our final class

Dear, dear students,

It's been real! But we've still got one more class to go. Instead of Thursday the 13th, which not all of you can make, our final class will be at the Public on our usual day and time of Friday the 14th at 430pm. We will meet in the downstairs lobby then head into another space because our conference room is being used for another event.

Here are your final assignments for Friday:

1. PLEASE, PLEASE, BE ON TIME. We have to begin promptly at 430 to get through our evaluations and presentations before heading uptown to the TRaC Finale.

2. Make sure you have EMAILED ME all of your assignments, and any revisions.

3. BRING ALL OF YOUR WRITING from the session, including your exercises, and all the hard copies of your reviews with my comments.

4. PREPARE YOUR FINAL PIECE to present with your group. If you'd like, there will be an opportunity to share it with the other TRaC students at the Finale.

And for your edification, I've provided links to the truly stirring Nobel Prize addresses from the literature winner, Doris Lessing, and the peace winner, Al Gore. Do find the time to read them when you can. They are not only remarkable calls to action, but beautiful pieces of writing.

See you Friday!

Eisa

a bunch of things

Ladies and gentleman!

Friday we'll have the guest speakers Leigh Silverman (the director of Yellow Face) and David Korins (its set designer, as well as that of The Receptionist, and Passing Strange [pictured], the musical I'll be in on Broadway beginning this February) in to talk with us. I tried to get Tarell Alvin McCraney, the author of The Brothers Size, to come in, but he's in London. Oh well. But he'd love to read your responses to his play.

Here is the New York Times article about the thrilling version of Lulu I recently saw at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).

I also wanted to point you to the deep extent to which critics' influences are felt, even by highly successful playwrights like Jon Robin Baitz. Here's an honest article by him.

Once you've written your reviews, feel free to check out all the press on the plays we've been seeing. One of the best quotes I've seen about Yellow Face is from the author David Henry Hwang himself:

"To what extent do we perform race, either onstage or in life?"

Looking forward to your polished reviews and your creative pieces on Friday.

2 questions to always consider....

#1
What is the art trying to accomplish?

#2
Does it succeed?

Keeping the art in mind, you can never go wrong in your reviews. You will avoid the pitfalls: "i didn't like it. it was good. i liked it. it was bad..." blah, blah. The interesting stuff is in the WHYs and the WHATs! Why did it succeed in parts, but not as a whole? What was it (the dance, the play, the painting, the song) trying to accomplish? Did it do more or less? Are you cool with where it went?

And tell us what you think! A little interpretation/a little context (do some research!) is always nice for your readers. Remember to keep them - US, your readers - in mind.... Or, just write for you. I carry a small notebook with me everywhere I go. Writers write. You are all writers because you write. That's the only requirement. :)

Open hearts, open minds.
The most important thing I want you to take away from TRaC is to be open to things foreign to you. Crane your neck, your ears, your brain to understand. Get excited, and bring people along!

Art is communication and communion.
That's what makes this fun....

happy december.
~eric

The Brothers Size

EDITED POST

On November 28th and 30th, we will see Tarell Alvin McCraney's The Brothers Size. It's in the Shiva Theatre at the Public, where we meet for classes, so I guess you all know by now how to get there.

McCraney is a young writer who has meteorically shot out of Yale and into some very high profile workshops and productions. The Brothers Size is a part of a cycle of plays he's working on, and as you may notice from his character names, derives inspiration from the Yoruba tradition. Yoruba is a West African spiritual practice (and people) which, thanks to its enslaved practitioners, has traveled in various forms with its gods and goddesses all over the Americas. The play also has a live, percussive musical score.

Because my mom told me to

Hey everybody:

My mom said that I should pass on this article about my alma mater. Since the fall of 2006, Harvard has offered free tuition to students with families in lower income brackets. My single mom and I didn't get to take advantage of this when I was in school there, so she thought I should pass on this information to you all, as some of you are applying to college now or in the near future...

Good luck!

Yellow Face

EDITED POST

So, change of plans. Our actual next show is the eagerly anticipated new play by David Henry Hwang, Yellow Face. We are going to be in the audience for the invited dress, meaning we will see it before anyone else in New York does! Sunday November 18th is the date, and it looks like we're on for 7pm. If that changes, I'll let you know as soon as I know.

Hwang is a well known and celebrated playwright, author of M. Butterfly, Golden Child, and Flower Drum Song. Yellow Face delves comically into the rich territory of identity politics, as the play is a fictional account of his protest of the Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce playing an Eurasian character, the Engineer, in the original cast of Miss Saigon. After a protracted battle between producers and the Actors' Equity Association, Pryce ended up on stage as the Engineer and won a Tony for it. Asian actors have since played the role, but the debate lingers on. Like white minstrels performing in blackface, yellowface has a long history. Click on this article for more.

Think about the ways in which systematic discrimination and privilege play out on stage and behind the scenes.

See you on Friday with your objects for show and tell! And I added the Overheard In New York link on the right sidebar.

What Eisa Did Last Week

I saw my play Bulrusher in Berkeley.
I wrote for the 24 Hour Plays on Broadway.
And I workshopped a new play at the Geva Theatre in Rochester.
In case you wanted to know.