Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Thirst returns Monday, October 2 @ Jitters
New Time! 7 PM
New formats! Serial Plays, Period Pieces, Musicals, Movement and More
New Price! 8-15 (pay what you can on this sliding scale)
New Drink Specials! $3 beer, wine and bar drinks after the show.
Come down and hang with us. It's always something.
New formats! Serial Plays, Period Pieces, Musicals, Movement and More
New Price! 8-15 (pay what you can on this sliding scale)
New Drink Specials! $3 beer, wine and bar drinks after the show.
Come down and hang with us. It's always something.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Post-fringe thoughts
"How to Cheat" turned out far better than I could have hoped. I can't remember when I've seen a show where every actor on stage hit the right notes all the time. I wish we had maybe two more hours of rehearsal and the extra ten minutes the script orginally had, but I think these two actors were so completely these two characters that every experience I had of watching the show was thrilling.
Also, audiences seemed to enjoy it very much. The Fringe Festival is glorious for a variety of reasons but, at the moment, I'm thinking about the gloriousness of being so near your audience so often that over eleven days people I've never met before approach me or the actors or the directors with unsolicited comments. Three or four or seven days after they saw the show people are telling me how it effected them, how it stayed under their skin, how they're still thinking about it, how they related to it, how they questioned it, how they think it was truthful -- How fucking fantastic is that!??!
I love the Fringe Festival. Stop me from counting the ways.
Also, I learned that all the difficult stuff we put in scripts, all the hard stuff I had vowed to avoid as a writer, need not be scary. Turns out that sex on stage, when done abstractly and well, can be everyone's favorite part. Dream sequences can work. There are no limits to what the theater can attempt - nor should there be. . . I knew that - I just didn't know that I had the ability to explore all the possibilities.
I said stop me from counting the ways I love the Fringe.
I wish these actors could perform this show in a regular run with a large theater's marketing department and mailing list behind them but they can't. Here's another Fringe thought that amuses me: People kept calling my script more mainstream than other Fringe fare. The simulated sex as a game of cards on stage? Or the Tango? Or the dream sequence? Or the vague suggestion of danger outside the walls? Or the fact that the male romantic lead was Asian? Regardless, I think they meant more professional than many Fringe shows (not all mind you), but the amusing thing is that no theater would do this show. First of all, it wasn't written until June. Money had been paid. Actors committed. Even the title had been decided on and I didn't even have a play until late-June. I'd like to see the Guthrie deal with that shit. More importantly, even if I had the script and showed it to every "mainstream" theater in town, none of them would do it. Please. Put your hand down. You wouldn't do it. I don't know why. My scripts don't read well on the page, for one. But also, it's too out there in style but not out there enough in theme -- or at least not clear in theme - for a mainstream theater to get into it. They want a play that clearly says something thematically about some important issue in the world. So it makes me laugh that people think this show was a bunch of "pros" taking a slot away from the heartfelt amateurs who really need a slot at the Fringe. This show would absolutely never have seen the light of day without the Fringe as a forum.
I told you to stop me from counting goddamnit.
Speaking of theme. Here's another thing I've been thinking about - I'm writing this morning, and this is my warmup. I don't really believe that anyone reads this stuff, or at least they don't really read it, and I want to get my post-fringe thoughts out so that I can move on to the other work I have to do this morning. Why am I deciding to publish it publicly? I don't know. Variety I suppose. It feels Fringey. I threw some ideas out there for the Fringe and got a cool response. I thought I might throw some more Fringe-related ideas out there now to see if anyone is reading and has anything to add. Does anyone edit their blogs though? I'm just kind of freewriting here. Anyway -
Some people say that my plays have "too much stuff" in them. They don't know what I'm trying to say. First of all, I like "too much stuff" for a variety of reasons but the most important one is that it is entertaining and it is fulfilling. Would you rather have a good big meal or a thin meal? I suppose it depends but usually, on stage, I want stuff. I don't want to be bored. Anything not to be bored. (Yes, I realize that too much stuff can get boring but I haven't hit that mark yet I think. Not for most people anyway.) Second, why have we gotten in the habit of looking for the message of a play? What is Oedipus Rex about? It isn't actually about how hubris will be your downfall. Hubris wasn't Oedipus's downfall. His downfall was that he killed his father and slept with his mother, and he didn't know he was doing that when he did it so I don't know that you can blame him for it. You might say that Oedipus is saying that you can't avoid fate but since I doubt anyone in the world was arguing that proposition, it ain't much of a message. I think Oedipus is about Oedipus and the city that he rules and what happens to both the city and the king. I think Oedipus is about the world and how we live in it (now the point about fate becomes worthwhile). I think all good plays are about people living in the world. Period. End of story. Are there different ideas in different plays? Of course. But is the author "saying" something? No. If I had something to say, I'd