Thursday, June 28, 2012

Who Makes These Things Up?

Okay.  It takes me a couple of tries to type correctly the letters/numbers displayed in an anti-spam box.  You know what I'm talking about--those topsy-turvy, dripping candle  letters and spidery numbers that shout: BECAUSE I CAN DECIPHER THIS, I AM HUMAN AND NOT A MACHINE!.  Yeah, right.  By the third attempt I begin to get nervous--will the site block me if I can't get it right after 3 tries?  Will I be locked out forever?  And I know I'm not the only one struggling with this problem.  So why not listen to us, the customers, and create a different method of site protection?  We can think up and produce all kinds of futuristic gadgets,so why not think up solutions to the average Jane's problems logging on to secure sites?  Hmmm, techies?  Now there's a challenge.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Conversations on Theatre

I'm thrilled that the Theatre Communications Group is streaming their "TCG Playwrights in Conversation" programs.  Here's the URL:
http://www.tcg.org/fifty/playwrights_streaming.cfm
If any of my playwright friends aren't aware of this series, please do check it out.  Just finished watching Anne Bogart in conversation with Paula Vogel and Sarah Ruhl.  Evenings such as these energize hope for the future of theater.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Worthwhile Blog

My friend, Professor Mondo, has some excellent observations connected with the SotU address and a response by an Atlantic commentator.  Check it out:
http://profmondo.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/best-thing-ive-read-since-the-last-best-thing-i-read/
Something to think about.




Saturday, January 14, 2012

The Road to Curmudgeonry?

Watched a live-stream evening of one-minute plays today.  I was struck by the paucity of human connection in the eighty or so one-minute moments that were dramatized.  The breadth of human experience was so limited that hysteria replaced genuine emotion and smug observations replaced genuine thought.  One might say that was the point, but if so, why not shorten the evening?  Fifteen minutes would have sufficed.  After watching ninety minutes of random observations I felt cheated.  I could have surfed television channels and have had a similar experience.  Hmm...maybe not.  I'd have turned off the set much sooner. 

It's been suggested that one-minute plays are theater haiku.  It's an intriguing idea.  To be fair, a couple of the plays did portray abbreviated human gestures that resonated.  But what I mostly saw was skit and satire.  Haiku are brush strokes: small moments of contrasting images and actions that reveal the world in new and often wondrous ways.  I savor a haiku--I don't rush through 80 of them at one sitting.  So here's hoping that these evenings are only a fleeting fad.