DANIEL JOHN KELLEY

My how the time flies!

I’ve been hard at work the last month (has it been a month already? will you ever forgive me?), writing away at several projects, new and old:

- Later in the month, myself and my good buddy Josh Gelb are going to head up a new reading series at Union Hall. It’s being headed up by Barrie Gelles- who runs Communicable Arts, a theatre company that brings Shakespeare to parks all around NYC, where they wouldn’t usually have that kind of a thing. Back in the day, both Gelb and myself acted with the company, when we were pretending to be actors. The piece I’m writing is a new short play about how a faux pas destroys the universe. It’s going to be a bit o’ fun. 

- In July, my composer buddy Nick and I will be doing a reading of a full draft of Plagued- our epic musical about the Bubonic Plague. We’ve been working tirelessly, and I am very excited about this. This project is my first time writing lyrics, and I feel like as we go along I’m learning more and more about what works and what doesn’t. 

- Additionally, last month I was paid by critic Aaron Riccio to see a play. It was called “How Soon Is Now” by the group Bluemouth at the Irondale Ensemble. Mr. Riccio enjoyed the play so much he proclaimed that he would pay the first and eight (or last) person to see the show. As I had a night free, and the show was close by, I thought “What the hey!” and went. The show was actually incredible- a great use of this tremendous warehouse space, digital technology and audience involvement. I was glad I went! And I won! But apparently, I was the only one. My guess is Mr. Riccio would have paid the second person…if there had been a second and last person. But there was not. 

Mr. Riccio wondered on his blog about why this was this case. If someone was telling you a show is amazing, and was going to literally pay you to go, why wouldn’t you go? Being me, I would go. I am typically sold on a play if I am told yes to the question “Is it a play?” and no to the question  ”Is it expensive?”  But some are not so easily swayed. As I have a day job, and do nothing all day but read blogs, I was reminded of a post from Ken Davenport’s blog. Mr. Davenport talks about how this one magician creates a mystique around his shows- makes them a real must see event- so that he’s only playing infrequently, to a limited house, in a fancy location, and people have to book months in advance. People feel like the show is really something SPECIAL. A sort of “All the cool kids are doing it” vibe.

But if you tell someone a show is awesome, and then tell them you’ll pay them to go- I think a perfectly reasonable reaction would be “Why? What’s wrong with it?” Granted, as a critic, it’s not really up to you to make the show have some sort of special mind blowing gimmick attraction- you can just tell people you liked it- but at the same time telling people you’ll pay them to go has a bit of the feeling of the mom walking her son into the local butcher shop and telling the butcher what a great butcher her son would be, while the child stands there gaping awkwardly. Is the butcher going to hire him? Probably not. Might he be the greatest butcher the world has ever seen? Possibly. But now…we’ll never know….

That being said, this mentality is lame, and prevented a whole lot of people from seeing an awesome show. I was glad for the offer, and was glad I went, and I’d do it again. Thank you Mr. Riccio! But the question of why more people didn’t is interesting to me. Anyone have any other thoughts as to why this might happen?