Curtain

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, John Patrick Bray.

     Hello, all. Thank you for reading my blogs this week. I have had a number of responses on this site and via personal email. It means so much to me that the good folks at IT asked me to participate, and I appreciate your reading my thoughts, rants, and manifestos.  This last blog will be basically a list. I found myself inspired by a previous blog writer (Tim Errickson) who posted a blog titled Mailbag!, which was a series of questions and answers.

First OOB experience:
My play Cookies was produced during The Riant Theatre’s Summer 2002 Strawberry One-Act Festival. I had a few readings between 2000-2001, but this was my first production. I ended up participating with the SOAF a handful of times. On Top was a semi-finalist; A Play About a Guitar (retitled “Resonator Blues”) was also a semi-finalist; Goodnight Lovin’ Trail, my MFA thesis,was a finalist in 2004. So, I owe a debt to The Riant Theatre (Artistic Director Van Dirk Fisher), and director Dennis Wayne Gleason for believing in my work.

Inspiration:
Mostly music. I go to a lot of concerts. In Louisiana, I’ve seen a number of Zydeco bands as well as Taj Mahal, Philip Glass, and Ani Difranco. In NY, I was able to catch David Johansen and the Harry Smiths a few times. I miss The Bottom Line.  My favorite song by DJ is “Heart of Gold” (available on his second post New York Dolls album and his first Buster Poindexter record), not to be confused with Neil Young’s song, which is also excellent. And of course I was also able to catch Tom Waits, The Pixies, David Byrne, Iggy and the Stooges, and Ani Difranco. I guess I’m an audiophile at heart.

Family:
Several people have asked how I balance work and family. I just do. If you want a career in theatre, academics, and academic theatre you need to find a balance. If you have a family on top of that, you just make it all work. It helps to have an awesome wife like Danielle and a great little boy like Danny.

Favorite OOB production:
Really hard to say.  The ones I’ve seen have been wonderful. There were also a handful I missed because I’m down here in Louisiana.  I’m really sorry to have missed As we Speak  and Trickster at the Gate. Tom Berger and Dan Horrigan are both terrific guys, and I feel a pang of guilt whenever I think of how I missed these productions.  I’m also sorry to say I missed a reading of Liner Notes directed by Marc Eardley featuring the excellent Jerry Zellers. The last one I worked on (and I was actually able to see) was Hound with Rachel Klein, and it was really fantastic. I’m looking forward to Liner Notes with the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity.

Do’s:
Read. Read plays, read scholarship, just read. And improvise! Life and writing rely heavily on improvisation. Try new things!

Don’t’s:
Don’t ignore critics, neither the ones who love you nor the ones who wish you’d go away. It’s important to be a part of the critic/artist conversation, no matter how painful.

Favorite current scholarship:
The American Play by Marc Robinson.
Postdramatic Theatre by Hans-Thies Lehmann.
Spalding Gray’s America by William Demastes.
Being Given by Jean Luc-Marion
Ethics and Infinity by Emmanuel Levinas

Current favorite plays:
The Sea Farer by Conor Macpherson
The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel
Self Defense or Death of Some Salesmen by Carson Kreitzer
Two Small Bodies by Neal Bell

Other Advice:
Listen to music. Eat bagels. (I was a bagel-baker at the New Paltz Bagel Café in New Paltz, NY for six and a half years. Great place, great people!  There’s a shout out for ya.) Read opinions that you agree with. Read opinions that you don’t agree with. Be responsible for who you are, and take responsibility for what you see, even if you believe it has nothing to do with you.  Oh, and listen to Ani Difranco.

Thanks, all for reading!  Keep believing in independent theatre.  I think we’re a part of a major cultural turn. Check out this article by Stephen Leigh Morris called “Why Theatre Matters.” See? We’re seriously onto something most excellent!

Slainte,
JpB

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American?

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, John Patrick Bray.

    Hello, all. Today’s blog will be a bit brief.  I was watching the election results from across the country, and there have been a number of upsets, and a number of surprise victories (and depending which side of the equation you find yourself on, the two may not be mutually exclusive).  One of the people who read and commented on my blog regarding Regional Theatre was Jason Loewith, the Executive Director of the National New Play Network. I asked him if he had considered the definition of an American playwright. Today, I would just like to pose the same question to everyone here.       

    When I was a little boy, I said the pledge of allegiance every day at school. Sometimes we sang “God Bless America” or “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” I never doubted my feelings of patriotism. As I grew older, I grew more skeptical due to the various administrations that I watched come and go, each bringing a hidden agenda that lead to war, greed, and corruption.  Now that I’m even older, an historian, and a parent, I find myself wanting to reclaim the word “American” and look being an American as something to be proud of.  In this regard, I want to include all of the Americas, not just the U.S. There are many of us who are entitled to the word, and at the risk of exposing my politics, there are many more who should be.

    My question to you is: what is it, in your opinion, to be an American? How does this play out in your art? How does the idea of being American play out in theatre you have seen or that you have been a part of?

    I have enjoyed writing these blogs. I look forward to wrapping it up tomorrow!


Best to you and yours,
John P. Bray

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On Dramaturgy and the American Theatre

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, John Patrick Bray.

    In my first two blogs, I examined what I feel to be the quintessential American Theatre (Theatre of the U.S.).  In the first blog, I examined the Independent Theatre model, specifically, the Cite des Arts  in Lafayette, Louisiana, and how it escapes some of the totalizing of the commercial Regional theatre via the (unspoken) motto of “have theatre, bring show.”  In the second blog, I championed the plethora of independent theatres that create the Off-Off-Broadway community, focusing specifically on a few of the companies that I have the most familiarity with. In each blog, I have suggested that the NYC independent theatre is vibrant, and while it stands at the threshold of defining itself, I have cautioned that it needs to avoid some of the traps that previous models have fallen into. That is, models that have attempted to provide an outlet for regional artists have fallen victim to commercialism, often in the name of survival, resulting in the inability to serve the artists of the immediate community.  It is my hope that Off-Off-Broadway and independent theatres around the country will continue to provide a home for artists who are not necessarily “names,” and who do not fit the profile of the majority of successful regional artists.

    Many of my opinions about the commercial theatre vs. indie theatre come from my experiences as a playwright and as a dramaturge. There was a time when I thought, “Geez, am I crazy? Am I the only one who feels this way?”  But then two events occurred, practically simultaneously. The first was the publication of OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE NEW AMERICAN PLAY,  which I spoke about in my first blog. The second was a meeting with a dramaturge from a major regional company who spoke to a group of PhD students at LSU about the life of a dramaturge in new play development. During the course of the conversation, she told us that most playwrights do not know how to write a play anymore, and how dare they waste the dramaturge’s “precious time?”  As a result, she solicits scripts during an open submission period without reading the submitted scripts (?!?!?!), and feels that open submissions should be done away with all together. After all, dramaturges know playwrights, why not just ask them for scripts? By the by, this dramaturge has an MFA from an Ivy League institution. The playwright she asked?  Also an Ivy Leaguer. 

    Rather than fume over this, I think the best course of action is to consider the role of a dramaturge. You’ve heard the word before, right? Maybe you’ve been one.  Maybe you’ve been one and haven’t even known it (the magic of theatre!). So, what exactly does a dramaturge do? Or, better yet, what are they supposed to do?  For most of us, it’s kind of hard to exactly put our collective finger on it. What I have come to understand is that a dramaturge wears, primarily, one of three hats.

    The first: the dramaturge performs research alongside a director in order to heighten the historical-socioeconomic context of an established work.  The dramaturge may give a presentation to the cast and crew, or perform specific tasks in terms of historical research (so, if a dramaturge is working on a Restoration play, perhaps he or she will research the various ways to flirt with a fan).  While a director, I believe, should conduct a majority of their own historical research when approaching a work, as a means of creating a coherent concept, I believe the dramaturge may help fill in some of the historical gaps, and be a go-to person if and when questions arise which require additional research.

