Opening salvo, hot take: everything Tom Stoppard has ever written is incredible; this isn’t his best work. The Real Inspector Hound is the first live production of a Stoppard play I ever saw, followed about a year and a half later by Arcadia. So, I will always be grateful to Hound for preparing me, because otherwise Arcadia might have melted my brain, and working directly with Tom (humblebrag) on The Coast of Utopia would have been the actual death of me. Hound is a delight. […]
Resonating for the last 135 years
I first read An Enemy of the People when I was in high school and I can recall being quite moved by it. Since the phrase “enemy of the people” has been bandied about in the news lately, I thought this would be an excellent time to revisit the play. Would it be as poignant as I remembered, or would I discover that the brain of a teenager is too unsophisticated to appreciate Norwegian drama and that I’d missed the nuance? The plot is pretty much as […]
We’re all so much alike, and yet so utterly different.
For the first 100 pages or so, this book was a literary Krispy Kreme doughnut: utterly devoid of nutritional value, but glazed in pure happiness. And then, like the best junk food, my joy immediately turned into regret, and my proverbial teeth felt like they were rotting out of my skull. Act Like It is about a man (Richard) and woman (Lainie) who star in stage production in London. He’s a celebrated actor (emphasis on the last syllable), she’s a budding young star. He’s a […]
To suffer is as human as to breathe.
Any time that there’s new Harry Potter, I become about 15 years younger, and squeeeeeeeeeee. So, of course, new Potter, and I’m there. Full disclosure, I work in theater. Large-scale theater. Big shows. This show is in my work realm. So reading new Potter, but in script form, it was hard to turn off my work brain. “Is that a quickchange?” “need more details about that prop” “are they going to eat that, or can it be glue?” etc. These are the notes that I […]
Music Directing: Start at the Very Beginning, a Very Good Place to Start
The Musical Director’s Handbook by Stuart Morley is a very specific style of book to read for Cannonball Read 8. I work as a music director for educational theater programs throughout the year and have started to feel like my teaching style has flatlined. I’m dedicating the beginning of the year to reading various books on music directing, vocal training, directing, music, and theater to try and improve my skills. This book is the most directly connected to the kind of work I do and […]
(Another) depressing entry by another American author
I read The Glass Menagerie in college, but somehow missed out on the crazytown show that is A Streetcar Named Desire. I’m telling you, these American writers did not get hugged enough as kids. And now they’re taking it out on me. I knew very little about Streetcar before I read it, but I do remember something about a young and beautiful Marlon Brandon yelling “STELLAAAAAAA!” And really, the play is quite simple in concept: Blanche DuBois is a faded Southern belle who comes to […]