Autism: The Musical

I know. I know. It sounds like a musical spoof in really bad taste. That was exactly what I thought when I saw the cover of the DVD over at the new Eloise May Library. I flipped over the cover to see that this was, in fact, a rather unfortunately-named documentary about the process of putting on a musical production featuring kids with autism.
Now, as you may or may not know, I am a supporter of Autism Speaks and the Autism Society of America and a firm believer that the performing arts is an important ingredient of childhood development, so, sappy and sentimental as I was sure it would be, I was intrigued, so I decided to check it out.
What I got instead was one of the most frank, honest, uncompromising, and moving portraits of families living with autism that I have seen so far. As much as I thought I knew about autism, my eyes were opened just a bit wider.
If you know someone with autism or even if you think that autism is Dustin Hoffman counting fallen toothpicks in a roadside diner, I really think you should see this film.
I don't want to rob you of the experience that I had in discovering this movie, so I won't give away too much here. I really do want you to see this movie.
However, let me just say that, if you are a fan of Stephen Schwartz's musical, Wicked, you haven't grasped the full depth of "I'm Not That Girl" until you've heard it sung by a fourteen-year-old girl with autism.
See the movie. Trust me. Autism: The Musical. Have I steered you wrong yet?

New Directions

This blog originally evolved from an e-mail list that I started a couple of years ago after seeing Boulder Broadway's amazing production of Bat Boy played to a house undeserving (in size) of the quality of the show.
It was Jeff Gamet (of The MacObserver and iPod Observer) who suggested that I start a blog.
Now, as I have repeatedly pointed out, I did not set out to become a theatre critic. I don't write "reviews." My goal has been to draw attention to little gems I find that might slip under the radar of my theatre friends (like Metro State's phenomenal Robber Bridegroom or And Toto Too's supremely well-acted The Glider). As a critic, I would feel compelled to write about some of the more awful productions I've seen, and I don't want to do that. There are other people who do that with far greater discretion than I would, so I leave it to them. Plus, I am part of this industry (and that will increase in the coming months), and I feel that any critic worth his or her salt would maintain a friendly but professional distance, that is, not trying to act or direct or submit plays as well.
It has been my hope that my blog would be shared (as it has been) with others to help spread the word about these gems, but I do not actively seek to be cut and pasted onto theatre company's websites. Again, there are others who do want that, so I leave it to them. The way I see it, if someone is on your website, then they don't need me to tell them to seek you out, do they?
As I return to more active blogging, I find myself unsure of how exactly to proceed. I have a few ideas, and I will begin unveiling them in the coming months, but I encourage you, my readers, to take an active role as well. Make use of my e-mail to tell me about workshops, conferences, etc. Some of you have already been doing this, and I think it's a great way to get the word out.
This blog has been read quite literally (and quite to my astonishment) around the world and it even uploads to my Facebook page (where I have never turned down a legitimate friend request, by the way).
A number of people have attributed the Denver Civic's current troubles to a lack of promotion (I think it runs a bit deeper than that, too), so let's not permit that to happen to anyone else, shall we?
The only reason that theatres should struggle, in my opinion, is if they're doing bad theatre. We've all seen a lot of good theatres go through some rough times of late, and, while few of us has the resources to bail out the Denver Civic or to finance the rest of NextStage's season, we can all do something to help put butts in seats for the rest of the companies this season.
I will do what I can if you will help me to do it.
Help me help you. Help me help you. Helpmehelpyou. Helpmehelpyou.
Show me the money!
Do you know the human head weighs eight pounds?

Okay, I lost the thread there, but stay tuned.
And don't shoplift the . . . well, you know.

Theater Cafe

As I have mentioned here before, I have been a bit "out of the loop" for the last few months for some personal reasons. I am grateful for things like John Moore's column in the Post, Facebook, MySpace, and other internet resources without which I might be completely in the dark. I am also very grateful to my buddy Marc France for forwarding to me any and all pertinent e-mails that he gets. He recently sent me one from Mark Ogle that I think is a smashingly grand idea:

"Hello playwrights and all interested theater lovers,

Exciting news! The 1st Theater Cafe is now on the calendar! It will be held Tuesday, May 26th, from 6 - 9PM, at the Mercury Cafe, 2199 California St. We are hoping to establish a monthly event! The second Theater Cafe is scheduled for Tues, June 30th.

What is a Theater Cafe??? Well.....it is completely up to us!

