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May 29, 2008

what I did today

Attended the Pulitzer Prize luncheon (this year Letts/August and per
usual a lot of journalists.)

Performed in a short play I wrote satirizing my boss for his going away party.

I wore a bald cap.

I'm a little tipsy on cheap red wine.

Now I'm off to a rehearsal for a short film.

Isaac's article on funding and the NEA

http://parabasis.typepad.com/blog/2008/05/new-column-paying-for-art.html

May 25, 2008

30 percent blog discount

Horse Trade & elsewhere present:
The Honest-to-god- true Story Of The Atheist
Thursday, June 12, 2008 through Saturday, June 21, 2008
written by Dan Trujillo directed by Isaac Butler
Featuring: Abe Goldfarb, Daryl Lathon, Jennifer Gordon Thomas
Lighting Design: Sabrina Braswell
Costume Design: Sydney Maresca
Original Music By: David Hanlon
Filled with twists and turns, mole people, black market Viagra, speaking in tongues, caricatures, songs, soft-shoes and three maybe-miracles, The Honest-To-God- True Story of the Atheist tells the remarkable story of an atheist trying to disprove God's existence by defacing a local nativity scene. But did any of this really happen? And do the actors believe the story they're telling?
TWO WEEKENDS ONLY!
Thursday-Saturday, June 12-14th and 19th-21st
All shows at 8PM. Tickets are $18.00
Or, if you order them through smarttix and use the code AVBLOG you get $12.00 tickets! That's a whopping 33.3% savings!

from an email i recieved

I read this book. It's great. Head over there if you can.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

12:30 p.m. – 1:45 p.m.

Theresa Rebeck author of Three Girls and Their Brother: A Novel

Hosted by: Marsha Norman, Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright

In her highly anticipated first novel, award-winning playwright Theresa Rebeck satirizes the publicity-driven world of instant celebrity. Rebeck will discuss her plays, including the Broadway hit Mauritius, and talk about the transition from playwriting to books.

Theresa Rebeck’s plays include ‘Bad Dates’, ‘Omnium Gatherum’ (a Pulitzer finalist), ‘The Scene’, and ‘Mauritius’, which won Boston’s prestigious IRNE and Elliot Norton Award and premiered on Broadway in 2007.

The event is FREE and open to the public. For updates and additional information, please visit the website at www.bryantpark..org. The Bryant Park Reading Room located on the 42nd Street side of the park - under the trees - between the back of the NYPL & 6th Avenue. Look for the burgundy and white umbrellas.

Rain Venue: Library of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen

20 West 44th Street (between 5th & 6th Avenue).

May 23, 2008

tomorrow is saturday

yesterday and tomorrow are only separated by today

today is just tomorrow's yesterday


Last night I had the pleasure of seeing Jollyship the Whiz Bang at Ars Nova. Nick Jones is in the Ars Nova playgroup so I've known him for a while but this is the first time I saw him perform. He's a freaking rockstar. I had a great time at the show. If you want to see a funny irreverent pirate puppet musical, I would highly recommend this one.




It doesn't have the Party Island song though which is pretty freaking great.

(update--you can her Party Island at the Ars Nova site if you click on the poster for Jollyship.)

My favorite song is also not there. In it, the Captain wishes that he wasn't so prone to violence, but it's partially the fault of violence for being so funny. There was a line about Punch and Judy being his only role models-or something like that which I found incredibly hilarious and which I hear was an ad libbed lyric. I hope he keeps it in the show.

May 21, 2008

question

what is the popular online shoot em up game with teams etc?

Is that Doom? Halo? What game is that?

May 19, 2008

the last year or so

I made a conscious choice to stop sending out 10 minute plays. I decided to put my energy instead into full length plays and now also into TV and film. In the long run, I think this is a good idea. (Short play productions rarely lead to long plays getting done and do nothing to help out careerwise if your name isn't Ives.) On the other hand, when your full lengths are being rejected, it's nice that someone in Australia or Michigan or California is doing a short play. It helps raise morale. Since I stopped sending out ten minute plays, all I'm getting is the full length rejections and even though many of them are very nice, it feels like I'm treading water. Not that I'm going to go back to sending them out--I have way too many full lengths that should be done and not enough time to submit everything. And I want my work to be seen in larger venues and I want to make a living--thus my beating a path to TV. Also I'm hoping that my published full lengths will be done more and more. I had 11 ten minute plays produced in 2006. If I get that many full lengths done next year, it will be a good year. I've had 4 so far, so that's not impossible. And if one big thing happens in TV or the stage, it would be a very good year. Additionally, I should write a musical, finish writing that novel. Rewrite that screenplay. Rewrite four of my plays. But now, the TV stuff to outline, revise, outline, revise and pitch. whew. pitch.
h/t daisey

Leonard Jacobs points us to this article on the Drama Desk Awards

http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2008/05/will-scandal-an.html hat tip

May 15, 2008

How Theatre Failed America Roundtables

These look exciting:

http://www.mikedaisey.com/2008/05/as-part-of-reopening-of-how-theater.sht

DOWNTOWN, MIDTOWN, EVERYTOWN
Sun May 18th:
Robert Brustein (founder of Yale Repertory Theatre and American
Repertory Theatre)
Jonathan West (Milwaukee-based actor and blogger)
Emily Ackerman (actor and ensemble member of The Civilians)
Leonard Jacobs (national editor for Back Stage)
Sheila Callaghan (playwright, Dead City)

