Did 30 Rock just refer to the University of Chicago Scav Hunt?

Image via WikipediaSo with Tina Fey's strong Chicago roots (which are relayed in her Liz Lemon 30 Rock character), and considering the strong Chicago roots of Fey via Second City, could this be the closest to a Scav Hunt reference network television will ever get?


There isn't quite as strong of a University of Chicago/Second City connection anymore, but unless they're referring to a clearly inferior hipster North Side "all-night Scavenger Hunt," I'm inclined to take this as a win.

Chicago restaurateurs: lover of puns

Surprisingly, I don't mean "University of Chicago restaurateurs" [Chicago Tribune]

Hipster riots then and now

Next week will be the 40th anniversary of the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Right before that ignoble anniversary, we get word of another riot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. On one level, the socioeconomic tensions of the Williamsburg riot are the same as forty years ago. In both cases, young, privileged leftists were acting weird and unpredictably, which prompted the brutality from a blue-collar, lower class police force of the same age who couldn't understand why anyone would act that way.

The difference, however, is the purpose behind the two events. In 1968, there was an unpopular, pointless war, and even the weirdest of the radicals were politically driven in their weirdness. Today, we're in the same kind of war, and the purpose of the event that spurned a riot was to dress like pandas and be crazy.

Now can you see why I hate irony?

HuffPo Chicago reporting on local sports

Are they going to start with the weather now too? [Huffington Post]

Connecting New York and Chicago: A Four Year Theatrical Odyssey

(This article was originally posted on blogcritics.org)

On Monday, below the fold on the front page of the New York Times Arts section was a review of Superior Doughnuts at the Steppenwolf Theatre. It would make sense that the review was featured this prominently; it was Tracy Letts' first play since August: Osage County won just about every theatrical award known to man.

Charles Isherwood's review of the new play was decidedly mixed, cautiously recommending the play despite considering it "insubstantial and sweet, with virtually no nutritional value" (for what it's worth, Isherwood was not a fan of Letts' more risqué pre-August work such as Killer Joe and Bug). But what the review actually said was insubstantial. What was more important was that the New York Times, the paper of record, particularly for the theater press, was strongly emphasizing a play from Chicago in the same position it normally places Broadway or prominent off-Broadway plays. That would have been virtually impossible four years ago.

When I was considering colleges, I knew I needed to have theater in my life. My trust in Chicago theater was built not by front page reviews of individual shows, but by annual features about Chicago's lively theater scene that usually crammed 20 plays into 1000 words. When I got to Chicago, I finally saw some of those plays that had previously been nothing more than paragraphs in my mind. My first plays in Chicago were the Second City revue Red Scare, the Neo-Futurists' legendary Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, a production of Equus by the Hypocrites Theatre Company, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Court Theatre. I would later build connections at all four of those theater companies.

I quickly realized that compared to New York, the production values were laughable, especially in some of the smaller theaters. Yet, I also learned that theater need not follow the Broadway, Off-Broadway, and all-the-rest model. In Chicago, anyone can put on a play at virtually any time, be it in a squatters residence in Pilsen that's lucky to get six people a night, a converted art gallery where opening night is canceled because of paint fumes, or in an early 20th century lakeside parlor with the worst acoustics imaginable.

None of this should sound unfamiliar to anyone conversant with either or both cities' theater cultures. Yet, as those who have followed American theater over the past year or so know, the disparity between the two is shrinking. Chicago paradoxically used to be the most segregated major segment of American theater. While its grassroots model of theater was an inspiration, there was also virtually no interaction between Chicago theater and the rest of America. Today, all you need to do is look at some of the more heralded productions in New York of late (August, Orson's Shadow, The Adding Machine, the plays of Chicago native Sarah Ruhl), to see that Chicago's role in American theater is as prominent as it has been since the late 70s and early 80s, when Goodman Theatre product David Mamet and the Steppenwolf both first emerged.

It's not just a one-way relationship either. Most successful New York productions are now invariably given major treatment in Chicago. True, most transfers have been immense disappointments (the worst possibly being the Steppenwolf's version of The Pillowman, which featured none other than Tracy Letts and Jim True-Frost in its cast). In other cases, however, the Chicago productions did more with less than would ever be possible in New York theater. My frustration at missing the Broadway revival of Brian Friel's Faith Healer was alleviated by a superb production of the play by Uma Productions. Not only did that production feature a nearly flawless if less-heralded cast, it also made the experience more real by directing you to the patched-together basement space—like the space where a "real" faith healer would perform.

In some cases, Chicago performed what equates to a miracle in the theatrical world: reviving the fortunes of a play that failed on its first run in New York City. InFusion Theatre Company's production of Kate Robin's Intrigue with Faye featured a sparser set and a markedly less famous cast, but its actors had something that Benjamin Bratt and Julianna Margulies lacked: chemistry.

