I'm going on a road trip to St. Cloud with biscuitpig tonight to see Colleen Summerville in RENT.
This may be the most random thing I've done all year... and the most fun.



PS. C was fantastic in Some Girl(s)... more on that later.

Just saw a tutorial for a denim corset... This is a much more exciting use of old jeans than a knit rug...

Tuesday's GiveMN fundraising effort was incredible.
Over $14 million was raised for Minnesota non-profits!

And Pro Rata was supported in a beautiful fashion.
We had 41 donors, and made the equivalent of a full 50% of our annual general operating expenses budget. In one day.
I am so thankful to the generosity and commitment of our friends and family, I can't even tell you. And I'm so pleased that so many other theaters and non-profits also benefited.

*sigh*

Minnesota is such a great place to live. You should live here, too.

As you know, the past decade of my life has been committed to leading, nurturing, and expanding Theatre Pro Rata. This company has given me a chance to explore my artistic core, develop my skills as a director and leader, and create a body of work with a level of excellence I would not have been able to otherwise achieve.

As the years have passed, Pro Rata’s reputation for consistent, high quality, artistically fulfilling, and meaningful theater has made it a company that artists want to work with, and audiences want to see. This faith and commitment are humbling and overwhelming. If you haven’t done so recently, take a moment to look at our website: www.theatreprorata.org. You can see by the photos, quotes, and reviews that our work is consistently challenging, inspiring, and worthwhile.

As someone who knows me, you know how much a part of my life this company is. It is my heart and soul. Now Pro Rata has reached a stage where further artistic growth requires further financial resources. Please give to this company that has given so much to me. Your donation will keep Pro Rata growing. Every little bit matters. If each one of my friends and family gave just $10, think how that would help! And if you can give a little more, $50 or $500 or $5,000, it would add up to a solid foundation that would help Pro Rata break through to a growth that could mean a whole new life for this little company. If you have ever thought about donating to Pro Rata, NOW is the time to do so.

Tuesday, November 17, from 8 am to 8 pm, is GIVE TO THE MAX day. Just log on to GiveMN.org and type Theatre Pro Rata in the "Find a nonprofit" box and your donation to Pro Rata (minimum of $10) will be matched. The Saint Paul Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, and the Bush Foundation have committed $500,000 in matching funds to support nonprofit organizations in our community for this one day only. Take that $10 and make it $20! Take that $500 and make it $1,000! The potential is staggering. Please visit GiveMN.org on Tuesday and show your support for my company and me.

We are small, but we are not insignificant. The artists who work with me have come to know and love the process driven theater that we create. And you can be part of that process, too. With your help this company that means the world to me will have a new life into the next decade and for decades to come after that.

Thank you,

Carin

I have a board meeting tomorrow morning, so I really should be in bed.
Instead I'm polishing off a bottle of wine and channel surfing, which has resulted in a midnight viewing of "The Bodyguard."

Lord help me.

I've been working hard at the formatting and cutting for Spanish Tragedy. 
I think I'm getting a little bit obsessed.

For the formatting, I've gotten completely immersed in comparing punctuation and scansion interpretations between different editions.  It's like every time I find something cool, there's two more things right after it.  For the cutting, I have a whole system of coloring the text (red for definite cuts, pink for maybe cuts, green for non-Kyd additions, italics for translations).

I'm on my fourth pass through for formatting (It goes faster because you're scanning the text visually rather than reading it for comprehension) and still working through my first pass for cutting (about 1/2 way through the second act).  Once I've got a solid first draft I'm going to send it off to the dramaturg for feedback and suggestions.  Then I'll actually delete the stuff that ends up fully red, and send it out for the actors/designers... and ready for the reading we're doing in December to hear it out loud. 

This prep work on the script is so much fun!

I am such a nerd.

10,000 Things' Othello.
It was great.  It wasn't a mind-blowing innovation of production or anything, it was just good actors, speaking the text clearly, with intention supporting it.  It was what Shakespeare should be.  Luverne's Iago was perfect, Tracy's Desdemona was surprisingly level-headed and strong, Christiana's Emelia blew me out of the water.  I thoroughly enjoyed it (except I didn't need the near-constant live percussive underscore... it got to be a bit distracting).  If you can at all make the time to see it, you really should.
4.5 out of 5 stars

Workhaus Collective's The Sense of What Should Be.
There were many fun things about it.  The general concept (geeky teen decides to become a super-villain and destroy a local power supply), the performances (John Middleton in particular), and a delightfully written 'who's on first' scene about a golf tee.  However the script felt a bit unfinished, a number of elements were over designed, and all the characters seemed to speak only in the playwright's voice.  But overall it was a fun show, and worth seeing.
3.5 out of 5 stars.

Where the Wild Things Are
I loved this book as a child, and was enchanted by the movie.  It totally captured the mind of a young child, was true to the spirit of the book, and adapted for the new medium perfectly.  I loved the music and the impetuousness of the production design.  They fully succeeded in creating and existing inside this world, and I believed it 100%.
5 out of 5 stars.

I need lots of awesomeness this weekend, ok?  So if I'm seeing you, I expect you to be AWESOME. 
Lydia, C, 10,000 Things' show, Workhaus's show, Val's party, I'm lookin' at YOU.

And if you are not awesome, or if you are in general contributing to the un-awesomeness of certain things, I want you to high tail it outta here.   Leaving the country would be best, but I will accept turning on The Carin Bratlie Tracking Device that you have seemed to have somehow installed in my neck and keeping a 500 yard distance at all times.

kthxbi.

I just realized that I've pretty much forgotten what it's like to be married.

