Scrappy Jack's World-Wide Theatricals and Dime Museum

you know who you are

2012-01-26T17:41:00.003-05:00

Nice words in the paper today.
Get your tickets to the big show this weekend.

You non-ticket-buying bastards.

a dollar twenty nine

2012-01-24T08:46:00.000-05:00

That's all you need to go here and start reading The Piano Store Plays, a collection of shorts I wrote 20 years ago, before Present Company, the loft on W. 45th Street, the Fringe, the internet, penicillin, air travel and the internal combustion engine.

Well, we had penicillin, we just didn't know what it was. Used to mix it in with our drinks, made them all fizzy.

And then you can memorize every precious word of The Piano Store Plays and go here and for another fifteen bucks you've got a ticket to sit down with other fine people and watch me and Nancy and Kevin Pariseau say those very words out loud, while walking around in front of you.

It's kind of a trip, I know, but it all makes sense if you don't think about it too much.

So that's sixteen dollars and twenty nine cents I'm asking you to lay out, all in.

Not an outrageous request.

And we have to once again give the huge kudos to Martin and Rochelle Denton over at www.nytheatre.com and www.indietheaternow.com. These guys continue to figure out what our territory needs and then work to provide it. And they've been doing it for years.

They're a non-profit, by the way. Most people don't know that, they assume they're just a great website. Nope. They'll gladly accept your donations, if you think what they do is worth anything. Which you should because it is.

It's all about money today for some reason. Guess I'm inspired by the Mittbot's tax release.

That's one rich robot.

Weird that he'd claim "extensive humanoid voice recognition and mimicry training sessions" as a business expense, when that seems to be a personal thing, but hell, I'm no E.F. Hutton.

excerpt

2012-01-23T08:48:00.003-05:00

I was prepping a big thing on Saul Alinsky and why Newt keeps ominously mentioning him as Obama's mysterious Jewish Svengali, but this guy does it better,
so take a look and then go here.

Buy those tickets, kid. And you can hear Kevin Pariseau, live and in the flesh say things like:

ACTOR: All right. Good. Let’s begin. (Anexpectant pause) All right, I’llstart.

(ACTOR thinks, smiles, thinks some more, searching for the play, thenleaps to the obvious.) I live inthis room. It’s not a very big room butit’s where I live. Others have livedhere before me. Others will live hereafter I go, providing I don’t burn it down one night which is unlikely as Idon’t smoke. No one smokes in this room. I have few visitors, not many people come tosee me in this room but those few who do don’t smoke. Not in here. What they do when they’re not here I couldn’t begin to imagine. Nor would I want to.

Now I could tell you more about my visitorsor more about me.

Or I could do both.

I’ll do both but I’ll start with me.

I came to this room…many yearsago. I wouldn’t say that I was born herebut I wouldn’t dispute the fact either. I would just avoid the subject altogether if I were me which I am so Ido. I know this room…intimately. (ACTOR paces stage) Every square inch ofit. Not that side so much. I’ve never really gotten a grasp of thatside. This side I know. The front part of this side. This area right here. Right where I am standing now. I know this area right here probably betterthan any other person in this room. I’vestudied it. I’ve grappled with it. I’ve met it. I’ve met it and in that meeting, through that meeting, I’ve grown toknow it.

All right. Good.

More about me or something about thevisitors?

More about me, I think. Then the visitors.

Me’s going well.

Come on. Funny stuff. Fifteen bucks. Me and Walsh up onstage with Kevin.

You want to be there.

work

2012-01-18T09:11:00.000-05:00

It amazes me that I can still be amazed.

I count myself as a pretty hard-core political junkie, clocking a couple of hours a day watching cable news, checking Politico and DailyKos throughout the morning and reading the Times and the Guardian online.

So I think I've built up an immunity to the distortions, innuendos and outright lies that pass for political speech in this campaign season. Most of it rolls off in a cynical sheen, you shrug and mutter "Well, of course, he has to say that, that's where the votes are... "

And then Newt Gingrich opens his mouth.

And the Pillsbury Doughboy from Hell begins to pontificate and sneer and lecture.

What is still angering me, the thing that I can't dismiss or defuse or let pass is his mulish, mean-spirited contention that poor (black) kids should do the work of school janitors.

This is no longer just another idea in the long line of inane, incoherent thoughts that stream unbidden from Newt's ever-working pie-hole. This ain't mining on the moon. At the last debate, the rotund ex-Speaker doubled down on this insidious, ignorant idea, claiming that he couldn't understand why some found his suggestion objectionable.

Let me see if I can illuminate you there, Newt.

The core of steaming contempt that this idea springs from, you see, is that poor (black) people don't have a "work ethic" and giving these kids a job in the school cafeteria will awaken their inner Bill Gates and their lives will blossom and transform and in one generation we won't have all of these goddamned poor (black) people sucking the Great Teat of Government dry.

"Not having a work ethic" is rich white guy code for "lazy, stupid and semi-criminal", by the way. I'm not rich, but I do have an old copy of the codebook here, so you can trust me on this one. Just like "inner-city youth" means one of those scary black kids and "states rights" means Klansmen, Welcome!

Sorry. I'll try to stick to the point.

The point, which is glaringly, painfully obvious to anyone who has ever actually been a part of the workforce, the bottom part, where work is manual and hourly, is that no one works harder than the poor.

Newt. Lean in and listen, you bloated, bleating fool:

No one works harder than the poor.

I remember those school janitors. And you know what I remember most? They were always working. Wheeling trash cans around and mopping floors. I can't remember a single instance of one of those guys leaning back and cackling evilly at the thought of the massive pension he was going to enjoy.

And here's the other thing, Newton:

In St. Louis, where I grew up, most of those janitors were older black men. And we can all take the leap here together and assume that their lives were, statistically, harder than the lives of their white counterparts. These were guys who were born in the thirties, right? These were guys who were grown men when the Civil Rights Act was passed. So, institutionally and actually, the road they walked down had a few more obstacles than mine or Newt's or Mitt's or Rick's or Ron's.

But they had a union, thank god, and maybe their work was hard and dirty and there wasn't a lot of joy or sense of great achievement in their weekly grind, but the money was solid and steady and you could raise a family off it.

And so, the snide suggestion that you could fire one of these guys and replace him with a couple of thirteen year olds at half the cost is so, so wrong on so, so many levels that I'm beginning to stutter here in my head.

And not just the suggestion that you could do it, but the larger thought process that you should, that it would be a good thing, a brilliant idea, get the kids working and further weaken that damned union.

This tells me, clearly and once again, that beneath so much of the "pro-business", "right-to-work", "individualistic" horseshit that we all nod along with is a barely disguised contempt and distaste for the poor (black) people that all of us hard-working, ambitious (white) people have to deal with in this country.

And I'm sorry to have to keep beating this drum, but my good Republican friends, you have to start to deal with this. Look at your guys. Mitt's church didn't consider black people fully human until about thirty years ago. Ron doesn't believe in the Civil Rights Act or that a store-owner has to serve people of color. Rick Perry has a family ranch with a rather colorful local name.

You always wade into a swamp when you talk about racism in this country. I don't know what goes on in the hearts of these guys. But I know what comes out of their mouths. And it's racist. It supports and sustains the status quo of racial inequality that others are trying to dismantle. That's objective, if uncomfortable, fact.

We have so much work to do. All of us. And, like the janitors of my youth, the work we're looking at is dirty and back-breaking and a lot of it won't even be noticed by the kids running around us. But we're doing it for those kids. Our job is to leave them a cleaner, safer place to grow up in. We have to scrub away the ugly, angry filth that other generations scrawled on the walls of our public corridors and tote away the stinking, festering piles of trash and hate we carelessly let grow in our midst. And like all manual, actual labor, that job will never be done.

But we'll get up tomorrow and do it again. And again. Because somebody has to do it.

And if I have to watch one more privileged, out-of-touch politician sneer at our effort and question the purpose of the work...

Well. I'll probably just shut up and keep mopping.

You can't blame a hungry dog for barking.

telegram from the past, still unread

2012-01-16T16:39:00.003-05:00

Desperate men do desperate deeds. It is not they who are irrational but those who expect injustice eternally to be endured. I am convinced that a single dramatic massive proof of concern that touches the needs of all the oppressed will ease resentments and heal enough angry wounds to permit constructive attitudes to emerge.

I regret that my expression may be sharp but I believe literally that the life of our nation is at stake: here at home. Measures to preserve it need be boldly and swiftly applied before the process of social disintegration engulfs the world of society.

Mr. President, this is an emergency state as surely as was the recent crisis in the railroads of our nation. Unless Congress can be motivated to act immediately upon some creative and massive program to end unemployment, we face the possible spread of this tragic destruction of life and property. I urge you to use the power of your office to establish justice in our land by enacting and implementing legislation of reason and vision in the Congress.

That's Martin Luther King, Jr writing to Lyndon Johnson, July 25, 1967 .

Hmm.

the mittbot rolls

2012-01-11T10:14:00.000-05:00

It might just be time for the boys and girls in the Republican party to stop throwing spitballs and hand grenades at each other and file quietly on to the back of the Cyborg Express.

Because that robot is rolling.

And I've got to say, he's getting good. His speech last night, (except for one weird, grating glitch that we'll get to below) was polished, persuasive and a pitch-perfect general election argument against the president. It was mostly authentic stump-speech gibberish, of course, but it had some power and the coordination between the words and the facial expressions was practically human. Why the technicians chose to broadcast the phrase "politics of envy", however, is a mystery.

Politics of envy? Questioning the practices of Bain Capital, and by implication other vulture, that is to say, venture capital firms is the result of envy?

Let me tell you, when you're walking down the street and you get jumped by a bunch of guys and they rough you up and walk away with all of your money, laughing, that burning feeling in your chest is not envy. Rage, sure. Helplessness and a sense that what just happened wasn't fair or right, yeah.

But you rarely envy someone for being colder or more ruthless than you.

So we waltz into the mud-wrestling pit that is South Carolina, everyone still in, everyone still swinging and shouting and posturing and pointing fingers. If anything is true this time around, it's that anything and I mean anything can happen. Hell, Huntsman is a possibility and that only happened yesterday afternoon.

And then there's the mystery of Ron Paul. What is he doing, actually doing out there? Just advancing his ideas? Building a genuine bid for a third party candidacy? He's crazy like a loon but smart enough to know that he can't ever win a Republican nomination. If anyone who's got his ear is reading this, I've got one suggestion: wardrobe. Everything he says and does is perfect, it's a compelling and nuanced performance, but the suit doesn't do anything, just makes him blend in with everyone else. I'd like to see him come out from here on out in an old ratty bathrobe and house slippers. Nothing else. And maybe let his hair go a little crazy, sticking up in back like he just woke up from a three hour nap on the sofa. And at the end of every speech, rather than shouting about liberty in that chicken-scratch yelp of his, have a large Dominican woman in a uniform take his arm firmly and say, "All right, now its time for your medication, Papi." and lead him away.

I just think that might pull the whole package together.

On to South Carolina, where Perry waits and the Gingrich ground team flexes its muscle.

Oh, and you want to go here and get your tickets.

I'm not letting up.

step right up

2012-01-10T10:06:00.001-05:00

So many thing to buy.

The text of the play in which I committed an actual federal crime onstage is now available for you to buy and read and cherish and memorize, thanks to the indomitable Dentons.

Go here and tell me you don't have a 1.29 for a little slice of vintage downtown hoo-ha.

And speaking of the hoo-ha, this is the place to secure your seat at the first public performance in almost twenty years of The Piano Store Plays: Anyone, Falling Out and Solo for Spoon and Birdcage. These three shorts stand as some kind of wild blueprint for everything we've done since; it was a bit freaky when we took them from the vault and read them out loud last month, the pages yellowed and curling, ancient clumps of White-Out still clinging to the parchment.

Tonight's New Hampshire, so I'll be glued to MSNBC until the wee hours, but I'll be back tomorrow making sure you buy the above.

Hustling, baby.

It's all about the hustle in 2012.

calling all those loyal and true

2012-01-09T09:42:00.002-05:00

Go here and then come back.

As you know, home games for Clancy Productions are rare and few these days, so don't miss this.

What we need you to do is buy a ticket for yourself and then think of a good friend or twenty who has not experienced the wonder of Walsh onstage or the pure, freaky rush of Scrappy Jack undiluted and bring everyone down to the Barrow Street Theater at the end of the month.

I'm going to be beating this drum until we're turning people away, so just go ahead and do it now.

I'll tell you this and this is true: these are deep from the vault, the first few things we ever put up in public in Rat City, back when we were really crazy and knew so much more than we do now.

Going to be a treat.

behold, a child is born

2012-01-05T09:13:00.002-05:00

Back in 1965, a little bundle of bad-assedness and beauty came into this rough and tumble world.

A daughter of the Berkshires, she grew up tall and pretty and decided to spend her life upon the wicked stage. I met her in Dallas, Texas (of all the strange places) about twenty-five years ago and just can't stop loving her still.

If it ain't love it's witchcraft, 'cause that girl casts a spell.

So all hail the Birthday Queen, Nancy Eileen Walsh. Let their be shrimp on every plate, clam dip in abundance, drink a Bloody Mary or a glass of fine Malbec, raise your voice and thank the gods and gobs above for we are blessed to have her in our lives and in our hearts today and always.

Happy birthday, Looie!

cyborg in the cornfield

2012-01-04T10:17:00.001-05:00

Skip to my Lou.

Yes, friends, the Mittbot 2012 squeezed past that frothy mixture of lubricant and fecal... sorry, squeezed past former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum last night and won the Iowa Caucus.

Watching the candidate's speak last night, a couple of things stood out.

Ron Paul, who came in a solid third, is starting to scare me a little bit. He keeps harping on how we have to obey the Constitution and "go back to the Constitution" and "follow the Constitution", which sounds fine until you remember that according to that sacred document Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey together only equal one and a fifth people.

Some things need editing, Congressman.

Gingrich, both babyish and stern, wandered lost and freely though his own mind, as he does, seemingly unaware that his mouth is broadcasting every errant thought. He babbled about his father's military service, Santorum's volunteers and Romney's callousness until his native political sense, that bare-knuckled brawler within, broke through and recognized the next move, calling out a last-minute tag-team alliance with Santorum. Together they can pin the robot to the mat and Newt will at least live to fight another round.

Bachmann read from what looked and sounded like a hostage note, eyes down, while the people behind her stared everywhere but at her or the camera, and then Perry got up there and read at length from a note given to him by a young Texan lover, sorry, volunteer named Colt or Colton or some goddamned thing. After about a minute it seemed that Rick was trying to prove to the crowd that he could read, only to end the speech by showing he was the only one who could read the writing on the wall and saying he was headed back to Texas to "reassess" his candidacy.

So long, Rick and thanks for the laughs.

Romney's just getting weirder with his whole quoting and analyzing the Star Spangled Banner bit, but what the hell, he has to say something besides

"For God's sake, I'm the only credible candidate out here. Vote for me already!"

Also, a note to his programmers: I know you're going for sincerity with the clenched jaw and squinty eyes, but it reads more like dental or rectal pain or some horrible combination of the two.

And then there's the former Senator from Pennsylvania, that frothy mixture of lubricant and, sorry, Santorum.

He talked about his immigrant grandfather, who fled Mussolini and Fascism, ending up in the coalmines of Pennsyvlania, dead in a coffin at 72 with a young and wide-eyed Rick staring wonderingly at his enormous, stone-cold hands.

The point, I suppose, is that Obama is Mussolini and Santorum knows a thing or two about working-class Americans. The only problem there is that Mr. Santorum, Sr. was a coal-miner who depended upon the union and every FDR-inspired scrap of legislation to ensure the bare minimum of a decent life. Being the Italian gentleman that I assume he was, he probably would have had too much dignity to spit in his grandson's face, but you can bet your ass he'd quietly disown anyone in the family who held Ronald Reagan up as a hero.

And so we head to New Hampshire where Huntsman waits, Mittbot dominates and Bachmann applies for a part-time job at Walgreen's.

Or something.

This thing just keeps getting stranger.

edinburgh survival guide

2012-01-03T16:35:00.000-05:00

Mark Fisher's Big Book on All Things Fringe is available.

Check it out here.

He did an exhaustive interview with Ms. McGee and myself, in which we told all fools to abandon hope upon entering the Edinburgh city limits, but then how to have yourself a hell of a good time.

Colder than any previously known weather today and it's only going to get colder tonight.

If you don't hear from me for awhile, assume I'm frozen, fingers stuck to the keyboard, one paragraph away from completing my masterwork, eyes wild and unmoving, fixed upon that perfect ending.

Cold, man. Seriously.

a practical guide to 2012

2011-12-22T22:34:00.000-05:00

You’ve probably already said it forty times by now.

Happy New Year.

We say it every year and it’s a nice thing to say.

It’s, rarely, a genuine wish for friends, family, that guywho just made you a sandwich.

Hey, I hope you have agood year and things, on the balance, tilt you way.

Nice.

Usually though, it’sjust three words, hot-glued together the way the mind does that, that come out,unbidden, just there.

And usually, of course, we find ourselves in March orFebruary or if we’re lucky sometime in the summer suffering through anothergoddamned year, another rotation of the sun and the moon and everything elseout there, just holding on.

And of course, next year will be like this year, much likelast year: a grind, an uphill journeywith unimaginable psychic and global weather storming both indoors and out.

Who can begin to predict who we’ll lose?

What single thing can you count on in this seismic, shiftinglandscape?

So maybe we can put something in the bank now, before it allstarts, and maybe it might earn some dividends.

Me being the financial wizard that I am, it’s bound to work.

Gob knows what’s coming down, but I know some things.

I was genuinely happy a few times this year. And I’m remembering that it had nothing to dowith the weather or the balance in my bank account, it was because of what Idid or said or didn’t do.

So maybe I cankeep those times in the front of my brain in 2012 and have a happy new year.

Sometimes you’re with a friend and you find yourself tellingthem what a good person they are, that they just did or said something wondrousand they shrug and deflect and go on with the conversation and for some reasonyou stop and insist on them hearing that you think they’re amazing and that it’srare and it should be noted and you are, in fact, noting it.

And they stop and you see that lovely weird light in their eyesand you both glow a little bit because the normal rules have for some reasonbeen suspended and it’s cool to be unguarded all of a sudden.

I’m going to try to do that more often this year.

And sometimes you’re in a meeting or an interview or someother business-related situation and everyone’s nattering on the way they’resupposed to and you know your cue, you know your role, you’ve done the scene ahundred times on a hundred different sets, but the sameness and the pretense get to you for somereason that one time, that hundredth and one time, and you hear yourselfbreaking from the script, breaking character completely and you blurt out a truthfulsentence or two and instead of the director screaming cut and you getting fired, everyone around you stops for amoment, breathes and either laughs out loud or says,

Yeah. Yeah! That’s exactly right.

So I’m going to try to look for more of those moments thisyear.

And sometimes, often if you're lucky, someone you love and live with and is right there, part of your world and everyday landscape, performs a simple, almost automatic act of kindness, something small but something that completely and objectively improves your immediate situation.

It could be anything.

Your cup of coffee is re-filled.

That person laughs, genuinely, at the oldest bit you do, the joke that started twenty years ago.

Or you're standing there, doing some dumb thing and suddenly that someone else's arms are around you and that someone's face is up against yours and there's a squeeze and you know that another person is saying, physically,

I'm here. For you. And I'm glad you're here too.

And if you're smart you take that moment to say I love you.

I'm going to try to be smarter this year.

And sometimes it’s the end of the day and you’re tired butalso filled. You can see the rest of thetask and you know the next steps, butthere’s no nervousness or anxiety or thoughts of what has to be done becauseyou know you did everything possibletoday and then some.

The job’s not done, but you are on the job.

And that makes you very happy.

I’m going to try to end more days this year like that.

I'm going to try to have a happy year.

Happy New Year, all.

bring down the curtain

2011-12-19T15:53:00.000-05:00

Did you hear that the Iraq war ended?

Yep, over and done with like it never happened.

Of course we won't ever know what the four thousand four hundred and eighty seven young American men and women who were killed would have done with their lives, or how the lives of the thirty two thousand two hundred and twenty six Americans who were wounded would have turned out if they hadn't have been sent into harm's way in order to secure the non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

And then there's the estimated one hundred thousand Iraqi lives lost.

But that's just a number, not enough men, woman and boys and girls to fill the Longacre Theater for over 100 hundred nights in a row.

But at least we established a thriving, working democracy in the Middle East.

Good thing Iranian influence wasn't in any way increased over there, that would have been a mess.

And if our unprovoked invasion of a largely Muslim country was used as the perfect, gift-wrapped recruitment tool for the homicidal, fundamentalist thugs who were actually behind the attacks on September 11th, well.

That would have been a shame.

So take a bow, Mr. Bush. Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rumsfeld. Mr. Wolfowitz, Ms. Rice.

Mission accomplished.

curioser and curioser

2011-12-13T13:34:00.000-05:00

It's true what someone once said about something else,

You wait around long enough and you'll see everything twice.

So here we all are forced into taking Newton Leroy Gringrich seriously.

Again.

