The Wedding Gift of Pirate Granny

Enjoy!

Quote of the Day

I stole this from Larry Harbison's email signature.  I think it's great.

"It requires a certain largeness of spirit to give generous appreciation to large achievements. A society with a crabbed spirit and a cynical urge to discount and devalue will find that one day, when it needs to draw upon the reservoirs of excellence, the reservoirs have run dry." George F. Will

CONEY Backstage

A very nice write up for the show from Andy Propst at Backstage.

My Show is FINALLY Back Up After Sandy and Here's a TDF Interview

CONEY is back up and open for business.


Gary and I talking it up for TDF, an interview done with Hilary Bettis pre-storm.

My Friend Scott Covered Ayn Rand with a Post-It that Said Tennessee Williams, and I Still Couldn't Finish It

I'll  admit it. I'm at a bit of a disadvantage in the whole Ayn Rand discussion.  I have never ever ever made it through any of her books.  And I've tried.  But fifty pages of that gasping earnest humorless prose hitting you on the side of the head over and over like a metal folding chair.. I mean, life is short, you know?

So I love this quote from President Obama in Rolling Stone:

“Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we'd pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we're only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we're considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity – that that's a pretty narrow vision. It's not one that, I think, describes what's best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a "you're on your own" society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party.”--Barack Obama, ROLLING STONE interview.

Hell yeah.  I was reading Herman Hesse at that age.  Because I was sensitive as shit. 

Matt Freeman Makes Me Say Terrible Things

My friend Matt Freeman interviews me on his indispensable blog. 

Zack Calhoon's People You Should Know

Zack Calhoon has posted a series of e-interviews on CONEY with myself, Amy Staats, Tracey Gilbert and Boo Killebrew on Visible Soul.  Take a look.

Step Right Up

Tickets are available now for CONEY!

Here's the Blue Coyote page.

Here we are on the New Ohio site.  

Here's the press release with the cast.

Here's my interview for NYTheatre.com. 

And here is a link to strange and disturbing stuffed animals, courtesy of my friend Brian.  I have no idea how he finds this stuff.  

Quote of the Day

DOMIN: What sort of worker do you think is the best from a practical point of view?
HELENA: Perhaps the one who is the most honest and hardworking.
DOMIN: No; the one that is the cheapest.
                                                                           --- from R.U.R by Karel Capek

You Can Now Have "A Number on the Roman Calendar"

Well, it's out.  My short play, "A Number on the Roman Calendar" is now out in the Best American Short Plays 2010-2011.  You can own it and it can be a part of your life.  Many thanks to Carter, Sarah, Jonna, Jimmy and Thomas.

Arch

I met Arch Brown in 2002, in Los Angeles.  He had flown me there to accept an award from his foundation for my play, "Candy & Dorothy."  Arch was in poor health then, but he was raunchy, grouchy, funny and generous.  (He told me I could order room service since the foundation was paying my expenses out there, but "don't go crazy with it!," he barked.) He gave me a grant for the play, gave me a socko intro at the LAMDA Awards in LA,  later gave a production grant for the play when we produced it in New York in 2006, and then produced the play himself in Palm Springs a few years later. He came to New York to visit a few years ago, and I had lunch with him and some friends.  He was irascible and hilarious and full of plans for his theater and his work.  That was the last time I saw him.

Arch had come from the first post-Stonewall generation, and supporting gay and lesbian artists and writers was his passion and his joy. 

He passed away - peacefully, I hope, without pain, I hope - on Labor Day in Palm Springs. 

An Interview with the Author

My friend Anthony Cardno inteviewed me for his blog, about the making of MOTHRA IS WAITING,  and the upcoming CONEY.

Memo to Brazilian Writer Paulo Coelho

Up yours, pal. 

CONEY Coyote

I started working on this play several years ago.  (The indispensable Adam Szymkowicz did an interview with me three years ago, and I was talking about this play then.) I worked on it at Marshall University two summers ago and developed it a bit more.  And the guys at Blue Coyote and I had talked and talked on it, and I dragged my feet and whined "it's not ready" whenever they said the scary "production" word.  (That's my default. Nothing's ever ready.)

