EXTRA CRITICUM

GLEE is Bustin Out All Over

My favorite new series has only had one outing so far but I cannot wait for the real season to begin in just a few weeks.. yes GLEE was fantastic on it's initial one shot showing this past May but there's always that worry that they did what they could but that the rest couldn't possibly live up to expectations.. well, in this clip from the upcoming season, I think there's a reassurance that this is going to be something special. The last line of this clip just slays me..... 

The Way In: David Licata

What you have to know is this: I was raised in a cave. By wolves.

Mind you, they were loving wolves and they made sure I lacked none of the "necessities." I had shelter and clothing and delicious food and more toys than anyone else I knew. But in my home music was not played, books were not read, and decorative objects you'd be hard pressed to call "art" hung on walls. To be fair, my parents did take me to at least two big Broadway events--The Magic Show with Doug Henning and Dracula with Frank Langella--but seeing these didn't set me on fire.

Then, when I was twelve, we moved to a suburban town and it seemed all of my new friends' parents played music in their homes and had books on their shelves that they actually read and there were fine, unique, and often bizarre drawings and paintings and photographs hanging on walls.This was a new world to me.

The Way In: Kathleen Warnock

I heard voices. Not the saints, like Joan of Arc, but pretty damn close: Geraldine Page, Elizabeth Ashley, Amanda Plummer.

This was in my first post-college career, when I was working happily as a sportswriter on a newspaper in the Deep South. I always wanted to work in newspapers, and one of my favorite plays is The Front Page.

I got to see a production of it (with Terry O’Quinn in the lead) at Center Stage in Baltimore, back in the days when a college student could pay $3 and sit on the steps of the auditorium (I guess they didn’t have fire codes in those days!) Others in the cast included James Rebhorn, Patricia Kalember, and the playwright John Pielmeier as escaped convict Earl Williams. Another Center Stage production that blew me away was their Cyrano de Bergerac, with F. Murray Abraham (well before Amadeus) playing the title role, brilliantly. And with a student rush ticket, I could see touring shows at the Morris Mechanic Theatre, where I answered an ad when the company was looking for a taxi horn for the pre-Broadway run of A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine. They comped me to the show, and after, I went backstage and haggled with Alexander Cohen as he tested the horn, and finally decided to buy it (and give me more tickets to the show). I believe it was the understudy horn, though I like to think Priscilla Lopez used it in her Tony-winning performance.

The Way In: Lisa Barnes

The fun revival of Hair on Broadway reminds me daily of the moment I drank the Kool-Aid. 1972 - Los Angeles, the mecca of divorce, drugs and too much sun highlighting my grand teen angst. I snuck into The Aquarius Theatre in Los Angeles with three other under-agers and found my purpose in life. They got my despair and gave me hope - and I knew I had to do for others what that experience did for me.
 
I sat on the steps of the theatre afterwards, sobbing. Deeply shy at the time, I found the courage to run up to the cast members as they left the theatre, hugging and thanking them all. Then the courage to get in front of up to 2,000 strangers and emote in hopes that someone out there might feel "gotten".
 
[Picture above: from a production of Well at Vermont Stage with member of the original Broadway cast of Hair, Dale Soules.]

A New Series: "The Way In"

Coming soon to EXTRA CRITICUM will be a new series of posts called The Way In in which artists describe how/why/when they first knew they wanted to devote themselves to a life in the arts.

Regular E.C. authors and readers alike are invited to contribute to this ongoing series. Readers with an "Ah ha!" moment to share are encouraged to type it up in an email and send it along with a recent pic of yourself at work to Rolando Teco. The Way In mini-memoires will be posted in the order they are received.

Yes it's true I'm a Certified BCAT TV Producer and I need YOUR HELP

Firstly, I am thrilled to be a BCAT (Brooklyn Community Arts Television) Producer and am now about to live a vision I had 10 years ago on public access television.

My actor/comedian/musician friends and I are working on a "Talk/Variety" show with me as the Host - hoping it will be a cross between Chelsea Lately, Craig Ferguson (The Late Late Show) and, yes it's true, Howard Stern (I am known for my potty humor and mouth).  There's only one major difference and we're not ready to reveal that just yet.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ROLAND

Renegade Cabaret - The Lady in the Green Dress Has a Golden Voice

Something magical has sprung up along the High Line at 20th Street. Around 9pm or so,  once or twice a week, longtime resident Patty Heffley's fire escape lights up with multi-colored patio lanterns and the night air is filled with the a capella singing of Elizabeth Soychak, a.k.a. "The Lady in the Green Dress."

Now, this Renegade Cabaret would be thrilling enough just for the unexpected wonder of a woman in a green dress filling the night air with song. But the inventiveness and audacity of the thing is matched (if not surpassed) by the incredible instrument that is Ms. Soychak's voice.

