American Politics Needs More Drama

Posted by on Jul 10, 2013 in Art, Articles, Featured, Plays | 0 comments I like my politics the way I like my baseball. I prefer to wait for the highlights reel. Like baseball, political events in Washington, D.C. tend to be long and boring, punctuated by the occasional home run speech or graceful double-play legislative maneuver in Congress. Have you ever wondered why, when you turn on C-Span, the legislators give their speeches to nearly empty chambers? It’s...
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Lucid Dreaming in Pancevo

Posted by on Nov 2, 2012 in Art, Articles, Blog, Eastern Europe, Europe, Featured, Uncategorized | 2 comments Pancevo is a small Serbian city located just northeast of Belgrade. It has some lovely Habsburg architecture. There’s a thriving arts scene and a growing Chinese community. But this city of about 73,000 people is perhaps best known for the damage it sustained during the NATO bombing in 1999, when an industrial park containing an oil refinery, a petrochemical plant, and a fertilizer factory was...
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Playing the Pundit

Posted by on Aug 1, 2012 in Art, Articles, Featured, Plays | 0 comments As a pundit, I’ve had my share of uncomfortable moments. I’ve been in front of the cameras and suddenly blanked on the name of a former South Korean president or the precise year when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test. Such embarrassing lapses, for a Korean expert at least, are comparable to forgetting your own child’s birthday. Still, you develop workarounds for...
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First Look at The Pundit

Posted by on Jun 25, 2012 in Art, Articles, Featured | 0 comments “DC is just one big ladder. The higher you climb, the fewer people that can s**t on you.” John Feffer That’s Peter Peters, resident foreign policy expert at The Center, a Washington think tank that positions itself in the precise middle of the political spectrum, less out of principle than sheer political opportunism. Peters is a pundit who has used Washington’s essential commodity –...
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When Kony Met Daisey

Posted by on Mar 24, 2012 in Art, Articles, Featured, Human Rights | 0 comments Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story. This aphorism, often attributed to humorist Mark Twain, seems to apply equally well to both theater and politics. Story, in these worlds of bright lights and monologues, is everything. Whether it’s a political campaign (Romney is a flip-flopper) or a successful Broadway play (Mozart was an idiot savant), the message is the medium, and...
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On Being Fringe Performer John Feffer

Posted by on Jun 22, 2011 in Art, Articles | 0 comments John Feffer is a funny guy who is engaged in the somber business of writing and lecturing on foreign policy. But three years ago, he tried something new and stepped onto a Fringe stage with his original play, Krapp’s Last Power Point. He’s been back every year since. This year, he brings us  The Bird. Whenever I read memoirs, I skim through the early years and get easily bored as the...
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