Theatre Bay Area Consolidating Blogs

Theatre Bay Area has two cool blogs: Editor’s Cut and The Mark-Up. Over the next month, they’ll be incorporating both blogs into a new one called the Chatterbox that’s going to be about “anything and everything arts.”

The first post is by Rebecca Novick, about taking her daughter to her first ever arts event — and the performer who made it less fun. Read it here.

Notes On A Table Read

Last night I was at the Phoenix for a fantastic table read of a play of mine that’s getting a production in October.

I’ll tell you about it later (because, as Bush’s chief of staff said about the Iraq War, you don’t introduce new products in the summer) but I can tell you how wonderful it is to hear actors read a piece out loud.

I usually sit in the back of the room and scribble on the script the whole time, but this time we sat in a circle and I had to be discreet.

Two things I always do in a first or second read: Any time an actor stumbles on a word or line, I make a little mark. It could be that their eyes simply got ahead of their mouth, as they tried to read ahead to see how the line turns out, but it’s just as likely that it’s something that needs to be streamlined.

And any time an actor subconsciously changes a line — like saying “way better” when the script says “even better” or saying “I go into my baritone” when the script says “I go into a baritone” — I always make a note of what their brain told them to say.

Sometimes the line is precisely what I mean it to say and they’re just going to have to make it work, but often what they say is more natural (at least for them, and since they’re the ones who are going to be saying it, might as well make it work for them.)

The key is, you can only do this in the first or second read, when they’re doing it subconsciously and not trying to actively change a line for some reason. And you probably shouldn’t blog about it.

And of course I always walk away knowing exactly what I need to cut and wondering how I ever left those little bits in there.

Gender Bias In Theater

In case you don’t read all the theater blogs as fervently as I do, here’s what everyone’s talking about today. The New York Times has an article about a Princeton study on gender bias in theater; specifically, why female playwrights are produced less than male playwrights. There are two parts people find surprising. The first:

Artistic directors of theater companies have maintained that no discrimination exists, rather that good scripts by women are in short supply. That claim elicited snorts and laughter from the audience when it was repeated Monday night, but Ms. Sands declared, “They’re right.”

And the second, that women readers tend to rate plays by women lower than men do:

Ms. Sands sent identical scripts to artistic directors and literary managers around the country. The only difference was that half named a man as the writer (for example, Michael Walker), while half named a woman (i.e., Mary Walker). It turned out that Mary’s scripts received significantly worse ratings in terms of quality, economic prospects and audience response than Michael’s. The biggest surprise? “These results are driven exclusively by the responses of female artistic directors and literary managers,” Ms. Sands said.

Amid the gasps from the audience, an incredulous voice called out, “Say that again?”

Ms. Sands put it another way: “Men rate men and women playwrights exactly the same.”

The great thing is that you can dig into this for hours. The NY Times article is here. Then there’s a PDF of the slides from the meeting on Monday where the study was presented. And you can even download and read the entire 173 page thesis (PDF).

Interesting responses abound, most especially from Matthew Freeman — who correctly notes that doollee, while a fantastic site, is not always up-to-date and seems to glean most of its information from a sweep of blogs and websites, both of which tend to skew male — and from 99seats, who wonders if female literary managers working with male artistic directors have be tough because “if all you bring to your AD are plays by women, even if they are the best plays, you’re not going to keep that job for long.”

‘AT HOME AT THE ZOO’ at A.C.T.

Sometimes a friend of mine emails me about a show before I get a chance to write a post about it, and then I mentally cross it off my list, and then about a week later I think, “Hey, I never wrote about that show” and decide to just post the email message.

Like now:

I saw Albee’s play at ACT last week and really liked it, but I had great seats, and I think if you were farther back or in the balcony, you’d miss out. So if you decide to go, spend the extra money to sit close.

I’m probably too into Albee to be able to make an objective call on it, but it worked really, really well for me. The first act is pretty amazing, especially if you know Zoo Story as well as I do. [I played Peter in a high school drama contest thingie, I've read it countless times since then, and I own the three-volume set of every Albee play ever written, which I recently re-read. So I'm very familiar with that play.]

It’s pretty sly about giving insight into the Peter we only know from Zoo Story. And the acting is terrific: one of the best Peter’s I’ve ever seen, and probably the best Jerry there ever could be.

At Home at the Zoo by Edward Albee, at American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary St, San Francisco, through July 5. Tickets at act-sf.org.

‘KILLING MY LOBSTER HITS HIGHWAY 101′ at Zeum Theater

I just walked in the door from seeing KML’s latest show and wanted to throw down some thoughts about the show, mainly because there are only FOUR shows left and if I wait my customary “how ever long it takes me to get around to it,” it will be completely pointless. (As opposed to my customary 92% pointlessness.)

