Campo Santo's Fe in the Desert has been extended at Intersection for the Arts. The Theatre Methods 07 conference will be in Bovec, Slovenia from July 30 - August 2. Baltimore's Everyman Theatre expands. Be a part of Theatre Movement Bazaar's new work Monster of Happiness by filling in their happiness survey. Seattle's Backwards Ensemble presents Children of Divinity and Improvolution through July 8. A faith-based theater will open in St. Louis.

Also, please check-out Terry Teachout's article at Wall Street Journal dot com about Goldstar Events and "What Young Audiences Want".

At ComFest in Columbus this weekend, (a gigantic festival run entirely by volunteers with 60,000 visitors a day and no corporate sponsorship) at 2:30 on Saturday afternoon, performing on the smallest of 6 outdoor stages, Hugs & Kisses attracted about two hundred 18-35 year olds who were all cooler, hipper, and more excited than pretty much everyone I see at the theaters these days. How do they do it? Well, for one thing, Hugs & Kisses probably aren't theatre, they're probably a band, but you coulda fooled me.

I'm teaching an improv class to a group of middle school kids at a summer day camp for the next six weeks or so. I confess I'm a little out of practice, and I wanted to brush up on my improv games. So I went online to see if I could find out what kinds of resources were available on the net. I don't know why this should surprise me, but there was more information published about improv than I really knew what to do with. In fact, there seems to be a veritable cult of improv that's thriving out there as a subset of the general theatre-making population.

Among the best of these resources was the Improv Encyclopedia. It looks like they just completed a major overhaul of their website a couple weeks ago, and their hard work has really paid off. There's a downloadable pdf version you can print out (100+ pages!), a link into the Improv Top 50 webring, and much more. So check it out and maybe you too will find yourself mysteriously drawn into the cult of improv like a moth to flame...

This is a trailer showing examples of realtime (interactive) technologies on stage (using infrared camera motion sensing, developped by Frieder Weiss).

Cherry Lane Theatre has announced their 2007-8 season. DC's new Constellation Theatre Company is performing Caryl Churchill's adaptation of A Dream Play. Houston's Unhinged Productions is pleased to announce the world premiere of Fernando Dovalina's
American Homefront. The Civilians' Gone Missing has been once again found. Y'know, it's not just Broadway, the Neo-Futurists opened Xanadu as well. Cleveland's Karamu Theatre announces a great slate of shows for next year. Have you heard about NEA chairman Dana Gioia's Stanford University commencement speech?

Naked MacBeth in DC. Frankenstein, "Japanese-style", at the PQ. At War: American Playwrights Respond to Iraq, is the inaugural event of the Fire Dept's Salon Series. San Francisco's respected Lorraine Hansberry Theatre may be in trouble, as is the Bristol Old Vic. Son of Semele's Corn Play is almost ready. Lafayette's Hub City Theatre Festival present the world and regional premieres of nine theatre pieces July 5-7.

This is a first, flailing attempt at something I'll probably try to do in a better, more formal way later.

Who's reading this? I can get only so much from Google Analytics and things like that. So, please, if you're out there, let me know if the comments. Who are you, where are you from, what do you do, why do you read this? Any and/or all of the above, please.

(That said, if you're theatre blogger whose blog is over on the side, and you're reading this, there's probably no need to speak-up at this point. We do thank you for your support.)

Anybody out there from Naperville?

The The Collective:Unconscious presents the Undergroundzero Festival, starting July 19. The Seattle Opera has a singing pig. Neil LaBute vs Prince? Also, pigs are flying and hell has frozen over. Kansas City's Actors Theatre KC has put together a great set of juxtapositions for their next rep season. Broadway in Bryant Park starts July 12. Plantanos and Collard Greens is a huge NYC hit you've never heard of. A Chorus Line has an amusing new take on online video promotions.

Well, I think it's my turn to respond to some comments. If you haven't read this post below, you should do so, otherwise you'll shortly be pretty well bewildered.

Over at his own blog, Matt Freeman responded with some thoughts that mirror my own pretty damn well, especially this one:

Better to work through the problems and challenges with the goal of success, than see challenges and problems and let them stop the project from going forward.

Anne Minors explored the theatre/architecture link at the Prague Quadrennial. I Googled Myself runs through July 7 at Theatre Askew in NYC. "German theater to premiere London bombing play." Theatre Non Nobis seeks individuals from the Indianapolis area transgender community to create a play for the upcoming Indianapolis Theatre Fringe Festival. Collaboraction's 7th Sketchbook runs through July 1 at Steppenwolf's Garage. The Ensemble Theatre of Houston is producing a play by Don Evans, who helped August Wilson organize the 1997 Black Theatre Summit. Hey OC, are you ready for the White Trash Catholic Circus?

