From the Blogroll VIII

Dedicated this week to my friend Mike Daisey.

At A Poor Player, Tom Loughlin takes 37 xanax and begins talking about why he's an acting teacher, and lamenting Mike Daisey's recent post on the utility of MFA programs. He explains in six points why he teaches and ought not feel so bad about it. Meanwhile, I look at my teachers in the M.A. program at Hunter College/City University of New York and openly wonder why they haven't got the balls to write the same spirited defense.

At Adam Szymkowicz's blog, Adam Szymkowicz promotes a short film he wrote and goes on a bender of sorts, offering 16 bits of advice to young playwrights. One of them, apparently, is not reading Mike Daisey's blog.

At Adventures In and Out of the Mainstream Media, Edward D. Miller offers 13 Ways of Looking at Aretha Franklin's Inauguration Hat, with apologies to Wallace Stevens.

At Americans for the Arts' Arts Blog, Robert Lynch, the organization's president, praises the allocation of $50 million in recovery funds for the National Endowment for the Arts, but is strangely silent on explaining how that is going to help the many struggling theatres around the country at the moment. He also fails to mention Mike Daisey's blog.

At Artsy Schmartsy, Jonathan West displays pictures of pretty rain barrels (what the hell is a rain barrel, Jon?), and talks about getting a job (in the arts, mind you) to support his family. In a separate post, he talks about the Greater Milwaukee Committee's Creative Community Summit and the Cultural NonProfit Forum on Creative Community and seven other events that use the word "creative" creatively.

At Between Productions, Robert Cashill discusses the 21st birthday of The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, which works out to about 8,700 performances and 13 million attendees. The population of Japan, by the way, is about 128 million. Do the math. It'll never close.

At Culturebot, Andy gets all hot and bothered over the term "stimulus package." Mike Daisey, via his blog, does not respond.

At Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals, Chris Caggiano take a couple of shots at the recently closed Spring Awakening, and discusses Duncan Sheik's latest musical-theater project, Whisper House.

At Extra Criticum, John Yearley offers some love to the critics. Collectively, the critics say, "Bah! That's not love! You don't know love! You want to see love? I'll show you love..." and everyone just kind of sighs.

At The Hub Review, Thomas Garvey talks some theatre, of course, but provides this tres gay Wheel of Fortune clip:



At Interchanging Idioms, Chip Michael debunks the mystery of "cello scrotum" and also provides great CD reviews and coverage of the newest events in classical music. Mike Daisey does not comment on "cello scrotum" but suggests that funding it at the state or federal level is probably not going to change the predominance of one-person theater.

At The Fortess of Jason Grote, Jason Grote links to a recent Naomi Klein piece on the Israel-Palestinian flareup and does the hokey-pokey around his belief that Israel is the aggressor in this case and that the Palestinians are without blame, if I'm understanding his post correctly, which I'm frankly not sure I do. He also praises the Critic-O-Meter, which is all right I guess, except that James Marino's BroadwayStars.com has been doing the same thing for nearly 10 years and doesn't predicate itself on the entirely subjective quantification of critics' words.

At Just Shows to Go You, Patrick Lee reviews Cornbury: The Queen's Governor. Oh yes he did!

At The Producer's Perspective, Ken Davenport crows because Speed-the-Plow recoups. And, having seen the play at yesterday's matinee, I'm so pleased William H. Macy, Raul Esparza and Elizabeth Moss are giving such great performances. Too bad the play is so dramaturgically false.

At Lou Harry's A&E, Lou Harry discusses some good news in the arts -- if you consider the state of Broadway production to represent the arts. Some do, some don't. (Whither thou, Mike Daisey?)

At On Chicago Theatre, Zev N. Valancy reviews The Wild Duck by Court Theatre at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It contains a great follow-up to his lede: "The play is frequently described as a parable of the dangers of meddling in other people's lives. The true destruction comes from men who does not understand themselves and therefore hurt those closest to them."

At The Playgoer, Garrett Eisler discusses Dana Gioia takes a "parting shot" at the NEA but it doesn't really seem like a parting shot so much as a parting gift. Courtesy, of course, of a report by the NEA.

At Steve on Broadway, Steve welcomes the new chief drama critic of the New York Post.

At Theatre Ideas, Scott Walters points readers to Ben Brantley's slash-and-burn review of the Hedda Gabler revival on Broadway in the context of a new blog that Scott is involved with that uploaded a great post on the question of revivals.

At Theatre Is Territory, Praxis Theatre raises the all-important Twitter question. Mike Daisey, do you Twitter?

At The Wicked Stage, Rob Weinert-Kendt offers a paean to Alex Ross of The New Yorker. You won't be paean if you read it.

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