So here’s the deal: It’s sketch comedy. Written by a team of about 12, performed by a cast of 6. Which means you get a whole mix of styles and senses of humor. Subtle, dry stuff; weird, absurdist stuff; sketches with no words; sketches all about words; sketches that are mostly physical comedy; sketches that are mostly dirty words.

Some of it will make you laugh uproariously; some of it will pass you by; but the beauty is that someone is always laughing at something. Funny can mean different things to different people, as KML once said somewhere but I don’t remember where.

So if you don’t think that the sketch with the Northern Californian and the Southern Californian each speaking in their own slang and thus needing a translator is funny (which I really can’t believe, but whatever) then maybe the car ballet is more your style. Or the hilarious film about SF hipsters visiting Oakland. Or the running audio bit with Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger giving fun facts about California, which quickly devolves into Arnold ridiculing Christian Bale for daring to play a Terminator.

At the very least, you’re gonna dig the live music — with some of the best vibraphone-playing since The Modern Jazz Quartet or, um…one of those other really good bands with a vibraphone player. (Seriously, the live music is freaking hot.)

Plus, the acting is brilliant. This shit is hard to do, and these guys make it look easy. Oh! And this one has a through-line! More than recurring characters, the show is actually driven by the story of the Schacter family, who hit the road in an RV when the bank forecloses on their Danville house. It gives the evening a structure and makes the recurring bits more than bits but an actual story. Very cool.

So, um, yeah. If I was posting this tomorrow when there were only THREE shows left, I’d probably have an ending.

KML Hits Highway 101 by Killing My Lobster, at Zeum Theater, in that whole Yerba Buena thing on 4th Street, San Francisco, through Jun 14. Tickets at killingmylobster.com.

Doing My Job As A So-Called Blogger

Although I prefer to think of myself as a playwright and not a blogger, I suppose I can’t deny the fact that this is technically a blog. And part of the deal with being a blogger is supposed to be linking up to good posts — which I tend to forget to do because I read everything on RSS feeds.

So okay: here are a few posts I’ve recently starred on Google Reader. Take a look; you might discover a blog you’ve never heard of, or find a conversation you want to jump into, or get an insight into what I do when I’m not writing plays or shooting zombies on Jeff’s Wii.

• The Next Stage has an inspiring post (via 99seats) about what theater gets right and how we can connect with audiences:

Out of all the art out there, we let our audience into the thing, invite them to be part of the thing. This is, I’m becoming more and more convinced every day, the greatest weapon in our marketing arsenal….

• Parabasis has a great post called “How Are We To Pay Playwrights? (Or For That Matter, Anybody)?” with thought-provoking comments like this from cnw:

When I lived in DC, a managing director I was close to said he ALWAYS wrote the smallest check to the playwright. Electricians — everyone — made more.

What other art form goes to a group of people for their core texts and then treats them with such disrespect?

I frankly don’t know why any of the playwrights I know (myself included) still write plays.

Maybe theatre will end up like opera — with a closed canon of classics that people come to see new interpretations of. I’m not sure that this would be a bad thing…

• And the aforementioned 99seats, one of the most provocative, well-written and generally kick-ass blogs out there, calls out institutional theaters who claim to be interested in outreach to younger artists but keep programming the same-old, same-old plays targeted to aging subscribers:

You don’t need more robust e-mail lists. You need to give young people something to bring them in. And, will you listen, it’s not just sex, hip-hop and drugs. You sound like Michael Steele when you do that. And these people aren’t stupid. So don’t treat them as such.

• To which commenter DPS responds:

The problem is that institutions don’t actually want younger audiences, they want younger versions of their older audiences — with the same tastes, the same manners, and the same pocketbook.

There’s a lot of good stuff out there, written by actual bloggers. So click away, why don’t you?

‘MR. MARMALADE’ at Custom Made Theater

As a playwright, I always feel like the highest praise I can give a play is to say, “Damn, I wish I’d written that.”

Noah Haidle has written a play that’s so hilarious and dark and strange and wonderful that I’ve had to wait four days to gather my thoughts and still all I can say is, “Holy crap, I wish I’d written that.”

Mr. Marmalade is about a four-year-old girl and her imaginary friend. Being a product of modern society, though, Lucy’s friend Mr. Marmalade is a douchebag businessman with a Blackberry, a cocaine habit, and a tendency to abuse his equally imaginary personal assistant. It’s twisted and hilarious and perfect.

And this is a perfect production. Everyone in the cast is brilliant, particularly Lillian Askew and Benjamin Pither as the deeply-disturbed children and Gabriel Grilli and Daniel Duque-Estrada as Lucy’s fantasy world playmates.

But let’s face it: it’s Noah Haidle’s script that makes the evening so damn enjoyable. Enough that I’ll be adding Noah Haidle to that list of playwrights you pull out when someone asks who your influences are and they really mean who do you aspire to be as good as. Because I really, really wish I’d written that.

