The Icon Faerie

Long story short: I'm back in Iowa for the foreseeable future.

( Long story NOT short... [TW: self-harm, suicidal ideation] )

It's been a long time since I've updated updated and... I don't know if I could possibly talk about everything that's happened.

Despite nervously eyeing my finances the entire time, I have had basically the best summer of my life. I stayed with occultebelta in Brooklyn for most of it, where Manhattan was a forty minute subway ride instead of an hour and a half on a train and jostling through Penn Station. thinkatory came to see us in the last week of July and I got to share my favorite city with two of my best friends. I took Bee home to Canada at the end of her time here and stayed the weekend.

I'd already privately decided I'm never going back to Iowa on any kind of permanent basis if I can absolutely help it, but this has put a firm seal on that. I love New York.

We saw a lot of shows, including a very... interesting "Hamlet 3-D" which was okay, but the 3D was only during The Mousetrap for some reason, and I ended up taking off my glasses anyway because it was making me a little ill. It was pretty cut down, but the guy who was playing Hamlet (Sam Underwood) was PHENOMENAL. I also saw Carney at the Bowery Ballroom at the end of July and Dear. Freaking. God. They are a great band who records very, very well but they are amazing live. And the Rent revival was... their "Another Day" was so good I could have puked. I don't know possibly how else to describe it.

Anyway, I have a lot of theatre opinions and I need to share them, but that's why I have my Theatre Blog. And since that blog got me in to Blogger's Night at Catch Me If You Can, I better keep using it. I am going to try and make a habit to write something there at least once a week. The point of a blog is to update it regularly and gain a readership; if you don't update you're not going to cultivate shit. Secretly, I'd like to be one of those theatre bloggers that people talk to and respect. I could make a living working for Playbill, or Broadway.com, or whatever. But mostly I want to talk about theatre to anybody who will listen and, well, isn't that what the internet is for?

School starts in two weeks. I finished my syllabus today, because last night I had a nightmare where my syllabus wasn't finished, I couldn't get any of the technology to work, and for some reason I was teaching in a room in my middle school and had given them a math assignment. I don't know. I'm sure there's a deep Freudian meaning there, but I just kind of want to leave it alone.

I'm sure I'll be back to being here complaining daily in short order. Don't worry.

I'm sure people who follow me on multiple sites are sick of seeing this, but OMG THE JUJAMCYN THEATERS PEOPLE E-MAILED ME FOR AN INTERVIEW. I could be a theater operations intern with one of the three major producing organizations in the city. It's not artistic but I DON'T CARE. I love doing anything having to do with theatre. I am excited. Cross your fingers.

Also, OMG CASTLE. ALL MY CREYS.

Fuck depression.

Yesterday was a great day. I was in the city that I love, and I got to partake in two pieces of theatre. I saw The Addams Family at the matinee, which was decent. I can see why it was panned, but it was fun. Nathan Lane is a scream, Bebe Neuwirth is great, Terence Mann is a GOD, Carolee Carmello is like three inches around and she has a huge voice. Krysta Rodriguez is a powerhouse, and Wesley Taylor is adorable.

And I got to sit third row at Spider-Man. In short, they were looking to fill the orchestra seat they hadn't sold so I got upgraded for free and it was basically awesome. I have no more face because it has been rocked off. They changed a lot, and is ultimately better for it. The second act especially is much tighter and clearer. I stagedoored and told any of the people who would listen that. I seriously can't wait to go back and again... I'm a stan, deal with it.

So I was in a great place when I got home last night and drifted off to sleep. I had a great dream. I had my dream job in my city, there was a man who loved me, and it was quite literally my dream life. It was so real that when I woke up I was confused. Where was I? What day was it? No seriously where the fuck was I? And as I woke up more, I realized that I was coming back to reality. Awake.

And then I had the moment when I was lying in bed when I was just disappointed, because I was awake and none of that was true. Then the little voice started: Life is never going to be that good.

I'm not unhappy. I'm not. Sure I'm not living the dream, but I'm where I need to be, I think, emotionally and physically. I don't have a lot of very close friends, but the ones I do have are amazing. I decided I wasn't going to let the Dark Passenger win today. I wasn't going to let a stupid voice in the back of my head dictate how I was going to feel about today.

Well. It didn't work. But I did try.

