International Culture Lab On Board

Folks -- keep an eye on the International Culture Lab blog, which will be participating in the explorations happening here.

And while you're at it, check out Don Hall's latest post "Like Square Pegs in Round Holes" and do some serious thinking about what he says. Is it possible, or even desirable, for theatre artists to focus only on creating art?

Joy and Pain

A tangent: teaching acting. If I were setting up an acting curriculum, I would have students spend the first semester watching the following video and trying to reproduce it themselves. Watch:




I'd have students pay particular attention to the older brother -- how he clearly went from laughing to surprise at how much it hurt to the realization that it was hurting A LOT - and then back to neutral again when his attention is drawn to the TV! It seems to me that this is the foundation of all great acting: portraying clearly on one's face and in one's body the changing thoughts and emotions of a character. Then I would have students spend time paying attention to the baby -- the pure joy that goes across his face.

Sounds easy, right? I mean, how much time would this take for students to accomplish? Well, watch some attempts, and compare them to the original:



And this:



It's not easy. But it is crucial to acting. If you watch one of the first scenes of The Godfather, you will see what I mean. When a petitioner whispers a request into Marlon Brando's ear, you can watch every word he says appear on Brando's face. Just like the kid in the YouTube video. To me, this is the essence of acting, whether tragedy or comedy. Work on this first, before you start getting scenes from plays to work on -- just focus on thinking thoughts and expressing them clearly and with commitment. Once you have experienced that, then you might start doing scenes.

Obama's Arts Policy

Courtesy the Community Arts Network blog:

http://www.communityarts.net/blog/archives/2008/01/barack_obamas_a.php

Guardian Article

Thanks to Sarah McLellan for forwarding this article from the Guardian on "Rural Theatre's Radical Force."

Fear of Falling Off the Map

OK, let's start exploring the ins and outs of a new model for regional theatre, keeping in mind the goals described in the post above. From here on out, my steps will be more tentative, since we will be going in new directions where our thought experiments may be contradicted by so-called Conventional Wisdom. While there may be some data that we can use to bolster our ideas, and I will try to locate data to do that, some of what follows may be based on conjecture. All I can ask is that you give the conjecture a fighting chance in the war against Conventional Wisdom. (If you want to see how Conventional Wisdom works against innovation, read Jason Grote's "Long Overdue Response on New Play Development," paying particular attention to the reasons offered as to why his play 1001 couldn't succeed outside of Denver.)

The first hurdle we have to deal with is the fear of regionalism. For instance, Jason worries about "falling off the map" if he leaves NYC. It is a real concern if one holds certain dreams.

So my first question for those who might be considering the ideas that will be developed here is: What are your personal goals as an artist? Would you be willing to "fall off the map" if, by doing so, you were able to have a life in which you earned a reasonable living -- let's say, a salary similar to a professor at a small state school that would make you comfortably middle class -- and you had the opportunity to do theatre work consistently and could control your own artistic career? In other words, would you be willing to give up the dream of fame and sudden riches for a secure salary and the ability to do work you care about on a consistent basis?

Think about this carefully, because it isn't an easy question to answer. Most of us are brought up over the years to conceive of our work in terms of fame and fortune, rather than day-to-day existence. Even those of us who are most committed to a vision of regional theatre likely harbor dreams of national recognition (this blog, for instance, is read mostly by non-Asheville people -- if I am so committed to my region, why am I spending time writing for national distribution? The dream of national recognition is powerful!)

This question, which must be answered by each individual artist, lies at the center of the struggle for healthy regional theatres. I would be willing to bet that all those companies that people point to as examples of how companies inevitably fall apart and break up did so because many of the members could not let go of dreams of fame and fortune. Herbert Blau, whose bookThe Impossible Theatre: A Manifesto about the creation of The Actor's Workshop in San Francisco starts with this sentence: "The purpose of this book is to talk up a revolution," and throughout Blau committed with almost religious fervency to Decentralization. But he closed up shop and moved himself and most of his company to NYC in mid-season when Lincoln Center came calling in the 1960s. It wasn't enough for him to do the work in SF, he needed to save Broadway. And that's another aspect of the Cinderella Myth: it may not be about your own personal fame and fortune, but a desire to save the world and throw the moneychangers out of the temple of art. It's a powerful mythological tale, the Cinderella Story, and artists put up with a lot of financial insecurity and personal frustration by subscribing to that pattern.

But unless you can give it up, unless you can focus on the work as an end in itself and not as a means to an end of fame and fortune, unless you can find your heart's joy in the creation of theatre with little thought of being "discovered" by "Important People," then this model is not for you. You must commit to the idea that "small is beautiful," and that the local is more important than the global. If you can't, then stick with the status quo.

And that is OK. I have great respect for those who slave away against high odds in pursuit of their own personal dream. Everybody doesn't need to commit to the same dream. We're not looking to wipe out the current model and replace it with the tyranny of our own. We just want to create an alternative that fits those who share differing values and dreams. If you are one of those people who think they could be happy working outside of Nylachi as long as there was some level of financial security (otherwise, why do it, right? You can be on the edge of financial disaster in Nylachi and at least have the dream of wealth and fame to keep you going, but to be on the edge of financial disaster in Missoula MT is another thing entirely), then keep reading, because that's our goal.

