LA Stage Blog - Beta

We’ve heard the quote before. Roberto Benigni shouted it from the stage with childlike exuberance when he won his best actor Oscar for “Life is Beautiful”. It’s a notion that gets bandied about all over the world and down through the ages. The Gift of Poverty.
But what the hell does it really mean?

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I keep trying to restrain myself from “going rogue” here at Bitter Lemons.  In the wake of what happened last night, it’s been difficult.  But I think this falls under the category of “theatricality” so I figure I’m in the neighborhood of what this site is all about.
So.  Know how I can tell the [...]

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A tremendous and always-relevant question posed by Daniel Paul Wilson in this LA Stage Blog post:
http://www.lastageblog.com/2008/09/12/salary.
It was originally posted by the Director’s Lab West. The heart of Daniel’s piece can be summarized in this paragraph from his post:
“I guess what I am saying is that all this stuff we’ve been chatting about here - [...]

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Although I still subscribe to the print edition of the LA Times, that paper seems to get worse by the day. This year they fired their dance critic. They buried their book review and opinion sections, not to mention the Guide of LA Cultural happenings, relegating their best pieces of journalism to the back pages.

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Just a quick note about the Dave Depino Memorial at the Odyssey last week.  Again, I didn’t know him that well, but well enough, and judging by the love and respect from the 50+ people there - many of them fellow critics - Dave was a “Critics Choice” kind of guy. I heartily [...]

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Maybe we should re-imagine the profession of the critic?
Starting off by perhaps calling them “Advocates” or “Arts Advocates” rather than “reviewers” or “critics”?  I realize there’s a gay magazine (or a religious magazine not sure which) called the Advocate - so they may have already co-opted the word “advocate”.  I remember I fought my gay [...]

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