Paging Dr. Kubler-Ross

This from last Wednesday's L.A. Weekly:

Oscar Interruptus

By ROBERT ABELE

Every Oscars telecast wages a time battle between clip reels and acceptance speeches, and lately the awardees — often nervous people, most of them not performers, caught in a life-changing moment in which they have to cobble together words of gratitude and fight off the fear they'll forget someone — have been on the losing end of the fight for precious airtime. Following Sunday's Oscars, in which a few too many cruel music yanks marred early wins, and host Jon Stewart had to drag Best Song co-winner Marketa Irglova back out to deliver her thank yous when she'd been unceremoniously silenced after her Once co-star, Glen Hansard, had spent hardly any time talking himself — the irony of a musician cut off by music looking especially bad — I'm ready to plead that the clips be clipped and the acceptances be accepted. Especially if the academy is going to have the gall — as it did this year — to assemble the majority of its nostalgia packages not from movies, but from footage of previous years' winners accepting their awards. (Plus, it was mostly footage of them running to the stage, rather than words said at the podium — a subtle signal?) It's as if the producers are terrified of the possibly naked emotions that come with extra seconds spent basking in the movie industry's highest honor on a live worldwide night. But isn't that why we watch the damn thing in the first place? To see actors working without a script, foreign artists talking to loved ones halfway around the globe, craftspeople emerging from behind cameras, mixing boards, computer stations and editing bays to enjoy the spotlight, documentarians passionately clueing us in to the subject that's dominated their lives for a few years, and — let's face it — even the blowhards and fakers who give us something to rail about with our friends on the couch? The end of the writers strike supposedly saved us all from a starless Oscars, which would have depended on lots and lots of clips. So why couldn't the academy celebrate what it gained by acknowledging the humanity of everybody coming to the party?

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Coming soon to a bookstore near you (and me)

Here's something I'll bet you didn't know: books have trailers. As in movie trailers. Except for books. Books today have their own 2-minute graphic-intensive ads.

Case in point:



Cool, eh? This ad was created Kam Wai Yu, who designed the cover for my novel.

Yes, I'm pimping my publisher. I can live with that. In a few months, they're going to pimp me. A Choir of Pimps we are!

If you want to preorder the novel in the trailer, click here.

There are HOW many planets in the solar system?!

(This from Salon.com)

Mnemonic for 11 planets sure beats "Roy G. Biv," "Homes"

© robinvanmourik

Maryn Smith, a 10-year-old fourth-grader at Riverview Elementary School in Great Falls, Mont., knows that there are 11 planets in the solar system. In order of increasing distance from the sun, they are, of course, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Eris.

The trouble is, you and millions of Americans just like you don't know any of this.

You vaguely remember Venus because that's where ladies come from, and Mars because of the rock that looks like a face. And you've got no idea -- none, nada -- about Ceres and Eris, two of the solar system's dwarf planets, along with Pluto, which word conjures in your mind a picture of Mickey's dog.

So how to school you on space? This was Maryn's quest.

Inspired by a contest put on by the National Geographic Society, her class set about coming up with a mnemonic for the solar system's 11 planets. You know, like "Roy G. Biv" for the colors of the rainbow -- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet -- or, for the Great Lakes, "Homes" (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior).

Maryn won the contest with her thoroughly excellent phrase:

My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.

Mnemonics work when they're memorable. And Maryn's, which she says was inspired by "Aladdin," sure is. The magic carpet! Those palace elephants! How can you forget?

According to Maryn's local paper, other entries from her class included:

My Very Extraordinary Mother Carrie Just Served Us Nine Pizzas Each.

and

My Very Extraordinary Mother Can Jog Superly Under Nasty Particular Elves.

It's clear why those don't work: How would you remember that the mom's named Carrie? And "superly"? And what's the deal with elves being "particular"? It makes no sense! Not like the magic carpet and nine palace elephants, which is totally logical and right.

Maryn's mnemonic will be published in a forthcoming National Geographic book, "11 Planets: A New View of the Solar System."

According to the Associated Press -- and this part is totally true -- it will also be recorded into a song by Lisa Loeb.

"My Very Exciting Magic Carpet..." could be Loeb's biggest hit -- her only hit! -- since "Stay."

Campfire Tales (Losing My Mind Edition)

Every Friday night at Camp Avoda was special.

Friday night was the start of the Sabbath, and we would welcome the Sabbath with a luxurious chicken dinner. At the drop of the sun, all campers gathered in the mess hall and feasted. Some feasted later than others - every meal was served by preselected campers - but by the end of the night, no one was hungry.

