when i was 14 years old i saw the video for “stand” and read the rave review of green in rolling stone and i decided if i truly wanted to be cool i needed to get into r.e.m.  fortunately for me, i fell madly in love with this band.  it was a love affair that lasted up until their last two albums (yes, i liked a lot of around the sun, sue me).

in college, i directed a small ballet to “nightswimming” which was a song that became a madeleine to my early years in new york.  i can’t hear it without breaking down into a fit of nostalgia.  songs like “losing my religion,” “drive,” “country feedback,” “seven chinese brothers,” “driver 8,” “oddfellows local 151,” “electrolite” . . . all gorgeous and evocative of florida, kansas, southern california, fire island, and greenwich village . . . all the places i have brought their music to.

i just read the band broke up (and also read that michael stipe is naked on his tumblr . . . which was like a sorry-grateful moment for me, omg).  it’s been a day of weird nostalgia as i finally gave in and purchased the new tori amos record which i think i may like more than i thought.  old musical loves die hard.  thanks, guys.

it’s no secret i fetishize paper and writing instruments.  i went though two big crazy phases with pens and pencils and i’m dialing it down a lot lately (i limit my purchases greatly . . . usually to a dozen woodcased pencils every year or so . . . and ink refills).  i was even thinking i need to box up the scores of fountain pens i don’t use and put them away somewhere (i’m loathe to get rid of them since every so often i remember one i used to like and it enters my rotation again).  however, something odd’s happened in the last couple weeks.  normally i carry a couple pencils and three pens–my trusty sailor sapporo, a pelikan m205 and an old pilot knight flighter that’s all beat up but built like a tank.  but i took out my pilot vanishing point (a retractable fountain pen) and remembered how nice it is . . . and threw 2 of my lamys into my bag, along with a cheap pilot 78g stub.  i also have 8 pencils in my bag, 2 sharpeners, a clickable eraser and refills for two of the pilots and the sailor.  i also bought two new inks last night, both by j. herbin which is like the chanel of fountain pen ink–orange indien (see above) and poussiere de lune (a dusky purple).  the color orange is a big deal for me (my ipad cover is orange) mostly because i like that it’s the color associated with the 2nd chakra (creativity and sex).  i mostly use blue ink because of the chakras as well (blue rules the throat chakra which helps with communication).  the purple is more of a 3rd eye chakra color (it skews more indigo than violet).   it’s weird because i’m a bit agnostic about the chakras.  i think i like them as intellectual contructs that help me focus my concentration of different parts of my life (i appreciate that sex and creativity are linked . . . that’s a potent symbol for me). i also love color and part of my fetish about stationery is using the sensual/tactile experience of writing to ground me.  one reason i love wood cased pencils so much is the smell of incense cedar and the pleasure of sharpening.  i also love the feel of graphite on paper.

i think i’m feeling that the writer in me has changed greatly (this blog is the only place i use my old lowercaseletter style of writing these days) and i’m sort of gathering tools for what lies ahead.  i still need to tie up the loose ends in rachmaninoff”s ending, but mostly i look at my future with optimism but also a lot of questions.  i don’t know what my next play looks like.  i have no idea.  i know there will be more.  possibly stories and poems too.  who knows?  i love keeping a notebook open at my desk.  i love writing things down.  even if it’s stupid stuff like “why am i so sleepy today?”  i cannot live without the page.  that’s a good realization to have.

they should be smiling.  they just got some nice reviews!

(from top to bottom)
imelda, sharon, mink, monia, tilda

i caught a preview performance last week and i don’t know what else to write about this show that i haven’t already.  i will say that despite an acting performance that i will probably remember for the rest of my life, bernadette peters’s sally was vocally underpowered.  jan maxwell, danny burstein, ron raines, jayne houdyshell and terri white fare much better.  elaine paige was incredibly entertaining though i had issues with her backphrasing of “i’m still here.”  i did walk away with a newfound appreciation for “you’re gonna love tomorrow”/”love will see us through” which are very clever songs.  i was also floored with the fact that despite how much sondheim changes his musical palette in this show, the lyrics have a thematic cohesion that made the dramatist/dramaturg in me get all hot and bothered.  sondheim’s passion is the show that taught me how to make sure the imagery and language in every play adheres to a common vocabulary … but i can see he was on to that in follies with all the mentions of time, yesterday, today, tomorrow, mornings, evenings, regret, and memory.

broadwayworld.com has a wonderful set of photos up on their site.  (link).

