The Zombies Have Nothing to Say

Having been a bit preoccupied of late, I haven't had the chance to delve deeply into the worlds of either theater journalism or the theatrical blogoshpere. Upon arriving at the shores of both, I discovered Michael Feingold's slap to contemporary theater artists in the Village Voice.

No, the theater, that allegedly dead thing, is alive and—well, let's just say it's alive. Its problem has not been the amount of activity, but that, since the late 1990s, this hyperactive mode has seemed increasingly factitious. Yearly it gets less and less like the real life of which I know the theater to be capable, and more and more like a weirdly empty replica. On many nights, sitting through some numbingly vacuous event, I have begun to worry that perhaps the fabulous invalid is indeed deceased, that what we are seeing instead of a living theater, far too often, is a reconstituted zombie version of it.

I also discovered a number of pointed responses to Feingold's charge.

Isaac blows him off:

Feingold likes to complain. He doesn't like to creatively or constructively address any of the problems. He just wants us to know that he thinks we're shit. Well, sorry, but I find that hard to take seriously.

Mark varies the blow off but blows him off just the same:

As I've said often, I think we're in the middle of a wonderful time for American playwriting, one that's bursting with both realized and nascent potential. It's always tempting to pile onto productions that didn't work, but Feingold isn't just doing that. He's talkin' 'bout our generation...

Dan wonders about the point of Feingold's call to arms (if that is what it is):

Okay, this is turning into a review of a review ("I also couldn’t stand the sidebar, with American Apparel’s crotch-based ad campaign"). That’s lame. Feingold’s an excellent writer. I just don’t get this one. So I offer a question: what is the revolution that this article calls for?

Finally, Maya takes it on full force:

Thing = RADIANT ENGAGEMENT THAT COMES FROM THE ARTIST'S DESIRE TO COMMUNICATE/INTERROGATE USING THE MEDIUM OF LIVE PERFORMANCE. Isn't that the bare-assed minimum we should be able to expect from theater? If a play can't even hit that, what's the goddamn point?

It isn't a genre problem. It's a problem throughout the American theater. I see it in the so-called "avant garde"/";experimental". I see it on Broadway, in the regional theaters, in the universities, in fringe fests and amphitheaters, in community-based theater, political theater, revivals, Shakespeare plays, musicals, performance art, "physical" theater, theater created with Viewpoints and Strassberg and Stanislavski and a hope and a prayer. A void of Thing. A huge gaping hole lack of Thing.

I agree, in parts, with everyone on the subject. Respectively:

• Michael - yup. Lots of fucking boring theater, no argument there. Zombie? Maybe so. I'm not certain that this is a result of television or any such quest for microrealism. Most of the boring theater I see has one of two problems: nothing to say or no skill in saying it. Gimme a sec. I'll be back to that.

• Isaac - yup. Feingold is a dull ring in the ears at this point; the 'call to arms' becomes meaningless because of his lack of specificity and his repetition of the call. That said, the argument that theater is becoming duller cannot be ignored, if only because theater has been steadily becoming more and more esoteric and less and less a part of the mainstream culture - like jazz, it will live on in the artists and the affecionados, but, in general, who really gives a shit, huh?

• Mark - I think things are popping in the scene as well, but without some sort of self reflection on the things that fail to communicate/interrogate/entertain an audience aren't we just beating our meat for each other in some sort of theatrical circle jerk?

• Dan - refer to Maya's post. That's what the article is calling for.

• Maya - sweet Jesus - you rock me.

Back to Michael.

In a recent conversation with an actor I've worked with, he described a specific theater company as "a bunch of squares who just do theater for fun." First, I love that he calls people squares. Second, he's right and not just about that specific company. The same thing could be said for at least half of the existing pantheon of theater artists in this country - squares who just do theater for fun.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with people doing theater for fun - as hobbyists, as a substitute for softball, whatever. Participating in theater is fun, so why not?

That said, most of the theater that I see that is dull has more to do with a lack of specific point of view (a lot of sketch comedians I work with write the same goddamn scenes over and over, focusing more on the structural ha-ha than anything they may have to say about the characters and their relationship to both each other or the world) or simply a lack of skill, effectively aping the more pretentious art school projects they've seen.

Have something to say.

Learn how to say it.

Someone once suggested that I am less a director of theater than a practical joker, playing theatrical pranks on the audience (and sometimes the actors). I've also been called a behaviorist who just happens to work in theater. Either way, I believe that there is merit in nearly any honest theatrical experience with one exception - don't bore the audience.

Zombies are copies of human beings, mimicking their former actions without any sense of understanding or communication. Zombies have nothing to say and lack the ability to say it even if they did. I'm not certain that Lady Theater has gone over to the other side of the zombie equation, but the one rule is that if you see one, shoot it in the head.

The Weekend

Retraction/Amendment

The other day I wrote an entry about NBC refusing to air ads for the Dixie Chicks movie and I relied on some NBC follow-up. Apparently, I was wrong. NBC is, indeed, refusing to air these ads, claiming "that it had rejected the ads for fairness reasons, since Mr. Bush couldn’t be expected to buy response ads, as he would in a political campaign."

What a bunch of fucking jackasses.

* * *
Does He Just LIKE Looking Like a Douchebag?

From Salon.com:

There's nothing like a personal endorsement from the president to give your campaign a boost, so the Republican candidate running in Iowa's 3rd Congressional District must have been thrilled to share a stage with George W. Bush Thursday. "No doubt in my mind, with your help, Dave Lamberti will be the next United States congressman," Bush said at a Lamberti for Congress event in Des Moines. "Dave and I believe a lot of things. We believe that you ought to keep more of your own money. We believe in family values. We believe values are important. And we believe marriage is a fundamental institution of civilization."

Dave probably also believes that the president's endorsement would have meant more if he'd looked like he knew who he was endorsing. The Republican running in Iowa's 3rd is Jeff Lamberti.

I'm no fan of our president, but for Christ's sake, is it possible that we can hire some fucking handlers to make he doesn't represent the rest of us as bumbling dipshits?

* * *

A Lotta Hell

I spent over seven and a half hours performing No Exit this weekend. No shit.

By Friday night, the cast had finally hit that groove where it just seems very natural and the play comes to life. We had a solid audience and we all four finished the show feeling good about it.

Saturday night was one of our two double headers - in order to be eligible for the Jeff Awards Committee, we needed to have a minimum of 18 performances so Livewire added two Saturday "late matinees" at 5PM, followed by the regular 8PM show. The Jeffs did not recommend us, but we still have to do those fucking 5PM shows - ugh.

Policy is that if there aren't at least four people in the audience, we don't do the show. A couple came to the 5PM show and , upon hearing the policy, bought four tickets. We were stuck but had to give them an excellent show - hell, they paid double! The 8PM show was oversold and Henri Dugas came and enjoyed his first time seeing No Exit and me performing ("I'm used to seeing you yell at actors, not be one.").

Sunday's matinee was fine - we were tired but gave it a good shot - next week is it. Five more shows. If you're planning on seeing it, you have five more chances and then it's gone.

* * *

Crisis Averted

An actor dropped out of Stages, the Junkmail Improv sketch show I'm directing. It put things a bit into a tailspin - much of the work the group had done was tossed aside because of his defection.

On a positive note, it seems that perhaps it was exactly what the production needed. I came in with a drastically new running order - axed a couple of scenes, shifted roles around, added monologues, created a Don Hall ending - the group rebounded well and the show is now in excellent shape. We pushed the opening back a week and I'm now confident the thing is going to come off.

November, 1992 - Chicago

Uncharted Waters

Just lately, the WNEP Theater folks are starting to slowly get things into gear. The new website is in beta (means it will be hot and replace the old one that I designed for the better part of twelve years soon); we now have 'officers' and there is a new management structure in place; the weeding out of those less invested in the company has been occurring. In many ways, this is cool. It's exciting to see folks so committed to this company take over something that I started and carried around for fourteen years.

Well, yesterday, I turned over the finances to Lori. My god, what a relief! It's difficult to explain - I'm still going to be heavily involved in this theater company (Directing ARH NYE - check; directing next DADA show - check; doing PR for all things WNEP - check; producing 'Metaluna' - check), I'm just not 'in charge.'

I've decided to take some trips down Memory Lane and chronicle the (very subjective) history of WNEP Theater.

DISCLAIMER: The following is based entirely on my fallible recollection of events and will certainly make me look better than reality would. If you don't like it, write your own version...

CUE: The Cure's 'Friday I'm in Love'

November, 1992 - Chicago, IL

'Wayne's World' had just been made into a movie, Bill Clinton had just cinched the presidency over George H. W. Bush, and Joe Janes, Jeff Hoover, and I were in the first part of our Second City Level Five Performance Block.

Pictured L to R: Jeff Hoover, Joe Janes, Don Hall - 2003

Hoover was the funniest cat I'd ever met. A natural mimic, in one of the first pre-WNEP shows the three of us produced together - Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman - Hoover took an actual 'Dear John' letter he received from his college sweetheart and read it for the audience as dead-on impressions of everyone from SnagglePuss to Bruno Kirby to Jerry Lewis. Hoover was a one-man band and was both hyperactive in a early Robin Williams way and filthy as a ten-year old with an anal fixation could be.

Joe was a successful stand up comic and writer (he had been an opener for Richard Belzer and received an Emmy, respectively) and was taking the Second City classes to eventually work for the legendary improv club. Joe was a comedy writer with the soul of a poet - always looking for both the gag and the deeper meaning underneath it. It should come as no surprise that six years later he wrote and WNEP produced his play A Hard Day's Journey Into Night, an O'Neill-esque exploration of the break up of a Beatles Tribute Band.

I was a former Equity Musical Theater actor, a jazz trumpet player, and a middle school music teacher. I had come to Chicago in 1989 to play my horn and had gotten sucked back into theater via the Second City aesthetic. I was a natural organizer and had a tendency toward espousing the "Grand Plan" at all times - my enthusiasm for whatever it was I was into was equal parts obnoxious and contagious.

After a little over 16 months of taking classes together, our time as a Training Center created ensemble was coming to a close. The Second City Training Center, at the time, had five levels of study (with a sub-level wedged in there for some reason). Each level was with a different teacher (although ours was blessed with recurring Martin DeMaat classes) and the whole thing concluded with a Monday night run of "Level 5" shows, written and performed by the classes. Our class ensemble had been fairly consistent - I recall working the 16 months with Joe, Hoover, Lori McClain, Alida Vitas, Jon Glaser, Eric Farone, and a few others whose names I no longer remember.

At this time of crossroads, there were several factors that came into play resulting in the founding of WNEP: after Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman I began to realize how simple it was to produce a show, especially an original, partially improvised show, in Chicago, Hoover was looking for the next fun thing to do but was too nervous to audition for things, Joe was hit by an oasis of comic creativity and was looking for places to put his work up, and our Level 5 director stuck us in a situation where I ended up taking over the class show as 'stealth director.'

One night, Hoover and I went to an Off-Loop dive theater called the Torso Theater and saw a play (in it's fourth year running) called Cannibal Cheerleaders on Crack by Billy Birmingham. We were drunk and thoroughly unimpressed with the show.

"Hoov. We could better than this in my back yard."
"Yeah. Huh?"
"We could put up shows better than this anywhere, dude."
"So. You wanna start a thing?"
"Yeah."
"We should call Joe."

