I Love this Love Letter

A love letter from playwright Arthur Laurents to dancer Robert Pagent in the 1950s. 

Aah, to be so enamored that you drop everything, pour your delirious heart out into a flipping type-written love letter, and long for "the peaceful excitement that comes from being with someone you love." 

On view at The Morgan Library & Museum 

Dominique Morisseau - Playwright's Rules of Engagement - Confederates

PLAYWRIGHT'S

Permissions for Engagement

Consider this an invitation to be your full and unrestricted selves. But I also want you to know that the theatre normative will be disrupted in this space for the duration of this show. And that means some thangs.

It means you are allowed to laugh audibly and give all the "um hmmms" and "uhn hnnns" you feel inspired to give

The subject matter might make you think that there is no room for humor. That is a lie. The humanity of both the folk in the present and in the past during times of enslavement mean that they are full and complex. They are not simply downtrodden or in a perpetual state of abuse.

Just like in the present, the enslaved are multi-faceted. We all carry snark and sarcasm. We are all expert navigators of the systemic fuckeries. And sometimes, navigating that shit is painful. And sometimes, navigating that shit is funny.

As always, the theatre can be church for some of us, and testifying is allowed.

Please be an audience member that joins with the village, either silently or vocally, in support of the journey we will take collectively. Exhale together. Laugh together. Say "oh hell no" or "amen" should you need to.

This is community. Let's dismantle and let's go.

peaceandlovedominique:)

Inua Ellams - Barber Shop Chronicles

I recently returned home from an amazing trip to Ghana, West Africa for the Year of Return 2019 - which was launched  to commemorate 400 years since the first enslaved Africans were forcibly brought the United States. It was my first time to the region. I took in Pan-Africanism and the Atlantic from the other side, learned about Asante history and culture, ate spicy foods that were not unfamiliar as they warmed my esophagus and stomach, marveled at beautiful colorful fabrics, and almost lost it in a slave dungeon at Cape Coast. Frankly, I did not want to come home and would have gladly stayed longer if I could. But that is not how my world works unfortunately :(

A few days after my return (that is, to the U.S.), I halfheartedly scrolled through marketing emails in my inbox and perked up when I saw a promotion for Barber Shop Chronicles by Nigerian-British playwright Inua Ellams. Hmmm...what is this (I wondered) - an opportunity to return to Africa through theater on the New York City Stage? 

The festive Barber Shop Chronicles takes place in barber shops across the African continent (Lagos, Johannesburg,  Accra, Kampala, and Harare) and in London, and wonderfully explores black male masculinity and relationships. It was absolutely refreshing to lose myself in these black men's stories, set to the bumping Afrobeat back drop. Kudos to BAM for bringing this to us, as part of Next Wave 2019!  I want more like this! 

My Quest to See August Wilson's American Century Cycle Continues

I've read August Wilson's 10 play American Century Cycle. However, I haven't seen them all. Several years ago at Signature, I was chitchatting with a fellow theatergoer (from Pittsburgh) who had seen the cycle and was even familiar with the Hill District where 9 of the 10 plays take place. After that conversation, I began a quest to: 

Read the cycle (I did it! Thanks, Julliard), 
Visit the Hill District (I did it! Thanks, Road Dawg),
And see the cycle (I'm working on it!). 

Lucky for me, several theaters have been mounting the cycle with Red Bank's Two River Theater even committing to mount all 10 plays.To cross another play off my list, I recently traveled down to Philly's Arden Theatre Company to see my 7th play of the cycle - Gem of the Ocean. And what can I say - Bravo to Zuhairah for literally bringing Aunt Ester to life before my admiring eyes and inviting me into 839 Wylie Ave. And then thank you for taking me on an uncomfortable painful journey on a slave ship (I honor every African who lost their life during the Middle Passage). 

What an evening...what a quest...

August Wilson's 10 Play American Century Cycle
1900s Gem of the Ocean*
1910s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
1920s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom*
1930s The Piano Lesson*
1940s Seven Guitars
1950s Fences*
1960s Two Trains Running*
1970s Jitney*
1980s King Hedley II*
1990s Radio Golf

* Plays seen

TimesTalks x T Magazine: Terrence McNally

Terrence McNally joined by Audra McDonald and Michael Shannon at TimesTalk.

Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, which begins previews on May 4th, was not on my Broadway "must see" list this season. However, after the TimesTalk, I may have to add it to the list. Interesting bit of trivia -- Frankie and Johnny is the first Broadway production to use an Intimacy Director.

