Central Europe's most famous self-deprecating intellectual humanist is still capable of producing the absurdist vignettes that were his trademark long before he was thrust on to the world stage.

Havel's new play, the title of which translates to Leaving, opened in Prague this past weekend. at Divadlo Archa. Kate Connolly reviewed it for the Guardian and had little but praise for the production, which received an enthusiastic response from the audience.

Here's hoping Havel continues to create the art that has made him so important to his country.

I see a lot of young playwrights in America writing apolitical works that don't engage with social reality. Why do you think that is?

Nonprofit theaters rely on funding from corporations and wealthy individuals. It's likely that liberal audiences and funders are deeply invested in the current structures that have allowed them to make and preserve their wealth, and it's unlikely that they are truly interested in seeing work that questions the ideological foundations that support their class status.

Artistic directors, who rely on this funding to keep their theaters afloat, are likely--consciously or not--choosing work that appeals to the ideological prejudices of the audiences that sustain their theaters.

This is not a time of great ideological dissent in the art world. There's a sense among artists today that the world is the way it is and that's it.

But you refuse to think that way.

We can't use the way things are as an excuse to give up or to create art that reinforces the dominant ideologies of our country. Artists have thrived in societies much more oppressive than ours. And it's important to remember that.

We have to remember we're able to write what we want to write--so far--without being censored or put in jail. We might not get all the audiences we want, but no one is stopping us from doing the work that we think should be done. To me, the artist's responsibility is to do the work.

Click here to read the whole interview.

You know you want to write a play in November. You know you want to. Even if you never have. Even if you don't know how. And if you know how and want to and haven't signed up, you need to sign up at these two addresses :

Naplwrimo Homepage
and
Naplwrimo Discussion Boards

Signing up for both is the only way to participate!!!
Don't miss out! and See you there!

I gotta go start my play.... or you know... write the 30 other web pages that should be up and aren't yet.

Playwrighterly Yours,
Dorothy

This may be on the wrong side of funny, but it's pretty good.

More comedy from anonymous sources.

A near riot broke out at the Midwestern LMDA conference this past weekend when Craig Webster, acting president of LMDA, was stumped by a visiting fifth grader from Montgomery Prep who asked: "So, what is it you do?"

Webster responded: "What the fuck do you mean - what is it you do?" Before attacking the boy, identified as Mikey Ross, with a metal mic stand. "I just didn't understand," Mikey said. "Our class was there on a trip and they kept talking about how they worked really hard on all these plays. But they couldn't say what they did, besides, talk about them?" Webster had no comment before adding: "Fuck that kid.that kid's an asshole."

(Full disclosure: the author is a dramaturg. And greatly incensed by Mikey Ross' comments. Beat his ass!)

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.

Thanks to Kyle at Frank's Wild Lunch, I've been up late (Happy Memorial Day!) thinking about Steven Leigh Morris's great article for LA Weekly, American Theater's Failure of Nerve. Kyle says it touches "on everything from the safe choices of the Pulitzer drama committee to 'development hell' to a suggestion that regional theater is turning into a miniature Hollywood studio mediocrity mill. "

Kyle has highlighted a few of his own favorite moments, and they are tasty. So here's mine.

I can’t imagine an unorthodox, once-befuddling little play like Waiting for Godot — with its capacities both to turn the theater on its head and to confound half the audience — standing a chance at a festival like this. Here, the playwrights are in consultation with too many intermediaries, even at the formative stages of their plays, just like in the movies. With no marketing strategy in place, Waiting for Godot was eventually produced in every corner of the globe, on the strength of its conviction and literary merit, stemming from the uncompromising vision of an author who wrote in a kind of solitary confinement. Samuel Beckett certainly didn’t collaborate with directors, dramaturges or anybody else while he was in the formative process of writing, yet this is now the protocol in American new-play development.

The current problems with play development have been discussed at length lately and Mr. Morris's writing is certainly worth tossing on top of the pile.

Great idea, yeah? Can't wait to see how this works (the combination of this as well as the beefing up of their usual support programs). Note that the application process begins at the end of May...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
THE PUBLIC THEATER CREATES ‘THE PUBLIC WRITERS INITIATIVE’ TO DEVELOP NEW PLAYS AND CULTIVATE NEW VOICES FOR THE AMERICAN THEATER

‘THE EMERGING WRITERS GROUP’ WILL PROVIDE KEY SUPPORT FOR PROMISING WRITERS (TIME WARNER TO BE FOUNDING SPONSOR)

Tracy Letts, Steppenwolf ensemble member since 2002, and esteemed author of Bug and Man from Nebraska, is Pissed, capital P. He's pissed at The Talkers, The Cell-Phone Users, The Snorers, The Psychos, The Unwrappers, The Program Readers, and the rest of the audience that makes up the 1%.

Please don't e-mail me, saying "I can't believe Tracy holds his audience in such contempt." I don't hold you in contempt. I love you. I love you very much.

But I'm not writing about you, the 99% of you. I'm writing about YOU, the 1%. And I'm willing to wager the 99% know exactly who I'm talking about...

Lots of folks are talking about the fact that the shooter at Virgina Tech was a writer, and that he wrote really bizarre, violent plays. (Which you can read here.) This conversation is worth following.

Laura Axelrod:

As a writer, I regularly explore areas in my psyche that I would never actually want to manifest. I may write about a killer, for instance. That doesn't mean I want to murder. For those who believe art is cathartic, writing about such things could be a sign of health.