Through Different Eyes

Isaac Butler pointed out a great rumination on writers’ ambition by noted theatreospehere whipping boy Charles Isherwood.

The money quotes:

“A true artist, some might argue, can never let canny considerations of production influence his vision. Art must be its own imperative. A high-minded thought, but artists also hunger for their work to be known. A play that is never staged may be a work of genius, sure, but its genius is likely to leave no footprint on the world unless it is produced.”

and

“I’m not suggesting that size alone matters, obviously. But if the American theater is to remain an aesthetically robust enterprise, a vital step may be removing the invisible shackles from the imaginations of playwrights, making it natural — making it possible — for them to dream huge once again.”

Isherwood and Butler ask after the chicken, so I’ll ask after the egg.

How do producers and literary agents shunt off practical consideration of production in favor of simply reading the submitted work on its merits? If the playwrights of Today (and Tomorrow) create these brave new works for a Greater American Stage how do we get them past the gatekeepers?

Alright, let’s cut out the capitals for a moment and bring it home. I am a sometime producer with an eye to new work. I have a limited budget and no home space. How do I go about reviewing a submitted work without considering those things that are a bar to me producing it?

Once upon a time, in a different life, I was reviewing scripts and came upon a really nice character piece that I was loving until the middle of act two when the unit set (with a ceiling) began literally crumbling around the performers.

When this happens I have two options as a producer looking at the script, I can decide that there’s no way I can possibly do the script as written and put it aside, or I can tell the author to change what he’s written to make it feasible for me to put up.

You see how I would be pilloried on that writers blog either way? I’m either the guy who won’t take risks on Brave New Work, or I’m the guy telling the playwright how to wright.

I suppose the only recourse is dialog. But dialog doesn’t make plays. Maybe more resources would do it, but that’s a whole separate war.

So Mr. Isherwood… The playwrights of tomorrow dream big and give us two story turntable dreams with a cast of 15 – how many folks can actually put that up?

Or maybe I’m simply being myopic - Ian Hill dreams big and gets it done…

What am I missing?

[This leaves aside the fact that of the 45 scripts that were submitted for that call 2/3s of them were really screenplays that were simply labeled plays – that’s a fight for another day]

Technorati Tags: Isaac Butler,Ian Hill,Theatre,Austin,Texas,process,Charles Isherwood

Kudos and the Report Card

James Comtois opened up a blog post for comments on the recently completed Colorful World. I love the idea, and I commend his bravery in doing it. I’m sure no one is going to hop in and brow beat him (especially for what was by all accounts a hell of a show) but the act of doing it takes courage regardless of the consequences.

I offer the same for Foursquare.

---

Now. Seeing as none of you saw FourSquare I offer my own assessment of my work. I leave an overall assessment of the show to folks who have seen it, as I never have.

FourSquare was (as I have repeated ad nauseam to those around me for the last four months) my first opportunity in a long time to simply be an actor on a show, so I think that this serves as an excellent time to sound the depths and see where I am as a performer, and how well it served me on this show.

From Each According To His Ability…

What is my current ability level as a performer? We can’t very well judge me according to an objective standard… there isn’t one. So let’s do a quick and dirty blog-style Pros and Cons list shall we?

as of May 2008:

Strengths

1. Smart.
2. Experienced – in that I don’t flummox easily in the room or on stage.
3. Comfortable with language. Idioms sound like idioms and I’m not afraid to simply stand and deliver (it’s theatre not film)
4. Consistent. I’m not going to try to throw something drastically new on stage, and I’m not going to fuck around.
5. Very focused on stage.

Not Strengths

1. Smart. Acting professor Nancy Saklad once accused me of letting technique hamper my talent. She’s probably right. Brain will out over instinct far too often.
2. Poor physicality – I’ve never been a movement human. Combine that with weight gain and my propensity towards the cerebral and characters too often get locked in at the shoulders.
3. My knowledge of how things Should Be and Should Sound sometimes win over how it should be or sound for this character in this moment.
4. I too often take the safe choice. <Ice Skating Metaphor>I’ll throw the triple I know I can land rather than the quad I may fall on</Ice Skating Metaphor> This is by no means a lack of risk taking, rather a tendency towards risk management.
5. As an addendum to #1: I worry too much about the production at any given time. I don’t lock myself into the Work, I worry about the design or the marketing or whatever, and distract myself from the task at hand, even when they are not my responsibility.
6. I lack the ease that your  best performers have (hey there Doug Taylor). I’m just working too hard out there.

Overall I’m your B performer. I won’t steal your show, but neither will I ever sink it. And as I am a great clubhouse guy, I tend to make those around me better (read: more comfortable), so a net positive in your cast even if I’m not a glove fit for a character.

How’d that serve you?

Really well actually. The character and I really got along.

Bill Singer is a character in search of a story for himself. Socially deficient he loses himself in movies, specifically Woody Allen’s movies, trying to find a narrative for his no-point life.

When his wife leaves him he tries to recreate the story of her leaving in multiple scenes with varying levels of culpability for himself. He does the same with his attempted (and eventually successful) pick up of the wounded Beverly. He’s the one man nebbish Rashomon.

When life doesn’t match cinematic ease he reacts… poorly. He disconnects from the real and pulls entirely into his own fantasy.

Oh? A neurotic vulgar nebbishy wannabe Id on the verge of breakdown? I gotcha covered.

I succeeded with Bill in that audiences loved and hated him. I was able to keep the inherent danger of a man going off the rails without making him Evil. His need to be taken care of, and to have the movie of his life turn out okay outweighed the fact that he was utterly incapable of making that happen.

I failed Bill in that it was all a bit too jittery. The stops and stutters of Manuel Zarate’s language became too over the stop. There are also some quick shifts in tone and emotion that I never earned fairly.

Bill also exists structurally in counterpoint to the relationship taking place between his “Best Friend”, Rodolpho, and his “Conquest” Beverly. Beverly and Rodolpho are the Blue Danube, and Bill is the frenetic Flight of the Bumblebee on top of that. I had problems pushing the pace out of the two longer scenes that Beverly and Rodolpho share (I um… I couldn’t feel my legs) and so let the rising pace droop at two critical moments.

On the whole I feel that I handled Bill very well. Given a longer run I think things would have evened out and I would have worn him a bit more lightly. The language would have been even more natural and the more subtle humor throughout could have come through.

B+

“When I see your movies
it’s all there
right there
my life
all up there
Which is why I thought you Woody
You would understand”

Technorati Tags: Love Sonatas,Doug Taylor,theatre,Austin,Texas,FourSquare,self flagellation

Much Ado about?

Click through. It's nicer bigger

THAT is magic.

That is a crowd of people sitting in a park waiting to hear some Shakespeare. 400-450 I reckon, though that is a gross estimate.

They chose to be in the park.

Why?

1. Shakespeare.
2. Park
3. Price (Free)
4. Weather (Very nice)
5. Show Selection (Comedy)

Its own little world.
You can't even take this show inside and sell it the same way.

It also has a really likeable and charismatic Artistic Director who gave the curtain speech pitch for cash on Sunday (closing night).

I hate the pitch for cash. The pitch for cash is the same to me as any other pan handling, it feels icky.

But Ann Ciccollela made a very warm and self-deprecating go of it. She included the total cost of the show, what they needed to make per show, and highlighted the fact that they paid every actor. (though not of course how MUCH they paid each actor) They then sent the cast around the grounds with a bucket during intermission. (It's very different having Benedick ask for a donation than a crotchety ol' usher).

I can't say how much they gathered. But I can tell you that their approach changed how I personally felt about them asking and collecting.

There was no ick at all.

[The show was good, it's still just Much Ado - B and B were great, I disagreed with their Dogberry choice, but it was functional. A "B" mostly because I'm tired of the show. The production was quite good]

Technorati Tags: texas,austin,theatre,Austin Shakespeare Festival,Much Ado About Nothing,fundraising

Recording History

As I may have mentioned, I am currently playing Bill in FourSquare, part of Manuel Zarate's Love Sonatas (good seats still available!).

Bill is (as only a performer playing him or his Mom would say) socially stunted. He is also a touch narcissistic and other-blind. He may or may not also narrate his life to Woody Allen.

His performer is nervous about having these damn lines in his head.

His performer may nor may not wander (via that time honored verb - pace) outside the rehearsal space in not-the-best-neighborhood muttering lines to himself.

His performer may or may not be kinda scruffy looking at this point.

Last night?

Last night we had a pick-up rehearsal after most of a week off to refresh these lines o' ours. I arrived early (as is my wont) and may or may not have returned to the alleged pacing and muttering.

And the daytime inhabitants of our rehearsal space called the cops on me.

F'reals tho.

And Mr. Officer showed up to question my presence (after I had spoken to a member of the staff who had warned me very gently that they were on their way) and I had provided my government issued ID, I started giggling a bit, both due to nervousness and as I explained to Mr. Officer:

I had the cops called on me essentially for being my character in public.

I of course handed him a postcard for the show and invited him down.

I am left with one question:
Hey Austin PD? Do I really only rate one officer?

Hit me Baby

Matt and Isaac take up arms in the review/critique slog that jumped off of Don Hall lobbing rocks.

Let's not be surprised that I fall slightly toward the Isaac side of things. I am an actor/producer primarily. I am not (most times) the generative artist, so I have less skin in the game than Matt does.