say it. If my opinion about the nature of war or morality or whatever was at all informed and important and worthwhile then I would work for the United Nations or I'd be a moralist or a sociologist or something other than a playwright. A playwright is a storyteller. I tell stories. About people. i care about people. What I'm saying is always about people. People. People. People. The specific people in this situation. How do we live? Who do we love? Why? What? Where? I think asking and exploring these questions are as important a part of being alive as any of the other more pragmatic professions I might have. If I'm saying anything at all about people it is that compassion and truth are our only hope. The world is a ridiculously complex and difficult place. Choices are tough and often contradictory. The only guiding principles that comes even close to being helpful are compassion and truth. And even then we screw up. -- However, I just feel that as an animating principle. The totality of the experience of a play of mine is animated by that belief but I have no intention of putting that in a character's mouth for thematic purposes. Not yet anyway. I'd rather tell you an entertaining story full of real interesting people and lots of other stuff that conveys a heightened sense of truth about the way we live our lives in their world. And also entertains, delights and surprises the fuck out of you. I think this is so worthwhile even if I can't articulate why. . . That's what I try to do anyway. That's all I have to say. Everything else is experience. Everything is experience (I don't know exactly what that sentence means, but it's short and it sounds nice and I think there is something to it).
Long paragraph that.
One final thought. Critics. Huh. Writers write. A lot. Sometimes we write badly and sometimes we write well. I think critics qualify as writers, and sometimes they're really wrong. Sometimes they write badly. I can live with that. It's a shame that they have some degree of power in a medium like theater since theater has a limited arsenal for publicity. The reviews carry more weight than they might with movies where large advertising budgets - and more reviews -- can discount their impact. Still, sometimes critics screw up, and that's OK. I screw up as a writer a lot, and - well, well, well, I suppose a critic won't cut me any slack when I screw up, but since I'm not a critic I can cut them some slack.
Anyway, again, thank god for the Fringe where audiences have a forum to drown out mainstream reviews. And, boy, did I love reading the reviews. Even the ones who had problems with the show. Audience reviewers haven't become harden in their aesthetic choices, and surprisingly, for the most part, they articulate their criteria in a worthwhile fashion. "I can't really like a show about infidelity." "I don't think the small talk at the beginning was interesting." These are so clearly subjective judgements that they feel so much more than a review. They feel like conversation. The Fringe provides so much the opportunity for audiences and artists to be in conversation -- on the website, at the parties, in line for other shows -- o my god do I love that! . . . I do wish critics would enter into the conversation more, but I don't know what their editors are telling them to do so I should stop thinking about it.
Interjection: That bit about audience reviews being stacked is bullshit. First of all, if you look at the reviews over time, the statistical sample balances out the ridiculously positive reviews with more negative reviews, but also, why shouldn't my friends be allowed to tell people how much they liked the show? In my case at least, many of my friends are theater people. They have informed opinions and none of them are going to post bullshit. They liked they show and they think others should see it. Why is that a problem? Hell, even if my mother wanted to to post, why should that be a problem? From what I could tell, it was pretty easy to identify when someone's mom was talking -- Hell, I read one review that stated it and it kind of was so cute it made me want to see the show.
I tell you what I really do hate about some critics though -- the way they sometimes give a positive review that isn't positive or a negative review that isn't negative. It feels when they do that like they refuse to trust even their own feelings. Like they're afraid to say what they feel because then they think the artist will have fooled them. And they can't allow themselves to be fooled. I hate the way that some critics seem to insist on showing that they're smarter than the artist and the audience. (See Star Tribune's silly hit piece on stacked audience reviews for example.)
OK. I'm going to, against my better judgement, use an example. We got a generally positive review from the Star Tribune. I think the critic clearly enjoyed the show. Yet his review was loaded with vague asides and conditional words and phrases. For example, the first line read something like "As infidelity plays go, this one is at least heartfelt, well-written, and well-acted." (Of course I have it memorized. It was a review of my show!) What does that word "at least" mean? At least "heartfelt, well-written, and well-acted"? What would "at most" be? And "as infidelity plays go"? Infidelity plays is a genre? How do most infidelity plays go? The only one I can think of is "Betrayal" by Harold Pinter. That is definitely in the genre of infidelity plays, right? Is the reviewer suggesting that "Betrayal" isn't heartfelt, well-written and well-acted but "How to Cheat" is? Thank you but I'd give a few more props to Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter. Or is he suggesting that "Betrayal" is something more than the least? What would that be? Heartfelt, well-written, well-acted and also what? What what? What the hell is that phrase "at least" doing there? O, I'm liking this rant so I'm going on.
