ANDREW BISS

There’s been much talk in the theatre blogging community of late extolling the virtues of new forms of theatre, such as the one-on-one intimate performance piece (“ You Me Bum Bum Train ” at the Barbican and the “ One-On-One Festival ” at BAC are two good examples); site-specific theatre that has left the notion of the auditorium behind and pops up anywhere and everywhere that feels right (hotel rooms, empty buildings, public toilets, etc.); and theatre that emphasizes the “new” in terms of form and presentation over everything else. This is all well and good. In fact, it’s great. Without innovation and experimentation we would find a hardening of the arteries that would lead to a deadening stagnation to the art form as a whole, and so a constant reexamination of what we do and how we do it helps to keep theatre fresh, relevant and alive. However, there appears to be a pervading sense of “out with the old, in with the new” amidst all this chatter, which makes me feel a little uncomfort...

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...