Confess Your Bubble final performance on 6/30

Thanks to all who attended Confess Your Bubble! We have a final performance on Saturday at 8pm. As of now, no advance seats are available. There may be some seats available for walk-ups, though. So come early!

Imagine this

is a picture of a cat.

Confess Your Bubble opens and is released as an eBook

Thanks to all who came out to support "Confess Your Bubble" last night as we opened to a full house. Exciting stuff! To supplement our opening and run, I've released an eBook of Confess Your Bubble.

The play is formatted for the Kindle and the Kindle App on the iPhone. If you see the play and want to give it a read, or would like to read the play itself before seeing the production, you can go here or use the QR code below to order it for only $1.99

Confess Your Bubble on Kindle for only $1.99

Opening Night

Confess Your Bubble opens tonight at 8pm at the Brick Theater as a part of the Democracy Festival. First performance is sold out, yes indeed, and our final performance on June 30th is nearly sold out. Tickets can be gotten herein.

Be a winner. Attend. You are of it. Of it. Of it.

Sovereign by Mac Rogers

A fine review of the play and a rave for Hannah Cheek can be read here in the New York Times. Well-deserved. I saw this on Sunday, and definitely enjoyed it. Way to go Mac, Jordana and the cast and crew.

From Jam

Yes.

Yes to this.

Nicole Watson on being an Emerging Artist

The over used and oft-maligned term "Emerging Artist" gets its tires kicked by Nicole Watson on this Howlround post.

"I’ll be honest, this whole idea of being an emerging artist drives me crazy.

1. It assumes that I am working in some liminal space—some pre-professional netherworld, between intern and real live theater maker.
2. It allows my work to be undervalued—literally.  In the time-money continuum, emerging artists tend to donate their time and spend their own money on their project.
3. It implies that there is someplace—some magical, legitimate theater place I need to emerge to in order to matter. At the end of the day this idea of being an emerging artist puts the emphasis of my work onto a place that I have to get to to be considered accomplished, rather than looks that the work I am currently doing as accomplishments in and of themselves."

Steve Burns highlighted by the New Yorker

The lovely, vivacious and talented Steve Burns (the solo performer of my new play Confess Your Bubble) is one of the storytellers singled out by Nathan Englander in the New Yorker story, "A Love Letter to the Moth."

Steve definitely deserves the terrific mention. It's a great story.

Josh Izzo: Modern Collector

My oldest friend, Josh, is interviewed about his love of popular culture, toys and collecting in this wonderful video.

So great. I love this!

Seven facts about Confess Your Bubble

This is a blog post about my new play. Yes, another. What do you think I have a blog for? My health?

Things you might not know about Confess Your Bubble

1. If you had a mother, she would love Confess Your Bubble.
2. The play contains more then 40 words.
3. Confess Your Bubble is the abandoned title of Michael Buble's last album.
4. All the liars you have ever met swear that they have seen Confess Your Bubble already.
5. Confess Your Bubble is not tall enough to be an astronaut.
6. There is dancing in Confess Your Bubble.
7. Confess Your Bubble was written by Mac Rogers. Matt Freeman is a pseudonym. Always has been.

Tony Awards 2012 Live Blog

If you're looking for a great Tony Awards 2012 Live Blog try...

David Cote and Matt Wells at the Guardian
Playgoer

And if you're looking for some other awesomeness in New York that is decidedly NOT the Tony Awards, you should totally come check out Confess Your Bubble, opening June 21st. Tickets here.

What is there to talk about?

J. Holtham basically fires a big flare gun into the sky when he writes this over on Parabasis.

Read the whole thing, of course. To sum up, inadequately, he notes that most of what he sees of theatre is either what he reads about or shows he sees with his friends in them. And, then, he says: "The other part is...what would I write about? Seriously. What's going on that requires comment, discussion, dissection?" and "So the question that comes to me is: what if this is it? A lot of us invest a lot of time in being semi-professionally upset about things. We want change! We want it now! What if, though, there won't be any significant changes? What if the new movement in theatre is here, it's now established and this is it?"and finally, "Oh, we have our little flare-ups, dust-ups, scandals, donnybrooks, but pretty quickly, order is restored. The natural order of things re-asserts itself and the whole system spins on."

