December 2011
1 post
Kielbasa and Eggs
Several years ago, I sliced a few of Baczynsky’s home-made kielbasas, fried them, and scrambled them into eggs as part of Christmas morning breakfast. This was something I’d never tried before and which, by most reports, was fairly successful.
Early the following October, my son, who was 7 at the time, came running up to me excitedly and asked “Dad! Dad! Dad! Are we going to...
July 2011
1 post
Hamlet: Opening Night
In less than two hours, my production of Hamlet will open at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. This project has been an exquisite joy and a great, if confounding satisfaction. It’s been a privilege to work with this group of people, many of whom I’ve worked with for several years, and a few of whom I met within the last few months.
Opening nights can be melancholic...
June 2011
1 post
Hamlet: Final Studio Rehearsal
We did the Hamlet designer run in the studio today, our last studio rehearsal. Where did the time go? No, really. Where? The last seven weeks have absolutely flown by. Now we’re moving the project upstate to our tent theatre in Garrison, NY.
It’s difficult to encapsulate all that has happened while getting Hamlet off the page and into our bodies. More difficult to predict what...
May 2011
4 posts
Hamlet Begins!
The first read of HVSF’s production of Hamlet was today. What a breathtaking script! It’s incredible that Shakespeare sustained such a high level of excitement through such a long script. Never boring. Never slows. The HVSF Acting Company dove in head-first and gave a first-rate first reading so we have a really good sense of the road ahead. May it be wild and bumpy.
April 2011
10 posts
The Trip Around Starts Today!
Sitting in the studio listening to the first reading of our upcoming summer production of Around the World in 80 Days adapted from the Jules Verne novel by Mark Brown. Everyone in the room is dripping with laughter. Wes, Rick, Jason, Ryan, Vaishnavi all have hilarious initial takes on ALL their many (39) characters. Chris Edwards (director) feels like he’s along for the ride. So do I.
The...
Nearly Midnight - Hamlet Rehearsals have begun
First day of HVSF Rehearsals for 2011 Season have begun. Terrific group of people. This is a tragedy, right? Then why have we been laughing so hard all day?
Very grateful to be here!
Eiko and Koma at the BAC
I went with my 15-year-old son to see Eiko and Koma’s retrospective and the installation of their piece ‘Naked’ at the Baryshnikov Arts Center this evening. It was a remarkable performance, unlike anything I’ve seen. Very peaceful but with an undercurrent of rustling, rain, feathers, straw, and an audience in close proximity with the performers. Contemplative, hypnotic,...
March 2011
1 post
A great story about a great woman
My wife’s grandmother, Jenne Cohen, worked in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory when she was 16. One day, she got into an altercation with her abusive boss who refused to let a co-worker use the bathroom. Jenne threatened her boss with an open scissor, insisted he let the girl use the bathroom, and then walked off the job in a fury.
A few days later, 100 years ago today, the factory burned...
December 2010
2 posts
“Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and...”
– Bertrand Russell (via Jenne O’Brien)
Miser = Misery
What little Latin I know, I have learned by drilling my son, Leo, on his Latin vocabulary each evening. I find it fascinating to see how the origins of English words can be traced back to this ancient language.
Tonight I learned the following:
míser, mísera, míserum; wretched, miserable, unfortunate (misery, Miserere, commiserate)
How fascinating that ‘miser’ and...
October 2010
2 posts
The Odyssey at Georgia Shakespeare
I’m in Atlanta this evening, and I saw Georgia Shakespeare’s production of The Odyssey, Directed by and adapted from Homer by Richard Garner, and very attuned to contemporary soldiers’ experiences returning home from wars like Iraq and Afghanistan. A number of veterans and their families were in the audience.
The production was very striking, moving, beautiful, very theatrical,...
“A person never really knows a lesson until he tries to pass it on to somebody...”
– Anonymous
September 2010
3 posts
“Remember the advice offered in the movie “Sideways” to Miles, who has been...”
– From Carpe Diem? Maybe Tomorrow by John Tierney, NY Times, Dec 28, 2009.
“One of the favorite maxims of my father was the distinction between the two...”
– Hans Henrik Bohr, writing about his father in “My father” in Niels Bohr - His Life and Work As Seen By His Friends and Colleagues (1967), S. Rozental, ed.
Troilus and Cressida Closing Night
My production of Troilus and Cressida at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival closed tonight. Full house, great weather and an extraordinary performance by a terrific company in front of a receptive and vocal audience. It was one of those rare and wonderful evenings at which I could only beam. A confluence of blessings capped by a closing party filled with genuine and humble joy. I am truly...
August 2010
1 post
NYTimes Review of Troilus and Cressida →
Ben Brantley reviews HVSF’s production of Troilus and Cressida in the New York Times. Tickets still available for Wed and Sat.
