Zines Once Carried Our Memes

Zines Once Carried Our Memes

Scott has established a new “code of ethics” for posting and commenting within his domain. His call for Law and Order reminds of certain memes traceable back to the Old West that are embedded deep within our American character. Reminiscent of how the infamous Earp brothers once banned all six-guns and other firearms from entering the city limits of Tombstone, Scott stipulates that bloggers check their “virtual fisticuffs” at the door to Theatre Ideas. The townsfolk, especially womenfolk bloggers like…

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I Heart NY

I Heart NY

First and foremost Scott Walters is a teacher, but in that capacity, he is also a director of student productions at University of North Carolina at Asheville. Last semester he directed and blogged with his students Philadelphia Story. Scott’s blog posts at Theatre Ideas are filled with Advice to the Players concerning the “fixes” necessary to cure our national theatre. These blog entries are always well researched and knowledgeable but also tinged with that patronizing posture of “the teacher.” He…

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Born & Bred

Born & Bred

my morning reading Sheila’s my evening coupled with this scary poster of hate I happened upon prompted me to itemize Item one: On Tuesday mornings I travel to a relatively new day job in Newark via the PATH train. It’s rush hour’s crazy mob scene at the World Trade Center. What seems like all of New Jersey and the rest of the world is moving in the opposite direction to me. They’re in my way and I’m in their way….

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Old School Blogging

Old School Blogging

At the last Fudge the Pimp, toy soldiers attached with strings held an inflatable puppet of George Bush suspended over a pile of dog doo on the sidewalk out front. The kids were sending messages all day with soldiers attached to helium balloons. Finally it was time. In the clip above they send George away. Quite a cathartic moment for those gathered. I’ll be at The Impending Theatrical Blogging Event in a half-hour with leftover white balloons and helium tank….

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Little Bruiser

Little Bruiser

FlailingGirl loves t-shirts. She’s considering getting married in one. T-shirts are close to my heart as well. I designed a one-of-a-kind t-shirt for a performance I do. I put an iron-on transfer of Rene Magritte’s famous “This is a not pipe” painting on the front of a white t-shirt. The image of the pipe’s bowl is also really a sewed-on little pocket. A big red lettered word is added at the end of the French phrase. Ceci n’est pas une…

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WORD

WORD

Words become their own being. Once they have left the body of their creator, they begin an existence of their own. They exercise their free will. Some will become fighting words. Soldiers in a war that is as old as mankind. Our fate, as well as the fate of others, is often a function of the words we distribute in the world. The butoh masters explore our bodies elementally as flesh in the manner of alchemists, schooling us in the…

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Leonard and David sitting in a tree, b-l-o-g-g-i-n-g

Leonard and David sitting in a tree, b-l-o-g-g-i-n-g

I seem to be mistaken about the theatre editors having any regrets over what they have made public. Neither appears particularly flustered by the attention to their private beliefs and lives. In fact both seem to have flourished somewhat under the scrutiny. And the private/public rift that has developed between them has all the drama and scandal potential of a Rosie/Donald episode. For theatre’s sake, let’s hope they exploit the opportunity. I kid the critics. David wants his pathology to…

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Criticizing the Critics

Criticizing the Critics

More update than correction, New York Magazine’s Vulture “fixed” the misrepresentation quoted in my last post. It now reads like this: And debate still rages over the Mike Daisey affair! Nick from Rat Sass thinks Mike faked his outrage over a mass walkout from his show, eager for publicity. This new form of “publication” coming out of mainstream press is very strange. Nothing ever really needs to be retracted, just tweaked in an updated edition. I wonder if I got…

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My Name Is Not Rachel Corrie

My Name Is Not Rachel Corrie

I wish I could pour a bottle of water on the New York Magazine blog that misrepresents my writing about Mike Daisey. “And debate still rages over the Mike Daisey affair! Nick from Rat Sass thinks Mike staged a walkout from his own play for the publicity. “ Actually I wish I could drink a bottle of water, bodily process the liquid, and go piss on the author’s shoes. Of course I could probably be charged with assault, but I…

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I Wanna Be Like …

I Wanna Be Like …

Publication is instantaneous. So blogging means that there is no Editor between you and your readers unless you place one there. Boal’s term, Cop-in-the Head. I know I am on to something if I begin to experience that distinct trepidation that occurs when my writing begins leading me, instead of me leading it. The Cop-in-the Head is also known as the Peer Panel. I never really completely recognize the authority I have allowed the Peer Panel to assert over my…

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Us v. Them

Us v. Them

Matthew and Mac do to some measured analysis of the blog fracas stemming from the Mike Daisey incident. Mike receives a perceptive take on the incident itself from old friend and the discussion at Scott’s blog examines the event in a similar vein. Gut reactions are natural, but this is where the conversation belonged from the beginning. Meanwhile, there’s now also a copycat stalker, Floyd, for Mike Daisey to track down and give a talking to. What Mike Daisey tapped…

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Giant Rat! I’d buy that for a dollar!

