Monthly Archives: December 2008

quotes, theater

at the end of the journey

Mr. Pinter said he thought of theater as essentially exploratory. “Even old Sophocles didn’t know what was going to happen next,” he said. “He had to find his way through unknown territory. At the same time, theater has always been a critical act, looking in a broad sense at the society in which we live and attempting to reflect and dramatize these findings. We’re not talking about the moon.”

Speaking about his intuitive sense of writing, he said, “I find at the end of the journey, which of course is never ending, that I have found things out.”

– from the NYT article on the life and death of playwright Harold Pinter, who died Wednesday at the age of 78.

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chicago

oh, the weather outside is frightful,

and it’s time to get on the bus. I now understand why the outsides of all the buildings in Chicago look smooth and completely flat. Why all the sidewalks are so enormous, like piers, and elevated from the level of the street by more than a foot. Why everything is constructed with exaggerated angles. Why the whole place looks like you took a picture of a city and clicked “Zoom In.” It’s to FIGHT THE SNOW. They built it bigger and flatter and pointier so it would have a chance of still being here in…four months.

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Cali, theater

(phew)

Shakespeare Santa Cruz has raised enough money to keep their doors open. As of Monday, they had raised over 400K, beyond the 300K they needed to stay open and produce the 09 season. According to the Merc, between 80 and 85 percent of the donations to the campaign came in figures of $25 to $100.

I remember going there with my family to see a production of SHREW, years ago, and walking up the tall hill back to the car, surrounded by the redwood trunks, and having a dialogue with Shakespeare in my head, something along the lines of “Yeah, yeah, you’re all right, you’re okay, that’s all well and good, but just wait till I get started, buster, I have something to say about this whole men and women business too.”

The SSC website has a nice quote from Dana Gioia at the NEA: “The generous public support to save Shakespeare Santa Cruz has set a shining example for the American arts. This may be a local event, but it has national importance.”

A warning note amid this celebration from UCSC chancellor Blumenthal:

“SSC’s future viability requires stronger private support, increased revenues from ticket sales and other sources and reduced operating costs.”

So true – and a reminder that in this economic climate, all such victories are temporary.

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quotes, theater, Uncategorized

worth giving up baseball

[Philip Seymour] Hoffman was the second youngest of four kids. He was raised Catholic and played three sports until a neck injury during wrestling practice forced him, under doctor’s orders, to quit contact sports. “I thought, O.K., I’ll play baseball,” Hoffman said. “ But I’m 14 with a neck brace. I’d see some girl from 10 blocks away, and I’d take it off until she passed me. I was this freckle-faced kid, and I perceived myself as not attractive. When the doctor asked me if I still had pain, I lied. My pact with God was that I would no longer play sports. So instead of trying out for baseball, I auditioned for a play.” Hoffman smiled. “And also there was this beautiful girl. I had a huge crush on her, and she acted. It seemed like something worth giving up baseball for.”

-from “A Higher Calling,” the NYT article on PSH

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Cali, politics

the face(s) of gay marriage in California

Now that prosecutor Ken Starr has filed a legal brief on behalf of the Yes on Prop 8 folks, to nullify the 18,000 gay marriages performed in California from May to November 2008, the pro-gay marriage Courage Campaign has pictures up now from many of California’s gay couples in a Please Don’t Divorce Us campaign.

It is a very heartbreaking stream of images, when you think about all these families being forcibly divorced. In another way, it’s quite uplifting to see the range of ages, races, the different backgrounds of the couples – the diversity of gay marriages across the state. To see their kids and families all around them in support.

I am still hopeful that Prop 8 will be overturned. In fact, as of yesterday, CA. Attorney General Jerry Brown has asked the court to move forward to overturn Prop 8, reversing his earlier stance on the proposition.

The quote from him is: “Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification.”

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chicago

-1 (-17 with wind chill)

It was so cold today on the way back from yoga that Eileen and I ran into a local high school to break the eight-block walk home. Thankfully, it was open. Some kind of Sunday meeting going on. I thought my fingers were going to fall off. And then I realized if I went home, I’d never leave, so I turned around and went to work in my workout clothes.

Just got home and lit the Hanukah candles – my first menorah, which my parents sent me from LA.

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theater

trouble in the redwood forest

On Monday, it will have been one week since the Merc announced Shakespeare Santa Cruz had one week to raise $300,000 or go dark. State budget cuts made it impossible for UC Santa Cruz to maintain its economic partnership with the theater whereby, as they had the last few years, UCSC made up SSC’s budget shortfalls. Currently, they are at $278,516 (as of Friday). On Monday, they’ll announce whether or not they made it.

To donate and help save the Shakespeare festival surrounded by the California redwoods, click here. I wish I had money to give them myself.

These times are hard. We are facing the very real danger of shutting our doors forever. But theatres have faced hard times before, and theatres will face hard times again. And I’ve always thought (perhaps perversely) that hard times are when we need theatre the most.
– SSC artistic director Marco Barricelli

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theater

that and fifty cents

Over all, [NEA] endowment officials said, the demand for nonmusical theater simply is not what it used to be.

“In a sense, the dilemma of nonprofit theater can be simply summarized — supply has outstripped current demand,” Dana Gioia, the chairman of the national endowment, wrote in a preface to the report. “The remarkable growth and professional management of theatrical organizations across the nation has not yet been matched by equally robust growth in audiences.”

– from an NYT article on the declining audience for “nonmusical theater”, via ArtsJournal.

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directing

heating the cold turkey

I saw a play recently, with friends. I felt the usual confusion of emotions, like going into a bar after having quit drinking, being surrounded by the cues and quirks of your old haunt. The cold women’s bathroom, spiderwebbed, improperly dusted, because actors are responsible for the cleaning. The cast members, ranging from awkward to extraordinary, with every gradation in between.

I got to thank a couple of the actors afterwards for their work. Seeing an actor I wanted to work with was very tempting. It would be so easy to get back on that particular three-legged horse. I’ve been directing for almost ten years, and this – from June to December of 2008 – is the longest voluntary break I’ve taken from it since I started.

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art, comix, workstyle, writing

rote social banter

This cartoon, Snow Dope, by Dean Haspiel, is so so so wonderful. So deliciously lonely. He writes:

I realized that it was better to reject rote social banter to quell my fear of being alone and embrace solitude this holiday weekend.

If my time in New York had been like that, I’d still be there. Maybe it was – I remember a friend buying me a bottle of incredibly expensive artisanal bourbon (almost on the level of couture bourbon, or something) and us starting to drink it, and him having to explain to me that no, now I was this drunk, I could not just get back on the subway. He introduced me to the concept of the Brooklyn car service. If I had been able to never leave Brooklyn, and just stumble around being an artist with a part-time job, perhaps I would have found inspiration in that city. It was the twice-daily commute to the island that killed me, and the day job I had to hold down there to pay the rent and buy the booze. By the time I escaped, I was barely writing at all.

The problem with New York is Manhattan.
I think it would be perfectly liveable if you just stayed in the outer boroughs.

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