I received two emails over the weekend from readers who wondered why their feedback was not being posted.
Well, that's because I apparently don't receive the feedback via mail as I should. In order to avoid spam, I set up this blogger feedback section in a way so I could avoid getting spam and get feedback. For reasons still not determined, I don't receive notification of feedback or the feedback. So please don't think your feedback is being ignored. When I click onto the feedback directly from the blogger site, I can't get into the link. I have tried several times to resolve this problem to no avail.
Please email me feedback rather than try to post it the usual way. It just doesn't work. Sorry for the hassle!
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
How do you know?
During this past spring semester, a student of mine asked me how I knew I wanted to teach. I hadn't thought about it. I have always had the desire to share what I know with people and encourage them.
As a teacher, I don't say things I don't mean. I will not say something was good when I don't feel it was. However, it is a rare experience to not find something positive about a student or their work. If someone simply doesn't care, I do write them off. There is a fundamental joy I get when I work with students sharing knowledge and watching them develop.
I encourage total strangers too. What gets me out of bed each day is the drive to do new things, master certain skills and explore. It is very difficult for me to understand people who do not have any interest in stepping outside of themselves or their comfort zone. I'm heading towards 50 now and I hope I can live another 50 years in order to do all that I would like to do or try doing.
Perhaps it is judgmental of me to push others hard whether I am a student, friend or collaborator. I say things like "You are too hard on yourself" or "you do have talent: you need to work at more is all" not to ingratiate myself to that person (I have encouraged people I don't even like)but because I believe so strongly in potential. As a teacher and a continuing education student I have seen middle-aged people return to school or go to college for the first time to get a B.A. degree. One of them said to me "You know, in four years I'll be 54 when I graduate" and I said, "You'll be 54 anyway so you might as well have made strides in some way." Nowadays people retire much later especially if they enjoy working or particularly enjoy what they are doing for a living. The notion of finding new and better ways to do things is seen as a positive rather than something to fear.
Encouragement is something we all need. We can't rely on it as fuel with which to move forward and pursue our goals; we have to find ways to encourage ourselves when there is literally no support around. Nobody wanted me to pursue the arts in my family because of the unpredictability of the field(s) and difficulty in obtaining steady work. But I went for it anyway. I know it can feel very isolating when no one else seems to care about your goals and aspirations which is why I encourage friends and strangers to go for it - what makes them happy, what experiment they might want to try, what new direction they want to pursue in life.
So how do you know that you want to be a teacher? Or, how do you know you want to be a writer? An actor?
You just know. And you dig down deep inside you to find the courage and the strength to go for it. As you travel, you encourage others in their endeavors.
I don't see any other way to be.
As a teacher, I don't say things I don't mean. I will not say something was good when I don't feel it was. However, it is a rare experience to not find something positive about a student or their work. If someone simply doesn't care, I do write them off. There is a fundamental joy I get when I work with students sharing knowledge and watching them develop.
I encourage total strangers too. What gets me out of bed each day is the drive to do new things, master certain skills and explore. It is very difficult for me to understand people who do not have any interest in stepping outside of themselves or their comfort zone. I'm heading towards 50 now and I hope I can live another 50 years in order to do all that I would like to do or try doing.
Perhaps it is judgmental of me to push others hard whether I am a student, friend or collaborator. I say things like "You are too hard on yourself" or "you do have talent: you need to work at more is all" not to ingratiate myself to that person (I have encouraged people I don't even like)but because I believe so strongly in potential. As a teacher and a continuing education student I have seen middle-aged people return to school or go to college for the first time to get a B.A. degree. One of them said to me "You know, in four years I'll be 54 when I graduate" and I said, "You'll be 54 anyway so you might as well have made strides in some way." Nowadays people retire much later especially if they enjoy working or particularly enjoy what they are doing for a living. The notion of finding new and better ways to do things is seen as a positive rather than something to fear.
Encouragement is something we all need. We can't rely on it as fuel with which to move forward and pursue our goals; we have to find ways to encourage ourselves when there is literally no support around. Nobody wanted me to pursue the arts in my family because of the unpredictability of the field(s) and difficulty in obtaining steady work. But I went for it anyway. I know it can feel very isolating when no one else seems to care about your goals and aspirations which is why I encourage friends and strangers to go for it - what makes them happy, what experiment they might want to try, what new direction they want to pursue in life.
So how do you know that you want to be a teacher? Or, how do you know you want to be a writer? An actor?
You just know. And you dig down deep inside you to find the courage and the strength to go for it. As you travel, you encourage others in their endeavors.
I don't see any other way to be.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
The Sopranos: Got Yourself a Classic
I've been a viewer of The Sopranos since they hit the airwaves nine years ago. My lifelong intrigue with the history and practices of organized crime in America and Italy made the series a natural for me to check out initially; the superior writing and acting sucked me in for the long haul.
And now it's almost over.
When The Sopranos first caught the critics' eye on HBO, it was hailed for being innovative, groundbreaking. The mainstream networks agreed but pointed to the fact the series had more latitude than it's network competition: people could swear up a storm and sex could be more graphic.
As if that was the reason the series was a success. I don't know of a single person of my acquaintance or years of trolling feature stories on this classic who rushed to turn on the TV at 9:00 p.m. Sunday nights for the purpose of watching the characters use profanity and get partially naked for sex. Sour grapes, or sour guns.
