And we're off! 
I arrived into the warm and welcoming arms of Philadelphia from LA last week, we picked up our Londoner Joe at the airport, and native Philadelphians Katie and Alex all met up at Jenny's house for a delicious-vegan- home cooked meal.  There was  much catching up -Joe had been in Italy, Alex started a PHD program, Katie G is about to make a big move, and Jenny and I were finishing each others sentences...acting like we hadn't just spent the last 10 months apart! Then we prepared for our new focus: CASSANDRA as narrator
And that leads me to today...
Who is Cassandra?  Truth=prophecy....Secret Police....SHAME!....naked Ben Franklin???
Many ideas were passed around at rehearsal and I think we are onto something!
Then, THEN, our bodies where turned inside out by Katie G's training, and yoga class.  YUP, 2 classes back to back
Now I am off to bed, missing our other Iris company members-but ready for tomorrows journey.
love-
Jess

    We started our day with another round of scenes we were assigned to create.  Katie, Allison, Jess, and Alex went off on their own to develop pieces related to Atalanta's choice to pick up the apples during her final race.  As with the previous assignment, we were each given a motivation for the decision that we were to use to inform our pieces.  We returned after our time apart and showed what we had come up with.  Jess was to write a piece that assumed Atalanta picked up the apple because it was fated.  Hers was a playful piece involving placards and an orange thrown at her head.  Katie took her scene outside, running herself to exhaustion and eventually taking the apple as nourishment.  Her task was to demonstrate that Atalanta stopped for the apple because she was hungry and tired.  Working from the thought that Atalanta chose to lose the race so that she could have a child with the victor, Allison performed a moving piece in which she strung together a number of well known songs.  I (Alex) wrote another section of a song based on the thought that Atalanta picked up the apple as an act of defiance. 
    After we showed our pieces and discussed them, we headed off for lunch on lovely second street in Belmont Shore.  After our feast at an Indian restaurant, we split up into pairs and interviewed people on the street about issues related to the themes we'd been exploring.  More people than I expected were willing to participate, and we got some great responses.  We video recorded all of the interviews, and we might end up using some of the material as part of our performance!  The interview experience was capped off by my discovery that I had a giant rip down the back of my pants.  I hope I didn't scare of too many potential interviewees...
    Once we returned back home, we watched the interviews that we'd recorded and then jumped into our next series of assignments.  We again broke of individually and wrote material relating to Atalanta's choice to pick up the golden apples.  This time, though, we were given some restrictions that required us to challenge ourselves a bit more.  Katie ended up writing a lovely song on the guitar.  Jess performed a rather enticing piece on the floor involving a clementine tied to a string.  Try picturing that!  I wrote a stream of consciousness monologue, and Allison wrote an aleternate reality-type jailhouse seen.
    We ended our day talking about what we would be doing for our workshop performance.  We were able to clarify what we wanted to get out of the workshop, and we made some headway in terms of understanding where our piece was heading.  Though all were exhausted by the end of the discussion and the day, I think we all felt we'd gotten a lot done.  Looking forward to a beautiful and productive Sunday!  We'll let you know how the workshop ends up going.