EXTRA CRITICUM

Cartoon: Modesty

The Circus Forever

It’s almost cheating, using a circus as a cinematic backdrop. You have life and death at every turn (lion tamers, tight rope walkers, escape artists suspended upside down while a flame slowly burns the cord they are tethered to, motorcyclists in the Globe of Death), you have humor (well, you have clowns anyway), you have all those bright colors. Is it any wonder filmmakers return to it again and again?

From the Brink of Overstimulation

Ever since I first visited Death Valley in April of 2008, I've started to, as they say, enjoy the silence. Like never before, I acquired the ability to sit and think, without a newspaper, without music playing, without a TV chattering in my ear and distracting my eye.

Quotables: Elizabeth Hawes

From time to time, Extra Criticum authors post a quote from someone we admire, something that has stuck with us over the years and is, as they say, quotable.

Today, we hear from Elizabeth Hawes, author of Fashion is Spinach.

More Troubadour Innovation

Duane's excellent post about Lucy Wainwright reminded me of one of my personal favorite folk singers who has been on the road for the past 20 yrs. and is no stranger to the non-traditional venue.

In fact, this coming Saturday, April 2, Cosy Sheridan will be playing to an audience assembled in a livingroom in a Chelsea loft in Manhattan as part of Thomas Boyd's Music Over Manhattan series.

I'll be there. Care to join me?

For Cosy's complete tour schedule visit her website.

Welcome: Cartoonist Mark Krause

Up against the wall...for a duet

 

A short video clip of Grounded Aerial performing at a preview for PIFA in Brooklyn I think that's my head in the lower left hand corner!

Are Writers Sociopaths, or is it just me? Questions from the Battlefield

It's something I've been thinking about for the past few days. I was reading an article about a shooting on campus, this time (oy, THIS time?), this time it was a faculty member who didn't get tenure who opened fired at a faculty meeting. Three wounded, three killed. The article focused on past events in the shooter's life that if things had gone a little differently, she wouldn't have been in the position to do what she did. And those three people would have been alive today.

Presenting the Intrepid and Independent Lucy Wainwright Roche

cross-posted to Lapis Loquens Blog

Flux doesn’t begin to describe the current business models for many artists in the U.S.  Popular music was the first sector plunged into chaos.  Book publishing, film and theatre soon followed.  The chaos has been different for each sector, but chaos it has been.  I try to follow developments in these other arts, looking for insights that might apply to the theatre world.

Sometimes one person really can make a difference

As I've toured here and there screening our little film, We Pedal Uphill at museums and schools and independent theatres, I've developed a somewhat wry refrain when asked by enthusiastic audience members how the film can be seen more widely. I usually meet their gaze and suggest (rather dryly) "You could pick up the phone and call a theatre owner and ask him or her to screen the film." This usually gets a laugh.

Little did I know, I was actually giving out some useful advice.

Selfishness? Stupidity? or Both?

There's a guy. I'll call him Charles. He does shows around town. I do shows around town. He has readings of new work. I have readings of new work. He invites me to things. I invite him to things. I even once gave him a job in one of my shows. Without him asking. Or thanking me, for that matter.

Must-read for anyone interested in the future of the performing arts

Collective Arts Think Tank's first open letter to the field is a must-read for those of us who toil away making art for art's sake, often subsidizing the arts through our own ambition. Check out this provocative little tidbit, which I think is probably one of the most striking insights in the entire letter:

If there are hundreds of small theaters and ensembles in New York, and all of them are half-full, then we are overproducing, substituting quantity for quality.  Doing less with more may also mean that venues produce fewer shows, artists produce fewer works, and audiences remain hungry longer.  We think that’s a good thing.

And here's the intro to this important letter:

Blowin' in the wind (so to speak) in Philly

I’m very excited that the city of my birth, that is, the City of Brotherly Love, that is, where the Phillies play, is having an excellent international arts festival, and I’ve been invited to write about it. I’m certainly planning on grabbing one o’those cheap buses with the free Wi-Fi and making my way 99 miles south for some of the events. I had a chance to see a sneak preview here in NYC a few weeks ago, and have been going over the festival brochure and marking it up with “got to see” and “this looks good!”

Two Men Kissing

I saw a man kissing another man on television last night. It wasn’t on HBO late night, or a documentary on PBS. It wasn’t an offering from the Out network, or the latest cutting edge indie on the Sundance. It was on Fox.

After it happened, I reached out and gave my wife a little fist bump. The gesture almost seemed too much, because the moment in the show was so casual. Actually, the moment wasn’t casual. It was an important coming together of two characters who have been circling a romantic relationship for a long time. The kiss was big, but not because it was two men.

Is this Possible? Are we really living this or is this just some odd dream state?

This just in from Radio City Music Hall. Apparently the spirit of P.T. Barnum is alive and well and living in the body of somebody at Rockefeller Center. I can hardly believe what I'm typing but, yes, Charlie Sheen, is taking his rant live and taking it on the road. Here's the promo copy: