Mar 13

Show More, Explain Less: “POV: You Are An AI Achieving Consciousness”

Presented by CirqueSaw
Created by Nathan Leigh
Performed by Nicole Orabona

March 9-18, 2023
A Virtual Event
Zoom access required
40 Minutes

Critique by Kitty Drexel

ONLINE — I greatly respect artists who are involved in every aspect of the creation process of their art, but I don’t advise it. Creator Nathan Leigh is a multi-hyphenate who wrote, composed, directed, coded, and designed POV: You Are An AI Achieving Consciousness. Such intimacy with his work means he knows he can track every nuance and fine detail.

Such intimacy does not grant Leigh a fresh perspective or even moderate insight into glaring problems. In academic circles, this is when a professor would invite the dreaded reviewer #2 into the editing process.

Reviewer #2, in theory, should offer handy advice that a writer hasn’t considered. This is almost never the case in scientific circles. In artistic workshopping, it will be helpful if the artists are open-minded. It is in the spirit of creating thoughtful and mind-enriching art that I offer the following critique. Continue reading

Mar 10

If You See Something, No You Didn’t: “Cointelshow: A Patriot Act”


Presented by ArtsEmerson 
Produced by Mondo Bizarro Productions
Written by L.M. Bogad
Performed by Bruce France
Composed by Peter J. Bowling
Virtual backend by Dan Pruksarnukul
Directed by Nick Slie and Dan Pruksarnukul
Scenic design by Bruce France, Dan Pruksarnukul, Nick Slie & Yamil Rodriguez
Additional collaboration: Yamil Rodriguez

March 8-12, 2023
Virtual Event
Zoom access required
Zoom closed captioning available
60-minutes

Critique by Kitty Drexel

“Listen, I can’t even get my dog to stay down. Do I look to you like someone who could overthrow the government?”

-Critic, playwright, and screenwriter Dorothy Parker in Parker’s home in April 1951 responding to FBI interrogation about Communist party activities. The dog, smelling dirty rats, began barking as soon as the agents entered the premises. 

Good dog.

ONLINE — Cointelshow: A Patriot Act is brought to you by the letters H, U, A, C and the numbers 1,9,6 and 9. It’s a niche theatre project that will appeal to folks invested in streamed live theatre. It will intrigue folks who see the internet as the new frontier of civil liberties. We are the ones who must watch the watchers. 

Cointelshow: A Patriot Act is righteously, gloriously subversive AF. It dresses its subversion up in parody, parades it in front of an audience of judgmental peers, reveals its subversion as an unreliable narrator with mental illnesses, and then proclaims its subversion as completely normal and meme-worthy. Here kids, have a Tiktok.  Continue reading

Oct 25

New House, New Problems: “Someone Else’s House”

Official screen shot of Mezzocchi. No photos or recordings of the performance are allowed.

Presented by TheatreWorks Hartford and Virtual Design Collective 
Written & performed by Jared Mezzocchi 
Directed by Margot Bordelon 
Playbill

TheatreWorks on Facebook  
October 21-31, 2021
TICKETS
A Live Virtual Performance: Performed over Zoom, watch live from your home or at the TheatreWorks theater

HAUNTED VIEWING from home* – Showtimes
Tuesday through Sunday at 8 pm
Saturdays at 8 pm and 12 Midnight

HAUNTED VIEWING in the theater – Showtimes 
Oct. 22, 23, & 24 and Oct. 29, 30 & 31 at 8 pm
IN-THEATER STREAMING watch parties @ 233 Pearl Street, Hartford, CT 06103

Review by Kitty Drexel

ZOOM/Hartford, CT — The new house/new problems horror movie trope follows a naive (usually white) family moving into their dream home. Strange, spooky things happen and the idiot family stays until the bodies are piled up.  Blood can hemorrhage from the walls and this family thinks it’s a tax write-off. 

A dank meme; Hooray, we’re going to die!

Speaking of obtuse families, Jared Mezzocchi’s lovely family moved into a 200-year-old house in Enfield, New Hampshire in 1977. TheaterWorks Hartford’s production of Someone Else’s House tracks the Mezzocchis move into a gorgeous mansion in Enfield. Mom and Dad had new jobs teaching at the elementary school. The kids had a pastoral town to grow up in. It should have been perfect. Continue reading