To OOB or Not to OOB

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 Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Robin Rothstein. 

As a longtime playwright, Off-Off-Broadway theatre reviewer and recent co-producer of a FringeNYC play, OOB, or the indie theatre sector, has always held a meaningful place in my life. I would not have reached certain milestones in my writing career, or have gotten to know so many creative, insightful, passionate writers, actors, directors, designers and producers were it not for the existence of OOB. OOB has been so important to me that, as of last year, I became involved with my local community board to do what I could to help raise awareness of the current crisis facing small theaters throughout New York City as more and more are forced to close their doors. As a member of Community Board 2, Manhattan, I co-authored a resolution that was eventually ratified by all 12 Manhattan community boards. In broad strokes, the resolution proposes a real-estate tax abatement initiative that would ultimately benefit small to mid-size non-profit theatres and performing arts organizations. Along with others (including Shay Gines and Nick Micozzi of this very organization!) I continue to work on next steps to bolster this resolution in ways that it can eventually become legislation.

                                                                                                                  

In concurrence with my participation in the OOB sector, I also work full-time in the commercial part of the theatre industry here in New York. I’ve worked on the business side of theatre in various capacities over the years, but most recently on the commercial touring side. Similarly to how I feel about the assets I’ve garnered from participating in the OOB sector, I am also so grateful for being able to work in the commercial sector of the theatre industry. I have acquired such amazing skills and have become a member of a wonderful community of smart, exuberant, hard-working administrators and commercial producers and tour presenters. While working in commercial theatre, I have also inevitably picked up a lot of hard-core knowledge and awareness with regard to show costs, ticket pricing, marketing challenges, the tastes of the larger mainstream audience, and have regularly had drilled into my head the singular measurement of what ultimately makes a successful show – making a profit. With that, I have also developed a keen sense as to which shows being produced on Broadway or Off-Broadway will likely work (Read: which shows will sell tickets and make money!) and which shows likely won’t, both in New York, and on the road.

It is all this knowledge and awareness, now permanently wired into my cerebral cortex, which has recently begun to present a dilemma for me as it relates to my relationship with OOB.

OOB has so many challenges – from showcase code limitations, to a lack of adequate funding and a lack of broad enough support, to the small size of the theaters and their dispersed, sometimes out of the way locations, to an absence of consistent branding due to the vast spectrum of unique work being produced across the sector’s many OOB companies. It’s nearly impossible for any producer, theatre company, or artist working in OOB to make a profit, let alone earn a living. Also, while so many of the shows are excellent and well-received by audiences, I can now usually tell that OOB is often the end of the road for many of these pieces, at least as far as New York is concerned, despite whatever hopes, aspirations and good intentions there may be to move them on to the next level. To move from the showcase code to a mini-contract is a huge financial leap, and one that may not always be a financially sound one to take for an OOB show, despite the level of critical acclaim and strong audience reception. Also, once produced, it can sometimes be hard to get another producer or theatre company interested in the work since it has now had a world premiere.

So, now that I have this knowledge and awareness scorched into my brain, I find myself somewhat stymied about how to balance (and separate?) the commercial and OOB sectors in a way that allows me to remain enthusiastic about, and emotionally invested in, my own dramatic writing and nascent producing aspirations. Knowing what I know about the challenges, the long odds, the time commitment, and the inevitable financial investment with the likelihood of little, if any, financial return, I sometimes find myself asking, “Why commit to OOB? What’s the point?”

And yet, even knowing all the aforementioned liabilities, I find myself imagining how empty I would feel if I did not participate in the OOB sector, or if, God forbid, the OOB sector disappeared! Not having a community where people are free to take spectacular artistic risks and express themselves in ways that they likely couldn’t in more “mainstream” arenas (Read: the commercial theatre sector), would indeed make New York City, a sad, sad place, not to mention leave a hole in my own life and heart.

And therein, perhaps, lies my answer?

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Guest Blogger of the Week: Robin Rothstein

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We would like to thank Patrick Shearer for his insightful blogs last week.

We are excited to announce this week's guest blogger is Robin Rothstein.

