Next Theatre Blog

BLAHOPRANI!

2008-07-22T16:18:00.002-05:00

I'm happy to announce that Next Theatre Company has been awarded a $7,500 grant from the MacArthur Foundation's new International Connections Fund to support a research and collaboration trip to the Czech Republic in advance of our War with the Newts production. Congratulations! Or as they say in the Czech Republic, blahoprani!

In October, Adaptor/Director Jason Loewith, Puppetmaster Michael Montenegro, and Dramaturg Celise Kalke will spend a week in Prague visiting its famous Theater Institute, DAMU (one of the world's only puppet universities), and several theaters to explore international touring and collaboration.

RAGTIME, WILMETTE, CENSORSHIP?

2008-07-15T12:07:00.001-05:00

I got a call yesterday from a journalist with the WINDY CITY TIMES asking for my response to the flap (they call it "controversy") over the Wilmette Park District's decision to cancel an upcoming community theater production of Ragtime because of the musical's use of the word "nigger" (a word which my friends in the press will only print as "the n-word").

As I understand it, the Park District - the real producers of the show - didn't realize the historically-based musical used the offensive word until 10 days before opening. Their concern was that the production, which was to play in an outdoor park with amplified voices, could accidentally offend passersby and park-users who weren't attending the show.

The news of the cancellation hit local papers about three weeks ago, and no one really seemed to care until the New York Times picked it up on July 1... and then all hell broke loose. "Censorship!" people screamed... "The people of Wilmette are philistines," others mused, while some even thought the decision was actually evidence of Wilmette's innate racism.

Eventually, the show was moved to an indoor venue, where the musical will play to the satisfaction of the Park District and the artists. (You can read all about it in the Pioneer Press article here.)

Me? It's all a load of hogwash, I say. And frankly, just stupid producing. That's what happens when city governments try to run real arts programs. The Starlight Theatre in Wilmette, which is producing the musical, is a program of the Park District... and obviously the bureaucracy there (if it's anything like the bureaucracy in Evanston) is so complex that the people with the real power haven't bothered to read the scripts of the shows they're producing.

But please, let's stop yelling, "censorhsip!" Try making art in China, or Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall, or Zimbabwe... here in this country, where we are blessed with free speech, the only censorship we've got to worry about is self-censorship.

And that's a subject for another blog post!

TALKING ABOUT THE CREATIVE PROCESS

2008-07-03T12:22:00.003-05:00

Ever since Lisa Portes gave birth the morning after the first preview of her production of Far Away here at Next in 2004, I've known there's something strange in the water at Next Theatre... it seems like everyone we know is having babies!

So, though this blog is more often about heavyish cultural topics, let's take a moment to celebrate three of the most highly-anticipated productions of the upcoming theater season:

Kimberly Senior Baker, Artistic Associate, due in September - it's a girl, her second, and she and actor-husband Lance Baker are ready!

Melanie Esplin, Interim General Manager (and wife to Artistic Associate Joe Wycoff) isn't screwing around (ahem) - she's catching up to Kimberly by having two babies at once! Our sources tell us that this phenomenon is called "twins". Also due in September. Bravo!

Later in the season, look for the luminous Heather Raffo, writer and star of 9 Parts of Desire, to bring a little bundle of joy to Brooklyn. Sources tell us that she and husband Matt conceived of the idea while in Chicago for the production.

And finally, who is this question mark? Well, all I can say until she gives me permission is that another Artistic Associate has some big news to share, which will get bigger (and more obvious) until some time in January 2009.

YEAR 3 ON THE ILLINOIS ARTS COUNCIL - AND BLAGO-BASHING PART TWO

2008-06-27T10:30:00.003-05:00

Last Thursday and Friday, I was honored to participate in my third and final year as a panelist for the Illinois Arts Council's theater granting program. Each year, I and six other panelists review over 100 applications from Illinois theaters with budgets between $50,000 and $3,000,000, ranging from amateur to professional, rural to urban, and with missions of every conceivable variety.

It's hard, time-consuming work, but I have learned much in my three years on the Council. For one, we in Chicagoland often forget (or might not even know) that every inch of this state is peppered with committed theater professionals and enthusiasts. Places remote to us like Quincy, Peoria, and Western Springs play host to excellent community theater troupes that rival what Chicago proper has to offer. Companies with unique missions like Special Gifts Theater in Northbrook (which puts on plays with disabled kids) or Thresholds (which does work with mentally-challenged adults, often in concert with the Chicago Police Department) blow me away each year with their unique approach to theater as a tool for social change. And of course, the great troupes of Chicagoland, from Redmoon to Writers to Lookingglass, all apply.

And they compete for a disastrously small pool of money.

As you know if you read my blog, last year, the Governor (thanks to his feud with Mike Madigan) savaged the Illinois Arts Council budget with a 40% cut. This draconian, politically-motivated slashing (which happened in the course of the already-started fiscal year for most of us) meant, among other things:

*The cancellation of Next's Saturday Salon Series
*Staff cuts at theaters big and small throughout the state
*The end of outreach programs at small urban companies
*The dissolution of arts-education initiatives in every corner of Illinois
*Less money for artists, who are already severely underpaid

The Governor's new Illinois Arts Council has a budget so small that:

*Illinois now spends less per capita than Oklahoma or Mississippi, states with no national or international arts profile to speak of
*Illinois was one of only three states in the country to cut arts funding in FY08
*Last year's cut was the largest percentage cut in the Council's history

(Visit the Illinois Arts Alliance for more information about last year's cuts.)

And there is worse news coming down the pike.

Although the State Legislature's proposed budget restored most (but not all) of the Governor's cut, Blagojevich has made clear that he's up for even deeper cuts... in FY08, the deficit hole was only $500 million; this year, it's $2 billion.

Soon on this blog you'll see some actions you can take to keep the Illinois Arts Council alive. Make no mistake, folks: more cuts in the Illinois Arts Council mean they oughta just shut the thing down, because it'll be no more than a token... to my mind, Blagojevich should be ashamed of himself.

And frankly, the arts community in Illinois should be ashamed of itself too, and the journalists who serve it. Have you heard anything about it when you go to the theater? Has there been an organized effort to let Blago and his own private Cheney, Senate President Emil Jones, know that they're making a mockery of the newest Tony-winning town throughout the nation?

Let's get angry, let's get together, and let's do something to make sure the state of Illinois isn't the least supportive state in the nation when it comes to the arts.

HAVE YOU SEEN THESE ALDERMEN?

2008-06-17T12:48:00.002-05:00

Nope, neither have we. These folks are invited, free, to every opening night here at Next Theatre Company. Alderman Jean-Baptiste, in fact, never even returned our calls requesting a meeting four years ago; he's been invited to various Next Theatre Company programs and plays a combined total of 25 times. I think it's time for a response from him, don't you?

