we started this little wonderland tour.”

“I’m well aware,” Iona said. The Miami sun was already starting to get to her, I noticed, a flush across the tops of her pale cheeks that would be a sunburn in two hours. “That’s why I want you in good shape. I need your consistency. I need you at the top of your game if we’re going to get South Hills off the ground.”

Whatever I’d been about to fire off died on my lips. “South Hills.”

Iona smiled, crookedly, about as much smile as she ever gave. “A name is always a good starting place.”

I stared at the track, red dirt and green turf like a baseball field scrambled. A pair of horses were galloping around the backstretch turn, too far away for their hoofbeats to be audible. Finally I said, “And you want me.”

Iona gathered her hair off her neck and bundled it into a ponytail. “Time to make good on your big talk. Ready to play real estate shark? We’re looking at a place just north of Ocala.”

I made her shake on it, just to be sure.

1999

Cris and Iona’s daughter was tiny for four years old, bones like a bird and her mother’s hair, mouthy. I hefted her up on my hip and pointed to the track. “See? That’s your momma’s. Do you know his name?”

“Raising Cain,” she lisped. Her eyes followed the colt as his rider galloped him past us. “Mommy says he’s the best.”

“He’s very good,” I told her. She was too young for me to ride my high-horse about how I’d trained him and not her uncle, whom everyone had expected, and in any case it was probably in poor taste to brag in front of a Hamilton, no matter how small she was. “Do we think he’s going to win the Florida Derby tomorrow?”

Felicity nodded vigorously, braids slapping her cheeks. “Duh! Mommy said he would.”

Mommy said this and Mommy said that. The kid was a momma’s girl, that was for sure. I wondered now and then what Iona would do with her daugher, whether there’d be more children or whether this pint-size heiress would inherit the farm and all that it entailed.

The mother in question strode up with her brother in tow. “Gwendolyn. Thanks for watching her.” She took her daughter back and set Felicity on the ground, keeping the girl’s hand in hers. “Only babysitting jockeys and colts for the rest of the weekend, I promise.”

Iona seemed to be in a good mood; her meeting with the Gulfstream stewards must’ve gone according to plan.

Jimmy nodded to me. “Gwen. Looking good.”

He didn’t mean me, but the colt now pulling up a few feet from the fence. I scanned Raising Cain at a distance. He really was something, nearly nineteen hands and muscled like a more mature horse in spite of his new-minted three-year-old status, coat shining nearly black in the sun. His rider, a jockey named Mike Ford, walked him over. We’d had to switch riders a few times in Cain’s two-year-old campaign, but I liked Ford for him. The jock was so quiet you barely knew he was there at all, a personality that seemed to do ok with the colt’s over-the-top antics. Previous riders had tried to muscle him, tell him his business. Only Ford had realized everything needed to seem like Cain’s own idea.

“He can do it,” I said, half to myself. I felt Jimmy move next to me, not quite a shrug and no mutter of disagreement. When I looked at him he wasn’t looking at me, but at the colt and Iona standing with him, one hand on Cain’s chest and the other still wrapped around her daughter’s fingers.

I wasn’t sure I’d let my daugher stand practically under a finicky colt’s hooves, but Felicity wasn’t mine.

“No disagreement on my end,” Jimmy said. “He pays off tomorrow, we all live large for a bit.”

“I know it’s too early to--”

“It’s never too early,” he said with a snort. “Iona’s had the fever for this one since before the Breeders’ Cup. I’m credulous, Gwen, you don’t have to be coy. It’s not hard to imagine that showy bastard going all the way.”

It was a little too easy to imagine. It was something I didn’t let myself imagine too often, every trainer’s dream tucked away in the back of my mind, fearful that speaking it out loud would jinx things. But Lord, how good the roses would look on Cain’s dark coat.

“We’ll see,” was all I said. “I’m not keen on his post position, but at least the weather’s been dry. Mud would’ve been a no-go with that slop monster of Garrison’s running from 8.”

“We going to see Vic around here any time soon?” Jimmy asked. When I looked at him he laughed. “What can I say, Gwen, your old man’s a riot.”

“Uh-huh. Well, this is a little early for him. Look for him in the bar tomorrow.”

“On that note, maybe I should get drunk and stay drunk ‘til the Orchid’s run,” Jimmy said drily. “I swear to Christ, that filly’ll be the death of me.”

“When will you admit fillies are your downfall?”

“We can’t all be as well-rounded as you,” he said. “Or was that a personal remark?”

I remembered a little late that his divorce had just been finalized, a game that wasn’t fun for anyone, even committed womanizers. “Not intentional. I’m sorry about that, Jimmy.”

“Ah.” He pulled his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket, then seemed to remember he was on a racetrack with horses. “The important thing is the boys.” He paused, then peered at me over his shades. “Seems like it’s getting to be about that time for you and Vic.”

My eyes skipped away from his and landed on Felicity, now sitting on the fence. She swung short legs and watched Mike Ford and Raising Cain trot away. I wondered where her father was, whether Cris was at the barn or in Gulfstream’s lounge, or--more likely--chatting up some breeder. There was more of Iona in Felicity, the hair and the shape of her face, the way she stared at people, too belligerent for a little girl. Not much of her father’s softness and humor. It was difficult to look at her and not wonder how any child of mine would turn out, if it would have my skin or Victor’s darker brown, my height or his, my square cheeks or his deep dimples. It was difficult, a little, to look at Felicity and remember the bloody mess of our attempts so far, a miscarriage two years before and another six months ago.

“Apologies,” Jimmy said, jerking my thoughts away from self-indulgent darkness. “Not my business, obviously.”

“It’ll happen,” I said, “or it won’t. Right now the only babies in my life are that diva of a colt and...so I hear...a little something about to pop out of Cubano Espresso.”

“You hear, huh?” Jimmy said, his voice back to its normal gruffness. “I’ll tell you, Gwen, you might have to fight me for that foal.”

“Well then,” I said, and smiled at him as Iona walked back over. “I’ll see you on the racetrack.”

#diana's writing #project: teenage flirtbags #u: honeycomb hills #oc: gwen taylor

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newyorktheater · 5 years

Text

André Bishop, head of Lincoln Center Theater: $1 million Todd Haimes, Roundabout: $922,000. Oskar Eustis the Public Theater: $659,000 Lynne Meadows, MTC: $565,000 Carole Rothman, Second Stage $191,000 James Nicola, New York Theatre Workshop: $178,000

These are the latest known annual compensation for the artistic heads of NYC non-profit theaters, compiled by Philip Boroff in Broadway Journal, who judiciously explains the artistic and financial accomplishments of each, and points out their sacrifices: Rothman’s salary represents a 50 percent paycut from her previous annual compensation while fundraising for the Hayes.

“Not-for-profit leaders forego the potential windfall that commercial producers earn from a blockbuster, in favor of a job with steady income. Yet some company trustees and foundation leaders privately call the biggest nonprofit packages excessive, the appearance of which can deter donors.”

November Theater Openings

Alia Shawkat in “The Second Woman”

October Quiz

The Week in New York Theater Reviews

Aran Murphyas Hamnet, in person and projected onto the screen, along with Bush Moukarzel as his father Shakespeare

Hamnet and the absent (projected) Shakespeare, his father

Hamnet

William Shakespeare’s only son, named Hamnet, died when he was 11 years old; a few years later, the playwright wrote “Hamlet.” The Irish theater troupe Dead Centre conjures up the Bard’s boy in the hour-long “Hamnet,” a whimsical, tender, technically innovative avant-garde play that features an extraordinary performance by a 12-year-old named Aran Murphy.

He Did What?

a ten-minute animated opera that was projected for free onto the wall of BAM’s Peter Jay Sharp building nightly from 7 to 10 p.m

Raul Esparza as a temperamental chef in “Seared”

W. Tre Davis

Raul Esparza and Krysta Rodriguez

Seared

Theresa Rebeck’s slight but savory comedy about running a restaurant stars Raúl Esparza as Harry, a hilariously mercurial chef-owner of a hole-in-the-wall eatery that’s become the latest foodie destination. A blurb in New York Magazine has praised Harry’s ginger lemongrass scallops dish, so now the customers are flocking to the place and clamoring for the dish.

But Harry refuses to make it anymore.

“I’m not feeling the scallops,” he says.

Freestyle Love Supreme

Freestyle Love Supreme, the hip-hop improv group,is not so much Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway follow-up to “Hamilton” as it is a subsidiary of Lin-Manuel Inc. …It is designed to feel good-natured and informal, like friends sitting around a dorm room at Wesleyan, even though there are 766 of us and we’re at the Booth Theater…That goodwill goes a long way.