last year i wrote adrian on the island the fire island play i kept threatening to write while i was weekending out there.  it’s one of those “sitting on my harddrive/dropbox” plays having just received a reading … and that’s it.

the central event of the play is a hurricane heading to long island and adrian and baxter, the ariadne and bacchus of the play, stay on the island and succumb to their love for each other as the storm passes.  at the moment, hurricane irene is heading up this way and i’ve been preparing to stay holed up in brooklyn until monday.  it’s a bit nerve-wracking as i have two cats to fend for now and it’s just me by myself making all these preparations.  i’m not in an evacuation zone at the moment, and most likely this will just pass over and bring lots of wind and water to my neck of brooklyn with not much serious damage.  i hope i have enough water (slowly accumulating my recommended four gallons . . . but probably need five since seaweed and lulu also need some!) and that the power doesn’t go for too long.  i have plenty of candles and the battery life on my kindle is insane so i can read for several days straight (or gasp switch to paper books which i also have plenty of).

today is also the 19th anniversary of my moving to new york.  i left on the heels of hurricane andrew hitting south florida and the writer in me is creating patterns with a hurricane hitting again on the anniversary of a major life change for me.  is there another turning point in store for me?  who can say?  i remember 19 years ago exactly.  i remember how excited and terrified i was.  i have no idea how i was able to handle that crazy amount of emotional stimuli.  but i was here to learn and to express myself and create.  my longing for artistic expression was my beacon through the internal maelstrom i was experiencing.

i finished a draft of on rachmaninoff’s birthday this summer.  i’ve been revising act three for the last couple weeks which has been challenging . . . mostly because i feel like i am writing completely differently.  i used to get first drafts done and then just show them to people or mount readings and not really care about what needed fixing until i got to rehearsal and i’d fix as i’d go.  i’m feeling more like a craftsman these days.  i want to care about this play and really work out what i want to say before i show it to other people.  i used to just want a product i can get praise for and these days i want to do a good job.  maybe i can make some headway on my revisions while i am stuck at home this weekend.

i’ve been thinking a lot about richard strauss since his music was the driving force behind adrian.  my operatic tastes have veered into bel canto since i wrote the play, but strauss’s music feels so right for storms.  it’s wild and passionate and violent and utterly gorgeous.  but i’m feeling a bit nostalgic today and i think i would like to link to a clip from der rosenkavalier.  the final trio has always been one of my favorite pieces of music ever and i think as i am marking an anniversary, saying farewell to what’s past and welcoming what’s to come, the marschallin handing octavian over to sophie feels like just the thing for this post.

the play was produced at the fringe festival.  fringe festival productions for full length multi-character plays are very difficult and unless i write a play for a coat rack and a lightbulb, i probably won’t be producing at the fringe again.  it’s a format that favors lo-fi, low tech and quick and dirty theater.  i am not good at any of that.  (i’d suck as an indie rock musician because i’d keep wanting a string quartet.)  the nice thing about the fringe is you can get a production and maybe get some reviews.  the problem is that the kind of reviews you get can vary.  i suppose that’s true for all indie theater productions.  there are a plethora of smaller indie theater blogs out there and then there’s the larger more established press like time out new york, backstage and the grey lady herself who often doesn’t bother with indie stuff.  my first fringe outing was blessed with some incredibly positive reviews.  the 2nd (and subsequent 2nd production) was not so fortunate.  the 3rd was incredibly challenging.  i decided to stop reading the reviews.  i couldn’t handle it.  i had put so much of myself into this play and my last production earned me the worst review of my career (this critic was almost going to come review the last packawallop show and i had to go into emergency lockdown mode . . . probably physically leave the premises . . . but he never showed).  i had to protect my experience of this play at all costs.  looking back at that time, i was really tense in rehearsals because i was fighting my insecurity.  i needed the play to be the best possible thing ever.  so when the mixed reviews came in, i started to feel like it didn’t matter what i did.  i was a failure.

so 3 years later, i see this play is very good.  it’s improved somewhat from it’s fringe outing thanks to a reading it got a year later where i was able to simplify some stuff and cut about 20 minutes from the play.  it marks a very positive development in my development as a craftsman.  and this morning i happen to read one of those bad reviews as i was doing some self-promo on facebook.  it has been a rocky morning.

