Just Wrought

This Change is Playwright Approved

Theatre tradition runs rife with jokes, sayings and funny stories about actors and playwrights, and their divergent natures.

 

Question: How many playwrights does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: The light bulb doesn’t need any changes.

* * *

Question: What’s the difference between a working Seattle actor and a large pepperoni pizza?

Answer: A large pepperoni pizza can feed a family of four.

* * *

“The average actor craves approval; the above average playwright craves disapproval.”

 

These clichés occasionally harbor a smidgeon of truth, but persist as mostly empty stereotypes. However, I do hold one difference between playwrights and other theatre artists to be true and fundamental: we tend to have a keener long-term view of the theatrical environment. This only makes sense. Our work cycle runs to years, whereas most other theatre artists live tactically, month to month; at most, season to season. Playwrights simply scan a farther horizon. (So no, I was not using my psychic powers when I predicted earlier than most the demise of the Intiman as we know it.)

All this is to say my eagle eyes tell me that ACT just made an exquisite choice by appointing John Langs to the position of Associate Artistic Director, and thereby giving him and his family a reason to make Seattle their permanent home. (You can read a detailed run down of John’s new duties here.)  Unlike other hotshot directors who have been recruited from afar to fill similar roles at Seattle Big Houses, Langs is no elitist carpet bagger. His roots run deep here in Seattle, at Big Houses and small, with him directing work by writers running a gamut from Shakespeare to, well, me.

Seattle actors love Langs, and he loves them. Seattle playwrights respect Langs, and he respects them. (A dual-facing fact I wish were true for more Seattle Big House administrators.) I won’t tell you John Langs can single-handedly drag Seattle theatre to excellence—he can’t; but he is the piece that perfectly fits a missing part of the puzzle here. Langs has shepherded more excellent new plays to world premiere than any other director I know. He gets why new work is so vital to Seattle’s health as a World Class theatre town. He also gets how nurturing it can help his own career in a way that staging the latest New Yorker-approved off-Broadway hit never could.   

ACT’s choice is a win for everyone. Langs will grow his already formidable career here instead of elsewhere, and he will grow his fellow Seattle artists with him. For John, Seattle isn’t a stepping stone.  It’s the destination.

Confidential to John:  carve an hour out of your swamped schedule and let me be one of the first of many to buy you a congratulatory cocktail so I can properly say:

“Welcome, welcome, a thousand times, welcome. 

Now… get to work!”

A Bountiful Fall Harvest for Seattle’s Locally Grown

Seattle’s scene for locally grown plays has always been stronger than your average mid-sized city's, but anything good is worth fighting to make better. That’s why I mouthed off over two and a half years ago with an essay titled “Theatre takes Place: Why Locally Grown Plays Matter”.  I listed some bullet points explaining why the development of new plays is so crucial to the health of any great theatre scene:

• “Local actors evolve a better understanding of how their contribution … can be generative as well as interpretive.
• “Local audiences evolve a better understanding of how plays get made and how they can participate in the process….
• “Local funders evolve a better understanding of their roles as patrons of the arts…
• “Local funders, artists, and administrators …[can see] the development of plays as actual investments, with the potential to pump profits back to Seattle in several ways.”
• I even complained that the then recently introduced TPS  Gregory Awards had a category for “outstanding director” but none for playwright, a blunder since rectified.

Mouthing off is fun, but theatre is a collaborative art form.  Unless others join the fray it isn't much more than meaningless monologue.  Happily, the last few years have shown just how much a modest city can grow as a theatre town when a group of motivated professionals put their collective mind to it.  For instance, last year A Contemporary Theatre finally took another chance on a local playwright by producing Yussef El Guindi’s  Pilgrims Musa and Sheri in the New World.  The gamble paid off big-time: El Guindi won The Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award (plus the $25,000 that comes with it), and American Theatre Magazine just published the script in its current September 2012 issue.

