Just Wrought

Adam Szymkowicz interviews me.

http://networkedblogs.com/p30348905?a=share&ref=nf

Misha Versus Joe

It is a long-standing fantasy among show people to perpetrate a “turn-about” and review the reviewers, but really, if want to do what you do best, stay at your own level and not sink to mere criticism, the proper “turn-about” for stage folk is to stage the critics.  That is exactly what we did here.

Misha vs Joe from NewsWrights United on Vimeo.

Misha Berson, Theatre Critic for The Seattle Times was not happy with this portrayal and made her displeasure clearly known to all of the producers including myself.  Others, especially ex-staffers for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer complained about how we savaged their former colleague, Joe Adcock; but I completely disagree with this appraisal and I suspect Joe might too.  For me the piece lands clearly on a final note of love.  The genuine pain I felt upon Joe’s departure was not shared by many in my community, but I have to hope this is because they did not know him very well, or care to. One Big House artistic director reportedly remarked on learning of Joe’s retirement: “Ding dong, the witch is dead!” I suspect that same AD will feel the same when/if I finally leave town, dead or alive.  I say, be careful when casting anyone as the witch: for all you know, many may picture you surrounded by ugly flying monkeys. For my part, I want to dance with the Big House witches, not wish them dead. I wish my dear witches would wake up. And I am determined to do everything it takes to make that happen. 

I have seen how theatre gets covered in other towns Seattle’s size. I am glad we have Misha and Brendan Kiley and all the others. In the current crisis of journalism, every critic we lose is an irrevocable loss. Alas, I suspect Misha does not feel the same about me. After all, playwrights are a dime a dozen, and happily we do not depend on the survival of any one institution. Formidable is the power of nothing to lose. At this ripe moment in the history of our art form, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

To Not Die the Death of a Rag Doll

It’s been a little quiet lately, hasn’t it? 

Three weeks ago today TPS hosted the Seattle whistle stop of the authors of Outrageous Fortune.  At the end of that day’s session our community received high praise from the panelists as being the first place where they heard such frank and open discussion among playwrights, artistic directors, and other theatre professionals in the room.  We all know, however, that talk is cheap, action expensive, and real progress almost prohibitively so. 

There have been, however, some positive steps, like Jim Jewell’s astoundingly succinct, yet imminently workable proposal for pipelining work from smaller local theatres to the big houses.  With his permission I posted it here.  I am also being told about subtle maneuvers being made behind the scenes to bring the right people in to a room together for a more private session.  (This, of course, presupposes that someone knows who the right people are.)  Also, rumors of another Stranger-hosted Shit-Storm toss about on the chill spring sound wind, though some doubt another such gathering’s potential to effect any real change.  Says former Seattle Weekly theatre critic,  John Longenbaugh:  “What exactly did all of those Sh*tstorms ever accomplish? Did any local theatre change its policies in any way? Did any playwright get produced as a result?”

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.  The Shit-Storms have been little more than opportunities for blowing off steam.  Representatives from the Big Houses attend them about as frequently and enthusiastically as vegans visit underground cockfights.  I suspect that several of our entrenched artistic administrators viewed the Outrageous Fortune discussion as little more than a similar but mandatory appointment to act interested in the concerns of playwrights while intending to change exactly nothing.

There was an expression used in my family when I was growing up: “to die the death of a rag doll”.  Oddly, I have never heard it used anywhere else.  So a few years ago I wrote short essay illuminating the expression’s meaning and usage.  I share it here, in the hopes that our efforts to advance locally grown new plays and bring Seattle to its rightful standing as a world class theatre town does not suffer this uniquely miserable fate.

 

To Die the Death of A Rag Doll

I think I first heard the expression "[blank] died the death of a rag doll" from my oldest sister, and I have always suspected it was passed down to her along the well-worn matrilineal pathways of old Irish sayings, like "whistling makes the Virgin Mary cry" and "this place is filthier than Hogan's Alley" (don't ask, I don't know). Of course, I'm not really sure where my sister got it, although I am  certain that if I asked her, she would blithely swear that she has never heard of, let alone used, the expression in her entire life. (My sister's like that. Happy to encourage your suspicions of your own insanity.)