Robin Rothstein is an award-winning playwright and commercial theatre industry professional. Her plays have been produced in NYC and around the country, and her writing can be found in "Best Of" anthologies published by Samuel French, Inc., Heinemann, and Smith and Kraus. Robin has also been a contributing reviewer for Time Out New York and nytheatre.com, and this past summer co-produced the critically-acclaimed, when last we flew by Harrison David Rivers as part of The New York International Fringe Festival. Robin is a member of The Dramatists Guild, Inc., Actors' Equity Association, The League of Professional Theatre Women, and The Broadway League, and is an appointed member of Council Member Christine Quinn’s to Community Board 2, Manhattan where she serves on the Arts & Institutions and Social Services Committees. Robin is an alumna of the University of Pennsylvania where she graduated with honors in English.

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An interlude: Horror vs. Terror

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 Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Patrick Shearer.

 

“Although horror and terror commonly are employed synonymously, the dictionary unmistakably links the former term with that of revulsion experienced upon witnessing something ugly, disgusting, shocking, etc.  Terror carries no such connotation.  Its meaning is cleaner, more profound, deriving as it does from the Latin terrere, to frighten.”
    -- Afterword, Marvin Kaye. Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural (1)

Well, as I always say: “When in doubt, whip some Latin out.”  That turns every point made into a slam dunk, right?  (For me, it just gets my hackles up.)

But I think he’s got it backwards on which is more profound.  Not that Marvin Kaye cares what I think.  Who am I, anyway?  “Assholes & opinions”, am I right? 

H.P. Lovecraft wisely stepped around the whole horror/terror kerfuffle and called his stories “Weird”, but he still wrote an entire essay on the subject. (2)  The problem being that Lovecraft defines the terms one way, and Marvin Kaye defines them exactly the opposite (but at least he admits as much), and thus the debate has gone since 1764 or so.  (It’s probably been going on longer, but I think I’m pretty safe with the publication of The Castle of Otranto.) 

I’m siding with Lovecraft on this one because it jibes with my experience (“what the thinker thinks, the prover proves” as a wise man once said) and because there’s been a lot of discussion about terror ever since we declared war on it almost a decade ago.

Ultimately, it’s more constructive to think of these things on a scale of horror on one end, terror on the other.  They’re inextricably linked, but such stories tend to be further toward one end of the scale or the other (and because fear is such a personal thing, rarely would two people’s scales be the same, even for the same story.)

BECAUSE Kaye goes back to the Latin root to show that terror means very simply “to frighten”, I can’t help but equate it with what happens when the tension is building and building, and then a cat jumps out of the dark, and everybody in the theatre screams.  Kaye cites such an easy scare as being Horror (which I've taken the liberty of changing in the below quotes.]   We react to such things because our central nervous system is programmed to do just that. 

Horror is a much more complex reaction. 

I should be clear, though: as a practitioner I see nothing at all wrong with making an audience jump.  It should be a part of your toolbox, and you should use it when opportunity presents itself.  It’s just that it gets boring if that’s all you’re trying to achieve, over and over again, time after time.  Or as Kaye says:

 “I’m not suggesting that horror should be divorced from terror and exiled from the kingdom of night. That would be both foolish and impractical. When you romp through graveyards or play Peeping Tom to a sociopath, you must expect to feel the impact in the pit of your stomach at the same time those icy glissandos xylophone their way along your spine.” 
 -- Afteword, ibid

Maybe Marvin and I can work it out, after all.

“Even at its crudest, most melodramatic level, [horror] has the ability to stir up the secret dreads embedded in our individual and collective imaginations.  By recognizing our worst nightmares, we are capable of exorcising them, at least temporarily.  When a great artist turns to the genre, he or she elevates the exorcism process to the level of catharsis: that working-out of pity commingled with terror that the Greeks experienced at the close of the Sophoclean trilogy -- a massive cultural/spiritual purging that permitted the participants to leave the sacred theatre uplifted and better equipped to deal with the everyday fears of life itself.  Thus it is, in its most noble incarnation, a vital component of the art of tragedy.”
 -- Afterword, ibid

Sound familiar?
 

“It therefore follows that great works of [horror] depend largely for their power upon characterization.  By their very nature, the related genres of fantasy, the supernatural, mystery, science fiction and suspense -- all of them capable of producing tales of [horror] tend to stress concept, i.e., the plot gimmick, the vampire, the animated flayed hand, the sadist with the eternal smile on his face.  Because concept is so striking, too many writers and film directors become enamored of the device to the detriment of character...

