Thursday, March 06, 2008

he ain't dead

Tom Keegan got us 5.00 tickets to see the Mark Twain play Is He Dead? up at the Lyceum Theater yesterday. That decimal point is in the right place, folks, a single fin for two hours plus of Broadway entertainment.

It's closing this weekend and that's a shame. Go up there, check your critical, downtown art-head at the door and revel in the old-school hijinks and shenanigans. So much fun to watch a bunch of pros scrambling all over the stage, pulling pratfalls and delivering punchlines. We laughed for two hours. When's the last time that happened to you at the theater?

The man himself, Norbert Leo Butz, was a little off, but it was a Wednesday matinee and they're closing this weekend, so he may have had other things on his mind. And he was fucking great, don't get me wrong, an animal of the stage, he just didn't hit every joke. Norbert went to the same high school in St. Louis I ended up graduating from and I'm pretty sure we stood on the same boards once, doing Pippin or something. He was a freshman in my senior year and all of the Butzes were in the theater. There was a long line of them, in my memory, all these good-looking blonde Midwestern boys, Norbert being the baby. The kid's come a long way from south St. Louis, I tell you.

In other news, our partner Nate convinced me to join Facebook yesterday.

Holy hell.

I believe I've found the insecure fourteen year old girl that's always been inside of me just waiting to bust out. I'm going to be up all night obsessing over how many friends I have and whether or not Greg is going to invite me to the Big Dance, I just know it.

Seriously, its a pretty addictive place to hang out.

Busy day today, meeting with Creative Capital to talk about our Touring Worshop, working on The Event with Matt, meeting up with the Wordmonger folk to talk about Edinburgh and seeing the old Liberty Theater on Broadway at 6:00.

And spending nine hours mooning about on Facebook, of course.

10 comments:

Rosemoo said...

It's incredibly adorable to find someone as intelligent and talented and shall I say 'a tad' older than myself finding the tools of the internet that I have discarded as purile. It's like I'm older on the interweb, and you are the young upstart. So strange a feeling. It makes me want to pat ya on the head and give you a noogie! Facebook! So cute!

John said...

Awwww...

Tanks, kid.

It's weird, I tell you. The age thing is very present when you're over 40 and flying around the Internet. You have to keep fighting back the self-induced "creepy old guy" vibe and try not to get too involved. At the same time, you have to be aware of the shameless self-promotion instinct, keep that fucker in check, too.

Weird and fun. Now what's this "Google" thing I've heard tell of?

Anonymous said...

My mom got on facebook and created a group for people from her drama studio when she studied in London when she was younger than I am now. Not only did a bunch of people join and connect up with her, they also posted old videos and pictures. It was really cool. And it is the best networking/promoting thing for theater types... free and popular.

Nick said...

John, this whole public/private social relationship and freindship is weird. Difficult to stay "real," you know. Long in the tooth guys like us probably look a little odd and clumbsy in our attempts to keep learning the new dance steps. But it's still all rock and roll. Keep on keepin'on, my brother.

John said...

Yeah, I'm thinking of the whole thing as just another dancefloor.

So when they play the old stuff, I'm going to break out my old moves. But when the hip hop kicks in, I'm just going to hang by the bar and quietly groove. I'd look like an idiot out there popping and locking.

If that is, indeed the correct expression that the youth use to describe their rhythmic gesticulations.

showard said...

I'm still trying to figer out how how all you younguns find the time to fool about on this thing called web
bunch of slackers and technobots I think
I saw on the tv how this face book is mostley used by pervs and cougars to lure children like young rose to go
go on a date or take pictures in monkey hats
I long for the good old days of live art and drinks with
friends, letters in the mailbox not the inbox and spam
on bread
xs

John said...

Susan's a crank.

A crank!

But a beautiful one, so we'll let her crank around, wearing her big crankypants, being a cranker.

(Crank.)

Displaced New Yorker said...

don't let facebook take over your life.

that's what a crackberry is for.

John said...

Now I'm up all night thinking about what the hell is a crackberry...

Sounds really good. I've known mullberries and huckleberries but a crack berry, well, hell...

Imagine a tree that grew berries that were crack.

I would defend that tree to the death, myself.

Anonymous said...

(blackberry: pager phone email thingy)