EXTRA CRITICUM

I second that emotion: Rocco's right.

Speaking at the much-anticipated new play development conference at Arena Stage last week, Rocco Landesman put it bluntly: “You can either increase demand or decrease supply,” he said. “Demand is not going to increase, so it is time to think about decreasing supply.” [see Times story]

Fact is, for a long time, I've felt precisely the same way.

But What If the Stage Won't Let You Go?

Who can say where or even whether we will find solace in a time of grief?  I recall Robert Kennedy remarking how much sustenance he found in Aeschylus when his brother John and later Martin Luther King, Jr. were killed.  Ed Schmidt, a playwright grieving over his father’s death several years ago, sought out his favorite play, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.  But unlike Aeschylus for Kennedy, Our Town failed to console Schmidt.

Brevity Fest IV to benefit The Rubber Room

The first NYC-based Brevity Fest will be held this Sunday evening, January 30 as a benefit for the upcoming production of The Rubber Room, co-written by E.C. authors Gary Garrison and Roland Tec. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased through Smarttix. There's a link at the bottom of this post.

Here's the current lineup that we've got confirmed:

Sondheim Obsessives: this will make you kvell!

Seth Rudetsky's deconstruction of "Another Hundred People" from Company. If anyone ever had any doubts about Jonathan Tunick's genius as so much more than just an orchestrator, all you need to do is listen to this. Amazing!

The most over-gifted book for opera professionals

Going through my pile of Christmas mail at the office. I know, I know... it's a bit late this year. And there are -- oh, look, surprise! -- two more packages including Ethan Mordden's mildly amusing book, OPERA ANECDOTES.

In Memoriam: Romulus Linney

American playwright Romulus Linney died yesterday. I didn't know him well but I had met him a few times and he always impressed me as a man completely unafraid of speaking his mind -- both within the pages of his plays and in life. (Rare qualities in the world of theatre)

New Yorkers: Save the Date. Brevity Fest IV

Brevity Fest IV will be held in NYC Sunday evening, January 30. Save the date. More info to come...

Some unlikely venues are best left alone

Last night my pal Brenda and I took a chance on an evening concert in the Winter Garden at Ground Zero. The attraction for us, mostly, was the performance by the Knickerbocker Chamber Orchestra of portions of a work-in-progress about legendary city planner, Robert Moses. But, for me, another draw was the unusual venue for the concert.

I had never been before but the Winter Garden is essentially a cathedral to corporate power -- an enormous marble sarcophagus of a lobby with a ceiling height that rivals Grand Central Station's main terminal, except here done in a late 20th C. style, complete with windows everywhere and about a dozen 50' palm trees soaring up toward a sky that will forever remain beyond glass.

Playwrights In the Heart of Darkness

The last thing I expected to find on a recent research trip to Rwanda and Uganda was another playwright.   But life is full of surprises.  In planning my trip I had read a lot about gorillas and birds and war, a little about native dance performances, and certainly nothing about theatre.

Agahozo Shalom Youth Village is an amazing new orphanage school in Rwanda that has been developed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.  The founder of the project is Anne Heyman, a South African-born lawyer and mother of three who lives in Manhattan.  The school is modeled after ones that were built in Israel for orphans of the Holocaust.  Anne recognized that thousands upon thousands of Rwandan orphans were in the same tragic position as so many Jewish children after WWII.

I’m Dangerous with Love

Damage is compelling and damage is dynamic and nowhere is that more evident than in Michel Negroponte’s documentary, I’m Dangerous with Love.

Steppenwolf Commission Helps Sell Tickets

I recently learned about a commission by Steppenwolf Theatre, from Ken Davenport’s blog The Producer’s Perspective. No, not a new play (I’m still waiting for their call about that), but big-league market research that studies “Millenials” – the market segment between ages 15 and 31.

Q&A with Linda Mussmann of TSL in Hudson, NY

Some of you may recall the cyber-firestorm that followed my post on Hudson, New York. To date, this post has probably received more intense flame and support than anything we've done here on E.C. Because Time Space Limited is one of the venues mentioned in my post, and because I know Linda Mussmann, its co-Founder and co-Executive Director, (and a three-time mayoral candidate in Hudson) to be a very clever, enterprising and imaginative gal, I invited her to participate in a Q&A with me about living and working as an artist and an entrepreneur in Hudson, NY.

Here's what Linda had to say in response to my questions:

It's Awards Season!

Do you have a favorite blog? Why not nominate it for a “Bloggie”? It’s easy and fun!

In Memoriam: Mary Lee Hood

On the anniversary of Mary Lee Hood's death, I wanted to repost her eulogy.

Mary Lee Hood, friend to many in the E.C. family and countless artists on both coasts, died Monday, January 3, 2011. She was the quintessential supporter of the arts and one of the most enthusiastic audience members one could ever hope to find. Here, below, is the eulogy I delivered at her wake.

Let’s Get Personal

[cross-posted on A Life's Work blog]

I’ve been thinking about two documentaries: Scott Walker: 30th Century Man and Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell. I loved Wild Combination and was luke-warm about 30th Century Man and there are numerous reasons why I responded the way I did to both, but as I think on the films it occurs to me that those involved with the Scott Walker film didn’t get close to him, while those involved with Wild Combination let us get very close to Russell. The titles, both referencing a song by the artist, should be a tip off: Is Scott Walker from the future and therefore unknowable to us 21st Century folks? Apparently so. “Wild Combination” is much more suggestive of what we’ll see: Russell the avant-garde composer and the producer of disco hits, the musician who lived and worked in New York City’s obscure bohemia but wanted to be as famous as Mick Jagger, the shy and awkward man who was uncomfortable in his skin but was forceful and uncompromising in his art.