Then the critic writes that I "got lucky"or - "lucked out' I can't remember - when I got Randy and Emily into the show. O, yes, they are wonderful. The show wouldn't work without them. I can't praise them enough. But why the word "lucky"? As though we weren't in this together? As though it wasn't the skillful combination of writer, actors, producer, director's hard work and ability together? No, I'm just lucky that Randy and Emily happened to wander into the rehearsal room one day and trip into this script. Yup. Luck.
Finally, at the end, he ticks off all the interesting themes that thread in and out of the play -- sex, regret, choice, responsibility, etc. -- and says that the laugh lines keep it from becoming too much. In other, more clear words, it is a play with a lot of laughs but also a lot of serious themes. Hell, ain't that the shit we want to be writing and seeing and experiencing? But the way that its phrased puts in the audience's head that it could be too much -- You're not going to like all the stuff that's going on in this play -- except that you will. It's not too much, he says, it's not too much. It's not what I just described it as -- so why the fuck did you describe it that way?!?
I do think that some critics, many critics, feel the need to describe for their readers how clever they are. This critic, for example, is saying between the lines repeatedly that - even though it was a good play -- he wasn't fooled. He's seen infidelity plays before. And he knows all about the themes the author was trying to sneak in there. Sure, the author and the actors did it well but really its all a precarious case of luck. (Hey, I'm a big believer in luck when it comes to art, but I don't exactly understand how or why a critic slides it into a review.)
OK. I'm done. Shit. Should I post this? Don't tell the critics. If you see them, thank them from me for whatever the hell they wrote. Thank them for covering the Fringe. There are seventy more ways I could count how I love the Fringe. I'd be happy to give them story ideas for next year. . . Blogs can be dangerous I think.
Much love. Thank you for coming to see "How to Cheat." Bye-bye.
Also, audiences seemed to enjoy it very much. The Fringe Festival is glorious for a variety of reasons but, at the moment, I'm thinking about the gloriousness of being so near your audience so often that over eleven days people I've never met before approach me or the actors or the directors with unsolicited comments. Three or four or seven days after they saw the show people are telling me how it effected them, how it stayed under their skin, how they're still thinking about it, how they related to it, how they questioned it, how they think it was truthful -- How fucking fantastic is that!??!
I love the Fringe Festival. Stop me from counting the ways.
Also, I learned that all the difficult stuff we put in scripts, all the hard stuff I had vowed to avoid as a writer, need not be scary. Turns out that sex on stage, when done abstractly and well, can be everyone's favorite part. Dream sequences can work. There are no limits to what the theater can attempt - nor should there be. . . I knew that - I just didn't know that I had the ability to explore all the possibilities.
I said stop me from counting the ways I love the Fringe.
I wish these actors could perform this show in a regular run with a large theater's marketing department and mailing list behind them but they can't. Here's another Fringe thought that amuses me: People kept calling my script more mainstream than other Fringe fare. The simulated sex as a game of cards on stage? Or the Tango? Or the dream sequence? Or the vague suggestion of danger outside the walls? Or the fact that the male romantic lead was Asian? Regardless, I think they meant more professional than many Fringe shows (not all mind you), but the amusing thing is that no theater would do this show. First of all, it wasn't written until June. Money had been paid. Actors committed. Even the title had been decided on and I didn't even have a play until late-June. I'd like to see the Guthrie deal with that shit. More importantly, even if I had the script and showed it to every "mainstream" theater in town, none of them would do it. Please. Put your hand down. You wouldn't do it. I don't know why. My scripts don't read well on the page, for one. But also, it's too out there in style but not out there enough in theme -- or at least not clear in theme - for a mainstream theater to get into it. They want a play that clearly says something thematically about some important issue in the world. So it makes me laugh that people think this show was a bunch of "pros" taking a slot away from the heartfelt amateurs who really need a slot at the Fringe. This show would absolutely never have seen the light of day without the Fringe as a forum.
I told you to stop me from counting goddamnit.
