Nick of The Rat Sass is never shy of taking his fellow bloggers to task, and he calls more than a few to the mat in his latest post.

There has been an awful lot of meta-mastication on the state of blogging and its place in the theatre of late, and Nick addresses a number of these questions, including, but not limited to:

Is a blog-post about a preview a review?
Do bloggers apply their rage even-handedly, or choose their targets specifically?
How are bloggers and critics different?
What happens when a critic becomes a blogger and vice versa?
If a producer gives you a "blogger comp" are you required to write about the show?
Are you expected to be kind?
Are you being exploited?
Why are there more bloggers reviewing reviews than bloggers reviewing shows?
Can the farmer and the cowboy ever be friends?

Here's a choice paragraph:

The blogosphere throws these two different styles of discourse into the same Ultimate Fighting PR amphitheater. Where the writer (reviewer) has a developed proficiency at broadcasting an opinion or argument, the talker (word-of-mouth representative) is proficient at commenting and finding holes in the argument. The blogger has developed a whole genre of writing out of this "letter to the editor" or contra-review mode of theatre talk. There are more reviews of reviews than actual reviews of productions in blogs.

Paparelli moves to Chicago and brings his chutzpah with him. Mamet did it for the money, duh. The Goodman has added a Naomi Izuka play to their already buldging season. Urinetown gets a prequel. What's up with the League of Independent Theater these days? Man sues Blue Man. Susan Smith Blackburn finalists named. Broadway takes a financial hit.

Maybe not.

Chloe Veltman's recent article for the SF Weekly (posted on her blog, here) examines the state of political theatre in the Bay Area and beyond.

With the mass, commercialized media of television, the Internet, talk radio, and movies possessing an exponentially greater ability to reach voters, many people are apt to dismiss the intensely localized, live medium of theater as irrelevant to the democratic process. The fact that most political dramas espouse a liberal point of view and play largely to like-minded audiences only serves to further ghettoize the art form.

Most people don't take theater seriously. Even those who regularly attend do so more for kicks than because they're looking for a kick in the ass. Despite theater companies' good intentions, how much of the work produced this year (or, indeed, any year) can hope to make an impact beyond merely showing audience members a good time? All too often, theater fundamentally fails to engage audiences because it plays up to -- rather than challenges -- their expectations.

The economics of producing plays is fairly dismal. It still takes the same number of people to put on a play now (basically) as it did a hundred years ago. There's precious little room for increased efficiency in the process.

I'm actually typing in the lobby. The Thugs is running just about 50 feet away. There's a really tiny audience in there. Adam (Bock) sent me an email today asking if we're having fun. No, Adam, at this moment I'm definitely not having fun. Here's how it goes.

I do a lot of presentations. Each time I give a talk, I try to improve on something. I have a good base on which to build thanks to an unlikely education. Despite my career in technology, I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Theatre.

I learned a lot of good public speaking practices from theatre school. They come in two flavours-content and technique.

Nathania @ Copyblogger says:

As an improvisational actor, I wanted to offer the readers of Copyblogger insight into 5 techniques used by improv actors and comedians that can help you improve your blogging.

If you've ever wondered how much it costs to produce a show in NYC, this will be of interest to you.

Isaac Butler wrote a great post on Parabasis yesterday in response to what's going on with the Equity Showcase Code and the proposed 99 Code. Jump to his page to get commentary and a bunch of links to explain what I'm referring to.

For the moment, though, we're really interested in the production expenses breakdown he does at the end of the post.

As they say on Marketplace... let's do the numbers. You're producing a show with a $60K budget. Assuming we've embraced the above model, that means that you're paying $9,000 split up amongst your cast of 5. You're a fair minded person, so you've decided to pay everyone the same. So your director and design team of four (lights, sound, set, costumes) and stage manager and playwright all get $1,800 a person. So that's another $12,600 out the door. So now, of your $60K show, you have remaining $38,400.

Neil LaBute is on a rrrrrollllll these days, isn't he?

First he provoked the theaternet to get its collective panties in a wad over his article for the Guardian, in which he claimed that "most writers are pussies" and spoke for a full continent's worth of playwrights, saying "We are small writers in America."