We met in the park just around the corner from Second City. I brought three big cigars. The three of us sat in the grass and brainstormed how we would go about it. We agreed that we'd split all costs three ways and that the three of us would make all decisions collectively. We decided to hold auditions and put up an improv show of scenes and games to 'bond' while working on a fully scripted 'non-revue of unimprovisation.' We looked to local improv group Bang Bang, home to Paul Dillon, Michael Shannon, and Tracy Letts, for inspiration and talked about having our own storefront space in the future.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Next Entry: January 1993: The Audition

Press Release Politics

According to Matt Drudge, both NBC and The CW television networks have refused to air ads for the new Dixie Chicks documentary “Shut Up and Sing.” NBC reportedly claims the network “cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush.”

According to the Drudge Report:

NBC and The CW Television Network have taken a stand against the Dixie’s Chicks new documentary “Shut Up & Sing” a behind-the-scenes look at the incredible political and media fallout that occurred in 2003 after the Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines said that she was "ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." “Shut Up & Sing” opens in theaters in NY and Los Angeles on Friday and in theaters nationwide on November 10th.

NBC responded to a clearance report submitted by the Weinstein Company’s media agency saying that the network “cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush.”

First, who gives a flying fuck about the CW Television Network? They have two shows.

But NBC? Refusing to air advertising because they are disparaging to President Bush? These are network executives, yes? Willing to blowtorch their own dickholes shut for a buck, willing to whore out their mothers and daughters to get 'the edge' on the competition, no ethics or moral values, network television advertising executives, right? What gives?

It simply can't be the "disparaging to President Bush" part - have they fucking seen Countdown with Keith Olberman? That's on MSNBC and my main man Keith kicks the Bushie in the Texas Hold'em's just about every night. Even the tepid, light-in-the-loafers SNL cast takes a disparaging potshot at Bushie once in a while.

It is, in fact, PT Barnum-esque horseshit. According to NBC, the ad is scheduled to be aired on all local NBC affiliate markets.

I get it. The controversy that sparked the documentary is long past the collective memories of a pop culture demographic so fascinated with Madonna's new pet baby and when Tom Cruise is going to marry his Stepford bride so Harvey had to drum up some business.

The problem with this tactic is that it provides fuel for the NeoConArtists to throw it up that "the liberals do it too" - a lame excuse for bad behavior in the first place, but an excuse that those who lean to the right seem to be willing to swallow. The GOP is a slippery bunch - they'll lie and cheat and fuck around on their wives and solicit pages for gay sex while smearing liberals with accusations of lying and stealing, spending millions investigating liberals for adultery and marginalizing homosexuals by trying to ban same sex marriage.

Harvey - I know that it all boils down to how many dollars are in the bank accounts, but chill out with that shit, huh?

Friday Roundup: A Hunka Hunka Burnin' Love

It's Only Going to Get Uglier

Rush Limbaugh is sticking to his claim that Michael J. Fox is exaggerating the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease — by “acting” or “not taking his medications” — in an advertisement promoting stem cell research

Critics asserted that the advertisement was a clear effort to play to racial stereotypes and fears, essentially, playing the race card in an election where Mr. Ford is trying to break a century of history and become the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction.

A silhouette of a stripper appears next to footage of a smirking district attorney — Michael Arcuri, the Democratic House candidate for New York’s 24th Congressional district.

“The phone number to an adult fantasy hotline appeared on Michael Arcuri’s New York City hotel room bill,” the announcer warns, “while he was there on official business… Who calls a fantasy hotline and then bills taxpayers?”

“Bad call!” the stripper moans.

The GOP is feeling the wild unpopularity of their policies - in Iraq, on the War on Terror, on Social issues, in their abortive fiscal policies - and the lash out in thie next two years of the population slowly weeding these fuckers out of government is going to be worse than McCartney's divorce. With the 2002 campaign finance law shifting ad-financing contributions to independent groups nearly $60 million has been spent on a massive stockpile of television artillery and most of it is snide and bitchy.

It's gonna be a tedious two years with the only fun being all the indictments against the Bushies. I'm looking for some prison time for you, Georgie!

* * *

4 Out of 6 Stars

Two more weekends of No Exit.

From TimeOut Chicago:

Dennis’s production is appropriately dark and chilling but carries moments of comic relief (many coming from Hall’s jittery, sweaty version of Cradeau). Perhaps most jarring in the 60-year-old piece is the realization that, placed in a cell with a traitor and a child killer, Inez’s greatest sin was being unapologetically gay.

I really don't sweat that much...

* * *

LeiberNixonman



What I find truly fascinating about this is that A) it shows that the Dems can be just as nasty as the GOP (although comparing Joe to Dick isn't really in the same ballpark of vitriol as making fun of Michael J. Fox's disease or attacking Harold Ford for being black and single) and B) the Viet Nam comparison has just become so incredibly relevent. I expect history to repeat itself but how could we let it happen so quickly?

* * *

In Public Has Gone...Er...Public

If you're a New York reader, go check out George Hunka's newest piece, directed by another theater blogger, Isaac Butler. The reviews have been pretty dreamy.

* * *

Real News

Elijah Wood starred in both the LOTR Trilogy and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Jared Leto, in spite of becoming a goth-chick, was in Fight Club. Well, according to VH1's The Best Week Ever, these two went at it at some awards dinner.

Apparently, in between his pretentious acceptance speeches and constant eyeliner application, Jared Leto found the time to saunter over to Elijah Wood’s table and harass Frodo nearly to the point of blows.

My beef? With all the fucking coverage of Madonna's "adoption" of a little black kid and the investigation into Anna Nicole's kid's death, and Naomi Campbell getting arrested, how did the major news organizations miss this shit? Huh? A Fight Club soldier getting down with the fucking Bearer of the One Ring? Shit, that's news, bitch! Where's CNN? MSNBC?

* * *

175 Weeks

Coming to Grips with It

This from Theatre In Chicago:

Menopause the Musical, the smash hit which has had an open run at the Apollo Theater has announced a close date of November 19. Menopause is the highest grossing show in the Apollo Theater's 28-year history. It’s also the second longest running show in the theater’s history. When it closes, the production will have run 175 weeks for 1,281 performances and have been seen by nearly 250,000 patrons.

Sadly (read the sarcasm) I never saw Menopause the Musical. I was offered numerous comp tickets and simply couldn't be dragged to a show that does song parodies as the meat of the piece - parodies like Stayin' Awake and Hot Flash (Stayin' Alive and Heatwave, respectively). Yes - when it came to Menopause the Musical I was, and am, a snob.

It broke a piece of my soul when my mom went to see it, only to rave about how funny and fun it was. She compared it to one of WNEP's shows. When I asked her how Menopause the Musical was anything like a WNEP piece, she claimed it was funny and topical, like some of our satires.

Inspired by a hot flash and a bottle of wine, writer/producer Jeanie Linders created the show as a celebration of women who are on the brink of, in the middle of, or have survived The Change. Since its first performance, the show has evolved as a "grassroots" movement of women who deal with life after 40 and all the challenges that result in the mental, physical and spiritual freedom of more than 38 million post WWII baby boomer females.

I could lament the fact that shows like George Hunka's In Public (a recent blogger hit in NYC), Plasticene's One Fal$e Note: or How to Rob a Bank, or the Neofuturist's ROUSTABOUT will likely never play for 175 weeks for 1,281 performances and be seen by nearly 250,000 patrons. I could rage about the injustice of something as banal and, ultimately, lacking any creative or substantive qualities as Menopause the Musical kicking the commercial ass of so many more intelligent, more solid pieces of theater. I could shake my fist and declare America braindead (as I have done before).

But let's approach it a bit differently.

Why was this show so incredibly popular in Chicago? Why did my mom love it so much that she bought a T-shirt? Why was it that so many of my theater colleagues responded to it in exactly the same way I did?

As Paul Imboden would say, it's all about the story being told, not how it's being told. Like it or not, Menopause the Musical actually spoke to the people it was intended for. Created by women with hot flashes and facial hair for women with hot flashes and facial hair, it told the truth of their life circumstance. It didn't matter to these women whether it was original or innovative. They couldn't care less about the quality of the script or the authenticity of the costumes. Menopause the Musical spoke to its audience and they listened and, like a virus, expanded it's contagion to other, like-minded women.

175 weeks. 1,281 performances. $46.50 a ticket.

Let that sit for a moment. Now ignore the money involved. Ignore the fact that it cost the production of each of those 1,281 performances approximately $35.00 of each ticket to simply survive. Ignore all of that.

Because the audience didn't care about the money and they came anyway. In busloads.

We artists are on the fringe of society. It allows us to say anything we want. Jeanie Linders created a show about herself - saying things she wanted to say. It turned out that what she had to say had more power than her ability to creatively say it and it didn't matter that her "sampling" of songs written by other, more skilled artists was looked down upon by those of us more inspired by the craft of theater than the potential to reach people.

It makes me wonder what I have to say that has the power to last 175 weeks of performance.

Stay the Course?

Where's the Funny?

When he dreamed up Studio 60, Sorkin may not have understood how hard it is to write a great and funny sketch. Some of the best sketch writers in the world work for Saturday Night Live, and they usually can only come up with one or two good ones a week. It is certainly not Sorkin's strong suit: Sketch-writing requires economy, playfulness, and a complete lack of self-importance. Above all, you can't be afraid to sacrifice elegance—or the moral high ground—for a laugh. -- Dan Kois in Slate

Kois is right. The central problem with Sorkin's SNL send up is that it isn't funny. Sorkin is a brilliant writer with things to say, but dude has not got 'the funny.' He doesn't understand the delicate balance one needs to create between the conceptually funny and the belly laugh funny. Watch the Daily Show - a near perfect blend of high concept comedy and the occasionally dick or fart joke. And Stewart thinks the stuff he's reading is funny (absolutely key to the 'sell').

Too many improvisers (and sketch writers) create scenes that they think will be funny to others without genuinely laughing at it themselves. Sorkin is writing sketches (and not even whole sketches) that he thinks are funny yet do not make him (or anyone else) laugh.

Shitcan 30 Rock and have Tina Fey come in and write the sketch parts of Studio 60. Better yet, hire some of the staff of The Daily Show to write that stuff (Peter Gwinn? Mike Brumm?).

I want this show to succeed. I love Sorkin's work. I hope this show gets funnier.

The Artist's Contract

Our role as outsiders allows us to say whatever we choose to say. In exchange for that freedom, theater remains on the periphery of mainstream culture. In an urbane environment, it is allowed to parody, provoke, and present unpopular opinions. - Laura Axelrod

I read this and was struck by the implied trade-off that we as artists have entered in.

With a few exceptions (most community theaters and the large commercial institutions nationwide), most theater practitioners are, as Laura points out, on the periphery of mainstream culture. The downside of this positioning is that we're perpetually broke and constantly bitching about it. The upside is exactly as she posits - being on the fringe affords us the opportunity to explore what is both good and bad in our society with, more or less, an objective eye - to say what needs to be said regardless of economic consequence.

On the El after a performance of No Exit, a friend mentioned my blog. "It seems that everyone is writing about experimentation and pushing the envelope and such. Why isn't anybody doing it?"

It's a good question. If the implied contract society has with artists is a truth (fringe outsiders who thus get carte blanche to say what they feel is important), why isn't there more bite to the bark?

Balls and Think Tanks

Distracted

Hell is other people, my ass.

Hell is doing Sartre's ponderous play while worrying that the whole audience is being entertained by your balls hanging out of a hole in your costume.

