the reason why we shouldn't circle the racial wagons...

...is because if I felt some misplaced tribal loyalty to another person simply because they looked like me, I couldn't call Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas a democracy-undermining self-interested loathsome little toad. But since I'm free of such fetters, I can.

Duke Snyder, 1926-2011

Something that's not really all that germane to COItc's pursuits is my undying love for a long-dead baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. So it's especially tragic as we lose the surviving members of that team, as their ranks are never to be replenished, and saying goodbye to each player means saying goodbye to the team all over again. This one's an especially painful one.

Although he made his home in California, Snider retained emotional ties to Brooklyn.

He made that clear on Sept. 12, 1963, when the Mets gave him a “night” at their home in the Polo Grounds, where the Brooklyn Dodgers had long been the hated foe. Snider’s former Brooklyn teammates were introduced — Robinson, Campanella, Erskine, Furillo, Don Newcombe and Ralph Branca. And then Snider moved to the microphone.

“I look up into the stands and it looks like Ebbets Field,” he said. “The Mets are wonderful, but you can’t take the Dodger out of Brooklyn.”

[NYTimes]

money stuff

Hmm:

Any television executive knows that the big money is in reruns: Hit shows like “Seinfeld” and “Star Trek” keep raking it in long after the writers penned their last scripts. Now a group of theater producers is putting a twist on that business model, taking long-running Broadway hits and moving them Off Broadway to test if they can live on in rerun mode, where costs are lower and the profit potential is significant.

This is crap news in the big picture for performers. But given that Equity's all-or-nothing stance on any tier other than Broadway contracts, life below the elite level of contracts was crap, and they've done less than everything to give producers more options (cough -- showcase code -- cough). Now, the zero-sum game between producers and performers kicked into high gear, and there's no room for maneuver.

/end rant

[NYTimes]

kids, lawn, etc.

Goodness, I knew I was old, but if blogs like this one are becoming obsolete:

Blogs were once the outlet of choice for people who wanted to express themselves online. But with the rise of sites like Facebook and Twitter, they are losing their allure for many people — particularly the younger generation.

What does kind of dinosaur is our podcast?

[NYTimes]

JapJAP -- tomorrow

A new show to tell you about this week. Hope to see you there...

a Keep It Movin' Production of

JapJAP

written and performed by Una Aya Osato

directed by Moises Belizario

in the FRIGID NY Festival

Friday, February 25, 5:30PM
Saturday, February 26, 2:30PM
Tuesday, March 1, 10:30PM
Friday, March 4, 7:00PM
Sunday, March 6, 7:00PM

at The Kraine Theater
85 East 4th Street
(btwn. 2nd Ave & Bowery),
NY, NY, 10003

$15/$10 students/seniors/struggling artists
Buy your tickets now!
www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?EID=&showCode=JAP6&BundleCode=&GUID=

"JapJAP is trying to find out who she is, tearing down borders and
tearing off clothes. Her body is her only road map as she embarks on a
journey through identity, culture, and history. Join award-winning
team, performer/playwright Una Aya Osato and director Moises
Belizario, for the world premiere of Una's newest, freshest,
full-bodied one-woman show: JapJAP."

[Show Site]

great/horrible

You decide which.

all good things...

So there's apparently a clamor for more episodes of the COI podcast over at podomatic. Well, you're just going to gave to wait ... another week.

The next episode goes live on 1 March. It's coming, dear listeners! Succor is at hand.

(And thanks for listening.)

[the COI podcast]

your weekly af(sw) update

Steady as she goes.

Week by week, we're making progress. You can visit our campaign page over at Fractured Atlas and join the cause right now. There are all kinds of exciting announcements in the works about our 2011 showcase production of All's Fair (Six Western), but first we need your help.

There are gifts galore for your perusal, not to mention the immense satisfaction of funding good artists who love puppies.

All’s Fair (Six Western) Is made possible through the generous support of the Puffin Foundation, Centrum, Anonymous, Leonardo Giadone, Aaron Isquith, Janet Isquith, and Laura Rubin.



Conflict of Interest theater company (COItc) is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of COItc may be made payable to Fractured Atlas. The value of various goods or services is variable depending on contribution level. Any contribution above amounts specified on the campaign page is tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

[AF(SW) Campaign Page]

your weekly dose of something awesome

[Gizmodo via GawkerTV]

first they came for the public sector unions...

The first gauntlet has been tossed in the pending labor war -- and no, I'm not talking about the NFL. The Governor of Wisconsin has proposed ripping up contracts with public sector unions and starting over with new rules that will ensure collective bargaining doesn't get in the way of balanced budgets.

Is this terrible? You bet it is. But let's keep in mind how we got there -- the hard-line mentality of unions going back more than 30 years that viewed management as nothing but an enemy to be battled, instead of a collaborator. Despite the fact that alternative models were available (looking at you, Germany).

So now, instead of presenting alternative models for businesses, they used an opt-in or opt-out model, and now that times are tough enough, the excuse is primed to scrap collective bargaining altogether.

