#139 Full of energy, smiles & dreams
Red. Black. Orange. Pink.
6 NOVEMBER 2024
What an incredibly normal week with no world-changing decisions being made.
Let’s all not think about it.
And look, here are some things to distract us.
Rule of three
[Album] The Warriors
A concept album by Lin Manuel Miranda & Eisa Davis based on the 1979 film The Warriors. I can’t express how delighted I am that something so odd, ambitious and eclectic actually got made. All the members of the eponymous gang have been gender-flipped; the musical influences include metal, ska, K-pop and punk, as well as hip-hip & musical theatre; and Buster Rhymes features as the personification of Brooklyn.
[Movies] Shane Black
Over the last few days I’ve watched six films written by Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, The Monster Squad, The Last Boy Scout, Last Action Hero, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang & The Nice Guys). What a puzzle of a man. On the one hand, his dialogue and character dynamics are jaw-on-the-floor masterful. On the other, he is clearly a bit of a dirty old man with worryingly misogynistic tendencies. BUT, in his later directorial work, he actually takes time to deconstruct the brittle machismo of his male leads in really interesting ways. So he’s also pretty self-aware. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys are the ones to watch IMHO.
[Marching band] The Kyoto Tachibana S.H.S. Band
The world can be an incredibly dark place sometimes. But it is also home to this incredible Japanese marching band whose motto is Full of Energy, Smiles and Dreams. Check out this performance and you will be full of those things too.
Spotlight
I’m at the epic IMPROFEST in Kraków this week, and next week I’m in Graz with Theater im Bahnhof’s IMPROCUP. I was particularly struck by the beautiful description of what lays in store for me there (adapted from the original German).
DYNAMIC DUOS - Blind Dates with Improv
The central idea of IMPROCUP 2024 is blind dates with our guests. In the lead-up to the festival, each guest will meet an actor in the TiB. The two do not know each other and have not yet worked together. These encounters are the starting point for 5 different “Dynamic Duo Shows” that will be the heart of the IMPROCUP.
Five evenings of theatre will be generated from these meetings and the lab of improvisational theatre. The duos will explore a new land that they create & enter together.
Along the way, they will investigate their similarities and differences, they will develop their theatrical theories and the audience will watch them in real time as they put these hypotheses to the test.
Their biographies, personalities, attitudes, and impro styles are the variables that will meet in this improvised theatrical experiment. We await the results of these meetings with excitement.
Music. Silence. Politics. Personal. Universal. Literature. Like. Reason. Theatre. Improvising. We don't know what shows we will see. It is certain that they will entertain, touch and move us.
My show with Jacob Banigan is called Future Foundation: Handmade Sci Fi. I can’t wait to get started.
Radio contact
As part of the IMPROCUP promotion on Instagram, I answered several Blind Date questions from Jacob, and shamelessly used Radio as a prop to appear more interesting.
I think it worked.
Check out the whole thing here.