If anyone has some burning need to write about HTFA the show now, before it opens in April, go right the fuck ahead. I already said as much earlier, and I have no idea why you need *my* permission, but you have it. Rock out with your cock out.
No, I was not trying to stifle anyone's inquiry, and no, I wasn't thinking of anyone in particular when I asked people to see the show in April first. Some people give themselves entirely too much credit.
The short, three-show run was nearly sold out before the article hit the stands, and would have sold out in any case—it's a 240 seat house, and had been selling out throughout the run of MONOPOLY! as well. The Stranger asked me to contribute an essay, and then I did.
I've been very clear about what happened last year, and I'll let my previous statements stand for me with regards to my actions, and the actions taken by that group.
Let me address the idea that I should enter a discussion with my "peers".
Bloggers on the internet are not my peers; they may be nice or nasty, brilliant or banal, but this isn't where I find my peers.
My peers in the theater are found in the theater. I find them through our work, and our kindred spirits in that work. And I am a theater artist. And at the end of the day I will spend all I have to make work happen in those spaces, and bring it to the most people possible for whom I can make the deepest possible connection.
I feel strongly that if there's a weakness in the "theatrical blogosphere" it is this—a suffocating emphasis on systems and organization, on sniping and formal language, and little talk of actual theater—of works being produced, of choices that did and did not pan out, of the brutal lessons of the world of the stage.
I'm in a discussion now—it's a discussion with the culture at large, and I wrestle with every tool at my disposal to use theater as a resonant tool to create circumstances where deep conversations can happen about topics that aren't being addressed. I remain an ardent geek, but the web is a cold and empty forgery of human connection...fascinating and compelling, but lacking the depth and richness of the human experience.
I take inspiration from those who contact me online, who share stories and with whom I begin conversations, but the goal always is the theater—the live moment, the spark. There are more than a few theater bloggers who would be well served by stopping their picking and biting one another over syntax and nuance and turn their gaze to the living theater—and then find ways to bring that alive in their writings on the web.
So, no, I will not "really" enter the discussion, not in such a reductive way. Instead I'd invite more bloggers to be my peers by turn their work toward...well, work. Performances. Theater in action. I'd encourage more of them to make more work that shakes up the status quo, and questions the assumptions our culture makes every day...and if the net is a tool to that end, use it.
(I should not feed trolls. I should know better—but I am young at heart.)
This is a very cute illustration.
3:03 AM