Linda Eisenstein: Plays, Music, & More

Monday, June 26, 2006

WHY I LOVE ACTORS

Playwrights don't always like to admit it, but often actors can get to know your characters so well, they know them better than you do.

After I posted my first Yosemite blog entry, I got an email from an actor who played Albert in two early readings of THREE THE HARD WAY. He corrected me about my play. "Albert never mentioned anything about sprinkling his ashes in the Sierra," he said. Then he gave me the actual quote -- it was in a recalled telephone conversation about the weather, "time to hit the high country". That made one of the daughters think about sprinkling his ashes there.

I looked it up, and son-of-a-gun! He was right.

The punch line: He played Albert 10 years ago.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

MASSIVE ROCK SLIDE - NEAR YOSEMITE

We tried to drive down the Merced River to see the rock slide which had closed one of the main roads into Yosemite -- Route 140 -- but the park ranger at the Merced entrance told us we wouldn't be able to get anywhere near it.

This is an aerial photo from the Mariposa County Sheriff's web site taken by Dave Lombard. There's also an impressive photo here.

The slide is so humongous that the road to Mariposa and Merced may be closed from 6 months to a year. That's because geologists think the slides will continue -- maybe until a whole lot of the mountain comes down. They'll have to wait until it stabilizes and then have to figure out where to put a new road. One lucky break -- the slide didn't take out the electricity for Yosemite Valley (it came close).

This is really hard for the folks who live in Mariposa, like the ranger who talked with us. The normally pleasant 30 minute commute to Yosemite now is a punishing 2 hours with the detour via the South Entrance. It's going to butcher all the tourist businesses on that side of the Park.

HOMIES GET RAVES

Some terrific ink for a couple of my homies:

- My cousin Andrew Samonsky gets a rhapsodic review for his performance as the lead in Jonathan Larson's TICK TICK BOOM! (the Los Angeles premiere)

- Chris Weikel (a fellow TOSOS member) gets a lovely notice as Robert Benchley in the musical TALK OF THE TOWN (NYC)

- and check out the site of my pal Annetta Marion's new film ALASKA. Annetta is the co-Artistic Director of Independent Pictures, which runs the Ohio Independent Film Festival.

Monday, June 19, 2006

YOSEMITE HIGH COUNTRY - WOW!

I'm taking a week off in California, most of it in Yosemite National Park. I've been to Yosemite at least 15 times in my life, probably more (I grew up in San Francisco), but I've never seen it with so much water. There was a huge snowmelt this year, and the waterfalls are unbelievably lush.

Bridalveil Falls (left) has as much volume as Yosemite Falls usually does, and there are waterfalls in places I've never seen before. We were really lucky because the Tioga Road had just opened, so we had access to some incredibly beautiful places.

Here's a picture of Ellsworth Lake in the Yosemite high country, where we drove today:



Albert (the father in my play Three the Hard Way) always wanted his ashes to be scattered in the high Sierra camps. This kind of beauty is one reason why.

PIG PATTER on Saturdays

I just got confirmation from Live Girls! Theater that the Seattle area performances of PIG PATTER will take place on Saturdays (4 pm and 8 pm) during the June 30-July 22 run.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

TV TAPING TONIGHT

Tonight I'm finally going to do a taping on a local cable TV arts show. The producer, Wake Up and Live Studio's Sue Johnson, has been bugging me for at least 6 months to do an interview, but it's been very hard to find a Thursday date when I've been available. Either I've had Dark Room, or been out of town, or had Cleveland Orchestra tix (those I never give up), or some other conflict.

So even though I am leaving in the morning for 10 days in California, I am driving over to the Adelphia studios to do my thing. I had hoped to have one of the actors from MARLA'S DEVOTION to do a scene, but Denise is still running in CPT's Fefu and her Friends (incredible show, one more weekend) and Maria has another commitment at the LGBT Center.

I was trying to figure out what to wear -- TV has funny rules -- and came across this DO AND DON'T list. LOL! 80% of my tops are black, much of the rest are red (and thanks, but I don't particularly care to look like "an inflamed kidney") or has some undesirable print. All the cool summer shifts I just bought for myself will make me look like a psychedelic couch. (Not that there's anything wrong with that...)

I literally have to ransack the backs of every closet in the house to look for something acceptable, or head for Value City before the taping and hope for the best.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

GREAT RESOURCES FOR MUSICAL THEATRE

I know a lot of musical theatre writers around the country - many of them have been cyberpals for years. We've come to each other's shows, helped each other network, met for coffee, and generally kept in touch over the years.

Noel Katz has put together an incredible on-line "Study Guide" to classic musicals -- an analysis that includes writing tips and what the show can teach a writer. Noel is the author of "Our Wedding" - yes, when he and his actress wife got married a couple of years ago, he wrote a musical that the entire wedding party performed.

David Spencer's book THE MUSICAL WRITERS' SURVIVAL GUIDE has great stuff. There are excerpts on-line here.

Anybody even thinking about writing musicals needs to be a member of MusicalMakers, a Yahoo group with tons of writers & producers. Craft discussion, news, rants & raves, networking, you name it, it happens here.

PIGGIE PIGGIE PIG!

I have one more short play opening this month - my comedy PIG PATTER in Seattle at Live Girls! Theater. It's being done in their Quickies! Festival, which is where it originated several years ago. It's the 7th anniversary of Quickies, so they're bringing back 4 of the most popular pieces, and PIG PATTER is one of them.

The premiere totally rocked -- I didn't get to go, but they send me a video and Zoe Fitzgerald's production was drop dead hilarious. It takes a look at 3 teenage girls trash-talking in a high school bathroom, and weaves themes of girls' friendships and fights with a situation of sexual innuendo from a popular boy.

It's since had a NY production, and was recently published in GIRL TALK, an anthology from Theatrefolk in Toronto, which specializes in plays for student actors.

Quickies runs Thurs-Sat from June 30-July 22 in LIVE GIRLS!' new space in Ballard. As a "Classic Quickie", PIG PATTER will run every other performance, so if you're in Seattle and want to see it, email the theater about which particular days it's playing.


DEMO TIME FOR BECOMING GEORGE

For more than a week, I've been working on creating a demo recording for BECOMING GEORGE. Today I've finally finished an 8 song demo that shows off some of the best songs and also might give a producer some sense of the plot. I spent the morning in a conference call with my collaborators, then much of the rest of the day burning enough copies for us to send off to a short list of theaters, artistic directors, literary managers, and producers that have already expressed interest in the project.

Trying to get a new musical shopped around is a time-consuming and frequently frustrating process. The theater business works at glacial speeds. Big theaters -- the ones that can afford to even consider mounting a new musical with period costumes -- make their decisions at least a year in advance. Well, it's already June, which means the 2006-2007 seasons of nearly all theaters are already booked. Barring winning the "sudden desperation sweepstakes", where a hole appears in somebody's season and you suddenly have an opportunity to slip under the radar, that means there probably won't be a production until 2007-2008.

Yes, fans, that means a year to 18 months before we can see another production -- and that's being optimistic! The exception to this is if a commercial producer gets interested, but even those folks are likely to try to partner with an existing theater.

Making musicals is kind of like real estate. You work for several years to design a house from scratch, build it, and paint it. If you're really, really lucky you get a first "tenant" (a theater or producer) who will rent it out. You're overjoyed! You work together for any number of months on decorating it and furnishing it -- maybe making some changes in the design along the way. Then 3-6 weeks later the show closes, the tenant moves out, and you've got an empty rental property that stays vacant for, maybe, the next 2 years.

If you think about this part too much, you go nuts. To get anywhere, you have to stay positive, concentrating on the day-to-day, step-by-step processes that have to be completed to get to the next production -- pitch meetings, networking, sending out scripts, etc. -- and hope for a really stellar next tenant.

Monday, June 12, 2006




TECH-YES! TECH-NO! INGENUITY 2006




Writers from the Dark Room - our monthly new works cabaret -- have put together an hour of short work on technology themes for the 2006 Ingenuity Cleveland Festival of Arts & Technology.