Speaking of theme. Here's another thing I've been thinking about - I'm writing this morning, and this is my warmup. I don't really believe that anyone reads this stuff, or at least they don't really read it, and I want to get my post-fringe thoughts out so that I can move on to the other work I have to do this morning. Why am I deciding to publish it publicly? I don't know. Variety I suppose. It feels Fringey. I threw some ideas out there for the Fringe and got a cool response. I thought I might throw some more Fringe-related ideas out there now to see if anyone is reading and has anything to add. Does anyone edit their blogs though? I'm just kind of freewriting here. Anyway -
Some people say that my plays have "too much stuff" in them. They don't know what I'm trying to say. First of all, I like "too much stuff" for a variety of reasons but the most important one is that it is entertaining and it is fulfilling. Would you rather have a good big meal or a thin meal? I suppose it depends but usually, on stage, I want stuff. I don't want to be bored. Anything not to be bored. (Yes, I realize that too much stuff can get boring but I haven't hit that mark yet I think. Not for most people anyway.) Second, why have we gotten in the habit of looking for the message of a play? What is Oedipus Rex about? It isn't actually about how hubris will be your downfall. Hubris wasn't Oedipus's downfall. His downfall was that he killed his father and slept with his mother, and he didn't know he was doing that when he did it so I don't know that you can blame him for it. You might say that Oedipus is saying that you can't avoid fate but since I doubt anyone in the world was arguing that proposition, it ain't much of a message. I think Oedipus is about Oedipus and the city that he rules and what happens to both the city and the king. I think Oedipus is about the world and how we live in it (now the point about fate becomes worthwhile). I think all good plays are about people living in the world. Period. End of story. Are there different ideas in different plays? Of course. But is the author "saying" something? No. If I had something to say, I'd say it. If my opinion about the nature of war or morality or whatever was at all informed and important and worthwhile then I would work for the United Nations or I'd be a moralist or a sociologist or something other than a playwright. A playwright is a storyteller. I tell stories. About people. i care about people. What I'm saying is always about people. People. People. People. The specific people in this situation. How do we live? Who do we love? Why? What? Where? I think asking and exploring these questions are as important a part of being alive as any of the other more pragmatic professions I might have. If I'm saying anything at all about people it is that compassion and truth are our only hope. The world is a ridiculously complex and difficult place. Choices are tough and often contradictory. The only guiding principles that comes even close to being helpful are compassion and truth. And even then we screw up. -- However, I just feel that as an animating principle. The totality of the experience of a play of mine is animated by that belief but I have no intention of putting that in a character's mouth for thematic purposes. Not yet anyway. I'd rather tell you an entertaining story full of real interesting people and lots of other stuff that conveys a heightened sense of truth about the way we live our lives in their world. And also entertains, delights and surprises the fuck out of you. I think this is so worthwhile even if I can't articulate why. . . That's what I try to do anyway. That's all I have to say. Everything else is experience. Everything is experience (I don't know exactly what that sentence means, but it's short and it sounds nice and I think there is something to it).
Long paragraph that.
One final thought. Critics. Huh. Writers write. A lot. Sometimes we write badly and sometimes we write well. I think critics qualify as writers, and sometimes they're really wrong. Sometimes they write badly. I can live with that. It's a shame that they have some degree of power in a medium like theater since theater has a limited arsenal for publicity. The reviews carry more weight than they might with movies where large advertising budgets - and more reviews -- can discount their impact. Still, sometimes critics screw up, and that's OK. I screw up as a writer a lot, and - well, well, well, I suppose a critic won't cut me any slack when I screw up, but since I'm not a critic I can cut them some slack.
Anyway, again, thank god for the Fringe where audiences have a forum to drown out mainstream reviews. And, boy, did I love reading the reviews. Even the ones who had problems with the show. Audience reviewers haven't become harden in their aesthetic choices, and surprisingly, for the most part, they articulate their criteria in a worthwhile fashion. "I can't really like a show about infidelity." "I don't think the small talk at the beginning was interesting." These are so clearly subjective judgements that they feel so much more than a review. They feel like conversation. The Fringe provides so much the opportunity for audiences and artists to be in conversation -- on the website, at the parties, in line for other shows -- o my god do I love that! . . . I do wish critics would enter into the conversation more, but I don't know what their editors are telling them to do so I should stop thinking about it.
