Babylon, Babylon; Room for Cream; crooked; Top Girls
Category: Writing and Poetry

Babylon Babylon, Room for Cream, crooked, Top Girls - Theaterorama

8:34 AM - 2 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Untitled Mars and NYTR Book Launch
Current mood: blissful
Category: Writing and Poetry

Caught Untitled Mars by Jay Scheib at PS 122 last week. It is a sci/fi tech romp based heavily on Philip K. Dick's Martian Time-Slip. In fact, it is pretty much a straight adaptation of Martian Time-Slip, with a few interviews with current Martian colony experts on the science of Mars colonization inserted and some intriguing staging.

I thought the cast was top-notch. Tanya Sevaratnam (Jackie) really pulled me in and made me feel like I was watching a real person. The staging is very reminiscent of Ivo van Hove's Misanthrope at NYTW last year-- with cameras and big screens and backstage moments. Not a device that does a whole lot for me, but people who dug Misanthrope should also like this. I liked the real science tidbits the best. I was happiest in the moments where I felt like I had accidentally intruded on an MIT lecture on the probability of Martian colonization. That was all fascinating. It is a good show for a techno-geek or Philip K.-fanatic.

On Friday, I caught the New York Theatre Review book launch at the Drama Bookstore. They presented an excerpt from Tommy Smith's play White Hot that was one of the funniest and most engaging scenes I have seen in a long time. I was really bummed to have missed the production last year! Maybe it'll come back with the Fringe Fest or something. Also a fascinating essay from Victoria Linchong about the early history of and demise of the Cafe Cino in Greenwich in the 1960s. I finished reading that essay on the subway ride home from the launch and loved it. Lots of strong stuff this year!

In other news, the Maieutics Theatre Works' production of Sans Merci is cast and rehearsals should begin in a few weeks. I am not sure if actresses have been notified/accepted yet-- so no hints. Except the cast rocks and I expect miracles. I am frantically rewriting Godsbreath and 8 Little Antichrists simultaneously. Which will undoubtedly lead to my antichrist puppets raising game cocks and a procreationist multi-birth breeder vats with uterine simulant technology appearing in the Godsbreath cemetery. Which, hmmmm, might not be such a bad thing.

Planning to check out Babylon Babylon at the Brick on Friday. Am very excited about a play about temple slaves. How did they know about me and temple slaves?

9:06 AM - 5 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Flux Theatre Ensemble’s Spring Benefit on Monday April 14th
Category: Parties and Nightlife

I will be at Flux’s benefit on Monday April 14th for their spring production of Midsummer. And my lovely publisher, Mr. Jason Aaron Goldberg of Original Works Publishing, has graciously donated copies of my plays COCKFIGHTERS and THE SACRED GEOMETRY OF S&M PORN for the silent auction part of the benefit-- along with a selection of other great titles from OWP (he didn’t tell me what other scripts he gave Flux, so you will have to come see).

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"A Midsummer Night’s Dream" Benefit Party
April 14th, 2008
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6:30pm to 10:30pm (arrive anytime)The White Rabbit145 E Houston St., NY, NY 10002 USDoor Price: $15
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We are delighted to invite you to our Benefit Party for our production of Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" held at the White Rabbit. There will be drink specials, light hors d’oeuvres and a Raffle at the end of the night with excellent prizes. If you are unable to attend, but would still like to participate in our raffle, please go to our blog where you can view the prizes and buy your raffle tickets. More information can be found HERE.
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All of the money raised will go directly to supporting our production of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream". We hope to see you there!

And check out the great raffle prixes up for grabs HERE.

