Matt does me a solid. I return the favor.
I missed Glee Club this summer, so I'm psyched to go and see it this time around. And there's still time for the sweet discount. Who doesn't love a good discount?
Break legs, Matt!
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Cheap Theatre. Plus Dancing.
The Ensemble Studio Theatre has a long, long history of developing, supporting and producing new works and new playwrights, including yours truly. In fact, they were tagged in everybody's favorite book as the top developmental theatre in New York (as selected by playwrights). Go, E.S.T.! But in recent months, as I think I've mentioned here, they've become known for something else: awesome dance parties. The shows come down, the set gets cleared, and the music starts up. Fun ensues.
E.S.T. is just about to open a new production, Lenin's Embalmers by Vern Thiessen, as part of their 10-year old EST/Sloan Project, which produces new plays about science and technology. You can read a bit about the background of the play here. And, on Saturday, March 13th, they're hosting a dance party after the show.
Double-bonus: they're offering a $10 discount to readers of this old blog. That means you! Go here for tickets to the 7 p.m. Saturday, March 13th performance and use the code JTIX99. Come out to see the show, then join me on the dance floor for some grooving. It will be something remarkably similar to this.
E.S.T. is just about to open a new production, Lenin's Embalmers by Vern Thiessen, as part of their 10-year old EST/Sloan Project, which produces new plays about science and technology. You can read a bit about the background of the play here. And, on Saturday, March 13th, they're hosting a dance party after the show.
Double-bonus: they're offering a $10 discount to readers of this old blog. That means you! Go here for tickets to the 7 p.m. Saturday, March 13th performance and use the code JTIX99. Come out to see the show, then join me on the dance floor for some grooving. It will be something remarkably similar to this.
Stop Making Sense
Scott proves himself to be a wise, wise man here. There's lots I like in this, in just about every way, but here's a key bit:
I also like very much that he acknowledges that some of his responses have come from a place of personal anger and annoyance. It's pretty easy to fly off the handle on the interwebs (believe me, I know!) and take things personally or have just one part of what someone says ding your ear in a way that sets you off. We need more taking of deep breaths, thinking through our arguments and thoughts and asking ourselves: Is that really what I meant? Because sometimes, it's not. Sometimes it's worth taking stock.
It's so easy to get locked into a position, both here on the internet and in life, and then use a whole lot of confirmation bias to avoid ever really examining it. You know what that one guy said that time about unexamined life and its relative worth. It's kind of famous. Good on ya, Prof.
So my quest, through CRADLE and through my teaching, is to open up an awareness and create opportunities for both young theatre artists and also creative people who, like Matt Freeman, want to express themselves even if they make their living doing something else. So yes, write it yourself...and act it yourself, and sing it yourself, and paint it yourself, and dance it yourself. And do it for others, for your community, as an end in itself and not a means to "fame and fortune."RTWT.
I also like very much that he acknowledges that some of his responses have come from a place of personal anger and annoyance. It's pretty easy to fly off the handle on the interwebs (believe me, I know!) and take things personally or have just one part of what someone says ding your ear in a way that sets you off. We need more taking of deep breaths, thinking through our arguments and thoughts and asking ourselves: Is that really what I meant? Because sometimes, it's not. Sometimes it's worth taking stock.
It's so easy to get locked into a position, both here on the internet and in life, and then use a whole lot of confirmation bias to avoid ever really examining it. You know what that one guy said that time about unexamined life and its relative worth. It's kind of famous. Good on ya, Prof.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth
Almost literally. As I've watched the news coming out of Chile, I've been thinking exactly this. And not even in the Katrina "black people loot while white people scavenge" way. It's been more noticing our fear-based news: looting! There's looting! And lawlessness! Scary! Scary!
But, as Yglesias notes, if you've just survived a devastating natural disaster and you're without supplies, how else are you going to get them?
But, as Yglesias notes, if you've just survived a devastating natural disaster and you're without supplies, how else are you going to get them?
Whipper-Snappers and Alterkockers
Over at Isaac's, I covered some of the Prof's posts on the audiences we're writing for. I think they're mainly great and really worth reading, so, you know, RTWT. Twice.
