A year ago I started performing a show about the state of American theater. In it I spoke about the dangers of corporatization, the devaluation of our work and workers, the loss of coherent vision, and the over-leveraged state of many of the largest American theaters.
More than a polemic, I wanted to tell a story about theater, failure, passion, and hope. It was a cautionary tale, but also an attempt to inspire: to call back to our roots for why some of us might have chosen to dedicate our lives to live performance, to embrace and honor that original fire that I believe we need now more than ever.
This week I open that monologue in Washington DC in a changed landscape. Across the country theaters are closing, an echo of a national and international economic crisis. Sections of the show that used to talk about the possibility of a reckoning in the future are suddenly dated, overtaken by the future blowing in with sudden force to become an unmistakable reality.
If you live in Washington DC, please join us at Woolly Mammoth Theater, where HOW THEATER FAILED AMERICA plays this January. Select performances are accompanied by roundtable discussions about the state of American theater, with theater professionals and artists from across the spectrum coming together to talk about the state of our art today.
You'll find full details at the end of this email, and the link for show tickets and information is here.
At the end of January we head out to the Pacific Northwest for three shows.
First up is a two night engagement at the Kirkland Performance Center, where I'll be performing MONOPOLY! on the 30th, and INVINCIBLE SUMMER (in its Northwest premiere) on the 31st. This is my only appearance in the Seattle area this time around, and the only chance to see INVINCIBLE SUMMER. Details here.
We then head up to Vancouver BC for the PuSh Festival, where I will be reprising MONOPOLY! on February 4th, and giving the keynote for the PuSh Festival on February 5th.
Entitled HOW THEATER CAN WIN, I'll be outlining my arguments for how theater can not only survive but thrive in our modern world, and what needs to happen to make that a reality. After a year of performing this monologue, and a year of refining my arguments and ideas, I'm ready talk about what comes next. In this season of change, I think we all are.
Be seeing you,
md
HOW THEATER FAILED AMERICA
A monologue about theater, failure, passion, and hope.
"A sardonic rebuke to the corporate types who hold American theater hostage and a powerful sense of the wonder of theater."
NEW YORK TIMES
"Blending political anger with striking personal stories, this piece should reach anyone who believes in live performance."
VARIETY
"Daisey is a working man's Spalding Gray: boyish passion meshed with refined contemplation...not only vastly entertaining, it's also a call to action."
TIME OUT NEW YORK
"His transfixing delivery underscores his central point: theatre is a wave, not a particle, and the current system isn't doing it—or us—justice."
THE NEW YORKER
Tickets
INVINCIBLE SUMMER
A monologue about the New York subway system and the summer before everything changed.
"What distinguishes him from most solo performers is how elegantly he blends personal stories, historical digressions and philosophical ruminations. He has the curiosity of a highly literate dilettante and a preoccupation with alternative histories, secrets large and small, and the fuzzy line where truth and fiction blur. Mr. Daisey’s greatest subject is himself."
NEW YORK TIMES
"Sharp-witted, passionately delivered talk about matters both small and huge, at once utterly individual and achingly universal."
BOSTON GLOBE
"Daisey's skill is that he is able to talk about the historical and make it human, the personal and make it universal, so that the listener is both informed and transformed."
PAPER MAGAZINE
"He has a knack for detailed descriptions and keen observations ... His stories are often raucously funny, but the solo performer also probes more intense and painful subjects in a compelling manner ... and isn't afraid of expressing some of his own less-than-politically-correct emotions."
THEATERMANIA
Tickets
MONOPOLY!
Tesla, Edison, Microsoft, Wal-Mart and the War for Tomorrow
"Relentlessly interesting . . . a brilliantly spun narrative. His show is ultimately about the messy and often unjust process of making official history. He fights back the best way he knows how—by telling even better stories."
NEW YORK TIMES
"Layering outrage, official and underground history, personal memoir and rollicking humor, Daisey makes you think, feel and question. And he makes you laugh — hearty laughter, cathartic and barbed. Spellbinding."
SEATTLE TIMES
"Sharp-witted, passionately delivered talk about matters both small and huge, at once utterly individual and achingly universal."
BOSTON GLOBE
"Monopoly! is the work of a true writer, an inspiring and compassionate activist, and a relentlessly curious historian—a rich tapestry of historical research, personal memoir, and social commentary that creates the illusion of past and present, of timelessness."
PORTLAND MERCURY
Tickets in Kirkland
Tickets at the PuSh Festival
HOW THEATER CAN WIN
A Keynote Address and Manifesto
PuSh Festival, Vancouver BC
February 5th at 4pm
Details
4:25 PM
Dilettante Archives