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Thom Dunn is a Boston-based writer, musician, and utterly terrible dancer. He is the singer/guitarist for the indie rock/power-pop the Roland High Life, as well as a staff writer for the New York Times’ Wirecutter and a regular contributor at BoingBoing.net. Thom enjoys Oxford commas, metaphysics, and romantic clichés (especially when they involve whiskey), and he firmly believes that Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is the single greatest atrocity committed against mankind. He is a graduate of Clarion Writer's Workshop at UCSD ('13) & Emerson College ('08).

Music To Soothe Your Jangled Innards

Quick update about a few events I've got coming up. One, I'll doing a show THIS Friday, December 14 at the All Asia in Central Square, Cambridge with my / Boston's premiere all-male hard rock Lady Gaga cover band Alejandro and the Fame. These shows are always a blast for everyone involved, and are almost always guaranteed to sell out, so make you get there (lookin' at you, People On The Other Side Of The River Who Missed Our Last Show Because It Was Allllllll The Way In JP Oh BooHoo). Admission is a scant $6, and we hit the stage around 10:30pm! I'm also excited to announce that I'll be performing a short set for MORTIFIED at Oberon on Saturday, December 22. For those who haven't heard of this, MORTIFIED is a night of performance in which real-live grown adult humans read horribly horribly embarrassing things from their high school journals / AIM transcripts / etc, and hilarity ensues. And so, during my set, you'll be treated to some particularly painful gems that I dugout from my high school and middle school songwriting notebooks. Ever wonder what kind of angsty tunes I wrote when I was 14 (including "Dot of my 'I'" and instant never-classic "Fuck You Hotchkiss Lane")? Here's your only chance to hear them live! More information to come when I got it.

And finally, I was asked to write up a few scripts for the 2nd Annual Boston One-Minute Play Festival at the Boston Playwrights Theatre, January 5-7. I believe the evening as a whole contains about 100 one-minute plays (yes, really, but c'mon, that's barely an hour and a half!), so I'm sure there's going to be some great variety. And if you don't like a play, well, just wait one minute! I will say that writing a play, complete with a status quo, conflict, rising action,and denouement is remarkably more difficult than you might expect it to be, but I'm pretty pleased with what I came up with (and I should be blogging a bit more about it soon over at their website).

That's all for now, folks! See you Friday!

Before Who Leaves Who?

Tonight marks the official press opening of our brand new world premiere play BEFORE I LEAVE YOU at the Huntington. The play was written by Huntington Playwriting Fellow Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro and is set in Cambridge in and around Harvard Square. Here's a little video I cut together of audience reactions after seeing the show. Check it out! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTSPSVpTwic&w=500&h=284]

A Love Story for Grownups

In the marketing copy, we've been calling BEFORE I LEAVE YOU "a love story for grownups" — but what does that even mean? Sure, it's a play about old people. Or at least, it's a play about characters, most of them happen to be transitioning from middle aged to old aged. Playwright Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro play tells a beautiful, seldom told middle-age love story with the freshness and smart sensibility of a young independent filmmaker. While the characters might be older, the humor and the heart of the story are for everyone. I spoke with the cast, director, and playwright about this idea of age that permeates the play, and how we can all relate to it. The world premiere of BEFORE I LEAVE YOU at the Huntington runs through November 13 at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfHYN9ORB8k&w=500&h=284]

Behind the scenes of Before I Leave You

This season at the Huntington, we're trying to take a slightly different approach to our video content, this time creating more small and focused "featurettes" instead of one longer, all-encompassing piece about each show (mainly because people have no attention span for 6 minute videos, and this way we can more in). The first up is a series of interviews with Before I Leave You playwright Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, director Jonathan Silverstein, and the rest of the cast, explaining the story and themes of this new Boston-based world premiere. Enjoy! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QDhFKQuZiY&w=500&h=284]

Peter DuBois on Before I Leave You

Here's a brief video that I filmed back in May, as part of an interview between Huntington Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Charles Haugland, Artistic Programs and Dramaturgy, about our upcoming world premiere of Before I Leave You by Huntington Playwriting Fellow (and 40-year Cambridge resident!) Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro. The play tells the story of a group of academic friends living in Harvard Square as they approach the dreaded "old age." I could tell you more but, well, that's what I made the video for! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcK1Zvq3W_c&w=500&h=284]

MATT DAMON. Also Ben Affleck. With Breasts!

Would you believe that the script for Good Will Hunting literally fell from the sky (well, the ceiling) and landed right in the laps of two young men in Somerville, Massachusetts? Would you believe that, prior to said script falling from said ceiling, said young men were working (as all young men have done) to adapt The Catcher in the Rye into a screenplay?

Would you believe that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are totally chicks?

Yeah, me too. Which means you should probably check out Matt & Ben, the hilarious genderswapped "true" story behind the breakout success of those two Cambridge lads and the script that made them both into stars. Written by Mindy Kaling (like, from The office) and Brenda Withers and directed by my superawesomelytalented girlfriend, Ms M. Bevin O'Gara, this fantastic bromantic comedy opens today and runs through the end of the month at the Central Square Theater in, well, Central Square — right where it all started, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

But seriously, go see this show, because even I weren't biased (which, I mean, I'm not), I would still tell you to see it, because it is that entertaining. Also I'm pretty sure the set dressing was modeled after my bedroom, even though my girlfriend totally denies it.

So check it out! Because, you know. Matt Damon.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PajyQrpu26I&w=425&h=349]

Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-BAT-BOY!

For the next 10 days, you can find me in the pit (well, okay, technically balcony, but it's still called the pit) playing guitar for MetroStage Company's production of BAT BOY! The Musical, directed by the lovely and quite talented Miss M. Bevin O'Gara. Here are the performance dates, for those of you who are interested:

  

  • Friday, June 3 at 8pm
  • Saturday, June 4 at 8pm
  • Sunday, June 5 at 2pm
  • Thursday, June 9 at 7:30pm
  • Friday, June 10 at 8pm
  • Saturday, June 11 at 8pm

Performances take place at the Cambridge Family YMCA Theatre in Central Square, Cambridge.

And the synopsis (in case you're somehow unaware of the "Bat Boy" trend that once ruled The Weekly World News):

Based on a story in The Weekly World News, BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL is a musical comedy/horror show about a half boy/half bat creature who is discovered in a cave near Hope Falls, West Virginia. For lack of a better solution, the local sheriff brings Bat Boy to the home of the town veterinarian, Dr. Parker, where he is eventually accepted as a member of the family and taught to act like a "normal" boy by the veterinarian's wife, Meredith, and teenage daughter, Shelley. Bat Boy is happy with his new life, but when he naively tries to fit in with the narrow-minded people of Hope Falls, they turn on him, prodded by the machinations of Dr. Parker, who secretly despises Bat Boy. Shelley and Bat Boy, who have fallen in love, run away together from the ignorant townfolk and have a blissful coupling in the woods, but their happiness is shattered when Meredith arrives and reveals a secret. Soon the entire town arrives and hears the shocking story of Bat Boy's unholy origin.