Where I am..

I have lived in the town of Hof since the Spring of 1992. I came to this small town in upper Franken to work at the local theater and stayed ever since. I have had this blog for several years now and will try to keep things updated on a regular basis. The weather here (and weather is always an interesting subject) is surprisingly similar to the East Coast where I am from or say from New York west through Ohio into Indiana.. I keep a Yahoo weather update on my home website page to see what is happening from New Jersey, on to Ohio, to Iowa and Minnesota.

When I arrived at the Hof theater for the first time, I had been working at a small theater in East Germany, in the city of Rudolstadt. They had another dialect relating to Thuringia or in German Thüringer and I never even got close to that one as I started to work in German in December of 1991 with only my high school German to get me through rehearsals. http://www.rudolstadt.de/cms/website.php I was lucky to have two colleagues, Beth J. and Ken Phelps who were Americans and they were able to translate for me when the going got tough.

I was gradually starting to understand more of the language as the rehearsals in Hof began for the "Lorelei" by Catalani but I was amazed at the other Americans working at the theater who were so much more advanced than I.

When I arrived at the Hof theater for the first time, I had been working at a small theater in East Germany, in the city of Rudolstadt. They had another dialect relating to Thuringia or in German Thüringer and I never even got close to that one as I started to work in German in December of 1991 with only my high school German to get me through rehearsals. http://www.rudolstadt.de/cms/website.php I was lucky to have two colleagues, Beth J. and Ken Phelps who were Americans and they were able to translate for me when the going got tough.

I was gradually starting to understand more of the language as the rehearsals in Hof began for the "Lorelei" by Catalani but I was amazed at the other Americans working at the theater who were so much more advanced than I.

The Language is German and the local dialect is Frankish which takes a while to get used to. The local paper has a column called the "Hofer Spaziergaenger" (The Hofer Stroller) written in dialect and everyday there is at least one column written in dialect commenting on political or other topical events. I can read it and basically understand what is written but to hear it spoken is sometimes almost impossible to understand. An acquaintance of mine who is at the artist´s entrance to the theater greets me with smiles and talking a mile a minute. I cannot for the life of me understand 70 percent of what he is saying. I nod my head and smile as if I am taking it all in and by straining my ears and trying to catch a word or two I can about make out what he means.

The Theater Canteen at the old theater in Hof (the new one was being built to open in 1995) had a small room with tables and dispensers for coffee and beverages. We would congregate there during the rehearsal breaks to socialize and have a cup of java. In a German theater if you are with a group of people seated together at a table, everybody speaks German (I do not see this in the Czech theaters as later when I worked in the Czech Republic but that is another story) even if 6 out of 7 people in the group are Americans or from other English speaking countries. It is of course out of politeness and the Germans are very polite. They shake hands at every rehearsal and even if you are late to one you interrupt the proceedings to shake hands with the stage director or conductor. Embarrassing to say the least and a good reason to come on time.

Next blog: What it is like as an American to work in a German theater.