159 stories from Parabasis
By Isaac Butler Back in July, David Dower wrote a post for HowlRound attemptin to answer a question Hal Brooks asked him at a panel they served on. The question was "how"-- given t…
By Isaac Butler Both The New York Times and Time Out New York reviews mention that the reivews are written in accordance to a strict "No Spoliers" policy instituted by the producer…
Clearly something in that Isherwood column struck a nerve with a lot of people other than me. Now in addition to a pseudonymous letter writer, we have a Tumblr dedicated to the idea of Isher…
First off, let me just tip the ole hat to Rob Weinert-Kendt, who has a good two-parter on Isherwood's blog post from yesterday. In part one, he wraps up some of the response to Isherwood and…
By Isaac Butler I want you to imagine for a moment that you are a theater reviewer tasked with regularly reviewing an artist whose work you don't respond to. Worse, you actually pretty much …
By Isaac Butler There are few people more steeped in Stevejobsiana and less in the tank for him than Mike Daisey. It's not that Daisey's a hater, no, it's just that Mike wants to evaluate Jo…
By Isaac Butler Stuart Jeffries writes about abandoning the new UK revivial of Top Girls at intermission for the Guardian. It's a fun piece, and it's bracing (although not particularly rewar…
The inimitable Polly Carl has penned a paean to the Power of Yes today for her journal HowlRound and twitter and the theatroverse are positively stoked: Yes feels like too big a risk. If we …
By Isaac Butler Of the top ten most produced shows on TCG member theater stages, only one wasn't seen on Broadway within the last five years. This, to me, shows once again how conservatizing…
By Isaac Butler The Lanford Wilson Issue: I introduce the Issue here. Jannie Wolff discusses beauty, empathy, Lanford's work and knowing him as an intern at Circle Rep here. Carl Forsman and…
Editor's Note: It seems that at most major transition points of my writing career, Laura Axelrod has been there. When I first started theater blogging, playwright Laura Axelrod was-- along w…
by Isaac Butler Marshall Mason on Hot L: Norman Lear discussing his failed TV series adaptation: A promo for that adaptation that shows, fairly clearly, that the network had no idea what to …
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Editor's Note: One of the ways that people of my generation were first exposed to Lanford Wilson was through high school and summer camp theater programs. Certainly, that's how I encountered…
Editor's Note: In "Maturing With Wilson," playwright Alessandro King documents his journey from hammy high school character actor to adult playwright, a journey guided all along by…
When I first started writing plays, I said, "Theatre should be a three-ring circus." I wanted a lot of people, all talking at once, creating life on the stage. After we formed the Circle Com…
Two Links: -- Earlier this year, a group of artists banded together to do Wilson's Balm In Gilead in Brooklyn. Playwright Stephanie Fleischmann was there to document it. You can check out he…
Transforming Beauty By Jannie Wolff Editor's Note: What better way to kick off our week than with a memoir piece by someone who knew Lanford Wilson. Here, Jannie Wolff"who interned with Circ…
By Isaac Butler Contra-Michael Billington, the reason why it's bad that Judith Miller is going to be a theater critic for Tablet Magazine is not that she has no arts background. It's that sh…
The terrifyingly talented Jessica Blank (The Exonerated, Aftermath etc.) tried to write in a comment and it just wouldn't post. I asked her if I could just go ahead and post it to help keep …
By Isaac Butler Alan Lomax did not write any of the folk and traditional songs that he helped archive and record. And yet he claimed a copyright on them. This is how he came to be a co-autho…
I am currently reading Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook to help brush up on issues in poetry pedagogy prior to teaching a poetry creative writing unit in the fall. She has some rather interes…
I tweeted and facebooked and social networked about this earlier, but if you haven't read it yet, Jason Zinoman's NYTimes blog piece on the value(s) of bad reviews is well worth your time, a…
By Isaac Butler That certainly seems to be the question lying at the heart of this piece in the Guardian by chief arts staff writer Charlotte Higgins. And while you might thing the answer is…
by 99 Seats Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be. (Sorry. I had to complete the lyric. It would have killed me forever.) Over at the often-intriguing HowlRound…