Don't get me wrong - I have absolutely no problem flashing my larger than average nutbag for a shock. Not, however, during the highly dramatic No Exit. Cradeau is a douchebag but I think him waving his hairy boys around is not what the playwright had in mind.

We discovered the hole just ten minutes before opening the house - Rebekah was aware that there was a hole in my pants, but decided it wasn't that big so she decided to fix it after the weekend. It was a four inch tear right up my ass to my nuts!

Needless to say, last night was not my best performance.

* * *
Bill Maher Rocks

From his latest New Rules:

And finally, new rule in two parts: (A) You can't call yourself a think tank if all your ideas are stupid; and (B) If you're someone from one of these think tanks that dreamed up the Iraq War and who predicted that we'd be greeted as liberators, and that we wouldn't need a lot of troops, and that Iraqi oil would pay for the war, that the WMD's would be found, that the looting wasn't problematic, that the mission was accomplished, that the insurgency was in its last throes, that things would get better after the people voted, after the government was formed, after we got Saddam, after we got his kids, after we got Zarqawi, and that whole bloody mess wouldn't turn into a civil war, you have to stop making predictions.

* * *

Have a nice Sunday. That's what Sundays are for.

The Point of No Return?

"People have no idea how significant this is. Really a time of shame this is for the American system.—The strange thing is that we have become sort of constitutional couch potatoes. The Congress just gave the President despotic powers and you could hear the yawn across the country as people turned to Dancing With the Stars. It's otherworldly..People clearly don't realize what a fundamental change it is about who we are as a country. What happened today changed us. And I'm not too sure we're gonna change back anytime soon."
- Jonathan Turley in reference to the Military Commisions Act, signed into law on Tuesday.

I watched Paul Greengrass's United 93 the other night. It was what I expected - well-written, well-directed and absolutely brutal to sit through.

The film, whether intentionally or not, made the entire day seem absolutely inevitable. Watching it made me feel as if no one could have prevented it from happening - Christ, there were 4,200 planes in the air at the time! Forget about blaming Bush for sitting on his ass, reading a book about a pet goat, forget about whether it was the Clinton administration's fault or the fault of the Bush administration. This was Columbine. September 11, 2001 was the ultimate school shooting.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were losers. Both had been bullied to a point where they had decided that they could not win. Without any hope of coming out on top or escaping their tormenters, the boys created a victory out of losing: if they could destroy enough, terrorize enough, kill enough, and ultimately sacrifice themselves, their pain would be worth it - there would be glory in death and destruction. There is no excusing their actions - they were self indulgent dickheads with absolutely nothing to lose and a sociopathic disregard for anyone else. There is also no excusing the actions that inevitably took them to that point or the bullies that subjugated the two outcasts to constant ridicule and painted them into the corner that they ultimately decorated with bloodlust and fantasy.

The Islamic jihadists have something in common with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. They too are faced with an enemy of vastly superior firepower and wealth. They too have been bullied into a corner and have turned death and destruction into a perceived victory - to die is to be martyred. There is no excusing their actions - a rabid dog filled so much hate and bloodlust has to be put down. There is likewise no excusing those who created the circumstances that put these men in the position where death is the only victory.

Greed. That is the lasting shame of the United State's legacy. This is not to say that Americans need to be filled with guilt over the actions taken in the past but we need to acknowledge that in our desperation to hold on to what we have, we have become the Empire. Pre-Civil War slavery was about greed. Manifest Destiny was arrogance borne from greed for more power, more control of the globe. The forced destabilization of the Middle East was about greed for oil. The willful ignorance of obvious scientific information that indicates that Global Warming is inevitable and devastating is predicated by greed and a wanton disregard of the long term consequences of our actions. The Military Industrial Complex is about lust for power and control - and money. Lots and lots of money.

We are slowly and steadily becoming that which we revolted against over 200 years ago. We have become our Father England. Each of us is the frog, slowly beginning to boil to death as we hand more and more power to a centralized government that cares more for the money than for the people. We didn't beat Communism because we were right; we beat Communism because we had more wealth than they did. We outspent them.

I also read recently that years after Columbine, the high school bullies still bully and the geeks and dweebs are still pushed into that corner. What does it take to change that behavior? More safeguards against those nerds who finally snap? Or a systemic reboot that forces those in control to reevaluate their "boots-on-the-necks-of-the-weak" pattern? And is it too late to change - have we reached a critical mass where there is no changing the essential character flaws and ruts we find ourselves in?

Friday Roundup: You Smell That?

Worst Congress Ever

“These past six years were more than just the most shameful, corrupt and incompetent period in the history of the American legislative branch. These were the years when the U.S. parliament became a historical punch line, a political obscenity on par with the court of Nero or Caligula — a stable of thieves and perverts who committed crimes rolling out of bed in the morning and did their very best to turn the mighty American empire into a debt-laden, despotic backwater, a Burkina Faso with cable.” - Rolling Stone Magazine

* * *

You Never Give Me Your...Bedpan?

Heather Mills is suing Beatle Sir Paul McCartney for divorce claiming abuse:

• Paul stabbed her with a wine bottle
• Made her cook every night
• Choked her
• Called her an ungrateful bitch
• Would not let her have an antique bedpan under their bed to save her crawling to the bathroom at night
• Was high most of the time

The last two indicate that young Ms. Mills is a fucking looney. Who marries a Beatle and expects him sober? Did she see Magical Mystery Tour?

* * *

Works for Me



* * *

Get Mortified

Wednesday night, Jen, Flatley and I went to the Green Mill to see MORTIFIED, a spoken word performance of folks reading excerpts from their grade school, high school, and college journals, poetry, bad song lyrics, whatever. We went to see Brandi Larsen (who was great) and were surprised to also see both Lacy Coil and Lindsey Muscato performing (both were also great).

The MORTIFIED book comes out November 28 and they'll be back in Chicago in early December. Check it.

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The Downside to Substitute Teaching

I know...you've read about my adventures here and, as Bob Fisher says, "If I ever want to substitute teach..." In spite of some of the more bizarre days, most of the time subsitute teaching is a great gig.

The upside is that, unlike most temp jobs, I call in when I want to work rather than the other way around. The downside is that sometimes I need the work (aka the money) and they don't call back. Interesting fact - there are three substitute teachers for every single fully employed regular teacher in Chicago. That means the gig is sort of like dock work in the 1930's - "You have work for me?" "Not today. Come back tomorrow."

* * *

Camp Hollywood

Rent this Sundance documentary. It's about a sixty day stay in a seedy Hollywood hotel for wannabe actors. For those of us "industry" folks, it's a sad and strangely uplifting film. If you have ComCast, it's on the free Pay Per View Movies section.

* * *

Jen with Harvey Pekar

Last night, Jen went to the Hideout to see one of America's quirkiest artists - Harvey Pekar.

If you don't know who he is, I'm not explaining it. Just know how absolutely cool it is that I have a picture of my wife and Harvey. Apparently he was none to pleased to have the picture taken, but Jen persevered in spite of being alone and nervous to ask him. She's freakin' cool.

Why Every Theater Person Should Learn to Improvise

It's Improv Comedy, Right?

I'm generally not the biggest fan of most improv in Chicago. A huge proportion of it is lazy, wacky 'make-em-ups' populated by hobbyists who don't really take their time in front of a paying audience seriously. Most young improvisers have never heard of Viola Spolin, let alone own a copy of her book. To put that a sort of context, that's like saying most Christians don't own a Bible or most women have never seen Anne of Green Gables.

This is not to say that I don't love improvisational theater. Man, when it's good, there is no substitute - the immediacy, the connection from performer to performer to audience, the lightning fast choices made - when improv is good, it's like watching Mamet write itself in front of you. Groups like Sirens, Bassprov, and anything that involves Dave Razowsky are not merely 'comedy' but often brilliant comic theater.

Why is there so much bad improvisation out there, you may ask.

Some of it has to do with the idea that anyone can do it. The thing is, anyone can do it, but not anyone can do it well. "Anyone can paint. Not everyone should charge money to paint." -- Rob Mello. The growth of improv training centers has exploded in the past ten years and the landscape is now, more than ever, filled with thousands of accountants, nurses, teachers, office workers and frat boys - all who were told by someone that they were were funny. They are all willing to shell out thousands of dollars for the training but are only as invested in the craft of improvisational theater as most twelve year olds are in Little League baseball.

Another reason is simply the law of averages. Theater costs money and in the current environment, it costs a lot. Improv groups only need to secure a place to perform - no costumes, no sets, no royalties to pay, and, with the odd exception, no one gets paid. It is relatively easy to put together an improv show and so there are a shitload out there. More improv equals more good improv but it likewise equals more bad improv as well.

Finally, the general perception of improvisational theater (even among its most faithful practitioners) is that it exists solely for the laugh. The thing is, this perception of the product of improvisation is nearly antithetical to the teachings of its process. It isn't always that way and the most successful improvisers know this. For them, the process is the product.

It's All About the Process

I came to Chicago burned out on theater in general. I had performed scripted theater for years, had performed in some Regional Equity tours of tried and true musicals (The Pirates of Penzance, The Wizard of Oz, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, and countless productions of The Music Man), done a long stint in a Shakespeare Rep company, and had abandoned theater to focus on playing my trumpet while supporting the orchestra/jazz lifestyle by teaching.

When I took classes at Second City (1991-1992), the late Martin DeMaat was my teacher for two of six blocks. He was a process man. The emphasis on the process of theatrical improvisation changed my jaded view of the possibilities in theater. It lead me to Spolin and Johnstone and Boal. The meat and potatoes. It changed me.

Agreement. Active Listening. Focused Heightening. How to Begin Scenes. How to End Them. Scenic Structure. Character Development and Making Strong Motivational Choices. A bit of Meisner. A bit of Stanislovsky. Mime. An Absolute Reliance on Collaboration. The process of improvisation is like swimming - working on all muscles all the time.

To be successful in improvisation, one must be able to write, direct, design a set (albeit an invisible one), create props (mimed, of course), and act. Every performance is a triathlon, an Iron Man contest, an excercise in juggling or spinning plates. The only thing missing from the process was an emphasis on knowing things outside the world of the stage. In the traditional theater world (and ensuing educational institutions), learning about the history of theater and basic dramaturgy is key - the more you know about a given playwright, time period, or character type, the better your interpretation will be. The flaw, of course, is that university trained students come out without any zeal for anything but the tried and true, as if the whole of their artistic voice is supposed to be in the interpretation of dead playwrights.

Interpretation. That is the primary objective of scripted theater. To take the words of the play and interpret them to create a singular production. The director's interpretation of the themes and feel of the play. The actor's interpretation of the specific characters they play. The designer's interpretation of the locale. Like an orchestra playing Beethoven, the act of creation is limited to the specific parameters set by the creator.

In the days of playing my trumpet professionally, I was employed mostly by orchestra and church work, all well paying and all strictly interpreting the trumpet works of Hummel, Handel, Haydn, and Poulenc. At night, I'd go to the Get Me High Lounge and The Green Mill and do open jams, improvising my ass off. Most mornings, my chops were meat pulp, but Christ, it felt good, you know? I found that my ability to quickly analyze a chord structure, while in the midst of it, and compose some melodic lines off the cuff, greatly improved my interpretive skills while subbing in the Lyric Opera orchestra - I could anticipate things more rapidly and my sight reading became pretty amazing.

