WItP // Let’s Play Ketchup

Holy cow. I’ve been busy the last couple weeks. I apologize for missing entries. On the bright side, my absence has given me plenty of time to doodle and brainstorm future arcs of “morning coffee.” Regardless, here’s a quick look at some of the things I’ve been up to.

Samson Agonistes

I work with a couple local theatre groups. One, run by the local university, specializes in staged readings of Renaissance plays. Lately, we’ve fixated on plays with smaller performance histories. In the past year, we’ve performed readings of Calderon’s Life is a Dream, Shakespeare’s King John, and, now, Milton’s Samson Agonistes. We performed Samson twice in the past couple weeks: once at the university and once at the 2017 Conference on John Milton (to a crowd containing some of the brightest minds in Milton studies, no pressure).

Both performances went well, I think. Manoa particularly resonated with audiences. There’s something bittersweet in Samson’s final moments. Are his actions revolutionary, or are they terrorism? For Manoa, who has seen the various peaks and valleys of war in Isreal, his son is yet another casualty in a long line of fallen, wasted potential. A timely (and timeless) critique of war, I think.

Splitting the chorus into three parts really worked well. It never dawned on me how many distinct personalities existed in the play. Looking back, it’s a no-brainer to split that part.

World War I Letters

Last week, read World War I letters at the regional art show. Without delving too deep, it was an interesting reading experience; I’d like to spend more time with them and maybe adapt them for stage or screen.

Wordcamp

I ghosted WordPress Wordcamp last weekend. I wasn’t able to attend in person (despite having a ticket), but I’ve been able to catch up on videos. I’m looking forward to applying some of the things I’ve learned in this blog. I can’t apply everything, of course, since this is a WordPress.com blog–but it will be interesting to use their marketing insights to better meet the needs of my audience. If you get a chance to attend a Wordcamp, do it. It’s worth your time.

Work

Work’s been busy, to say the least. In the past seven days alone, I’ve filmed a commercial series, drafted a handful of scripts, written a fifteen-email outreach campaign, finished and QAed a couple dozen landing pages, written a spattering of social media marketing campaigns for seven-digit clients, and updated the company blog. It’s been one for the books, and I’ve had a hard time finding time to write for fun. Even now, I’m putting off work to write an update post. Don’t tell the boss.

Anywho, that’s me this week. When you’re busy, how do you manage to keep posting? Do you take a brief hiatus, or do you schedule posts in advance?

Stay weird,

Jake