 [snip]

Character is more important than plot every time.  Without it, a writer might just as well hide in a closet and yell “Boo!” at passersby.  That, in essence, is what most modern [terror] literature and cinema amounts to.  But when the reader begins to believe in and care about a fictional protagonist, he or she becomes susceptible to those calculated manipulations that a masterful fabulist must devise in order to invoke a sense of wonder and horror (the two often go hand in hand)."
 -- Afterword, ibid.

And here’s where I think we can begin to talk about horror onstage, and bring in all of the terrific comments from last week.  Because theatre, let’s face it, does “character” very well.  As well, if not better, than any other medium.

So thus far, what do you think?  Do you entirely disagree with these horror/terror definitions?  (usually people do)

Was the ending of Agamemnon the Psycho of Greek Tragedy? 

Is there even a connection between Horror and Tragedy, and is it any different than the connection between Horror and Comedy?  (I think similar arguments can be made about the horror/terror dichotomy as can be argued between styles of comedy.  A cheap scare gets almost the same reaction as a cheap laugh). 


(1)  Many years ago I picked up this collection of short stories, and I’ve been grateful for it ever since.  Sometimes these totems just tumble into your life, and you don’t recognize their significance until much much later.  I can’t even rightly remember whether I picked it up off the sale rack at my local bookstore, or whether I got it as part of the start-up batch of ten or so books they used to give you for signing up as a member of the Fantasy and Science Fiction Book Club (think Columbia House, only for nerds.)  Not only is it the best anthology of scary stories I’ve ever seen, it also has an “afterword” to die for.  
   
(2)  If these posts are of any interest to you, and you haven’t already read Lovecraft’s “Supernatural Horror in Literature”, then you really should do yourself a favor and do so.  It can be found online (http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/superhor.htm)  

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I’m afraid in so many ways

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Patrick Shearer.

 I want to thank Nat Cassidy for his terrific posts on the topic of theatrical horror.  I'd certainly planned to write about other things (well, truth be told, I wasn't quite sure WHAT I was going to write about this week.  I was just gonna wing it until a topic of interest popped up,) but the serendipity of having such a terrific opening sortie on a subject so near and dear to my heart cannot go un-remarked upon.  It was funny to read Nat's "Monsters and Murderers" post because it was like he was describing my childhood in the suburbs of Los Angeles (even down to having Stephen King in one hand, and Shakespeare in the other).  I know for a fact that we weren’t the only ones, Nat.  So if our dear readers are done with the horror thing, feel free to move along until next week.  We won't be (too) offended. 

I should start by telling you, I’m afraid.  

I’m afraid in so many ways, and always have been.  There were nights growing up when I’d sit on the beach, in the dark, when the sky and the ocean melted into a single mass, into one enormity, and the sheer weight of it terrified me.  And then I’d grasp the immensity of the earth itself by comparison and I’d start to shiver, and then the immensity of space would blow my mind, shorting out my semantic circuit entirely, and I’d just be a tiny quivering mass of tiny jelly on a tiny little beach somewhere in Southern California.  

And that feeling excited me.  

It wasn’t just big philosophical concepts that scared me, either.  (It’s just easier to share that one, cause it makes me seem smart or something, instead of like a coward.)  I was afraid of BOB.  You know, BOB from Twins Peaks?  Scared the holy crap out of me as a young teen, and I still can’t believe they broadcast the final episode of the series on non-cable television.  Those last thirty minutes, man.  Those last thirty minutes.  

I used to have nightmares ALL.  THE.  TIME.  They were awesome.  They were ridiculously coherent.  And they were terrifying because they were real.  I had a dream about a decade ago that looked exactly like that scene in Inception where the ground and the buildings tilt up into the sky?  Except I actually heard the sky (the motherfucking SKY, people) rip open, and when I looked up I could see the street on which I was walking, and could see myself looking back at me, through that enormous tear in the fabric of reality, and I thought with calm, complete certainty: “This is it.  This is the end of everything.  The laws of physics have become no more than suggestions.  And I have to/get to see it.”  

That was right before I woke up sweating, and shaking.  