You can ask these Aldermen why they don't support Next Theatre:

Lionel Jean-Baptiste: ljean-baptiste@cityofevanston.org
Melissa Wynne: mwynne@cityofevanston.org
Delores Holmes: dholmes@cityofevanston.org

(One disclaimer: these folks have never attended Next Theatre under their own names; if any of them have attended as guests of other folks, we don't know about it and would like to hear from them!)

On the other hand, here is The Evanston Hall of Fame:

Mayor Lorraine Morton: a frequent attendee and advisor to the theater
Alderman Cheryl Wollin: a subscriber and supporter to the theater, and dear friend
Alderman Liz Tisdahl: a subscriber, hugely generous supporter and pal-at-the-gym

The Aldermen on the Cusp!

Alderman Steve Bernstein: though we don't see his name on our attendee list (bad, Steve, bad!), he met with us a few years back and has been supportive on the council
Alderman Ed Moran: again, how come you haven't come to the theater? But at least you've made a donation... now come join us!
Alderman Ann Rainey: Ann always thinks of us when there's development in her district (yay, Ann!), but how come we haven't seen you in the theater?
Alderman Anjana Hansen: new to the council, Anjana attended a show last season, and we want her back! Come visit!

TIME FOR EVANSTON TO STEP UP

2008-06-10T11:46:00.002-05:00

I was honored yesterday to be asked by Janet Carl Smith, the Deputy Director of Chicago's Cultural Affairs Department, to join Mayor Daley at a press conference celebrating "Chicago's award-winning theater community." While the event was really a Tony Awards send-off for Chicago Shakespeare and Steppenwolf (the awards are this Sunday the 15th; Chicago Shakes is getting the regional-theater Tony, and Steppenwolf's AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY is up for a trillion awards), Janet asked me because the Mayor planned to also honor the city's 3 previous Tony winners - Steppenwolf, Goodman and Victory Gardens - and Next Theatre for its Adding Machine awards. Janet told me she'd stretch the borders of Chicago for the morning just to honor us.

That's right, folks: Next in the company of CST, Steppenwolf, VG and Goodman.

And further, that's right, folks: Mayor Daley honored us as a Chicago award-winning theater.
I'll confess that getting Next Theatre recognized as a "Chicago company" for our metropolitan and national profile has been a goal of my six-year tenure here. And boy, am I proud that we've clearly done it.

But... where was our own city, Evanston? Why hasn't the Mayor recognized our accomplishment? Or our aldermen? Why haven't the Beacon or the Pioneer Press reported on our awards the way the Tribune and Sun-Times have?

Is the answer that Evanston doesn't particularly care about having a national, or even metropolitan profile? Is the answer that Evanston would rather not have world-class culture within its borders? I certainly hope not. We have often received kind words from our local government, and even honored the Mayor last year at our annual benefit.

Nonetheless, as I told industry newspaper PerformInk last week, it's time for Evanston's government, businesses, community leaders and citizens to get off their collective behinds and put together a plan for Next Theatre to have a permanent, state-of-the art theater space in downtown Evanston with foot traffic, a major street marquee, and all the prestige and audience that comes with it:

"I think I was the right person for this theatre at the right time, but I don't think I'm the right person for this theatre now," says Loewith. "We need somebody who can be really passionate about becoming the jewel in Evanston’s crown."

That's not an easy task. While Loewith points out that Next has some supporters-even donors-on the Evanston City Council, a "shameful" majority have never set foot in the theatre.

Nor has the City of Evanston, which is cash poor due to the large, non-property tax paying presence of Northwestern, ever supported Next (or any other Evanston theatre) with more than a couple of grand through the Evanston Arts Council.

"Evanston in the next five years vis a vis Next Theatre is going to have to make a choice," says Loewith. "Are they willing to be a suburb in the shadow of Chicago that offers pottery classes... or are they going to have a world class theatre and be a world class cultural destination?"

"It's going to take a big investment from the city of Evanston to keep this place growing," he adds. "The next theatre leadership needs to invest the next five, seven, 10 years into that quest."

I am proud to leave Next Theatre debt-free, and four times larger (in budget and subscriber base) than it was when I started. But the theater ain't gonna get any bigger or much better without a new home that people see everyday in downtown Evanston.

So to everyone in Evanston - including those who want to "Save Evanston" by sinking the Tower plan - I think it's time to make a choice. Do you want your city to be nothing more than a gentrified shopping mall with nice lawns and lakefront homes, whose main cultural identity comes from Northwestern? Or do you want to assert your own cultural identity, preserving what's special about Evanston's progressive roots by investing in a world-class arts institution in your center?

Tune in next week for the Hall of Shame: the names of your aldermen who have never been to Next Theatre Company, and did not respond to our requests over the past six years for a meeting.

Theater is the art by which human beings make human action worth watching

2008-06-03T11:40:00.003-05:00

"People need theater" is the brave - and to my mind, absolutely true - opening to Paul Woodruff's new book, The Necessity of Theater. I've yet to read it, but much in the New York Times review of the book is worthy of note on this blog.

Woodruff's primary claim, though hardly new (hell, it dates back to Aristotle), is that theater, by promoting empathy, provides the essential underpinning of community. In fact, he says that theater is necessary "to secure our bare, naked cultural survival." It's an argument that my colleagues and I make frequently to inspire our constituencies and to shame our public servants, like Governor Rod Blagojevich, for whom arts funding is a nice luxury when the rest of the budget is balanced.

But I digress. In the past week, I've been reminded forcefully of Woodruff's claims at two magical, mystical theater events that made me part of my community in transcendent ways.

The first was David Cromer's absolutely astonishing production of Our Town. I'll confess that I thought Chris Jones had lost his mind when I read his over-the-top review of the show a few weeks back. But after witnessing Cromer's driven, passionate, unsentimental, brutal and wholly engaging production last week, I realize he was absolutely right.

I knew from all I'd heard that there was an extraordinary "surprise" in the play's third act waiting for me, and though it was indeed extraordinary (I won't tell you what it was - you must go see it), the act's opening was just as thrilling. In what is mostly a bare-bones production, staged environmentally in and around the eaudience, the third act opens in the cemetery of Grover's Corners. Cromer's masterstroke here is to suddenly triple the size of his cast, and surround the audience with these "dead" figures, gazing dumbly towards eternity. When we returned from the second intermission to find these mute refugees from their ordinary lives, we were all struck dumb ourselves... it was the most eloquent, simplest setting I've ever experienced.

I could go on, but the point of the post is that here was a piece of theater that satisfied both my mind and my heart at every moment, thereby enlarging the capacity of my soul to be part of my community. Sounds touchy-feely I know, but it's the truth. I'm in awe of Cromer's achievement; as he brutally intones the work's final words, we watch a "living" young man grieving in the cemetery. We are suddenly aware of those who have left us (they're surrounding us) and those who will follow, and of our ordinariness, and of the miracle of our lives. Wilder's play is first and foremost about community; Cromer's production makes sure you feel community in your bones.

