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Make a Game of Life

In North Loup, Nebraska, where I spent my boyhood summers with my grandfather, the television pulled one signal out of the sky, channel 10/11, and when the picture dissolved into snow the day still had eight hours left in it. A boy in a town like that learns the oldest technology on earth. Boredom is a raw material. A long afternoon wants shape, and shape comes from rules: the stick is a bat because we agree it is, the crack in the walk is a foul line because we say so, the score matters because we decide it matters. Nobody sold us that afternoon. We manufactured it ourselves, on the spot, out of dust and agreement, and the dust became the best part of the summer.

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Does a Play Exist Without Performance?

There’s an old saying in some theatrical circles that a play does not exist unless and until is has been performed on a live stage in front of an audience.  You can imagine the heartache that creates for the amateur, but vigilant, Playwright who writes page after page only to have the work discounted in the end analysis by some because there is no final proof of production to validate the effort.  Is that a right and fair way to deal with a written Art in Performance?  Does the actor exist without being staged?  Does the director have a role without filling an empty space?

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Writing a Sixty Second Play

One task I give my amateur Playwriting students is to have them write a 60-second play in Two Acts using the Three Act structure.  That means you have around 30 seconds to set up the plot conflict points, 20 seconds to explode the conflict and 10 seconds to bring around a catharsis and denouement. 

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The Problem with One Set Plays

In addition to the awful reality that One Act Plays are ruining the Modern Theatre,
one set plays are killing off any and all theatrical design aesthetic and that deathly trend cannot die soon enough.

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Play Along Blues with Hal Leonard

Hal Leonard is a great publishing house.  We like their GuitarInstructor.com website and we’re totally over the moon for their fine “Play Along” series of books and bundled CDs.

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Stand Up if You Plan to Play the Blues

If you want to effectively play The Blues — or any style of guitar, really — you need to get off your chair, strap in your guitar, and stand up!

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Do Only Women Sing the Blues?

When you think of the history of The Blues in America, you are struck by two, stark, gender realities:  Women sing The Blues and Men play The Blues on guitar.

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