As you may remember, I recently joined the Theatre Development Fund (TDF) as their Online Content Manager. I’m writing theatre features every week and having ludicrous amounts of fun doing it.

Here are the highlights from this week’s publishing escapades…

(1) First up, we’ve got a two-part series on New York’s Asian and Asian-American theatre community. In part one, I look at two Korean-language musicals currently playing in Manhattan, and I ask, “Can you get something out of these shows if you don’t speak Korean?”

In part two, I break it down with the major New York companies that are dedicated to Asian-American theatre. What does “Asian-American” mean to these artists? Has their notion of minority theatre (or for that matter, minority culture)changed?

(2) Next, there’s an interview with Tony Award winner Doug Hughes, who is in the unique position of directing two Broadway plays at the same time. How does he juggle the revival of George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s comedy The Royal Family with David Mamet’s sexual harassment drama Oleanna, especially since they open three days apart?

*The photo comes from Joan Marcus. It features Hughes directing Oleanna co-stars Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles.

I recently returned to CNN.com’s Blogger Bunch to discuss Chris Brown’s community service sentence. (And I didn’t have any technical problems this time. Hooray!)

I got to say almost everything I wanted, but you know… I like to talk, so I didn’t get everything in. Just below the video, I’ll share the point I didn’t make on air.

My co-panelist Russell Wetanson makes the point that this is only day one of Chris Brown’s community service and that while he’s all smiles now, he may be in a much different, more penitent place by day 180.
Agreed. But that will be Brown’s personal story. Whether we like it or not, a celebrity in the justice system also tells a larger cultural story, and right now, the story being told about Brown’s punishment for abusing Rihanna is that he’s getting slapped on the wrist. He’ll be inconvenienced with some trash duty, but otherwise he’ll be fine.

If the media picks this story back up at the end of his community service, and if he seems more repentant, then the cultural story of his punishment will change. It will say something about the consequences of domestic abuse. But will that story be told? Will the media go back for more? I don’t know.

And besides—and this is the main thing I wanted to say—the rapper T.I. recently went to jail for a weapons charge, but before he did, he released a single (“Dead and Gone”) expressing his regret for his violent past, published an essay on the Huffington Post about what he’d learned, and made lots of other public gestures to tell people what he’d done was wrong. I don’t know what his personal story is, but he created a cultural story about regret and rehabilitation, and that’s the story that’s going to resonate with his fans. It’s the story that might teach people something about living a less violent life.

At the start of his community service, Brown’s cultural story is saying that domestic violence can result in living up while you wear an orange vest. The story may change later, but it didn’t have to begin that way to start with.

Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood.

There’s big doin’s in this week’s season finale. In the first half hour alone we get death and blood and egg licking. But the end is where things really get crazy.

To read all about it, join me here at The Huffington Post.

Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood.

This week, despite some unusually confusing and formless writing from Alan Ball, we still get all kinds of tacky goodness, including one particularly freaky scene with a giant egg.

To read all about it, just follow this link to The Huffington Post.

Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood.

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This week, we’ve got a big plate of awesome to enjoy. There are surprising character developments, whiz-bang action, and a tree full of meat.

For all the Sucker Punch-y goodness, join me here at The Huffington Post.

Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood.

For all the juicy, nasty vampire business, please join me over here at The Huffington Post.

Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood.

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Iximng ti pu.

See what I did there? I took the phrase “mixing it up,” and I mixed it up. That’s because True Blood episode 2.8, “Timebomb,” mixes up the meaning of two central metaphors. (I know, right? I’m so clever!)

In both cases, the allegories shift because they force us to reckon more fully with the hard facts of vampirism.

For the rest of this week’s gooey good fun, please join me here at The Huffington Post

Welcome to Sucker Punch, the only blog post that ranks the gaudiest moments on this week’s episode of True Blood.

—

(We begin with an argument already in progress)

Are you serious True Blood? Are you really going to spring Godric on me in the last moment of Episode 7 (“Release Me”) and then cut to the credits? Don’t you realize that I have to wait an entire week to see what happens next? God! Why are you… it’s just… selfish!

Oh… hey everyone. Sorry. True Blood and I are having a lovers’ quarrel. I mean, we’ve been dating for a while, and even though he’s not the perfect boyfriend—Don’t you roll your eyes at me! You’re not!—um, anyway, even though he’s not the perfect boyfriend, we usually get along great. But then he pulls this crap, where he teases me with things I love—chocolate covered peanuts, flavored seltzer, the long-awaited emergence of a vampire sheriff—and then hides them for days. It’s mean, and I hate it. That’s why I acted like I forgot his birthday last year.

You heard me! I was pretending I forgot! How did you like it? Wait… what? You’re walking away? Where are you… ? I can’t leave! I’m talking to these…

Okay. I’ll deal with him in a second. Sorry.

The point is, this week’s episode had some character inconsistencies, but in the end, it gave me an hour of zippy entertainment.

Read the rest here!

Are you guys watching Hung, the new HBO comedy about a well-endowed high school teacher who moonlights as a hooker? I am, and every time I laugh, I feel kind of guilty. The show really brings out my cruelest streak. 

To find out why, just check out my essay over at NPR’s blog Monkey See.

I’m proud to announce that I am today’s guest poster over at The Amateur Gourmet, the fabulous food website-cum-publishing-and-Food Network-sensation run by my friend Adam D. Roberts.

So head on over to check out my thoughts on Top Chef Masters. It’s no Top Chef, but it still brings something unique to the reality competition table.

And while you’re there, I encourage you to take a look around the site. Even if you’re not a foodie (which I’m not), it’s totally entertaining.