Crazytown

SCREAMING IMELDA

Traveling the world for the greatest of Imelda Staunton does not disappointment.
By Owen Panettieri (playwright, lyricist)

I am a proud Imelda Staunton groupie. She is the best. If you've never seen her on stage, you must. At any opportunity and at any cost. Imelda Staunton is everything.  Imelda first came to my attention as an actress of incredible talent in the 2004 feature film Vera Drake for which she was nominated for and Oscar as Best Actress (she lost to Hlilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby!). If you are not familiar film, you are forgiven. It's one of those British films that you know is REALLY good because it made approximately ZERO dollars in the US and still support was so strong in the industry to nominate her for an Oscar.  Most people know her from her star turn as Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in 2007 and Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 in 2010. She brings to life one of the series' greatest villains. But her acting career in film TV and theater goes back decades. Exploring her theater work and accolades you get a better sense of her incredible range as a performer.

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You may be surprised to learn that Imelda is an accomplished musical theater performance who has appeared in many shows on the West End, and who has won three of her four Olivier Awards in the Best Actress category - as The Baker's Wife in Into The Woods, Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and Mama Rose in Gypsy. She's earned 11 Olivier nominations throughout her career. I saw her performance in 2015 in Gypsy and it melted my brain. What makes her such an incredible performer is her understanding of dynamics. She can go big. She can go small. But what sets her apart from other actors is her ability to navigate everything in between. She can give you fortissimo, but she can also give you mezzo forte. She paints with all the colors. She breathes so much life and fresh perspective into these iconic characters. Even if you've been a fan of a show for years, Imelda Staunton will show you things about them that you never realized you were missing.

WE'RE ALL MAD HERE.

In this review: SPOILERS for the experience of seeing Then She Fell. You've been warned.
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

I am a sucker for immersive theatre experiences. I loved Sleep No More. I want all of my future theatre experiences to involve snacks and/or alcoholic beverages and even slightly intense prolonged eye-contact. Perhaps because I know what it feels like to be on the actor's side of the fourth wall, I love shows that totally destroy that wall and ask the audience to step over the crumbled ruins of it and into the action. If Sleep No More offers a voyeuristic haunted house for guests to explore masked, unguided, and at will; Then She Fell is a much more intimate, playful, disorienting experience that you engage in alone but constantly accompanied by members of the cast as well as nurses and orderlies of the institution. Oh, did I mention that you'll be spending the evening in a Victorian mental hospital? 

Inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll and his real-life, possibly romantic relationship with the child Alice Liddell, Then She Fell is a theatre piece I have come to, rather typically, several years after it started getting rapturous reviews in the Times. Honestly, it fell under my radar for a while, and then when it popped onto my radar I had to wait to rationalize the ticket price (admittedly, not cheap, but then the experience is WORTH IT), which I'm glad I did because they have a closing date of April 30, 2017. They've extended before, but who knows? So if you want to definitely go see this amazing production, I recommend getting tickets now and seeing it this spring.

Knowing that you're seeing a wildly popular show that only sells 15 tickets a performance is intimidating. For most of it, you are being directly performed to. I spent several minutes sitting silently across from an actor who was a sort of non-literal representation of the White Rabbit, painting a white rose red with a tiny paintbrush, feeling a genuine stress that we wouldn't be done in time. I participated in a mad tea party, smashing my tea cup on the table with the White and Red Queens, Rabbit, and Hatter, and then sipping a deliciously brewed concoction that I had helped choose before being whisked away again for a bedtime story (and being literally tucked into a crisp, white bed). I watched two Alices dance through a mirrored glass, once from inside the Red Queen's luxurious apartment, and once from inside a sparkling fairy burrow, while being fed purple grapes by the White Queen. Later, one of the Alices had me hand her clothing after her bath, all while asking me questions about love. At the end of that scene, we were looking directly into each other's eyes between the bannister of a staircase and she queried if I had lived happily ever after with that first person, that first person I ever loved. When I laughed lightly and said "No," her face darkened abruptly, and she ran up the stairs in a huff, too fast for me to run after. 