Keri Healey’s new play Torso, produced by Printer’s Devil Theater, mesmerized everyone I know who saw it.  I suspect it is no coincidence that Keri has been short-listed for a Stranger Genius Award this year.  Torso recently doubled down on local impact with its currently running second production on Orcas Island.

These are just two stand-out success stories from many.  And this fall promises another bountiful harvest of locally grown new theatre.  Again, just to name and explain a few (with a promise to blog separately on some as they come closer):

 

14/48 outdoors for the first time ever

A few weeks ago I raved about the glorious gamble the 14/48 steering committee was then making by staging their first “Kamikaze” festival, but this weekend they are amping up their Summer of Risk by staging the instant theatre festival outdoors for the first time in their 15 year history.  Tickets are free (also a new twist) so it’s hard to see how you could afford to miss it. (More info here.)

 

The Betty Plays

Beloved local actor Betty Campbell doesn’t get around as easily as she used to, so five local playwrights, myself included, wrote four short plays tailored to her unique and extraordinary talents.  This special Theater Schmeater offering is the sort of one-of-a-kind live experience that only happens in Seattle.  (Click here for more information  and here for reservations.)

 

NCTC’s Foreclosure by Vince Delaney

One of Seattle’s hottest acting ensembles workshops one of Seattle’s hottest playwrights, as he tackles an issue facing Americans nationwide  There aren’t many performances scheduled for this pre-world premiere, so you better reserve early.

 

Sandbox Radio Live!

1. The podcast from Episode 5: “An Unexpected Twist” recently dropped.  (A blog on that to come.)
2. A “Best Of” show kicked ass at Bumbershoot!  (Check out this review.)
3. And Episode 6: "Something Wicked This Way" is coming very soon: October 1 at West of Lenin.

Why is Sandbox Radio Live! so important to Seattle’s locally grown theatre movement?  Because it happens every quarter and every quarter it gets better.  Because nearly every play, poem or commercial is written by top local playwrights and performed by top local actors.  Because it is fresh local “produce” at its best and most consistent.

 

Custom Made Plays

In my opinion this may just be the most exciting new wrinkle in Seattle’s locally grown scene, and not just because I have the good fortune of being the inaugural playwright.  Brainchild of local actress Rebecca Olson, the Custom Made Play Project  is dedicated to matching Pacific Northwest playwrights with local actors to develop and produce new plays of regional significance.  In my case, after interviewing my collaborating actors, Ms. Olson and Hana Lass, I tailor-made the soon-to-world- premiere Ballard House Duet to their unique talents and qualities.  Because of that, I am painting with colors I have never used before, and I’m loving it.  The resulting script simply would not exist were it not for these unique one-on-one collaborations. That fact excites me.

 

Here’s another fact: Seattle is the best city in the country—maybe even the world— for locally grown theatre.  And we are only getting better and better at growing it.  As you can see from the small sampling above, it’s going to be an awesome autumn harvest.  It makes you wonder what next winter, spring and summer will bring.

Boiled Frogs

Josh Parks is a fellow veteran from Annex Theatre’s golden years in the early to mid 90’s.  Josh starred in my favorite Annex show of all time, Bessemer’s Spectacles by Glen Berger.  Nowadays it is wisest not to mention the show to anyone involved with it if you don’t want to hear an earful.  Apparently it was a clusterfuck to produce, but produced it was, and beautifully, devastatingly so.  When the house lights came up after the curtain call everyone but me filed out of the theatre. I had to stay where I sat.  Couldn’t get myself zipped back together.  My was heart pulled open and sore and I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face.  Josh also did a few other turns across the Annex stage, including Faith Healer.  A production still is provided below.  Josh stands to the far right alongside the incomparable Susanna Burney, left, and some guy named Paul Giamatti, center.  (Wonder what ever happened to him.)

I can claim zero credit for what Josh says below, beyond cutting and pasting it with permission from his Facebook page, and maybe suggesting the title.  While many of us have sat stuck in these ever warming waters of theatrical ineffectuality, Josh has been living his life, raising his family, working his jobs.  The essay describes his experiences jumping briefly back into our pond. 

