Posted on

The List on the Refrigerator

Every kitchen has some version of it: the list on the refrigerator, held up by a magnet from a pizza place that closed two summers ago. Call the dentist. Eggs. A birthday card for Ruth. Renew the plates. Each line is a small promise pointed at the future, and each line will be crossed off or quietly rewritten next week. Now ask a different question about the same kitchen: what is the refrigerator for? That answer hasn’t changed in decades and won’t change with the list. The list is intention. The humming box behind it is purpose.

Continue reading → The List on the Refrigerator

Posted on

Building a Boles Bookshelf

There is one undeniable delight in writing: You are able to preserve what you know, defend the facts of your knowing, reconcile the truth, and create your own bookshelf of your life’s work. There is a great moral duty and an ongoing human wondering in the task of the living author — one that must not be slighted in practice or disparaged in theory — even when the current events of the day and the damnation of history are upon us.

Continue reading → Building a Boles Bookshelf

Posted on

Letter to a Young Artist: Popularity and Commerce Must Not Matter

I’m always disappointed when I talk to Artists and the first thing they start telling me is their resume, how many blog hits they have, how many tickets they’ve sold and how many social media followers they have.  I’m dismayed not by their success, but by the business metrics they’re using to calculate what will always be only a fleeting, and diminishing, rate of return.  Art must not be commerce. Creation must not be commercial.  The Arts must never belong to the business school. The only thing of value you have as an Artist — and can control forever — is your belief in what you know is true and how that knowledge affects the quality of the work you produce falling into the long game beyond the grave.

Continue reading → Letter to a Young Artist: Popularity and Commerce Must Not Matter

Posted on

Write What You Don't Know: Ten Sentence Story #113

Jasmine sat next to her master’s knee and shared her wish to be a writer.

Continue reading → Write What You Don't Know: Ten Sentence Story #113

Posted on

Interactive Actors Acting Acted

The New York Times likes to consider itself the “newspaper of record” — and so when they place their foot on the throat of a production to test their muscle — theatre people the world over cringe and hope they don’t get hit with the tainted shrapnel.  The NYTimes recently promoted an interactive “lesson in movie acting” with 14 celebrities “emoting” on their website.

Continue reading → Interactive Actors Acting Acted

Posted on

Warning Against the Wasted Life

How easy is it to waste your life?  We work.  We ponder.  We rarely live.  We prefer complaining over action.  We want tears of understanding stead of a hand up out of a pit.

Continue reading → Warning Against the Wasted Life

Posted on

Melodrama is Not Right Drama

All good drama should convey the essence of the human condition and melodrama can never meet that mandate.  A righteous dramatic experience can be uplifting, serve as a warning against degraded morality, and every play must end with a proper catharsis. 

Continue reading → Melodrama is Not Right Drama