Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Blog”
The Dark Noise Collective (Fatimah Asghar, Franny Choi, Nate Marshall, Aaron Samuels, Danez Smith & Jamila Woods) wrote this Statement: Call for Necessary Craft and Practice, four years ago. It’s powerful and pointed in its demand to create art that is anti-racist and refuses to uphold structural injustice. “We, the Dark Noise Collective, invite our fellow artists of every creed, …
“The red death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal — the madness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face …
Two years ago, University of Southern California sociologist Karen Sternheimer wrote the essay “Civil Unrest, Riots and Rebellions: What’s the Difference?” In spite of her ironic first name, Sterheimer makes the point that “Civil unrest often occurs when a group strives to gain attention for something they feel is unjust. People felt angry enough to disrupt the social order,” Steinheimer …
I really enjoy the blog “Go Into the Story” by Scott Myers. He has an entire series of posts applying Aristotle’s Poetics to screenwriting which is fascinating and insightful. Scott writes, Plot goes directly back to character. Each character, and in particular the protagonist, has a destiny. What they do derives from the probability of the choices they make. What …
First of all, the name: “Talkbacks.” What’s up with that? Please call them “audience conversations,” or “dialogues,” or something less confrontational. Why is there always one person in the audience who seems to be gunning for the playwright? Just curious. Playwright Romulus Linney famously (or apocryphally) said, “There are “three basic human needs: food, sex, and rewriting somebody else’s play.” …
How I love this poem! If you like “Charlotte’s Web,” by E.B. White, you may like this poem, too. It’s written by Sarah Freligh, and was published in The Sun Magazine, August 2012. Wondrous I’m driving home from school when the radio talk turns to E.B. White, his birthday, and I exit the here and now of the freeway at rush …
Irony is powerful in creating a satisfying story. I came across this idea of the “ironic skill” of the hero and it’s a fantastic concept to play with. In the film “Get Out,” Chris (Daniel Kaluuya, pictured above) ends up two-thirds of the way into the movie strapped to a chair, outdone by a villain who has been way ahead …
In need of some comedy? Who isn’t? Join Ed Decker, Artistic Director of The New Conservatory Theater Center, director Nicole Meñez, and me for a Sneak Peek of “The Law of Attraction” on Facebook Live, Friday, May 22 at 5 pm! Actors Chelsea Bearce and Cary Ann Rosko will read the first two scenes of the play, and there will …
~a poem by Sharon Olds. Finally they got the Singles problem under control, they made it scientific. They opened huge Sex Centers—you could simply go and state what you want and they would find you someone who wanted that too. You would stand under a sign saying I Like to Be Touched and Held and when someone came and stood under the …
On Saturday there was a report about killer hornets. Killer. Hornets. It’s almost a joke, at this point, how much bad news every day brings with it. Pema Chodron is a popular American-born teacher of Buddhism, and her advice for these times resonates with me: “No More Struggle.” Go to the Places that Scare You “No more struggle is epitomized …