Clybourne Park is the first equity house (non Christmas) production I can remember seeing in at least 10 years. Maybe 15. That was a big part of what pushed me from "That play sounds interesting," to actually being willing to shell out $116 for two tickets (more on that later). I was not only interested in what the play had to say, I was very interested in what the experience of an evening of theater had to say. The world has changed so much on so many fronts over the past 10 to 15 years, I felt like I had a unique opportunity to see how theater had evolved over the same period of time, having very few intervening reference points to color my thinking.

You may have an idea where this going.

But before we get there, one of the striking things about the experience was that the most memorable line did not come from the play, it came from the preshow ask, delivered by a board member. I believe he said something like, "As you probably don't know, the price of your ticket only covers about half of the cost of production."

Really? In the 10+ years since I've been to a show has the Rep really done such a poor job of educating its patrons on this issue? Are there any regular Seattle arts patrons who don't know this? I am the opposite of a regular, and I knew it. "For those who may not know…" or something that didn't insult the intelligence of what I imagine to be a big chunk of the audience would have made a surprisingly big difference. To me anyway.

Even more memorable was the impression, having shelled out over $100 for my tickets, that the Rep was trying to make me feel -- even before having seen the show -- like I had received what I should regard as a temporary discount. I found that off-putting. There seemed to be very little appreciation for the fact that we had already given them our money, and a lot of appreciation for the fact that, "little did I know," I had actually come up a little short in their eyes.

OK, so now that I've been made to feel like I'm not doing enough to support the arts (even though every dollar is "meaningful"), on with the show!

The production was serviceable. The playwriting was really not as good as I had hoped, nor was the direction, which seemed to be trying (but failed) to make a lot of the dialogue come across as Aaron Sorkin-esque line-chopping rapid-fire banter. The acting was good enough.

But what's the word to encapsulate the experience, the energy in the room, the aftertaste? "Quaint" seems to be the most persistent answer. As the play unfolded I found myself amazed at how little things had changed since I last saw an Equity house production, and I have been pondering that ever since. When I think about what the world was like in 1998 and where we are now, how so many industries, and governments, and lives have been transformed in that time, the experience of going to the theater seemed to have stood still. The production I saw was certainly no worse than any quality production I could have seen years ago. But much more important (and surprising), it was absolutely not a single bit better. And suddenly it occurred to me, could this be at the heart of theater's "decline" (LORT theaters anyway)?

I was expecting some progress, some innovation, some sign that what the Rep and similar establishments offer does in fact track the change/progress going on in the real world. Certainly the subject matter of the play was "relevant" and "topical" to a degree, and it was connected to a famous play and film in an ostensibly interesting way. But the actual production itself, including the means by which it was staged, struck me as really no different from anything I have ever seen on any stage anywhere. And that surprised me. I was not expecting virtual reality goggles, but I realized as it was happening (or not happening) that I was expecting something. I understand there are limitations on what can change about a play and still have it be a play, but I was stunned to feel like I had stepped out of a time machine.

Thus, my Colonial Williamsburg comment. Was this really creativity? Or was it about recreating a notional idea of theater. Playing the experience out into the future, I can imagine some day that the experience of going to a play at an Equity house could become more and more like attending a concert of Baroque music on the original instruments. Quaint. A bit odd. And -- no offense to anyone who has mastered the sackbut -- just as relevant to the human condition.

I imagine in the days of O'Neill and Williams and Miller and Shaw and Coward and even Neil Simon for God's sake, that theater thrived because it was one of the places people went to see something cool, something current. It wasn't a place where ideas were rehashed -- be they about politics, society, design, lighting, or acting -- it was a place where they were born.