If you are a friend on the inside of the game I will most likely greet you with a "what didn't work?" after a show. I know what didn't work for me, I want to know what a semi-interested third party has to say about it. I want to be better than I am right now. I can't do that without more eyes, and different experiences.
(This in no way a promise to TAKE your notes...)

If you are a friend from outside the game I won't ask what didn't work, but I'm pumping you for different information. What only reads to those in the know? What was too subtle a treatment for a non-theatre human to get behind?

I am in a great position for that because the folks at my day job (engineers) support my night walking so ardently.

After they all attended Cambiare Productions' last show it was the topic of discussion at work for a week. Transformations was a design driven mosaic of dance, movement, video and monologues based on Anne Sexton's poetry. Or as my boss put it: feminist hippie crap.

And they didn't all love it. But they were talking about it. They were able to access it, and we were able to have a discussion about what read to them. So going forward I know better what works for people who aren't me.

Which is I guess where I diverge from Matt's opinion. The process is personal, the product is public. The process is me, the product is a third thing: Ours. They were part of it.

The woman who gasped "Oh" at Sunday's performance of FourSquare (tickets on sale Now!) when Amelia dropped the first reveal is forever part of THAT show. And that has nothing to do with my creation.

But I'm not the writer... Mr. Zarate may (and probably does) feel differently.

Let me say this though. Anyone who tries to weasel their way out of being an asshole by claiming that blogging a review is different than Isherwood or Robert Faires publishing on paper is a weasely asshole. Own your words. Don't let a medium change your idea of what you're doing. Paper is not the deciding factor in your culpability.

I will never publish something here that I wouldn't tell you to your face. And if you are reading this and you take issue with something I'm saying? I have made myself available to you by the means of your choosing including phone. Use them.

Simple Truth

Speaking as a long time asshole?

Acknowledging that you are an asshole in no way mitigates the fact that you are, in truth, an asshole.

Speaking as a long time human:

Never assume anyone else's experience.

Also?

It's not "just the internet".

You're not "just kidding"

You're not "Keepin' It Real(TM)"

It's not your job to "Toughen Them Up"

They do not need to learn it sometime.

 

That's all just bully speak and rationalization.

 

There's a way to be a person about a thing. Do it.

Civility isn't about the PCing of America. It's not about being a candy-ass, it's about remembering before you let your bile escape that the person on the other end of the send button is a person. Nothing more.

Process

This week the watchword on the wire is process, how do you blog it, should you blog it, and can there be pictures of it when you blog it.

First, the idea that this is a discussion is a little baffling. Perhaps because I don't buy into the rehearsal as sacred space argument.

SAFE sure, but not sacred.

I also fail to understand why commonsense is immediately discounted in the discussion.

 

Of course there are intense rehearsals or moments in rehearsals that you don't want to be adding anything to the actors' plate during. If you're not smart enough to know when those things are happening you're not mature enough to be having this discussion.

Of course you need to be up front with your cast that you're going to be shooting rehearsals and posting them.

Of course you're going to be sensitive to days when they don't feel together enough for it.

The person shooting should be native to the rehearsal process.

But the one key to the whole thing for me is show them what's in it for them.

1. Show them what you've posted in the past.
2. Prove that you have no interest in embarrassing them.
   (see #1)
3. Show them that you've tagged the photos with their name and it helps searches return high quality images of them working when a future employer googles them after auditions.
4. Make the photos available to them afterwards for their own sites. (This is also true of your more standard press photos)

We live in a visual society. In this medium words without pictures are ignored.

Of course having pointed all of this out to them you need to follow through. My pictures aren't all tagged and SEO'd. In my defense I didn't promise THEM that (yet) I only promised me. And I assume that I'll get to it right after the wedding in the pending dry spell.

Technorati Tags: theatre,Austin,Texas,Ron Weisberg,Lynn Burnor,process,metablogging

Alone in my Room

For a collaborative art, with so much of the creative process taking place by committee, it never fails to amaze me how much of a show ends up created in the still of the night by yourself.

Opening on May 18th in the Rollins Theater at the Long Center for the Performing Arts will be FourSquare, by Manuel Zarate.

I will be you loser, Bill.

It's part of a FIVE. PLAY. CYCLE. Called the Love Sonatas. Which is really its own headache.

FourSquare is a challenging piece.
Bill is a challenging role.
Manuel's dialog is difficult to get a definitive hold on...

All of which means that I'm pacing the apartment at 2AM quietly yelling to the door and the collage picture frame:

"You want a divorce
Is that what
no
do you
no
divorce no no
what are you talking about divorce
you want a divorce
no
I don't"

New line reading after new line reading.... Drilling to memorize... Which I'm sure is a healthy thing to be chanting near my poor sleeping fiancee.

Unfortunately I'm also sure that that's not the exact line.

Oh it's close. It's VERY close. But it's not right and it's driving me mad. Which is karmic retribution.

When I first saw Jonathan West giving status updates on his line learning I thought it was odd. I may have even mentally uttered the word "quaint". And now I pay for my hubris with a brain that is older than any I have attempted to do a show with in the past, and an opening that refuses to move from it's moorings.

Awesome. And not panic inducing at all.

Smarter things when I get my brain back.

Are any of you besides Mac Rogers involved in the Blueprint Project?
The Blueprint Project seems like exactly the perfect platform for the National Night of Theatre that we all really loved for those three weeks a year ago....

Technorati Tags: theatre,Austin,FourSquare,Lines,Love Sonatas

Hamlet 2

h/t Playgoer

Rock Me Sexy Jesus

"It WAS stupid - but it was also theatre"

Listen Up

A Muxtape for your Friday

Indie Chick Lit : A Primer to Travis' Brain

Listen Globally,
Buy Locally.

All work and no play(s)...

---note to self---

I have perception/expectation integration issues.

I know right?

I expect that:

1. If you say that your product/event of presentation is going to change my life, that it will. Or it won't be for lack of trying.
2. If you are pimping someone else's product for #1, that #1 will hold true.
3. If you tell me something is "Best of" "Classic" "Revolutionary" or try to teach it in a course, #1 is in full effect.
4. You will fail. That standard is impossible.

And I know it's impossible. I'm not sure how I grew up to be a good little Gen X'er thinking that everyone was telling the literal truth about such things. I have no idea how such a thing came into my head, but it's there.

It is a big problem for me in the arts because I am perpetually disappointed. I live in a world in which the curve doesn't go to %100. There is no such thing as %100 in live performance - there are friction losses in the creative pipes and there are heat losses in transmission, I mean it's simply not possible.

But the more important problem is that if I have been told that this thing is "Best of" "Classic" "Revolutionary" then it's going to be work. Because everything else that has been deemed "Best of" "Classic" "Revolutionary" is work. The transitive power of criticism. It becomes a bar to seeing things. Because if I'm tired I don't want to work at my entertainment.

But it's all an illusion. There is an upper limit see? No matter how important (or heavy or dense or other physics) a film is, or a book, or a play, it is bounded by the fact that it is a film is or a book or a play. It cannot be more than that.

I always get kind of surprised when something Important is Just a Movie. The precipitating event for this is my first time (and subsequent 8 times) viewing of Annie Hall. Which is on every list that can be listed. Including mysteries (why in the world would Alvy want to be with her?)

It was just a movie.

See? I got set up. Just like we have set up audiences for a century.

Used to be all entertainment was live.
Used to be that people would see things on the stage all the time and had a routine.
Used to be people chose what sort of live entertainment the were going to see, not whether it was going to be live or Memorex.

They um, they don't do that anymore.

People use words like quaint about the theatre. People who know what words like quaint mean. And they mean it. Even I am surprised sometimes when people say they go to theatre.

But too often we're selling theatre as though they have any idea what we're talking about. If someone is interested in a movie, they see a trailer (or vice versa) if they're curious about a book they read a page or two, or a chapter.

Going to the theatre is as binary as pregnancy. You is or you ain't.

And by and large we're pitching them concepts.
I am so guilty of this I'm already in line at the International Crimes Against Theatre Tribunal in the Hague.

[Generally] People who are not doing this aren't dropping $10-25 to have someone they [Generally] don't know, [Generally] with no reputation, in a [Generally] disreputable part of town play with some concept. They want to be entertained. For whatever value of "entertained" works for them.

So we need to be telling people why they will be entertained, not how brilliant we are to have come up with it. They don't want to have to work any more than my poor deluded brain does.

So let's not make them think that they will.

Also?

More trailers. I know it's more work, and work that is slightly to the left of our field, but it's necessary.
We need to have a sampler platter for our shows.
We need to be able to show people what it's like.

Make our theatres safe places for audiences again.

---End note to self---

Technorati Tags: theatre,austin,texas,manifesto,trailers

Omnibus Weekend Sinkhole

There is cyclical regret in the active membership of East Theatreblogostan that there is so much bitterness and whining, and so much sniping, and that Scott Walters persists in turning his computer on despite being old and not in New York.

Which, Scott aside, shows an awfully poor understanding of blogging, even after all this time.

Non and semi professional blogging (i.e. 99%) requires the author to overcome day to day inertia to write at all. Even the best of that class of bloggers need something to fire the engines. Which is why it seems like so much of the stream of posts have the volume turned up. If you're not fired up why would a group of people who are already working at least two jobs take the time to toss words into the void?

There is also a gate problem with blogging. Bloggers don't want to write newspaper articles, which have to have a low bar to entrance and spend a lot of time circling back to pick up stragglers, they want to write insider editorials with deep insight into their field.

This means (in the case of the theatre niche) that there is a lot of the first few pages of theatre blog hits concerned with what is wrong with theatre, a very valuable discussion that is unfortunately taking place in public as opposed to at the dinner table. A problem because Google doesn't differentiate between In-house fixing and busking for the outsiders. So this volume of "what's wrong?" means that all theatre bloggers are whiners who don't appreciate what they have and want the world to pay them to play in their sandboxes?

No.

It should be so much more forceful. But the answer is simply: No.

I can't speak for other niches but the vanguard of theatre bloggers are ALL people who are doing the work. These are people who care deeply about their art and their community and want to be able to pursue their art under better circumstances and have more people take part. Isn't that exactly the group of folks you want up front?

Of course it is. But we need to stop assuming that if someone isn't with us they are against us, and that if they challenge us or our way of doing things that they are Unamurkin. They are writing from their frame of reference on their way to another frame of reference neither of which is likely yours. Like acting theory - take what works for you and leave the rest. The blogger's innate desire to snark a dissenter into submission really needs to be eliminated in niche discussions, and the expectation that everyone's blog will be fact checked or more professionally edited than your own is patently assinine.

Selfish? Maybe.

After a choppy first week of rehearsal for FourSquare I was left thinking: "Wow, I used to be good at this didn't I?"

Zip it.

The answer is of course "mostly".

But the thing is? I never simply come at a script. I haven't been charged with looking at one character and only that character, with no additional duties, in seven years.

Not only have I not improved as an actor in those years, aside from the natural improvement that I think comes with age, I have lost a lot of technique due to accumulated rust.

Will I improve? Sure. That guy is still in here somewhere. But there's an awful lot of character development time that's going to get lost to me figuring how to do this again.

Small Arts Groups Fed to Media Machine

...to cover the taste of same old same old.

Look ma! Tuna noodle casserole arts coverage.

The big news ($77M Big!) in Austin arts for the moment is the opening this weekend of the Long Center for the Performing Arts. It is a beautiful venue stocked with all sorts of state of the art goodies in 2 indoor venues and some outdoor possibilities.

The staff is smart, capable, and hard working, and all of that $77M is visible. So why am I so cynical? Why am I not dancing in the streets? I mean I'm performing there in just over 6 weeks!

Two things really. One? We continue to perpetrate the idea that we have to move to our audience. Jeanne Claire Van Ryzin opens the article like so:

Location, location, location.

Like in real estate, in the arts, where you are can matter just as much as what you do.

That's why next week, when the first of many shows by some of  Austin's small and midsize arts groups start filling the new Long Center for the Performing Arts, it might seem that some of these groups are having their very first premiere.

She is referring to the Rude Mechanicals. The Rudes are landed gentry. They have their own space, and they are on the Texas Commission for the Arts and City of Austin dole. This group isn't up and coming, they're here for all theatrical values of here.

We allow our language to make them smaller than they are. They perform east of 35 so this is "like" their premiere? They aren't the three anchor tenants (ballet, symphony, opera) so they are spoken of with the same dismissive tones. Which is not a trait of the author, Jeanne Claire is an active advocate for Austin arts, but this is very much the feeling in audiences. If they aren't performing in a venue with wood paneling and concessions the venue isn't worth it.

I don't know how to combat that feeling in them.

But the big lie in the Long Center opening is of course that small theatre (or dance) groups can afford the space at all. Musicians who don't require the in-space lead a time may be able to  but if you need to do a full hang, load-in and tech? It's not going to happen.

From the article the Rudes were partially underwritten and the rental was waived. The landed gentry couldn't afford to come across 35 to perform in the big white house.

This isn't to say that the Long Center staff don't want it to be true. They do. I believe whole heartedly that given their druthers they would have that space full every week with different redheaded stepchildren. I believe that Cliff Redd was being genuine when he said that he wanted to have the blue hairs and the pink hairs meet in the hallway and mixnmingle.

But they have bills to pay, and that has to come from somewhere.

So even if their rental subsidy program takes care of your rental fees (the highest in the town). The charge you a per ticket fee. You either have to use their concessions or pay them a percentage of yours. You have to pay them a percentage of your durable concessions. All the little ways a small company could make some money back get taxed.

The only way for Cambiare Productions to present at the Long Center would be to get a Catalyst 8 rental subsidy AND a reasonably sized City of Austin grant. And there is no way to use the Long Center's cultural cache to make a windfall to fund the rest of a short season, you will have difficulty breaking even.

None of which I mind. That's the reality of the game.

I just want for that truth to be presented rather than this idea that the Long Center is going to save the Austin performing arts community from life on the far side of 35.

