LAST CHANCE FOR SATAN!

Well, it's been a hell of a run for HAIL SATAN. Great houses, tons of reviews and coverage, great response... I saw Nosedive's quintessential Steph at the Wednesday night show, and I was telling her how tired I am, and she reminded me that lots of folks would like to have my problems. It's been a great summer, sleep deprivation and all.

Was I talking about thoughtful, engaged writeups? Well, then, much thanks to Jimmy, Freeman, and this guy for their thoughts and kindness.

And I gotta say, it felt awful nice to get home last night to this in Backstage. Props for everyone in Gideon, and even my girlfriend got a shout-out at the end!

Tonight will be a special occasion for me. There are 61 presold tickets to HAIL SATAN tonight. Now, that's nowhere near sold out, as the Bleecker Street Theater seats 200, but that represents my personal best as a solo playwright (rather than as a book-writer of a musical or the writer of one short piece in night of short pieces). 61 people at one show! Probably more, 'cause a couple dudes'll probably buy at the door! Pretty sweet, G.

It's also been a nice summer as a spectator. This past weekend I saw two splendid Fringe shows, August Schulenberg's heartbreaking (not to mention incredibly funny) RIDING THE BULL, which had the audience I was with alternately in stitches or spellbound, and Anna Kull and Justin Perkins' astonishing feat, DRESSING MISS JULIE.

Outside the festival, I also saw the legendary Sharon Fogarty's PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A DUMB BLONDE. A new Sharon Fogarty musical is always a treat, to be in the hands of a truly idiosyncratic artist of genuine feeling who speaks a thoroughly personal language of music and stage physicality. The key to understanding Sharon's work is to recognize that she's unashamed of revealing her influences, and sometimes quotes them directly, but always rearranges them through her sensibility. PORTRAIT isn't quite the equal of her great HOW TO SEE IN THE DARK, but it was still a gripping portrait of a woman learning to channel the forces of grief and self-pity into useful tools she can use to pull herself back into life.

Anyway, 7:15 tonight is your last chance to catch HAIL SATAN! Click here for details. Post-mortem right here next week.

--SlowLearner

Comments

[August]

Congratulations, Mac!
Sometimes I hear 'making it' as a playwright described as winning some sort of perverse lottery, where you keep buying the ticket for a prize which may not exist. But it might be more like running for political office, where person by person, baby by (Satanic) baby, you win votes for your plays. Of course, certain voters are more influential than others, and there are power structures that make things much easier if you find/fight your way into them; but still, long term success in the theatre is made one impassioned audience member at a time.
So your strong houses are in part due to the 'votes' you won with Robots, Lucretia, Nineveh, Fleet Week, etc. Next show, thanks to Satan, you might even run for State Senate.
I now release this exhausted metaphor to swim free...