Weekend Wanderings-update

Heard from Kelly Ryman at George Street Playhouse. She reads the blog, she really reads it!
Tells me that tickets for the reading of "Early in the Mourning," featuring Jerry Stiller and Estelle Parsons, are $50 and include a post play discussion with the artists and a cocktail reception after.

Also tells me that tonight is sold out and Sunday is going fast. For info, visit www.gsponline.org.

Thanks, Kelly. And a double good-get with Stiller and Parsons. Amazing the people they get there sometimes. I still have a poster on my wall from "Collected Stories," featuring Ute Hagen, whose method I studied in acting class at Rutgers.

I saw Ellen Barkin there in the 1970s before she even had her Equity Card. "Tobacco Road." Her name was Ellen Barzykowski or something like that.

I guess I have been doing this a while.

Was at the press opening for "Mrs. Packard" last night at Princeton. Just the sight of Emily Mann and Joyce Carol Oates standing there, chatting in their Sunday best, well, that's intimidating. In a good way. Just that those are as good a two minds you'll ever see in one place.

Not that I can't be objective in reviewing Mann's latest world premiere, which I already have drafted (by 11 a.m., sometimes I impress myself). But you'll have to wait a bit before the Review Preview. I want to take a quick second read of the script (this really is work, people), then I'm going to think about what I wrote at Shop Rite, then think a little more while I mow the lawn.

There you go -- the creative process of one theater critic. Probably more than you needed to know. Like making sausage, it tastes better if you don't see it being made.