It is perfect really: the best idioms have sort of poetic shorthand about them. They not only say something in less words than it would take to do so straightforwardly, they add a touch of the ineffable to the description, so that strangely, beautifully, they say something that is effectively impossible to say else wise.

Of course, if I had to come right out and prosaically define it, I would say that a rag doll death is the slow passage into nonexistence of that which was once, however briefly, ardently embraced. You held her patchwork body to your chest every night as you feel asleep, and then one night, either because you got a nicer stuffed toy, or because it dawned on you that sleeping with dolls is stupid, you put her at the bottom of your bed instead of hugging her to you. From there to underneath the bed, dusty and forgotten, is just a few sad, small steps. One day, she just disappears. Maybe Mom throws her out or gives her to Good Will, but it is of no concern to you. You have not even noticed she is gone.

Once something ceases to be remembered, did it ever even exist at all?

Examples of things that can die the death of a rag doll:

• Plans to put in a vegetable garden this year
• Relationships
• The ability to fox trot
• New Year's resolutions
• Epic poems
• Flowers
• The commitment to learn another language or play a musical instrument
• Tropical fish
• Theatre
• The conviction that, on the balance, the United States of America is a good and just nation
• Crushes
• The ability to water ski
• Ego
• The four freedoms
• Inhibitions
• The certitude that you will one day be pleasantly famous for doing what you do best
• Black light posters
• Health
• Christ-like Christianity
• A taste for fruit-flavored wine coolers
• Sexual dynamism
• A superpower's promise to bring democracy to nation after invading it
• Bottles of Crème de Cacao
• Liberal good intentions
• A memorized list of the entire crew of the Argo
• Hopes and dreams
• Everything

The Sequence in Print

I am delighted to announce that my play The Sequence, which dramatizes the real-life race to decode the human genome, is now available in print from Original Works Publishing.

 

It has been a long road since that phone call eight years ago when Curt Dempster, then artistic director of Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York, offered me a commission to write something about the genome race.  He had seen Craig Venter on The Charlie Rose Show and I imagine he recognized a kindred spirit: an arrogant, monomaniacal genius who had the raw guts to want to change the world.  I knew nothing about the story.  I wanted instead to write a play about scientific investigations into human consciousness (still do, for that matter), but after doing some initial research I was quickly convinced that there really was a play here.  The detail that sold me for good was learning that Venter had secretly used his own “genetic material” as Celera’s sample for sequencing.  The lofty fog of scientific endeavor suddenly cleared as this act of sheer human outrageousness snapped everything into crisp dramatic focus.  There was a story here.  Boy oh boy, was there a story!

Curt has since passed on, by his own hand, determined as ever to navigate this life on his own terms or none at all.  He never got to see the world premiere of The Sequence at The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena.  He never got to see this final script, which he conceived by commission nearly a decade ago.  But in my overwrought imagination, I see him thumbing through it, slouched in his hovel of an office at the corner of 52nd Street and New Jersey, dog curled beneath his chair, surrounded as he always was with stacks and stacks of new play manuscripts, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, some of which he had asked for, most which he hadn’t, nearly all of which he would never read (he preferred to watch readings), but every single one of which he believed in; because for Curt, theatre was about making plays, not merely staging those already made.

You can pre-order the script by clicking here.

I hope you like it.  I also hope that when you read it, you remember that The Sequence, like all plays, was wrought more than written, and ultimately meant to be watched more than read.

A Strong First Stab at a Pipeline Design

To follow is a first draft proposal of terms for a plan to create a viable pipeline of locally grown new plays here in Seattle, incorporating the deep resources of the large Regional Theatre houses as well as the risk tolerance and experimental acumen of the smaller “fringe” producers.  It was drafted by Jim Jewell, Public Relations Manager at the Seattle Children’s Theatre and all-around Northwest theatre thinker/activist.

