Media Darling

As we swing into the last days and performances of Gemini CollisionWorks' month at The Brick, some final media attention has appeared, which is always appreciated, no matter where and when (well, not really, but close enough).

A nice blurb at Gothamist, which may not linger there forever, so I'll reprint it here for archival purposes:

When future theater historians look back on underground auteur Ian W. Hill, they may well wonder, "Was this one man or one hundred?" Hill's month-long takeover of Williamsburg's Brick Theater – in which he's directing, performing, producing and probably simultaneously running lights and selling tickets for three productions (two of which he also wrote) – ends this weekend. Tonight is Everything Must Go (Invisible Republic #2), a play "in dance and fragmented businesspeak. A day in the life of 11 people working in an advertising agency as they toil on a major new automobile account, interspersed with backbiting, backstabbing, coffee breaks, office romances, motivational lectures, afternoon slumps, and a Mephistophelian boss who has his eye on a beautiful female Faust of an intern." Plus singing! – John Del Signore

"Was this one man or one hundred?"

One. Just one. One very VERY tired one.

Plus a Berit. One (1) Official Berit™ (several people have told me they want a Berit™, but I seem to have the only one).

Well, it's nice, and pretty much on the money (except, "singing?"- there's no singing in the show . . .). Also, of course I don't run lights - that's Berit™'s job - just projections for Spell and I only occasionally sell tickets when I can't get someone else.

Ah, I just found the other bit of press online - I thought it was only in the print edition of the Williamsburg Courier. Yeesh, that's the most unflattering photo of me ever in print . . . it looked bad enough in the print version but clearer and online? Yuck. Ladies and gentlemen, there he is, Mr. Pigmeat Markham. At least the first two paragraphs kinda explain WHY I look so sweaty and haggard (if you make the connection).

Yup, this is "A 'Hill' of a Time at The Brick in August." {sigh} Well, it's a nice piece that gets the facts pretty much right - though once again an article implies I was brought up by my dad in NYC when I tried to make it clear I'm from Cos Cob, CT and spent just weekends in the City (actually, it kinda mixes facts in a confusing way there - which may not be the writer's fault but an editor's - that's how it's happened before). Sorry, Mom.

And I should really stop being so hard on writers/editors using my last name in silly ways in headlines -- I remember writing for my school newspaper, and it's true, there NEVER seems to be a good headline for anything and you always make up something involving a name just to have something to put there, even if you're not happy with it.

It's not as bad as the critic who panned an evening of T.S. Eliot plays directed by myself and Edward Einhorn, who closed the review with a strange, non-sequitur comment on Edward's last name (about how it's German for "unicorn"). We were puzzled by the strange comment, until I went back and looked at the critic's other reviews and saw that he did this repeatedly when he had no way "out" of a review - find someone in the company with a last name he could make a multi-lingual pun out of, and then do it in a way that reflected his like or dislike of the show, no matter how forced it was. Pathetic. Really, really pathetic.

Sometimes the noun of a last name can be fun - I hung out in school a few times with a bunch of friends whose last names were all nouns or adjectives, and I had the most "normal" one - David Gay, Charles Virgin, Mike Little (who at 16 years old was 6'5", burly, and massively bearded), and Mike Newsom (which didn't really count, but you could elide it enough to sound like "nuisance" if you wanted). So when we were together (or in various combos) we could introduce ourselves like, "He's Gay, he's a Virgin, he's Little, I'm a Hill, and he's a New-s-s-m . . ." I think on one occasion James Wise was there and got thrown into the mix.

Chuck Virgin started that, I think. Funny guy. Must have run in his family - his parents named his sister "Mary." Really.

Anyway, what's in a name?

Just for fun, here's some more videos behind a cut - these are all leftovers from a post I made up for B(rick)log about influences, from the band Negativland or from Frank Zappa. These didn't fit the post, but I like 'em, so here they are:

( There's no business like . . . )

Enjoy.

COLLISIONWORKING VII: - postscript

Final post in connection with the three August shows is up at The Brick's blog, B(rick)log.

The post itself is HERE.

Primarily, as mentioned in the previous post here, about influences, and containing several videos from Frank Zappa, Ernie Kovacs, and Negativland, and a mention of Harvey Kurtzman.

Don't play ball.