In the summer of 2006, Wicked's run on Broadway in Chicago had reached what was supposed to be its closing point. Its producers then decided to forgo the bigger media market in Los Angeles and stay in Chicago because of the show's overwhelming popularity. Broadway in Chicago was finally a success. This fact had many Chicago theater enthusiasts, myself included, in a frenzy. The fear was that this would create a top-down theater model like New York and kill the grassroots spirit of Chicago. That fear ignored the fact that when you can rent a theater space for under $1000 a month, anything can happen with the right people. It's that kind of open-mindedness that has blasted Chicago into New York's staler theater scene, and has seen both cities reap the rewards.

There's still no place like New York for American theater. Less than 48 hours after graduating from the University of Chicago, I found myself attending Ensemble Studio Theater's one-act Marathon, with work by playwrights no less prominent than Neil LaBute and actors whose credentials topped those found in most elite Chicago theater companies. And this was in a theater on the second floor across from the Police Athletic League and hidden behind a virtually abandoned car repair shop in Hell's Kitchen.

From whichever perspective you take, however, the creation of even the slightest cultural diffusion between the two scenes has dramatically improved both cities—and American theater in general. Some New York theatergoers seem impressed by how many good plays are coming from Chicago. I'm more impressed by how good American theater has gotten overall, whichever world I was considering at the time.

A lot happened in one day

It's by no means a coincidence that my first weekday after finishing classes in the college is my most successful day here at Tynan's Anger. A combination of Gerard Butler fangirls and appealing to Will Leitch's schadenfreude to all things Cubs have created unprecedented traffic to this site. While I imagine the bounce rate will be enormous, hopefully those of you who stick around will find this here blog, the only place to get sports, theater, and everything in between in one blog, to your liking. I'm off to deal with my real life for an evening, but until then, here are some things I didn't get to today.

• MSG is making a push for the NCAA tourney after it renovates in 2012 (note how the MSG renovation lines up so neatly with the Mayan apocalypse). I'm opposed to it, if for no other reason than the Dolans don't need another thing to fuck up.
• With all due respect to Gene Wojciechowski, while Chicago certainly has plenty of interesting sports things going on right now, it's not quite on the level of golden thongs on 38 year old men, popcorn-pushing GM's who declare the rights of black men to call women bitches, a Super Bowl title, an epic September collapse, and a hockey player posing as an ice dancer all occurring within 12 months of each other (with the $27 million man being caught with a prostitute in Toronto narrowly missing the cut). New York even pulled a surprise upset over Illinois in the lets see how fast our governor resigns contest.
  
• Wow Camp Tiger Claw is without a doubt one of Deadspin's greatest commenters, I may never forgive him for this gratuitous Joba nipple ring shot.
• Finally, if you are living in New York right now (which I will be doing once again in 1 week's time) you may in fact have herpes, as may many of your friends. 1 in 4 is a rather high ratio, though the racial and sexual divide is a big part of it. If the rumors are true about Derek Jeter, I bet he uses a significantly less entertaining name than Ron Mexico.
  

Person Gene Wojciechowski

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Searching for Joe Papp

Tell me if this doesn't sound like an ideal artistic director of a New York theater to you:

Give me an annual budget of $5 million, all my downtown contacts and see if I don’t make a splash. I’d program a season of Anne Washburn, Young Jean Lee, Annie Baker and Will Eno. Plus—eventually—younger, unproduced playwrights who landed on my desk. (The more violent and obscene, the better.) Foreign writers, too, in fresh translations. Every first Monday I’d throw a free play reading with an open bar. In the summer, I’d open the doors for a two-month workshop by a favored company—Radiohole, the Debate Society or Nature Theater of Oklahoma—ending in a massive celebration. The advertising would be slick and bold, the tickets cheap, the parties raucous and the shows calculated to enrage, excite and astound. For the first five years, I would not accept any subscriber over the age of 35. I’d have blogs, press conferences, preshow talks and fat souvenir programs. I’d constantly bombard the media with video and op-ed pieces tied to our shows—when I wasn’t hosting a kick-ass party.

Time Out New York editor David Cole, who devised this dream scenario, dismissed it as damn near impossibly in today's theater culture, where companies are strained by subscriber demands, critical scorn, raising ticket and rent prices, and the decline in NEA funding. Cole then turned to asking where the next theatrical impresario in the mold of Joe Papp could be found, and preferably one who was slightly less of a douche. It's worth noting that exciting, dangerous theater is somewhat lacking in the U.S., political or otherwise. What I should note is that Chicago, with its smaller real estate prices and less subscription-based audiences, has the potential to support Cole's dream theater, but so far have yet to push quite hard enough.