Anyone who doesn't believe in artificial intelligence just needs to look hard into the Mittbot's eyes; the rise of Newt is killing his cyborg soul. The pain, confusion and sorrow may not be human, but they're real and it hurts to watch.

The idea of Gingrich as a nominee, let alone a president, is of course alternately hilarious and horrifying. For my Republican friends, imagine if the Democrats nominated George McGovern. That's about the way it feels for you guys to be supporting Newt.

Everyone's going to be piling on but let's just clear up a few things at the start:

Having a lot of ideas does not qualify you as an intellectual. If that were true, every cokehead would be a Rhodes Scholar.

Teaching history and geography at West Georgia College for eight years in the 1970s does not qualify you as an historian. It makes you a former history and geography teacher at West Georgia College.

Getting older doesn't make you wiser, kinder or essentially any different than you were when you were young and active.

Newt may be a 68 year old grandfather, but he's a 68 year old grandfather who has cheated on two wives, shut down the US government partially because he was denied a seat on Air Force One, had 84 ethics charges filed against him during his term as Speaker and in 1997 admitted that "In my name and over my signature, inaccurate, incomplete and unreliable statements were given to the (House Ethics) committee".

He's the guy who led the impeachment charge against Clinton while engaged in an extramarital affair.

You can argue policies day and night, but you can't argue against the fact that Newt Gingrich is an undisciplined, unprincipled ego-crazed hypocrite.

And do you honestly think that the power of the Presidency is going to temper him in any way?

Like fighting fire with gasoline, folks.

gratitude

2011-12-09T11:29:00.001-05:00

Man, that week went fast.

Time flies when you're busy and broke.

I'm chasing three things, one is taking me back to the early days on the Lower East Side, another is a re-boot of a recent great idea and the third just might make me some money.

Here's dreaming, anyway.

Woke up this morning warm and safe next to Ms. McGee, the cat asleep at my feet. Went out to the living room and the fire was still going low from last night. Banked it up a bit and I had a blaze. Coffee and a rolled cigarette on the porch, early winter sunlight bouncing off a random snowbank in the yard.

It's not an easy life, this life, but it sure can be a beautiful one.

random shout out

2011-12-06T14:23:00.001-05:00

I'm working on this thing for indietheaternow.com and I'm reading some plays that I've heard about for years but never got a chance to see.

All too common in my parish; a show rockets out of nowhere, everyone's talking about it and three weeks later it's gone. And the company can't afford to move it to a larger space, the union won't let you transfer it to another 99 seat theater, you have to wait a year for a re-mount and by that time your creative team has moved on.

Which is why I missed The Adventures of Nervous-Boy back when.

And I count that now as one of my great regrets.

James Comtois, you well and truly rock. This is one of the best plays I've read in recent memory.

If my word is not enough for everyone reading this to click on the link up there and buy a copy of the play, here's a stage direction from about halfway through it:

(She collapses. GUY makes noise of dismissive disgust and exits. She's dead. As NERVOUS-BOY talks two...vampires? Demons? Whatever the fuck they are, they slither to GIRL's body and slide her offstage as they drink her blood.)

It's funny as hell and deeply disturbing and very, very true about what it says about living in Rat City and just being alive and young and getting older and not quite knowing why things don't seem to make sense to you like they seem to make sense to all the people you find yourself in the middle of all the time.

Just a great, great play.

the phantom menace

2011-12-01T18:10:00.001-05:00

Something scared the hell out of me yesterday.

Had a thought that seemed crazy, then brilliant, then all too inevitable.

Eleven months from now, we vote. And it's shaping up to be a photo finish, the economy isn't changing and Vegas money says the president and his adorable, photogenic family are moving back to Chicago in January, 2013. I believe and hope and pray otherwise, but those are the odds.

That's not the scary thing.

It's the GOP field that makes that not so scary, right? The president has to run against someone, eventually Someone has to get nominated and I see three plausible scenarios taking shape. In order of descending probability:

1. Mittbot destroys all before him. Comes in second or third in Iowa, wins New Hampshire despite the Union-Leader's whimsical Gingrich endorsement, goes down to South Carolina and wins a dogfight with whoever's left standing. The only hurdle left is someone raising a constitutional challenge that the president has to be a human being, but I've looked and it's not actually spelled out, it just says "born in the United States".

What do you think that whole "corporations are people, my friend" weirdness was all about? The consortium behind Mittbot 2012 declares itself a person, with all of the rights of a person, including the right of their fearsome progeny to sit behind the Big Desk.

But that's not the scary thing.

2. The GOP base denies their only credible candidate the nomination. The cyborg is unplugged and Newt keeps puffing up until he's a Macy's Thanksgiving Day float, soaring above us all as we point agog at his enormous inflatable head. This could happen, which speaks to the profound intellectual impoverishment of the field. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, or in this case in the land of the dumb the man who speaks in complete sentences with subject and verb in agreement is Plato and wins the primaries.

Still not the Big Scary.

3. Most implausible but possible: The cyborg is denied, Newt collapses, Cain is gone, Perry shows up at a debate and forgets his name, how to pronounce "Texas" and to wear pants, so who's left?

It ain't Santorum or Paul or Huntsman, not in the basement of the GOP base, not in the basest of the base, anyway.

It's Michelle Bachmann, she who has never strayed from the strictest of the conservative orthodoxy. Doesn't matter that she's unelectable, she's a True Believer and I think they'd rather go down with honor than ride into battle with a plan.

And that, kids, still isn't what chilled me yesterday. Let's say one of the top two scenarios plays out. It's Mitt or Newt. So we go to the VP sweepstakes and we see very little. None of the candidates left behind make any sense to balance the ticket on a national level and it doesn't really work like that anymore, anyway.

The point is to beat Obama, by any means necessary.

So you look to the sidelines, looking for someone to stand next to Another Bland White Guy and give him some spark against the first black man in the White House. And who's that sitting there with her legs crossed demurely, her weird, sharp baby teeth flashing in the halogen glow?

Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Condoleeza Rice.

And it's the thought of that lady anywhere near the seat of power again that stopped me cold yesterday. Bush the Lesser's first National Security Advisor (who's job presumably was to advise him on national security, like, for example, if there were a credible terrorist threat coming down the pike) and then his Secretary of State, advising him on the intricacies of international diplomacy and well, you can see how well that worked out.

Why she didn't have her resignation letter on the Big Desk the evening of September 11, 2001 and why it wasn't accepted immediately is one of the little mysteries we'll never solve. There are plenty of rogues and knaves and simple criminals that crowded the corridors of the Bush White House, but Rice has escaped a lot of the blame when I'd argue she deserves most of it.

Because she's smart. You can't really blame an alcoholic for drinking. But you can blame the bartender who keeps pouring him drinks. You don't blame a child for starting a fire. But you can blame the babysitter who kept handing him matches.

She knew better. But she sat there and played along. And now we're asked to forget or forgive the epic ineptitude and irresponsibility of her time of service to our country.

Just wait. And I pray I'm wrong.

But when the dust settles and the Republicans have their candidate, I'm pretty sure we're going to start seeing Condi on all of the news shows, quick smile, furrowed brow, politely interrupting the host to correct him on the pronunciation of Pakistan's deputy foreign minister's third wife's surname.

She's smart. And she's already proved she'll work for whoever's hiring.

chopping wood

2011-11-30T09:37:00.001-05:00

I'm looking at one of those rare free days.

Ten thousand things to do, of course, but no conference calls or meetings or pitches or deadlines looming. I need to work on this new thing I'm writing, smooth out the beginning and figure out what the hell it's trying to be, start this crazy big project I cooked up with Martin Denton yesterday, try to scare some money out of thin air to fund The Extremists, The Apocalyptic Road Show and maybe keep the lights on, but the day is essentially unscheduled.

One thing I know I've got to do is chop wood.

No metaphor there; I'm going to go out in the yard with an axe and turn some fallen trees into firewood.

These days when Spitfire and I don't have to be in Rat City we hide out in the country. Came out on Monday, here for a little stretch. And one of the real glories of the hide-away is the fireplace. Nothing like a blazing hearth when it's dark and backwoodsy outside and you're huddling up with the cat and the wife with nothing but HBO and Showtime and other premium channels to get you through the night.

Those of you who know me well will appreciate the heartbreaking hilarity that hung in the air the first time it was just me and the axe and the log.

An axe? Clancy with an axe?

Well, this can't end well.

My Mom was horrified when I told her.

You're going to cut your leg off! An axe? You have an axe?

But I've gotten pretty good at it. Like everything in the world, you've just got to do it for awhile and then keep doing it and eventually you find you've figured it out.

But the first few times, man, you're standing out there with your work gloves and your safety glasses and a fucking axe eyeballing a tree, thinking:

Nah. Never going to happen. Someone could do this, this is something that people can do, obviously, but there is no way I'm turning this tree into something I can throw into the fireplace tonight .

And the first five or six or twenty swings of the old axe prove you right. It bounces off wrong and scares the hell out of you, you chip a little bit off the log, the axe bites into the wood and holds there and you're trying to wiggle it out like Jeremiah Johnson never had to do, you're just grateful there's no one but the deer to witness the sad parody of self-reliance you're enacting out back.

And it's hard, even when you're doing it wrong. You're out of breath, your back and shoulders start seizing up, it's work, man. But then the log splits, you've got two logs and then they divide and after a little bit more back-breaking terror, you've got firewood at your feet.

And you do it again. And you've got a fire that night. And it gets to the point, like right now, where you're actually looking forward to that axe and that log and your gloves and safety glasses.

It's just like that first or second or thirtieth blank page the writer stares down. Like every first rehearsal the director walks into, every opening night the actor hurtles towards. You know in your bones that you can't do it, someone else can, sure, it can be done, but no way I'm going to pull this off. But you do it. Maybe badly at first, but everyone else is staring down at their own log, judging themselves, so no one calls you out or laughs so you do it again.

And at the end of the day you've got firewood and if there's a fireplace to throw it in you're watching the blaze with your honey, warm and happy and tired and thinking about chopping wood tomorrow.

from the vault

2011-11-28T11:45:00.001-05:00

Going through the vault over the weekend looking for hard copies of the old Piano Store plays, since back then we didn't have computers to store things on. We'd use these things called "desk drawers" or sometimes "shelves". You can google them, they've got pictures and everything.

Found them, things I wrote going on twenty years ago now. Some of them still stand up, too.

The reason for the scavenger hunt is that the Dentons want to publish a collection of my old shorts (no snickering in the back, please, this is serious business) on indietheaternow.

During the search I came across this, below, written ten years ago. Take is as a companion piece or an early sketch for Theater isn't Rock and Roll.

The syndrome I wrote about doesn't seem to be as widespread these days or maybe I'm just riding around with a different (older) gang now.

But I like the way it flows and it used to be true.

STEPPENWOLF MUST DIE

November, 2001

Steppenwolf Theater has always been cool. They are the Rat Pack, the Dirty Dozen, theWild Bunch of the American theater, roaring into town, picking up some awards,roaring back out. The name itself, atfirst rangy and sharp-toothed and then a tip of the hat towards Germanliterature perfectly captures the Dharma Bums/Hell’s Angels confluence ofAmerican cool. Then you have the Chicagomythos. You imagine working-class Poles and Micks toiling in the deafeningslaughterhouse all day and then trudging home to rehearse wild-ass shit allnight in the basement of a church, slugging back black coffee and rye to stayawake. Add to this the wild success, themovie stars, the Broadway runs and awards, and clearly Steppenwolf is theideal. So it’s hard to argue thatthey’ve all but killed American theater.

Not them, of course. It’s their spawn, infected by the Steppenwolf Syndrome. The Stepford Steppenwolfs. TheSteppenpuppies. If you’ve worked for anyextensive period in the American theater you know them. The actor who looks for any excuse in thescript to take off his shirt, knock furniture around or clean his nails with aBowie knife. The director who caststhese actors and encourages everyone to shout, smoke and stalk around. The writer who is openly or secretlyre-writing every early Shepard play and constantly robbing profanity of itsbeauty and power by using it as mere punctuation.

The result of all this misguided energy is a dizzying andultimately dispiriting accumulation of loud, violent, messy evenings oftheater. Every once in a while, like a night in a crowded bar or a walk on theLower East Side on a Saturday night, these evenings can provide alife-affirming, electric jolt. But alltoo often you find yourself looking around and thinking, “What the hell iseveryone shouting about?” and wishing you were home with friends. The Steppencubs have given us anundergraduate theater, a juvenile theater, a “boys-with-guns-and-women-who-strip-and-cuss”theater.

It is, undeniably, an American theater, which is a largepart of its draw and satisfaction. Foras much as Pinter and Stoppard and Orton thrill and stir us, there is somethingin Shepard and Mamet and Rabe that resonates more deeply and fully withinus. The best of this theater, like thebest of American culture, achieves a Steinbeckian simplicity, an immediacy anda power we recognize intuitively. Plainspoken truth and a celebration of the endurance, courage and decencyof the human spirit, coupled with a heart-breaking, bleak beatification of theloner, the misfit and outcast, these things can appear and vanish in much ofour theater like the ghosts of the American night. But usually we see the worst of our culture,a loud, leering, dim-witted aggression and a sense that violence is in itselfsomehow both inevitable and vaguely romantic.

This translates to the stage as actors with little or nocontrol or interest in their physical and vocal instrument, directorsemphasizing mood and attitude over thought and objective and writers with theirfeet stuck firmly to the killing floor, afraid or unwilling to spread theirwings and try to fly. We should rememberthat Thornton Wilder and George S. Kaufman and Elmer Rice were three of theprototypical American playwrights. Weshould remember that Dos Passos and Odets allowed working-class characters tobreathe a lyricism that rarely rang hollow and always reached beyond the grimdesperation of their circumstances. Weneed to stop romanticizing the vulgar and vulgarizing the romantic in ourtheater and our heritage.

And I lay all of this on Steppenwolf’s door?

Sure. Why not? It’san American tradition to tear down yesterday’s champions and it’s an Americanattitude that says, “We know where that road goes, so let’s try something newfor a change.”

If the SteppenFetchits were emulating Steppenwolf for thefierce tenacity of their early days, their insistence on an ensemble dynamicand their ability to attract and foster great new writers, I’d sayGodspeed. But when you strive to emulatetheir style, or worse, a dumbed-down, third-hand understanding of their style,I say enough, already. You can break allthe furniture you want and never create anything more meaningful than firewoodonstage if there is no thought, poetry or craft behind the wreckage. If you want to create the next SteppenwolfTheatre, then do what they did. Committo ten years with the same core of people and spend every night arguing andagreeing and thrashing around in a basement somewhere until you have your ownaesthetic and vision to share. Stopwearing hand-me-downs. They don’t fitand they’re out of style anyway.

theater isn't rock and roll - conclusion

2011-11-22T15:27:00.001-05:00

Not to be confused with an actual rock star

This goes on for a while. Caught some kind of wave and couldn't stop.

So there we were on the Lower East Side.

I wish I could paint it from memory and drop you right downinto it, but memory lies and as usual I wasn’t paying all that much attention.

Rat City, 1990.

David Dinkins is in charge and the city is going down. AIDS is killing everyone, you watch yourfriends turn Biafran overnight and two weeks later they’re gone. Crack is everywhere and unlike every otherdrug plague, this one turns every user into a psychotic zombie. They’re out ofit but they’re fucking aggressive, so crime is like the weather, it’s a fact, athing you accept.

Nancy’s working Off-Broadway and doing some soap opera work,I’m writing crazy shit no one wants to produce and auditioning for roles Idon’t want in shows that suck and getting a few callbacks but no gigs. Nancy recognizes the larger implications andsays,

“Let’s do itourselves. Let’s just put up theseshows. Why not?”

We’d hooked up with two brilliant producer/hipsters fromBoston and they called themselves House of Borax. In Boston, or so the legend went, you’dstaplegun an empty box of Borax or Tide or some other detergent onto awarehouse door and that was the signal that Wild Theater was going to go downon the other side. They were trying tobring this theater rave scene to Gotham and Nancy and I climbed aboard the train.

The Boraxians had made a deal with a dealer named Cam whooversaw a place called The Piano Store on Ludlow. Cam was running an illegal after-hours cluband he had it set up nice with a bar and hash brownies on the counter and areal sound system. He wanted some kindof entertainment to happen around 10:30, some kind of faintly legitimate beardfor those few authorities who might be paying attention. The plan was we’d do a show at 10:30, we’d bedown by midnight, people would hang out afterwards and then come 2:00, 2:30 thereal crowd would roll in.

And thanks to the guerilla producing genius of the Boraxiansand our hustling every friend we knew to come down, it was a success. We played through the summer of ’91, adifferent show every weekend and the place was packed. Aaron Beall was starting his empire acrossthe street and we didn’t even know.

Like all too many good things it ended bad. I didn’t think their stuff was as good asours and said so. Tried to make a dealwhere the Boraxians would produce and we’d be in charge of the artisticside. After an epic twelve hourconversation/argument around my aunt’s dining room table in Gramercy Park weparted ways.

Thank you, David and Karen. You threw us into the deep end and you knew how to swim.

So that blew up but we had managed to make enough noise toget an echo back, so we kept putting up shows wherever we could.

Looking back, I know now where we made our first fatefulmisstep, but it seemed like the logical path at the time. We were performing in bars that summer. Bars without liquor licenses. Speakeasys, so everyone knew as soon as theywalked in that something was fundamentally wrong.

Very rock and roll.

But that wasn’t a choice or any kind of plan, that’s justwhat happened. So now we’re looking attheaters. And we start playing littletiny theaters. And it’s still cool,we’re still getting an audience but it’s not quite as much fun. We’re too young and green to calibrate what’shappening, we think maybe it’s the show or the script or the fact that we’retoo tired from working all day, but the high is definitely not the same.

But people are coming and the mailing list is growing, so westart an actual company, The Present Company, and we print up business cardsand we meet Elena Holy and she’s all business thank god and we’re in the game.

And then Aaron Beall walks into our lives.

The story of Beall is too good and long and unbelievable toget shoe-horned in here, but give me a quick moment of your life to prep you forthe eventual telling, if it ever comes to pass. Go grab a drink or check your email and come back, this is good.

Aaron was a little guy, couldn’t have been more than fivefoot seven, but he walked like a giant and in his day, when it was working forhim, he ruled every room he was in. Heplayed the trickster fool and revealed the power only at the end, turning overthe ace in the hole only at the last pass when all the money was on the table.

He ran Todo con Nada, one of the perfectly named outfits on thestreet. The others were Surf Reality andCollective Unconscious, so you get a sense of the careless genius and surfeitknowledge that was hanging in the very air of the neighborhood in those days.

Nada was a pit, a basement room with seven foot ceilings, nowing space, seventy seats and you changed in the back in Aaron’s office. Depending on where you hung the back curtainyou had a couple of feet backstage and behind you, always at your back, was theroaring nightlife of Ludlow Street. People screaming, cops arresting the screaming people, other peoplescreaming at the cops arresting their once screaming now silent friends, it wassomething all right.

So you had to be more interesting than the street. A great challenge, something the Elizabethanswould have instantly understood.

And Aaron hooked us up with Brian Parks who had written anodd little comedy called Vomit and Roses and we put on that show at Nada andthings started getting strange and wonderful.

And more people showed up and I remember like this morning awinter night when I stood in the backyard of Nada and looked up at the nightsky and listened to a full house of complete strangers howling and shrieking injoy while Vomit and Roses thrashed around on the stage in front of them and Ithought

We’ve made it. This is show biz. We’ve got a hit.

Of course, none of us made a dime, not even Aaron who triedto rip us off.

Remember: you changedin Aaron’s office.

So when the show started, I was stuck in the back.

In Aaron’s office.

I’d listen to the beginning of the show and then I’d go outto the backyard and smoke, but other than that there I was sitting at hisdesk. And I saw the envelopes, eachnight’s take, sitting there on the desk in front of me. The envelopes were empty, of course, butwritten on the front of each one was the total take. So I’d copy down the amount in a notebook andat the end of the run I knew exactly how much money we’d brought in. So when it came time to settle, about a monthafter we closed, Aaron says

Looks like you didgood. I owe you 855 dollars.

And I say smoothly

We did do good. I think you owe us 1,346.

And I hear the pause and the swallow and the penny droppingand Aaron comes back smoother than me,

Yeah, that soundsright.

My partner in crime, my downtown mentor, the man who stolemy youth and made me grow up, Aaron Beall.

Stories will be told and facts will be disputed and if itgoes right, someday, blood will be shed but that’s all I’ve got for now.

And with Aaron and a few others, the New York Fringe wasborn in 1997.

And that was full-on, no-brakes, hide-your-daughters,pray-to-Jesus rock and roll.

You’ve got blisters onyour fingers?

Fuck you, I’ve got blisters on my feet fromrunning down box offices all over the Lower East Side. I haven’t slept in a bed in ten daysmotherfucker and I’m just waiting for someone to die so they’ll shut us downand I can go the hell home.

And that’s where and when I met Ian Hill and Kirk Bromleyand Art Wallace and Al Orensanz and Rob Prichard and Bob and Patrick and everyoneelse at Collective Unconscious and for a brief moment there, maybe two years,there was an uneasy but very enjoyable unification of the tribes.

And then that blew up, mostly just because of real estateprices and the fact that all good things go bad if you’re not tending themcarefully.

