Everything And Nothing

Evening of Literature, Theatre at Old Capitol

A one-night-only theatrical performance at the Old Capitol Museum will feature the work of some of the state’s literary icons. Scenes from William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, and Richard Wright will be performed alongside works from contemporary Mississippi writers such as Natasha Trethewey and John Grisham in “Mississippi Talking: An Evening with New Stage Theatre.” The gala event will be held January 14 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. 

In addition to the performance the evening includes wine and hors d’oeuvres. Tickets are $40 each. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the performance will begin at 6 p.m. For more information or to purchase tickets, call 601- 576-6920.

The Kindness of Strangers

I'm excited to share that the Black Rose Theatre in Brandon is performing my one-act play, The Kindness of Strangers, July 12-15 during a night of one acts.

The play is a kind of love letter to Streetcar Named Desire and New Orleans - two of my favorite things!

My son was in Black Rose's production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown at the beginning of the year. I spent a lot of time in the theatre. Sitting. Waiting. Sitting and waiting. And pacing.

At the end, I decided to use the time to write myself instead of just sitting there. I wrote the play in a week while sitting in the back row of the same theatre it will be performed. (Because I found out about the one-act play competion the week before.) It was a very rough draft.

I'm very excited but scared to death. Auditions for the one acts are June 18th and 19th... so if you've been wanting to try out for a play, come on out and be scared WITH me! ;)

The play is attached below. I have to come up with a set that can be moved easily too. If anyone has any ideas of how to create a bar scene inexpensively that can be moved quickly and easily, let me know!

Download Bluemoon

Spacey lauded for reviving old theatre

Kevin Spacey won a drama award recently for reviving London's historic Old Vic Theatre. He was given a special prize at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards "for bringing new life to the Old Vic."

Spacey took charge of the theatre in 2003 and began a series of acclaimed productions (including the recent revival of David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow starring Spacey and Jeff Goldblum). The theatre is currently showing Alan Ayckbourn's The Norman Conquests.

Spelling Bee

On Tuesday, I took Quentin to see The 25th annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I was nervous because the last time I took him to a play, Seussical, we had to leave at intermission (and I had bought good seats). He was only three at the time and actually did pretty well until his father put a piece of gum in his mouth and did not have another piece to offer Quentin. Three-year-old meltdown. I'm sure the cast still remembers us - as we exited the building with a three-year-old making more noise than any of them.

I was not worried about a meltdown this time but boredom. He loved it though. He laughed so hard I had to tell him to keep his voice down a few times. And there was no intermission even!

So I was studying the playbill and noticed that almost all of the actors now have Web site addresses listed under their names:

Roberta Duchak - Played Rona Lisa Peretti in the play but also has released her own CD recently. (Check out her music on MySpace or listen to samples on iTunes.)

Andrew Keenan-Bolger - Played Leaf Coneybear in the play. He's got a blog - with videos even. (And from reading his profile, we could trade iPods with no problem, but not many books...and just a few movies. Little Miss Sunshine is one of his favorites too. I agree.)

So that was two of the main cast with Web sites and blogs. Only two. In the entertainment industry. I thought it would have been at least 50%.

I did find some of the other cast members stealthly though. Here's Katy Boren's MySpace page. (She played Marcy Park.) Justin Keyes' Web site is here. (I'm not sure it's the same Justin Keyes, but I think so.) Vanessa Ray and her husband have been filming Marriage Under Construction for HGTV. (And last but certainly not least, Dana Steingold's MySpace page.)

Why I just spent an hour researching this...I know not why. Such is my life. The mystery. The wonder. The wasted hour online. ;)

New Stage seeks to fill adult roles

New Stage Theatre in Jackon will hold open auditions on August 11 for adult actors for its upcoming season.

The theatre is seeking all types of male and female adult actors and singers, from age 18 to 80, to portray roles in A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry; A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, adapted by Ivan Rider; Doubt by John Patrick Shanley; First Baptist of Ivy Gap by Ron Osborne; The Fantasticks by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt; and The Eudora Welty New Play Series.

Show dates range from October 2007 to June 2008.

Call the theatre at (601) 948-3533 Ext. 222 for an audition appointment. A one- to two-minute memorized monologue and a recent photo are required for audition. The deadline to sign up is August 9.