why is it that some random person’s opinion can easily overpower all the amazing work i did on a project?  why can it render the hours and hours of research and and writing and revising moot?  why can it can sap all the love and passion i poured into the project until there’s nothing left?  i never understand this.  as an artist who works in a public medium, it’s very difficult to balance out what i feel about what i’ve done vs. what others feel.  who’s right?  there are many examples of work that was ill-received because of timing or close-minded audiences or critics.  there are also many examples of self-deluded writers (i have encountered many of these first hand).  which camp am i in?

it’s been three years in between full lengths.  finishing a draft of the new play filled me with such fear.  i feel like i try to tear off a small piece of myself and work it into the fabric of each play because as a spectator i often tear off a small piece of myself in return.  art is about getting in touch with sensation, humanity, our wounds, our failings, and hopefully our beauty.  it’s dangerous work to be tearing off pieces of yourself in good faith and trying to protect yourself, yet keep yourself pliant and vulnerable enough that you can tear off another piece when it’s time for the next project.

i’m in a very quiet period of my career right now and i don’t know how long it will last.   it begs another question.  if bad reviews can alter the way i think about my work, what do no reviews or even no productions  . . .  or even readings mean?  do i even exist?  do i even have a career any more or am i writing as a *gasp* hobby?  how do i sustain myself until (hopefully, ganesh/god/buddha/madonna, soon!) the next phase of my career begins?

i’ve been trying to figure out how to write about these two shows on here.  i saw unnatural acts at classic stage company last week and david greenspan’s double bill of the patsy and jonas this sunday and i’ve been circling around their retro queerness . . . and the fact that both shows had incredible parquet floors on their sets.  they were also productions that were about performance.  sexuality and identity and performance are the things that drive my work and the work we’re interested in packawallop … and it’s rare i see two productions that speak to me in my aesthetic language in one week.  i usually get one a year (or at best two . . . i was very fortunate to get brief encounter and sleep no more in one season last year).

unnatural acts is about the secret courts of harvard at the beginning of the 20th century that ferreted out gay students after one student committed suicide.  the production was conceived in early tectonic theater project style with the company collaborating on the script and a director shaping it into a production (tony speciale does the honors here, and quite beautifully).  my experience with watching the show was very complicated.  at first i was trying to remember all the characters and their backstories . . . and dealing with some unexpected feelings that came up about watching privileged white gay men at an ivy league school (even if it was nearly 100 years ago).  secondly, my theater practitioner eyes kept kicking in when a set change happened or a i saw an actor’s particular physical character choices that made me go “aha! that’s theatrical!  that’s invested!” (i was particularly impressed by nick westrate’s arch ernest roberts and max jenkins’s stanley gilkey . . . both actors were alive and present on stage in a way i desire for the work i do).  i was admiring a lot.  the choices felt right, solid, gorgeous.  but it wasn’t until the middle of act two that suddenly i felt myself getting emotionally carried away.  the veneer of the production and the characters cracks open and 3 emotionally violent scenes follow each other in quick succession (including one with a very terrifying roderick hill who played benny in a workshop of silent concerto  . . . at tectonic theater project many moons ago).  the climax of the play involves an explosion of ultra choreographed movement that was borne out of gestures i had seen throughout the play where the men try to hide their flamboyance while being interviewed by the court . . . and then these tics and mannerisms become a ritualized dance, an outpouring of expression that served as counterpoint for a ferocious monologue our narrator eugene cummings was exorcising out of his body.  i was in tears.

i was at new dramatists with david greenspan and we were in a reading together once.  i have long loved his work.  his play jack was a big influence on me back in the 90s.  he is an astounding performer and a incredibly gifted writer.  i got to see both skills on display on sunday at the transport group’s double feature of the patsy and jonas.  it’s funny because i loved, loved, loved the patsy which all the reviews tend to shower with praise.  it was a delight to watch david play all the parts in the 1925 play and with equal parts delight and sensitivity (he makes the jokes land as well as very honest emotional truths from the characters).  it was one of the greatest performances i’ve ever seen (up there with zoe caldwell in master class, patti lupone in gypsy,  and marina poplavskaya in la traviata).  but it was jonas, the one most of the reviews are scratching their heads over, that haunted me.

