A Writerly Retirement: R.I.P. Amiri Baraka

Thursday, January 9, 2014

R.I.P. Amiri Baraka

The former LeRoi Jones, activist playwright. Burst on scene in 1960s with political play DUTCHMAN, which Mailer called the best play in America. Kissed no commercial asses.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/09/amiri-baraka-author-activist-dies-79_n_4570912.html

Career Support

"Charles' impact on Northwest literature and theater over the past twenty-plus years is impressive. As a critic I've followed his work since the early 1980s, and no playwright has had such an important or long-lasting effect on this community's cultural life." --Bob Hicks, Senior Critic (retired), The Oregonian

"During the years we've worked together, I feel Charles was the clearest and most important theatre voice in Oregon." --Steve Smith, Artistic Director (retired), Theatre Workshop

"This play has balls!" -- Anonymous young man, shouting in the dark before curtain call for Country Northwestern.

Benchmarks

1956-7
One of the few high school members of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, sending my observations regularly to Harvard Observatory.

1958
My first publication: a number theory solution in Mathematics Magazine. And swan song to the sciences.

1959-62
U.S. Army Security Agency, Russian linguist.

1966
B.A., English, UCLA (Phi Beta Kappa)

1967
English Composition As A Happening. This published essay inspired a book of the same title, G. Sirc, 2002. "Pass it on," at its best.

1971
Shubert Playwriting Fellowship, Univ of Oregon

M.F.A., Playwriting, Univ of Oregon

1971, 1972, 1974
Selections to the Roll of Honor in Best American Short Stories, for The Sextant, Presenting the Annual Interracial Pig Roast and The Idaho Jacket.

1979
Grant support to tour Ramblin': the songs and stories of Woody Guthrie. Continued performing for almost 20 years.

1982-4
Playwright-in-residence, New Rose Theatre

1984
ACE award, public TV version of Christmas at the Juniper Tavern

1985
Playwright-in-residence, Cubiculo Theatre.
Fan letter from Harold Prince (Phantom of the Opera producer), calls The Comedian In Spite Of Himself "first rate work."

1986
Commission to write Chateau de Mort, beginning a long obsession with hyperdrama. (See below)

1988
"Charles Deemer's Oregon," a retrospective season of my plays, produced by Steve Smith, at the Firehouse Theatre.

Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, The Catlin Gabel School

1989
Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, The Catlin Gabel School

Commission, Oregon Public Broadcasting, to write teleplay on Sen. Wayne Morse. Never produced. Becomes one-man play, American Gadfly, produced in 2004, then tours.

1994
Publish seminal essay What Is Hypertext? on Internet. Translated into several languages, establishes online reputation.

1996
Electronic Playwright-in-residence, Prisma, Santiago, Chile, resulting in The Last Song of Violeta Parra, a one-act hyperdrama.

Publish second influential essay on Internet, The New Hyperdrama, later anthologized in Theatre in Cyberspace (1999).

1997
Publish Screenwright, an electronic screenwriting tutorial. "Remarkable" (London Screenwriters Workshop).

Begin teaching screenwriting at Portland State Univ. Still teaching in 2013.

Winner, Crossing Borders International New Play Competition, for Famililly.

2001
Finalist, Oregon Book Award, for Seven Plays.

2002
Put The Seagull Hyperdrama online, Chekhov as hyperdrama. My Magnum Opus.

2005
Publish Practical Screenwriting (Focus Publishing), becomes text for my screenwriting classes.

2006
Finalist, Mystery of the Year (Foreword Magazine), for Dead Body In A Small Room.

2007
Begin making digital films. Deconstructing Sally, perhaps the best of the bunch ("Deconstructing Sally has voice: It’s a good example of how skillful and individualistic democratic filmmaking can be.")

2008
Changing Key, a video hyperdrama and lecture-demonstration presented to national hypertext conference.

2010
Publish A Charles Deemer Reader (The Sextant Press).

2011
Publish In My Old Age, poems (Round Bend Press).

2012
Publish Sodom, Gomorrah & Jones, a novel (Round Bend Press).

2013
Begin Stories In Overdrive experiment in a new narrative form, based on the screenplay.

Begin ukulele studies.

Publish A Majority of One (Round Bend Press).

2014
Publish Creativity. Faith. Impotence. And Other Essays (Sextant Books).

Publish The Puddle City Mayor Scandal: a song cycle about politics (Sextant Books).

Retire from teaching.

Sept. 16: Harriet's cardiac arrest, dead 3 minutes and revived, short term memory loss: the daily routine changes dramatically.

How to tell a story

Thursday, January 9, 2014

R.I.P. Amiri Baraka