Audience Experience

I'm happy to report that the performance of Thoreau/Twain: Brothers in the River for the Thoreau Society was a tremendous success. Brent Rinalli, Tammy Rose and Joel Hersh The main performers were Brent Rinalli, who has been in and around Concord giving lectures and historical interpreting as Thoreau for the past few years and Joel Hersh, a local actor known for his varied musical ability-played Twain. The main conceit of the show is that an Academic is trying to summon the spirits of the authors, to have them discuss a major, and underexplored parallel of their lives.  Both of them had a deep relationship with a brother on the river of their childhood, and both of them lost that brother to a sudden event. This happened before either of them began to write-but both found inspiration in their brothers and documented the influences strongly in their writings. The authors -who had never met in real life- get deep into conversation, about their lives, commonaliti...

Thoreau/Twain: Brothers on the River Masonic Hall,  58 Monument Sq,  Concord, MA Wednesday, July 10, 2019 7pm (immediately after the performance of "HDT's Heroic Journey") https://www.thoreausociety.org/annual-gathering#Wed "Be thou my Muse, my Brother--," A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers Both Henry David Thoreau and Samuel Clemens were by the deathbeds of their beloved brothers.  What happens when one brother is left on the river, and the other has to complete the rest of the journey in life alone? Come see Henry David Thoreau and Mark Twain meet under new and unusual circumstances; a meeting that never happened in history. Finally, both have a chance to recognize and reconcile their parallel journeys.  Primary texts of the play are taken directly from primary sources, including A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers & Life on the Mississippi, as well as from journals & letters from the authors themselv...

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Imagine a writer, thinking herself into insanity. Trying one thing after another-too hot, too cold. Waiting until she can find the thing that is Just Right: "Okay, so at one point after college, I realized I was a Writer-I had always identified myself as one, always did research and readings, kept a journal, etc-but I realized I hadn't WRITTEN. So I literally began at my beginning. I started doing Blogs. And Plays. And Short Stories. TV Pilots, Novels. And lately, I've also started doing Satire.  Short pieces which focus on humor, on a good idea that gets developed-and also gets workshopped among you and your closest writing partners. New York has hosted several of my pieces, and I've been proud to help others bring theirs forward (helping to produce is helping to pay it forward in your own "work") Everything feels natural to each of the medium (media), but it's about persistence.  And if something is not working, not breaking through, I'm ...

For the first evening of this  2019 Edition of the Annual Gathering of Thoreauvian Appreciators  my play, THOREAU/TWAIN: Brothers of The River will be performed. I am immensely proud to be presenting my work to such an excellent group of scholars, enthusiasts, teachers, environmentalists, historians, professors-AND this year's focus will be encouraging the ENGINEERS to come out in full force. Therefore, not ONLY am I excited to be able to do research on both Thoreau and Twain, but also to focus on the parts of their lives which reflect their interest in innovation, technology and how things get put together. Hint: This will involve HDT's work on developing a new formula for a graphite pencil, AND Twain's enthusiasm for a printing machine known as the Paige Compositor. Which will survive the ultimate test of engineering?

Of all the big plays of the moment, no play does a better homage to the spirit of the tale than Network-currently starring Bryan Cranston.  It’s a perfect American story-created in England. The surrounding immersive media is just the beginning.  The line “I’m Mad as Hell” is presented perfectly the first time, and then highlighted as a regular battle cry-you wonder if this is made from a movie from the 1970’s (it was) or if it was written tomorrow. It takes too much of the insanity of the media-centric world to too many logical conclusions. It plays with your mind over and over, as if media is just an extended magic trick-constantly diverting your attention. For this play, it’s worth it to pay attention.