Nothing to post today ...

...until I paid my weekly trip to the Forest Hills blogs and found this item:

http://foresthills72.blogspot.com/2007/11/actress-and-critic.html

Nothing like seeing yourself in a blog to make you feel all internet-famous for a few minutes. ;)

You know, I'd already made the decision to move to FoHilz when I found out about the Parkside Players. With its mall stores, mom-and-pop shops, community theater and easy access to Manhattan, this town's the perfect blend of city and suburban life. If I find out that there are tricky tray auctions, holiday bazaars and local Girl Scouts selling cookies outside of supermarkets, I'll truly freak out.

Sure, I miss some things from Kips Bay: the big local movie theater, the pizzeria down the street, the 24-hour bodega two doors down, the ability to walk around in Manhattan and then walk home ... But it's kinda nice to wake up and look into a backyard. I like going to the local Polish restaurant on a Saturday night and find it filled with regulars. Now that we're out of the young, white, affluent, post-collegiate ghetto that we were living in, I can relish the fact that I'm not the oldest person I see, or the one with the least hip wardrobe.

Manhattan can be awesome, but it can also wear away at your self-esteem, no matter how immune you think you are to that kind of superficial BS.

I resigned from offoffonline yesterday, and today I'm no longer on the staff list. Harsh!

You'd think that they'd at least wait until the productions I've just reviewed have closed ...

the final two?

As we theater aesthetes know, there is no specific formula for figuring out if a show is going to be a winner before you see it. It' s fairly easy to spot a dog from a mile away - a poorly written/cheesy synopsis, actors/writers/directors you think are lame and underachieving theater companies can save you from an hour or two of blah. But some shows remind me of that quote about a girl looking like a piece by a certain painter: cute from far away but ugly up close. (I'm thinking it was a Picasso, but wouldn't a painting by Seurat make more sense?)

Last week I went to see the last two shows I'm reviewing before pregnancy. They'll be the last two reviews I'll ever write for offoffonline, and, possibly, my last two reviews ever. While I wouldn't say that they were zeros, they weren't exactly perfect 10s, or even modest 7s.

offoffonline: review of Say Your Prayers, Mug!

offoffonline: review of The House of Yes

There was no guarantee that my last-ever review would be of a show that was phenomenal, but I guess I was hoping for that.

Now, this isn't to say that I won't see any more theater between now and whenever this baby decides to come. I'd really like to see Young Frankenstein, mostly because I'm a huge fan of the film rather than the fact that it'll be such a big musical to-do. Of course, with my upcoming emigration from Manhattan to Queens, and paying off debt before I stop drawing a salary, and what looks to be a month or two of griping about how huge I am and how much my back hurts, the cost of a ticket as well as the physical cost of a trip to Times Square is kinda prohibitive. (When am I gonna start getting comps to big shows already?! *jk*)

So, I'll be focusing on my Advertising Copywriting Class at NYU (through 11/8), and procrastinating about writing up a spec script for Scriptapalooza, despite the fact that I already have a great idea in outline form. I'll also read other people's reviews and miss writing them. Then I'll have to remind myself that being published means finding a show, setting aside time to see it, figuring out travel to the theater and dinner beforehand, keeping myself awake (especially tough these days), and forcing myself to write 500 words about it before too much time goes by. Laziness will beat down the pangs of nostalgia.

Happy Tuesday, everybody!

As promised:

offoffonline: review of Love Sucks

Next up is The House of Yes tonight and Say Your Prayers, Mug! on Friday. Then I may or may not review next week (depending on whether or not someone takes a specific show) ... and I'm done. Perhaps forever, at least for a year. Weird to stop after 2 1/2 years, but what can you do - I certainly can't take a baby to an off-off Broadway show, that's for sure.

reviews and career choices

In my longest review to date, I critique Austentatious at the New York Musical Theatre Festival:

offoffonline: review of Austentatious

There isn't really anything I could write here that those 835 words didn't cover. It's amazing that, at the beginning, I had to strive to reach the site's 500-word minimum.

Unrelated note: Having a rapidly developing 24-week-old girl in one's tummy can change one's choice in periodicals. To wit, last night I bought my first issue of Time Out New York Kids, and was delighted at their Kid Confidential section.

Is it too late to change my desired occupation to princess songwriter? :)

Today's Yahoo! Search Report

If you look up Lauren Snyder critic on Yahoo! Search, I'm referenced on 8 of the first 10 listings, including the top 2. Lauren Snyder theater critic gives me all 10 of the first 10, as does Lauren Snyder new york theater. With Lauren Snyder new york critic, I fall to 5 out of 10.

