Sorry to leave you all hanging last week. I was apparently having too much fun in Carnival!-land. Perhaps it was the beefcake gallery.
Anyhoo, what shall we talk about? Suggestions:
1. [Mr. Excitement's thoughts + Playgoer's thoughts] on [the New York Sun's thoughts on a forthcoming Theatre Development Fund study + Andre Bishop's plans for a 99-seat incubator house at Lincoln Center]. (Blogging: Now so thoroughly incestuous that it requires expression in quasi-mathematical formulae.) Where do Arena Stage's plans for a 200-seat "Cradle" fit in that equation?
2. Charles Isherwood has Broadway tunnel-vision/is brutally realist about the measures of success: Discuss. (From page 2: "While he has yet to break through with a major play in New York, [Craig] Wright ... has established himself as a productive writer .... ")
3. Edward Albee is a cranky old fart/a hero to dramatists everywhere: Discuss.
And as always, feel free to introduce your own topics and vent about the shows you're in. Have they fixed those troublesome between-scene blackouts your SM was calling too quickly? Has your leading man finally got his lines down, now that your show's been open two weeks?
What else is on your mind?
Is yelling "vagina" in a crowded theatre the same as yelling "fire"?
Some high schoolers in NY are suspended for daring to use the word in a monologue from... wait for it... "The Vagina Monologues." In one interview, the principal said that freedom of expression is not unfettered. I must have missed the part of the First Amendment that mentions "unless it makes everyone else squeamish or the principal giggle uncomfortably."
More in this NY Times article.
Posted by: KateD | Friday, 09 March 2007 at 12:57
Yes, Arena Stage is in the process of creating a new 200-seat theater called The Cradle, dedicated solely to world premieres of new plays by American voices. Many of those voices will come from the members of our Writers Council: Nilo Cruz, David Henry Hwang, Moisés Kaufman, Eric Overmyer, Charles Randolph-Wright, Sarah Ruhl, Robert Schenkkan, Tazewell Thompson and Paula Vogel. This is in keeping with Molly Smith's desire to discover, champion and produce works by American voices. Beyond the members of the Writers Council, we are constantly scouting and making new connections with other writers as well.
An example of the kind of work we'll be doing in the future is Moisés Kaufman's 33 VARIATIONS. I am currently working with Moisés at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I am dramaturging a workshop of the play. 33 VARIATIONS will be opening our 2007-2008 season at Arena. We look forward to the creation of other works of that high order of theatrical experience in The Cradle space once it is built.
Mark Bly, Senior Dramaturg
Arena Stage
Posted by: arena_stage | Monday, 12 March 2007 at 12:37