I Love Erie Theatre

Love can tell a million stories... - William Finn, FALSETTOS [While this production was not in Erie, it did feature the performance of Erie native, Mercyhurst Preparatory School alumnus, and for Playhouse performer, Nick Adams.] The Murphy/Falchuk/Canals television series, POSE, is striking more than poses; it's touching on moments and experiences that many in the arts hold in our memories. While it celebrates the performative and political assertions of gender and orientation identity, with more than just a little dramatic flare, it also plucks at heartstrings and remembers those beautiful people held in death's dateless night. The AIDS crisis, an integral part of the POSE storyline, sometimes seems like centuries ago. Last April the New York Times Style Magazine ran a sobering list of the names of those who were lost to the AIDS epidemic - Alvin Ailey, Michael Bennett, Tina Chow, Dorian Corey, Brad Davis, Robert Drivas, Tom Eyen, Michel Foucault, Larry Kert, Robert Moo...

My books are based on the "what if" principle. "What if you became invisible?" or "What if you did change into your mother for one day?" I then take it from there. Each book takes several months in the long process of writing, rewriting, writing, rewriting, and each has its own set of problems. The one thing I dislike about the writing process is the sometimes-loneliness of it all. Readers only get to see the glamour part of a bound book, not some of the agonizing moments one has while constructing it. - Mary Rodgers So many of our conversations circle the topics of sympathy and empathy (as our cultural and social environments seem to be challenging our human abilities to exercise these very human traits). When we sympathize, we feel pity or sorrow for another, or share a mutual understanding or feelings for another person. More than just feel or understand for another person, empathy invites us to identify with another, to share their emotional state...

"I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one's truth could have a cumulative renunciatory effect. Sexual shame is in itself a kind of death." - Alison Bechdel, FUN HOME: A FAMILY TRAGICOMIC In a post-modern performing arts context, inspiring narratives can come from anywhere - even from a complicated, visually exciting, textually complex graphic novel. It's even more surprising to see this source material transformed into an award-winning musical. But that is exactly what Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron did when they took the amazing story of self-actualization in Alison Bechdel's FUN HOME: A FAMILY TRAGICOMIC, a graphic depiction of a young woman's self-revelation of sexual identity coupled with her realization that her father had never come to a similar affirmation in his own life. In Facebook terms, their relationship is "complicated," and her disassociation from him and from the life she lead becomes the basis of an original, entertaining, and...

"You Americans all subscribe to the "Conspiracy of Mediocrity." You're all trying to preserve relationships and be liked that you are afraid to tell each other what you really think of one another's artistic work." - Michael Joyce, Royal National Theatre Summer Acting Programme In the summer of 1994, I had the privilege of auditioning and being chosen to participate in the Royal National Theatre's Summer Acting Programme, Anthony Hopkins, patron. It was a surreal month of classes in voice, movement, classical acting, mask work, professional development, and scene study. Ian McKellan provided a master class in Shakespeare, Janet McTeer coached our monologue performances, and the late great Alan Rickman challenged us to use our artistic voices as agents of social change. It was a summer I will always remember, even if it becomes more and more of a dream. One of our acting instructors, Michael Joyce, was a longtime friend of the National, had bee...