Scientologist Kids and Robert Prosky

So there's this great new website called Decider Chicago, which is wonderful for several reasons:

1) It is a city guide-type website from the people behind The Onion and The A.V. Club, two of my favorite media institutions.

2) I've been taken on by them as a freelancer, and will be writing occasional pieces for them, which will be a whole lot of fun. I'm really excited to start pitching and start writing.

However, whatever I write will have trouble competing, in weirdness and hilarity, with their most recent theatre article: an interview with the kids in the cast of A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant at A Red Orchid Theatre. The show is, as the title suggests, a Christmas pageant, starring actual preteens, that tells the story of scientology. It got a great response in New York, and if the show is anywhere near as funny as the article,  it's going to be great in Chicago too. I'm hoping to see it soon, and will let you know when I do. Whether or not you can make it to the show, do read the article--preteens having a serious discussion about religion is about as strange and hysterical a thing as you're going to encounter.

I also read with some sadness this week about the death of Robert Prosky, at age 77. Prosky was one of those consummate character actor--the New York Times obituary described him as having appeared in 220 plays, 38 movies, and hundreds of television shows--best known to theatre fans for his performance as Shelley Levene in the original Glengarry Glen Ross and to TV watchers as the desk sergeant in the later seasons of Hill Street Blues. I think that he epitomized the ideal of the working actor, and wish I'd gotten the chance to see him on stage.