Then last weekend, I celebrated the miracle of life at the wedding of Anish Jethmalani (a wonderful actor who was in Omnium Gatherum here a few years ago) and Michelle Tesdall (the immensely gifted costume designer who did that production). Most of the ceremony was from the Hindu tradition, and it was pure theater (as every wedding is, but to my western eyes this ceremony was exotic): from the costumes to the "props" (many sensory items like sandalwood and rice were blessed and used; Anish rode to the wedding on a gaily costumed horse) to the performers - including a wonderful Hindu "priest" whose chanting filled the fall for over an hour...

Of course, a wedding is specifically designed to celebrate "community" in all its senses: the union of two individuals is consecrated by the gathering of community. And this community, featuring family members of various religious traditions, friends, theater practitioners, and others, was diverse and glorious and united by the performance they witnessed.

I'll be thinking about both these events for a long time, but mostly I'm glad to know that, despite the wondrous miracles of the internet age, simple theater is what's essential to our cultural survival.

(My thanks to Gary Houston for passing along the NYT review of Woodruff's book)

WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PRODUCTION OF THE YEAR?

2008-05-23T12:19:00.003-05:00

Now that the 2007-2008 season has drawn to a close, we can rest on our laurels a bit. Which of these productions was your favorite this year (and can you believe how much we did???)

THE BUSY WORLD IS HUSHED by Keith Bunin, directed by Kimberly Senior

ACTS OF CONCERN by Lisa Dillman and Sarah Ruhl, directed by Tara Mallen and Jessica Thebus (respectively)

DEFIANCE by John Patrick Shanley, directed by Jason Loewith

THE AMERICAN DREAM SONGBOOK by Leonard Bernstein, Michael Friedman, Michael John LaChiusa, Michael Mahler, Kevin O'Donnell, and Josh Schmidt, directed by Jason Loewith

ADDING MACHINE: A MUSICAL in New York by Jason Loewith & Josh Schmidt, directed by David Cromer

9 PARTS OF DESIRE written and performed by Heather Raffo, directed by Joanna Settle

SECRET LANGUAGE by M.E.H. Lewis, directed by Julie Ganey

THINKING BACK, THINKING FORWARD

2008-05-17T11:02:00.010-05:00

Dear friends,

As you may now have heard, next season will be my last with Next Theatre Company. After much soul-searching, I have decided to take a year away from institutional leadership so that I can join my partner in Washington, DC, raise a family (well, a dog), and concentrate on my upcoming freelance writing and directing work.

I have been honored and humbled to lead Next Theatre Company's family of artists, patrons, donors, Board members, and incredibly dedicated staff for six seasons. In that time, we have accomplished more than I thought possible, and it is because of your dedication. Our subscription base and Board membership more than tripled; our income - led by tremendous investment from the funding community - actually quadrupled. Each of the past six seasons ran a surplus; each of the past six seasons saw increases in subscriptions.

And each of the past six seasons gave opportunities for some of the city's – no, some of the country's – finest artists to do work that couldn't and wouldn't be seen anywhere else in Chicagoland. I will always remember choking back tears as shell-shocked audience members left our first preview of In the Blood in 2003; the overwhelming pride I felt when a patron told me our theater spoke to the black experience better than any other in the City after seeing Yellowman; the joy I felt watching peoples' laughter turn to fear and then catharsis as Wendy Robie juggled a five-course meal in Omnium Gatherum; the chills that overwhelmed my body as I saw John Judd's character breakdown in a runthrough for A Number; the tears I shed every time I heard Amy Warren as Daisy beg Joel Hatch as Mr. Zero to "Kiss me"; and just last weekend, seeing patrons, their curiosity inflamed, firing question at Joanna Settle and Heather Raffo during a talkback for 9 Parts of Desire.

I will always remember Next Theatre Company as the place where so much more got done with so much less because of the supreme dedication of so many individuals; as the opportunity where I learned to trust myself as an artist and a producer, thanks to the good will of so many; as the platform for canon-changing work like Adding Machine and the first production I saw here, Among the Thugs; and as a destination for artists and audiences who share my belief that theater can promote awareness and provoke change with more power than any other medium of expression.

Nonetheless, now is the time to put our succession plan in place. That succession plan dictates that I stay on in an "emeritus"-type position for the coming season. I have planned the plays – I'll still be directing two of them – and will be in Evanston through September at least, and again in January and February for the rehearsals of War With the Newts.

Beginning Monday, the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors begins a national search for a new Artistic Director, whose job it will be to keep Next Theatre on its upward path, and take it to another level... one that, I hope, includes a building of our own where we can fully flex our artistic muscles.

I feel confident that I am leaving Next Theatre Company in a healthy and well-regarded place, and I am grateful to each and every one of you reading this for the support that you've given to me personally, and to the theater, in our six-year streak of success.

I am moved, however, to beg one last boon from each of you. In the course of this coming transitional season, I ask that you continue to support the company at the level you supported it for the past six years. If you gave a contribution to the theater this past year, I ask you to give one again, at the same level. If you provided artistic support or advice our guidance to me, I ask that you do the same for my successor. If you have been an audience member, I ask that you stick with us through this coming year. If you have used your influence to keep Next Theatre in the public eye, I ask you not to look away. And if you have simply been one of the many thousands of artists and individuals that make up this dynamic theater community, I ask that you introduce yourself to my successor, and make him or her feel as welcome as you did me.

What we have built together in six years is now a force for the artistic and community good both locally and nationally. It is an opportunity ripe for an artist or producer with energy and commitment. Please give the new leadership at Next Theatre the chance to make good on it by your continued support.

I won't be going anywhere for many months, though - you can't get rid of me that easily! So later in the year I'll be offering some other reminiscences... most importantly, about the great city of Chicago and its vibrant and dynamic theater community, which allowed me to make more and better art than I could have anywhere else in the country.

More soon...

CHICAGO'S BIG IN NEW YORK... BUT ARE WE BIG HERE, TOO?

2008-05-13T14:33:00.002-05:00

Awards season has hit in New York and it looks an awful like the Jeff Awards in the fall... the Tony nominations, announced earlier today, honored AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY from Steppenwolf with seven nods, and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre will be walking away with the Regional Theater Award. As Chris Jones notes in his blog, CST is the fourth Chicago theater to win the prestigious award, making our city the best-recognized of any nationally by the Tony Committee.

Of course, ADDING MACHINE: A MUSICAL is off-Broadway scooping up handfuls of awards and nominations for Chicago artists - four Lucille Lortel Awards, two Outer Critic Circle Awards, nine Drama Desk nominations, and a mysterious invite to the OBIE Awards on Monday (we're not eligible for the Tonys because we're off-Broadway... but we're not bitter!). But let's not forget Writers Theatre's extraordinary success with CRIME & PUNISHMENT last fall at 59E59 Theatres, the Hypocrites in the same venue, and on and on... this is the kind of season Chicago theater should be having every year.