DO-IT-YOURSELF OR BUST
Sat May 24th:
Greg Kotis (playwright, Urinetown)
Jason Eagan (Artistic Director, Ars Nova)
Erez Ziv (Managing Director, Horse Trade Theater)
John Clancy (founder of the New York International Fringe Festival)
Scott Shepherd (The Wooster Group)
Lisa Kron (actor, solo performer and playwright, Well)

YOU ARE WHAT YOU WATCH
Sun June 1st:
Jim Nicola (Artistic Director for New York Theatre Workshop)
Mark Russell (founder of PS122 and the Under The Radar Festival)
Steve Bodow (head writer of the Daily Show and Elevator Repair Service member)
Morgan Jenness (literary agent, former literary manager of the Public Theater)
David Cote (theatre editor for Time Out New York)
Isaac Butler (Freelance director and theatre blogger)

FOR PROFIT, NON-PROFIT, NO PROFIT
Sun June 8th:
James Bundy (dean, Yale School of Drama; Artistic Director, Yale
Repertory Theatre)
Dan Fields (Disney Imagineer and freelance director)
Stephanie Weisman (founder and director of The Marsh in San Francisco)
Dave Greenham (executive director, The Theatre at Monmouth)
Tommy Thompson (veteran Broadway production stage manager)
Diane Ragsdale (Mellon Foundation)

ASSEMBLING ENSEMBLES
Sun June 15th:
John Collins (Artistic Director of Elevator Repair Service, The Sound
and the Fury)
Tanya Selvararnam (collaborator with Jay Scheib and The Builder's Association)
Colleen Werthmann (actor and Elevator Repair Service ensemble member)
Heidi Schreck (collaborator with 2-Headed Calf, Seattle's Printer's Devil)
Scott Walters (former Artistic Director of Illinois Shakespeare
Festival and blogger)
Hal Brooks (freelance director, Thom Paine and No Child…)

THEATER IN 2033
Sun June 22nd:
Rocco Landesman (Tony-award winning producer, Angels in America, The Producers)
Gregory Mosher (Tony-award winning director, former head of Lincoln Center)
Oskar Eustis (Artistic Director of the Public Theater)
Richard Nelson (playwright, Conversations in Tusculum)
Paige Evans (director, Lincoln Center's new LCT3 program)
Garrett Eisler (Village Voice theater critic and blogger)

It's not much, but

Anyone want my job?

jobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=110795

May 13, 2008

what is causing my rash that i've had since November

Check out this handy chart




update on Handey flag

someone creates it here:

http://zehnkatzen.blogspot.com/2008/05/tehfunnay-jack-handeys-flag.html

RRT Best of Show this weekend

http://parabasis.typepad.com/blog/2008/05/rapid-responses.html

BEST OF SHOW
Friday at 7PM
Bowery Poetry Club (Bowery and 1st)
$10 at the door.

Innocent beware--DNA collections

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/05/feds-to-collect.html

h/t daisey

http://www.mikedaisey.com/

symbols

Jack Handey's flag

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2008/05/19/080519sh_shouts_handey



So K's mother got us these forks and knives and things because we're getting married and in our new married life, we will have beautiful utensils. We just started using them and let me tell you I feel more like an adult than ever before. We are fancy now. We have class. We have shiny silverware. People could come over and have multi course dinners and eat with this silverware. Of course they would still have to drink out of a Porky Pig glass but that's another story.

May 12, 2008

Miss any of the Rapid Response Shows?

They're all right here:

http://rapidresponseteam.org/archives.html

Listen to them now

or later.

Collect them all.

Trade them with friends.

Random 10 for Monday

Kahlua Killers--Join the League Egg--Not for Duncan Sicily--Open Ham Sandwich on Rye Josh Hill--Don't Rain (On My Saturday) Formica Dogs--My Kitchen (And Your Bathroom) String for Pepe--Ball of Wax Sally's Underwater Goggles--Foam Sad Fingers--Long Dark Hallway Chimney Vibrations--Runk Fell Over--Druids

I'm going to see this

Are you?

http://www.theatermania.com/content/show.cfm/show/142889

May 8, 2008

what's going on with me

I'm allergic to dust mites apparently.

Had a couple TV meetings yesterday.

I'm still overworked and poor.

May 5, 2008

Joshua Kors article

Have you seen this? "Town is not alone. A six-month investigation has uncovered multiple cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq are suspiciously diagnosed as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits. The conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans' rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals." "They say the military is purposely misdiagnosing soldiers like Town and that it's doing so for one reason: to cheat them out of a lifetime of disability and medical benefits, thereby saving billions in expenses."

what happened to congestion pricing

http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/2008/04/weve-changed-yo.html

Great Post by Grote

I saw him last night

http://jasongrote.blogspot.com/2008/05/what-will-probably-be-my-last-post-on.html

the Bush McCain challenge

http://www.bush-mccainchallenge.com/index.html?id=

How Theater . . .

I saw Daisey's How Theater Failed America last night. It's pretty great. I had seen it at under the radar originally and Daisey and Gregory sharpened it a bunch, trimmed the fat, added some arguments. It's playing at Joe's Pub for another week and then extending for a 6 week run at the barrow street theater. Get your tickets now. They are also setting up a weekly discussion after the show with panelists from all segments of theater. ADs and Stage managers and Actors, etc. Should be pretty great. I wish them luck.

I'm going here tonight

http://fluxtheatreensemble.blogspot.com/2008/04/imagination-compact.html hope to see you there.