Monday, June 15, 2009

But what do I know?

So Ellen Fairey's Graceland, to which I had a positive but not overwhelmed reaction has turned into a runaway hit. So much so that Profiles Theatre has extended its run by an amazing seven weeks. (Cheryl Graeff will be filling in for original star Brenda Barrie during the extension.)

Fairey is clearly a playwright to watch, and even though this show didn't excite me as much as it did some other critics and audience members, I'm excited to see her next show--and any original play doing this well is always great news!

On a completely different note: has anyone noticed that a huge number of "turn off your cell phone" curtain speeches these days include some variation on the "turn off your pager if you're stuck in 1995" joke? Pagers haven't been current for years, yet it's just in the past season or so that that joke has been everywhere. Hey, theatres? It was funny the first time around, but maybe a new attempt to liven up that speech would be in order? Thanks.

1 comment:

Mr. K said...

I feel like they've been making that joke at iO for the past two or three years (at least). Maybe the other theatres saw it and thought, ooh, that's clever. And it just escalated from there.