Summer? What Summer?

So I've been thinking about my New Year's Resolutions. What? You may ask. It's only fall, isn't it a bit too early to think about resolutions? Yes, it would be if I was thinking about 2014. Instead, I'm thinking about 2013. One of my resolutions was to blog more this year, for no other reason than I think people (mainly arts-loving people) would benefit from hearing my opinions. Or at least, I like to think so. Not really, I just like to bitch and moan online like a majority of the populace.

Well, as you can see from the lack of entries this year, I've failed miserably at putting my snarky thoughts to type. Instead what have I been doing? Writing for pay! Because I hate having free time.

Here is what I accomplished this summer, while everyone else was out of town. And this list does not include watching all 13 episodes of "Orange is the New Black" and the first three seasons of "Breaking Bad."

• I filed a story for the July/August issue of "American Theatre" about the immersive theatre movement, which has gotten an insane amount of hits and also, one (that I know of) lovely response. And in that issue, I also wrote about my trip to Alabama, where I saw some new plays about bunnies and had a lot less fried chicken than I hoped to have.

• I also wrote a 4,000-word piece about the TCG Conference (aka the biggest theatre conference of the year!) for the September issue of AT.

• I did a podcast interview with my personal writer hero David Henry Hwang where I talked to him about "M. Butterfly," "Yellow Face" and YouTube videos. And this time, I was only moderately enthusiastic (as opposed to the first time I met him where the reaction was more "Oh my god, you inspired me so much and you are so important!"). Listen to it here.

• I wrote three theater reviews at the New York International Fringe Festival, for "Time Out New York." My last review was in 2011 and I have to say, this time around, the snark came out much easier. I'm guessing that's just one of the side-effects of living in New York City, like knowing how to weave through crowds or ignoring the break-dancer spinning right in front of you on the subway. Though this little dance into criticism aside, I think I may leave it for the more seasoned professionals, because while it's fun, having this much power in my hands is unsettling. And then, because the Fringe refused to let me go, I did a small post for "Back Stage" about the best performance I saw at the festival. 

• I wrote two pieces for "Stages," the theater magazine for Theatre Development Fund (who, coincidentally enough, works in the same building as TCG, the publisher of AT). One was about "King Kong" at SummerStage and the other was about "Monkey: Journey to the West" at Lincoln Center. Read the second one if you want to see a great example of how to take a 10-minute interview and turn it into a 600-word story. It wasn't David Foster Wallace-style of thumb twiddling, but it was still challenging.

And lastly, I went to Maine for my one mini-vacation, where I killed some lobsters, with a knife.



Now, with three shows this week and four next week (two of which will be in Chicago), I say: Bring on the fall. And the return of blazers and life-changing dramas.

Racial Links and Musicals

I'm writing this blog post from my childhood bedroom in California, where I'm staying at my parents while researching a story on Tim Dang, the artistic director of East West Players, the oldest theater of color in the U.S, for American Theatre.

It is part of my (not-so-secret) ploy to give more visibility to the Asian-American theater artist plight. A plight that was given more flames this week when the Royal Shakespeare Company across the Atlantic pond decided to mount "The Orphan of Zhao," a classic Chinese tale with, you-guessed-it, Asians in minor rules. In fact, out of the 17 castmembers, only 3 are Asians and they are playing servants and a pet. Gregory Boyd, the artistic director of the RSC, calls the backlash against this decision "sour grapes," giving credence to the backlash, and proof that even when you are leading one of the most famous theater companies in the world, you can still be majorly insensitive to race.

Erin Quill writes a more proper, and passionate, summation on her blog.

This comes out in the same week where Bruce Norris, who wrote the Pulitzer-winning play Clybourne Park (about racial interactions and real estate), pulled the rights to his play from a Staatstheatre Mainz in Germany. The reason: they wanted to cast white actors in blackface to play African-American roles.

So in totality, not the best week in the world of race relations and casting. But tomorrow I'll be reporting on a panel at East West Players about the lack of Asians and Asian-Americans onstage. EWP was kind enough to invite me to it (and even had to go through the wrong Diep Tran in order to get to me). So the fight continues and I'm here to report on it. And hopefully not criticize too much afterwards.

But in other non-racial news, I wrote a blog post for "TCG Circle" this week about what I think is the new age of American musicals: the age of the small musicals. Or as I titled it (and I'm quite proud of this headline): Go Small or Go Home.

A snippet here:

Are we entering a new age of the American musical, where the imperative is not to go big, but to go small? And is folk a new musical genre? I can’t remember the last new musical I’d seen where there were chorus lines; bombastic, every-piece-in-the-orchestra-at-attention showtunes; or glory notes. Instead, it’s been character-driven stories where the actors sang their feelings, not belted them, and were accompanied by a piano and/or a guitar. Sometimes even a violin (the imperative word being a violin, not many violins).

These are all musicals that “whisper rather than shout.”

The example that sparked off this train of thought was from a PigPen Theatre Company, a troupe of five Carnegie Mellon graduates who have a penchant for folk tunes, shadow puppets and a dose of whimsicality. A video here to end the week (or to start the week, depending on when you are reading this post):



Have a good rest of the week. I'll be back in NYC on Wednesday.

A Sensitive Take on the TCG National Conference

The hubbub at the 2011 TCG National Conferience in Los Angeles

Feeling 1: Tired

It was 11:30 at night and I had been up since 7 that morning. I wanted to go home. Or rather, I wanted to go back to my hotel room and watch TV. The music was loud, the lighting was dark, the booze was flowing for up to five glasses, and a couple of minutes prior, I had seen a man sporting a six-pack, walk down a catwalk while wearing only a pair of gold lame shorts. On a normal day, that would have given me my second wind.

But then again, this was not a normal day. I had been up since 7 that morning and, save for the new Mike Daisey show (The Orient Express (Or, the Value of Failure)), I had been working all day. I wanted to go back to my hotel room (at the Boston Park Plaza), and watch TV.

Feeling 2: Surprised (Kinda)

The Family Play

I blog about the family play for the TCG Circle Blog, the official blog of Theatre Communications Group, my parents at American Theatre magazine.

A choice excerpt:

Perhaps it’s the commonality within the theme of family. After all, not everyone finds themselves battling AIDS (Angels in America) or unwittingly becoming cannibals (Sweeney Todd). But everyone has a mother who drives them crazy (Gypsy).

You can read the rest here.