Quote from Playwright Dominique Morisseau

Everybody deserves to have their story fully told. I write about the people I love, or that I'm curious about, and I'm going to investigate those people...If  I don't get them right, if I fail them, or over-explain them, I'm doing them a disservice and it feels unfair. 

SLP is working on 2 musicals, FCH (4, 5, & 6), 2 new plays, a tv show, 2 movies, and her band...

Earlier this summer, I visited Vermont. While chit chatting with a local, he joked that Vermonters usually have more than one job - like Jamaicans, a reference to the Hey Mon skits from the In Living Color comedy sketch tv series from the 90s. This past weekend, as I arrived at Signature center early to experience the second of Suzan-Lori Parks tragic red letter plays - In the Blood, the playwright herself was in the cafe performing with her band - sula and the noise. As I stood there, I recalled listening to a talk where the playwright itemized ALL the projects she is working on:

• Writing two musicals - one an adaptation of The Harder They Come and the other a musical with Timbaland
• Working on Father Comes Home - Parts 4, 5 and 6
• Two new plays that - she would not disclose the titles but promises that they are fun
• A television show
• Two different movies
• And she writes songs and plays with her band (you can see her some Saturdays at Signature Center)

Then I recalled my conversation with the Vermonter and thought Suzan-Lori Parks could very well be a Vermonter...better yet, a Jamaican...

Playwright Notes: The Red Letter Plays

Suzan-Lori Parks on The Red Letter Plays - Fucking A and In the Blood:

It was as if they were twins in the womb of my consciousness, twins in my mind. And one couldn't get out because they were entangled together. So when "In the Blood" came out easily, then "Fucking A" was very easy to write. They're sisters, these two plays. Both asking that question that I seem to keep asking in my work: "Who are you to me?" And out of that questioning, hopefully, will come an understanding. 

Congratulations Lynn Nottage - You Two Time Pulitzer Winner You!

Lynn Nottage on being the first female playwright to win two Pulitzers:

It feels very daunting but it also feels quite wonderful. I feel like I am representing for women. I am representing for artists of color.

Works

Poof! (1993)
Crumbs from the Table of Joy (1995)
Por'Knockers (1995)
Mud, River, Stone (1997)
Las Meninas (2002)
Intimate Apparel (2003)
Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine (2004)
Ruined (2008) -- Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2009
By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2011)
Our War (2014)
In Your Arms (2015)
Sweat (2015) --  Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2017

My Spring Road Trip - First Stop: August Wilson's Pittsburgh

Portion of Kyle Holbrook's August Wilson Mural in Pittsburgh

Some time back, as I lingered in the cafe at Signature awaiting the house to open for the critical acclaimed production of August Wilson's The Piano Wilson, I chitchatted with a woman from the Pittsburgh area. She had seen productions of all 10 plays in Wilson's Pittsburgh cycle. Moreover, she was familiar with Pittsburgh's Hill District and the locations mentioned throughout Wilson's plays. After chatting with the woman, I decided I would read the cycle and crossed my fingers and hoped that I would some day experience productions of the 10 plays.

Thanks to the Evening Division at Juilliard (yeah - see shout out here), last fall, I finally read the cycle and got to discuss Wilson and his plays in depth with a group of like minded enthusiasts (facilitated by dramaturg Shana Komitee). I was a pig in mud! 

EVDOL 016 — August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle
Shana Komitee
Few American playwrights, living or dead, have had as great an impact on American theater as August Wilson. He is best known for his collection of 10 plays — collectively known as the Pittsburgh Cycle — that consider African-American life in each decade of the 20th century. The cycle won countless awards, including Pulitzers and Tonys, and created an unparalleled document of an American community's life over a 100-year period. In this course, we read, discuss, and view footage of each installment of the cycle, beginning with Gem of the Ocean (set in 1904) and concluding with Radio Golf (set in 1997). Students gain a deeper appreciation of Wilson's life and work, his place within the American theater canon, and the contemporary actors and directors working to sustain his legacy.

Then, when this was all said and done, I ended the year by going to the cinema to see Denzel Washington's master class and Viola Davis' Oscar winning performances on the big screen. Oh my -- Let's look at one of the trailers again.   

Denzel Washington has committed to producing all of Wilson's plays for the screen. I can't wait to see them.

Recently, I went on a road trip. When I saw that there was an opportunity to pass by Pittsburgh, I knew I had to continue my August Wilson journey and stop in the Hill District. 

