Extra Criticum

A Rose by Any Other Name [or: Catherine Zeta-Jones, A Class Act]

March 9, 2010. Curtain call at A Little Night Music at the Walter Kerr.

An eager Angela Lansbury fan races to the edge of the stage with an enormous bouquet of red roses—at least two dozen, maybe three. As Angela enters to take her bow, he can be seen desperately signalling to her, trying to catch her eye, thrusting his roses out over the footlights. But he is House Right and she Stage Right. Even if she had seen him, to cross to accept his roses would throw her straight into the path of her co-star, Ms. Catherine Zeta-Jones, who is about to enter for her own bow.

The Tortoise & the Hare: Bette Davis vs. Meryl Streep and their Oscar nods over the years

In honor of the Academy Awards tonight, we submit for your review, the following chart, comparing the Oscar nods received by two towering actress legends: Bette Davis and Meryl Streep.

As for theories as to why one may have outlpaced the other in this random race for a place in Oscar history, we leave it to you creative thinkers to conjure up a plausible explanation for the disparities.

A Small Craft Warning

I think it's a glorious thing when art, in whatever form, returns from the depth of your memory to offer comfort beside some experience occurring in present life. This week, as I was feeling quite sorry for myself at having allowed myself to be drawn in by a man, a piece from Tennessee Williams' Small Craft Warnings did just that for me.

Oy veh! Can someone please tell me what the word "dramaturgically" means?

I hear this word batted around constantly. Everywhere I turn I hear this sentence, or some variation on it.

We really tried to understand the piece dramaturgically.

A Week in the Life of an Opera Impresaria

Thought it might be fun (and informative!) to list some highlights from my busy week. See, I run a mid-size mid-country opera company... something some are calling an endangered species. Here's a snapshot of what this overworked and overcaffeinated working girl had in her calendar this week.

Playing it Safe: Art's Most Formidable Enemy

Just finished Todd London and Ben Pesner's eye-opening study of the landscape for new American plays. Outrageous Fortune is a tough read, not because it's not well-written and meticulously researched but because the content is so damned hard to swallow. It's a bitter pill. But the truth hurts. So much interesting commentary has already erupted over this important book, I won't bore you by adding my own two cents. (If you haven't caught any of the flurry of on-topic pontificating in the blogosphere, simply Google the title and much of it will appear.)

I want to focus on one of the threads that emerged for me in reading the book and that is: Fear. In quote after quote from Artistic Directors all across the U.S., the subtext was the same. I read it as follows:

Diva Is a Myth

Diva (1981) existed in my psyche as one of the most beautiful films ever and a paragon of cool. I remembered the unlikely romantic couple strolling through a blue-hued Paris at dawn accompanied by a Satie-esque piano piece. I remembered that there was a song from some obscure opera. Ahhhh... the music. I remembered it was a stylish film, pleasing to look at, full of great sets and interesting objects, like that beautiful, vintage, white Citroen. Mostly I remembered the punk, “Priest,” the fantastic Dominique Pinon who would later dazzle me in Delicatessen and make me think he was some kind of French re-incarnation of Charlie Chaplin. His was the face on the poster and on the soundtrack LP. Like any punk worth his safety pins, he was full of disdain. In fact, most of his lines begin with, “I don’t like…” Discovering the music he had pumping into his earpiece was to me one of the great cinematic jokes.

Top 10 Examples of Visual Spectacle in NYC Theatre's Recent-ish History

OK. So, readers of this blog may be surprised (or alarmed?) to see this headline and my byline together in the same post. Those familiar with Rolando Teco's biases know that visual spectacle does not thrill me in the way that, say, authentic human conflict does.

So it dawned on me as I sat transfixed at my window, watching the drama and chaos and sheer beauty of another snowstorm, that I do appreciate some fireworks of the visual sort every now and then. So, here, in totally random order, are my top 10 picks for most stunning, memorable and breathtaking.

Drunken! Careening! Writers! gears up for another careening season

When I started DCW, the reading series I host at the KGB Bar back in 2004, it was in part because I missed the emerging and professional writers at The Writer's Voice, the literary arts center at the West Side YMCA where I worked for most of the last decade of the last century.

Well look who the wind blew in...long time no post, Kathleen!

But one of my (albeit tardy) New Year's Resolutions is to be a more active poster here on Extra Criticum.

I've actually been traveling a fair amount for theater lately, so I've got some posts planned for that, and I'm cross-pollinating at the moment, with a link to a post I wrote this afternoon for Frommers.com's "Behind the Guides" blog, where they let me write about my fangirl obsession with The Amazing Race, which is only the most awesome reality show EVER! 

GOTHOS Performs Live This Fri Feb 19

This just in from E.C. pal, Gored Smyte, keyboardist and visionary force behind GOTHOS: The Ultimate Goth Rock Tribute Show. They're playing the R Bar on the Lower East Side and rumor has it, some serious music biz movers and shakers will be there. So the bigger the crowd the better. Rolando Teco and Andrew Altenburg plan to be gettin' down to their groove. Come join us. Show the love! Here's a short clip from one of their covers, "This Corrosion" by The Sisters of Mercy:

GothosThisCorrosion30sec

My Last Trip to the Highline Ballroom [or: Don't Let a Lousy Venue Kill Your Act]

According to theatrical lore, Helen Hayes (The First Lady of the American Theatre) had a ritual she never deviated from whenever she was opening in a new show on Broadway. On the first day of previews, as legend has it, she would have her assistant go 'round to all the ushers and box office staff and collect their birthdays. Then she would keep them in a calendar and during the run of the show every front of house staff member would receive a personal birthday card from Helen Hayes herself.

Why did she do this? Because she understood that the success of any show, no matter how brilliant, depends on the good will and enthusiasm of the people who make first (and repeated) contact with the public. If the people answering the phone in the box office or tearing tickets as the audience arrived each night loved Ms. Hayes, the chances of the audiences loving her were better.

The other night some friends and I went to a fabulous show performed by Lady Rizo and The Assettes at the Highline Ballroom. And although it was packed, if I were her manager I would advise her never to perform at that venue again.

Pics from Brevity Fest LA now on facebook

Thanks to our MC, JD DiSalvatore, for posting these pics. Video to soon follow.

Art vs. Commerce: Two world views collide within 12 hours of each other

Last night, we had our first Brevity Fest, at which about a dozen writers and musicians shared new work for an audience of roughly 75, who filled a cozy venue called El Cid where drinks and food were served and lots of people were moved.

This morning I took a meeting with a publicist who told me that nothing I've done is even worth discussing (or his time) unless and until I have a breakout hit.

Both are real. Both are valid. But one of these things moves me deeply while the other leaves me cold.