After the show, my husband Daniel and I tucked ourselves into a nearby bar and over a nightcap excitedly exchanged stories of everything that had happened to us since we'd been split up. We had seen part of the show together. For a few scenes, like when the Red Queen spiraled into insanity with a bottle of pills in a locked ward, we had been the only two audience members watching. But once we were separated, Daniel was led off by the Mad Hatter, a redheaded chanteuse whom we'd watched dance on top of a wardrobe earlier in the evening, and was asked riddles. I was redirected into a room with a gramophone and instructed to open increasingly large books with bottles hidden inside as a Doctor concocted me a cocktail. Then he left me alone with a stack of letters to read and the voice from the gramophone reciting The Walrus and the Carpenter. I barely had time to skim the first letter before the White Rabbit retrieved me to come paint roses with him. Meanwhile, Daniel peeled and ate an orange with one of the Alices while I, somewhere else in the building, was watching the other Alice wrestle with the Red Queen. 

Like Sleep No More, this is dance theatre. Most of the scenes have a movement-heavy element driving them. Unlike Sleep No More, the experience feels tailor-made for you and you alone. You aren't eavesdropping on these people, they are inviting you to take part, have a sip, take a bite, answer a question. "Do you take dictation?" the actor playing Lewis Carroll asked me in a room that would have been a regular writer's study, except for the pools of water sinking into the floor in unexpected places. After I wrote his letter, he signed it, placed it in a bottle, and waded into the black water barefoot to send it off with all the others. The Doctor retrieved me and brought me upstairs to play a game of chess with him. I knew immediately that it was the chess game from Through The Looking Glass. He explained the entire sequence of moves to me, guiding me through playing Alice's white pawn, as if he was reading a particularly perplexing case study. At the end, he handed me a cup of tea, retrieved the ring of keys I'd been entrusted with during the performance (and encouraged to use on any lock I found), and suddenly orderlies began bringing the 14 other people of the audience, including Daniel, into the room where I sat. The show was over. I had been the only one, maybe, to play chess with the doctor. I definitely had been the only one to finish my stay in Wonderland with the chess game scene. 

As a long time lover of Lewis Carroll's Alice books, I was delighted to recognize so many moments from the stories and from the sad and strange real-life tale of Carroll and Alice. The show is a beautiful and beautifully sympathetic exploration of duality, sanity, reality, and the magic of childhood. At the beginning of the show, just as the audience members are starting to be whisked off by different actors to begin their own personalized journey through the piece, the Doctor offers a definition of liminality. From the Latin limin, meaning "threshold". We get our English word "lintel" from here. Liminality is the quality of ambiguity and disorientation experienced by participants in a ritual, usually magical or spiritual, that occurs midway through- before the participant has been changed completely by the ritual, but are no longer what they were before they began. The show attempts to make adolescent Alices of us all. Not quite big, not quite small, not quite having drunk all of the bottle yet, but definitely having taken a nice sip. Few shows have touched me and haunted me as much as this one has, and I am excited to see more from Third Rail Projects, who developed this and other immersive pieces, as theatre like this becomes more and more prolific and available. I look forward to the day when the idea of seeing a piece of theatre that isn't located in a repurposed warehouse space in Brooklyn is unusual. 

The only photo here that I actually took (after the show was over of course) of my "prescription" for the tea I chose during the Mad Tea Party and the stamped program I was given at the end of the show. The two other pictures in this article are press photos. The current company of Then She Fell can be found here.

 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
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WHEN THE BAD BOYFRIEND DOES GOOD

AKA I fell in love with theatre again this weekend.
By Kathleen Choe (actor/singer/writer)

Amy Poehler said to treat your career “like a bad boyfriend” and that “…it is healthy to remember you can always leave and go sleep with someone else.”

I feel the theatre has been a “bad boyfriend” as of late. I love it and I always will, but it’s been on the outs with me: the lack of diversity in the stories being told, lack of diversity in casting, the unwillingness to pay actors a living wage, the defensiveness of members of the community when any of this gets called out. When I tried to talk to it, it refused to listen and shut down all the arguments, smiling and repeating over and over, “But it’s getting better.”