My only fear about all this hype, though, is that we might lose sight of what makes Chicago theater so wonderful, and why we all love making work here: because we make work for our community. Unlike LA - where people do theater to get into film - and NY - where people do theater to make Broadway cash and film deals - we do theater in Chicago for our neighborhoods, our communities and our audience. We do it because we like having a conversation with our patrons about what's important to them. We celebrate our city through our work. Let's just remember that we don't need to go anywhere else to prove it. If the work travels elsewhere, that's wonderful; but let's not aim to travel. Let's aim to be of service to our community first.

HEATHER RAFFO WOWS THE CROWD

2008-05-05T16:17:00.002-05:00

Whether it's the 200 folks who stayed for the post-show discussion at our preview for 9 PARTS OF DESIRE yesterday, or the young women of Las Caras Lindas, or the donors at the annual Next Era Brunch, or the 150 folks who gathered for our panel discussion on Arab-American theater two weeks ago, 9 PARTS author-performer Heather Raffo is wowing crowds with her charisma, wisdom, intelligence and dynamism.

What was so striking after yesterday's preview was how voracious the audience was to hear from her... it was as if the performance opened a long-yearned-for window into a Middle East we all suspected was there but knew nothing about. We're aware - as Heather told us - that the media feeds us stereotyped images of women from the Arab world: they all wear the burka, they all weep and wail, they're all dominated by horrible men. But Heather's remarkable show, directed with such seamless elegance by Joanna Settle, shows us nine completely unexpected faces of other Iraqi women: lovers, doctors, spiritualists, activists... a mosaic of experience that makes the phrase "eye-opening" inadequate.

And the reason why yesterday's audience was so thrilled watching her performance was that they knew Heather actually had met these women. Although their monologues are not verbatim accounts of interviews, and they are written by Heather with astounding lyricism, they are not fictions. They are women we cannot meet on CNN or in the newspaper... they are only women we can meet in the next two weeks at the Museum of Contemporary Art, through 9 PARTS OF DESIRE.

MORE KUDOS FOR ADDING MACHINE!

2008-04-29T18:08:00.003-05:00

Click here to read about Adding Machine's 9 nominations for the Drama Desk Awards! That's more nominations than any show in New York last season, on- or off-Broadway, with the exception of A Catered Affair. Thanks to you all for making it happen!

The new Elysian Fields scene in the off-Broadway production... different, huh?

(And though we're grateful to Chris Jones of the Tribune for picking this up, alas, it was only 9 nominations, not 12!).

Adding Machine has been extended off-Broadway to August 31, so there's more time to get yourself to New York to check it out!

THREE PLAYWRIGHTS AND LOTS OF AGREEMENT?

2008-04-22T16:36:00.003-05:00

Last night, Next Theatre was proud to produce Political Acts: The Emerging Arab-American Theater Movement, a panel discussion in partnership with Silk Road Theatre Project and the Museum of Contemporary Art. The 90-minute panel featured three extraordinary playwrights: Yussef El-Guindi, Betty Shamieh, and Heather Raffo - Americans of Egyptian, Palestinian and Iraqi descent, respectively.

The conversation, moderated by Simon O'Rourke of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, was wide-ranging, covering topics from the west's perception of Arab women to Americans' need to culturally pigeonhole individuals to the demonization of the other in times of stress.

Despite the fact that these three playwrights come from very different backgrounds (Yussef was born in Egypt and raised in London; Betty is from San Francisco with two Palestinian parents; and Heather (who grew up in Michigan) didn't really relate to her Iraqi heritage until the first Gulf War) as well as different religions, the three agreed far more than I expected.

As a producer, the most provocative question to me was whether they as artists actively promoted an agenda in their work. While Betty contended strongly that all writing is a political act - you either embrace the status quo or rebel against it - Yussef claimed he writes without an agenda. All three agreed, though, that the political resonance of their work had much to do with what each different audience member brings to the table.

In a few days, you'll be able to listen to the entire panel at www.chicagopublicradio.org/chicagoamplified.

THE RED AND BLACK GALA 2008!

2008-04-14T15:46:00.002-05:00

Over 170 red-and-black attired friends joined us at our annual Red and Black Gala last night, raising tens of thousands of dollars for Next Theatre Company - congratulations and thanks for joining us!

A number of you have asked that I publish my comments here; please find them below!

Got a new iPhone.

Yeah, it's pretty great. Got it in August. Birthday gift. Wanted it for ages. Use it all the time. Obsessive, really. It's totally beyond phone! Calendar, notes, email, memos. Forget about stock-checking. Too depressing. But weather, camera, internet. Beautiful crystal display. IPod, of course.

And TEXTING, right? All the time. Check it out:

"Running late!" "Can't talk - at work." "Still waiting on luggage?" "Show fantastic - nice job!" "CU L8R".

Only problem is...

Seem unable to complete sentence now.

Verb-noun construction too complex.

Caught in techno-age.

Send help!

TTYL!

...

Easter Sunday, I had brunch with my friends Angel Ysaguirre and Bob Webb and assorted friends. One of them looked very worried. He told me his attention span had decreased so much in the past three years due to technology at his fingertips that he was actually frightened – he might never be able to read a book again, or watch an old movie, or have a real conversation; he might be leaving the world of human contact. He's a technogeek whose name I don’t remember because he only told me his twitter handle –

Oh, you don’t know Twitter?

Would you like to see me twitter?

(twitters)

I've just told a half million people what YOU'RE wearing.

Twitter is this crazy new thing that's described as "microblogging."

You all know what a blog is, right? I have some thoughts, I write them on my computer, I send them to the internets, and then anyone in the world can read them. It's like having a public diary with potentially unlimited readers.

I must say I've never understood the blog thing. We have one on the Next website. I use it once a week to type up some marketing-inspired "rah rah" Next thoughts... no one reads it.

But that doesn't stop other people from blogging about the most shocking things imaginable. In fact, shock value is the blog's stock in trade. I confess I've been suspicious of blogs ever since an employee sent me an email, and in the signature of the email he had a link that said something like "check out my livejournal" – one of the earliest blogs. So I went to check it out, and discovered that he was trashing me. "My boss Jason is such a pain in the ass" blah blah blah... online. For the whole world to see. This employee no longer works at Next Theatre Company.

Yeah, so I don't like blogs all that much. As a kid I kept a diary, and you know, it was PRIVATE. That’s why we had diaries. Remember the whole lock and key on the book thing? Gone. Now it's all about PERFORMING your diary for the world.

Now, I can understand blogging as performance, but 'microblogging'? With microblogs – with Twitter – you only have 140 characters in which to write a diary entry. That's all that fits on the screen. Needless to say, this puts a limit on the literary merits of the microblog.