Interjection: That bit about audience reviews being stacked is bullshit. First of all, if you look at the reviews over time, the statistical sample balances out the ridiculously positive reviews with more negative reviews, but also, why shouldn't my friends be allowed to tell people how much they liked the show? In my case at least, many of my friends are theater people. They have informed opinions and none of them are going to post bullshit. They liked they show and they think others should see it. Why is that a problem? Hell, even if my mother wanted to to post, why should that be a problem? From what I could tell, it was pretty easy to identify when someone's mom was talking -- Hell, I read one review that stated it and it kind of was so cute it made me want to see the show.
I tell you what I really do hate about some critics though -- the way they sometimes give a positive review that isn't positive or a negative review that isn't negative. It feels when they do that like they refuse to trust even their own feelings. Like they're afraid to say what they feel because then they think the artist will have fooled them. And they can't allow themselves to be fooled. I hate the way that some critics seem to insist on showing that they're smarter than the artist and the audience. (See Star Tribune's silly hit piece on stacked audience reviews for example.)
OK. I'm going to, against my better judgement, use an example. We got a generally positive review from the Star Tribune. I think the critic clearly enjoyed the show. Yet his review was loaded with vague asides and conditional words and phrases. For example, the first line read something like "As infidelity plays go, this one is at least heartfelt, well-written, and well-acted." (Of course I have it memorized. It was a review of my show!) What does that word "at least" mean? At least "heartfelt, well-written, and well-acted"? What would "at most" be? And "as infidelity plays go"? Infidelity plays is a genre? How do most infidelity plays go? The only one I can think of is "Betrayal" by Harold Pinter. That is definitely in the genre of infidelity plays, right? Is the reviewer suggesting that "Betrayal" isn't heartfelt, well-written and well-acted but "How to Cheat" is? Thank you but I'd give a few more props to Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter. Or is he suggesting that "Betrayal" is something more than the least? What would that be? Heartfelt, well-written, well-acted and also what? What what? What the hell is that phrase "at least" doing there? O, I'm liking this rant so I'm going on.
Then the critic writes that I "got lucky"or - "lucked out' I can't remember - when I got Randy and Emily into the show. O, yes, they are wonderful. The show wouldn't work without them. I can't praise them enough. But why the word "lucky"? As though we weren't in this together? As though it wasn't the skillful combination of writer, actors, producer, director's hard work and ability together? No, I'm just lucky that Randy and Emily happened to wander into the rehearsal room one day and trip into this script. Yup. Luck.
Finally, at the end, he ticks off all the interesting themes that thread in and out of the play -- sex, regret, choice, responsibility, etc. -- and says that the laugh lines keep it from becoming too much. In other, more clear words, it is a play with a lot of laughs but also a lot of serious themes. Hell, ain't that the shit we want to be writing and seeing and experiencing? But the way that its phrased puts in the audience's head that it could be too much -- You're not going to like all the stuff that's going on in this play -- except that you will. It's not too much, he says, it's not too much. It's not what I just described it as -- so why the fuck did you describe it that way?!?
I do think that some critics, many critics, feel the need to describe for their readers how clever they are. This critic, for example, is saying between the lines repeatedly that - even though it was a good play -- he wasn't fooled. He's seen infidelity plays before. And he knows all about the themes the author was trying to sneak in there. Sure, the author and the actors did it well but really its all a precarious case of luck. (Hey, I'm a big believer in luck when it comes to art, but I don't exactly understand how or why a critic slides it into a review.)
OK. I'm done. Shit. Should I post this? Don't tell the critics. If you see them, thank them from me for whatever the hell they wrote. Thank them for covering the Fringe. There are seventy more ways I could count how I love the Fringe. I'd be happy to give them story ideas for next year. . . Blogs can be dangerous I think.
Much love. Thank you for coming to see "How to Cheat." Bye-bye.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Another Opening Night. Come Join Us.
I have been lucky and honored in the last year to have a number of people who are willing to produce my work while at the same time involving me intensely in the process.
Before Leah and I take some well-earned backpacking time (OK, she earned it. My life since I met her has been one big adventure), I'll have one more chance to see something wierd I concocted be produced by an incredibly talented and devoted group of people. I don't deserve so good.
Still, I'm going to enjoy this play. I've tried some things I never tried before. In fact, I'm telling people that the play has five things in it that I vowed I would NEVER do as a writer. If you can guess what they all are, then. . . Something. You'll win a door prize.
The play is funny. The characters are complex and charming and also a little unlikeable while still being funny and smart, and I think you'll feel for them anyway. The action of the play is surprising. You will not be able to predict what happens next. Plus, there is dancing.
