By Isaac Butler The ultimate purpose of art-- particularly writing-- is not self-expression. Self-expression is, in general, what art is made out of, it's base materials. But like how a wood…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 01:53PMBy Isaac Butler Back in July, David Dower wrote a post for HowlRound attemptin to answer a question Hal Brooks asked him at a panel they served on. The question was "how"-- given t…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 12:32PMBy Isaac Butler Both The New York Times and Time Out New York reviews mention that the reivews are written in accordance to a strict "No Spoliers" policy instituted by the producer…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 01:11PMClearly something in that Isherwood column struck a nerve with a lot of people other than me. Now in addition to a pseudonymous letter writer, we have a Tumblr dedicated to the idea of Isher…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 08:35PMFirst off, let me just tip the ole hat to Rob Weinert-Kendt, who has a good two-parter on Isherwood's blog post from yesterday. In part one, he wraps up some of the response to Isherwood and…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 10:51AMBy Isaac Butler I want you to imagine for a moment that you are a theater reviewer tasked with regularly reviewing an artist whose work you don't respond to. Worse, you actually pretty much …
SOURCE: Parabasis at 11:39AMBy Isaac Butler There are few people more steeped in Stevejobsiana and less in the tank for him than Mike Daisey. It's not that Daisey's a hater, no, it's just that Mike wants to evaluate Jo…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 08:13AMBy Isaac Butler Stuart Jeffries writes about abandoning the new UK revivial of Top Girls at intermission for the Guardian. It's a fun piece, and it's bracing (although not particularly rewar…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 10:26AMThe inimitable Polly Carl has penned a paean to the Power of Yes today for her journal HowlRound and twitter and the theatroverse are positively stoked: Yes feels like too big a risk. If we …
SOURCE: Parabasis at 08:59PMBy Isaac Butler Of the top ten most produced shows on TCG member theater stages, only one wasn't seen on Broadway within the last five years. This, to me, shows once again how conservatizing…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 06:42PMBy Isaac Butler The Lanford Wilson Issue: I introduce the Issue here. Jannie Wolff discusses beauty, empathy, Lanford's work and knowing him as an intern at Circle Rep here. Carl Forsman and…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 03:37PMEditor's Note: It seems that at most major transition points of my writing career, Laura Axelrod has been there. When I first started theater blogging, playwright Laura Axelrod was-- along w…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 11:37AMby Isaac Butler Marshall Mason on Hot L: Norman Lear discussing his failed TV series adaptation: A promo for that adaptation that shows, fairly clearly, that the network had no idea what to …
SOURCE: Parabasis at 06:41PMEditor's Note: One of the ways that people of my generation were first exposed to Lanford Wilson was through high school and summer camp theater programs. Certainly, that's how I encountered…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 01:53PMEditor's Note: In "Maturing With Wilson," playwright Alessandro King documents his journey from hammy high school character actor to adult playwright, a journey guided all along by…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 10:25AMWhen I first started writing plays, I said, “Theatre should be a three-ring circus.” I wanted a lot of people, all talking at once, creating life on the stage. After we formed the Circle…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 11:14PMTwo Links: -- Earlier this year, a group of artists banded together to do Wilson's Balm In Gilead in Brooklyn. Playwright Stephanie Fleischmann was there to document it. You can check out he…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 05:53PMTransforming Beauty By Jannie Wolff Editor’s Note: What better way to kick off our week than with a memoir piece by someone who knew Lanford Wilson. Here, Jannie Wolff—who interned with …
SOURCE: Parabasis at 12:15PMBy Isaac Butler Contra-Michael Billington, the reason why it's bad that Judith Miller is going to be a theater critic for Tablet Magazine is not that she has no arts background. It's that sh…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 04:10AMThe terrifyingly talented Jessica Blank (The Exonerated, Aftermath etc.) tried to write in a comment and it just wouldn't post. I asked her if I could just go ahead and post it to help keep …
SOURCE: Parabasis at 07:17PMBy Isaac Butler Alan Lomax did not write any of the folk and traditional songs that he helped archive and record. And yet he claimed a copyright on them. This is how he came to be a co-autho…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 01:21PMI am currently reading Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook to help brush up on issues in poetry pedagogy prior to teaching a poetry creative writing unit in the fall. She has some rather interes…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 04:01PMI tweeted and facebooked and social networked about this earlier, but if you haven't read it yet, Jason Zinoman's NYTimes blog piece on the value(s) of bad reviews is well worth your time, a…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 01:21PMBy Isaac Butler That certainly seems to be the question lying at the heart of this piece in the Guardian by chief arts staff writer Charlotte Higgins. And while you might thing the answer is…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 10:48AMBy Isaac Butler Going through my stack of mail upon returning to Minneapolis, I found a season brochure from The Guthrie for their 2011-2012 season. Honestly, it's enough to make you doubt w…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 04:00PMParabasis, an internet journal of arts, culture and politics, seeks submissions for its upcoming week-long online issue about the work of American playwright Lanford Wilson. What we are look…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 01:41PMSo asks Philadelphia theatre critic David Fox. He even goes so far to consult Miss Manners (who, shockingly, says it's okay). While he probably wouldn't personally boo, he could understand w…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 11:18AMThere are very, very, very few moments of theater that I think have clearly delineated right and wrong ways of interpretation. But it turns out that-- at least according to Isherwood-- the R…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 05:25PMBy Isaac Butler Charging more for something drives people away from seeing it. But don't worry. I'm sure charging $75 for an off-broadway ticket has no impact whatsoever on how many people g…
SOURCE: Parabasis at 09:28AMI've long had this theory that while the rest of the country seems to suffer from a Shakespeare Problem-- which is to say, overproducing Shakespeare to the detriment of the rest of the class…
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