I don’t take calling for boycotts likely. I don’t think they should be thrown out casually because if they are effective, they can have a lasting impact on everyone involved. While they target those at the top, they immediately impact those at the bottom. I’m well aware of that which is why this has weighed on me.

But after seeing the behavior of Scott Rudin and his representatives over the past month, and seeing the way they have threatened community theatres across the country, I’m fed up.

This weekend, students at the Heritage Private School in Cyprus are going to be performing a world premiere musical of sorts. The original musical is titled “As You Wish” and it’s directly based on the book and film “The Princess Bride.”

The problem with all of this? By taking a work this specific work and adapting it the way these teachers are technically violating copyright owned by the William Goldman estate and even bigger, the Walt Disney Company.

As an actor in community theatre in a city in Australia I come across some… interesting directors. As a director of youth theatre I’ve definitely made a blunder or two. Thus I watch and analyse directors I work with in order to improve my own practice. This series will explore the various downfalls I’ve experienced or witnessed and how to fix the situation. In part one we’re looking at casting calls. These have needed to evolve over the years to move with the times. Unfortunately, we have directors in community theatre (and probably professional too) that haven’t kept up.

A meme or photo (not sure the difference tbh) posted on this site made a joke about time traveling to see closed Broadway shows, which made me think about shows I'd see if time travel was possible. To keep this piece under 10,000 words, I limited myself to five shows. I further narrowed it to shows that are no longer running (i.e., not going back to the opening night of Hamilton) AND limiting the list to shows I never saw if they originally ran during my lifetime. Here are my time travel shows in no particular order.

I recently went to see a broadcast of David Hare’s new play, ‘I’m Not Running.’ A political comedy that is excellently staged, one exchange stood out to me. “I’m not political” claims Pauline when she first meets Sandy as his doctor, “why not?” is Sandy’s response.

This question is important because we should all be political, whether we want to be actively involved or not we should all be focused on politics as it affects every part of our lives. If you are lucky enough not to be political, it shows how you feel so secure and protected in your existence and have never had to worry about how someone’s opinions will affect your daily life. How far into politics and political agendas should theatre delve? Should theatre stay away from specific political events such as Brexit, and controversial political figures such as Donald Trump?

I recently performed in Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs, playing the patriarch Jack Jerome.   The play is a semi-autobiographical look at the playwright’s formative years, and according to his wife, Elaine Joyce Simon, “If you’re looking for the heart and soul of Neil Simon, you’ll find everything you need to know in Brighton Beach Memoirs.   As an aspiring playwright myself, I wanted to get inside Mr. Simon’s head, and see what advice he could offer.  As it turns out, there’s a lot of wisdom in his memoirs,  Rewrites (1996) and The Play Goes On (1999).  Here are some selected pearls of wisdom that I gleaned from listening to what Simon says.

What’s your damage? For many students it’s the crippling fear of social pressure to succeed and prove themselves at a young age. Through the struggles of weaving through relationships and college applications while simultaneously trying to find who they are in this world, being a teenager can be the most stressful and worrisome time of a person's life. Kevin Murphy and Laurence O’Keefe write a beautiful story of the raw reality that is the high school experience in Heathers the Musical: High School Edition.

“Rent: Live,” which aired January 27th on Fox, is the third time Jonathan Larson’s landmark pop-opera has been filmed. There’s the 2005 film adaptation (which recently got the Movie Musical Shakedown treatment) and the closing Broadway cast, which was filmed in 2008. The live broadcast stayed true to the roots of “Rent,” while tweaking elements to make it feel fresh and contemporary. Some changes worked, some were expected (you apparently can’t say dildos on primetime TV) and some were downright baffling. To pick apart the good, bad and ugly moments of the broadcast, we enlisted two of our critics Noah Golden, Brittany Strelluf and Erin Karll.

While Noah and Brittany are not super-fans of the show going in, Erin said she’s been a “Renthead for over a decade.” They all agreed that the three “enjoyed this production very much.” As Brittany put it: “‘Rent’ is about finding the joy in a world full of bad, light in a world of darkness, and love in a time of hatred. We need that message now, as much as we needed it when it was written, as much as we will need it in the future.”

How does a playwright come to write a book of sonnets? A better question might be: Why aren’t playwrights doing it all the time? Basically a 14-line long monologue, the sonnet flows naturally, if ironically, from the first person singular and has a clearly defined second character in the object of its affection. As readers, we can imagine the muse being addressed off-page much like the offstage Rosaline in Romeo & Juliet or all the men in The Women. Who was Shakespeare’s source of inspiration for his 154 sonnets? I’ve no idea. But I certainly know who mine was for Infinity Standing Up.

Since I last posted my life has turned upside down. In the best way- my daughter arrived 8 weeks ago. Now that I'm starting to understand this new normal I can finally write again. One of my previous articles discussed the songs and musical soundtracks I made baby girl listen to in utero. This first article back highlights my Broadway baby's lullabies! 

My mother was strong, smart, independent and funny. She could also be infuriating. Widowed at a young age, she was solely responsible for bringing up my brother and me. I liked that she was strong, but sometimes she was a little too strong. It could make our relationship difficult at times, but there was one place we always got along - the theater.

My mother took me to my very first show. It was the out of town tryout for Annie at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. I was just a little girl, but I was dazzled. I begged my mother for the cast recording, and when she got it for me, I practically wore it out. I was hooked. At nine years old, I even organized the neighborhood kids, and we attempted to put together a production of the show. The production never really came together, but I didn’t care because I had fallen in love. Just the effort alone gave me joy, and I knew from that time on that the theater was my happy place.