cobbling together the artist's life…coaching, acting, photography, writing, and music…
"Don't talk to me of romances; I was sent into the world to dance on them with thick boots--to shatter, stab, and murder them." -- George Bernard Shaw. (His Collected Letters) The basic facts are these: George Bernard Shaw wrote the play on which the musical My Fair Lady is based 99 years ago, in 1912. …
Continue reading "George Bernard Shaw and the Fight for Pygmalion"
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 …
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 …
Continue reading "Choosing Character Choices: Remembering How Different We Are"
"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped." After two months of reading, and a trip to Gettysburg, Washington, D.C., and Virginia, here's a little of what's on my mind: The Civil War The battle for how history is told Robert E. Lee and "honor" The muddy boots …
Continue reading "What Two Months of Civil War Reading Will Do To You"
JEFF BERRYMAN 