Is it any wonder I keep writing reviews, even when I've said that I'm stopping? I'm hooked on the name search. I totally heart the emptiness of internet fame. Why else would I have translated a background artist credit and an internship on an indie film into an IMDB listing?

If I fail to make my mark in any meaningful way on the world, at least there will be people in the world who'll know that I was a theater critic, a comedy writer, an improvisor, a film critic, an actress, a Penn State theater student and the winner of a virtual award for Monty Python-themed haiku (guess that link's dead - well, it's been 10 years).

By the way, I'm open to taking requests from people looking for funny or dark one-acts or short festival pieces, particularly if you're providing a theme, specific writing limitations (characters, setting, etc.), and/or a hard and fast deadline. I've always been more productive when working this way. Maybe I should just buy one of those cheesy writing exercise books and go to town.

required viewing

Tonight I took advantage of Turner Classic Movies on Demand and caught up on some films I've been meaning to see. The first was Kiss Me Kate, starring Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, and that musical theater dynamo Ann Miller. One of Bianca's suiters was played by Bob Fosse, who mostly did the waltz-y dancing of Hermes Pan except for his last number, when he totally Fosse-d the crap out of the sequence. Yes, I know for a fact that the guy was an asshole and a womanizer, but shit, could he move. He's in a rarefied group with Gene Kelly and Prince as guys who dance gracefully but are utterly masculine even in delicate movement.

The other film was Please Don't Eat the Daisies, which I felt I had to see as a Doris Day fan and a theater critic. In the movie, based on a book by Jean (wife of theater critic Walter) Kerr, David Niven plays a professor turned play reviewer - one of the top seven in NYC, as a matter of fact. He lives in a large two-bedroom apartment with a chic address, and eats at Sardi's all of the time. Perhaps I shouldn't power down my critical career if success means a Manhattan apartment with a doorman and an elevator and constantly eating at see-and-be-seen places ... :)

His dramatic arc was that, though he got into reviewing because he loved plays, he became more fond of being cruel and penning poisonous critiques full of mean-spirited jokes. When people started telling him that he was now feared, and that he'd made a playwright quit the profession, Niven's character was scared straight, folks! Good moral to the story for us taste makers, I think. It is a tough slog through the Doris-Day-as-Niven's spouse/housewife fixing up their hellhole suburban house and managing a sheepdog and four kids (one of whom is locked in a cage!) plot lines, no matter how sweet and plucky Doris is or how jazzy-pretty she lays down a song. She does sing a bit of Que Sera, Sera, though, and makes a Rock Hudson joke. Ha ha, scriptwriters! We totally get that she was in movies with him! How insider-y do we feel right now?!

(some of) the reviews are in!

Here's some light reading:

offoffonline: review of LOST! How a Certain Celebrity Megahunk Stole My Identity

offoffonline: review of Elephant in the Room!

There are always surprises in store when you go to see a show. In the case of LOST!, I was surprised to discover that I'd already met the writer/performer Josh Halloway through my former job at the Manhattan Theatre Club. At the time, I just knew him as Josh, the guy working on LoveMusik who always walked around looking really stressed out. (Of course, he wasn't the only one who was anxious during that show. Michael Cerveris was the one guy involved who gave off a calm and collected vibe. Tackling Sondheim a few times will do that to you, I guess.)

I rarely spoke to him back then, so I don't feel like I've broken any rules on ethics or integrity. Anyway, if you review with any regularity (as I do), are in charge of contacting the PR people yourself (as I am), and if you're a friendly person (yes!), you tend to get a little chummy with the folks on the other side of the fence. It's never kept me from saying negative things about a show, if I feel that they are deserved; fortunately, the people with whom I've had the most contact are sensible enough to write/direct/rep quality theatrical merchandise.

With regard to the Elephant show, I was genuinely psyched about seeing this. In my college years, I played Daisy in Ionesco's Rhinoceros. (It was one of two straight-up girly love interest roles I played in my lifetime; Hero in Much Ado About Nothing was the other, also in college. What can I say? I was adorable back then.) Being intimately familiar with the original play, I was excited to see an update, and disappointed when it was not the show I thought it would be.

Now, granted, I'd broken the cardinal rule of off-off Broadway criticism, which is coming in with expectations. (ha ha) (no, really, it's not a good idea) But I was swayed by the TONY-winning name attached, and, honestly, just looking forward to a smart show. It was smart, yes, but it didn't do it for me. I can't tell you how upsetting it was when they tacked on lame scenes at the end that were meaningless ... and don't even get me started about God and the comet. (If you've seen the show, you'll understand.) The phrase, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind.

I should have another two reviews posted tonight/tomorrow, one of which I have to, um, write before I can expect it to go live on the site. Yeah, I should get that done now.