Virgins offered free tickets to NYC play premiere

The producers of an off-Broadway show, My First Time, are giving away free tickets to anyone who can demonstrate his or her chastity.

How do you demonstrate your virginal state? (Not to worry, ladies - not in the stirrups.) Producer Ken Davenport said a hypnotist would screen people standing in line for the free tickets to determine their status.

The "virgin" stunt serves the subject of the play, "which is to get people to talk about their first sexual experience, something that almost any person on the planet has in common, whether in the United States or Rome," Davenport said.

The show is based on a decade-old Web site that invites people to anonymously share their stories about losing their virginity.

"I still have the Metallica shirt he wore that night," one person wrote on the site. (My favorite so far is "I remember my first sexual experience. I was alone at the time." Isn't that old Woody Allen material? It sounds like it if it's not. It reminds me of when the Countess tells him he's a great lover in Love and Death and he says, "Thank you. I practice a lot when I'm alone." Maybe that's the connection I'm making.)

The human lie detector, Sebastian Black, describes himself as a mind reader and a psychic hypnotist. "He's a master of body language and tone of voice," Davenport said.

Davenport could not say how many actual virgins were likely to be admitted to the theater for Thursday night's opening.

"There are a limited number of 'virgin tickets' available," he said. "However, there are not that many virgins in New York City."

If you are not eligible for free tickets, you can always visit the Web site and rate your first time.

[ via Verena Dobnik, The Associated Press ]

Flowers for the Dead

I started writing this play to enter into the 10-minute play contest sponsored by Theatre Oxford. But after I started writing it, I felt like what I had to say could not be said in 10 minutes... that there was much more there. Flowers for the Dead is a re-imagining of Streetcar Named Desire, with Stella and Stanley now owners of one of the only bars that stay open before, during and after Hurricane Katrina.

The beginnings of the play is attached below in Word format. There is adult language used, so if that offends you, don't open the document. I'm posting it here now to force myself (perhaps) to finish it now that all of you know about it and to get feedback. I'm still unsure whether it will be a one-act or full play, but I guess I'll just have to figure it out as I go along!

Download 10minplay.doc

A Play a Day

On Nov. 13, 2002 , playwright Suzan-Lori Parks decided to write a play every day for an entire year - nothing Shakespearean, just "whatever happened to fall out of the sky that day." The result is 365 Days/365 Plays - and the largest theatrical collaboration in U.S. theatre history, as this fall over 600 theatres will produce a week's worth of plays starting on Nov. 13, 2006 (of course).

The exercise, she reports, was "great fun. It was also like a puja, or an extended daily prayer, and kind of like walking a pilgrimage on my knees. It was wild and necessary and arduous and delicious." (To see samples of the plays, which are typically just a page or two, click here.)

The Soprano

The first time Isabel Bayrakdarian heard an opera she was 17 years old. Her thoughts on Strauss's Ariadne auf Noxos? "I thought, I could probably do better," she tells Catherine Hong in W magazine (Feb. 2006). I like this girl! ;)

She had sung only in church and had taken no vocal lessons - but, it seems, she was definitely right. The 31-year-old Canadian-American is considered among opera's important talents already, landing such plum roles as Susanna, Zerlina and Rosina. She has performed on most of the world's major stages and has even sung in Elvish. (She performed on the soundtrack to The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.)

An interesting career path for a women with a biomedical engineering degree from the University of Toronto. (She entered the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1997 on a lark. "I did it for fun," she tells Hong of her decision to compete against nearly 2,000 others - most of which had studied at music academies.)

Three years after her Met triumph, she won Placido Domingo's high-profile singing competition, the Operalia - and since then, the world has been her oyster. If you want to check her out for yourself, she will appear at the Chicago Lyric Opera on Feb. 25 for Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and in June she will make her debut at London's Royal Opera House.

The Pajama Game

Harry Connick, Jr., is making his Broadway debut in The Pajama Game. He plays Sid Sorokin, the foreman at the Sleep-Tite pajama factory, where workers aret striking for a seven-and-a-half-cent-an-hour raise. Now he can add Broadway actor to his growing list of accolades: recording artist, producer, jazz and blues pianist, film actor. (Though he's never starred in a Broadway musical, he did write the score to Thou Shalt Not.)

The show will be directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall. Buy tickets here.