Unfortunately, I find I don't have many answers, just questions. Where is the surprise, the creativity, the unexpected, the brilliance? If there isn’t some in every element of the show, why should anyone bother? I see you and like-minded folks trying that with This Not Just In. I can think of exceptions to a lot of my ranting, but dare I say most of them are from the fringe element in Seattle, where the quality index is a lot more volatile, but it also doesn't cost as much to get in the game. There are people who are trying to create theater they wouldn't have seen 15 years ago, certainly, but the impression I have is that isn't what gets a lot of established theater people out of bed in the morning, and that baffles me. Maybe it shouldn't, but I'm glad it does.

Theatre Requires Hope Beyond Logic

Nobody in the last fifty years has gone to live theatre to kill time like they would slip into a cineplex.  Nobody has sat and blankly watched theatre like they would TV because they don’t have anything better to do. There is always something better to do.  People go to the theatre because they hope—more often than not against their better judgment—that what they will experience there will change them, open them up, break down some poisoned part of them, help them live with some unbearable pain, give them more hope.  People who go to the theatre are frequently disappointed.

Tyrone Brown asked me to share with my colleague Sharon Williams the honor of giving the curtain speech at tonight’s sole performance of Hoodies Up!, a series of short plays inspired  by the Trayvon Martin tragedy.  Tyrone surely intends for us to keep our remarks exquisitely brief and practical tonight, but as I started thinking about it my brain, as it is sometimes wont to do, erupted in about five different directions.  These moments of mind spasm are, in part, why I created Just Wrought: that is, to spare everyone me blathering on at curtain speeches and the like.  Here’s what I won’t be saying tonight:

My reason for joining the Hoodies Up! writers team can be boiled down into one word: selfishness. I wanted to work with Tyrone Brown, a director whom most folks in the “Seattle theatre know” recognize as a coming powerhouse. I wanted to write for African American actors, a chance as rare as hen’s teeth in the Pacific Northwest and, sadly, in the nation at large. I wanted to tell a story I had never publically told before, from a time in my life that I cherish. All good selfish reasons. (When I start doing theatre for non-selfish reasons let’s all start worrying, okay?)

Hermann Göring famously declared, “When I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my gun.” Nazism at its nastiest, and most honest.  Fascists hate art and anything else they don’t understand, or that causes people to prick their ears up and say, “Whoa!  What’s going on?”  Of course, there’s a simple syllogistic trick that flips fat-headed Göring on his ear: “When I hear the world ‘gun’ I reach for my culture.”  That’s what Tyrone did when he began processing the Trayvon tragedy, and that’s what the writers he invited did in turn, and then in turn the actors and directors.  Tonight it’s your turn: the audience, the final hopeful piece of this hope-against-reason puzzle. Tonight, when you come watch Hoodies Up! you’ll be reaching for your culture, and countering the insidious icon of the gun that holds America mesmerized.  You will be taking the risk of being bored, confused, annoyed and generally disappointed, but you will have chosen hope over every empty and utterly logical reason why you shouldn’t have bothered.

Because theatre requires hope beyond logic. 

Just like living.

A Pair of 14/48 Rumors

Just heard a delicious brace of rumors about 14/48’s 2012 Summer offerings.  I am solemnly sworn to secrecy, but suffice it to say that the news involves innovation and once again pushing into territory heretofore unexplored.  Doing the undone is what makes Seattle theatre World Class, and 14/48 has consistently shown "go-big-or-go-home" leadership when the putative leaders of Seattle’s Big Houses have shown little.

Watch this space for more news when I’m allowed to break it, or better yet, “like” 14/48’s Facebook page to get the latest first hand.

Just Opened My Big Mouth over at HowlRound Again

Here.

I guess I can't help myself.  But also I cannot help believing that unless we speak up-- especially when we have this short-lived national spotlight-- everyone will assume that it's all going peachy and in the right direction, when the sweet Lord knows it ain't.

So join the fray if you can.  We need intelligent voices to counter the advocates of half-measures, old thinking, and worst of all: "politeness-at-all-costs." 

Yussef el Guindi’s Interview at HowlRound Gets me Pumped!