But this is supposed to be about rock and roll and theaterand how they’re not the same thing.

Goddamned Aaron Beall, got me off-track again.

So fast forward ten years or so and we’ve left the Fringe behindand improbably become minor art stars overseas. And we’re touring and getting crazy good reviews and awards and all ofthat, but it’s not actually rock and roll.

As I’ve written elsewhere, it’s an American jazz musician’slife, playing an essential, original American style, wailing as hard as youknow how and looking out at a crowd of Europeans. Wonderful and you’re thankful to be there,but a little weird.

It was this last time, out on the road with Apocalypse, when the pieces startedcoming together for me.

It takes me a while sometimes, but I usually get it in theend.

We were in one of the smaller venues, New Pitsligo orBraemar, and the crowd had come in and we were about to start and instead ofthinking “I hope they like it” or “Let’s blow the roof off of this place” Ihad a strange thought that was something like,

I hope the showrespects these people and I hope they recognize that respect and listen to whatit’s trying to say.

Respect.

Not something you usually associate with rock and roll.

Because rock and rollis outlaw. All of it, that’s the wholeterritory. The best rock and rollannounces its lack of respect at the very top and kicks it up harder fromthere.

The job of the rock and roll musician is to drive the crowdinsane, to focus them on desire and release and personal power and completeabandon. Watch Shine a Light and you’ll see a group of trained, experienced rockand roll artists doing exactly that with extraordinary precision. They’re old men and they’re consciously andpatiently invoking Dionysus with every move.

The job of the theater artist couldn’t be moredifferent. We’re trying to createconsensus. We’re trying to scare out theinner spirits and thoughts and demons, just like rock and roll, but then wefreeze the moment, shine the light, so to speak, and ask the crowd

Is this what wewant? Is this who we are?

Rock and roll is all about being reckless.

Theater is all about responsibility.

Rock and roll is all about me.

Theater's about us.

It’s something C.J. Hopkins taught me, patiently, over manyyears and many shows. Great theater,powerful theater and the most subversive theater is all about being on theinside. Being fully complicit with thecrowd and acknowledging that fact, clearly and constantly. Being aware of the crowd and respectful ofthe room.

It’s the difference between shouting at a drunk in thestreet

What’s the matter withyou? Go home, sober up, you’re throwingyour life away!

and sitting down with your brother and saying,

Look man, I love youand I think you’ve got a problem and I’m sorry to be an asshole and bring itup, but you’ve got to stop drinking, you don’t do it well.

One is an arrogant, misguided intrusion into a stranger’slife.

The other is an act of love and concern.

One is rock and roll, brash, loud and public.

The other is theater, thoughtful and controlled and one onone.

And that’s the whole thing.

It also has a lot to do with my father’s great insight,something that makes no sense when you hear it as a young man but something youknow in your bones is true a little later:

Nothing of any consequence happens after midnight.

The key word being consequence. Because we all know that most of the amazingand terrifying and hilarious things we’ve survived all happened after midnight, wellafter midnight, in those small hours when nothing matters but who you’re withand what you want and what you think you can get away with and that, myfriends, is rock and roll.

And if you’re not up past midnight, if instead you’veretired sensibly with a book, you miss out on the madness.

But you get the morning.

You get those quiet hours before the world starts callingand knocking on your door and waving that goddamned watch in your face telling youexactly how late you’re going to be to that thing you don’t even want to got to inthe first place.

You get the morning and your head is clear and you can lookat things and watch things weigh themselves and maybe write a few things downthat you can look over later.

Rock and roll kicks in best after midnight when you stopthinking too clearly.

Theater rewards the thoughtful and reflective and thosepaying the most attention.

So theater isn’t rock and roll.

It’s taken me half a lifetime (Gob willing) to figure thatout.

I’m no rock star. Imake plays and try to put them on and make enough money to do it again down theroad. And I love that I get to do what I do.

But I also know if I were given the terrible choice and thetwo bonfires were laid out before me, one stacked high with every play ever written and the other a great pyreof every rock and roll album ever released and they handed me the lit match,well…

I’d like to think that I’d hesitate, at least for a moment.

Shakespeare. Aeschylus and Sophocles and Brecht and Wilder and Genet and Shepard andWilliams. Everything I’ve ever writtenand directed and performed and seen.

But I know what I’d do and the pages and speeches and stagedirections would all burn.

And I suspect, or at least I hope, that every American theaterartist of my generation (and certainly every theater artist of my temperament)would make the same choice.

Without theater, I’d have to create a whole new life.

But if I never heard the opening chords of You Shook Me All Night Long again?

How would I even know I wasalive?

And that’s why I’m standing here before you now, digitallyspeaking.

Because at 16, I didn’t have the talent or courage to pickup an instrument and become a rock and roll casualty.

I chose the theater, this bizarre shifting plot of holy ground where I try todo honorable battle every time I get the chance. It was the right choice, no question.

But it ain’t rock and roll.

theater isn't rock and roll

2011-11-21T17:25:00.001-05:00

But I grew up believing it could be close.

I’ve been reflecting the last few days, something I alwaysfind myself doing this time of year when the night comes down fast, beforethe day properly ends and you’re inside in the lamplight with your wife andyour thoughts and the cat and you know the year is coming to a close and youknow you’re not going to get everything done before the holidays hijack thelittle time you have, but somehow you also know it’s all right and things aregoing to be things at the end of the day and it all balances out in some scalesomewhere, so just sit back and be grateful that you're here and you've got what you've got and there might be some more time tomorrow.

Theater isn’t rock and roll, but I used to act like itshould be, it could be if we could just figure it out, if we stopped caring somuch about beauty and subtlety, if we could just be a lot funnier and fasterand speak much, much more directly to our audience and our world.

A lot of the blame for this adolescent faith that I could transform Aristotle into AC/DC with just the right alchemical formula I laydirectly at the feet of Sam Shepard.

Remember young Sam?

Cowboy-booted, squint-eyed, good-looking young rebel staringout at you from the back of those early collections. And the plays, man. CowboyMouth? Suicide in B Flat? Fucking Tooth of Crime?

Tooth of Crime, the name is pure rockand roll.

And Cowboy Mouth written with Patti Smith, an actual rock and rollstar.

Add to it Shepard was a drummer,then power forward to the masterworks ofBuried Child, True West and Fool forLove and you’re standing in a serious rock and roll/great art nexus where it seems possible to be deep ashell and dangerous at the exact same time.

But then Sam lost interest, of course. Started making movies, making money andspending quality time with Jessica Lange. And given the choice, hard to blame the man.

Jessica Lange, kids. Hollywood.

Godspeed, young rebel/poet. Enjoythe sunshine.

What’s not at the feet of Shepard you can evenly divide up between DavidMamet and Steppenwolf out in Chicago. Mamet for the pitch-perfect profanity he effortlessly spun in the earlydays and Steppenwolf for acting like a bunch of rock stars and of course, fornaming themselves after a great rock and roll band.

I know they named themselves after the Hesse book, but comeon. It had to be in the back of theirminds somewhere.

So there we are in the haze of the late ‘70s, not even awarethat the early ’80s are about to come down like some toxic cloud spreadingReagan/Thatcher, AIDs and crack and shoulder pads across the landscape and into ourbloodstreams, and our boy is thinking about a life in the theater.

Because it’s going to be so bad-ass.

Theater, man. Trust.

And exactly how I equated doing Pippin in high school with Liveat Budokan, I can’t honestly explain.

But I carried my conviction through college and even for ayear of grad school in Dallas and then a couple of years in L.A. and then mybride and I hit Rat City Itself, August 1990 and it’s time to rock and roll.

And it actually started happening in a very punk rock way.

Back then, you didn’t do your work in theaters. Not because you were too cool, but becausethey didn’t invite you into the theaters. It was a pretty closed shop. Still is, of course, but when you’re inyour late twenties and you have all these crazy ideas and even crazier scriptsand somehow even crazier friends, they don’t let you play on their stages. You had to spend weeks trying to get ameeting and this was at the little bitty places. Probably exactly the same now, but everyone’syouth is the One and Only True Story, even if everyone’s youth is 95% the same aseveryone else’s.

So we all ended up on the Lower East Side. Mostly centered around Stanton and Ludlow,with a few satellites west and a very few a few blocks north.

And we’re literally playing in basements andback rooms. And we’re doing all newstuff and we’re starting the shows at 10:30 and later and for some reason people are showing up.

And itfeels like rock and roll.

This is turning into a much longer thing than I thought itwould be, so I’m going to break it up and end here for now.

More to come, the best part, when our hero realizes theerror of his ways and the foolishness of his boyhood dream.

It turns out fine, don’t worry.

loving it

2011-11-16T18:22:00.001-05:00

I know it's going to be serious and close in November and I know that we, the all-knowing electorate, have voted dangerous clowns into office before (Ron Reagan and Bush the Lesser in my lifetime alone), but man.

Come on.

This is just too much fun.

Who are our lucky contestants this go-round, Johnny?

Newt, the Man of Ideas. Except for the fact that every single idea he's ever had turned out to be wrong.

It's like holding up Rube Goldberg as a visionary inventor.

Herman Cain, who has managed to become a parody of Donald Trump, which I frankly thought was well beyond the realm of the possible.

Rick Perry, he whom the Texas wags for years have called "Bush without the brains."

Don't think I can do any better than that.

Michelle Bachmann, who would be a very real threat, she's actually a working politician and she seems whip-smart, except for the fact that she also seems to be seriously bat-shit crazy. And is anyone really ready to listen to that voice for four more minutes, let alone four more years? It's a small thing, but these little things matter when you're casting the Lead.

Ron Paul, the only intellectually honest guy on the stage, maybe in office.

Personally, I like the Department of Education and Energy and Commerce and the idea of someone inspecting my food and fixing the highways and making sure planes don't crash into each other up above my head, but if you don't, Ron's your man.

I'd actually vote for the guy if there were only a time machine that would take me back 160 years to a time when we were a largely agrarian republic with very little commerce or involvement with the rest of the world.

Nah. I'd probably just go back to Hill Valley in the 50s and crash the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, see if I can help out Doc and Marty. That looks like a lot of fun.

Santorum.
Look it up.

And that leaves the Mittbot 2012.

The saddest cyborg I know. Gamely grinning and shaking hands all day and then going home at night, sitting down in a dark room with his programmers and wailing in his robot woe:

Why don't they like me? What is my design flaw this time? I thought you made me perfect!

And the programmers, baffled and guilty, try to blame each other while half-heartedly comforting their telegenic creation.

Like I said, anyone of these folks could conceivably win it. Well, not Santorum or Paul, but anyone else. People vote their wallet, goes the old saw, and our wallets are mostly stuffed with maxed credit cards and food stamps these days.

But the cyborg don't play in Iowa, which means the circus isn't leaving town for a while yet. Before it gets serious and until more than 10% of the electorate is even paying attention, I'm just going to enjoy the hell out of this.

rat city revealed

2011-11-16T07:51:00.001-05:00

So I'm watching Mayor Bloomberg's press conference yesterday. And as always, he's calm, clear and preternaturally self-possessed with the bulldog face of Ray Kelly glaring at us from behind his left shoulder.

And except for a few patently ridiculous things - (were there really "allegations of people defecating in alleys" in Lower Manhattan? Let me tell you, Mike, I can guarantee you that people have been shitting in the streets down there, long before the protesters showed up and it's a sure bet that the fecal deposits will continue long after they're gone) - he made his case.

It's an indefensible case, but it's capable of being made.

And it really has very little to do with Brookfield Properties property rights and nothing at all to do with the spurious claim that the occupation was preventing non-protesters from enjoying the "passive recreation" that the park is supposed to provide to the people of New York.

What does that actually mean, I wonder, "passive recreation"? You can throw a frisbee but you can't chase after it if the wind whips it away?

No, the telling part of the Mayor's speech and the moment when the true twin faces of Rat City appeared floating above the podium was when Mike tried to justify the forced removal and arrest of hundreds of peaceful protesters with the typical New Yorker's unexamined arrogance, pointing out that he didn't do it like "other cities", no squadrons of cops waded into the crowd with billy clubs raised, this ain't Oakland, son.

He did it in the New York way. Efficient, bloodless and with the elegant legal fig leaf that covers the shame, the defense that says "Our plan was to re-open the park at 8:00 AM. And the protesters are welcome to come back. Just without their tents and backpacks and everything else that allows them to occupy the place."

Kind of a key word there, occupy.

And the old, original visage of New Amsterdam twinkled there for a moment, Old Man Knickerbocker himself, a shrewd Dutch merchant with no time for anything but the market. It's the old truth of the city, no surprise but still cold and heart-stopping each time you hear it plainly stated:

It's about the money. Finally, simply and always. Everything else is fine and allowed. Go crazy, it's the Big Town, but if you don't have the dime you don't get to dance, so pack it up and go back to a less serious place. We mean business here.

Right, so nothing new there. Power takes care of power and we're all adults here.

It was a little later, when the mayor was answering some softball question pitched lazily from the crowd, that the second face appeared.

The mayor was talking about the homeless, that other and more long-standing contingent of tent-pitchers and property rights violators. And he dropped the assertion, probably true, that New York has the smallest homeless population of any major American city.

And I saw what at first looked to be Rudy Giuliani staring back at me hard-eyed and victorious. And then it morphed into a much more benign and friendly face, a face you started seeing all over the place in the 80s and then usually in pairs down in my neighborhood in the 90s, a smooth-cheeked, smiling young face, a young businessman in a nice suit and Italian shoes, standing at the most unlikely of corners, pointing at derelict buildings and laughing easily.

I'd stand on the street smoking a morning cigarette wondering who the hell were these white guys and what the hell were they doing down here?

Like the family dog wondering where we were all going this morning and who's the guy in the white coat and why are you holding me down?

And waking up without his balls.

They cleaned this town up, friends. It's still Rat City, you're never going to exterminate those brutes, but the town I moved to, the town of CBGBs and Alphabet City and the old Times Square and all the rest of it is a beautiful, doubtful memory.

And every old-timer says the same thing, it's Burt Lancaster in Atlantic City, I know, I know but that doesn't mean it's not true.

So there was Mike, saying it without having to say it: we don't let anything actually dangerous happen here anymore. You can do what you want up to a point, sure, but after that point, we shut you down.

And I'm not going to romanticize crime and poverty and mountains of garbage. The place used to be a fucking sewer, seriously. But there was a life beating beneath all of that, something you could feel jumping and something that scared you in a good way, made you sharper and a little braver just by walking through it.

There was a possibility that I think we sold for a few tourist dollars and some empty corporate headquarters.

I'd love to hear from some twenty-year-olds that I'm a cranky old man who's spouting shit. I'm sure they're out there. And all I have for a reply is the Old Man's Dodge:

Yeah, but you weren't there. It was something to see, kid. It was something to see.

shame

2011-11-15T09:10:00.001-05:00

I have become increasingly concerned - as had the park's owner, Brookfield Properties - that the occupation was coming to pose a health and fire safety hazard to protesters and to the surrounding community.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg

Utter and complete horseshit, Mr. Mayor.

The only concern is that a group of citizens began to exercise the explicit constitutional right to gather peaceably and they chose a "privately-owned public place" to do so. And this sets up a direct confrontation between property rights (the rich) and human rights (the rest of us).

And the rich must be protected in this country.

If you're going to run the rabble out, at least have the integrity to say why.

scheming and dreaming

2011-11-14T09:01:00.001-05:00

Been having some very interesting conversations over the last few days.
It's feeling like it's time to try something Big and Crazy again.

What the hell, right?
Beats working for a living.

captain overlord's folly now available

2011-11-09T12:11:00.000-05:00

Staying on the self-promotion kick for right now, why don't every single one of you fine people go here and buy the finest, most outrageous play I've ever written?

Thanks to Martin and Rochelle Denton, it's been cyber-published as part of their genius and forward-thinking project Indie Theater Now. Pretty sure I've got the spacing wrong on that, but go to the link and all shall be clarified.

And seriously, this is my favorite thing. Got a ton of money from the Edinburgh International Festival a few years back to develop it, worked with a brilliant cast of actors in the old Ohio Theater's sixth floor rehearsal space, we flew over and did a staged reading and then got busy with other things.

This thing needs to be produced. Needs some institutional support, it's a full-length, big-cast Beast.

Take a look and then give me a call.

And thank you, Dentons, for doing what you do.

something for the kids out there

2011-11-08T12:06:00.003-05:00

Something we take very seriously here at the Museum is our role in warping, that is, molding young minds. What with the video games and the pinball machines and the pool halls out there, today's youth are all too easily led down the wrong path and before you know it they're stealing cars and speaking Lithuanian.

I've seen it happen, folks. Breaks your heart.

So here, for the edification of all, is an excerpt from the recent U.K. smash hit Apocalypse.
It's kind of a social critique.

Enjoy.

SHIT GRUBBING FUCKS

LULU: I’ll be glad when it’s gone.

GDJET: O hell yes. What’s that?

LULU: All of it.

GDJET: All of it, hell yes. Fuck it.

LULU: What the hell was it?

GDJET: Bunch of shit. Bunch of bullshit.

LULU: Fucking world. Full of people.

GDJET: All fucking each other over.

LULU: So that they can get more shit.

GDJET: Bunch of money-grubbing, shit-grubbing
fuckers grubbing shit.

LULU: Shit-grubbers.

GDJET: Fuckers.

LULU: Bunch of selfish assholes, you wantto
bottom-line it.

GDJET: All of them?

LULU: Every last one.

(They think.)

GDJET: Gandhi?

LULU: Asshole.

GDJET: Smug bastard, wasn’t he?

LULU: Holier-than-thou asshole.

GDJET: Wandering around in that ridiculouslittle
frock.

LULU: Total fucking asshole.

GDJET: Shit-grubber.

LULU: Shit-grubbing fuck.

GDJET: Shit-grubbing, frock-wearing fucker
grubbing shit!

LULU: Nelson Mandela was a total fuckingprick.

GDJET: Shit-grubbing total fucking prick.

LULU: Bunch of shit-grubbers, really.

GDJET: Bunch of motherfucking, shit-grubbing
total fucking pricks.

LULU: All of them.

GDJET: Every last one.

LULU: Fuck Martin Luther King!

GDJET: Agitator.

LULU: And shit-grubber.

GDJET: Motherfucking Teresa, now there’s a fucking
whore.

LULU: Fucking leper-loving, shit-grubbing whore
grubbing shit!

GDJET: They’re all a bunch of shit-grubbers.

LULU: Oh, they grub that shit.

GDJET: They just love to grub that shit!

LULU: Because they’re shit-grubbing fucks.

GDJET: Julie Andrews?

LULU: Fuck her and her favorite fuckingthings.

GDJET: Fucking shit-grubbing fuck.

LULU: Shakespeare?

GDJET: Fucking hack.

LULU: Fucking shit-grubbing hack.

GDJET: (Local hero) ?

LULU: Fuck that shit-grubbing fuck!
GDJET: And they’re all gonna burn.

LULU: Gonna scream in the fire.

GDJET: Every one of you fuckers.

LULU: Gonna burn for grubbing shit.

GDJET: Money-grubbing, shit-grubbing fuckers
gonna burn!

LULU: Shouldn’t have grubbed all thatshit.

GDJET: You fucking shit-grubbing fucks.

LULU: Shouldn’t have fucked each otherover.

GDJET: So you could grub each other’s shit.

LULU: Should have thought it fuckingthrough.

GDJET: You motherfucking shit-grubbers.

LULU: Everyone is gonna burn.

GDJET: Every last one born to die.

LULU: Every single fucking

GDJET: Money-grubbing

LULU: Motherfucking

BOTH: Shit-grubbing fuck.

END

I'm standing by my man

2011-11-07T08:58:00.001-05:00

Three years ago, yesterday, Barack Hussein Obama beat John Sidney McCain handily and became the President-Elect of the United States of America.

He came up hard, raised by a single mother and his grandparents, but he wasn't the first president to come from the underclass. Nixon was from dirt-poor farmers, Clinton grew up in backwoods Arkansas and Ulysses S. Grant was, of course, raised by wolves in the wilds of Alaska.

I was in Belfast the night of the election and flew home through Heathrow the next day. I sat in that terrible airport waiting for my connection, reading the English papers, weeping in amazement and relief.

I'm always happy to be home, but that day was the first in many years that I was proud.

Proud because I knew in my bones that we had elected a man who was going to have a very hard time screwing the poor.

Not that he wouldn't, but just that it was going to be a lot harder for him to do it. Which is something you can't say about a lot of the guys who've had the job and, truthfully, about all I look for any more in a candidate's resume.

So Barack Obama was sworn into office and settled his skinny self behind the Big Desk.

And to many people's great surprise, the junior Senator from Illinois turned out to be a politician. And not a particularly seasoned one at that. He got rolled, over and over again, by an opposition more united against him than anything Bill Clinton ever saw and that's saying a great, great deal. He didn't handle the greatest economic self-created catastrophe that Capitalism has wrought in eighty years. He hired the only guys who could even pretend to understand what had gone wrong, they being the guys who engineered the train wreck in the first place.

He behaved like he was some kind of, I don't know, constitutional scholar rather than the dyed-in-the-wool liberal firebrand we elected.

