Every other month, seven playwrights come together at The Tank in Manhattan to engage in a creative collaborative process that results in seventy minutes of artistry sharing common themes and elements. The structure of Rule of 7×7, the brainchild of writer and producer Brett Epstein, sounds simple – seven writers conceive of and produce seven […]
Further musings on Deus Ex and the different approaches to player choice. Also, I started playing World of Warcraft again because I guess I’m made of money and free time? Deus Ex: Mankind Divided I finished what I’ve been calling Act Two in DXMD this weekend and have some amendments to make to my points […]
“Master Harold”… and the Boys This South African-set one-act by Athol Fugard takes a long time to get going but, once it does, it’s a gut punch. The idea is that James Daly’s charming brat Hally is super chummy with the two black men who work at his family’s diner (his parents are offstage dealing […]
When a show ends, we expect it to answer questions. There are, of course, famous examples of shows that leave questions without answers: Lost, Heroes, 24, The West Wing, The Sopranos- big budget dramas and network television broadcasts that have a lot going on, too much going on to answer every last little question. But none […]
The Adventures of the Black Girl in her Search for God In commissioning Lisa Codrington to adapt Shaw’s short story about a missionary-raised black girl searching for meaning in the African jungle, artistic director Jackie Maxwell kills a whole host of important birds with a single stone: 1- Find a memorable and entertaining one-act for […]
The Aeneid Under the guise of greek mythology, playwright Olivier Kemeid (with translator Maureen Labonté) and director Keira Loughran have snuck an honest-to-god contemporary piece of full-length theatre into the Stratford Festival. A shamelessly modern story about the refugee crisis told through physical theatre (something you rarely see even in the studio) with a young, […]
I’ve intermittently loved and hated Richard Linklater’s work. Coming off of prestige drama Boyhood (which I maintain is interesting but overrated) and sticking his toes back in the boy-comedy period film pool that made him famous with Dazed and Confused (which I predictably can’t stand), the director’s 1980-set Everybody Wants Some!! (those exclamation marks are […]
I’m not old enough to be nostalgic for the ‘80s. And yet, I am. Plus, Winona Ryder is one of my all-time favorite actresses (from the angst in Heathers, and Bettlejuice in the ‘80s to Edward Scissorhands, Girl, Interrupted, and Reality Bites in the ‘90s and more, she just got me). So when I heard […]