Category: Theatre

  • ODDS and ENDS: Tottenham Red Flag, Cowboys Red Flag, and Sondheim

    ODDS and ENDS is my continuing series of random thoughts and follow ups…

    So, on Thanksgiving Day, as we were preparing our meal, I was able to sneak in and watch Tottenham play Mura in the Europa Conference. The match started out awful with the Spurs giving up a goal in the 11th minute, and then a red card left them down a player. But, finally, Harry Kane showed up and secured an equalizer, and it looked like Tottenham might just squeak by. And then, they gave up a goal in stoppage time, and well… First of all, credit to Mura for playing like their lives depended on it. As for Tottenham… same old problem; they just can’t get out of their own way, nor play solid for the last ten minutes of a match. I fear that the rest of this season will be an act of long suffering.

    Later in the day I moved on to the Cowboy against the Raiders, and though it was an exciting game, I am starting to get worried about Dallas. Las Vegas is a good team, and I didn’t expect it to be an easy, but right now, Dallas is just lost when they play a good team. Dak is struggling, and it’s like Elliot just can’t run anymore. Maybe it’s the offensive line’s fault, but sure isn’t the defenses’ fault. Dallas has six games left, and they only play one team with a winning record, so the odds that they will end the season 12-5 is very high. But when it comes to the playoffs, I don’t think they will make it out of the first round.

    And then there is Sondheim. First, I had no idea he was 91. I thought he was like 75. Second, I’m not going to say anything more profound than the outpouring of comments from his friends, and fans. But what I would like to say is what I find so impressive about him is that he inspired so many people to try their hand at writing a musical. Sure, having a huge body of work is impressive, and an amazing achievement, but I think inspiring people is more impressive, and important. Writing a musical is damn near impossible, and getting one made is even harder. Having lived here in New York, I have met so many people who have moved here to compose their musical. Sondheim’s name always showed up on their list of influential people, and then they would tell me this story of listening to the cast recording of one of his shows, which made them say, “I want to do that.” That, to me, is an impressive testament to his legacy.

  • Missing Friends and Theatre

    The other day, a very good friend of mine, let’s call him “Shawn”, who lives back in Dallas, posted some pictures of a performance he took part in of “A Midsummers Night’s Dream” for the Shakespeare Everywhere company. He posted a video as well of the cast backstage. Then another friend put up some pictures of a group of our college friends, some I have known for close to twenty years, all going to the show. I was really excited and happy for “Shawn” to be in front of an audience again. He’s a theatre whore, and that is meant as a complement, as his joy and excitement of preforming is boundless and contagious.

    I won’t lie, I do miss my college friends, and it would be nice to see all of them in person again. (Which is possible now!) It would appear that we are all approaching forty still in one piece, and having learned a thing or two. I didn’t so much have a pang of missing out, in so much as I had a pang of missing talking to them. I miss the diversity of our group, and their individual experiences that they brought. But I miss how we all made each other laugh.

    The other thing that happened was that I got a little bug in the back of my head that kept saying to me, “You miss audiences, too.” The last time I performed for an audience was in September 2018, in Eau Clair, Wisconsin – almost three years. Normally, I would say that I miss the camaraderie of a being in a cast, and working together, But… But, I started thinking about being in front of people, making them laugh, or making them pin-drop silent hanging on the next word that comes out of my mouth. I miss fighting to get an audience on your side, or when they get ahead of you and you have to catch up to them… To be a player in a troupe of actors…

    Stupid theatre whore making me want to be a theatre whore…

  • Overhead Projector: I Miss My Friends

    It’s Thursday morning, which means all of the building’s supers are putting the trash out. I know this because when I walk the dog on Thursday mornings, I try to make sure the dog doesn’t root in the trash bags, or pee on them. In a very voyeuristic sense, it’s interesting to see the boxes that are being thrown out, which give a glimpse of the lives in that building. Boxes for huge TVs and strollers, and frozen microwave dinners. Some days there is a well-worn out couch on the sidewalk, or a mangled bed frame which makes you wonder what happened there.

    Today, I saw an object that I hadn’t seen in a very long time; an overhead projector. For most people, I think their interaction with overhead projectors comes from school and college, teachers presenting information, or writing math equations. The dim classroom, and the hum of the fan from the projector was such a potent sleeping pill in high school, lulling me to a nice, lite nap in class.

    But, when I saw that overhead projector this morning, it reminded me of all my puppeteer friends who I have not seen in almost three years. You see, an overhead projector is a very powerful tool in many of the puppet shows I have worked on. It can be used not only for projecting images across a stage, but a light source for shadow puppets. I have learned how to switch out lamps in these projectors, and how to use the focus control as an effect, as well as using a water bowl to create a waves over a stage. The hours I have spent, hunched over with friends, working with these projectors.

    It made me miss my friends. I miss my creative, funny, silly, open, supportive friends.

  • Balancing Writing and Parenting:A Conversation with Playwright Isaac Rathbone

    Here is an interview with my friend, Isaac Rathbone, who is a playwright and screenwriter, conducted by Boomerang Theatre Artistic Director Tim Errickson. Their discussion is about the balance of writing and parenting.

  • New Thought: New Blog

    As I have been playing around with this blog, and thinking about earning an income from writing, I keep running into the same advice; write about what you are passionate about.

    Sometimes, easier said than done.

    But I don’t think the advice is inaccurate.

    I like writing, clearly as I am doing it as we speak, but writing about writing is not something I am passionate about. Writing is like breathing; I will be doing it no matter what, and rather involuntarily.

    But what to write about, say, in a blog form, that I can come back to day after day, if not at least once a week, that I could earn an income from?

    This blog serves the purpose of being limited in the number of words per post, and subject matter is open to just about anything. Confessional and Personal? Yes. Informative? Not so much. And following the rule of good marketing, the product has to be either the “best.,” or the definitively “only” source of said product. My personal blog is not the “best” blog, nor do I hope that it would be, but it is definitively the “only” source of me.

    What does that leave me with?

    An idea!

    As far back as March of this year, I was still working in the world of theatre, but being that the world has come to a crashing halt, that no longer is possible. Not only me, but a great number of other people. Also, because of the end of the world, a huge number of theatre artists have moved out of The City. And this is one of the few cities in this country where you can make a living in theatre. It stands to reason that at some point it will be safe to go back into a theatre, right? Theatre will begin again.

    My corner of the theatre world was puppetry and object movement theatre, and it will start up again. I know that to be true because a good number of people who do it, are still in New York, waiting for things to become safe. What if I were to blog about the puppetry and object movement community as it starts up again?

    An idea, that I don’t think anyone else is doing.