Memeweaver

A few days ago Everyone's Favorite As-Yet-Unproduced Chicago-Based Polish Playwright Rob Kozlowski tagged me for a meme. Because I am an inveterate Creature of the Web (see below), it seems I can't resist the call.

Bloggers must post these rules and provide eight random facts about themselves. In the post, the tagged blogger tags eight other bloggers and must notify them that they have been tagged.

I'll try to keep most of this related to the mission of this blog, which is, in a nutshell, "I act like a somewhat respectable theater journalist."

Item #1:
I was born, raised, and attended college in Fayetteville, Arkansas (Go Hogs!) before moving to Chicago a little over six years ago.

Item #2:
The first play I remember seeing was on a fifth-grade field trip to my future high school, where we watched the high school kids perform Grease. Most of the post-show talkback questions, as is the case with most theater performances for audiences of that age, were of this variety: "Were you guys really kissing?" "Are you boyfriend and girlfriend in real life?"

Item #3:
My first experience working on a piece of theater (not counting innumerable playtime skits such as when Tara Hency and I got married at recess in second grade) was in a ninth-grade speech and drama class, when we were split up into groups and assigned to stage a children's book. My friend Laura and I co-adapted and co-directed a gripping production of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day. (The standout memory of this project is of our cast member Andrew introducing me to Nirvana's Nevermind.)

Item #4:
(Just to break from theater-related stuff) The first CDs I remember buying, when I got a CD player around 1989, were Poison's Flesh & Blood and Warrant's DRFSR. The first big concert I attended, around that same time? New Kids on the Block. I'm not sure which is more embarrassing in retrospect.

Item #5:
(As long as we're off topic) I have never broken a bone. This probably has something to do with me never participating in organized sports, beyond one season playing soccer in seventh grade. All the kids I was playing with at that point had been playing since they were in the womb, and our coaches were not interested in teaching me the game. To this day I couldn't tell you what positions I played; I think they put me wherever I could do the least damage.

Item #6:
(And we're back) I got into theater in earnest in high school, which in my district started in tenth grade. Some new friends I made that year talked me into auditioning for one of the school plays, and I got in. My first acting role was Officer Klein in Arsenic and Old Lace. I still have my highlighted and marked-up script.

Item #7:
Yes, I'm a former actor. I acted all through high school and college (although the U of A was a BA program, not a conservatory or BFA, so we got experience in all aspects of theater) and moved to Chicago with the intention of being an actor; I acted sporadically for a few years. For what it's worth, though: on my old blog, just as I was getting started as a reviewer for Time Out Chicago, I linked to a quote from Charles Marowitz, in which he opined that

The American drama critic, when he is not a failed playwright or actor, tends to be recruited from the ranks of journalists.

I am, sort of, all of the above. My other love in high school was journalism; I had a real dilemma in choosing between theater and journalism as a major, and initially thought I might double-major. I won several ultimately meaningless awards from the Arkansas High School Press Association (there's something to put on your resume) and got hired as a staff reporter for the college paper before it became clear there were not enough hours in the day and I would have to make a choice. I chose theater, but now it's kind of like I've come full circle, and I love where I've ended up.

Item #8:
I owe an inordinate amount of What It Is I Do Today to these here internets. A short history: when I was nearing the end of college and deciding where to go, I became a regular poster at the Table Talk forums at Salon.com, which helped convince me to come to Chicago. After moving here, I started my old, now-defunct blog just after 9/11, and long before "blog" was a common word. I "met" and became "friends" with fellow bloggers in other cities, which led me to wonder if there were more in Chicago, which led me to the Chicago Bloggers Yahoo! Group. In-flesh meetings among that group eventually led to Andrew and Naz deciding to start Gapers Block, and they asked me to be a charter staff member (where I continue not to pull my weight to this day). Meanwhile my own blog connected me in random ways to several shows I did as an actor, and eventually through my own site I reconnected with Lara Jo Hightower and her boyfriend Justin Fletcher; both were Arkansas alums from a few years ahead of me and Justin was now the artistic director of (the now-defunct) Defiant Theatre. That's how I ended up auditioning for and getting cast in one of the most fun experiences of my acting life, Defiant's The Pyrates, three years ago. A Sun-Times freelancer named Christopher Piatt reviewed that show and gave us the most favorable notices we got. A few months later, I happened to meet Christopher at a Gapers Block get-together at Danny's Tavern; turned out he knew my stuff from Gapers Block. A few more months passed, and I heard through the grapevine that Christopher had been hired by Time Out Chicago as their theater editor; I found him through Friendster to say congrats, and he eventually asked if I'd be interested in freelancing.

The moral of that story is: sometimes things just take a decade to come full circle, and also: respect the internet.

Now, the rules say I have to tag eight people myself: Brooke, Zac, Mike, Meg, Annie, Jeremy, Stephen, and Dan, I choo-choo-choose you.

And by the by: I came this close to titling this post "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Memecoat." Be glad I don't write my own headlines in TOC.

Comments

[Don Hall]

Ah... the small world.

I was a music ed major at U of A. Go hogs!