    The second hat is new play development; that is, a dramaturge sometimes doubles as a literary manager. So, the dramaturge solicits scripts which fit the vision of the company as dictated by the artistic director. If a company says they seek “diverse voices,” you need to read a little more closely. Each company has, for better or for worse, its own ideology; so, as a playwright (I try like hell to speak from experience here), I need to get the sense of which company might be interested in which work.  Once a work is accepted, it is up to the dramaturge to help the playwright develop his or her work. Again, this is tricky.  Playwrights are very protective of their work, and rightfully so, considering the reality of development hell (the dramaturge who sat in with us at LSU claims that “developmental hell is a myth”; um…playwrights, back me up here?).  So, it’s up to the dramaturge to get on the same proverbial page as the playwright and make sure that the playwright’s work is being served, while also making sure that the work stays within the margins of the company’s mission statement. This is often easier said than done. And if the dramaturge fails, they become the enemy to everyone (which could explain, but certainly not excuse, the behavior of the professional dramaturge who sat in with us).

    The third hat has to do with community outreach and audience building: talk-backs after productions, lectures at libraries and colleges, etc.  This is where the workshop readings come into play, which – as many playwrights such as Richard Nelson, James Ryan, Jeffrey Sweet, and Edward Albee have remarked – have more to do with satisfying grants for a company rather than serving the needs of a script.  I personally do not feel that the two need to be mutually exclusive, but over the years that has become more and more the case. Another problem with this model is that if a reading is lip-service to a playwright and lip-service to an audience who will hopefully come back and spend money, then in the end no one is being served, and everyone is getting a kind of subtextual “f*** you.”  This warrants further evaluation (even further than that provided in OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE). Certainly there has to be some way to make this model work?  Another topic for another time.

    So, the dramaturge has a host of responsibilities, depending on which production they are serving, or which theatre company they are hired to work with.  My favorite two personal examples were when I was the dramaturge for the “punk-rock” themed Antigone at LSU.  My wife and I spent a lot of time digging through our records and burning CDs.  The other example is when I was coordinator for “It’s Scary, Y’all! Horror Fest 2009” at LSU.  I produced four one-act plays (one was my own; the other three were written by LSU undergrads), directed and designed by students.  I let them stretch their imaginations. The result was fun, incredibly GOREY, and had Intro to Theatre students (our primary audience) saying things like, “Man, I never knew you could do that in the theatre!” That was probably the greatest thrill of all.

    Where is the problem with dramaturgy?  If a dramaturge is randomly assigned to a playwright or director, the dramaturge first has the task of explaining his or her role, followed by the never ending justification of their position. Also, the dramaturge can be a problem by soliciting scripts during an open submission process, not reading the scripts, approaching scripts with cynicism, or, okay I’m stepping in it, trying to sue the estate of a playwright claiming authorial credit on a work they helped develop.  If anything, that makes the dramaturge look even more like a nuisance. Bottom line, a bad experience with one dramaturge can poison the well for everyone else. I have heard directors say “I’m never working with playwright J. Smith again, he’s a real pain in the ass,” but I have never heard a director say “I am never working with any playwright ever again.”  On the other hand, I have heard directors swear off dramaturges after one poor experience.  Imagine if I had no awareness of the dramaturge position when I met up with the so-called professional at LSU?  I might have been tempted to do the same.

    Dramaturgy is both the most exciting and also the worst job in the American theatre. The successful dramaturge, in my opinion, resists burn-out and cynicism, approaches new works with an eye toward the uncanny, and is the silent bodyguard of the American theatre by trying to keep it fresh, alive, plural, and culturally important (which should really be a given; I think we spend too much time trying to justify theatre rather than treating its importance as a commonplace). My hope is that the dramaturge in the independent theatre, and in the academy, is aware of their great responsibility to the plurality of American theatre (again, here defined as Indie theatre of the U.S.), resisting the tendency to look at other models that may have worked for other plays. After all, if each play is different, why treat them all the same?


John Patrick Bray (ABD, MFA)

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Off-Off-Broadway and the American Theatre

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, John Patrick Bray.