One of the best things about Seattle as a theatre town is that it’s small enough that you can get your arms around it.  If you care to, you can get to know pretty much everyone who is active here as an artist.  For instance, I have met Yussef el Guindi, chatted and corresponded with him, and very much enjoyed the interaction.  But thanks to Vincent Delaney’s interview of Yussef over at HowlRound, I feel like I know him so much better, and admire him all the more for it.  His thoughts on the new works scene in Seattle are fervent and hopeful without indulging in the “best-of-all-possible-cities” Pollyannaism that some successful playwrights and artistic administrators like to espouse publically here.*

I . . . wish artistic directors were as brave as their audiences. I think audiences are much more adventurous than some artistic directors imagine. . . .

What’s surprising to me is that you’d think the Seattle theater scene would be more open to riskier choices, in terms of choosing plays that are a little edgier, even more political. Seattle being, for the most part, a liberal city, you’d think that would be reflected in the plays selected. But perhaps more than being liberal or progressive, Seattle is also known for being very civil. We are a polite town. That politeness gene, I sense, seems to influence the selection of plays, as much as anything else. But then I’ve always felt theaters in general are inherently conservative, especially the big LORT houses. . . .

Thanks, Yussef, for energizing and inspiring me to keep working for world class.  You being here gets us so much closer.

 

* Note to said colleagues: singing desperate paeans to perfection is a particularly pernicious form of despair.  We can only have hope when it’s possible for things to get better.

Sh%t’s Finally Gettin’ Real over at HowlRound

After dispensing with the obligatory, “gee, ain’t-Seattle-swell?” lovey-dovey lip service, we are finally getting to some questions in the comments on Vincent Delaney’s kick-off essay that point to ways in which we can truly progress towards being a world class theatre town.

Here’s playwright and novelist Nick Stokes:

Not that I'm not up for drinking beer and listening to our plays, but . . . I'd also venture to say that without original work being produced on some scale, we don't have a unique Seattle Theater scene. We just have the same theatre as everyone else and nothing to claim as our own. Which doesn't necessarily hurt actor careers, though it does stunt those of writers and directors and perpetuates everyone's obscurity.

Do we as writers have a bad self-image locally? I don't think so. I think the confidence problem is higher up the production chain. That said, the best we as artists can do to create a scene is create engaging, unique, provocative work and get it up however we can (Eclectic, West of Lenin, Fringe, self-production, etc.) ... and that said, the scene will remain pretty small without some serious institutional support and a belief among those in positions of influence that we have a scene worthy of discussion and capable of national relevance.

And here’s playwright Keri Healey (who just gave us the world class play Torso):

Can someone in-the-know provide us with a compare/contrast look at which services are provided through all the existing new play development programs in Seattle? What does "play development" mean to each of these programs -- and what are their goals with the plays/playwrights once the "development" portion of the program is over? Writers, are you getting your scripts produced at these theaters or getting help from them in securing productions at other theaters once you have gone through this process? I find that in Seattle, it's a fairly easy process to pull a few public readings of a new script together (gathering actors and a director and getting feedback). I've even found producing (at a small level) to be accessible to many folks. What is most difficult, for me, are those next steps...of getting the play beyond the public readings/first production stage and onto a broader platform. I'd love to hear about the other features that are available through the various programs, if any current/past participants can chime in on those.

Perhaps some of Seattle’s customarily silent Big House artistic administrators would finally care to weigh in during this nationally broadcast discussion of Seattle as a theatre town?  It really ain’t too late for them to join the fray.

Or for you! 

I know my buddy Vince would love to hear from you.

Seattle Week at HowlRound

Keep your eyes on HowlRound.  According to Seattle Playwright Vincent Delaney, “The national journal based at Arena Stage, is featuring Seattle for the entire week.  We've got blog posts by playwright Stephanie Timm, Allen Fitzpatrick of Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, Kathy Hsieh of Sex In Seattle, dramaturg Liz Engelman, and a culminating interview with our own Yussef El Guindi.”

