Harold Pinter has died.

Ah.

Yes.

I don't blog much. I'm not platforming as the crusty patriarch whose infrequent utterances are meant to confer the wisdom of the ancients. I just prefer to keep the regularity of my bowel movements on a need-to-know basis with my GP alone. News should be, well, news, dammit.

That said, I write to convey the opening of yet another Jobsite magnum opus from the fertile mind of Chris Holcom: Caryl Churchill's spare and stylized adaptation of August Strindberg's A Dream Play.

Still with me? Good, because our deft director has made more than a little noise adroitly (and engagingly) staging what, in many other hands, could and surely have become problematic slogs through challenging texts. His recent production of The Serpent was astoundingly fresh, and the organic work we're assembling for display beginning June 12th is promising similar results. Only problem: Ami Corley, Jason Evans, Kari Goetz, Amy Gray, Spencer Meyers, Steve Mountan, Christen Petitt, Soolaf Rasheid and I no longer have asses. That's right -- we've worked them off, thus creating a boon for both lovers of professional theatre as well as those whose purchase price will help to see our gluteals restored to firm and juicy order. Won't you please be one of those?...

Details at: www.jobsitetheater.org

(So I guess you're getting news about my poop, after all.)

I'm equal parts Objective Distance and Genuflecting Fool about this recent honorific from Creative Loafing's 2007 Best of the Bay issue (this year's flavor, next year's fodder?), albeit eternally grateful for the praise. (For the record, and just to assuage this ex-English major's heart, it's Katurian with an "a".) In the spirit of Ving Rhames, this accolade truly belongs to every honest, area artist who took the stage this past season. Bravo to you all! (Oh, alright! -- Bravo to us all!)

And while I have your attention, might I please implore your hopefully continued (although neophytes are always welcome) support of local theatre, and art in general? You may not always like what you see, but a light on the human condition may be precisely the tonic required to ameliorate your cares, and any resultant debate is worth the price of admission in our woefully dumbed-down society.

[INSERT GRATUITOUS AND SHAMELESS, POTENTIALLY DAMAGING, AMITY-WITHERING PLUG HERE] Don't forget Jobsite Theatre's production of Gorey Stories opens October 18th at TBPAC's Shimberg Playhouse! The menacing ghoul in the banner is me! (Alright! -- Who said that?!...)

Quote of the Week: "He said he found Jesus. That rascally Jesus is always hiding until someone fucks up." -- the refreshingly trenchant Bill Maher on Michael Vick's tiresome, insincere, artlessly choreographed and scarcely literate "apology"

R.I.P. Hurlyburly, and if this is the way the world ends, then T.S. Eliot can suck it. At the last, and through all of the smoke (a difficult script, the unfortunate loss of our first director, an unwelcome beastie making its way onto the set from the bowels of an old stove), we heroically managed 5 of 12 before being felled not by the critics, who rather enjoyed us (well, not all of us -- depending upon who you read, I was either one of the best things about the show or decidedly the worst), but by the unanticipated and permanent absence of our lead, the dynamic and sorely missed Ryan McCarthy. (No, he's not dead, just gone for a while, and yes, I wax poetic. Sue me.) While remaining one of the area's finest and most vital theatre companies, powerhouse not-for-profit Jobsite nonetheless finds itself at a disadvantage when it comes to employing understudies: it can't. If you've ever read David Rabe, you'll understand this means that if a production of one of his philippic brainchildren ever loses its lynchpin without a ready replacement, well ... you're screwed. So, we closed, and like an RCA Red Seal Broadway cast recording of a great show that unconscionably folded after 32 runs, the proof is assembled on a disc of pix that we took as a matter of record on yet another of Brian Smallheer's meritorious sets. I'm afraid I wasn't there in spirit, but once I get around to fleshing out this site, perhaps I'll show them to you some day.

But Hey! -- We rocked what we could, and I was once again awarded the honor of sharing the stage with a stellar cast of pros who all deserve mention by name: Meg Heimstead, David Jenkins, Dan Khoury, the aforementioned Mr. McCarthy, Sarah McKenna and Katrina Stevenson. Thanks as well to Jason Vaughan Evans, who piloted this monster off the ground, Shawn Paonessa, who brought it in to land, and Amanda Schreiber, who saw to it that all the gears worked in the process.

And for the first time in two straight years, I'm taking a break.

Why am I nervous?...

(Please check back in a month or so to see that I haven't gone John Nash.)

Proffered with humility from the Tampa Bay edition of Creative Loafing, an entirely unanticipated yet exceedingly welcome and flush-inducing appraisal from local magnate Mark E. Leib, all the more felicitous for being published during the week of my 41st birthday. (I don't? Well, aren't you nice. The monkey glands must be working.)

In deference to those already established at whose altars I genuflect with zeal (and you know who you are, you brilliant SOBs!), I respectfully append good friend Drew DeCaro's name to the list, congratulate all those named with whom I've had the immense good fortune to share the stage, and invite you all to my coming-out cotillion, wherein we shall thrill to the boys playing mumbletypeg and naughtily snitch old Yegor's whiskey. Tee hee hee!...

Quote of the Week (for Father's Day): "This is an important archive, and it's a lot of fun as well. It has a lot of cultural resonance, not only nostalgia, but things that carry over to the current day. My children and I might not have music or authors we both enjoy, but we always have Mario and Pac-Man in common." -- attributed to Selby Kiffer, senior vice-president and apparent tapehead in Sotheby's books and manuscripts department, speaking on an upcoming auction of roughly 2,200 drawings, schematics, diagrams and other documents generated in the early 1980s by video game pioneer Atari. (source: NY Times)

Lovely. My son and I may never bond over Dostoevsky or Bach, but we'll always have Tekken 2...