So Iike a bad boyfriend I pushed it to the side, loving it but needing space. Until last Friday when it asked me away for a long weekend.

Last Friday, I went up to the Geva Theatre Center to work on a devised piece based on the idea of the American Dream—what it is, what it has become, if it still exists. For four days, I got to be in a room with nine other very talented people:

Got to be in a room that looked like this.
Missing: our awesome Stage Manager, Becca Poccia.

...to hash out and exchange thoughts over this idea to create something completely new. At the end of the process we put up what we had devised in front of an audience to hear and exchange ideas with them.

To add icing on top of this very delicious cake, I even got paid to do it.

And what d’ya know? I fell in love with the theatre again.  I remembered what excited me about theatre in the first place. Collaboration. Conversation. To be sure those two are not always comfortable when put together, but when they combine something beautiful almost always emerges: possibility.

How to devise a play in four days = Good people + coffee + laughter 

Theater is not just feel-good bedtime stories for rich people, it’s not just where you go for the experience of being part of a standing ovation in the audience at the end. Watching a fellow human being in front of you and seeing their story unfold has a power that can open perceptions, and as a wise man once said, with great power comes great responsibility.

To entertain is only an iota of what the theatre can do, and yet these days it seems that’s mostly what the theatre is being used for.

To engage an audience with a diverse cast and different stories is possible, yet the struggle to see diverse casts or hear different stories goes on.

To pay artists for to what they love—create—is possible, and yet the resistance against doing so persists.

So, bad boyfriend. You reminded why you’ve made me happy in the past, of your potential, of what you’re capable of when you pause, and stop, and listen. That you have the ability and capacity to treat me and my fellow artists well.

Thank you for that.

Let’s see what else you’ve got.

 

KATHLEEN CHOE is a NYC based actor, singer, and writer. www.www.kathleen-choe.com
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PROTEST IS THE NEW BRUNCH

It's only February.
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

When satire has become reality, when those leading our government are making Orwellian propaganda seem tame by comparison, when the creators of South Park don't even know how to make fun of the current administration, because truth has become too much stranger than even the fictions of their twisted minds... what is the right approach? What tone do artists take during times like this to resist fascism and authoritarian moves like literally attempting to destroy the amendment that maintains our government's fine line of separation between church and state? It isn't funny anymore, and making fun of it feels daunting. Why bother satirizing a man who can tweet stuff like this with a dead-straight face: "I don't know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy..." I mean.... okayyyyy, dude. I literally don't know what to say about that. When you spend your entire Black History Month speech talking about how everyone likes you and you got more votes than anyone in the whole world ever and everyone else is losers, and then say things like: "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice," as if Frederick Douglass is a real up-and-comer in middle management of a small but promising office supplies company... I just literally don't know what to say. 

Which is why I'm realizing more and more that the only way to respond to this preposterousness is with total and complete sincerity. (Although, there is absolutely a time and place for wit, and this is making me laugh today in the face of the utterly ridiculous confirmation of Betsey DeVos as Secretary of Education.) So. What do I mean by sincerity? I don't mean a total lack of irony. I don't mean "eschewing the lifesaving gift of comedy altogether". I just mean like, show up. I, a total and utterly insincere jerk, have been going to protests. Singing "This Land Is Our Land" alongside people holding homemade signs. Writing postcards to my congresspeople. Calling my senators and representatives EVERY SINGLE DAY (and also calling the ones in Florida, where I grew up, because I still have a Florida area code, and enjoy calling Marco Rubio and reminding him that he got bought by Betsy DeVos). 

