Tuesday, April 3, 2012
[Also posted on Huffington Post]
Prologue
On March 16, Ira Glass devoted an entire episode of This American Life to doing that which newspapers do with a few sentences in a small box buri…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 11:48AMSaturday, March 17, 2012
I have heard from a couple people involved with the Counting New Beans book that was just released with information that pertains to my previous post. Clayton Lord, the director of comm…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 05:26PMFriday, March 16, 2012
I just received in the mail today a copy of Theatre Bay Area's newly released Counting New Beans: Intrinsic Impact and the Value of Art. While I am opening a show Thursday and won't get to r…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 05:24PMFriday, March 9, 2012
My first Huffington Post article, "Occupy the Arts," is now available on the website. It is a reworking and condensation of some of what I wrote Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change.
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 09:28AMThursday, March 8, 2012
I was surprised and pleased to see that my TEDxMichigan Ave talk from last May entitled "Bringing the Arts Back Home" has been transferred to the TED site.There seem to be 13 of the presenta…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 07:57PMWednesday, February 29, 2012
Dear Readers -- I have just been invited to be a contributor to the theater section of the Huffington Post. I am honored and happy to accept. This will not affect this blog -- my writing wil…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 08:21PMTuesday, February 28, 2012
Let me get this straight: the State of Texas gave the producers of The Tree of Life $434,252.79 as a subsidy for them to shoot a single film in Texas. And the NEA annual budget is how much?
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 09:42AMSunday, February 19, 2012
I get a lot of traffic on this site due to a couple posts that Dennis Baker links to in his 2008 post "Rutgers MFA Acting Program". Today, there was a comment I'd like to give more circulati…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 05:30PMThursday, February 16, 2012
OK., this and this is making me angry. Listen, I am glad that the President has requested more money for the NEA -- not enough, of course, because we are so far behind the eight ball as far …
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 03:00PMSunday, February 12, 2012
From Good Work (p 205):
In the question periods after his talks, Schumacher would invariably get asked by someone in the audience, "But what can I do?" His simple answer was "Do t…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 08:02PMBeing creative is better than buying creative.
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 04:37PMI am reading an anthology of speeches made by E. F. Schumacher which were gathered together under the title Good Work. He writes:
One of the greatest confusions, in most discussions, is the …
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 12:40PMFriday, February 10, 2012
Fifteen years ago, Tony Kushner delivered the keynote address to the assembled college theatre professors of the US at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) convention. His …
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 12:18PMSunday, February 5, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
"You've Cott Mail" today is all about "the need to fail." I'm with Adam Thurman on this one: "I've had to learn (the hard way) that the only failures that move us forward are the ones where …
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 09:45AMWednesday, February 1, 2012
"It would be better if art were nameless, and that those of us who write about art in books and the reviews and newspapers, always clacking about art, or Art, or ART, were constrained someho…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 08:59AMTuesday, January 31, 2012
In a fascinating interview on Huffington Post, Natalie Merchant discusses motherhood, her album Leave Your Sleep, and her development as an artist. Among the many thoughtful things she has t…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 09:49AMWednesday, January 25, 2012
As many of you have probably recognized over the years, one of my favorite things to write about are analogues to the arts I have found, i.e., other fields that are exploring similar issues …
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 08:16PMMonday, January 16, 2012
While there will be many tributes today to the vision and determination of Martin Luther King, from artists and non-artists alike, I think the best thing the arts as a field could do would b…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 11:04AMSunday, January 8, 2012
The arrival of a new year often leads to reflection on what has passed, and as a result points to new directions for what is to come in the future. For a theatre blogger who has been writing…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 04:09PMFriday, December 23, 2011
IN A COUPLE POSTS on Parabasis, Isaac Butler has contributed two commentaries concerning the increasingly blurred lines between the profit theatre and the nonprofit theatre. This is an issue…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 08:00PMWednesday, December 14, 2011
Arlene Goldbard's outstanding book
I was tempted to call this "Occupy Wall Street (part 5)," but arts consultant and thinker Arlene Goldbard, author of the powerful book The New Creative Com…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 02:10PMSunday, December 11, 2011
The first three parts of this series each pointed at different aspects of the problem of the concentration of funding in the nonprofit arts sector. First, the overview of the situation…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 08:52PMWednesday, November 23, 2011
On October 26th, one of the great pioneers of the regional theatre movement, Zelda Fichlander, addressed the assembled Stage Directors and Choreographers Society in celebration of the 3rd an…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 11:09AMFriday, November 18, 2011
"Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" -- Matthew 7: 3 (English Standard Version)Yesterday, in the first part of this …
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 05:06PMWednesday, November 16, 2011
Occupy Wall Street encampment
(First in a series)
As I write these lines, the Occupy Wall Street movement has been protesting for two months that the top 1% of Americans take home roughly …
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 09:32PMWednesday, November 9, 2011
Margo Jones
"What our country needs today, theatrically speaking, is a resident professional theatre in every city with a population of over one hundred thousand. According to the 1940 censu…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 05:49PMWednesday, November 2, 2011
Charles Olson
You must speak to your community.
The poet Vincent Ferrini, talking about poet Charles Olson, said "Everybody has to find his or her place. You find a place and you operate f…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 10:12AMTuesday, November 1, 2011
As some of you know, I am a big fan of StageNorth in Washburn, WI (pop 2,280). I am on their mailing list, and received the following this morning. For those of you who think that "culture" …
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 01:37PMFriday, October 28, 2011
On September 20th, a wonderful American playwright passed away: Jo Carson. Perhaps you've heard of her, perhaps you haven't -- most likely you haven't, because Jo Carson wrote plays about sp…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 05:45PMWednesday, September 7, 2011
Back in May, I made a trip to Chicago to deliver a TEDx talk organized by David Zoltan. I was only able to stay briefly, because my stepson Jake was graduating that same day from Illinois St…
SOURCE: Theatre Ideas at 09:04PM 
