Stop Raining on my Theater!

So today I am happy to announce the completion of my first live project as an MFA student: our site specific plays.  These plays are very short (5 minutes or less) and where inspired by various locations around the neighborhood of our school.  The plays were then supposed to be performed on-location in the place where they were written.  My play was called "The City Nymph" and took place in a park along the Hudson River. It was sort of my way to wrestle with the fact that faith is absurd, but we have it anyway, but in a light and non-preachy way.  The play centers on a young man who is trying to convince his lover that a magical city nymph lives in the park.  The girl, on the other hand, has to choose between the magic she wants to believe in and the necessities of life.  The nymph shows up minutes after she leaves, challenging the young man's understanding of why she exists.  Unfortunately, as is the case with live theater, especially site-specific theater, things do not always go as originally planned.

In other words, it rained.

Which means the plays had to be taken out of the spots they were written for, and rehearsed in, and which has grown to be part of them, and placed inside.  We had 15 minutes to re-block the whole thing before performance.  So I was really bummed, but, because my director and actors are brilliant, we were able to overcome this obstacle.  The show went really well and it was really well received.  In fact, all five site-specific plays were really strong.  I loved getting the chance to see all of them.   Its really incredible what a strong ensemble can do thematically with just less then five minutes.

I am really proud of the performance, and I feel like it was a good first impression for the rest of my MFA cohort of my writing style.  I feel confident moving forward.  Of course, there wasn't much time to back in the fun of it all.  I went straight home and started working on my next play for Colab (short for collaboration, the class in which we produce original work.)  I'm not really able to go into details about the next project, other than it is must more intensive.  20 minute surrealistic one-acts.  Beyond that, I'm not really ready to speak.  Our first draft is due Friday.

I have received some requests that I write about the social life in New York.  This is a bit difficult for me, because up to now I thought writing about theater WAS writing about the social life haha.  I guess it all depends.  I haven't really been to any of those famous West Village clubs yet, mostly because of expense and, alas, I've been having a not very easy time finding a job that is flexible enough to accommodate my work and school schedule.  There is one place, though, that Joe and I have sort of become regulars at.  It's called Brandy's Piano Bar and it's AWESOME.  It's a little hole-in-the-wall sort of place a couple blocks from my apartment, but its great because, well, its a piano bar.  The entire staff sings, bartenders, waiters, whatever, not just the piano player, who is also very good.  They are all amazingly talented and sing everything from Lady Gaga to show tunes.  It's a very good time.  There's also no cover, which is great, but there's a two drink minimum and the drinks are a bit pricey.  That being said, its a great show and a ton of fun.

Also, of course, its Notre Dame football season, and we are actually doing well! Which is nuts.  The ND alumni club game watch is at a bar called The Public House right by Grand Central, so we went there for the Stanford game, and it was great to be able to watch it surrounded by cheering Notre Dame fans.  (The week before we went to a regular sports bar and had to sit next to a table of Miami fans and it almost got ugly.) Also, at the alumni game watch Joe entered a raffle and actually won four Jets tickets, so last weekend I went to the Jets game, which also happened to be my first pro football game.  It was all right, but I really do prefer college football. The game day atmosphere was just... kinda blah.  And the cheerleaders were really lame.  I'm sure those ex strippers couldn't even do a handspring.

Other than that, we've really been trying to go to a different part of Manhattan every weekend.  We've done Bleeker street and the Village, anywhere where there are drink specials haha.  We have yet to go dancing yet, but I'm putting the pressure on Joe and I'll let you know when we do.

Finally, as for shows, this week I saw Dispatches from (A)mended America, at the Epic Theater Ensemble.  It was a piece of journalistic theater where two actors toured the Southern United States interviewing various people about what the election of the first Black president means to them.  They interviewed Evangelical ministers, political activists, civil rights leaders, ect. and got some pretty interesting information.  Basically, the underlying question was whether we not live in a post-racial America.  The conclusion, not at all surprising to me, is that we do not.  Racism is still alive and well and the election of a Black president doesn't really change a whole lot as far as the day-to-day lived experience of the Black community.  Fine.  That in and of itself would have been pretty interesting, or at the very least a valid study to do.  Politics aside, it is significant that we have a Black president and I'm not going to argue with that.  What I disliked about the piece, and pretty much everyone I saw the show with agreed (and these are theater people mind you) was that I felt that it was overly simplistic and really took for granted that Obama was some kind of civil rights leader.  The reality is that he's a highly controversial president, and not because of his race.  He's not MLK, he's Obama and he's not a saint.  The whole thing, frankly, came across as a campaign commercial for Obama.  Even though it was about the last election, the fact that it is being produced now inevitably ties it to this election, and that bothered me.  The acting was... okay.  I found it kind of cheesy and affected.  As someone who writes journalistic theater, I thought the fact that they didn't even bother to find a story-line was a cop-out.  And I'm just not going to be moved to tears over Obama's election.  Then again, if it was a woman president I might feel differently about it.  Actually I'm sure I would.  It drives me crazy that 50% of the population has been represented in the oval office 0% of the time.  But its not a matter of whether or not Obama is a good president, the election is historical in and of itself.  The attempt to deify him bothered me.  Presenting him as more complex would have made the production more nuanced and would have allowed it to appeal to people who weren't necessarily supporters of his policies.  This is about as fair an assessment of the production as I can get without getting political.  And this is not a political blog.