“Don’t you want to make a real film?”

[cross-posted at alifeswork.wordpress.com]

People have actually said that to me after I tell them I’m making a documentary. I’m usually rendered speechless and sometimes I can’t even manage to raise an eyebrow. Of course I know what they mean. They mean a narrative feature film with actors in it and lots of lights and cables crossing the sidewalk and grungy looking PAs with walkie-talkies and a table full of danishes and sliced fruit.

It’s a good question, since I’ve spent most of my life writing fiction–screenplays, short stories, the novel in my closet–and my short films were narratives. So why a documentary? (Not why this documentary? That’s a different question, one I wrote about in an earlier post.)

"Bye!" - Some Thoughts on Parenting and Playwriting

My son, Henry, likes to open and close things. Drawers, doors, cabinets – anything with a hinge will do. The other day he peered out behind a mostly closed door. He mischievously looked up at my wife and I. With a great grin he said, “Bye!” and slammed the door shut.

People with children often try to explain to people without them what parenting is like, but it’s basically impossible. It’s not that there’s any one thing about it that is inexplicable, but the enormity of the change is resistant to metaphor. You want to know what having kids is like? It’s like having kids.

There was a time, not too many years ago, when playwriting was the primary focus of my life. If I were to order and name my priorities, it would have looked something like this: 1) Playwright 2) Friend 3) Buddhist 4) Worker/Wage Earner. Now it would look something like this: 1) Father 2) Worker 3) Husband 4) Playwright. Friend and Buddhist are now somewhere back there, but I am usually too tired to get that far down the list.

Tell Me a Story: A Q&A with author Amy Friedman v.2

To access Part I of this interview, click here.

Q:
You do a lot of other writing in addition to this very time-consuming work on Tell Me a Story. How do you juggle your varied projects? Any advice to your fellow writers on time management?

A:
Yep. If you’re going to have a lot of things going on, each one needs to have its time carved (in stone). I wrote my column on Fridays. That’s it. Fridays only. I teach but I’ll only read student papers one day a week (if they’re a day late, they wait a week and a day), and so on. And I write deadlines on a calendar as if they’re someone else’s imposed deadlines even when they’re only mine. And I still wish I had about three extra days each week. 



Q:
Many of these stories are wonderful and it surprises me that they had fallen into obscurity. Can you describe your process for finding the stories?

The characters who know too much

Here’s a question for playwrights and screenwriters. It’s become so easy to find the answers to the most esoteric, exotic, and sordid questions, thanks to the Internet and the disappearance of the idea that anything is off limits in polite society. So is it becoming more awkward to convey information to a theater or movie audience by having a seemingly intelligent character ask dumb questions?

I ask because I just started watching the TV series Damages (only two episodes so far, so I don’t yet know if I like it or will ultimately find the thriller spin on The Devil Wears Prada to be a cheat). In one scene, Glenn Close, playing a whip-smart lawyer who’s obviously familiar with the seamiest aspects of human nature, is baffled by a charge on her son’s credit card statement and has to ask her husband what an “outcall” is. She does this even though she’s sitting in her office and could easily Google the term in the unlikely event she’s never heard of it. (You can do it, too. I know damn well that you’re on your computer.)

It's Official. I'm a sap. I love this music video.

Can anyone explain to me why a relatively sophisticated and urbane "artiste" such as moi might actually LOVE this Martina McBride music video?

Worst. Trailer. Ever!

I've been known to do things in the wrong order. Cart before the horse? That's me. It's not always a bad thing, though. Like watching Vendredi Soir (Friday Night) by Claire Denis before watching the trailer in the extras. The film is about a woman who meets a man one evening and finds a deep connection over the course of ten hours or so. One third of the film takes place in a car stuck in Parisian traffic. Another third of the film takes place in the streets of Paris, in a restaurant, and in a cafe, and another third in a hotel room where people who hook up do what people do in a hotel room. But this hook up might just alter the woman's life. For the most part, the score, by Dickon Hinchliffe (Tindersticks), is bitter-sweet, delicate, and intimate, as is the whole film. It's a beautiful work that requires a little patience. That first third, the sitting in a car in traffic part, it really feels like you're sitting in a car in traffic. It's claustrophobic and slow and I was tempted to opt out of the film. But I stuck with it and it pays off when Denis takes us out of that car. Outside the car the couple goes through the stages of a 50 year relationship in sixty minutes of screen time. And the last shot of our heroine is unforgettable. (Sure, it borrows from The 400 Blows, but so what?)

Tell Me A Story: A Q&A with author Amy Friedman v.1

Some of you may recognize Amy Friedman as a frequent commenter here on Extra Criticum. As such, we consider her one of the "family." So when the third in her popular series of Tell Me a Story CDs was recently released, Rolando Teco wanted to be among the first to interview her. Here is part 1 of 2.