And he passed health care reform and it's not perfect and it's not what we all wanted and parts of it plain don't work, but criticizing the achievement is like bitching that Jackie Robinson batted under 300 in his first season with the Dodgers.

It happened. It's on the books. We go forward from here.

He allowed gay servicemen and women to keep their careers in the event that they were discovered to be, well, themselves.

He didn't start a war.

If you want the whole partisan litany, it's here.

Now I've got more than a few close friends who've written the President off and I hear that Matt Damon and Ben Stiller and other fine movie actors are disappointed in his performance. And if you look at things objectively, everyone's got a point. Guantanamo Bay is still open. We doubled-down in Afghanistan. Unemployment's at 9 percent and gay people can't get married.

But how do you think John McCain and his cohorts would have done over the last few years?

And how do you think Romney, Perry, Cain or any of the rest of the line-up will do?

And in the end, remember, please remember:

The Democratic party is run by hopelessly compromised, corporate money-addicted, status quo- worshipping, rich white men.

The Republican party is run by Christian fundamentalist bigots.

There is a difference.

There's a difference between a cigarette and a handgun. Both will kill you, but only one is expressly designed for that purpose.

And believe it or not, I've got some good Republican friends. Can't help it, I grew up in the Midwest. And they're not Christian fundamentalist bigots. So I'm not saying that every Republican is a Neanderthal, I'm saying that the Republican party is run by Christian fundamentalist bigots. Which is why a sensible, worldly cyborg like Mitt Romney has to mouth ridiculous things that go against his factory settings just to keep standing on the stage with Bachmann and Perry and Santorum.

Next time you hear yourself saying that there's no real difference between the two parties, think of these two words: "Supreme Court". And remember two names: Roe and Wade.

Because the lasting legacy of Bush is not the waste of Afghanistan or the crime of Iraq or the economic disaster or even the Patriot Act, it's the Roberts Court. The guys who, without even being asked directly, ruled that corporations have the full rights of human beings. The men and women who will serve up to and, in some cases through, senility.

Life appointments, my friends. Wars can be abandoned, terrible, terrible laws can be repealed but when you put on that black robe, only the undertaker gets to take it off.

So I'm standing by the president. And everyone else better get off their asses and do the same thing. In 364 days, they count the votes again. Wouldn't you rather bitch about how lame President Obama is for another four years than watch the Mittbot 2012 or someone far scarier take the oath?

Think about it for a minute and then let's get to work.

the downside of world-wide theatricals

2011-11-04T12:25:00.000-04:00

So we're back home.

The next cool thing is that The Event is having its German language premiere in Nurenberg next week.

And we'll start the hustle to get The Extremists over to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe next summer and see what we can do to get some more money to take Apocalypse out for another spin.

There's some stateside stuff going on, but the bulk of the work next year, like this year, like last year, is Over There.

A couple of years ago I was talking with my buddy Greg Kotis. I had just gotten back from somewhere and was heading out to somewhere else and he casually asked,

So, you're happy being like a jazz musician, working mostly in Europe and over there?

And I thought,

Huh. Not really, no.

I'm happy and grateful for every gig, wherever it may be. And it's a blast to get to see new places and work with artists with wildly different backgrounds and vocabulary.

But I'm 48 years old, kids. And the road can be mighty cruel when your bones begin to ache in cold weather.

I'm a New York City artist. Spent over twenty years making shows in Manhattan, opened and ran two theaters here, started a festival that's still thrilling and pissing people off, even became some kind of elder statesman despite my youthful looks and boyish temperament.

But I've got to get on a plane and carry a passport if I want to get paid.

And I know I'm not alone. I've had the conversation with dozens of friends and all of us are careful to say right at the top,

I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong, work is work, but...

It's just nice to walk home after work. It's nice to play to the home crowd.

So all I'm saying here, I guess, is if you've got a theater or a barn or a backyard or even a decent sized basement and you like the kind of stuff we do,

Hire us.

We work pretty cheap and clean up after ourselves.

And we'll tell you some wild stories from the road.

home again, home again

2011-11-02T12:23:00.003-04:00

Jiggity jig.

I'm up after the best sleep I've had in eight weeks. No complaints about our Edinburgh digs, but nothing beats waking up at home.

One remarkable thing about the last two months that I nevermentioned is the fact that except for the last week on the road, we were all living under the same roof. Full days of rehearsal and then back to Peteand Catherine’s flat. A flat the four ofus share with Pete’s son Joe, 17 years old, and Catherine’s daughter Lucy, 12,and more often than not someone else passing through.

Catherine and Peteare Collectivists of the old school; the door is always open. You know this as soon as you arrive. You put your bags down, settle for a momentand then ask if there is an extra set of keys. Pete disappears and is immediately back with a shiny, new set droppedinto your open hand. It’s like asking fora glass of water, of course, here youare, what else?

Now this could have been disaster.

Rehearsal is a pressure cooker under anycircumstances. We had a hard deadlineand no script. We decided to create acomic cabaret about the end of the world, personal extinction, famine, war, areal crowd-pleasing knee-slapper. We hadthe two foreigners (us) straining to understand simple shifts in conversationand astonished daily at the cost of a pint. And while this is all going on, Pete and Catherine are dealing with allof the everyday domestic crises, kids getting fed, phone calls returned,shopping, bills and all the rest of it. Under the best of circumstances, a little distance is a healthything. You work all day and then you goback to your haven, a quiet place away from the show, away from yourcollaborators. A little room to breathe.

Without getting all Partridge Family about it, it was anextraordinary time.

Up in the morning, jockey for showers in the one bathroom,as much coffee as you can make and drink in one of those European press things(the usefulness, purpose and existence of which completely escapes my blitheAmerican mind), dressed and troop down the road to the rehearsal space. Three hours of existential grappling,occasionally hitting something solid, like boxing a bored kangaroo blindfolded,lunch, back home for a sandwich, another four hours with the kangaroo, nowgrown restive and surly, home, bruised and wanting another round with thebrute, kids pile in, dinner which Catherine or Nancy cook with varying degreesof theatricality and panic, bottles of red wine opened and poured, specificsand overall motivations questioned, debated, defended, more wine, kids to bed,more debate, spirited but miraculously still civil and good-natured, individualretreats to our sleeping quarters, shouted good-nights, five or six hours ofsilence in the dark filled with fitful dreams and then the kids are up forschool, the sound of showers and distant, muffled collisions and conversationsfrom the kitchen, front door closing, another hour of wakeful half-sleep andthen we’re all up to do it again.

I’m just saying homicide would have been justified andeasily arguable, in a court of law, at some point along the way.

But, no. We survivednot only as collaborators but at the end, still as friends.

Simple human decency is an amazing and underrated trait, thegreatest lubricant and cooling agent in the friction and pressure of creativecollaboration. Just looking in someone’seyes and saying “good morning”, makingmore coffee even when you’ve had yours, holding open a door, these small,everyday things support everything else and mark the difference betweentolerance and harmony in an ensemble.

tour diary #12- lyth and the end of the road

2011-11-01T04:33:00.001-04:00

October 29, 2011

We wake impressively early and the view out of the window isremarkable. All around us stretch stonewalled green fields, the occasional sheep and the horizon on all sides.

The Lyth Arts Centre was founded 35 years agoby our host William Wilson and it stands as one of the most successful laborsof love I’ve ever seen. The originalstone schoolhouse, which houses the box office and lobby of the center, hasbeen renovated and expanded to include an ample bar with a roaring fireplace, asixty seat state-of-the-art performance venue, a kitchen and dining room outback for William and visiting artists, dressing rooms and storage spaces, allself-sufficient and up here at the end of the world.

We load in at eleven, walking all of thirty-six steps fromour lodging to the theater. William (orWilly as Pete and Catherine, old friends, insist on calling him) interrupts us,insisting we stop and have soup and bread. Camilla glowers but must finally give in, so we break and eat. Back to it after lunch and we’re done by2:30, hours to go before our final show.

Tim and Nancy and I climb into the van and drive over toJohn o’ Groats, the northernmost village on the British mainland, about 12miles away.

The peculiar name honors Jande Groote, a Dutchman who started running a ferry service here out to theOrkney Islands in 1496. Besides itslocation, the place doesn’t have much going for it, even suffering theindignity of a Carbuncle Award in 2010 naming it “Scotland’s most dismal town”.

But we’re charmed. The place is tiny, maybe 300 souls with an old working harbor and abunch of tourist shacks down by the water. There’s an old hotel which has been scheduled for demolition and someonehad the great idea of hiring some artists to cover it in graffiti. It’s a bizarre sight, like an East Village squatdropped down out of the sky, fully alien but beautiful and funny and we walk aroundthe whole thing, chuckling and snapping pictures.

We walk out to the end of the pier and two seals surfaceabout thirty yards out, keeping their place in the strong, constantswells. One keeps bobbing up and staringat us, his dog-like snout and black eyes studying the two Americans and theLondoner so far from home. And then wedrive to the lighthouse at Dunnet’s Head, officially the northernmost point ofthe island. You look out and can almostsee the Viking longships coming down from Scandinavia. The lighthouse is unmanned now, like most inthe country, all computerized and run by someone hundreds of miles away at a desk.And Romance is bled a little whiter from another tiny cut.

We’re back in time for naps and then over to the theater fora dinner of chicken and rice and ratatouille, sitting around a formal diningroom back behind the kitchen talking with William and Mark and their friendJane who’s up from London. The performerswarm up and it’s 7:30, so rather than hang out in front of the venue as Iusually do, I walk the thirty-six steps across the parking lot and am at home,hanging out in the kitchen, checking email, wishing it were always so civilizedand simple.

Our audience arrives and William seats themindividually. They fill the theater withthe buzz and laughter of a group of old friends and Pete and Lisa and I sit inthe back, soaking it in.

It’s golden from the very opening. Tim parts his curtain and the audience, asone, breathes out a welcoming laugh. They’reours before we’ve said a word. The showrolls out like a magic carpet and we all take the ride. Tim’s amplifier givesup the ghost right before Born to Dieand they do an a capella version to the audience’s delight. William bustles invisibly about backstage andfinds a spare speaker, Tim plugs in and we’re fine. A perfect ending in a perfect place. The audience stays afterwards, the performersgo out to mingle and Camilla and I begin the last load-out.

The others join in and we break it down, fold up the curtain, coil the cable, stack the chairs, do our jobs.

When we’re all packed and done, Camilla turns immediately tome and I find myself in her arms.

“Thanks for all the hardwork”, she whispers and I’m in tears, both then in the moment and now as Itype these words.

It was hard. And it waswork. And that’s what makes art worthdoing.

We celebrate again, into the morning.

I’ll miss these people and I’ll miss this country, though I’llbe glad deep in my bones to get back home.

But I don’t think I’ll miss this show, because I’m alreadyworking on the next draft.

And it will be stronger and funnier and take more risks, andthe fat will be trimmed because I’ve had the rare writer’s privilege ofwatching it over and over, in different places and in front of very differentcrowds and now I know it better than I ever could have if I hadn’t have joined thetour.

I’ll make it better for Nancy and Catherine and Tim. AndPete and Camilla and Ali and Kevin. Forevery technician who lent a hand and every person who listened and clapped. And even more so for those who didn’t.

I’ll even make it better for Buckie.

In fact, god bless Buckie for making all the rest of it sweeter. And if I'm ever there again, I'll try to do better and trust that Buckie will do the same.

In the end, we both did the best we could.

tour diary #11 - traveling north

2011-10-31T05:55:00.000-04:00

October 28, 2011

Up early and Camilla makes bacon rolls for everyone. We’re on the road by ten and today that’s allthere is, a travel day up to the Lyth Arts Centre, up by Wick, just a few milessouth of the end of the world.

We drive back up through the mountains. Some of it looks like Patagonia and some isreminiscent of Montana, but there’s a wild beauty that is all its own. The sun is out and the autumn colors of thefields and forests make Nancy and me homesick for New England, homesick forAmerica, homesick for home. Two monthsis a long time to be away and while we wouldn’t have missed this ride for theworld, we’re ready to get back.

We drive past the world famous Loch Ness and stop for lunchat the Eden Court Theater in Inverness. Camilla and Catherine and I have the turnip and whiskey soup, whichsounds bizarre and is delicious, and afterwards hita big Tescos in town, buying supplies for the next two days.

There’s a different tenor on this drive, a minor chord youcan hear creeping into our conversation.

We all know that the last show is tomorrow, the course isessentially run and the whole enterprise, rehearsal, opening and then the tour,is drawing to a close. It’s always thisway in the theater, especially with a new and untried piece.

There’s an intense and usually effortless bonding, a groupof people united against all odds to deliver a show. Then the shared hardship and terror ofopening night and, if it comes off at all, enormous celebration and an orgy ofmutual admiration. Add to this thephysical toll of touring, driving and sharing meals, experiencing new venues,lodging together and after a few days you become a pack, a band, a tinywandering tribe with its own language, jokes and customs, looking out for eachother, observing the ways and habits of the townspeople, taking their moneyeach night in exchange for some laughs and songs and then moving on the nextmorning, on to the next gig.

There’s the natural bond of workers doing specialized laborin different environments, everyone knows their responsibility and respects andrelies on everyone else’s contribution, but there’s also something beneath thisin the theater: a private, usually unacknowledged glee that bubbles up and carriesyou along on tour. On some level you allknow that what you’re doing is essentially quite silly, something children donaturally and then grow out of as they age, and yet here we are, theoldest touring company on the road,still doing it, still playing and pretending and jumping around in front ofpeople and not only are we getting away with it, but they’re paying us as well.

Pete and Lisa join us at a restaurant about sixty miles belowWick, having driven up from Edinburgh this morning. Except for Tim’s Jackie, back home in Leith,the couples are all reunited.

We walkinto the aptly named La Mirage in Helmsdale, a small town’s fish and chipsjoint where the world’s finest collection of kitsch has come to die. A mannequin of what looks like a CaliforniaHighway Patrolman, drawing his service revolver stands right in the middle ofthe place, hard up against half of a chorus girl with long, fishnet-stockingedlegs whose torso is now a lampshade. Countlesscurios and figurines crowd the windowsills and shelves and we sit at a table inthe back and look around, grinning and pointing in quiet awe.

A sign out front proclaims La Mirage serves one of the sixbest fish and chips in the kingdom, as determined by Clarissa DicksonWright. My comrades all nod respectfullywhen they see her name and my joke about judging from the picture of Ms. Wrightdisplayed next to her pronouncement, she has clearly sampled all of the fish and chips available inBritain, falls flat. We order coffeeonly, saving ourselves for Tim’s special pasta tonight. Our waitress disapprovingly takes our orderand returns with six Nescafes, which we suffer in penitent silence.

The sun goes down as we continue north below enormous black clouds in a dark purplesky. We arrive at the Lyth Arts Centre and are shown to the artistshousing across the parking lot, a five bedroom, two-storied dream of a guesthouse. Tim commandeers the kitchen,chopping vegetables, frying onions and preparing sauce. I settle into the living room with a glass ofwhiskey and feel the miles slip away from my shoulders and back.

We devour Brinkhurst’s Surprise, smoked salmon and garlic, onionand cherry tomatoes with ziti. The wineflows, the whiskey evaporates and we shout across the table, trading stories ofthe last few weeks, suddenly launched on a full-on, late-night tear which lastsuntil the small hours and we slip away, one by one, falling into our beds,happy and blessed to be in Lyth and nearly at the end of the journey.

tour diary #10 - braemar and thoughts on regicide

2011-10-28T04:25:00.000-04:00

October 27, 2011

Nancy Walsh has fixed my "m" key, as she has fixed so many things in my life. I can now type "America" and "home" and "magic" and "alchemy" and so many of my favorite words. Going without "m" forced me to be a more selfless writer, finding myself without "me" and "mine". Thank god that experiment is over.

Everyone has a bad night's sleep except me and we curse the Old Coach House Hotel and the Royal British Legion Hall and all of Buckie over breakfast.

Fuck Buckie seems to be the general consensus, so we drive.

We head south to Braemar and the road turns extraordinary as we climb in between vertical fields where sheep balance effortlessly. At one point it opens up and Camilla pulls over without speaking and we all gawp about. Words do no justice and we aren't even in the Highlands proper yet. The sun fills the day and the colors of the fields and forest, shades of green, yellow, rust and red turn Scotland briefly to Oz.

The van chugs and powers up the hills and down into dales. We pass the Glenlivet distillery, a secular shrine if ever there was one.

And then we pass within six miles of Balmoral, the queen's place when she's up in these parts.

I love this country and I have great love for England as well, but the fact of monarchy can drive me from polite bemusement to full-throated Robespierrian fury in less than a minute. I usually keep it to myself when I'm here, knowing I'm just a guest and minding my manners. I know people, clear-thinking, generous people, who will defend it, but for me it's like arguing for slavery.

At the end, when everything else is weighed and laid out, the cold fact is that this society has agreed that one family is better and more worthy than everyone else. They somehow deserve a massive, unearned fortune, every privilege and blessing available in the land, an army of personal assistants, chefs, chauffeurs, gardeners, maids and security personnel, and all this because one of their ancestors was a stronger, craftier and more ruthless thug than the other prominent thugs of his day.

How is this different, in essence, than a society agreeing that another family, or group of people, is less than the rest of us, born into poverty rather than wealth, stripped of all privilege instead of handed it all at birth?

One slippery step further and we can agree that the very stamp of humanity is not on their unlucky souls and they are chattel to be bought and sold.

The argument may sound extreme to some, but to me it's just the flip side of the same ancient, greasy coin.

Inherited wealth yields the same result in America, of course, but in America you're just another rich guy. I'm not expected to call you Lord or Your Majesty or any other honorific horseshit. You don't get to address the nation in times of crisis and your face isn't on the coins. We don't shut down the country when one of your offspring gets married and I'm certainly not expected to fucking bow if you deign to take my hand.

I say give them all twenty-four hours to grab whatever they can carry (which would be more than you and I will probably ever see in our lifetimes) and then it's open season on royalty. Get in a private jet and go to another island, one that's warm and covered with palm trees and good luck.

And just be glad that you got to play King and Queen for awhile there.

We arrive in beautiful Braemar and find the Village Hall. It's the smallest place we've played but warm and cozy and our set fits snugly at one end. We set it all up and find our lodging which is a fully equipped cabin with three bedrooms and a common area with a kitchen and a living room, complete with leather reclining couches. Kind of a swank, touristy feel to it, but it beats the hell out of the Old Coach House Hotel.

After our usual routine of naps and an early dinner we gather back at the hall to warm up and run a sound-check. The show sounds great in this place, the wooden walls absorb and resonate with the music and once again it looks better in a public room than it ever did inside a theater.

Our crowd arrives, easily triple the size of the Buckie brigade and the players rip into their best show of the tour. There's a confidence and an ease to the first half that they can feel and they feed off of each other, giving the show a pace and urgency and inevitability that thrills me sitting alone in the back. The second half builds off of this energy and the applause is fierce at the end.

We break down and load up with the help of John, the venue rep and then back to the cabin to celebrate. We play cards and drink cider and whiskey, glad that tomorrow's a travel day and a travel day into the Highlands at that.

tour diary #9 - buckie

2011-10-27T12:53:00.000-04:00

October 26, 2011

A big cooked breakfast at the restaurant downstairs and then we're off to Buckie at 11:00. A New Pitsligoian stops on the street as we pile into the van and thanks us for last night's show. We thank her for her patronage, she nods and walks off.

We take a detour down through the fields behind the town and into an old quarry where a hippie/entrepeneur has created a cafe/recording studio/event site/haven.

We take a quick tour given by the owner and it's one of those places where a private obsession has been rendered into glorious reality: The Lastbus Worker's Canteen.

Two old double-decker buses sit in a huge shed, both fixed out with stoves so people can sleep inside. There's a beautiful cafe, a place for bands and all sorts of other work and living spaces scattered around the grounds. A quiet energy and audacity radiates off both the owner and the site. New Pitsligo continues to surprise.

We drive along the coast to Buckie as the unexpected sun breaks away the clouds and the sea rolls in beneath us, huge cresting waves breaking against the shore. We hit Buckie and find the Royal British Legion Hall, which despite its grand title turns out be the Scottish version of a VFW hall.

And here our troubles begin.

There's a tea dance scheduled at two, which should give us two hours to set up, but signals have been crossed. We can unload, store our stuff in a corner, but that's it. And we can't get back in until four, so everything has to be in place and working at the end of three and a half hours, when the audience begins filing in.

Nothing to be done, so we unload and drive the van to the Old Coach House Hotel, down on High Street and check in. Unlike the surprising elegance of the Pitsligo digs, this is a typical hotel for these parts: a bit old-fashioned with endless carpeted hallways leading to doors leading to other hallways, little flights of steps, doors, hallways, doors, steps and there at the very end, your own door.

We nap, find lunch and walk part of the town. Judging by the dates on a few buildings, it looks to be a town built largely in the 19th century, or yesterday for this part of the world. It sits on the Bay of Spey where the great River Spey joins the North Sea and everyone who loves their whiskey gives thanks to the sweet River Spey.

We're back at the hall at four and C. is worried, aware of the ticking clock. We all pitch in and T. and I throw us further behind right away by hooking up all of the scaffold exactly wrong so we have to set it up and break it down twice before we get it right.