The comments at Matthew Freeman's Theatre and Politics blog have wrought an idea I'd never heard or had before.

What would be the logistics of "national openings" for major plays? What if, in lieu of endless try-outs, major productions ... all opened with different casts on the same night at major theaters throughout the United States AND Broadway?

Here's a very well-done review of Sarah Ruhl's Dead Man's Cell Phone at Wooly Mammoth. The New Yorker's John Lahr insulted a whole lot of people and came off as an out-of-touch, pompous ass. Playwright Jennifer Maisel talks to the Rorschach blog. The Potomac Theater Project heads to Gotham. Second Stage has a new season (which might feature "Jake fucking Gyllenhaal"). Have you read the interview with Christopher Shinn yet? What's opening and closing in LA-la land this week?

I'm a huge Jennifer Fawcett fan. She's a Canadian playwright (currently enrolled in the Playwrights Workshop at University of Iowa) whose specialty is carving out big worlds in tiny spaces. Remember that scene in Harry Potter IV when they enter the little, 2-sleeper tent only to find that it's a fully-furnished luxury apartment inside? (Even if you haven't, try to imagine it.) That's what her plays are like. I like them so much I'm producing one this fall.

Anyway, she's slowly starting work on her own website and blog, and she's been kind enough to loan some of her words to us. Enjoy.

“How do we, despite the overwhelming time commitment and struggles, look beyond the needs of our own theatres and find ways to respond to the needs of others?”

Twenty four hours earlier I’m walking out of the National Arts Center in Ottawa, Canada. I’m spending the afternoon at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival. I saw a show, I heard a speech, I met a lot of people, most of whom seemed more important than me. Certainly they seemed more connected, like they had access to more money, more audiences, more media and were somehow more officially “theatre”. But walking into the sunshine and crowds of downtown Ottawa all the theatre folk who I know and don’t know and want to know and wish knew me (etc etc) are then put beside all these other people waiting for the bus or shopping or doing whatever you do on a Saturday afternoon. Do any of these people care about theatre? Do any of them go? The homeless man who I’d walked past on the way to the theatre is still in the same spot, only now there’s a stream of liquid spreading out around him and he’s fallen asleep. Dreaming of theatre? I doubt it. Does theatre dream of him? Perhaps, as a character or a symbol, safe in abstraction.

"Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" closes tonight in NYC. There will be two new Shakespeare companies in Lexington this summer. Charles Busch's Die, Mommie, Die! is playing in Kalamazoo, Michigan. This Saturday in Denver, Hunger Artists Ensemble presents an "original reader’s theatre production consisting of historic war letters written to the families of soldiers." Chicago's Signal Theatre announces its 5th season. Check out Refried Latino Pride and Mic in Your Eye, two hip-hop theatre hits at the Latino Laugh Festival in Hollywood. The Public Theater is holding a free reading of In Darfur in Central Park on July 9 - find out how to get in.

Lazar Wolf... You're a feygele?!

A news story about a play which does not include a movie star. Awesome!

Directors come up a lot on blogs, a lot of talk, what they do or don't do or should do. I've directed a decent amount with my company Working Group and have recently begun "helming" at regional theaters under co-production status with my company. So, I have a little experience with it. I've also acted a lot and been a playwright a lot and have enjoyed some and hated others.

I was in a rehearsal recently (professional LORT contract theater) and noticed the director giving solely negative notes. I asked an actor later about it and he said "well, either we're doing poorly or she just trusts if we don't get a note than we can assume it's working."

I then asked him if he thought it was working and he stopped for a second.

Sondheim Bounces back, possibily at the Public. "Cat Destroys Lloyd Webber's Phantom Sequel Score". (h/t Clyde Fitch Report.) The Roundabout revives it's Cabaret revival. B.D. Wong plays ll roles in Herringbone at Williamstown. Joel was schmoozing at some musicals in DC.

also ...

It's an economic-impact-report no-holds-barred cage match to the death! Marin Theatre announces a $10,000 playwrighting prize (and a $2500 one).

Yes friends, Columbus' own Michael Grossberg is heading to Las Vegas next week, and the Dispatch has given him some blog space to tell us all about his fanciful escapades. Why Vegas?

The American Theatre Critics Association will visit Las Vegas for the first time with about 135 people, mostly critics, attending the June 18-24 conference. Theater critics are curious to see how Las Vegas' monied producers are thinking bigger and staging more theatrical entertainments. Many seem well beyond the budget or scope of Broadway - or just about anywhere else.

An amalgam in which I remix what everyone said, probably misrepresent it in some cases, and then you have to click on the words to find out where they came from. You might even have to dig through comments.

Yikes. Maybe we shouldn't wish for Salon and Slate to cover theatre more often. It was so perfectly designed to be attention-getting and infuriating that it's hard to know where to begin. It is, though, a real eye-opener to see how people outside the theatre community view the theatre.

Peter Birkinhead is correct when he says that theater is increasingly less relevant, but his conclusions - that theater should become more like TV - couldn't be further off, unless he means that theater should be free or very cheap, infinitely reproducible, and go to peoples' houses.

I hear the ratings tonight are so low, that Osama Bin Laden is going to be hiding onstage.

This is the second in a series of reflections about David Mamet's controversial yet influential book, ten years after its initial publication. For those of you wishing to brush up on the first installment of this series (written almost two months ago! yikes!), you can get caught up here.

My kid brother just graduated from high school last weekend. I know I'm biased, but I really do think he's an amazingly talented actor. He's doing some "Shakespeare in the Park" this summer - his first professional gig - where he gets to play one of the soldiers in King Lear. After that, it's on to Buckeye Nation, where he will be one of many many undeclared freshmen that have yet to decide on a major. I think that, deep down, he really wants to major in Theatre, but he's seen from my experience how challenging a career in the performing arts can be. So he's hesitant and, I think, rightfully so. As much as I love Theatre, I honestly don't know if I could recommend it as a major.

The Big Wall was a large, touch-sensitive, interactive screen taking you into the world behind the Coram Boy production at the National Theatre. Situated within the National Theatre and the first of its kind in the UK, The Big Wall was made possible by the NT's partnership with Accenture, sponsor of Innovation at the National Theatre.

Does Canada need a National Theatre? Signature Theatre announces it's next four seasons. Nerve speaks to Steven Sater of Spring Awakening fame. “Alexandra Beller is built like a burlesque queen and moves like a goddess" and she's HERE starting June 24. Shenton summarizes the Brititsh blogs (Andrew Lloyd Webber has a vlog - WTF?). There are still some angels giving to the arts. Voices in Conflict gets a couple more performances. "How to be a publicist's dream.

Hey look, the theatrosphere accomplished something. Let's do it again!

Theatre shouldn't be fun?!? Stages Rep in Houston has a pretty interesting season planned, including a Craig Wright festival. 50 reasons British Theatre totally rulz. Storefront Rebellion recognizes those who did and did not recieve a Jeff (if you don't what a Jeff is, you better read it). Backstage interviews the road company of Jersey Boys. Check out Lawrenceville, Georgia's new Aurora Theatre. Jasson (that's not a typo) Minadakis is on his third Artistic Directorship in as many cities.

Please give and/or blog for the cause.

Some highly amusing coverage of Tony and the Tonys is from Ken Levine (hat-tip, Adam). The National Theatre of Scotland will visit the U.S. for the first time. Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati announces its season. Okay, this isn't theatre, necessarily, but Leonard Cohen and Philip Glass are working together, yowza! NYC gets a taste of foolsFury's The Devil on All Sides, starting this weekend. Some more (including a response from a National Guardsman) on Voices in Conflict. The Producers reaches the regionals. A (sort of) review of The Community Theatre's Carver's Pieces.

Mr. Excitement today has a dispatch from writer/instructor/actor Alan Berks who's wandering the wilds of the TCG Conference in Minneapolis. His experience thus far seems to have been less-than-inspiring.

I get the sense that no one likes the current state of American theater. They like what they do, but believe that no one else is doing it. Or they worry about how their audiences don’t like what they do – or, of course, “need to be educated” about what they do. Ensemble-based, collaboratively-ambitious companies think that institutional theaters support playwrights too much ... And playwrights think that institutional support from theaters is stifling, condescending, uncreative, and even usurious ... I might wander into the session on new musical theater right now since I imagine that people who do musicals can’t be that unhappy – but I expect to hear the same kind of didactic push for this or that style of this or that so that this or that theoretical audience will be theoretically more engaged by our risk-taking or our importance or our . . . whatever.

How to get a lot of negative attention for your show. OFF Stage: The East Village Fragments is edutainment for downtown folks. Moxie knows why the Tonys are completely irrelevant. Please welcome the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Blog and Indie Theater dot org. The NY Times provides a summary of Shakespeares for the summer season. LA's The Blank announces the first half of its season, which includes a Michael John LaChiusa musical. Sean B. of Theatre Australia has some thoughts on how plays should be ended.

The Toronto Fringe Festival starts July 4, listings are now online. Denver designates a Theatre District. Wal-Mart supports the art. Lots and lots and lots of Cincy Fringe. A new, young, company in Pittsburgh. The Dallas Theater Center's got a new A.D. Leonard Leone passed away.

As part of our "ongoing quest to become the single most useful blog in the history of the theatrosphere" we bring you something practical and fun.

If you look to the left, but not too far left, on our site, you'll see the words "Search Engine". If you click them, you'll be magically transported to the Theatre Blog Search Engine Room. There you'll find a little box, provided by Google, that allows you to search all the blogs listed on this site with a single click. Start with something fun, find something cool. Be sure to let us know how you're using it and how it's helping you.

Enjoy!

What is conservatism's place in the theatre? How do we relate to it? How do we deal with it? And if conservatism exists in the audience, must we talk to them?

These questions and more are occupying a lot blogular real estate this week, mainly as a result of one entry on the Impending Theatrical Blogging Event blog (which we've addressed with the help of the comments here).

Laura Axelrod got pulled in by the geographically political undertow of the ongoing debate at the ITBE and responded on her Gasp! blog:

I’m not sure what Red State Theater is, exactly. Personally, I’d like to have the biggest audience possible for my work, without compromising my vision. Shouting that Democrats or Republicans suck is going to defeat my purpose. Unless, that is my purpose. KnowwhatImean?

Chicago's Congo Square announces it's season. There's a great "P&P" in Florida. Howard Barker is the latest victim of the London Olympics. Penetrator is not for the squeamish. Alan Ayckbourn steps down after almost 40 years. Fun-fact: America's first theater building is in Charleston, South Carolina. "The Most Produced Play in American Regional Theatre Since 2005" is opening in Kansas City. Kiss of the Spider-Woman in Minneapolis.

This is the oddest way to raise money for a theatre, but it's kinda brilliant. Orson directs Olivier in Portland. A history of Hamlets in Glasgow. The Lion King heads to Wisconsin. A Chat with Legendary Theatre Director Stuart Vaughan. Michaels Hollinger and Ogborn are creating a new musical at Arden in Philly. Michael Billington gets snippy with Nicky Hytner.

I was going to post a comment on the Impeding Theatrical Blogging Event Blog, but I figure the writers of that blog probably aren't spending too much time reading it anymore. But, I am having difficulty engaging the discussion, so maybe someone somewhere out there can help me with this.

I'm referring to this:

There is this odd notion in certain corners of the theater blogosphere that theater must speak to, or represent the concerns of, red state conservatives ... red state conservatives have had the entire government of the most powerful country in the history of the world speaking for them for six years now. The idea that theater should somehow also be responsible for promoting their agenda is bizarre.

I finished reading Anne Bogart's new book, And Then, You Act about 7 days ago. And now I'm reading it again. Allow me to describe my experience with it.

First though, in the interest of disclosure, I should mention that I'm an unabashed fan of Anne Bogart, both her directing and her work as a theorist of sorts. She's influenced me quite and bit and she and her company have been very kind and supportive. So, you already know that I liked the book, and I'm really just going to try to convince you to read it.

This just in!!!
Unconventional Director Sets Shakespeare Play In Time, Place Shakespeare Intended

Nick Hytner clarifies his feelings about the critics. The British Council wants to start a program in the United Arab Emirates. How Daniel Radcliffe ended-up in Equus is a story worthy of "the great J K Rowling herself". Jay Johnson (The Two and Only) has a blog. Hooray! Someone's doing Floyd Collins in Portland. Culturebot has the inside dirt on Soho ThinkTank's Ice Factory 2007. The newer, smaller Miss Saigon.

Oh! And, the Impending Theatrical Blogging Event is no longer impending.

I actually wrote this post originally 3 days ago. I'm not sure why I didn't publish it then. Maybe I knew then how busy this weekend would be.

Some of my favorite recent moments from the theatrenet.

The Wicked Stage:

We hear a lot about the value of things that can "only be done" in the theater, but Bug was a case where a negative virtue--something a play can never do, unless it employs video cameras, which is to give us a close-up view--made it infinitely more powerful than anything a film could show us.

First ... BAM!

Also ... the Women Center Stage Festival sounds great. Peripitus Theater Company presents a very dark comedy at the Cambbridge YMCA. Toronto is a little short on Shakespeare. The National Theatre's Lyttelton flytower got covered in grass. Sarah Ruhl wrote a play about vibrators. The first woman-written play ever performed at the National comes to the BBC. Ahrens & Flaherty will have two short debuts in Kansas City.