Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Quote of the Day
“I have fun with ideas; I play with them, I’m not a serious person, and I don’t like serious people. I don’t see myself as a philosopher. That’s awfully boring.My goal is to entertain myself and others.” Ray Bradbury, in today's NY Times obit.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
I Will Read My Own Play in the Middle of the Night
Coming up. I am taking part in Urban Librarians Unite's Annual Read In. What does this mean? It means my friend Ingrid talks me into crazy shit. We are reading - around 12:15 AM - the Chinatown library scene from "Candy & Dorothy." Ingrid loves this scene because she is a librarian and this somehow reminds her of her life. So she'll be reading Tamara, her cute-as-a-button boyfriend Tim Conley will read Candy, and I will read Dorothy Day. Yes, I will read the role of the 80 year old almost-a-saint Dorothy Day.
Stop laughing. I'm a good actor.
Urban Librarians Unite promotes and supports libraries. The Annual 24 Hr Read In is to protest city budget cuts and to showcase and highlight libraries' importance. And if you're like me, you believe strong libraries are about the only thing standing between us and the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
If you'd like to attend - and WHY WOULDN'T YOU - come to the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza on June 9 - er- actually June 10, 12:30 AM. Don't ask me how to get there because I really have no idea. Here's a link.
UPDATE: This was so much fun.
Stop laughing. I'm a good actor.
Urban Librarians Unite promotes and supports libraries. The Annual 24 Hr Read In is to protest city budget cuts and to showcase and highlight libraries' importance. And if you're like me, you believe strong libraries are about the only thing standing between us and the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
If you'd like to attend - and WHY WOULDN'T YOU - come to the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza on June 9 - er- actually June 10, 12:30 AM. Don't ask me how to get there because I really have no idea. Here's a link.
UPDATE: This was so much fun.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
Federico Tenorio of Digital World Solutions Found My Blackberry on Saturday Night
I lost my Blackberry on Saturday night and was in utter despair. Sunday morning my friend Dave texted me that he was running late to the ALT libretto reading at Opera America, and Federico Tenorio, President and CEO of Digital World Solutions, Inc on West 29th Street called him back and said he had the Blackberry. He was across the street from Opera America.
I went over to thank him and offered him some money for it, and he just shrugged and smiled.
Here is the website for Digital World Solutions on West 29th Street. (There's another one overseas, with a slightly different domain name.) The guy who runs it is honest.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Another Freshly Brewed, with History
An upcoming ALT event, this one on Sunday, Feb 26, 2012 at Opera America, with composer Anthony Davis. Since I'm feeling blog-lazy today in the midst of all my other projects, I'm simply copying and pasting parts of the press release! I'm a lazy lazy man. Ah, screw it, I have to finish this libretto and my taxes.
"American Lyric Theater (ALT) is pleased to announce that composer Anthony Davis will host the next event in the company's FRESHLY BREWED concert and master class series on Sunday, February 26th, 2012, at 1:00 PM.
The FRESHLY BREWED series was designed to give the public a chance to see inside the Composer Librettist Development Program studio. ALT's flagship program, the Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP) is the only full time mentorship initiative for emerging operatic writers in the United States. Anthony Davis, internationally acclaimed composer of the operas X, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MALCOLM X, TANIA, AMISTAD, and WAKONDA'S DREAM, is a guest faculty member and artist mentor for the CLDP.
Davis is known around the globe for his exciting works that draw from the lives of historical figures. This month's FRESHLY BREWED event will be the culmination of his winter residency at ALT, during which composers and librettists in the CLDP have been exploring the challenges of dramatizing history for the opera stage. Guest singers from the country's leading opera houses join us for a program of newly written scenes based on real-life figures, including Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense during Vietnam under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson; Henry Morton Stanley, the famous British explorer of Africa; (HEY THERE EVERYONE THIS ONE IS MINE, LOVE DAVID) Helen Suzman, the lone woman in South Africa’s parliament for 36 years, and a tireless dissenter against apartheid; and Salvador Allende, President of Chile from 1970-1973, and the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America.
American Lyric Theater Resident Artists to be featured include composers Alla Borzova, Jeremy Beck, Theo Popov, Jorge Sosa, and Jeffrey Smith; and librettists Magda Bogin, Kate Light, Stephanie Fleischmann, David Johnston, and Laura Sosa."
