EXTRA CRITICUM

An Assault on Freedom and Peace

Associated Press= JENIN, West Bank (AP) — A well-known Arab Israeli actor, director and political activist was gunned down Monday in the West Bank town where he ran a drama school and community theater, Palestinian police said.

Juliano Mer Khamis was shot five times by one or more militants, according to Jenin police chief Mohammed Tayyim. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. full story here.

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:

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)

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.

To Bob With Love

Yesterday the BF and I went to see the documentary WAITING FOR SUPERMAN and, after being reminded just how good my small town education was compared to the dizzying statistics the movie puts forth about just how illiterate the vast majority of up and coming students are, I received a text from my best childhood friend Kristen that our music/drama/band teacher from our days at Mosinee High School had passed away that morning.

Now the man, Bob Hansen, was not a saint. There will be no statue erected in his honor. No marching band. But there should be.

The Joy and Luxury of Continuous Work in an Ensemble: God, how I miss it :(

So I had this old Mac G-3 tower that had been cluttering my closet for years. I'd been putting off taking it in to Tekserve to have all the files on it transfered to DVD. Don't know why. Maybe because it ways a ton? Who knows? Anyway, I finally took it in and had them retrieve all these old files. And as I put the DVD into my computer to see what I'd been missing all these years, a big chunk of my history came flashing before my eyes and ears in the form of HTML for old long-discarded web pages, MSWord docs of rehearsal notes and schedules, press releases, outlines of shows and a handful of mp3s of tracks recorded for a CD we put out in nineteen-ninety-something...

It was the opera company we'd built and nourished for over a decade in Boston back when such things as a nine-month developmental rehearsal process for a new show didn't seem insane.

Charles Ives painted with orchestra

When Charles Ives composed his Three Places in New England suite for orchestra, no one knew what to make of it. Part III, subtitled: "The Housatonic at Stockbridge" was inspired by standing along the edge of the Housatonic River in Stockbridge, CT. Listen to the music and you'll hear two distinct forces: 1) the constant rumble of the current of the river which is in the foreground and 2) the faint strains of a hymn, fragmented at first, barely audible, but slowly growing in force. According to legend, there was a church on the opposite shore of the river from where Ives stood, in which a choir was practicing hymns. 

Screaming into the Abyss. The projectionist can't hear you cause he's not there.

Went to see a movie at the Chelsea Clearview the other night and the house lights were not dimmed for the feature, as is customary.

Several patrons started shouting "House Lights!" I think they thought that there was actually a human being in the booth. Someone who could hear them.

J.D. Salinger - Writer, Not Freak

Many years ago I had an argument about Norman Mailer at a party. I was pro, the long-forgotten partygoer was con. She let rip a long litany of the stupid, vainglorious things Mailer had done (they are legion). When she rested her case, she was smug, satisfied that she had won the argument. 

Garland Wright is dead and it makes me so so sad... even 10 years out.

I've been in Minneapolis for a few days working on behalf of the Dramatists Guild. A trip to this city for a theatre professsional would not be complete without a visit to the alarmingly gorgeous new facility that is home to the Guthrie Theater.

Coming back to the Guthrie after having spent a summer at the Minnesota Opera, brought back memories of what remains to this day one of the top five theatrical experiences of my life. It was 22 years ago, in the summer of 1987 that I bought a ticket to see a play I had read a few times, discussed in a theatre class, possibly done scenes from as well, but had never seen staged. The play was Moliere's Misanthrope and the production was directed by Garland Wright at the Guthrie Theater.

Remembering Gerald Schoenfeld: With love, from Lisa Greenberger…

(pictured at right: Schoenfeld and another actress friend of his)

It’s been seven months now - a bit late for an elegy or eulogy - and a bit late for me to come out of my shell to bid Gerald Schoenfeld adieu. But he was my Auntie Mame so here goes…

We met after a first rehearsal when I was doing a backers audition for “Awake & Sing” in 2003. He had generously championed a reading by my company from Los Angeles, offering the Shubert conference room as rehearsal space. He had such a presence - a very serious, intimidating gaze.  Ed Asner was playing “Jacob” and was rushing off to lambaste Bush on Fox News and the two of them got into how messed up the world was since the 2000 election and how it can never happen again. That's when he found out I was a Lefty.

Sharing the sadness...

Sometimes I wonder why I'm a writer; what's it all for?

My mom passed away a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad I'm a writer. Here's the eulogy:

As you know, my brother, Ronnie, passed away in February. Almost a week to the day of his funeral, my mom was in the hospital. We didn’t have much of a chance to honor Ronnie’s life, so I wanted to acknowledge my brother here today. Maybe God called Ronnie home first so my mom would have someone waiting for her when she got there. Or maybe God called my mom home so quickly after Ronnie’s passing so she could do there what she did best here: be a mother. Who’s to say? We know God has a plan even though we don’t always understand it.

Missing Blossom Dearie

News of the death of Blossom Dearie made its way to my INBox this week and I've been missing her ever since. In fact the whole week has been colored by fragments of her tunes sung in that unmistakable teensy canary pitch-perfect voice dancing around inside my head.

I remember the first time my friend Martin took me to hear her perform at Danny's Skylight Lounge and Seafood Bar. This was one of those quintessentially New York venues that somehow managed to be both a quaint little hole-in-the-wall and a serious destination for the cognoscenti. The room sat maybe 50, if that, but I'll never forget the way Blossom strode up onto the stage, taking her position at the baby grand with a confidence and a seriousness of purpose suitable to Carnegie Hall.

Eartha Kitt, Joe McAllister and Club Cabaret: R.I.P.

Eartha Kitt died the other day. She was an icon but she was also unusually down-to-earth, never forgetting her roots or her hard-scrabble teenage years. Her New York Times obit is a must-read for those who, like me, only knew the flashier sexier high-gloss side of this performer.

Reading of her death brought me back to another time and place, to a time when I had just finished working on a show in a small but very popular venue in Boston called Club Cabaret, in which I had the pleasure of seeing Eartha Kitt perform to an audience of fewer than 100.

Harold Pinter: R.I.P.

A mentor I never actually met died yesterday. His name was Harold Pinter. This man's work has been a towering influence over my own for decades ever since as a precocious 15-year-old, I directed and starred in a production of Old Times, along with my good pal Elyse Singer. I don't think any single member of our audacious cast and crew was older than 16. Of course we had no idea what we were doing, but there sure was a thrill in immersing ourselves fully in a new kind of language, a new landscape of character, emotion and the often misunderstood "Pinter Pause."

Since that first foray so many years ago, I've felt a close connection to this master playwright in spite of the fact that we never met.