Browsed by
Month: October 2006

Trick or Treat,

Trick or Treat,

“Money or Eats” â„¢ At Dramaturgy.net there is a link to the RENT Lawsuit Transcripts and to an article on August 26, 1998 in Talkin’ Broadway about the case being closed. I am not sure about “the industry” but most people I know working in theatre would find this statement in the article more than mere hyperbole. Not only was Lynn Thomson never called “the Rosa Parks of the theatre industry”, most would find the analogy itself offensive. The heirs…

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Fatboy Slim Theatre

Fatboy Slim Theatre

It is mostly sentiment to say our art is gift. More honestly, we would recognize that our art is at least as complex as our lives are. We barter continually for our daily existence. Each of us are at least partial commodity in that way. The better part of our being (often termed art or love) sometimes struggles to be free of that condition. Understanding that our art is as we ourselves are, both gift and commodity, we can easier…

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Leap of Faith

Leap of Faith

I keep the Kierkegaard anthology bookmarked at Fear and Trembling where he explains the “man of faith.” When Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia on the command from the Delphi Oracle, and for the good of the nation, he is acting on a high moral plane, but he’s not a man of faith. That’s because all of Greece listens to the same such words from on high. Agamemnon is not alone; he has the whole nation agreeing his sacrifice is righteous….

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Richard Foreman’s Negative Capability

Richard Foreman’s Negative Capability

What I remember most about the Soho loft where I interviewed Richard Foreman was its vast library. Racks upon racks of books dominate the living space. I cannot think of another contemporary playwright who better exemplifies what it means to live “a life of the mind,” so his living loft library seemed the perfect complement to Foreman’s work home at his theatre space in the East Village. In this 2003 interview he was despondent over the value of his theatre…

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In Perpetuity

In Perpetuity

The Great Law of Peace was the constitution that united the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. This confederacy and its laws is said to have inspired Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine in the writing of the United States Constitution. One of the precepts of the Great Law of Peace was referred to as the Seventh Generation. This principle instructs chiefs to consider the impact of their decisions on the seventh generation to come. Theatre is an art form that…

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Blame Game

Blame Game

Lucky for the students at Juilliard that Christopher Durang and Marsha Norman are teaching playwriting and not investigative journalism. This is second time in as many months they have been perpetrators in playwright boycotts and attacks against individuals innocent of the crimes of which they were accused. First Hedy Weiss and now the O’Neill Playwrights Conference. Durang and Norman have co-chaired the Playwriting Program at Juilliard since 1994 and their recent letter to their former students begins with “Dear Julliard…

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Playwrights Can’t Scream

Playwrights Can’t Scream

Artaud insisted that the playwright or the text should not be the final authority in the collaborative process. As Derrida highlights in his essays on Artaud, the essence of his stance was against the actors’ presence being subservient to the prompter’s (text) presence. The prompter is even more insidious than just that sneaky little whisperer in his dark dank box off stage but is attached directly to the ears of the actor.  “Good inspiration is the spirit-breath [souffle] of life,…

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Belated Portrait for the Theatre of Cruelty

Belated Portrait for the Theatre of Cruelty

Drawing on Artaud for inspiration is one thing but to actually produce a work of his is quite another. Producing To Have Done with the Judgment of God has proved a daunting exploration. Thieves Theatre has always had it “in the works” and then “on the back burner” and then in the forefront again. The aspiration toward this non-production has inspired and informed our other productions for at least ten years now. Susan Sontag explains how many artists have read/practiced…

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