A Word From Our Sponsor: Preorder 'Theatre Kids' Now
My debut memoir comes out in one month—June 18th
This is a free newsletter—free! like love! and sunshine!—but if you’d like to support my work, please preorder a copy of my first book, Theatre Kids: A True Tale of Off-Off-Broadway.
This book is about a lot of things: addiction, masculinity, and suboptimal romantic choices. I knew going in I was going to make fun of reformed drama dorks like yours truly. But then I slowly discovered what my memoir was really and truly about—those friends in your life who carry you when no one else will and you can't. And so, I celebrated them. I hope you enjoy reading Theatre Kids.
Have you already preordered? Thank you. I’d appreciate it if you shared this email or one of the preorder links with your friends, family, nemeses, or any freaks, weirdos, witches, and phantoms of the opera who want to feel a little less lonely.
Here’s the cover & official synopses:
"Friendship. Grief. Jazz hands.
In 2004, in a small, windowless theater in then-desolate Williamsburg, Brooklyn, an eccentric family of broke art-school survivors staged an experimental, four-hour adaptation of William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying inside an enormous wooden coffin that could barely fit the cast, much less an audience.
The production’s cast and crew—including its sweetly monomaniacal director—poured their hearts and paychecks into a messy spectacle doomed to fail by any conventional measure. It ran for only eight performances. The reviews were tepid. Fewer than one hundred people saw it. But to emotionally messy hack magazine editor John DeVore, cast at the last minute in a bit part, it was a safe space to hide out and attempt sobering up following a devastating loss.
An unforgettable ode to the ephemeral, chaotic magic of the theatre and the weirdos who bring it to life, Theatre Kids is DeVore’s buoyant, irreverent, and ultimately moving account of outsize ambition and dashed hopes in post-9/11, pre-iPhone New York City. Sharply observed and bursting with hilarious razzle-dazzle, it will resonate with anyone who has ever, perhaps against their better judgment, tried to bring something beautiful into the world without regard for riches or fame."
Here are a few advance kind words:
“A wry and boisterous account… Electric prose elevates this homage to an enduring art form.”
"For those of us lucky to call John DeVore a friend, the skill and warmth with which he’s written Theatre Kids comes as no surprise. If you should not be in the elect group, however, the next best thing would be to read this book. There’s something funny, moving, surprising, or trenchant on every page. Often there’s all of these at once. Theatre Kids is a lemon tart made by someone who loves you, sweet and light and sharp and substantial all at once."
— Isaac Butler, author of The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act
"John DeVore is a master storyteller, and Theatre Kids is a delightful and moving read. It's a valentine to the New York City theatre scene in the late ’90s and early aughts, told through the eyes of one of the many young people who have for generations come from hamlets, small towns, and sprawling suburbs hoping to make their mark in the glittering city. DeVore will keep you laughing, gasping, and sometimes cringing all the way to the last page."
— Catherine Burns, former artistic director of The Moth
"Like all beautiful memoirs, John DeVore’s Theatre Kids will tell you not just about the author, but about things and places and people dead and gone. DeVore brings them alive again. How glad you'll be to meet them, and him. This is a funny, sad, loving, and mournful look at what artistic strivers and dreamers put themselves and others through on the quest for greatness—or, perhaps, just plain old survival."
— Sara Benincasa, author of Real Artists Have Day Jobs (And Other Awesome Things They Don't Teach You in School)
150 Word Reviews will continue its irregularly scheduled movie reviews and slightly longer pop culture essays this week—lots of great stuff coming up. Thanks for reading and for supporting me.
Speaking of… did you preorder?
No. 1 new Amazon release in “Theater History and Criticism.” Polish up that cape!