One more week to check out BRAHMAN/I: A ONE HIJRA STAND-UP COMEDY ROUTINE!

I've spent the last month working on this weird, wonderful, and utterly hilarious play about an Intersex Indian-American stand-up comic, directed by my incredible wife and also starring my dear friend Aila Peck. It plays through the end of the month in Ithaca, NY, and it's an educational and entertaining look at gender, colonialism, and love. Seriously — even if I didn't have to sit there with a bass every night, I'd still think it was a worthwhile experience for everyone. Here's a peek:

I also chatted with Chris Heddon on WHCU 95.9 The Arts Beat.

It was supposed to be an interview about the show, but took some wildly entertaining turns into dancing death bunnies, the nature of mythophysics, and of course, Journey.

Here's the edited, Brahman/i-centric clip:

And here's the even more ridiculous full interview about, well, everything:

Everything Happens So Much

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates — as you'll see below, things have been pretty crazy 'round these parts.

For one thing, I'm already a week late on announcing my participation in the Clarion Write-a-thon to raise money for the Clarion Writing Workshop at UCSD, which I attended in 2013. I kind of, uhhh, messed up when I was filling out my sponsorship profile, and I meant to write a goal of 800 words a day in pursuit of this novelization that I'm working on. Instead, I accidentally wrote 800 words total for the entire summer. Ah well. Either way! Give me money to give to Clarion!

I've written before about the incredible personal and professional impact of my Clarion experience, which is why I feel so strongly about providing the same opportunities for other young writers. I came away from those 6 weeks not only with some amazing new friendships, but a stronger grasp on my own strengths and faults as a writer, as well as a greater familiarity and confidence in the genre publishing industry as a whole. And while it might not seem a direct correlation, I feel confident in attributing much of my success as a current full-time professional writer to the Clarion Workshop.

Oh. That's the other thing that happened: starting July 1, I will be a full-time salaried staff writer for Upworthy.com. "Isn't that that click-bait-y website with all the happy liberal stuff?" you might ask, in which case, well, you're not entirely off the mark. But in truth, Upworthy does tremendous promoting and supporting numerous progressive causes, campaigns, and charities, and getting their stuff in front of millions of eyeballs every month (also, they've all-but-sworn-off the "click-bait-y" stuff in the last 2 years, after indirectly creating an Internet monster out of it). They're going through a bit of a renaissance right now as well, part of which involves a shift towards more original storytelling and content, which is where I come in. The specifics of my storytelling work is still in their formative stages, but suffice to say that it's a very, very, very exciting time to be a part of the company, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

(also fun fact: Upworthy themselves have never, ever, ever used the click-bait-y headline suffix, "...you won't believe what happens next," despite the fact that that's the thing that everyone thinks about when they think about Upworthy and clickbait and whatnot) (also also, I'd argue that "clickbait" refers specifically to misleading links that are gravely lacking in content, whereas Upworthy has simply mastered the art of Vague But Intriguing Headlines That Compel You To Click and actually have good content on the other side to backup what they're saying) (also also also, this is genuinely me saying this, and not just the company line)

Finally, there was...I swear there was something else, something...cool, some good reason why I've been mostly MIA and why I'm still a week behind on the write-a-thon and —

OH! That's right. I got married. So, ya know. I guess that's kinda cool.

Photo credit: Bethany & Dan

"GIMME INDIE ROCK!": The Simple Comforts of A Future Perfect

A Future Perfect is a brand new play by Ken Urban about indie rockers in their 30s dealing with marriage, careers, babies, and of course, rock and roll. The show is currently receiving its world premiere in Boston with SpeakEasy Stage Company, and if you're anything like me — that is, the creative indie rock type somewhere between the age of 24 and 45 trying to find a balance between still doing what you love and living some semblance of an "adult" life without explicitly selling out and/or turning boring — there's a good chance that this show might hit that sweet spot for you. It has all the charm and humor of a great indie movie (like The Happy Sad, also by Ken Urban and currently available on Netflix), along with a fantastic soundtrack featuring the likes of Pavement, Modest Mouse, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Smiths, Dinosaur Jr., etc. etc.

In short, it's pretty fantastic. 