But the first hurdle is letting go of the fear of "falling off the map." Can you do it?

Draw a Line

For the past month or so, I have used most of my posts to explore the downside of the current regional theatre model. I have alternated data with history, and history with rants (Geezer rants, in Nick's memorable term) in my attempt to create a clear picture of the reasons why we would from an attempt to explore alternatives.

It is my impression that many of my readers have followed my arguments, and acknowledge many of the problems I mention, even if they personally prefer working within the status quo. After a month, I think I need to move on from the description of problems to the development of solutions. This is a much different project. It is fairly easy to describe what one is against, but much more of a challenge to describe what one is for. Nevertheless, it is a necessary step if the discussion is to progress beyond simply rehearsing the same kvetches that have been heard in bars and coffee shops for years.

So draw a line in your mind at this post. While there may be times when I will discuss what is wrong with the current system, my focus from her on will try to remain on possibilities and solutions. This will require that you read me in an entirely different way; you must join me as a collaborator.

Over the coming weeks, I will start developing some approaches and models that might help to achieve the overall goals. Some will, no doubt, strike some of you as misguided, and it is my hope that you will use my comments box to explain why. I ask only one thing: that you not base your reaction wholly on your own preferences writ large. If, for instance, I make a case for creating theatres in smaller cities, I hope you will not tell me that you would never do that because you just love big cities. That's a personal preference, and it is admirable that you are clear about your own life choices. I have no problem with that, and applaud you with enthusiasm. But there may be others who do not share your preference, and to use it as a reason for questioning the efficacy of a proposal, or even worse, to universalize your own preference as representing "most theatre people" ("I would never leave New York for a smaller town, and I think most theatre people share my aversion") is simply unhelpful. As Sir Toby says in Twelfth Night, "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"

Also, I will be posting things in a very preliminary stage -- very little will be polished or completely thought through. That is where you can help me to fine tune, or even start over completely if the medicine is worse than the disease. This will help enormously.

So the goals:

We will be working to create a model for theatre that does the following:

1. Gives theatre artists as a group control over the development of their artistic lives.

2. Provides sufficient opportunities for creative activity to help develop skills and vision.

3. Encourages a more even distribution of professional theatre in areas that have been historically underserved.

4. Allows people interested in focusing primarily on live theatre the means to do so.

5. Promotes a standard of living that provides individual security and increases lifestyle options.

6. Contributes to the development of distinctively American theatre and theatre artists.

Other goals may arise as this discovery process continues, but those will suffice at this stage. Some of the strategies that will be used to develop these models will include those listed to the right:

1. Decentralization
2. Localization
3. Strengthening the artist-audience relationship
4. Making a positive contribution to one's community

I would also add that part of my focus will be on the development of an educational model that could promote the knowledge and skills necessary to work within this model.

I hope you will join me as partners in this quest for a new theatre.

On Demonizing Tyrone Guthrie

Last Wednesday, I wrote a post called "Betrayal of the Regional Theatre Movement -- The Guthrie," in which is posted a comparison of Margo Jones' passionate commitment to the production of new plays and development of contemporary playwrights with Guthrie's commitment to classics that were at least fifty years old. Obviously, I portrayed the latter as a betrayal. As Tony rightly pointed out, Guthrie cannot be blamed for all those Artistic Directors who have continued his policies to this day. We recreate reality every day by our behavior, and Guthrie only headed the theatre named after him for two short years and then he moved on.

To call Guthrie's policy a betrayal is perhaps too strong -- it implies a level of conscious dastardliness that is undeserved. It is important to remember -- and I should have pointed this out -- that when Guthrie was building that theatre, the American theatre was almost wholly committed to the production of new plays. In many ways, Guthrie's commitment to classics represented a rejection of mainstream theatrical practice, and was (at least to some extent) a revolutionary act. His artistic policy represented a turning point in the American theatre. Where previously there had been only a one way street, Guthrie created a crossroads where a variety of decisions could be made: all new plays (Broadway), a mix of new and classic (Margo Jones and those who followed her example in Houston and Washington DC), and all classics (Guthrie).

What tilted the scales was the enormous amount of media attention Guthrie received as compared to other such theatres. This attention came because he was a celebrity, as were Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, and George Grizzard, and because his was not an "acorn" theatre that grew in small increments over a period of years, but rather was born a full-grown oak in a beautiful and unique multi-million dollar theatre. In short, the media hook was the glamor of the theatre, not in the artistic ideas or even in the plays that were produced. Without that glamor, the Guthrie would never have become the 900 lb-gorilla of the regional theatre movement, and there might be a better mix of artistic policies around.

But it did have that glamor, and it's example did become dominant, and once he had laid out that pathway it became much easier for everyone to simply follow along in the footsteps that he had blazed through the Minneapolis snow.

Today, Guthrie's model is dominant, and it is what needs to be revolted against in the same way that he revolted against the Broadway model.