Friday:
Slept in and spent the afternoon cutting Spanish Tragedy and 12th Night.

Saw This Is It for Kathy's birthday.  For what it was (a tribute and a final farewell) it was really awesome. Simple, and a last chance to see a master at work.

Happy Hour at Tiger Sushi.  Lots of Kathy's friends, who are lots of my friends.  Lovely.

...

Saturday:
C and I went to the Science Museum to see the Titanic exhibit.  It's such a sobering, fascinating, romanticized, tragic part of our collective consciousness.  I remember when it was found in '85... before that it was a myth, a story.  After that it became a real and grounded tragedy.

Had a pint and a delicious Shepherd's Pie at The Liffey.

Went to a matinee of Capitalism: A Love Story.  I love Michael Moore, but sometimes I think he's preaching to the choir.
It did make me decide that in my house shopping saga I didn't want to look at foreclosure listings anymore.  I just don't want to profit off of someone else's broken dreams.

Came home and got into costume, then went to Brit's Pub for a drink before the Ben Folds concert.  I had a Honey Crisp Cider, which was delightful.

BEN FOLDS WITH THE MN ORCHESTRA!!!!  
Totally awesome.  Amazing charts.  Great set list.  Lots of audience in costume.  Wonderful orchestration.  Drummer dressed as a ghost.  Percussionist dressed as a Jedi. Free Ben Folds glasses!!  Ben and the conductor come out after intermission dressed as Sonny and Cher.  Three or four encores, and after the third he let the orchestra leave and played a few more songs.   The lights come up and we don't leave.  We are NOT leaving. We are rooted to our spots, clapping, cheering, chanting... for like 5 minutes. He comes back out for ONE more, and we go wild.  The main floor moves into the aisles and down to the stage.  He ends with Rockin' The Suburbs and we sing with him, singing FUCK at the top of our lungs in Orchestra Hall.  It was awesome.  Best Ben Folds concert to date (and I've seen him every time he's been to Minneapolis, I think...)

Go to a party where we don't really know anyone.  Have fun explaining our costumes to some college girls who haven't heard of Dr. Who.  Get recognized on sight by another one who does.

Go for breakfast at the Uptown Diner.  It's about midnight, and driving through uptown proper is a delightful, drunken madhouse of costuming. We're listening to the classical station, and they are playing Night on Bald Mountain, which is the perfect score for what we are watching.

Ben and Noe meet us for breakfast, and then take us back with them to a party they are attending.  It's nice and mellow, with adults this time, and we close out the party with some rock band.  I play bass, as usual.  I feel sexy in my bass playing sexy TARDISness.

Today:
And the icing on the cake!  It's daylight savings.  Sleep until noon, but really only sleep until 11:00.
I'm planning on skipping my evening plans to see Faith Healer at the G (I just can't deal with four 20 minute monologues today).
Time for coffee.

There's way too many details as to explain why, but suffice it to say that nattienatnat is the best Artistic Associate ever.
We have a Pro Rata board meeting coming up soon, and our first ever Pro Rata Artistic Company Meeting shortly after that.  Plans are underway for Serious Goal Setting and Clarification Of Stuffs and Big Picture Goodness.  I'm squee about all of it.

In other news, I'm going to see This Is It for kathy76's birthday tomorrow night. 
I'm taking bupwethern to see Ben Folds play with the MN Orchestra on Halloween.  COSTUMES ARE ENCOURAGED!!

All this is good.

Remind me to never again hold auditions for a show I'm writing at the same time as I'm holding auditions for a show that has a plot structure like this at the same time I'm creating the syllabus for a combat class in Minneapolis and the syllabus for a Shakespeare class in Hopkins  that may or may not start tomorrow (pending admin approval) that will lead into a performance of 12th Night with JR high kids that will rehearse concurrently with the previously mentioned convoluted plot structure at the same time as hosting a play reading at the same time as producing a show that may or may not break even.

I just spent an hour on the phone with Quinton (reviewer for the City Pages) about the state of theater in Minneapolis.  No specific reason, he had called to make a reservation to review Marisol, and we just got to chatting.
That was fun.  :)

Speaking of press:

The Star Tribune says:
"a dark and richly ironic sense of humor...sharply focused visual sensibility...stunning, occasionally shocking..."

tcdailyplanet says:
"fairly bursting at the seams with theatricality ... Theatre Pro Rata has found a playwright that truly merits the sort of relentless attention to detail they can bring to bear on a script... Marisol is the kind of theater we don't get enough of, so you shouldn't miss it."

Marisol had a successful opening.

In the silent auction C outbid me on a necklace... and then gave it to me.  :)

This morning I slept in and made french toast for us with some of the leftover bread (donated to the opening night party from Franklin Street Bakery). 

I finished off the weekend with a Stitch n Bitch. 
I made Clive.



He doesn't like your lemonade.

Roneet and Grant try talk apocalypse (and try not to spill the beans) in a podcast interview.
http://www.tctheaterconnection.com/?p=1522

The Minneapolis Theater Examiner, aka bigpenguin , interviewed me for Marisol.
Thanks, Zach!

Marisol will be on Art Hounds today on All Things Considered.

Listen this afternoon, or listen here now:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/09/30/arthounds/

Thanks, Heather Meyer for the shout out!

In doing some research for the directors notes for Marisol, I came across the mission statement of the Risk Theatre Initiative: “to drop its partici-
pants squarely outside the boundaries
of the proverbial safety net through the
vitality of theatrical production.”

Because of the line break, I read it as:

The mission of Risk Theatre Initiative is to drop its pants squarely outside the boundaries of the proverbial safety net through the vitality of theatrical production."

*beat*

Personally, I like my version better.