Random Greenpoint Shot

Truth in advertising, I wonder? Happy Halloween.

Controversy Is Always a Winner

That is, until you have to give away the free tickets:

Due to a recent controversy that has erupted over one of the plays in the production of SPIN, currently on stage at the Cherry Lane Theatre, the stageFARM has announced that it will offer a limited number of free tickets to performances of the show to Britney Spears fans who will be in the New York area next week (through November 8). The playwright, Gina Gionfriddo, will also participate in a post-performance talkback on Wednesday, November 5.

Searching for signs of this reported fracas, I looked (admittedly briefly) online, with the keywords "Britney Spears Iraq spin," and I did find this infamous moment...from five years ago. The press release I received goes into more detail:

One of the works in this new series of commissioned short plays, “America’s Got Tragedy” by Ms. Gionfriddo, depicts the pop princess in a fantasy setting: on the set of a reality TV show in which she competes against a dead American soldier who was recently killed in Iraq. The winner must prove their story is most tragic. Dreama Walker (“Gossip Girls”) portrays Ms. Spears on stage.

The premise reminds me of that ghoulishly funny Curb Your Enthusiasm with the dueling "survivors"--one of the Holocaust, the other of the reality show. But I digress. Here's where the "controversy" comes in:

In emails to the stageFARM office, Spears’ fans have objected to the supposedly negative and inaccurate portrayal of their favorite female idol, according to the company’s Executive Director, Carrie Shaltz. Ms. Gionfriddo counters that “I'm a huge Britney fan. I wrote the play to comment on the dwindling news coverage of the war and the way in which--I think--Britney was demonized and exploited by a media that should have paid more attention to the troops. I would love to have a dialogue with fellow fans about my play. Their response is interesting to me because my play has won so many Britney converts during the run. My hope is that it functions as a humanizing corrective to Britney-bashing rather than a jump on the ugly bandwagon.” Hence, in the spirit of understanding and reconciliation, the offer of freebies.

I pass on this information to any Britney fans among my readers: to reserve your complimentary tickets for a performance of Spin, Nov. 3–8, 8 p.m., email Carrie Shaltz at carrie@thestagefarm.org.

Music & Journalism & the Web

Apropos the back-and-forth below about the future of journalism in the Web age, I've been thinking a bit more about the relationship between content and the Internet. When I chatted recently after my interview with Duncan Sheik, and the fortunes of the music business came up, I realized: Damn if I haven't been pursuing the two fields most egregiously decimated by the ascendance of the Web! (Somehow the movie and TV businesses have more or less avoided the economic apocalypse facing music and publishing--yet another reason to kick myself that I didn't make more use of my film/TV degree.)

Apart from larger career and industry concerns, this dilemma affects me on a fine-grained, almost minute-to-minute basis: As an unmediated, still essentially un-monetized distribution platform, the Web has made my life as a consumer of music and journalism so much busier, more active, and, some might say less charitably, more obsessive-compulsive (more on that in a second). As a maker of music and journalism, the Web has been important but not central to my life and work--so far. But I'm beginning to glimpse the forest through the trees, and to see that if there are millions of obsessive readers and listeners like me out there/here, with reading and listening habits shaped and sharpened by the Web, then we sometime makers of things to read and listen to will not be starved for an audience, at the very least. Whether it's a paying audience, or an audience advertisers will pay to distract, is the rub.

As for this brave new world of seemingly unlimited distribution and consumption, the picture isn't all rosy. More is not always better. That seems an obvious point, but until you live it firsthand it's not self-evident. I wrote a little on this theme a few year backs, in a be-careful-what-you-wish-for post about how the iPod and iTunes had changed my relationship to music (I'm still wrestling with the same issue--to wit, I'm still not sure I've heard every track on the Elvis Costello CD I referred to in that post, let alone the 17 albums he's released since then). And this post on the emusic blog (h/t Digital Audio Insider) hit very close to home:

If I think back to the time when I was getting really hooked on certain bands, I was purchasing probably 1-2 albums a month; where now I get 10-15 albums, plus all the free stuff...and don't get me wrong it's great, but sometimes I feel I lack the time to really get to know a particular piece...I definitely spend less time with each album than I used to. It's not even that I get bored with albums, it's that I have 75 downloads per month, plus a few subscriptions to Song of the Day podcasts, plus music my friends give me...the end result being I can love a band one month and get so distracted the next that I forget about it...It's a trade-off of the Internet age -- more bands to listen to, and less time to spend with each one.

...I'll get stuck on one record for a few weeks at a time. As a consequence, I start getting anxiety about all the really great stuff that's passing me by just because I can't seem to stop listening to, say, J-Live or Shearwater. There are so many records that I keep "meaning" to get to -- so many records that I know I'd probably love -- and I'm afraid I'm just going to end up missing them.

I feel very similarly about the news and opinion blogs I look at several times a day (particularly this election season). Trying to turn this picture around, how does such consumer behavior affect the livelihood of those who make the stuff we consume? In the case of journalists and musicians--so far, so abysmally. Still, the fact that music and journalism continue to be made and eagerly, all too eagerly, consumed, gives me a few tiny shreds of hope.

Who Knew?

The irreverent reverend, Fr. James Martin, S.J., offers this helpful video in time for about All Saints Day (with a touch of Halloween). Things I didn't know: that St. Thomas Aquinas is the patron saint of people who are afraid of lightning, that St. Apollonia is the patron saint of dentistry, and that Mother Cabrini...well, it's worth watching for Fr. Jim's terrible punchline.

The Last Word (Till Tuesday)

Ta-Nehisi Coates tells the fretful left to stop worrying and love the 'Bam:

Liberals are the wimp at the end of the bar. There is a gorgeous red-head, just down the way, working on her third vodka gimlet. Some herb-ass dude is blustering in her ear, but she's winking at you. She walks over and buys you a drink. She's waiting on you to ask for the math. But you want to talk her head off about how things like this never happen to you. About how you always spill your drink, or trip and fall trying to get off your bar-stool. It makes her want to go back and talk to the blustery herb just on GP. And she would--if the herb had any GP to speak of.

The Talented Mr. Mills

There's no question that Peter Mills know how to put together the elements of a musical about as well as anyone working today. I just wish I liked the sum of those parts a bit more. His newest: a revival of his accomplished Illyria; my review is here. (I felt similarly impressed and frustrated by The Flood a few years back.) I'm actually amazed that he and Cara Reichel haven't yet been snapped up to do a big new movical adaptation, but then, maybe that's not on their agenda. Either way, Mills remains someone worth watching (and listening to).

(Photo by Michael Kirby.)

First To Zero

Time Out delivers its first zero-star theater review to...John Patrick Shanley and Henry Krieger's Romantic Poetry. Come on, Adam--it's at least a two-starrer! I found it a fascinating failure, and an odd counterpoint to Shanley's upcoming film of Doubt. I would venture to say, however, that one of the guilty pleasures of reading criticism is taking in viciously gleeful sentences like this:

In a more honorable world, the entire board of Manhattan Theatre Club would resign in disgrace for presenting such bilge, and charging $85 to see it.

No he din't!