Editor’s note: I made the questionable decision to allow my friend and Phindie advisor John Rosenberg free rein to post an article from his Los Angeles hovel. Thanks to him, I think.—cpm
Today is Chris the Brit’s 40th birthday. Hoooooooooooooooooooooray!
Pray, let us bray about him for a Shakespearean way of saying a minute.
I thought CTB’s birthday was cinco de mayo because I ran into him brown-bagging don julio with a lady on his birthday. but it is today.
We ran into each other all the time when we lived in center city. We both seemed to be going to the same place, which was absolutely fucking nowhere. we drank or walked but always talked about hitler and theater.
CTB has poems and sonnets memorized and recites them walking down side streets. It is great to have a friend who has poems and sonnets committed to memory and recites them while walking down side streets.
My ladyfriend and bestfriend-in-law don’t like ctb because he hates the IRA and makes fun of the Irish. They think his english accent is fake as fuck. CTB has a sibling who does not have an accent but she does.
CTB has an endearing way of saying, ‘oh dear.’ He says it quiet and dignified, gallantry seeped with regret & self-loathing. a horrendous fate a beat away.
try it!
In a previous life CTB loved a sex worker murdered by jack the ripper.
Chris collects wounded animals- unstable cats and stray people. At his house one of his fleabags had a wound upon its cat face. ‘Twas more than a scratch.
CTB held the cat down and tried to pour rubbing alcohol on the wound. The cat flipped the fuck out and viciously attacked him.
i think the cat attack is an allegory for ctb covering theater in philly if that is what an allegory means.
Chris the brit loves theater. Loves it. Definitely more than me. Probably more than you. He doesn’t like tv or movies. He likes plays. He likes to go see plays and write about what he saw.
It is a fantastic enterprise- covering the independent philly theater scene independently.
Thoughtful criticism seems really fucking hard. I can go see a thing and babble about it afterwards but fuck what i have to say every time. ‘That shit was whatever as fuck. Jennifer Summerfield is better than that shit. Why the fuck dont people write parts written specifically for her?!?!?!?!?!’
It hoorays me good reviewers can see something once, pick up on a lot of stuff and then put those thoughts and feelings into coherent words, sentences and articles. Capturing ethereal shit that flies by. It seems incredibly not easy. I violently shake a crying baby when i write a press release and i have seen the dumb shit 50 times.
I do feel christopher pulls punches in his reviews. I don’t think he will ever see a play and not have something positive to say about it. Mostly if it is pinche Shakespeare. CTB is unfailingly polite and is a gentle man. Unless it is improv, which he violently hates.
He told me a quote by the crazy english lady playwright who killed herself that was like you go and sit in a black box and hope that you remember something from the thing and that is hella great. [Sarah Kane quote—ed] Maybe it has something to do with that. Or maybe he is cheap and just likes to get free tickets to things.
CTB did tell me he is sick of tv scripts masquerading as plays. So no more, please!
Philadelphia! Keep making great independent theater! You are the best!
You have a super fan in ctb and phindie.com.
Happy birthday, Christopher!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WHAT A LAUDATIO (“if you appreciated him you wouldn’t be phila so fuck chris the brit”). How can one beat this piece of Victorian elegance and subtlety by John Rosenberg, the enfant terrible, even in San Francisco? (Can’t wait to see his next production in the city of not always so brotherly love and sisterly affection.) 🙂
Seriously, I do not know anyone in Philadelphia who has opened the doors to young writers of all ages to reflect on theater arts as generously as you have, Chris. Your articles and those of many reviewers have appeared all over on social media and countless grant applications.
I salute you, especially on your 40th birthday. Ten more years and you’ll reach middle age. Doesn’t life race by as fast as the mini-dramas of a one-minute play festival? Three cheers (make that 40 Phindie cheers)–as if we weren’t already tipsy on theater! 🙂
https://phindie.com/the-second-annual-one-minute-play-festival-interact-4619/
I just looked at your many reviews on Phindie, the popular website you created just a few years ago. What a wide range of subjects and styles, let alone those of your writers. Chris, I salute you. Philadelphia is richer because of your work and your support for good theater in the city that once was the capital of the United States:
https://phindie.com/author/christophermunden/
From one writer, one editor, and one expat to another: “Happy Birthday,” or, in German: “Hoch soll er leben, dreimal hoch” = “High he should live, three times high.” (I swear, no pun intended in that old birthday song, John Rosenberg.) 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV5YbZdbBc0
John Rosenberg, my mother would wash your mouth out with soap! But your signature bad #@#!! words are stuck, counterintuitively, on to almost mushily warm, sweet, generous sentiments, and It would all go down the drain together.
Your birthday wish for CTB was fuckin’ nice. And you’re missed in this badass town.
I hope you had a Happy Birthday, Chris! And luckily, 40 is the new 30!