Archive for February, 2009

Thank you, Situation!

I’ve always had a corporate crush on Situation Interactive (formerly Situation Marketing) because they paved the way for companies like AMC and nerdy people who love technology and theatre (me). And to spread the love, they created a panel event for industry folks to talk about the scary subject of interactive.

The panel had Matt Kupchin (Broadway.com), Ari Ackerman (Playbill.com) and Darren Sussman (Theatermania.com).

I learned some great stuff that I thought I’d pass onto you, Dear Reader:
- keep your subject line short and sweet. have a celebrity? Put them in the subject!
- Theatermania has a new text campaign
- Broadway.com attracts mostly tourists and full price ticket buyers
- Don’t eat a muffin if you have a wheat allergy (this wasn’t a topic, it just happened to me.)
- All three sites do not have any plans of segmenting their list. (So, you can’t buy Playbill.com’s email list for just people who live in Manhattan, etc.)
- Click-thru rates are relatively the same for a static banner ad versus a flash banner ad

The panelists were good and the event as a whole was great. I can tell these will be something that I will look forward to! (cue computer theatre nerd snort-laugh)

February 25th, 2009 by Jim Glaub | Tags: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Pardon Our Appearance!

Eek! We’re experiencing a little technical difficulty here in blogland, so it may look like we’ve had an extreme makeover at AMC. Not so! (We’ve never even looked good in blue!) We’re working to get our normal look and feel back in place.

February 13th, 2009 by Laurie Connor | Tags: Random Stuff | No Comments »

Congress is Twitteriffic!

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I caught this article on TIME.com entitled “Congress’s New Love Affair with Twitter.” Pete Hoekstra (Twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/PeteHoekstra) has almost 3,000 followers on Twitter. He is the representative for Michigan’s 2nd district in the US House of Representative’s. He  Twitter’s often to let his followers know what he is thinking and doing.

The article mentions, since Obama’s (amazing) social networking outreach during the election, many politicians have jumped on the bandwagon and signed up for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites. Some crtics of this worry about security issues. Hoeskra twitter constantly on his last trip to Iraq sparking concerns that he may be giving away location or any other sensitive information.

Politicians taking on activities normally reserved for their children or grandchildren brings up some interesting issue that national security officials have never had to deal with before. How do you stop politicians from twittering? Also, if 70 year old congressmen and senators are representing themselves (even though the pages, interns or secretaries are the one’s actually dealing with the networks) will it turn the younger generation off? I mean, how many high school students would want to be Facebook friends with their grandparents?

February 12th, 2009 by Mark Seeley | Tags: Random Stuff | No Comments »

Stitching Goes Bi-Coastal

L.A. doesn’t know what’s it’s in for, but we do! No, we don’t have access to a magic seismograph, but if you saw Stitching starring Meital Dohan last year at the Wild Project, you know that good old Southern California is in for a rock ‘em, sock ‘em theatrical earthquake. Written by controversial Scottish playwright Anthony Neilson, Stitching is a fine example of  “in-yer-face theatre,” the controversial dramatic style that emerged in Great Britain in the early years of this decade. Both the NYC and LA productions are directed by our own Timothy Haskell.

The play received critical acclaim in its NYC premiere last year, many kudos going to Meital Dohan, who you might remember as a feisty—and ferociously sexy—rabbinical scholar on Showtime’s Weeds.  John Ventimiglia (Artie Bucco on The Sopranos) also stars.

Take a look at the graphic identity we created for the show. To my mind, it does just what good show art should do: captures the emotional essence of the piece in a visually arresting, yet enigmatic way.  The play is a tasty little chunk of psycho-love-drama, depicting two people who love each other in a brutally tender way, odd as that sounds. Their bond is painful to the touch; it hurts as much as it heals them.   And though the piece is sometimes painful to watch, it’s also an intimate look at a couple trying to love each other in the only way they know how.

February 11th, 2009 by Laurie Connor | Tags: Advertising, Off Broadway, Random Stuff | No Comments »

Theatrical Revival

A West Village theatre institution is making a comeback: The Actors’ Playhouse on Seventh Avenue South has had an exteme makeover and will re-open on March 5 with the one-man show Blood Type Ragu, an exploration of the Sicilian immigrant experience written and performed by Frank Ingrasciotta.

Since its founding in 1956, the theatre has hosted the likes of Colleen Dewhurst  and George C. Scott in Cocteau’s  The Eagle Has Two Heads in its inaugural year, James Earl Jones in Clandestine on the Morning Line (1961), Al Pacino The Local Stigmatic (1969), Harvey Fierstein and  Matthew Broderick in Torch Song Trilogy (1982) and Eric Bogosian in his own  Fun House (1983). Click here for a full archive in the Lortel Archives

With so much chilling news in the theatre world these days, it’s nice hear about a survivor, isn’t it?

February 11th, 2009 by Laurie Connor | Tags: Off Broadway, Uncategorized | No Comments »

On The Set

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One of my New Year’s resolutions was to explore New York City more. I think once you get comfortable you can forget how much there is to do and explore in the city. New World Stages, The old home of Rock of Ages before its move to the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, is host to several Off Broadway theater’s as well as the TONY Lounge (Time Out New York is the sponsor of the lounge). The TONY Lounge is home to events every day of the week, from Karaoke to open mic nights. This is where I found The Set.

The Set NYC hosts a two hour open mic about once a month. It was founded about a year ago and the idea behind it is to bring together young professionals for a fun, entertaining night out where you can watch a variety of performances (singing, rapping, magic, comedy) and then hang out and meet new people and mingle with the performers. I went with my cousin from Ithaca who is really into these types of settings and I can see why. The Set currently features a group of artists that are extremely entertaining and funny. It is a light hearted evening with a relaxed atmosphere. The host Kai Raziq was fun and kept the audience interested between acts. The audience was a great mix of people and everyone was there just to relax and have a good time. It is activities like The Set that make New York unlike any other city.

February 9th, 2009 by Mark Seeley | Tags: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Make 'Em Laugh

We’ve seen two comedies in the last couple of weeks, which couldn’t be more different from one another, but that had the (packed) Off-Broadway audiences laughing their fool heads off.

First up was The Cripple of Inishmaan a co-production of Druid Theatre Company and Atlantic Theater Company. If you’re familiar with Martin McDonagh’s work (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Lieutenant of Inishmore,  The Lonesome West, A Skull in Connemara and The Pillowman on stage; In Bruges and Six Shooter on film), you know that despite his often grim (and frequently grisly) subject matter, he is, no kidding, one of the funniest playwrights working today. And Cripple is vintage McDonagh. The dialogue is crisp, the jokes are rapier sharp and, under Gerry Hynes’s direction at Atlantic, the cast is sublime.

A few days later we caught Enter Laughing at The York Theatre Company, which had an initial run in early fall and is being reprised through March 8. This musical, with a book by Joseph Stein and music and lyrics by Stan Daniels, is based on the play by Joseph Stein from the novel by Carl Reiner, is a classic screwball comedy, made for laughs and unashamedly played for laughs.

What struck me on both occasions is how truly wonderful the Off Broadway experience can be, particularly at a skillfully produced and performed comedy. It’s really something to sit in the dark, laughing and hearing everyone around you laughing at the same thing. The sound and energy just buoy you, and it’s extraordinary to feel the energy cascading back and forth between performers and audience, each propelling the other. Movies, even really funny ones, just can’t deliver the same punch, can they?

February 5th, 2009 by Laurie Connor | Tags: Off Broadway, Random Stuff | No Comments »