    Okay, so in my first blog, I probably sounded really doom-and-gloom. Part of what I wanted to talk about in the first and the second blog was what we can learn from Regional Theatre, and Off-Off-Broadway’s place in American Theatre (and by “American Theatre,” I mean specifically the Theatre of the U.S.).  For me, Off-Off-Broadway IS American theatre.  Now, I’ve been reading a lot about the history of OOB, from Stephen Bottoms’ excellent PLAYING UNDERGROUND, David Crespy’s OFF-OFF BROADWAY EXPLOSION (which focuses primarily on early OOB playwrights), Leslie A. Wade’s SAM SHEPARD AND THE AMERICAN THEATRE,  to essays by Robert Brustein and David Savran.  I have to tell you folks that for many scholars OOB has been more or less written off. Oh, sure there’s THE FEMINIST SPECTATOR AS CRITIC by Jill Dolan, who champions the artists at the WOW Café during the early 1980’s; and there’s David Savran who has written several excellent pieces on the Wooster Group (I am going to keep saying “excellent;” please don’t imagine me using an “academic” voice – whatever that means! Picture instead that I’m channeling my inner Bill S. Preston, Esquire).  But if you read Robert Brustein’s “More Masterpieces,” or even a footnote in Wade’s book on Sam Shepard, there is the sense that outside of a few key companies, OOB imploded sometime during the early 1970’s and was never heard from again. HUH?!?! What happened? Where has the American theatre scholar turned to for inspiration? Are we in the academy just as much to blame for the canonization of commercial theatre as…well, the commercial theatre?!

    As a scholar, it is my hope to continue reinvestigating OOB, especially as it has come to be, for me, the quintessential American Theatre; and as a playwright, it is my hope to continue working OOB for the exact same reason.  Above all, it is my ambition to continue to merge theory and practice as a kind of living testament to my belief in the power of live, independent performance.    

    Off-Off-Broadway is presently at an incredible moment, in which it has the ability to define itself as a community (through the League of Independent Theatre, IT Awards, United Stages playbills, etc.), but without some of the aesthetic totalizing that we see in the commercial theatre model (which is why I went on my “grr-argh!” rant in blog numero uno).  I think about some of the groups that I’ve been involved with – including (re:)Directions Theatre, The Rising Sun Performance Company, At Hand Theatre, and Rachel Klein Productions – and each one has something completely different to offer to the American theatre. Granted, since I’m a playwright, these companies tend to focus on scripts rather than improvisation, dance, or performance art (outside of Klein, who is also a choreographer and a fine example of an American auteur). That they have in common. They also have me in common, for better or worse.  I’ll take just a moment to describe each of these companies, and leave my grandstanding to an academic journal one day down the line.

    The (re:)Directions Theatre Company’s productions include Marlowe’s Edward II, Bordertown, Figaro/Figaro, and Epicene (forthcoming as part of The Anything But Shakespeare Festival, which I believe to be the brainchild of Tom Berger; I may have that wrong).  This brief list highlights the company’s belief in classics and how the works of yesteryear can speak to the present (and of course I wrote an adaptation for them a couple of years back inspired by It Can’t Happen Here).  They have also been participating in the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity, a festival now in its second year, dedicated to promoting social awareness by asking each company to dedicate their production in some way to a larger cause (for example, my production in the festival last year had a guest speaker affiliated with RAINN; we also donated part of our proceeds to RAINN). This year, they’re producing my play Liner Notes  - there’s a plug for ya!   

    Speaking of social awareness, the At Hand Theatre Company has a “green” agenda.  Their production of my play Trickster at the Gate (directed by Dan Horrigan) relied on two dancers to represent a storm; props were mimed; and programs were available as a PDF online.  The result was incredibly strong, winning excellent reviews from The Huffington Post and Stage and Cinema. Their focus is entirely on new works, seeking (I believe) to encounter as many emerging/established playwrights as feasible, in the hopes of attracting diverse audiences, and without causing harm to the environment.  That’s one helluva mission statement!  Meanwhile, the work they produce does not follow one aesthetic; that is, despite their green agenda, they are not producing theatre in/as an empty space. Rather, they are able to produce diverse material while following their environmentally sound mission statement.  Somehow, the theatre gods smile on them, as the At Hand has been successful at creating “great reckonings in little rooms” (to borrow the title of Bert States’ book).

