On the FringeCasting Couch with Live Action Theatre

And this episode of The FringeCasting Couch was recorded lst Tuesday afternoon, during a brief interval between a depressing visit to my doctor's office and the two fitness classes I had to teach that evening; one boxing and one boot camp. This were necessarily verbal-instruction-only editions of said classes for me; doctor's orders. Nothing feels worse.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of Live Action Theatre. Their show in the 2013 Capital Fringe Festival, The Continuing Adventures of John Blade, Super Spy, was my favorite last year. I liked their new one, The Tournament, so much that I'm leaving to see it for a second time right now. Here's the original Fringeworthy post.

I had them on the podcast last year, too.

Please Hammer Girl Don't Hurt 'Em: The Flat Circle of Screen Violence

The same weekend I saw both Captain America: The Winter Soldier and The Raid 2 -- prompting this piece for NPR Monkey See -- my pal Glen Weldon showed me the mostly-animated G.I. Joe episode of Community. The show got a lot of mileage out of the fact that nobody ever got killed in that war cartoon, wherein an elite American military unit fought a uniformed army of terrorists to a stalemate every 21 minutes using ray guns. 

The G.I. Joe comic book, meanwhile, took a realistic approach to firearms. Characters sometimes got killed, too, although not very often. It didn't get me hooked on guns, thankfully, but it got me hooked on comics. It was also pretty clearly a gateway drug to more sophisticated depictions of violence in movies and TV.