It's a sad commentary on television in general that it has to be seen as nothing short of a phenomenon a TV show is tightly written, creative and willing to push the envelope. TV shows ape other success TV series and originality sleeps with the fishes.
When I am teaching scriptwriting - or any kind of creative writing - I point out to my students they should carefully study classics like The Honeymooners and even I Love Lucy in order to understand how tight writing is accomplished, how situations are set up and carried through and sometimes carried over into a future episode because the characters are so well drawn for us, we will understand a reference or minor situation they are in down the road without much set-up from the script.
So does all the tight writing and character development of recent Soprano episodes give us any clue as to how the series will end?
It does appear there will be a lot of blood-letting before the series ends. We have already been surprised by the death of Christopher, one of my favorite characters, and who killed him. The unpredictable Tony is facing in his son what he loathes about himself and couldn't trust Christopher with. Christopher's potential breach could bring Tony down; young A.J.'s mental breakdown and unpredictable behavior nearly cost him his life last Sunday. Tony has much shame to bear, guilt. But the leader in him is not afraid to make the hard choices.
Who will be next? Phil Leotardo? The irritating and creepy Paulie?
Things have gotten much more personal on the series as the unwanted advances and lewd talk to Tony's daughter, Meadow, demonstrates. The old time mob never permitted a member to attack another member's family in any way. Tony is old school. So is Phil when it suits him.
I don't believe Tony will be killed by the end of the series. That would be too easy. Most likely Tony will go into hiding or take over the New York mob after killing everyone he needs to kill to achieve that. He has become increasingly hardened in spite of the occasional lapses into "let's all get along."
I'm sure David Chase will not disappoint. I will miss Tony and company.
And now it's almost over.
When The Sopranos first caught the critics' eye on HBO, it was hailed for being innovative, groundbreaking. The mainstream networks agreed but pointed to the fact the series had more latitude than it's network competition: people could swear up a storm and sex could be more graphic.
As if that was the reason the series was a success. I don't know of a single person of my acquaintance or years of trolling feature stories on this classic who rushed to turn on the TV at 9:00 p.m. Sunday nights for the purpose of watching the characters use profanity and get partially naked for sex. Sour grapes, or sour guns.
It's a sad commentary on television in general that it has to be seen as nothing short of a phenomenon a TV show is tightly written, creative and willing to push the envelope. TV shows ape other success TV series and originality sleeps with the fishes.
When I am teaching scriptwriting - or any kind of creative writing - I point out to my students they should carefully study classics like The Honeymooners and even I Love Lucy in order to understand how tight writing is accomplished, how situations are set up and carried through and sometimes carried over into a future episode because the characters are so well drawn for us, we will understand a reference or minor situation they are in down the road without much set-up from the script.
So does all the tight writing and character development of recent Soprano episodes give us any clue as to how the series will end?
It does appear there will be a lot of blood-letting before the series ends. We have already been surprised by the death of Christopher, one of my favorite characters, and who killed him. The unpredictable Tony is facing in his son what he loathes about himself and couldn't trust Christopher with. Christopher's potential breach could bring Tony down; young A.J.'s mental breakdown and unpredictable behavior nearly cost him his life last Sunday. Tony has much shame to bear, guilt. But the leader in him is not afraid to make the hard choices.
Who will be next? Phil Leotardo? The irritating and creepy Paulie?
Things have gotten much more personal on the series as the unwanted advances and lewd talk to Tony's daughter, Meadow, demonstrates. The old time mob never permitted a member to attack another member's family in any way. Tony is old school. So is Phil when it suits him.
I don't believe Tony will be killed by the end of the series. That would be too easy. Most likely Tony will go into hiding or take over the New York mob after killing everyone he needs to kill to achieve that. He has become increasingly hardened in spite of the occasional lapses into "let's all get along."
I'm sure David Chase will not disappoint. I will miss Tony and company.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
March of Death in May
For whatever reason, May has been designated as "the death month" in my family. On May 16th, my first great love, Mickey Shultz, was born in 1958. We were engaged during our first year of college but I got cold feet. He had other pressing issues too that needed to be dealt with. In short: we both loved each other but knew it would not work. At least not at that moment. And he did not want to wait. I didn't want him to wait. When the idea of getting married to someone gives you recurring nightmares, it's probably not a good idea to pursue getting married. That's the way it was for me back in those days.
Mickey died in June of 1992. Too much living packed into a short period of time.
Today, May 17th, my uncle Herb died suddenly and two days before the birthday he shared with his sister (and my mother) Catherine though they were born years apart.
On May 18th, my father died while Mom and I each held one of his hands.
Depressing? It was for awhile the whole business of losing two very important people in my life in May. But I look at death in another way nowadays. The crossing over concept is very real to me. I believe in the afterlife and that's where we go when we die. The quality of "life" level in this other dimension is determined by your spiritual level on this plane. If you are totally lacking in spirituality, you will eventually gain it in the afterlife though it will take some time.
