Guns are a symbol of self against society, at once Romantic, Byronic, heroic, and a means to an end which has nothing to do with our selves.

Understanding gun culture
I heard a sad story today about a teen who bagged a pileated woodpecker with his varmint rifle. No one knew what it was — “Ain’t seen one before, ain’t seen one since” — but his family praised his marksmanship, and the lad cut off the feet to carry as a trophy or talisman. The […]

Making a play for a vampire
All those of you who, like me, are working on vampire plays may appreciate a short list of the books I’ve found useful among many that were not: Despite its garish cover, Rosemary Ellen Guiley’s Encyclopaedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters (Visionary Living, 2005) has a beautiful six-page bibliography and is written in matter-of-fact […]

Durang/Durang by Christopher Durang–seriously
If you live in the Triangle you really ought to know the actress PJ Maske.

Playing with history
At the Taft Museum I came across a Claude Lorrain oil (on loan from the Wadsworth Athaneum) ostensibly about St. George and the dragon. But history, here, is a vehicle for landscape: the dragon ain’t no thang. Which got me to thinking about all the feedback I’m getting about how my play The Whistler could […]

To thine own Shylock be true
I took a few hours off from The Whistler to see the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company‘s Merchant of Venice yesterday, having heard about it from Billy Chace, the actor who’s playing Bassanio (encountered, it must be said, in the Blue Wisp Jazz Club). The show, which runs through June 3rd in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, was one […]
Joshua Hemings redux
Life’s exigencies have occasioned the replacement of Reggie Willis in the role of Joshua Hemings with the exquisite Tony Darnell Davis, who has taught theater (including improv) at the University of Cincinnati and elsewhere, has been an actor, director, producer and writer for decades, as well as President of the Cincinnati Black Theatre Company. He […]
“Limitation frees creativity.”
In which our hero rewrites his entire play in a weekend…

The lead!
Michael Bath will play the role of Henry Hunter in The Whistler. He’s funny, he’s smart, he’s one of us.