But the angels are on our side today. We're set, focused and sound-checked by ten to six.

But we've broken a cardinal rule, done a thing every theater person knows is bad luck and an invitation to disaster.

Recalling the hustle and panic of last night, setting up tables and searching for chairs as the crowd pushed in, we set up every table we have. The gods of theater frown on such hubris and at ten to eight a handful of locals sit in the center of the now vast hall, surrounded by the ghosts of last night's crowd.

Our heroes play hard to the tiny house and parts of the show, especially the interview sections, play better than they ever have. But the show is a heavy lift and the players earn their wages tonight. We have one walk-out at the end of Shit-Grubbers, an earned one, unlike the drunken, garrulous trio of Haddington, who probably didn't even know where they were, let alone what they were leaving.

We break down, load the van, beginning to feel the strain of the effort.

As C. pointed out Tuesday morning, before we left, we are surely the oldest touring troupe on the road. Two shows to go and we can retire for the season.

tour diary #8 - new pitsligo

2011-10-26T05:53:00.000-04:00

October 25, 2011

I’ve discovered that the letter of the English alphabet thatfalls between “l” and “n” on this keyboard is inoperable. I will continue this account using onlytwenty-five of the twenty-six letters.

Our brilliant _usician will now be known as T. and ourextraordinary production _anager will be designated C. Other than that, everything should be nor_aland just the sa_e.

A wet day, the rain isn’t falling, but it’s in the air,carried by a cool, westerly wind. We’reup early, packed and ready for the road. T. and C. pull up just after nine and we’re off, over the bridge andnorth up into Aberdeenshire. The raincatches us outside Dundee and erases the landscape of sloping valleys andsudden hills. Above Aberdeen the roadnarrows, turned two-laned and twisty, and we snake north, growing puddles onthe side of the road now, trucks blasting by and showering us with their spray.

We pull into New Pitsligo just around 1:30. It’s a low, stone, slate-roofed town, thebuildings lined up shoulder to shoulder along the road like soldiers gatheredfor inspection. We find the hall which is locked up tight and search,unsuccessfully, for an open restaurant or café. Back to the hall at two and we’re shown in by two silent scowling townfolkwho point at stacks of chairs and file away. Out front a young guy getting into his car shouts “Are you playingtonight?” We say yes and he shouts “Areyou any good?” I say buy a ticket andfind out and he shouts, “Perhaps I’ll be there and boo! I’ll heckle!” and gets in his car and drivesoff.

So the legendary kindness and generosity of the people ofNew Pitsligo turns out to be true.

We load into the New Pitsligo Public Hall, another wooden,high-ceilinged space and it’s an easy one, through a side door right off thealley. It’s just the five of us, noextra hands or venue technician to help and this is how it will be for the restof the tour. A self-reliant apocalypticquintet: bringing it in, setting it up, shouting and singing and cursing forjust over an hour and then breaking it down and on to the next town.

We check into the hotel, just down High Street, very nice digsfor a little town out in the wilds of Aberdeenshire. Naps, soup in the restaurant downstairs andback to the hall to focus lights and get ready.

A gang of old ladies waving their canes bursts in out of therain about an hour before curtain. Theyagree to wait in the kitchen until we open the house. Outside the cold rain continues to fall and Iworry about our crowd. On a wet and wildTuesday night in New Pitsligo, who wants to see a dark, brutal cabaret aboutthe end of the world? We’ll know in an hour.

At seven people appear, crowding in the tiny hallway that isour lobby. And they don’t stop, a steadyflow of couples, groups of four and five, sitting and talking and laughingtogether. I realize that they all knoweach other, of course. This is thevillage theater-going crowd. They seeeverything that passes through, regardless of title, poster, reputation orreviews. I feel a weird privilege inplaying for this tribe tonight, knowing they will talk about us the next day inthe shops and on the corners, weighing us against a shared body of experience.

We put up every table we have and line chairs up along theback and it’s just enough for everyone gathered. Lights down and the players launch into theirstrongest start yet, the dialogue crisp and confident, the tone playful andcharged. It continues, our cleanest showyet. Pace lags a little bit as the showpowers on, but that’s an insider’s critique; it’s a great show.

The crowd responds throughout and at the end, one gent evenstands at the end, applauding fiercely and grinning like a loon.

We break down, load up and sit in the bar back at the hotel,toasting each other, all tired but happy to have known New Pitsligo.

quick programming note

2011-10-25T03:18:00.000-04:00

We start our last big push this morning, driving up around Aberdeen for three shows and then further north to Lyth. Lots of road and questionable internet connection, so if I go dark for awhile, know that the whole and true story will reach you on our return. And know that somewhere out there, over the next week, we'll be carrying platforms, taping down cables, sizing up halls and spreading the good news of the Apocalypse.

tour diary #7 - haddington and the fragility of it all

2011-10-25T02:04:00.001-04:00

October 22, 2011

We head out to Haddington, about thirty miles to the east ofEdinburgh, at one.

We’re playing the Haddington Town Hall, an old steepledstone building in the middle of town with a watchtower on top and no need of asign to designate its function. If youdrove into town down the High Street and didn’t swerve left or right you’d crashright through the front windows.

Unlike the counterfeit-minted Glenrothes, Haddington is anold East Lothian settlement. Designatedas a royal burgh in the 12^th century, it sits stubbornly along theever-flooding River Tyne like a mendicant refusing to leave a busystreetcorner. English armies burned itto the ground three times in a 200 year span, marching back and forth toEdinburgh; the town rebuilt and endured. A tourist plaque on the front of the hall gives some of thehistory:
Traders did business by thegoat-topped Mercat Cross; criminals were hanged from the Nungate Bridge.
No mention of what they did with itinerantplayers peddling false tales of the apocalypse. We’ll find out tonight, I guess.

The load-in is a challenge, up a fire escape two flightsfrom the street, but Camilla has hired two local young men, Tom and Tommy, tolend their strength to the effort. Weset up, leave Camilla and the Toms to organize the lights and run a quickline-through in a small room off the main hall with chairs, a table, aclothes-rack but no mirrors. Catherinegoes around to a charity shop and picks one up for five pounds and adressing-room is born.

The set looks perfect in this little high-ceilinged, chandlieredtown hall, giving more credence to the growing thought among us that it’s not ashow to be played in theaters, it works best in bars, cabaret or foundspaces. This is something more than afew critics have mentioned and they’re probably right, observant bastards.

An overflow crowd streams up the stairs and through thedoors and Camilla and I add extra tables and hustle for chairs. The room is buzzing and the show pops at thetop but then less than twenty seconds in loud voices break out from a table inthe back. It’s hard to make out words,something like “What is this?” andthen “Shut up!” The audience and the players all react andthen plunge back in. And then again,people talking in the dark with no attempt to keep their voices down, a longerexchange this time, talking right over Catherine’s Last Words bit. People startlooking around but we’re in Scotland, so no one hushes them. It continues, a woman’s low loud voice answeredby a man’s audible mumble, then the woman chiming in again. And then again. I want to dosomething but I’m on the opposite side of the crowded room and I realize thatshouting them down in my marked American accent would just deepen the growingconfusion and probably throw the performers even further off their game. Nancy and Catherine and Tim soldier on, butthe crowd is listening to two shows and the improvised one trumps our weeks ofwork.

I lean back, arms crossed against my chest, at the back ofthe room, helpless in frustration.

This is the flip side to the thrill of live performance. Unlike any other art, even more so thandance, the actual moment of creation is precisely when the theater artists areleast in control of the art’s expression.

The act of theater only exists in the actual, passing moments shared bya group of gathered humans; printed plays aren’t theater, videotapedperformances aren’t theater, closed rehearsals aren’t theater, these are alljust artifacts or replicas or practice runs of the original and unique act. This is why a strong performance can turninto a life-altering event and is part of the reason that going to the theateris a more mindful and responsible act than going out to see a band play or watchinga movie at the cineplex.

When it catchesfire there’s a spell cast and you feel the involvement and life force of everysingle person there, all creating and sustaining the magic, the dreamers andthe dream locked in a self-perpetuating creative embrace and act of discovery.

But when it goes wrong, or pear-shaped as they say here, (whichhappens about a hundred times more often than the alchemy hinted at above),it’s like chewing and swallowing a mouthful of coffee grounds while smiling andtrying to carry on a civil conversation with a stranger.

It can come from any and every direction; it can happen atany time. Each object, individual and ghost or gremlin in the room orimmediately outside it is a potential assassin and you sit there and watch yourbaby die.

A lamp blows and the actor stands in the dark, deliveringthe one essential speech. A child sitsin the front row, listening rapt to the sweating, swearing actors, in full viewof the rest of the audience who worry about her moral corruption instead oflistening to the nuances of the script. An actor blithely drops a line and his partner leaps ahead three pagesand they fight in the quicksand of public panic, trampling the play to death intheir attempt to find their footing.

Anold woman bursts into a fit of tubercular coughing, a cellphone sings out in thedark, a crucial prop sits forgotten in the wings, the usher admits a whisperinggang of latecomers ten minutes after the show has started and they fumble totheir seats, stealing the focus and breaking whatever meager spell you’vestarted to cast.

I’ve had fire alarms go off, fist fights in the corridoroutside, rats the size of dachshunds dash across the stage, stools collapse andsplinter under astonished actors, flats shudder, wobble and float grandly tothe floor, all manner of mayhem and misfortune and the show, such as it is, does indeed stumble on. Even when you wish you could put a shotgun to its temple and end its life like a spent horse in the Old West. And everyone reading thiswho’s spent more than three years in the game has all of those stories and better besides.

It’s what makes you vow never to do it again at least threetimes in the course of a so-called career.

It’s what makes you think hard about filmwhere you can capture the one radiant performance, edit out the pauses andvestigial lines and throw a moody soundtrack under the whole thing and it's done, frozen forever just as you want it.

But then lightning strikes again, everything is illuminatedand captured and clear and you stumble out of the theater amazed, converted anew,damned to do it again.

The voices continue.

The show flops around in front of us like afish stuck on a spear.

And then, justbefore the halfway point, during ThreeVersions of Hell, they rise and cross in front the stage and are gone. Afterwards we piece together from others in the crowd thatit was a very drunk man who hit upon the brilliant idea of bringing his wife and his ex-wife to our show. Possible mental instability on the part ofone of the brides. Inconclusive but likely.

Our first walk-outs and good riddance. The crowd settles and genuinely enjoys thesecond half, loud and long applause at the end.

It’s Camilla’s birthday so after we’ve broken everythingdown and loaded up the van we give her cards and various bottles of booze onthe street. Tim has an old LP for her,something called Lady Rocks and we sing and toast our one indispensablecomrade, climb in and drive back home.

tour diary #6 - glenrothes

2011-10-24T04:21:00.000-04:00

October 21, 2011

Up before the sun for a radio interview about the show. A car picks me up outside, drives me throughthe empty, pre-dawn streets and drops me off at BBC Scotland. The guy at the front desk is not expecting me oranyone else this early, he’s got the television on watching some militaryhistory program about the invasion of Panama. He makes some calls, offers me coffee and Isip and wait.

My story checks out so my man ushers me into a small, paddedroom with a microphone and a set of earphones. Turns out the show is coming out of Glasgow and I’m doing a remote, so Isit alone and listen to a Libyan-born Scotswoman talking about the death ofGaddafi. She does the weird modernshuffle/dance around the death of a villain, “We’re all very excited and happy, not that we take joy in someone’sdeath, but it’s a good day.” Why dowe all need to do this these days? I washappy to hear that Bin Laden was dead. Simple, straightforward, glad he was gone. Son-of-a-bitch killed 3000 people a mile anda half from where I sleep. No moralambiguity there.

I’m on and the hosts are well-prepared, they obviously havethe press release open in front of them, so it’s an easy five minute back andforth banter and I’m done. A car iswaiting outside and I’m back home, slip into the flat just before 8:00,everyone still asleep so I sit in the kitchen alone, thrumming with too muchcaffeine too early, too jazzed to get back in bed, too tired to get anythingdone.

The van picks us up out front at 11:00, we pile in and headeast out of Edinburgh, over the magnificent Forth Road Bridge and into the kingdomof Fife, heading for Glenrothes.

Fife was one of the old Pictish kingdoms of Scotland, apeninsula bordered between the Firth of Tay above and the Firth of Forth below,both flowing east into the great North Sea. St. Andrews is here, so here is where golf was born, as well as IanAnderson, Jethro Tull frontman and hero of my youth. Also poor Gordon Brown, byall local accounts a good man corrupted by compromise and forever in the shadeof the silver-tongued Blair.

We turn off the motorway and are immediately trapped in thesprawl, a feeling joltingly familiar to anyone who has driven in America. We crawl through a town drawn by a child butrobbed of the crayon’s color and any native charm. Boxlikebuildings, all stark rectangles and squares, randomly placed on a flatlandscape under a paper-white sky. Wecould be in Dayton, Ohio, Florissant, Missouri, Denton, Texas, any town in thegreat American in-between.

Glenrothes is one of the “new cities” created bygovernmental decree in Scotland after World War II and like all good-intentionedprojects of grand social engineering, it‘s a grim, soul-freezing horror. Theonly thing that sets it apart from the other new cities is that, unique in theUK, the majority of the town’s center is indoors.

This turns out to be as scary as it sounds.

We’re playing the Glenrothes Halls, which is part of theenormous shopping mall/entertainment complex/hive that hunkers squatly in themiddle of the non-town. The kidscluster by the entranceways, woolen hats pulled down low, kicking distractedlyat skateboards, smoking unconvincingly, bored. Riot fodder if they could onlybe bothered.

We unload, set up and then head into the complex looking forlunch. It’s an endless, bright corridorof shops and the Glenrothians are crawling over every square foot of it. We find a Greggs, buy pre-packaged sandwichesand fight our way back upstream to the performance hall. There’s a certain uniform pallor to thepeople in the mall, faces leached of all color, bad skin, tired eyes and I geta flash of Mole People dread or lunar colony hopelessness. We run some lines in the dressing-room andthen try to catch a nap before the show. There’s no couch, so Nancy and I lay out coats and sweaters and huddletogether on the thinly carpeted cement floor under the bright fluorescentlights, which are controlled by some master switch deep in the bowels of theHive, no way to turn them off. Miraculously, I sleep.

Up and down to the space for a sound check, warm-up and thenour audience trickles in. The showstarts and the days off show a little bit, you can see the performers ahalf-step behind in some bits but it’s a solid show. It’s our most deeply divided audience yet,some people laughing hard early, others shrinking into sullen silence. The Shit-Grubbers section, which kicks offthe second half and is on one level just an exercise in pure juvenile profanity,serves as a clear line drawn in the sand. Sections of the audience are whooping and giggling helplessly while an arcticchill grows around them. Catherine andNancy bring it home at the end, their confidence growing throughout the showand the applause is strong and earned.

We break it all down, load up the van and drive the hell outof Glenrothes.

I feel for the Mole People of Fife and I’m grateful that I canjust drive away from the Hive.

May god blessyou all, but you live in a right shite-hole.

I craft, nimbly

2011-10-21T03:06:00.000-04:00

I've always found Anna Hafsteinsson, of the Journal, to be one of Scotland's wisest, most perceptive and astute young critics. I've felt this way ever since I first encountered her work early yesterday morning online.

Judge for yourself, though, below:

"Two eccentric, turban-wearing, fat bottomed dames present to you, their captive audience, THE END OF THE WORLD. Yes, 'Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Apocalypse and the last hour and seven minutes of your life. We hope you enjoy the show'.

This daring little performance, brought to you by The Occasional Cabaret and directed by Peter Clerke, is creative, thoughtful, and wickedly dark at times. All in all, an hour and seven minutes thoroughly well spent. This show, however, was much more than your typical Cabaret performance, boasting a real depth and intelligence in John Clancy’s nimbly crafted script and in performances from Catherine Gillard and Nancy Walsh that bring it to life with such vigor and panache. Apocalypse boldly confronts our terrifying modern world, in all its brazen glory.

After this performance it might feel as though you’ve been bombarded with few textbooks worth of existential philosophy to process. This, though, is not necessarily a bad thing. It is brilliantly audacious theatre that asks us to question ourselves and our assumptions, that attempts to uncover the real heart of the human condition, that endeavors to wake us from our ‘21st century sleep'.

There are points in the production where it seems like this dynamic duo might just have crossed the line of what is morally acceptable, even for progressive theatre, but those wildly inappropriate moments (for example, an awards show sketch honouring the greatest mass murderers of all time) are somehow transformed into a device used to flip our perceptions and prompt our brains out of their dozy stupors.

The musical direction, from Tim Brinkhurst, flawlessly combines biting satirical numbers with country inspired ditties that would not seem out of place at a Dolly Parton show. The accompanying singer/guitarist – a silver fox of a gentleman with a voice like butter and very cool shoes – must also have a mention. Even in our seemingly bleak world of overpopulation, famine, floods, hurricanes and terrorist attacks, one leaves the depths of the Traverse feeling hopeful, even excited, and very glad that it wasn't the end of the world."

See what I mean?

Off to Fife tonight, things are about to get interesting...

days off and absent friends

2011-10-20T04:03:00.000-04:00

October 16, 2011

A day off, with four more to come. The exhaustion of the last two weeks catchesup with us and we nap through a long easy day, gathering around the table ateight to devour Catherine’s Sunday evening roast. They say there’s no rest for the wicked, buttoday we caught a break.

October 17, 2011

The weather seems to be finally changing this morning aftersix weeks of unexpected sunshine and warm weather. A strong wind rattles the windows and a coldsteady rain falls on all those outside cursed with appointments and gainfulemployment.

Nancy and I hibernate, eating homemade macaroni and cheese,staring out the windows in dreamy silence, letting the minutes tick away uncounted. I revel in David Eagleman’s magnificent Sum, a book that fills me with the amazement and giddy pleasure I haven’t feltsince I was a kid taking Vonnegut and Brautigan down from my parents’ bookshelf.

Everything is putaside for today: the show, business back home long since neglected, billsunpaid, all willing to wait patiently in a quiet room down the hall from thisdark, wet Edinburgh day.

October 18, 2011

The sun has returned but the day stays cool and I feel therestlessness of too much idle time.

I’ve rewritten the Awards Ceremony bit, taking a good notefrom Paul Lucas who saw the show on Saturday. And I’ve got a special insert for the Glenrothes show, October 21^st,which is the new date for the End of the World as calculated by Dr. HaroldCamping out in California. Camping wasthe guy who had it set for last May and he got worldwide attention both beforeand (especially) after it didn’t quite come off. We decide to wait and see if the media overhere give it any play, if so, we can drop it in on the day.

In the afternoon I write up the cast list for Captain Overlord’s Folly which is beingpublished by indietheater now, a new nytheatre.com outfit. And I type the name Melissa Lynch and I haveto stop and step away from the table for a moment.

Most of you didn’t know Melissa. Most of the world didn’t since she was killedin a car wreck outside Philadelphia less than a year ago at the heartbreakingand unimaginably young age of 27.

Shewas here with us three years ago with CaptainOverlord and I got to work with her on a couple of other things beforethat. Young, talented, beautiful peopledying too soon is one of the things you never accept but have to live with asyou get older.

There are no words, but Imiss her terribly and mourn, not just for her but for all of us who saw herburn so brightly and then saw the light snap off.

She's in the middle up above, between Eva Van Dok and Barb Pitts, in a picture taken about a mile east of where I now sit, a little over three years ago, a lifetime ago, yesterday.

Thanks for all the good times, kid. If there's a green room up in heaven, I know I'll see you there .

tour diary #5 - last night at the trav

2011-10-19T04:55:00.001-04:00

October 15, 2011

That son-of-a-bitch Ben keeps us all in bed until 10:30 onthis cursed Saturday morning. Pete isoff to Winchester for a job, gone a week, so we set sail tonight without acaptain.

It’s been a tough show to direct. The cabaret structure means there is nonarrative, no story to unfold and coax along, but like any piece of theater itneeds cohesion and logical development, a strong sense of internal drive andmomentum. Over the last six weeks Petehas been up late alone at the kitchen table, rearranging bits, buildingsections and sussing out the spine of the script while the rest of usslept. I don’t envy him the job, but I’mglad he was there to do it.

Directing is one of the stranger jobs in this alreadystrange business. The modern director aswe all know it in the West was invented only about a hundred and thirty yearsago. Before that the lead actor or theimpresario would pretty much call the shots and everyone was expected to knowtheir lines and bits of stage business and everything worked out fine, or atleast as well and as often as it does now.

The writer writes, the designer paints and sews, the playersperform, the musicians play and our modern director is tasked with putting itall together, making it all one sensible thing. Hard enough when you sit down at the first rehearsal with a finished,tested script, but when you’re devising and creating as you go along it’s likeworking on the engine of a car while it’s flying down the highway, trying tosteer and keeping the terrified passengers calm, all at the same time.

After a long, quiet day we get to the theater for a sixo’clock call. Been following the OccupyWall Street worldwide protests and wondering if we should change some of thelines about the purposelessness of modern-day civil disobedience, but we decideto let it stand for now.

