Anne Washburn on Political Earthquakes and Stolen Revolutions

From Anne Washburn, playwright of The Communist Dracula Pageant:

“Chaos, action, rumor, deception, hope – The Communist Dracula Pageant lives in a political and cultural landscape that contains a mixture of all of these. As we have rehearsed and brought the script alive, I think about “political earthquakes” – how they erupt in every age, in every culture, in every life.

I invite you to share your thoughts – have you experienced political earthquakes? On what scale – personal? local? national? global? Is what we are living through right now a political earthquake? In what way?”

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What Does Grace Mean To You?

As the A.R.T. staff began to discuss how the word “grace” factors into Anna’s production of Let Me Down Easy A Play In Evolution, we realized how individual concepts of grace are very different and very personal. One member of our group found himself uncomfortable with the word; others found it powerful. Some saw it spiritually, while others associated it only with the body.

How do you think about grace? Do you think of yourself as someone who experiences grace in your life? Why? How? If you work in the world of health care and healing, how do you see grace fitting in?

The Comic Genius of Remo Airaldi

An Interview with Stephen Greenblatt

An Interview with Charles Mee

Production Meetings

Arthur Nauzyciel took this photo of our production staff during a meeting!

An email from Heisenberg’s son

This afternoon Kati Mitchell, our Director of Press and Public Relations, received a wonderful email from Jochen Heisenberg, Werner Heisenberg’s son, a professor of physics at the University of New Hampshire. Mr. Heisenberg attended Wednesday night’s performance of Copenhagen.

-Nicholas Peterson

Dear Kati,

If i may call you that?

Thank you indeed for the wonderful experience of seeing this different “Copenhagen” performance. As you know, we have been guests at a number of performances since the NY opening in 2000, and I have had the burdensome opportunity to become a participant in those symposia that dealt with the controversy arising out of this play.

What was so refreshing this time was the fact that the play was allowed to be a drama on many levels and that the one- dimensional, contentious aspects did not dominate the many-layered personal story.

In the blogosphere: Left Behind

When No Child… was performed in Chicago, Gwen Kuhns of the Woman on the Verge blog wrote the following post. We kindly asked Gwen for permission to repost her entry on the ARTblog. Her response was:

“Sure, of course. I would be happy to help in any way to get people into your theater to see this amazing piece”

-Nicholas Peterson

Left Behind

On Tuesday a couple of friends and I went to the Lookingglass Theatre to see a play. For anyone who doesn’t know because you a) didn’t attend Northwestern b) don’t live in Chicago or c) aren’t truly, madly, deeply in love with all the characters on Friends but Ross most mostest of all, the Lookingglass was founded by David Schwimmer. And 20 or so of his closest NU theater buddies. It makes sense, then, that he was in attendance on Tuesday night. Wearing a black camouflage hat. Now, I realize that celebrity etiquette suggests that hats guarantee inconspicuousness. However, when you and your friend are the only people in a small theater wearing a hat–albeit a camouflage one–you become exactly the opposite of inconspicuous. Still, it was the day before Halloween. Maybe he was going to a party after.

Donne Darko, set design correspondence #13

HOW DO YOU RUN OVER SOMEONE ONSTAGE? HOW DO YOU SEE SPEED IN A THEATRE? HOW DO YOU HAVE A CONFRONTATION OF TWO OBJECTS WHERIN ONE IS DESTROYED? A PERSON AND AN OBJECT? A WOMAN AND A CAR? INEVITABILITY? CAN THIS BE DONE AS A LIVE FEED? FILMED CAR AND REAL SPACE/FALLING WOMAN? – MATT

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good question. i don’t think (although i could be wrong and i’m open to it) that we’d be as effective incorporating video unless it was great video

Donne Darko, set design correspondence #12

IM INTERESTED IN A MAILBOX LOVE AFFAIR (grandma death and donnie) – OBSESSION – CONNECTION BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE THROUGH TWO OBJECTS – MATT

yes, me too – marcus