After dinner, the camp often showed one or two movies in the lodge. We're talking 1984-1985, so they used a projector and everything. These days I'm sure they just hook up a DVD player to a widescreen TV. It's not the same thing. Call me a luddite, but better technology doesn't always lead to a better experience (he typed on his laptop to his blog).

One Friday night my first year at Camp Avoda, Paul Davis took to the podium and, after leading us in a raucous Grace After Meals, began to tell us what that night's motion picture would be. My bunk had remained raucous even after the Grace, though, so all I heard from Mr. Davis' announcement was the word "Steven." This was, as I said, 1984. I was 8, going on 9. The previous year, my father had taken me and my sister to see E.T. Even at that young age, I knew film directors, and I knew E.T. - which I had loved - was directed by Steven Spielberg. Surely this was the Steven that Paul Davis had mentioned. So I went to the lodge, eager to re-experience E.T.

I was the only 8 year-old who went.

None of my counselors stopped me - and none of the counselors in the lodge took exception to my presence - so I gathered my blanket, picked up some candy treats at the canteen, and picked my spot on the floor.

I think my candy treat was a bag of Twizzlers.

As I mentioned, no one else from my bunk was there. No one was there from Bunk Two or Bunk Three either, so I pretty much kept to myself...which was fine. Even back then I was a fairly independent breed of dork.

Then the movie started. A long tracking shot of a car winding up a Colorado mountain as ominous violins stirred from the speakers.

This was not E.T.

The violins were hypnotic, though, and so was the film. I quickly became caught up in the story. An unstable father was spending the winter as caretaker at an abandoned resort hotel. With him were his pale wife and odd son. The son reminded me of, well, me. I was a small child; he was a small child. I had brown hair; he had brown hair. I talked to my blankie; he talked to his finger. Close enough.

Never before in my life had I so fallen into a movie. I lost all sense of self. I completely forgot about the other campers, the lodge, the Twizzlers. For the next 150 mins, my whole world was that world, the world of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, based on the horror novel by Stephen King.

My memories of the rest of that night are vague.

I know I was visibly shaking. I know I couldn't speak. I know I ended up back at my bunk...but I don't recall the walk from the lodge, the walk through the woods, to get there. Perhaps it wasn't even the same "me" who returned. Perhaps it wouldn't ever be the same me again.

Best...cover...ever?

Decompression

Playtime is over.

What began last year as Lysistrata ended Sunday night to an almost full capacity crowd as four comedic one-act plays. The best metaphor I've come up with is this: it was like riding a roller coaster with a broken safety bar. I'm glad it's over, but I do have some fond memories.

I'm also tremendously impressed with the hard work the students poured into these plays. Essentially we had 15 days weeks to memorize, stage, costume, light, and perform four very different, very difficult one-act plays. Some performances were better than others. Some plays were better than others. But the fact that there were any performances at all, the fact that there were any plays to be seen...it still boggles the mind.

I applaud each and every one of my students. These are their names:

NATHAN BANKS
JUSTIN CONWAY
AMBER CULBERTSON
BETHANY EDMONDSON
MIKE LEE
COLIN MCCORD
ANNA RAMMON
MAGED ROUSHDI
RACHEL RHYMER
MICHAEL SANCHEZ
STEVIE SCHULTE
ROSYLYN WILSON
CHRISTA WOOD

Don't mind me. I'm now going to nap for a few weeks.

Lots of funny last night on SNL

The Truth-is-Stranger-than-Fiction Dept.

From Orange World's Ananova:

Dwarf crime a 'growing problem'

Thieves are robbing long-distance coaches by sneaking dwarves into the luggage holds in sports bags.

Once inside, they slip out from their hiding places to rifle through the belongings of unsuspecting travellers.

Then they take their loot back to their hiding place and wait to be collected by another gang member when the coach reaches its destination, reports The Sun.

They have stolen thousands of pounds in cash, gems and other valuables in recent months.

Swebus, which ferries thousands of Brits across Sweden, has been among coach firms targeted.

A spokesman said: "We have had reports about several thefts by dwarves on the stretch between Vasteras and Stockholm.

"We're thinking of installing video cameras."

A Stockholm Police spokesman said: "We are looking at our records to identify criminals of limited stature."

One of my favorite short stories of 2007...

...can be found right here.

