Posted by Tom Brogan on Friday, February 27, 2015,
We've started rehearsals for Bossnappers this week. Should you wish you can buy tickets from See Tickets. Below are some photographs from the first couple of nights.
Posted by Tom Brogan on Thursday, February 26, 2015,
I'm away to see The Slab Boys at the Citizens Theatre tonight, so here's an article in Rolling Stone from 1983 on Sean Penn. The then 22 year old had just finished a Broadway run of the Paisley set play.
"I think a movie, like Raiders of the Lost Ark is just like taking drugs," snarls the man who claims he has never touched recreational chemicals. "I'm against the whole idea of 'Oh, it's good entertainment.'
“My dream," he says, is to play Phil Ochs. I have a recording of him speaking in hi... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom Brogan on Sunday, February 22, 2015,
The Kids in the Hall are probably my favourite sketch troupe, and their five seasons my favourite sketch show. Rolling Stone have a reprint of the feature they ran on them in 1988 when they first came to attention.
The article came as a PDF extra on the season one DVD. Another extra from that DVD is the oral history video below.
Like Monty Python's, the Kids' sketches begin with an absurd premise, but they're not outrageous for outrageousness' sake; they craft provocative, lyrical performance p...
Posted by Tom Brogan on Saturday, February 21, 2015,
Comedian, writer and occasional actor Harris Wittels died on Thursday at the tragically young age of 30. I was a fan of his writing and his podcast appearances. I particularly enjoyed his appearances on Parks and Recreation, where along with Coltin Dunne he formed Pawnee's Animal Control division. I always hoped for a spin-off and was actually quite disappointed when the two characters were sacked for gross incompetence and April took over.
Posted by Tom Brogan on Wednesday, February 18, 2015,
Another interview with Larry David, this time from the New York Times, on his Broadway play 'Fish in the Dark'.
“Curb” is improvised, but this play is not. Is it more of a challenge to be scripted?
It’s one of the reasons I didn’t like acting. I don’t like not being able to interject. I don’t like waiting to talk. You have to wait for the other person to finish with his lines. But I have to say the rehearsal process, much to my amazement, has been fun. I enjoyed it. I didn’t expe...
Posted by Tom Brogan on Wednesday, February 18, 2015,
From the New York Times five graduates of Brooklyn College’s master of fine arts programme in playwriting describe what they've learned from course leader Mac Wellman.
“When I was struggling to write my first play, he told me to write the worst play I could, and that had a huge impact on every play I’ve written since. Mac taught me how to defeat my inner critic and just write.”
Posted by Tom Brogan on Tuesday, February 17, 2015,
Larry David talks to Playbill about his Broadway play 'Fish in the Dark'.
"They had a couple show albums in the house," he says of his parents. "They had My Fair Lady and Oklahoma! and Flower Drum Song. They were in the stereo cabinet. We never saw a show. We never went once. I don't think I saw a show until I was 20 or 21. I think it was Hair."
Okay. So the theatre bug never bit young Larry. Then why a play now, at the ripe age of 67? Credit the late Nora Ephron.
I started to build lists over time. I researched theatre companies in my region. I signed-up to mailing lists and received information on current and upcoming seasons. I looked up the actors, directors and writers working with these companies. I read and watched theatre. I followed people on social media and as a result widened the field to producers, artistic directors, literary associates, com...
Posted by Tom Brogan on Monday, February 16, 2015,
I've recently started listening to comedian Jarlath Regan's podcast An Irishman Abroad. The hook is pretty self explanatory. Irish people, or second generation Irish people talk about moving abroad to work. The series started off as comedians and comedy writers, but quickly came to take in footballers, playwrights, boxers and others who moved from Ireland to earn their living in England or other countries.
Regan also writes about the people he interviews in the Irish Post. This is his interv... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom Brogan on Sunday, February 15, 2015,
Scottish Labour announced recently that they are holding a consultation into the reintroduction of alcohol to Scottish football grounds.
I'm happy to agree that Jim Murphy is using this debate as a tool to win back voters that Scottish Labour betrayed during the Referendum. I dare say there's been long talks on what issue would get lapsed Labour supporters back behind them, and this is what they've come up with. I think they've badly misjudged that. There are far more important issues around ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom Brogan on Friday, February 13, 2015,
With Saturday Night Live approaching its 40th birthday celebration this weekend former producer Mike Shoemaker looked through his archive of photos and posted many of them to Twitter.