A strange show tonight, the audience is small and quiet,almost frozen in their seats. But theyapplaud throughout, something that hasn’t happened before and there is theusual laughter and response at the end. In the bar afterwards, friends are vocal and sincere in their praise,going on long past what would be obligatory social lying, so we shrug andaccept the fact that it was a good show, even if it felt like breaking rocks inthe noonday sun.

tour diary #4 - killing at the traverse

2011-10-18T05:00:00.000-04:00

October 14, 2011

I’ve passed my cold on to Pete, so we sniffle and shufflearound the apartment, eat a late breakfast and, inevitably, trawl the internetfor reviews. Thom Dibdin of the Stageweighs in, another positive voice to add into the mix:

"A telling piece whichbodes well for Clerke and Gillard’s latest venture after the demise ofBenchtours, and makes great use of Edinburgh Festival Fringe favourites, ClancyProductions."

Dibdin’s an old friend from festivals past and we caught up after the show, me careful not to ask him what hethought, him careful not to tip his hand.

I’ve always had anhonest and easy relationship with critics both here and at home, something manyof my colleagues find suspicious if not downright perverse. Maybe it’s from having journalists in thefamily, but I’ve always found them a hard-working, harried, underpaid lot,always up against a deadline. I've only felt well and truly screwed a couple of times over the last twenty years; everyone wants to read a rave every time, but then again everyone wants a standing ovation every night, everyone wants to burn the place down. All you can do is try to do your job and accept that the critic is going to try and do hers.

Another line-through around the kitchen table, still tryingto find that ease and mastery that allow good performances to blaze into greatones. Nancy and Catherine are bothworking like champions and I know I’ve given them a Herculean task with thisscript. How do you judge without beingjudgmental? How do you ask an audienceto stare into the abyss and coax a laugh out of them at the same time? But they’re two pros and they’re both gamefor it and the show is getting stronger every night.

We meet at the theater at four for a production meeting togo over the next stage of the tour. Thenext week is all one-offs, loading in each morning, packing it up and drivinghome every night.

It’s this part of it, the physical work of theater that Ilove the most, the gang of people that gather every night and actually do something. It’s the thing that separates it from almostall of the other arts and a tour magnifies this truth and makes itmanifest. We all have our jobs,unloading, setting up, performing, breaking down, loading up the van again andthen Tim or Camilla will drive us all back home.

Dinner around the corner and then back to the theater whereI set up the camera to get a tape of the show tonight. Free from the draconian Actors EquityAssociation Code we labor under in New York, we can tape as many performancesas we want, put clips up on YouTube and market the show in true 21^stcentury fashion. Also, we’ll havesomething to show promoters and producers interested in booking us down theline. If they can’t see it, they won’tbuy it and that’s a hard and fast rule.

Friends are in tonight, Kath Mainland, director of theEdinburgh Festival Fringe and her man Ray along with the Gridiron crew. Gridiron is a brilliant local company,heavily awarded from many festivals past and we’ve grown close over the yearsin the Bedouin way, meeting up every few years in different cities, instantcommunion, sharing the same stories about different catastrophes, outrages andthe occasional rare triumph on the long, strange road of alternative art/showbiz.

And it’s a great show for our friends and the othersgathered, our strongest show yet I think, though Pete prefers Stirling. I see his point, Stirling was a funhouse ridewith no sense of what was going to happen next, tonight’s show is morecontrolled with less of the danger and thrill that the real possibility offalling off a cliff sparks in a performer’s eyes, but still, the response isthe strongest and most consistent throughout the night and I’m glad I’ve got itdown on tape.

Ben from Gridiron buys us all too much wine in the barafterwards and we will blame him in the morning for being a bad companion andspoiling our good intentions of an early night.

tour diary #3 - traverse

2011-10-17T04:45:00.000-04:00

October 13, 2011

I wake nursing a slight cold I picked up wandering Berwick yesterday and sit in the bright kitchen alone drinking coffee and scanning the news sites, marveling at the ascendancy of Herman Cain and then of course searching high and low for any new reviews of the show. Nothing, which is just fine.

We play the Traverse tonight, a theater exactly as old as I am, formed in 1963 and the home of new writing here in Scotland. We started the Horse Country tour here in January of 2003, a great space with the best theater bar in town.

We run lines in the kitchen and then drive up to the Traverse at four, check out the nicest dressing rooms and green room we’ll see for the entire tour and then downstairs to the theater. It’s the only place we’re playing where they’re leaving the fixed seating in as they have an afternoon show each day we’re here. Camilla has managed to get four tables on the deck, squeezed up tight against our stage, but it looks like it will work. Kevin and the technicians are setting the lights and they’re running a little behind so we sit and talk in the shifting darkness, talking through the changes which mostly involve how Nancy and Catherine can move through the crowd during the interview sections and the horsemen cabaret walk bits.

Nancy and I have an early dinner at Shakespeare’s, a pub across the road from the theater. I remember the place from eight years ago when it was thick with cigarette smoke and alive with rugby enthusiasts shouting at the enormous television screens mounted on all the walls. It’s quieter and cleaner now and the clientele sit singly at tables, staring silently at a cricket match with the volume turned down.

Back to the theater and an audience piles in, quickly filling up the tables and spilling into the fixed seating in the back. Another mixed crowd, teenagers, older couples and some friends from festivals past. Critics are in again tonight, the Traverse being a sort of second opening, which is good for us with the benefit of six shows under our collective belt.

A good show, lots of laughter early, but the performers seem tired and are working a little too hard. Big applause at the end and friends in the bar afterwards are generous with what sounds like honest praise. Pete and I know better but are happy with the response. The show is a tightrope and our balance was off tonight, we’ll nail it tonight or tomorrow.

tour diary #2- berwick-upon-tweed

2011-10-15T04:24:00.006-04:00

October 12, 2011

It’s Berwick-upon-Tweed tonight, a small coastal town.

We head south at noon and the road is flat and unremarkable for about an hour until the North Sea appears on our left and we zoom along its looping shore.

Berwick-upon-Tweed changed hands thirteen or fourteen times between Scotland and England, all years ago and in a relatively short span. The English, of course, wrested it back last and we cross the border and drive into the medieval town.

We pile out of the van, Nancy and Catherine stiff from the cramped back seat and we’re at The Maltings Art Center, a pretty little complex perched up on top of this fortified hill of a town. We’re playing in the Henry Travers Studio and while you don’t know his name, we all know his face. Along with dozens of roles in Hollywood films, he was Clarence the angel, sent down to save Jimmy Stewart from jumping off the bridge in Frank Capra’s classic It’s a Wonderful Life. He was born around the corner from here in 1874, the son of an Irish doctor from Cork and he died in California 91 years later. Local boy made very good.

After lunch and coffee in the café we unload the van, set up the stage and leave Camilla and the house technicians to figure out the lights. A line-through in the green room and then Catherine and Nancy find quiet places to rest and I hit the town.

It’s easy to see why this little place was fought over so fiercely and I imagine it’s been inhabited for tens of thousands of years, long before Edward I and Wallace drew swords. It’s set up on a steep hill right between the shore of the North Sea and the broad, deep River Tweed. Fishermen’s paradise and easy to defend. I wander around High Street, in and out of the charity shops and then see an old graveyard on the seaside side of town. I step through the iron gates, feeling like a trespasser and am immediately confirmed in this apprehension when a loud English voice behind me shouts “Hello! Can I help you?”

“Just looking around”, I say and the white-haired, business-suited owner of the voice bellows,

“If you want to see the church, come now before Stephen locks it!”

And then to the unseen Stephen,

“Stephen! Someone to see the church! Don’t lock it up yet!”

So I’m in the church, turning to thank the Englishman, now gone.

It’s small, stone, beautiful and very old with extraordinary stained glass illuminated by the thin late afternoon sun. I breathe out an involuntary “Wow.” And next to me there’s a chuckle and it must be Stephen, a tiny, old man, his face split by a constant grin. I ask him how old the church is and he tells me the history of The Church of the Holy Trinity and Saint Mary, consecrated in 1652 and finished ten years later, the only parish church built under Cromwell’s reign and the northernmost Anglican church in England. He points up to the roof and says the timbers and the stone walls were all taken from the ruins of the castle that used to stand in the center of town. “They call it recycling now.”

Back to the theater and Nancy and Catherine are warming up, I help to set up some tables and then the terrible wait begins. For a performer the hour before the show is hard, but at least there’s a focus to it, you can gather your strength, run the lines in your head, occupy yourself usefully. For the director or the writer, it’s empty time. Nothing for you to do, nothing more to be done, just wait and hope for the best.

Our audience arrives, thirty or so strong. I see a vigorous, elderly woman come in alone, march right up to one of the front tables and sit and lean forward expectantly, elbows on the tabletop, looking like she’s come to a town meeting and prepared for a lively debate. My heart sinks a bit, again remembering the harshness and profanity of the piece, but again, nothing to be done now.

Lights down, curtain up and the show roars to a start, easy and constant laughter in the dark. It’s sloppier than it’s been, both Nancy and Catherine jumping lines, but both in control and steering the dialogue back, covering for each other, the audience never aware that anything is off. A good sign, the relaxed focus of a confident team working together. And the loudest laughs are coming from the old woman in front, reminding me again of the folly of prejudice. Easy to forget that the old were once young and not that long ago and they lived through times arguably more interesting than ours.

Big applause at the end and we break down the show, load up the van, a quick drink in the theater bar downstairs and then the drive back to Edinburgh where we start a three-day stand at the Traverse tomorrow night.

on the road

2011-10-14T06:14:00.005-04:00

Been awhile since the Museum's been open for business and honestly thought about burning the old place down for the insurance money.

Glad I didn't, since this is the perfect place to gather around and hear the tale of our fateful trip...

Occasional Cabaret (Peter Clerke and Catherine Gillard) and Clancy Productions (John Clancy and Nancy Walsh) collaborated to create a new cabaret piece Apocalypse! in September, 2011. Original music and musical direction was provided by Tim Brinkhurst, sets and costumes were created by Ali Maclaurin, the show was lit by Kevin MacCallum and production was managed by Camilla O’Neill.

On opening night, October 5, 2011, Joyce McMillan of the Scotsman wrote:

What's exciting about this fierce and ragged show is the way in which it tries to shake up theatrical form… timely, disturbing, and so well worked out in the best of Clancy's writing - that the show is impossible to resist, and it slices down to the hidden reality of the way we live now, in a way that makes the rest of our theatrical world seem pallid, and a little short of the courage it takes to face a terrible truth.

The following is a day-to-day account of the tour.

October 10, 2011

Five weeks ago we walked down the road and started our first rehearsal for Apocalypse. Five days ago we opened in Glasgow to a rowdy reception and three major critics watched and dutifully reported what they saw. No one hated it and the heavy in the crowd loved it, so we live to perform another day. The tour proper starts tomorrow with a date in Stirling, followed by a show in Berwickshire, three nights at the Traverse here in Edinburgh and then on to Aberdeen and points north.

The reviews, as always, set the tone for this next stage. Almost every artist you talk to claims to never read them and every single serious artist I know not only reads them but hunts them down compulsively the moment the curtain is down opening night and then memorizes every word, glowing and damning both. It’s an unjust and unavoidable part of the job. Sentences are handed down by the unelected judges and there is no court of appeals and the death penalty is not only still on the books, but frequently and capriciously rendered.

Our notices range from respectful to very good, so there is none of the doubt and quiet ill will that can poison a company after a few bad reviews.

Two hour rehearsal back in our original room, put two lines right at the top, welcoming the audience in, changes the whole opening, gives the performers a launching pad, working through Nancy’s two monologues, making them broader and more comic. How do you get people laughing about starving kids in Africa? Challenge of the whole show.

October 11

Up late after being up late. This afternoon we drive out to Stirling with three tickets sold. Tim picks us up in a rental and we drive out of Edinburgh around 2:00, past the estates, low stone houses, a beautiful area that we are told is the bad part of town. A part of Edinburgh the Festival crowd never sees. And then we are immediately in the countryside, green farmland stretching away from the road on both sides and the enormous low clouds hugging the hills on the horizon.

A short hours drive, passing the castle of Stirling, site of a great battle and used in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, a movie all Scots scoff at reflexively. About 900 years ago, September 11, 1297, Wallace led his troops across Stirling Bridge, defeating the forces of Edward I. Now you can take an audio tour and get your picture taken with a guy dressed up as a 14th century Scottish warrior.

The venue, the MacRobert, is on the campus of the University of Stirling, renowned for its high rate of suicide among the student population. We pull in, find the theater and find Camilla who’s been here since this morning, setting up.

Our stage sits incongruously in what looks like a small indoor mall. They’ve set us up in the foyer of the main theater with a working bar/cafe stage right and the ladies room stage left. It feels like the kind of place where you’d stand and sing Christmas carols while armies of shoppers trudge by, ignoring you. And in the unintended hilarity of regional touring I see that we’re following a children’s show called How the Koala Learnt to Hug. The MacRobert is covering all of its bases today. Good news is we’ve practically doubled our sales since this morning. Current total ticket sales stands at five.

The actors warm up in the space but it’s hard to run any of the bits because we’re essentially in a public place and little knots of children keep running through, chasing each other and screeching. I realize how profane most of the show is and we all begin to gear up for a rough night.

And then, ten minutes before show time, the magic and mystery of word-of-mouth kicks in and an audience arrives. Couples, groups of students, even a family with their teen-aged son, all buying tickets for the show. We scramble to set up more chairs, even have to add two additional tables and we play a raucous, spirited cabaret to our best house yet, laughing and engaged throughout. There are probably only 35 people there but they feel like 300 and the applause afterwards is long and loud. Pete and I silently shake hands and I thank all the theater gods for blessing us in Stirling tonight.

12 out of 12 boards agree

2010-05-25T10:48:00.001-04:00

ALL 12 MANHATTAN COMMUNITY BOARDS UNANIMOUSLY SUPPORT
TARGETED PROPERTY TAX ABATEMENT FOR NEW YORK CITY’S ENDANGERED SMALL TO MID-SIZED NON-PROFIT THEATERS
AND PERFORMING ARTS COMMUNITY

NEW YORK - May 24, 2010 - Manhattan Community Board 10 (Central Harlem) recently became the 12th out of 12 Manhattan Community Boards which voted (at the full board level) in support of a resolution calling on New York City and New York State elected officials to create through legislation a targeted property-tax abatement that would help remedy the current fiscal and real estate crises which are endangering “core” small to mid-sized non-profit theaters and other non-profit performing arts organizations throughout New York City.
In addition, this innovative proposal has earned the support of Manhattan’s Borough Board, a body chaired by Manhattan Borough President Stringer that consists of the Manhattan’s community boards and city councilmembers, who meet monthly to discuss issues of importance facing the Borough of Manhattan.
When informed of this Community Board development, Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis said, “As a person who has run and operated a small theater for many years, I salute the Manhattan Community Boards for working together so ingeniously on such a confounding problem!”

In Manhattan, approximately 50 “core” theaters provide access to affordable performance space for over 400 small theater companies (commonly known as Off-Off B'way) and many other performing arts organizations***. This community board effort seeks to incentivize landlords to offer longer leases at below market rates to these core set of venues. The entire sector depends on low cost space, which makes risk-taking and incubation of new work and new talent possible. The proposal presumes that New York City’s viability is tied to the arts and that the vitality of New York City’s entire performing arts sector is at stake.

Engaging the support of the community boards of the other four NYC boroughs is the next objective of this Manhattan community board alliance. To that end, the staffs of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Council Speaker Christine Quinn are assisting the cultural community (including art support agencies: Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York [A.R.T./New York], Innovative Theater Foundation and League of Independent Theater) and the Manhattan Community Boards in their efforts to connect with city resources and other contacts that will be helpful in reaching out to the other boroughs; and in the collection of information concerning those "core" theaters which will be affected by this proposal. That all the Manhattan Community Boards have been successful so far in working with each other and many of New York City’s elected officials serves as a sign that this proposal is engendering legitimate public support

At the first ever Public Forum on the State of Small to Mid-Sized Theaters held on February 17, 2009 at the world famous theatre club, The Players’, organized and presented by Manhattan Community Boards 1-5, Borough President Scott Stringer challenged the overflow crowd of more than 300 individuals (who represented the majority of small to mid-sized theater companies in NYC) to come up with innovative solutions their elected officials could advocate for. The Manhattan Community Boards have taken that mandate seriously and have met many times in public sessions over the ensuing months to discuss innovative solutions to deep-rooted problems facing the sector. This resolution which has garnered unanimous support of all 12 Manhattan Community Boards and the Manhattan Borough Board is a significant achievement.
Robert Lyons, Artistic Director of the embattled Ohio Theater says, "Congratulations to the Manhattan community boards for recognizing both the micro-economic functions of the arts in our neighborhoods as well as their macro-economic development benefits to NYC."
To receive more information, learn of new developments and how you can support its legislative prospects, send an email to David M. Pincus, Chair of Manhattan Community Board 4’s Theater Task Force / Managing Director, WorkShop Theater Company: david@workshoptheater.org with the words “Subscribe me” in the Title.
*** (Innovative Theater Foundation, 2009 Study www.nyitawards.com/survey)
-------------------------------------

ART/NY (www.art-newyork.org), New York Innovative Theatre Foundation (www.nyitawards.com) and the League of Independent Theater (www.litny.org) offer their full support to the New York City Community Boards on this important issue. We are inspired by the dedication and camaraderie of the community boards and encourage members of the Off-Off-Broadway and small-to-mid-sized non-profit performing arts community to participate in upcoming meetings regarding this matter.

3LD in trouble

2010-05-17T10:57:00.002-04:00

The Metropolitan Transit Authority has threatened to evict the experimental media and theater group 3-Legged Dog from its Lower Manhattan building. The authority notified the group on Friday that it would begin eviction proceedings on Monday if 3-Legged Dog did not pay the more than $306,000 it owes the authority in back rent and interest. The group signed a 20-year lease in 2002 for space at 80 Greenwich Street, now known as 3LD Art & Technology Center, agreeing to pay $21,666.67 per month there after its former location at 30 West Broadway was destroyed in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, The Wall Street Journal reported. Kevin Cunningham, 3-Legged Dog’s executive artistic director, confirmed that the company had fallen behind in payments when foundations withdrew financial support because of the recession. He also said the theater had been forced to spend its own money on building maintenance, including asbestos abatement, without reimbursement from the authority. Though he said he had offered to negotiate a payment plan, the two companies have been unable to reach an agreement. The authority’s spokesman, Jeremy Soffin, told The Journal, “I don’t know how anyone can justify letting this tenant rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in back rent at a time when state cuts and deteriorating tax revenues have forced the M.T.A. to lay off station agents and cut service.”

And this is Kevin Cunningham in a comment on Mathew Freeman's excellent blog On Theatre and Politics, www.matthewfreeman.blogspot.com:

If you want to help get the word out that 3LD is open and booked into 2012. The real story is that the MTA owes us $1.6 million in construction costs and reimbursement from our build out of their facility which sat empty for a decade before 3LD turned it into an internationally recognized arts center. They have been very arrogant and have ignored our demands for payment since we first made them in March of 2005. Write your elected officials and tell them to make MTA do the right thing and repay 3LD. Write to the news outlets and demand that they print our side of the story. Donations always help when hard times hit. 3LD is not alone unfortunately. The City and the Funding community are going to have to change their priorities or there will be many more stories like this in the very near future.

well said, Ed

2010-04-30T16:11:00.001-04:00

"I think I'm a very political writer but I don't write political tracts. Drama has a different function, which society is pushing out, and that's dangerous. Theatre is communication between people. That's why I hate it when writers are clever."

Edward Bond from an interview in today's Guardian

immediate action needed

2010-04-28T17:33:00.001-04:00

FACT SHEET from ART/NY

Proposed 2010-11 NYSCA Budget

On April 27, 2010, Governor David Paterson announced a revised Executive Budget proposal for the 2010-11 fiscal year. This new proposal recommends a total of $25.2 million for NYSCA's Local Assistance (grant making) budget.

The Governor's proposal also calls for a 2011-12 Local Assistance allocation of $25.2 million.

The Governor's most recent proposal represents a nearly 40% [39.4%] decrease in Local Assistance funding from 2009-10 levels ($41.6 million).

A 40% cut to NYSCA's Local Assistance Budget far exceeds proposed cuts at most other New York State Agencies.

Governor Paterson has also proposed reducing NYSCA's administrative budget to $4.84 million in 2010-11. This represents a nearly 12% [11.84%] decrease from 2009-10 levels ($5.49 million).

The Governor's proposed 2010-11 budget for NYSCA totals $30.4 million. This places New York State's funding of the Arts on par with Minnesota, which provided $30.3 million dollars in arts funding in 2009-10 (the 2nd highest level of funding in the US behind New York). Source: National Assembly of State Arts Agencies

At this level of funding, New York State's per capita spending on Arts would drop from $2.48 to $0.77. New York's ranking as the 3rd highest per capita support for the Arts in the US would drop to 26th, ranking just above Arkansas at $0.74 per capita and below the national average of $0.90 per capita. Source: National Assembly of State Arts Agencies

ACTION STEPS: Please fax the attached letter or call your State Senator and Assembly Member immediately.