Some people have gotten really fired up about caring about the future of our democracy. A lot of awesome people I know have always cared about the political climate of our country, and are not foul-weather activists like myself, who suddenly realized a few months ago that being mildly displeased about things but only actually bothering about them when they affect you is a really shitty way to be a human. But some of us needed things to become really horrible to become involved. As a kid I remember reading about Anne Frank and Sojourner Truth and the French Revolution and thinking: "Oh, so like if I ever saw things get bad politically, it would be pretty clear who the good guys and bad guys are. Everyone I know and care about would also be like 'Yeah, clearly those are the bad guys and here's our secret hiding place and here's our box of stolen ration cards.'" But that's not how things are. Yeah, it's pretty easy to see who the bad guys are, but it's really unclear how to deal with them and how bad they actually have to let things get before it's justified to begin calling them bad guys. And it is certainly surprising how many people don't clearly see the same distinctions between good guys and bad guys. 

I guess what I'm saying is, life is way more complicated than I expected when I was eleven, but is also surprisingly way more simple. I'm mortified that our country isn't accepting refugees from the country my own family escaped from during the last century, and I'm even more mortified that I feel so utterly helpless about how little I can ultimately do. Some of my friends are deciding to refocus their careers and run for office and help become one of the good guys in our government. Others are leading the resistance and gently pushing back on every human rights-compromising decision coming out of the White House today. Educators like myself have their work cut out for them for these next few years. Raising more tolerant, kind, inquisitive, questioning, inclusive humans is clearly in order. Humans who don't bully, who understand that the success of a group can be really good for the success of each individual in the group. Humans who are confident enough to accept that not everyone has to think exactly the same way, but we do all have to find a way to work together or our planet is doomed. Humans who recognize that just because someone believes in a different religion than you, that doesn't mean they're dangerous. Humans who are students of history and encourage others to be lifelong students as well. 

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair… we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…”
- Charles Dickens "A Tale of Two Cities" (how did he KNOW, AMIRITE?!) -

If you live in (or are planning a visit to) NYC, and you'd like to partake in some art that embodies the sentiment of "resist, with sincerity", may I recommend a few things that I'm currently interested in?

-The Museum of Modern Art's curated displays of art from the countries affected by the administrations' unconstitutional travel ban.
- An upcoming production (starring a former director of mine, Kevin Del Aguila! Yay, Kevin!) of Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, a parable play about a dictator to be performed on February 20th, with ticket sales benefiting the Southern Poverty Law Center. 
- Sweat, a widely acclaimed Public Theatre drama about the struggle of the working class transfers to Broadway in March.

A couple other things I'd love to recommend this week are an Oscar-nominated documentary that I loved (and at our house where Daniel tries and frequently succeeds at seeing every nominated film every awards season, I can tell you that I see a lot of Oscar-nominated documentaries): Life, Animated- a beautiful story about a young man with autism who communicates through the films he loves. Also, this week's This American Life was heartbreaking and timely.

A picture I took during this week's protest in Washington Square Park. #thisiswhatdemocracysoundslike
I am proud to live in a city that stands strong with refugees from the devastation in Syria (and every other place in need of hope and freedom). 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who has no idea why La La Land has been nominated for so many Oscars.
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THE GASPS FOR HOPE IN 2016

Looking for glimpses of light as 2016 ends.
by Kathleen Choe (actor/singer/writer)

Honestly I’m just waiting for 2016 to end, though I’ve got trepidations about what’s to come in 2017. I won’t talk about why; anyone watching the news or who hasn’t been living under a rock can guess. I’m exhausted talking about the state of the world and the country, and right now I can only see what’s in front of me…namely, heading out of town to visit family for the holidays.

I’m realizing more than ever about how important it is to hold onto hope. Finding it as 2016 comes to a close has been hard, but not impossible. A company I love, Rising Circle Theater Collective, had an event for women artists of color to come together and share their stories. In a burst of courage I readily said “yes” when my friend Nancy asked me to read one of my Crazytown blog posts out loud (and nearly chickened out when the hour of the event approached).

I showed up!
The proof is in the photo booth.

The night was full of laughter and determination...and hope. For the people who didn’t bring work to share, Nancy had put questions into a hat for them to pull out and answer. One of the questions was this:

photo credit: Chelsea Harrison

Actor, writer, and educator Chelsea Harrison pulled that thought-provoker out of the hat, then proceeded to give an amazing and eloquent explanation. 