Mr. Marmalade by Noah Haidle, at Custom Made Theater, 965 Mission St., San Francisco, EXTENDED through Jun 20. Tickets at custommade.org.

‘KRAPP’S LAST TAPE’ by Cutting Ball

On Thursday I made a last-minute dash over to Cutting Ball Theater, at Exit on Taylor, to catch their exquisite production of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape.

This is a gorgeous production of a play that probably every playwright has read but probably not every playwright has seen. Or if they have seen it, it was probably some drama-school production that Beckett tried to come back from the grave to stop, directed by a 19-year-old who didn’t really understand what’s so poignant about some old guy listening to a tape. (That may have only happened to me.)

This production is not like that. This production is wonderful, filled with beautiful little moments where even just Krapp taking a breath is huge. And there’s a fantastic acting/directing choice when Krapp is listening to his younger self talk about holding a beautiful woman that just about broke my heart.

Paul Gerrior is a wonderful Krapp; Rob Melrose is one of the best Beckett (and Ionesco) (and I wanna see him do Albee!) directors around; and the sound design by Cliff Caruthers must be called out.

Yikes, this is getting dangerously close to sounding like a “review.” This is not a review. I am not a reviewer. I am a playwright who saw a play he liked. For actual criticism and thoughtful writing beyond, “Me like play,” go here.

And then go here:

Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett at Cutting Ball Theater, 277 Taylor St, San Francisco, through Jun 21. Tickets at cuttingball.com.

Notice: World Premiere Play From World Premiere Company

I’ve seen every play that Sleepwalkers Theatre (SF Weekly’s “Best Theater Company of 2009″) has produced — except one. I was traveling during the premiere of John Rosenberg’s Use Both Hands, a play that was praised as “hilarious” and “gripping” and “one Tim Bauer will kick himself for missing.”

Now Rosenberg has started his own theater company called Hella Fresh Theatre, and tonight is the world premiere of both the company and Rosenberg’s newest play: Jericho Road Improvement Association, a play about “race, law enforcement and east bay celebrity status in Oakland, CA.”

Or, in two sentences, it’s a play about “a veteran police officer determined to change the neighborhood where he fought the Black Panthers 30 years ago.” He buys a bar and slowly befriends a young man he thinks can be the new Bobby Hutton, a 16-year old Black Panther who died in a shoot-out with police.

As befits a theatre company that grew out of Sleepwalkers, beer is $2 and tickets are $10. So you have no excuse and several good reasons to check it out.

Jericho Road Improvement Association by John Rosenberg, from Hella Fresh Theatre at Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason St, San Francisco, through Jun 27. Tickets at hellafreshtheatre.com.

Best Of PlayGround, ‘MAURITIUS’ at Magic, and Paying Gigs

I’ve had a couple of days working full-time on-site for one of my favorite clients on one of those cool projects where you have to sign NDAs and be accompanied by someone to get in and out of the building. Which also means I had no Internet access during the day and no time at night to mention a few things I’ve seen lately. Namely….

The Best of PlayGround Festival. One of the best years yet. PlayGround has moved out of Zeum — which is more of a corporate space and not very well designed for theater — into Thick House, which is one of the best theater spaces in the city.

This year’s selections gave the evening a magical and fairy tale feel, kicking off with Ken Slattery’s hilarious commedia-style comedy, ending with Aaron Loeb’s twisted and brilliant retelling of Thumbelina, and sprinkled with Erin Bregman’s actual fairy tale about world peace, Geetha Reddy’s ultra-theatrical use of the stage in a beautiful play set in a net under the Golden Gate Bridge, and Kenn Rabin’s gorgeous piece of magical realism in the academic world. Evelyn Pine and Daniel Heath rounded out the evening with more realistic plays about couples respectively debating the power of nudity and playing Albee-worthy games that quickly turn personal. Terrific stuff.

Then on Monday I went to opening night of Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck at Magic Theater. Unbelievable acting. Seriously, one of the best casts I’ve ever seen bringing it every second of the way. Every time I think about calling out one of the actors, I remember how good all the others were. Damn!

Rather than slogging through my lame attempt to summarize the story, check out two excellently-written reviews by Robert Hurwitt in the Chronicle and Chad Jones on Theater Dogs.

Hurwitt has the little guy jumping out of the chair; Jones points out that the second act is where the writing really comes to life.

The Magic had to cut its season short and this run is trimmed to only two weeks, so if you’re interested in seeing a really tight, expertly acted example of straight-up realism, get tickets quickly.

Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck at Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, through Jun 14. Tickets at magictheatre.org.

Told You So: Sleepwalkers Theatre Named ‘Best Theater Company’

Hey, so, if you read this blog, you know that I’ve gone on and on about a small indie theater company called Sleepwalkers Theatre.