So, I officially quit life on Sunday after my grandmother sent me a forward that started with a rape joke. (If you rape a prostitute, is it rape or shoplifting? GET IT? SINCE PROSTITUTES ARE PAID FOR SEX WHEN YOU TAKE IT WITHOUT PAYING, IT'S SHOPLIFTING. HUR HUR.) I replied all and said, "It's rape. Also it's not funny. I thought a former cop would know better." (It was forwarded to her by an online friend who is a former cop.) I haven't heard from her since then so my guess is that she's pulling the "Well, I'm old, and I get to say what I want because I was brought up ~in a different time." Yeah, that old chestnut. GRANDMA. YOU WERE BORN IN 1935, BUT THE ACTUAL FOR REALS MIDDLE AGES. Whatever. She also says "coloreds" and "the gays" and I know I should feel bad because she doesn't get around so well and is probably lonely, puttering around her house all day, but I really don't think that's an excuse. And it makes me mad.

So I quit life around 9:45 AM, climbed into the shower and cried until I ran out of hot water, and then climbed back into bed and started rewatching Ugly Betty. But it really wasn't just that. It was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

This whole business with Gabrielle Giffords and the assassination attempt has just left me heartsick and upset. (I will admit to having The Ballad of Czolgoz and the rest of Assassins running through my head for most of the day on Saturday; I am not a perfect person.) I watched the guy's YouTube channel and it's way fucking creepier than any horror movie I've ever seen. The fact that one of the people dead is a nine year old girl who had just been elected to her student council and taken because she was interested in public service and things of that nature AND had been born on 9/11 (ACTUAL 9/11, not a 9/11 since then, HER MOTHER WAS IN THE HOSPITAL GIVING BIRTH ON 9/11/2001) is just the frosting on a very depressing cake.

Then I find out that Sarah Palin had a campaign ad that was basically a hit list and a map with crosshairs on the congressional districts of those on the list and Gabrielle Giffords was on that list. I was disgusted but unfortunately not shocked. And I know that Sarah Palin didn't put the gun in the guy's hand and say "Go for it!" but if I had made that list and that map, we would not be having this conversation right now because the FBI would have broken a land speed record getting to my house AND I WOULD NOW BE IN FBI CUSTODY. You know what, I damn well don't care about Sarah Palin. My hatred peaked sometime last year and right now I'm just sick of her. I think she's stupid and irrelevant at best and dangerous at worst. When you tell your followers to reload, not retreat and show them a hitlist of politicians you don't like, well... even if the Loughner guy didn't care about her, she needs to be fucking called out to explain herself for that ad.

And it's not just her. Everyone who adds to the rhetoric of hate in this country needs to STOP IT and first of all, use their words, and second of all, USE WORDS THAT DON'T INCITE VIOLENCE AGAINST OTHER PEOPLE. I'll be first to admit I'm guilty of it, and it's usually in hyperbole -- how many times this semester did I say I was going to fucking kill my kids? I would never actually. But if all 35 of them had suddenly wound up DEAD I would have been the link between them all and I would have looked pretty damn guilty. At the risk of sounding stupid... with great power comes great responsibility. And your words mean something.

Also, whoever it is that tweets as President Bartlet just made me angry by refusing to acknowledge Sarah Palin should be held responsible. (Toby Ziegler, however, did not disappoint me. Toby has always held a place in my heart, the old curmudgeon. ♥) Seriously, stop turning my fictional hero into an apologist. (I know he's not REAL or anything, so this is kind of stupid, but seriously. bad_rpers_suck, that's all I'm saying.

Also in the Disappointing Me Thoroughly camp is Jonathan Mandell, aka NewYorkTheater. He writes about theatre for an independent online news source, and occasionally has quoted me in his articles for some of the off the cuff things I say about theatre. I generally like and agree with things that he has to say and quite frankly it's nice to be able to tweet theatre at someone who will tweet you back (although I have had certain people Tweet me back before -- not the point). BUT.

Recently, Bono saw Spider-Man for the first time. Awesome, right? Well. Jenn Damiano was apparently quoted as saying that he had enjoyed himself watching the show. (I am paraphrasing here, but that is pretty much what was said.) Things went apeshit. I was like, "Aw, that's great!" and Mandell tweeted, "He shouldn't be enjoying the show, he should be working on it so WE can enjoy it." (Again, I'm paraphrasing, but that is very close to the actual wording.)

Uh, first of all:
1. That is the most entitled, audience-centric thing I have heard in a long time, and
2. So artists aren't allowed to take pleasure in what they produce?
3. When I saw it, the music wasn't what I thought needed working on.

