Like many writers, I feel centered when I write, or it might be better to say, when I don’t write, when I can’t write for whatever reason, I feel, frankly, de-stabilized. It’s dangerous for me not to write.
—
Sigrid Nunez
Cynthia Hopkins by Craig Lucas
“I don’t think about the audience. If I thought about the audience, I’d be writing Rent.”—Cynthia Hopkins
- Alain Mabanckou by Binwavanga Wainaina
- Cynthia Hopkins by Annie-B Parson
- Dan Asher by Ben Berlow
- Joan Jonas by Karin Schneider
- Edward Droste by Rick Moody
- Jessica Jackson Hutchins by Stuart Horodner
- Jennifer Egan by Heidi Julavits
- Elizabeth Streb by A.M. Homes
Interviews
- Santutxo Etxeberria by Barbara Browning
- Fiction for Driving: An excerpt from S P R A W L by Danielle Dutton
- From Linda Perdido by Mac Wellman
- Three Poems by Elizabeth Willis
- A Short History of the Limited Edition by Tan Lin
- Hot on the Hunt by Zach Samalin
- Three Works by Sebastiaan Bremer
- Excerpt from Lividity by Kim Rosenfield
First Proof
- Futurefarmers by David van der Leer
- Andrew Lampert by Ed Halter
- Cordy Ryman by Stephen Westfall
Artists on Artists
- George Negroponte by Carlos Brillembourg
- Tim Rollins and K.O.S.: A History by Lisa Kahane
- Sharon Irish’s Suzanne Lacy: Spaces Between by Cameron Shaw
- Genevieve Belleveau by Lena Valencia
- Microscripts by Mónica de la Torre
- Veiko Õunpuu’s The Temptation of St. Tony by Clinton Krute
- Blind Handshake: David Humphrey Art Writing + Art, 1990–2008 by Stuart Horodner
- Gil Scott-Heron’s I’m New Here by Douglas Singleton
- Tomás Harris’s Cipango by Daniel Borzutzky
- Electric Literature by Paul W. Morris
- How to Escape from a Leper Colony by Jaime Manrique
- The Kenning Anthology of Poets Theater 1945–85 by Mac Wellman
Editor's Choice
Listen to a podcast of a post-show discussion with musician/performer Cynthia Hopkins and playwright Craig Lucas, recorded live at Soho Rep on May 20, 2010, as part of their FEED series. This conversation took place immediately following a performance of Hopkins’ performance entitled Truth: A Tragedy. Read an interview with her by Annie-B Parsons in BOMB’s Summer Issue.
Cynthia Hopkins (genitor of the band Gloria Deluxe, the Accidental Trilogy, and a multitude of other notable artistic ventures and triumphs), latest work grew out of her love/hate relationship with Greek Tragedies and the writing she was doing while moving her ailing father into assisted living six years ago. The result is a document unflinchingly genuine and true, if filtered through a highly personal narrative. Through song, dance, and text Hopkins’ conjures Parkinson’s disease, a hoarder’s nest, notions of suppressed homosexuality and a classroom full of ten-year-olds chanting jump to a man on a ledge, with the get-up of a clown and the feet of a Fred Astair. Uncomfortable, hilarious and, tragic, maybe, heroic, definitely, Truth: A Tragedy has you squirming even as you laugh, laughing even as you squirm, and softening every time Ms. Hopkins sings.
Craig Lucas is a playwright and the author of Missing Persons, Blue Window, Reckless, Prelude to a Kiss, God’s Heart, The Dying Gaul, Stranger, Small Tragedy, The Singing Forest and Prayer for My Enemy. He is a contributing editor to BOMB in theater, and wrote the introduction to Speak Theater and Film, the best of BOMB interviews.
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Tina Satter speaks about formalism, her perverse sense of humour and the importance of family drama.
The two playwrights and performers on the drawbacks of being in constant production mode versus the pleasures of, and requirements for, the incubation of plays: a dose of folly and wonderment.
Originally published in
BOMB 112,
Summer 2010
Featuring interviews with Dan Asher, Elizabeth Streb and A.M Homes, Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Alain Mabanckou, Jennifer Egan, Edward Droste, Cynthia Hopkins, and Joan Jonas.