I also believe pets go into the afterlife. Why? I suppose it is the strong bond we have with certain animals; it can almost inexplicable the attachment we humans can have to a dog, a cat or some other kind of pet with whom we have a strong interaction with. I am not one of these people who look upon my pets as my "children" - they are what they are - animals. Yet my feeling for them is strong and I miss them when I am away for a protracted period of time. They clearly missed me when I return. If anyone had ever told me that cats would be glad to see me come home from a trip and follow me all over the house, I never would have believed it until I got this lot. They are unbelievable.
Their sweet nature and being something else besides human enables me to engage in more introspection and wondering about life and death, that moment when we cross over to another world, so different from our own.
I only hope heaven means not having to clean the cat litter.
Or having a month's worth of memories losing loved ones.
Mickey died in June of 1992. Too much living packed into a short period of time.
Today, May 17th, my uncle Herb died suddenly and two days before the birthday he shared with his sister (and my mother) Catherine though they were born years apart.
On May 18th, my father died while Mom and I each held one of his hands.
Depressing? It was for awhile the whole business of losing two very important people in my life in May. But I look at death in another way nowadays. The crossing over concept is very real to me. I believe in the afterlife and that's where we go when we die. The quality of "life" level in this other dimension is determined by your spiritual level on this plane. If you are totally lacking in spirituality, you will eventually gain it in the afterlife though it will take some time.
I also believe pets go into the afterlife. Why? I suppose it is the strong bond we have with certain animals; it can almost inexplicable the attachment we humans can have to a dog, a cat or some other kind of pet with whom we have a strong interaction with. I am not one of these people who look upon my pets as my "children" - they are what they are - animals. Yet my feeling for them is strong and I miss them when I am away for a protracted period of time. They clearly missed me when I return. If anyone had ever told me that cats would be glad to see me come home from a trip and follow me all over the house, I never would have believed it until I got this lot. They are unbelievable.
Their sweet nature and being something else besides human enables me to engage in more introspection and wondering about life and death, that moment when we cross over to another world, so different from our own.
I only hope heaven means not having to clean the cat litter.
Or having a month's worth of memories losing loved ones.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Gearing Up for a Sloppy Weekend
This is the weekend when the townhouse gets the overhaul inside and out. I'm quite excited about it. The last of the furniture gets unloaded and moved in. I start painting the small bathroom on the first floor. It's a wild color - an "oops paint" concoction from Home Depot courtesy of my mother who dared me to paint the bathroom that color.
What I love about spring is the chance to plant flowers. Mom is treating us to some sod for the backyard and flower bulbs for the front. Sunday is Mother's Day and that will be celebrated down at the beach, probably Rehoboth and Lewes. It's going to be a fabulous weekend.
The first Saturday I have had to myself since January, in fact. My last class was Saturday, May 5th and afterwards I did what most teachers do, wonder how I could have taught the class differently. I already know some things I would do differently the next time. The class had to complete evaluations on me and send them in to the Dean. I got to see them and was very pleased how much they liked me and didn't find me "boring like the other professors." That was a funny comment.
On to the weekend, which I am very excited about. I hope you have an excellent weekend too.
What I love about spring is the chance to plant flowers. Mom is treating us to some sod for the backyard and flower bulbs for the front. Sunday is Mother's Day and that will be celebrated down at the beach, probably Rehoboth and Lewes. It's going to be a fabulous weekend.
The first Saturday I have had to myself since January, in fact. My last class was Saturday, May 5th and afterwards I did what most teachers do, wonder how I could have taught the class differently. I already know some things I would do differently the next time. The class had to complete evaluations on me and send them in to the Dean. I got to see them and was very pleased how much they liked me and didn't find me "boring like the other professors." That was a funny comment.
On to the weekend, which I am very excited about. I hope you have an excellent weekend too.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Encroaching Darkness
Many years go I was grappling with mood swings that went from one extreme to the next. It caused chaos in every facet of my life. I did therapy. I did recommended self-help books. I did medication therapy and was for quite awhile a guinea pig for various meds all in the hope of stablizing the mood swings and lightening the crippling depression that followed extreme episodes of mania.
Last year, without insurance, the balance was nearly lost because I could not afford the medication on my own. Fortunately, I found a way to obtain those medications (legally) through a clinic. Throughout all this and the diagnosis of bi-polar, I learned many things. I learned to embrace the darkness not as a stranger but for what it is: darkness. Curt's suicide threw me for a complete loop and upset me terribly. He was a man who braved many obstacles all in the name of finding new voices in the theater and to get those voices heard and the work seen onstage. It pains me to think that he spent his last moments on earth by himself in his small apartment making the decision that nothing was worth living for.
But darkness isn't always so destructive. I find the night calming. I learned how to accept the encroaching darkness of depression for what it was: a passing dark cloud. I managed to sustain the belief that it would eventually pass. That's the key to survival: knowing that the darkness will not always be there. I have been in that place where I believed the darkness would always be present. I likened my depression to like wearing a soaked, wool blanket over my head during the hottest day of the summer.
In the early 1990s I was given a copy of Darkness Visible written by William Styron who, later in life, went into a deep depression. I found his memoir intriguing and enlightening much as I did another book whose name and author now escapes me. That latter book talked about not fighting off the blackness when that mood comes. Let it arrive, feel it and then tell it to piss off. The danger of this, of course, is perhaps not having the strength to host the darkness, feel it and chase it off. Will your resolve be weaker that day? How do we know when our resolve is steadfast? There is a risk to everything.
