The first quarto

IV–>V

Our local repertory theater, hight Playmakers, ran Henry IV and Henry V in rotating rep this winter.  They were juicy productions, the moreso since I (and half the audience) had recently seen Henry V on trapeze  [sic] at Burning Coal.  Despite the great resources that this UNC-based production brought to bear, I was really disappointed […]

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A First Production!

We’re working on the first full production ever of The Whistler for a May 17th opening at a refurbished storefront theater in Cincinnati, Ohio–the Speakeasy Theater on Court. Please come if you can, and if you can’t then please follow developments on my blog using the tag Whistler (who would have thought?). Also, please consider […]

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WWI

One wedding and a funeral

The best of this year’s “second stage” series at Burning Coal Theatre in Raleigh, NC has been Stephen Massicotte’s Mary’s Wedding, directed by Joshua Benjamin. Massicotte is either a Canadian claiming to live in New York or a New Yorker claiming to come from Canada, but he is at any rate well known in Alberta, […]

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silence

Silent stage

Just ran across an interview with playwright Annie Baker (Body Awareness, Circle Mirrror Transformation) in the Boston Globe. Regarding her precise stage directions for awkward silences she notes: “I’m interested in silence because I think it’s a huge unacknowledged part of our daily lives…And by silence I don’t mean portentous, Pinter-esque silence — although that […]

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Quarto edition

Once More into the Trapeze, Dear Friends

Staging technologies can be integrated so as to seem, if not inevitable, at least natural. I think of the 2004 Danish movie Strings, performed by marionettes, as a particularly moving example.  Well, last weekend I got to see Henry V (on Trapeze) at Burning Coal Theatre in Raleigh, NC. To say that nothing really prepared […]

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Me and Georgeann Eubanks

Radio, plus audience

The Murphey School Radio Show production went quite well, and I garnered lots of kudos for my “Triangle News Updates” script (read by NPR celeb Frank Stasio and novelist Lee Smith) and sponsor jingles. (I could cheerfully make a living at sponsor jingles, I think.) Here I am with emcee and fellow scribbler Georgeann Eubanks, […]

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