Genesis of Genesius

Some of my fondest memories as a teenager involve the rehearsals and performances of the high school plays I performed in — not that far from Reading, Pa., where the new musical Genesius, which I reviewed for Time Out New York, is set.

It's not without its charms (audience members even receive a St. Genesius charm as they leave the theater), but ultimately, this show, which chronicles the life of the woman who founded an amateur theater company for teenagers named after the patron saint of actors, is likely to have a longer life at high schools and community theaters than in New York. Still, it stirred lots of sweet memories for me, and even prompted me to Google Steve Hatzai, the high school drama teacher who impacted my formative years. (He's now a theater professional in Philadelphia.)

On the Fringe

Since I didn't make a summer theater pilgrimage to the Berkshires this August, I had more time to check out a few shows in the New York International Fringe Festival. I would have preferred less from this musical version of The Fall of the House of Usher and more from Afterlight, an ambitious piece from a theater company called Threads, whose goal is the "weaving together [of] faith and art."

Torchure

I wanted to be sure I was caught up with the Torchwood crew before I left for a vacation to San Francisco Tuesday, so I took in a marathon screening of the Children of the Earth (at an undisclosed location) a week ago.

The five-hour miniseries, which airs on consecutive nights this week, is powerful, sobering stuff, and I expected to like it, but I didn't think it would stick with me the way it did. I slept fitfully the night I saw it, rather disturbed at how children, especially kids of the lower classes, are put at risk not just by alien invaders but by a society that sells them out, not out of cruelty as much as expedience. It's not unlike the careless way we treat disadvantaged children in this country by depriving them of quality schools and health care because we can't be bothered.

A few days later I discovered this article in last Wednesday's New York Times (thanks to Meg Cabot), "The Cathartic Pleasure of a Good Cry," and was reminded of my younger self. The author describes how her three daughters, ranging in age from 13 to 21, are enraptured by tear-jerker books and movies. I was like that once, eagerly awaiting new seasons of TV shows like the brutal and bloody Oz, but as I get older and watch friends have children and the people around me become more important to me, my taste in entertainment seems to be mellowing. Lighter fare that seems to promise that the world will be set right by the time the curtains falls or credits roll holds increasing appeal.

Sing a Song of Shakespeare

According to this Chicago Tribune article, musicals are the dominant art form at this year's financially strapped Stratford festival. It seems a curious case of life imitating art, as anyone who's seen season one of the hilarious and heartfelt Canadian series Slings and Arrows can attest.

About 5:50 into this clip, two executives of a fictional Stratford-esque festival plot a similar scheme as they diss the Bard. Fortunately, the series, like Shakespeare, sets everything right at the end. Let's hope Stratford does too.

Femme Fight

Am I the only one who was surprised by this intriguing study from Princeton University grad Emily Glassberg Sands that found unintentional discrimination against female playwrights — at the hands of female artistic directors, no less?

Looking back on the past New York theater season, the new plays that resonated the most with me were all written by women, Lynn Nottage's Ruined, Gina Gionfriddo's Becky Shaw and Lisa Loomer's Distracted. And the first two were staged by theater companies whose artistic leaders are women. I also admired Annie Baker's Body Awareness and Yasmina Reza's Tony-winning God of Carnage and look forward this fall to Theresa Rebeck's The Understudy. (I caught last year's Williamstown Theatre Festival production, and it was a riot.)

When I interviewed Gionfriddo and Sara Ruhl, both agreed that women playwrights had a tougher time getting produced but, though I’m not contradicting the study’s findings, I think that were the economy as robust as it had been several years ago, Ruined would be playing on Broadway. But is it so terrible that it isn’t? The run keeps getting extended (it’s now playing through Aug. 2.

But is it so terrible that Ruined hasn’t transferred to Broadway? It’s ideally suited to Manhattan Theatre Club’s intimate 299-seat space. How much would it lose in the way of atmosphere if it ended up at the Belasco or the Lyceum? The bigger-is-always-better philosophy seems like a product of the old boys club that we should be rallying against.

As for women artistic directors giving lower scores to the plays the women had written when they thought men had scripted them, could it be that they were simply more impressed when they wouldn’t expect a man to be as insightful when it came to depicting female characters?

Of course even if this were the case, isn’t that a form of discrimination as well?

Hearts for Harlequin

I seem to be running just a little bit behind whatever I do these days. It's far too late for me to comment on the spry and smart Tony Awards broadcast from two weeks ago, one of the best I've seen in years. (The cuteness of the three Billy Elliots as they accepted their Tonys was matched only by the adorableness of host Neil Patrick Harris who, dare I say it, may have even topped my all-time favorite Tony emcee, Hugh Jackman.)

And it's too late to recommend the Heart of a Woman: Harlequin Cover Art 1949—2009 exhibit at Soho's Openhouse Gallery, in honor of the romance novel publisher's 60th anniversary, because I didn't catch it until two Fridays ago, its final day. But it was a hoot, as much from a social history perspective as an artistic one. Forget what they say about not judging a book by its cover; in the world of publishing you certainly can.

As the doctors and nurses on the covers of the novels from the '50s and '60s gave way to the more glammed-up heroes and heroines of the '60s and '70s and then to the chesty Fabio-esque cover models of the '80s, the change in cover art mirrored what was happening in the lives of the women reading these books. How appropriate that some covers from the early days of women's lib 1960s and '70s prominently featured the heroines front and center, while the men were relegated to the background. Nowadays it's not unusual for a cover to feature just the hero, and I'm certainly not sure I like what that implies. Frankly I find the quaint cover illustrations from those days much more appealing than the photographs of the finely chiseled but often generic cover models that so often grace today's novels.

My pal Connie hoped Harlequin was planning some sort of catalog or coffee table book to commemorate the exhibit, but I haven't heard anything to confirm this. If you want to catch a peek at what was, these blogs have some fine photos.

Vieux from Tennessee

Attentive New York theatergoers have had more than a few opportunities to catch the little known latter-day plays of Tennessee Williams over the past few years. To varying degrees of success, Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theater companies have staged revivals of Small Craft Warnings, Out Cry and now, Vieux Carre presented by the Pearl Theatre Company.

They get a lot of runners on base, even if they don't always bring them home. Still, ambitious theatergoers looking for challenges and rewards might want to check it out. It's also your last change to see a Pearl production at the company's longtime 's the last stand for the Pearl at their East Village home before a the company moves uptown next season.