The advice of embracing darkness for what it is has worked for me many times. A few times my resolve was not as strong to ward off the unwelcomed, prolonged stay. But I managed to tell myself eventually this would move on. In order to find hope at times I would just open a newspaper and read about the awful things that happen to other people. If I am able to realize that even while in my dark place I'm still better off than others, my resolve can get stronger.
There have been many difficulties the past two years for me. However, through the worst of it I was able to see that down the road there were opportunities coming. This was not a gambler's delusion: it was real and I was lucky enough to have good things come to fruition, little by little.
I don't whale away at it anymore. "Hello darkness my old friend," as the Simon and Garfunkel song goes.
I won't fight you but your visit will be a brief one.
Last year, without insurance, the balance was nearly lost because I could not afford the medication on my own. Fortunately, I found a way to obtain those medications (legally) through a clinic. Throughout all this and the diagnosis of bi-polar, I learned many things. I learned to embrace the darkness not as a stranger but for what it is: darkness. Curt's suicide threw me for a complete loop and upset me terribly. He was a man who braved many obstacles all in the name of finding new voices in the theater and to get those voices heard and the work seen onstage. It pains me to think that he spent his last moments on earth by himself in his small apartment making the decision that nothing was worth living for.
But darkness isn't always so destructive. I find the night calming. I learned how to accept the encroaching darkness of depression for what it was: a passing dark cloud. I managed to sustain the belief that it would eventually pass. That's the key to survival: knowing that the darkness will not always be there. I have been in that place where I believed the darkness would always be present. I likened my depression to like wearing a soaked, wool blanket over my head during the hottest day of the summer.
In the early 1990s I was given a copy of Darkness Visible written by William Styron who, later in life, went into a deep depression. I found his memoir intriguing and enlightening much as I did another book whose name and author now escapes me. That latter book talked about not fighting off the blackness when that mood comes. Let it arrive, feel it and then tell it to piss off. The danger of this, of course, is perhaps not having the strength to host the darkness, feel it and chase it off. Will your resolve be weaker that day? How do we know when our resolve is steadfast? There is a risk to everything.
The advice of embracing darkness for what it is has worked for me many times. A few times my resolve was not as strong to ward off the unwelcomed, prolonged stay. But I managed to tell myself eventually this would move on. In order to find hope at times I would just open a newspaper and read about the awful things that happen to other people. If I am able to realize that even while in my dark place I'm still better off than others, my resolve can get stronger.
There have been many difficulties the past two years for me. However, through the worst of it I was able to see that down the road there were opportunities coming. This was not a gambler's delusion: it was real and I was lucky enough to have good things come to fruition, little by little.
I don't whale away at it anymore. "Hello darkness my old friend," as the Simon and Garfunkel song goes.
I won't fight you but your visit will be a brief one.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Springing Springing Forever Springing
I'm feeling a lot like Tigger these days.
So much to do. I want to get the townhouse into shape but I can't afford to do anything with it right now, or for a long time. I believe by the end of May I will have a full-time position at the place I work at now. That's good because I love the job. My teaching job ends this Saturday. The college is interested in having me back or teach at another campus but that will not be until the fall at least. I'm going to look for a part-time gig in the evening for a bit. I have lots to catch up on financially and only then can I get a couple of tech toys I want. Oh boy!
I've managed to hold on to some optimism in spite of the rough times. The streak of horrendous luck is one for the books but it wasn't all bad. I catch a few breaks here and there. Things could have been much worse but for family and friends. Much, much worse.
Everyone is talking about vacations for the summer. Right now I will be happy with being able to sit out on my screen in porch with a cool drink in my hand and not have to worry about anything.
A downer post of sorts, yes. Still thinking about the sadness of suicide.
So much to do. I want to get the townhouse into shape but I can't afford to do anything with it right now, or for a long time. I believe by the end of May I will have a full-time position at the place I work at now. That's good because I love the job. My teaching job ends this Saturday. The college is interested in having me back or teach at another campus but that will not be until the fall at least. I'm going to look for a part-time gig in the evening for a bit. I have lots to catch up on financially and only then can I get a couple of tech toys I want. Oh boy!
I've managed to hold on to some optimism in spite of the rough times. The streak of horrendous luck is one for the books but it wasn't all bad. I catch a few breaks here and there. Things could have been much worse but for family and friends. Much, much worse.
Everyone is talking about vacations for the summer. Right now I will be happy with being able to sit out on my screen in porch with a cool drink in my hand and not have to worry about anything.
A downer post of sorts, yes. Still thinking about the sadness of suicide.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Complimentary Suicidal Thoughts Ringtone. Get it now.
I find very little humor in suicide usually. The final act of giving up, feeling trapped and hopeless is not a place anyone wants to be. I cannot stop thinking about Curt and being very sad he felt there was no other way to be happy at that point in his life. When your mentor kills himself, it leaves a raw feeling.
I opened up the internet to CNN this morning and discovered an article about antidepressants and the link to suicidal thoughts. I was particularly dismayed to find that a medication I take is one of the suspects. While reviewing the article, I glanced to the extreme left and saw the Advertising Links. I then noticed that the technology in advertising allows a search term or term or subject being viewed to merge itself into a link, whether or not it makes any sense.