Seattle Local Playwright Initiative

A partnership between one of the LORT theatres and a fringe theatre with a dedicated space to encourage the ongoing development and production of plays by local playwrights, with a starting timeline of three years.

The partner organizations will choose two plays each year to be produced in the fringe theatre with marketing and artistic support from the LORT house. The fringe house commits to producing six such plays over three years, and the LORT house commits to producing one play of the six as part of their mainstage programming no later than the season that follows the third year.

The initial playwright pool will be drawn from Seattle-based applicants to the program and any local playwrights with whom either of the partner organizations has an existing relationship. One play per playwright will be submitted to a reading pool, to be read and commented on by artistic staff at each partner organization (one page response to each play by each organization). The partner organizations will then meet and come to a consensus on two plays to produce each year; in the absence of consensus, each partner organization will select one play.

Expectations:

The fringe house will act as primary producer of all six initial productions, acting as lead for design, production, promotion and execution, and will staff all admin, front of house and crew. As primary producer, the fringe house accepts the majority of financial risk and reward.

The LORT house will provide artistic support, including dramaturgy and design, promotion support, including production and distribution of print and electronic marketing materials, and technical support. The LORT house will also be asked to advocate to AEA and/or IATSE for any union artists or technicians interested in working on the productions.

The expectation is that the minimal one production at the LORT house that comes from the partnership will be given institutional and budgetary support on par with other productions in the season in which it is performed.

Benefits:

Both partner organizations benefit from positive PR generated; six local playwrights get the opportunity to draw on the best the fringe and LORT theatres have to offer to develop their work, with one receiving a full production; the LORT theatre is able to locally outsource some measure of workshopping; fosters more direct relationship between local playwrights and largest institutions; offers and opportunity to develop a local voice in theatre that may help speak to untapped audiences for both LORT and fringe theatres.

I do not want to make any substantive comments here because I really do want to hear what you have to say, but it must be pretty obvious how I feel about it given that I am posting it here under the title above.

Let the feedback frenzy begin!

Fooled Again? The Seattle Outrageous Fortune Discussion

Estragon: I can't go on like this.

Vladimir: That's what you think.

Allow me to share with you the opening paragraph of an amazing essay that Carl Sander brought to my attention a few weeks ago:

The American non-profit theatre movement is nearing disaster.  Without an adequate sense of tradition or sense of social responsibility, it is in danger of becoming a movement whose only purpose is self-perpetuation.  This idealistic movement begun some generations ago has been unable to achieve a living wage for its actors, a livelihood for its playwrights; it demands that its designers accept twelve to fifteen productions a year just to make ends meet, and forgoes its responsibility to train directors while permitting, under the heading of financial survival, the average income of its audience members to climb higher and higher until this once bastion of social ideas and aesthetic concerns as become the plaything of the upper middle class and the very wealthy.

Isn’t that amazing?  Doesn’t that paragraph just go straight to the heart of our current situation, and by doing so make you a little bit more hopeful that smart people are talking about theatre’s endemic crisis in such an insightful way, since surely, if we talk about this cogently and passionately, we will inevitably move toward making things better?

There is only one problem.  This paragraph was written by Richard Nelson for an essay in PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art in 1983.  So whether you like it or not, whether you knew it or not, these problems are way over a quarter of a century old.  And since Nelson’s incendiary bit of insight was published, absolutely nothing has changed.

Last Monday, a bunch of Seattle theatre folk sat in a room and listened to Todd London, Ben Pesner,  and Tory Bailey present their findings on the state of the American playwright-- findings which culminate in a book called Outrage Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play.  I cannot heap enough praise on these professionals for their efforts not only in researching and authoring this book but in their willingness to tour the country to discuss it.  Thank you, London, Voss and Pessner, as well as Tory Bailey, Executive Director of the Theatre Development Fund. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I hope we happy few in Seattle can make progress worth your effort.  I hope this, while understanding that hope is not a plan.