Fear

Two adults are standing over a teenager named Jamie who is tied to a chair. Phil, a plumber, has kidnapped Jamie, and dragged him into this abandoned tool shed in the woods outside Princeton, New Jersey. Ethan, a professor, is trying to rescue Jamie…An eight-year-old girl from the neighborhood is missing, and Phil (Enrico Colantoni, who plays the genial father in Veronica Mars), has reason to suspect that Jamie (Alexander Garfin) has something to do with it. Or does he?…A play that requires a vigorous suspension of disbelief. Yet, if you can get over that hurdle, it offers three good actors constantly playing with our perspective – not only about who did what but such issues as moral relativism, class tensions, and…fear

The Sound Inside

“The Sound Inside” is a dark drama by Adam Rapp that keeps us in the dark, literally and figuratively, which works better while watching it on stage than thinking about it afterwards. Mary-Louise Parker portrays a middle-aged Yale professor named Bella Lee Baird, who prefers literature to life, and expects to die soon; she tells us she’s been diagnosed with cancer. Bella slowly develops a friendship with 18-year-old Christopher Dunn (Will Hochman), one of the students in her course…They turn out to share a taste in books, especially dark tales like Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment,” which is one of so many book titles name-dropped during the course of the play that the script could serve as a reading list (which I include in the review.)

Monsoon Season

Lizzie Vieh’s black comedy about a divorced couple permanently underwater in Phoenix Arizona, is clever and merciless, but it is also oddly compassionate….Danny and his ex-wife Julia may be losers who constantly make laughably wrong choices, but they are trying to do right, to be better.

The Week in New York Theater News

“The Minutes,” Tracy Letts’ most political play to date, will have its first preview on February 25, as this cryptic e-mail revealed. No theater or cast have been announced. The play, which premiered at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago in 2017, is about a City Council meeting in the fictional town called Big Cherry that turns ominous. Letts began work on it before the 2016 election,

“The play is not about Trump or Trumpism — I don’t find him a particularly complicated figure — but it is about this contentious moment we’re having in American politics in the last few years,”

Andrew Garfield will star in the Netflix adaptation of Rent playwright Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical musical tick…tick…BOOM, directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Lear deBessonet will lead Encores! starting officially in the 2021 season, succeeding Jack Viertel

Samira Wiley and Dominic Fumusa will star In Molière in the Park‘s “The School for Wives” in Prospect Park, November 13 and 14 FREE.

Thomas Finkelpearl is leaving his job as cultural affairs commissioner after five years. “The timing of it is suspect,” councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, chair of the city council’s cultural affairs committee, told NY1. Some speculate he’s unfairly taking the fall for the various controversies and glitches over the city’s plan to build more statues honoring women and people of color. Finkelpearl helped spearhead the city’s efforts to tie its funding to the diversity of arts institutions’ employees and board members under the cultural plan, unveiled in 2017.

Billy Porter, performer, now playwright

Idina Menzel, Lea Michele and Billy Porter will be among those performing at the 93rd annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

Remember when Billy Porter performed at the parade in 2013, as Lola in Kinky Boots? and conservatives were outraged? Have times changed?

Times Square is presenting its first annual Show Globes, displaying giant snow globe-like sculptures of Dear Evan Hansen, Wicked, Ain’t Too Proud, and The Lion King. On Broadway Plaza in Times Square between 44th and 45th streets through December 26.

2020 Seasons

youtube

2020 Under the Radar Festival celebrates its 16th season with a line-up of groundbreaking artists across the U.S. and around the world, including Australia, Chile, China, Japan, Mexico, Palestine, Taiwan, and the UK.

92nd Street Y’s Lyrics and Lyricists

Yip Harburg Jan 25-27 Jerry Herman Feb 22-24 George Gershwin March 21-23 Stephen Schwartz and Broadway’s Next Generation (featuring Schwartz and Ns Marcy Heisler & Zina Goldrich, John Bucchino, Khiyon Hursey) April 18-20 George Abbott and the Making of the American Musical May 30-June 1

Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series

Andre De Shields January 29 Joe Iconis Feb 1 Ali Stroker Feb 28

Theatre Row, a six-theatre complex located on 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, has announced the Off-Off-Broadway companies that will be making work at its spaces, as part of the complex’s new Kitchen Sink Residency. The two-year program will give the companies space to develop new work, culminating in a three-week production run. The companies are the Assembly, Broken Box Mime Theater, LubDub Theatre Company, Noor Theatre, and Superhero Clubhouse.

