Like last semester the English Dramatic Society is performing a quite interesting play. Anyone interested to join me visiting one of the shows?

Dear friends of the EDS,

The World Cup has kept Germany in football fever for the last four weeks and now that it's all over some of you might well be asking yourselves just how you are going to fill those empty evenings. Well, at least for one evening we can offer you an evening of theatrical and musical entertainment with the next EDS production, the stage adaptation of Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters.

Many of you (and we are sure there will be a few Pratchett fans out there) will have read the book and know the (original) story from the Discworld series - a spinoff of Macbeth - the tale of witch Granny Weatherwax and her fellow coven members who must save the kingdom from the evil Duke. With just a few changes here and there (to make it funnier?) and added musical interludes Wyrd Sisters offers somethings for everyone.

The performance dates are Tuesday - Saturday, 25th - 29th July, at 19.00 each evening, with tickets (EUR 8 and EUR 6) available now to reserve online (on our newly launched website - http://www.english-dramatic-society.de) and to buy from Wednesday (12th July) from our usual points of sale. Please see the website for more details.

We very much look forward to welcoming you to one (or more) of our performances later this month and thank you as ever for your continued support.

Yours,
The English Dramatic Society, Erlangen
Cast and Crew of Wyrd Sisters

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Lost and Found at 21:30 | Comments (17) | Trackbacks (3)

Sabine inspired me to this post, talking about the German spelling reform. I had this issue covered through an article analysing why blogging for me in English is the right decision. But I think there is a more humorous approach to this question, so here are my reasons:

10. No worries about local spelling reforms.

09. You will attract foreign readers, who will try to convince you of their issues “Buy Viagra and Cialis for only….”

08. You can write things in a subtle way, some readers might not understand (Sorry, no practical examples on that, since I want to keep you in the dark about some all of those subtle hints).

07. Looking up words in a big dictionary will help you to get really fast in using indexes or might even train some muscles, if the dictionary is only heavy enough. (Luckily I’m using a computer dictionary )

06. The question why you are using a foreign language is always a nice issue to discuss about “You are German, you should write in German, too!”…

05. It is really nice to explore linguistic niceties looking up words in a dictionary. How else would you ever get to learn that a “wet blanket” and “to be prone to tears” are not related?

04. It still something foreign and mistakes using that language will be forgiven easier in comparison to mistakes in you native language.

03. You get additional value to your posts by misunderstanding caused by wrong wordings “He is not in anymore” vs. “he already left the office”.

02. You can improve in this language: “Me English is no powderful! English is not my mother’s toung-la!”

01. A lot of false friends you might get acquainted to (actually I will eventually finish this list now!).

P.S. Greetings go to Simon a blogger from Malaysia who has been writing tons of funny Top10 lists.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Things to know at 23:12 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Like every semester the English Dramatic Society in Erlangen is performing. Here you can read the invitation and the plot:

Dear friends of the EDS,

It's been a while since we wrote to you, and indeed some of you have already written to ask us whether there will be a play this semester (yes, of course!), when the next show is (in two weeks' time) and what it's going to be.

We are now pleased to officially announce that the EDS will once again be performing the entertaining musical comedy (after Beaumarchais, written and directed by Damian H. Quinn)  "F.I.G.A.R.O.", which some of you may well remember from February 1999 when one of our largest ever audiences filled the Experimentiertheater on a total of 8 evenings.

Whether or not you saw the show seven years ago, we promise you agreat show and look forward to welcoming you to one of our performances in February. If you did see the play last time though, you might just recognise a couple of old faces and will maybe remember some of the songs, and even the worse of the jokes. But don't w! orry, there many new faces, some new songs, and of course a few new jokes as well.

There will be performances every evening from 6th - 11th February, starting at 7 pm, as ever in the Experimentiertheater, Bismarckstr. 1 in Erlangen. Tickets, priced at 8 Euros and 6 Euros, are available now for reservation online via our website at http://www.english-dramatic-society.de.

If you prefer, you can also purchase your tickets from the English department library, room C602, Bismarckstr. 1, or the Kartenvorverkaufsstelle located in the Grande Galerie, Nürnbergerstrasse, Erlangen (from Tuesday, 24th januiary onwards), or from the Abendkasse on the evening of the performance.

Below a brief summary of the plot to whet your appetites. We look forward to seeing you in the Experimentiertheater in two weeks'  time.

The cast and crew of FIGARO
English Dramatic Society, Erlangen
23rd January 2006

A brief s! ummary of the plot:

The plot follows the lines of the! original Beaumarchais... more or less... but the setting is America. Figaro, a humble barber from the provinces, has risen from obscurity to become prospective candidate for state governor. Senator Almaviva invites Figaro to his country residence for the weekend. Here, after celebrating the Senator’s birthday and his wedding anniversary, the party will confirm Figaro’s endorsement as candidate for governor.
We discover that the object of Figaro’s affections, his right hand woman, Miss Suzanne Lincoln, while reciprocating Figaro’s affections is disinclined  to marry him.
At the reception at the Senator’s residence, the Senator himself falls for Miss Lincoln’s not inconsiderable charms and orders his right hand woman, Jodie, to organise compromising pictures of Figaro which he then offers to give to Miss Lincoln in exchange for sexual favours.
From then on intrigue follows upon intrigue as Figaro and Suzanne, with the he! lp of the Senator’s long suffering wife, the Contessa, and pursued by the ever present scandal-hungry press corps, attempt either to recover the incriminating material or to acquire material which would incriminate the Senator and thus provide them with something to trade.

I'm really interested in seeing this play - probably someone needs a distraction from learning. Anyone interested in joining me is invited to contact me.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Lost and Found at 11:46 | Comments (0) | Trackback (1)