Archives: March 01, 2007

Let's put on a play: "Act of Creation/Between the Lines" at City Theatre

Saturday, 31 March 2007 02:19 PM

An interesting event on April 1 at City Theatre:

As part of its New American Trio programming, City Theatre will open rehearsal of The Missionary Position to the public on Sunday, April 1 from 5:30 to 6 pm.

At 6 pm, engage in a discussion about new play dramaturgy with Carlyn Aquiline, City Theatre's Literary Manager and Dramaturg.

The event is free, but reservations are necessary. If you would like to attend please RSVP by email or call 412.431.4400 ext. 283 and leave your name.

The Missionary Position, a satiric comedy about politics, was commissioned by City Theatre from playwright Keith Reddin. Directed by Tracy Brigden, it features Tony Bingham, Jeffrey Carpenter, Tami Dixon, and Rebecca Harris. The Missionary Position will run at City Theatre from April 12 - May 20.

This event is part of the theatre's New American Trio series, "a series of three brand-new plays and a constellation of activities that will be produced throughout the 2006/07 season." The two other works were The Muckleman and Mezzulah, 1946, and based on that track record I'd say this next play will be well worth seeing.

Note: City Theatre has been kind enough to invite me to attend this season's productions as a member of the "press," since I blog about Pittsburgh's theater scene. This strikes me as in keeping with an overall progressive and experimental attitude -- the kind of thinking that brings them to commission and produce three brand new plays, not just in a season, but in a row. It's good, thoughtful stuff, just a block off East Carson Street, and you should check it out.

Guinness is good for me

Friday, 30 March 2007 09:48 AM

You Are Guinness

You know beer well, and you'll only drink the best beers in the world. Watered down beers disgust you, as do the people who drink them. When you drink, you tend to become a bit of a know it all - especially about subjects you don't know well. But your friends tolerate your drunken ways, because you introduce them to the best beers around.

This result is largely true -- at least in its characterization of me. I'm a beer snob, no doubt.

I also like Guiness, but not in the U.S. The pasteurization or whatever they do to be allowed to import the stuff here changes it utterly from the elixir that pub-goers enjoy in Dublin. What we get isn't quite as rich and sweet. It's good, but what they're drinking on the other side of the Atlantic is grand.

In case you're curious: The kind of beer I most love is Trappist ale from Belgium. Those monks know what's what.

(Quiz link thanks to Rinsem's Rink.)

You talkin' to me?

Thursday, 29 March 2007 12:26 AM

Major media outlets like the New York Times haven't been covering the story of blogger Kathy Sierra, the death threats she has (purportedly) received, the sympathetic blog shut downs, the resulting backlash, and so on. So it's maybe not so surprising that advertisers also haven't had a chance to adjust their ad campaigns. Or, maybe they did adjust them -- so hard to know for sure.

Thoughts on "Mezzulah, 1946"

Sunday, 25 March 2007 08:31 PM

I saw "Mezzulah, 1946" at City Theatre recently. It's a fun play, upbeat and entertaining. Crux of the plot: It's 1946, and the men returning from World War II have reclaimed their jobs, displacing the women who filled them in the meantime. All except for a girl named Mezzulah, who is a crack electrician at a Boeing factory and has a deep passion for airplanes in general and a talent for aircraft design. Various members of the town pressure her to give up her job to some worthy, unemployed man, to act more like a girl, but she doesn't see any reason to comply. Will she give in, or will she stand up for herself and what she believes?

In some ways, the question feels archaic. These days it's accepted in this country that women can work as well as men. In watching the play, we see Mezzulah's uncle, a Boeing manager, argue with and then bully her, telling her to trade her job on the manufacturing floor for a place in the typing pool. And we shake our heads thinking how much more advanced we are these days. Certainly today, a talented girl could hold down a manufacturing job without these ridiculous pressures. We know from the outset that, even if Mezzulah is forced out, history will prove that she was right all long. Why, it's all history now; the questions wouldn't even come up.

Not surprisingly, I identify with Mezzulah. For all of my career I've worked in a field that's distinctly male-dominated. I've never felt that my gender hindered me -- if anything, being a smart and capable female has helped me stand out. But I do have two tales to tell.