(Yes, I am posting this link to someone else's writing because I am too tired to write anything of my own. Yes, I will continue the Camp Avoda stories soon. And yes, I would love a back massage.)

Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean!

By the way, I've been revising Nuclear Winter Wonderland.

I like revision. It gives me an opportunity - forcibly - to clean up my mess...and I tend to make a mess. I write the way I direct the way I teach the way I live my life: organically. Moment to moment. Always be prepared - do the research first, the legwork, the hard work - and then always be prepared to toss that preparation out the window. It's the gristle of improvisation, and I improvise 24/7. Even dreams are just the improvisations of the unconscious mind.

However, since improvisation is about the trees, not the forest, oftentimes the forest as a whole can get neglected. Such is the case with my novel. I paid so much attention to the individual lines, paragraphs, and chapters (the microcosmic elements), that in this revision I've had to refine and refocus my characters' arcs (the macrocosm elements). By arcs, I mean the emotional journeys the main characters go through. Of course, not all characters change - one thinks of Coriolanus or Robin Hood - but more often than not, we want to see the plot affect our protagonist internally as well as externally. It helps, for lack of a better word, give the story a point.

And so I'm revising Nuclear Winter Wonderland. My editor James McKinnon has offered some wonderful suggestions. I am cleaning up my mess. I'm tending to my forest. Pass the hedge clippers.

Note to future self: this is what you worked on every waking hour of February 2008

"The Actor's Nightmare"
by Christopher Durang

(in picture: Justin Conway as "George" and Stephanie Schulte as "Ellen")





"The Best Daddy"
by Shel Silverstein

(in picture: Maged Roushdi as "Daddy" and Roslyn Wilson as "Lisa")




"The Sneeze"
by Neil Simon

(in picture: top row - Bethany Edmondson as "Mrs. Ch" and Nathaniel Banks as "Mr. Ch", bottom row - Christa Wood as "Mrs. Brz"/"Narrator"and Maged Roushdi as "General Brz"




"Words, Words, Words"
by David Ives

(in picture: Bethany Edmondson as "Swift", Roslyn Wilson as "Milton", Amber Culbertson as "Kafka")

Thank you to Rachel Rhymer for taking these photographs (with Bethany's camera). And thank you to DayQuil for allowing me to attend our dress rehearsals.

Ill Communication

Still sick. Send reinforcements.

License to Ill

Well, it finally happened. I caught the annual plague.

I'm just surprised it took so long. Everyone I know has been sick recently, so my current aches, pains, medicine head, fatigue, fever, and dizziness all bear the tinct of inevitability.

How lovely.

I promise to continue my campfire tales once my forehead temperature drops below that of a campfire. Meanwhile, I have classes to teach, four plays to rehearse for an opening on Wednesday, and a novel to revise.

Ah well. C'est la février.

The Return of New Rules!

And now...the Beatnix!

For those of you who live in a cave...

Camp Avoda (A Visual Interlude)

The beach

The "lake"

The latrine

The chapel

A typical bunk

All images © www.campavoda.org

Campfire Tales (Part Two)

Long before we invaded the Middle East, I fought in my own desert war at Camp Avoda. It was called...Desert War.

I was 8. This is how I was recruited:

One night, after taps, when we were all asleep, counselors waving flashlights walked through each of the bunks and woke all of us up. Without offering explanation, they demanded that we get dressed and head out to the beach.

We got dressed and headed out to the beach, and to Lake Tispaquin.

Lake Tispaquin (which really is a pond) was so thick with algae that you had to take a shower immediately after exiting the water or risk...well...I never found out what would happen, but I've since seen the movie Cabin Fever...and that seemed pretty accurate. We gathered on the beach beside our evergreen Lake Tispaquin. We were all gathered there, hundreds of campers ages 8 - 14, and none of us knew why.

Then the tale began. I forget which camp counselor told the tale, but I remember he told it well. He told of a battle - a great battle - fought on these very shores hundreds of years ago. He told of families torn apart. He told of brave soldiers dying for uncertain causes.

That's when we heard the noises. They came from the nearby forest. They sounded like gunshots.

"Two sides!" cried the counselor. "Only one would emerge triumphant in this....Desert War!"

To which the older campers suddenly cheered, hooted, and hollered. To which the rest of us, clueless, remained in moonlit bewilderment. Soon the other counselors emerged from the forest with their prop guns and the explanations finally were offered:

Desert War was a three-day mega-event that occurred every summer. None of the campers knew when it would begin, and apparently it always was announced like this, with some kind of theatrical fanfare. During Desert War, the camp was divided into halves, as were the campers. The whole camp, thus, became the battlefield - red vs. blue - and played a massive game of Capture-the-Flag (referred to as Flag-Rush in Avoda-speak).

