I just had an interesting conversation with someone whose white teens are using the slang words “finna,” “aight,” “brah,” etc. She characterized it as …
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 03:29PMSometimes it seems like our whole entire culture is one huge celebration of thin white women. Ogling them, collecting them, advertising products to help other women become more like them, …
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 01:56PMUnless your show is called “Seven BJs for Seven Brothers,” (someone get on that), or unless you’re specifically doing TYA, people will contact your theatre and ask question…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 10:40AMThere’s almost constant talk online about what’s “offensive,” or who’s “offended,” and it’s high time we retired this word. “Offend̶…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 03:55PMWhile everyone’s in a great mood about the SCOTUS ruling, I figured now is a good time to post something controversial, right? It’s always a good idea to bring up the fact tha…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 03:33PMI was asked by the wonderful Jacqueline E. Lawton to participate in the latest TCG blog salon, “Artistic Leadership: How Do We Change the Game?” She sent me a series of question…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 12:34PMTheatre has a certain . . . reputation, no? That professional theatremakers are an iconoclastic, irreverent community that ignores or even outright disrespects religion? The reality is, as…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 04:24PMAbout a month ago, I tweeted a little snark at Cameron Crowe about the poster for his upcoming film, Aloha. I was shocked to get a response. I wasn’t shocked, however, when the film tu…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 09:22PMI have two kids, one I made myself and one I got free in a marital acquisition merger. So of course the title of this article is a joke, but the kind of joke that feels like the comedy equ…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 05:31PMAmerica has been exploding with issues surrounding the concept of “freedom of expression.” Like many freedoms, “freedom of expression” sounds great in the abstract. I…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 11:01AMIf there’s one thing that grinds my gears, it’s the disingenuous concern trolling over the rising generation’s “addiction” to technology, and how it has impacte…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 12:57AMI understand that there are something like 47,000 books on this topic, but I’m going to give you some succinct, usable advice right now for free. In addition to running Impact Theatre,…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 07:23PMTCG is holding a multiyear inquiry about audiences called “Audience (R)evolution.” The piece I wrote for it is called “The Lies We Tell About Audience Engagement.” It…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 11:16AMI had an interesting conversation with a theatremaker recently about casting. The discussion centered around multiethnic casting, particularly whether casting actors of different races as m…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 11:01AMSo you want to start a theatre company. My first bit of advice: don’t. It’s insanely difficult. Undeterred? OK. Here are some things you need to know. 1. Vision and Mission. I kn…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 06:38PMDear Mr. Clarke: I read the Stranger article about your play at ACT in Seattle. As a millionaire (billionaire?) CEO, it’s honestly touching that you wrote a play about your life-ch…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 11:56AMI’m a fifth-generation East Bay resident. My family came here in 1900. My son makes six generations of my family in the beautiful East Bay. This is my home. But lately, I’ve been…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 02:34PMSo I’m in heavy season planning right now, and reading many many many plays a day. Yesterday I cracked open four plays in a row that were all two-person plays with people in some kind…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 01:50PMThere’s a massive disconnect between theatre intelligentsia– bloggers like me– and what’s actually happening on the ground. Theatre writers have been doing an excelle…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 03:02PMOnce upon a time I met an actor with mental health issues. Just . . . save that joke for later; I’m serious times right now. He told me that the Korean government was trying to kill hi…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 04:24PMTheatre is storytelling. A large part of that job is understanding how various aspects of your story, visual, aural, linguistic, etc– will affect your audience. You’ll never be 1…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 04:44PMYes, I am still talking about this, despite some truly delightful comments and emails requesting that I stop draining all the fun out of life. (One woman, who said, and I quote, that she wou…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 01:44PMLike everyone, I’ve been thinking a lot about Ferguson, and about the epidemic of white men gunning down unarmed young African American men. What is racism made out of? What makes so…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 11:15AMHello, you magnificent bastards. I love you all, and I’m prepping a new blog post for you while I’m also prepping a bunch of classes and a new season at my theatre, so it’s…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 12:09PMFor so long I’ve wanted the Theatre Industry machine to behave a certain way and suddenly I realized I want to take that machine apart and build a new one instead. It’s been bre…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 05:19PMSometimes I open a play and see something that makes me feel like this: Here’s what you do that makes my heart sing as I’m reading the plays in my stack. Are these subjective? Su…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 03:51PMThere’s been a lot of talk lately about the stereotypical “Strong Female Character,” based on the CRAZY idea that we need to start thinking of female characters as . . . c…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 03:21PMThere’s been a lot of talk in the past few years about “audience engagement.” It’s partially been driven by a few big grantors requiring some form of it, and partiall…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 06:57PMLike everyone (right?) I have a running joke with a friend about how scary and creepy clowns are. It’s just a joke– considering I sleep every night with a Dell’Arte-traine…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 07:09PMLike pretty much every blogger, the plan I had for my next post got chucked out the window after the violence at UCSB. I’ve been closely following #YesAllWomen on twitter, the news sto…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 01:16PMA few days ago, I had two conversations almost back-to-back. One was with an experienced and talented actor who believed they were getting the message that their career was over just becau…
SOURCE: bittergertrude.com at 03:17PM