Women--in particular women of color--always show up when there’s something that needs to be done. Always. This election was the last gasp of the white patriarchy. “We know we have work to do, we know it will be hard, but we also know that The Future is Female.”

The future.

Hope. I cling to it. I have to. The alternative is to stay still and let the world become a place I don’t want it to be.

I will take it any way I can, and fight for it every way I can, and if what I fight for doesn’t come to pass, I’ll know I didn’t stay silent. And I’ll pick myself up and start again.

Hope. The future.

Here’s to that.

Merry Christmas, all.

KATHLEEN CHOE is a NYC based actor, singer, and writer. www.www.kathleen-choe.com
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IN THE PRESENCE OF GREATNESS - AGAIN

I Have Talented Friends
By Sam Perwin

This time of year can be exhausting, but I always try to make time to support the supremely talented people I'm lucky enough to call my friends. Herewith, a roundup of some of the amazingness I've gotten to see over the last few weeks.

It starts with a production in November of A Burial Place by my friend and fellow Crazytown writer Owen Panettieri. As an alumna of many a Panettieri reading and production, I'm always thrilled when I get to see a full production of one of his plays. It was a moving, thoughtful meditation on friendship, loss, and just making sense of life as we know it. I can't wait for the next one.

I next want to give a major shout out to a new friend and colleague Brett Epstein, the creator and producer of The Rule of 7x7. Putting up a show like this every other month must be ridiculously exhausting. And since none of us are in this business for the money (ha!), wrangling seven playwrights, an unknown amount of actors, and making theater magic happen is surely a labor of love. He also wrote and starred in what, in my opinion, was the best play of the night. I'm excited to see and participate in this awesome evening again!

Next, I got a rare glimpse at what my brilliant friend, director Mary Birnbaum gets to do in her role as an acting teacher at Julliard. I've seen many of Mary's (similarly brilliant) opera productions over the years, but I was invited to observe an "open class" of the Artist's Diploma in Opera Studies (ADOS). The six singers performed a sort of improvised evening of arias and monologues they had worked on, basically stitching together the works with their own acting intentions. It was visceral and spontaneous and gorgeous to see new life breathed into opera. 

And finally, just last night I finally got a chance to see Ben Rimalower's double bill cabaret act Patti Issues and Bad with Money. Ben is also a new friend, one whose work I've followed, but never had a chance to see. both shows are raw, shocking, vulnerable, and very very funny. They both reminded me of the sacrifices and pain we artsy folk live through in order to justify our commitment to this sometimes difficult - if not excruciating - life we've inexplicably chosen. Ben showed all of that with wit and aplomb.

As this dreadful year comes to a limping close, it's nice to be reminded that there's still creativity and beauty and art and inspiring people who make inspiring things. So thanks friends, I needed it this month.

SAM PERWIN Actor. Singer. Writer. Tall. www.samperwin.com
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WHO'S EXCITED ABOUT JAKE GYLLENHAAL IN SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE?!?

Oh it's happening... this is not a drill...

by David Davila (Sondheim obsessed Gyllenaal fan)

We may be going down a dark hole as a country and heading toward the end of democracy, but at least we'll get to see Jake Gyllenhaal and Annaleigh Ashford in a new production of Sondheim's SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE. 

Now you may be saying, "Didn't we just get a revival of that a few years ago?"

Sure. Yeah. It was 2008 though... and wouldn't we like 2017 to be even just a LITTLE bit like 2008? Just a little? 

I mean even a little?

Oh sure... now you're saying that SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE is a problem piece... 

Sure... yeah... the book is... problematic... but the score... THE SCORE... that material!!!

THE SCORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's Jake singing some of the score:

oh Jake...

:::sigh:::

but also Tony winning actress, and budding Broadway legend, Annaleigh Ashford...

Ughhh his voice is so gorgeous and so is his face! I don't want to wait till February!!! I guess I'll just have to keep watching this clip of him doing Little Shop of Horrors last year!!!! 

Oh Jake... Oh Jake... Jake... Jake... talk to me about how you sing though... 

