The Play’s The Thing

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a theatre geek. I’ll go see just about anything. It’s not that I’m not discriminating in my choice of what to see, just that I’m willing to give anyone who’s “puttin’ on a show” the benefit of the doubt that it could be good. And when everything connects, it can be a life-altering experience.

But I do pay a price, having to sit through some awful productions when I know someone in the show, or I’m seated next to the director, or I’ve left my bike with the box office staff because there was no place to lock it up outside and I just don’t feel right asking for it back during the intermission for a show I got free tickets to (I wonder why they were free?).

A bad performance is one thing, but a bad audience can also sully an otherwise good show. Late-comers blocking my view, cell phones ringing (and owners answering!), candy wrappers crinkling, private conversations that everyone within 10 feet can hear. You know, people who behave as though they’re sitting in their living room watching a DVD.

“So what,” you ask, “does this have to do with the library?”

Marriott Library has just purchased access to the Theatre in Video* database. So now I (and you) can enjoy a theatre performance and not have to feel guilty if I stop watching halfway through, or worry about inconsiderate audience distractions.

Because this is an online, streaming resource, I can choose when and where I want to watch it (unlike videos from the Multimedia Center, which need to be watched in the library). In addition to plays, it has documentaries and interviews with theatre artists (such as Arthur Miller and Israel Horovitz Discuss Theater). I can create clips of my favorite parts to share with my friends (look for the clip links for Mummenschanz—the toilet paper mimes from Sesame Street, remember?!) And I can see shows from when I was just a kid (check out Meryl Streep in Alice in the Palace, a made-for-TV adaptation of a Joseph Papp-conceived/directed production for the New York Shakespeare Festival, a musical she did between Kramer vs. Kramer and Sophie’s Choice).

Speaking of Shakespeare, Marriott Library has paid extra to provide access to BBC productions of all 37 of the Bard’s plays. And the Theatre in Video database is not yet complete. Alexander Street Press has only uploaded half of the titles they plan to include.

You better start now, if you want to watch them all!

*If you are off campus, you will need to authenticate your browser session by logging in to my.utah.edu first. Theatre in Video is also available from Marriott Library's Article Databases list.

Graphic Novels

If you haven't read a graphic novel before, I highly recommend them. They're an awesome combination of comic book and novel. They can deal with the serious content of a novel, yet still have the engaging artwork of a comic book.

For example, one of my favorite graphic novels is Maus by Art Spielgelman. The story recounts the struggle of Art's father to survive the Holocaust as a Jew in Poland. Jewish people are depicted as mice in the book while the Nazis are cats. Despite the seemingly comical look at the Holocaust, it's actually a memoir of real events experienced by real people.

Plus, I thought it was brilliant. And I'm pretty picky.

I also wanted to talk about the graphic novels owned by the Marriott Library. We have a fairly extensive of this genre in our Browsing Collection as well as some scattered throughout the main collection and the curriculum library, which is where we have quite a few books for young adult readers.

A few particular favorites of mine (and I'm about to reveal my geekly love of all things science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal) are:

Sloth. YALSA, the Young Adult Library Service Association, voted this one of the top graphic novels of 2007. For the complete list, click here.

Genius Girl 1: Agatha Heterodyne & The Beetleburg Clank. This is the first in an ongoing steampunk series about a Victorian girl with the ability to manipulate physics and mechanics with her mind. The first story introduces you to a historical world like ours, but not. It's alternative history. What could have happened if certain things or events had turned out differently. One of my favorite genres, and the artwork is interesting.

You can look both of these up by doing a search for their titles in the Marriott Library Catalog.