I just learned that Charles Nolte has passed on (January 14, 2010). My condolences to his family, friends, fans, students and colleagues.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Charles for this blog back in October 2007. It was easily one of the most rewarding interviews I’ve ever done. He had been on Broadway in the 40s and had a rich career in theatre ever since. Please take a look if you have a few minutes. You’ll be glad you did: 10 questions: Charles Nolte.

I never met the man in person, but I feel like I know him. Thanks Charles.

Or I guess it did . . . right here.

This is a stock image combined with a found image. Ultimately, we rejected it because we felt it sets up expectations around “slasher”, when our piece is more a study of the meat of the brain. Cool image though. The genius of Pete Aspros is behind the retouching.

Here’s some theatre stuff I’m thinking about:

1. The imagination gap is caused by the resource gap which is caused by the imagination gap . . . and so on.

2. Where is genre theatre? And by this I mean, where are the broad theatre genre classifications and productions that have meaning for people who don’t know anything about genre. “I can’t wait to see that new ____.” Western? Horror play? Corporeal mime?

3. Actors are noble beasts. Like cats and grade school teachers. All of whom, incidentally, enjoy being the centre of attention.

4. Marketing spend. It would be amazing to have a fully resourced year to spend coming up with ways to market theatre.

5. Impossible theatre. Is there a kind of theatre that will never exist? Maybe like theatre that involves dead people, or something.

The story behind this Fringe postcard: “Designers are like secret weapons. Tricky to secure in low/no budget theatre but invaluable when they put their minds to it. DMeister Creative has clients like Microsoft, HP and SoftChoice (the same company that through our lead actor offered us free rehearsal space in their board room!). But where do you meet these talented people looking for cool projects to do outside their corporate gigs? DMeister is an ex-boyfriend of a roommate of a friend of mine, of course.” – Cole J. Alvis

The pitch: Michael is the next contestant on the newest reality TV series “Reality” – a show that takes young, good looking but incredibly troubled men out of their natural environment and forces them to face the realities of their existence. With the help of mom, a significant other, a scientific genius, a commercial about depression, a detective and 10 other people, Michael discovers there’s more to life than eat, sleep, poop, mate and die.

More info here: Enlightenment Theatre.

Brand new theatre company. Brand new website. If you’re interested, you can also download our press release (PDF), here. It’s fun, too.

Anybody got any good Fringe Festival postcards? How about sending a jpg here with a 25- to 75-word story about why they look the way they do. We’ll run it in this space along with a link to your website if you want. Any takers?