    The Rising Sun Performance Company stresses ensemble above individual members, so each produced piece is carefully considered in terms of how it meets the core company’s needs. Whether an original work such as DeCADEnce, their “Aspire to Inspire” series, or productions such as William Kern’s Hellcab, the RSPC seeks to produce work that truly serves the needs of the group, while maintaining a completely non-equity agenda. Akia, a woman of many hats, is at the helm of this group, and her ability to multi-task is astonishing.  The Rising Sun was my introduction to the world of OOB; if you haven’t seen one of their productions or festive cabarets, then now is the time to change that. That little empty space inside you, the one that makes you toss and turn at night and question why your life is lacking some kind of meaning, will be filled.

    Rachel Klein of Rachel Klein Productions is one of the most unique auteurs the OOB stage has to offer. A critic once compared her work to Tim Burton’s.  I completely understand the parallel:  when you watch a piece directed by Klein, you recognize her aesthetic. Each one of her works is, in some ways, haunted by her other works. This is true of Tim Burton, Guy Maddin, and Robert Wilson as well; each is an aesthete. There is absolutely no mistaking their work for anyone else’s, which is what makes their work so special, and in many ways, so hypnotic.  With Klein, though her focus is on a world of the macabre (achieved with music, movement, lighting, and above all, costumes and make-up), she has the ability to match her artistic nuances with each piece she directs, so that it does not obscure the meaning of the playwright’s work.  Speaking from experience, with Klein there is the spirit of director-writer collaboration in which each brings their unique vision to the table, and the marriage of the two is incredibly fruitful.

    There are a number of other companies that I could go on and on about whose work I have some familiarity with: The Vampire Cowboys, whose Beginner’s Guide to Deicide brought a post-modern blend of stage combat, puppetry, stage combat, media, stage combat, and inspired musical numbers (and did I mention stage combat?!); The Rabbit Hole Ensemble, a Brooklyn-based company which has produced a number of re-imaginings of classics, including Neal Bell’s Shadow of Himself (based on the oldest extant written work  – Gilgamesh), and a post-9/11/ post-Katrina  Candide; there really are too many companies to list here! 

    What I am suggesting, with these first two blogs, is that Off-Off-Broadway *is* American Theatre: a mix of singular people escaping totalizing definitions outside of the basics of location and theatre size, who still have the ability to work within the structure of a community.  As we continue to build our community through the IT, United Stages, the League of Independent Theatre, etc., it is my hope that we keep these differences, and resist the temptation to move towards a commercial aesthetic.  My wife told me of a museum educator who said to her that America is not a melting pot, it’s a salad bowl. We’re all mixed together, but we’re not blending; each distinct flavor contributes to a new whole. If you want to be a radish, be a radish!  In the world of OOB, you’ll fit right in. And isn’t that most excellent?

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What can we learn from the Regional Theatre?

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, John Patrick Bray.

 

Regional or Indie? Or, what can we learn from the Regional Theatre?

Hello, all. My name is John Patrick Bray.  Yesterday, I became All But Dissertation (ABD) in Theatre Studies at Louisiana State University (I have an MFA in Playwriting from the New School during its Actor Studio Drama School days…).  I need to write/defend my dissertation, and then I’ll be yet another Dr. John from Louisiana (as opposed to another John Patrick that writes plays, some of which deal with faith, and….not faith). 

