ANDREW BISS

This week I had my play “Suburban Redux” selected for the final slot in the 2010/2011 season of a new theatre company in the Twin Cities. Naturally, I was very pleased by this development, but especially so in light of recent events…namely, the rather off-putting final panel discussion at last week’s Guild meeting (which I’ve been grousing about far too much and vow never to mention again). It was a timely reminder that if you write a play that someone enjoys and wants to produce, it really can be that simple and straightforward. We had no prior relationship, imbued with tacit understandings; it was simply a case of them enjoying the play I’d written and discovering that it fit very well with their mission and core values, so a request was made to stage it. How nice and uncomplicated. And they seem to be really terrific people to boot, so it’s a double plus. So, yes…sometimes it can be just about the work. Amen.

I’ve always been a big proponent of the Oxford comma. As a playwright, I believe you are a director of words. It’s your job to make the script convey exactly what you’re trying to say in exactly the way you’re trying to say it. Consequently, I continually strive to remove any ambiguity in my work and make my intentions quite clear and recognizable. If something’s ambiguous in something I’ve written it should only be that way because I’ve chosen it to be so. Anyway, while idly researching the Oxford (or serial) comma (Who does that? What a loser!), I found this gem on Wikipedia: Unresolved ambiguity The Times once published an unintentionally humorous description of a Peter Ustinov documentary, noting that "highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector". I’m so glad, in this instance, that they didn’t use one, as it would have denied me the wealth of pleasure I’ve derived from rereading this sentence many, m...

I received and email last week letting me know that the Dramatists Guild would be rolling into town next Sunday. Never having gone to one of these Guild town hall meetings (Philadelphia barely seems to register on their radar), I immediately emailed back to RSVP for two of the meetings, the first starting at 4:00pm. Only later did I realize that next Sunday I was planning on being in New York for the 4:00pm (and final) performance of "Cafe Grotesquerie" at the Red Room. Why does life do things like that? True, I can head up there on Saturday to see it, but the trains to NYC on Saturdays are usually bursting at the seams with all manner of humanity...and you all know what hell is.