Vince has already posted his kick-off essay and it’s a clarion call.   

Local actors rule the Equity stages here, and no one expects that to change. They’re just too good, and everyone knows it.

So, Playwrights?

Raising the profile of Seattle writing is really a matter of changing our own self-image. Yes it’s frustrating to see season selections that reflect some other city’s priorities (curse you, Wichita)—but what are we going to do about it? Sit and complain? Threaten to leave? Spend all our energies on angry blog posts?

(Uh-oh.  I think I know who that last shot might be aimed at.)

Go read Vince’s essay and give him feedback in the comments section.  Then keep your eye on HowlRound and weigh in when Stephanie, Allen, Kathy, Liz and Yussef step to the plate.  This is a great opportunity for Seattle to continue its discussion about mapping its way to World Class as a theatre town, and an even greater way for the whole nation to see how sexy smart and committed we are.

Go get ‘em, Seattle!

Rain City Projects Rocks It World Class with Vol. 3 of Manifesto Series

So I know you are going to find this hard to believe, but I was recently getting into it with a fellow playwright about the failures of the New York-centric hub-and-spoke model of new play development.  His argument was the tired old saw: “If you want the best product, you have to get it from the where all the best gather to produce it.”  If I recall correctly, he gave as an example: “If you’re were looking for a new sensei for your martial arts dojo, you would to look to Okinawa.”  I really have no idea what that means.  I did, however, offer the counter that if I want the best cheese, beer, wine, meats, fish, fruit and vegetables, I don’t really need to look beyond the Pacific Northwest.  Then I posted a helpful link on his Facebook wall to my essay “Theatre Takes Place: Why Locally Grown Plays Matter.”

The link disappeared within an hour.  So much for the free exchange of ideas.  I suppose when it comes to thoughts on theatre, the proper direction of flow is one-way from New York City to everywhere else.  

But honestly, I don’t even need to argue when amazing Seattle institutions like Rain City Projects regularly put world class money where my big mouth is.  Case in point, their upcoming release of Volume 3 of their Manifesto Series, a regularly published anthology of great Northwest Plays.

Can I even express to you how honored I was to be included with the likes of Yussef El Guindi recent winner of The Harold and Mimi Steinberg/ATCA New Play Award, or my personal heroine Elizabeth Heffron, or Stranger Genius Award winner Chris Jeffries or the fiercely incomparable Bret Fetzer and Stephen McCandless, all hand-selected by the nationally renowned playwright and playwriting teacher Naomi Iizuka?

Nope. I don’t believe I can, but— dammit!— I can try.

This coming Sunday we will be celebrating Volume 3’s release with free readings from several of the collected plays.  I’ll be there.  Yussef and Elizabeth mentioned they might be, too. So why don’t you come on down so we can sign your copy, hot, fresh, and locally sourced, right off the presses!?

 

 

Here are all the crucial details from Rain City Projects:

 

Rain City Projects is releasing the third book in its Manifesto series - anthologies of plays by Northwest playwrights. We're very excited this time to have an anthology of seven plays selected by Naomi Iizuka who started by writing a manifesto of what theater should be and then chose plays she felt exemplified her vision. Please join us for a reading of short excerpts from Ms. Iizuka's delightful manifesto and from the plays she chose including:

Language Rooms by Yussef El Guindi

Clubfoot by Bret Fetzer & Stephen McCandless

Mitzi's Abortion by Elizabeth Heffron

Vera Wilde by Chris Jeffries

An American Book of the Dead by Paul Mullin

Live! From the Last Night of My Life by Wayne Rawley

and Wizzer Pizzer by Amy Wheeler

Sunday, April 15th at 2:00pm

The reading is FREE and will be held at Elliott Bay Book Company 1521 10th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122

Manifesto v. 3 will be available for purchase along with Manifesto v. 2 (edited by Steven Dietz) and Manifesto v. 1 (edited by Erik Ehn).