Stymied by the texting limit, dedicated Twitterers twitter all the time. Many times a day, some many times an hour. But what does one have to say to the world in so frequent and unfocused a way? I'll tell you. As I speak to you right now, floating all over the internet, hundreds of thousands of technogeeks are telling the world things like (and these are real Twitters):

'off to coffee + a friend's bday party'

or

'Tired, sad, listening to Britney Spears again, lol'

or

'Hace mucho frio aqui!'

OK.

WHO GIVES A SHIT?

Last fall, I interviewed Bart Sher, the soon-to-be Tony winning director (he directed LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, and the SOUTH PACIFIC that just won the award for most over-the-top NYT review last week) for this book I've been writing. I asked if traditional art forms like theater would come out winners or losers after this techno-revolution we're in. He told me this story:

One woman came up to me after a show at my theater; she's a cancer care nurse. She goes every day into extreme situations in wards where she takes care of patients at the ends of their lives and helps keep them comfortable, and monitors their care, and their treatment... she's got a very, very difficult job. And she told me, 'I love to come to your theater because, when I come and participate in these stories, whether they're classics or new plays, they fill me up and give me the spirit to go back to my job. And I bring those stories back with me.'

So she can see Skin of Our Teeth, or Uncle Vanya, or To Kill a Mockingbird, and have an engagement with other people in her community. She can learn something about her world, she can remember ideas that come from her past, she can have a little taste of transcendence and transformation. And that gives her energy to go back into the world to pass those stories on, to feel connected to other people.

I'm not trying to make it sound 'ooky-spooky', but art has a real function in people's lives. It doesn't have to be our theater. It could be going down to the Art Museum and being filled with a way of looking at the world that gives you sustenance and strength when you’re in your real world. There's a larger way of looking at the world that we must constantly keep challenging ourselves to see, through art.

...

And one of the great things about this country, about the prosperity we've achieved, is that we Americans are constantly searching out these kinds of cultural experiences. We are constantly looking for stories that reflect who we are, where we've come from, where we might be going, in a search for transcendence. Whether it's Project Runway or South Pacific or looking for Cinderella in the Sweet Sixteen, we are on a constant quest for that 'aha' moment when we transcend the real and our imaginations engage.

But what's terrifying in our techno-age is that we've mistaken stimulation for this transcendence. Because it's so available, so ubiquitous, we pursue constant stimulation, thinking somehow that stimulation will lead to transcendence. We've trained ourselves to be in a state of continual PARTIAL awareness... and the big loser in this effort is our imagination.

For example, I've caught myself watching TV with my iPhone at my side. I'm not talking about giving myself something to do when commercials come on. But to give me something to do if, god forbid, the plot of CASABLANCA begins to lag for a moment, or I'm in between special effects sequences on BattleStar Galactica… I can check my email, or look up 'cylons' on Wikipedia, or find out when Ingrid Bergman died, or how many marriages she had or whatever. Or to check the weather (again). Or find out what time it is in Abu Dhabi. And before you know it, I've watched a movie and read a newspaper and checked the weather in Abu Dhabi and I've somehow diminished my cultural literacy and imaginative power.

This is now actually proven to be true. A troubling article in the Atlantic Monthly last fall marshaled an array of recent neuroscience studies that demonstrate how multitasking ('the nightmare of infinite connectivity') is actually dumbing us down while it makes us crazy. The article explains that we've made a journey from the 'Be Here Now' motto of the 60s to 'Be Everywhere at Once' today. And that we are headed for a multi-tasking crash, or an attention-deficit recession.

I'd take that one step further and refer fearfully to my Twittering friend from Easter – in our lust for ever greater frequency of stimulation, we're losing our imagination, too.

...

Anyway, in the midst of all this, a 3 and a half hour play called AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY won the Pulitzer Prize.

HOW IN HELL DID A THREE AND A HALF HOUR PLAY EVEN HOLD MY ATTENTION?

For a time, Next theatre Company was known as the theater that produced socially provocative, artistically adventurous plays under 90 minutes. The chair of the Equity Jeff Awards was dismayed when I told her we were doing a 3-act play next year that might run 2 and a half hours.

I won't tell you which one it is because you might not come.

Hey, it’s OK, I get depressed when I hear a play I'm about to see will be more than 90 minutes and involve an intermission.

It's not just because I expect the show will be bad, either, though we get plenty of that. But because the theater – any art, any form that activates your imagination – actually demands sacrifice. The opportunity for transcendence is of greater, more lasting value than the opportunity for escape – which is the route we so often pursue – or stimulation, which is ultimately a selfish and self-reflective act.

Live performance – the theater – demands something precious, and something which goes beyond self-reflection. Above all, it demands that we stop. That we wait. And that we pay attention – for an hour, or two, or even three and a half. And if we're lucky, the result of our sacrifice will be transcendence.

I asked Mary Zimmerman, Tony-winning director of Metamorphoses, whether she has an obligation to the audience as an artist:

The audience should be engaged and rewarded for the sacrifice they’ve made by diminishing their own presence… sitting in uniform rows in the dark… and not being allowed to speak... and quieting themselves bodily... and not being allowed to eat or drink, not being allowed to answer their cellphones... for removing themselves from the world, and giving me their attention. You need to gratify, and reward, and appreciate that attention and respond to it, fulfill that promise.

Usually, you in the audience give me about 15 minutes to get to you; that's as long as you'll give up on your technology and your worries and your continual partial awareness nowadays, and if I haven't grabbed you by then, you’re lost for the evening.

But if I DO grab you, then you actually, physically, have become deprogrammed. I really believe it. Your concentration isn't split into a hundred different things. How do I know if a show is successful? I know by watching the audience from the back: because when it’s working, YOU ALL BREATHE AS ONE.

And then, if I can keep you breathing together, the last 15 minutes of the play become a GOLDEN TIME, a time when you are really open to reflection, to going beyond yourselves; you are present, you are living the poetics of the piece that we've created... and we can return you to a state of connection, to the poetics of language, to emotional truth, to visual magic… in short, to transcendence.

In my six years at Next Theatre Company, I have watched hundreds of audiences at dozens of productions to see if we've returned them to that place. I have failed, on more than one occasion. I did not repay the sacrifice you made to remove yourself from the world and give me your attention. It is a difficult, challenging thing to do with our repertoire, unique in Chicagoland.

Often we succeed, and sometimes – rare times – we succeed brilliantly. Our production of DEFIANCE earlier this season sold more single tickets than any in the past twenty years. We commissioned five new music-theater works for our last show, THE AMERICAN DREAM SONGBOOK (though I have since learned that producing plays that satirize suburbia IN suburbia is not always a safe bet). And next month, we are bringing an internationally-renowned artist, Heather Raffo, to Chicago with the help of the Museum of Conteporary art to give us the area premiere of her one-woman masterpiece, 9 PARTS OF DESIRE. I promise your sacrifice will be rewarded at that production, more than any other this season.

