Bid Adieu

It is with a tip of the cap we bid adieu to our good friend and resident snark-master Derek Miller who is passing the News and Notes torch. He isn’t leaving Playlist, but this changing of the guard is definitely significant for us. A huge THANK YOU to Derek for the ever-consistent work over the years bringing us the updates of the theatre world.

True to form, Derek’s final words (parting shots) are … well … pure Derek Miller.

I've been writing the News and Notes column for Minnesota Playlist since September of 2013. That's four years and four months of you listening to me drone on. That's about 215 entries full of drunken rants, weird asides, over-extended metaphors and highly-elongated sentences constructed haphazardly from multiple clauses that cascade over one another to form virtually undiagrammable messes of words, barely glued together by a small army of commas and semicolons. And it's time for this whole sad charade to end.

When I first started writing here at Playlist, there was a lot of stuff I didn't know about the theater world; but being forced to read and respond to all the theater news from everywhere every week has made me realize how much I didn't even know that I didn't know. I've learned a lot of things about art, society, politics, and just being a better human being from doing this. I also learned that spilling half a glass of bourbon on your keyboard causes much less damage than you might think.

At this point, I have overseen this wing of Playlist longer than all the previous News and Notes writers combined. Somewhere in the hazy mists of history, there were once other people with other opinions who did this job. You may not remember them anymore, since the internet has a collective memory of about 36 hours, but I do. I've come to the conclusion that's it's high time for me to clear out and make room for other voices to spout off here. This point in our cultural evolution is not the time for any one person to monopolize a channel of communication. I'm curious to see what some other folks might do with this.

Besides, I have other things to do. I'll still be writing for Playlist, but I'm going to focus on one or two other projects that Damon and I have been kicking around. They may look something like actual journalism, which would be a nice change of pace for me. In the meantime, I'm going to continue pumping out News and Notes until a successor is found. It either involves pulling a sword from a stone or sending an email to Playlist expressing your interest. It's not a process I fully understand, but I have faith that there is someone out there with talent, dedication, drive and a sober passion for writing about theater, which would also be a nice change of pace for this column.

Thanks to you, good theater nerds, for all that you do. Thanks for putting up with me. We'll talk again soon.

~ Derek Miller

In the past, News and Notes  transitions have been a kind of who-knows-who thing - a way to keep the column just running by bringing in someone who can write and meet the weekly deadline. But in light of all the things happening right now in our industry and in our society - many of which have been detailed by Derek - we are being more intentional about who next helms the column.

So do YOU want to be the next News and Notes writer?

If so, please submit a cover letter (keep it simple) and two writing samples to [email protected]. Feel free to share a google folder with [email protected] containing the requested items instead of emailing. Or send us a dropbox link, we like technology.

This is a paid position ($175 a month) with a weekly deadline for articles every Tuesday morning by 8am. The column will be YOUR voice, just remember the title of it is News and Notes (clearly if you have been a reader of the column you know there is a lot of leeway in HOW you present the news and your notes). You’ll work with our benevolent overlord Damon Runnals, as well as the rest of the writing team at minnesotaplaylist.com.

We encourage everyone to apply, we are hoping for a diverse pool of applicants so please help us spread the word. Playlist does not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, height, weight, physical or mental ability, veteran status, military obligations, and marital status. 

Questions? - email us at [email protected].