Working With Jerks, Wednesday, May 25, 2016 [third period]

[heroic_jawline]

There were pizza boxes scattered around the classroom when people arrived. That would normally be the makings of a great day, but only if you completely forgot what this class was about.

"It's pizza day," Tony said cheerfully once everyone had shuffled in. "Only all the good ones have been eaten." He lifted the lid of a nearby empty box to show the delicious crumbs and grease spots left behind. "And what's left is... well."

"...what the heck is a 'cauliflower crust'?" Steve demanded, looking unbelievably betrayed by his pizza box.

Tony gave the class a look that clearly said 'see? see the abomination of pizza left for you?' Because he was a cruel man. "There's also the one pizza without any cheese because of the one person who is lactose intolerant. Now, we can order more if people can come to a consensus on what they want."

Oh, that was likely to happen.

"Oh, and everyone needs to pay for it," Steve said. "We'll divide the bill evenly based on how many people, not how much you eat."

Just for added injustice, naturally.

"If not... you can learn to enjoy cauliflower crusts and what might be vegan cheese," Tony said kindly. That smile was totally kind. Not at all evil.

"Or you can try to order Chinese?"

Ordering Chinese as a group has never once, in the history of mankind, ended well.

Modern Shakespeare, Wednesday, Periods 1 & 2

[glacial_queen]

"So, just about every year, the island picks a day and makes you sing," Karla said with the smug smile of someone who'd been through it a million times by now and had no fear of it left. "You will sing. Likely, you will sing in public and in front of your peers. If you're lucky, you'll get away with just singing about what you're doing, little musical additions to your conversation. If you're unlucky, you'll end up singing something personal and private in front of someone--confessing your innermost thoughts and emotions to the person you're talking to. For one day, you get to experience living in a musical--almost. One of the rules of being in a musical is that the characters don't know they are in a musical and so the random outbursts into song are either not noticed, even when they happen just a few feet away, or everyone participates and it's considered normal."

Could you see where this was going yet, class? At least, those of you from modern times? "Today, we're going to watch one of the most famous adaptations of Shakespeare's work, East Side Story, which is a modern, musical take on the play, Star-Crossed. In both plays, two teens from rival factions fall in love, but their friends and families are both feuding. That feud leads several deaths, including the death of a family member of the female lead's at the hands of the male lead." Karla continued explaining the plot of Star-Crossed, going over the relationships between the characters and how young the leads were written as and the power structures between the families.

"In East Side Story, some of that narrative is complicated," Karla continued. "Rather than being two opposing wealthy families and their retainers, the musical provides a racial and economic element, with one side being the established white gang and the other the newly-arrived immigrants from Puerto Rico. Either way, the causal hatred between the two groups leads ultimately to tragedy, turning what many consider to be Shakespeare's most romantic play into his most tragic."