Archives for April 2014

“Most theatre is still really bad,” says Cock playwright Mike Bartlett, in this interview from The Guardian. He goes on, “It isn’t church. There’s nothing innately good about it. Most theatre is still really bad.”

Another choice quotation – “If you’re still going at theatre-in-the-1970s speed and your audience has been watching The Wire, then your play’s going to seem pretty slow.”

Read the whole piece here: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/nov/08/mike-bartlett-royal-court-cock

Listen to the first two minutes of this to hear British playwright Mike Bartlett talk about how he began work on his play, “Cock,” and what it really does have to do with cockfights.

The idea for the “Cock” photo shoot came to me when I was thinking of the Vanity Fair photo spreads of the “Mad Men” and “Sopranos” casts. Like these…


I had a mental image of David Glover’s character lounging on a recliner, with Elena and Drew standing somewhere near him. For some reason I pictured them all bloody and bruised. Since we’ve been going with a boxing match metaphor for the show, it seemed like a good photo to tie into the story. I told the idea to Matt and Dave and they set everything up and handled the shoot, along with Acacia Duncan as our makeup artist. It was one brief flash of insight for me, but a collaboration of will and talent to make it a reality.

Here are some Instagram posts from our photo session last weekend.