Thanks for stopping by. You may notice that the stories ended in 2019. Except for one written in 2020. That's because I switched back to my old love: writing tie-in media fiction. A "hey write a novel in nine months" contract as well as a new full-time job in the arts meant I needed to take a break from Encore Spotlight in late 2019. Which was fine because I intended to return to writing for Encore in March 2020. Uh, then something happened. As in all the theaters shut down due to a worldwide pandemic. In 2020 I did one theater review. In the new normal, I became the audience in Seattle watching a Zoom performance in Philadelphia. This article appeared the Baum Bugle . Oh and I did finish the novel, which was published in January 2021. That's Mask of Silver . For anyone interested in entertainment, the roots of this title in the Arkham Horror series came from my deep love for silent movies, fostered by the wonderful Seattle International Film Festival and the Para...
As veterans of theater festivals can testify, fringe shows need a single-minded commitment from their creators. The “let’s put on a show” attitude in 2020 helped a number of theater originators overcome a truly horrible year where small venues and live productions were shut down across the country. OZ.org premiered at FringeArts’ Philadelphia Fringe Festival in September. The director and writer Amber Kusching envisioned her own interactive, virtual take on Oz. Like most modern adaptations of the first book, the influence of MGM’s iconic The Wizard of Oz as well as Gregory Maguire’s Wicked could be heavily felt in the science fiction spin that she placed on this reimagining of Baum’s first Oz book. As the play opened, “Dorothee” and the audience were sucked into a Zoom meeting with oddly familiar characters like the robotic 10-MAN, a cowardly guy called Lyman, and the helpful hologram GLINDA. Besetting them all was a certain wicked malware with a familiar cackle to Oz fans. Pe...