Jordan 📚

@jaaaygilbert.bsky.social

433 Followers 694 Following

28 | she/her | 666 is my lucky number. Posting books and rambling about theatre

The statistics panel of Scrivener, showing the total word count of a project sitting at over 100,000 words.
VocalGuard supplement. Bag claims it “enhances vocal strength and clarity” with a “science-backed formula”
Today 9:23 PM I want you to know I have thought probably every single day since we hung out about you telling me I could be the Sarah Paulson to someone's Holland Taylor Every single day
Except from a page: “Jon is in his forties. Annie is nineteen. She is still learning what "normal" is. Jon teaches her what normal is: if sexuality is permitted between them, it's because Jon permits it.”
Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes by Hannah Moscovitch
“People also ask” “Is Twelfth Night LGBTQ?”
A photo of a masculine-presenting person with short gray hair wearing old-fashioned retro style glasses, a gray suit, and a gray and brown tie. The person is standing on stage for a theatrical production. Below the photo is a text message that reads “Today 9:30 PM Our sound guy said our lead looks like Bill Clinton and I'm devastated,” below that, partially cut off, are the words “I can’t think about anything else”
A director cannot hide from an audience because intentions are always visible, palpable. An audience senses your attitude towards them. They smell your fright or conde-scension. They know instinctively that you want only to impress or conquer. They sense your engagement or lack of it. These qualities live in your body and are visible in your work. You must have a reason to do what it is you do because these reasons are felt by anyone who comes in contact with your work. It matters how you treat people, how you take responsibility in a crisis, what values you develop, your politics, what you read, how you speak and even which words you choose. You cannot hide.
every time I begin work on a new production I feel as though I am out of my league; that I know nothing and have no notion how to begin and I'm sure that someone else should be doing my job, someone assured, who knows what to do, someone who is really a professional. I feel unbalanced, uncomfortable and out of place. I feel like a sham. In short, I am terrified. Normally, I find a way to make it through the research and table-work stage of rehearsal, where the necessary dramaturgical discussions, analysis and readings happen. But then, always, the dreaded moment arrives when it is time to put something on to the stage. How can anything be right, true or appropriate? I desperately try to find an excuse to do anything else, to procrastinate further. When we do finally have to begin work on the stage, everything feels artificial, arbitrary and affected to me. And 1 am convinced that the actors think that I am out of my mind. Every time the dramaturge steps into the rehearsal hall, I am sure that they are distressed that nothing we are doing reflects the previous dramaturgical discussions. I feel unsophisticated and superficial. Fortunately, atter a while in this dance of insecurity, I start to notice that the actors are actually beginning to transform the senseless
Athol Fugard, the South African playwright, described censorship as hesitation. For him censorship is not necessarily the proximity of government inspectors or a threat of imprisonment but, rather, on the physical hesitation of his hand while writing. Censorship is his own private vacillation provoked by whatever doubts are out to ambush him. Censorship is a physical hesitation in the light of a fleeting thought or doubt about how his peers might receive What he is writing, whether or not they will like it or if it will get published. In the light of our hesitations, we must be deeply connected to the act. We must be decisive and intuitive simultaneously. hone
One day, unable to attend rehearsal for the remount of a play I had directed with my company, the SITI Company, I invited one of my graduate directing students from Columbia University to cover for me. The next day I asked company member Ellen Lauren how the young man had performed as substitute director. 'Not very well,' she said. 'Why not?' I asked. 'Well, he didn't say anything' She explained that, from her point of view, it doesn't really matter how erudite or naive the observation, but, as an actor, she needs the person responsible for watching, the director, to say something around which she can organize her next attempt. To try to say something in a state of flux if you do not know the right thing to say is the point. Make an observation. To be silent, to avoid the violence of articulation alleviates the risk of failure but at the same time there is also no posibility of advancement. He either fears his fate too much Or his deserts are small Who dares not put it to the torch To win or lose it all.
"Not all men" Yeah but enough that every woman could tell you what a man did to her.
A text thread: OP: Goodnight buddy! Luv u too OP: buddy! Luv u too Actually now I'm thinking maybe I'm gonna write an essay about acting being sexy so maybe sleep can wait OP’s friend: SLEEP OP: I will, I will OP. Eventually OP’s friend replies with a gif of someone squirting the other with a spray bottle, as if they were disciplining a cat (Jay and Manny from the tv show Modern Family). OP has Ha Ha reacted to this gif
A text thread. Shannon: That joke will never run its course. (Someone reacted to this message with two red exclamation point emojis.) Shannon: I say that ALL the time. OP: If there’s one thing we as a triad are good at it’s running a joke into the fuckin ground. (Someone reacted to this message with an American flag emoji.) Shannon: it’s what makes us better than other people. (Someone reacted to this message with a red 100 emoji.)
