A Trilogy of Plays now available
Available for the first time from Smith & Kraus, the complete texts for the award-winning plays, The Common Air, Unequalibrium and Desperelics, written by Alex Lyras and Robert McCaskill, produced […]
theater
Hurry Up Right Now Too Late You Missed it!
Anyone else getting the sinking feeling that no matter what you achieve in life it’ll be quickly lost in the spiraling eddy of data-overload that now engrosses every aspect of […]
The Agony/Ecstasy of a Solo Show
The most disheartening question you will ever hear from an actor friend is “Will you come see my solo show?” We’ve all cringed in our seats, eyeing the cell phone […]
Tellin’ It Like It Should Be
Discerning what’s real and what’s not in our increasingly byte-sized reality is becoming a savagely challenging task. Add a home address in Hollywood, CA. and it can become downright surrealistic. […]
The Magic Bowl Part 1
Private Ritual, Public Display There’s no better immersion into the vast canon of classical music than an al fresco, starlit night at the Hollywood Bowl. It’s a testament to Los […]
The Magic Bowl, Part 2 – Madness and Musical Creativity
Grand Tours, as they were known in the 17th Century, were responsible for educating and ultimately inspiring our most famous composers. The idea is believed to have originated in England. After an […]
One-Man Shows and the Woman Who Perfected Them
Even though I’ve been the only person on stage for five original theater pieces, I never tell people I’m doing a “one-man” show. There’s no faster way to turn […]
How To Get Filthy Rich In The Theater
Exactly how does one compete with a film like Avatar? Box office grosses have surpassed a billion dollars at this point, and eager spectators are still flocking. When your average […]
The One Man Odyssey
The history of the one-person show is likely as old as language itself. Maybe older. It’s not unreasonable to imagine an overly animated, pre-linguistic Australopithecus grunting out story points in […]
The Air In Ojai
I did not recognize the 805 area code, but after answering my reliably spotty iPhone, I was surprised to learn it was an equity theater in Ojai, California who wanted […]
Unfriendly Skies
The pleasure of doing anything on stage is who might be in the audience that night, and I don’t mean celebrities. Exiting the theater last night, I was greeted by […]
The Topography of an Audience pt 1
From the stage, it’s never boring figuring out what type of audience you‘re performing for. Audiences are limitlessly fascinating. They’re living organisms. They may act as a whole, but like […]
The Topography of an Audience pt 2
Once they settle into their seats, the topography of an audience is a fascinating thing to measure. Bleecker 45 is a 300 seat house with a thrust stage, meaning the […]
Control, Alt, Repeat
“How do you remember all those words?” It’s a common question civilians often ask of actors. And the basic answer, save horse-sized pills of Ginkgo biloba, is brutal repetition. […]
You Asked For It
Whenever you produce a play, you can be sure there’ll be a confluence of conspiracies awaiting you prior to opening that will insure the maximum amount of stress and anxiety […]
The Whole Wide World
It was far too many bits for any one brain to process. It was the entire information age exploded inward, swirling like some three dimensional Rorschach lava lamp broken open […]
Before the Corridor
It was January 2000 and America breathed a collective sigh of what-ever at the undevastating non-effects of theY2K bug. For months prior, the algorithm had been fear-mongered onto every front […]
Review: Criticising the Critics
There’s nothing quite like being reviewed in the city of Manhattan. Whether it’s art, food, theater or design, the reviewers in this town pride themselves on never being impressed. They […]