Then again, I might be biased. After all, the show is directed by my partner, M. Bevin O'Gara, and I also did some music and video projection work for the show myself (in addition to the sound design by Nathan Leigh). So I mean — sure, if you want to put it that way, I guess I would be biased. But it's also an incredibly touching story about friendship, adulthood, and not losing sight of the things that you believe in. Even without the personal connections, that still hits pretty close to home for me.

A Future Perfect runs tonight through February 7 at the Calderwood Pavilion in the South End (there's also a Pay-What-You-Can performance this coming Sunday, Jan. 11). If you're reading this, you'll like it. Trust me.

Also there's puppets.

Become'd CUBA

This past weekend, my fiancé closed her production of Becoming Cuba at the Huntington. It was a fantastic for her, as well as a fantastic play — even if some of the reviewers had trouble grasping the idea that a play could have a Latina female as a protagonist (God forbid!), or be set in an historical context without being a "history lesson." I've seen various incarnations of this show...6 times now? And I still don't know anything about the Cuban War of Independence, other than that it happened, and that, in an incredibly over-simplified way, it's kind of the same conflict as what we call the Spanish-American War (meanwhile, we have done shows at the Huntington that could be described as "history lessons," but those were all about white dudes).

ANYWAY, in the end, the show was beautiful and successful, and that's what matter. I previously shared some of the earlier promotional videos that I made for the show, but over the course of its run, I made a few more as well, focusing on the relationship between Bevin and the playwright, Melinda Lopez, as well as the eerie synchronicity between the play and some of the actors' personal lives. Check 'em out:

Meanwhile, fellow playwright / bacon lover / renaissance man John J. King — the so-called "Child Wrangler" on Becoming Cuba — had some fun backstage (no, not like that) with "Chucho," the kid in the play. The two of them wrote a parody of "Royals" by Lorde sung from Chucho's point of view in the play, and I whipped together a quick video for it. I think it's pretty amazing (of course, it could be one of those "you-had-to-be-there" things, but c'mon — Lorde would be way cooler if she sang about guerrilla warfare and syphilis amiright?)

We also had our annual Gala fundraiser at the Huntington last week (in addition to some other, less uplifting news), for which I shot & edited a tribute to MacArthur "Genius" Mary Zimmerman, whom we honored at the event, and shot the footage for our new education video:

So, ya know. I've been busy. What else is new?

Wow. Our Town. Wow. Okay.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPwJ-8cGXpI] I say this with no personal bias -- not because my wonderful girlfriend, the producer of this fine production, has been busting her ass for 10 months to make this show as a reality, and not as an employee of the theatre company that is presenting the show.

David Cromer's production of Our Town at the Huntington is one of the Desert Island All-Time Top 5 Most Moving Shared Communal Experiences I have ever had in my entire life.

Perhaps it's especially poignant for me when I think of the friends that I've lost in recent years, but I watched the show on both Tuesday and Wednesday night, and I couldn't stand to watch it for a third time last night for our opening because I was already so overwhelmed with emotion. Three days in a row, and I think I would be eternally reduced to a sobbing puddle of flesh lying in fetal position on the floor. Yes, this show is so good that I literally could not watch it a third time (although I will probably go back at the end of the run, and hopefully catch some things I missed the other 2 times, because there's so much to see in the nothingness of this production, and as the play itself suggests, we can't possibly appreciate all of it when it's happening).

Anyway, there's a video I made up there about the show. I cannot stress enough how powerful and poignant this production truly is. Our Town might be seen as hokey and sentimental and high school-y to many people (though oddly I grew up in Thornton Wilder's hometown and never read or saw the show once, although I did play lots of shitty punk rock shows at Thornton Wilder Memorial Hall), but man, David Cromer just gets it, in a way that'll just blow your mind.

(Also don't read the review in The Boston Globe because [a] it's douchey, [b] IT SPOILS THE END OF THE PLAY, and [c] it's douchey. Yes, Our Town has been around a while, so there are certain spoilers that are now beyond the statute of limitations, but to spoil what makes this production so remarkable -- and to spoil it in such a nonchalant manner -- is awful. If this guy had reviewed The Sixth Sense when it first came out, he would have said "And then it turns out that Bruce Willis was dead the whole time which was totally brilliant and stunning -- I mean, that is to say, if you're one of those people who enjoys brilliant and stunning things or whatever. But otherwise, meh.")