I tweeted as much to him (well, the second point, I couldn't find a nice way to phrase the first one and the third one is just a can of worms) and he replied (see, so at least he replied) that, "it implies he's a spectator and not an active member of the process." Um. Well, now I think people are just looking for something to bitch about for Spider-Man since nobody else has been injured and reviews aren't officially being made until the show opens next month. Way to take something an actress said and blow it out of proportion.

Anyway. Better news! I hear they're working on a new finale, and T.V Carpio became Arachne. I feel honored to have seen it as early as I did (the fourth preview) and can't wait to go back. Also, Michael Mayer and Billie Joe Armstrong are talking about making American Idiot into a movie (which could be awesome or be horrible) and want to work on an original project together. I hope he remembers my resume. :x

A cold may have just turned into a sinus infection. Fine.

Bee came and went last week. We managed to see both parts of Angels in America (amazing), John Gallagher Jr at Rockwood Music Hall (great show), Promises Promises (Molly Shannon's first night, amazing, and Kristin Chenoweth sang the opening to "O Canada" at the stage door), Next To Normal (we took memoryofroses with us. It was awesome, Jason Danieley and Marin Mazzie are THE FUCKING SHIT), and American Idiot. I dropped off my resume for Michael Mayer, so we'll see if anything comes of that.

Now I am trying to catch up with the things I ignored while she was here that I hadn't been able to do beforehand. Except I just feel like crap and like all I'm doing is disappointing people. People have been telling me all week, "Oh, you look miserable!" Well... YEAH. I'm sick. Do you know anyone who doesn't seem a little miserable and pathetic when they're sick?

I cancelled my 101 class on Wednesday. Because seriously. They did not want to be there and I did not want to teach, so I figured we could all just stay home and be happy.

Blech. I have a follow up appointment with Dr. Tuckman for my thyroid, I might see if he'll give me some antibiotics too. MY MOMMY DIAGNOSED ME OVER THE INTERNET, NOW GIVE ME SOME DRUGS.

I've started reading the textbook (two to three weeks after I should have? Yes, why do you ask?) and I'm on chapter four. I might have to teach the chapters out of order, but when you wait until chapter eleven to give a historical overview, you leave me no choice to at least consider it.

I need a tag for adventures in teaching. Any witty suggestions? I'm fresh out at the moment.

Day 24 - A song that you want to play at your funeral



It's depressing to think about, but should I step off a street corner and get hit by a bus, I'm holding all of you responsible for pointing my parents or whoever's planning the funeral towards this post.

( List )

Since I have absolutely nothing better to do these days than trawl the internet and post links, today, you get an interview with Eddie Redmayne by Black Book Magazine. HEARTS. I love Eddie, I think he's a monstrously talented actor who is going to go so, so far. You can read my review at Theatre Geekery on Red for the full extent of my fangirling on that matter, but suffice to say he and everyone else blew me away.

So a couple of entries ago I posted an essay by Adam Rapp talking about the life that a work has after it leaves the author's hands. Today, a piece of the interview has me wondering: whose interpretation of a character is more valid?

<There’s a scene where Ken is talking to someone on the phone, trying to decide whether to show Rothko his own paintings. Who was he talking to?
That’s a very good question. I think it’s his girlfriend, and John Logan (the writer) thinks it’s his boyfriend. It remains a bone of contention between the two of us.

Understand: this is a person who is never on stage, never spoken about between Rothko (Alfred Molina) and Ken. The matter is never brought up, and if it is, I think it is only indirectly -- I think Rothko might jeer Ken and taunt him about playing with his friends or something, but it's not a discussion. So I can see (and I know that there are several people out there going) where someone would say: does it really fucking matter?

The answer is yes, it does really fucking matter. Even though you may not think twice about it, sexual orientation is a huge part of a character, especially when we're talking about a time period like the 1950's, when Red takes place. Even if it is never the focal point of a single conversation that the character has, it's still going to inform everything else they do as an integrated part of their character. This is an argument I've had many times and I'm sorry for being so blunt about it, but yes, if you want a fully formed character who comes across as a person and not just a meat puppet on stage, it does matter.

Now that I've gotten that soapbox out of my system for the minute, my real question is this: is the playwright's interpretation of the character more valid than the actor's? Why or why not?

I don't think that it necessarily is, in this case, since it's not a large part of the dramatic action of the play. But it interests me and as a dramaturg it's something I'd like to talk to both of them about, but while I'm dreaming I also want a pony and to live in a treehouse on a desert island.