As a player/performer in Chicago ComedySportz (1993 - 1998) I put the training into practice in front of a regular paying audience. In many ways, the improv comedy audience is no different than the theater school audience - the majority being comprised of students of the specific school where the work is produced. Thus, the audience for a DePaul Theatre School production is filled mostly with DePaul students and the audience for a a Second City Training Center show is filled mostly with SCTC students. Not so with the ComedySportz audience. Performing nearly every weekend for five years in front of 'regular' people was the best training I could have ever asked for. In addition to putting all of the schooling I'd received from DeMaat, Razowsky, Gellman, et al into pragmatic use, I learned how to read an audience, to manipulate the show, my performance within it, and the crowd itself for the most desirable theatrical success.

As a director (of both improvised and scripted theater) I find that the simplicity of the Spolin exercises are invaluable to inform my casts to think on their feet, make bold and varied choices, recall the simple premise of 'play' even in the most dramatic of pieces, and to be able to step out of their very narrow perspective as an actor in the piece to see the overall production. Jen Ellison (yes - my wife) is quite possibly the most accomplished director I've ever worked with and she consistently uses her training as an improviser as a part of her directing regimen to often miraculous effect.

But I'm Just an Actor

I've found that the best producers of Off Loop theater are 'jacks of all trades.' In my experience, the producer needs to know just enough about house management, lighting design, set construction, publicity, graphic design, rehearsal technique, stage management, and marketing to be able to step in and assist any part of the production that is sagging in quality.

The best actors, directors and writers I've worked with have the same sensibility.

Also, I recommend to those who are "just" improvisers to get off their asses and take some acting classes as well - there's no excuse for someone to be onstage and not know where upstage or stage left is, as well as not have some sort of scripted acting experience.

Yeah...And Clinton Killed Santa, Too...

When Hippies Turn Corporate

Sometimes it works out pretty well for the tribe. Spike Lee's The Inside Man is a blisteringly smart and seductive bank heist thriller with enough Spike Lee touches to remind us that the cat responsible for Do the Right Thing and School Dayz was in charge of the art. We are rewarded because I know in my heart that Lee used some of his big payday to film his two-part documentary on NOLA and the aftermath of Katrina - Lee will take the less political, big-bucks projects to give himself the opportunities to make films that matter, and thus we all win. Those who merely want some high-quality entertainment can benefit from well-made eye candy and those who want some more of that Lee polemical screed get their bitter tea as well.

Sometimes it doesn't work out so well. When the consistently funny and snarky Dennis Miller switched sides of the partisan aisle to become a "hip Republican comic" he likewise may have moved to Chilé for all the exposure he got and laughs he delivered here in the States. I saw Miller recently interviewed on The Daily Show and the contrast between he and Stewart was strikingly sad - even Stewart was too respectful of a former powerhouse comedian now reduced to doing bits on Hannity & Colmes to even banter much. Miller has become a misguided Rich Little with no Love Boat to guest star on.

In the past, like knowing that a Billy Wilder film was going to be brilliantly acerbic and that a movie starring Ashton Kutcher was going to kind of suck, I was comforted by the fact that Oliver Stone was one of my kind, if not slightly more deranged. I reveled in JFK and understood the anger and betrayal of Platoon and believe that Wall Street is one of the films that define the eighties (along with American Psycho and The Breakfast Club, of course).

And then he goes and makes World Trade Center with Nick Cage. I didn't see it. I probably won't see it (even on DVD). I'm still too pissed about the fear-based political fallout (including the imperialist invasion of the Middle East) that resulted from it to spend even 30 seconds basking in the patriotic glow of the heroic efforts of "our guys." They shouldn't have had to be there, sacrificing their lives in the first place. They shouldn't be suffering from debilitating consequences due to the mislabeled air quality for days after the crashes and the subsequent "fuck you" they received from the insurance companies. I didn't understand where Stone's head was on this, except maybe that he had some bills to pay or was just kind of embarrassed about the still lingering smell of Natural Born Killers or The Doors, but this was the guy who helmed Born on the Fourth of July - no way he was going to shill for the other guys, right?

Wrong.

After steering clear of political controversy with 9/11 heroism tale “World Trade Center,” Oliver Stone and Paramount Pictures are venturing into edgier territory with “Jawbreaker.” Pic will focus on America’s response to the terrorist attacks with the invasion of Afghanistan and hunt for 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden.

Cyrus Nowrasteh, whose most recent credit was the controversial ABC miniseries “The Path to 9/11,” is set to write a second draft of “Jawbreaker.”

The movie is to be based on a book, also called “Jawbreaker,” that blames the Clinton administration for failing to capture Bin Laden and praises President Bush.

What the fuck, Ollie? You have got to be kidding me.

I suppose he is following the advise of Talluleh Bankhead when she quipped "I'd rather be strongly wrong than weakly right." Admittedly, it is a bit embarrassing, sitting over here with the Left, the balless and tepid Democratic Party, so bruised by the GOP that they don't seem to be able to completely sweep the entire bunch of corrupt, warmongering fat asses out of office in a monumental landslide regardless of a tradition of scandals and criminal activity that we have hard proof of (you know, as opposed to all those "alleged" scandals they're always trying to pin on the Dems). But Stone has gone too far.

Not too long ago, Stone had this to say:

"From Sept. 12 on, the incident (the attacks) was politicized and it has polarized the entire world," said Stone. "It is a shame because it is a waste of energy to see that the entire world five years later is still convulsed in the grip of 9/11.

"It's a waste of energy away from things that do matter which is poverty, death, disease, the planet itself and fixing things in our own homes rather than fighting wars with others. Mr. Bush has set America back 10 years, maybe more."

So, what exactly is he doing with the fucker who wrote The Path to 9/11? Does GOP cock in his mouth just really work for him?

REVIEW: No Exit

GUEST BLOGGER: JEN ELLISON

NO EXIT
Written by Jean-Paul Sartre
Directed by Christopher Dennis
Presented by Livewire Chicago Theater
Review by Jen Ellison

Disclosure: Given that I am in this production, I asked Jen to review it for AWG. Jen Ellison is my wife.

“Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth - look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity, and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus could be intended for enjoyment. “ -Soren Kierkegaard

“Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable.” -Simone de Beauvoir

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” -Jean-Paul Sartre

I love those Existential bastards.

They’re fun guys. Who doesn’t want to talk about personal freedoms and responsibilities? Who could possibly tire of these recitations on arbitrary societal norms, man’s guilty taste for suffering and the refutation of god? Not me. Invite these dudes out for a beer. I want to stick a few quarters into the jukebox, play some Alan Parson’s Project and gab the night away. I’d even take up smoking to shun the rising tide of anti-smoking public opinion.

And what young theater company doesn’t want to slide down the greased pole of Sartre’s No Exit? None, apparently. In fact, it seems damn near impossible to escape the black hole suction of this avant garde chestnut. Many companies often have a “new take” on the old girl, some innovations offering tremendous insight, while others amount to nothing more than a dog and pony show.

A “new take” is not the case with LiveWire’s current production. Director Christopher Dennis has resisted the urge to improve upon Sartre’s text and presents us a simple, unfussed-with interpretation. Were I to assign a class to see No Exit, I might indeed send them to this one. The staging is clean and there are no distractions from the performers or the text. In one instance, this is to be lauded. In another, I am left to wonder “Why? Why on earth am I watching this?”

Oddly, in all these years, I have never seen a production of No Exit. I have read it a couple of times and am not immune to the ubiquity of the “Hell is other people” maxim. (As a point of interest, “Hell is other people” was not meant to be the tagline it has become. It was intended as a sort of throw-away joke, illustrating the character’s inability to take responsibility for his own actions. Hell is other people who immediately say “Hell is other people” when you mention No Exit.)

Written in 1944, just prior to the French liberation from Nazi rule, No Exit takes place in rather a dreary hotel room in Hell. A Valet enters (played by Jeremiah Musgrove) and brings the first guest, Cradeau (Don Hall). Cradeau and the Valet have a brief conversation as Cradeau tries to figure out what sort of tortures are in store. The Valet leaves and locks the door only to return in short order with the two other guests assigned to the room, Inez (Saren Nofs-Snyder) and Estelle (Danielle O’Farrell). The Valet leaves for the last time and locks the door behind him. The games begin as three of them pick at one another’s weaknesses: Cradeau’s cowardice, Inez’ duplicity, and Estelle’s deadly need for male affirmation. It slowly dawns on Inez that there will be no thumbscrews, hot coals or iron maidens in Hell. Instead, the three of them are meant to be the each other’s tormentors as they forced to remain in the room together for all eternity.

If escapism is what you are looking for, move along. This is not an easy show to watch, even if you know it backwards and forwards. All the characters are insufferable in their own way, the tension thickens with every line and, in the end one can only be left dissatisfied. No real resolution is reached and the idea of an eternity with these people is nauseating, to say the least.

Don Hall’s Cradeau is interesting and nuanced. After a slightly manic phase at the top of the show, he is not at all the bombast one might expect. Hall is better known for his louder roles as Hitch Bigwood in Losers Bracket and The Angry White Guy in the improv show of the same name. Here he is in control, charming, and doesn’t run roughshod over the text (I have had occasion to witness Don’s singular gift for paraphrase.). The problem with this is that Cradeau comes across as almost too sympathetic: He understands what he has done and is determined to redeem himself. I have always wondered that this determination wasn’t a scheme in and of itself. We do not want to feel sorry for Cradeau, but in Hall’s hands, it’s difficult not to and whether this serves the play is uncertain.

As Inez, Saren Nofs-Snyder gives a strange, mannered performance. She comes off as evil from the get go and we are denied the revelation of her sin as the play progresses. Why wouldn’t the other two characters steer clear of her, seeing straight away that she is a fiend? Part of the Villain’s trickery is to seem not such a nasty piece of work. This is not so here.

Danielle O’Farrell appears out of place as the other two performers adhere to a style derived from the time period. She is quirky and modern and it is difficult to imagine her as a 1940’s socialite. In the role of Estelle, however, O’Farrell brings a disturbing, flip quality. Her unwillingness (or inability) to see her living actions as anything but wrong make her infuriating and distasteful, but she carries a sense of doe-eyed vulnerability that is ultimately disarming.

The Valet as presented by Jeremiah Musgrove, does not overplay, but certainly brings a mischievous demon-like quality to his 3 minutes of stage time.

Part of the allure of No Exit, is in the interpretation, for the actors, for the designers and for the director. At the end of the evening, beyond the questions of self, responsibility, and the personal Hells we create, I was unsure why this production existed. A certain amount of gnawing dissatisfaction is unavoidable in watching or reading No Exit, and I believe most of that comes from the play itself, regardless of the production.

While I applaud Dennis’ restraint in displaying the show free of all the interpretive bells and whistles, this production came across as more of a well-informed book report than a visceral piece of theater. It’s tough when the source text is shrouded in intellectualism and theory. I question the possibility to manifest an affecting interpretation of No Exit at all. This particular production, while competent, still lacks the transcendence it may have been hoping for.

- Jen Ellison

A Battle of Wits with the Unarmed

The War of Attrition

"Please spit out your gum, Curtis."

Curtis, who has a good five inches on me, doesn't even look at me and continues to chomp on a turd-size piece of bright blue gum.

"Curtis. If I can see the color of your gum, you really need to spit it out. Now."

He looked at me sullenly and shook his head slowly. "Nah."

SUBSTITUTE TEACHER HINT # 45:
Never allow yourself to get actually angry. If you lose your temper, you lose the game.

