Win a date with Mac Wellman (or: a portrait of you, your pet, or your lover by Erin Courtney)

This is my second favorite annual benefit. If you are hesitating, go The Flanks' page on Facebook and listen to their Warren Zevon cover. —S.D.

This Thursday, June 10
6:30-9:30
join us
for the annual Bring a Weasel and a Pint of Your Own Blood Festival Benefit
at
Lolita Bar
 
266 Broome Street
Admission is $20 (includes 2 free drinks and a wondrous show!)
 
You will be entertained with:
Sweet serenading from Karinne Keithley
Laughter and head bobbing by Lumberob
Jump and jiving with The Flanks
And some Super Special Mystery Performers!
 
Furthermore, legendary emcee Matt Korahais will auction off these fabulous prizes:

THEATER TICKETS!

New York Theater Workshop ~ The Vineyard ~ PS122 ~ Soho Rep ~ Ontological-Hysteric Incubator ~ Partial Comfort Productions ~ 13P's THE ZERO HOUR by Madeleine George ~ Pass to the Ice Factory at the Ohio Theater ~ and more

AND MORE STUFF!

A coffee date with the damnable scribbler Mac Wellman ~ 80 Dramatists Playscripts ~ A car trip to Fairway or Ikea with celebrity chauffeur Richard Toth ~ A Portrait of you, your pet, or your lover by Erin Courtney


Q: What is BRING A WEASEL AND A PINT OF YOUR OWN BLOOD ?

A: It is a festival of plays: adaptations written by current and former students of Mac Wellman at the Brooklyn College MFA playwriting program. This year's festival will take place in late July 2010 at the East 13th Street Theater, featuring adaptations by alums Corina Copp, Ben Gassman, and Kobun Koluza of stories from The Apocrypha

Directors include Meghan Finn and Julia Jarcho.
Produced by Sara J. Asselin, Ariel Stess, Caitlin Brubacher, LaShea Delaney and Alexandra Collier.
Each year, the Weasel benefit goes a long way toward making the festival possible. Note: If you'd like to contribute but are unable to attend, please contact any of the people listed above or e-mail LaShea Delaney at bringaweasel@gmail.com

Previous Weasel playwright/producers include: Bianca Bagatourian, Erin Courtney, Susan Dunlap, Trish Harnetiaux, Laura Jones-Katz, Karinne Keithley, Sibyl Kempson, Matt Korahais, Kristen Kosmas, Kate Ryan, Valerie Work, Richard Toth, Normandy Sherwood, Scott Adkins.

A Radio Play

Many of us spend part of each day in an acoustic world of our own choice, thanks to our little white earbuds. Doesn't it seem that this era would have produced at some kind of rebirth for radio drama? Yes, we have podcasts, and the narrative nonfiction of This American Life is among the most used. But I expected some enterprising theatre person to discover a way to move radio plays back on to the platter of American experience. They never left the BBC, where you can still hear, on any given day, a new play written for the ear.

There are voices out there, calling to us. Karinne Keithley's basement tapes of the mole cabal. Or Hotel Savant's The Archery Contest. One of the most inspiring pieces of theatre for me is actually a concert piece, Frederic Rzewski's Coming Together. (Worth seeking out: the unhistrionic version by California Ear Unit.) And then there is that rare animal, the richly imagined concept album yearning to be staged (or filmed?) — for example God in Three Persons by The Residents, or the new work at hand.

The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman is the 22nd album by Sparks, who are almost certainly the most interesting pop band old enough to be your fathers. While it may overstay its welcome a bit, it's the kind of new radio play I imagined this age would bring: not designed for the family sitting around the radio, but an intimate headphone drama for the inside of the listener's skull. In 2010, is the internal monologue the ideal storytelling medium?