Now, I have a lot of respect for Holtham. He's been discussing these things, as we all have, for a few years now. (His initial blog 99seats, was dedicated to a change that he's apparently moved past.) But yes, there are some good plays, and bad plays, and Broadway is a tourist attraction and what else is there to talk about? I get it.

I've gotten a bit quieter on the blog about my thoughts on theatre. I've been busy making it as hard as I can, and trying to interest other people in seeing my own plays. I got married, I have a job, I visit my friends, my friends have kids that I love, I visit my family: I'm basically a happy guy with a lot of artistic, as-yet-unfulfilled ambitions. I don't feel the urge to rehash and rework my arguments over and over. I've sort of hoped other people would take up the cause, so I could promote my shows and have a career.


But I wouldn't be a good blogger if I didn't have a bone or two to pick with his statement.

One thing I object to is the phrase "the natural order of things." Frankly, there is no natural order to these things. The American system has been chosen and reinforced, not grown organically out the ground. Our lack of government subsidies, the size of the system, etc, etc. None of this is is immutable. It can feel permanent. Just ask the music business, the cable companies if their models are permanent, untouchable, and perfect. In fact, ask them in 1992 and ask them today. If we don't have the energy or desire to challenge that system...or the means frankly...that's fine. Let just not pretend it's because it can't be changed.

I still believe, for example, that the Showcase Code in New York City reinforces a class system for new plays and playwrights. It absolutely must be changed. I've said so over and over. We've all agreed. It has not been changed. Why hasn't it? How have we failed?

I think, though, that one of the truly unfortunate things going on that hobbles good conversation about theatre, for me, is an unwillingness to criticize one's peers. We simply don't have discussions about the work we see around us. Not substantive ones, anyway. Sure, at the bar after seeing a play, we might say "Oh that was good" or "Oh that was bad." But where do we have the discussions about the form and substance of the work of the writers, actors and directors around us? Not to review shows, but to pick them apart and engage with them? To discuss the themes. To challenge a premise.

I'd love to see more of that. Read more of that. I didn't get involved in theater because I had a passion for the business of theatre. I got involved because I love plays and love to make plays and think about plays and discuss plays.

I know I fear, at times, risking hurt feelings. I remember writing a post a while ago about my experience submitting to a large theater, and got some actually angry responses for literary managers at the places I wanted to work. It chastened me, for sure, but I also get it. We're in a new world, new ecosystem, and it's got social limits and we're all discovering them.

Still, I think that lessens the discourse. This is not a group of pals hanging out and trying to have fun. We're artists engaged in a rocky, wicked process. We can be successful or we can fail and we should talk about both of those things. If we can't, then the online discourse becomes increasingly insubstantial.

RIP Ray Bradbury

"For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule. If Mormons do not like my plays, let them write their own. If the Irish hate my Dublin stories, let them rent typewriters. If teachers and grammar school editors find my jawbreaker sentences shatter their mushmilk teeth, let them eat stale cake dunked in weak tea of their own ungodly manufacture."

- Ray Bradbury

ah Google

My sitemeter will, depending on an individuals browser type, show me the search results that brought them to my blog. Late last night, someone searched "Are All Actors Self-Centered and Insecure?" and found me.

To them I say this.

Confess Your Bubble campaign ad

Radio spot, playing in all liberal markets.

Opening night of Confess Your Bubble is sold out

The opening night of Confess Your Bubble is sold out. Definitely get your tickets in advance here.

Interview with Kyle Ancowitz

Kyle, my long-time collaborator, is interviewed by Zack Calhoon here. Read it! Read it!

Press for The Democracy Festival

NY Press calls it one of the five hottest shows of the summer

TDF discusses the festival themes

Time Out NY gives us some love

All of them give a little shout out to Confess Your Bubble. Get your tickets today or become sadder. Than you. Are. Now.