I routinely badgered you about their plays, like Deep Fried Cheese, a play about a competitive eater whose girlfriend becomes a vegan — calling it “brilliant…with built-in drama, conflict and dudes shoving a lot of food into their mouths really, really fast.” Or Lost & Found, which I told you was “awesome” and “fantastic” and “top-notch” before I went into a thing about my not really being a critic and thus not entitled to use those words.

I mentioned Work Eats Home, and not only because it had a short play by me that was called “beautifully written” by an actual critic who is entitled to say that. I praised March To November for being political, timely, willing to tweak liberals, tied to the local community and pretty damn funny to boot. And I tried to get a bunch of people to see the hilarious and ambitious The Short and Happy Life, none of whom I think actually went.

Well, maybe this will get you to see their next show. They were just named Best Theater Company in SF Weekly’s Best of San Francisco 2009:

Best Theater Company: Sleepwalkers Theatre

Some people like their theater as polished as possible. Others like it scrappy. Sleepwalkers is definitely for the latter crowd: The company specializes in no-frills productions of rough-and-tumble new plays. In its adopted space at the Phoenix Theatre, Sleepwalkers cultivates a slacker vibe — in some cases, the programs are handwritten — but don’t let that distract you from the fact that these people know how to pick a script. They know how to act, too; one of the company’s regulars is Ian Riley, a frankly stunning performer whose puppy-dog looks belie a deep well of manic energy. Productions tend toward the topical (the 2008-2009 season covered corporate America, post-9/11 trauma, and the complacencies of political art) — and for once, “topical” isn’t code for “sanctimonious and self-serious.” A lot of companies in town try to create the indie-theater feel, but don’t have the discipline or competence to pull it off. Sleepwalkers gets it right.

So here’s the deal. I’m 99% sure their next full production will be in October, at the Exit. So write it down right now, and make absolutely sure you go to that show. Make a promise to yourself that you will go see it, no matter what, because it will be great, because they “know how to pick a script.”

Back From Vacation

Not really vacation, more helping out M as she researched Florida for her Lonely Planet gig. But it was fantastic, for me, at least, since I wasn’t working. We went to Miami and then Key West, where I found what’s now my favorite bar in the U.S., the Green Parrot. Open air, three dollar beers, great music, friendly people. I spent quite a while talking to a guy who works as a park ranger on an island 70 miles out in the middle of the ocean, about camping and busting drug runners and what the stars are like way out there.

Walked on one of the best beaches in the country, Siesta Key. Fed mangoes to goats. Had key lime milkshakes. And discovered the truth of a quote I read from Amanda Palmer: “Off is the new on.” Being offline, with no computer, no phone calls, no text messages, was fantastic. I immediately came home and put Leechblock on my browser, deleted a bunch of time-wasting bookmarks, and dumped a bunch of crap off the TiVo. Bliss.

Since I have nothing to say, why not read a great post from someone who does. Christine Evans writes:

I don’t see my plays taking off in the American regional theatre, in all honesty, and it’s not because I can’t write. It’s because I don’t want to write what many of those theatres seem to program – simple protagonist-driven dramas with American themes and redemption at the end. There’s a view of the world embedded in that structure which I don’t share.

So, what to do? I think it involves re-defining the context of the work’s creation and reception – for oneself and for one’s audiences….

Notes to myself:
1. find and work with the people whose art excites me
2. think across media: since most art forms are more progressive than theatre, work with visual artists, musicians, designers….
5. don’t pre-judge the form. For instance the “thing” I’m starting on now might be a libretto, or a dance piece, or a sound sculpture for voices….
7. find people who are creating their own path as writers/ artists/ performers and take strength and inspiration from that, rather than focusing on the numbing “submission” route only
8. do what gives me joy and terrifies me

Editor’s note: She knows how to count. I just pulled out the ones that spoke to me personally, but there are many more here.

Adding A Few More Days To A Very Long Trip

I left for Cincinnati on Apr 28, came back for one day, and turned around to join M on a Florida research trip. Should be back in…I don’t know, I’m on island time. Meanwhile, here’s some Key West graffiti I was drawn to:

NPR Story About ‘LYDIA’ By Octavio Solis

Just found out Octavio Solis was on NPR a week or two ago:

Director Juliette Carrillo says one of the things that distinguishes Solis’ work is what she calls his “in-your-face emotional rawness.” He’s provocative to the point that some producers are scared off by his work, she says, and by his darkly hilarious subversive streak.

Solis says the literal border between El Paso and Juarez has its own presence in Lydia, but the border is also a metaphor he explores in much of his work.

“That’s so much a part of my fabric now, the way I see things,” he says. “There’s always a threshold one crosses, between dark and light, life and death, between one country and another, between one consciousness and another.”

Listen here (about 6 minutes).

Signs of Cincinnati

This week I was in Cincinnati for work and got a chance to ramble around downtown: