Extra Criticum

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

Gay Man Comes Out: Why I Love THE BOYS IN THE BAND

I'll admit it. When I first saw the film adaptation of The Boys in the Band, I loved it. I knew I wasn't supposed to, of course. I was in college at the time. My first boyfriend had instructed me that the politics of Mart Crowley's play (and subsequent screenplay) were all wrong. "Self-loathing" and "Internalized Homophobia" were the buzzwords at get-togethers of the Lesbian, Gay and Transgendered Student Association on campus.

So I did what any self-respecting newly-liberated young homo would do. I kept my feelings to myself.

The Beethoven Pitfall

I was at a concert the other night where music was performed by an orchestra and choir and most of it was stuff recently written by the conductor himself. It all sounded pretty bland, like watered-down Richard Strauss. For those of you unfamiliar with Strauss operas, just think of the harmonic progressions of John Williams' Star Wars score on overdrive. Lots of rambling chord progressions with no clear sense of a tonic, or home. When you listen to Mozart or Bach or 99% of music written before WWII, there's a clear sense of where harmonic home base lies. The audience can feel when the piece has come to its final chord. Not so with Richard Strauss.

Anyway, the guy conducting who had programmed a lot (and I mean, A LOT) of his own rambling noodling muzak throughout the evening made one fatal mistake.

2nd Look: The Comeback. Valerie Cherish is Gorgeous

  

Full disclosure: a friend of mine was in this series and another friend of a friend wrote it. So, naturally, I was curious to take a 2nd look at a show that I'd seen only a few episodes of when it first aired on HBO. When my b.f. gave me the DVD as a gift, we seized the opportunity to watch the entire series -- the lone single season -- start to finish.

Frequent readers of this blog may recall my waxing hyperbolic about the unparalleled level of subtlety in the writing for Matthew Weiner's Mad Men on AMC. So, it came as a wonderful surprise to encounter equally subtle directing and acting on the short-lived Lisa Kudrow vehicle, The Comeback.

Any doubt that she (Lady Gaga) is a serious songwriter ends here

Speechless, by Lady Gaga. Listen here, kids!

04 Speechless

A cool way to promote a brand new musical online

Prospect Theatre has a teaser video on their website for their new musical, The Hidden Sky. In it, we see only screen pans across drawings but we hear some of Peter Foley's arresting score underneath a narration which, given the sci-fi content of the piece, provides us with the background. It's an innovative approach worth examining.

This just always makes me smile. (Why is that?)

From Bach to Gaga. One more cerebral music nerd falls head over heels for the Lady Gaga

Who'da thunk it? After 20 years of writing serious "art" music, nearly a decade teaching music composition in the halls of such venerable institutions as Harvard and Brandeis, this over-educated music nerd-cum-opera-impresario has a new life soundtrack: Lady Gaga.

I am officially confessing to you all here and now. I can't get enough. And I'm in serious need of an intervention. What do you find so intoxicating, you ask? Musically-speaking, this stuff represents some curious marriage of the essence of Bach and Mozart. Huh? I know. Sounds crazy, but it's true!

Nobody Sets Out to Make Crap (or: "Shit Happens")

The following quote from a recent comment on this blog caught my attention for an undercurrent of anger that I think it belies and what I think may be a fundamental misunderstanding of creative people and their efforts that might be worth examining.

Actress, director, teacher, activist and E.C. Author Mari Gorman posed the following question in response to David Licata's post on Manohla Dargis' interview on women filmmakers. [see: Manohla Dargis Tells It!]. In a comment on David’s post, the name Nancy Meyers had come up as an example of a female movie director whose films often display the sensitivity and psychological insight of an 11-year-old boy. Here’s the part of Mari’s comment that caught my eye: