Linda Eisenstein: Plays, Music, & More

2008-05-08T21:48:00.000-07:00

THREE THE HARD WAY - in South Africa

I got an email yesterday from Dennis Cunningham, a Massachusetts actor currently living in South Africa. He will be playing the role of Albert, the father in my play Three the Hard Way, later this month.

The production will be at the Milnerton Playhouse in metropolitan Cape Town, from May 23-31.

"I'm having a ball with the role," he writes. "Wonderful play. Thanks for writing it. I'll let you know how we do."

I also heard from Karen Jeynes, a colleague from the International Centre for Women Playwrights, who lives in Cape Town and plans to see the production. So nice to have friendly eyes and ears around the globe!

I found the theatre's April newsletter on the web - here's an excerpt:

"Three the Hard Way is now in rehearsal with my hardworking cast learning the techniques of playing pool and craps. My suggestion that we have the photo shoot in a pool bar or casino was greeted with great enthusiasm: I just hope they don’t all become candidates for Gamblers Anonymous by the time the play goes on the boards in May."

2007-12-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

STRANGER THAN FICTION

I got a funny piece of mail a while ago: a Worker's Comp claim for somebody claiming to work for "Acme Temporary Services". I spent several telephone calls with the legal services company trying to explain that I was not an employer or the owner of a temp firm. I'm the playwright of a comic monologue about a fictitious temp company who mainly employs artists, misfits, and burnouts: ACME TEMPORARY SERVICES.

"Do you really think anybody would actually run a company with the motto 'Ack me if I care?'," I asked the customer service rep, who ended up in stitches. But even then, her supervisor had to call me back to grill me about my "employee", who apparently lives in San Diego. I'm guessing he must be an actor who read my monologue in a Heinemann anthology, or saw it somewhere.

Life is stranger than fiction...

2007-11-12T11:12:00.000-08:00

ACME TEMPORARY SERVICES at Pandemonium

In September I performed a slightly cut version of my monologue ACME TEMPORARY SERVICES at the annual Pandemonium benefit at Cleveland Public Theatre. It was a hell of a good time. I'm a playwright, not an actor, and I usually read my own work rather than doing a full performance, so memorizing the monologue was a stretch for me. You wouldn't believe all the "cheat" props I had to help me get through it -- "resume" page (with script on it), "application" form (with script), "Employee Manual" (with script pages) -- you get the idea.

But I barely used them, and it went really swell. Raymond Bobgan, the A.D., told me later that he'd heard many compliments about it, and more than one person told me it was their fave piece of the night.

I wore my "prop" eyeglasses, some ancient Harlequin-style glasses on a chain I inherited from my favorite aunt. Unbelievably, her prescription was so close to mine -- including the amount of astigmatism -- I can read through them.

2007-01-30T22:50:00.000-08:00

An Evening of LUV

Three lovely comedies -- Just in time for Valentine's Day
February 2-4, 2007 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)

Everaftering by Greg Edwards
Optional by Linda Eisenstein
In Paris You Will Find Many Baguettes but Only One True Love by Michael Lew

Directed by Lisa Siciliano

Starring:
Benjamin Gregg
Remy Halliday
Bernadette Johnston-Peck
Arian Steiner

February 2 and 3, 2007 @ 8 pm
February 4, 2007 @ 2 pm

The Theatre at Acting Out
The Acting Out School of Performing Arts
23945 Mercantile Road Suite H,
Beachwood, OH 44122

$8 tickets at the door, $5 tickets if reserved in advance
For reservations email: aneveningofluv@yahoo.com

2006-09-07T20:58:00.000-07:00

Traveling to the Asphalt Jungle

Getting itchy feet from too many weeks at home, so I decided to take a short cruise into Ontario in 2 weeks. The Asphalt Jungle Shorts Festival in downtown Kitchener is featuring two of my short plays and I decided to go see them.

My monologue BALANCING ACT, about a Libra, is being performed in a bar -- this will be its North American premiere. (Its first performance was in London, England by Short & Girlie Productions.)

Also, JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, about a bride-to-be waiting for her lesbian wedding, is being performed in the Kitchener City Hall.

I'm particularly thrilled about the latter. It should have a very different resonance in Ontario, where gay marriage has been legal for a year (see Toronto Pride brides in photo) than here in Ohio, which recently passed an anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment (ick).

While I'm doing my theater swing through Ontario, I'll also get to see 3 other shows -- LONDON ASSURANCE at Stratford, and THE CRUCIBLE and THE MAGIC FIRE at the Shaw Festival. Both of these companies are among the best in North America, and it's great for them to be within driving distance. I'm crazy for Tadeusz Bradecki (THE CRUCIBLE), who is one of the best directors I've ever seen, and I've always wanted to see one of Lillian Groag's plays (THE MAGIC FIRE). And how often do you get to see a Dion Boucicault play?

2006-09-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

HEART SMART at Pandemonium 06

Because Cleveland Public Theatre's Pandemonium! benefit's theme is "The Cure for What Ails You", and A.D. Raymond Bobgan invited me to contribute a piece, I decided to mount a production of my award-winning 10-minute play HEART SMART.

It's a seriocomic dust-up in a hospital ward between a cardiac patient's 50-something wife and 20-something mistress. I have two terrific actors for the roles, who are divinely matched: Jacqi Loewy (photo), whom I've wanted to work with for years, and Teresa McDonough, whom I'm just getting to know. Terrific chemistry between these worthy dames!

2006-08-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

Too Quiet Here Lately

Mainly because of too much wacked-out stuff life has tossed my way in the past month, including a family hospitalization, lots of follow-up doctor visits and tests, and trying to get the big freakin' willow tree in my back yard removed after it CAUGHT ON FIRE where it's tangled up in the electrical lines of two competing power companies.

I've also been busting my hump trying to get a draft of my revised book ready for publication. It's called THE PLAYWRIGHT'S FIELD GUIDE: Insider Insights on Writing It, Fixing It, Getting It Staged. It has a bunch of cool cartoons by my friend, playwright Mike Sepesy (see above).

I wanted to get pre-publication copies to a university that had been using PRACTICAL PLAYWRITING (its former title) in its playwriting class, and that ate my brain for way too long.

2006-08-26T22:57:00.000-07:00

GOT A MINUTE?

That's the name of the one-minute play festival in Sarasota, Florida being organized by Jeff Kin at the Eclectic Theatre Company.

It's a fundraising benefit to support The Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, in honor of the producer's mother, a breast cancer survivor. I think it's a great idea.

My play MRS. JONES CELEBRATES VALENTINE'S DAY is in the "11 o'clock spot" -- the penultimate play of the evening. The show runs from Sept. 14-17 at Sarasota's Backlot Theatre Complex.

2006-07-29T23:21:00.000-07:00

A Picture is Worth 1000 Words - DAGNABBIT!

I had my first "getting to know you" phone call this week with the young director who will be staging my play THREE THE HARD WAY at East Tennessee State University this fall. She's a student, and very excited to be working on the play.

We had more words than usual about the set design -- because she is working with a student designer, for whom this is the first set. It was a relief to her that we were on the same page -- very spare set, non-realistic -- rather than a stage full of literal furniture. She was particularly relieved to know I definitely agreed there shouldn't be a real pool table, even though it says so in my author notes. I told her that the only production I know of where they put a real table on stage, it was problematic -- the audience kept wondering whether Albert could make the shots, when his near-Zen artistry with the cue should seem unbearably natural. And anyway, the audience's attention should be on the relationships, not the shot-making.

"But there's a real pool table in the picture on the cover of the script," she said. Cripes! I'd forgotten that! I told her that the photo isn't from the actual Dobama production, which didn't use a real pool table, but from the pre-production publicity shots taken at our Cleveland Heights Jillian's -- the billiard hall where Mark Maryo, a nationally ranked pro, gave our actors several crucial lessons on stance and cue handling.

As our production consultant, Mark also choreographed the pool practice in Scene 1 -- and because he did, it was the most convincing pool game in any production I've seen. There were times where you could have sworn you saw the balls move, even though there were none!

I'm glad we got that straightened out. I wonder how many other directors and/or designers have sweat over the decision of pool table/no pool table because of that picture...

2006-07-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

More TEN BY TEN Ink

I heard from Chris Swanson, another of the playwrights participating in Ten by Ten in the Triangle, that my comedy OPTIONAL got plenty of laughs on Saturday night. She sent me a review, which makes it sound like the whole evening went well.

I'm writing this from Minneapolis, where I'm at the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) conference. Spent all day with playwrights and 'turgs, seeing the new Guthrie Theatre (impressive, huge building with lots of public space in it), hearing Kevin Kling tell marvelous stories, and going to a new play reading at the PlayLabs by Jordan Harrison. Busman's holiday...

2006-07-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

The Cell Phone Sing-Along

I had a blast at the Ingenuity Festival on Friday afternoon, doing my Cell Phone Sing-Along. The sing-along part included placards so the audience could sing along with the chorus, to the tune of "My Darling Clementine":

O MY CELL PHONE, DARLING CELL PHONE,
MODEL OF TECHNOLOGY --
IF I LOST YOU IN A CYCLONE,
IT WOULD BE THE END OF ME.

I also asked people to take pictures with their cell phone and to send them to our Dark Room email address. Somebody actually did -- it's blurry, but there I am with my accordion.

The Ingenuity tech folks did INCREDIBLE things to that space in one week! They created a beautiful stage with color washes on backdrop screens and comfortable, raked seating for the audience. And with the 90-some degree heat + humidity outside, it was surprisingly cool inside.

I think the combo platter of comedy, drama, poetry, and songs plus patter by host Chris Johnston gave the audience a really good feel for the kind of work we do in the Dark Room.

I spent plenty of time Thursday evening at Ingenuity as well. I loved the Symphony of 1000 Drums, the sound installation, and particularly the large-format photos by Jenny Jones. I think the All-Go Signs events at the McCrory building are pretty cool, too.

On Thursday night Prospect Avenue was quite the community crossroads. I got a chance to talk to everybody from Mayor Frank Jackson to little kids to foundation mavens to a tattooed biker-trucker from the old CPT "Brew Crew", plus a bunch of artists and performers I haven't seen in a while. That's one of the things I love about events that local impressario-art genius James Levin runs -- there's always an intriguing, populist slant to things.

2006-07-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

OPTIONAL Opens at Ten By Ten This Weekend

Here is a link to a preview article about the Ten by Ten Festival in North Carolina. A couple of playwrights I know are traveling there for their "Playwrights Weekend", so I know I'll get to hear about how OPTIONAL turned out.

2006-07-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

INGENUITY INK

The Ingenuity Festival opens tonight, with a percussion spectacular called SYMPHONY FOR 1,000 DRUMS. My son Dave has been helping the Ingenuity folks, networking with local drum circles trying to organize drummers. ("Organize drummers?": sounds like an oxymoron. More like herding cats...)

The piece is being put together by the ultimately cool Egyptian-born composer Halim El-Dabh, who has been a fixture in NE Ohio thanks to his decades teaching at Kent State. Halim is one of the most righteous dudes you could ever meet -- eighty-some years young. He stayed on my futon one night when he had a premiere at CPT. Hearing him talk about his career -- everything from working with Martha Graham to his desert encounters with Berber tribesmen -- was fabulous.

Today I tinkered some more with my accordion piece, the Cell Phone Sing-Along -- changing some lyrics, adding a bridge so it's more musically interesting. Here's a link to an article about Ingenuity, including some ink about our show, Tech-Yes! Tech-No! -- look under "Cleveland Theater Collective". Also, check out "Lost Prospect", a collective creation by a group of area writers, including my Holiday Hotline collaborator Mike Sepesy.

2006-07-11T22:10:00.000-07:00

MY TV INTERVIEW AIRS THIS WEEK

I heard from Sue Johnson, director of Wake Up and Live Studio, that the TV interview I did for "Wake Up and Live with the Arts" a few weeks ago will air on cable this week.

The first play dates are: Wed., July 12 @ 7:30 PM, and Sat., July 15 @ 7 pm. That's on the Cleveland area Adelphia stations, which are channel 21 (eastern suburbs) and channel 23 (western suburbs). Sue tells me that it will then rotate to Cox Cable and the Cleveland access channel.

I know I can't see it tomorrow -- I'll be seeing DAS BARBECU at Lyric Opera -- but I'll try to catch it later. I discovered Monday that our VCR is busted. I had wanted to tape a new movie on Lifetime written by my pal Jamie Pachino that premiered during our Ingenuity tech, but no dice. I'll try to hatch some taping plan by Saturday.

2006-07-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

TECH REHEARSAL - INGENUITY

Just got back from our tech rehearsal for TECH-YES! TECH-NO!, the series of pieces the Dark Room writers created for the Ingenuity Festival this weekend. It'll be performed in the back end of the old May Company building, with an entrance on Prospect Avenue just off Ontario, around the corner from Fat Fish Blue. The show performs once, on Friday July 14 at 2 pm. Don't miss it.

The old building is a wreck inside -- kind of like bombed-out Dresden. Those of us who have been in Cleveland long enough to remember shopping there (yes, Virginia, there WERE local department stores downtown once) were shocked to see how deteriorated things had become. But the Ingenuity folks have set up a very cool stage area inside.

I will be performing THE CELL PHONE SING-ALONG, a comic song that I wrote for the occasion, accompanying myself on (ahem) the accordion. I wrote it for the squeeze-box because (a) the accordion is funny; (b) it's low-tech and doesn't need amplification (it really carries in that subterranean space); and (c) I didn't want to perform to recorded music since there needs to be some interaction with the audience.

I picked it up back in '92, when director James Slowiak wanted an accordion player for his CPT production of Jean Genet's THE BALCONY. I said I'd learn how to play if I could compose the score. I taught myself by practicing in front of a mirror.

So I spent 8 weeks in Grotowski-inspired rehearsals (I found Slowiak's rehearsal process endlessly fascinating, lots of creative input from the actors) culminating in 3 weeks on-stage as Genet's brothel accordionist. I wandered through the CPT performance space blind as a bat because the costumer thought my glasses didn't look period enough. After the production closed, I'd grown fond enough of the instrument that I couldn't bring myself to return it, so I bought it.

I don't play it much, but I like to use it for occasional comic purposes. I wrote a monologue for CPT's Pandemonium! last year, WELCOME TO THE VESTIBULE, playing the Purgatory exam proctor who administers the Eternity Entrance Exam. Among other irritating things, I sang pieces of Emily Dickinson poems to the tunes of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and the "Theme from Gilligan's Island". (Try it sometime -- most of them fit.)

2006-07-10T19:11:00.000-07:00

BUMMER - A cancellation

Wild Plum just informed me that they didn't raise enough money to take MARLA'S DEVOTION to NYC. So they're cancelling their appearance at Fresh Fruit. Major bummer.

Now I'm especially glad I had already committed to performing at Ingenuity on the 14th. Oh, well. Onward to other things.

2006-07-06T07:25:00.000-07:00

LIVE GIRLS! - TV SPOT

I got an email from Meghan Arnette, AD of Live Girls! Theater in Seattle, which is running my one act PIG PATTER. There's a cool streaming video about their Quickies series from "City A Go Go", a monthly arts video feature that is a project of the Seattle Channel.

One of the things I like most about the interview it is the way they identify all the artists who work with this small company: "actor/handyman", "actor/furniture mover", "associate artistic director/concession specialist", "artistic director/plumber". That's totally the reality of feisty small theater companies. You do all these day jobs to fund your art, then in your "spare time" you also do everything that needs to be done for your theater, including mopping the john. It's a life of 80 hour weeks, or more, keeping the place afloat, totally a labor of love.

It reminds me of the carnivalesque piece I created with our experimental ensemble when Cleveland Public Theatre was trying to buy the building we'd renovated for years: The Chapel of Perpetual Desire Presents a Liturgical Circus of Religious Fervor and Live Sex on Stage! It included a blues number I wrote and sung called "I Hate My Day Job". During the guitar solo, I read from a list of all the day jobs by the people who created the piece: "Jim (the A.D.) works in the so-called criminal justice system", "Amanda (the director) sells advertising over the phone". I ended it with "and Linda -- takes money -- from her parents!" It always got a huge laugh.

2006-07-03T08:20:00.000-07:00

MARLA'S DEVOTION PICS

The Wild Plum benefit performances for MARLA'S DEVOTION closed yesterday. I got a chance to see it a second time at the Sunday matinee -- a surprising number of people there, too.

Thanks to all who showed up to support it.

Here are a couple of pictures from the production. The first is Denise Astorino as Marla, in a contemplative moment.

The next is Maria Miranda as lawyer Joey.

Thanks to WP2 photog Terry Michelle.

2006-07-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

ONE MORE YOSEMITE ENTRY

I finally found the John Muir quote about Yosemite National Park I read when we were up in the high country.

"The park is a paradise that makes even the loss of Eden seem insignificant. " - John Muir, 1900

It still is.

2006-07-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GEORGE SAND

Just got an email from my BECOMING GEORGE book/lyrics collaborator Patti McKenny reminding me that today is George Sand's birthday. She writes:

"George Sand was born 202 years ago today. There was a party; her father was fiddling a dance; her mother was dancing in a rose-colored dress, and suddenly said "Excuse me." A short time later George's aunt came down and said "Maurice, you have a daughter. She was born to music and roses, she'll love a life of beauty.""

This is from the Delacroix portrait of Sand, which used to be a double portrait of Sand and her lover Frederic Chopin, until an unscrupulous art dealer thought he could make more money if he cut it down the middle. Our whizbang set designer Jen Price recreated a version of the double portrait for Sand's study in BECOMING GEORGE, for the scene where she hears Chopin's music (is it his ghost playing the piano?) and sings the ballad "Letters to the Night". It's one of the scenes/songs in the show that everyone remembers and loves best.

Our MetroStage producer Carolyn Griffin said that whenever Kat' Taylor sung it, the whole crew would stop whatever they were doing and stand in the wings to listen -- usually with tears running down their face. Every night. For six weeks.

2006-07-01T07:26:00.000-07:00

WILD PLUM BENEFIT

Last night I went to the Friday night benefit for Wild Plum Productions' trip to NYC to the Fresh Fruit Festival. It started with a production of my comedy MARLA'S DEVOTION, which they will be taking on the road, then morphed into free food, wine, music by Maura Rogers and local grrrl band Slackjaw, and a raffle for funky jewelry by Chris Sweiger and a kickass photo of Slackjaw taken by WP2 photographer Terry Michelle.

CPT's Gordon Square Theatre was packed! A huge bunch of women -- an amazing turnout considering that the event didn't end up in either the PD Friday magazine or in Cool Cleveland. Viral queer marketing, my babes! Emails sent from grrrl to grrrl to grrrl, and suddenly they're crawling out of the wall. Most impressive.

A big shoutout to Cleveland Public Theatre AD Raymond Bobgan who let WP2 use its big Gordon Square Theatre space rent-free for all 4 performances. Mad love, Raymond! It looks like by the end of the weekend they'll make enough to fund the trip, and that's even at the low $10 ticket.

I wish I could go with them -- they're going to enjoy the Festival a lot, I know. But between Ingenuity, finishing a book contract (more on that later), just coming back from California, and going to Minneapolis the following weekend for the LMDA conference, I just couldn't squeeze in one more hit-and-run trip.

2006-06-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-20T21:37:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-19T23:17:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-19T23:13:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-14T20:13:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-11T21:19:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-10T21:56:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-09T22:52:00.000-07:00

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).

2006-06-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

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

2006-06-09T09:10:00.000-07:00

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.