I fretted over how best to how best to shape my thoughts about the day, and then I realized I already had a loose outline in the form of the bite-sized tweets I was firing off live from the room.

“Roll Call” and “Good Mix and Size”

The first two blog posts were longer than what I could manage later, and were dedicated to making note of the very impressive cross-section of artists and administrators who came to share in the discussion.  I am proud of my city for the turnout.  My only caveat: I did not see a large number of actors-- certainly nowhere near the proportion they hold in the larger theatre community.  If playwrights really want to get traction in making locally grown new plays a priority then we are going to have to do a better job of convincing local actors why this is important.  I have myself been petulant on this point  in the past and pledge to do better.

Within “Good Size and Mix” I posted the first of many quotes that I enjoyed: "We are finished with talking with playwrights in one room and artistic directors in another.  This tour is the first salvo of setting playwrights and artistic directors in a room talking to each other." Soon after I began tweeting quotes with little or no context.  I will try to make up for that here.

"Commissions are what a theatre gives a playwright they like when they don't want to produce your play.”

Boy howdy, ain’t that the truth!  Understand if you can that in the upside-down, through-the-looking-glass world that is regional theatre everything you learned about money and investment flies out the window.  The larger the commission the less likely the theatre is to actually produce what they have paid you to wright.  Why?  Because it is easier to score a grant funding a commission than it is to get one large enough to underwrite an entire production of a new play.  In the regional theatre world, commissions are an easy win.  The playwright gets paid.  The theatre looks generous.  So long as everyone calls it good, it’s good, right?  (Note: actual play seen by actual audience not included.)

“‘Everyone wants the same ten playwrights.’-- Anonymous Artistic Director”

I ripped this from one of London’s slides.  It is a key point from the book.  There was no argument on Monday from anyone representing the Big Houses, nor have their season selections provided any compelling contradictory evidence.  Plus, when it comes to locally grown, that list of ten can be reduced to one: Steven Dietz, who, while beloved of all, has actually lived in Austin for the past half decade. 

“Right now Q&A has bogged in a rather tedious, though I suppose necessary analysis of the survey methodologies.”

Typical Seattle talkback static. “I need to show you how smart I am by questioning your research process while agreeing with its conclusions.  Really, I just want everyone to know I’m smart.  Does everyone know that now?  Great.  I’ll sit down.  What were we talking about?”

“Things are looking up. A touch of crazy has blossomed in the room.”

I would live to rue these words, after someone stood up and complained at length about how no one in New York wanted to produce her one-woman show about the day JFK was shot.   Crack-pottery suits the status quo defenders because it helps them lump the legitimate playwrights in with lunatic amateurs.  They can then turn to their boards, shake their heads sadly, and say, “You see what I have to deal with?  You don’t pay me enough to screen out these maniacs.”

“Okay, now it's become a pattern-- unique to Seattle?-- that crazy flowers are dominating Q&A because the smart folks are too smart to pipe up.”

See above.  But note that the smart people are complicit as well.  And I admit, I too was biting my tongue and sitting on my hands.  But in my defense, I get to mouth off a lot, and was genuinely interested in what other folks had to say.  Come on good folks, speak up!

“Good question leading to discussion of potential of collaboration across theaters of differing sizes. In other words, a pipeline. Duh.”

This is what we we need to be talking about, friends: a pipeline: some way of delivering plays across the tiers of theatres in this town.  Todd London talked about how incredibly hard this is to do, and I do not doubt it.  So was going to the moon.  So was writing Hamlet.  So is raising a family.  Can we try something hard?  Can we as Seattleites lead a cultural change instead of hoping Austin figures it out?  (Which by the way, according to London, Austin may already be doing.)