Friday I subbed for the same classroom (seventh grade Science in Humboldt Park) as I did on Wednesday. I was actually requested by the school due to my success with the kids on Wednesday. Each day of substitute teaching is a tiny war - you against the kids. The key to winning the war is to thwart their objective - that is to never allow them to push your buttons significantly enough that you lose you authority and control of the environment. Actually teaching them something is strictly a side objective and is rarely achieved by even the best. Often a school's definition of success is that no students were sent to the office and the classroom seemed essentially orderly during the day.

Wednesday, I came out on top. I won the battle. Friday was a dead-tie with casualties on both sides.

My choices with Curtis were simple. The class was engaged and on-task, doing their assignment and with very little to no bullshit. Even Curtis was doing his work. I could press the issue, making Curtis spit out his gum and daring him to defy my position enough to put him out of the game. Or I could let it slide and risk losing the edge in the battle of the day but leave the room relatively undisturbed and productive.

This time I had two eighth grade classes in the morning and the seventh graders for the rest of the day. The difference between eighth graders and seventh graders is night and day. Over the summer between the two grades a quantum leap of maturity occurs that is difficut to describe. It is truly uncanny. It is like seeing the difference between a Great Dane puppy struggling desperately with his overlong legs and the year later as he strides with confidence and calm.

The seventh graders had an assembly in the morning. And it was fucking Friday. My task in the late morning and afternoon was cut out for me. Defiance was in the air and even some of the less troubled kids were in the mood to test my boundaries. I made a mental note to avoid raising my voice at all costs (an assignment I failed a number of times during the day). The waters were dark and the undertow strong.

"My dad said if you try to keep me after school, I can just walk out and if you try to stop me, he'll find you and kill you."
"I ain't sitting down - I have to use the fucking washroom!"
"You're really ugly. You know that?"

Curtis was also one of Antoine's crew from the Wednesday stare down. Antoine was in the first eighth grade class and treated me like I was his best friend, asking me were I went to college, why I liked living in Chicago, and what sports teams I liked. Both Curtis and Antoine were a part of the special education program - they were classified as EDBD - Emotionally and Behaviorally Disabled - a nice scientific way to say "Criminal Assholes." They were a part of "Inclusion" which means they spent four hours a day in a small class of perhaps 6-10 kids with a Special Education Teacher and were "mainstreamed" into regular classes two hours a day.

"Inclusion" is new age horseshit and primarily lets unsocialized kids with little personal accountability skills terrorize the rest of the student body for two hours a day.

Three kids I caught in the coat room hidng from class, ditched out of lunch to tell the principal of the school that I should be fired because I punished them by sitting them in three separate corners of the room.

One kid I tricked into going to get some water and locked him out of the room. He stood for 35 minutes in the window, furious at being excluded from his social outlet (yeah - he was a SpEd kid in inclusion) and tried to slam the door on me when we changed classes.

One kid jumped up and chest thumped me because I confiscated his cell phone and told me to give it back or he was going to kick my ass. Him I "put my hands on," physically sitting him down and quietly explaining to him that I would break the fingers on his right hand if he stepped up to me again. Yes, I would be arrested and lose my job, I explained, but it would be worth it.

By 2:00PM, with 45 minutes left in the school day, I was spent. I stood in the doorway and simply became the unmovable barrier between the kids and the hallway.

The most fascinating thing was the "good" kids, for lack of a better term. Once it became apparent that I had run out of steam, they quietly rallied to my defense. Two other kids had gone to the principal to defend me when they heard about the initial three. One very quiet kid went around the room and picked up all the trash for me. Two girls volunteered to wash the chalkboard and brought my shoulder bag over to me when another kid was planning to go into it.

I looked at Curtis and decided.

"Go sit down and finish your science. And for the sake of all that is holy and good, chew your gum less obviously."

As I signed out in the office, the principal came up to me.

"How are you today, Mr. Hall."

"I survived a Friday. So I'm pretty good."

"Keep up the fine work. The students seem to like you - even the rough ones. Hope to see you here again."

Only if I'm lucky.

The Stuff I'm Doing

Project Update

Just thought I'd share a quick update on the theatrical projects I'm currently working on.

No Exit
If you read AWG at all, you're in the know. Did a Saturday night show for three people (but one of them was Mary Jo Bolduc, so that was fine). It seems that no one has ever actually seen a production of Sartre's play, so now is your chance.

Junkmail Improv
Directing a sketch comedy show about the various stages of life written and performed by these guys. I think the show will be sharp - I'm directing it with a lighter touch than usual.

The Armageddon Radio Hour New Years Eve
A complete overhaul of the WNEP classic, scheduled for an NYE performance at Chicago's Apollo Theater. New characters, new pieces (written by Jen, Joe, Flatley, Jenny B., Devilvet, Rebar, Cholley, Goss, et al) and an open audition on November 19.

W.I.P
Rebar is taking over for me this month (I have Sunday matinees of No Exit). We have a day-long W.I.P. on November 18 culminating in performances of brand new long forms that evening.

Cornwallis
The Chemically Imbalanced Comedy house team, so to speak. Working our way into the extraordinarily complicated 'Butterfly Effect' form.

Untitled Teacher Play
The surprising enthusiasm that my Substitute Teaching blogs have received has brought up an old play I was working on years ago. I think I'll rework it conceptually and see what comes of it.

Soiree DADA: Blinde Esel Hopse
Next year's DADA show. Jen has asked me to direct. I'm thinking about a larger cast than the four in Neue Weltaffen.

The 48 Laws of Power
A long form improvised piece featuring three actors I met in the W.I.P. Self produced. Possibly Spring '07.

Go.dot
Flatley and I plan on adapting Waiting for Godot to be performed at random times in random locations throughout the city. We film each one; culminate in a live performance with video playback. Jen will direct.

The Brother Piece
With Devilvet when he moves back to Chi-town in November.

I suppose I have plenty on my plate.

No Exit Opens

Review Forthcoming

My wife, Jen Ellison, is going to guest blog her review of my show this weekend. Hers is the artistic opinion I most respect, so I figure that's a bonus for us all.

From the inside, it went very well. The audience seemed into it and engaged, the pace was good and everyone onstage was connected and on top of his game.

Today we're swinging out to Didier Farms, a Lincolnshire pumpkin farm that we WNEPeeps go to every year (for, like, six years). Cider, the Corn Maze, a petting zoo, the Super Fun Slide...it's all there.

Then off to do some more Sartre.

Mentally Abused by Two Broads in a Small Room

Pretend Hell

This past week was what is known as TECH WEEK for No Exit, which in Chicago Off-Loop Theater often means three days to load-in, build the set, have a dry technical rehearsal (no costumes, start and stop for lights and sound) and two nights of dress rehearsals). Last night we had our one and only preview performance and tonight we open the show for a grand total of 18 performances in four weeks.

SIDENOTE: I know that many in NYC perform under the Equity Showcase Code that allows for only 16 performances and that there has been some recent grousing about the short time that gives any given production 'legs' but this is pretty standard in Chi-town.

MONDAY
The designer (also acting as Master Carpenter) has spent the day building the walls of the set; he has also built a raked ramp at center stage (lowest point is at the door upstage, highest point is at dead center), and done some painting. We have our couches and a chair - the statue of Napolean turns out to be a statue of Shakespeare (which I happen to find much funnier).

The run goes pretty well, with the big exception being the opening scene. Considering it is app. ten minutes of me discovering my own Hell solo, it is especially irritating that I can't nail this fucking scene. I know the lines and the blocking is fluid - the trouble really lies in the questions of tempo and how much fear I show in the moment. The scene has been really dragging, which is not a good thing for the opening salvo of a 90-minute piece of theater most done at the college level.

We deal with the fact that door to Hell keeps popping open during the play and that keeps cracking me up.

TUESDAY
Set is nearly complete minus some painting and trim. The lights are hung and focused. We are working with costumes for the first time - I'm wearing a forties style suit that completely accentuates my big gut - I look like a 1940's version of Ed Asner - and I perform in sneakers because the shoes Erin got were too small. I get a fedora for my costume and something hits me in the gut - I get a revelation about that first fucking scene. It reminds me of something Morgan Freeman said on the DVD commentary to Seven - that he waits for the character's hat and the rest of the character comes from that.

I let Chris know that I'm blowing off all the direction I've been given and trying something completely different - he'll either hate it or love it. Here's a quick recap of my thoughts on this:

As we've worked on the show, Chris has rightly emphasized the difference between the masks that the characters put on for protection (the blowhard, the ingenue, the man-hater) and the raw, naked fear they all feel about being dead and in Hell. As we worked the opening ten minutes (just myself and the Bellboy), we spent a lot of time breaking the scene down into moments of chest thumping bullshit and uncontrollable fear, creating and schizophrenic back and forth of mask/no mask dialogue.

It occured to me that the character has the whole play to reveal his fear in total and that he is a hard-bitten war journalist shot for desertion. His mask is rock solid and cannot slip so easily or so frequently. I decided to show only the badass facade in the opening scene, grilling the Bellboy rather pleading with him.

It worked. It jazzed things up and Chris loved it. It brought out some natural humor (without any planned bits or Don Knotts mannerisms) and Chris's only note was to speed it the fuck up and eliminate all pauses for thought.

WEDNESDAY
Set is 90% finished. Costumes are complete and look good. Final run of the show before Thursday's preview with actual people watching.

Man, did I blow it. I realize in the middle of the show that whenever I take the 'speed it up' note to heart, I fuck the lines up in that first scene. I have a pretty rapid delivery anyway and to force it faster invariably causes me to jump lines, get lost in the maze of dialogue and stumble all over the fucking place, stinking up the room. I was so in my head about it, I was blowing lines all over the place.

I decide to ignore the note and go the speed I'm comfortable with and have fun with the scene.

Also - Chris was informed by Bill Williams that the Reader would not be reviewing the show because "it had been done too much." If, indeed, that is the reason the Reader isn't going to cover the show, I'd hope that this policy becomes consistent and we'll no longer see any Reader reviews of anything written by fucking Ibsen, Chekhov, Mamet and Shakespeare because - Christ - that shit gets done all the time!

THURSDAY
Preview Night. Nice full audience; Nina Metz came for the Trib (she sat right in my "other world" spot so I ended up doing quite a bit of my monologue work directly at her). The show was solid with few gaffes and none obvious to the audience.

Tomorrow is the open, complete with French food and wine after. Jen, Rebar and Flatley are coming - my toughest critics.

Come check out the show.

A Day at the Zoo

It Happened in Humboldt Park

"What you got to say to me now, motherfucker?"

I turned to the side, the rain drizzling across my glasses. He was with a crew of about ten other kids. They were all similarly dressed, like a less cartoony version of a gang in Walter Hill's The Warriors. I considered my reply.

"Absolutely nothing." I struck a rap pose. "What you got to say to me, MOTHERFUCKER?"

It washed over me that, like Timothy Treadwell in Grizzly Man, I was about to be eaten by the bears I had arrogantly assumed I could live with. The barely pubescent street thugs stared at me in what can only be described as confused fury.

After another beat of silence. "Then we're done." I said and continued to stare him down until he looked away and the boys decided to shamble off, mumbling their barely comprehensible eighth grade zombie-speak.

* * *
I substitute taught at a school in Humboldt Park yesterday. The area leaves a bit to be desired but I discovered that I am, as a teacher at least, at my absolute best when working in the classic "troubled inner-city school" filled with kids who America has chosen to leave behind.