April 27, 2010

Dear State Senator/State Assembly Member ____

Today I learned that Governor Paterson made additional cuts to the State budget. Among the agencies he targeted is The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), which is to receive a $17 million cut. Not only is this one of the State's smallest agencies, it was hit with the largest cut! This year, NYSCA had a budget of $42+ million. Today, the Governor proposed that the Agency receive $25 million - a 40% cut to the Local Assistance Budget!

With its current budget of $42.6 million dollars, the New York State Council on the Arts fostered a $25 BILLION INDUSTRY! In other words, despite the recession, the Arts have served as a Secret Stimulus package for New York State.

Why then, would the Governor, who is trying to save the State money, consider a cut which will COST it $10 Billion in revenues from tourism, jobs, and hurt the small businesses that depend upon the arts for their livelihood?

The arts also drive neighborhood revitalization. If these cuts go through, what will happen to Chelsea, Dumbo, Williamsburg, Fort Greene, and Jackson Heights?

While the $17 million he proposes to cut is a tiny portion of the State deficit, it represents over a third of the agency's funding! These cuts take us back to the Agency's budget levels in 1992 (when A.R.T./New York had 150 theatre members, as opposed to the nearly 300 members we have today). In fact, the cuts are so severe that NYSCA will have to institute staff furloughs.

Isn't $17 million a small price to pay for an industry that provides financial, social, and spiritual sustenance to New Yorkers? Do we really expect New York to remain the State of the Arts when we fund the arts at its lowest level since 1989? Do we really expect to remain the arts capital of the world when our per capita funding will rank 26th in the country, just above Arkansas?

Please support restoration to the New York State Council on the Arts.

Sincerely,

strength in numbers

2010-04-27T14:54:00.002-04:00

Nice gathering last night at the Ohio. Full recap should be up on the LIT site and the NYITA site by the end of the week.

Rose stays silent so Ann goes down, never finding the cost of freedom.

tonight

2010-04-26T11:31:00.002-04:00

Need you there.

MMMQ at end of post.

On Monday, April 26th The League of Independent Theater and the Innovative Theatre Foundation will co-sponsor The Community Forum on the Ohio Theatre. The event will begin at 6:30pm at the Ohio Theatre located at 66 Wooster Street in Soho, NY.

After two years of negotiation, two lease extensions, and a 29-year history as an indispensable pillar of the downtown theatre scene, the Ohio Theatre must close the doors at its Wooster Street space forever on August 31, 2010.

The April 26th event will reunite local elected officials and members of the independent theatre community in an open forum to discuss solutions to the real estate crises affecting small theaters and the progress and momentum that has been made over the past year – specifically with regard to the tax abatement proposal currently before the Community Boards. In addition, there will be a discussion as to what steps can be taken to secure the remaining venues within the sector and help locate a new home for the Ohio Theatre.

Members of the community are invited to attend and are strongly encouraged to share their ideas regarding these issues. A list of speakers and more details will be posted at http://www.SohoThinkTank.org as they become available. The event will be streamed live at http://www.nyitawards.com/live beginning at 6:30pm on April 26th.

Academy Award winning actress, Olympia Dukakis encourages community participation saying, "It is so important to protect the cultural capital of New York City. Institutions like the Ohio Theatre, which for 3 decades has served this community and has been the home for many artists, needs the support of the city and the community. We must work together to preserve the remaining spaces and help develop new ones."

The Community Forum on the Ohio Theatre is a follow up to the Public Forum on Small to Midsized Theatres that was hosted by Manhattan Community Boards 1-5 at the Players Club in February 2009. The lack and gradual loss of adequate, affordable performance space was a key theme of that event. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer challenged attendees to hold their elected officials to a higher standard and provide them with a road map of what is needed to keep small to midsized theaters and performing arts companies in NYC alive.

The closure of the Ohio is the most recent example of a distressing trend affecting small to midsized performing arts venues throughout New York City. According to a study conducted by the Innovative Theatre Foundation, in recent years Off-Off-Broadway (OOB) has seen over 25% of their theaters either torn down to make way for new developments, or repurposed into non-performance spaces. With a number of theaters currently facing the same prospect, the urgency to find a solution to this growing problem has intensified.

The Ohio Theatre was one of Soho’s pioneering performance spaces and is now one of the last remaining. For 29 years, the Ohio Theatre has embodied the living history of the neighborhood of Soho, continuing the spirit of community and cutting-edge artistic practice that once defined the area. This is where Tony Kushner produced his first play out of college, where Philip Seymour Hoffman made his professional acting debut, and where Eve Ensler performed Dicks in the Desert – a decade before writing The Vagina Monologues. Today, the Ohio Theatre remains an incubator and platform for New York’s most exciting and widely recognized companies, like New Georges, Clubbed Thumb, Target Margin, Ma-Yi, International WOW, to name but a few of the many artists who are collectively changing the cultural landscape of New York and beyond.

The League of Independent Theater is a not-for-profit membership, advocacy and business league for the independent theater community in New York City (http://www.litny.org).

The Innovative Theatre Foundation was created to bring recognition to the great work being done in New York City's Off-Off-Broadway, to honor its artistic heritage and to provide a meeting ground for this extensive community (http://www.nyitawards.com).

And staying on topic, what was the B side to the 1970 Neil Young release "Ohio"?

1. Find the Cost of Freedom

2. Wooden Ships

3. Heart of Gold

4. War Song

save the date

2010-04-22T11:42:00.000-04:00

On Monday, April 26th The League of Independent Theater and the Innovative Theatre Foundation will co-sponsor The Community Forum on the Ohio Theatre. The event will begin at 6:30pm at the Ohio Theatre located at 66 Wooster Street in Soho, NY.

After two years of negotiation, two lease extensions, and a 29-year history as an indispensable pillar of the downtown theatre scene, the Ohio Theatre must close the doors at its Wooster Street space forever on August 31, 2010.

The April 26th event will reunite local elected officials and members of the independent theatre community in an open forum to discuss solutions to the real estate crises affecting small theaters and the progress and momentum that has been made over the past year – specifically with regard to the tax abatement proposal currently before the Community Boards. In addition, there will be a discussion as to what steps can be taken to secure the remaining venues within the sector and help locate a new home for the Ohio Theatre.

Members of the community are invited to attend and are strongly encouraged to share their ideas regarding these issues. A list of speakers and more details will be posted at http://www.SohoThinkTank.org as they become available. The event will be streamed live at http://www.nyitawards.com/live beginning at 6:30pm on April 26th.

Academy Award winning actress, Olympia Dukakis encourages community participation saying, "It is so important to protect the cultural capital of New York City. Institutions like the Ohio Theatre, which for 3 decades has served this community and has been the home for many artists, needs the support of the city and the community. We must work together to preserve the remaining spaces and help develop new ones."

The Community Forum on the Ohio Theatre is a follow up to the Public Forum on Small to Midsized Theatres that was hosted by Manhattan Community Boards 1-5 at the Players Club in February 2009. The lack and gradual loss of adequate, affordable performance space was a key theme of that event. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer challenged attendees to hold their elected officials to a higher standard and provide them with a road map of what is needed to keep small to midsized theaters and performing arts companies in NYC alive.

The closure of the Ohio is the most recent example of a distressing trend affecting small to midsized performing arts venues throughout New York City. According to a study conducted by the Innovative Theatre Foundation, in recent years Off-Off-Broadway (OOB) has seen over 25% of their theaters either torn down to make way for new developments, or repurposed into non-performance spaces. With a number of theaters currently facing the same prospect, the urgency to find a solution to this growing problem has intensified.

The Ohio Theatre was one of Soho’s pioneering performance spaces and is now one of the last remaining. For 29 years, the Ohio Theatre has embodied the living history of the neighborhood of Soho, continuing the spirit of community and cutting-edge artistic practice that once defined the area. This is where Tony Kushner produced his first play out of college, where Philip Seymour Hoffman made his professional acting debut, and where Eve Ensler performed Dicks in the Desert – a decade before writing The Vagina Monologues. Today, the Ohio Theatre remains an incubator and platform for New York’s most exciting and widely recognized companies, like New Georges, Clubbed Thumb, Target Margin, Ma-Yi, International WOW, to name but a few of the many artists who are collectively changing the cultural landscape of New York and beyond.

The League of Independent Theater is a not-for-profit membership, advocacy and business league for the independent theater community in New York City (http://www.litny.org).

The Innovative Theatre Foundation was created to bring recognition to the great work being done in New York City's Off-Off-Broadway, to honor its artistic heritage and to provide a meeting ground for this extensive community (http://www.nyitawards.com).

plays and playwrights 2010

2010-04-20T11:13:00.002-04:00

The new anthology from the New York Theatre Experience is out. Great launch party last night at Dixon Place hosted by the indefatigable Dentons.

You can get your discounted copy at www.nytesmallpress.com.

Congratulations to the playwrights: Brian Parks, Ellen Maddow, Nat Cassidy, Jerrod Bogard, Gyda Arber, Aaron Baker, Tony Asaro, Dan Collins, Will Le Vasseur, Josh Koenigsberg, John Crutchfield and Joshua Conkel.

Ann conjured up quite the experience, but at 51 words...

Wait.

Judges are allowing the extra word in consideration of the overall muscularity of the prose.

Don't know what that means, but the judges' decision is final.

LIT words

2010-04-19T10:09:00.002-04:00

LIT had its second annual members meeting on Saturday and here's what I had to say:

The Bodhidharma says “All know the way; few actually walk it.”

For years, ever since I’ve been in this city, I’ve known that the only people who really care about the Off-Off independent theater world are the people who know it and work in it. And I’ve known, and I think we all know, that the only way we’re ever going to improve the conditions we all work in is to band together, to work together and unite the thousands of hard-working, innovative, creative artists and producers and the hundreds of dedicated, resilient, obstinate companies and collectives into the undeniable creative and economic force that they are in this city.

But only when we are united.

Otherwise, we just all tumble forward through the years as we’ve done for years, some individual success here, another venue closed over there, another art star anointed from above there, but no real progress; all of us just grimly toiling forward on our separate but equal paths, not really sure where we’re going, just glad to have the energy to take the next step.

And so the dream of the League of Independent Theater, dedicated to organize and protect our members to ensure that independent theater is economically viable for all of its practitioners, to advocate on behalf of the decades-old tradition of Off-Off Broadway theater and ensure that it remains, and grows, as a thriving artistic and economic sector in New York City.

You’ll hear from the Committee reports some of the specifics of the League’s efforts and accomplishments this year, but I just want to stay on the big picture for a moment and tell you how satisfying it’s been and how proud I’ve been to finally be walking towards something with all of you. I wish we were sprinting and I wish the path wasn’t quite so uphill, but we are walking towards solutions together and most importantly, we are walking together.

It’s the old Margaret Mead quote, “never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, because indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” I don’t know if we can change the world, but I know we can change the way independent theater is practiced, created, supported and recognized in this city. And I know the way we can do it and that’s by continuing to walk and work together.

I want to thank the Board and all of the Committee heads for their work this year, recognizing that they all have their creative careers and day jobs and families and lives to juggle already and of course Jennifer Conley Darling and Paul Bargetto for their work and time and passion. You all have been wonderful traveling companions along this road and I look forward to many more miles ahead with all of you.

Our MMMQ is an essay question, Ann. In 50 words or less, have you ever been experienced?

sublet needed

2010-04-16T11:44:00.002-04:00

Steve Kovacs, Hero of the Fringe and the battle of Charas el Bohio, is back in town from abroad. Anyone know of any available shelter, please let us know.

Happy weekend, all.

not OK

2010-04-13T11:26:00.003-04:00

From the batshit crazy bin, this in the Times yesterday:

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Frustrated by recent political setbacks, tea party leaders and some conservative members of the Oklahoma Legislature say they would like to create a new volunteer militia to help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty.

Tea party movement leaders say they've discussed the idea with several supportive lawmakers and hope to get legislation next year to recognize a new volunteer force. They say the unit would not resemble militia groups that have been raided for allegedly plotting attacks on law enforcement officers.

Think it through. You believe there are "improper federal infringements on state sovereignty", so your solution is to get a bunch of armed guys together.

Not, say, a couple of lawyers.

And this in Oklahoma, home of the worst domestic terrorist attack in our history.

Crazy days.

Ann wins the MMMQ and so we award her the Pulitzer Prize for Lampshade Dancing and Music Trivia.

random monday

2010-04-12T10:39:00.003-04:00

Calvitto's back out on the road with The Event. Ireland this week and then a week in London at the Cochrane starting April 20th and then on to Glasgow.

That boy loves the road.

The Civil War started on this day back in 1861. Wonder when that thing is ever going to end.

They announce the Pulitzers today, so we're keeping the phone lines open.

You never know.

Got baby names on the brain, what with the birth of the twins on Friday, so here's your MMMQ:

Who was born Farrokh Bulsara?

1. Seal

2. Freddie Mercury

3. Cat Stevens

4. Boy George

Winners get a Pulitzer, losers get a subscription to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

two new ones

2010-04-09T11:54:00.003-04:00

At 6:03 this morning, Lilavati and Siddarth Shirke came into this world.

Papa Sanjay and Mama Amy are both fine.

Now let's all do our part to make this a better world for the twins to grow up in.

more from Melbourne

2010-04-07T13:46:00.005-04:00

An extremely thoughtful review of the Melbourne production of Fatboy by Alison Croggon:

It's the kind of play which makes you laugh all the way through, and leaves you with a kind of bracing blackness. Its absurdity and grotesqueness cut through cant and piety, and brutally reveal how bad things are. Because they really are as bad as all that. Probably worse. The laughter makes it possible to see it, albeit briefly; human beings, as the poet once said, cannot bear very much reality.

You can read the whole thing at www.theatrenotes.blogspot.com

And then go and get out into that sunshine.

Albany blitz

2010-04-06T10:15:00.002-04:00

This from NYS ARTS:

The Legislature will be in session starting April 7. Our message MUST be in front of them this week when they get back to Albany. Let's blitz the Senate and the Assembly at this critical time with 10,000 messages by April 9!!!!

Both Houses have printed their budget resolutions. Now they will negotiate to determine the final State budget. The arts can still LOSE or GAIN ground. It is up to you!

The Senate restored $3.25 million or 50% of the $6.5 million cut to NYSCA local assistance (grants) funding proposed by the Governor. The Assembly restored $1.6 million or 25% of the cut proposed by the Governor.

This is the time to send our legislators the following message:

1) To your Senator: Thank you for your support. Please be vigilant and make sure that the 50% restoration of $3.250 million to NYSCA local assistance is maintained.

2) To your Assembly members: Please increase the restoration from 25% or $1.6 million to 50% or $3.250 million, matching the Senate support of NYSCA local assistance funding.

Remember, we only have resolutions from each House. So we MUST to be heard during this step in the process, which is perhaps the most important time to make our voices heard.

Numbers can and do change in the final hours. Send your message NOW. Protect what we already have and help get us what we need.

Traveling yesterday, so missed the MMMQ. I'll get extra tricky next week, promise.

R.I.P David Mills

2010-03-31T17:05:00.002-04:00

Now that's a real loss. The man was 48 years old.

It's been awhile since I felt like I really understood or even recognized most of contemporary American culture, but The Wire sure made sense to me.

Not only could he write like a dream, he wrote about the Big Stuff.

There's a lot of talent out there, but it's all too rare that talent is matched with vision and moral clarity.

A real loss.

In other news, in a stunning turn of events, Ann and Rose win the MAMQ.

Fatboy review down under

2010-03-29T13:52:00.002-04:00

Sounds like Red Stitch Actors Theater is delivering the goods in Melbourne.

MAMQ at end of post.

Larger Than Life (Fatboy)

Kate Rose, Herald Sun 28/03/10

Fatboy (March 17 - April 17) by John Clancy. Directed by Marcelle Schmitz

A WORD of warning: if you are in any way offended by swearing, don't bother reading any more. This play is not for you.

For those who secretly delight in infantile idiocy and profound profanity, step up.

Fatboy is a brutal, vicious update on Albert Jarry's Ubu Roi, and proves the importance of mocking dictators and their sheep-like subjects is as great now as it was when Jarry's play was written more than 100 years ago.

The new king is Fatboy (Daniel Frederiksen) and in this sinister burlesque he has consumed, killed or enslaved almost everyone and everything. His sins culminate in a war crimes tribunal, but with weasel words, manipulation and a filthy singalong it's clear justice is probably more than blind, she's also bored, bawdy and bigoted.

The manic energy, dark humour and self-referential irony of Clancy's writing thunders off the stage from everyone involved in this scathingly cynical spectacle.

I don't remember writing a filthy singalong, but what the hell. It's a collaborative art.

It's Passover, my friends, so let's get Hebraic with our quiz.

Which Ramone was born Jeffry Ross Hyman in 1951 out in Queens and was a nice Jewish boy underneath that leather jacket?

1. Joey

2. Dee Dee

3. Johnny

4. Marky

midweek mumbling

2010-03-24T12:07:00.004-04:00

Slow week here at the Museum. Sirens screaming outside, sun shining down, spring trying to sneak its way into the calendar.

Just heard that an old high school buddy of mine is the head of the St. Louis Tea Party chapter.

For Christ's sake, Bill. Really?

Rosie rides on the coat tails, 'cause no one reads Freud.

great god almighty

2010-03-22T12:18:00.002-04:00

Hats off to Speaker Pelosi and President Obama.

We got health care reform, kids.

And it may not be a magic ride to Instant Happy Land, but it's a serious step in a good direction. It means my niece can get insurance when she's of age and that's a good thing right there.

The Event is extending out in L.A. All details at www.needtheater.org.

Heavy Green Day rotation this weekend, so here's our MAMQ:

What is not an indication that the young lady in front of you is the last of the American girls?

1. She's riding her bike

2. She's on a hunger strike

3. She's paranoid

4. She's reading Sigmund Freud

Winners get health care reform, losers get it as well. It's a good Monday.

anniversary

2010-03-18T11:03:00.002-04:00

Two years ago today Nancy Walsh caught fire.

So I'm grateful today for the nurses and doctors and family and friends who all brought her back safely to me.

And I try to remember every day how lucky I am I have her.

Tell somebody you love them, it's always a good thing to hear.

join LIT

2010-03-16T11:20:00.003-04:00

All right, folks. We're kicking off our spring membership drive.

Join before April 15 and receive a recession discount. Applications are available online at:

http://www.facebook.com/l/a2687;www.litny.org

Join the party.

And Ann and Rose are going to the beach.

women glowing, men plundering, etc.

2010-03-15T10:17:00.002-04:00

David Calvitto is officially the Best Actor on the Planet, South Australian Division. Last night he won the Adelaide Fringe Award for Best Theater Performer for The Event.

The Event was also up for Best Theater Production, but bettybooke won it for en route. I heard it was amazing, so congrats to the good people at bettybooke.

MMMQ has to keep to the Aussie beat, so who sang (I Come from the) Land Down Under?

1. Men in Hats

2. Men At Work

3. Boys II Men

or

4. Menudo

Winners go to Bondi Beach, losers fly to Alice Springs.

some good news

2010-03-12T17:02:00.001-05:00

The Event got nominated for Best Play and Best Performer at the Adelaide Fringe Festival.

Way to go, Dave.

the problem

2010-03-12T13:35:00.001-05:00

“Making contributions about culture at cocktail parties still has priceless value for a great many people.”

That's Joe Melillo, Executive Producer at BAM, quoted in the Times today.

Joe's a good guy and he's right, but when I read these things the old heart breaks a little bit.

It's just a terrible truth that we labor in the arts in America so that upper-class people have something to talk about. We do it for other reasons, of course, but think about it.

If rich people stopped caring about the arts tomorrow, how many theaters would close? How many orchestras would fold?

Dark thoughts on a gray day, sorry about that.

Happy weekend, all.

L.A. love

2010-03-11T11:04:00.001-05:00

Nice words from Steven Leigh Morris, writing in the L.A. Weekly:

Clancy's analysis expands into an allegory for the roles we are all playing in life, equated to the various frauds of the 21st century: the faked lines, spoken by rote, the stream of pleasantries en route to the grave, the drifting thoughts rolling around while the faked lines written by somebody else are being uttered. The physical costume that "the actor" doesn't even own. The anonymous lighting technician , who's calling the cues, in order to secure the fake effect for a fake "insular economy of friends going to the theater." So it's not just dot-coms, the mortgage and debt industries that have false economies. Playwright Clancy simply uses every conceivable aspect of the theater as an allegory for all the world being a stage. That he does it so simply turns his one-act into something like one of those luminous shafts of light that shoot up into the night from a truck outside some celebrity event or advertising event.

talk to me, Oz

2010-03-09T11:23:00.003-05:00

Under the loving wing of the Lampshade Queen, Rose wins legit.

Doit doit, indeed.

Now, let me tell you that I'm big down under.

This is Stephanie Johnson writing for www.australianstage.com:

Profound. One word.

If a review could be written with just one word then this would be the one to describe The Event.

Take a moment to soak in the true meaning of the word “profound”. Let it resonate in the mind for a while. Meditate on the meaning of the word “profound”. Perhaps profound thoughts will follow. Maybe the truth of the universe will begin to echo in ensuing contemplation. For this is the effect of The Event.