The Critic Unmellowed

From Wall Street Journal interview with John Simon, 94:

“His penchant for criticizing actors’ and actresses’ physical traits —he once wrote unkindly about Liza Minnelli’s face, and another time about Barbra Streisand’s nose— has also helped to make him repugnant to the city’s cultural elite. He contended at the time, and again to me, that such criticism is entirely legitimate if a performer fails to transcend his or her defects of appearance by force of talent.” (How does one “transcend” one’s appearance?)

On how theater has not declined:

“Things were never very good,” he says.“I don’t really see a decline. Looking back into the past always makes the past look better than it actually was,and the present worse, perhaps, than it actually is. . . Out of, I don’t know how many plays open in a season —a lot of them anyway—there may be two or three even worth bothering with. It has always been so.”

Rest in Peace

Bernard Slade, 89, creator of the TV series “The Flying Nun” and “The Partridge Family,” but we know him as the Broadway playwright of “Same Time, Next Year,” a long-running and widely-produced stage comedy.

Andile Gumbi , 36, former Simba of Broadway’s The Lion King. He died of cardiac arrest while in Israel , Gumbi was portraying the lead role of King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel The Musical at the Jerusalem Theater.

A memorial for Eric LaJuan Summers will be held on Nov 4th, 2019 at 9:30pm at The Green Room 42 on W42nd Street & 10th Ave. Members of the Broadway community will be performing.

Non-Profit Pays! Letts’ Turn to Politics. #Stageworthy News of the Week André Bishop, head of Lincoln Center Theater: $1 million Todd Haimes, Roundabout: $922,000. Oskar Eustis the Public Theater: $659,000…

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reviewsandtings · 6 years

Text

Plays I have seen in 2018

Tonight, I will see my final show of 2018 so it seems an opportune moment to reflect on my year in theatre. It feels especially fitting that the show is Lynette Linton’s Donmar Warehouse production of Sweat by Lynn Nottage. Among the eighty-six shows I have seen (some of them more than once), I am especially pleased to have seen so many plays written by black women, so many black women in lead roles, and so many black women directing shows; and not just in studio spaces - but on main stages, too. The complete list of every show I saw is below, with links to the ones I reviewed. I was given a lot of complimentary tickets, so I have also noted which shows I paid for and which shows were free to attend. In 2018, I made a new year’s resolution to see more theatre not in London - I make the same resolve for 2019. Here are some of the not-London shows I am looking forward to next year:

Our Lady of Kibeho - Royal & Derngate

The Princess and the Hustler - Bristol Old Vic

Concubine - Birmingham Rep

Blue/Orange - Birmingham Rep

random - Leeds Playhouse

Two Trains Running - Royal and Derngate

One Night in Miami - HOME Manchester

p.s. follow me on twitter @reviewsandtings for more theatre related musings.

Heretic Voices - a night of new writing Dean McBride Dir. Roy Alexander Weise A Hundred Words for Snow Dir. Max Gill Woman Caught Unaware Dir. Jessica Edwards Arcola Theatre £

Belleville Donmar Warehouse Dir. Michael Longhurst £ Brothers Size Young Vic Dir. Bijan Sheibani £

Amadeus National Theatre Dir. Michael Longhurst £ Black Men Walking Royal Court Dir. Dawn Walton £ The Duchess of Malfi Swan Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon Dir. Maria Aberg £ Hamilton Victoria Palace Theatre Dir. Thomas Kail £ Nine Night National Theatre (Dorfman) Dir. Roy Alexander Weise £

Macbeth National Theatre (Olivier) Dir. Rufus Norris £

Lights Go Out Ovalhouse Dir. Makkala McPherson £ So Many Reasons Ovalhouse Dir. Zoe Lafferty £ Caroline, or Change Hampstead Theatre Dir. Michael Longhurst

Hamlet Hackney Empire Dir. Simon Godwin £ Br’er Cotton Theatre 503 Dir. Roy Alexander Weise £ Circle Mirror Transformation HOME, Manchester Dir. Bijan Sheibani £ The Internet Was Made for Adults The Vaults Dir. Anna Girvan £ The Blind Truth Lyric Hammersmith Dir. Annie Mwapulo £ Stains Lyric Hammersmith Dir. Kwame Asiedu £ The Divide The Old Vic Dir. Annabel Bolton Julie National Theatre (Lyttelton) Dir. Carrie Cracknell £ The Cherry Orchard Royal Exchange Manchester Dir. Michael Boyd £ Misty Bush Theatre Dir. Omar Elerian £

