back to the present

2004 was politically a very depressing year, although artistically it had some highs.

Started the year off with a workshop of The Female Terrorist Project when the play was nothing more than a pile of notes and put a group of actors in an awfully cold DUMBO studio with loud neighbors.

(Note to dude in adjoining studio: nobody wants to hear you play "Free Bird," especially when you play it badly.)

Seeing FTP realized at the end of the year in a cold factory in Long Island City.

Progress?

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Directing Sarah Kane's Cleansed and having an audience member pass out during Robin's chocolate-eating scene. Both a high and a low point.

Definite perk of '04 was getting to work with some of my favorite actors, reminding me of why I bother.

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As an audience member, the high of '04 was without a doubt the wonderful production of Mac Wellman's Antigone, directed by Paul Lazar at Classic Stage, sixty minutes of hermetic beauty with a superb cast.

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Lots of great music this year, all in all better than the theater. Arcade Fire's Funeral, Hood's The Lost You (single of the year), Fennesz's Venice, Philip Jeck's 7, The Books' The Lemon of Pink (both released in '03 but I haven't stopped listening), Deerhoof's Milk Man, Max Richter's The Blue Notebooks, the Mars and DNA reissues (hey man, No Wave is No Fun), William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops, and Xiu Xiu's Fabulous Muscles (check out the "thank you" list -- I'm right next to Michael Gira of the Swans!)

It was music more than the theater that made the year bearable. Here's hoping next year sucks less.

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I am looking forward to seeing productions of The Female Terrorist Project and The Absence of Weather in Los Angeles in February; in New York, I am looking forward to David Greenspan in Beckett's Happy Days, Brian Rogers and theater et al's new piece about guns, and Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman.

Still hoping that no one will ever produce any more plays written by Neil LaBute, but that seems unlikely.

Five People You'll Meet In Hell: W., Rumsfeld, the Donald, Condi, and that Free Bird guy.


Ken Urban's The Female Terrorist Project opens at L.A.'s Rude Guerrilla February 4.