This Week in the Arts

Hey, I hope you caught this week’s episode of the show. I ambushed Shane Strawbridge with a last minute interview. I literally interviewed him an hour before the show was scheduled to air.

James Hinkle suffered a bit from my lack of preparation too – normally, I try to be as informed as possible about the person I’m interviewing and what they’re working on in order to bring a shred of professionalism into the show. But, with James, I lacked my normal time and I just kind of threw myself at the interview…

So, not to apologize, because I wouldn’t've put up the interviews if I thought they needed an apology (And not to make excuses, I know there aren’t that many “I’m busy” excuses that work because, let’s face it, we’re all busy), but I wanted to write a post really quickly to accomplish two things. One, I wanted to let you see what we’ve been up to and what’s been stealing all of our precious time – and two to get in a little shameless self-promotion.

First of all, go listen to the greatest podcast – it’s a great episode, and really that’s what this blog should be about.

Did you do it? No, you didn’t! Seriously, go listen – there are some good laughs in there.

Okay, now I can get to that shameless self-promotion.

I’ve just finished a play, Lonesome West. If you missed it, you missed a horribly dark comedy that was horribly great. Find reviews here, here, here, here, here and here.

Next, Dana and I are working, right now, on the 3rd annual Stage West’s Texas Playwright’s Competition. Dana is wrangling the production of it and directing one of the readings and I”ll be reading in one of them as well as directing another one.

The plays this year are phenomenal! And, I’m not just saying that because I’m directly involved – they are actually quite wonderful.

The one I’m in, and the one Dana is directing is Certificate of Death by Walter Wykes and the one I’m directing is Binge by Thomas Ward.

Directly after the readings both of us will be starting rehearsals for Role Play at Stage West. We’ll both be performing in the play! We haven’t done a play together in more than two years and I think we’re both pretty excited to get started.

And, on top of it all, we, of course, have our beautiful young daughter, Matilda, who has seemingly entered the “terrible two’s” a bit early.

And, finally, speaking of Matilda – she would be very grateful, as would Dana and I, if you would take advantage of the great deal we have with Audible! You can get a free audio-book out of it for crying out loud! Just go to audiblepodcast.com/twita and sign up for the no-obligation free trial.

Hello again. I’ve been hoping to write something this week and it looks like I found a good reason.

As you may know, This Week in the Arts is a service that we provide for free. And free is something that we plan to continue, but the podcast and the website cost money to maintain – so, we have to find some way to put a little money into the ongoing project.

Which is why we’ve partnered with Audible.com. Audible is an online service that I use myself. They are one of the largest online audio book providers with over 75,000 titles, and they’re offering listeners of This Week in the Arts a fantastic deal that I hope you’ll listen for on this week’s episode.

Speaking of this week’s episode, I hope you’ll download and listen to it – it’s a feature interview with the founders of Theaterjones.com. As you may know, Mark Lowry, one of the founders, is a regular contributor to our program. Theaterjones is breaking lots of new ground with emerging media and the arts and I’m sure you’ll want to hear what they have to say.

I just wanted to remind you, in case you missed it in this week’s episode, that the Dallas Art Dealer’s Association will be having their Annual Spring Gallery Walk tomorrow from 2pm to 8pm. It includes more than 35 galleries, museums and non-profit art spaces and is completely free!

Also, catch the second reading of Ice Note at Wingspan Theatre, the playwright Isabella Russell-Ides was on this week’s show as well – and tonight is your last chance to see the reading.

And, at the risk of being accused of plugging my own projects, I would be remiss not to mention that the play that I’ve been working so hard on has it’s second preview tonight and opens tomorrow night. The play is The Lonesome West and it’s playing at Stage West through May 9th.

But, most of all, please get out and support local art this weekend!

Hello. It’s been a little while since I’ve updated the blog and I wanted to put something up to let you know that I’m still alive!

We just posted our latest episode, Lisa Taylor, Stan Wojewodski, Jr, and Isabella Russell Ides, and it is a fantastic array of interviews. My interview with Lisa Taylor was actually at the end of January but it’s still relevant and she has some great things to say about Dallas arts.

Shane has ongoing technical problems – we’re trying to get him upgraded with his equipment, and, of course, there are always a few issues when you change an established routine.

And, although we missed Shane this week, Dana Schultes – This Week in the Arts’ producer – jumped in and did a great interview with Stan Wojewodski, Jr. for this week’s Theatre Spotlight. Stan directed the Undermain production of End Game by Samuel Beckett. Dana and I both saw the show last Saturday and it is a fantastic production of a fascinating play.

Finally, because of sound problems I had to bump Alexandra Bonifield’s interview with Isabella Russell-Ides to the end of the program – so, don’t forget to stick around. It’s a great interview with a very talented North Texas artist.

I also want to publicly thank Dana for all of her hard work over the past few weeks. She’s always an integral part of the show but she has kept it stitched together and running recently while I have been in rehearsals for the play I’m doing.

Speaking of our staff, they’re all fantastic – and we’ve been super lucky to assemble a group of very talented and dedicated contributors who make the show possible. We have a lot of new things planned for the future, including a few new contributors and a live talk show, so please stick with us – and, as usual, be sure to let us know what is and isn’t working for you.

Dana and I drove out to Dallas last night to watch DWDT’s performance, Mixed Rep, and, as two theatre professionals, we couldn’t have been more enthralled by a performance art style outside of our own.

I commented to Dana at one point that I’m not a dance person, it’s not a form that reaches out to me. My nature is that I’m drawn to things that actually, literally, talk to me – Plays, Movies, Musicals, Storytelling, etc., but that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t both enjoy and understand the emotional expression as well as the strong visuals involved in this beautiful and engrossing performance.

It was DWDT’s last performance for their 2009-2010 season, but if you get the opportunity in the future I hope you won’t hesitate to go see these wonderfully talented dancers in action.

In case you haven’t heard of the Soweto Gospel Choir, you should check them out. Some quotes:

“Soweto Gospel Choir makes our world seem beautifully small.” – Oprah Magazine

“These luxuriantly full-voiced singers combine joyful, spiritual vision with a global perspective fresh and vibrant.” – USA Today

“(The choir) has a cornucopia of remarkable voices: sharp, sweet, kindly, raspy and incantatory leads above a magnificently velvety blend the music is both meticulous and unstoppable.” – The New York Times

The choir was created in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002 and has gone on to win multiple Grammys, sing at the 2009 Oscars, and to perform or record with an A-list of singers – including Bono, Aretha Franklin, Robert Plant and Christina Aguilera.

I was lucky enough to interview a member of the chorus last night and I can’t wait to get the podcast online. they’ll be performing at the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts on March 21st, but if you’d like to listen to their music now, you can either find them online at their website – Soweto Gospel Choir Website or you can find them on itunes here: Soweto Gospel Choir

Help us make the show better by taking this anonymous poll.

Hello, and welcome to the first ever blog post for This Week in the Arts! I’ve decided to include a blog with the podcast. I can’t make any promises about how often I’ll update with posts, but I would like a place to keep you, our listeners, informed about what’s going on behind the scenes at the Twita headquarters.

It’s a separate feed, which means that you’ll have to subscribe to it separately from the podcast in order to get updates. Just click on that “subscribe” link at the top.