jonas is a 30 minute aria where greenspan creates an inner life for jo, the manservant from the royal family, which he played recently in a revival.  jo … or jonas … is invented by the actor greenspan (and the writer greenspan, as well as edna ferber and george s. kaufmann) and jonas invents another man named mcquaid that wanders around a “homesexual mileu” in the 20s.  ”is this a play?” greenspan asks.  and at times it felt more like a beautiful prose piece than a play, but here’s the thing . . . the language was meant to be spoken.  the language was meant to be spoken in this very particular way.  there was structure and music, particular cadences and repetitions that gave the piece architecture.  i wasn’t always able to follow all of it myself (i am not familiar with the royal family) . . . but who cares?  watching the patsy and jonas was like seeing the alexander mcqueen and richard serra shows at the met back to back.  the patsy was like the mcqueen.  theatrical and daring and fabulous.  jonas was like the serra.  enigmatic and hypnotic and emotionally devastating.  i watched jonas at the edge of my seat with my hand covering my mouth.  i felt incredibly fortunate.  here was beauty.  here was something real and stupendous and rapturous and passionate.  this is what i go to the theater for.  and it is what i rarely see.

and sadly, most critics (save isherwood, ironically, who kind of admired jonas) missed the point.

i think i see what the connection between these two shows is for me.  both showed me that there is a way structure and intricate performance style can also contain room for rapture and rhapsody.  the wild crescendos and coloratura of the opera can happen in a play, in a performance, in language.  that these plays are somehow linked to sexuality and a sexuality this is occult and needs revealing is no accident.  the connection of eros and expression is a cornerstone of gay literature and film and theater and music and dance and art.  it reminds me why i want to make things.  why i want to make things to be seen.  to be experienced.

i’ve been spending the morning recovering from partying hard at a friend’s wedding last night (oh lordie, champagne and dancing to madonna is fun in the moment, but at 37 i get a little creaky the next day!) so i was a little behind on finding out about the passing of amy winehouse.

i immediately posted a status update and a video on facebook and then burst into tears … so i figured a blog post was in order.

it’s incredibly strange to me because i am not a huge fan of amy’s first album and the majority of my connection to her was through back to black.  i first heard back to black during a very difficult moment in my life.  for all of 2006, i was grieving the loss of a relationship i had invested a great deal of myself into and the loss of my grandmother who had died suddenly from bone cancer.  i had also suffered a great disappointment when a production of the silent concerto fell through after months of negotiating with lawyers.  it was not uncommon to see me walking around with a cigarette in my mouth and some alcoholic beverage in my hand.  i was not in good shape.

my ex and i had a huge love for girl groups and 60s pop, particularly dusty springfield.  i mourned that relationship by listening to stuff like the supremes singing “too hurt to cry and too much in love to say goodbye,” pp arnold’s “the first cut is the deepest,” reparata and the delrons’ “i’m nobody’s baby now,” and of course dusty’s “losing you.”  so when i saw and heard amy winehouse, i basically took an instant liking to her.  she looked like a boozed up ronnie spector, had the impeccable phrasing of dusty, and had a little of courtney love’s crazy thrown in.  ”back to black,” “the tears dry on their own,” “love is a losing game,” “wake up alone,” instantly became battle anthems for me … and the defiance of “rehab” and “you know i’m no good” gave me the illusion of a little bit of power (and the delusion that the spiral of crazy i was engaging in was ok).

joni mitchell sang “songs are like tattoos,” and i am reminded of that today and i scan my facebook feed and see how many people were touched by back to black as much as i was.  i am not a tangled ball of self-destruction today.   i got over that heartbreak.  i got over the disappointment of that lost production.  i’ve written more plays.  dated some more guys.  quit smoking and got my life together in a whole bunch of other ways.  i also remember my grandmother’s phone calls with love (she always called and said, “aaah-le-jan-droooo!”  and am so glad to have had her in my life . . .

however, after the success of back to black, i saw my go into self-destruct mode.  she reunited with her “blake incarcerated,” she ran around stealing cocktails from people in st. lucia, she wandered around london in filthy clothes, she was doing crack and heroin.  i remember being on a message board i frequented at the time and arguing with folks on an “amy winehouse deathwatch” thread someone created in snarky jest.  i was so invested in amy because back to black had gotten me through so much, i couldn’t give up on her.  it’s bizarre.  completely bizarre and illogical, but listening to these songs again today have reminded me of my scars and they’ve reminded me of the importance of art.

the ultimate tragedy here is amy never really got the opportunity to heal herself … despite the impact she made on so many.

patti and tyne in some theatrical vortex where mamma rose and maria callas are one and the same
(speaking of, you know, callas would have made an amazing rose . . . can you imagine her
rose’s turn?  ”ho dato tutto a te, june!  ho dato tutto a te, miss gypsy rose lee!”)