To fully understand what I mean. Take a look below at what I cut and paste from the CNN website.
ADVERTISER LINKSAnti Aging Cream
Dietary Supplements
Discount Vitamins
Heart Health
Suicidal Thoughts Ringtone
Complimentary Suicidal Thoughts Ringtone. Get It Now.
www.find-real-tones.com
suicidal thoughts notorious big ringtone
Get suicidal thoughts notorious big ringtone in seconds - no credit card...
Official-Ringtone-Downloads.com
HEALTH LIBRARY
Choosing an antidepressant
HEALTH VIDEO LIBRARY
Healthology
================================================
You can purchase suicidal thoughts ringtones in seconds! Seconds! And you don't need a credit card. Is this a gift? Obviously if you purchase suicidal thoughts ringtones you are into the idea. If you kill yourself, then you don't have to pay anything.
Maybe that's why you don't need a credit card.
They don't expect you to stick around long enough to pay.
I opened up the internet to CNN this morning and discovered an article about antidepressants and the link to suicidal thoughts. I was particularly dismayed to find that a medication I take is one of the suspects. While reviewing the article, I glanced to the extreme left and saw the Advertising Links. I then noticed that the technology in advertising allows a search term or term or subject being viewed to merge itself into a link, whether or not it makes any sense.
To fully understand what I mean. Take a look below at what I cut and paste from the CNN website.
ADVERTISER LINKSAnti Aging Cream
Dietary Supplements
Discount Vitamins
Heart Health
Suicidal Thoughts Ringtone
Complimentary Suicidal Thoughts Ringtone. Get It Now.
www.find-real-tones.com
suicidal thoughts notorious big ringtone
Get suicidal thoughts notorious big ringtone in seconds - no credit card...
Official-Ringtone-Downloads.com
HEALTH LIBRARY
Choosing an antidepressant
HEALTH VIDEO LIBRARY
Healthology
================================================
You can purchase suicidal thoughts ringtones in seconds! Seconds! And you don't need a credit card. Is this a gift? Obviously if you purchase suicidal thoughts ringtones you are into the idea. If you kill yourself, then you don't have to pay anything.
Maybe that's why you don't need a credit card.
They don't expect you to stick around long enough to pay.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
What Do We Do Now, Curt?
Curt Dempster's memorial was on Sunday, April 29th in New York City. The whole idea of Curt's death is devastating. What was not initially reported in the press is now a public fact: he killed himself.
I was surprised and yet not surprised when I first heard the terrible news. I was utterly flattened. A man who inspired so many gifted minds and gave them a place to experiment and have their work seen by New York could not find inspiration within himself to carry on. He wanted to end it on his terms and on his own timetable.
The concept that he felt it was time to go is heartbreaking. I loved this man dearly. I learned more spending two years by his side than I think I would in a lifetime about the theater, life and the chances we need to take as human beings and artists.
The great inspiration could find no more for himself. This simple fact haunts me. It's with me night and day. Does it change how I perceive him and what he has been for me?
No.
It just makes me so very sad. Below is a recent item from Bloomberg News about Curt's death and the memorial service on Sunday.
Founder's Suicide Jolts Theater Where Mamet, Wasserstein Grew
By Philip Boroff
May 1 (Bloomberg) -- To everyone who knew him, Curt Dempster was the Ensemble Studio Theater.
On Jan. 19, Dempster, 71, was found dead in the Greenwich Village studio apartment he shared with two dogs, a pug and a mixed-breed husky. It was a suicide by hanging, said Grace Brugess, a spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner.
Dempster left a note asking his superintendent to find a home for the dogs. More uncertain was what the future held for the off-Broadway theater he had founded some 35 years earlier in a condemned Manhattan building and turned into one of the country's most prodigious developers of theater talent.
On Sunday, April 29, one month before EST opens its 29th annual marathon of one-act plays, many of the pioneering company's best-known members -- including director Jerry Zaks, playwright Frank Gilroy and actors Lois Smith and David Rasche - - gathered at John Jay College of Criminal Justice near Lincoln Center to remember Dempster. All told, 36 speakers told an overflow crowd of 600 about how he had changed their lives, in stories that were as forceful, funny and sometimes savage as the man himself.
A driven and iconoclastic director and cultivator of talent, Dempster left a theater that had found fame, if not fortune, by nurturing at least a half-dozen writers who would go on to win Pulitzer Prizes (including John Patrick Shanley, Horton Foote, Wendy Wasserstein and David Mamet), an array of actors such as John Turturro and Sarah Jessica Parker, and a legacy of some 6,000 new plays developed and produced there.
Flirted With Bankruptcy
EST had flirted with bankruptcy almost from the beginning, and its survival was thrown into question with the death of its founder.
``He was one of those people who made New York go,'' said Shanley, who worked on plays at EST after winning an Academy Award for writing the 1987 movie ``Moonstruck.'' ``It was a financial disaster. And it was a miracle, a levitating machine.''
The 52nd Street studio, with its second-floor, 74-seat main stage, is an artists' co-operative with about 500 invited members who don't pay dues. Its bylaws give every member the right to get a professional reading of a new work, or a play in progress, or merely to sound out an idea among colleagues. There are no subscribers to cushion it financially. Nor has it transferred shows to Broadway -- which can be a source of income and a magnet for publicity and corporate support.
