See! Even professional theater critics blog using TMI

Terry Teachout, describing a night in Cleveland with his wife:

As I mentioned the other day, Mrs. T and I are spending the week in Cleveland, seeing shows and hitting museums. We are, amazingly enough, quartered in a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, about which much more later. Unfortunately--or not--the house in question is Web-unfriendly, so any blogging I do this week beyond the routine and regular almanac entries, weekly video, and theater-related postings will be catch as catch can.

I say "or not" because Mrs. T and I are greatly looking forward to having a bit of time to ourselves. We were married a year ago tomorrow, and we'll be celebrating our first anniversary by seeing Noises Off, the funniest play ever written, at the Cleveland Play House, having what I hope will be a very nice dinner, and reveling in the always-special experience of spending the night with Frank Lloyd Wright. We'd just as soon not invite anyone else over, if you know what I mean.

I guess that's what you do in Cleveland while waiting for the Ikea to arrive. Brings a whole new meeting to his blog's title.

Alana Taylor died for new media's sins

Let's hope she's resurrected with one of the many new media jobs she will be offered.

In case you haven't been following the story, Alana Taylor has been at the center of a prime recent controversy that has exposed the generational divide between purveyors of old and new media. Alana is a junior at NYU journalism school and blogger on the social media blog Mashable. She posted on PBS's MediaShift blog about how much old media was still left in her supposed New Media class, and how she was shocked to be the only blogger in the class. When I first read the post, I find it to be prescient and entirely benign. She didn't swear at her professor, nor did she even mention the professor by name. Nonetheless, a relatively massive controversy ensued. She was banned from blogging on the class by her professor, and received tons of hate mail (probably by the same people who lambaste the internet for allowing more hateful rhetoric). She also received a heroine's welcome among some newer media types, and was offered multiple media jobs in a time when few are being offered to anyone.

Some will inevitably see this as social climbing, but as a member of Taylor's generation, I'm pretty sure Taylor didn't write the post to start controversy. She probably simply meant to be informative, as the post was to eyes tuned into this discussion. Instead, the controversy was started by the old media types who hate this sort of thing. Now, she's a hero of the blogosphere, and her point has been proven. As print media journalists look to be collecting welfare checks sooner or later, Taylor already has them beat in the job search.

I was surprised, however, to find that the forum posts on Mediabistro were almost unilaterally against Taylor. I figured on an internet forum there would be at some supporting her, but the forums on Mediabistro are counterintuitiely dominated by old media types. The paranoid in me was wondering whether this was a Lee Siegel situation; I didn't post that after seeing that the posters all had multiple posts under their belts (It would have just validated the old media types, anyway.) Here's what I did end up saying:

I personally am shocked by the uniformity of the response on this discussion board, and this uniformity seems completely out of character for a website dedicated seriously thinking about the media. I am a member Taylor's generation (and I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who's posted so far who is), and from my perspective, what she has done is completely innocuous to the NYU teacher and a fair assessment of where j-school stands.

I was seriously considering J-School after graduation, but everyone who I spoke to said don't go. Most of the responses I got not only mentioned the lack of career doors that J-School would open, but also made the point that going to J-school may actually hurt me in the media job hunt, as publications would see me as a privileged kid looking to pay for media connections.

As someone who's just entered the media profession, one of my greatest strengths is my savviness with new media (I'm on at least 10 social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, and Digg), and that in part is what landed me my first job. At the same time, there are some older editors who actively hate any and all new media, and would not hire me at all even though they probably need someone like me to stay solvent over the next two years.

The single biggest generational gap between my generation and the ones before me is what we consider private information. Blogging on the details of a class seems completely innocent to people under the age of 25, as would posting a picture of a social gathering on Facebook or publicly blogging about personal relationships (even if in vague terms). To those over 40, however, blogging about the details of the class is an incredibly invasive and outrageous act, which explains most of the subsequent controversy. I am as baffled as to why there is a controversy as I'm sure older j-school professors would be baffled as to why I don't understand.

At the same time, I think Taylor was right to point out just how overhyped our generation's supposed investment in media can be. The vast majority of my friends are not on twitter, and a significant number haven't updated their Facebook profiles in months or years (and I'm probably more likely to have friends who twitter, considering that I flock to people interested in the media). I agree that people need to know how to write, and I've worked hard to keep up my grammar and clarity in an age of instant publishing. But there is a difference between good blogging and good newspaper and magazine writing, and the differences between them become especially pronounced over the generational divide. That there still exists an institution where people pay upwards of $40,000 a year to become educated on media practices that are at least 20 years out of date is particularly pathetic, especially considering that most of the old fogeys who rigidly adhere to those practices will be out of a job soon.