Dance Nation Playwrights Horizons, New York Dir. Lee Sunday Evans £ Cinderella Theatre XIV, New York Dir. Austin McCormick £ Mlima’s Tale Public Theatre, NewYork Dir. Jo Bonney £ The Fall Southwark Playhouse Dir. Matt Harrison Why is the Sky Blue? Southwark Playhouse Dir. Abbey Wright The Jumper Factory HMP Wandsworth Dir. Justin Audibert FREE

Red Wyndham’s Theatre Dir. Michael Grandage Schism Park Theatre Dir. Lily Mcleish Nightfall The Bridge Dir. Laurie Samson random/generations Minerva Theatre, Chichester Dir. Tinuke Craig £ Year of the Rooster Monk Pleasance Theatre Dir. Nathalie Adlam Leave Taking Bush Theatre Dir. Madani Younis £ Sancho: An Act of Remembrance Wilton’s Music Hall Dir. Simon Godwin An Octoroon National Theatre (Dorfman) Dir. Ned Bennett Shebeen Theatre Royal Stratford East Dir. Matthew Xia A Night at the Musicals Soho Theatre Dir. Le Gateau Chocolate/Jonny Woo Sea Wall Old Vic Theatre Dir. George Perrin Uprising - a night of new writing Orange Tree Theatre Dir. Roy Alexander Weise £ The Play About My Dad Jermyn Street Theatre Dir. Stella Powell-Jones POT Ovalhouse Dir. Sophie Moniram The Jungle Playhouse Theatre Dir. Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin SS Mendi: Dancing the Death Drill NST, Southampton Dir. Mark Dornford-May Fun Home Young Vic Theatre Dir. Sam Gold Allelujah Bridge Theatre Dir. Nicholas Hytner The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives Arcola Theatre Dir. Femi Olufowoju £ Hoard Bush Theatre Dir. Tinuke Craig £ Diamond Bush Theatre Dir. Jane Moriarty £ Genesis Inc Hampstead Theatre Dir. Laurie Sansom £ Aristocrats Donmar Warehouse Dir. Lyndsey Turner Papa Don’t Preach That Little Car on Drury Lane FREE

Emilia Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre Dir. Nicole Charles £ Things of Dry Hours Young Vic (Clare) Dir. Debbie Hannan Run It Back Hackney Showrooms Dir. Coral Messam £ An Adventure Bush Theatre Dir. Madani Younis Women in Power NST City, Southampton Dir. Blanche McIntyre The Prisoner National Theatre (Dorfman) Dir. Peter Brook and The Fishermen Arcola Theatre Dir. Jack McNamara £ The Other Place Park Theatre Dir. Claire van Kampen Poet in da Corner Royal Court Dir. Ola Ince Dance Nation Almeida Theatre Dir. Bijan Sheibani £

Bullet Hole Park Theatre Dir. Lara Genovese ear for eye Royal Court Dir. debbie tucker green £ Dust Playhouse Theatre Dir. Sara Joyce £ The Ball Tristan Bates Theatre Dir. Garan Abel Unokan £ Love Thy Fro Theatre Peckham Dir. Malachi Green and Ronald Nsubuga The Wolves Theatre Royal Stratford East Dir. Ellen McDougall £ Sweet Like Chocolate Boy Studio Jack Theatre Dir. Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu The Hoes Hampstead Theatre Dir. Lakesha Arie-Angelo £ Misty West End (understudy run) Trafalgar Studios Dir. Omar Elerian £ A Small Place Gate Theatre Dir. Anna Himali Howard The Dark Ovalhouse Dir. Roy Alexander Weise £ Twelfth Night Young Vic Theatre Dir. Kwame Kwei-Armah and Oskar Eustis £ Porgy and Bess ENO Dir. James Robinson Rockets and Blue Lights (Alfred Fagon Award rehearsed reading) Dorfman Theatre Dir. Nicole Charles All We Ever Wanted Was Everything Bush Theatre Dir. Paul Smith £ The Funeral Director Southwark Playhouse Dir. Hannah Hauer-King £ Hole Royal Court Dir. Abby Greenland and Helen Goalen Dr Faustus Sam Wanamaker Playhouse Dir. Paulette Randall Aladdin Broadway Theatre Catford Dir. Richard Cheshire The Worst Witch Royal & Derngate Dir. Theresa Heskins The Convert Young Vic Theatre Dir. Ola Ince Sweat Donmar Warehouse Dir. Lynette Linton

