SlowLearner

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Drnk persposidly.

--slwlrnr

TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER

Big congratulations to Laura Perloe for making Backstage's list of "2007 Performances To Remember," a list of 24 performances from Broadway, Off-Broadway, and good ol' Off-Off Indie NYIT Broadway. I can't link 'cause it's only in the print edition (the one with the big Atonement ad on the cover), but critic Tom Penketh (who also reviewed our Fringe run) singles out Laura for her terrific work in Hail Satan, writing:

Perloe used microscopic changes in her voice, body language and gestures to seamlessly transition from lovable baby to domineering 18-year-old - all within the latter half of a two-act play. Remarkable.

I write really difficult roles for actors to play, some of which are so demanding I'm a little embarrassed about it (tons of verbiage, sudden transitions, often a fair bit of crying), but Laura's role as the Angie the Antichrist in Hail Satan is easily one of the hardest, for reasons Penketh describes above. Laura worked her ass off over two productions, and Jordy carefully shepherded her through, and she pulled it off better than I even pictured. We've worked with Laura several times at Gideon, so we're really psyched to see her getting this much-deserved recognition.

--SlowLearner

ALS I'M SAYIN' IS

Look, no one wants to re-ignite the whole fracas about New York culture condescending to the rest of the country less than me. While I continue to assert that the attitude decried is far, far less prevalent here (particularly among theater artists) than some were claiming at the time, let me happily - well, no, angrily - admit that the Hilton Als review of August: Osage County in The New Yorker is the most stunning and appalling example of genuine NYC-condescension I think I've ever seen (and I say that as someone who agrees with several of Als' specific criticisms of the play). Rob Kendt is quite right to single out this passage:

But here, in his Broadway début, he clearly intends to prove himself a “major” playwright. To do so, he parodies his roots, rather than revealing them. Letts could very well end up winning prizes for “August: Osage County.” But so did the playwright Preston Jones, with his “Texas Trilogy,” in the mid-seventies. Like Letts, Jones was a provincial writer of promise who was pulled onto the Broadway boards too soon for his own good. Now his work is rarely performed at all.

Think about how many unexamined assumptions there are in that passage. Scott Walters, if you're reading, I have no problem calling this bogotry. I would only ask that you weigh that against the larger embrace the play has received here.

--SlowLearner

DAISEY DOES IT

Look what I just got in my in-box! Oh man, I gotta make sure I can see this. Intense!

I looked up the festival - details here.

HOW THEATER FAILED AMERICA
(a new monologue)
The Public Theater's
Under The Radar Festival
One Performance Only!
Sunday, January 13th at 2pm

Master storyteller Mike Daisey returns to the Under The Radar Festival sinking his razor-sharp wit into a subject he knows well: the American theater, from the sublimely crass to the genuinely ugly. From gorgeous new theaters standing empty as cathedrals, to "successful" working actors traveling like migrant farmhands, to an arts culture unwilling to speak or listen to its own nation, Daisey takes stock of the dystopian state of theater in America: a shrinking world with smaller audiences every year. Fearlessly implicating himself and the system he works within, Daisey seeks answers to essential and dangerous questions about the art we're making, the legacy we leave the future, and who it is we believe we're speaking to.

SEXIEST. MAN. ALIVE.

That's right, son! (I'm the tenth one.)

There's a podcast, too!

The other fourteen aren't too shabby either. Read and listen if you like.

Actually, in all seriousness, nobody would think I was all that if I wasn't involved in good productions, so I owe big-time the people involved in Hail Satan, Universal Robots, Talk of the Walkup, Suburban Peepshow, The Blood Brothers Present PULP, Judge, Yuri, and Executioner, and The Australia Project for the truly wonderful year I've experienced.

--SlowLearner

LOOK!

I'm an older, fatter guy now!

This is my best Don Hall glare. How'm I doin'?

Oh, it's no use. I'll never be Don Hall.

--SlowLearner

CULTURAL PROJECT

Totally forgot to note this! Lots of cool folks involved. And Happy Birthday Freeman!

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Recent discussions in several venues are interesting me in the issue of how theater blogs are intersecting with theater companies. Sometimes a blogger can work with a company to promote or raise awareness of a project, or they can function more as an outsider and a critic. There's value in both roles. A blogger could work with a theater company in a role that goes beyond being a shill (although shilling would inevitably be involved) where they would write about the process of creating a piece of theater while evaluating its value as the process progessed. This seems, from what I can gather, to be Isaac's original goal with A Question of Impeachment. (Note: I haven't spoken to anyone privately about this, and know nothing.) Alternately, theater companies and producers can attempt to use bloggers as critics to expand the pool of reviews from which they can derive pull-quotes and from which readers can get a wider diversity of opinion and analysis.

That seems legit too. For my two productions this past summer, I invited bloggers to see the shows for free. (For Robots, I made the offer for the first week only.) I decided to not make it conditional upon an understanding that they would write about the play. My feeling was, if the play compelled the blogger to want to write, awesome, and if not, it's my fault.

Still, both of these operations are very much in the experimental phase, as the George Hunka/1000 Saints situation also indicates. Most theater companies are fragile entities, always either on the verge of collapse or at least feeling like they are, so they're simultaneously hungry for any publicity and terrified of bad publicity. When the people from these companies interact with a theatrosphere that's always ready to boil over at a moment's notice, there's always the potential for things to get bad.

Maybe what's needed are cooler tempers in general while we all figure out a way to make this work. Or maybe trying to find "a way to make this work" is the wrong way to go. Maybe on the one hand we need critics, governed by rules, training, and disciplined, and bloggers, who should remain mercurial and ungovernable, to have the most interesting possible conversation about the plays we're making. I really don't know.

--SlowLearner

THEATRE CONVERSATION

Well, if MattJ can come back, why can't I?

I think Travis has the right idea: become the blogosphere you want to see. To that end, I have restored the link to Scott Walters' blog, after reading his fantastic series of posts (with Tom Loughlin) about theater education (found here, here, and here) and his Thousand Kites blog. Whatever my personal feelings about Walters, I can't deny the quality of his writing and thinking when he's in positive/building mode, and would never want anyone to not discover his ideas.

Speaking of MattJ, his post on the importance of Tracy Letts is right on. Killer Joe and BUG were revelatory for me, fantastic thrillers with tons of humor and suspense, unafraid to use the tools of popular entertainment to make for successful theater. Watching Letts's work helped obliterate the Art vs. Entertainment debate in my mind, and I now regard the whole construct as bogus. Entertainment and Art aren't opposed or exclusive entities. Entertainment, properly deployed, is a delivery system - one of the most efficient - for art. Letts gets it.

Anyway, I splurged on a new computer and August: Osage County tix today, and I'm psyched.

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My G's at Nosedive open their essential Christmas Carol this Thursday! I've seen it about four times, so clearly I like it.

--SlowLearner