By contrast, Merrill Lynch & Co. is a sponsor of Lincoln Center Theater, which is presenting the trilogy ``The Coast of Utopia'' in its 1,100-seat Vivian Beaumont Theater. Manhattan Theater Club, which is supported by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and others, presented last season's Pulitzer Prize-winning ``Rabbit Hole'' at its 650-seat Biltmore Theater. Both shows are Broadway productions, which makes them eligible for Tony awards.
Science Themes
Dempster hewed single-mindedly to his mission of providing a workshop free of commercial pressures. EST recently staged the thought-provoking drama ``Serendib,'' about scientists studying monkeys in remote Sri Lanka who are upended by a reality-TV crew. The production was two years in the making, aided by a $500,000 annual grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop science-themed plays. Sloan renewed its commitment to give EST $500,000 in each of the next three years to develop dozens of new plays annually.
``It's one of a kind,'' said Doron Weber, who oversees Sloan's theatrical grants. ``No other theater comes close in doing new work. And it's not hackneyed, I've-seen-this-before work to please subscribers and fill seats.''
Human Condition
In an interview with Bloomberg News before last year's marathon, Dempster decried the ``false values'' of television, dismissing it as a form of advertising.
``Theater is something that contributes to our knowledge of the human condition,'' he said. ``Theater still has a purity that nothing else has.''
Throughout its history, EST had lurched from one financial crisis to another. ``It's an amazing institution, but in the last 10 years its place on the landscape has diminished,'' said J. Holtham, a playwright and former EST staffer and board member. ``I don't think the quality of work is suffering, but it's not getting out there.''
Dempster was particularly stressed at the end of his life. He was consumed by fund-raising, his least favorite activity. And despite his efforts, he feared he'd have to cancel his famed marathon of one-act plays, according to a Feb. 8 letter that EST management wrote to members.
``He was desperate for money,'' said stage and film director Ulu Grosbard, who hired Dempster as an assistant 40 years ago and was one of several people Dempster had called in his last days. ``He had never asked me for money all those years.''
`Deeply Tragic Story'
Friends said Dempster seemed despondent in recent months. He was long afraid of developing Alzheimer's disease, and some witnessed moments of forgetfulness. Moreover, he struggled with spasmodic dysphonia, a vocal disorder that must've pained the one-time actor who had studied and taught voice.
``It's a question you'll never answer, why Curt took his own life,'' said William Carden, an EST member for three decades who last month was named its new producing artistic director. ``It's a deeply tragic story.''
In the 12 months ending in June 2005, Dempster earned $41,346 as president of EST, according to a filing with the Internal Revenue Service. EST board members said grants and teaching supplemented his income.
Grew Up in Michigan
Friends described Dempster, who grew up in Michigan and was the son of a Ford Motor Co. engineer, as quirky and idealistic. He wore shorts and work shoes to the office and usually sported a backward baseball cap, resisting efforts to make the ramshackle theater slick. He could be combative and he had a penchant for self-sabotage.
``He was a my-way-or-the-highway kind of guy,'' said Kathy Yates, his wife from 1995 to 2001, who teaches feldenkrais, a method of movement to improve coordination and health.
Dempster founded EST in 1971 with about 30 others, including playwrights Foote and Arthur Giron. Giron said Dempster aimed to create a laboratory where writers could try out new work, experiment and, if necessary, fail without repercussions. David Mamet, another member, said Dempster deliberately kept EST small.
``He wanted to run his theater his own way,'' Mamet said. ``If you have a bistro and seat 12, you have to be there every night. When you start expanding, you can't give the same attention to a place that seats 80. He wanted to keep things the way they are and fight that fight.''
Helping Playwrights
Dempster established the one-act marathon in 1977, with the aim of helping playwrights grow by seeing their short plays staged.
``The work of all major American playwrights can be traced back to their early one-act productions,'' he wrote in a collection of the 1999 one-act marathon.
EST was an obsession. Former staffer Billy Hopkins, now a casting director, cast Dempster as a coffee-shop manager in the 1985 movie ``Desperately Seeking Susan,'' with Rosanna Arquette and Madonna. He said he tried to cast Dempster in other projects. Dempster never made the time.
His programming was egalitarian, presenting drama by celebrated and unknown writers one after another. EST was among New York's early champions of work by women playwrights and playwrights of color.
A bizarre, elaborate theft in 2003 nearly did EST in and broke Dempster's already fragile spirit. The company's executive director, Susann Brinkley, stole $48,000 from the theater, according to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.
Embezzled Funds
She used the funds to repay money she'd embezzled from a group led by actor Carl Reiner, who'd engaged her to produce a play by Reiner's daughter. Brinkley pled guilty to grand larceny.
``It almost killed us,'' Giron said. ``It's a poor theater. We can't afford to lose anything.''
Dempster tried to cultivate corporate support and recruit board members who work in finance, with little success. In recent weeks, Carden said he and current directors raised $35,000 toward this year's one-act marathon, which is budgeted at $50,000. Beginning on May 31, it includes new plays by Neil LaBute and Stephen Adly Guirgis.
