So I'm going to LA

So, I was sick a few weekends ago, and, sprawled out on my daybed/couch, made ecstatic by Will Arnett’s brief appearance in The Sopranos (my illness was a perfect excuse to catch up on the last five years of pop culture), I began to ask myself: In my wildest dreams, what awesome people would I like to run into when I visit LA (for the first time!) in February?

Odds are, I won’t run into anyone, as the occasion for my visit is an NEA Theatre-writing fellowship, one where I’m told I’ll have little to no time for sightseeing (but I’m psyched just the same!), and because almost nothing will be in production, I imagine, due to the writer’s strike, and because didn’t the wildfire cause everyone to migrate to New York? Wow — did that sentence make any sense? Anyway, I made a tragically short, mental list of the talented folks I’d like to rapturously wave at (that’s code for “I admire your work; thanks for your artistic contribution to society), but then thought the better of publishing it. You know, that way, when I melt down in front of _____, s/he’ll never’ve seen it coming.

Anyway, on the off chance I do have a spot of time to wander a few blocks around USC Annenberg, I’d love your must-visit suggestions, Curblog readers (How far would I have to walk to picket with the people from _____?). In the meantime, take a gander at the shows I and the other NEA fellows will be attending (and surely blogging about):

The Color Purple, Orson’s Shadow (Austin Pendleton), The Wooster Group’s Hamlet, Victory (Athol Fugard), Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson (Alex Timbers), Carnage (Adam Simon and Tim Robbins), Dickie & Babe: The TRUTH About Leopold & Loeb (Daniel Henning), The Joan Rivers Theater Project (Joan Rivers) (stop that laughing), and Voices from Okinawa (Jon Shirota).