Review Fix chats with Ewing Reviewing author Jan Ewing, who lets us know how the project began and why any theater lover will enjoy having it in their book collection.
About Ewing Reviewing:
Following in the footsteps of Theatre Arts Monthly; TheatreWorld; and John Chatterton ‘s Off-Off Broadway Review, we have Mr. Ewing and William Cataldi, two elder statesmen from Eva Heinemann ‘s incredible TV/social media show Hi! Drama listing some of indie theatre’s most notable productions. This soon-2-be tradition allows the ever-transitory world of Off-Off Broadway to finally have concrete evidence. THIS IS THE NEXT CHAPTER THAT BEGAN IN 1957 AT CAFFE CINO IN NYC AND IS STILL UPHELD BY La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club AND American Theatre of Actors AND NOW THE TORCH WILL BE CARRIED BY EWING REVIEWING!
Check out Jan’s work on Amazon, Here.
Review Fix: What was your inspiration behind this project?
Jan Ewing: 2018 marks the beginning of my fourth career. Or, perhaps more correctly, a return to my first. In April of that year I was retired and looking for something to do when I was introduced to Eva Heinemann of the HI! DRAMA website. She asked me to write a review, and before I realized it, the world in which I had actually spent the first half of my life rose up out of nowhere. To keep this short, I am a member of AFTRA, AEA, and LOCAL 802. That’s enough bone fides for the moment.
I began writing reviews covering a wide variety of Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theatrical events. As I did this, being fully aware that many of the plays I was seeing would be running, maybe, three times, in competition with literally hundreds of other performances going on every minute, I became concerned about the enormous amount of really superior theater work that was simply going to vanish. Over the course of 2018 and 2019 I wrote 137 reviews of works picked almost at random, and saw things that were absolutely stunning. It seemed my reviews were being well received, so I asked my friend Jay Michaels what he thought about publishing them, maybe helping keep some of this incredible work alive. He and several other people agreed it might be good thing to do, so I’ve decided to produce a yearly collection of reviews (sometimes including other reviewers) every year for the foreseeable future.
Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?
Ewing: I see something that intrigues me, tuck it into my head, and it comes out when it’s ready. That’s it, no notes, no outlines.
Review Fix: What did you learn/are learning about yourself through this process/production?
Ewing: The greatest benefit I’ve gotten from all this is that I’m writing every day, and words are pouring out (as Mozart actually said about his music) like piss from a sow. It’s axiomatic, a writer gets better the more often he writes, and I learn new things every day. I have also learned how incredibly good I am. I’m 79 years old. If I don’t know that by now, I should just sit on the porch and drool.
Review Fix: What are your ultimate goals for this for the future?
Ewing: I have already begun laying out EWING REVIEWING 2020.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Ewing: EWING REVIEWING 2021.
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