::::sigh::::

WE NEED A LITTLE CHRISTMAS

Right. This. Very. Minute.
By Alisha Giampola (Writer/Performer)

It doesn't feel like Christmas yet in New York. There's only been a brief flurry of snow, nothing to stick, nothing to take a picture of. Even I, grumpiest of cold-weather persons, have not yet unpacked my heaviest winter coat. The overall feeling of sadness and dread that settled over the city after the election has not yet dissipated. Difficult times, corrupt leadership, war and strife, these things frequently nudge our greatest artists to produce their greatest art. Beauty is always best forged in the hottest fire. This week, I took myself to see a dear old friend in a play that I absolutely love, but have never had the opportunity to see. Jonathan Larson, of Rent fame, wrote only one other musical in his too-short life. The Keen Company's Tick, Tick...BOOM! is playing right now at The Acorn Theatre in Midtown, and if you have a chance before your flight home this holiday (it closes for good on December 18th), I highly recommend that you see it. Besides the fact that the three actors in it (including my amazingly talented friend George Salazar), are all phenomenal- this show resonates right now in a way that feels incredibly contemporary, despite being set in 1990. Disillusioned by friends having to sell out and work for soulless corporations, struggling with the pull between creating art and seeking stability, uninspired by Bush-era politics, wondering what the decade of one's thirties will bring, and set deep in the heart of the AIDS crisis, I had forgotten how relevant so much of the script is. The AIDS crisis aside, it's basically the life of me and like 90% of my friends.

This holiday season, it feels like we just voted in the Grinch, Mr. Potter, Ebenezer Scrooge...(just basically every bad guy from every Christmas movie ever but with none of the redeeming qualities rolled into one) into office. It felt good to take in art- challenging, beautiful, heartbreaking art. It was a reminder that there is always ugliness, and the job of artists is to shine flashlights into the corners and make the cockroaches scuttle. And there are a lot of dark corners right now. When bullies vie for other bullies to be put in charge, when refugees are being turned away and innocent people are ducking bombs, when an entire country has been conned, it's easy to feel like kindness and generosity are sorely lacking in this world this holiday season. But what George Bailey and Tiny Tim and Mrs. Claus and the Cratchits and Susan Walker and Buddy the Elf and all the Whos down in Whoville want you to remember is that kindness and love and art are the best and really only way to protest anything.

2016 has been a hard year for our world and this new year feels both promising and slightly ominous. So much rests on the small, everyday actions of all of us. The kind of person who assumes the mantle of the most powerful person the world stage, yet feels the need to write a tweet every time someone satirizes him, is the kind of person who requires attention, positive or negative, at any cost. That's the kind of person who will continue to surround themselves with yes-men and sycophants, regardless of their danger to others or to democracy in general. Journalists have their work cut out for them, as do all persons currently in or planning to run for office in this country and in other world democracies. What can artists do in 2017? What should our New Years Resolution be? We can refuse to bend our moral compass towards the closest, brassiest magnet. We can choose our ability to express ourselves to others as a platform for love instead of hate, for inclusivity instead of hostility. We can call the emperor out for wearing no clothes, in numbers too multitudinous to be retweeted. We can keep creating. Keep questioning. As the last song of Tick, Tick...BOOM! reminds us: "Fear or love baby? Don't say the answer: actions speak louder than words." 

I've been thinking a lot about the finale of the operetta Candide by Leonard Bernstein. In college, I sang the role of Paquette in a staging of that final song we performed in a small cabaret of several opera pieces. It is a beautiful song with beautiful lyrics and when I try to talk about what I hope artists do with the time we all have in 2017, when I think about the words I would most like to be my New Years Resolution, if such things can be resolved, these are the words that keep playing through my mind:

Let dreamers dream what worlds they please
Those Edens can't be found
The sweetest flow'rs, the fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.
We're neither pure nor wise nor good,
We'll do the best we know
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow
And make our garden grow.

