Monday, December 21, 2009

merry and happy

Going to shut down the Museum early this year, halls to deck and nog to swig. Thanks all for everything this year and may your days be merry and bright.

Our MMMQ (technically an MAMQ) keeps to the holiday theme:

We all know the Bing and Bowie bizarrity, but here are four other strange seasonal pairings. Spot the phony and have yourself a merry little Christmas.

1. Aretha Franklin and Tiny Tim

2. Elvis Presley and Wynonna Judd

3. Frank Sinatra and Cindy Lauper

4. Rod Stewart and Dolly Parton

Now I've got some wrapping to do.

Friday, December 18, 2009

little known fact

The "I" in Joseph I. Lieberman actually stands for "I'm a Worthless, Hypocritical Sack of Shit".

An old family name, apparently.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

whither scrappy?

Sorry, folks. Been in L.A. all week on bidness, just back late last night.

Hell of a place, L.A.

But I like my Rat City just fine.

Friday, December 11, 2009

happy hanukkah

Spin that dreidel, baby, and have a latke on me.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

ticket deal

Our good friend and compadre Louise Chantal is in town offering a deal on her new show. Louise produced The Exonerated in London and Edinburgh and if she's behind it, it's going to be quality work.

Here you go:

SPECIAL OFFER TO SEE A GREAT NEW PLAY IN NEW YORK!

A BRITISH SUBJECT
written by Nichola McAuliffe
at the 2009 Brits Off Broadway Festival, 59e59 Theaters

'Edge of the seat drama - it gave me some hope for the future of journalism.'
The Observer, London

We'd like to offer you a special discount to see a major new play which tells the incredible true story of a tragic miscarriage of justice. Already a big hit at this year's Edinburgh Festival, it is presented by the Pleasance Theatre - the biggest venue at the annual festival for the past 25 years - and follows Tahir Mirza, an 18 year-old boy who spent 18 years on Death Row in Pakistan before finally being released to go home to his family in Yorkshire. It's a true, touching and telling account of how the powerful and the powerless deal differently with bad luck. And it has a great cast of British actors including Olivier Award winner Nichola McAuliffe, who also wrote the play because it was her real life husband, the national journalist Don Mackay, who went to Pakistan to get the boy out of prison! As I said, it's an amazing story.

We've set up a discount with the code RIGHTS which is 30% off - i.e. $24.50 rather than $35 tickets - on all performances up to the 20th December. They just need to call the box office on 212 279 4200 or book online at www.ticketcentral.com and use the code RIGHTS.

The performance schedule is:
Tuesday at 7:15, Wednesday – Friday at 8:15 PM;
Saturday at 2:15 PM and 8:15 PM; and Sunday at 3:15 PM and 7:15 PM.

Please note, there is no performance on Christmas Day (Friday, December 25) or New Year’s Day (Friday, January 1). The curtain time on Thursday, December 24 is at 7:15 PM.

For more information, visit www.59e59.org or www.britsoffbroadway.com.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

the dreaded feast

If you missed The Truth About Santa last go-round, here's a chance to sample the mayhem.

An excerpt of the play got published in an anthology called The Dreaded Feast: Writers on Enduring the Holidays and tomorrow night we're getting the old gang together and reading it at a publication party.

Tomorrow night, Thursday December 10, 7-8:30 at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, 126 Crosby Street.

And I'll be reading Santa, so you don't want to miss that.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

all around the world

Away from computers all day yesterday, and I got a rule about no blogging after dark, so no MMMQ this week, sorry ladies.

Heard that Fatboy is being produced in Melbourne in March, so add that to the production in Malta in February and the Australia/U.K. tour of The Event and we've got some bona fide world-wide theatricals going on in 2010.

We're scheming to get to Malta, but so far all we've come up with is joining the merchant marines.

Seems a little hard-core even for us.

Suggestions welcome.

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

sorry, Lee

Lot of chatter in the old blogosphere about Charles McNulty's L.A. Sunday Times interview with David Strasberg, (son of Lee) and the effectiveness of the fabled Method.

Let me kick a dead man here, just to keep him down.

Not only does the Method not help, it hurts.

There are only two places an actor can be, in her head or in the room. The whole trick is staying in the room, focusing on the other players and the audience, listening to the words.

The Method drives you into your head and traps you there, judging yourself, usually harshly and unfairly.

Acting is not believing. Acting is playing.

Acting is not a psychological effort.

It is a physical, social and political effort.

And, at the end of the day, you can't really teach anyone to act. You can watch honestly, critique encouragingly and ask the actors to be brave and clear-headed out there.

That's about it.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

bad moves in a fool's game

I'm dreading watching the President's speech tonight, afraid I'm going to see our man slowly transform into Lyndon Johnson by the end of the broadcast.

He inherited the mess, he knows he can't cut and run unless he's willing to be a one-term president, but he's smart enough to know he can't win.

Alexander the Great couldn't do it, the Red Army couldn't do it, we ain't going to do it.

Treasonous talk, but true.

I say pull them all out, stick about 1500 Special Ops guys on the Pakistan border and, well...

Exterminate the brutes.

But the Situation Room won't return my calls.

The Quiz Twins win again. Neither George Harrison nor The Beach Boys waltzed with the Band, but Rose conjures up a beautiful alternate universe, where Brian Wilson, Tiny Tim and a young Donny Osmond join together for a rousing version of Up on Cripple Creek.

Let it grow on you, it gets good.