How do you define a critic? I don't remember where I first heard it, but here's the definition I use, though frankly, until recently, I'd forgotten it. "A critic mediates between an artist and his work." Yesterday, I got a note about the latest draft of the my current project. It wasn't a note I …
Choosing Character Choices: Remembering How Different We Are
Aristotle called it "the imitation of human beings in action." Working on my latest project, a new play with the working title, Lost Cause, I'm again learning the old saw that the only way to learn to write is to write. The writing teaches you if you just show up. Just now, the characters …
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Two Pennies Left: Why The “How” of a Thing Matters
FYI, up front, this post is not about flowers. It is about content and form in art-making, conversation, and relationship. It's about the connection of human essence and identity to the fundamental, structural realities aesthetic forms demand. It's about the challenge of creating art wherein form and content create a unity of power …
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READERS WANTED: Reflections on Finding an Audience
"Does it matter if you have a large readership? Do you want more hits? If you do, then why? The answer to that question is very important." My friend Jenny always asks good questions. To have a moment of theatre, you need two things. An actor and an audience. Does it need to be a …
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Theatre Spiked Sunday Morning: On Experiencing “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs”
Race. Labor. Civil War. Apple. Corporate responsibility, art, and Christ. The present moment, Sabbath, friendship, taking on the world. Somewhere in China, men, women, boys, and girls, each having singular, personal names just like we do, sacred mysteries all (see yesterday's post), will go to work today, and the only thing keeping them from flinging …
JEFF BERRYMAN 