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Happy Hanukkah.
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RULES

A New Writing Challenge
by Sam Perwin

One of my favorite quotes that I may or may not be mistakenly attributing to Stravinsky is "The more I limit myself, the more I free myself." (Google was no help). It's almost ironic coming from him, a composer who did so much to shatter boundaries of musical forms, but I like it because I think it's a quote about discipline and structure, particularly when it comes to the creative process. In Stravinsky's case, as in the case of many poets or lyricists, he's talking about the freedom of composing of composing within a structured form like a sonata or a rondo. Similarly for a poet, structures like sonnets and villanelles have conventions and limitations for syllables, rhyme scheme, etc. In short, forms give us rules. And sometimes, counterintuitively, as I think Stravinsky was saying rules and limits can actually help the creative process. As we all know, the hardest part of the creative process is knowing where to start (a blank page or canvas isn't everyone's favorite, George). Having some rules for what you're putting on the page can get you going, tell you to start here with this many words, syllables, lines, or whatever. 

I've been working under a different set of rules recently as a participant in The Tank Theater's Rule of 7x7, a monthly show in which seven playwrights each come up with a rule for the plays. The playwrights then write a 10 minute play that incorporates all seven of the rules. Some are incredibly specific, others are much more open to interpretation. A few friends participated in a round a few months ago, and I was intrigued enough to want to try my hand at it. I e-mailed the producer and here I am, furiously revising my ten pages before the final deadline tomorrow night. Coming up with my rule was actually the fun part. I sent in a few options to the producer and he picked the one that seemed to fit with the other ones. Here's what we're working with:

RULE #1 | Brett's Rule | The play begins with a character holding an item/prop, in silence, for ten seconds. Then, (s)he says the line "I think this is good" or the line "I think this is bad."

RULE #2 | Sam's Rule | Vitamins.

RULE #3 | Lizzie's Rule | Snowman.

RULE #4 | David's Rule | "We're not that different."

RULE #5 | Rosalind's Rule | A fart?

RULE #6 | Rachael's Rule | Someone quotes a poem.

RULE #7 | Cary's Rule | Somewhere in pages 8-10, the characters experience the tenderest moment of their lives.

Want to know what we do with them? Then you'll just have to come out on December 15th!! Tickets available here.

SAM PERWIN Actor. Singer. Writer. Tall. www.samperwin.com
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CATS IS AWESOME

Guys. CATS is Awesome.
By Owen Panettieri (playwright, lyricist)

Ladies and G's, your attention please. You've heard of CATS, right? The iconic 80's musical that's back on Broadway? Well, it's awesome. You should go see it. It's great. 

"Owen," you ask, "I don't know anything about the theater, nor its marvelous history of musical productions. Explain to me: What is this CATS you're raving about? A revival? Tell me more!" Well, let me tell you. Composed by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot (I know you've never read it, it's fine), this fantastic musical was originally directed for Broadway by Trevor Nunn with choreography by Gillian Lynne, It was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won 7 including the Tony Award for Best Musical (obvs, it's amazing). and 2 for TS Eliot - who'd already been dead for 28 years! You hear that, writers? There's hope you'll get yours eventually, even if you're already dead for decades! Never stop writing!

So CATS continued to play on Broadway for an astounding eighteen years. Even more astounding is the fact that my parents never took me to see the musical during its entire original run from 1982 until 2000. Oh, how I begged and pleaded with them in my youth to see this incredible theatrical production! The answer was always NO. The reasoning behind their refusal was never fully explained to me, although I came up with few theories over the years. First, my parents grew up in Brooklyn but were pretty big cityphobes by the time the 80's rolled around. I can't entirely blame them. It's not like Times Square in '85 was the height of safety for a family evening out. Second, our family was on a very tight budget in the 80's and Broadway tickets were not a luxury we could afford. Third, and perhaps most importantly, I think the main reason I was not allowed to see the musical CATS as a child was because I really loved cats and I think my parents (rightfully) feared that if I saw the show, my insistence on getting a cat as a pet would have been undeniable. And they did NOT want a cat (years later, they caved and got me a dog, when I honestly still wanted a cat, but whatever - a pet! hooray!). So I never saw the original show.