I think it will be a fun evening, worthy of the spirit of the Fringe Festival. I think people who come to see it will walk out thinking they had a good night, and I hope and believe they might talk about some aspect of it over the course of the rest of their evening.
OK. So I'm tryin' to get you to be one of those people.
The show is called "How to Cheat" It's playing at the University of Minnesota's Rarig Center ARENA STAGE. That's the theater on the south side on the second floor. The Rarig Center is on the corner of 4th street and 21st Avenue in the West Bank.
Finally, the schedule:
Friday, August 4 @ 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, August 5th @ 4 p.m.
Sunday, August 6th @ 10 p.m.
Thursday, August 10th @ 5:30 p.m.
Saturday, August 12th @ 7:00 p.m.
Advanced tix from uptowntix.com or 651-209-6799
but that's not the fringe way. Come 15 minutes before the show starts and wait in line. My shows never sell out. They scare people. "I don't think I'll understand it." Maybe. Hell, half the time, I don't understand them. You'll laugh. You'll stay awake. You may even sit forward in your seat. . . What's to understand?
Hope to see you soon.
Before Leah and I take some well-earned backpacking time (OK, she earned it. My life since I met her has been one big adventure), I'll have one more chance to see something wierd I concocted be produced by an incredibly talented and devoted group of people. I don't deserve so good.
Still, I'm going to enjoy this play. I've tried some things I never tried before. In fact, I'm telling people that the play has five things in it that I vowed I would NEVER do as a writer. If you can guess what they all are, then. . . Something. You'll win a door prize.
The play is funny. The characters are complex and charming and also a little unlikeable while still being funny and smart, and I think you'll feel for them anyway. The action of the play is surprising. You will not be able to predict what happens next. Plus, there is dancing.
I think it will be a fun evening, worthy of the spirit of the Fringe Festival. I think people who come to see it will walk out thinking they had a good night, and I hope and believe they might talk about some aspect of it over the course of the rest of their evening.
OK. So I'm tryin' to get you to be one of those people.
The show is called "How to Cheat" It's playing at the University of Minnesota's Rarig Center ARENA STAGE. That's the theater on the south side on the second floor. The Rarig Center is on the corner of 4th street and 21st Avenue in the West Bank.
Finally, the schedule:
Friday, August 4 @ 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, August 5th @ 4 p.m.
Sunday, August 6th @ 10 p.m.
Thursday, August 10th @ 5:30 p.m.
Saturday, August 12th @ 7:00 p.m.
Advanced tix from uptowntix.com or 651-209-6799
but that's not the fringe way. Come 15 minutes before the show starts and wait in line. My shows never sell out. They scare people. "I don't think I'll understand it." Maybe. Hell, half the time, I don't understand them. You'll laugh. You'll stay awake. You may even sit forward in your seat. . . What's to understand?
Hope to see you soon.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
An Award Nomination for Goats
MIchael Szeles, the guy who performed my solo show Goats in New York, was nominated for an award in the new "New York Innovative Theater" or IT Awards whose tag lines is something like "celebrating off-off-broadway." He was nominated for best solo performance. Go to http://www.nyitawards.org/
I think this is a good thing though I don't really know what it is. I hope it helps Michael's career. He was great. Then I hope it helps him become famous, and eventually, he calls me up to make my next script into a star vehicle. Something like that.
Every little bit helps. Thank you for playing.
I think this is a good thing though I don't really know what it is. I hope it helps Michael's career. He was great. Then I hope it helps him become famous, and eventually, he calls me up to make my next script into a star vehicle. Something like that.
Every little bit helps. Thank you for playing.
An Award Nomination for Goats
Apparently, MIchael Szeles, the guy who performed my solo show Goats in New York, was nominated for an award in the new "Innovative Theater" or IT Awards whose tag lines is something like "celebrating off-off-broadway." He was nominated for best solo performance.
I think this is a good thing though I don't really know what it is. I hope it helps Michael's career. He was great. Then I hope it helps him become famous, and eventually, he calls me up to make my next script into a star vehicle. Something like that.
Every little bit helps, I guess. Thank you for playing.
I think this is a good thing though I don't really know what it is. I hope it helps Michael's career. He was great. Then I hope it helps him become famous, and eventually, he calls me up to make my next script into a star vehicle. Something like that.
