Mea Culpa

Hi, so this is both an apology and an announcement. First the apology:

I think I have may have been too optimistic regarding how much I could review last year. The amount of time I was spending reviewing each ten minutes show meant that the amount of work it took to review all of them was a bit too arduous for one man to take on. Well, this one man, at least.

I apologize to anyone who read this blog last year, hoping I was going to get to your play. I could go back and look over my notes. In general I still very vividly remember all the plays but I think it's time to look towards the future.

So it is with an equal amount of excitement and trepidation that I announce that once more will I be watching and hopefully reviewing all fifty plays in this year's Boston Theater Marathon. If for some reason you're reading this and you don't know what the Boston Theater Marathon is... then that's sort of weird. But just in case:

The Boston Theater Marathon is an all day theatrical extravaganza hosted by the Boston Playwright's Theatre at the Wimberly Theater at the Calderwood Pavillion at the Boston Center for the Arts in South Boston. Local playwrights submit new 10 minute plays, of which fifty are selected and then spare workshopped but fully produced shows are presented by various theater companies of the greater Boston area, both large and small. All fifty plays are presented in hour long chunks, with five plays performed per hour. These hours run consecutively from noon to ten o clock on Sunday May 10th. If you buy a ticket for the event, you get a little sticker or lapel button (I forget) by which you can enter and exit the marathon throughout the day. So you can pop in, watch an hour of plays, pop out, grab something to eat, and pop back in. Tickets are $25 provided you purchase them a day before the marathon.

Wimberly Theater- Aint she a beaut?

Go. Do it. Even if you only watch two hours, it's totally worth it. Not every play is great, but in general you'll find a wide swath of imagination, humor, poignancy, and drama. I watched the whole thing last year and I had crazy dreams for three solid nights after. I walked away an altered person.

I should note that there is a preliminary warm up lap the previous day hosted in the Plaza Theater, also in the BCA. Three full length plays are given minimally staged readings, bookended by a barrage of one minute plays. The warm up laps are completely free and open to the public and I cannot highly recommend the experience enough.

Sadly, I am performing in a play which technically opens Saturday night, and currently I have rehearsal scheduled during the exact time of the Warm Ups. Unless my director is suddenly moved by a pang of mercy, I will be unable to attend, let alone review those plays myself.

Speaking of performing in plays, this is the time that I should both acknowledge and address potential conflicts of interest. I am not generally a reviewer. This is the only time of the year that I take it upon myself to see and review, and a big part of that is that nobody else seems insane enough to it. The Boston Theater Marathon is too much fun and too celebratory NOT to have someone acknowledge both the successes and failures for posterity.

Am I qualified? Absolutely not. Am I willing? Absolutely. Am I the only one available and interested? That seems to be the case... I'm so sorry Boston.

I am however a working actor and I already know that a few of the plays will be written by friends, acted by friends, and directed by friends, to say nothing of the fact that many of the companies putting on shows are companies I've either worked with or would very much like to work with in the future. How can I hope to remain impartial?

The truth is, that in some cases it will be very hard. My roommate's in a show. A director I very recently worked with has written one of the scripts. All I can promise to do is to announce any conflicts of friendship at the time of my review and hope you will trust that I be honest and genuine in my assessment.

In general though, I think I can be pretty impartial, at least when it comes to things like conflict of interest. I try to be both blunt and encouraging. Other biases will be harder to combat. I'm heavily partial to comedies. There are certain genres or types of plays that I tend to favor over others. I will try to take each play on its own merits and context, but like every reviewer I have my own predilections.

In writing this blog I aim to both encourage and offer feedback and I request and encourage anyone to write in the comments section differing opinions on any of the shows I review. I'll be posting reviews in hour long chunks through the week and a half after the marathon. I hope that people enjoy my reviews and also understand that they're just the opinion of one fallible patron. 

But I'm greatly looking foward to this and please, if you have any time free this Sunday, check it out and then come back here for discussion afterwards. I think it's going to be a fun time.