Investigative journalist Tori Ruth, whose website The Ruth Report has broken several recent scandals in Washington and who plays a significant role in The Seduction of Braulio Jules, interviews Tim Treanor, the novel’s author. Continue reading The Tori Ruth Report. Seduction’s author in a hard-hitting interview with his character
In 2001, a young actor performing in Bratislava, Slovakia accompanied a classmate on a clandestine visit to a garden – the garden of Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed, the butcher of Bratislava. Between 1602 and 1604 she tortured and murdered at least thirty-seven – and perhaps over a hundred – young women, beating, starving and freezing them and in some instances hacking off parts of their bodies. Continue reading Visiting the home of a grisly murder prepared Joe Brack for Dracula play
Two years ago, Lee Ordeman played Mitt Romney at several dates in the Washington-Baltimore area. He was a natural: Ordeman, the son of a Marine, imitated the ramrod-straight Romney effortlessly. “One of the Barack Obamas told me that I was the best Mitt he had worked with,” Ordeman said. “It sounded weird when he said it.” Continue reading From Romney to Dracula: DC Actor Lee Ordeman finds himself at home playing the most extraordinary characters
Tim Treanor took his storytelling to the stage with Dracula. A Love Story, part of Capital Fringe, 2014.
Among the bogeymen on the fringes of human consciousness, Dracula stands alone. Frankenstein, Godzilla, and werewolves inhabit our nightmares. Dracula is the gleaming demon of our dreams. Continue reading Dracula . A Love Story
In 1986, General Motors announced that it would be opening a new plant to manufacture a revolutionary new car called the Saturn. It invited economically-depressed towns from all over America to make the case that Saturns should be built there. Continue reading Memo to humans: we’re no longer necessary.
Cinderella
I’m reading a book called The Reflections of Queen Snow White, by David Meredith. It picks up the fairy tale thirty years from happily ever after, when Prince Charming is dead and their daughter is about to get married. Snow White, attended by her remaining Dwarf (who is now Chief Steward) muses on her eventful life. It’s pretty good – though not perfect – and inspired me to see what I could do with another well-known story. I hope you like it. Continue reading Cinderella
… we were a much different culture in 1976. Our beliefs about drinking and driving, appropriate jokes, and virtually everything concerning sex changed completely in the ensuing thirty-seven years. But in that ancient culture, it was a sign of class and gravity to follow a good meal by smoking an excellent cigar.
Mayor Tanko McSwain of the McMurto District ran a pretty tight ship, but he could never come to grips with the problem of homelessness. Since the 2008 recession homeless people had overrun the District. Some were schizophrenics and other folks with mental health problems, and some were people who refused to work, but many were families in which the breadwinner had lost her job in the latter part of the last decade and had never found work after that. Continue reading The Wrath of McSwain
Madame Temporary Chair; distinguished Members of Congress; Governors; Mayors; other elected officials gathered here; distinguished delegates; and my fellow Americans—
You have given me the signal honor of our party’s nomination to the nation’s highest office. I accept. Continue reading I accept your nomination for President – and other fantasies
A young boy once interviewed the great trial lawyer Clarence Darrow for his school newspaper. “How did you become such a successful attorney?” the boy asked.
“Hard work,” Darrow replied. He nodded a couple of times while the child wrote this down. “I tried it once and hated it, so I became a lawyer instead.” Continue reading Honest labor. Clarence Darrow and I tried it once.