I often feel alone. My life experiences and the demands of my day-to-day are so specific to my life producing and performing in small budget theatre that it often feels that outside of rehearsal I can go for days without running into (a non-wife) someone who truly understands what I’m...
There is good conversation and bad conversation. We’ve all been party to both. We’ve all had those talks that go late into the night and feel like you’re solving the world. Additive conversations where active listening provides the fuel for synthesis of new ideas better than the preconceived notions of...
The Chicago Reader published as careful and deliberate a piece of investigative journalism covering the arts as I can ever remember reading. In the piece Aimee Levitt and Chris Piatt laid out a history of mental and physical abuse and cultish insularity at Chicago’s Profiles Theatre that mirrors much of that...
There is a mental habit formed early in the development of the modern American psyche: the immediate and perpetual recentering of yourself as the underdog. Our prevailing American narrative is one of rising above great (or more usually impossible) odds to achieve our heart’s one true desire. In the narrative the underdog...
I’m fascinated by observing chefs interacting with food. Unlike most folks who create they can’t avoid their work outside their “studio”, they need to eat after all. They are cursed to combine all the creativity of a visual artist with the what-about-me demands of an IT person visiting their family…...
The American Theatre Wing’s Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre presentation ceremony occurred last night and portions of it were broadcast via television. I would like to take this moment to respond. Dear ATW and Broadway Producers, Let me begin with: Presenting what are essentially a local arts award ceremony to...
If you have sat around a computer for any length of time over the last five years hashing out any of the ‘issues’ around (particularly) American Theatre you have found yourself invariably infuriated, sullen, and withdraw because the topics are circular and, because the answers are hard, evergreen. I swear...
I grew up in a household that was… healthy. Healthy healthy. Lima (bean) burgers, grinding grain blends for homemade bread, fresh milk from family friends who ran a small farm… my folks idea of retirement was decamping the suburbs and repairing to a 10 acre tract further north in New...