EST hasn't decided whether to proceed with plans to move into a new facility down the street in 2009 that would require raising more than $2 million.
Carden's first priority is getting the theater's finances in order, he said. ``Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better, but having the security to plan ahead and develop new work through more sustained, consistent and coordinated programs does, and that's our goal for the next two years.''
Sunday One-Acts
Even with its founder-proprietor gone, EST is abuzz with productions and readings -- some more serious than others. The first Sunday of each month, for just $15, EST's group of playwrights under 30 offers one-acts with an all-you-can-eat brunch. One Sunday the theme was pirates. In April it was God, in ``The Last Temptation of Brunch.''
As for the dogs, Dempster's girlfriend, Amy Portnoy, has taken them in.
Dempster remains an inspiring and enigmatic presence at EST, where he's represented by an old black-and-white photograph hanging in the center of the second-floor lobby. He's wearing horn-rimmed glasses, a crew neck sweater, beret and is cradling a phone.
His suicide ran counter to a philosophy that sustained his non-profit, non-compromising theater for 36 years.
Said Graeme Gillis, an EST staff member: ``Curt often said, `keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole.'''
(Philip Boroff is a reporter for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer on this story: Philip Boroff in New York at pboroff@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: May 1, 2007 00:05 EDT
I was surprised and yet not surprised when I first heard the terrible news. I was utterly flattened. A man who inspired so many gifted minds and gave them a place to experiment and have their work seen by New York could not find inspiration within himself to carry on. He wanted to end it on his terms and on his own timetable.
The concept that he felt it was time to go is heartbreaking. I loved this man dearly. I learned more spending two years by his side than I think I would in a lifetime about the theater, life and the chances we need to take as human beings and artists.
The great inspiration could find no more for himself. This simple fact haunts me. It's with me night and day. Does it change how I perceive him and what he has been for me?
No.
It just makes me so very sad. Below is a recent item from Bloomberg News about Curt's death and the memorial service on Sunday.
Founder's Suicide Jolts Theater Where Mamet, Wasserstein Grew
By Philip Boroff
May 1 (Bloomberg) -- To everyone who knew him, Curt Dempster was the Ensemble Studio Theater.
On Jan. 19, Dempster, 71, was found dead in the Greenwich Village studio apartment he shared with two dogs, a pug and a mixed-breed husky. It was a suicide by hanging, said Grace Brugess, a spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner.
Dempster left a note asking his superintendent to find a home for the dogs. More uncertain was what the future held for the off-Broadway theater he had founded some 35 years earlier in a condemned Manhattan building and turned into one of the country's most prodigious developers of theater talent.
On Sunday, April 29, one month before EST opens its 29th annual marathon of one-act plays, many of the pioneering company's best-known members -- including director Jerry Zaks, playwright Frank Gilroy and actors Lois Smith and David Rasche - - gathered at John Jay College of Criminal Justice near Lincoln Center to remember Dempster. All told, 36 speakers told an overflow crowd of 600 about how he had changed their lives, in stories that were as forceful, funny and sometimes savage as the man himself.
A driven and iconoclastic director and cultivator of talent, Dempster left a theater that had found fame, if not fortune, by nurturing at least a half-dozen writers who would go on to win Pulitzer Prizes (including John Patrick Shanley, Horton Foote, Wendy Wasserstein and David Mamet), an array of actors such as John Turturro and Sarah Jessica Parker, and a legacy of some 6,000 new plays developed and produced there.
Flirted With Bankruptcy
EST had flirted with bankruptcy almost from the beginning, and its survival was thrown into question with the death of its founder.
``He was one of those people who made New York go,'' said Shanley, who worked on plays at EST after winning an Academy Award for writing the 1987 movie ``Moonstruck.'' ``It was a financial disaster. And it was a miracle, a levitating machine.''
The 52nd Street studio, with its second-floor, 74-seat main stage, is an artists' co-operative with about 500 invited members who don't pay dues. Its bylaws give every member the right to get a professional reading of a new work, or a play in progress, or merely to sound out an idea among colleagues. There are no subscribers to cushion it financially. Nor has it transferred shows to Broadway -- which can be a source of income and a magnet for publicity and corporate support.
By contrast, Merrill Lynch & Co. is a sponsor of Lincoln Center Theater, which is presenting the trilogy ``The Coast of Utopia'' in its 1,100-seat Vivian Beaumont Theater. Manhattan Theater Club, which is supported by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and others, presented last season's Pulitzer Prize-winning ``Rabbit Hole'' at its 650-seat Biltmore Theater. Both shows are Broadway productions, which makes them eligible for Tony awards.
Science Themes
Dempster hewed single-mindedly to his mission of providing a workshop free of commercial pressures. EST recently staged the thought-provoking drama ``Serendib,'' about scientists studying monkeys in remote Sri Lanka who are upended by a reality-TV crew. The production was two years in the making, aided by a $500,000 annual grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop science-themed plays. Sloan renewed its commitment to give EST $500,000 in each of the next three years to develop dozens of new plays annually.
``It's one of a kind,'' said Doron Weber, who oversees Sloan's theatrical grants. ``No other theater comes close in doing new work. And it's not hackneyed, I've-seen-this-before work to please subscribers and fill seats.''