July 2010
2 posts
TJ and Dave
My family and I saw TJ and Dave at the Barrow Street Theatre in NYC this evening.
TJ and Dave walk out onto the stage, on which there are three wooden chairs, and each evening create a new story from scratch with no script, no outline, no plan.
Rather than give any further description of what they do, I can only heartily recommend you look at their website and catch a performance at the next...
“Just fill your basket full of sandwiches and weenies
Then lock the house up,...”
–
Artist: Nat King Cole
Words by Charles Tobias and Music by Hans Carste
June 2010
5 posts
Cracking a Fusty Nut?
The Bomb-itty of Errors opened Sat night in HVSF’s tent at Boscobel. A huge success. Kudos to Chris Edwards, Mike Borrelli, Wayne Carr, Patrick Halley and Christian Jacobs, Melissa Daghini, and many others who contributed to this skillful, hilarious and very generous production.
Next coming down the pike is Taming of the Shrew directed by Kurt Rhoads. I saw the first preview Friday, and it was...
Torture Killer by Six Feet Under
In the midst of a busy month, three productions opening, including Bomb-itty of Errors, tonight at 8, I took the beautiful afternoon off to take a boat ride on the East River and listen to a group of teenagers, including my son, Leo, play heavy metal. The above-titled song is my favorite so far. Two and a half hours to go!
Something worth keeping in mind.
“The first rule of theater is that there are no rules—other than not to be dull. Practice always trumps theory onstage, and nearly anything, no matter how absurd it may seem, can be made to work if it’s charged with conviction.”
Terry Teachout in the WSJ, 6/16/10
I’m heading toward opening night of Troilus and Cressida. The above is good advice for me to remember. Left...
Watching Black Orpheus
Friends came by tonight and we watched Black Orpheus. It is a movie of which I never tire. I’ve seen it 10 times or more, alone, with my kids, with friends. It never fails to reduce me to a puddle.
It’s hard for me to pinpoint exactly why I find it so brilliant and so moving. The music, the relentless drumming, the incredible movement, the visual beauty, the clever way in which...
Studio and Beyond
Final studio run-through of Troilus and Cressida this afternoon, for designers.
Studio Rehearsal ends Sunday. Where did the time go??? We cut over 900 lines from the script. Still plenty of play there. No doubt about it. We could cut more, but it’s starting to crackle now, so I’m going to go with the script we’ve distilled.
I have a terrific cast. They’re really...
May 2010
5 posts
February 2010
4 posts
Lincoln Center Buys British
From my vantage point, I can’t argue with Terry Teachout’s piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. He’s dead on.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703315004575073593965772912.html
The fact that Ohio State University and the Wexner Foundation sunk seven-figures of US money into hosting the Royal Shakespeare Company in New York City for a six-week residency in...
Avatar. Finally.
Finally saw Avatar today, in IMax 3D. Very beautiful, visually, a strange and original look. Leo and I thought, speculatively, it might have come from James Cameron’s undersea work. Exhilarating to watch, never dull for a minute.
I would humbly submit that the movie might have been helped by a little more moral ambiguity and depth. Corporate Military bad, Nature People good. But...
A Life of Louis Armstrong
I just finished reading Terry Teachout’s terrific biography, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong. Beautifully written, evocative, very entertaining, not to mention informative, I can’t recommend it enough.
I quote the last paragraphs below, which brought me to tears as I read.
——-
Not long before he [Armstrong] died, he wrote to a friend that “my whole life has been...
January 2010
3 posts
Annual Meeting
It’s not too cornball to say Arts thrive under adversity.
The HVSF Board held its annual meeting Sat am, 1/30. The Presidents began the meeting by cataloging an impressive list of Festival accomplishments, all achieved during what was supposed to have been an off year, the bad economy and the doom and gloom that went along with it, etc. While foundation and corpororate granting declined...
Who Owns Shakespeare?
I’m in a plane getting ready to take off for London to attend a conference which will address the question ‘Who owns Shakespeare?’. I thought I knew the answer to that already, but my mind is open…
Who Owns Shakespeare?
I’m in a plane getting ready to take off for London to attend a conference which will address the question ‘Who owns Shakespeare?’. I thought I knew the answer to that already, but my mind is open…
December 2009
2 posts
“The party’s on
The spirit’s up
We’re here tonight
And...”
– Paul McCartney
“You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold....”
– from The Reading Mother by Strickland Gillilan
November 2009
4 posts
“Seek mercy, my son. We are all poor and what’s left to be said is the poor...”
– Black Orpheus
“Names enclosed in italic brackets indicate originators of conjectural...”
– From the General Editors’ Preface to the Arden Shakespeare Troilus and Cresida
“First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate...”
– Leo Rosten