Posted by Tom Brogan on Thursday, February 12, 2015,
With Saturday Night Live's 40th Anniversary coming up Alan Sepinwall at HitFix picks 21 sketches to illustrate the show's history. However, all of the video links in the article don't allow the sketches to be played outside of the United States. Some of the sketches, like White Like Me below, can be found on YouTube.
The write-up itself is worthy of a read.
"You can look at the sixth season of "SNL" — the first made without any of the original actors, and without Lorne Michaels himself — ...
Posted by Tom Brogan on Wednesday, February 11, 2015,
I was in a production of The Slab Boys in 2010. As such it's a play I've read multiple times, and I've been to see other productions of it. I'm going along to see the latest production at the Citizens next week.
In this video by Urbancroft Productions writer John Byrne and director David Hayman talk about the history of the play and what to expect from the latest show.
Posted by Tom Brogan on Wednesday, February 11, 2015,
Playwright, attorney, new media journalist and consultant Wajahat Ali writes in The Atlantic about his experiences of writing a Muslim-American cop show for HBO alongside Dave Eggers.
"In hindsight, we believe HBO wanted MJ to be “Homeland–meets-The Cosby Show,” but we can’t be sure. They definitely didn’t want “The Wire with Muslims” and they told us that from the beginning. They had no interest in re-treading old ground and we had no interest in duplicating someone else’s nar... Continue reading ...
Posted by Tom Brogan on Tuesday, February 10, 2015,
There's quite an extensive interview with playwright and artist John Byrne in the latest edition of Highland Life. The tabloids have picked up on his comments about Glasgow School of Art, but the interview cover a lot more topics. You can read the whole thing, and indeed the whole magazine, at this link.
"When I won my first Bafta [For 1987's BBC TV series Tutti Frutti, which scooped six] I'd never heard of the awards. I went into the BBC to talk about the upcoming one, which would be Your Che... Continue reading ...
Bill Morris in The Millions looks at the Best Adapted Screenplay race at this year's Oscars. He makes the observation that only one script is based on a novel.
"But the novel is now in retreat — and not only in Hollywood — as screenwriters and moviegoers turn their gaze to movies based on established franchises, comic books, graphic novels, musicals, non-fiction books and magazine articles, TV shows, memoirs, and biographies. There’s nothing inherently wrong, or particularly new, about ... Continue reading ...
Max Frye (“Foxcatcher”) likes to take an old-fashioned route via yellow legal pad and felt pen. But when he takes it to the computer, the transcript is, in essence, already a rewrite. The blend of old and modern writing tools seems effective, though Frye admitted that procrastination was still... Continue reading ...
Following on from my post on Wednesday about Scarecrow Video, the BBC website today has a video feature on 20th Century Flicks, a video shop from Bristol. They still rent VHS tapes and have 18,000 titles on video and DVD. Here it is.
Posted by Tom Brogan on Wednesday, February 4, 2015,
When I lived in Edinburgh I used to go to Alphabet Video. Here you could find all kinds of obscure or out-of-print videos. I remember renting 'Bang The Drum Slowly' from there. Those types of video shops are all but extinct these days. Scarecrow Video in Seattle, Washington is one of those video shops, and appears to be fully operational.
Dave Chen of Slash Film made this entertaining short film about the shop.
Posted by Tom Brogan on Tuesday, February 3, 2015,
One of my favourite films of last year was The Skeleton Twins. I watched it again the other night. What's now become one of my favourite scenes of all time is the scene where Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig lip-sync to Starship's 1987 hit single 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now'. That's the scene below, but you really should watch it within the movie itself.
Vulture has some behind-the-scenes at Saturday Night Live insight. This is a feature on how the many sets are built for the show.
According to designer Joe DeTullio, this week has been less impossible than most.
“We’ve built a lot of castles over the years,” he says. Castles are nothing compared to, say, the exploding whale built for a show in May. (“I was really worried about that one,” says Raywood. “There was going to be guts flying all over the place. But it worked out.”) Continue reading ...
I've long considered myself a fan of The Hold Steady. I've even seen them live, but it's only in recent weeks that I've properly listened to their back catalogue at length. This is the one song I've been playing repeatedly. 'Slapped Actress' from 2008's 'Stay Positive'.
