Introducing...my website!

Yes, it's a website that is not a blog. About me. Matt Freeman. Designed by my good pal Ernest Hemmings, who also lives and breathes over here. It's jagged and punchy and weird. Just like I like.

www.matthewfreemanwriter.com

Tonight and Tomorrow: Playwrights For Pets

Tonight and tomorrow are the performances of Playwrights for Pets: Heavy Petting, from Blue Coyote Theater Group. Billed as a night of unlikely romance, it will feature performances and new works. Should be fun, especially if you love pets, which I know you do.

The play I'll be presenting is a staged reading of The White Swallow, a popular short from a few years back, affectionately known by some as "the egg play." It's directed by Kyle Ancowitz and is performed by the crack team of Laura Desmond, David DelGrosso and Matthew Trumbull. I love it, it makes me laugh, and I think it will make you laugh too.

Tickets can be purchased in advance here.

More information about the show can be found at www.bluecoyote.org

(My cats names, for the record, are Albee and Remedios Varo.)

Quilt: A Musical Celebration and Reflection on 30 Years

I recommend you consider attending this upcoming benefit, which takes place on November 28th, and reflects on the past 30 years of raising AIDS awareness. A lot has been accomplished, but there's a long way to go. Looks like a special evening, with a lot of talent involved.

From the website:

Thirty years after the virus devastated New York City, swept the nation, and forever changed the world, a new threat looms, that of complacency. HIV/AIDS is a problem that has yet to be overcome, and as the harrowing days of the early 1980s slip further from the public conscience and strides are made in treatment, there is the widespread and dangerous misconception that the virus no longer serves as cause for concern. Through the use of the performing and visual arts, this event will honor all those who have been lost senselessly due to this vicious disease, celebrate those who have championed the afflicted, and mark a renewed commitment to ending this pandemic that has robbed us of too many bright futures.

Tickets are here.

Time Out NY rates the 25 best screen adaptations of Shakespeare

The list is here.

Can't say I entirely agree on all counts. I'm sure you won't either. That's the fun of lists.

For example, they place the Michael Almereyda's dull Hamlet (the one in Manhattan with Ethan Hawke)  above the Kenneth Branagh version, which I really can't see. I guess if you do a lot less, there's less to screw up?

They also put Julie Taymor's Titus above Prospero's Books. Hrm. Not feeling it. To me, Prospero's Books is bolder, less literal, more built for the screen. Taymor's Titus is grand and grim (I definitely loved it), but it's essentially a massive, expensive stage production.

Don't forget

To pick up a copy of When Is A Clock
Or any of these editions published by Playscripts

Favorite Reviewers and Critics

I think it's very easy for artists to find fault with critics - but I'm curious...which theater reviewers, writers and critics do you tend to enjoy and why? Anyone out there you find particularly insightful? Fun to read?

Ken Davenport gives some good advice

On producing.

The power of being prolific

A provocative tweet by the amazing Taylor Mac on October 12th:  

"I'm learning that new elite r prolific writers/tweeters/bloggers who dominate the conversation via onslaught of material."

I think there's something to this, and I think I might be implicated. Is there a bias towards (on the web anyway) writers who produce a great deal of material? Twitter and Facebook and Blog Posts? For example, if I were to write one essay here per month, and labored over it for days, would that mean I had fewer visitors, less interest, and therefore a smaller overall platform? If you don't feed the beast, does it move on to eat something that's still bleeding a bit more profusely?

And does that, you know...matter? It doesn't seem like the most successful artists feel the need to have much of a web presence. In fact, there are very few playwrights (from my unscientific perspective) out there that seem to even have their own websites. And it's 2011.

How significantly are the conversations about theater online impacting the art of theater that is being done, anyway? Or is it, really, a form of entertainment and connection, a broad conversation about life in the trenches, more than a critical conversation about the work?

Murderer!

Kristen Palmer writes about killing characters, a revision at a time, in this blog post. 

It's an interesting feeling, removing an entire character from a play. It's tough enough to remove a line, or a scene, but characters have a way of being sticky, of wanting to live. I've very rarely actually entirely removed a character. I think recently in THAT OLD SOFT SHOE, I had originally written a character named Phillipa, who didn't make it to draft two. I'll miss you Phillipa. You could have been funnier, but that's really my fault, isn't it.

Any writers out there in a draft process finding themselves holding the red pen over a fictitious life?

Blue Coyote Theater Group's Coyote Commission Project Blog

Blue Coyote Theater Group - where I've called home since 2004 - are off on a new and exciting endeavor - the Coyote Commission Project.

The first commissioned playwrights are Robert Attenweiler, Kristen Palmer, Christine Whitley, John Yearley, and David Zellnik. Read new blogs from them, get updates on their work, and check out the results on the new Coyote Commissions Project Blog. 

Here is a post from John Yearly

And another from David Zellnik.

Also, Blue Coyote is now on twitter. Follow them here.

Performing Arts are a form of employment

...and therefore, performing artists are also screwed.

Yogurt Shop

Okay, this is really funny.

Zack talks to Matt

Zack Calhoon interviews my dear friend and long-time collaborator Matt Trumbull here.

Blessing with a curse attached

Charles Isherwood writes a blog post on the New York Times website about his desire to stop reviewing Adam Rapp's plays. No really. You must read it.

I'm not sure how I feel about it.

To quote:

"I’ve come to the conclusion I’ve rapped Mr. Rapp’s knuckles enough for a lifetime. I’d like to hand the ruler to someone else next time."

Mike Daisey on Steve Jobs

Read. Yes, you.

Occupy Wall Street

When the political class and the media wish out loud that the Occupy Wall Street protests were more coherent, more single-minded, more "on-message," more recognizable, more organized; they are not wishing for the success of the movement.

I have heard the Occupy Wall Street protests compared to the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party movement was, and is, simply an off-shoot of a Republican message, funded by mainstream conservative activists in shadow, to promote conservatism in the face of a popular, charismatic and non-traditional (in look and name) Democratic President. It's uniform message and political savvy are not the result of  passion, but of calculation.

Occupy Wall Street is steadfastly revolted by calculation, and is driven entirely by a complex set of emotions and thoughts. Let's celebrate complexity and passion. Let's remember that the sentiment of a group of individuals fighting for an ideal, pointing out injustice, should outstrip and outgun the media's desire for soundbites and slogans. It is dangerous to believe that the merits of an ideal are related to how simple the ideal is to communicate.

Final performance of in the great expanse of space there is nothing to see but More, More, More...tonight

 Tonight is our third and final performance of the workshop of in the great expanse of space there is nothing to see but More, More, More. Tickets can be found here.