At our last Playwrights' Coop meeting in Nov. 2008, we brainstormed this idea, and now the Mercury Cafe has agreed to host. The basic idea is to have an open forum for playwrights and theater artists to showcase material, similar to a open poetry night or an open music jam. It is also an opportunity to eat, drink, socialize, and network. There would be no submission policies or selection process. Basically anything goes, within reason. The only guideline that I would strongly recommend is that we limit everyone's time to 10 or 15 minutes. Here's some ideas of what could happen at the Theater Cafe!

1). Playwrights bring short scenes, etc. with actors, rehearsed.

2). Playwrights bring short plays, short segments of plays, scenes or monologues and recruit actors from crowd for cold readings.

3). Actors bring audition material to try out in live setting.

4). Short scenes, skits, or musical numbers from ongoing or upcoming theater productions are showcased for promotional and entertainment purposes.

5). Improvisational writing, acting, and theater games.

6). Theater people can continue to come later, after rehearsals around town, as a social gathering for the community, one night a month.
7). People new in town will have a monthly forum to meet people in the theater community.

So, I would like to encourage people to contribute to this collaborative creation. It is totally up to us whether this idea will take off and thrive, or not. What does everyone think??? Will you be coming on May 26th? What can you bring to contribute? Our small playwrights' group, Write Angle Productions, will be attending, and we will bring some short scenes to read from our most recent works in progress. Please spread the word to anyone who might be interested! Email suggestions to the Coop! RSVP and tell us what you are bringing to share!

mark.ogle@ymail.com

All the best,

Mark Ogle"

Sounds like a great idea, Mark et al! It's on my calendar.

Museum Trip

Even just ascending the stairs to the second floor gallery of the Denver Art Museum, The Psychedelic Experience exhibition washes over you. The music that was the impetus behind the groundbreaking artwork waiting behind the gallery’s double doors emanates out into the hall and down the staircase. It pulsates and screams and recalls a time that seems unreal to those of us who did not live through it (and is probably hazy at best for those who did). The place was the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. The time is the late 1960’s: American youth were calling for love not war and, at the behest of Timothy Leary, had turned on, tuned in and dropped out. The music that they tuned in was the Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin, playing live and loud at the Fillmore Auditorium and the Avalon Ballroom.
To spread the word about these weekly rock concerts, promoters Bill Graham and Chet Helms brought in a group of young artists who would forever change the way we looked at advertising.
While earlier rock concert posters were merely functional (an Elvis poster hangs at the entrance to the gallery for the sake of comparison), the posters that would follow are irrefutably works of art. All of the pertinent information is still there: who, what, when, where, and occasionally why. Yet there is more there. The letters bend and twist to create new shapes. The eye must travel in circles sometimes to ascertain the artists on the bill, if it can be done at all.
The purpose of the posters is ostensibly to convey information, but at the same time (and perhaps to even greater effect) the art embodies the undulating rhythms of the music, the blinding color of the accompanying light show, and even the psychedelic trip that would be enjoyed with one’s illicit substance of choice during the concert.
Artists like Lee Conklin would eventually create lettering with such artistry that the names of the band and the venue would be nearly impossible to discern.
Everybody knew where. They didn’t need to know who. The important factor was what. And “what” was a mind-bending, anti-establishment, free love, mystical and musical experience.
The show is laid out chronologically for the most part, and by starting to the right, one can view the evolution of the psychedelic rock poster from the whimsical, curved balloon letters of Wes Wilson to the politically-charged and ironic collages of David Singer.
There is a meticulous quality to the posters. Though Wes Wilson was only paid $100 per poster by Bill Graham, one can almost see a dedication and eye for detail that mirrors Toulouse-Lautrec in his printing of the posters for the Moulin Rouge.
Rather than merely typesetters, the creators of these posters were visual artists – many with formal training. It shows.
Whether using the Gestalt principle of closure to create a dancing flower child out of the Grateful Dead’s name or creating the illusion of motion by slightly off-setting contrasting colors, these posters are both a visual feast and an id est show of artistic principles.
Then again, Yale-trained and Spanish-born poster artist Victor Moscosco is quoted on a sign near several of his works as saying, “Everything I learned in school, I reversed.”
This was an era of rebellion, after all.
On the subject of the era, the exhibit includes an adjacent facsimile recreation of a hip, hippie, urban apartment from the era, complete with tie-dye on the walls and “Laugh-In” on the tube. With a continued eye toward the interactive, the apartment includes a do-it-yourself psychedelic light show, art tables where the show-inspired can take a shot at creating a psychedelic concert poster, and a music listening station that changes tracks as you flip through a crate of “albums.”
The exhibit itself is also accompanied by video concert footage, music, and an example of just the kind of trippy moving backdrop that might have shown behind Fleetwood Mac at the Avalon all those years ago in a video presentation created by artist Glen McKay
As the title of the exhibition points out, this show is a full-sensory experience.
This is a temporary exhibit that ends July 19, so I suggest that you get your tickets sooner rather than later.

