Tynan's Anger

You Can't Compete With Cathy Santoni

2009-07-05T12:30:00.001-04:00

No new post, but with Chicago rock 'n' roll in the news with Pitchfork and Lolla on the horizon, I thought it high time to republish a post from my old blog about one of the better local bands I encountered in Chicago*:The Cathy Santonies: University of Chicago Riot Grrls(November 6, 2007)One of my friends at this school once remarked that his brother decided not to apply to the University of

Taking a break for a bit

2009-06-08T17:39:00.003-04:00

Image via WikipediaTo paraphrase my recent tweet: Blogging is easy for me; it's the real life thing that I find hard.Asa result, I am going on an indefinite hiatus from this blog, Ho pefully, circumstances in my life will make my defintion of "hiatus" closer to M.I.A.'s definition of "hiatus" than, say, Sleater-Kinney's. I shall only return when I am able to blog more effectively. I love you all

Fun times at the Guthrie

2009-05-29T11:47:00.003-04:00

Image via WikipediaSo Tony Kushner a world-class playwright, wants the chance to develop a play like any workshop theater playwright can. He wants to do it at a major regional theater, in order to build up for the Broadway debut it deserves. The Guthrie mishandles its press release to critics. Some critics are already so pissed at the Guthrie that they will take it inevitably out on Kushner and

Brain Detox Friday: Norm MacDonald just calls 'em as he sees 'em

2009-05-22T15:33:00.000-04:00

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeIn a perfect world, Friday would be the day we stop worrying, shut off our brains, and seek the rest and relaxation we sorely need. Unfortunately, in today's world, we're using too busy getting drunk, trying to get laid, and worrying about if our jobs will be there on Monday. To help purge the bad thoughts,I will conclude every Friday on this blog with a story

Brain Detox Friday: The Butthole Surfers, Nick Cave, Alex Chilton, and four-way acid tabs

2009-05-15T15:33:00.001-04:00

Image via WikipediaIn a perfect world, Friday would be the day we stop worrying, shut off our brains, and seek the rest and relaxation we sorely need. Unfortunately, in today's world, we're using too busy getting drunk, trying to get laid, and worrying about if our jobs will be there on Monday. To help purge the bad thoughts,I will conclude every Friday on this blog with a story that will

Characters of the Decade - Part Three: The Top 10 Original Characters in English-Language Drama This Decade: Nos. 10-6

2009-05-13T15:39:00.000-04:00

Each month, I will be unrolling a top 10 list regarding English-language drama this decade. Last month, I revealed the best lines from English-language plays this decade [Part One] [Part Two] [Part Three]. This month, I will be unveiling the best characters to emerge in Engish-language drama this decade. Because of the complications of such a list; I have broken it into three categoriesOriginal

Characters of the Decade - Part Two: The Top 5 Historical Characters in English-Language Drama This Decade.

2009-05-12T16:14:00.004-04:00

Characters of the Decade - Part One: The Top 5 Reinterpreted Characters in English-Language Drama This Decade.

2009-05-11T13:00:00.000-04:00

"Please turn off your f-king cellphones" - Broadway openings adjusting to modern times

2009-05-11T10:44:00.002-04:00

No matter what you thought of American Buffalo on Broadway last fall, there is one way in which it may have changed the theater going experience as we know it: It turned the pre-show announcement into a stylistic decision in its own right. The announcement was not written by David Mamet, either before or after American Buffalo, but it did invoke Mamet's most famous choice of word, one that can

Brain Detox Friday: The Incredible Oedipal Kennedy

2009-05-08T15:33:00.001-04:00

Status Quo, Revolution, Total Death, or Obamaism: What is to be done in American Theater

2009-05-08T10:30:00.000-04:00

In response to the debate over the "brokenness" of American theater (more here and here) I thought I'd note something about the "broken" argument Mike Daisey mentioned in his keynote at SoloNova (paraphrasing):Everyone is expecting a great crash in theater where it is never the same again, but that's already happened. After the rise of talkie movies, 90% of American theaters disappeared within a

On Mike Daisey's Rhetoric

2009-05-06T15:13:00.004-04:00

Today I broke protocol from my normal decisions with what to post on this blog by writing a polemical post, somewhat off-topic, but on an issue that I find incredibly important. I had been formulating this post for a week, but I decided to post it today, in part, because tonight I will be seeing Mike Daisey perform the opening night Keynote at the SoloNOVA festival.With the traditional medium for

Hate Crime Bill Should Be Used To Revive Interest in Fighting Rape in Pornography

2009-05-06T11:11:00.003-04:00

This is something of a break in Tynan's Anger, I don't usually engage in explicit political arguments here, but this is something I feel very strongly about; it does relate to theater, film, music and new media tangentially, but only as it relates to society at large.It is easy to understand the divisiveness that comes with the treatment of pornography in modern society—traditionally, it has been

More fun with signs in the Lower East Side

2009-05-03T13:56:00.004-04:00

Barely a block away from the stop light with the New York salute, we get this sign on an abandoned warehouse:It's almost like that "suspiciously fantastic apartment" listing in Futurama (hah! they still have newspapers in the 30th century!). Anyone who puts up a sign like this has to be cool, unless they're preying on hipster irony. Regardless, I'd much rather live there than in Williamsburg.