You can read some double-takes and biggups from The Playgoer, Don Hall, George Hunka, Benjamin Yeoh, and Naomi Wallace, who lands a great knockout punch. Shown here:

I would like to celebrate, rather than denigrate, American playwrights today: may you long continue to kick ass! Let us thank the gods that your crucial work does not need the blessings of LaBute to make itself visible and vital.

Oh, c'mon. You knew it was only a matter of time.

moar funny pictures

Like many people, I'd heard of the Belarus Free Theatre twice before the Under the Radar Festival. The first time was when they performed Being Harold Pinter - a mash-up of Pinter plays and speeches - at a conference last April.

The second time was this:

Fewer than three weeks after a meeting with former Czech President Václav Havel on August 4, 2007, at his country cottage in the Czech Republic on August 22, 2007, during the Free Theatre's première of Edward Bond's theatrical piece Eleven Vests, special forces from the Belarusian police stormed the performance by the Belarus Free Theatre in a private apartment in Minsk, and "Actors, directors, and audience members," including its director Khalezin, were arrested, though subsequently released.

The theatre's founder Nikolai Khalezin is still pretty shaken up, having stated, "Police used to burst into our performances with machine guns but they disappeared just as fast. A mass arrest like this is a first."

In short, definitely.

Fractured Atlas's excellent blog refers us to a page by the Virtual Arts Incubator (a project of the Fine Arts Fund of Cincinnati) that is a bullet list of ways to make your website an effective marketing tool.

I particularly think this is important:

» Website should be under your control.
» Website needs constant care and maintenance.

For more info on how to get started on making and using your website, try this, this, and this.

Hello everyone it's good to be here, thanks for coming.

We're having a great time in New York. Just being here always puts me in a better general mood. (Until it's 1am and we're riding the train with a boatload of moaning homeless people and I feel guilty about getting a new jacket. But that's another story.)

The Suicide Kings - In Spite of Everything

This was a good show and I'm glad I saw it.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, I know. But I really did like it. Read on.

Last year and this, I have found that a lot of the work at Under the Radar leaves me firmly between two poles of opinion. Often, I find a few things to love about it, a few things that are really original and exciting, and a bunch of things that bugged the heck out of me. Often, those things have to do with direction, or at least that's my perspective. My wife and I have the theory that actors bug here because she's an actor, and the directing bugs me because I'm a director. Really though, I imagine that if you're a writer/performer with a vision, it must be difficult to find just the right director to bring your work to fruition.

Anyway.

Coming to you live from Cafe Bonjour, 741 St Nicholas Avenue @ West 147th Street.

David J of Bauhaus has written and will direct a musical about Edie Sedgwick. Cornerstone Theater will be offering a 2-day intensive in their unique techniques, in L.A. In Pittsburgh, Squonk Opera return with Pittsburgh: The Opera. Theatre space for sale in Wrigleyville. Here's a nice little article about how hard it is to make a living as a playwright. If you like super-heroes, you might want to catch The Roundtable Ensemble's Save the World. I can't stand Robert Bly, but the fact that he's turned to adapting Ibsen is interesting news. Theatre Calgary sounds like the Actors Theatre of Louisville of the north: new works, local actors, and a new play festival are supported by Our Town and Beauty and the Beast.

Theatre and Entertainment Law
Page 73
Signal Ensemble
David Johnston
Kavinoky Theatre
GreyZelda
Acting Schmacting
Theatre is Dead
Get the Guests
Time Out NY
Blog of Floyd
Portland Dramaturgy Cabal
James Urbaniak
Lamp Life
Midnight Honesty @ Noon
Youngblood NYC
Hot Review dot org
Hollywood Fringe
Portland Center Stage
Staten Island Stage Whispers
The Mission Paradox
Renaissance Man
Chicago Theater Blog
Impact Theatre

We're heading to NYC tomorrow morning. Here's a list of the shows I believe we're seeing this weekend.

@ Under the Radar
In Spite of Everything
Generations Jeans
Poetics: A Ballet Brut
Terminus
Church
This Place is a Desert

Elsewhere
The Farnsworth Invention
Beckett Shorts @ NYTW

Depending on how things go we might make it to Danny and the Deep Blue Sea and Amazons and Their Men as well.

8-10 shows, not a bad weekend.

Danny Hoch takes over Berkley. Playbill pays tribute to dramaturg Anne Cattaneo. More potentially great Beckett - this time with John Turturro and Elaine Stritch. A famous comic book writer has a dissenting opinion about The Little Mermaid. Churches and theatres have been collaborating for quite some time. Would you like a video tour of producer Barry Weissler's apartment? Take a moment to check out some Hawaiian theatre.

Hey folks. We had a few days of technical difficulties around here. You may have noticed some magical disappearing posts. Sorry about that.

Things should be back to normal now. Of course, you'll know they're not if this post isn't here tomorrow.

A Coen brother writes for the theatre. Every LORT theatre in America collected here. Check out the new Indie Theater Now podcast. The Goodman has big plans for next year, including an O'Neill celebration. "Top Ten No-Holds-Barred Audition Tips." The House Theatre (well, one of them) is making comics. (Awesome! I was gonna buy that anyway.)

Here's a little project for you.

Visit the homepage for the estimable League of Resident Theatres and try to explain why their web design sucks so badly.

Do they really have to use Times New Roman throughout the whole thing? Really? And what's with the color scheme? I'm tempted to dig up some 3D glasses to see if there's some hidden subliminal message buried within the text. And when was it last modified? Oh. Oh, my. Yes, that would be eighteen months ago. Adam, if you're reading this, please get to work. Otherwise nobody's ever going to take LORT seriously.

Allow me to refer you, once again, to Mr. Scott Walters.

I get so dispirited reading theatre blogs and seeing all you talented, intelligent, articulate, and creative artists struggling just to get an opportunity to make art. You twist yourselves into pretzels,and work your fingers to the bone and share tiny apartments with too many people in order to scrape together enough cash to give to all the bloodsuckers -- the theatre owners and rehearsal hall landlords and headshot photographers and agents and newspaper ad salesmen and Kinko's franchises -- just so that you can do a play, give your gifts to the public.

. . .

It is SICK. And it it time for us to quit pretending it isn't. It is time for us to stop sighing, "That's just the way it is." Because it may be the way it is, but it isn't the way it has to be. But we all have to have the courage to admit it, to speak it out loud and often.

Enough is enough.

Amen, Scott. Amen.

the system of American theatre is so full of grit that hardly any artists are free to really do what it is they are best at -- follow their inner vision. Instead, they are forced to think like...well, like engineers: what does the market want, how can I get my work seen? If things were working correctly, a bunch of us engineers would keep the system running smoothly so that the work that artists created would be seen and appreciated and they wouldn't be bothered with marketing and administration.

Must-read: Billington vs Bond. Berkeley's Shotgun Players now use 100% solar power. Here's a great list of near-future Broadway openings. The Playgoer looks at how well all those straight plays on Broadway are really doing. Americans for the Arts are into Obama and Huckabee. Iris Bahr's DAI (ENOUGH) hits San Fran for four days. Lincoln Center Cyrano to be on TV. The Norman Conquests in Milwaukee? I gotta go.

First photos from the Doubt movie have surfaced. Make way for Culturemart 2008 at the hERE arts center, starting 1.04.08! Noel Coward disses Sam Beckett. The Nature Theater of Oklahoma is neither. (Okay, actually they kind of are a nature theater, but ...) If you enjoyed John Lahr's Pinter article in the New York, check out the podcast. Actor James Barbour pleaded guilty to "endangering the welfare of" a 15-year-old female fan during the run of Jane Eyre.

The Beebo Brinker Chronicles moves to 37 arts. Looks like Mac Wellman has a new book. Three new theaters in St. Louis this year. No more smoking in-character on Chicago stages? Karen D'Souza lists a Top Ten for the Bay Area. Christopher Rawson lists year-end bests for Pittsburgh.

Some PerformInk:

The psychological grip these bloggers and their commenting minions hold on journalists can't be underestimated. If you merely read what was printed about Chicago theatre this year, you only got the text. If you read the blogs, you also got the vital, constantly shifting subtext, postings that drilled their way into journalists' psyches and leaked into their coverage. Meanwhile, various practitioners argued themselves blue in the face trying to make sense of it all.