Teen Titans

I was all set to follow up my last entry with more musings about how the cell phone has transformed America as a population. I had a scathingly witty paragraph about the perils of walking and texting at the same time all prepared. (An entire generation not watching where it is going!)
However, I came across a story that effectively trumps any grumblings I could have put forward today.
This is a story about kids, animals, and indomitable enthusiasm and persistence. Two young women, Amanda Huhman and Libby Burks effectively (and nearly miraculously) managed to win a one-million-dollar makeover for their pet project (pun intended), the Central Missouri Humane Society.
It is a remarkable story, and proof that anybody can make a difference.
As Gandhi said: "You must be the change you want to see in the world."

Can You Hear Me Now?

I was both amused and saddened by John Moore's recent diatribe on proper theatre etiquette. Amused because I can relate and because John attacked the subject with wit and eloquence, but saddened because he's mostly just preaching to the choir. Still, maybe by some chance one of these oafish theatre "patrons" will come across the article while searching for some play to take in during brief breaks from text-messaging and will think better of one or the other.
If you haven't read it, please do, and if someone in your e-mail address book could do with a bit of enlightening, send it their way as well with a cheery little: "Thought you might get a kick out of this:) lol." (wink. wink. wink. WINK.)
Cell phones. Before cell phones, I used to go to the movies a couple of times a week. Now, with few exceptions, I wait for DVD. I don't pay $10 (before popcorn) to watch a dozen little bluish LCD screens from the previews through the final credits.
Cell phones. Ten years ago somewhere around 30 million people in the U.S. had cell phones. Less than ten years before that it was around 8 million. Now it's over 200 million. So, between then and now, do we really have that much more to say?
I'm not knocking cell phones all together. They are convenient. I don't use mine that much, but it is pretty handy to have when I need to reach someone from wherever they are -- or when they need to reach me.
However, I see people on their phones constantly while shopping, driving, eating lunch, etc. What can they be talking about? Are they telling the same stories over and over? Are they sharing information they shouldn't and probably wouldn't if they had to wait to get home to make a phone call. Is this why people are so obsessed with Lindsay Lohan, Christian Bale, Britney Spears, Brad Pitt or anyone else with the least little bit of dirty laundry to be aired? At least it's something else to talk about on the phone, right?
I had one phone conversation today. The car dealer where I recently got my latest ride needs my signature on one more thing. It was a worthwhile phone call, I think. My voicemail messages today were five: one from a person seeking my advice on a new script who I will call back tomorrow, one from another person asking if I'd had any new thoughts on a possible collaboration even though I'd told them to get back to me on Monday, one from someone seeking advice on the line-up for a musical review out of town in a few months, one drunken wrong number, and a second phone call from the same dealership by someone who hadn't taken the time to find out that I'd already talked to someone else in the office.
Now, I wonder how many of these calls would have been made when we still relied upon land lines. The first one, maybe. The second person probably would have waited until Monday as discussed. The third call would have happened later in the evening when I would have been known to be home. The drunken call probably only happened because of the convenience of a mobile phone, and the caller from the dealership would have made it back to the office and found out that her call was unnecessary.
Nothing urgent. No emergencies. Ironically, when my father recently had a stroke, my brother opted not to call but waited to tell me in person. (Dad's doing much better, by the way.)
So let me pose the rhetorical question to you, dear readers: of all of the texts/calls that you made this week, how many did you make because you needed to at that moment, and how many did you make because you simply could? How many do you now wish you hadn't made at all?
Can I ask that we all take a moment of silence in contemplative tribute to the memory of . . . silence?

Be Back Soon

I will. I will. I have a lot going on in my world at the moment, but I will be back to the blog soon. In the meantime, let me point you toward the interesting story of 47-year-old "Britain's Got Talent" contestant Susan Boyle. (Oh, and turn your speakers up. Waaaaay up.)
Thanks to Leonard Barrett for sending it my way.