February 15, 2008
February 13, 2008
Has Theatre Failed America?
I’m down with the flu right now, so I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time writing. I will, however, direct you to two blogs that you absolutely must read. These are two of the most thought-provoking things I’ve read regarding theatre in a long time. I’ve talked to some people in person regarding these two writers’ thoughts, but I get the “you’re crazy” look and excuses. If you truly care about theatre, whether as a professional or an audience member, you should read these two blogs (preferably in order) and try and understand the dilemma that plagues American theatre today.
The first is The Empty Spaces, or How Theatre Failed America. The second is Scott Walters’ response titled Buckminster Fuller is Right.
Read them both, and leave a comment letting me know what you think. I’ll be following up with my own thoughts later, once this nasty flu goes away.
February 8, 2008
Excitement
I read several other people’s blogs, and one of them is by a woman who worked as co-chair of a theatre company in God-knows-where. I’ll leave her anonymous, for various reasons.
The guy she co-chaired the company with, to hear her tell it, is a prick. He wants the lead in every show they produce. He also wants his name as producer, director, and whatever-else. It’s painfully obvious to me that he’s doing this job for two reasons: a) he thinks he’s good at theatre (and maybe he is), and b) he likes to be in charge and in the limelight.
One thing I have learned in my years is that the only reasons you should stay in theatre are because you have a passion for theatre and it excites you. Excitement is the key here. If you’re excited, if you’re passionate about theatre, then you’ll find a way to make it. You won’t listen to the naysayers out there, who say you can’t make a living. You won’t listen to those who say theatre’s a waste of time. If you’re excited enough, you’ll find a way.
Excitement has a strange habit of crossing that 4th wall to the audience. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a show or been in a show where the audience afterward says “Can’t say I enjoyed the script, but the audience looked like they were having a blast, and I thought that was very, very enjoyable!” Excitement inspires people. It inspires them to come in the first place, to stick around for an entire performance, to come back next time.
Be excited.
Be passionate.
Inspire.
February 6, 2008
February 1, 2008
What can ya do?
One of the biggest problems that I face in my local theatre is a large sense of apathy. Most of the people here bitch and moan about how they didn’t get cast in this, they didn’t get cast in that, the theatre’s screwing them out of this, screwing them out of that. They complain and complain, and the department looks the other way. Why? Because they won’t help themselves.
The solution, obviously, is to produce their own shows — do what Scott Walters’ suggests, and work together and do small scenes together, monologues, 10 minute plays. The solution is to do their own work. The theatre doesn’t owe them anything. The theatre will, however, help those who help themselves.
A good example is a few years ago, one of the seniors embarked upon her senior project. She proposed a drama camp during the summer for kids. The rest of the department loved the idea, and so it happened. She ran it almost entirely by students, with only one faculty member assisting in scene painting. By the end of a week, the kids had performed a show for their parents. It was a huge success, raising the student drama society about $3000. Naturally, the department picked this up, and now it’s a departmental, annual thing run fully by the theatre (with assistance from students).
So, clearly, the theatre itself will assist a project, and maybe even take it on permanently, if the students, actors, and crew will start it and it proves to be successful.
Unfortunately, nobody wants to get off their asses to do so. In the past two years, there have been a handful of attempts to encourage and provide acting opportunities, including: three student-directed plays (including two by me), an improv theatre troupe (failed), and a cabaret (failed). The latter two failed largely because of a lack of participation. Everyone (well, in general) would rather sit around and bitch to each other than get off their butts and participate.
Which brings me to my conclusion. I’m going to echo, once again, Scott Walters. He has a brilliant plan to inspire change in local-actor hiring practices, but he makes a point, too: people don’t want to put themselves at risk if they don’t have to.
So, obviously, the trick is to provide them with an appropriate desire-to-laziness ratio. That is, the desire to participate must overcome their laziness. This worked in the two shows that I directed, because the students involved were sufficiently motivated to perform on stage — they were small shows and almost everyone had what could be termed a “lead role”, which motivated them to perform. Unfortunately, those kinds of shows aren’t the kinds of things that can be easily repeated. They would need to be something that worked so well that the theatre could pick it up, but similar enough that you don’t need to do an entirely new creative process every time (like, say, the drama camp). In addition, you need to have one person who is willing to do the vast majority of the work and is able to delegate the small tasks to their friends who are helping.
To summarize:
1) People are lazy
2) We need projects to do
3) The projects need to be low-risk, short in time-span, yet still produce results
4) They need to be easy to participate in
5) They need to be repeatable with minimal supervision
So what kinds of things can we do? Hmm.
I’ll get back to you on that.
January 30, 2008
Lazy Writing: The Prelude
You know, two summers ago I wrote a play. It was inspired by a conversation I had on a front porch on the 4th of July. There were about 10 people there at the party, but only three of them were dominating the conversation, and as I’m not very good at group conversations, I just listened. One of the three was a professor, another a student. The third was a girl who was visiting from across the country. In a small town like ours, that’s a huge deal.
She was telling us about her life in another place, and we were all rapt with attention. The student expressed his desire to leave, to find himself, and the professor (in rather crude terms) seconded the notion.
