Etcetera: Bob and Ray, Keener Than Most Persons
April 30th, 2013 § 1 comment § permalink
Though I've occasionally written about topics outside of theatre and the performing arts, with this post I'll be titling them as a distinct series, affording me the opportunity to stray wider in my writing while noting when I'm "off-topic." So here's the first "Etcetera."
If I tell you that I fondly recall coming home from junior high in the mid-1970s and huddling up to my radio for the verbal entertainment found there, I hope you will be struck by the incongruity of the date and the medium of Continue reading...
Critical Eye On “Hard” Marketing
April 17th, 2013 § 2 comments § permalink
Let’s be honest. If you didn’t follow documentary filmmaking or live and die by theatre news, Hands on a Hardbody would sound like something that might play late at night on Cinemax. Those of a certain age might think it was a belated sequel to the 1984 teen sexploitation comedy Hardbodies (think Porky’s, with less class). But the fact is, that title was very likely a deterrent to audiences, even with “a new musical” appended to it, which is seemingly de rigeur these days, Continue reading...
Beyond The Valley Of The Galas
April 9th, 2013 § 1 comment § permalink
A couple of weeks back, the social media director at Cirque du Soleil reached out to me. He offered the opportunity to watch One Night for One Drop, their online video of a one-performance event the company had mounted in Las Vegas for One Drop, the water and famine charity founded by Cirque’s mastermind Guy Laliberté. The video was being streamed for only seven days and one needed to make a minimum $5 contribution to the charity to view it; I had already been importuned to do so, separately, Continue reading...
Standing On An Important Stage
April 8th, 2013 § 6 comments § permalink
I have seen Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd many times over the years, probably more than any single show. It has thrilled me, scared me, impressed me, made me laugh. I mouth the words, I bob my head, I conduct in imperceptibly small movements of my hands. But until this past Friday night, Sweeney Todd had never made me cry.
Let me back up.
About a month ago, a threatened protest against a production of Sweeney at my old high school, Amity Regional in Woodbridge CT, sent me rushing headlong Continue reading...
Mixed-Message Marketing of “Mixed Race”
April 1st, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink
I am not a Pollyanna about the continuing challenges of racial inequality and prejudice in this country and around the world. I fear that mankind’s seemingly inexhaustible capacity and compulsion to define an “other” is so deeply seated that it will take many more generations to eradicate, largely through what futurists and fantasists predict to be an eventual blending of all races. I will not live to see that day.
But I thought we were above this sort of thing in the arts, at least insofar Continue reading...
Who’s In The Box Tonight?
March 28th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink
For a certain breed of relatively cultured wags (including the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay Abaire and, less exaltedly, me), Tilda Swinton sleeping in a glass box at the Museum of Modern Art is a comedic source that just keeps on giving. After all, this is an Academy Award-winning actor with a distinctly unique personal style ensconcing herself in a terrarium on random days for hours at a time. Modern art, performance art, personal eccentricity or creative vision - all grist Continue reading...
Capturing The National Conversation With Theatre
March 20th, 2013 § 5 comments § permalink
Humor me.
In the wake of my post yesterday about the pros and cons of theatre seasons looking like the New York season from the prior year, and some great responses to it, the beloved phrase “national conversation about theatre” keeps coming to mind. Surely you’ve heard this concept, the now decades-old plaint from theatre professionals of all stripes that media conversation can center on a movie, a book, even a song, but that – perhaps not since Angels in America – neither the act of Continue reading...
Live, From New York, It’s Your Next Theatre Season
March 19th, 2013 § 13 comments § permalink
With U.S. theatre seasons being announced almost daily, things have been pretty lively around the old Twitter water cooler, with each successive announcement being immediately met with assessments at every level. How many female playwrights or directors? Is there a range of race and ethnicity among the artists? Is the season safe and predictable or adventurous and enticing? How many new plays, or actual premieres? How many dead writers? How many American playwrights? Any new musicals? The same Continue reading...
Not Your Father’s Little Orphan
March 18th, 2013 § 8 comments § permalink
It is not, to my mind, a particularly current phrase. In fact, I think of it as something a couple of decades old, like “Where’s the beef?” or “Whasss-uuuup?” The decidedly selective Wikipedia entry for the saying traces it back to at least 1968, and the song “Time of the Season” by The Zombies, while citing widespread acceptance in the late 1980s. There is a 2004 direct to video comedy that took it as its name.
So when I walked by a subway poster emblazoned with the words “Who’s Continue reading...
Keeping “Sweeney Todd” From Being Slashed
March 12th, 2013 § 7 comments § permalink
There’s a high school musical in jeopardy? Quick, to the Howardmobile.
I’m kidding, of course. But when I got an e-mail at 11:30 a.m. yesterday, saying that parents and groups were going to protest a production of Sweeney Todd at Amity Regional High School in Woodbridge CT at that evening’s board of education meeting, I was extremely, nerve-janglingly upset. While I have spoken out against censorship of high school productions before, most vocally in Waterbury CT, and written about other such Continue reading...