Some nice things that happened this week
Something to be proud of
Congratulations, the gays. Last week, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court instantly turned a good chunk of gay-themed plays from social commentary into period pieces. Yes, my homosexual friends, you are now free to marry. Since this happened right before Pride Weekend, I am sure that many of you are still hungover today, so I hope you consulted a good guide to getting out of work the Monday after Pride.
Well, here it is: the culmination of the insidious gay agenda. All you gay people now have the right to get married, find a stable job, figure out how your employer-based insurance works, settle down, have some kids, maybe buy a house in the suburbs, and a couple decades from now look back at the young and vital life you used to have and wonder where all that vigor went. Perhaps it will then be time to buy an overpriced sports car or maybe even a motorcycle.
Don't get me wrong. I'm happy for you all. I really am. This is a long overdue righting of one of our many societal wrongs. I'm just worried about what will happen to Tony Kushner's career now.
A winner every time
A big, big congratulations to the Fungus-Amongus Players and Dassel-Cokato Community Theatre! Over the weekend, their production of The Romancers brought home some sweet awards from the 2015 American Association of Community Theatre national festival, including awards for Outstanding Costume Design for Linda Metcalf, Outstanding Actress for Amanda Byrne, and Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role for Tom Langemo.
Fungus-Amongus has already racked up a slew of community theater awards on their way to the nationals, winning big at the Minnesota Association of Community Theatres festival in March and moving on to win at Region V American Association of Community Theatres in April.
According to a press release we received, Amanda Byrne, a teacher at Howard Lake High School, is the first Minnesotan to win an Outstanding Actor award at AACTFest since 1989 when Luverne Seifert won for starring in The Shawl with John Townsend and Penny Larson, directed by Rob Hubbard.
Out with the old, in with the new
Today's the day, friends. It's the last day of the fiscal year for the Guthrie, which also means that it's the last day of Joe Dowling's tenure at the Old Blue Lady. With all the media chatter and interviews and retrospectives and tearful farewells that have been doled out to Dowling over the past few months, you might think that the media has run out of things to say about Joe's two decades in power, and you would be right in thinking that. In the run up to Dowling's last day, the Pioneer Press is the only local publication that has coughed up one more goodbye, and it's actually just quotes from the interview he did with New York Post columnist Michael Riedel a few months back, which you can hear in full at MPR.
So, while Dowling putters around the office on his last day, it's time for the rest of us to move on into the bold new tomorrow with new arts leadership. If you want to know who that's going to be, MPR has a quick rundown of the major players who are currently being replaced.
It's coming…
If you're tired of the Great Man Theory of theater, and are ready to get down and dirty with the filthy commoners, the Fringe Festival will be kicking into high gear in a month. Tomorrow, friends, you will have your first look at the 2015 website, and you'll finally get to know what I know about Fringe this year.
Being an arts "journalist", I was sent a spreadsheet from the Fringe in advance detailing the show titles, company names, descriptions and other wacky facts that I didn't read, because reading long paragraphs embedded in single cells in an Excel spreadsheet is a royal pain. ("Journalism"!) Instead, last week on News and Notes, I gave you an opaque rundown of show titles, and this week I'll stare deep into the abyss for the strangest company names…
While I admire the grandiose vision of calling yourself Infinitely Spectacular Productions, I appreciate the humility of Average Old Guy Productions and the straight up honesty of Literally Entertainment Productions. However, I fear Schmidtshow Productions and Fresh Hell may be too hard on themselves.
Would you like breakfast in an existential nightmare? Have some Beckettian Donuts. Want to take the Bard down a peg? Shaittie Shakespeare. Do you think that physicist's feline gets too much attention? Look at Schroedinger's Dog. Want to see the future? I've Seen The Future. Do you like puns based on old video games? Then, damn it, Crash Bandit Coup is your kind of thing. Would you like a theater company whose name is nearly impossible to say without years of vocal training and at least thirty minutes of warmups? Snickt! Bamf! Thwip!
Moving further into the list, I find arrangements of words and letters that disturb something deep inside me. I have no idea what to do with Roger That Hamburger or what Testostrogen could be. What is the meaning of Clown Mullet Productions? And, dear god, what the hell is a Box of Clowns?!
Also, Squirrel!
Things to make you angry
So far in this week's edition, we've been celebrating awards, big changes and wackiness yet to come, but I can't in good conscience let you leave here without taking a little bag of righteous indignation with you. Oh, please, we just have so much of it. Here, I'll wrap some up for you.
I have two mouth watering choices for commentary pieces to incite your knee-jerk anger. Consider them the little bit of bitterness that compliments all the sweetness above. Or maybe you'll agree with them, and they'll feed your smug sense of superiority. Either way, you're getting a meal.
Option A is another classic in the long line of "Political Correctness is ruining everything" commentaries. You usually hear this on the local talk radio station or in an awkwardly-worded Letter to the Editor, but in this case it's coming from a theater maker questioning the use of "trigger warnings" in theater:
"The trigger warning seemed to serve as a muffler for our audiences during performance, as though it left them stifled with responsible notions of what is and is not allowably laughable, preventing them from indulging in the play’s humor."
Or you could choose option B: A theater critic who just absolutely despises theater. Elizabeth Day at the Guardian reviewed a show in which an actor forgot his lines, and used that as a jumping off point to tell you exactly why all theater sucks:
"My problem with theatre is that the vast majority of plays are distinctly average. They are fairly well written, fairly well acted and fairly well staged. But they do not reflect how people actually speak because dialogue in most modern plays is generally produced to show how clever the writer is or how gifted the actor delivering it is. The tickets are expensive. The seats are uncomfortable. The audiences are pretentious and pleased with themselves, laughing loudly to show they get obscure jokes and cultural references."
So, what do you do with all these feelings you have now? This is the internet, friends. TO THE COMMENTS SECTION!
