A surprising thing happened to me over the July 4 holiday: I almost laughed at a clown. Hard to believe, I know. Clowns these days tend to be homicidal maniacs, spooky pedophiles, or depressing drunks who can’t get another job. But legend has it that, once upon a time, clowns were circus characters who did funny things, and people loved them. A crazy notion, sure—but hey, check your history. People used to laugh at clowns all the time.

Read more.

The Fringe Festival (July 30-Aug.9) released its complete schedule today, a 20-page program encompassing 160 shows at 22 different venues. No one knows anything about this year’s crop of shows yet, but here are the ones I’d pay $12 to see—and why:

Read more.

Macy’s announced that Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Ne-Yo will headline this year’s Macy's Glamorama rock/fashion extravaganza, which benefits the Children’s Cancer Research Fund. Joining Ne-Yo will be local jazz combo The New Standards. Friday, Aug. 14, 8 p.m., The Orpheum Theatre. Tickets range from $75-$1,000

Read more.

Pardon the Yogi Berra-ism, but some classics really are classics. During the opening scene of the touring production of A Chorus Line, stopping at the Orpheum this week, I got the same jangly, overwhelmed-with-panic emotional feeling, in my stomach, in my throat, behind my eyes, that Spider Man must get when Dr. Octopus sneaks up on him.  In the opening scene, Zach, portrayed by Kevin McCready, is trying out a herd of dancers auditioning for his show. He singles a couple of performers out—“red headband, keep your head up!” But most of them go through in groups without any feedback at all. Maybe this is what was getting to me—I was having karate practice flashbacks or basketball practice flashbacks. Anybody who’s been at the back line of an aerobics or a ballroom dance class, or a soccer practice, or even a PowerPoint training seminar knows what it’s like to feel disoriented, flailing a little, a step behind the rest, struggling to tread water and remain unnoticed until you catch up, until you get it (hopefully).

Read more.

Earlier this year, The Jungle Theater had planned to present a stage version of Around the World in 80 Days, but decided instead to present Pulitzer-winning playwright Donald Margulies’ Shipwrecked! An Entertainment: The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told by Himself), a play that could just as easily have been called Around the World in Thirty Years.

Read more.

By now, you’ve probably heard the news that a Guthrie-produced play—Tony Kushner’s The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures—is finally bound for Broadway (sometime in 2010, it appears)—and that the Guthrie “disinvited” theater critics from New York and Chicago from seeing the play in its current incarnation, presumably because it’s not yet the work of art Kushner wants it to be.

Read more.

Word of mouth going into Friday night’s world premiere of the new play by Tony Kushner—The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures—was a bit unsettling. “It’s three-and-a-half hours long,” people were saying, as if plays have some sort of built-in pain/misery index that crosses the ethical bounds of torture somewhere around the two-and-a-half-hour mark. Reports of Kushner writing feverishly all day and delivering whole new scenes to the cast two hours before curtain made the greatest living playwright of our time sound more like a procrastinating teenager who can’t get his homework in on time. Then there was Kushner himself, in print and on the radio, humbly lowering everyone’s expectations, asking people—especially critics—to think of it as more of a workshop production than a finished play.

Read more.

Tony Kushner is not known for brevity, but the five short plays being presented at the Guthrie Theater under the banner Tiny Kushner demonstrate that the Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright of the epic Angels in America can go short—and, even at his shortest, he still goes on longer than is technically necessary to get his point across. 

Read more.

Last Sunday, I went to the Ritz Theater to talk to composer Chan Poling about his new musical, Venus, which tells the story of a middle-aged woman who gets transformed into a sexy pop-star/supermodel. You can tell it's Sunday because of my hair and because I mentioned that it's SUNDAY—HEY, IT'S SUNDAY, I'M WORKING ON A SUNDAY—about eleven times during the shoot. (Thank you to Kyong Ham, our cameraman and editor, for cutting most of them out.) 

Read more.

It’s entirely possible that you’ve already read and heard more about the unimpeachable greatness of Pulitzer-and-everything-else-winning playwright Tony Kushner than you care to in this lifetime. Which is a shame, because the Guthrie Theater’s three-month celebration of Kushner’s work just got started with the opening of Caroline, Or Change over the weekend—and when it comes to Kushner, the work is really where it’s at. If you don’t want to read any further, I’ll just add that Caroline, Or Change is as marvelous, enchanting, and soul-stirring a show as you’re ever going to see, and if you choose to forego the chance to experience the Guthrie’s absolutely spectacular production of it, you will be missing the opportunity of a lifetime.

Read more.