Oh, and there was that ADDING MACHINE thing, which is getting its cast album recorded tomorrow in New York, and which was nominated for 6 Lucille Lortel Awards for distinction off-Broadway – the most nominations of any show in the past year.

It took us six years of backbreaking work to get to this point.

Somehow, and mostly with the work of the people in this room, in six years we have transformed our humble artists’ station into a thriving and important destination for Chicagoland theater. We have taken a $168,000 budget and turned it into a $670,000. We have taken 300 subscribers and turned them into 12 hundred. We started with four board members and now have 19.

No one gave us a fortune. We didn't do it with easy-on-the-eyes musicals or heartwarming revivals or circus shows or babies and puppies and free ice cream cones or ESCAPE. Somehow, we did it – and YOU did it - with provocative, thrilling dramas, a bunch of flops, a bunch of hits, and a lot more risky pieces in between that didn't do too badly.

I'm astonished to look back at the success we've had, and I'm proud beyond measure of what we've tried to do.

But I'm no fool, and this isn't my attempt at feeding you humble pie – dessert will be here momentarily, by the way. It is the people in this room, and those like them – from subscribers and people who write checks for twenty-five bucks to foundation folks, and Board members – who have made it happen. Yes, it's true that we staff members and artists have insane commitments, and do what we love without a lot of regard for money. We sacrifice a ton.

But it's actually all done in service to YOUR commitment. YOUR commitment to having a theater in your community that takes risks, provides theatrical adventure, and stirs the soul. And demands your attention. And rewards the sacrifice as best it can. YOU believe more strongly than I do that this theater MUST have a place in your community. I'm just a traveler, passing through. But YOU have wished this theater into existence.

I asked Bart Sher how he avoids going to the 'bad place' – that place all we artists go to when we think our work isn’t worth the trouble, that no one’s listening, that the critics don't get it, that the audiences don't care... and here's how he responded:

There are a lot of people who have a lot more faith in the arts than I do. They're not artists, they're in the community: they're Boards of Directors, they're subscribers, they're people who make small contributions, who are very valiant and courageous in their belief in this stuff. So in a way, when I go to the bad place, I just have to believe in them: that they have enough belief in what we're doing, that they love the work enough, and they believe it’s important to their community. Their sense of the missions of these places and what they want in their communities always embarrasses me because it’s so much greater than mine in some ways.

You, and people like you, willed this theater into existence 27 years ago. You have willed it to become bigger and stronger and vital every year. You believe in what we do more than I can, in some amazing way.

And so this gala is all about celebrating you: your commitment to the pursuit of cultural experience that leads to transcendence. For that very rare quest, I thank you. With all my heart. I thank you for being here with me, and I look forward to seeing you at the MCA in May, and at the theater again next fall.

NOTES FROM THE RECORDING STUDIO

2008-04-08T14:45:00.002-05:00

As reported on Playbill.com and in the Chicago Tribune, Adding Machine: A Musical is getting recorded for posterity!

PS Classics, a relatively young label with a mighty catalog, is producing the CD, which will be recorded on April 14 in New York with the off-Broadway cast. Tommy Krasker, head of the label, hopes to release it in early June.

This whole recording thing is new to me, and I've been fascinated to see how Tommy puts it together. And it's big business, too. Even the smallest of recordings, recorded in a single day like Adding Machine, takes many tens of thousands of dollars to pay performers, studio fees, post-production costs, and production... and then there's marketing. It's an unbelievable outlay in a world where people spend less and less on physical CDs and more and more on iTunes.

Since the deal was inked barely a week ago, Josh and I have been collaborating at lightning speed with Tommy on the contours of the album. Things I don't think about any more - the way, for example, our brilliant director David Cromer melded one scene into the next - are actually problems for the recording, so Josh and I have to reconsider the beginnings and endings of scenes. And what about the spoken dialogue? To cut or not to cut, that's been the question all week.

Happily, I think that Tommy, Josh and I have come to some excellent conclusions about how to trim what's unhelpful to an auditor but retain the musical's essential story. You can bet we'll be selling copies of the CD at Next!

ADDING MACHINE LEADS THE PACK AT THE LUCILLE LORTEL AWARDS!

2008-04-01T12:23:00.004-05:00

It is with great pleasure that we announce ADDING MACHINE: A MUSICAL leads the pack with six nominations for the Lucille Lortel Awards, honoring achievement off-Broadway! The nominations are:

OUTSTANDING MUSICAL - Jason & Josh/Producers Scott Morfee, Tom Wirtshafter & Margaret Cotter
OUTSTANDING DIRECTOR - David Cromer
OUTSTANDING ACTOR - Joel Hatch
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Amy Warren
OUTSTANDING COSTUME DESIGN - Kristine Knanishu
OUTSTANDING LIGHTING DESIGN - Keith Parham

(We should all take some pride in knowing that all those receiving nominations were with the original production at Next!)

Read more about the Awards - and our competition, in this Playbill article, and at the official Lortel Awards website.

The awards ceremony - where the show will have a musical number! - take place in New York on Monday, May 5 at the Union Square Theater... here in Chicago, we'll be opening 9 PARTS OF DESIRE at the MCA - so it'll be one heckuva night for Next Theatre!

RIGHT-WING BIGOTS ATTACK DEERFIELD HIGH SCHOOL

2008-03-25T12:31:00.009-05:00

I had the opportunity to speak with Lora Sue Hauser, the individual listed in the blog below. My post has been edited to correct factual errors; I regret that mistakes were made in the original post. As Ms. Hauser said, we both look forward to further comments and questions on the issue involved.

Recently I had Easter brunch with a friend who teaches English at Deerfield High School. Like others on the North Shore, Deerfield has a long history of progressive education and outreach. Like other high schools across the country, they recently assigned Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prizewinning play Angels in America to AP English students.

But unlike other schools, Deerfield has an angry ex-parent "with years of advocacy" behind her: Lora Sue Hauser.

Although one of her children graduated from Deerfield, another child was put into private school because, she says, Deerfield was not a welcoming place for children with a "conservative" background. Nevertheless, I presume she wants to save the other innocent kids from the work of Satan-worshippin' hom'sexuals like Tony Kushner. I presume that's why she formed North Shore Student Advocacy "years ago" -to address issues like this, lending legitimacy to her campaign against Deerfield.

Lora Sue Hauser is very upset that DHS is teaching Angels, even though it's an optional assignment that requires parental approval. So she's calling it "pornography" to anyone who will listen. Screaming "pornography" when you're talking about literature strikes me pretty clearly as hatemongering and fear peddling (as well as a throwback to olden-time bigotry). Obviously, she disagrees.

