Theater Congratulations to Paul Mullin
posted by October 28 at 3:55 PM
onThe Rep recently lopped the final week off their autumn blockbuster The Three Musketeers, saying it was too expensive to keep the show open.
Meanwhile, Paul Mullin (this year's Stranger Genius Award winner for theater) just had his new play extended by two weeks at the Boston Court in Pasadena.
The Sequence concerns the race to sequence the human genome. Like many Mullin plays, is a marriage of scientific knowledge, the will to discovery, and the bizarre personalities and rivalries behind the knowledge. (Mullin is, essentially, a gnostic playwright.)
And people like it. Audience are buying tickets, the critics dig it, and to all you people at Shitstorm last night who argued that theaters can't do new plays because audiences won't come to see them: ha!
(p.s. to those of you who were there last night: Shitstorm was fun and somewhat instructive, but I was still disappointed to hear so much reactionary "we can't do this, we can't fix that, we're doing just fine but it's the critics and the lack of government handouts and the audiences and the culture that make our lives difficult." Which is narrow-minded, entitled bullshit. There will be future Shitstorms—about unions, about the Fringe Festival—at which I hope to hear a little less whining and a little more problem-solving.)
UPDATE
Forgive me. I was a little hurried in my description of last night and now people in the comments who attended (and offered good ideas) are insulted.
Last night was fun and, like I said, somewhat instructive. I was surprised by the level of reactionary "we-can't-do-this," as well as surprised by the level of narrow-minded, entitled bullshit.
I was also surprised by the level of willingness to talk, to interrogate the 10 points on their own merits, and, at the very end, the concrete ideas people started to offer. And quite surprised that nobody threw a drink on me.
Sometimes I forget to accentuate the positive.
Mostly, thank you all for coming out last night, even you entitled gasbags. It was the beginning of what I hope will be many fruitful conversations.