PostSecret: The Play!

What You Need To Know About PostSecret: 

+ PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard to the home of Frank Warren, creator & curator of PostSecret. The blog, which debuted on Jan. 1, 2005, features new sets of secrets posted every Sunday. It's had over half a billion hits, 1.1 million FaceBook followers, & is the world's biggest ad-free blog. 

+ Yes, the secrets are sent to HIS ACTUAL HOME (PostSecret/ 13345 Copper Ridge Road/ Germantown, MD 20874). That fact alone proves his investment in this project, but he has consistently proven an honorable intention in the efforts & results of the creation of this  community-based collage. On August 24, 2012, Frank posted this comment on PostSecret's Facebook page: "A producer for Dr. Phil and another for the new Jeff Probst talk show called me this week. Neither invitation was right for PostSecret so I had to say no." He has always treated this project with commitment & integrity, and I give him mad props for both the initiation & execution of this project. Speaking of Frank's awesome efforts & influence, Frank teamed up with 1-800-suicide in 2008 in an effort to address anonymous cries for help being called into peer-run crisis-hotlines on college campuses.

+ There have been five books of secrets released that have climbed the NY Times Best Sellers List. My parents took me to a book signing in Philadelphia when My Secret was released. It was a great event & Frank was a warm, engaging, & insightful speaker. Besides speaking at PostSecret events, Frank has had speaking engagements at colleges all over the country. There have also been several touring art exhibitions featuring the actual post cards (including one at Baltimore's American Visionary Museum [one of my favorites ever] as well as NYC's more impressive Museum of Modern Art). 

+ There USED to be an iPhone App. It debuted Sept. 3, 2011 & was shut down on December 28th. It was the only App I have ever actually purchased & it RULED. I was not the only one who thought since the volunteer moderators were unable to keep with with the 2 million+ submissions (many of which were abusive, threatening, & nasty). Frank received threats & was contacted by users, Apple, law enforcement, & the FBI. There was an official notice on the PostSecret website on Jan. 1, 2012 that said the App would not be returning "due to its inherent inability to solve the problem of abusive submissions." 

R.I.P. PostSecret App. I miss you every day.

NOW THERE IS A POSTSECRET PLAY! 

+ This is even more exciting than the Dar Williams musical! The concept behind the play reminds me of my favorite plays, Fires in the Mirror by Anna Deavere Smith, which was constructed through the compilation of interviews. The honesty, approach-ability, & raw beauty of this script-writing technique (which I have personally/privately dubbed "InterView Theatre") is one that I adore. This new work by TJ Dawe & Kahlil Ashanti is going to be a multi-media theatrical event that incorporates new postcards & the ripple effects from past postcards. According to Frank Warren, "We're bringing together a lot of elements that I'm really excited about. Dozens of post cards that have never been seen before, email responses, connections people have made, really the voices of the PostSecret community that haven't had a chance to be fully shared & we're bringing them together on the stage so that we can act things out...we can use lighting, shadow, video...

it's gonna be pretty amazing."

The Performances:

Performance Works @ Vancouver International Fringe Festival:  Sept. 22-23 

Round House Theatre in Bethesda, MD: Oct. 5 (sold out) 

Temple Theatre in Saginaw, MI: Oct. 18

Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park in Cincinnati, OH: Oct. 22 (sold out)

A few more of my favorite secrets...

2012 Pulitzer Prizes

The Prizewinners & Nominated Finalists
will be announced on April 16.

"Last year at this time, as Playbill was polling theatre pundits about possible recipients of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, many assumed that Jon Robin Baitz’s widely praised family drama Other Desert Cities was the obvious front-runner. But Lincoln Center Theatre shook its head at the suggestion. The production did not officially open at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre until January 2011 (previews began in December 2010), and was thus not eligible for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Pulitzer rules clearly stated, "Productions opening in the United States between Jan. 1, 2010 and Dec. 31, 2010 are eligible." A year has passed — the 2012 Pulitzers and finalists in a number of literary and journalistic divisions get announced April 16 — and now it looks like it may now be Robbie's turn. (Baitz is known to his intimates by that diminutive.)