I bopped around the school in the early morning, providing prep periods for fourth and sixth grade teachers - strictly high priced babysitting. Then I landed in Room 102. Seventh Grade Science. For the rest of the day.

Most teachers I know fear nothing more than seventh and eighth grade. The kids are just swimming in the chemical dump of their overloaded hormones and their emotions and bodies are careening at a breakneck pace without the experience to guide it away from the fourth turn wall. I love this age. They crack me up; every time I work with them I have new stories to tell and feel like I successfully navigated a rudderless boat through the most violent of storms and lived to tell about it. (Jesus - a NASCAR metaphor and a sailing metaphor in one paragraph - what you got to say to me now, motherfucker?)

The day was interesting. I had enough time during the day to talk to a couple of the teachers, all of whom looked tired and stretched a bit too thin and who spoke in the slow, hushed tones of the shellshocked. They told me of the gentrification on either side of the local neighborhood and the resulting dramatic rise in drug dealers and gangs in their school over the past few years. They quietly railed against the sense of entitlement their students were trained to have in an environment that dictates that teachers could not punish children in nearly any way whatsoever for increasingly violent behavior - the idea that flunking, suspending, or holding back a kid who has no perceived use for school in the first place is like fighting a wooly mammoth with a loaf of bread. While the kids were away, they would talk with a worn but slightly amused look on their faces which immediately hardened into a disgusted scowl as soon as any kid appeared.

Excerpts of my day include:

"I forgot to tell you," I gleefully stopped the class in the mid-riot of getting prepared to switch classes. "Look at this look on my face." I deadpanned. "It says 'I don't care.' You say you absolutely have. to go to the washroom or you'll die and you must have your friend with you? 'I don't care.' Your friend jabbed you in the eye and you can't see? 'I don't care.' Your teacher said that you sit in the corner with six others while 'doing your science' together? 'I don't care.'"

"Mr. H, you're like Jack Black! He's fat, too!"

"Mr. Hall, why are you so happy?"
"Because teaching you guys is like a day at the zoo! And who doesn't like the zoo?"

"Pardon me. (a beat) Excuse me. (a beat) I need your attention! (a beat) I don't want to yell over you, folks. (a beat) Excuse me! (a beat) GOOD GOD - THE SKY! LOOK AT THE SKY!! OK, listen up really quickly -"
"Mr. Hall - you're weird."

At one point, I run into Antoine. Antoine is a 15-year old, six-foot-three inch, drug dealer's son. He is in the behavior disorder class and, according to his teachers, pretty much has the run of the school. He is what most teachers know to be a hopeless case - no pragmatic use for education, no respect for any adults except those that can pummel him, and the realization that nothing, absolutely nothing can be done to him until he's eighteen.

He came in during a class switch and was chatting up one of the girls. I had no idea he wasn't supposed to be there and was actually mystified that he simply would not shut up for me (I'm actually pretty good at that sort of thing). He literally acted as if I wasn't there. After ten minutes of attempting to explain the science lesson (Matter, Mass, Volume, and Density), he gets up and makes for the door. I intercept.

"Where are you going, Antoine?"
"This ain't my class."
"Then why have you been here for ten minutes?"
"Ah bumbbges digghuff chaetky mumblemumblemumble...."
"What?"
"Nothin. Get out my way."
"How about we wait for the security guard to swing by and take you to the class you're supposed to be in - I don't get a thrill at the prospect of you roaming the hall freely."
"What?" He tries to shove me out of the way of the door, getting right up in my face. "Don't you lay your hands on me!"

This is a trick. Antoine knows that this is the phrase that freezes the blood in most teachers' hearts. In a time where parents file lawsuits against teachers for failing grades, the stigma attached to a corporal punishment charge is career suicide.

"I didn't lay a hand on you, Antoine. In fact, it was you who laid your hands on me. We now have two choices." I get quiet enough for only Antoine to hear. "We can wait for the guard to come by and pick you up and escort you out of here so I can teach some seventh grade science. Or. I'm gonna beat the crap out of you and then have you arrested for assault. Make your choice."

His face reflects a number of conflicting emotions and finally he flashes a shit-eating grin and asks, "We cool. right?"

It turns out that the kids don't really care much for Antoine. They're afraid of him. The teachers are, too. I think it's a shame that things have come to this - it's only October. The atmosphere for the rest of the day slows down to a mere category 2 hurricane and the day breezes by.

* * *

"Absolutely nothing." I struck a rap pose. "What you got to say to me, MOTHERFUCKER?"

I understand that this all sounds abhorrent. Until you've been there, it's difficult to judge. The atmosphere of modern public education in the urban area is wildly different than when I was a kid. We're dealing with a third or fourth generation of students who have been "left behind" by both Republicans and Democrats and the result is, more and more frequently, Antoine.

On the other hand, most of the kids are pretty wonderful - full of life, smelly, awkward, and just like you and I when we were in seventh grade. They're the reason I like my gig. They're the reason I show up at all.

The Perpetual Outsider

The Truth Glints Off My Helmet Like Sunlight

I've always known I wasn't really a part of the great masses. I was always a misfit toy, never quite fitting in with 'the crowd' and growing up with a sense that I was a stranger in a strange land, regardless of where I actually was. This feeling of outside-ness was fertilized by the consistent lack of a permanent home and my mother's constant insistence that I was special, different, smarter than the rest.

In an interview with Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Albom makes the comment:

Since when did sentimental become a bad thing? Everybody's favorite movie is a sentimental movie — It's a Wonderful Life, or The Wizard of Oz. Nobody's favorite movie is some dark, dysfunctional slasher story. Everybody's favorite song is a sentimental song. So why all of a sudden is it bad to be sentimental in books? Critics have a problem with sentimentality. Readers do not. I write for readers.

I read this an immediately thought: My favorite movie is Brazil. On the sappier side, The Fisher King is right up there, too. (Coincidentally both Terry Gilliam films). Aha! I am, indeed, separate from the masses!

I was a strangely rebellious teen, not quite a delinquent (I was always pretty good at school, which is not to be confused with being smart, just scholastically inclined), but rather the school eccentric. It was a near guarantee that if something, anything, was wildly popular with my classmates that I would be against it, on principle rather than any legitimate reason. When Pac-Man was all the rage, I was into Galaga; while most everyone in my high school drank Coke products, I was strictly into Shasta Cola, which the local QuikTrip didn't carry.

I once read an article that surmised that my generation was somehow hobbled by a sort of systematic creation of little rebels with no substance to their rebellion - our 1950 - 1960's era parents, so predisposed to rebel against stifling social politics and the slow reveal of a corrupt government, instilled in us a system of values that required rebellion first and foremost. My generation tends to see more credence in conspiracy theories about anything government does than most, disbelieves the miraculous claims of almost anything sold to us, and have replaced the spirit of American idealism and optimism with a built-in cynicism and love for irony. We, in general, have a fairly low opinion of humanity - our trust in our fellow man has been stunted.

This isn't necessarily an all-bad circumstance, but when you are so used to constant rebellion in your attitudes, it stymies that ability to focus on any one cause celebré and actually foment revolution. When you revolt against everything, nothing gets changed.

Pick something you want to change and see it through. Ignore the sea of hands grabbing for your dollars and time and choose a cause. Change is fucking hard regardless if it is getting the local school to improve the food value in the cafeteria food or restoring a bruised and beaten Bill of Rights. Choose and see it through anyway.

What Exactly Would I Do?

TIWDHWD
This Is What Don Hall Would Do

Over at The Mirror, YS asks the question "What Would Don Hall Do? in reference to a particularly caustic Boston critic.

Would I want her to attend one of my shows? Good question. I guess because I am on a hiatus from producting anything right now it is easier for me to sit back and delude myself into thinking I would welcome it. "Bring it on!"-- so to speak. An the other hand, I wonder what Mr. Don Hall, the Angry Guy In Chicago would do. He more than likely would bar her from entering the theatre.

The critic's current screed is here.:

Hey you New England theater producery types out there—I have a really pressing question to ask you: Can you stop making shit? Boston has thousands of fringe companies out there, all with the same mission statement plastered boldly on the cover pages of their programs—to get us wee ones (65 and under) into the theater. Problem is, we want theater that’s relevant, or at least entertaining. Not stuff that’s so “avant garde” that it’s actually meaningless, or stuff that’s too artsy to hold any water.

She goes on to suggest (which she later clarifies) that the generation theaters are trying to get in the door are accustomed to action movies and that fringe, avant-garde art should somehow take that into consideration.

So.

WWDHD?

Let's start with the concepts of fringe, avant-garde theater. I've noticed that in New York at least (I can't speak to the fringe scene in Boston) that the audience is a bit more European in their approach to theater. Joel Jeske once told me that in NYC, you can put up anything and it will get some sort of audience because going to the theater is a priority for New Yorkers. Theater is a part of the leisure activity scene.

Chicago, while having a thriving theater community, does not have a thriving theater audience.

AVERAGE CHICAGO GUY:
"What the fucK? I went to see this fringy, avant-garde shit and it was BORING! I wanted to leap up from my seat and tell the audience I was planning on taking a shit later on and for 15 bucks they could see my "Droppin' Dookie" avant-garde piece later in the evening!"

Simply put, the Chicago audience, in general, will put up with a lot of high concept, intellectual, avant-garde shows but they will not, under any circumstances, put up with being bored. Perhaps it is the virtue of being in a comedy capitol, home of Second City, the Chicago Improv Festival, Chicago Sketchfest, IO, etc. that forces those with a bit more intellectually challenging fare to make sure the work isn't simply self indulgent jerking off.

Now, unlike Jenna, I like action movies. I love the Bruckheimer oeuvre, own all three Die Hard movies, and am one of possibly five people in America who owns a DVD copy of Judge Dredd; I also get off on the most experimental live theater around and see no conflict in that. I do not think audiences are so anesthetized by the "blown 'em up" model of entertainment that they are incapable of enjoying more challenging theater. As I wrote earlier,

Much like the Masscult co-opting of terms like "alternative," "independent,' and even "innovative," the term "experimental" in regards to theater has become muddied by marketing gurus both large and small. For most Americans visions of bullwhips protruding from asses, crucifixes in urine, and pretentious Germans in unitards spring to mind when approached with the term. Given the state of most live theater, who can blame them - the term is so ill-defined by the artists and arts journalists that the most lauded or vilified definition is bound to stick.

In speaking with theater artists, "experimental" can mean everything from setting Hamlet in the 1980's business world to the use of improvised, interactive environments to merely saying "fuck" a lot. Many assume that absurdist and surrealist techniques equate experimental until it is considered that these techniques were begun in the first half of the last century. In many ways, the "experimental" theater scene in Chicago has become the very definition of Peter Brook's Deadly Theatre, that is it uses "old formulae, old methods, old jokes, old effects; stock beginnings to scenes, stock ends..." and appeals primarily to an audience who come to the show to feel that they are in the elite, cultured part of society simply for showing up.

With that sort of publicity, who can blame the public for avoiding anything high concept or avant-garde?

It seems that Jenna is at least trying to provoke a perception shift in the Boston scene - speak the truth and people begin to listen. I imagine a good portion of Bostonians reading her column and saying, "She's right, ya know." I doubt she has seen enough of the the Boston fringe scene to be able to legitimately declare that most of it is shit, but hyperbole makes a good read.