The selections were made last week; we tried them out at our last Dark Room performance evening (June 8) for audience feedback. We'll be having a performance on July 14 at 2 pm. The showcase will include a combination of short plays, monologues, poems, & songs. This time my contribution is going to be a song. Here's a flyer for the performance; come check it out.

Last year's Ingenuity was a blast. (check out the videos on the main site). I spent most of 3 of the 4 days hanging out and seeing events. In 2005 my main music man Michael Flohr put together a fantastic cabaret act of songs from my musicals with a quartet of great singers titled CHANGING THE WORLD: THE MUSICALS OF LINDA EISENSTEIN. The performance space was a converted alley between two downtown buildings, and it was great.

Mike & I had proposed a new short opera this year, were accepted, but because of a complicated confluence of circumstances (including being way overextended with BECOMING GEORGE), we had to cancel.

So I'm happy that thanks to the Dark Room, I'll be a small part of this year's Ingenuity after all.

ACME TEMPORARY SERVICES at P-TOWN FRINGE

I just remembered that I have another production coming up in ten days. ACME TEMPORARY SERVICES, my comic monologue about temp hell, is going to be performed in Provincetown, Massachusetts at the Provincetown Fringe Festival. It'll run every Thursday night at 7 pm, from June 22 - August 31.

It's being performed by P-town Fringe founder Marjorie Conn as part of a one-woman show every Thursday night called "Delirious Delectable Delovely Dames". The other material is by Dorothy Parker, Harold Pinter, and Marj herself.

It's a pleasure for me to have my material being done by a dame with some treadwear on her! So many of my monologues are performed by feisty new companies full of barely-out-of-school actors. I always appreciate the interest that students and young actors have in my work, but there are so few meaty, funny parts for women "of a certain age". So I like to write them, and I always enjoy seeing older women do them. I'm delighted that Marj is going to perform it all summer.

ACME is one of my most produced monologues. It's been called "gut-wrenchingly funny" (Entertainment Today), "hilarious" (nytheatre.com) "a hysterical slam against the corporate machine" (Off-Off-Broadway Review) and "a comic wet dream for anybody who's ever held a temporary job" (NoHoNews).

If anybody's in P-town this summer, please check it out and let me know how it went.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

BLOGGIN'

One of the things I'm discovering by blogging is that more seems to happen in a week in my writing/artist life than I normally give myself credit for. When I'm in production mode (like this spring with BECOMING GEORGE) I get so thoroughly immersed that I can hardly breathe and then for some period afterwards I feel so burned out that it seems like all I can do is hit the recliner with a stack of novels & a bowl of popcorn, or go to dumb summer movies, or play computer games.

(I am getting amazingly good at one called "Goldminer" where a Forty- Niner trolls underground for gold nuggets & the occasional diamond while trying to avoid gophers, bats, and big heavy rocks. Somehow it feels like the playwriting business.)

But as I blog I recognize that lots of little things do happen in a day that relate to my work. It's like "coupon clipping", noticing the little victories or schmoozes or networking things that go on in-between the big projects. It helps keep me positive especially when I'm in the inevitable post-production letdown phase.

And now a delightful discovery, as I google-searched blogs:

Not one but 2 grrlz related so much to my monologue ZOMBIE GRRRLZ FROM THE CRYPT (published in a Heinemann collection, and more recently by angle) that they copied it into their blogs. Kewl.


PATRICK CRONIN ON ACTING - & THREE THE HARD WAY

Just found a great article about an actor's career by stage/TV/film actor & teacher Patrick Cronin.

In October, Pat will be starring in my play THREE THE HARD WAY at East Tennessee State University, where he is the head of the acting program. We've been theatre list pals for years and have been trying for ages to have him play Albert in a production somewhere. Albert is the Zen-like dead gambler/pool player father of three interesting, hard-bitten women who have to gather in Reno to plan his funeral. I'm thrilled that he's arranged this opportunity.

The show will play at ETSU, then go to the American College Theatre Festival. He's also talked about "packaging" it to women's colleges - where he would take the role, and the students could play the daughters, and he could teach acting workshops while he's there.

THREE THE HARD WAY (now available from Dramatic Publishing) is a comedy-drama with three very meaty women's parts -- it's been done by over a dozen small theatres, including a bunch of colleges -- but it also needs the glue of a great acting performance by a male actor in his 50's-60's. I know that Pat is going to ROCK.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

BECOMING GEORGE - Review Roundup




Our musical BECOMING GEORGE closed at the end of May, after a successful 6-week run at MetroStage in Alexandria, WA. I finally got around to reading all the review quotes on the producer's web site. There were an awful lot of nice things people said about the show, and I wanted to share them:

What the Critics are Saying About

Becoming George


The Washington Post
“highly tuneful…evocative score stocked with fetching melodies…Cascades of piano notes, recalling the oeuvre of Sand’s lover, Chopin, twine past arching cello phrases. A brassy trumpet embroiders the edges of crisp military tunes.”
“It’s an impressive roster of talent and hats off to MetroStage and to the creative team for daring to peg a new musical…to this literary subject.”
- Celia Wren

DC Theatre Reviews - check out full review & podcast, too

“Does the musical capture the indomitable spirit, prodigious writings, and mind-boggling life choices of this self-named woman clearly far ahead of her time? Yes...”
“the musical celebrates the true and enduring love of George Sand-the power of artistry.”
“Taylor plays Sand with a strong yet weary-worn charm, an amazing contralto voice laced with jazzy undertones…”
“Meegan Midkiff is an absolute standout as Sarah Bernhardt with a lyrical voice of pure operatic beauty. Her duet with Taylor ‘Becoming George’ where she contemplates ‘Becoming Sarah’ produced audible sighs of delight throughout the audience.”
“In producing ‘Becoming George,’ MetroStage has proven once again that it has the heart and courage to trust a new script and fresh voices. Launching this ambitious story in a world premiere musical is in keeping with the indomitable trailblazing spirit of George Sand herself.”
- Debbie Minter Jackson

Washington City Paper
“…if you enjoy a well-written libretto exquisitely performed, ‘Becoming George’ is a must.”
“Taylor’s contralto perfectly matches Sand’s maternal warmth and subversive wit. ‘My heart goes out,’ she says, more than once, ‘to anything dawning or growing.’ What better way to grow old, this feminist-friendly production affirms, than to participate in the revolutions of the earth?”
- Pamela Murray Winters

The Washington Times
“Miss Taylor is a wise and intelligently benevolent presence as George Sand, and her voice is warmly reminiscent of cigars and cognac.”
- Jayne Blanchard

The Alexandria Times - full review
“Play offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of George Sand.”
“With a wonderful, witty script, beautiful music and sophisticated lyrics, the entire ensemble is cast to perfection as the intimate Alexandria theatre is transformed into Sand’s 300 acre French country chateau.”
“Brian Childers…is perfectly cast as the prince and delivers a brilliant dramatic performance that is highlighted by the compelling strength of his vocal abilities.”
“ ‘Becoming George’ is musical theatre at its best and MetroStage, known for giving voice to contemporary plays and musicals, is once again the architect of a production worthy of being called a ‘world premiere.’ ”
- Jeanne Theismann

“A musical is always in the process of ‘becoming.’…DC is a great theater town. There’s always a lot of theater and new plays here and MetroStage does a wonderful job of showcasing new talent.”
- Stephen Schwartz’s comments during a talk back following a performance of “Becoming George” as reported by Theismann in The Alexandria Times

PotomacStages.com
“…the feel of a chamber musical which fits very nicely into this intimate space.”
- Brad Hathaway

MetroWeekly
“Eisenstein’s dynamic score…rich with gliding harmonies…Midkiff is a dazzling vocalist…”
- Jolene Munch

The Gazette
“Kat Taylor…brings a certain grand dignity and presence to the title role.”
- Brad Hathaway

AllArtsReview4U.com
“an exceptionally fine cast, lush music, and the compelling story of fascinating characters…”
“Kat Taylor…captures the passion..creats a brillliant and witty character…Meegan Midkiff is the young Bernhardt well on her way to creating a celebrity on stage. Meegan Kidkiff herself is well on her way to becoming a top stage talent.”
“Both fascinating and highly entertaining, “Becoming George” is the one show not to be missed.”
- Celia Sharpe

TalkinBroadway.com
“ Taylor succeeds in making Sand a figure to be reckoned with, utterly determined, sometimes wounded , but fearless.”
“Howard Kurtz’s costumes are sumptuous and beautifully detailed.”
- Susan Berlin

DCist.com
“they certainly have a worthy George on their hands. Commanding without effrontery, seductive without brazenness, Kat Taylor’s George is everything Studio Theatre’s recent Miss Jean Brodie was not—a complicated, larger-than-middle-aged woman who fascinates while still seeming real. Plus, Taylor definitely can sing.”
“impressive harmonies…fun swashbuckling spirit…”
- Missy Frederick

Friday, June 09, 2006

ASPHALT JUNGLE

I'll be having two plays done in Kitchener, Ontario this September as part of the Asphalt Jungle Shorts Festival.

This incredibly cool site-specific event will take place all over the downtown area of Kitchener, with performances taking place in bars, on street corners, even a furniture store. The audience will bring their own chairs and keep moving them from site to site.

Two of my short plays are featured. My monologue BALANCING ACT, a Libra spilling offbeat secrets about her astrological sign, happens in the bar. It's a North American premiere -- its only other official production was in London.

The second is JUSTICE OF THE PEACE - where an unconventional middle-aged bride-to-be and her niece wait for the ceremony outside the JP's office in a municipal building. This will actually be staged in Kitchener's City Hall, very cool indeed.

The producer for Flush Ink, Paddy Gillard-Bentley, is the secretary of the International Centre for Women Playwrights, which is the cyberhome to many fine writers. True to form, there are many ICWP writers represented (although the scripts were blind-judged). Paddy is great -- we've worked together on ICWP web pages and tippled at more than one glass of wine outside our adjoining dorm rooms at the August, 2004 ICWP Writers' Retreat in Columbus (at Ohio State University).

MORE READING FOR THEATRE FOLK

- Audition tips from director Mindy Childress, who directed my satiric Christmas revue HOLIDAY HOTLINE.

- Controversial but extremely stimulating Manifesto for a Progressive Theatre by Walter A. Davis.


MARLA ON THE MARCH

I got good news from Denise Astorino, Artistic Director of Wild Plum Productions. Wild Plum is going to the Fresh Fruit Festival in New York City with my one-act MARLA’S DEVOTION. The two NYC performances are at the Collective Unconscious (love that name) on July 14th (6 pm) and July 15th (3 pm).

Wild Plum will present 4 performances in Cleveland from June 29-July 2 as a fundraiser. Thanks to the generosity of CPT's Raymond Bobgan, those will take place at Cleveland Public Theatre. Come check out the fabulous Denise as Marla and Maria Miranda as Joey.


OPTIONAL in Ten by Ten Festival

Heard yesterday that my 10 minute play OPTIONAL will be featured in the Ten By Ten in the Triangle Festival. These are the good folks in Carrboro, NC who produced HEART SMART several years ago. They do good work, and they pay the playwrights - no small feat. Not in a world where many small groups charge outrageous submission fees and then don't bother to pay.

Here’s the bill. A good half of the authors are members of the Playwright Binge submissions group – yay Bingers! The Festival is from July 13-July 23. Ten plays, ten actors, ten minutes, ten bucks.

Holy Hell - Barbara Lindsay

Larry Gets the Call - Matt Casarino

Lights Up Strangers - Ian Grody

Optional - Linda Eisenstein

Physics - Jerry Oster

Right Sensation - Rich Orloff

Ryan's List - Chris Swanson

Saver - Mark Harvey Levine

The Idiot's Guide to Classical Music - Doug Reed

This Bite - Kelly DuMar

WHY A BLOG?

Doesn't this woman already churn out enough words?

Today, I read a swell blogger's meditation about workshopping plays. It was the final piece of evidence to convince me how useful blogging can be as a way to share info, keep tabs on what's happening in the world of writing and theatre and life.

So, ready or not...

- Linda E.