Scott Walters has written about the concept of the embedded artist. If you’re interested in reading about something like that in action, check out this article on an Augusto Boal-styled project in Hunts Point in the Bronx. And if you’re not reading the Community Arts Network website, well, you should be. -twl
Those of you who do not live out in the styx like I do don’t have the pleasure of being able to chase thunderstorms. I just got back from a nice 90-minute chase of a great storm that came in off Lake Erie and set out SE across the Chautauqua county hills towards Chautauqua Lake and Jamestown. It was quite the show. [Read more →]
It has taken a lot of time to catch up, because not only has there been so much to read, there has been much to think about and absorb. I am not one of those who is inclined to digest ideas quickly. I tend more towards stewing and simmering. In attempting to read all the blogs I’ve subscribed to (and over the week I’ve had to add a few more to the list), I’ve encountered much to throw in the stew pot.
I have to admit that I feel somewhat overwhelmed, chiefly because , when you read the number of blogs that are out there, you come away with a rather disturbing sense that you are missing out on something. I can’t help but really sense that there is a great “indie” movement of theatre going on out there, akin to the development of indie films and other sorts of independent art work. [Read more →]
But I am far from ready to write anything. There is SO much catching up to do. I’ve got to get my reading done before I can write anything. Don’t you young people ever sleep? -twl
A Poor Player will take a week’s hiatus for vacation. Postings will resume around July 25th. There will be much catching up to do at that point, I am sure. -twl
I arrived back from taking my son to NIU for orientation this past Tuesday. The trip itself was fairly uneventful. On the way we took in a show at the Porthouse Theatre in Cuyahoga Falls OH, where my ASC buddy Chris Seiler was playing Editor Webb in Our Town (review below), and Olivia Braza was also visiting. There is certainly a great deal of construction over in Chicago, most of which we managed to find traveling in either direction. Courses were selected, and we had a great talk with Alex Gelman, director of the School of Theatre at NIU. I also took Eric for a tour of the Illinois countryside, with its miles of corn, soybeans, straight roads and open skies. On the way back we visited another ASC colleague, Alyssa Wilmoth, who is working at the Ramada Wagon Wheel Theatre in Warsaw, IN, currently doing Seussical with Thoroughly Modern Millie and Steel Magnolias to follow. Chris, Olivia and Alyssa are all heading for New York City in the fall, so I gain a lot of new places to stay when I head down to the city. [Read more →]
This weekend I am taking my youngest son out to DeKalb IL, where he will be entering his sophomore year as a BFA Acting major at Northern Illinois University. He’s transferring from the University of Buffalo, where he sort of hung out for a year after an unsuccessful first round of auditioning for major conservatories. He tried them again this year, and got wait-listed at Carnegie Mellon, but eventually had to settle for NIU, since it had the best program of all the schools to which he got accepted. Actually, he was a walk-in at the NIU auditions, not having applied in advance. He was between auditions and simply signed up on the spot in New York for NIU. It was not his intent to go to a liberal arts college, but when the final moment came, he did not get into a conservatory. On paper, NIU has a better program than UB, and I was quite eager for him to leave home and go to school at some distance. UB is about an hour from Dunkirk, and I know a good many of the faculty there. So I figured it was best to have him take off. [Read more →]
When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse.-Newton N. Minow, Chairman, FCC, 1961
In his farewell address to the nation in 1960, Dwight D. Eisenhower coined the term “military-industrial complex.” While Pres. Eisenhower did not necessarily disapprove of this post-WW2 development, he did raise cautions about allowing this situation to have too much influence on American society. Right on his heels, Newton Minow made his famous “vast wasteland” speech, from which the above quote is taken. The two ideas may be seemingly unrelated, but I submit that, in many ways, the 21st century has produced a situation where the military-industrial complex has met the vast wasteland of television to produce the “military-industrial-entertainment” complex. I’m not in a position to prove any conspiracy in this matter, but it’s perfectly clear that one of the reasons the United States has been able to pursue an aggressive foreign policy and run roughshod over American and international law and society is because the entertainment industry has so thoroughly pacified the American people.
I find it hard to believe how busy I have been over the past week and how much of what I have been doing is just mere running around handling the errands of life. All of a sudden I feel as if I have really returned to my “former” life after a year on the road, and every day contains some little paper I have to fill out or some visit I have to make to campus. I hate to let this blog lag, but I am slowly making headway through the list of errands I have. Hopefully tomorrow will be the final day of filling out paperwork, and maybe I can return to some serious writing. [Read more →]