ANDREW BISS

It can be an elusive thing to a writer. Sometimes painfully so. I’ve been fortunate of late, in that I haven’t had to struggle (beg, plead, make pacts with supreme beings whose very existence I seriously question) to find it. We’ve certainly had our ups and downs over the years, not to mention periods of downright estrangement. But somehow, sooner or later, we’ve always managed to reconnect and rediscover what it was that brought us together in the first place. Like a good friend, you sometimes may not see them for quite a while, but when you do, it’s just as it was before – and the time in between evaporates. When inspiration is not around, however, it can be devilishly hard to seek it out. Of course, you can always sit and patiently wait in the hope that it shows up. Or you can try to cajole it out from wherever it’s hiding. I have a number of methods for doing this (besides the tantrum-like approaches mentioned above, which tend to be a last resort prior to a full-blown existential ...

I currently have a play in production, put on by a great group of theatre practitioners based in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. Can I say that again? The Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. I don’t know why, but I really like the way that sounds. Anyway, I really wish I could get over there to see it, but at an almost six hour drive from here on highways that seem to be increasingly littered with lunatic drivers, I’d probably never survive the journey. Not to mention that I’m still recovering (in the nastiest way) from a bout of the flu (thanks to my trusty flu shot last week). So here’s to all the terrific folks at the Independent Theatre Collective…in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia…break legs, guys!

I was very sad to hear of the passing of Tony Curtis last week. Another loss from an ever-dwindling pool of movie stars of the Golden Age. I was, however, further saddened when I read an interview with him from a few years back in which he lamented the fact that he’d not done the sort of important work he felt he should have during his career, and that he felt the studios had never given him his due in casting him in such films. I found this rather sad for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because it smacks of a certain sense of entitlement, which is an unappealing trait. I understand that he came from a time when the studios would groom, guide, and essentially have total control over your career, but I wonder how hard he really tried to get those weightier roles that he thought should have been his. Then, as now, big names still had to fight for certain roles, no matter how popular they were at the box office. If they weren’t considered right for the part they had to prove it. And so I co...