It’s time for some of us to put our coin where our hearts are … Seamus Scanlon, an award winning author and playwright, has a request for some support for his highly praised McGowan Trilogy. It is to be staged again (it first appeared in New York by the Cell Theatre in 2014), this time in Galway, Ireland. Check out the Fundit! Site and drop some coin his way. Support the arts!
Some reviews: A trio of plays that begins with comedy and irreverence and ends with pathos and loss is surprising, original and hugely enjoyable - Christian O’Reilly (Chapatti)'
Scanlon’s irreverent evisceration's of the pieties of Irish nationalism are darkly comic, disturbing and curiously affecting - Declan Hughes (Digging For Fire, All The Things You Are)'
Wolf Meets World are pleased to announce that we will be producing and staging, the Irish Premiere of 'The McGowan Trilogy' by Seamus Scanlon.
Published by Galway based company Arlen House, The McGowan Trilogy follows the exploits of IRA Assassin Victor McGowan over a 2 year period in 1980's Ireland which consists of three plays, Dancing At Lunacy, The Long Wet Grass & Boys Swam Before Me, which will be staged in Galway City together as a 3 act showcase.
We are thrilled and honored that Seamus has chosen Wolf Meets World to be the company to stage the Irish premiere of this finely written, award winning play and that he has also come on board as co-producer.
The play will be directed by Galway Playwright/Director Adrian Lavelle, with John O Connor as production and stage manager.
Fund it here!:
And the play here:
Come on, Amici … this is money well spent.
Breathing Lessons, Anne Tyler … the last (for a little while) of my Tyler reads, this one deals with a middle-aged married woman’s attempt to salvage a relationship with her grandchild, repair her son’s marriage, and restore immediate family to some sense of normalcy. Maggie Moran can’t help being the busybody she is, nosing into one mess after another, albeit with best intentions. Her son is a wannabe rock star who managed to get a 17 year old (Fiona) pregnant. Maggie more or less steered them into marriage and help oversee her granddaughter throughout the impossibility of holding everything together. Her husband, Ira, is the opposite of Maggie. He sees things with the logic and reason of a scientist, except he has some preconceived emotional baggage that (at least) skews his perceptions of the world at large. Jesse and Fiona are already living apart for a few years when we meet Maggie. She's driving out of car repair shop to pick up her husband so they can attend her best friend’s husband’s funeral a full state away. Maggie is listening to talk radio about the state of marriage when she hears Fiona’s voice claim that she’d already married for love, but now she is marrying for security. Maggie is temporarily shocked; she's just pulled into the street when she reacts without thinking and hits the gas instead of the break ... and a Pepsi truck nails her fender. Tyler takes us through Maggie and Ira’s perspectives of what’s going on their lives, then Maggie’s perception of their past, bringing it back to the current situation (post funeral attendance), when Maggie schemes to bring Fiona and Jesse back together. No spoilers, but I’m convinced that anything by Ms. Tyler is well worth the time, effort and coin. She’s a wonderful writer.
Get Breathing Lessons here:
SNHU MFA News … two sign with agents … Beth Orozco '14 has signed with Jill Marr of the Dijkstra Literary Agency for representation of her thesis novel At River's Edge … and Ted Flanagan has signed with Julie Stevenson of Waxman Leavell Literary Agency. Major league congrats! As most of us know, there are far more publishable works out there than ever get to see the light of day … and finding and securing an agent is often more difficult than finding a publisher. So let’s hear it for Beth and Ted! SNHU MFA’ers rock!
And more good news from the program … Black Coffee, a short story by Heather Atwood '15 is in the spring issue of Blue Guitar. Read it here: We've featured Heather here at TK before ... she's well on her way.
NHL Playoffs … well, I’m filling out my bracket soon as I can so I can win, at the least, another cellphone I’ll never use. My pick to win it all? The Tampa Bay Lightning … who else? Go Bolts!
Above, one of the California’s finest beats the shit out of a woman … yes, a woman.
Crazy Coppers … what’s left to say about this issue, except I think it’s pretty fair to stop assuming that only 10% of the aggregate police force (nationwide) are bad/corrupt/criminals, etc. Unless, of course, you excuse police for not reporting the crimes their fellow officers commit (whether it be engaging in an illegal beat-down or shooting an unarmed person in the back). I’m not sure what the percentage of cops in general are bad people (with licenses to do pretty much anything), but anyone who believes for a second that the stuff being caught on cameras these days is some kind of aberration, well … I hope the Easter Bunny left you something extra sweet.
And then there’s this latest California fiasco (below) … Nine cops going to work on a guy they just zapped with a taser … one has to wonder what percentage of their department should be locked up rather than carrying weapons and badges, although something tells me it’s probably higher than 10%.
And before we all laud the South Carolina Police Department for arresting and firing the cop who felt compelled to shoot at an unarmed black man’s back 8 times (hitting him 5 times and killing him), let’s not forget the same police department was perfectly willing to take his side of the story BEFORE someone released a video to the NEW YORK TIMES (because he feared the police might cover-up?) …
Let’s just hope the camera work of recent months forces some of these out of control punks/assholes into thinking twice before acting like the thugs the videos above show them to be. But let’s face it, video doesn’t always get it done. District Attorneys stall grand juries and avoid indictments for political reasons, and more often than not, it’s an accidental video that trumps a DA with motivations other than justice to do his or her job.
Until there are special prosecutors for incidents involving police, cops have no reason on earth to give up their unofficial omerta (the blue wall of silence) they continue practice day in and day out. The only difference between the way the mob once held judges, politicians, and dirty cops/police officials in their pockets and what we see today (as regards DA's refusing to indict police) has everything to do with District Attorneys being dependent on good relations with the police (i.e., the police have the D.A.’s in their pockets) … unless, of course, somebody films them doing something criminal … and even then, sometimes it won’t make a difference anyway.
—Knucks
Tom Waits … Romeo is bleeding …
Old' 55 ...
