theaterboy®

But what will it mean for Jason?

NYT's getting a new theater editor.

(Courtesy George Hunka, who's written for the Times, and before that Rob Kendt, who ditto... )

Tboy can confirm that Patti Cohen was a most agreeable editor. She didn't hit him even once when he filed a story that was roughly twice as long as they'd talked about.

We're not equipped.

Nick Fracaro of Thieves Theatre makes (playful?) trouble over at Rat Sass about the no-men rules attached to V-Day, the global celebration of Eve Ensler ... er, the global anti-violence-against-women event.

(To be clear, the rules bar men from performing in The Vagina Monologues, not from working backstage or in other roles.)

Nick's meanderings were sparked by a listserv request for "male companion pieces" to be performed on V-Day.  His views on the topic -- entertaining, thoughtful sometimes, and decidedly wide-ranging -- are here and here, in order of posting.

Akerley, SAS, Spinster: Go get him.

Technorati Tags: gender

Alan Ayckbourn = Cranky

About movie stars, anyway.  The bit about the arms is funny.

At least he allows as how they're not all entirely useless -- he's got kind words for Spacey.

Because American Theatre wasn't enough.

Tboy hears Jennifer Mendenhall will be doing a show at Humana, which kicks off (as fate would have it) on Tboy's birthday.

From the synopsis:

A teenage boy’s fictional Internet identity begins as a harmless game. But the game takes on a frightening reality when real emotion overtakes his online relationship.

Dates are March 2 - March 31.

Tboy was feeling Fringe-y...

... yesterday, 'cause he had coffee with the Fringe boss-man, and talked about all kinds of Fringe-y things. 

But at no point did Tboy feel anywhere near this Fringe-y.  He's not sure whether that says more about him or about what passes for Fringe here in D.C. 

Or about the Belgians.

When we're the fancy out-of-town types.

Tboy's Atlanta-based co-conspirator Curt Holman (we met two years ago on an NEA fellowship, from which a listserv Mafia survives) has a profile of D.C.'s own Ari Roth in the new Creative Loafing.

Turns out one of the theaters down thar whar Tboy grew up (OK, he was closer to Augusta, but still) is producing Ari's play Born Guilty and its quasi-sequel, Peter and the Wolf, in rep; both of the plays have been staged here at Theater J.

Best line is this one, about how the guy Ari imagined in the first play turned out, in the real world, to be rather different:

I created a protagonist who would seem to be the second coming of George Clooney -- he's an attractive go-getter who's comfortable with liberal college students. At the beginning of Peter and the Wolf (and Me) you realize that, no, he's more like Ron Silver. He was always a conservative journalist.

Read all about it here, and then more here, in the Atlanta Jewish Times ...

Suffering for your art.

And you guys think holding down a day job is rough.   

This reminds Tboy of his favorite line from the first episode of this season's Rome, about Caesar's public funeral: "No prostitutes, actors, or unclean tradesmen may attend."

Misbegotten books a house

The NYT notes that the London production (pictured) of Moon for the Misbegotten -- "that rarest of theatrical treats: an evening of raw, powerful emotion"-- has set dates for its Broadway transer.

It stars Kevin Spacey, and is directed by Howard Davies, who staged the Iceman that earned Tony nominations for him and Spacey back in 1999.

Funny: Tboy had lunch with a youngish D.C.-based director-type yesterday, and he and said director-type were talking about the last Broadway production of that play, and swooning over Cherry Jones again, when director-type said something about "Of course, I was, like, 8 when I saw it, so maybe it wasn't as good as I remember.

Now, Tboy knows you're all tykes, but that production ran for four months in the spring of 2000. So for some reason (could it be that he's staring 39 in the face?) Tboy thinks somebody's being a little too giddy about his dewy youthful quality.

'Cause sweetie, you're not bossing the actors at that big ol' LORT house if you're 14-and-a-half. Tboy ain't hatin'. He's just sayin'.

An Angry White Modest Proposal

Don Hall rounds up depressing theater-biz stories -- including the Seattle Weekly story I linked to  last week and Nell Boeschenstein's June 30 City Paper report on the 11th-hour Source Theatre salvation meeting at Jim Graham's office -- and concludes that "the 'business' is kicking the crap out of the 'show.' "

Yes, well. We knew that.  What's to be done? Hall suggests a range of things. Do any of 'em make sense? You tell me.

Space and the times, Seattle version

A D.C.-based director directed Tboy's attention just now to an interesting read: The Seattle Weekly's just-published look at the state of that city's theater scene.  Seattle's one of the places Tboy hears D.C. compared to pretty frequently, in terms of the size, the range, and the diversity of its theater scene -- and it's sobering to be reminded, as D.C. gears up for its second fringe festival, that Seattle's died the death a few years back.

The Weekly's article covers a lot of ground, from structural problems to gentrification to out-of-town casting to the graying of the audience, and it's full of stuff that'll probably ring large (and possibly alarming) bells for D.C. theatermakers.  One particularly likely sample:

"Midsized theaters are critical to the health of a theater town, but they're tough to run even during the best of times. A theater like the Empty Space with a mere 150 seats and a budget of, say, $1 million, can lose money even when its shows sell out. And when they try to make up the difference by chasing down another $400,000 or so from corporations or foundations, midsized operations are in competition with the more experienced and better-staffed larger houses. ... At the same time the midsized company's aim to pay a living wage to some artists and staff, as well as provide a "professional" experience on their stages, means its budget is exponentially higher than a fringe company, where artists and staff are unpaid or paid a pittance."

That's exactly the hurdle faced here by companies like, for instance, Theater J, where audiences have come to expect a certain polish, but where the annual budget still hovers, if Tboy's not mistaken, around $1 million.

What to do? Your guess is as good as Tboy's.  Ticket prices are already high, actors and techs already don't make enough money, and there's a limit to both personal and corporate philanthropy. Tboy's all for the kind of shoestring work Akerley advocates in this other bit of chat about crowded markets and different approaches, but he's not prepared to suggest that every company should make that kind of thing its mission.

The complete article, by Seattle-based director John Longenbaugh, can be found over here.

P.S. - Tboy wonders how willing we are to take a hard look at the truth behind one of the essay's other observations:

"[A] certain amount of opening and closing is expected in every industry. It's even healthy, up to a point ... [T]heaters ... sometimes close for the best of reasons, like artists ... admitting to themselves that their work is uneven, or just because they aren't having fun any more."

Tboy thinks that's what Akerley is suggesting in her examine-your-navel argument: Have you asked yourself lately why you're still making theater? (And she's not the first: Tboy liked the question just as much when then-TCG boss Ben Cameron asked it last March, in his American Theatre column.) 

A better question yet: What should you do if the answer is "I'm not sure"?