And, as luck would have it, the play is still running. Other Desert Cities transferred to Broadway on Nov. 3, 2011, where it still plays. So if the Pulitzer jurors (who make the recommendations) and the Pulitzer judges (who choose the winner) want to refresh their memory as to the quality of the script, they have ready access to the living, breathing premiere production. Remember what a last-minute visit by the judges to the un-recommended Next to Normal did to the 2010 race?

Should Baitz win, the honor will be long in coming for the one-time golden boy of the American theatre. The dramatist's talent has been critically praised since The Film Society bowed in 1987. But, a quarter century and a dozen plays later, his career has been more roller-coaster that steady incline. The closest he came to the Pulitzer was in 1996, when A Fair Country, one of Baitz's best-regarded plays, was a finalist for the prize. Other Desert Cities is, in fact, the first Broadway play for Baitz, who is now 50.Nearly every one of the dozen critics, press agents and pundits who were polled for this article assumed Other Desert Cities was running well ahead of the pack. And those who didn't assume that thought the play had been eligible in 2011. As one observer commented,

'The more interesting guessing game [this year] is who will the finalists be.'"

-Robert Simonson, PLAYBILL.

THE PULITZER & MUSICALS

I love that the category is categorized as DRAMA (as opposed to differentiating between plays & musicals). Plays largely dominate the winner’s circle, but 8 musicals have had their own deserving moments in the sun (on average 1-per-decade between the 1930s and 2000s). The musical nominations seem somewhat random. RAGTIME warranted one. I am reluctant to admit (and have never actually seen it), but THE LION KING seemed as revolutionary as RENT [but less heart-breaking].

OUR MUSICAL REPRESENTATIVES:

2010: Next to Normal*

1996: RENT

1985: Sunday in the Park With George*

1976: A Chorus Line

1962: How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying

1960: Fiorello!

1950: South Pacific

1932: Of Thee I Sing*

* = did not win the Tony. However, the Tony Awards didn’t exist when Of Thee I sing premiered, so…

P.S. How did Sunday in the Park win a Pulitzer & not a Tony? It's a DISGRACE.

P.P.S. How did How to Succeed win a Pulitzer? Maybe the subject matter was  revolutionary at the time, but the quality of work doesn't seem all that exceptional. Hmmm...sounds similar to the Pulitzer decision in 1996.

 MY PERSONAL PULITZER UPSETS  

Angels in America: Millennium Approaches [1993] by Tony Kushner. It is brilliant & really did change the world, but was also in contention against Anna Deavere Smith’s Fires in the Mirror. I understand this was a year of stiff competition & know Angels is America was well deserving of the award, but Fires in the Mirror is my very favorite script ever.

I will always feel that Ms. Smith was robbed.

Anna in the Tropics [2003] by Nilo Cruz. To be honest, I am not all-that familiar with this script & it probably ruled; however, I am in love with the two scripts that it beat out [The Goat or Who Is Sylvia by Edward Albee & Take Me Out by Richard Greenberg]. The Goat is so innovative & eternally contemporary; Edward Albee is a prince among playwrights & this is one of my favorite scripts (Remy Bumppo did a perfect production last year that reinforced my love). Take Me Out is a smart script & with the cleverest pun of a title. The play was originally produced at the Donmar Warehouse in London (an tiny, impeccable theatre that has excellent taste in script selection; I saw it performed at Philadelphia Theatre Company in 2010 (an awesome regional theatre that has excellent taste in interns). I have a weird appreciation for the marriage/infusion of sports & theatre…it is such a strange but complimentary opposition of ideas that I have never seen fail.

