The Next Musical Adaptation: Green Day.

I love this idea:

The punks are invading the theater. A new musical production adapted from “American Idiot,” the best-selling album by the punk band Green Day, is scheduled to make its debut in September at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in California.

Berkeley Rep is to announce Monday that the new work, also titled “American Idiot,” will have its premiere as the first production of the theater’s 2009-10 season, and run from Sept. 4 through Oct. 11.

{snip}

Released in 2004, “American Idiot” (Reprise) was Green Day’s conceptual response to the depressing realities of the post-9/11 era; it combines bleak lyrics with bright, thrashing guitar riffs. Many of its singles, including “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and the title track, were hits, and the album went on to sell more than 12 million copies worldwide.

Among its fans was Mr. Mayer, who discovered “American Idiot” while he was still in the early stages of directing “Spring Awakening,” Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s musical about the pubescent struggles of 19th-century German youth.

“It was very much in my head all during that time,” Mr. Mayer said. “Sometimes I really would say things like, ‘Why can’t this have a groove like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”?’ ”

Berkeley Rep is the coolest.  They get this musical thing.

Spider-man Sounds…I Don’t Know.

Michael Riedel saw a preview thingy.

I have absolutely no idea how I feel about any of this.

American Hwangap and Angela’s Mixtape.

American Hwangap is a great play.  I saw it a few years ago at The Lark and was blown away by its originality and heart.  Now it gets the NYC production it deserves (with, I believe, much of the cast from The Lark).  If you want to see a production of an “American family” play that embraces the diversity of what an “American family” really is, you have to check this out.

Then, of course, there’s this: Angela’s Mixtape.  Eisa is, quite simply, one of the most important theatrical artists in the country right now.  If you don’t go see this, we’re not friends.

A Female Professional Baseball Player.

In Japan.

Of course, I happen to already be writing a play about this.  The US version, at least.

More No Passport Podcastery.

So Lanna and I weren’t the only folks interviewed during the No Passport conference…here are some other goodies for your listening pleasure (you’re going to have to cut and paste…or just head over to Kadmus Arts and figure it out from there):

Caridad Svich: http://kadmusarts.com/blog/?p=888

Randy Gener: http://kadmusarts.com/blog/?p=889

Erik Piepenburg: http://kadmusarts.com/blog/?p=891

Lanna Joffrey and Kristoffer Diaz: http://kadmusarts.com/blog/?p=892

Andrea Thome: http://kadmusarts.com/blog/?p=893

Stacie Chaiken: http://kadmusarts.com/blog/?p=890

Victory Gardens’ Elaborate Entrance.

Victory Gardens has announced its 2009-10 season.

I’d do like I usually do, talking about the relative diversity of the season, the representation of writers of color, of women, of new voices, and all that is important and all, but I’m a little distracted by this paragraph:

The new season kicks off in the fall with “Year Zero,” a play about a 16-year-old Cambodian-American, penned by Michael Golamco. That studio production will play simultaneously with “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, ” a mainstage play about a professional wrestler penned by Kristoffer Diaz and directed by Eddie Torres.

We’ll be talking about this more later. A lot.

(EDIT: here’s the actual press release, as reprinted by Newcity Stage.)

An Interesting Take on the Fare Hike.

From East Village Idiot:

Today, the MTA will vote to raise fares again… this time to the tune of 23%. Your monthly Metrocard that cost you $81 this month will cost you $103 in June.

Yes, it’s outrageous. Yes, it’s unfair. But no, it’s not entirely the MTA’s fault. In fact, this fare hike could have been easily prevented by Albany in the past and present, but everyone finds it easy to blame the MTA for this. Stop blaming the MTA, and blame the people who deserve to be blamed.

There’s a whole lot more in the article.   New York is in trouble, folks.   I was in a meeting the other day in which a city employee said, in so many words, “New York doesn’t have any money.”  Budgets are being cut left and right, folks are being laid off, and now the subway’s going to cost more.  It’s scary.

And this, my friends, is the stuff that’s going to eventually impact Broadway and the rest of the theater industry.

An Interview with Kris and Lanna.

So Lanna Joffrey and I did an interview a few weeks ago during the No Passport conference.  I forgot about it, but here it is.

Lanna and I (and our Hibernating Rattlesnake buddies) are performing at the Nuyorican on Monday, so if you like what you hear, come check us out.

Okay, now I’ve listened to it.  Lanna is way more articulate than me.  My ums are omnipresent.  My Spanish pronunciation game hits its peak when I say Caridad’s name though.

Wrestling = Theater.

I’ve made this argument many, many times. So I’m not quite sure how I feel about what I’m reading here:

A group called Seattle Semi-Pro Wrestling has for six years packed bars around this city with its lampoons of World Wrestling Entertainment, the pro league. Cast members have included a husky everyman who likes to tick off environmentalists by boasting about chopping down trees, and Ronald McFondle, a raunchy rendition of a clown character, who finishes off his opponents with a lewd gesture. They grapple on foam pads placed on stages in bars, not in rings.