Really, I’m a Jersey boy. Born in Hackensack, and raised (mostly) just outside of New Paltz, NY. But the past four years in Louisiana have been incredibly informative.  I’m going to go for it and sound like a Hallmark Card: I have legitimately grown as a person, and as an artist. Also, I’ve grown a pair. (By Jove, what does that mean?) I’m going to bite the hand that doesn’t feed me.
While House Managing a show at Swine Palace at LSU (as part of my funding), I heard an audience member talking about her daughter who was in the show; she said “she’s going to New York, and is going to do a small Off-Off-Broadway thing; I mean it’s something, right? At least it’s a start.” I wish I had replied that I did not believe in ladders. Or, I wish I had given a brief history of Off-Off-Broadway, from Caffe Cino, the Judson Poets, La Mama, The Living Theatre, that entire rich origin, all the way up to the first IT Awards.  Or I could have slapped her upside the head with a program. Instead, I told her to enjoy the show, and left, eating my complimentary Snickers with anger, frustration, and a wish to be back in New York.  I sat down, and tried to organize my thoughts. What was it that pissed me off so much? Was it the disrespect to Off-Off-Broadway? The belief that one can move up the theatrical ladder, losing the first O in OOBR, followed by the second O in OBR in order to finally make it to the B? I realized, while being satisfied by the goodness that comes with chocolate, nougat, rich caramel and nuts, that I understood her thinking.  In fact, I didn’t want to smack her with a program. I wanted to smack the 23-year-old version of me.

When I first became involved in the NYC Indie theatre, like many who become involved, I falsely believed that a life in Indie Theatre would lead to a life in the so-called profession: that it would only be a matter of minutes before landing my big Off-Broadway gig, which would lead to a fruitful life in the Regional Theatre circuit. Now, by “fruitful,” I don’t mean “lucrative.” I never imagined that I’d be on the cover of Fortune magazine, linking arms with the likes of Tony Kushner and Paula Vogel, with the words “Playwrights Make it Rich! (And How!)” in bold, blue typeface across our mid-sections.   I did, however, imagine that the world of theatre worked  like the world of commerce. Each production was a rung in the ladder which would lead to the euphoria of credibility, the only thing a playwright really has these days, and productions, something that many playwrights lack. 

I am happy to say that I now understand that there is no ladder. And if there were, I’d chop the sucker up for firewood, and we’d have an old fashioned Pig Roast in New Iberia, along with a crawfish boil (a younger version of me might even snort the sawdust). That ladder would lead to a large sack of boredom, and possibly, the death of the theatrical stage-play. Indie theatre allows artists to take risks, to try something new, to move away from the circuit of development and “test audiences” (i.e., staged readings with actors in stools and music stands! Music stands as far as the eye can see) and the kind of screenwriting rhetoric that has infested the American theatre.  We in the Indie theatre may be below the radar of the larger American entertainment culture, but at least we’re producing by-hook-or-by-crook, and building audiences simply by consistently producing work.  However, what does the Indie theatre have to do with “credibility?”  How can we define success in the shadow of the Regional Circuit? Where can a playwright go to “establish” him/herself in the hopes of being recognized as “emerging” in the profession? (Hell, I’ve been “emerging” for over a decade). 

These days, it seems like in order to gain credibility, a playwright either needs an MFA from Brown or Yale, and from there, needs to be situated with the right regional theatre groups that present workshops/readings of plays, and not necessarily full productions.  The study in Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play by Todd London, Ben Pesner, and Zannie Giraud Voss situates this lack of production with regional theatre timidity due to the economics of risk,  while playwrights are losing touch with their would-be audiences by simply “not caring” to adhere to audience (really, producer) desire.  If you read the book, it’s filled with bad news for playwrights, and worse news for American theatre.  After all, if professional playwrights are stuck in development (hello again, Hollywood! I see you brought some music stands), then what’s the point of writing plays? What’s the point of American theatre?

I believe, as Americans, we have striven to do away with credibility. When systems get to overburdened, we reject them and start again. While I am not suggesting “burn professional theatre,” what I am saying is that rather than looking at models that supposedly work, we need to recognize that the Regional model was created in order to give more American writers access to professional theatre – specifically, those who were not based in New York City. Thus, regional.  But Regional theatre has collapsed on itself. Just look at the National New Play Network: if a play makes it at one regional space, it is all but guaranteed a slot at another. How is that democratic? How is that giving access to writers from, you know, the Region? How is that a model that works?