NSSA's protest against Angels took the form of an outraged press release, including excerpts from the play's most graphic scenes. She succeeded in stirring up some excitement from right-wing nutballs from all over the country, eager to sink their fangs into the homosexual agenda wherever they can. (She did admit to me she was happy to have the publicity).

Some of the results can be found here, here, here, and really all over the internet.

But if you'd prefer to read the facts instead of apoplectic, apocalyptic fiction, check out this story from the Pioneer Press that lays out the credentials of the teacher, Tony Kushner's personal involvement in the case, and the superintendent's decision to make sure parents of those who chose to study Angels signed permission slips allowing their kids to study it.

Here's what you can do:

Send an email of support to Superintendent George Fornero at gfornero@dist113.org.

Let North Shore Student Advocacy know you won't tolerate hate or ignorance in your state at NSSAdvocacy@aol.com or (847) 651-8646.

The right-wing websites are getting their message out ("It's just like yeast; if you just ignore it, you'll find it engulfing your neighborhood also!"); make your voice heard just as loudly.

Next Communities Tackles Race - WBEZ

2008-03-21T13:31:00.004-05:00

So Senator Barack Obama might be having a tough time lately getting the conversation started in this country about race, but we at Next Theatre - and specifically, Outreach Director Julie Ganey and Next Communities - are doing it on the local level with huge success! Check out this clip from WBEZ's Eight-Forty-Eight if you don't believe me.

Julie Ganey has really built this program over the past three years through her care, talent and hard work, and the interest of the press is testimony to her diligence. For those of you that still wonder what Next Communities is about, the clip explains it all beautifully: what it is, why it's important, and who we're making this work for.

I'm also proud to share the following from one of our major funders of the project:

Thanks so much for taking time to share the 848 clip with us. It was such a wonderful piece and one that not only captured the success of this program but also the essence of what the Woods Fund hopes might come from supporting efforts that use the arts and open conversations to build diverse and healthy communities - in whatever form that might take. We are truly proud of all that Julie and Next Theatre has been able to accomplish during this three-year grant period. Bravo!

Consuella Brown
Program Director
Woods Fund of Chicago

As a reminder, performances this year are:

Thursday May 15, 7pm at Fleetwood-Jourdain Community Center

Saturday May 17, 3pm at Raven Theatre in Rogers Park

Sunday May 18, 3pm at Next Theatre Company

All perfs are free/donations accepted/reservations suggested at 847-475-1875 x10 or amber@nexttheatre.org

Sticky Territory: Next Communities tackles race and class

2008-03-14T09:56:00.007-05:00

Is race still an issue in two such liberal, progressive communities as Evanston and Rogers Park? What role does social class play in our "classless" society, as it is often dubbed? How does a community of many cultures and classes get people working and interacting shoulder to shoulder -- and is this even a value we all hold? What is the price of diversity?

This year's Next Communities project is in full swing. After last year's examination of gentrification, development and affordability, we decided to get into even stickier territory this year, bringing folks together to discuss diversity, race, and class issues in our community.

Why this topic, you might ask? Well, I spent the fall speaking with community leaders about what issues they felt were most worth examining, and this is what I heard. We also held an open community meeting at the Evanston Public Library in October, and these were the issues that seemed to rise up from the group that assembled. Also, I must admit, I was really interested in having this conversation, because of my own experiences over the last year or so.

So, I set out to put together an ensemble of community members that could represent our ethnic, cultural, socio-economic and political diversity. I was also looking for a group of individuals who really wanted to have an honest conversation about these issues, and who were willing to sit in a room and truly listen to others who disagreed. It was an interesting process, in part because there is a good amount of profiling and pigeonholing that goes into putting together a small, intentionally diverse ensemble. And guess what? Not everyone wants to spend their Saturday mornings talking about race and prejudice. Go figure. Lots of Rogers Park and Evanston progressive types such as myself were interested in participating, but that obviously doesn't make for a very diverse group. I also came right up against some of my first lessons -- one of which was that my well-intentioned, liberal, Caucasian female agenda that assumed everyone would see the value in a discussion such as this one, was a bit presumptuous. Eventually, though, a brave and hardy group of 16 assembled on a snowy Saturday morning -- a group that included representation from different cultures, ethnicities, classes, and even the Evanston Republican Organization.

Our first workshop began as they all do, with some improvisation exercises to get us playing and relating to each other in unconventional ways. We then talked about why it is so difficult to talk honestly about race, diversity and our prejudices -- that we are all nervous about saying the wrong thing, or the right thing in the wrong way, or revealing something ugly about ourselves. And we agreed that we would be a circle in which those things could happen, be dealt with honestly, and worked through.

And so we jumped in. We've discussed the appropriateness of a diversity project being run by a couple of white women, institutional racism, where stereotypes might come from and in what ways we might be responsible for them. We've looked at social and cultural privilege, being the "only," balancing assimilation with retaining one's culture, housing and gentrification (again!) and tried to examine our assumptions as honestly as possible. In progressive, basically liberal American communities in the 21st century, our prejudices make themselves known not through racist remarks or actions -- we are past that, in a way -- but through the way we see things. Naomi Wolf refers to this as our "veil of assumptions." We tried to lift that veil, or at least become aware of it when we could. It was hard. We weren't always brave, didn't always get to the deep stuff. But we certainly made some headway.

Margaret Lewis, an accomplished and acclaimed Evanston playwright, is currently writing a play based on our discussion workshops. In a few weeks, the group will come together again to rehearse the piece, which we will then perform May 15th through 18th. Next Communities exists to create opportunities for dialogue in the community about difficult issues. We invite you to come join us and be part of the dynamic discussion.

Performances:

Thursday, May 15th, at 7:00 p.m. at the Fleetwood Jourdain Community Center,

1655 Foster Street, in Evanston

Saturday, May 17th, at 3:00 p.m., at Raven Theatre

6157 N. Clark Street in Rogers Park

Sunday, May 18th, at 3:00 p.m. at Next Theatre

"DATED CURIOSITY" OR "GLITTERING REVIVAL"?

2008-03-04T11:45:00.001-06:00

Unfortunately in my job, I have to read reviews - to figure out marketing strategies, estimate box office take, and get a sense of how the audience will be feeling coming into a show. I say "unfortunately" because some of our "critics" in the weeklies are pretty incompetent at their jobs.

The reviews for AMERICAN DREAM SONGBOOK, while all great in the dailies (the Tribune, Sun-Times, and Daily Herald), have been crazily mixed in the weeklies. That's rarely a surprise because, as I say, so many of those writers aren't too good at what they do. And while I'm happy to be spanked from time to time by the good ones (Time Out's Kris Vire, for example, rightly points out that our failure to find composers of color is a minus for the show), it bugs the shit out of me when a truly brainless boob splatters our show in print.