As for what I would do about her - she sounds like my kind of critic. If she saw a show of mine and called it shit, I'd call her up on the phone and engage her in a spirited debate, likely laced with a healthy dose of vitriol and profanity (as I have done in the past with other Chicago critics). Would I ban her from future shows? Not unless she saw three different types of shows I'm offering and said the exact same thing about all three. At that point, she's demonstrated either an agenda against my work or that she's a fucking idiot.

If I were Molasses Tank ProDuctions I'd make sure Jenna was in the front row of my next two productions and be prepared to hand her her ass if necessary.

Something That Genuinely Inspires

Elevator Repair Service

Isaac Butler over at Parabasis recently posted a two-part interview of John Collins, the artistic director of ERS in New York (the group who put up the seven-hour experimental piece GATZ.

Part One

Part Two

First - thank you, Isaac.

Second, read this.

Appetite Whetters:

Our pieces are generally composed of formal experimentation meant to test the boundaries of the theatrical form combined with translations of non-theatrical text into theatrical language. It's hard to put them all into one category but they generally unfold this way.

Our research is a big tool. We treat a subject as something to be turned inside out and examined closely, gone over with a fine-toothed comb. So we try to give ourselves the time we need to get deep inside what we're making a show about and around and look for performance inspiration in it.

Hypocrisy is a Family Value, Too

Do I Make U Horny?

What a shitstorm, huh?

The Foley news is just the latest in a hailstorm of unfavorable publicity that has hit the Republicans and President Bush in recent weeks, costing the party the initiative at a critical point in the midterm-election campaign. Party leaders had hoped to run the final weeks of the campaign with the spotlight on what they consider their strength: battling terrorists. Instead, they are playing defense on everything from the sex scandal to dispiriting reports about Iraq.

I know it isn't particularly in vogue among the American public, but let's put this in perspective, shall we?

The Republican lead Congress spent $80 million and well over 400 FBI field agents investigating Clinton - at the same time Mr. bin Laden was busy as a little power hungry beaver, putting together a plot that would topple an American symbol of economic dominance. After a four year investigation process, under a neo-con prosecutor, and nearly unlimited resources to expose all the secrets and illegal activity that Bubba was supposed to have done, Starr unearths one piece of evidence against B.C. - a perjury charge.

Keep in mind, sticking a cigar in a 22-year old's cooter is not illegal, it's just sort of gross and inappropriate in a "Oops! I'm married" way.

A cum-stained dress was the only piece of hard evidence found.

Clinton was impeached for this - oh, the outrage! The shock and awe! Our president lied to the American people about something as monumental as where he stuck his cigar! He lied to the American public about having SEX! Leiberman was shocked. Henry Hyde - shocked. Newt Gingrich was enraged and shocked!

Jump cut to yesterday.

The Republican lead Congress has spent nowhere near $80 million in the past four years investigating:

"We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do ... to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture." - President Bush (Nov. 7, 2005)

"...there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” - Vice President Cheney (February 18, 2003)

"The fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely." - President Bush (July 16, 2003)

Just three. Out of potentially thousands of pieces of misinformation, ommitted facts and outright lies. But three is more than one. And it took me five minutes, no money , and no FBI agents to track those lies down.

The Republican Party is the one of Character, yes? The Family Values Party, am I right? These were the guys who were going to clean Washington up, yes? They were going to bring Character and Honesty back into the Halls of Government, correct? Not to put too fine a point on it, but what an amazing load of shit the country bought!

We have a month, folks. One month. The likelihood that this will blow over and be news of the weird in a week is high. Once again, Democrats, Libertarians, Green Partiers, and Independents of every stripe - get these fuckers out of there.

REVIEW: The Midnight Hellhouse

The Midnight Hellhouse
Written and Performed by MALICE
Directed by Jen Ellison

Disclosure: I frequently work with MALICE and Jen Ellison is my wife

From Wikipedia:
A hell house, also commonly known as a judgment house, is a haunted house-style attraction typically run by fundamentalist Christian churches or parachurch groups. These attractions are meant to depict the divine judgements that await unrepentant sinners and the torments of the damned in Hell. They are typically operated in the days preceding Halloween.

From Religious Tolerance.Org
The earliest hell house may have been created by Trinity Assembly of God in Dallas TX. It was popularized by Rev. Jerry Falwell in the late 1970's. The concept was picked up in 1992 by Keenan Roberts. His first Hell House was in Roswell, NM. Since then, he has become a pastor of the Abundant Life Church in Arvada, CO. He sells "Hell House Outreach™" kits to other churches. Included is a 263 page manual which covers "everything from media publicity to casting and costume." 4 A few excerpts from the The 1997 Hell House Outreach Manual are:

"Pieces of meat placed in a glass bowl to look like pieces of a baby... purchase a meat product that closely resembles pieces of a baby."

"Theatrical Blood. Because a large amount of blood is used in this scene and in others, someone should be responsible for mixing a vat of it each evening..."

"Chrissy [the woman having an abortion] starts crying. She is extremely distraught...the medical staff is cold, uncaring, abrupt, and completely insensitive..."

The MALICE hellhouse is not a far stretch from an actual hellhouse - in fact, the only difference is perhaps the lack in sincere belief. Three years ago, this improv member team of The Playground Theater came up with a surefire Halloween show after seeing the George Ratliff documentary Hellhouse - do a direct and nearly indistinguishable parody of these bizarre and subtly angry parades of intolerance and judgment and play it for laughs. They enlisted WNEP Theater's artistic director Jen Ellison (who had already demonstrated both a fascination with the religoius having co-written 1999's ...apocalypse... and adapted Flannery O'Connor's Wiseblood fo the stage in 2000 and a dark, dark sense of humor) and the first Midnight Hellhouse was born.

This year's hellhouse is less gory and less over the top - in fact, it is the one of the three most likely to be mistaken for an actual Evangelical Christian event. This certainly makes it both the most disturbing and the least 'laugh out loud.' The set is essentially a blank stage with a small table and some chairs covered in white sheets and strips of muslin - it sets up the anticipation of a lot of stage blood and viscera. In years past, this was necessary because of the buckets of stage blood used - this year, however, there was much less of the splatter effect and less need for the elaborate covering - in fact, with the stage blood being toned down and made of a weaker, less vibrant color, the blood effects were a bit disappointing.

The big plusses to this year's Midnight Hellhouse are the writing (incorporating chilling monologue testimonials from damned souls and lines like "Sex is viewed as a toy or a game, to be toyed with or played like a game" amps up the facade - that being actors portraying bad actors in a bad script written by amatuer thespians), the dark sense of Christian dread (by removing most of the ridiculous effects, it grounds the piece in a genuine sense of discomfort that creeped me out), and the performances (standouts were Paul Brittan and Dave Gilley, both who have perfected the difficult challenge of playing bad actors trying desperately to be sincere, and the whole cast's commitment to a showstopping musical number complete with sign language).

If a 'comedy' featuring a brutal homophobic beating, a heavy metal induced homicidal rampage, two abortions, and an Aruba vacation date rape is your cup of tea, check out The Midnight Hellhouse. And, by all means, choose the righteous path if only to get the extended version of the show outside of the theater.

Friday Roundup - The State of the World from A Skewed Perspective

Wha?!?

This is like something out of a Cohen Brothers film.

The Maine National Guard is giving life-size from-the-waist-up pictures of soldiers to the families of deployed guard members. Guard officials and families say the cutouts, known as Flat Daddies or Flat Soldiers, connect families with a relative who is thousands of miles away. The Flat Daddies are toted everywhere from soccer practice to coffee shops to weddings.

I'm wondering if anyone has bothered to actually think about the long term psychological damage done to a child who spends his or her formative years with a "Flat Daddy?" Also, notice that he has nothing going on downtown, so "Flat Daddy" ain't doing anything for Mommy, huh?

* * *
And Away We Go...

Wednesday was the Livewire Chicago Theatre bar benefit - a big "YOU ROCK" to Mssr. Flatley for coming out, hanging out and buying raffle tickets (you didn't win, dude). The evening was nice, got to share some cigars and smoked a fine CAO Gold Torpedo. I'm really not a go-out-and-socialize-at-the-bar type of guy anymore, but it wasn't very crowded, the stogies were good, and the LiveWire folks are cool.

Rehearsals have been good and next week is the dreaded TECH WEEK, which, after having been involved in hundreds of tech weeks, is no so much a 'Hell Week' (except that the play is set in Hell, you know...). I hope you get a chance to check it out - both Thursday and Friday (October 12/13) are "Pay What You Can" nights, so it won't break your piggy bank to see some Sartré!

Jen opens The Midnight Hellhouse tonight and I encourage any Chicago readers to check it out - it is one incredibly disturbing ride. I guarantee you'll never have seen anything quite like it in your life.

* * *
Why Not Send Your Kid to 'Jesus Camp,' You Mouth Breather?

Two weeks ago at Caney Creek High School, a tenth grade English class was given "Fahrenheit 451" as a reading assignment. But Diana Verm stopped after a few pages. She said she was offended by "the cussing in it and the burning of the Bible."

Diana complained to her father. She was given an alternate reading assignment, but her dad is pushing the issue. It is ironic in the truest sense that a fictional book on book banning is now the target of a request to remove it from school curriculum.

"With God's name in vain being in there, that's the number one reason," said Diana's father Alton Verm. "There's no reason for it being read."

* * *
No Cog in the Machine He

Veteran Chicago actor Gene Janson died Wednesday after slumping over onstage during a matinee of Remy Bumppo Theatre's "The Best Man."

"We were 20 minutes into the play when he suddenly collapsed," company spokeswoman Stephanie Kulke said.

Janson was rushed from the Victory Gardens Greenhouse to Lincoln Park Hospital. The matinee was canceled, as were performances Wednesday night and tonight. The cast and crew stayed at the hospital with Janson until his family arrived.

He died around 4 p.m. from what is believed to have been a heart attack, Kulke said. He was in his early 70s.

* * *
You Gotta Be Kidding Me...

SCRANTON, Pa. (Oct. 5) - Rep. Don Sherwood, a Republican fighting for re-election in northeastern Pennsylvania, says in a TV ad that he is "truly sorry" for cheating on his wife but denies ever abusing the woman he had the affair with.

* * *
By the Way...

Does anyone, anywhere, actually give a flying fuck about anything Anna Nicole Smith is doing? Ever?

March of the Blue Hairs

Subscribers or Investors?

Over at the Playgoer, Garrett brings up the question asked by Tony Award winning producer and director, Gregory Mosher:

"Whenever I hear an artistic director say they'd love to do a play but their subscribers would hate it, I want say--get rid of your subscribers!"

The Playgoer concludes his post with this:

Theatres tell us they're dependent on subscription income. But that just empowers the cranky subscriber to hold disproportionate sway. If your business model depends on such factors...get another business model.

The conundrum seems fairly simple. There are plenty of reasons the theater-going audience is getting gradually older and that, as an industry, we are losing the younger market - the erosion of school arts programs, the wide range of readily available entertainment options, etc. - and the simple fact is that those in that juicy, younger crowd rarely become subscribers. Not only do theater subscribers skew older, because they are older they are more conservative in their tastes and much pushier with their opinions.

When I was younger, I was the Music Director for a community theatre on the Southside of Chicago - one with a mega-budget and a 5,000-seat auditorium and a stage with a dual hydraulic lift orchestra pit and flyspace to spare. The theater had made a tradition out of performing two musicals per summer, big budget ones, with huge casts, for a couple of weekends apiece. When I was hired, I tried to make the case that they should perform one 'crowd pleaser' to cover costs and one artistically risky piece to draw some of the best non-Equity actors in Chicago their way.