I do, though, have more than a bit of a quibble with this bit, that I quoted at Parabasis:
Harrumph. I don't want to get my dander up here, but, as a young playwright, I kind of take exception. They're not exactly fighting words...but they're close.
Now, let me say this: I completely understand what's he's talking about, in a large sense. I've been a young playwright, worked with young playwrights and, as hard as I've tried, I've fallen into the traps of A) using easy stereotypes to describe older characters and B) writing plays about the trials and tribulations of youth as though they were the most important things in the world. There is a maturation process that happens, a perspective that you gain. When you're 19, in college, and in love, it seems like a break-up is the most important thing to ever happen in the history of the world. I brought an early play of mine into a writers' group once, one of those plays about a young couple breaking up, full of histrionics and whatnot. And a guy, about my age now, told me, not unkindly, that the writing was fine and all, but...who really cares? A couple of twenty-somethings breaking up? Not the end of the world. That was a lesson I took to heart.
But one I keep learning. Just last week, I brought a full-length play about an older, more middle-aged couple into a different writers' group, one composed almost entirely of writers older than I am. The play read well, but, near the end, I got dinged again. I described one of the leads as "looking good for her age" in the stage directions, which, to someone who was actually the age the character is supposed to be, was a red flag.
I am a young-ish playwright, a couple of years older than Miller when he wrote Death of A Saleman actually. No, I haven't felt real middle-aged malaise and questioning. I know that. But I can't describe it? I can't empathize? That undercuts the entire nature of art, the entire endeavor of making plays. I have parents, older friends and relatives. I listen to how they speak, watch how they move and act, hear their voices, their rhythms and I try to capture that. If was stuck only writing about things that I myself had personally experienced, yeah, I'd just be writing about a bunch of thirtysomethings who are still figuring out their lives. There's room for that, to be sure, but the real great stuff means reaching out to tell a wider story. To connect to something bigger than myself, something more. That's the whole point of imagination. To look at someone else's life and put myself in their shoes.
Plus, since theatre is a collaborative art, we get a bonus: when I finish my play, I cast an actor who is the right age and they say the words and they tell me what I get right, what I get wrong and I change it. It's a beautiful process.
I think that process gets short-changed. And I think that our field's emphasis on the playwright as the sole voice and the way we push people to only "write what they know" in the most limited senses do drive our plays away from an expansive vision and into the narrowest of focuses. But it is possible and can and should be done and encouraged.
On the Death of A Salesman tip...dude. The play's about Willy Loman. He doesn't necessarily come off as the hero, but it's his play. I don't think that Miller's sympathy lies with Biff; it's Willy's tragedy. Arthur Miller may be Biff, and certainly gave him some great scenes and moments, but it's Willy's play. It's not the play of a middle-aged man, sure. But that doesn't mean he didn't understand the middle-aged man in it.
And, for my money, I agree with Paul in the comments: I prefer The Price over After The Fall when it comes to Arthur Miller writing about the concerns of middle age. But then again, what do I know? I'm just a kid.
I do, though, have more than a bit of a quibble with this bit, that I quoted at Parabasis:
This, by the way, is the type of thing that youthful playwrights cannot write about empathically, having never experienced it. The young are still thrashing around with possibilities, while we are searching for meaning in what we've done and seeking the new thing that will enhance that meaning. Had Arthur Miller written Death of a Salesman at 54 instead of 34, there would have been a lot more sympathy for Willy and a lot less for Biff, I suspect. Salesman is a young man's play. Instead, at 49 Miller wrote After the Fall, a play that looks inward at his life. It is a middle-aged play.Emphasis added.
Harrumph. I don't want to get my dander up here, but, as a young playwright, I kind of take exception. They're not exactly fighting words...but they're close.
