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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).

Smart People Who Are Funny But Then Also Sexy And Plus Smart

Here's a little video I put together for the upcoming world premiere of Lydia R. Diamond's Smart People at the Huntington, which starts previews this Friday and runs through June 29. Check it out!

Lydia R. Diamond's sharp new comedy asks bold new questions about race, sex, and relationships in the modern world. Learn more in this exclusive interview with the playwright and cast members Eunice Wong, McKinley Belcher III, Miranda Craigwell, and Roderick Hill.

We've also got one of those fancy 35 Below parties planned for it, after the Friday night performance on May 30. $25 gets you tickets + access to the party, including free drinks and live music. So it's basically a pretty sweet deal. Woohoo!

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:

Playwright Melinda Lopez and director Bevin O'Gara have been working on BECOMING CUBA for over 2 years, but their history together stretches back for more than a decade. Learn more about their special relationship in an exclusive interview with Lopez, O'Gara, and cast members Juan Javier Cardenas, Christina Pumariega, Christopher Tarjan, and Rebecca Soler.
Cuban blood runs thick in Melinda Lopez's stirring new drama, both onstage and off. The family at the center of the play is portrayed by three actors who all share Cuban heritage - but the similarities don't end there. Learn more about these surprising and heartwarming Cuban connections in an exclusive interview with playwright Melinda Lopez, director M.

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?)

The story of "Becoming Cuba" as told through the eyes of a modern teen pop star. Written and performed by Brandon Barbosa with John J. King.

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:

What makes Mary Zimmerman so great? We turn to frequent collaborators Usman Ally, Geoff Packard, Douglas Peck, Kevin Carolan, Anjali Bhimani, and others in search of the answer. "The Jungle Book" and "Candide" director and MacArthur Fellow Mary Zimmerman was honored with the Wimberly Award, the Huntington's highest honor, at the 2014 Spotlight Spectacular on Monday, April 28 at the Boston Park Plaza Castle.
Learn more about the Huntington's award-winning youth, education, and community outreach programs, including Student Matinees, Poetry Out Loud, and the August Wilson Monologue Competition. Learn more at huntingtontheatre.org/education.

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

Big Ups for BECOMING CUBA!

Last night was the official opening of Becoming Cuba at the Huntington, which is not only a fantastic show, but also just so happens to be directed by incredibly talented fiancé M. Bevin O'Gara (also I totally made her a website isn't that neat?).

Havana is HOT! Hear what audiences are saying about BECOMING CUBA at the Huntington, and get a sneak peek at scenes from the hit production. Melinda Lopez's stirring new drama BECOMING CUBA directed by M. Bevin O'Gara plays March 28 - May 3, 2014 at the South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.

If you're in Boston in the next month, it is absolutely worthy seeing (all personal bias aside). But if that's not enough to convince you, here are a few videos I put together about the show that could do the job just as well.

(And for the record: being paid at your job to edit video with your fiancé's face on a 36" screen is every bit as awkward as it sounds)

BECOMING CUBA takes place during the Spanish-American war, but Melinda Lopez's new play is surprisingly relevant to recent events in Egypt, Ukraine, and beyond. Learn more in this exclusive interview with playwright Melinda Lopez, director M. Bevin O'Gara, and cast members Christopher Tarjan, Juan Javier Cardenas, Christina Pumariega, and Rebecca Soler.

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: 

THE SEAGULL deals with a fictional family onstage, but the Huntington's production also extends to three generations of the real-life Burton family. Kate Burton and her son Morgan Ritchie discuss their experience playing an onstage mother-and-son, while director Maria Aitken shares her own history with Kate's parents, Richard Burton and Sybil Christopher.
What's so funny about tragedy, anyway? Come behind the scenes of Chekhov's passionate classic with cast members Kate Burton, Morgan Ritchie, Auden Thornton, Marc Vietor, Nael Nacer, and Ted Koch, along with director Maria Aitken. THE SEAGULL plays March 7 - April 6, 2014 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre.

The Backyard Committee at the Huntington

Last night, I had the pleasure of joining my friends in The Backyard Committee for a few songs on lap steel guitar at one of our 35 Below parties at the Huntington. I've played a shows with them before, mostly on keyboards, and this was a fun, different experiment, as I don't really get to play lap steel guitar out in front of people very often (it's also a very difficult instrument to play by yourself). The band is essentially Mike Sembos, and whatever musicians he finds to accompany him. Even if I hadn't been friends with Mike for 12 or so years now, I'd still love this band, because Mike is an utterly fantastic songwriter. So they're always a blast to play with, and I'm hoping to do it again pretty soon. Did I mention that you can download both of their albums for free on their website?

...also there was Duck Hunt:

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.

