Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Quote”
Talkbacks are on my mind, and when they are, I invariably search, find and read Liz Duffy Adams’ “Talkback: A Play About Talkbacks.” There is no other play that more accurately captures the experience in such a hilarious way. In their short play, Adams imagines an audience giving feedback to William Shakespeare on “Hamlet.” Talkbacker 4 jumps in with, “Right …
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 …
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 …
has left me feeling vaguely sick and I think a walk is probably the answer, is often said to be the answer, though I now understand physical intervention must not be undertaken lightly and the appropriate training must be given because the policy is designed to prevent the impairment of health or development even though it has had the opposite …
“Misslineness” is a Scots dialect word which means “the feeling of solitariness that comes from missing something or someone you love.” It feels appropriate and even omnipresent in this time of pandemic, when we are missing, and mourning, our previous way of life. The poet May Sarton wrote that “Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.” …
I think I have noted before that I enjoy working with genres. Trying to understand how they work, first, and then subverting them for fun. I’ve done this with screwball comedy, and the thriller. Now, in Escape from the Asylum, I’m trying it with a mystery that doesn’t involve murder. First, a look at the mystery as art form. Some …
I love this interview on The Interval with dramaturg Sarah Lunnie. Dramaturgy is such a mystery to so many, and I think her explanation is helpful. The interview was by Sarah Rebell, photo by Tess Mayer. “I think of myself as an early audience and as a collaborative editor. The first definition is more spiritual. It speaks to the idea …