The Name of this Play is Talking Heads

by Marc Spitz

It was supposed to be a routine promotional an aspiring writer appears on a cable news or entertainment network to film a talking heads expert spot in order to promote one of his recently published articles. When face to face with the routine manipulations and blunt agendas that elicit the soundbytes we routinely see as part of our daily info-tainment, he is horrified and decides to rebel, only to realize that he is essentially violating the order of the entertainment universe and there are rewards for playing the game and deadly consequences for resisting. You will never watch an I Love the 90s episode again without wondering what’s going on behind the scenes. "Mr. Spitz has written racy, insidery plays about junkies, pimps and rock stars. They were sloppy, but it didn’t matter. Who wants a well made play about pornography or Joy Division’s Ian Curtis anyway?"
—Jason Zimonan, The New York Times

54 pages, Paperback

Published April 10, 2012

About the author

Marc Spitz was a former senior writer at Spin magazine. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Maxim, Blender, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Nylon and the New York Post. Spitz is the co-author (with Brendan Mullen) of the 2001 LA punk oral history We Got The Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk. He has authored two novels, How Soon is Never (2003) and Too Much, Too Late (2006), as well as Nobody Likes You: Inside the Turbulent Life, Times, and Music of Green Day. His biography of David Bowie, entitled God and Man was released in the Fall of 2009.

Several of his plays, including Retail Sluts (1998), The Rise And Fall of the Farewell Drugs (1998), ...Worry, Baby (1999), I Wanna Be Adored (1999), Shyness is Nice (2001), Gravity Always Wins (2003), The Name of This Play is Talking Heads (2005), and Your Face Is A Mess (2007) have been produced in New York City. 'His holiday short "Marshmallow World" was produced at The Brick Theatre in Brooklyn in December of 2007. Shyness is Nice was revived by the Alliance Repertory Theatre company in Los Angeles in 2003, and The Name of this Play is Talking Heads was produced in the summer of 2006 on Nantucket. A new play, 4, a one-act comedy will be produced in the spring of 2009.

Spitz has spoken at Columbia University (on playwrighting) and DePaul University (on journalism), and appeared as a "talking head" on MTV, VH1, MSNBC.