Problem is, if this sticks, the abandonment of collective bargaining in the private sector is close behind. Hard models are brittle and break easily. Flexibility is the key to survival.

You listening, Equity?

[NYTimes]

if you're not going to donate to our fall production...

Felipe Ossa has some key insight as to where you can send that disposable income.

 (hint: it's all about the kitty.)

"you're not losing sales by having your stuff out there"

Neil Gaiman on why the understanding of the digital distribution of creative output needs to change -- and that change is clearly going to come through the creators themselves, not their publishers. Above is his quote. Also brilliant:

how many of you found your favorite authors by being lent a book?

[via Boing Boing]

your weekly af(sw) update

Our fundraising campaign continues over at Fractured Atlas. Help us get the fundraising over with, so that we can focus on the more important things. Like where the heck I'm going to get giant mutant flowers for Kina's production design, an example of which is above.

All’s Fair (Six Western) Is made possible through the generous support of the Puffin Foundation, Centrum, Anonymous, Leonardo Giadone, Aaron Isquith, and Janet Isquith.



Conflict of Interest theater company (COItc) is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of COItc may be made payable to Fractured Atlas. The value of various goods or services is variable depending on contribution level. Any contribution above amounts specified on the campaign page is tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

SUCH a bad idea

DID THEY NOT SEE LOGAN'S RUN?

This never ends well...

your weekly dose of something awesome

We tend not to buy into jingoistic American exceptionalism around these parts, but sometimes -- just sometimes -- America's unique position in the world can be objectively quantified.

Great googly moogly.

[via The Economist]

new podcast episode

A new episode of the COI podcast is ready for download as we continue our series of live podcast recordings: Kayla Hertz reads three original works.

As always, there are three ways to listen:

(1) Stream the episode below
(2) Visit our podcast page and listen online: conflicttheater.podOmatic.com
(3) iTunes users can click this link

"The Hail Mary Pass" -- LAST CHANCE

Our friend Patrice Hamilton is presenting a one act play, The Hail Mary Pass, at The Manhattan Repertory Theater for its final performance on Saturday, Feb. 12th at 5:00 PM.

Tamara is marrying Curtis Thompson, who manages mutual funds for Langdon Financial Advisors, and it is the day before the wedding. Tamara is sitting in bed sneaking a cigarette and talking to Curt on her cell when her ex-boyfriend knocks at the door pretending to deliver room service. He knows of Tamara’s upcoming marriage and is determined to stop her from making a mistake. He overpowers Tamara and ties her hands together. When he discovers Curt is on the cell, he devises a game: If Curt can answer three of the eight questions right, Jake will concede defeat and leave them alone. Curt agrees and the game is on. At first, Jake’s questions seem insignificant, but as the play progresses, the game becomes more sinister. Eventually, Curt and Tamara are forced to acknowledge how little they know one another. When Curt finally ends the game, he’s got a score to settle with Jake and some questions of his own for Tamara.

Presenting at:
Manhattan Repertory Theater
303 W 42nd St # 3
New York, NY 10036-6908

FOR TICKETS, CALL: (646) 329-6588

the urgency of not-now

Had an interesting exchange with someone at an audition this weekend; he expressed disbelief that we were prepping All's Fair (Six Western) this far in advance of its Fall bow. But I am disbelieving of that belief. I fully understand that in the rough-and-tumble world of off(x19)-Broadway, we improvise to the very edge of chaos because we must: we have no money, no permanent space, no guarantee that anyone will come see the work once it's open to public consumption.

But is that an excuse to get sloppy? Shouldn't all work be given as much preparation as possible? And if that means just one person hunched over a script months in advance of opening to get it right, so be it. We shouldn't use the lack of a solid or well-known platform as an excuse not to take the work seriously until the final six weeks. Just as performers get better with more rehearsal, scripts get better through re-writing, and overall production concepts get more refined the earlier you start thinking about them.

life imitates art imitating life

President George W. Bush called of an upcoming trip to Switzerland because of pending protests. What, what? But he was going to give a speech about freedom!

Several human rights groups including Amnesty International and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights had planned to ask Swiss prosecutors to open a criminal investigation against Mr. Bush over the admission in his recent memoirs that he personally authorized the waterboarding of terrorism suspects.

Oh. Wonder if that had anything to do with it.

Wait, though -- this all sounds kind of familiar...

[NYTimes]

oh, don

Apparently McNamara II -- er, Donald Rumsfeld -- has seen fit to write a book.

Mr. Rumsfeld condemns what he describes as [L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian director of the American occupation of Iraq]'s heavy-handed, top-down approach and his decision to delay the transfer of authority back to Iraqis. Those actions, he writes, “inadvertently stoked nationalist resentments and fanned the embers of what would become the Iraqi insurgency.”

Interesting theory, Don. I have another -- maybe it was the arbitrary invasion of their country that lit those insurgency fires. But I guess it's just another known unknown, eh?

your af(sw) weekly update

A roaring start to our fundraising campaign, barely a week old, thanks in no small part to COItc's oldest and dearest friends.

You can help, too.