What the American theatre needs is another Little Theatre movement. Something that creates a community, and still maintains its independence from the larger machinery of commercial theatre. Take for example Cité des Arts in Lafayette, Louisiana. Cité des Arts is a theatre that seats about 77 people. It operates under a not-for-profit license, like most of the Regional theatres, however the productions are not professional. They are built by the community, and local college students at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Dr. Alex Marshall, for example, has a company called Omni Artiste which presents at Cité.  As part of their mission statement, Omni Artiste produces works that are “dedicated to and propagated by the aspirations and culture of African Americans” (http://www.omniartiste.com/). They produce work by established writers such as August Wilson, and offer opportunities for aspiring local playwrights.  I have also produced/ had produced a few of my own plays at Cité, and have had a wonderful time with them.   Plus, since I’m all but advertising for Cité anyway, the rents are incredibly low and the atmosphere is incredibly friendly.  How do you produce at Cité? It’s easy: you sign up for a time, you produce your show, their on-site tech helps you with your lights and your set, and you strike your show. You pay the rent when the show closes out of your box office. Boom. Done. No development. No runarounds. No homogenizing of plays. Just a straightforward transaction. The website for Cité des Arts should have the banner “Have Theatre. Bring Shows.” 

I think what America needs is more of this “Have Theatre. Bring Shows” mentality. If the industry has dictated that the only way to consider yourself a success as a playwright is to have one of your works shepherded and homogenized by a never-ending series of readings, which, as Steven Dietz has argued, become less theatrical and more suited for radio audiences, then it is time for us to fail. And fail big. The biggest nightmare in a capitalist system is that of rock-bottom misery, and I think it is time to embrace that misery, and hold it close.

Off-Off-Broadway has been able to establish itself over the past fifty years, and has adapted with the times. While I salute OOBR (after all, this is my home) and the various amazing independent theatres that comprise this community, I ask you please, do not follow in the footsteps of other theatre organizations. Be independent. Be free. Fail big.

This summer, I’m moving back to my hometown in upstate, New York and will work on (and hopefully finish) my dissertation. I will miss Louisiana, and that Little Theatre, Cité. The simplicity of “just” producing is something that is being lost. It is my prayer that Off-Off Broadway will not follow the self-imploding model of regional theatre, and will continue, for better or for worse, producing shows that push the boundaries of theatricality, using our small stages (or any other space) and our tremendous imaginations.  At the end of the day, the Little (Indie) Theatre is too big for music stands, and too high for a ladder. Let’s keep it that way.

xBy John Patrick Bray (ABD, MFA)

Guest Blogger next week: John Patrick Bray

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We would like to thank the fabulous Jillian Zeman for her great posts last week.  

This week's guest blogger is John Patrick Bray.

John Patrick Bray is a PhD in Theatre student at Louisiana State University, having earned his MFA in Playwriting from the Actors Studio Drama School at The New School. His full-length plays include Trickster at the Gate (written under a grant from the NEA; produced OOBR by the At Hand Theatre Co.), Hound (co-produced OOBR by Rachel Klein Productions, and his own company, HQ Rep. at last year’s Planet Connections Theatre Festivity), Liner Notes (forthcoming in this year’s PCTF, produced by the (re:)Directions Theatre Co)., and As We Speak (commissioned and produced by the (re:)Directions Theatre Co). He has also written two plays with Keith Dorwick, Dancing with the Virus and Down Low, under grants from the Acadiana Arts Council, dealing with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Southern Louisiana. His one-acts include “Goodnight Lovin’ Trail” and “On Top,” which are both published in The Best Plays from the Strawberry One-Act Festival anthologies; as well as “Southern Werewolf,”  “Lincoln and Lee,” and “AmeriKan Mine” (the latter was performed during the 29th Annual Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival).  John has been a Resident Writer with The Rising Sun Performance Company; and a guest artist with Epic Rep. Theatre at the Players Club, O’Neill Studios with Provincetown Playhouse; and has been a member of Actors Studio’s Playwrights/Directors Workshop. He is currently a finalist for a playwriting residency with the Hangar Theatre’s Lab Company in Ithaca, NY. John is an Associate Member of The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc.,an Individual Member with the Theatre Communications Group, and he is an Equity Membership Candidate. As a scholar, his research interests include new play development and the American playwright, as well as the ethics of representation. He has delivered papers at regional and national conferences. Having lived in Louisiana for four years, he and his family are returning to New York this June. 

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