solstice monday: twelfth night and midsummer madness

 our peonies are . . aging . . 

solstice breakfast: salmon and capers and fresh dill . .

 it was such a busy day. chanda left early to rehearse for her twelfth night performance while morgana and i got ready to have our friends over for lunch. korrina stopped by also and picked up two books about hiking and driving scenic roads upstate.

 this book listed common wildflowers and also favorite ice cream shops. good combination! she's very excited because she has a week's paid vacation coming up and is planning a fun road trip.

 lunch with our friends . . 

 we made anzac biscuits from our around the world cookbook (a recipe from australia).

 we miss have these two here in the city with us. chanda used to go over and read and knit with them every other week. they're eleven now and had lots of stories to tell us about their waldorf school friends and the books they've been reading and how they got their ears pierced.

 after we said good-bye it was time to get ready to go to uptown for the play performance. 

it was held in our friends' courtyard. 

play preparations. morgana has the script under her arm and i think she followed along in case someone needed a line.

they were a little worried since a few days ago they were still struggling, but today they were superb.

 the audience is ready.

 olivia with cesario (viola) and maria, who also played count orsino. olivia would don a trench coat and become antonio, friend to sebastian, viola's brother.

 malvolio in his yellow stockings and crossed gaiters (who also became sebastian with a different jacket). sir toby belch slinks behind malvolio with mischievous intent.

viola as cesario trying to defend herself from antonio's accusations.

poor viola . . being manhandled by sir toby belch who wants her to fight with the adorable sir andrew (played by the real life little sister of sir toby).

in act iii, scene iv, when viola as cesario claims not to know of the love sworn to olivia by her brother sebastian, olivia exclaims: "why, this is midsummer madness!" yes! what a perfect night to have performed this play on!

 fini! brava . . and what a relief . . 

 for all the drama i've heard about trying to memorize lines and trying to find a performance space and trying to find time when everyone could meet, they did a great job. we all enjoyed the performance and it looked like they were having a great time too. (it's been two years since they diid macbeth.)

we had a really nice potluck get together afterwards, but greg was very tired and happy to come home. we walked home beneath the light of an incredibly full and beautiful strawberry moon.