A new Guthrie season, award and prize recipients, and Romeo and Juliet

If you're anything like me right now, your mind is on Boston and all its residents and visitors affected by the explosions. If you have friends or family there, my thoughts are with you, and I hope all are safe. Let's get right to it. Local The Guthrie has announced its 2013-2014 season. My overwhelming impression is there is something for everyone, though I want to see what will be the regional premiere of Nina Raine's Tribes, and I can finally absolve myself of shame and see My Fair Lady. Sorry, musical aficionados. You can make fun of me in the comments. I don't know about Freud's Last Session, though. Will it be seasoned with Judd Hirsch as its website promises? --- The 2012 Sally Ordway Irvine Awards recipients were announced last week, honoring those "individuals and institutions that strengthen and enrich our entire state with their commitment to the arts and arts education." I like to think I'm doing a good job supporting the arts community in my free time, but for individuals like Anthony Caponi, Faye M. Price, Noël Raymond, Jimmy Longoria, David J. Fraher and Arts Midwest, and those many at Hillcrest Community School, art is their lives and livelihood. Spend some time reading about each award winner to get an impression on just how deep their commitments run--it staggers me, these lives of art. National - Chicago I wrote a few weeks back on definitions surrounding ensemble or "devised" theatre. Suzy Evans for Backstage.com begins her profile on storefront theaters in Chicago in a similar reach for definition, and settles on "a place where adventurous and often--though not necessarily--young talent take impressive risks." "Storefront theatre" is a topic that came up often when I listened to the Talk Theatre in Chicago podcast. I don't hear the term used often in regards to Minneapolis theatre--perhaps it's because many companies are so itinerant (though that too is a definition of storefront theatre). The quoted definition above encompasses many companies, but concentrating on the word "storefront," only a few theatres come to mind: Gremlin, Nimbus, and Red Eye. Those feel like places I could walk into randomly on a stroll to see what's playing. How would you define a "storefront theatre"? National - Pulitzer Edition The Pulitzers Prize winners were announced Monday, among them the winner for drama, American author Ayad Akhtar for his play Disgraced. Here's the description from Pulitzer's site: "A moving play that depicts a successful corporate lawyer painfully forced to consider why he has for so long camouflaged his Pakistani Muslim heritage." Who's doing the regional premiere and where can I get tickets? SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! International Sir Nicholas Hytner of the National theatre is stepping down after a decade of service. I'm continually impressed with people who head organizations, serve as long as the job is challenging, then choose to move on while leaving their own institutions intact. Likely this isn't indicative of only those in the arts profession, but I'd like to believe it is, and perhaps reflective of the artistic desire for new work. You still have a chance to see a production under Nicholas Hyter's guidance--he won't be stepping down until 2015. Arts Vine If I knew how to use Vine to promote a show, I'd probably be earning big marketing bucks (that and it's not available for my non-Apple smartphone, I just checked. Again). The concerns relevant to the social media app that shares 6-second video clips--intellectual property and the disturbance caused by taking the video--are prickly, but striking the app completely without searching for creative ways to implement it would be an overly draconian and self-defeating measure that only renders your production culturally invisible to a segment of the population. I'm overemphasizing the possible backlash against a tool like Vine, but I fall in the pack of learning how to implement rather than eliminating it from the arts promotion equation. Into The Gala (Best Night Ever) I really like, as Howard Sherman describes, the idea of extending what is a one time event like a gala and offering it up after the fact to world-wide audience for what most people would pay for a latte. Anyone willing to implement this idea? It seems like it could be well-utilized by the Minnesota Fringe or any company with the technical know-how. R + J and the Twittersphere I read Slate often, but I was put off by this article by Alyssa Rosenberg explaining why she hates Romeo and Juliet. Isaac Butler had a similar reaction, and I got to watch in real time as he came to the defense of Romeo and Juliet over Twitter. His tweets were developed into a rebuttal for Slate, which is much easier to read then hunting for all the tweets. If your wonder why people mess around on Twitter, this is one of the perks of the service: real time reactions to ideas (like the above) or to events (like the Boston explosions) are any combination of exhilarating and terrifying. But beware, people on Twitter can also be head-slappingly stupid. Lesson Time! But maybe you need a refresher in Romeo and Juliet to understand the above issue better. John Green has you covered in Part I and Part II of his Romeo and Juliet Crash Course. --- If you have feedback or comments on any of the articles above, or suggestions for future blog and news items, please leave them in the comments or e-mail me at [email protected].