My first stop: August Wilson's Final Resting Place - Greenwood Cemetery in O'Hara - 321 Kittanning Pike, Pittsburgh, PA - Section 7 - Row 25 - Grave 10.

My second stop: August Wilson's birth home (now under restoration) at 1727 Bedford Avenue.

My third stop: Fictional site of Aunt Esther's house at 1839 Wylie Avenue.

My fourth stop: The rich and dense August Wilson mural by artist Kyle Holbrook at 2037 Centre Avenue.

My fifth stop: August Wilson Room at Carnegie Library, Hill District Branch - 2177 Centre Avenue.

My final stop: House used during filming of the movie Fences - 809 Anaheim Street. You can't miss that wooden fence surrounding the house! Just watch out for the dogs on the neighboring property when you are trying to peer over the fence in the back. I learned the hard way!

The house was the final August Wilson stop on my self guided tour on a rainy Spring afternoon in Pittsburgh but definitely not the final stop on my August Wilson journey. I still have to see productions for 5 of the plays in the cycle, and I am truly looking forward to seeing what Denzel Washington does with the rest of the cycle.  

New York Times Interview with Edward Albee

Playwright's Notes - Lucas Hnath's "The Christians"

From Lucas Hnath:

Our imaginations seem to be so limited by our personal experiences, you have to wonder if it's even possible to understand something that sits outside of them. 

Violaine Huisman's "Paris Review" Article - "The Fabric of a Life: An Interview with Yasmina Reza"

While in NY promoting her book - Happy are the Happy, writer Yasmina Reza sat down with Violaine Huisman for a conversation that was published in the Paris Review. In The Fabric of a Life: An Interview with Yasmina Reza, Ms Reza shares a few insights on the theater... A very interesting article...Francofiles and theater enthusiasts must check it out...

On productions of her plays that lack vision... 

I’ve sat in the audience, mortified...the actors were bad, the rhythm was off, there was no intimate understanding of the lines, no vision … 

Today, related to production of her plays all around the world Ms Reza thinks -- It’s not a good idea to intervene—you have to let it be.

On the conciseness of her writing...

 ...my impatience is to blame. Nothing bores me more than long introductions, explanations of childhood, that heavy backpack of contextualization....

I feel much closer to a painter than a writer. A painter doesn’t waste any time.

 On French theater..

When I started out...there were dozens of great directors in France, but the theater landscape has been completely decimated...Today...I can’t think of a single stage director I’d like to work with in my own language.

On American and British theater...

I feel it’s too neat, too well done, too structured, there’s too much of a desire to entertain. 

And English actors are just so extravagant—they really overdo it. I kept thinking as I watched them perform, Hold it, rein it in a little!

August Wilson - "My plays are ultimately about love, honor, duty, betrayal" and "the foundation of my playwriting is poetry"

As I grabbed a drink at the cafe bar before a performance of Signature's 2012 revival of The Piano Lesson, I chit chatted with a woman who proudly noted that she had seen August Wilson's [1945 - 2005] ten play cycle about African American life in the 20th century. Moreover, she was from Pittsburgh and was very familiar with the Hill District where all but one of the plays is set. She was definitely a fan of the famed playwright.

It is now a wintry Sunday morning in February 2015. I am placing a reminder on my calendar to watch the upcoming American Masters' August Wilson episode. I am reading a synopsis of the 10 plays. And I am remembering the Pittsburgh woman and my unmet promise to complete the cycle and read the plays I had not yet seen...    

American Masters — August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand airs February 20. It commemorates the 70th anniversary of Wilson’s birth, the 10th anniversary of his death and Black History Month.

The Cycle

1) Jitney (1979) - Set in the 1970s - Only play not mounted on Broadway

2) Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1982) - Set in Chicago in the 1920s

3) Fences (1984) - Pulitzer Prize  & Tony Award - Set in the 1950s

4) Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1984) - Set in 1910s

5) The Piano Lesson (1986) - Pulitzer Prize - Set in 1930s

6) Two Trains Running (1990) - Set in 1960s

7) Seven Guitars (1985) - Set in 1940s

8) King Hedley II (1991) - Set in 1980s

9) Gem of the Ocean (2003) - Set in 1900s

10) Radio Golf (2005) - Set in the 1990s

Links
August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand
11 Things You Should Know About August Wilson

Robert Anderson ~ "You can make a killing in the theater but not a living"

"...the top five or so...earners - ...have...a fabulous portfolio of revivable plays that sit there like sushi revolving in a restaurant. They go around being constantly staged somewhere. The writer gets money every time the play is performed. You go on getting paid without having to write any more. But they are great artists. For most playwrights without that portfolio, it's very, very difficult." ~ quote from playwright Nicholas Wright in Robert Gore-Langton's article "the real cost of artistic immortality" published in The Telegraph in August 2002.