Every little bit helps, I guess. Thank you for playing.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
War
I think we're an itchy trigger finger away from ww3 in the Middle East. . . I wrote an entire play about horrible despair in the darkest moments of the Middle East yet still having faith in life. . . And even I am starting to lose faith.
Predominantly because the people who run U.S. policy have shown themselves to be so unbelievably clueless as to defy imagination. The administration didn't start it. The situation in the Middle East is inifinitely more complicated and more specific than U.S. media ever conveys to us. . . And yet, these fuckheads in our government hold the controls of all the incredible capacities of the most powerful country the world has ever known, capacities that while unable to eradicate evil as a concept in our universe, certainly could be used to handle crazy situations. . .
Yes, they didn't start it, but do they deserve any blame for not being able to use all our power intelligently. They have the capacity to control things -- and they don't know how.
What is the proper feeling towards them? Anger? I'm angry at Hezbollah and Hamas -- and, for balance, the orthodox jew who killed Rabin all those years ago. Disappoointment? I would have to have expected something from them. I didn't vote for these fuckers because I thought they would govern badly. (Why wasn't that everyone's criteria? "O, he seems like such a decisive guy. You could have a beer with him. he has my values." He's applying for a job, Assholes! Is he a good candidate for the fucking job?!!?)
What is this emotion? Loss. Lost. Despair. The situation is fucked. There are bad people and emotional people and trapped people and compromised people and as we look around for some solution we have to look at the people at the controls of this powerful country because they might be able to do something. We don't care why its happening at this point; just someone please do something. . . And the people who have the capacities to do something don't fucking know what they're doing. . . I'm not angry. I'm not disappointed. . . I'm full of despair . . . Ok, I take it back. I'm a little angry. FUCK!
But this is the world. It has always been thus, right? Let us pray I guess. To who? I don't know. For what? Don't know that either. Fuck! . . . yet we endure. . . See? I'm very torn.
O well. Thanks for reading. I wonder whether I'll feel better when I hit post.
Predominantly because the people who run U.S. policy have shown themselves to be so unbelievably clueless as to defy imagination. The administration didn't start it. The situation in the Middle East is inifinitely more complicated and more specific than U.S. media ever conveys to us. . . And yet, these fuckheads in our government hold the controls of all the incredible capacities of the most powerful country the world has ever known, capacities that while unable to eradicate evil as a concept in our universe, certainly could be used to handle crazy situations. . .
Yes, they didn't start it, but do they deserve any blame for not being able to use all our power intelligently. They have the capacity to control things -- and they don't know how.
What is the proper feeling towards them? Anger? I'm angry at Hezbollah and Hamas -- and, for balance, the orthodox jew who killed Rabin all those years ago. Disappoointment? I would have to have expected something from them. I didn't vote for these fuckers because I thought they would govern badly. (Why wasn't that everyone's criteria? "O, he seems like such a decisive guy. You could have a beer with him. he has my values." He's applying for a job, Assholes! Is he a good candidate for the fucking job?!!?)
What is this emotion? Loss. Lost. Despair. The situation is fucked. There are bad people and emotional people and trapped people and compromised people and as we look around for some solution we have to look at the people at the controls of this powerful country because they might be able to do something. We don't care why its happening at this point; just someone please do something. . . And the people who have the capacities to do something don't fucking know what they're doing. . . I'm not angry. I'm not disappointed. . . I'm full of despair . . . Ok, I take it back. I'm a little angry. FUCK!
But this is the world. It has always been thus, right? Let us pray I guess. To who? I don't know. For what? Don't know that either. Fuck! . . . yet we endure. . . See? I'm very torn.
O well. Thanks for reading. I wonder whether I'll feel better when I hit post.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
Welcome Fancy New Web Site
Everyone else is bloggin all the time. Why not me?
Blog is a horrible word. It's fine for something that a bunch of happy, smart freaks are doing, but the proliferation of blogs is actually distressing in the way that a proliferation of zits or warts or hairy, mangy muts would be distressing.
I'm only writing to have something to do while I wait for someone to visit our open house. Anyone want to buy a house?
What is getting me down, as I waste time online, is that you'd think, if you spend a lot of time using the internet to gather information, that there is no such thing as information, only opinion. You'd think that no one is doing anything anymore but discussing theoretical relationships between ideas, opinions, and assumptions.
One person says one thing. Another person disagrees by tacking a different tack. Any person looks at another angle. . . Except all of it is based on the unsupported assumptions of the authors about how the world works -- and anyone who actually lives in the world knows that probably none of those assumptions are true.