Personal tale #1: In 1991, a few months after I joined Oracle Corp., a California-based developer of databases, I ran into a very senior person there, near the 13th floor espresso machine. I can no longer remember his name, but I knew he was a fellow MIT alumnus. At one point in the conversation, he noticed my MIT ring -- my Brass Rat, as it's nicknamed. The Brass Rat is odd-looking, distinctive, hard to confuse with another school's ring.

And he said, "Where did you get that?" -- as if I'd perhaps borrowed it from a boyfriend. Not unpleasant, but genuinely curious.

I said, "It's mine."

Blank look.

I said, "I went to MIT."

I don't remember what he said, but I do remember the look of surprise and confusion on his face. And I remember feeling surprised and confused too: Surely he knew that there were girls at MIT, surely he'd met others? I imagine I looked as embarrassed as he did.

Personal tale #2: In 1983, when I was applying to MIT, one requirement was an in-person interview with an alumnus in the Pittsburgh area. I drove with my mother down to Sewickley to meet with my interviewer at his large, posh house. Because we wanted me to seem ultra capable, Mom and I arrived early to seek out the address, then I dropped her at an Eat 'n' Park to wait while I went back by myself for the interview, as though I'd driven the 40 miles from Butler all by myself.

The interview went fine -- we talked about my high school experiences, why I wanted to attend MIT, nothing unusual. And at the end of the interview I asked this gentleman what he thought: Would I be accepted?

He said he expected I would. I was female, and my grades and SAT scores were fine. MIT needed females.

The result of that interview was that I spent much of the next four years wondering whether I was really good enough to go to MIT. Maybe I was as smart as the other girls there, but was I as smart as the guys?

Of course, these things that happened to me happened decades ago, in the eighties and early nineties. People wouldn't act that way now, would they?

Sure they would. Recently, I heard of a shop floor manager who needs very much to hire a mechanic, but he refuses to hire a particular capable one who wants the job solely because she's a young woman. His position is wrong, and it's illegal. And he doesn't understand why.

So Mezzulah's struggles with the questions that face her -- What is her role in society? Is she good enough to keep her job? Is she worth as much as a man? -- are not questions from another time after all. Girls and women are still asking them today.

Read reviews of "Mezzulah, 1946" from the Post-Gazette, Tribune-Review, City Paper. The show continues its run through April 1. Find out more at the City Theatre website.

Photo: Theo Allyn as Mezzulah. Photo credit: John Schisler.

Beware the Ides of March Madness

Wednesday, 14 March 2007 04:49 PM

Along with a number of other area bloggers, I'm participating in the "First Annual Pittsburgh Celebrity Bloggers NCAA Pool."

My involvement would seem to indicate that the term "Celebrity" is being used very loosely here, but the two dozen or so other participants are rather impressive.

I watch very little basketball. I do usually tune in during the Big Dance for a game or two, but I have no knowledge to help in picking teams for this competition. I could just pick teams at random, or always choose the higher seed, but of course that's not enough fun. Instead, I'm going with the vaunted Wacky Scheme method of picking winners.

Here's my formula:

1. For each matchup, list the people I know who attended each school. Pick the school with the bigger number of Friends of Cindy (FOC).
2. If the FOC count is the same, give more weight to people closer to me. Close friends are worth more than acquaintances; relatives are worth more than friends.
3. If the weighted FOC is the same, then consider whether either school has at any time rejected an application from me. If so, pick the other school. (Stanford is the biggest loser on this one. (Although ultimately I have been glad to have gone Sloan instead.))
4. If I've never been rejected by either school, have I ever visited the school, or the state the school is in? Pick the school I've set foot on or near.
5. If none of the above applies, is there anything interesting about the school name? For example, I selected Butler in the first round because I live in Butler, PA.

Repeat the process for each round, and here's what I get.

Note that Georgetown, a #2 seed, legitimately makes it all the way to winning the championship in my scheme because my dear Aunt Ann and Uncle Greg both attended there, I lived near DC for a while and spent lots of time in and around campus, and I saw Ben Folds Five perform a concert there in 1998. Ohio State, in contrast, falls because they turned down my application to get an MFA there.

I feel quite good about my chances of winning this pool.

Think you have a better/smarter/weirder method of picking the winners? There's still time to enter, if you hurry. Whoops, sorry. Games have already begun. See how much I know about this thing? I'm still gonna win though.

Copyright © 2004 – 2007 Cynthia Closkey