We are well on track to make our targets, but that can only happen with your help. Hop on over to the campaign site and see what inducements we have to coax your coins. Shall we sing your praises to the heavens? Shower you with baubles and face paint? Toast your heath? All is possible.

Give early and give often...

All’s Fair (Six Western) is made possible through the generous support of the Puffin Foundation, Centrum, Anonymous, Leonardo Giadone, Aaron Isquith, and Janet Isquith.



Conflict of Interest theater company (COItc) is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of COItc may be made payable to Fractured Atlas. The value of various goods or services is variable depending on contribution level. Any contribution above amounts specified on the campaign page is tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

a propos of nothing...

Something awesome:


The Thomas Beale Cipher from Andrew S Allen on Vimeo.

[via Gawker]

this is why the Nets coming to Brooklyn can't be bad

It'll be like having George Steinbrenner and Vladimir Putin rolled all into one:

So Kim attended yesterday's game to root on her man, Kris Humphries, whose new fame thanks to Kim Kardashian's public affection for him probably makes him unmovable to an owner like Mikhail Prokhorov. "Big contract for that man who pump great booty of the world", he'll say to some news outlet, as he shoots a Kodiak bear with a flaming crossbow while hovercrafting across the Great Barrier reef with Estonian party girls.

And that's my impersonation of everyone's Mikhail Prokhorov impersonation.

Related goodness: the Brooklyn Paper's sport section will become a must-read for normal people, instead of us sorry Cyclone fans...

give us your money.

Off we go.

It's a crass beginning to our campaign, but these are desperate times, and the work going into this piece is just too good. The gloves have to come off.

Yesterday our crowd funding site went live over at Fractured Atlas. Go visit now. Visit often. And tell your friends.

All's Fair (Six Western) is political, yes, but the tale of this play goes beyond the plot. This is about where COItc has come in the four years since we started mounting plays; it's about the new faces that have joined our journey towards God-knows-what; it's about losing the distractions of short term, frenetic productions and returning to our roots of in-depth dramatic exploration. Most especially, it's about a group of talented theater practitioners presenting a outstanding example of their craft.

Certainly the Puffin Foundation and Centrum haven't seen potential in this work for any political motives, but because the story we're trying to tell, and the group of artists enlisted to take the journey alongside that story's development.

Over the next eight months we're going to delve into a process that a lot of us haven't enjoyed in years. No more four-week sprints. No more hectic, ad-hoc, production decisions taken on vapors, too much caffeine, and too little sleep. Instead, we're going to get it right -- because otherwise, why bother? It's about making a thousand and one smaller, more reasoned gestures, and resisting the ill-conceived big splash.

But we need your help. Oh boy, do we need your help. Take a look at what Kina Park has come up with so far. Take a quick gander of the faces of the incredible lineup behind this project. We'll be telling you a bit more about their stories in the weeks and months to come.

And give us your money.

Watch this space for updates. And see you in the fall.

[Fractured Atlas]

color me confused

I was always under the impression that when the New York Times reported on something in a trend piece, that meat the thing had pretty much already become passe. So imagine my shock that the old Grey Lady seems to be on the vanguard of a new portrait of society that will emerge with the release of the latest census data in the coming year, and has been already apparent -- especially on college campuses -- in the intervening decade since the last head count. Apparently there are some mixed-race people in this country.

Actually, a hell of a lot:

No one knows quite how the growth of the multiracial population will change the country. Optimists say the blending of the races is a step toward transcending race, to a place where America is free of bigotry, prejudice and programs like affirmative action.

Pessimists say that a more powerful multiracial movement will lead to more stratification and come at the expense of the number and influence of other minority groups, particularly African-Americans.

And some sociologists say that grouping all multiracial people together glosses over differences in circumstances between someone who is, say, black and Latino, and someone who is Asian and white.

Because sociologists need to eat, just like the rest of us.

I begin to wonder how my life would have changed had this existed as an option for me in college. Would I have engendered such instant antipathy on the part of the Black Student Union in my refusal to join their tribe? Would I have found a place in the other academic fields of study, like history, sociology, English? Would I...

When the multiracial group was founded in 2002,

DEAR GOD I AM OLD

Dr. Kelley said, “There was an instant audience.”

[...]

Such a club would not have existed a generation ago — when the question at the center of the “What Are You?” game would have been a provocation rather than an icebreaker.

And who would be the source of this provocation, more other than not? "Pure" brown people!

Checking both races was not an easy choice, Dr. Kelley said, “as a black man, with all that means in terms of pride in that heritage as well as reasons to give back and be part of progress forward.

And that in a nutshell (although it takes the Times four pages) is the problem: the existing racial hierarchy has a lot invested in the categories as they exist now.

Look for a prolonged argument over what brown means coming to a society near you, in perpetuity.

[NY Times]

new podcast episode

A new episode of the COI podcast is ready for download as we continue our series of live podcast recordings: Chandler Rosenthal performs two of her works, "Featherbugs," and "The Eggplant."

As always, there are three ways to listen:

(1) Stream the episode below
(2) Visit our podcast page and listen online: conflicttheater.podOmatic.com
(3) iTunes users can click this link