(For the record, I thought that Ken was talking to his sister on the phone -- the only other person of any significance mentioned in regards to him. The language doesn't necessarily indicate a romantic relationship, from what I remember, and it seemed reasonable enough to me at the time.)

Interesting things. First there was an interview with Phoebe Strole (♥) about... well, things in general, but about her experience with Adam Rapp's new play The Metal Children which I kind of wish I'd jumped at seeing before I left New York. It's a good interview, but it linked to something I liked even more: an essay by Adam Rapp about his experience with censorship of his works and how that became The Metal Children:

In the spring of 2005, I received a call from Bruce Weber of The New York Times telling me he was about to travel to Reading, Pennsylvania, where my young adult novel The Buffalo Tree had caused a bit of a stir. The novel, published by Front Street Books in 1997, was a part of the English curriculum at Muhlenberg High School, and a young woman, purportedly “puppeteered” by a local Christian group, quoted passages from the novel containing sexual content and foul language in front of the local school board. The book was immediately pulled off of shelves, wrested from student hands, and all copies were banished to a large vault.

Mr. Weber told me there was going to be a town meeting to discuss the improper procedure implemented in “banning” the book. He said that the major players on both sides would be present, and he asked me if I was going to attend. This was certainly a shock to me. I couldn’t go. I was in Chicago and about to start tech rehearsals for the world premiere of my play Red Light Winter at Steppenwolf. We’d only had three and a half weeks of rehearsal, and I was directing. This isn’t much time to get things up to speed, and I told Mr. Weber as much. He called me from the meeting and put one of the students on the phone with me. She had apparently stood up in front of her community and offered her copy, which she owned, to the library so that other kids could continue reading the book. She was extremely excited to talk to me, and I was moved to tears...

One brave student approached a lectern, which was placed in the enter [sic] aisle of the church, and confronted the head of the school board, asking him why he felt he could make decisions about what kids were capable of processing with regard to sex and violence when he’d never even spoken to one single student and had little or no presence in the high school. About a hundred students stood up and cheered, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. A standing ovation at the curtain call doesn’t even come close to what I felt in that moment.

It's an awesome essay, talking about how works have a life of their own after the author puts forth a finished product (I kind of get it -- I raise my eyebrows at how many reviews one of my stupid little Harry Potter fics has gotten in the last six months when I wrote it six years ago, and why people keep favoriting my only Firefly fic¹) and I love how this is a topic that is clearly close to his heart and experience -- I think that is what the best art is made of.


1 Not to compare my own fanworks to Adam Rapp's brilliance, of course.

I wish the worst thing that had happened in the last 48 hours was missing Jonathan Groff at Promises, Promises, but no. Then I had to get rear-ended on 347 mere miles from Stony Brook. We're both (Bee and I) okay, a little sore but nothing that an ibuprofen cocktail won't cure, and the damage to my car is cosmetic (I think. My license plate is bent and the paint is scratched) but the damage to her car is kind of epic. The fender broke and the Ford symbol was like, in her engine instead of outside on the grill.

We called the cops and they got bitchy because I didn't have my registration card with me (the state of NY sends you SO MUCH CRAP when you register a car and I've been here a grand total of nine months, how the fuck was I supposed to know?) but the report was nice and straight forward. She admitted fault, so no one has to put up a fight for anything. I think I'm going to call tomorrow and see if I can take my car to the dealership in the afternoon (depending on how tired I am) or on Saturday, just to check it out. If it's cosmetic I won't bother fixing it, but I just want to make sure that nothing got damaged and is going to fall off somewhere on I-80.

I also think I should call my insurance and see if I need to switch my address to Iowa. 'Cause I don't want to (call them or switch) but even less do I want my insurance to get cancelled.

I could just switch my insurance company but I'm too fucking exhausted to think about it right now. Maybe in the fall.

There's also this fascinating kerfuffle happening amongst people in the TV/film/theatre business, talking about this Newsweek article wherein the guy (I can't be arsed to remember his name) basically said, "gay actors cannot play straight" and his first victims were Sean Hayes (currently in Promises, Promises) and my honey Jonathan Groff (now on Glee, macking it up with Lea Michele again), who honestly had me fooled until he came out of the close this fall for a number of reasons. It's just been a wanksplosion. Since I have no more schoolwork I think I might collect articles and comments and the like and write a wank report. Because this is seriously fucking epic.

Also, speaking of gay, roseanna and I are going to see The Temperamentals tonight. We're going to download and watch Supernatural when we get home. And then she is leaving me in the morning. :(