The SSP, which calls itself a “fight cabaret” — theater with singlets, suplexes and sweat — has entertained crowds for six years in simple settings, fighting on foam pads placed on in Seattle-area bars.

Washington state’s Department of Licensing takes the high jinks seriously. Earlier this month, it classified the performances as “sports entertainment.” The ruling means the spoofers must meet safety regulations and could force the league to post a $10,000 bond, station medical personnel at events and buy a regulation wrestling ring.

Of course, here’s what this makes me wonder: if a theater in Seattle wanted to do Chad Deity, would it be classified as sports entertainment? And wasn’t the whole point of the term “sports entertainment” to allow the WWE to avoid the licensing requirements many sports have to face?

A New Play, Start to Finish

8:40pm — I’ve got to write a play tonight. Actually, I need to write two plays, but I’m going to start with a realistic small focus.  I figured that what I need is pressure, so here’s pressure: live-blogging the process, start to finish.  Well, it’s not quite start, because I’ve been thinking about the plays for weeks, but you get the idea.  Let’s see what happens.  Just know, I have no title, no plan, no play when we start all this.

8:43 — There are two plays to start working on: one is about Route 66 (the road, not the old TV show that I remember never watching on Nick at Nite), and the other is about, well, sex.  It occurs to me as I write this now that my mom is one of the few people who regularly reads my blog.  Maybe this is a bad idea.

8:50 — I’ve got a tentative title for the sex play: Untitled Play About Fucking. I also have scraps of a recent conversation with an actress friend in mind about considering having sex for money.  This, of course, is a rich topic, and I’m thinking about going down this road.  What I know I want to do is write something funny, which means, if I choose the sex for money path, that I can either (a) write a light-hearted romp about prostitution/porn, which isn’t really in my wheelhouse, or (b) go down the road of one’s debate about his/her relative distrust of the sex for money process.  We’ll see.

8:51 — I realize that maybe the Route 66 TV show on Nick at Nite is a tricky way into the Route 66 play.  Hmm.  I’m in a very meta/self-referential place with playwriting lately — I like plays that are aware that they are plays.  I’m working on a play in which I am a character, along with Chad Deity, who is a character I created, which makes it all complicated.  I’m stalling now, of course.  I got nothing for either piece.

9:00 — Ooh.  Wrestling is on.

9:02 — See, I have to watch wrestling. It’s research for Chad Deity!

9:03 — An idea.  The title of the sex play is now 30 Untitled Plays About Fucking.  I’m going to desperately avoid getting into trouble for this thing.  It’s a bad idea on every front.  I’m putting out a call for suggestions (by the time you read this, I will have received what I need, so don’t respond.  Think of this as the episodes of America’s Best Dance Crew that air after voting has ended).

9:09 — Did Ric Flair just blade off a single punch from Chris Jericho?

9:10 — Sorry. Wrestling moment.

9:19 — Thirty is too many plays. I’ve only got seven minutes.  Let’s try ten to start.

9:20 — No, let’s go back to thirty.  For the challenge.

9:29 — Okay. Thirty isn’t possible. Maybe the title stays though.

9:32 — I’ve started.  This first piece I wrote better not be the first piece of this play.  Yikes.

9:38 — And we’re cruising right along.  Three “plays” written already.  It’s not far to call them plays.  Not even short plays.  They don’t really have beginnings/middles/ends.  They’re just sort of tiny half-ideas/sketches.  The trick, I’m realizing, will be to create an arc of some sort, or even kind of a touching story in the middle of all this over-the-top lewd stupidity.

10:01 — I’ve got the idea.  I’m breaking to watch wrestling and answer e-mails.  And twitter.  Effing twitter.

10:39 — Okay. I’m back.  Let’s see.

10:50 — Oh dear lord this play is inappropriate.  Beyond inappropriate.  What’s fun about it is that there’s no filter here.  Whatever comes to mind ends up on the page.  I’ve done eleven plays in less than two pages.

11:18: I’m cruising right along here, and I hit the point that I always hit with silly plays: questioning my activistic bona fides.  I’m writing stupid short silly plays about sex, but they’re (a) not artistically ground-breaking and (b) not displaying any awareness of the world at large.  And this is a problem for me, on some level.  I’m not a community organizer or a for real for real activist, but I like to think that I can impact the world with my work.  Still, every once in a while I want to write big dumb plays about fornication.  It’s hard to balance.

11:21 — I decided to put that little burst of conscience into the play somehow.

11:23 — I can tell I’m procrastinating by how many people I’m responding to on Facebook, especially the people I only kind of sort of know.

11:38 — Oh man, I’m just straight up cheating now.  I called one play “13-27,” which basically means I’m skipping out on my responsibilities.  I feel good about it though, because I’m rupturing the fourth wall, bringing myself into the play, tossing a backhanded insult at a play I saw recently and hated (it’ll probably fly under most people’s radars), addressing my hesitation about what I’m writing, and getting me damn near to the end.  Gotta celebrate that.

12:09 — And I’m calling it a night.  The play is almost done.  I left myself the following note for the last piece: “Write something awesome and sweet for this.”  We’ll see.