Filed by Lance at 2:01 pm under General, Hatemail, Pop Culture, Shameless Plugs, The Arts
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Start time: 1:00 PM
Media Personnel in attendance: 1
Pounds of Flesh consumed: 15
Kegs we polished off: 1, plus how many bottles??
Hatemail pieces we recorded: about 5
Pounds of vegetables we grilled: 6
True stories about Kelsey Grammer I heard: 1
New friends I made: 3 or 4
Friendships I deepened: several
Cups of coffee we served: 20
Cups of coffee I drank: 3
Twitter updates we sent: 7
End time: I left Trevor’s at about 1:30 AM

Congrats to you, Bil, and to you, Trevor, our gracious host, for another amazing Hatemail Recording Session! The next one takes place just before my birthday, Sunday, August 29th. Be there! Add to the numbers!

Filed by Lance at 2:45 pm under General, Hatemail, Shameless Plugs
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6:50 PM

DINNER’S SERVED!

6:35 PM

Kathryn Daniels just told us the story of the time she interned for the Boston company doing MacBeth (you can’t type that on a theater-ish blog, can you?). The press night party was in the real Cheers, Kelsey Grammer was playing MacBeth, and Diane Venora, playing Lady Macbeth came up and laid one on her. Hot. This is why I love actor stories!

6:10 PM

We’ve had this wonderfully simple, heartbreaking Hatemail in the stack for a long time called “Dear Rapist.” It’s one of those Hatemails that’s so personal, so frighteningly real and simple that it’s difficult to approach. Sher Sheets stepped up, had the courage, and did a great job of giving it a straightforward, uncomplicated reading. Congratulations to her!

(Keep reading…)

Filed by Bil at 11:25 pm under The Arts
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The recent yo-yo of heat followed by relieving rain followed by more heat is like the natural world taunting us. And just when I thought we could relax because the heat had cooled off just a little bit, I get word that the basement at Dream Theatre (like thousands of other basements in Chicago) is flooded. FLOODED.

Needless to say, all the free time I thought I had today was instead spent laboring to clean up the joint before our audience arrived tonight. It was a giant mess, but we were able to clean the visible parts of the theatre before our guests came. This is a victory, considering how much there was. There is also much more to do in the basement playing space, so I’ll be heading down there for a couple hours more before coming back north to the Hatemail recording session.

So, after several hours of covering ourselves in sweat and sewer grime, we somehow found the energy to put on a play to make the cleaning worthwhile. And it was the most amazing performance of this show anyone has ever seen. I mean, seriously, everyone was on fire tonight. It was fantastic. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s the kind of show I wish we could do every single night…without the flood first.

And yeah, this pattern I now find myself in (work hard to clean theatre, do awesome show, work hard again to clean theatre some more) seems very much like the weather itself: hot and miserable, cooling and fun, hot and miserable again. And that’s just life, man. Ups and downs. Bad times and good times. It’s all cyclical in scope.

Filed by Bil at 8:04 pm under Depression, Pop Culture
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I write like
Vladimir Nabokov

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Some mathematical algorithm thinks I write like Vladimir Nabokov – modern day Nabokov? Sure, I could see that, because modern-day Nabokov is dead, whereas I apparently am too alive to get any writing done.
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Filed by Bil at 12:03 pm under Pop Culture, Religion, Shameless Plugs, The Arts
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It’s the Monday before the show opens, so you know what that means: FULL ON SHOW PROMOTION MODE!

“Orestes” opens this Thursday down at the Dream Theatre in Pilsen, the Heart of Chicago. “Orestes” completes the Agon Trilogy, which has won Best New Play of 2010 by the Chicago Reader.

Here’s why you should come see it:

1) It takes place in Hell.

In this play, Hell is cold and dark. Forget what you believe about burning fire and torturous machines. Electra finds her way to the black pit in the second act of this show, and there she finds the long suffering of people in their own private sequestered rooms, tortured by themselves and able only to torture Electra once she finds them. This show shows us not the physical pain of Hell, but the mental anguish of loneliness and lost hope.

2) All your questions about Chorus will be answered.

I’m not giving anything else away. You have to be shown by the cast, not told by a blog.

3) The audience matters here.

In this play, moreso than in any other play I’ve experienced (either as an actor or an audience member), the audience are characters. There is a purpose to the actors’ talking to the audience, not for the simple sake of “breaking the 4th wall” or for any kind of shock value. The audience not only has a presence to the characters onstage, but a history. It’s thrilling and it draws you in as completely as possible, and there’s no hokey “audience participation” necessary. (Read: do not shout out occupations for the cast. They will cut you if you do this. Really.) Don’t be fooled by Tryphosia in the lobby before the show, you will actually be scared by the importance you bring as the audience member.

4) Seeing live theatre is awesome.

You can’t get an experience like this staying at home, and you can’t get it at the movies. It’s not expensive, and it’ll make you think things you never thought you’d think. Don’t be shy. Live a little.

Tickets are here:

Filed by Bil at 12:10 pm under Fightin' Words, Social Issues, The Media
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It’s just as well that LeBron James decided not to come to Chicago. What Chicago does NOT need right now are two things: 1) continued pointless media frenzy over a national-spotlight athlete, and 2) another super-rich celebrity who doesn’t tip his waiter.
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Filed by Bil at 12:52 pm under Pop Culture, The Media
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I think it’s time for Hollywood to consider the minivan as a viable source of suave, robotic awesomeness. Too often the hardcore spies get a sexy little European roadster while their team of technicians sits in a clunky full-size work van. For the sake of saving money on budget, though, I propose that filmmakers could maximize their efficiency by putting the whole team into one fully-functional - and stylish - minivan.
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Filed by Bil at 8:44 pm under Fightin' Words, Stuff to Read, The Media
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So - as I took a break from preparing for the future to take a glance at what’s happening in the present, I couldn’t help but notice World Cup scores. Team USA is out, but for once in our lifetime, we got closer to the cup than England, France, and Italy did. Had I been paying closer attention to Twitter feeds and Facebook status updates, I might have known that sooner.

But something struck me: I didn’t need to know that any sooner than I did. Its relevance to my life is pretty low. The World Cup is just something I take a mild interest in every four years.
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