Two Non-Terrible Theater Promo Videos

The inimitable Howard Sherman pointed out today that theater companies are about a decade behind when it comes to using Internet video to promote their show. Unasked-for interviews with cast and crew, slideshows of production stills, and gruesomely tedious humor videos are, sadly the norm for this kind of thing. It really should be no surprise that theater people don't always get video. If they did, they would be working in Hollywood, making grown-up money. But, Sherman points out, those who are lost in front of an editing bay should really hire someone who knows what they're doing.

I liked this part:

Let me digress for a corollary story. In the mid-1980s, when I started working professionally, every company heard that they needed to get into “desktop publishing,” a means by which they could create all kinds of printed materials without resorting to waxing machines, t-squares and razor blades to create print-ready mechanicals. All they needed was one of those snazzy new Macintosh computers (PCs were woefully behind in this area) and a piece of software called Pagemaker. The result was, for a few years, a rash of the worst-designed documents you’ve ever seen. What no one seemed to catch on to was that desktop publishing was simply a new set of tools – you still needed a designer to operate it.

I can think of two genuinely clever theater promo videos. Just two! And I watch lots of videos—they're a premier way of using the Internet to avoid doing actual work. The first is from earlier this year, when Qui Nguyen's Agent G was playing at the MaYi Theater Company. Qui and the Vampire Cowboys did a series of videos showing Qui annoying the hell out of David Henry Hwang. They were short, funny, and the last one featured the kind of excellent violence for which I so love Qui's work.

The FINALE EPISODE of DHH vs. QN. If you didn't catch it at the show, here is it for your viewing pleasure.

See? Violence! Wow!

Even better were the widely circulated videos of David Furr and Santino Fontana, of Roundabout's 2011 production of The Importance of Being Earnest, reading quotes from the Jersey Shore in costume and in character. You've probably seen it before. It's worth watching again.

http://www.playbill.com/video Presented by "The Importance of Being Earnest" on Broadway at Roundabout Theatre Company. What if the characters of Broadway's "The Importance of Being Earnest" traveled through a time warp and woke up on the beach with Snooki, The Situation and the rest of the gang of MTV's "Jersey Shore"?

So why did the second video draw over a million views, when Qui's didn't crack 1,000? Well, as funny as the sight of Hwang on Nguyen violence is, it's funny only to a segment of the theatergoing population—which means an infinitesimal sliver of the population at large. Just because your video isn't terrible doesn't mean anyone will watch it. The viewer needs a reason not just to laugh, not just to remember it, but to force his girlfriend, landlord or cat to share in the fun. So, to sum up:

Angry playwrights = funny. 

Fancy people saying dirty things in spiffy costumes = gold.

News Broke; They Fixed It: 'The Daily Show's' Early Days

Last night, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert did a panel together on what appears to be a very comfy living room set. Third Beat has a recap of the talk, but the highlight is definitely Jon Stewart's recollection of the Daily Show's rather ugly early years. I remember when the Daily Show premiered. As a kid, I liked Craig Kilborn's silly hair and his slightly silly Five Questions, and even though I'm sure that era of the show doesn't hold up, I've always wondered why Stewart & co. never mention The Host What Came Before. Here's why:

“I had, before taking [the job], some conversations with the powers that be there about the direction I thought we could move the show…. I wanted it to be satirical in the classic sense of the word, not the Spy magazine sense of the word where you just add adjectives like ‘pepperpot’,” he said.
When said when he met with the writing staff the month prior to taking over the show, he “got the impression that that had been discussed,” and he was met with strong resistance.
“I walk in the door, into a room with the writers and producers, and the first thing they say is ‘this isn’t some MTV bullshit’…. And then I was told not to change the jokes or improvise,” he said.
He immediately phoned his agent, James Dixon, telling him to “get me the fuck out of this. These people are insane.” 

Also remarkable is the link to a 2001 interview where Stephen Colbert did a (whiteface) impersonation of scheduled guest Al Sharpton, who had canceled at the last minute. I always like seeing clips or pictures from the show's early days, nearly as much as I enjoyed Colbert's recently surfaced Rube Goldberg report from 1997. They're so skinny! Their timing is so terrible! Their set is so cheap!

A Question For Readers———"WTF?"

Yesterday, when the only thing I posted was a link to another site where I'd written a half-baked essay about How I Met Your Mother, was Astor Place Riot's most popular day ever. What does this mean? What does it mean?!!

I have no idea.

You probably don't know this, because the layout of this blog is sort of goofy, but you can comment on these posts. See those tiny buttons in the bottom left of the post? The really, really tiny ones? The speech bubble one lets you comment. So if you're the commenting type, and for the sake of your loved ones I hope you are not, I'd love to know if you have any insight to why the site did so well yesterday.

Was it because I posted about an argument with another blog? Was it because you love coming here only to be sent to another, better website? Does this mean I should just write about How I Met Your Mother all the fucking time?

Any thoughts are appreciated. You can always email me too. (See sidebar at right.) If nobody wants to read anything but crazed rants about CBS comedies, well, I can oblige. I'm a whore for you people. And like off-brand Oreos, I'm super cheap.

In Which I Unfairly Rip On A Totally Whatever Show

I've spent the last couple of months trying very hard not to write a rant about How I Met Your Mother. No one cares about that show. Even people who like it only sort of care. I've been trying hard to keep my feelings at bay, but no. They burst out, in an insane, sloppily-edited rant over at Bullett. 

Yep. I’m talking about Ted Mosby, superschmuck.
I’m not going to get too deep into how unbearable the show’s narrator and hero is. Anyone who’s seen the pilot knows that this brain-dead mediocrity’s search for The One got tiresome after 22 minutes, nevermind nearly 4,000 of them. I used to think that the only way to watch this show was to ignore the man at the center, to forget the framing story of an aged dweeb’s rambling attempt to explain to his children how they were conceived, and focus on the comparatively delightful supporting cast—Willow from Buffy, Nick from Freaks and Geeks, and Doogie Howser. But I’m here today to tell you that that’s wrong. You can’t watch How I Met Your Mother without focusing on Ted. Like a mutilated cat, he’s impossible to stop staring at. The only way to watch this show that I and nine million others are, for some reason, still watching is to focus on his awfulness, and accept one miraculous truth.
Ted Mosby is a psychopath.

Read on if you dare.

Interestingly, the article got picked up by Meaghen Hale, over at TV Consultants, who responded to my unbalanced jabbering with a very reasonable, very sane response. 

Ted is romantic and sentimental. He makes grand gestures. He puts his heart on the line. He breaks into Robin’s apartment to serenade her with a cerulean symphony.
Maybe it is insane—but not in the way you think.
Ted is possessed by the insanity of love.
Hear me out. There is a certain point where the cost of love seems to outweigh the benefit. You have to put yourself out there. You have to wait. You have to try and fail, sometimes with a lot of people. You have to take a risk on someone. You have to be vulnerable. You have to give yourself fully and receive wholeheartedly. You have to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things.

Fair point, Meaghen! One thing, though—you say that Ted's "eidetic memory" is evidence of his sanity. I think it's the exact opposite. No one can tell such vivid stories accurately. Either he's embellishing the narrative to make himself the hero and not the villain, or the whole story has been fabricated by his twisted, broken mind. His memory isn't eidetic—it's hallucinatory.

Or it's just a totally pleasant TV show that I maybe shouldn't make such a big deal about. That could be it too.