3:03 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Artwork for Maieutic Theatre Works’ Production of Sans Merci
Current mood: adventurous
Category: Writing and Poetry

1:14 PM - 7 Comments - 9 Kudos - Add Comment

Feed the Rude Guerilla
Current mood: determined
Category: Art and Photography

Just went to paypal and donated to help my friends at the spectacular Rude Guerilla Theatre Company. Hereby challenging anyone else interested in supporting exciting new work for the theatre to do the same.
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Dear Friend of the Rude Guerrilla Theater Company,

We appreciate your support over the past 11 years of our existence. However, ticket sales alone make up only a portion of Rude Guerrilla Theatre Company’s operating budget. In order to grow and to be able to continue providing socially-conscious, provocative theatre that matters, we need your help.

This year, we are establishing The Guerrilla Guild – an annual giving program that will provide you an opportunity to be an active partof what the Los Angeles Times calls "…Orange County’s most daring ensemble". By being part of the Guerrilla Guild each year, you will:

• Help us bring new and exciting theatre experiences to Orange County. We offer varied and innovative, thoughtprovoking
material, presented in new and daring stagings.
• Participate in promoting local artistic activities. We are gaining a solid reputation for providing cost-conscious access to the arts, and bringing theatre to those who may never have experienced it.
• Improve and expand our facilities and production capabilities, in order to provide even more exciting theatrical experiences. See the Wish List on our website for ways your contributions may be used.

As a Guerrilla Guild member:
• Your donations are tax-deductible. At the end of the year, you will receive a receipt for your total contributions to Rude Guerrilla, a 501(c) 3 non-profit corporation.
• You will receive complimentary tickets and other benefits (see our website).
• You will receive recognition in our program and on Rude Guerrilla’s website.
Guerrilla Guild members may donate funds from $100 up, but all contributions are truly appreciated. To join the Guild, go to our website (www.rudeguerrilla.org) and click on the Donation Page link and you may contribute via Paypal. We also accept donations via regular mail, by check or credit card (Visa/MC/Amex). All donors are free to change the level of their contribution, or to opt out altogether, as circumstances require.

Or click on the link below and make a donation today!

http://www.rudeguerrilla.org/GuildFolder/Guildinfo.html

We thank you for your support in the past and look forward to your continued generosity in the future.

Jay Fraley and Dave Barton
Artistic Directors
Rude Guerrilla Theater Company

2:26 PM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

New Headshots
Current mood: artistic
Category: Art and Photography

Got new headshots this weekend with Jason Berger. He is the older brother of my Deloitte coworker Debra, so it was nice to get to meet him and shoot with him.

 

Wish we could have done more outdoor shots-- but it was too cold and windy. I like the graffiti shot, though. That will be my new business card. I have already ordered them from vistaprint.com.

 

We took about 760 photos in two hours. I have decided that surely there is a level of hell devoted to looking at over 700 photos of yourself at one time. Yuck! If I am ever feeling conceited and superior, I will just pull out that CD and make myself look at all of them again. But, I did like a handful, so it is worth it.

9:06 AM - 11 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

The Poor Itch and The Four of Us
Category: Writing and Poetry

I saw three shows in two days this weekend! Aren’t I just a little fireball of theatrical energy?

Friday was American Globe Theatre’s The Winter’s Tale, Saturday matinee was Itamar Moses’ The Four of Us at MTC, and Saturday night was the unfinished The Poor Itch by the late John Belluso. Winter’s Tale was nice, my friend Christina Shipp was a fantastic Perdita, but I don’t see enough Shakespeare to blog well about it, so I will skip to the other two show:

The Poor Itch by John Belluso is a fascinating production of an unfinished play. This is the play that John was writing when he died unexpectedly of heart failure in 2006. The director, Lisa Peterson, and the cast pulled together drafts and John’s notes to fully stage the final draft he was working on at the time of his death. Knowing that gave an already powerful narrative an almost overwhelmly melancholy weight. Increasingly in the second act, the actors would step forward and read a synopsis of a scene John had sketched out in prose and end the description by saying "scene unwritten." That was one of the most painful conventions I have ever experienced in the theater. The story centers around an American soldier (Ian, played by a wonderfully conflcited and complicated Christopher Thornton) who was shot in the spine while fighting in Iraq and is now adjusting to life in a wheelchair in his blue-collar hometown. Deirdre O’Connell did a lovely job as his mother Coral, and Michael Chernus was outstanding as his loser friend Curt. All around, the casting for this was exceptionally good. It was a very gripping story and I hope the play goes on to more productions (like, at the Taper, maybe??). Big kudos to the director and cast. It must have been a very challenging project, and they pulled it off very beautifully.