I’m REALLY afraid of getting into a situation like that guy in 127 Hours where that boulder trapped his arm and he had to cut his arm off with a pocket knife.  (I’m also afraid to go and see that movie because I might throw up or pass out, like all those other people who saw it.)  Can you imagine?  Knowing that you’re going to die unless you do something SERIOUSLY drastic?  And then thinking, “Well, I do have my Swiss Army knife, and it’s got a saw blade on it.  But after I cut through the flesh, and the fat (which, anyone who’s ever eaten a gristly steak will know is not easy to cut through, especially one-handed), AND the muscle -- if I can remain conscious and not drop my knife down this chasm -- will it still be sharp enough to cut through the entire bone?   But then, I have to go through the muscle, and the fat, and the flesh on the other side all over again.  Or I could just sit here and die.”

I probably won’t be seeing that movie.  

But chances are, I’ll be watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Again.  In the fairly near future.  

It honestly doesn’t surprise me that people sometimes look at me funny when they see my work, or when I tell them what I’m reading or what I’m watching.  I made a short film last year for a friend’s Halloween short film festival.  He told us to push the envelope, so I tried.  To me, my little film was about a romantic couple, and the intensity of their attraction and their passion for each other overspilling the limits of human expression, and how terrifying it is to feel like that.  Of never being able to entirely express yourself, or to feel entirely satisfied.  And of two people trying desperately to reach satisfaction.  

Some people got stuck on her cutting him open and crawling inside of him.  Hey, that’s okay, too.  I’ll go for the gross out.  I’m not proud.*

It wasn’t real, and it’s pretty obviously not real, but I hope it touches on something deep, something visceral and expresses that thing in a way that words couldn’t quite achieve.

When I was young, it was in attempting to face all these debilitating fears that I watched horror movies, and read Stephen King, and Peter Straub, and Ramsey Campbell, and Clive Barker, and Shirley Jackson, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and Anne Rice, and H.P. Lovecraft.  I never liked roller coasters, but I loved Fright Night.  And that led to The Exorcist, and on and on.  Adults thought it was weird, and looked at me funny, and gave me the third degree, and I was eventually cornered into finding an explanation for why I liked these things.  It happened late, but I’m told that’s better than never.  

I was one of those sad sacks that actually caught The Blair Witch Project early, before the hype, before anyone even knew anything about it.  I knew from the first frame that this wasn’t ACTUALLY found footage, but it didn’t matter.  During those last 10 minutes or so, my friend and I (at the tender age of 21, far too old to be acting like this) had our arms wrapped tightly around one another, literally shaking in the oppressive dark of the theater. Neither of us slept that night.  We were both mildly tramautized.  H.P. Lovecraft would have called people like us “of a sensitive nature” and the prime audience for weird tales.  

But that night, driving to a coffee shop because neither of us could face being alone, the shadows had never been darker or more impenetrable, and the street lights had never been brighter to my eyes.  

And that’s why I’m attracted to these dark subjects.  Because after you’ve spent some time down there in the dark basement of human imagination, when you come back out you tend to appreciate the light a little more.  The happier stuff -- which I just find to be cloying under different circumstances -- becomes tolerable, and even welcome.  It makes me feel glad to be alive.  It’s the most tried and true way for me personally, in this day and age, to experience what I believe to be actual catharsis.  

And despite everything else, the experience of fear is still as sharp as it ever was in most of our population (for good or for ill.)  

I’m a big fan of genre, but I think this kind of horror is beyond genre, as Nat and some of our commenters have noted.  I think it gets to the essence of who we are as a species.  As the great bard Terrence McKenna has said, “We have one foot in angelhood and one foot in the identity of a carnivorous ape, and the tension between these two on a global scale is excruciating.”  Horror is about staring into the face of the carnivorous ape and accept that it's you, and I’m so grateful to be able to do that in front of a live audience.

There’s something very important about being locked in a dark room with the human ape.  


Tomorrow, we can talk about the dangers of making the ape dance...


*10 points if you recognize that quote.  

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Guest Blogger of the week: Patrick Shearer

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We are thankful to Nat Cassidy for his fantastic blogs last week.

We are so happy that Patrick Shearer will be our guest blotter this week.

Patrick Shearer is an actor, director, producer and sound designer.  He's the co-founder of "The Blood Brothers Present..." series, an annual Halloween horror show designed for the stage.  He's been an Artistic Associate for the last 9 years with Nosedive Productions, a Manhattan-based theatre company founded by James Comtois and Pete Boisvert, and has proudly worked with the likes of Vampire Cowboys, Gemini CollisionWorks, Piper Mackenzie and Third Lows Productions.

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