April WishList

Freud’s Last Session @ Mercury Theatre

Freud's Last Session centers on legendary psychoanalyst Dr. Sigmund Freud, who invites the rising academic star C. S. Lewis to his home in London. Lewis, expecting to be called on the carpet for satirizing Freud in a recent book, soon realizes Freud has a much more significant agenda. On the day England enters World War II, Freud and Lewis clash on the existence of God, love, sex, and the meaning of life– only two weeks before Freud chooses to take his own. Not just a powerful debate, this is a profound and deeply touching play about two men who boldly addressed the greatest questions of all time. Mark St. Germain’s celebrated new play was suggested by the bestselling book The Question of God by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi, Jr., professor of psychology at Harvard University.

C.S. LEWIS RULES. During my senior year of high school I took a class at Church of the Saviour in Wayne, PA taught by Rich Craven. Rich Craven is a pastor, college professor, genius, & awesome guy. The class concluded with a trip to Oxford, London, & The Kilns to see first-hand what we had been reading & studying for months. It was amazing, enriching, & so integral in the structure of my growth as a writer, reader, & conversationalist. [Sidenote: this trip also marked my very first taste of alcohol: peach schnapps @ The Eagle & Child. I still have the bottle, obviously]. C.S Lewis is the best writer & I wish his writing had more influence on the theatre community. I have seen two pieces of his work put onstage: The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe (musical) @ Arden Theatre Company & The Screwtape Letters (play) @ Lantern Theater Company. The LW&W musical was lacking (only because the writer was too green to conquer such a subject matter), but the idea was GENIUS. I hate to say it, but Disney could/should produce a mean version of The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe & it would be a huge hit. The Screwtape Letters was a straight play that was well-written & decently performed. The notion behind the script was clearly awesome: 2-person play that does not lack for conflict & still provides the widest avenue for artistic, post-modern interpretation (and one of the characters is a DEMON, how‘s that for awesome theatrics?).

C.S. Lewis + Theatre = a trend that I would like to see expand.

THIS WORLD NEEDS SOME LEWIS.

P.S. The Weight of Glory is the most perfect compilation of words ever put together in the English language. Just sayin.

RUNS UNTIL JUNE 3

Laramie: 10 Years Later @ Redtwist Theatre

The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later is the epilogue to the original. Ten years after Shepard's murder, members of the Tectonic Theater Project returned to Laramie to conduct follow-up interviews with residents featured in the original play. Those interviews were turned into this companion piece. The play debuted as a simultaneous reading at nearly 150 theatres across the US and internationally on October 12, 2009 - the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death. Most of the theaters were linked by webcam to New York City where Judy Shepard and the play's producers and writers gave an opening speech to begin this unique memorial and evening of theater.

I LOVE INTERVIEW THEATRE.

I define interview theatre as the act of interviewing participants surrounding an event & using their direct words to concoct a script. I first fell in love with this script-writing method after reading Fires in The Mirror by Anna Deavere Smith.

In August 1991, there had been an accident in Crown Heights, Brooklyn (a racially-divided community comprised of African-Americans & Hasidic Jews). The accident involved a 7 year-old, Caribbean-American boy who was killed while learning to ride his bike when a Jewish man drove a car  veered onto the sidewalk. There were issues with the response of the medical staff which instigated protests; during one of these protests, a Jewish student visiting from Australia was stabbed. This caused days of riots, which resulted in 129 arrests, 190 injuries, & an estimated $1 million in property damage.

This community conflict caught the attention of the nation & Ms. Smith, so she decided to go the scene of the crime(s) & interviewed the widest range of community members. She comprised those interviews into 29 monologues delivered by 26 different characters; it is a stunning script & one of my favorites. In the play’s introduction, she wrote: "My sense is that American character lives not in one place or the other, but in the gaps between the places, and in our struggle to be together in our differences." Fires in The Mirror made its’ debut at New York Shakespeare Festival on May 1, 1992 with an official press opening on May 12, 1992. There was also a film adaptation of the play with Ms. Smith performing all the roles [also directed by George C. Wolfe, produced by Cherie Fortis, & filmed by American Playhouse]; it is one of the best & richest pieces of American archived theatre ever.

RUNS UNTIL APRIL 7