But they booked a theater for October and here we go.  Rewrites will be wrestled from my cold, recalcitrant grip and actors will have at it.  There are a shitload of characters and it all takes place at Coney Island.  (Except for the emergency room scene, I'm still working on that one.)

We're raising money for the production, and you can give at Indiegogo.   I know, I'm hitting you up for money a lot these days.  But I don't do it often, so I'm not going to apologize.

Hope to see you there.

UPDATE!  The press release went out.  You can give it a gander at Broadway World.  

And We Will Climb on Top of His Furry Head. His Big Funny Furry Head.

We're going to do it.  

MOTHRA IS WAITING.  

Several years ago, Kevin Newbury optioned a short film version of my play, MOTHRA IS WAITING. (Kevin directed - and really dramaturged - CANDY & DOROTHY.   Also, THE EUMENIDES.)

MOTHRA IS WAITING tells the story of two aging showgirls, one giant moth and a very long night in Bridgeport, CT.   It's a comedy.  

We're going to shoot it in New Hampshire next month.

We are aiming to raise $30,000 to finance the film.  Instead of going the Kickstarter route, we decided to go through Fractured Atlas, an organization that offers non-profit fiscal sponsorship.   

Thus, any donation is fully tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.  Every little bit helps, even $25.

I am grateful for any support you can offer.

The Facebook page for the project is here.

Ryan Taylor, the Washington Rogues and the Cap Fringe

An interview in the Washington Post with Ryan S. Taylor, the great guy who directed "Busted Jesus Comix" in DC a few years ago. 

"In some ways, the inception of Washington Rogues took place in New York when artistic director Ryan Taylor went to see the weirdest performance he could find — “Busted Jesus Comix,” performed in a six-floor walk-up — after taking in such big-name shows as “The Lion King” and Baz Luhrmann’s “La Boheme” (“which was awful,” Taylor recalls)."

For the record, the old Abingdon space at Dyre and 42nd was a fifth floor walk up.  The building is gone now.  But I definitely remember from the summer of '03 - five flights. Five.

Dreams of T. Hickman

"I was dreamin' Hickey come in de door, crackin' one of dem drummer's jokes, wavin' a big bankroll and we was all goin' be drunk for two weeks. Wake up and no luck." - Joe in O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh

North Carolina, I Love Your Beaches...

But why are you so goddamn awful sometimes?

I Saw Bill Cunningham at a Party Last Night

So, last night I was at the chashama gala for work. Anita Durst is one of our board members, and a pretty spectacular lady. It was a big event on West 43rd with lots of food and beautiful people.  And Bill Cunningham was there, taking pictures.  Now please understand I know nothing about fashion (surprise!) and am not really interested in it, even a little bit. But I saw the Cunningham documentary on recommendation from friends and loved it. This old guy hits all these Manhattan parties, snaps pics and puts them in the NY Times.  It was fascinating to watch him move through the room - absolute focus of purpose, finding the right shot, not a wasted move, nothing getting past him.  It was like watching a good ball player, an athlete in their prime, or even a top notch Broadway song and dance person - complete and total focus on the job at hand.  A man incapable of being distracted  from what he's doing.

The Wedding Gift of Pirate Granny

OK, here it is.  The final project for ALT.  It's one night, at Symphony Space, June 25 7 PM.  Here's the deets:

"ALT’s annual Opera in Eden concert returns to the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space for one night only on Monday, June 25th, 2012 at 7:00 PM. This evening of work written by Resident Artists from ALT’s Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP) will feature four new one-act operas by librettists Magda Bogin, Stephanie Fleischmann, David Johnston, and Kate Light; and composers Jeremy Howard Beck, Alla Borzova, Theo Popov and Jeffrey Dennis Smith." 

I've written the libretto for THE WEDDING GIFT OF PIRATE GRANNY, with music by Alla Borzova.  There are pirates in it.  There's also a ghost. 

Get yer tickets here.