Regardless, I found the conversation to be inspiring. They spoke in a very real, down-to-earth way, but instead of half-hearted smalltalk, this was passionate, fiery conversation. It felt like I was watching a play.
As soon as I realized this, I switched my brain into Line Memorizing Mode, where I remember things accurately and quickly. I dunno, it’s a trick I have, I guess. Anyway, as soon as I got home, I wrote the rough draft of a play. It wasn’t long at 25 pages, but it was a good start.
Over the next year, I polished it and refined it. The character personalities were heavily based on my friends on that porch, with several monologues coming verbatim (at least, as best as I could remember) from that porch conversation. I wasn’t ripping off their ideas — I’d already had those ideas. But they had articulated them in ways I’d never been able to do before.
So the character personalities were based on my friends, but the characters deep down inside were based mostly on my own experiences (which, I suspect, everyone else has gone through as well). The conversations were composed entirely of thoughts that I had had before or experiences that I had actually been through. I wrote the way my friends might say it, but the underlying message came from within, rather than from them.
After a year of polishing it up, I turned in a proposal at my school to direct it. It took six weeks to get a response.
The producer came to me, asked me to come to his office, sat me down, and said “This is crap. Lazy writing.”
His reasoning was the professor’s character cursed constantly. I just nodded. I couldn’t very well tell him that the character was based on one of his employees, that this was very, very realistic writing. If it had been truly lazy writing, then the other two characters would have been cursing as well. As it is, neither of them ever say a curse word.
So, my script sits on a shelf, waiting for a day when I can produce it on my own, when I have the resources and opportunity to put it on stage.
I suspect that many people will connect with it. I don’t think it will make Broadway, by any means. It’s not that good. But it’s good enough for a one-act.
Like the characters in my play, someday I know my dreams will come true.
January 23, 2008
R.I.P. Heath Ledger
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock all day, you’ve heard about Heath Ledger passing away. I can’t really add much to what other people have said, so I’m just going to hold a moment of silence in his honor.
…
…
…
…thank God they finished Batman.
In all seriousness: Rest in Peace, Mr. Ledger.
For Better or Worse
I got my list of schools that are interested in interviewing me at the U/RTA conference in Chicago next weekend.
One school. Out of 15 that have the program I want.
Now I’m trying to decide whether to go or not. I mean, drive all the way to Chicago, spend all that time and money, when the one school that wants to interview me is only 2 hours away?
Oh, I know I’ll go. I’ve always wanted to see Chicago, and this is a pretty good excuse to go. And I understand I may get more interviews as the time grows closer. And there are acting auditions, as well. Plus, I have some friends out there. Maybe some of you faithful readers in Chicago will want to meet up for lunch or something. If so, let me know. I’ll be in Chicago Friday 2/2 to Monday 2/5.
I’m gonna go in there and give it my best shot, be as passionate and excited as I can, as I really am.
But I can’t help but wonder: what could I have done better?
January 18, 2008
A Plan: Ten Minute Play Mini-Festival
(I’m breaking my posting schedule with this, but I’d like to get this out today.)
This is my last show in my current location. Once this show is over, I’m moving away, either home or to wherever I’m going to grad school. There is a lot I’m going to miss about this place, but honestly, it’s just time for me to move on. However, I intend to go out with a bang.
I have an idea, and I’m hoping some of my friends will be willing to participate. The whole idea of this exercise is to improve ourselves as actors by getting criticism, suggestions and feedback from our peers, our faculty, and from random people who show up to the performance. In addition, this project will be huge brownie points in the eyes of the faculty, for anyone who participates.
I have a book of a collection of 10 minute plays. I’ve been reading through it, and I’ve found several plays that would be fairly easy to do, yet fun as well. The question is: will they be interested as well? Here’s my proposal.
Mission Statement: We intend to produce multiple 10-minute plays for free to anyone who wishes to attend, for the intents of A) having fun, B) becoming better actors and C) helping generate interest in the theatre.
The Plan:
1) Get three or four people together (actually, the more the merrier)
2) Assign parts
3) Either take turns directing or I’ll direct all the plays
4) Spend 2-3 weeks practicing (they’re 10 minute plays, so not a lot of practice required)
5) Perform them (for free) one afternoon in the black box studio
6) Ask the audience for their criticisms (either written or verbal). To increase participation of this aspect, anyone who participates gets a coke and cookie or something.
7) Have a Post-Mortem meeting with everyone involved, go over the criticisms and suggestions. 
Become better actors
The key here is to offer them for free (to encourage attendance and participation), and to GAIN MEANINGFUL FEEDBACK from others. One of the problems that I see in the department is a lack of feedback from our instructors. Very rarely are we told what could be done better (especially after a play is over with). Every other industry out there does something similar, and it helps them avoid making the same mistakes over and over. Since our instructors won’t give us feedback on their own, let’s do our own project and generate our own feedback.
Hopefully, I’ll get enough participants (only need three!) to get this off the ground and running. And hopefully, this will be such a success that it happens every semester, even after I’m gone. Perhaps, in the future, it will become a 10-minute play festival or something.
What do you think? Do you have better ideas, or perhaps some suggestions to improve this? I’d love to read your comments!