Meet The Fiction Team: Marc Blinder

Sound Designer Marc Blinder was asked to weigh-in on the age old argument “What is the Greatest Rock and Roll Vocal Performance EVER”, an argument that leads to Linda's and Michael's meet-cute in Fiction by Steven Dietz.  Here’s what he had to say:

Jim Morrison - "Light My Fire" 1967

Why? Because it’s a super sexy song that inspires crowds to sing and people to dance, because The Doors helped marry Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll forever, and because just singing it was considered rebellious enough to get the Doors a lifetime ban from the Ed Sullivan show. There aren’t a lot of tracks in history that got to number one but could still get you kicked off the air and I gave Jim the edge over The Sex Pistols because he got there first.

A little hump day artistic inspiration

"Theatre is a safe place to do the unsafe things that need to be done. When it’s not a safe place, it’s abusive to actors and to audiences alike. When its safety is used to protect cowards masquerading as heroes, its a boring travesty. An actor who is truly heroic reveals the divine that passes through him, that aspect of himself that he does not own and cannot control. The control and the artistry of the heroic actor is in service to his soul.

We live in an era of enormous cynicism. Do not be fooled.

Don't act for money. You'll start to feel dead and bitter.

Don't act for glory. You'll start to feel dead, fat, and fearful.

We live in an era of enormous cynicism. Do not be fooled.

You can't avoid all the pitfalls. There are lies you must tell. But experience the lie. See it as something dead an unconnected you clutch. And let it go.

Act from the depth of your feeling imagination. Act for celebration, for search, for grieving, for worship, to express that desolate sensation of wandering through the howling wilderness. Don't worry about Art. Do these things and it will be Art."

 - John Patrick Shanley (part of the author's note from The Big Funk)

Playwright John Patrick Shanley