Recent reviews now live on Tynan's Anger

2009-05-03T13:38:00.003-04:00

In the last few days I have updated some old reviews from Blogcritics that were previously not re-posted on Tynan's Anger. This is pure laziness, and to correct that, here's a proper update, with the dates restored:Theater Review: Ecstasy by Mike Leigh at the Red RoomTheater Review: The Book of Lambert by Leslie Lee at La MamaTheater Interview: Bill Connington, Zombie writer/director.Movie Review

Theater Review (NYC): Pretty Theft by Adam Szymkowicz

2009-05-01T21:18:00.003-04:00

"You are sitting in an empty bar (in a town you’ve never before visited), drinking Bacardi with a soft-spoken acquaintance you barely know. After an hour, a third individual walks into the tavern and sits by himself, and you ask your acquaintance who the new man is. 'Be careful of that guy,' you are told. 'He is a man with a past.' A few minutes later, a fourth person enters the bar; he also sits

Interview: Bill Connington, Writer/Performer of Zombie

2009-04-23T21:34:00.000-04:00

Some actors would worry about building their career on the portrayal of a psychopath. Mental instability is one of the quickest paths to being typecast, and while it’s built some careers (Christopher Walken), it’s destroyed others (Anthony Perkins).Bill Connington is the creator and star of the bone-chilling, critically lauded adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ 1995 novella Zombie. (The show

Theater Review (NYC): Caitlin and the Swan by Dorothy Fortenberry

2009-04-20T21:23:00.000-04:00

If you’re looking for the most savage depiction of the plight of the college-educated young woman struggling to manage work/life balance, don’t look to Sex and the City, Real Housewives of New York, or even the Fight Club spoof on last week’s 30 Rock. Instead, you’ll find it at UNDER St. Marks in Caitlin and the Swan, yet another fine production by The Management. In an adult working girls' night

Theater Reveiw (NYC): Dinner and Delusion

2009-04-20T08:00:00.001-04:00

Doing the unprecedented is not necessarily a good thing; in fact, there are an infinite number of bad things you can do that are certainly unprecedented. If I were to walk around Manhattan stabbing people while dressed as a rhinoceros and singing “Shoop” by Salt-N-Pepa, it would be unprecedented. We all understand that’s not good behavior. Yet, if I were to say that Dinner and Delusion was unlike

The Best of Tynan’s Anger

2009-04-20T00:00:00.000-04:00

In the midst of reshuffling the purpose of this blog, I have decided to provide a neat little summary of where it has been from 2008-Present:Major Features:The Top 10 Quotes from English-language Drama This Decade: Part One: Quotes 10-6Part Two: Quotes 5-3Part Three: Quotes 2-1 Rock N Roll Case Studies: #1: So This is Girl Power: Rock 'n' Roll as Defined By Hillary Clinton's Democratic

This is what every New Yorker thinks when they can't jaywalk

2009-04-19T12:50:00.003-04:00

(Taken from the corner of 2nd Avenue and 1st Street last night)

Comedy Review: The Cody Rivers Show: Meanwhile, Everywhere

2009-04-14T17:34:00.004-04:00

New York has lost a lot of its luster of late, but one area in which it will retain its dominance is as a breeding ground for underground comedy. What you see in a closet-sized space in New York will often end up as a cultural phenomenon five years later, and while Andrew Connor and Mike Mathieu of The Cody Rivers Show technically hail from Seattle, they subscribe to the New York/Chicago style of

The artist/critic dynamic summed up in a few sarcastic comments

2009-04-12T11:44:00.000-04:00

Image via WikipediaWhen someone says they like a piece of art, my instinct is to ask why. You like Sufjan Stevens? Why? You think Grindhouse is awesome? Why?A few days ago, I told my brother this. He asked me what my favorite color was, and I said "blue and orange." Joking, he asked, "why?" After thinking for a couple of seconds, I said, "Well because they're Knicks colors, and they remind me of

The Top 10 Quotes from English-language Drama This Decade: #2 and #1

2009-04-10T19:10:00.004-04:00

Each month, I will be unrolling a top 10 list regarding English-language drama this decade. This first month starts with the best lines from English-language plays this decade. I have admittedly taken a more mainstream angle on this list, because my aim is to gauge which lines will resonate the loudest for the longest period of time in the future.To recap, here's the list from Part 1 and Part 2:

The Top 10 Quotes from English-language Drama This Decade: 5-3

2009-04-09T11:30:00.002-04:00