Of the particular review I'm frothing over today (and I won't name names, or papers), at least an interesting question for this blog came of it. We have heard from some folks - and this particular review - that the first act, Leonard Bernstein's TROUBLE IN TAHITI, felt "dated", or was a "curiosity" best left uncovered.

Um... yes, it IS dated. It was written in 1952. That's exactly why we decided to pair it with a second act... to help us understand how dated that view of the American Dream is, and provoke the audience to wonder what makes up the American Dream today. So, shame on the reviewer who didn't figure that out.

But I'm more interested in the question these comments beg: what makes one revival "dated" and another "glittering"? After all, every revival - especially those that aren't directorially manipulated - is dated. I'm thinking of some of the finest and faithful revivals I've seen around town in the past few years: Frank Gilroy's 1964 THE SUBJECT WAS ROSES or William Inge's 1956 BUS STOP at Writers; Timeline's 1959 FIORELLO! What made them "revelatory" to many? Why do some critics call our TAHITI "dated" and others call it "a shining revival"?

If I've learned anything about audience response to our SONGBOOK, it varies generationally. Those that were married - as Sam and Dinah were - in the 50s tend to fall in the "shining" camp. Those who came of age in the 60s and 70s - especially women - fall into the "dated" camp. That's not a hard-and-fast rule, of course.

In any case, the reviewer I'm thinking about was for some reason enraged by Bernstein's portrayal of 1952 American, and our decision to produce it. This reviewer clearly had expectations about the evening that weren't met... which leads me, yet again, to plead for audiences to know what they're seeing before walking in the door. Especially at a place like Next Theatre Company, where we aim to get you thinking as we entertain you. If you don't know anything about what you're in for, there's a chance you'll turn off your brain and not be open to the possibilities of what we present.

THE BEST MUSICAL OF 2008????

2008-02-27T15:38:00.001-06:00

"Is it too early to declare ADDING MACHINE the best new musical of 2008? Perhaps, but I'm going to do so anyhow, and if something better comes along, it will be a great year for musicals indeed." - TIME OUT NEW YORK, 2/28/08

Next Theatre takes New York by storm!

Joel Hatch and Amy Warren in the New York production

Director David Cromer, me, and composer Josh Schmidt

Stars Amy Warren, Joel Hatch and Cyrilla Baer

Some pictures from our fabulous opening night of ADDING MACHINE in New York! The press has been overwhelmingly positive - read the Times, Variety, John Simon in Bloomberg News, the Star-Ledger, the Sun... you name it! We're bursting our buttons. Thanks to everyone in the Next Theatre family for making this POSSIBLE!

A NEW COMMISSION FOR NEXT!

2008-02-12T15:21:00.000-06:00

Writing to you from dress rehearsals for THE AMERICAN DREAM SONGBOOK, I'm pleased to announce Next Theatre has commissioned New York-based playwright David Johnston for a project tentatively called "The Rapture"! I've been pursuing him since Literary Associate Lila Stromer made me read his play CANDY AND DOROTHY, which I adored, and which went on for a well-received off-Broadway run. He's also the author of the very dangerous, iconoclastic, and astonishing BUSTED JESUS COMIX, which has scared producers from coast to coast (this one included)... but he's an original, compelling voice, and we're proud to be working with him.

Check out his blog and his work here.

We're continuing to work on our commission with Carson Kreitzer, and when I'm in New York for the opening of ADDING MACHINE she and I will be meeting to further discuss the project... and there's one more commission in process that I'll let you know about just as soon as the papers are signed!

POLITICS & ENTERTAINMENT

2008-02-05T12:18:00.000-06:00

There's more than enough happening here at Next these days - technical rehearsals about to start for THE AMERICAN DREAM SONGBOOK, the first workshops for our annual outreach program NEXT COMMUNITIES, and ADDING MACHINE beginning previews on Thursday in New York - but it's primary day, and I'm in a political mood.

My political wish for this year is that we Americans demand a campaign about issues and not about scandals. I want Americans to watch the debate to get a better and more nuanced understanding of the issues we face - not to have a chance to see a candidate slip up, or become enraged, or cry. That's reality television seeping into the gravest and most important of responsibilities we as citizens have.

There are a couple of candidates out there who can help raise the level of political discourse in this country, and I'll be rooting for them... and if they win their respective primaries, I have a feeling we just might have an election season in which voters demand of TV networks, newspapers and websites something more important than "who cried today and why?"

DREAMS OF BERNSTEIN

2008-01-22T15:54:00.001-06:00

Week two of rehearsals for The American Dream Songbook begin tonight, and I can't get Leonard Bernstein's delirious music out of my head... it's a wonderful problem. Our first week of rehearsal has been dedicated to Act One of our evening, which is Bernstein's rarely-heard 1952 jazz-opera, Trouble in Tahiti.

I had a rather stunted musical upbringing, thanks to years under the stern fingers of a classical piano teacher who wouldn't let me learn Billy Joel's "Piano Man." Never able to impress my friends (they weren't into hearing Bartok at parties), I indulged my love of classical music through my godfather, who gave me my first classical music tape (Mozart's Piano Concerto #23, still my very favorite).

My godparents' home was full of delicious cultural artifacts that I still remember vividly, thirty-five years later. Beautiful mortars and pestles (my godfather was a pharmacist), eye-charts with Hebrew letters... and on the wall, the most precious thing a Jewish, artsy kids from the 'burbs could imagine: a framed concert program signed by Leonard Bernstein... with the conductor's baton he used that night, mounted atop it.

The baton's handle was cork, and I could imagine it wicking up Bernstein's sweat as he vigorously led his orchestra through musical peaks and valleys, notes washing over the audience, seeping, flooding, dripping, dangling, rushing... I never saw Bernstein conduct in person, but I watched the New York Phil on TV just to see him leap and prance and weep his way through a concert.

When I now watch Karen Doerr sing "A Quiet Place" in rehearsal, conducted so beautifully by our music director Jeremy Ramey, I feel the same emotional swell that I did back when I was five... and I think of Bernstein's slender, powerful baton.

CULTURAL BRIEFS

2008-01-16T14:46:00.000-06:00

Juno is a delightful movie that is an example of Hollywood casting at its best... a colleague gave me a copy of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife for the holidays and it was one of my favorite reads of all time... American Dream Songbook rehearsals began last night, and wait til you see what the theater will look like!... I was not a fan of John Adams' latest, Doctor Atomic, feeling the libretto was a disastrous post-modern mish-mash of uninspired editing and managed to turn one of the most dramatic events of the last century into a twee curiosity... have just begun teaching Richard III at the Graham School at the University of Chicago to about 25 incredibly-inspired adults, so politics are on the brain... in New York next week for Adding Machine rehearsals I'm planning to see the New Group's production of Mike Leigh's 2000 Years and CSC's production of David Ives' New Jerusalem to consider for our 2008-09 season...