Finished reading John Lahr's biography of Tennessee Williams. Earlier this year read Penelope Niven's biography of Thornton Wilder. And Kristine and I listened to the audiobook of SOMETHING WONDERFUL, the double biography of Rodgers and Hammerstein. (Also, a few years back, read a massive biography of Eugene O'Neill.) Most of these people had lives I wouldn't have traded for, even for the glory of having written extraordinary plays.
Is there something about doing this for a living that gravitates one to lives of drink, depression and disappointment? No grand thoughts on this at the moment, but I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I'm not attached to the bottle and don't have the impulse to hurl myself out the window given the profession I embrace.
Autumnal thoughts have been crowding in lately. The deaths of old friends. Barbara Harris, Glen Roven, Carole Shelley. And watching others struggling with health issues. And looking on worried at friends now in their eighties. And, yes, facing another landmark decade in a couple of years.
Somebody put on some music and break out some lemonade.
Sunday, September 2, 2018
Saturday, August 18, 2018
Gettin' the Band Back Together
Every now and then I'm sure everybody sits in the middle of an audience going nuts for something that makes you shrug. That's my experience with Gettin' the Band Back Together. A committed and hard-working cast slam through this 2 1/2 hour (yes, it's an hour longer than The Band's Visit) show that trades endlessly on Jersey jokes and ethnic stereotypes. John Rando garnishes the proceedings with some deft throwaway gags, but the show constantly has to resort to making fun of its own devices in order to forestall the audience's objections. Well, that's not true. I sensed no objections from the audience. They weren't as snooty as I am.
There's another musical playing off-Broadway called Desperate Measures that is just as broad, but somehow it's a much better show. Kristine and I haven't been able to figure out why it's a better show, aside from having a stronger score. What is the dividing line between something that is dumb dumb and something that is smart dumb?
Off to Chatham tomorrow.
There's another musical playing off-Broadway called Desperate Measures that is just as broad, but somehow it's a much better show. Kristine and I haven't been able to figure out why it's a better show, aside from having a stronger score. What is the dividing line between something that is dumb dumb and something that is smart dumb?
Off to Chatham tomorrow.
Video of Summer Salt
Here's a video about our annual summer improv jam -- "Summer Salt".
By the way, this is in no way a concept we "own."
Many summers ago, Kristine Niven had the idea of bringing together some master teachers and organizing a week-long camp in the Catskills for people to explore improvisation. I think we did this something like 18 years until she finally decided that she'd done it enough. (She pretty much organized this by herself.) In the meantime, other outfits started summer improv retreats. As they had every right to do.
So, if anybody wants to imitate this and start their own versions of Summer Salt, feel free. And, if you want advice or notes, drop me a line at DGSweet@aol.com. (A couple of veterans of Summer Salt now run a weekly version of this out of their home in L.A. And more power to them.)
Starting
It Occurs to Me ...
I expect I'll continue to post things to Facebook, but that's not really conducive to maintaining a coherent stream of observations. This will probably be, more or less, an open diary on stuff I'm seeing, reading, participating in, thinking about, embracing, etc. This may end up being a place where I knock out rough drafts of paragraphs or passages that end up being revised for use in larger projects.
I'll start with where things stand today.
At the moment, I'm working on a biography of William Ball, the founder of American Conservatory Theater. This is a commission. I wrote an article for American Theater about how Ball's choice to plant ACT in San Francisco rather than in Chicago inadvertently helped trigger the Chicago theater movement. (This was first expressed by Chicago critic-historian Richard Christiansen in a piece for a long-gone Sunday supplement, Panorama.) Ball was inevitably an important figure in that article, and Kitty Winn and Charles Dillingham asked me if I'd be came to write a full biography. And here I am, more than two and a half years later at a point which seems to be the beginning of the end of the project.
Tomorrow, Kristine Niven (my wife and founder of the AND Theater Company) and I go to Chatham, MA for the annual Summer Salt residency. We gather a group of writers who improvise and improvisers who write and spend a week improvising on each other's premises, helping each other jump start projects. This will be the eighth summer of this project, and several plays have gone from the living room of our generous hosts. I wrote an article after our first summer that appeared in Dramatics -- "Improv at the Beach."
Also looking forward to returning to Evanston in September to accompany a friend to her 50th anniversary reunion at Evanston Township High School. (She accompanied me to mine last summer.) A chance to look again at a school that, more than college, taught me how to read, process information, examine the theories of others, and begin to formulate my own ideas. While I'm there, I hope to see some plays in Chicago and connect with old friends.
I expect I'll continue to post things to Facebook, but that's not really conducive to maintaining a coherent stream of observations. This will probably be, more or less, an open diary on stuff I'm seeing, reading, participating in, thinking about, embracing, etc. This may end up being a place where I knock out rough drafts of paragraphs or passages that end up being revised for use in larger projects.
I'll start with where things stand today.
At the moment, I'm working on a biography of William Ball, the founder of American Conservatory Theater. This is a commission. I wrote an article for American Theater about how Ball's choice to plant ACT in San Francisco rather than in Chicago inadvertently helped trigger the Chicago theater movement. (This was first expressed by Chicago critic-historian Richard Christiansen in a piece for a long-gone Sunday supplement, Panorama.) Ball was inevitably an important figure in that article, and Kitty Winn and Charles Dillingham asked me if I'd be came to write a full biography. And here I am, more than two and a half years later at a point which seems to be the beginning of the end of the project.
Tomorrow, Kristine Niven (my wife and founder of the AND Theater Company) and I go to Chatham, MA for the annual Summer Salt residency. We gather a group of writers who improvise and improvisers who write and spend a week improvising on each other's premises, helping each other jump start projects. This will be the eighth summer of this project, and several plays have gone from the living room of our generous hosts. I wrote an article after our first summer that appeared in Dramatics -- "Improv at the Beach."
Also looking forward to returning to Evanston in September to accompany a friend to her 50th anniversary reunion at Evanston Township High School. (She accompanied me to mine last summer.) A chance to look again at a school that, more than college, taught me how to read, process information, examine the theories of others, and begin to formulate my own ideas. While I'm there, I hope to see some plays in Chicago and connect with old friends.
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