A small watermelon on a fruit rack at a store. The price tag reads “Personal Watermelon, $6.99”
A plate of breakfast food: a pile of colorful strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, a few strips of bacon, two sunny-side up eggs, and half a bagel, toasted golden-brown. The plate sits in a shaft of sunlight from a window.
A Facebook post. An image of a young woman with a tweet overlaid: Olivia Julianna, “Hey mom, oh no nothing major happened today. The President of the United States posted an Al video that included my face on a pig, but nothing really groundbreaking or crazy.” The caption on the image reads “Olivia Julianna is a Gen Z Democratic activist and political influencer known for mobilizing young voters through social media.”
Screenshot from the game Umamusume. A display at the top of the screen tells the player they must earn 6 more fans (only obtainable by spending an entire turn on a race, which will award several thousand fans) before they can achieve their next objective.
Unlocked Mihono Bourbon, a cyborg-styled horse girl from the game Umamusume
Can of Monster Juice, flavor “Viking Berry,” the can is colored with a pink-white-green gradient reminiscent of the trans flag.
Good Bones Maggie Smith Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I've shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I'll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that's a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
Messages from an unidentified sender, whose name is blacked out: I have this problem a lot. I am logical and arguments aren't logical. We really only have trouble communicating when you need to be right and can't imagine another opinion might be considered. So any time you are mad basically Why don't you tell me what you'd like to hear me say Aug 23, 2022 7:01:43pm
Mejiro Ryan from Umamusume, striking a confident pose
Hi Cindy, This is Jordan, I run the TheatreThoughts Blog. I saw your message the other day and have been thinking about a response since. Your timing was surreal, because I JUST finished a post that's very relevant to your message and queued it to post in February- so I've had these kinds of questions on the mind lately! I love to hear that your daughter and her friends are working hard. Please believe me when I say that school theatre directors really do see that kind of effort, and we really do love it. I understand how it feels unfair to work really hard at your passion and not have it turn out the way you want. And I can imagine how much it must hurt YOU to watch it happen as a parent! Personally, as an actor, I've been through dry patches where I don't land the parts I want or get cut over and over again. I really do get the frustration of working and learning and feeling like you're growing, but for reasons seemingly completely out of your hands, it doesn't pan out. Worse, when you're trying really hard and it's still not working out, it can start to feel like you're doing something wrong, or there's something wrong with you, and that's a very demoralizing place to be. The understanding that has helped me re-contextualize this audition despair isn't really a pretty answer, nor is it a very fun one to internalize, but I think it could be helpful for both you and your daughter to think about: The reason auditions so often feel completely out of our hands as actors is because they are.
A Facebook comment thread: Penn Wharton: Thank you President Trump and the House Majority Leaders. Jordan Alexandra Gilbert: Penn Wharton would you vote for a bear who ate your face if it told you it would get rid of the illegals? It seems like you would. Penn Wharton: Jordan Alexandra Gilbert... yes ... if it meant all illegals were gone. Jordan Alexandra Gilbert: Penn Wharton but your face would be gone, Penn!! Is that what you want?
A large room, with fluorescent lighting overhead and fake hardwood floor underfoot, filled with folding tables and chairs. People are spread out at the tables. It’s a rehearsal for a musical, on the far side of the room is an orchestra and some performers singing.
A Cards Against Humanity card containing lines from William Carlos Williams’ poem “The Red Wheelbarrow”: a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens
A text: Today 11:06 PM I hot glued the books in DT back together. Didn't glue em shut or anything, just reattached the covers lol. I did put Tolstoy back together upside down so if you feel like reading Anna Karennina between groups sometime, be advised
The bee movie reaction meme, where the man is staring at the woman in open-mouthed confusion and amazement
Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf from the movie “Elf,” sitting at a comically undersized desk in a classroom occupied by small children
A paragraph from Michael Chekhov’s “To the Actor: On the Technique of Acting.” “I DON'T THINK it is erroneous to say that two different conceptions exist among actors concerning the stage in which they invest all their hopes and on which they would spend the greater part of their lives. To some of them it is nothing but an empty space which from time to time is filled with actors, stagehands, settings and properties; to them, all that appears on the stage is only the visible and the audible. To the others, the small space of the stage is an entire world permeated with an atmosphere so strong, so magnetic that they can hardly bear to part with it after the performance is over.”