I had an absolute blast. I loved every aspect of it - the athletics, the competitiveness, but most especially the theatrics. I mean, it would have been easy for them to have introduced Desert War to us during dinner announcements, but no. They woke us up in the middle of the night, didn't tell us a thing, had us sit on the beach, surrounded us with mythology, and employed special effects to heighten the experience.

This occurred during my first year at Camp Avoda. I was in Bunk One. I wish I could tell you that it was the single most memorable event of that first year...but it was what happened the following weekend which altered my life forever.

Campfire Tales (Part One)

When I was younger, I spent my summers at Camp Avoda, an all-boys Jewish sleep-away in Middleboro, Massachusetts. For four weeks out the year, we played soccer, baseball, tennis, and flag football. We were awakened every morning with a broadcast of reveille and went to sleep every night to a broadcast of taps. Our bunks and latrines were under constant inspection for cleanliness and order.

Not surprisingly, "Avoda" is the Hebrew word for "work."

I didn't really excel at soccer, baseball, tennis, or flag football, having as I did the coordination of a drunken seal. Archery, though, was a different matter. Archery wasn't man vs. man. Archery was man vs. self. Man vs. self? I knew if I tried hard enough, I could vanquish such a foe! And so archery became my cause. I poured all my efforts into my plastic bow. I concentrated all my thoughts on that white-yellow-blue-red target 30 feet away. I practiced. I honed. I winced. I ached.

One weekend, my family came to visit me. Finally, I was going to show off! They would see their little Robin Hood and be so proud. I gave them a tour of the camp and led them down to the range. I picked up my lucky bow. I took careful aim.

Alas, I did not hit the bulleye. I hit the frog's eye.

You see, behind the targets was a canvas tarp, and behind the canvas tarp was a forest. My arrow skipped past the target, went over the tarp, and, well, made acquaintance with a passing amphibian.

Yes, in the battle between man vs. self, both I and I lost...and we even took collateral damage.

But that's not even close to my most memorable Camp Avoda experience, not by a long shot.

If you'll forgive the pun.

Academic Research

One of the one act plays I'm directing right now is "Words, Words, Words" by David Ives, in which three chimps are locked in a room for eternity and expected, as the old saw goes, eventually to write Hamlet. In doing research for the play, I came upon this educational video:

Stricken

By this time on Monday, the Writers Guild of America's work stoppage may be over. The leaders hammered together the deal points and presented it to the Guild on Saturday evening. One of the causes which the AMPTP back to the negotiating table was the contract they reached with the Directors Guild. However, I'm inclined to think that there was a greater cause, and that cause is the Academy Awards.

The Academy Awards are sacrosanct. They go back to the late 1920s and have never been cancelled, not even during World War II. In the past few decades, viewership of the Academy Awards has skyrocketed not just domestically but all over the world. The motion picture industry generates hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Make no mistake: the Academy Awards is a business.

But they're also a whole lot of goofy fun.

Here's one of my favorite recent Oscar moments. It's a short film by Errol Morris which was used to introduce the 2002 Academy Awards. Enjoy.

My friend Raven Snook has posted a really great (albeit far too brief) feature over at AMC. For those of you too lazy to click on the link, here is her article:

3X3: Oscar Nominees Choose the Films That Should Have Won

"It's an honor just to be nominated." So the saying goes. And while that is true, which film (or actor) takes home the Oscar still sparks heated debates every year. Heck, the Crash over Brokeback Mountain win still enrages some people! With the 80th annual Academy Awards just weeks away, we asked three Oscar-nominated professionals which films they thought should have snagged the little gold man but didn't.

Name: Lynn Redgrave

Oscar Nominations: Best Actress in a Leading Role for Georgy Girl (1966); Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Gods and Monsters (1998)

Other Awards Won: Golden Globe and New York Film Critics for Georgy Girl; Golden Globe, Independent Spirit Award, London Film Critics Circle for Gods and Monsters

Current Gig: Starring in MCC Theater's GRACE at the Lucille Lortel Theatre through March 8.

Website: redgrave.com

Three Oscar-Nominated Pictures That Should've Won:

1. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951): "An absolute classic that lives on and on, filmed in a claustrophobic style that allows us into Blanche's soul, yearning for all she has lost. Haunting, brilliant, unforgettable."