Technorati Tags: austin,theatre,rude mechanicals,Long Center,Cambiare Productions,grants,money

Riddle me this

I am a bear of very little stuffing, so forgive me for not understanding, and forgive me for taking the long way around in explaining my lack of understanding.

I am a second tier blogger, and second tier theatre practitioner in a second tier American city. I have no credentials to wave around and the wisdom to know it. I do my best to be a non-offensive milquetoast in this space, because I may need one or all of you in the future so I try not to burn any bridges. I don't take any hard stands on anything, I'm more interested in the conversation than in riding the storm.

But I need to understand.

Most of you DO take hard stands on things. You use your blogs as daily or pseudo-daily editorial soap boxes on theatre or politics, and you rant away. And honestly it's what makes you enjoyable reads. You challenge my way of thinking and allow me to examine how I feel on issues. Some of you have bylines for publications that require something more than being able to pass a captcha to write for and use your blogs to supplement that. Good on ya. 

So with all these accomplished writers and theatre practitioners writing rants and screeds and diatribes why is it that only Scott Walters attracts scrums of disgruntled bloggers?

DevilVet. I am the non-Nylachi voice you were asking for. (Austin by way of San Francisco and New Hampshire)

Once you get around the fact that Scott posts all of his hypotheses as declarative statements rather than questions I don't even understand what's so offensive. Is he single minded in his pursuit of a true regional theatre stripped of the corporate capital feeder model we work under now? Of course he is. And Qui likes super heroes and Ian like Orson Welles.

Scott isn't picking on New York. It's never been about picking on New York. It's about REMOVING NEW YORK FROM THE EQUATION TO SEE WHAT ELSE WE HAVE. New York is what it is. It is the de facto capital of theatre until people start practicing their religion where they're at. There are ten of thousands of practitioners there, paid and unpaid, and they are taking admirable care of the beast.

So why are you all so goddamn defensive when the rest of the country asks what else we have going on? You want Scott to change his tone? Really? You are so incapable of being an audience who accepts frustration from a writer that you insist he alter his words to suit your sensibilities? He reads something that reads to him as xenophobic, he says so. He reads what is purported to be a national magazine with a narrower focus than he'd like, he says so.

He's more zealous than I'd like, but he's not my representative. I didn't vote for him, nor is he on my payroll. So when he gets caught with some shoddy methodology on counting articles, I laugh. It's not a scandal. It's not an election. A partisan got carried away.

Why can't New York laugh and join him?

For my money right now, AS IT AFFECTS ME, the two most important things that I know about that are happening in American Theatre are Available Light's attempt at full on Pay-As-You-Can in a non-NY environment (do they have the critical mass to do it? If they do, does Austin?) and the Des Moines Social Club. Is there a theatre that can exist without the government teat (and the requisite say in what I produce) or private sponsorship?

That's what Scott's asking. And I don't see why so many of you expect him to be careful about New York's toes in the process.

It may not be about you, or for you, and if you are in New York making it happen for yourself it is likely very much not about you. But neither is it to SPITE you.

Some times things are about us. And that's okay.

3 the Hard Way

Tagged by the DevilVet:

Three Things I've Learned the Hard Way:

1. There is no one else.
   If you want a thing done you're going to have to do it. That's true both in the macro and micro scale in this little niche-verse. There is no one else to do the postering, there is no one else to paint the floor, there is no one else to create the performance piece.
   
   And that is the first sorting arm of theatre isn't it? If you have the gumption to get off your ass and do it? You meet the first criteria for Making It.
   
2. Never stop learning
   It not only keeps your brain from calcifying, it keeps you from ever being too terribly sure that the person across the table isn't righter than you. 
   
3. The theatre universe is small. No. Smaller than that.
   I don't know any of you.
   I am one step removed from lots of you.
   No more than two or three from almost all of you.
   
   Don't piss on anyone.
   Talent will win out, but if it's close? The person who's good in the room will win out every time. And your reputation is part of that.

Technorati Tags: theatre,austin,meme

Church

And the preacher he kept preaching Long is the struggle, hard the fight

GIVENS

This church idea is something I'm into exploring, as well ... so, how do we make our audiences as devoted as the weekly church-going crowd?
Rebecca - GreyZelda Land

... church to me means spiritual experiences felt through the institutionalization of dogma, and for me theater shouldn't be about institutionalization or dogma... it should be about rediscovering individuality and self-generated energy (two of the values that were bandied about elsewhere yesterday), and the community is secondary to that experience - though still a big part of the theatrical experience. What do you think?
Nick Keenan  - Theatre for the Future

I hereby incorporate by reference the rest of my blog.

---

First let me say that, unlike George Hunka, I found yesterday heartening. Is homework for a hundred by-nature-navel-gazers a somewhat daunting idea? Sure. But as a breed we really need to whittle down our conception of why We do this and why They should care to something more concrete than "it is art". Attempting to do so in parallel with one another is a useful exercise.

