Multimedia

You've probably already seen the reviews of Firehouse's "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll" and the Barksdale's "Is He Dead?" that have been in the T-D over the past several days. Good notices, fer sure, and I'll be adding my two cents from Style any day now.

The weekend was my chance to catch-up on all of the media that the pesky network people at my work screen out so I can't read it / see it / hear it. If you haven't yet, you should check out the new weekly "BarksTales" vodcasts from Barksdale / Theatre IV, hosted by the very entertaining "sage of the stage" David Janeski. I laughed out loud on some of the bits from the interview with Matthew Bloch from "Butterflies are Free" and the conference room scene in the inaugural episode was also great. Great deadpan from Phil Whiteway too. For the more education-minded, they slipped a nice piece on "Hugs n Kisses" in there as well.

I continue to be impressed with the theater coverage that the NPR show "All Things Considered" features on a regular basis. Here is a link to their performing arts "hub" where, among other things, you can pull up their interesting story about Menier Chocolate Factory theater in England, which I had never heard of. It has been the initiating company for many recent West End / Broadway transfers, like the just opened "La Cage Aux Folles" starring Kelsey Grammar. They are just opening a production of "Sweet Charity" so I guess we can expect that to move over here in another year or so.

Finally, there was a fascinating story on "This American Life" last week that equated some of the investment misconduct that caused the recent financial crisis to the Mel Brooks' musical, "The Producers." They even went so far as to rewrite the lyrics to one of the songs with Wall Street-oriented language. Enlightening as well as entertaining. And that's not always so easy to pull off.