During the TV show Open House  that aired earlier today on NBC, director and choreographer Jerry Mitchell of Kinky Boots looks for a home on Fire Island. Due to the success of Kinky Boots, he is now in a position to buy a home. In the Open House segment, he brings up the old theater adage - You can't make a living but you can make a killing on Broadway... 

Hmmmm...I wonder - where did this saying come from? Who said it first? 

After drooling over the Fire Island beach houses featured on the show, I quickly searched for the quote and stumbled on several interesting articles about the financial difficulty of making a living as a playwright. Just a few days ago, this was the topic of discussion in a NY Times article by Patrick Healy - Offering Playwrights a Better Deal. Playwrights do not usually get paid during the development and rehearsals of their work and are on their own when it comes to health insurance (a hot topic everywhere I go these days). The good thing though is that Playwright Horizon has introduced a model where they are going to begin helping their writers with these costs. And hopefully, other theaters will follow. 

So who can the quote be attributed to? American playwright Robert Anderson, who in 1988 also said - It's never been more difficult to get a play done where a playwright can earn enough money to write the next play.

Tony Kushner at the Whiting Writers’ Awards on October 21, 2013

All I really know about writing is that if you’re a writer, writing is what you do. The work, intellectual, emotional, physical work, is everything—the means, the ends, the justifications, and the doubts, the ignominy, acclaim, disappointment, and elation, everything that can happen will happen only when and if you write. 

The Playwrights' Sidewalk Outside the Lucille Lortel Theatre

The Playwrights' Sidewalk

A corporate acquaintance now finds herself facing the dreaded commute to Jersey City, NJ. She has been trying out various subway connections to the Path and recently found herself strolling up Christopher Street and having a bit of fun checking out the shops and restaurants. She also noticed a rare treat in NYC - the Playwrights' Sidewalk outside The Lucille Lortell Theatre in the West Village.

Two Artist Retorts to Theater Criticism

I encourage you to criticize your critic. A good critic is never mean. Dawn Menken

In the past couple of months, two artists made press by responding to their critics. Last month, actor Alec Balwin blasted New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley. Recently, playwright Neil LaBute responded to negative comments made by Time Out New York's David Cote. Now, I can't help but begin to wonder. First, are critics becoming too callous in their reviews? Second, is it appropriate for artists to respond to criticism and will this become a new trend? 

Bruce Norris Urges Other Playwrights to Condemn Asinine Practice of Blackface Casting in German Theaters

I'm Not Rappaport - Schlosspark Theatre

As I look at the poster for the production of Herb Gardner's play I'm Not Rappaport at the Schlosspark Theatre in Berlin on the "Against Black-Face Roles in German Theatre" petition page on avaaz.org, I slowly lean my head, cradle my temples between my thumb and middle finger and wonder "Really? Today?" Frankly, as a Black-American, I am disappointed. 

"The Way He Was" - Arthur Laurents Estate Auction

Roughly a year ago, Broadway great Authur Laurents passed away. Yesterday, items from his estate were auctioned off downtown at Roland New York. The proceeds will go to the Laurents Hatcher Foundation, which provides an annual cash award each year to a play of social relevance by an emerging American playwright.

 

Naturally, the Broadway memorabilia peaked my interest and boy did they go like hotcakes. Set and costume renditions, awards, paperweights, portraits, needlepoint illustrations, a leather bound script of Gypsy from Bernadette Peters and a customized lunchbox from Patti Lupone and the cast of Gypsy were all up for sale.

Set and Costume Design Pieces

 

Irene Sharaff, "Hallelujah Baby" Costume Design sold for $5,000. Robert Randolph, "Gypsy": Two Set Designs sold for $2,250. And Theoni V. Aldredge "La Cage..." Costume Design sold for $5,000.

Needlepoint Illustrations

I loved this collection of small needlepoint illustrations symbolizing the following Arthur Laurents' works - Anyone Can Whistle, Home of the Brave, Hallelujah, Baby!, Invitation to a March, Do I Hear A Waltz, A Clearing in the Woods, Gypsy, The Enclave, The Bird Cage, and West Side Story. Of course, West Side Story received the highest bid at $600  

Sadly, none of my humble bids won. However, the world and me will always have access to the legacy left behind by the great playwright and director - Arthur Laurents.