Of course, I started that post with a minor grammar mistake (I forgot commas, boo hoo), so some posters will dismiss me outright. Hopefully enough people will get the point.

Mashable has an excellent (if biased) summary of the brou-ha-ha.

Theater Review (NYC): Quickening

If not for Juno, Knocked Up, and Jamie-Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin having already made one of a woman's most private matters a subject acceptable for public gossip, Rebecca Tourino’s play would be unnecessary, maybe even too invasive. Ten years ago, I would not have felt comfortable reviewing Quickening, which gives an inside look at a Planned Parenthood center in Portland, Oregon. It’s not a matter of worrying about being politically correct; it’s more that, as a man, there’s simply no way for me to fully understand the experience, and it's not worth pretending to try. The best I can do is judge Quickening from a theatrical standpoint. From that end, I can safely say Tourino shows some significant storytelling skill and more than a little bravery for Albertine Theatre's first production.

Quickening spares no mundane detail in showing the realities of modern-day abortion in an age when they often get overlooked. It was these details that caused Juno MacGuff to decide to deliver her baby; as frivolous as some saw that justification in Juno, the mundane and logistic issues are some of the biggest roadblocks facing the characters of Quickening. Be it the three-hour drive from the sticks (and waiting even longer for the doctor to show), or the hunger from not being able to eat before surgery, there are more hurdles to overcome in having an abortion than just political or moral stances. Left unspoken for the most part is the backdrop of the health insurance crisis, the safety concerns presented by Army of God types, and the irresponsibility of the fathers when marriage is not involved. Of course, the moral considerations are the ones that last the longest, and we can immediately see changes in the mindsets in all four characters after they—hold your breath—all end up going through with the procedure.

In keeping with the gritty, realistic theme, Tourino has crafted a remarkably complementary, emotionally affecting, and instantly relatable cast of characters. They include a British academic who sees herself as above going to a clinic, a coquettish (or in colloquial terms, slutty) Latin girl with deceptive book smarts, a Catholic mother of two, and a recent college grad, proud (however foolishly) to be making her first decision as a woman. The intelligence of the characters—socially and emotionally as well as intellectually—shifts constantly, depending on the moment and on the character. While the play’s dialogue can get a little too poetic at points, Quickening never sees its characters lose their charms or devolve into archetypes. These realistic characterizations are crucial to Quickening; the more audience members can draw parallels to people they know, the easier it is to admit that the realities of abortion are ever-present in society, but get lost behind the more theoretical issues.

Tourino’s grasp of her characters is on best display when they’re all in the same room; it’s only natural that the Lord of the Flies-like nature of the waiting room, policed by a recovered alcoholic, lesbian nurse, is where the play becomes most captivating. Still, Tourino was right not to let that room give the exclusive picture of the situation. Her dips into the characters’ back stories, while not as immediately attention-grabbing, form the support around the foundation of waiting room scenes. The play is at least half an hour too long, and Quickening could have easily done better by cutting a few backstory scenes (and all of the overlapping dialogue scenes, which take away from the realism anyway). But while the play may languish at points, the core of a skillfully-crafted narrative is most definitely in place.

With all the obstacles facing these women in their choice, it’s a wonder than anyone would go through with the procedure, let alone the one in four American women who have had an abortion (though that rate has dramatically declined over the past decade). But while the play accurately if depressingly sees privacy as a fading priority, the major theme Quickening aims for is in its tag line: “Sometime a choice can mean the beginning of a new life. Yours.” In pursuit of that goal, the play doesn't really find time to take up the longer-term implications of having an abortion. But at the very least, Quickening exposes the reality behind one of the country’s most controversial topics, a reality people rarely dare to see unless they are forced. That’s a significant enough accomplishment in its own right.

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Quickening, written and directed by Rebecca Tourino. Starring Michelle Rene Cowin (Round Cheecks), Zach Fletcher (Man), Mia Morland (Crossword), Kjirsten Riccardi (Bright Eyes), Amanda Sayles (Ankle Socks), and Stephanie Staes (Nurse).

Presented by Albertine Theatre at Center Stage, 48 W. 21st St., NYC. Sept. 17-28. Wed.-Sun., 8 p.m. For tickets call (212) 352-3101 or (866) 811-4111 or visit Theatermania.

This review was originally published on Blogcritics.