"Tickets, which include a light brunch, are available for $20 through Smarttix. Advance purchase is required. Due to limited seating capacity at OPERA America, tickets are strictly limited and will not be sold on the day of the event. OPERA America is located at 330 Seventh Avenue (between 28th and 29th)."
"American Lyric Theater (ALT) is pleased to announce that composer Anthony Davis will host the next event in the company's FRESHLY BREWED concert and master class series on Sunday, February 26th, 2012, at 1:00 PM.
The FRESHLY BREWED series was designed to give the public a chance to see inside the Composer Librettist Development Program studio. ALT's flagship program, the Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP) is the only full time mentorship initiative for emerging operatic writers in the United States. Anthony Davis, internationally acclaimed composer of the operas X, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MALCOLM X, TANIA, AMISTAD, and WAKONDA'S DREAM, is a guest faculty member and artist mentor for the CLDP.
Davis is known around the globe for his exciting works that draw from the lives of historical figures. This month's FRESHLY BREWED event will be the culmination of his winter residency at ALT, during which composers and librettists in the CLDP have been exploring the challenges of dramatizing history for the opera stage. Guest singers from the country's leading opera houses join us for a program of newly written scenes based on real-life figures, including Robert S. McNamara, Secretary of Defense during Vietnam under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson; Henry Morton Stanley, the famous British explorer of Africa; (HEY THERE EVERYONE THIS ONE IS MINE, LOVE DAVID) Helen Suzman, the lone woman in South Africa’s parliament for 36 years, and a tireless dissenter against apartheid; and Salvador Allende, President of Chile from 1970-1973, and the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America.
American Lyric Theater Resident Artists to be featured include composers Alla Borzova, Jeremy Beck, Theo Popov, Jorge Sosa, and Jeffrey Smith; and librettists Magda Bogin, Kate Light, Stephanie Fleischmann, David Johnston, and Laura Sosa."
"Tickets, which include a light brunch, are available for $20 through Smarttix. Advance purchase is required. Due to limited seating capacity at OPERA America, tickets are strictly limited and will not be sold on the day of the event. OPERA America is located at 330 Seventh Avenue (between 28th and 29th)."
Thursday, February 9, 2012
A Quote of the Day from Joseph Mitchell
Somebody runs a Joseph Mitchell Facebook page, and periodically posts one of his wonderful, understated, pitch-perfect quotes.
“I believe the most interesting human beings, so far as talk is concerned, are anthropologists, farmers, prostitutes, psychiatrists, and an occasional bartender. The best talk is artless, the talk of people trying to reassure or comfort themselves, women in the sun, grouped around baby carriages, talking about their weeks in the hospital or the way meat has gone up, or men in the saloons, talking to combat the loneliness everyone feels.” From his collection of short pieces, My Ears Are Bent
“I believe the most interesting human beings, so far as talk is concerned, are anthropologists, farmers, prostitutes, psychiatrists, and an occasional bartender. The best talk is artless, the talk of people trying to reassure or comfort themselves, women in the sun, grouped around baby carriages, talking about their weeks in the hospital or the way meat has gone up, or men in the saloons, talking to combat the loneliness everyone feels.” From his collection of short pieces, My Ears Are Bent
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Peter Bellamy Portraits
Several years ago, Time Out NY had a feature on playwrights, and they sent a guy to my apartment to take a picture of me. At the time, my life was in a total uproar and when I met Peter at my door, I was wearing a hoodie and I don't think I'd shaved. He quietly said, "Do you want to change into something else? A lot of people are going to read this." I hustled off to put on something a little nicer.
We chatted and he did all those professional photographer things to put a subject at ease; talking about himself, drawing me into a conversation about something completely unrelated. (I don't like having my picture taken and it usually shows.)
He did take a very nice pic, though - one of my favorites of myself - and now it's up on his website. Definitely cool people on it; Andrea Lepcio, who I worked with at America-in-Play, Lynn Nottage, John Clancy, and David Ives with an excerpt from one of my favorite blues-killers, "Variations on the Death of Trotsky."
We chatted and he did all those professional photographer things to put a subject at ease; talking about himself, drawing me into a conversation about something completely unrelated. (I don't like having my picture taken and it usually shows.)
He did take a very nice pic, though - one of my favorites of myself - and now it's up on his website. Definitely cool people on it; Andrea Lepcio, who I worked with at America-in-Play, Lynn Nottage, John Clancy, and David Ives with an excerpt from one of my favorite blues-killers, "Variations on the Death of Trotsky."
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