Now, let me say this: I completely understand what's he's talking about, in a large sense. I've been a young playwright, worked with young playwrights and, as hard as I've tried, I've fallen into the traps of A) using easy stereotypes to describe older characters and B) writing plays about the trials and tribulations of youth as though they were the most important things in the world. There is a maturation process that happens, a perspective that you gain. When you're 19, in college, and in love, it seems like a break-up is the most important thing to ever happen in the history of the world. I brought an early play of mine into a writers' group once, one of those plays about a young couple breaking up, full of histrionics and whatnot. And a guy, about my age now, told me, not unkindly, that the writing was fine and all, but...who really cares? A couple of twenty-somethings breaking up? Not the end of the world. That was a lesson I took to heart.
But one I keep learning. Just last week, I brought a full-length play about an older, more middle-aged couple into a different writers' group, one composed almost entirely of writers older than I am. The play read well, but, near the end, I got dinged again. I described one of the leads as "looking good for her age" in the stage directions, which, to someone who was actually the age the character is supposed to be, was a red flag.
I am a young-ish playwright, a couple of years older than Miller when he wrote Death of A Saleman actually. No, I haven't felt real middle-aged malaise and questioning. I know that. But I can't describe it? I can't empathize? That undercuts the entire nature of art, the entire endeavor of making plays. I have parents, older friends and relatives. I listen to how they speak, watch how they move and act, hear their voices, their rhythms and I try to capture that. If was stuck only writing about things that I myself had personally experienced, yeah, I'd just be writing about a bunch of thirtysomethings who are still figuring out their lives. There's room for that, to be sure, but the real great stuff means reaching out to tell a wider story. To connect to something bigger than myself, something more. That's the whole point of imagination. To look at someone else's life and put myself in their shoes.
Plus, since theatre is a collaborative art, we get a bonus: when I finish my play, I cast an actor who is the right age and they say the words and they tell me what I get right, what I get wrong and I change it. It's a beautiful process.
I think that process gets short-changed. And I think that our field's emphasis on the playwright as the sole voice and the way we push people to only "write what they know" in the most limited senses do drive our plays away from an expansive vision and into the narrowest of focuses. But it is possible and can and should be done and encouraged.
On the Death of A Salesman tip...dude. The play's about Willy Loman. He doesn't necessarily come off as the hero, but it's his play. I don't think that Miller's sympathy lies with Biff; it's Willy's tragedy. Arthur Miller may be Biff, and certainly gave him some great scenes and moments, but it's Willy's play. It's not the play of a middle-aged man, sure. But that doesn't mean he didn't understand the middle-aged man in it.
And, for my money, I agree with Paul in the comments: I prefer The Price over After The Fall when it comes to Arthur Miller writing about the concerns of middle age. But then again, what do I know? I'm just a kid.
Yesterday's News, Sometime Next Week
The Wall Street Journal discovers that playwrights wind up making more money and having more of a career in television. Sacre bleu! Will the wonders never cease?
Seriously, WSJ, I know you'd rather spend your time turning into the NY Post's stodgier right flank, but get with it. The brain drain from the theatre to the lucrative world of television is so 2009.
In current news, via Rob at the Wicked Stage, Robert Hofler has some simple advice for playwrights who aren't getting paid:
Seriously, WSJ, I know you'd rather spend your time turning into the NY Post's stodgier right flank, but get with it. The brain drain from the theatre to the lucrative world of television is so 2009.
In current news, via Rob at the Wicked Stage, Robert Hofler has some simple advice for playwrights who aren't getting paid:
My advice: get a better day job.Like, say, writing for television?
Man On The Street
Or at least in the room. Paul Mullin is doing a blow-by-blow account of the Outrageous Fortune meeting in Seattle. Check out his updates here.
Apparently these meetings will be taking place all over. Awesome.
Apparently these meetings will be taking place all over. Awesome.
House-sitting
As Isaac noted here, I'll be over at his place on and off this week and next, posting at will. I do like a good house-sitting gig. Swing on over and check me out there.
A Working Democracy...
doesn't look like this.
I'm all for Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and everything, but I missed the part where he threw 2,000 people out of work in the middle of a recession. Must have dozed off.
I'm all for Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and everything, but I missed the part where he threw 2,000 people out of work in the middle of a recession. Must have dozed off.
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