2. Shane (1953): "I have seen this film again and again since it first came out and I cry every time! Its simplicity of storytelling is dazzling."

3. Apocalypse Now (1979): "It was filmed only a few years after the withdrawal of American troops from that nightmare of a war in Vietnam. If it could have come out during the war, surely it could have changed history and ended that debacle way sooner. But then again...do we ever learn?"

Name: Chazz Palminteri

Oscar Nomination: Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

Other Awards Won: Independent Spirit Award, Sant Jordi Award

Current Gig: Starring in A Bronx Tale on Broadway through February 24.

Website: chazzpalminteri.net

Three Oscar-Nominated Pictures That Should've Won:

1. Raging Bull (1980): "It's one of the best written and directed films ever made, with groundbreaking cinematography and a spellbinding cast giving great performances."

2. Goodfellas (1990): "A great Mob movie that shows what's inside a gangster's mind. It was one of the first movies to show how despicable some of those people really are."

3. Elmer Gantry (1960): "The story of how money and fame can cause a person's downfall. It shows that we all must pay for our sins -- even if we made them a long time ago."

Name: Marshall Curry, Director

Oscar Nomination: Best Documentary Feature for Street Fight (2005)

Other Awards Won: Tribeca Film Festival Audience Award, Hot Docs Film Festival Audience Award, Silverdocs Audience Award

Upcoming Gig: If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (a doc about a radical environmental organization responsible for scores of arson attacks).

Website: marshallcurry.com

Three Oscar-Nominated Pictures That Should've Won:

1. All the President's Men (1976): "I was a little young to see this film when it came out, but once I did see it, it was life-changing. It stoked my love for politics and set me on the path to make Street Fight, my political documentary about gritty urban campaigning."

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): "This film set the bar for action movies, and I don't think there has been a better one since. It's exciting, it's funny and the characters are complex and surprising. It instantly took root in my 12-year old imagination. My best friend and I would spend hours acting out scenes in the yard, using our belts as bullwhips."

3. Pulp Fiction (1994): "I'd never seen anything like this film -- it broke so many Hollywood conventions for dialogue and storylines and violence. Every minute of it thrilled and amazed me. In most movies when a character is holding a gun, you know pretty well whether someone is about to get shot. In Pulp Fiction, when a gun gets waved around, it's like life -- you really have no idea whether it's going to go off or not."

Minotaur vs. Centaur

One of my favorite features at UGO.com is Minotaur vs. Centaur, in which the website's journalists (which include my aforementioned friend Brooke) ask celebs who would win in a fight: a minotaur armed with a trident or a centaur armed with a crossbow?

Some of the responses are absolutely priceless.

Click here to watch and giggle.

Who do you think would win in that fight?

Lysistrata (Coda)

Superman is so last century

In a recent interview with IGN (sorry, Brooke!), well-respected comic book writer Mark Millar expounds about his new creation, Kick Ass, and offers the following provocative quote:

So I think what we're really trying to do is create the 21st century superhero. I really feel as though there's a massive gap in the market.... I dearly love Superman and Batman, but even I, right, the guy who has the Superman's cape on the wall in my bloody hall, right, even I am starting to see that I love them like I love Sherlock Holmes. They belong to another era now, you know? I think the reason they don't sometimes sell is that they belong to another era. And it's an era I'm madly in love with, but I can appreciate that 12 year olds maybe aren't. I think… it's almost gone, that stuff. There's almost no interest in it, which is a real shame. I just wonder if maybe they belong to the 20th century.

Thoughts?

Coming Soon: Lysistr....a...err...um... (The Finale)

The game was up. With four weeks to go, we didn't have enough actors - or really even enough crew - to mount Lysistrata. The show must go on, yes, but discretion is also the better part of valor. And a stitch in time saves nine. And every rose has its thorn. Welcome to the jungle, sweet child of mine.

In retrospect, choosing a large show such as Lysistrata was perhaps a bad idea. Perhaps ambition trumped reason. That said, though, ambition is not in itself a vice. Macbeth's sin isn't one of ambition. It's hubris. Which I'm also guilty of. Find me an artist who isn't.

So I met with the remaining students who had stuck with the show, who had weathered half-attended rehearsals and a revolving door of cast members. I presented them with the situation - which they clearly recognized - and I put the onus on them. What did they want to do now? I presented them with three options: persevere with Lysistrata, nix Lysistrata, or replace Lysistrata. After much deliberation, they chose Option C. Now we had to find a replacement, and quick. I brought them to the school library and they spent the weekend pouring over scripts.