Arguers need to generalize -- even when they have facts, which they don't -- Everyone is arguing, so everyone is generalizing. So ultimately everyone's opinion bares almost no resemblance to the world. They get so far down the line of their reasoning that they come unmoored from earth.
And, the depressing part, its very hard to remember the earth when everyone who is talking, and talking loud, is somewhere in orbit.
This is what I notice most often in conversations and classrooms: i have no idea what people are talking about. They seem to be discussing a world that I've never experienced. They say "People are doing this. . . " and I wonder who the hell they're really talking about. Sure, it sounds reasonable, even possible, but that doesn't make it so. "Everyone knows that. . ." There is very little that I know.
And, there we have it also - we come all the way back around to Socrates. "The only thing I know is that I know nothing." And he got killed for that. There are always blowhards. There are always opinion-makers and bullshit artists and nonsense. The rare thing is when thought and content is valued, and the people who are charged with reporting on the world actually humble themselves before the world.
I can't decide whether its comforting or suicidally depressing to know that everything is always the same in this way.
Blog is a horrible word. It's fine for something that a bunch of happy, smart freaks are doing, but the proliferation of blogs is actually distressing in the way that a proliferation of zits or warts or hairy, mangy muts would be distressing.
I'm only writing to have something to do while I wait for someone to visit our open house. Anyone want to buy a house?
What is getting me down, as I waste time online, is that you'd think, if you spend a lot of time using the internet to gather information, that there is no such thing as information, only opinion. You'd think that no one is doing anything anymore but discussing theoretical relationships between ideas, opinions, and assumptions.
One person says one thing. Another person disagrees by tacking a different tack. Any person looks at another angle. . . Except all of it is based on the unsupported assumptions of the authors about how the world works -- and anyone who actually lives in the world knows that probably none of those assumptions are true.
Arguers need to generalize -- even when they have facts, which they don't -- Everyone is arguing, so everyone is generalizing. So ultimately everyone's opinion bares almost no resemblance to the world. They get so far down the line of their reasoning that they come unmoored from earth.
And, the depressing part, its very hard to remember the earth when everyone who is talking, and talking loud, is somewhere in orbit.
This is what I notice most often in conversations and classrooms: i have no idea what people are talking about. They seem to be discussing a world that I've never experienced. They say "People are doing this. . . " and I wonder who the hell they're really talking about. Sure, it sounds reasonable, even possible, but that doesn't make it so. "Everyone knows that. . ." There is very little that I know.
And, there we have it also - we come all the way back around to Socrates. "The only thing I know is that I know nothing." And he got killed for that. There are always blowhards. There are always opinion-makers and bullshit artists and nonsense. The rare thing is when thought and content is valued, and the people who are charged with reporting on the world actually humble themselves before the world.
I can't decide whether its comforting or suicidally depressing to know that everything is always the same in this way.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Reviews
Check this out. Reviews of "Almost Exactly Like Us":
talkinbroadway.com
Pioneer Press
Minneapolis Star Tribune
City Pages
And the King of All Rave Reviews for the Production Company's staging of "Goats" in New York:
nytheatre.com
talkinbroadway.com
Pioneer Press
Minneapolis Star Tribune
City Pages
And the King of All Rave Reviews for the Production Company's staging of "Goats" in New York:
nytheatre.com
Sunday, January 22, 2006
So much to say
So much to say:
Thirst begins again on Monday, January 23. More new scripts, new writers, new actors. More surprises. Fights. Who knows?
Goats premieres in New York -- yup, New York City -- at the Production Company in the Garment District Theater on Thursday, January 26. productioncompany.org for more info.
Almost Exactly Like Us begins rehearsal at Gremlin Theater today (Sunday). The show opens in February 26. gremlinetheatre.org for more information.
Almost Exactly Like Us was written specifically for Gremlin and, really, only finished a few weeks ago. I love them for setting a date and doing a new play. I think the play will be better for it.
Thirst begins again on Monday, January 23. More new scripts, new writers, new actors. More surprises. Fights. Who knows?
Goats premieres in New York -- yup, New York City -- at the Production Company in the Garment District Theater on Thursday, January 26. productioncompany.org for more info.
Almost Exactly Like Us begins rehearsal at Gremlin Theater today (Sunday). The show opens in February 26. gremlinetheatre.org for more information.
Almost Exactly Like Us was written specifically for Gremlin and, really, only finished a few weeks ago. I love them for setting a date and doing a new play. I think the play will be better for it.
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