“CQ/CX” mines the metaphors in Jayson Blair’s story

In his incendiary interview with The New York Observer, Jayson Blair is quoted as saying: “So Jayson Blair the human being could live, Jayson Blair the journalist had to die.”

For Gabe McKinley, a similar scenario was true as he wrote CQ/CX, now playing at the Peter Norton Space in a production from the Atlantic Theater Company. In order to dramatize the Blair scandal, McKinley had to distance himself from facts about the former New York Times journalist who plagiarized and fabricated stories. Instead, he focused on telling a larger tale about a media disaster that rocked the world’s trust in a top newspaper.

“It’s important to remember that as a playwright, sometimes getting away from the facts, you actually get closer to the truth,” McKinley says. “I definitely took the step of moving some of the characters away from real people. The show became something of its own. It’s not a historical document; it’s a play.”

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“Chimera” suggests many worlds on one stage

Chimera only needs a minute to make you question your grasp on reality. The multimedia show—which was developed by HERE, where it is now being presented in conjunction with the Under the Radar Festival—opens with a pleasant-looking woman in a sparkling white outfit and green sneakers. She’s got a cup of coffee and a cute Midwestern accent, and she’s awfully friendly as she takes a seat in the audience to tell us a story about the kitchen we see on stage.

Only the kitchen she describes doesn’t look like the kitchen in front of us. We see a completely white room with standard-issue equipment: a sink, countertops, a generic refrigerator. But our narrator, Coffee Lady, talks about lovely floors, a nice table, and a fancy fridge. It’s disorienting. Does this woman exist in a different world?

Yes. Kind of.

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Two services push the theatre into online publishing

And then suddenly, the theatre entered the world of online publishing.

Until this year, scripts were largely absent from the booming field of ebooks, stranding readers who wanted to add their favorite dramas to their Kindle or Nook. In recent months, however, two services have emerged to fill the void.

In November, prominent play publisher Samuel French launched its eBook program. Customers can visit Apple’s iBookstore to download plays and musical by writers like Charles Busch and Israel Horovitz, with new titles being added regularly. Most scripts retail for $8.99, and soon, Samuel French will make them available at all digital retailers

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From revivals of old favorite to meetings with new artists, this year’s Fringe is already going strong

You’ve got to love the scrappiness of FringeNYC. As it presents over 200 theatre and dance productions, the festival always seems energetic and raw, like it’s running on excitement and artistic ambition.

However, it takes an enormous amount of work to create that bohemian vibe, and planning for this year’s festival began just weeks after last year’s ended.

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Belarus Free Theatre performs plays that would get them arrested back home

Command performances in London’s House of Parliament, 10-minute standing ovations in New York, adoring crowds in Hong Kong: The last few months have been one triumphant appearance after another for Belarus Free Theatre. However, the company’s intrepid, structurally bold works have not been hailed in its home country.

“Today we’re homeless,” says Natalia Koliada, a co-founder of the troupe, which is currently performing three of its original shows in rep at La MaMa (in a co-production with the Public Theater.) “We’re between continents.”

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