Huntington Updates

We've got one week left of The Jungle Book (now officially our highest-grossing show of all time), and previews began tonight for The Power of Duff, a new play by Stephen Belber (and featuring, among others, Jennifer Westfeldt, writer of Kissing Jessica Stein and wife of Jon Hamm). Here's a little video I put together about it:

"The funniest play you'll ever see about God and dead fathers." Director Peter DuBois, along with cast members David Wilson Barnes, Amy Pietz, Jennifer Westfeldt, and Brendan Griffin, discuss Stephen Belber's moving new drama THE POWER OF DUFF, presented by the Huntington Theatre Company Oct. 11 - Nov.

Here's another brief video I made for our Annual Fund ask, which hopefully gives a glimpse of the size and scope of our productions (and makes clear that even when shows are selling well, we still need money because, well, theatre this good don't come cheap, y'know?)

The Bare Necessities of a Huntington production are: - 19 cast members - 12 musicians - over 150 technical production staff, administrative staff, and artists behind the scenes - and YOU. Producing memorable theatre is a labor of love, requiring hard work by so many people.

I'm also trying to up my blogging quotient for the company -- because hey, I enjoy writing sometimes, believe it or not -- and here's one of my latest posts, about our new young donor program "The Hunt."

SO MANY THINGS HAPPENING IN THE THEATRE AHHHHHHHH

Man, life was so calm and easygoing for that first month after I got back from Clarion. What the hell happened? Oh yeah. The Jungle Book, our new world premiere musical adaptation of the Disney animated film, directed and adapted by the incredible Mary Zimmerman. We've just extended the show a second time, so it now closes on October 20 (but tickets are going fast, so get 'em while you can!). It's been a pretty crazy time at work, but luckily, all in a good way, with lots of special promotional events for the show that have kept me pretty busy. But here's a little glimpse at a few of the things I've been doing for it:

Our "audience testimonial" video, with some B-Roll from the production, and interviews with real audience members who cannot stop raving about the show (so you don't just have to take my word for it). 

Hear what audiences have been saying about the world premiere of Mary Zimmerman's ravishing new musical adaptation of THE JUNGLE BOOK at the Huntington, playing through Oct. 13, 2013 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre. Learn more at huntingtontheatre.org/junglebook.

We also took the cast of the show to Fenway Park, where they performed the National Anthem before the Red Sox totally obliterated the Stankees. Here's their actual performance...

The cast of Mary Zimmerman's ravishing new musical adaptation of THE JUNGLE BOOK at the Huntington performed the National Anthem at Fenway Park before the 1:05pm Red Sox game against the New York Yankees on Saturday, September 14, 2013, before heading back to the theatre to perform a 2pm matinee.

...and here's a fun little overview of their entire (did I mention they had soundcheck at 10am for a 1pm game, plus a two-show day starting with a 2pm matinee performance? Yeahhhh it was kinda nuts) 

On Saturday, September 14, 2013, the cast of Mary Zimmerman's ravishing new musical adaptation of THE JUNGLE BOOK at the Huntington performed the National Anthem at the Red Sox game against the New York Yankees, before rushing back to the theatre on a trolley to perform a 2pm matinee.

On top of that, I've been doing some video editing work for Project: Project's upcoming production How May I Connect You (Or, Scenes in The Key of D:/), a really cool devised theatre piece full of hilarious sketches about communication and human interaction in a digital era. That show goes up this coming weekend only, Sept. 26-29, at the South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, so see while you still can!

A music video as a part of "How May I Connect You? (Or, Scenes in a Key of D:\). First presented 9/26/2013. A mock 80's boy band hopes for a call on their beepers.

(oh, and plus, my girlfriend just directed this incredible production of Nina Raines' Tribes at SpeakEasy Stage Company, which is getting absolute stellar reviews, so you should go see that as well. It runs through Oct. 12.)



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:

Artistic Director Peter DuBois discusses A.R. Gurney's THE COCKTAIL HOUR, and explains why frequent Huntington collaborator Maria Aitken is the perfect choice to direct this American comedy of manners. Video shot, edited, and produced by Thom Dunn: http://www.thomdunn.net

The Power of Duff at the Huntington

One of our other new plays in the Huntington's upcoming season is The Power of Duff, which had its world premiere last summer but is undergoing some extensive re-writes for this fall. I spoke with director Peter DuBois about the production in the video below, and I talk more extensively about the story and script over on the Huntington blog:

Artistic Director Peter DuBois discusses his collaboration on THE POWER OF DUFF, a moving new drama by Stephen Belber and a story unlike any he has ever told before. THE POWER OF DUFF plays Oct. 11 - Nov. 9, 2013 at the South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.


The Jungle Book Comes to Boston!

The opening show of our 2013-2014 season at the Huntington is a brand new stage adaptation of Disney's The Jungle Book, which we're all pretty excited about. I talk about it more extensively over on the Huntington's blog, and here's a video interview I put together with our Artistic Director Peter DuBois about the production: 

In February 2013, THE JUNGLE BOOK Director/Adapter Mary Zimmerman and Music Director Doug Peck held a music workshop which united six Chicago swing/jazz musicians with six Indian instrumentalists to fuse songs to create a sound unique to this production.

Performances of The Jungle Book begin September 7 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre.

Toni Tone Tony

So this one time, I won a Tony Award.

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(damn I look good in a tux)

Okay well technically my entire company won a Tony Award, but still, I fall under that category. Which means that I am now officially a Tony Award-winning playwright! I just, you know, didn't win the Tony Award for playwriting; I won it for, uh, well, I guess, Web & New Media Management. WHATEVER YO I GOT A TONY.

Anyway, it was awesome. I've recapped the experience over on the Huntington's blog, as well as on the Boston Herald website, so you can read about it in detail on one of those sites. But mostly I just wanted to brag for a moment.So excuse me while I go brush my shoulders off.

A Raisin In The Sun Preview

I spoke with a few of the cast members of A Raisin In The Sun about their experience working with director Liesl Tommy and what it's like trying to find a fresh and relevant take on such a well-known classic. Fortunately for me, they had a lot of good things to say: 

A RAISIN IN THE SUN cast members Keona Welch, LeRoy McClain, Kimberly Scott, and Ashely Everage discuss the Huntington's upcoming production and the experience of working with director Liesl Tommy to find a fresh new take on this powerful American classic.

Previews start this Friday, March 8 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre (plus we've got a cool little pre-show party with cheap tickets that night if you're interested)

(also? One of the actresses was totally in Batman Forever! Also The Abyss. But more importantly Batman Forever!)

Drag Queens and Puppets and Murder, Oh My!

For the past 20 years, Ryan Landry has been making these crazy queer-mash-up-parody plays full of puppets, drag queens, and all kinds of offensive brilliance, and he's established quite a reputation for himself in doing this, consistently selling out 4 or more shows a year which he typically performs in the basement of a gay bar in the Fenway. We're finally teaming up with him at the Huntington to bring his irreverent theatrical style to a larger stage, and give him the opportunity to collaborate with different artists (and hopefully help him to continue to grow as an artist, you know). I spoke with our Artistic Director, Peter DuBois, about the wild works of Ryan Landry, in anticipation of his upcoming adaptation of Fritz Lang's German child murder film noir M, which plays March 29 through April 27 at the Huntington. Check it out: 

Artistic Director Peter DuBois discusses the irreverent genius of local playwright Ryan Landry and the process of turning Fritz Lang's iconic German film noir M into a nightmarish good time (with puppets). Ryan Landry's "M" plays March 29 - April 27, 2013 at the South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.

"...And We Go Ahhhhhhh / Like a Raisin in The Sun /.... "

(...that's how the song goes, right?) Coming up next at the Huntington, Liesl Tommy is returning to direct the classic A Raisin In The Sun, a play which I probably don't need to tell you anything about because you've already read it. But here's a video I made of our Artistic Director Peter DuBois talking about what makes this production special (including a mention of Bevin's next project, the Boston premiere of last year's Tony Award winner Clybourne Park for SpeakEasy Stage).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERERCo1dI1o]

A Raisin In The Sun plays March 8 - April 7, 2013 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre, and Clybourne Park runs March 1 - 30, 2013 at the South End / Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA.

"I Speak For You"

I've posted a bunch about Invisible Man already, but don't take my word for it. Here's an audience testimonial video that I put together, so you can hear what the actual audience has to say about it. Plus, there's some video footage from the production, which looks pretty damn cool if you do ask me! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTFytLFVmII]

The Race One, Not The Sci-Fi One

Previews start tomorrow at the Huntington for our stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison's seminal novel Invisible Man. If nothing else, this is simply one of the most stunning visual feats for storytelling I've seen. Here's a little video I put together about the play from interviews I did with the creators and the lead actor playing Invisible Man. Check it out: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgoMI-I21Co]

Invisible Man plays Jan. 4 — Feb. 3 at the Avenue of the Arts / BU Theatre.

Don't Take My Word For It...

In case I somehow haven't said enough to convince you to go see Our Town at the Huntington, here's a little video I put together of what OTHER people have said about the show right after seeing it (along with some exclusive footage from the production itself). So if you don't trust me, trust them instead! Peer Pressure! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXAsKJ62LAU]

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.")