If you've been reading me at all, and someone beside the Google spiders has been (I'm the #1 hit for the Google search "Racist Snowflake"!), I don't need to bold anything in the quotes taken from comments on yesterdays entry. They bold themselves. I will highlight them for new kids though, and there are punch and cookies over by the counter.

I am all about the audience.  To a fault. I love messing with them. I love challenging their expectations. I LOVE making them feel things, especially things they'd rather not.

On the practitioners' side I am all about community.

Neither is a secondary concern for me.

Nick, I disagree with your assertion that theatre  "should be about rediscovering individuality and self-generated energy". To my thinking everything in American culture is geared toward the discovery of individual and  honestly that's why theatre as secular church works as a metaphor for me.

Churches work because they are moral collectives. Where ever two or more are gathered in the name of something there is that Energy.

Every theatre company that has been truly and deeply successful on whatever level they are shooting for has a strict mission, and a group of people who adhere to it. They are not necessarily a tribe in the way Scott Walters has been discussing, but they are a collective, and are structured very similarly to a church.

They have a  a head (strong or weak as they choose), a dedicated inner circle, and a more fluid outer circle that collectively adheres to a code. Is that dogmatic? Depends on the group honestly. But dogma isn't bad. Rigidity is bad, and they aren't the same thing.

And that Rebecca is how you keep them coming in.

Why do people keep going to McDonalds? Familiarity.
They know what they're getting. (and it's addictive!)

If you want to breed a congregation you have to give them quality, CONSISTANT product at a great price.

And then you make it belong to them. The Recessional matters.

There is a Snob gap in theatre that needs to be overcome, and the way to bridge that elitist chasm is to allow your audience to explore their ideas about the show with you.

I know you're tired. I know you want to get to the bar and unwind. I know that the last thing you want to do is examine the ideas that you have been wallowing in for the last 6 weeks.

But they are the point.

And this their one shot to grapple with these ideas in this moment.

That is a moment that makes theatre completely separate from other arts.

Don't rob them of it.

Now church it started right on time Just like it does without a doubt And everything was all just fine Except when it came time to let us out You know the preacher he kept preaching He told us I have one more thing to say Children before you think of leaving You better think about the Judgment Day ~Lyle Lovett - Church

Technorati Tags: Theatre,Austin,Church,Value of theatre,manifesto

I Can haz Value?

O Hai!

Slay over at the Hub of the Theatre Blogging Universe asks the Theatre Think Tank initiative question "What is it all about?".

He said it in more words.

The Value of Theatre

by Unasked Theatre Blogger Travis, Age 3

What is the Value of Theatre?

What is the Value of Church?

Strip away the Supreme being and what is church?

Without Diana Ross, or any other Supreme, church is a ritualized gathering to examine belief and to enjoy community.

"But Travis, why not film or visual art? They can create community or challenge belief!"

Indeed they can, and do, but when the art on the other end of the wire is a person there is a very different level of audience commitment and audience accountability. That accountability and the vitality of the connection between a live performer and an audience member changes the level of interaction.

Simple. But True.

Theatre is secular church.
We are it's preachers.

---

Why do we need to discuss the value of theatre?

Because we want others to pay for it.

We don't need to apologize for our art. This examination isn't for the audience,
it's for when Johnny Deeppockets asks.
We need to know, and we need to be sure.

Evangelism requires deep, true faith. 

Other folks (longer, more eloquent) answers all over the place,

Theater for the Future, Rat Sass, Theatre Ideas, Parabasis, The Next Stage, Steve on Broadway, Theatre is Territory, Freedom Spice in the New Mash-Up World, Mike Daisey, An Angry White Guy in Chicago, Bite & Smile, That Sounds Cool, A Rhinestone World, GreyZelda Land, On Theatre and Politics, and The Devil Vet.

and back at Slay's house as linked above.

 

Technorati Tags: austin,theatre,manifesto,Slay,Theatreforte,Theatre Think Tank Initiative,value

Free to be...

We all realize that,as Don Hall so eloquently put it in his beautiful and ambitious Off Loop Freedom Charter:

"Most of the problems associated with the American theater in the 21st Century has to do with the fact that it costs too much to create."

Why yes I DO focus on the bold parts... when I'm looking for springboards (and looking to pimp the Off Loop Freedom Charter).

Technology can't help you find an affordable well equipped space. If I find a technological answer to that y'all will be the second to know.

But being the software hoarder that I am I do know of some back-office solutions that may be of use to you.

Alright, so your call for a computer in the "needs" section of your program or website got you a midrange tower from last years Black Friday sale. It's underpowered and doesn't have what you need to get everything rolling.

So let's hook you up.
(Please note: I'm not saying anything here you can't get from LifeHacker. I'm just putting it in one place for those of you who don't read LifeHacker.)