“Good question from a good friend involved in development asking to identify a "sweet spot" for breaking down silos so that all the people in this room can better collaborate towards developing new work (ideally locally grown).”

Some sort of pipeline is the sweet spot, I am convinced.  There are other options worthy of research and development: playwright residencies, season slots dedicated to new work, etc.,  but I figure those will be a lot harder for the Big Houses to swallow than a pipeline, which they will wager they can quickly abandon when the pressure’s off (i.e. ACT’s abandonment of its highly successful FirstACT program.)  So I say, let’s convince them to build the pipeline and then let’s defend it vigorously.  Keep the pressure on, forever, forcing them to pull the plug only at their p.r. peril.

“A little bit of fireworks there. ‘Not enough good plays for the Big Houses.’ ‘Aesthetic absolutes.’ ‘You either get what you want or you don’t.”

Finally voices from the Big Houses start piping up.  At times to call me out by name to both praise and dismiss me in the same breath.  I am used to this tactic.  It has never cut much ice with me.  Praise is a director’s easy currency.  Many actors crave it.  It soothes them.  There is nothing wrong with this.  At the moment, however, I happen to have my playwright hat on, and I have been to Hollywood.  I know exactly how much such praise is worth.  Instead, I prefer to focus on fighting words, such as “We are looking for excellence and not finding it.”  Bullshit.  You are not looking.  And when pressed, you praise the shit out of anything handed to you in the hopes that the playwright will just go away like a happy little puppy that just got its head patted.  Save the praise.  Let’s do a production.

"I actually don't think the system is broken. Just limited resources."

Wishful thinking from a Big House voice.  Why is the Center House Theatre packed with people for this discussion if the system ain’t broken?  Are we all crackpots?  Did this all somehow get fixed since Richard Nelson wrote his essay in 1983?  In fairness, you have to expect that this argument will be trotted out, and even perhaps welcome it.  There are people who believe all is essentially well.  Best to know who they are so you can properly provide them  the evidence otherwise.

“What are you willing to sacrifice?”

I find this question fascinating.  Primarily aimed at playwrights, the essence is: are you willing to give up a living wage to practice your art?  Are you willing to give up your career to make these changes you are asking for? 

Answers:  Done and done. 

I started wrighting plays over twenty years ago understanding I would likely never gain a livelihood from it.  How many actors my age can say the same?  I also hope it is clear by now what I have personally anted up by speaking out here.  Any hopes I had for a nice Dietzian career in this town are herewith spent as payment to sit down  at the bargaining table.  I will not, however, sit without asking absolutely everyone else at that table what they are willing to stake to make this conversation happen.  Are you willing to give up your livelihoods in the theatre to fix this?  Are you willing to sacrifice everything you were hoping for individually, all your preconceptions, to make theatre better in Seattle and across the nation?  Or are you going to defend the status quo because it has gotten you this far?

Louis Broome wants your figurative head on a platter if you currently make your living at one of Seattle’s not-for-profit theaters.  I just want your actual heart, in your chest, pumping warm blood to your brain so you can have a conversation about producing local plays that matter to the audiences you have never yet managed to reach.  I do not intend to let anyone off the hook because they are having a bad year, or a good year (yes, again, congratulations ACT) or because they absolutely know what quality is and they cannot find it here, the home to some of the finest playwrights living.  Given that I have nothing left to lose, and that I have very little power to comfort the afflicted, I will settle for afflicting the comfortable.

But let’s not get too excited here.  Heck, it isn’t as if this cause is urgent.  We have at least another 27 years till someone, maybe only 15 years old now, digs up these essays and says, “Damn.  Nothing’s changed.  But we can’t go on like this.”

That’s what you think, kid.

And . . . scene.

At least just for now. At least I hope just for now.

"I actually don't think the system is broken. Just limited resources."

What are we willing to sacrifice?

A little bit of fireworks there. "Not enough good plays for the Big Houses." "Aesthetic absolutes." "You either get what you want or not"