sticky

short play of mine in early nov

http://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=22205

Adam Rapp says

I appreciate good criticism and I think it’s really important. I don’t like it when it’s consumer advocacy, like how you should spend your $60. Great criticism is a kind of literature. I’ve written some criticism, and I really enjoy it because I think it’s important for people to know that theatre is vital. Criticism is really unevenly distributed in this town. Obviously the power of the Times is discouraging. It’s killing new plays, demolishing one after another. Charles Isherwood and Ben Brantley have a lot of power. I would like to think that Michael Feingold, Jeremy McCarter, David Cote and people who are really interested in new work would have an equal distribution of power. But we’re so governed by the Times. Everyone is so afraid to talk about it, which is what I hate. Now that I’ve been demolished by them, I’m not going to be afraid to talk about it.

Insurance for 800,000 children costs the same as one week in Iraq

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkAvxrgtLr4&eurl=

“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an M.I.T. physicist whose interrogation of Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, took place over a chessboard. George Frenkel, 87, recalled that he “never laid hands on anyone” in his many interrogations, adding, “I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.” Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.

from Joshua

We should be impeaching a President who broke our laws and perjured himself before the people . . . otherwise, what’s to stop the next person from doing the same?

still looking for a patron

If anyone is looking to support me so that I can write full time
instead of trying to work early in the morning before my dayjob or
after a tiring day and harrowing commute, please get in touch.

thanks.

more about my plays

more about my plays

also ny times

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 — In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top commander of American forces there called the Bush administration’s handling of the war “incompetent” and said the result was “a nightmare with no end in sight.”

colbert in ny times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14dowd.html?em&ex=1192593600&en=72a525f07accb87e&ei=5087%0A

go to 1001, new georges, blood brothers, departures

http://jasongrote.blogspot.com/2007/10/two-new-offers-from-p73.html

http://jamespeak.blogspot.com/2007/10/it-has-begun.html

http://matthewfreeman.blogspot.com/2007/10/review-of-depatures.html

Great post about when theater works

http://splattworks.blogspot.com/2007/10/jonesing-glow.html

Where I will be Oct 22

Hope to see you there!!

http://www.nytr.org/

another good Departures review

http://thatsoundscool.blogspot.com/2007/10/play-departures.html

Bragging or My New Career

I came up with the subtitle my friend Jodi is using for her book. How To Eat Like a Hot Chick: Eat What You Love, Love How You Feel do you need a subtitle for your book, too? Contact me and I'll write you a doozy. My rates are very reasonable. For more on the book Jodi and Cerina wrote: here and here and here

review of Departures--GO SEE IT

Both Keira Keeley and Travis York give performances of extraordinary focus and intensity, which only ups the tension for us. They're acting under a microscope, and yet they're entirely in their own world even with the "real" world pressing in so closely—in much the way lovers in a disintegrating relationship often are entirely absorbed in their own emotional states, regardless of what else is happening around them. It's a very discomfiting way to watch such an intimate play—even more voyeuristic than eavesdropping on a couple fighting in a restaurant, because these two are hashing things out in the privacy of their own room. It's a very simple story—and Palmer is wise enough to keep it that way, to make the story develop through the details we learn about Andrew and Cara, rather than through plot twists or high-stakes events. They're just two pretty messed-up, emotionally fragile people trying to keep all their worst impulses from destroying each other—and not succeeding too terribly well. The play is a series of tiny revelations, little cracks in one or the other's armor hastily papered over or shied away from. We learn as much from watching Keeley and York's faces—or from the set of their shoulders, from the tiniest physical details—as they react to each other's barbs, as we do from what they say.

Brustein on huffington

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-brustein/how-not-to-write-a-play_b_49600.html

