When a theater is only open to the public for 15 minutes before and after a performance—and is otherwise closed and locked, with the public let in and, if necessary, kicked out—the question arises of how to make the performing arts a conversation, a participatory activity more articulated than active listening....
“THE CRITICS AGREE!” Urban legend or not, this was the marquee tagline someone told me about years ago, something a theater company posted after their show received unanimously bad reviews. I like the integrity of it: not including the negative assessments on the marquee or poster, but still wanting to...
This write-up is either very late or very early. In June 2009, I spent a weekend in Minneapolis and, at the Guthrie Theater, saw the first production of Tony Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism with a Key to the Scriptures—conveniently, cutely, and/or pragmatically shortened to iHomo...
Please. If you are a board member, artist, or employee of a theater company, understand that most people are not visiting your website because they like you, or because they want to like you. First and foremost, they are visiting your website for information. All the glossy photos, taglines, and...
The New York critics have weighed in, so what’s left? What I haven’t heard mentioned in articles and reviews about Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark is that, in 2011, for a mega-musical of this kind, Broadway is just an out-of-town tryout. Instead, the producers’ goal is to have a show that will eventually...
Passed around Twitter feeds, posted on Facebook walls: last week’s Onion joke article. Funny, but with a twinge of ouch—not because I have ever wanted to tell the story of my life onstage, but because at different times I have written, directed, and produced non-confessional one-actor plays. Doing so, if anyone is...
Every Friday—really, consistently, every Friday—at noon, you’ll find a line around the corner at Hot Doug’s. Folks in line take photos. Here are a few. Every Friday night—really, consistently, every Friday—at 11 p.m. you’ll find a line around the corner at the Neo Futurists, for their 30-plays-in-an-hour show Too Much...
Performance Art. Spoken Word. Don’t stop reading yet. David Sedaris comes to my town fairly often, once or twice a year. He can fill up a 4,000-seat theater, or quickly sell out an eight-night run at a smaller one. Last year, the Associating Writing Programs conference, a gathering of folks affiliated...