The first year I was there we performed Anything Goes and Into the Woods. The second year we performed Singing in the Rain and The Pirates of Penzance. The third and final year I was employed there we did Do Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? and City of Angels. City of Angels received the first major dose of complaint mail the theater had experienced, mostly from the older, more traditional bluehairs that were regular subscribers. They were put off by the overt sexuality and didn't care for the 'jazzy' music.

Now, I wouldn't categorize any of those six shows as artistically risky, but the staff of the theater sure did. In addition, they decided after the angry letters from a handful of old ladies offended by "Lost and Found" by Cy Coleman that only the squeakiest, most well known classics were appropriate for their stage. Which, as it turns out, is why I left.

I'm not so egocentric as to believe that my experience was in any way unique. In fact, it seems that that is more often the case rather than the exception. Subscription sales, which used to be the financial lifeblood of the majority of the established houses in the US, have taken a steadily downward spiral in the past 20 years. In fact, this trend seems to point out that the systematic self-censorship that comes with a subscription base funding your projects does not work - that potential new blood is not coming in through doors, ready to sign up for another season of bland fare produced by the eunuchs in charge of artistic choice. Garrett says to "get another business model" but which one?

According to a recent TIME article, The Business of Hospitality,Danny Meyer explains his concept of enlightened hospitality, and I think he my just have something here:

GREAT SERVICE IS NOT ENOUGH

"We are in a very new business era" says Meyer. "I'm convinced that this is now a hospitality economy, no longer the service era. If you simply have a superior product or deliver on your promises, that's not enough to distinguish your business. ... what bonds customers to them is the experience. Service is a monologue: we decide on standards for service. Hospitality is a dialogue: to listen to a customer's needs and meet them. It takes both great service and hospitality to be at the top."

Sounds like the model we're already mired in, yes?

THE CUSTOMER COMES SECOND

Meyer's business model intentionally inverts classic capitalist priorities. He believes that to be successful you must first meet the needs of employees, then guests, followed by the community, suppliers and finally investors, in that order. "If you are devoted to your staff and can promise them much more than a paycheck, something to believe in," he says, "you will then get the best service for customers, which will in the long run provide the best return to your investors."

Interesting...

He also advocates both a persistent collection of customer information (favorite seats, poor service experiences, etc.) and a new type of employee.

What I like about this, as applied to theater, is that it addresses something I find pretty common sense - if you place a high priority on the experience of your audience (price, ease of access, being greeted, being recognized if regular patrons, etc.) and work to ensure the artists are genuinely challenged and enthused by the work, you have a winning combination.

I don't know if Meyer's business model is the business model for all theaters, but I encourage those seeking an out to the strange and unequal partnership that puts pressure on creativity to conform and be bland to experiment with different models. Look at other businesses and look at your "product" carefully. Do you go eat at a local cafeteria where, in order to please the most people in one sitting, the food is intentionally bland or do you go to restaurants that specialize and have a sense of distinction?

Are you a patron of your own theater and, if so, why? If not, it's either time hit the bricks or make some changes.

The Nature of Heckling

Brillant.



There is a legend that in Bill Murray's earliest days at Chicago's Second City, he jumped a heckler in the audience one night, screaming, "Fuck you and your date!"

Brian Dennehy once halted a Broadway performance of Death of a Salesman after a cell phone kept ringing. He told the phone's owner that he'd wait until the call was answered and the conversation was over. The patron reportedly fled the theater.

When actor Kevin Spacey was starring in a London revival of The Iceman Cometh, he stopped a performance after a cell phone rang, looked out at the audience and said, "Tell them we're busy."

In an era when it was not uncommon for rotten fruit and vegetables thrown at speakers, Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley once exhorted his audience to lend him their ears, paraphrasing Mark Antony. Immediately a large cabbage landed on the stage - Chifley replied "I said your ears, Sir, not your head".

The brilliance of our YouTubed Angry Professor was, in my opinion, that he didn't drop a beat in his performance (if you've ever lectured, you understand that it is, indeed, a performance of sorts). It was shocking and abrupt and demonstrated an absolute intolerance for that kind of shit.

* * *

In 2000, WNEP Theater premiered a dark interactive comedy entitled PHOBIA!, inspired by the Pop-up Book of Phobias. The piece was partially scripted and partially improvised and put the audience in the middle of a lecture on a new method of curing phobics that goes wrong in every way possible. In short, the lecturer (Chicago actor Michael Starcevich) turns out to be sort of an insane sadist, the 'patients,' brought onstage to share their testimonials, are not only not cured but instead have crossed over to the psychotic, and the theater has been rigged to appear that it is slowly falling a part (sparks fly from outlets and lights explode). In the end, the whole thing goes ballistic and the audience is escorted, by flashlight, out of the mayhem.

In one specific performance, well into the run, one audience member showed up who was either A) there to intentionally fuck the show up or B) absolutely batshit crazy. During the first third (the lecture) the cat mumbles a stream of bizarre, stream of consciousness babble at the actor playing the lecturer and, at one point, gets up onstage trying to "feel his skull." After repeatedly trying to put him in his place, the actor finally loses his shit and puts the guy in a choke hold, screaming "SILENCE! SILENCE!"

This does not, however, diffuse the heckler. In the second third (the testimonials), actor Brian McCaskill openly threatens the guy, declaring that he will "skullfuck your mother" if he doesn't stop. The dude keeps it up.

Finally, at the end of the show (the breakdown and ensuing chaos), McCaskill, in the dark (with flashes of light provided by sparks and flashlights) runs head on at the guy and, in a full on body tackle, completely obliterates the front row, chairs flying, carrying the psycho-heckler to the ground.

Most of the audience thought the guy was a plant.

He wasn't.

Inevitably, when I recall this story, someone asks me why I didn't bounce him from the venue. My only answer is that it was like watching a live execution or bloody accident that night - the tension was as taut as I've ever experienced and there seemed to be a sense that something really terrible and dangerous could happen at any moment. It was one of the best shows I've ever seen.

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Back to the angry white professor.

That's the way I want to deal with hecklers. Never drop a beat - never stop the flow of the performance. Don't give the heckler the power. In mid-stride, walk up and knock the crap out of him, and continue on as if he were a speck of poo on your Pumas. Yes - the potential for retribution is wide open (we don't get to see what the student did immediately following the cell phone smash) but, baby - that's the beautiful danger of live theater.

An Actor's Life for Me

Something to Think About Today

"Our value system as it relates to money in the US is frightening. Qualities that I hold in the highest esteem are worth nothing monetarily. So how does one make a living doing what they love if what they love does not warrant a living?" -- Ian Belton

On the other hand, most theater artists (and I do mean most) have non-artistic means to support their habit, their addiction to creation and performance. The disconnect comes when one buys into the "Do what you love and the money will come," Nike advertising, corporate sponsored soma-speak. I say, do what you love and if you die poor and hungry, at least you died doing what you loved rather than living your days as a cog in the machine.

By the way, the answer to Ian's question ("how does one make a living doing what they love if what they love does not warrant a living?") is simple: however you can.

OPEN LETTER to the DNC

Dear Democratic Representatives and Senators,

You have an opportunity in front of you and just over a month to take advantage of it. The Republican machine has been pretty much running the show for the past six years, unrelentlessly beating the snot out of 1) Iraqis, 2) Democrats, 3) school children, 4) anyone not in the top 5% of our country's wealthiest citizens, 5) the teachings of Jesus Christ, 6) women, 7) gays, and 8) news reporters (although #8 is completely justified in 7 out of 10 cases).

Not to be too hard on you, my Democrat brethren, but the GOP has had such a time of it, ramrodding bullshit legislation through (The Patriot Act??) and packing the courts with neocons and extremist Christians, and you haven't done a fucking thing to stop them (sorry for the language - I just get a tad hot under the collar when I think about it), so I'd like to perhaps prod you into waking up from your slumber.

I'll give Al a pass, even though he misplaced his balls in 2000 and actually thought laying down for Scalia and gang as they handed Bush an election he did not win was somehow "good for the country," but only because I think his movie rocks.

The rest of you need to grow a fucking pair, y' know?

I mean, after handing the power to pre-emptively invade a non-threatening nation to Bush, you'd think you would have learned. After letting Frist and Co. scare you into backing off of a filibuster when Bush was packing up the Supreme Court, you'd think you would have learned. After catching Bush and his band of gnomey old men lying openly, shooting people in the face, screwing over the poor, black evacuees in New Orleans, and 'permanently' cutting taxes of the people most equipped to pay them, is it possible that you let them pass a bill that retroactively makes Bush's illegal torture chambers legal and thumbs its nose at the motherfucking Geneva Convention?

I'm no Karl Rove, but waiting for your corrupt opponent to get caught by the law IS NOT A FUCKING CAMPAIGN STRATEGY!

From every corner, Bush bashing has become the rage - from Oliver Stone:

"From Sept. 12 on, the incident (the attacks) was politicized and it has polarized the entire world," said Stone. "It is a shame because it is a waste of energy to see that the entire world five years later is still convulsed in the grip of 9/11.

"It's a waste of energy away from things that do matter which is poverty, death, disease, the planet itself and fixing things in our own homes rather than fighting wars with others. Mr. Bush has set America back 10 years, maybe more."

From Slate's review of Bob Woodward's newest tome, State of Denial:

The book paints the administration as clueless, dishonest, and dysfunctional. The behind-the-scenes anecdotes are irresistible. Laura Bush telling her husband he should fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Vice President Cheney pushing aides to call the chief weapons inspector in the middle of the night with coordinates for a site in Syria that might have those elusive weapons. Secret White House visits by Henry Kissinger. Bush having to tell Rumsfeld to return Condoleezza Rice's calls. Memos describing Rumsfeld's "rubber glove syndrome"—he didn't want to leave fingerprints on decisions.

The GOP has more recently exposed closet skeletons than any group of people since the Nuremburg Trials! Racists, Theocrats, those who have taken bribes from Big Business, the list seems to grow daily.

HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY LOSE TO THESE GUYS??

This should be your 1994, guys. You should have your own "Contract with America" and take back the control of the Congress. The Republicans did it in '94 in spite of one of the most popular Democratric presidents since FDR; you get to contend with old 33% approval rating George. Get. Off. Your. Ass.

How about getting serious about term limits, huh? Clean house, brothers and sisters! Civil service isn't supposed to be a lifetime gig - I suggest that a US representative may only be in office for one four year term and those in the Senate be limited to two six year terms. How about some real changes in campaign finance? No one is allowed to spend or have spent on them more than $250,000.00, how's that? The federal government pays the networks something to guarantee mandatory televised debates and makes grants available for those who don't have $250K so that the more than just the super rich can run for office. Anyone who can effectively mount a campaign with that little can certainly balance the fucking budget!

Stop courting the voters and speak your minds - NO ONE, not even most Republicans, thinks this war on terror is working (especially the Rumsfeld Disaster unfolding in Iraq) - say so for the cry-eye! Stand up and be counted as someone who at least stood for something other than merely being elected.

The American people need you to stand for something. Half of us voted against George W. Bush rather than for your guy last time - take the fucking hint, eh? Stop equivacating, compromising, and poll watching - grow some balls and stand for something.

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It's Sunday, Man...

Jedi Master Colbert

I think this is a hoot.



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Also, Jackass Number Two was exactly as stupid and as hysterical as I expected. I laughed so hard, I almost puked.