Play two was Itamar Moses’ The Four of Us at MTC. I am HUGE Bach at Leipzig fan, but this one was didn’t hit the same level for me. The story is a two-person play about a playwright who has a good friend who is a novelist. The novelist sells his first novel for a $2 million royalty advance / film rights package and the resulting stress on their friendship propels the action of the play forward. About a third of the play takes place in flashbacks. There were some funny scenes, all of them very playwright-focused (the speech about how you have to have an MFA to make it as a playwright, the fantasy talkback in a dinky Indiana theater where the playwright unleashes his inner ungrateful brattiness and goes off on the director and designers, the digs at reviewers, etc.) The non-playwright-looking rest of the audience seemed to like it. The characters are well drawn, but because they go to Prague in pursuit of casual sex and writing time, I was reminded a lot of Adam Rapp’s characters in Red Light Winter-- who also go to Prague for casual sex and to talk about writing careers-- and not to The Four of Us’ advantage. Rapp’s characters manage to spout brilliant, dramatic and suspenseful dialogue in a way that made Moses’ characters look a little flat by comparison. I don’t know, I really, really wanted to like this and was prepared to worship Itamar Moses as a god-- but there were not any pretty Bach-era costumes, so the post of god is still open.

1:07 PM - 2 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Saw Jerry Patch in the lobby at The Public on Saturday
Current mood: artistic
Category: Parties and Nightlife

Nice to see friendly faces from my Orange County days. Well, he didn’t recognize or remember me, even after I re-introduced myself, but still it was nice. I guess. He talked to us for a few minutes-- probably because I was with Toby Thelin, who works at his new theater, the Manhattan Theatre Club. Still. He talked to us. He said that Mary Fengar Gail is also moving to NY, so I am glad to get to see her soon.

He opined that Sarah Ruhl, Itamar Moses, and Noah Haidle are the only significant playwrights under 35 in the nation (good thing for him I just turned 35 in November, huh? Otherwise them would have been fighting words!). Ahem. And seemed to be really excited about getting to work at MTC.

I was there seeing John Belluso’s THE POOR ITCH (which I will blog about later) and I think Jerry was just hanging around to meet up with somebody important. Not sure. He didn’t say.

There is an article in the LA Times about how Jerry is transitioning from the Old Globe Theatre to the Manhattan Theatre Club. Your loss west coast, our gain.

12:21 AM - 8 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Spending Some of the Work Bonus on Theater
Category: Writing and Poetry

Now that I am debt-free (you are going to get really sick of hearing that phrase leave my mouth!), I am giving to some worthy theaters and thought I'd pressure encourage you to donate, too!

First off Adam Szymkowicz shared an email on his blog that talks about how Culture Project had a pipe burst at their offices last month and lost over $100K in computers, supplies, flooring, lighting, phones, sound equipment, projection equipment, and production equipment. Yikes! Here is how they say you can help:

Please go to www.cultureproject.org or call 212-925-1806 to make a special credit card gift to Culture Project to help mitigate the effects of the flood. You can also mail a check to: Culture Project55 Mercer StreetNew York, NY 10013 Attention: Development

1:29 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Erik Patterson’s New Blog is Cool
Category: Friends

Primo, neato, Los Angeles dog-ear playwright Erik Patterson has launched a new blog.

You should definitely go read. He posted cool pictures of things to do lists he makes in a journal. I want to steal that idea (both the idea of keeping a journal just for to do lists, and the idea of taking photos of your journal to put online).

1:12 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment