Today is the one-year anniversary of one of my favorite days of my whole life. We did Antony and Cleopatra at the Rose. It was the culmination of a journey I had been on since I directed my first production of that play, sixteen years earlier. Although it was a good production, it didn’t match […]
In which I gather round the Zoom for a watch party.
So, I wasn’t supposed to even be at KCACTF this year. But I got a call from a friend who needed a favor, and I went to help out for a few days. I’m so glad that I did. I love the festival—all the students fluttering with nervous excitement in line for Irene Ryans at […]
After years of trying to make it work, I finally went to the Shakespeare Theater Association conference. It was fantastic. I am so glad I finally went! Shakespeare Dallas hosted the conference. I hadn’t been to Dallas before—and had only been to Texas one other time. We mostly were inside the conference hotel, but we […]
I’m learning about Branding. It is one of those things for which I have no natural gifts, but it’s important and necessary in this industry. One element of branding is to come up with some quick phrase that tells people a whole lot about who you are and what you are trying to accomplish in […]
I keep thinking about an episode of the Backstory podcast, where they talked about Walt Whitman. One of the historians they interviewed, Robert Shultz, described how Whitman destroyed his health during the war by working long hours in the hospital, caring for wounded soldiers. He read them letters from their families, he dressed their wounds, […]
I’m working on On the Verge (a play, ironically, about time) at York College, and the first thing I told my student stage manager was, “Give me a warning five minutes before we’re due for a break, and no matter what I am doing, call the break.” He glanced pointedly at my watch, but he […]
After I took my kids to see a local community theater production of Peter Pan, I decided that I wanted them to see the version that was canonical in my mind. When I was a kid, my brother and I had a couple dozen videos and minimal access to actual television. We solidly memorized every […]
It’s been two years since the time when my pastor asked me to create a drama Sunday. “Do I have to do a Bible story?” I asked. “Church drama scripts are nearly all terrible, and I’m no playwright.” “Do whatever you want,” she said. “Whatever I want” is almost always Shakespeare. I’m not sure if […]
I’ve been reading a lot of books and articles about Antony and Cleopatra lately, getting ready for the remount. One thing that comes up over and over is people saying that the title characters are older, they’re jaded, their love is real, but tempered with a certain utilitarianism. They need each other, politically. Their love […]