EXTRA CRITICUM

Richard Marx and the Mythology of Romance

I had the chance to see Richard Marx in concert for free the other night in LA.

I can't say I'm a huge Richard Marx fan, but I grew up listening to his music and know all the words to all of his pop hits, so despite not being a huge fan, I still showed up first thing in the morning the day of the show to collect VIP credentials that would place me in the front row, put free vodka drinks into my gullet, and give me access to a meet and greet after the show.

I don't often want to meet celebrities. I don't want my bubble burst. But I found the idea of meeting Richard Marx appealing, if only to ask him one question:

Cartoon: Summer Stock

As Cancellation Nears, ABC Soaps Get Good Again

I am a soap opera fan. Possibly more of an addict if you’d ask others. I can probably tell characters' names and the actors who portrayed 
them from oh, most of the past 40 years on both ALL MY CHILDREN, ONE LIFE TO LIVE and GENERAL HOSPITAL. I can definitely talk rabidly about what the soaps were like in the 70s, how they were great in the early 80s, how I missed a couple years in the late 80s because I was studying abroad (for AMC fans, these are the Nico and Cecily years – have no knowledge of this entire storyline), how I loved loved them in the 90s (will anything ever equal ONE LIFE TO LIVE under writer Michael Malone and his groundbreaking AIDS Quilt storyline?) and how ABC was clearly trying to kill them starting in about 2003/2004. Oh yes, it’s taken this long to kill them but ABC did it.

Branding: A surrogate for actual content? I doubt it.

Driving up to Vermont, I hear an NPR story about the city of Hartford, CT. The city has engaged a marketing and public relations firm to help it improve its image. Branding is the new obsession for a society that has gradually grown more and more enamored with packaging over product, sizzle over steak. How much do you suppose the city of Hartford spent last year alone on this quest to improve its image?

"You may have to check your cell phone at the door."

I'm on a lot of email lists for industry screenings here and there. And one just came in with the following disclaimer at the bottom in red and in ALL CAPS:

THERE WILL BE SECURITY AT THIS SCREENING
PLEASE DO NOT BRING ANY CAMERAS, LAPTOPS OR RECORDING DEVICES, YOU MAY BE DENIED ENTRY!
YOU MAY HAVE TO CHECK YOUR CELL PHONE AT THE DOOR.

A Visit To The Cherry Orchard, Live, Sort Of

This week I visited a cherry orchard to experience something I’ve been avoiding.  I discovered that it’s actually pretty good.

Five years ago the Metropolitan Opera, led by its new and intrepid General Manager Peter Gelb, pioneered simulcasts of operas to cinemas around the country.  (The Met calls it a “cinemacast.”)  Gelb’s bravura move was accompanied, in classic opera tradition, by a chorus of skepticism and prophesies of doom.  Guess what?  It’s been a success.  Mind you, not on the scale of LinkedIn’s IPO or Facebook, but these days any success in the performing arts counts as a big success.

If I Could Slow Down Time

Do you like watching actors at work? Then go to Lincoln Center before July 31 and sometime between 8:45pm and 11:30pm. Sit by the fountain and face south. You’ll see something magical: Portraits in Dramatic Time.

Artist David Michalek videotaped actors performing in mysterious scenes for somewhere between 5 and 12 seconds in ultra-high definition at a rate of 3,000 frames per second. That scene is then played back on an 85-x-45-foot screen in super-slow motion, so that the 5-12 seconds plays fluidly for 8 minutes or more. There is no recorded sound; the fountain and the city is the soundtrack.

PlayPenn Part I

My name is easy to misspell. The second “e” doesn’t effect the pronunciation, so it often gets left off. It doesn’t bother me, and is such a common mistake I usually don’t even notice. So I was surprised at a function here at PlayPenn when I woman I hardly know, someone who works for the conference, said, “Oh, they misspelled your name”

ACT Goes Pay-What-You-Can

Interesting piece in The Stranger. ACT in Seattle is going pay-what-you-can for all shows. As long as a person walks up to the box office, he/she can pay a nickle to get a theatre ticket.  Big question: Has anyobdy ever collected data on how many folks actually pay MORE than the usual ticket price? That would be interesting to know. Here's the full story.

Ken Davenport knows: God is in the details.

Love this little bit from Ken Davenport's Day By Day blog about producing the upcoming Godspell revival.

Leading = Welcoming

This detail caught my eye from Brendan Kiley's piece in The Stranger about the recent Intiman debacle in Seattle. This quote makes reference to Kate Whoriskey, the newly appointed (anointed?) Artistic Director replacing the beloved Bart Sher.

Working publicly: good idea, bad idea?

I just had this thought: while developing a new idea for a script or a story...what if I were to put my notes up on the internet?  Character sketches, plot ideas, etc, etc.  It feels a little scary and dangerous, from a creative point of view.  (What if my ideas look stupid, what if someone steals an idea... that sort of thing.)

“Everything about a movie … is who you are and where you are when you saw it.”

Cross-posted on alifesworkmovie.com/blog/

Robert K. Elder had a brilliant if somewhat sadistic idea: sit down with 30 filmmakers and ask them to name the ONE film that changed their lives. And hold them to it, interview them in a knowledgeable, professional and persistent way, let the filmmaker veer off momentarily, talk about how that film found its way into their work, but bring them back to that one film. (Elder lets two of the 30 choose two films, so clearly, he’s not a total fascist.)

British Taxpayers Send Plays Galloping Across the Atlantic

War Horse and Jerusalem, two plays developed in Britain’s subsidized theatres, received high honors last month at the Tony Awards.  

Michael Billington is one of England’s foremost drama critics and a veteran journalist for the British newspaper, The Guardian.  (He’s also Harold Pinter’s biographer.)  Billington recently wrote, with bitter pride, about the support that subsidized British theatre provides to commercial America theatre.  This upside-down trans-Atlantic relationship was evident at the Tonys when Mark Rylance won “best leading role in a play” for his work in Jerusalem and War Horse won a whopping five Tonys, including “best play.” 

Burn. Out.

I think I’m facing something that I don’t want to face. And I’m not even sure if it’s true. I’ve written a lot of pages in the year since I’ve moved to LA. A LOT of pages. And not all of them have sucked. Which is good. But… man… these past weeks… trying to write (well, rewrite…) has been hard. Really hard. So there it is… have I become a BURN OUT? Is this the end?

Do I just need to step away? What if I don’t WANT to step away? How do I NOT be a burn out?