Shepperd's Hook

The first big piece I wrote for American Theatre after I started full-time here was an in-depth profile of L.A.'s Celebration Theatre and its artistic director Michael Shepperd. There was no budget to actually fly me back to the City of Angels, so I had to rely on my extensive memory of seeing shows there, on phone interviews, and on the eerie semi-immersive experience of Google street-view maps. I must say I was happy with the result, which I presume to say may be a definitive study of a major but too-little-honored gay theater whose work has spanned, embodied, and borne witness to the huge generational shift that has taken gay culture, very roughly speaking, from bathhouses to play spaces (one of Shepperd's initiatives at Celebration was to create programming for kids and families, as he himself is of the married-with-children cohort).

It's sad that Michael's leaving the top post there, but I'm glad to see that he's going out with a bang, or rather, with Bash'd, a truly unlikely and utterly winning concoction I raved about for the Voice and which recently crossed my mind, as it deals with the violent backlash against the prospect of legal gay marriage in Canada. With great changes come great upheavals. Here's hoping that the changing of the guard at the Celebration (Shepperd's successor is John Michael Beck) is not cause for too wrenching an upheaval. Even in a supposedly post-gay world, we need the Celebration.

What Do These Have in Common?

Good Person of Szechuan by Bertolt Brecht
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Unforgettable Elephants PBS Nature Series
“Whistler’s Mother” Season 1 Episode 20 Arrested Development

• a man in uniform
• tobacco
• a song
• a crappy job
• a body part that doesn’t work right
• a home with too many inhabitants
• an epilogue
• price tags

also:

The above (Joan Baez’s 1968 recording of “Tears of Rage”) and the photo below.

Give up? These are disparate "ingredients" of a Paula Vogelian bake-off centered on the theme of "the Matriarch" that Clubbed Thumb has concocted for its Biennial Commission.

Deadline is Sept. 1. Playwrights, start your engines!

Quote for the Day

“Regardless of the medium, rewriting and more rewriting is still necessary. No one gets anything right the first time, and since I don't write with a hammer and chisel, it's relatively easy for me to change. It's just words on paper. Words are free. You don't go to the store and order a pound of words, or five hundred words, and pay your three dollars. They're free.” - August Wilson

Obviously, he never worked as a journalist.

What's Right With Ohio

The Ohio Theatre's untimely departure from Soho last year was bad news, but this summer brings great news upon already good news. The Ohio's annual Ice Factory new-works festival is now up at 3LD, and this fall the Ohio will reopen in a new location in the West Village's Archive Building (famous for, among other things, its "666 Greenwich" address, though the new Ohio West's actual address will be 154 Christopher St.). I remember the space, which was until recently the Wings Theatre, because the Times sent me to review a show there some years ago. No, it's not the raw barn that the old Ohio was, but it has promise, and the neighborhood—by my lights, anyway—is far more appealing.

I had a chance to sit down recently with Ohio impresario Robert Lyons to talk about this crop of good-and-great news for his scrappy downtown company, in this week's Time Out.

Stick-to-it-iveness

photo by I.C. Rapoport

So Lydia Diamond's much-lauded family comedy/drama Stick Fly will hit Broadway later this year. That's great news for Diamond, and great news for a play that's been gathering steam since its 2006 debut at Chicago Congo Square Theatre. It's also good news for the 99-seat Matrix Theatre in L.A. It was from the Matrix's feisty producer, Joe Stern, that I first heard about the play; I was doing interviews for this two-part series for LA Stage Times, and Joe, a veteran of the so-called "Waiver wars," was talking it up because he was about to produce it there (and with much of the same cast and the same director as the McCarter production).

I mention this just to clear up any misconception that Center Theatre Group and Pasadena Playhouse are the only L.A. theaters that stage major national work (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Baby It's You, Sister Act, respectively), and to remind those who need reminding (you probably don't know who you are) that some of L.A.'s 99-seaters are as or more forward-thinking than the big LORT houses (Boston Court, here's looking at you, too).

Quotes of the Week

From around the theatre net:

• "Hasa Diga Convention!" One of seven things The Book of Mormon (the show, not the scripture) can teach producers, from Ken Davenport's blog.
  
• "Are we [critics] too gentle?...Or is Los Angeles simply one of the finest venues in the English speaking world for live theater?" From an admirably self-critical post on the Bitter Lemons site.
  
• "We now pay strangers to tell us stories about strangers. But when do we use the symbolic language of theatre, dance, etc., to tell our own stories about our collective selves?" A bracing David Diamond excerpt on Scott Walter's blog.
  
• "Allow the love of the good ghost," my favorite line from a shattering Pinter quote on George Hunka's site.
  
• I liked this defensive but incisive quote from Sarah Ruhl, in Lahr's Stage Kiss rave: "Lightness is not stupidity. It's actually a philosophical and aesthetic viewpoint, deeply serious, and has a kind of wisdom—stepping back to be able to laugh at the horrible things even as you're experiencing them."

The Shaggy Muse

I probably should stop apologizing for my lack of time to properly blog. But in response to seeing The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World last night, I essentially wrote a fan letter to its creators (songwriter Gunnar Madsen, bookwriter and co-lyricist Joy Gregory, and director John Langs). Rather than reshape it for the blog, I'll just reprint it here.

Dear Joy, Gunnar, and John:

I was in L.A. for the TCG conference last week, so I didn't get to see The Shaggs until last night. I was semi-dreading it after the mixed reviews and my fear that I had hyped the show with my Times piece, and what if I'd steered people wrong?

I shouldn't have worried: It's the most exciting, moving, intelligent, and freakishly good new musical I've seen in a long time (and yeah, I liked that Mormon show a lot, too, but I don't consider that especially groundbreaking, and both Scottsboro and Bloody Bloody were drastically overrated, in my opinion). The first act I more or less recognized from L.A., but that second act—wow, it's a whole other show, and what a revelatory one it is. I love Annie's new song; the "empty birdcage" tune sounded brand new to my ears; Charlie D's rap hits the right note of outsider appreciation; and the car rant, with the keening sisters' vocals, is one of my favorite musical-theater moments in the theater in years.

It's been my experience that in a form as encrusted by routine as musical theater, it's really easy to spot when a show is going through the motions, falling back on old tricks, when it's essentially "vamping." What I loved about The Shaggs is that not a moment felt that way; all of it felt alive and pulsing with weird energy and subtext. As my musical-writing colleague put it, on both the "macro and micro level" (set, vocal direction, staging, pacing), everything has been shaped with such care and attention to the story's unique needs.
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In short, I think you three pulled off the big trick of telling this odd, haunting but life- and even joy-filled story in a correspondingly odd, haunting, joyful way, and for that you have my extreme admiration and praise (and envy! The aforementioned musical-theater colleague and I are working on a musical about Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi, and facing similar issues of tone).

Congratulations! And thanks for following the Shaggs muse all the way.

Alas, the lukewarm reviews mean the show hasn't been extended past its announced July 3 closing, and there is unlikely to be a cast album (c'mon, Sh-K-Boom! I'd pay full price). Ultimately, the Shaggs musical may be as much of a cult piece as the Shaggs' original album has been, and though on one level that seems entirely fitting, it would be a shame if the show doesn't find a wider audience. But, to slightly rephrase Dot Wiggin's famous lyric, you can never please everybody in this world.