Giant Rat! I’d buy that for a dollar!

Photo by Joe Nickell author of Sideshow! Lee Kolozsy ’s spiel outside the Giant Rat tent set up at Coney Island was pure hype. “Gigantic rat! Humongous rat! One hundred pound rat! Straight from the jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia! More feared than a sniper’s bullet!” After paying the dollar admission and entering the tent, instead of confronting the fearful beast described in Lee’s shtick, the audience was presented with a very non-rat-like creature, peacefully munching on a bale of hay….

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Keep Your SASE

Keep Your SASE

Christine Chun displaying word No. 1262 in Shelley Jackson’s Skin The grrlz all now have a tattoo at the base of their spine. The vogue is a midriff-exposing top and low-riding jeans. The thong rises out of the back of the jeans almost as pedestal to display the art. Fashion is fascist the tattoo says as much about the dead eye of desire reading the display as it does about the playwright marketing his work. I’ve been spoiled I guess….

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Memento

Memento

I gave her freshly cut roses on the opening night of the play. Three weeks later the bouquet stood dried out in a vase on a small table in front of the mirror. “I almost like them better like this,” she said. “They’re more poignant. ”

Travelling Light

Travelling Light

“And this was really the way that my whole road experience began, and the things that were to come are too fantastic not to tell.” –Jack Kerouac, On the Road Twenty-five years ago, ABC NO RIO in an art exchange with Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago, brought Thieves Theatre to the Lower East Side . At the time we were doing my script Travelling Light about a long haul trucker whose CB radio handle is Bird of Prayer and the…

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The Actor Prepares: some SAGacious advice

The Actor Prepares: some SAGacious advice

A dramaturg in Nashville informs me that that there are seven strong university theater programs in his city: Belmont, Fisk, Vanderbilt, Trevecca, Tennessee State University, Lipscomb and MTSU. Together these programs are training around 250-300 young actors. He wants to cure Nashvillians of the brainwashing which has resulted from focusing inordinate attention on atheletes at the university level. As theater editor of the Tennessee Style Magazine, he believes that if he can garner public recognition and support for student actors,…

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Dialogue with a Vagina Monologue (Chapter IV)

Dialogue with a Vagina Monologue (Chapter IV)

I have exhausted my exploration and research. I have grown weary of my vagina studies. This is my final chapter on the subject. Like my study, the above Amazon poll on Valentine’s Day has also just ended. Turns out that these poll results were not even as close as the last two Presidental elections. The clear majority has voted Love Stinks. But it’s nice to know that which ever way you voted, there was a shopping link available to you….

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The Bounty

The Bounty

Josey Wales: You a bounty hunter? Bounty hunter: A man’s got to do something for a living these days. Josey Wales: Dyin’ ain’t much of a living, boy. Richard Nelson confesses he doesn’t have a philosophy for teaching playwriting. Instead he offers as the criteria qualifying him as chair of the playwright program, the fact that he believes he is the first “working playwright” in that position.Nelson begins his video presentation for the Yale School of Drama with a personal…

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Dialogue with a Vagina Monologue (Chapter III)

Dialogue with a Vagina Monologue (Chapter III)

Harry Potter’s pubic goes public and a white guy in Chicago is angry about it, although we are not sure why. But the media frenzy suggests he is not alone. Elsewhere Tboy is asking for the girl’s name for the boy’s name of that which is unnamable on a 17-year-old. Daniel Radcliffe will shed his child actor image with his clothes for his West End stage debut. Sixty people from the audience will actually be seated on stage when the…

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Dialogue with a Vagina Monologue (Chapter II)

Dialogue with a Vagina Monologue (Chapter II)

The dramaturgs have, for the most part, remained stumped in their search for an appropriate male companion piece for The Vagina Monologues. One ‘turg did recall the title of a student’s performance piece “Mangina Monologue,” but as yet no actual script or excerpt from a play has been procured. However, the whole search for an appropriate companion piece might be a moot pursuit. The application process for the V-Day 2007 Worldwide Campaign demands that organizers consent to the following mandate:…

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