Charming and Clever

Hi. It's Tania. I'm actually going to take an active role in blogsitting today. I decided to write about writers -- charming and clever writers, to be exact. It's a theme blog. But perhaps they all are. I love how blogging allows me a departure from my typically bone dry research article writing so I can write sentences that start with "but."

But I digress.

The first writer of the day is Stephen Sondheim. You read Pema's review of "Company." What you may not know is that I forced her to watch two of the songs from Act 2 because I thought that the play might be redeemed in her eyes if she heard "Being Alive." Also, she had to hear "The Ladies Who Lunch." Just because it was such a good performance and so over-the-top cynical. She went out of town, so I had to watch the interview with Stephen Sondheim all by myself (while doing yoga and pilates 'cause was trying to make the most of my Sunday afternoon). Anyway, he was certainly charming and clever, and the fact that he started as a lyricist was particularly inspiring for me as I like to make up new words to borrowed melodies, which is, I think what lyricists do.

Next, is a playwright who wrote a play based on Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd." His adaptation is set in San Francisco, and it's called "Sweetie Tanya - The Demon Barista of Valencia Street." Yes, that's right Dan Wilson, I'm writing about you! Pema had gone to see the play, and I was very excited to see a musical set in SF with my name in the title. It turned out to be everything I could have hoped for -- it was funny and the songs were catchy and clever and it was wonderfully feminist. Here's a review of the play from the SF Weekly.

I became a fan of the third featured writer when I heard him singing songs he made up on NPR. In the short time period since this piece aired, I made Lisa and Pema listen to the clip, I googled him, I sent him fan mail (with some of my songs, since clearly he was someone who would appreciate them), I heard back from him (as, indeed, he did appreciate my songs), I wrote a song about him (which also received a positive response), I read his entire blog (which makes me laugh out loud), and I bought both of his books on amazon. Of course, I'm talking about the charming and clever Marc Acito.

Finally, I want to pay homage to charming and clever Pema. In particular, I want to say how much I enjoyed the 10-minute play she wrote that was produced as part of a 10-minute play festival at our local community college. Here's what impressed me most about her play -- I would think that in 10-minutes you would want to fit in as many words as possible to communicate the context, characters, narrative arc, etc. But that's not what Pema did. I think all the lines in the play could have been read in about 45 seconds, and yet she managed to engage the audience, build suspense, convey development of characters and their relationship, and find resolution. She's good! And charming? Well, if you know Pema, either through her blog or in person, there's no question.

So that's my blog entry. I hope it provides sufficient substance, amusement, and brown nosing the blog owner that I will be forgiven for the sporadic nature of my blogsitting activities. Of course, if the blog licked my face at 5am, I might remember to feed it daily.

Oh, and props to anyone who knows the play about a writer that inspired the title of today's blog.