Jan 23, 2008
Jan 22, 2008
Scott has something to say
about Denver Theater and risky new plays and Grote vs Shakespeare
http://theatreideas.blogspot.com/2008/01/denver-center-new-plays-great-but-come.html
get the guests
Hey Playwrights and Playlovers!
http://gettheguests.blogspot.com/2008/01/everything-scrubbed-clean.html
Jan 18, 2008
quote of the day
From the Chester Theater Company website:
"My primary goal is to make CTC a fully integrated part of the Hilltown and Pioneer Valley community. The function of a theatre is to provide a forum in which artists engage the community in the lasting questions of life. If a theatre fails in the honest attempt to pursue that end, it has no function at all."
The full quote, Byam tells me is this:
"My primary goal is to make The Miniature Theatre of Chester a fully integrated part of the Hilltown and Pioneer Valley community. Not to educate, nurture, or enlighten, but to serve. People are rightly wary of artists who pretend to have answers. That function (pretending to have answers) is best left to schools and churches. All a theatre can claim to do is provide a forum in which artists engage the community in the lasting questions of life. If a theatre fails in the honest attempt to pursue that end, it has no function at all... The theatre is here to provoke, stimulate, excite, horrify. Actors, like shamans, enact the mysteries so that the audience may, by the leap of faith, take the hero's beautiful and terrifying journey. That is how we may serve the community."
And here is another:
"It is not unusual, these days, for arts organizations to serve notice about the great good they perform in a given community. As if the community was an under-served, undeveloped country lucky enough to have somehow attracted the artist's beneficent presence. Artists can, and do, make contributions to the quality of life. But is it truly greater than the shoemaker, plumber or grocer? As confirmed a theatre-lover as I am, I have often gone longer playless than shoeless or hungry. One doesn't even want to consider a world without plumbing... The fact is we would make plays even if we didn't believe they somehow improved the quality of life. We would make plays because, like all creators, we love the making."
us and them
This is taken from a description of an undergraduate theater program. I don't understand exactly what it means but I think it's safe to assume this particular college will not be producing my play Deflowering Waldo this year.
"Christians are called to use their creative abilities to the glory of God. For those whose talent lies in theater, this calling can pose a difficult challenge, given Jesus' admonition to live in the world but not be of the world. Unfortunately, today's entertainment industry often promotes values that run counter to a Christian lifestyle.
For this reason, any Christian young person considering a future in theater - whether as a performer, teacher, or graduate student - needs a positive Christian environment in which to nurture both creative ability and spiritual growth.
Lipscomb University offers the opportunity to study under professors who are concerned about values: the value of imagination and creativity, the value of discipline, the value of excellence in the classroom and on stage, and most important of all, the value of a life lived for God and for others.
If you share these values, if you want to grow as a theater artist and as a Christian, Lipscomb may be the place for you. A Christian education can help put talent, career, and spiritual life in the proper perspective, so that Christian faith and involvement in theater need not conflict."
What I find most interesting about it is all the unspoken and half spoken but assumed "values" that supposedly go with being a Christian. I was raised Catholic but this is not that. And I'm not from this community so I'm not certain what they mean when they say Christian or if it indeed means anything at all. Perhaps it's just a theater program that is presented to parents this way. I don't know. But I am curious to hear your thoughts.
Jan 17, 2008
Jan 16, 2008
fascinating story on sleep and schools
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/opinion/14kalish.html?em&ex=1200632400&en=546e61aa52ea3027&ei=5087%0A
In 2002, high schools in Jessamine County in Kentucky pushed back the first bell to 8:40 a.m., from 7:30 a.m. Attendance immediately went up, as did scores on standardized tests, which have continued to rise each year.
Jan 15, 2008
the News
I signed a contract today so I think it's safe to say that the amazing people at South Coast Rep have in fact commissioned a play from me. I'm very excited!
Reduced price on Brooke Berman play
As we gear up for our next production, Hunting and Gathering, we are searching for a new audience. The vital theater audience that everyone is searching for – younger people! In honor of this dubious task, we created $20 tickets for all preview performances, available to anyone 35 and under. And, these tickets can be purchased in advance! We see no reason to make you stand in line just because you’re physically able to. Purchase online by clicking here, by phone (212.279.4200) or at the 59E59 Street box office on 59th Street . All you need is the code (PS35), a valid ID, and you’re in.
reprinted with permission
From Jeffrey Sweet on why he's a playwright:
I'm not going to speak for all of us.
I do this because it's cool to stand at the back of the theatre and listen to hundreds of people laugh at something I thought was funny maybe a year or six years or twenty-five years ago.
I do this because I can't run a multi-billion dollar company so I need to find some sphere in which I can run something.
I do this -- or did this -- because, since I was lousy at sports, I needed some other way to make girls think I was cool. And it worked -- the lady I've been with for the last 17 years looked me up because she liked my plays and was particularly struck by how sensitively I wrote for women. (Oh, that's a tip -- if you're straight and write well for women, a lot of actresses will indeed want to meet you.) (If you're gay, odds are you write well for women anyway. How's that for a sweeping generalization? )
I do this because the world is chaotic and my experience of the world is also chaotic, so to make this a safer place to myself I take chunks of it and organize it into plays that have shape and coherence. Does this really make the world safer? No. But, as O'Neill has told us, illusion is sometimes necessary to keep functioning.
I do this because I have a mostly screwed-up family and I needed to put something where a healthy family should be, and that's turned out to be the community of actors, writers and directors I've gotten to know (except for the hostile, psychotic ones, who remind me too much of my family).
I do this because it's a way of tricking myself into finding out what I'm really thinking. I usually don't know when I start a play. By the time I've finished a play, I get to ask, "OK, why did I write this?" And sometimes I come up with responses that are surprising. A little like a burst of fireworks over a battlefield at night.
I do this because I want to be fabulously wealthy and see my picture in the paper and meet and get compliments from famous and accomplished people. Obviously I have a firm grasp on reality.
Jeff
Jan 14, 2008
this evening
We had a roundtable reading of Temporary Everything at MCC. It went well but I could still work on it some more.
This is the second reading of the play. The first reading was about 8 months ago--the last thing read at the last class at Juilliard. Perhaps in another 8 months there will be another new draft of the play.
There are only a couple more scenes left to write of Hearts Like Fists (which is what I'm calling it now). I kind of want to drag it out. I'm not ready to let it go.
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