The Playgoer: Friday panel reminder

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Thursday, April 06, 2006

Friday panel reminder

Tomorrow at noon is the big Barnard College panel, and it does seem to be gaining in bigness buzz. (Publicized on both Backstage and Playbill). So if you're within distance of the Upper West Side and want to hear the first specifically theatre-oriented forum on all things "Rachel Corrie", come on by. And you may want to get there early.

Here's a suspensful question: will someone from New York Theatre Workshop come to represent? Sources say they were invited. Then declined. But now--after said coverage--may be interested again. But if so, who?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

London's Practicum Theatre has announced the winners of their short play request for scripts. Here's their announcement:

Selections have been made!
Tuesday 4th April 2006 - 10:12:32 AM

Thank you to everyone who submitted a play for our night Breaking News.  We had an overwhelming response and it was definately a hard time choosing only 12.  But saying that, we had to choose and the shows are as follows:

Disclaimer By Cary Barney (Spain)
Homeland By Philip Gawthorne (London)
Lie Detector By Peter Yates (St. Albans)
Hard Truth By Elise Hearst (Australia/ London)
A Decision By Emma Adams (West Yorkshire)
Health and Safety By Dominic Graham (London)
Press Conference By David Varela (London)
The Serf of Tidworth By Sarah Brown (New York)
Parellel By Aoife Mannix (Geneva/ London)
Care Less By Saman Shad (London)
Tomorrow By Haley Koch (Washington, DC)

Aaron Riccio said...

Random question for the panel, which I can't attend. But there seems to be a double-standard at work in New York City. We're all so upset that NYTW has been censored, that they're refusing to show "Rachel Corrie." But at the same time, we're all upset that movie theaters are showing a trailer (let alone the movie) for "United 93." That's something we're perfectly willing to shout out about censoring . . .

So what's up America?

Playgoer said...

The clear difference to me, Aaron, is that "United 93" is clearly a piece of exploitation, profiting off a national tragedy but restaging the violent deaths of people in the style of an action film.

No one is objecting to United 93 for any political content--which will no doubt be gung ho patriotic, aren't we sure?

Oh, and by the way, they're not pulling the trailor for the film after all. So that's not being silenced at all. If the film doesn't end up being released it will only be because the studio will decide it's unprofitable.

Need I remind you NYTW is a "nonprofit" theatre. So if they acted out of fear of low ticket sales, we have more of a beef.

Anonymous said...

How do we know that "United Flight 93" is "clearly a piece of exploitation"? There's been at least one TV movie about United Flight 93 (which I didn't see). Was it exploitative too? How about the big article that the magazine I work for (Vanity Fair) published a few years ago? In all these cases, the story was being offered in the hope of some earnings in return, but that principle isn't necessarily exploitative.

Aaron Riccio said...

When you capitalize on the suffering of someone else, it is exploitative. Just the very fact that there are so many films coming out about the same thing, so many of which are attempting to hew as accurately to the events as possible (thanks to transcripts of phone records), shows that multiple companies are trying to get "in" on the same thing. "United 93" is this month's big story, just like "Flight 93" was earlier, though that, being a made-for-TV movie that wasn't as dramatic, isn't nearly as bad. The upcoming Oliver Stone picture, I think it's called "9/11" will also be a profitable Hollywood tribute. The problem, and what makes it exploitative (where, say, "Titanic" was not), is that is based so accurately on the PEOPLE of the plane that it is stealing their life, their lines, and their tragic STORY without any real regard to the people (still living) who knew and loved them. And they are not seeing any money for it. THAT is exploitative, as if the story literally fell in their lap. Of further concern is the dramatization of what really happened to the plane, especially when many people still believe it was shot down. This retelling by an action director can't help becoming a little piece of agiprop, too.