{photo: Uber-agent Diane (Antoinette LaVecchia) charms the pants (and the play) off of a gay playwright she’s courting for a potential star vehicle for her client.}

A very thoughtful email about Little Dog came in last week from Ralph Cook:

“My wife, Barbara, and I saw, felt and were delightfully immersed in The Little Dog Laughed in the Sunday matinee on May 25th.  We laughed till our sides and stomachs ached.  As a writer, I kept thinking to myself and whispering in my wife’s ear, “How’d he do that.”  The asides, the interruptions, the overlaps.  The timing.  And use of lighting.  The actors’ interpretations.  Here was an incredibly close collaboration among the playwright, Douglas Carter Beane, the director, the crew and the actors.  ‘At the first nudity,’ Barbara later said, ‘out of the corner of my eye, I saw the hands shoot up of the woman sitting next to me.  She covered her eyes, then opened her fingers.’  Yes!  A live person, responding to live theater.

 One elderly couple in rather business-like attire sternly walked out at the intermission and never returend.  Ok.  Age has nothing to do with it.  I’m probably ten years their elder.  It’s more the mindset.

Afterward we stayed rooted in our seats as the audience filed out.  We had to share thoughts on this work.  We continued as we walked to the Rock Bottom brewery and resaturant, and then probed it more over dinner and a draft.  As a writer I had to get a script.   . . . The moment we arrived home, I went to my computer and found one through Amazon.  It was delivered Wednesday.  I read it the moment I tore open the envelope.  “Yes!  That’s how he (they) did it.”  I’ll share this with some of my fellow playwriting students.  Not all.  Some.  Because others will just cover their eyes.

{photo: Mitchell (Brik Berkes) and Alex (Dennis Flanagan) bring a touch of testosterone to some romantic evening in The Little Dog Laughed}

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