It is a one-man show that starts simply enough with short, sharp, punchy lines.

Actor David Calvitto delivers his lines with charm, self-deprecating humour and finesse, enchanting his audience and outlining truisms about the theatre. Theatre initially is “The Event”. Thus theatre in all of its forms is cleverly and humorously dissected leaving no stone unturned – actors, directors, technicians, audiences and reviewers all take a bow in Calvitto’s repertoire, directed and penned by John Clancy.

The humour is wry, the script witty and the delivery simple and effective. But it is deceptive. Herein lies the rub. This brilliantly, and cunningly crafted, play takes a twist. Before long it is apparent that the theatre of life has become “The Event” and then another twist as insightful and universal truths are revealed. Theatre and philosophy combine to produce a brilliant and thought provoking hour. The words and thoughts provoked linger long after the final bow in a refreshing manner.

reading tonight

2010-03-08T11:09:00.002-05:00

Spitfire and I play an embattled husband and wife team in a reading tonight, details below. Been rehearsing these roles for about twenty years.

MMMQ at end of post.

terraNOVA COLLECTIVE presents
GROUNDBREAKERS READING SERIES
play readings from the 2009 Groundbreakers Playwrights Program

Performance Space 122
150 First Avenue at 9th Street
All readings begin at 7pm.

Monday, March 8, 7pm
SUICIDE ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE
By Susan Ferrara
Directed by Jessi D. Hill

Timely and terrifying, this tale is one woman's fight to get her head above water after the death of her husband, which left her drowning in debt. Faced with supporting two young sons on her own, Fran reaches out to her sister and brother-in-law for help, but this well-meaning duo doesn't know the first thing about how to fill the void. Desperate and out of options, Fran begins receiving phone calls from a mysterious man offering help. But, the voice on the other end of the line has a grander agenda, and Fran is only a small part of a dark movement to change government policy.

Now then.

Was listening to the old stuff over the weekend and Ms. Rickie Lee Jones went into heavy rotation. So what does the jukebox do downstairs in Danny's All-Star Joint?

Does it go

1. Wonk wonk

2. Schwink schwink

3. Juke juke

or

4. Doit doit

Winners get the Easy Money, losers take the Night Train.

light at the end of the tunnel

2010-03-05T16:16:00.001-05:00

Spring hit Rat City this afternoon for about an hour.

Glorious.

Come on, you sunny bastard.

Need you.

nationwide

2010-03-02T11:05:00.002-05:00

The Event opens tonight in L.A., details below.

Rose and Ann take a victory lap, Ann because she's right and Rose because she knows me all too well.

needtheater Presents
Two one-person shows

The Event, By John Clancy
Starring Paul Dillon

and the World Premiere of
The Interview
By Lawrence Bridges
Directed by Ian Forester
Produced by Sara Scott

WHEN:
March 2nd – March 25th

Four weeks only!
Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays
The Event performs at 8 pm.
The Interview performs at 9:30 pm.

WHERE:
At the Son of Semele Ensemble Theatre
3301 Beverly Blvd, @ Hoover
Los Angeles, CA 90004

TICKETS:
Tickets available at the door or at http://www.needtheater.org.
The Event- $15
The Interview- $10

six days

2010-03-01T11:39:00.002-05:00

Almost a week since I've opened the Museum's doors, time flies when you're fighting robots. Quick recap:

Wednesday Jen Conley Darling and I drove up to Albany representing LIT for Arts Day. Very cool to sit in the Senators and Assemblymen's offices and make the case right to them. Some people didn't even know what NYSCA's budget was, reminding me how easy it is to get caught in the echo chamber/choir practice of the Off-Off world.

Thursday was the Summit and I, for one, was glued to the screen. Our president is a brilliant man. What a joy to be able to type that sentence. My gut is that they'll pass something this month and it won't be great but it will be a start, it will be something at least.

Friday was the Great Storm. Beautiful to watch.

And now Monday, first day of March, spring out there somewhere ahead.

This is also the day in 1970 when, no lie, Charles Manson released his debut album. Name that slice of vinyl bizarrity.

Was it

1. You Give Love a Bad Name

2. Lie

3. People Say I'm No Good

or

4. Helter Skelter?

tonight

2010-02-23T12:04:00.001-05:00

Dear Community,
The League of Independent Theater is proud to present the first Get Lit with LIT
event of 2010 with:
DAVID PINCUS, Chair of the Theater Task Force for Manhattan Community Board 4. TUESDAY,
FEB. 23 at 7PM
David will discuss the important new Tax Credit proposal that is making it's way
through the the Community Boards now. If you make theater in New York, and work
in the not-for-profit sector, you cannot afford to miss out on the conversation.
THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT NEW PROPOSAL FOR OUR COMMUNITY. PLEASE JOIN US!
WITH Special Guests:
David Diamond Chair of CB5's Theater & Arts Committee
David Gruber and Robin Rothstein, CB5 and co-authors of the resolution.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 7PM
The Lark Play Development Center
939 Eighth Avenue, 2nd Floor Between 55 & 56

two openings

2010-02-19T17:05:00.004-05:00

Just realized that the Malta production of Fatboy opens tonight. Actually because of the time difference it's already opened and they're all at a bar in Valletta.

And Calvitto starts his Adelaide Fringe run of The Event tonight as well. Again, time difference means he's opened, been to the bar, insulted some strangers and is now dreaming in his Australian hotel room.

And strangers on the other side of the globe just heard the words I scribbled down at this very desk years ago.

Kind of cool.

Happy weekend, all.

Get LIT

2010-02-18T11:47:00.000-05:00

This is happening Tuesday, come on down.

The League of Independent Theater is proud to present the first Get Lit with LIT event of 2010 with guest DAVID PINCUS, Chair of the Theater Task Force for Manhattan Community Board 4. David will discuss the important new Tax Credit proposal that is making it's way through the the Community Boards now.

WITH Special Guests:

David Diamond Chair of CB5's Theater & Arts Committee
David Gruber and Robin Rothstein, CB5 and co-authors of the resolution.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 7PM
The Lark Play Development Center
939 Eighth Avenue, 2nd Floor Between 55 & 56

Come and join an important conversation with the League and David Pincus and Guests on this exciting new legislation that could really make a difference for the viability and sustainability of small theaters in New York City.

FREE BEER!

beautiful words

2010-02-16T14:51:00.003-05:00

This is Arlene Goldbard speaking at the California Arts Advocates Visioning Retreat. Thanks, Ginny L. for the tip.

What we know in every cell of our bodies and learn every hour of the day is true. The essence of being human is to make art. We do it in red-carpeted halls and ramshackle huts, at every moment of history, every time we mark the unfolding of our lives. Even under harrowing conditions, in SuperMax prisons and concentration camps, people save precious crumbs or scrape up clumps of mud to make sculptures. They scratch on prison walls with rocks or the burnt ends of matches.

I am awestruck to think that Herbert Zipper, the founding director of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, led a clandestine orchestra in Dachau. When human history began, our ancestors circled their fires, turning their backs on the darkness to share stories of the hunt, the trek, the storm and their meanings. Today we sit in neat rows in darkened multiplexes, warming ourselves by the light of much busier and more complicated stories. But underneath, we are the same.

Torpitude is an excellent word, Rosie, but Ann wins the Cambodian cruise.

2010-02-15T11:41:00.002-05:00

No word from the little laptop shop, so we live in hope and work on a borrowed computer.

Presidents Day, so gob bless them all. Except for Reagan, of course. And Bush. And his dad. And Nixon. And that idiot Hoover. And...

Here's an MMMQ in questionable taste on this day:

In 1985 after releasing Frankenchrist, The Dead Kennedys were criminally charged with:

1. distribution of harmful matter to minors

2. plagiarism

3. criminal mischief

or

4. moral turpitude

Winners get a holiday in Cambodia, losers get drafted.

robots take a round

2010-02-12T14:25:00.002-05:00

After an hour on the phone with Dell support and poking at the damned thing with a screwdriver we declared defeat and walked the laptop over to the little laptop repair shop on Clinton. When I consider how much I have stored on that little machine and how long its been since I backed anything up, well...

I'm screwed.

I can get online with Spitfire's old laptop, but all of those files...

Deeply screwed.

calling Yoshimi

2010-02-04T10:52:00.002-05:00

The CB4 Theater Task Force letter was approved unanimously by the Board last night.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

Here at home, the Museum seems to be under some sort of cyber-attack. My technical expertise extends only to turning on and off the computer, so if we go dark for awhile you can assume we're being overrun by giant, pink robots selling us discount pharmaceuticals.

Not to worry.

CB4

2010-02-02T10:59:00.002-05:00

Got this today, passing it on. Come if you can.

And Ann knows her produce.

This Wednesday, February 3rd, at the Fulton Center Auditorium, 119 Ninth Avenue (between 17th and 18th Streets), Manhattan Community Board 4 is going to consider a letter written by its Theater Task Force for passage.

At 6:30, on that evening, members of the public are invited to sign-up for
a public session at which they will be given two minutes to speak on any
topic that interests them.

Any member of the public, who resides or works (or performs) within the
confines of Community District 4, 14th Street to 59th, 8th Avenue to the
Hudson River, is invited to attend.

If you are a theater artist, who supports the tax credit initiative that
the unprecedented alliance of Community Board Arts related committees are
developing, we need your support at that meeting.

We need you there to speak up on its behalf.

The chances of the passage of the CB4 Theater Task Forces letter which informs our elected officials of the Community Board alliance formed to support small to mid-sized non-profit performing arts organizations, and in addition, asks for their
consideration of an innovative tax credit proposal to help us reduce the
crisis confronting the independent theater sector, can only benefit from
your presence and participation at this public session.

come see Dave

2010-02-01T12:01:00.002-05:00

Calvitto is doing one showing of The Event before he gets on a plane. It's happening this Saturday, come on down.

Here are the details:
Location: 45 Bleecker St Theater (Bleecker and Lafayette)
Time: 3:30
Running time: 65 minutes
Ticket price: $10

And our MAMQ references the recent arctic conditions:

Cold, Cold, Cold tells the sad story of Lowell George stuck in a cold hotel room with a busted T.V. set and no female companionship. When, for some reason, he calls up room service and asks for some fruit, what doesn't he request?

1. A coconut

2. A kiwi

3. A peach

4. A pear

salinger dead

2010-01-29T11:32:00.002-05:00

Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.
The Catcher in the Rye

Please god let there be a big trunk in the study stuffed with manuscripts and someone with the sense to go against a dead man's wishes.

He had to have been writing all these years.

stirring words on a sinking ship

2010-01-28T12:57:00.002-05:00

Watched the President last night. Another beautiful speech.

And yeah, he's lost traction on health care and yeah, he sounds silly when he puts on the populist jargon and yeah, the proposed spending freeze is both bad politics and policy and yeah, he could end DADT tomorrow if he really wanted to, but all the same I can't lie.

I still love the guy.

Ask yourself, is there anyone else out there you'd rather have sitting behind the Desk?

KC love

2010-01-27T13:20:00.002-05:00

The Event just played three nights out in Kansas City. Sounds like they nailed it.

This is Christopher Guerin at kcmetropolis.org, Kansas City's Online Performance Journal:

The Event, by John Clancy, directed by Hughston Walkinshaw, and performed masterfully last Sunday evening by John Robert ("Bob") Paisley at the Kansas City Metropolitan Ensemble Theater (MET), was a brief glimpse behind the wizard's curtain in search of the answer to the question: "What is theater?" Truth be told, it also revealed a lot about the question: "What is life?"

I took its brevity as an implied challenge to answer with an equally brief critical analysis, for if The Event proves anything, it is this - while words matter, more of them doesn't necessarily carry greater meaning than fewer of them. Now, I have never been a fan of "stars" or "thumbs" (up or down) or other artifice when it comes to such an analysis, but if I were so inclined, I would use all of them for The Event. It was a remarkable, witty, irreverent and poignant introspection.

Readers who have attended other MET performances already know that this cutting-edge theatre carves out, on a shoestring, a formidable place in the Kansas City arts community and with The Event, Bob Paisley has single-handedly proven this again. Armed with the barest of stages - prop-less for about two-thirds of the performance, and only a chair thereafter - Paisley drew in the audience (the "strangers," as they are referred to throughout the monologue) from the first line, and he held them rapt to the last. The famous stage director, Peter Brook, had a powerfully austere vision of "theater" that seems to speak directly to what Bob Paisley was able to demonstrate so eloquently: "... take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him - and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged."

And thus The Event so engages the "strangers," asking them to consider the significance (or lack) of the power of words and the paradoxes those words, in that context, imply. In that mindset, consider this: All you, the reader, are doing at this very moment is reading my words about the words that were spoken by Mr. Paisley, whose words were, in turn, merely words that were written down - prior to mine, and prior to Paisley speaking them - by someone else (Mr. Clancy). What import do such words have? What gravity do they impose on the people - the "strangers" - around them? What consequence do they have outside the walls of the theater in which they are spoken? Much like life itself, The Event provides no answers - and therein, arguably, lies the magic that is theatre. We see theater - and life - all around us, but cogently verbalizing their essences remains forever elusive.

I came away from The Event with one line, in particular, haunting me: "A man, armed with memorized words, can only do so much." Though phrased as a statement, it begs analysis more as a rhetorical question. So - how valid a statement-question is that, really? For if it is true that the pen, as artistic lore suggests, is mightier than the sword, imagine how much more powerful those penned words can be when life is breathed into them by an actor.

Sunday evening, Bob Paisley breathed life into John Clancy's penned words. He carried no sword - but for that hour, he quite possibly may have been the most powerful man on earth ...

pay me

2010-01-26T11:06:00.005-05:00

A really thoughtful and comprehensive summary of Outrageous Fortune is over on Matt Freeman's blog, matthewfreeman.blogspot.com. Here's a taste:

Our view of the value of creators in the US is upside down. We value distribution and middle-management over creation. We pay the gatekeepers; we pay the decision makers; we pay the marketers. But we shrug at the naivety of creative artists who want to make a living. The very people who produce the fuel that many institutions run on are paid less than the people who write grants on their behalf.

This is not to belittle the hard and wonderful work done by development staff and marketing staff and literary staff. It's just a reminder that we must rethink how artists are compensated.

Also, my LIT compadre and fellow officer Paul Bargetto is guest blogging on the NYITA site and he argues the same case, check it out at nyitawards.blogspot.com.

Ann and Mickle score big and collect the bonus points, too.

tour dates

2010-01-25T14:00:00.002-05:00

The Event is heading overseas, dates below, MMMQ (MAMQ) at end of post.

Feb 11 Thurs Axis Arts Centre, Crewe
Feb 19 - Mar 14 ADELAIDE FRINGE
April 14 Weds Linenhall Arts Centre, Co. Mayo
April 15 Thurs An Grianan Theatre, Letterkenny, Eire
April 16 Fri Hawk's Well, Sligo, Eire
April 17 Sat Down Civic Arts Centre, Down Patrick
April 20 Tues The Cochrane Theatre, London
April 21 Weds The Cochrane Theatre, London
April 22 Thurs The Cochrane Theatre, London
April 23 Fri The Cochrane Theatre, London
April 24 Sat The Cochrane Theatre, London
April 25 Sun The Cochrane Theatre, London
April 30 Fri Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot
May 4 Tues Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
May 5 Weds Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
May 6 Thurs Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
May 7 Fri Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
May 8 Sat Citizens Theatre, Glasgow

Now, down to serious business.

Elvis Costello is surely one of the finest songsmiths of the last fifty years. But which bit of genius didn't he write?

Bonus points for knowing who did.

1. Alison

2. Radio, Radio

3. Oliver's Army

4. (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding

crucial difference

2010-01-22T11:27:00.003-05:00

"...corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their “personhood” often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established."
Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting opinion, Citizens United v Federal Election Commission

Right?

For the love of gob, who can argue with a straight face that "corporate speech" needs protecting?

Oh.

That would be the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

Quis custodiet custodias? as the old-timers used to mumble.

if you're in Kansas City

2010-01-21T12:25:00.002-05:00

next week, here's a guaranteed good time:

The Event will be performed at 8 p.m. Sunday-Tuesday, Jan. 24-26 at the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre, 3604 Main St.

Call 816-569-3226 or go to www.metkc.org.

Rocking the Midwest, just like the old days.

they're sledding in hell

2010-01-20T11:46:00.001-05:00

Holy Christ in a crock pot.

Senator Scott Brown.

I'm just...

I mean...

Senator Scott Brown?

the old man grumbles

2010-01-19T12:01:00.005-05:00

Finally getting around to reading Outrageous Fortune, the TDF report on the plight of the American playwright.

Lots of depressing statistics and anonymous kvetching, not much breaking news so far.

Here's the terrible truth, kids, from the mouth of old Scrappy hisself:

If you're going to stay in the American theater and make it your life's work, you are going to be poor. No vacation poor. No savings account poor. No dentist poor. No health care poor. Seriously poor.

That's the road. I know of no shortcut, no detour.

It's a wonderful road and you meet phenomenal people walking along it, but you need to know that at the end of each day you'll be making your bed out under the stars.

And being poor at 46 is a lot different than being poor at 28.

I can't imagine what it's going to be like at 66, but if I'm still around I imagine I'll still be walking that road.

Unless, of course Pablo and Ann come by in the El Dorado and give me a lift.

mlk, d and d, mmmq

2010-01-18T12:45:00.002-05:00

This is happening tonight:

SAINT MARKS' TRIBUTE TO LYNNE STEWART

Saint Marks' 25th Annual King Dinner
Monday January 18th, 2010 7:00 pm. Parrish Hall
131 East Tenth Street Tenth and Second Ave...use the 11th street entrance.

This year the program for our 25th Martin Luther King ..I Have A Dream Remembrance program, we will pay tribute to Lynne Stewart. Preist-in Charge Winnie Varghese, Pastor Micheal Releyea, and Vestry Warden Cynthia Copeland as representatives of the Saint Marks Community are pleased to urge the community-at-large to come out and support Lynne who is a beloved member of our congregation.
The event will feature Norman Marshall, the Rev Paul Chandler, Joy Kelly, actress, members of the Saint Marks Choir and musical ensemble and actor Earl Gianquinto.
Hosted by Music Director Jeannine Otis, the event will explore the connection to Dr. King's writing from the
Birmingham Prison.
It promises to be a soul-filled uplifting evening. Food will be coordinated by Annette Hendrikse, Saint Marks vestry member and well-known lower eastside chef. Guests are encourage to bring special dishes.

Took part in the Devoted and Disgruntled gathering this weekend. Left feeling less Despondent and Deranged, so something stuck.

And here's a big can of corn right over the plate since I'm feeling pressed for time today:

What does Pablo Picasso drive when he's eyeballing the young ladies and not being called an asshole?

1. Mustang

2. Coupe de Ville

3. Mercury

4. Eldorado

I'm just praying that my anonymous robot pal answers this one.

never turn your back

2010-01-14T12:58:00.003-05:00

Sometimes a director will ask you to do it, usually an actor will make the move first.

It's an argument or a debate and the other player has a long (or what feels to you like a long) monologue.

You step away, turn your back and slowly shake your head, sometimes even softly vocalizing, grunting your amazement at the outlandishness of the words you are forced to hear. This "listening" shtick lasts, miraculously, exactly until you have lines to say, at which point you spin around and attack.

Just think back to any actual argument you've ever had, an argument that mattered to you, an argument that wasn't scripted.

You never turn your back on your opponent.

What you do is the opposite.

You lean in, you lock eyes, you watch the words come out of their mouth.

So why not do that onstage?

scrappy gets soppy

2010-01-13T10:57:00.001-05:00

I was reminded last night, shivering in a lobby in midtown waiting to go into a show, how many good people there are in my life.

Thank you Laura and Sheila and Norma and Martin and Rik. And Dave.

Good friends, man. Cherish them. Nothing can warm you up faster on a cold night.

stats

2010-01-12T11:53:00.002-05:00

The indefatigable Innovative Theatre Foundation has released their latest demographic study of the Off-Off and independent world. Interesting stuff.

You can read the whole thing at www.nyitawards.com, but it's of note that we're mostly young, college educated white women.

For a good overview of the report, check out Leonard Jacobs at www.clydefitchreport.com.

whoops

2010-01-11T12:10:00.002-05:00

Looks like 2010 got started without us here at the Museum.

Travel, family and general indolence were all factors, but now we resume our established duties.

Aretha and T. T. harmonize only in my mind, sorry, Rosie.

merry and happy

2009-12-21T13:21:00.002-05:00

Going to shut down the Museum early this year, halls to deck and nog to swig. Thanks all for everything this year and may your days be merry and bright.

Our MMMQ (technically an MAMQ) keeps to the holiday theme:

We all know the Bing and Bowie bizarrity, but here are four other strange seasonal pairings. Spot the phony and have yourself a merry little Christmas.

1. Aretha Franklin and Tiny Tim

2. Elvis Presley and Wynonna Judd

3. Frank Sinatra and Cindy Lauper

4. Rod Stewart and Dolly Parton

Now I've got some wrapping to do.

little known fact

2009-12-18T11:59:00.002-05:00

The "I" in Joseph I. Lieberman actually stands for "I'm a Worthless, Hypocritical Sack of Shit".

An old family name, apparently.