This evening The Ritual Artist and I saw Laura Schellhardt's new play, Shapeshifter, at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence.

I have not been this blown away, this moved by a theatre piece for a long time.  I was utterly rivited from the first line to the last, and I was in tears by the end.

Schellhardt's 90-minute one-act is flawless in its ( Read more... )

My friend Steve, who I've known for nearly thirty years and who has been, variously, an actor, a director, a theater manager, a candidate for municipal office, director of an educational nonprofit, and a political appointee in the Clinton Administration, sent me this article from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21dowd- ( Read more... )

Last night I took Hannah to see The Fantasticks at Trinity Rep in Providence, and I realized with a start how much this play, which I've known for 32 years, has influenced me and especially my writing.

I first saw The Fantasticks in high school, and was floored by the way it both embraced and rejected sentimentality, and especially by its reminder ( Read more... )