
What’s New
Artists I admire: Frank Langella, Kathryn Erbe, and Florian Zeller
About ten days ago, I had the chance to see Frank Langella play the title role in The Father by Florian Zeller in an English translation by Christopher Hampton. I'm not entirely sure why I wanted to see it, other than wanting to see Frank Langella perform live and that the production directed by Doug Hughes had received positive reviews. Kathryn Erbe is also in it, and I knew her work from Law and Order: Criminal Intent.
Sharpening my axe
My play "Bromancing the OK" is featured as the Play of the Week on TreePress this week, and you can read a copy of it for free! I also did an interview for them, which was a lot of fun.
Artists I admire: Liane Tomasetti
On Thursday morning I attended Hunter College Elementary School's sixth grade production of Once on this Island, directed by Liane Tomasetti. I've known Liane for eight years now, and we've worked together on a number of projects over that time. She's been working at Hunter for this academic year, and this production marked something of a culmination of her work.
Looking for understanding rather than intolerance
Earlier the week, The New York Times published an opinion piece by Nicholas Kristof called "A Confession of Liberal Intolerance." In the piece, Kristof writes about the notion that academia is big on diversity but only when it fits a liberal mindset. He cites examples of conservative-leaning and/or evangelical Christian faculty members who feel uncomfortable expressing their viewpoints within an academic institution. And then there are some quantitative statistics that support these stories, which just add fuel to the fire.
Artists I admire: TreePress
On Friday, I had the chance to meet with Laura Fisher and Jespal Rajdev, who with their co-founder Adrienne Ferguson, started an online marketplace called TreePress. I've known about TreePress since about this time last year, when the idea was in its initial stages. I've been watching the progression of the marketplace's offerings with interest, but my conversation with Laura and Jes really solidified in my mind that the entire concept behind their online presence is truly innovative and has the potential to shift the way theatrical collaborators find one other, particularly playwrights and producers and educators.