blog

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).

Oh Hey What's Up Kate Burton

This past weekend, we began previews for our production of The Seagull at the Huntington. I can say without bias that this is the funniest Chekhov play I've ever seen (and possibly the first time I've actually looked Chekhov to be humorous). But on top of that, the production also features Kate Burton (aka Vice President Sally Langston on Scandal plus like a million other things) and her real-life son, Morgan Ritchie, as the onstage mother-and-son Arkadina and Konstantin, which is pretty cool. Here are two videos I put together about the show, which runs through April 6 at the BU Theatre: 

Upcoming Stuff & Events & Things (Nov. '13)

Hello, website! Long time, no update! I swear that one of these days I am going to actually train myself to just make brief updates here as they happen, instead of these info dumps. ANYWAY. I've got some stuff going on, because of course I do. It goes like this:

Meanwhile, in addition to my normal duties at Five By Five Hundred, I have a review of Eric Smith's new book The Geek's Guide To Dating on Tor.com, and some coverage of SpeakEasy Stage Company's world premiere production of Make Up Your Mind, a brand new play by Kurt Vonnegut even though he's dead.

And then, ya know, the youge (like, the slang/shortened word for "usual," but spelled phonetically? Is that right?): Workin', writin', so on and so forth. Tonight at the Huntington we start performances for The Cocktail Hour by A.R. Gurney, which is directed by Maria Aitken, a favorite of ours at the theatre. Here's a little video I made for that:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa_ckErMzAY]

I also wrote some fun stuff about ghost stories at the theatre on the Huntington's blog which is still worth reading even though it's after Halloween, as well as two pieces of flash fiction in this "Quantum Shorts" competition that you can go read and vote for so I can win some monies: I Kill Dead People and Not Dead Yet (which was the basis for my story in Grayhaven Comics' Fifth Dimension anthology).

Wow that's a whole lot of dead stuff. In that case, I should end this on a happy note, which is that Maurissa Tancharoen both listened to and enjoyed my song "I'll Fight A Whedon For You"; unfortunately, her husband Jed was less than impressed.

So now I've pissed one Whedon and armwrestled another, which only leaves Zak for me still to cross. But overall I think that means that I've successfully become a Whedonverse villain?

Holy crap, I'll be 28 in 2 weeks.

Maria Aitken returns for The Cocktail Hour

Maria Aitken is one of our favorite directors at the Huntington, and we're excited to welcome her back to Boston this fall to bring her expertise to AR Gurney's American comedy of manners The Cocktail Hour. Here's a little video I did with Artistic Director Peter DuBois about the production:

Memory, Time, and Infidelity

Here's a little behind-the-scenes documentary that I put together for our upcoming production of Harold Pinter's Betrayal at the Huntington. This was one of the first plays to famously explore a nonlinear chronology, which is one of its more interesting qualities (basically, LOST owes a lot to Betrayal). Anyway, check it out. Previews start Friday! [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBcAW2uCqHo]

Betrayal Begins

We just started rehearsals today (well, rehearsals in Boston; there were a few preliminary days of tablework in NYC) for our upcoming production of Harold Pinter's Betrayal, one of his most highly regarded plays. The show runs November 9 - December 9 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre, under the direction of Maria Aitken aka the mom of the director on SMASH aka the lady from A Fish Called Wanda aka fucking Maria Aitken. Anyway, here's a video I made of our Artistic Director Peter DuBois talking about the production:[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOhQBRYb-So&w=485&h=273]

Private Lives at the Huntington

Here's my latest behind-the-scenes video for the Huntington, featuring interviews with Private Lives director Maria Aitken, and cast members James Waterston and Bianca Amato. Previews start this Friday, and the show runs through the end of June. It's a hilarious Noël Coward comedy, kind of a posh and witty comedy of manners about marriage and divorce and other equally silly things. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3rvfvWsg8s]