We met again the following Monday and discussed. By Tuesday, we had our new lineup: an evening of four short comedies ("The Actor's Nightmare" by Christopher Durang, "The Best Daddy" by Shel Silverstein, "The Sneeze" by Neil Simon, and "Words, Words, Words" by David Ives). When I informed them that I had also managed to get us a new performing venue, the recently renovated Center Street Theater, their enthusiasm became reinvigorated.


Now all I had to do was tell the college administration.


But that's a tale for another time...long after all this show is over.

Coming Soon: Lysistr....a...err...um... (The Sequel)

I love being a teacher. I find teaching to be incredibly similar to writing. You prepare and research, and then you go into the classroom or sit down at the computer and you improvise for a few hours. You communicate information as best you can to a mixed audience.

Being a teacher of theatre, though, has its own peculiarities. The very extracurricular nature of the discipline requires the theatre teacher to spend many more hours with his or her students than the average teacher might. Rehearsals can go on to 11pm (or later) and sometimes crop up on weekends. But it's part of the job, so you show up, and you expect your students to do the same.

But they're students. And just as in any random sampling of any random audience you'll find those enraptured and those anesthetized, in any group of students you'll find those who are less eager and/or responsible than others. This is to be expected. In fact, it's to be anticipated. But what happens when the apathy of some takes its toll on the enjoyment of the whole?

If you direct a play and only half of your cast come to rehearsals, the tree can't even fall in the forest for no one to hear. It just kind of dangles there like a loose tooth.

I'm being vague. I apologize. But it's the only way I can begin to approach an event so recent and still painful. Also, I don't want this to turn into a rant against individual students. I honestly believe, perhaps idealistically believe, that there was no malice aforethought.

OK, enough treading water. Here's what happened:

After I cast Lysistrata, the students went home for the December break. I went to New York City. Much fun had. I came back and they came back and we met up our first January rehearsal. No one was off-book, but that was to be expected. My musical director hadn't finished the songs, but that was to be expected too. We had time. We weren't set to open until February 20th. I had restaged the show to take place in the campus atrium and incorporated the winding staircase into what I felt was a neat design.

That first week, one of my actors dropped out. Her grandmother became quite ill and my actor suddenly had to become her grandmother's primary caregiver. My heart went out to her. I lost my grandfather last year. I wished her the best and went about recasting. Unfortunately, this actor was also my go-to person for props and costumes. Her costume designs were wonderful, but now she wouldn't be able to enact them. Again, I wished her the best, and went about searching for a replacement for props and costumes. Family trumps everything else. Unfortunately, this actor's boyfriend was my assistant and he had to drop out to take care of her so she could take care of her grandmother. Once again, a no-brainer. These are about as valid as excuses can be.

Then another actor dropped out. Work conflict.

Then another actor dropped out. He suddenly didn't like his role.

Then two more actors (brother and sister) just stopped coming to rehearsal.

I recast, and the show went on. We gained some more actors.

Then another actor dropped out. Work conflict.

Then the musical director quit. She felt overwhelmed.

These are all students, mind you. None of them were being paid to be in this production (although a few were enrolled in practicum credit). Again, I don't want this to come across as a rant against college students, because that's far from my intentions. If I didn't love my students, I wouldn't be a teacher. But in all the times I've directed, and that includes dozens of productions, never had I encountered such...I don't even know what. Meanwhile, time kept on ticking and February 20th, which had seemed so far away, now was in four weeks.

I had to make some big decisions.

Figurative Laterals

In honor of today's Super Bowl (go Pats!), this weekend's final video is my favorite moment in football from this past year:

What a variety!

Yesterday I posted kudos to my friend John. The day before I posted my favorite video from my friend Ingrid. Well, today I'm reading Variety's reviews...and what's being reviewed in the same issue but John's show and Ingrid's show!

So weird. So cool.

John Russo, Actor

In a bonus visual post for today, here's a pic from Playbill's preview of Offending the Audience, which opened this week at the esteemed Flea Theatre and costars my friend John Russo.



You rock, John Russo.

Smart bugs

Here is something I scryed this week on Warren Ellis's blog.

Prepare to be freaked.



Told ya so.

Ingrid is "Far Away"

In our first installment this weekend of Audiovisualosity, I present my favorite clip of Ingrid Michaelson performing my favorite song from my favorite album of hers (so far), Girls and Boys: