Monday, November 2, 2009

Free Bird

Okay, so Dallas’s Free Night of Theater program is this month. They did it a little different this year, rolling out a week’s worth of tickets at a time. So I’d pull up a week at a time and see if anything clicked. But between vacation and teenager-sitting and Halloween and RCPM and family stuff and friends stuff, I just never seemed to be able to make any of the shows that I was really interested in work. So a couple of weeks ago, I decided “Oh, well, maybe next year.”

But it was making me nuts. There was free stuff. And none of it was mine. Part of it is the hangover the poor college student mentality, in which any free food, alcohol or entertainment is irresistible. Pay for dinner theater where you’re served hot dogs, Miller Lite and watch drunk circus clowns hit each other over the head with tire irons? No. Of course not. But if it’s free . . . Well, that’s different. Why didn’t you say so? Two please.

Part of it is my heritage. I come from a frugal people. And what’s more frugal than free?

And there was free stuff going on at FNoT. And none of it was mine. I snapped. Come to me, free stuff. You must be mine.

So I found a one-day window that I could make work for a show. And low-and-behold, there was one show that fit. Hallelujah. Two for Talk Radio, please. Of course, I’m not really sure what the point of Talk Radio is without Eric Bogosian. [Sidebar: I have this total thing for Bogosian ever since they had the sub-plot on Law & Order: CI where he was dating the female medical examiner who is significantly older than 21. He always had that bad boy anti-charm. But playing alpha male with an age appropriate female? Mrowr. Works for me.] But, in the words of the poet, that which is free is necessarily good. Or something like that.

2 comments:

WashingtonGardener said...

Or FNOT came and went a monthor so ago - the second tix went online - I checked and ALL were claimed and gone :-( - that really sucked -

Eric Bogosian? Really? Always found him creepy in a serial killer misanthrope way - though at least he is intelligent and has something to say and that puts him ahead of 99.9% of the world's pop.

FirePhrase said...

Oh, yeah. Back in the day, he was a little too much of a bad thing for my taste. And he always looked like if you licked him, he'd taste like scotch and Camels (a la fellow bad boy Anthony Bourdain). But lately, I'm digging the Bogosian. The voice is gooood (probably because of the scotch and Camels).

The Dallas FNoT did something different this year. They started on the real Free Night release day, but then did 4 weekly ticket releases for the following week. I think it was a smart play. You didn't have to request tickets for a month away, and then have something come up. And from what I heard from others, it kept the feeding frenzy to a minimum. I'm writing them an e-mail that I'm all for the new process.

TIME: Quotes of the Day