Dan Sullivan

Bio

• September 4, 2009 – 8:38 pm
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Dan Sullivan is director of the National Critics Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut. He is a former theater critic for the Minneapolis Tribune, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, and teaches at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism.

Class Syllabus

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DAN SULLIVAN
Room 101 Murphy Hall
Phone: 612/522-9053 (home), 612/625-7316 (office)
e-mail: sulli008@umn.edu
website: danielsullivan.org

JOURNALISM 4171
COVERING THE ARTS: BACKSTAGE AT THE JUNGLE THEATER
Spring Semester 2012

CLASSES

Monday 4-5:15 p.m. Murphy Hall, Room 15
Friday 4-5:15 p.m. Jungle Theater
2951 Lyndale Ave. S.
612/822-7063
OFFICE HOURS
Monday 3-4 p.m. Murphy Hall, Room 110
Friday 3-4 p.m. Jungle Theater
Or by appointment

INSTRUCTOR

DAN SULLIVAN was theater critic for the Los Angeles Times for 20 years. Previously he covered Off Broadway theater for the New York Times; before that, he was theater and music critic for the Minneapolis Tribune. He started as a general-assignment reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Currently he directs the National Critics Institute, a program for emerging theater/film reviewers at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Waterford, Conn.

OBJECTIVES

1. To supply hands-on experience in writing accurate and engaging arts/entertainment copy. 2. To provide a sustained inside look at how an important Twin Cities arts organization creates and markets its work.

PROCEDURE

On MONDAYS we’ll read and discuss our writing at Murphy Hall. Assignments could include a pop-music review; an advance article on a new Jungle Theater production; an interview with a local film maker; a commentary piece on a current arts controversy; a dramatized fairy tale; a costume description. Rewriting is always encouraged and sometimes required.

On FRIDAYS we’ll meet at the Jungle Theater. After catching up on what’s happened at the theater since our last visit, we’ll hear from various Jungle artists and staffers on their specialties. This year we’ll follow the course of two productions, Frederick Knott’s retro thriller “Dial M for Murder” (Feb 3-March 18) and Bruce Norris’s “The Vibrator Play” (April 6-May 13.)

We’ll also meet a variety of non-Jungle artists and arts journalists. Last year’s guests included film maker Jennifer Kramer; Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips; City Pages theater critic Ed Huyck; Minnpost music critic Michael Anthony; Minnesota Spokesman Recorder columnist Dwight Hobbes and Twin Cities Daily Planet arts editor Jay Gabler. These sessions are, in effect, press conferences, with questions required from everybody.

TEXTBOOK

None. Weekly handouts, provided by the instructor, will be your text and are required reading. You may also need to purchase tickets for certain arts events (Jungle Theater shows are free.) Total cost shouldn’t exceed $40.

WORK LOAD

1. Eight writing (or rewriting) assignments. 2. A clip file 3. A final project. 4. A final exam. Details below.

CLIP FILE

For the first half of the semester, you’ll put together a folio of clips and downloads from recent local or national arts/entertainment stories. Two examples will be required each week: a winner and a sinner. Examples should be no longer than two grafs and mounted on standard copy paper. Explain in five or six cogent lines why the example succeeds or fails. First assignment: an effective lead and a lame one. Due: Friday, Jan. 20. Final clip file due: Friday, March 9.

FINAL PROJECT

A 1,200-word interview with a Jungle Theater artist or staffer, or other guest. This can be a standard
interview, a Q and A, an “as told-to” piece or a form of your own invention. Final draft due Friday, April 27.

FINAL EXAM

Part multiple-choice, to show what you’ve learned over the semester; part essay, to show your progress as a writer.

GRADES

A-F. Forty per cent of your grade will be based on your written work; 30 per cent on your class participation; 20 per cent on the final exam and one or two quizzes; 10 per cent on the final project. Class participation includes your readiness to contribute to class discussions; your willingness to critique the work of your classmates and to be critiqued by them; your resourcefulness in providing thoughtful questions for our guests; your courtesy and professionalism.

GRADE VALUES

“A” on written work means that the piece could be published as is, not necessarily in Rolling Stone, but somewhere. “B” means that the piece needs tweaking. “C” means that it needs substantial revision. “D” means that it didn’t work at all. A more detailed rubric will be provided.

DEADLINES

are firm, as in real-world journalism. Late copy lowers your grade (one grade off per day late.) Continued late copy won’t be accepted.

PROOFREAD

aggressively. Assume you made one or two errors and root them out.

ATTENDANCE

is taken at every class and will be factored into the final grade. Woody Allen: “Eighty per cent of success is showing up.”

CAUTIONARY NOTES

1. ARRIVE ON TIME. On Friday you’ll need at least a half-hour to get from the university to the Jungle Theater. (45 minutes if you’re taking the bus.) Don’t schedule another class just before or just after J4171.

2. CONFIDENTIALITY. We are at the Jungle on an off-the-record basis. Material written for the class can’t be published or used online.

3. KEEP UP. Missing a class is like missing a rehearsal, possibly of a key scene. It also deprives us of an important member of our cast: you.

4. THINK FAST. Theater folk make their notes in pencil, not ink. If the Jungle suddenly needs to change its schedule, so will we. I’ll keep you posted via weekly emails.

5. STAY FOCUSED. No texting, Twittering, etc. in class. Take notes by hand. “Be here now.”

SOME IMPORTANT DATES

Friday March 9 – Clip files due
March 12-16 – Spring Break
Friday April 27 – Final project due
Friday May 4 – Final class
Week of May 7 – Final Exam

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‘Salesman’ Shrunk in the Big Eye’s Glare

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DAN SULLIVAN
09/22/1985
Los Angeles Times
(Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 1985 All Rights Reserved)

Last Sunday’s presentation of “Death of a Salesman” on CBS was an honorable attempt to bring a great American play to the millions of Americans who don’t go to the theater. What it proved was that with some plays there’s no choice but to see them in the theater. Uproot them from the stage and the power goes out of them. Read More »

Book examines Barry Goldwater as a prophet of the right

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Star-Tribune Newspaper of the Twin Cities Mpls.-St. Paul

The lessons of history depend on when we read them. Barry Goldwater’s crushing defeat in the 1964 presidential election (Lyndon Johnson took 44 states, Goldwater only six, all in the South) was seen at the time as proof that a hard-line conservative could never occupy the modern White House. Read More »

Keillor’s ‘Prairie’ Rides Again

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DAN SULLIVAN
Times Theater Critic
06/12/1989
Los Angeles Times
(Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 1989 All Rights Reserved)

I used to think that Garrison Keillor was a guy I had worked with on the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Then Keillor came to a luncheon at the L.A. Times. I clapped him on the back. “Boy, have you come a long way.” He looked around, and it wasn’t the same person at all. If that wasn’t embarrassing. Read More »

Life as Theater: If It’s Real It Could Be Fiction

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DAN SULLIVAN
12/20/1987
(Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 1987 All Rights Reserved)

It may sound strange for a theater critic to say the following, but it’s time that somebody did: Life is not theater.

People are not actors.

Truth is not the same as a nice moment.

The business of America is not show business. Read More »

Review: Provocative pieces by the contrarian author of “The Corrections”

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Despite his brush with Oprah, Jonathan Franzen continues on course. “The Corrections” has just come out in soft cover, his first two novels, “The Twenty-Seventh City” (1988) and “Strong Motion” (1992), are still in print, and now we have a collection of non-fiction pieces to show his take on what he calls “the real world.” Read More »