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eudamon · 7 years

Quote

“WALTER taught the accordion out of a small emporium on the lower east side we went to his shop to buy an accordion for jack walter steered us away from the fancier instruments keeping our purchase modest i hired the main squeeze orchestra (walter’s all-girl accordion band) to play at my fancy event walter was tickled when he got his picture taken with tom hanks when jack practiced downstairs i wouldn’t dance exactly but loosened to the sound in an accordion air flows across steel rods while fingers manipulate right and left manuals on a chromatic buttonboard dynamics are determined with air not keys now in the silence i feel the squeeze” — LAURIE EUSTIS

0 notes

mavwrekmarketing · 7 years

Link

The controversial production of Julius Caesar was hit by alt-right protests.

Image: AFP/Getty Images

Alt-right figures Jack Posobiec and Laura Loomer attempted to shut down a performance of Shakespeare in the Park’s controversial, Trump-themed production of Julius Caesar by storming the stage and condemning other audience members for their participation in the spectacle. The show was paused, but ultimately, not shut down.

Loomer, a writer for right-wing Canadian website Rebel Media, took to the stage, yelling “Stop the normalization against political violence against the right! This is unacceptable!” before being drowned out by the boos of the audience. It should be noted that one of the major themes of Julius Caesar, which has been performed in many iterations over hundreds of years, is the negative ramifications of political violence.

Posobiec, who filmed the short-lived protest from the audience, got in on the action too. While Loomer was taken outside of the open air theater, he stood and shouted down the rest of the crowd, immediately invoking Godwin’s law comparing them to Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels.

SEE ALSO: Apple bounces Pepe the Frog out of the App Store, back to alt-right Reddit

Posobiec tweeted out a video of the incident, which went viral, and continued to post about his plans to try to attend again, trolling his critics and showboating for supporters.

BREAKING: Julius Ceasar Gets SHUTDOWN http://pic.twitter.com/ITgfMR0tHE

Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 17, 2017

Posobiec was trolled in return by Ron Swanson himself, who pointed out that the show did, indeed, go on.

BREAKING. Um, no, you got shut down by a Shakespeare theater audience in a park. Pretty intense protest, little fella. https://t.co/Ev7x3UPHoT

Nick Offerman (@Nick_Offerman) June 17, 2017

Audience members tweeted out footage of Posobiec being removed from the theater shortly after Loomer, as he kept up the Nazi-slinging diatribe.

Tonight’s production of Julius Caesar interrupted by two protesters. One stormed the stage during assassination scene. http://pic.twitter.com/K6FWhm4hGG

Charlotte Alter (@CharlotteAlter) June 17, 2017

Loomer was arrested after being escorted offstage and charged with disorderly conduct and criminal trespass.

On Twitter, #FreeLaura trended on both sides of the political spectrum. Some Trump supporters lionized Loomer for publicly disrupting a staged representation of political violence, while many on the left pointed to one of the other high-profile stories of the night, which centered on actual violence, in the real world.

“You are inciting terrorists.” –@JackPosobiec and @LauraLoomer call out the promotion of political violence by the Left. #FreeLaura http://pic.twitter.com/d4XVXq7AKc

The Columbia Bugle (@ColumbiaBugle) June 17, 2017

Black Americans are executed without consequence by the cops while alt-right nerds feel victimized by Shakespeare https://t.co/JC86QHGfIO

Anna Merlan (@annamerlan) June 17, 2017

Loomer was released from custody shortly after the arrest and set up a webpage to raise funds for her legal defense against the charges.

The Public Theater, which is the organization behind NYC’s Shakespeare in the Park, tweeted out thanks to its staff and security team following the incident, calling Posobiec and Loomer “paid protestors.”

Earlier this evening, a pair of paid protestors briefly disrupted our performance of JULIUS CAESAR, as anticipated. (1/4)

The Public Theater (@PublicTheaterNY) June 17, 2017

While we are champions of the first amendment, this interruption unfortunately was part of a paid strategy driven by social media. (2/4)

The Public Theater (@PublicTheaterNY) June 17, 2017

Shakespeare in the Park Artistic Director Oskar Eustis, who also directed the show, issued a statement after the incident.

“Two protesters disrupted our show tonight; we stopped the show for less than a minute and our stage manager handled it beautifully. The staff removed the protesters peacefully, and the show resumed with the line Liberty! Freedom! The audience rose to their feet to thank the actors, and we joyfully continued. Free speech for all, but lets not stop the show.”

The production has two more shows before closing its run on June 18.

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