Human Condition
In an interview with Bloomberg News before last year's marathon, Dempster decried the ``false values'' of television, dismissing it as a form of advertising.
``Theater is something that contributes to our knowledge of the human condition,'' he said. ``Theater still has a purity that nothing else has.''
Throughout its history, EST had lurched from one financial crisis to another. ``It's an amazing institution, but in the last 10 years its place on the landscape has diminished,'' said J. Holtham, a playwright and former EST staffer and board member. ``I don't think the quality of work is suffering, but it's not getting out there.''
Dempster was particularly stressed at the end of his life. He was consumed by fund-raising, his least favorite activity. And despite his efforts, he feared he'd have to cancel his famed marathon of one-act plays, according to a Feb. 8 letter that EST management wrote to members.
``He was desperate for money,'' said stage and film director Ulu Grosbard, who hired Dempster as an assistant 40 years ago and was one of several people Dempster had called in his last days. ``He had never asked me for money all those years.''
`Deeply Tragic Story'
Friends said Dempster seemed despondent in recent months. He was long afraid of developing Alzheimer's disease, and some witnessed moments of forgetfulness. Moreover, he struggled with spasmodic dysphonia, a vocal disorder that must've pained the one-time actor who had studied and taught voice.
``It's a question you'll never answer, why Curt took his own life,'' said William Carden, an EST member for three decades who last month was named its new producing artistic director. ``It's a deeply tragic story.''
In the 12 months ending in June 2005, Dempster earned $41,346 as president of EST, according to a filing with the Internal Revenue Service. EST board members said grants and teaching supplemented his income.
Grew Up in Michigan
Friends described Dempster, who grew up in Michigan and was the son of a Ford Motor Co. engineer, as quirky and idealistic. He wore shorts and work shoes to the office and usually sported a backward baseball cap, resisting efforts to make the ramshackle theater slick. He could be combative and he had a penchant for self-sabotage.
``He was a my-way-or-the-highway kind of guy,'' said Kathy Yates, his wife from 1995 to 2001, who teaches feldenkrais, a method of movement to improve coordination and health.
Dempster founded EST in 1971 with about 30 others, including playwrights Foote and Arthur Giron. Giron said Dempster aimed to create a laboratory where writers could try out new work, experiment and, if necessary, fail without repercussions. David Mamet, another member, said Dempster deliberately kept EST small.
``He wanted to run his theater his own way,'' Mamet said. ``If you have a bistro and seat 12, you have to be there every night. When you start expanding, you can't give the same attention to a place that seats 80. He wanted to keep things the way they are and fight that fight.''
Helping Playwrights
Dempster established the one-act marathon in 1977, with the aim of helping playwrights grow by seeing their short plays staged.
``The work of all major American playwrights can be traced back to their early one-act productions,'' he wrote in a collection of the 1999 one-act marathon.
EST was an obsession. Former staffer Billy Hopkins, now a casting director, cast Dempster as a coffee-shop manager in the 1985 movie ``Desperately Seeking Susan,'' with Rosanna Arquette and Madonna. He said he tried to cast Dempster in other projects. Dempster never made the time.
His programming was egalitarian, presenting drama by celebrated and unknown writers one after another. EST was among New York's early champions of work by women playwrights and playwrights of color.
A bizarre, elaborate theft in 2003 nearly did EST in and broke Dempster's already fragile spirit. The company's executive director, Susann Brinkley, stole $48,000 from the theater, according to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.
Embezzled Funds
She used the funds to repay money she'd embezzled from a group led by actor Carl Reiner, who'd engaged her to produce a play by Reiner's daughter. Brinkley pled guilty to grand larceny.
``It almost killed us,'' Giron said. ``It's a poor theater. We can't afford to lose anything.''
Dempster tried to cultivate corporate support and recruit board members who work in finance, with little success. In recent weeks, Carden said he and current directors raised $35,000 toward this year's one-act marathon, which is budgeted at $50,000. Beginning on May 31, it includes new plays by Neil LaBute and Stephen Adly Guirgis.
EST hasn't decided whether to proceed with plans to move into a new facility down the street in 2009 that would require raising more than $2 million.
Carden's first priority is getting the theater's finances in order, he said. ``Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better, but having the security to plan ahead and develop new work through more sustained, consistent and coordinated programs does, and that's our goal for the next two years.''
Sunday One-Acts
Even with its founder-proprietor gone, EST is abuzz with productions and readings -- some more serious than others. The first Sunday of each month, for just $15, EST's group of playwrights under 30 offers one-acts with an all-you-can-eat brunch. One Sunday the theme was pirates. In April it was God, in ``The Last Temptation of Brunch.''
As for the dogs, Dempster's girlfriend, Amy Portnoy, has taken them in.
Dempster remains an inspiring and enigmatic presence at EST, where he's represented by an old black-and-white photograph hanging in the center of the second-floor lobby. He's wearing horn-rimmed glasses, a crew neck sweater, beret and is cradling a phone.
His suicide ran counter to a philosophy that sustained his non-profit, non-compromising theater for 36 years.
Said Graeme Gillis, an EST staff member: ``Curt often said, `keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole.'''
(Philip Boroff is a reporter for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer on this story: Philip Boroff in New York at pboroff@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: May 1, 2007 00:05 EDT
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