EXTRA CRITICUM

One of My Fondest Performance Memories

Going through my files, I just stumbled upon this pic which brings me back to one of my favorite moments from two summers ago when I was trekking up and down the I-95 and I-87 corridors performing my solo storefront spectacle, No Place to Hide. During this, my first attempt at this, hosted by the Colonial Theatre in Keene, NH, a choir from a local middle school passing by on their way back from an afternoon concert of their own, stopped at the window and engaged with the strange middle aged man typing in a window.

When I learned they were members of a school choir, I asked for a song and they spontaneously broke out into song, in glorious 4-part harmony. I remember pushing my ears to the glass to try and hear them in all their glory, a reminder of the barrier between us and the human drive to connect no matter what.

Those kids were such an inspiration to me. And on other nights and afternoons when I found myself typing away with no one stopping to interact, I'd recall that moment and it kept me pushing through with the knowledge that there are always surprises waiting for us on the other side of the glass. We just have to persevere long enough to encounter them. 

Hitting Storefronts and Thankful for the Generosity of My Fellow Artists

I'm spending a good portion of this summer workshopping my storefront spectacle, No Place to Hide. In a nutshell, I appear inside the storefront window of a local business somewhere typing on a laptop and either by means of projector or flatscreen, every word I type is instantly enlarged and displayed to passersby.

I started doing this piece without fully understanding exactly why I was doing it. Something just seemed to propel me to want to try this out.

Truthfully, I'm not yet sure what this will all amount to, whether the playwright in me will ultimately find this format interesting enough. (I tend to want my work to be somehow transformative, either by way of taking an audience on a journey, or at least shaking them up a bit and the jury's still out on whether this idea has the potential to do this for us.)

Cartoon: Hope Springs Eternal

Cartoon: Like/Dislike

Bostonians: Brickbottom Open Studios this weekend!

Extra Criticum pal and all-around talented gal, Pauline Lim will open her studio to the riff raff this weekend -- Sat and Sun -- at Brickbottom open studios in Sommerville.

Count yourself as riff raff. Show Pauline some love. Buy a painting.

For Info on Open Studios.

Hurricane Coverage: What does it take to fill the screen in our new HD world?

In the runup to Hurricane Sandy, New Yorkers were treated to several official press conferences given by the governors of NJ and NY and the mayor of NYC.  As I watched Cuomo or Bloomberg or Christie sharing official news, I kept waiting for the graphics of swirls and the ticker of running commentary to yield to a full-screen picture of these guys' faces. But that never happened.

Just seems interesting to me that a press conference from a government official doesn't rate high enough to jettison (momentarily of course) the barrage of motion graphics that generally fill our screens. Here are 4 screenshots.

When Life Imitates Art imitating Life... ONCE

NOW PLAYING: nothing

How do you know there's a storm coming to New York City? A serious storm? Walk down 12th Street and look up at the Cinema Village marquee:

Cartoon: The New Season

Performance Art?

Spotted this on the sidewalk today at the North West corner of 9th Street and Sixth Avenue. It made me smile. First I came upon this:

Cartoon: Infinite Loop

The Guthrie: Big, Expansive, Expensive, Seductive

There's been a lot written about the way in which America's regional big boy theatres have spent the past few decades building up their physical plants and thus taking on the heavy burden of sizeable mortgages to cover the roof over their heads. Ben Pesner and Todd London's Outrageous Fortune probably does the best job of articulating and highlighting the various ramifications of this trend.

And still, in spite of all of that understanding of what it means for American Theatre that our theatres have become expansive and expensive pieces of real estate, on a recent visit to the Guthrie in Minneapolis, I have to admit I couldn't help being swept up in the beauty, grandeur and bravado of the place all over again. Here are 4 snapshots I took, in an efffor to capture what I felt.

Cartoon: Critical Thinking

Cartoon: My Kingdom for a Comp

Cartoon: 3D Dramaturgy