Start by getting a Google account. There are too many free tools from Google to ignore. Get a professional name. Keep it.

Next? You should head to OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice is a complete office software package to replace Microsoft's Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Access. It does it very well and very similarly. You don't have to learn a new language to use it, and it's free. Use it with an extension  to save to GoogleDocs to share with your tribe. It also saves natively to .PDF for all your press release needs. (Zoho has a great suite of online tools, but we need the full package Google is giving us... so that's my online app of choice)

The rest? Here's a conversion table and some straight recommends:

Instead of Outlook : Thunderbird from Mozilla. Link it to your Google account and feel the love. Link it to your Google Calendar. Feel the love. It's Outlook. It's Free.

Instead of Pagemaker: Scribus - poster layout, program layout.

Sort of instead of Photoshop: Paint.Net - I need to be clear. Paint.net isn't as powerful as Photoshop. But you need to be honest, you weren't using Photoshop anywhere near it's capabilities anyway.  GIMPShop is a much more powerful photo editing system, but it's buggier and requires more system resources. (though Scribus above does integrate with it).

Photo Organization: Picasa from Google. Why? You need to organize your photos Promo photos, show calls, cat blogging, Kai blogging. Picasa does that while integrating seamlessly with Blogger (which many of you use) and uploading directly to the free space that comes with your Google Account to allow you to hotlink your photos. It also allows you to do very basic photo fixes.

I just shared this with Freedom Spice and I figured I'd splash it some more. Zhura.com is a free online app like GoogleDocs except that it has a light Final Draft shell on it. It's for screen writers, but stage writers will be able to figure it out. Great if you're collaborating.

CutePDF: for printing .PDFs of things that aren't in OpenOffice.

OpenProj: Is the Open Source variation of Microsoft Project.

Audacity: For simple audio editing and recording

Windows Live Writer: The most powerful blogging client that I've met. Works with just about every platform.

Wordpress: The most powerful blogging platform I've used. It's extensible beyond the beyond when you host it yourself, but still very powerful on the site.

RemembertheMilk: a Task management system that integrates tightly with your GMail and Google Calendars. Play with it. It's pretty amazing, and difficult to summarize.

GrandCentral: At Length Here

What about you?

What Open Source and/or Free software tools are you using that everyone should know about?

Technorati Tags: Theatre,Austin,Texas,technology,software,open source,free

Well You're Not the Only One

Are you reading Ken Davenport? Why not exactly? I will hold confession for all y'all really bad people at whatever bar SXSW hasn't eaten for the week.

In his latest post, which features Force of Nature David Ortiz, he talk about the success that the producers of In the Heights have had, and what lessons can be drawn from it.

Kevin McCollum and Jeffrey Seller, have produced Rent, Avenue, High Fidelity, In The Heights.

Mr. Davenport talks about four factors that go into the shows (save High Fidelity) being hits, and garnering grassroots audience response. He broke it down as geography, taking risks on talent, being frugal/responsible with production costs, and being true to the show instead of spectacle.

I'm paraphrasing.

I kept waiting for the obvious conclusion to be drawn explicitly... but it never was.

Why are these producers successful?

The same exact reasons we've been talking about.
They took shows about the area they were performed in (Theatre is Local! Even for puppets!) They didn't import Big Names. They didn't create needless spectacle. They  focused on doing the show the way it needed to be done, with the Right People to do it.

Further? They created community around the shows, something Mr. Davenport doesn't mention despite it being a feature in his iPhone ad... the Rent kids, and to a lesser extent Ave Q fans (and definitely Altarboyz fans) were/are evangelical. The Us/Them dynamic was exploited to leverage the underdog into profitability.

Reparaphrased:

Create honest product aimed at your community, featuring the right talent from your community, be responsible with your production costs, and invest the audience in growing the show.

Yeah. I can get behind that.
"But Travis, that's too simplistic!"
Of course it is. It's the truth, not a road map. If I had a road map I'd be producing on a different scale now wouldn't I?

---

Isaac asks why we get our buildings sponsored and not our people, in a continuation of the simmering semi-discussion of Edifice Complex 2.0. I find the discussion timely as Austin is in the process of opening their own $77M facility (I'll be there in May - plan now!) while I fell $1200 short of being able to pay my performers for Transformations.

Why wouldn't companies be interested in "endowing" chairs for paid positions? Because their's no prestige in it. If our media was still in the business of making stagefolk stars we could drum up at least some interest in it. But if there's no way to trumpet the fact that you're doing it? There's no reason for a company to do it.

Though if Mangia Pizza wants to endow an in-kind program I'm willing to listen.

Technorati Tags: Austin, Texas, Theatre, Long Center, Isaac Butler, Ken Davenport, manifesto, community, pizza