<3

a new scene. as always, this is a first draft. 5 (In the hospital, the NURSES stand around talking. PETER is visible in a space behind them, working on an artificial heart with a screwdriver.) NURSE 1 Is he in there again? NURSE 2 Yeah. Never eats or sleep, just plays with that damn heart. NURSE 3 Does it work? NURSE 2 Not yet. NURSE 1 If he’s fiddling around with that, he doesn’t have to deal with the world outside or with real problems or with other people. NURSE 2 He’s solving a real problem. You’re not being fair. NURSE 1 I don’t want to be fair to him. He’s never been fair to me. NURSE 3 Can you say that? Can you really say that? NURSE 1 If he’d been fair to me, He would have let me kiss him under the mistletoe at the Christmas party. He would have smiled back more, he would have frowned less. He would have taken the time to notice my body instead of looking away. He’s never been fair to me, so he doesn’t know what could have happened. NURSE 2 He has a higher calling. NURSE 1 He has an escape hatch. I wish I had one. I would have liked to find it in his lips. (The NURSES sigh in unison) NURSE 3 His lips. NURSE 2 His lips. PETER Dammit! Why won’t you beat? Beat! Beat! (PETER fiddles with it some more.) NURSE 1 I’ve seen him in there, you know. With the heart. Shimmying his screwdriver between the chambers. PETER Beat, dammit. Beat. NURSE 1 He wants the heart to beat for him, but a heart will only beat for who a heart beats for. NURSE 3 Isn’t that the truth?

I had some drinks and some dinner this weekend and now I can't afford
to get my hair cut.

Why did being poor seem so much more romantic when I decided to be a
playwright 9 years ago?

or if not romantic, sustainable.

please welcome Steve Patterson to the theatrosphere

http://splattworks.blogspot.com/

trick or treat

And while you're at it, buy a play by Freeman, a play by James, a play by Qui, a play by Reuben, a play by Johnna. Who else has a play for sale? Leave it in the comments.

and now

my plays are finally on Amazon. Get them while they're hot. You can even give them away to trick or treaters who want something new and delicious to..um...read.

Bush doesn't want children to have healthcare

seriously, one more step towards bringing us closer to third world status

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Childrens-Health.html

He proved during Katrina he didn't care about Americans in harm's way.

He brought us into a war under false pretenses and kept our soldiers
there--clearly he doesn't care about them.

Why should he care about our children?

national playwriting month

http://www.naplwrimo.org
http://groups.myspace.com/naplwrimo
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4665638038

join dorothy and write a play in november.

5 and 4

5 things to hate about being a playwright 1. Rejection letters from people who feel compelled to give a fake reason why they aren’t doing your play when the real reason is they are doing Neil Labute’s play instead. 2. Reviews that have the power to set your career back five years. 3. The impossibility of making a living writing for the theater. 4. The waiting. 5. Other people’s fear. 4 things to love about being a playwright 1. Post show beers with talented actors. 2. The sound of people laughing because of your play. 3. The electric buzz in a darkened theater caused by something breathtaking that inspires you to create something beautiful yourself. 4. The joy of writing down what the voices say.

another photo

Jennifer Elise Cox and Marin Hinkle in Adam Szymkowicz' Incendiary, SCR's 100th NewSCRipts reading.

SEE THIS PLAY

Come see Departures this week and enjoy a special discount:

$12 Tickets (Regular price: $18) ...plus free wine or beer for AEA members!

Blue Coyote Theater Group Presents:

Departures
By Kristen Palmer

Directed by Kyle Ancowitz
Cara is an American ex-pat living in Britain who decides to return to the US after three years abroad. But with the death of her father and loss of her childhood home, what is she returning home to? Complicating things further is the boyfriend who refuses to let go. DEPARTURES is a touching two hander starring Keira Keeley (from Adam Bock's Obie-winning play, THE THUGS) and Travis York (from Anne Washburn's THE INTERNATIONALIST) that crosses time zones and continents to explore questions of family, home, and homelessness.

Featuring Keira Keeley* and Travis York*

Set Design: Kerry Chipman

Lighting Design: Daniel Meeker

Production Stage Manager: Susan J. Sunday

Thursday-Sunday, October 4-28 , 2007
At the Access Theater Gallery
All performances at 8pm.

For more information, visit: Blue Coyote Theater Group
Tickets here or (212) 868-4444.

*These actors are are appearing courtesy of Actors' Equity Association.

Matty Freeman recommends

last night

I had a roundtable reading at MCC last night of Herbie in preparation for my November reading at the NY Performing Arts Library. It went really well and also looks like I need to do a bit of work. Amazing actors though. Thank you all!

ny times today, America tomorrow

"You may think Guantánamo Bay is a prison camp in Cuba for Al Qaeda terrorists. A lot of the world thinks it’s a place we send visitors who don’t give the right answers at immigration. I will not vote for any candidate who is not committed to dismantling Guantánamo Bay and replacing it with a free field hospital for poor Cubans. Guantánamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty."

my friends just started this website about cocktails.

http://www.cocktailbuzz.com/