Ivy: “We’re all just people, some of us accidentally connected by genetics, a random selection of cells. Nothing more.” Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County, which won the Tony for Best Play in 2008, is currently playing at Boston’s Colonial Theatre. The play centers around the Weston family, who come together when their patriarch, Beverly, goes missing. The matriarch, Violet, is played by Estelle Parsons (who is 82 years old, please note) and she is fantastic. Violet is addicted to prescription drugs and is barely coherent in several scenes, slurring her words and stumbling around the house. A...
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Tony Award Nominations
The 2010 Tony Award nominations were announced this morning. Quick thoughts: It’s nice to see a female playwright get a nomination for Best Play (Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play). I’m a little surprised that Kristin Chenoweth didn’t get a nod for Promises, Promises despite the fact that I haven’t seen her performance. Lots of Hollywood folks got nominations: Jude Law, Alfred Molina, Liev Schreiber, Christopher Walken, Denzel Washington, Laura Linney, Kelsey Grammer, Sean Hayes, Catherine Zeta-Jones, David Alan Grier, Angela Lansbury, Scarlett Johansson. Actually, every actor in the Best Leading Actor in...
Continue reading...Romeo, Juliet, and Twitter. Wait…what?
Mudlark and the Royal Shakespeare Company have joined forces to present Such Tweet Sorrow, a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet that takes place in real time on Twitter. Actors are given a scripted outline and character diaries, and they generate original tweets based on what the character would be thinking or feeling at any given moment. I assume that the goal of this project is to use social media to attract younger audiences, and I applaud them for that. If students become interested in Shakespeare after seeing these tweets and pick up a copy of Romeo...
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