October 112004
Profile Theatre Project presents
the West Coast Premiere
AB: Never. Not once.... People who work
at Details are very young. These are adults who
were raised in an era exposed to a lot of gay
people and a lot of gay culture. They didn’t
grow up with Anita Bryant on television talk
ing about how gay people need to he put into
gas chambers or whatever.
JR: Do you find it strange that amid Janet
Jackson’s Nipplegate controversy, we have
this image that we’re moving toward a more
prudish society, yet there’s this complete
acceptance of writers like you?
the right director for that. He’s not one to shy
away from risk. The really good, most reward
ing stuff in life everywhere is always the riskier
door. It’s the one that makes you feel a little bit
scared or that makes you feel uncomfortable,
and he understands that and embraces it.
JR: Has it been difficult to expose your
life to this degree?
AB: I can’t think about it. If I think about
it, I’ll get hesitant. There’s a number of
essays—one specifically in Magical Thinking—
that I have wanted since the beginning to take
O ctober 15 - Novem ber 14
y:-r
Curtain Time at 8:00 p.m.
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Augusten Burroughs says his advertising background “was the best training I could ever
imagine for a writer”
October 25, 26,
MREE FROM COLUMN A
November 1,2
by Terrence M cNally
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AB: It’s an odd dichotomy in our culture.
Lcxrk at Running with Scissors. It was on The
New York Times list— it still is—for so long, and
yet it contains a very graphic sex scene
between a 13-year-old boy and a 30-yéar-old
man. The fact is we are a very prudish culture
sexually, and certain things, it seems, cross the
line, especially on television. I think it’s less so
in print, because you can argue that...you’re
the one who buys the magazine, you’re the one
who buys the book; therefore, you are, in a way,
responsible for what you are taking into your
brain. But television washes over us, and it
washes over the children! The fact is you don’t
have to have the TV on, either, hut people
don’t really think that.
JR: Are you confident that Hollywood
won’t screw up the film version of Running
with Scissors?
AB: Ryan Murphy is adamant that it not
get timed down.... I definitely feel like I picked
EIM
out of the book, and I’m still uncomfortable
with it. It’s called “The Rat/Thing.” [The essay
recounts the time Burroughs destroyed his
bathtub trying to rid his apartment of a
rodent.) The reason I kept it in the book is
because... it’s an example of my extreme be
havior back in my alcohol days. It’s something
I did that, to me, stands as a remarkable act.
It belongs in the book, but it’s awful. I cringe
when I think about it.
You really can’t think about your audience.
That’s another thing I learned in advertising.
As soon as you start to write for your audience,
that’s when you lose your audience because,
even if you don’t mean to, you begin to kind of
condescend.... As soon as you start to think
other people’s thoughts, it warps the honesty
of the writing. jH
Portland • Nov. 13-14
all Al, 503-493-9421
Bodiy
Electric
School
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Call (503) 242-0080
for tickets
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SA T U R D A Y N IGHT,
O c t o b e r 3 0 t h , 2 0 0 4 a t IO p . m .
fea tu rin g
A ugusten B urroughs reads from Magical
Thinking 7:30 f).m. Oct. 20 at Pcnuell’s,
1005 W. Burnside St.
...take responsibility for their own erotic education.
learn about waking up and sustaining erotic energy;
giving and receiving pleasure, and expressing
your desires.
e le b r a t in g
o d y E r o t ic
www.profiletheatre.org
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