Illuminating a Luminary

Contributed by Shay Gines

I’m going to tell you a story.

Back when I was in college - which clearly, because I am so young and vivacious and beautiful could only have been a few years ago… I was in the Actors Training Program at the University of Utah, my friend and much older classmate, Christopher Borg came to me with a play.

Now, you have to understand that Christopher had just recently come out of the closet. He was in a period of experimenting with his sexuality… lots of experimenting. In fact I have never known anyone to be more diligent and exhaustive in their experimentation than my dear dear friend Christopher Borg. Let’s just say that he was embracing his sexuality.

He came to me with a play called Psycho Beach Party by a playwright named Charles Busch. Christopher, who had been brought up in the Mormon faith in Utah, the most conservative state in the union, had found a kind of kinship with this playwright. He reveled in the humor. The characters were bright and funny and irreverent and proud. It was a different view, a different understanding, a different sensibility than we had been exposed to. It was important to Christopher that we do a production of this play.

There was no way we would ever be able to convince an established theatre in Salt Lake City, Utah to produce such a scandalous play especially by a bunch of college students. And WE were actors. I had never produced anything in my life. We didn't have any experience. We didn’t have any money. We didn’t have a space. We didn’t have any resources or contacts. Sound familiar?

But we decided to produce it anyway.

We wrangled a space called the AARDVARK’s Cabaret. It had 35 or 40 seats and a 10x10 foot stage. It’s sort of what I imagine the Caffé  Cino was like. We didn’t have any money to pay for the space, so… I put up my tuition money. So to be clear here, if we did not make our money back, I would have had to have dropped out of school.

We cast, mostly our friends, but a few people we hadn’t met before. I played Marvel Anne McAllister, the bitchy blonde bombshell – just like in real life. Christopher played Mrs. Forrest. I think both of us could put up a defensible argument about who had the best part, but seriously, it was me.

We broke into the performing arts building at the university after hours and on weekends to rehearse. We literally broke in. We climbed through windows and picked the locks. Our costumer, Matt “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” Uhl, stole costumes from the theatre where he was working at the time.

Borg had a stroke of genius and came up with a plan for a set that cost us, less than $100. We took colored butcher paper (you know, the kind they use in elementary schools) and created a set that looked like a “wish you were here” California postcard complete with palm trees and a sailboat. It was actually quite striking and fit the play perfectly.







 Fortunately, one of Christopher’s ex-lovers was the night manager at Kinko’s (but that’s not surprising, because seriously you couldn’t throw a rock in SLC without hitting someone that Borg had had sex with). Anyway, he made thousands of flyers for us under the radar during his graveyard shift. We ran around Salt Lake putting flyers under every windshield wiper we could find. We hung up posters, handed out flyers and sent press releases.
 
I’ll be honest, I was scared. I didn’t think people would come. Maybe a few of our classmates, but I didn’t think we would get an audience. If the audience was there, I wasn’t sure that they would be brave enough to come. While there was definitely a gay population, it certainly was not comfortable, or easy to be out and there had been some altercations. 

Opening night, we had a few people. There were more people on stage than there were in the house though. The next night we had a relatively decent house. But the third night the drag queens came. Yes! In their 4 inch heels and beehive hair dos they came marching down West Temple. There were only 6 or 8 of them, but you couldn’t miss them. They looked like 7 foot tall goddesses.

In my mind it was the very first Gay Pride Parade in Salt Lake City. It was glorious. The next week we sold out twice.

Even my dad enjoyed it. My Dad!, who thinks that all actors are a little fruity, who still petitions me to become a lawyer and who thought that a production of The Grapes of Wrath was too racy because of language, enjoyed Psycho Beach Party.

I think at one point in Psycho Beach Party, Chicklet yells at the top of her lungs “mother fucking cock sucker!” There’s some pretty raunchy stuff in PBP. And yet somehow my dad didn’t even see that and was able to just have fun. I think beyond that, my Dad was able to see characters that he was familiar with, that he could identify with, but with a twist and it helped him see a new perspective. I’m very proud of my dad and the mental transformation that he has had over the years, but that is a story for a different blog.

The experience of producing Psycho Beach Party showed me the transformative possibilities of theatre. It gave some people a place where they were not just accepted, but celebrated. It gave someone else an opportunity to understand something that was foreign to them. And it managed these incredibly complex and profound things in under two hours and in a way that had everyone leaving the theatre happy and up lifted.

I think of a script as a foundation for a production. We would never have been able to accomplish these things had we not had such a strong and joyous foundation.

Not only did I make my tuition money back, but we were actually able to pay everyone involved; not a lot, but a little. We were very proud of ourselves and this experience set me on my path to becoming a producer.

Years later (but you know, not a lot of years, because clearly I am so young and vivacious and beautiful) I had this idea for an awards organization that celebrated Off-Off-Broadway.

We met with so many people who all told us that we were crazy. They said that OOB wasn’t worth recognizing. That OOB was too vast and there were too many people and shows for the awards to be meaningful. That everyone in OOB was out for themselves and they would never be a cohesive community. That there was no way that something like this could ever work. We knew that creating legitimacy for Off-Off-Broadway was going to be a challenge especially because back in 2004 there was no champion for OOB and it didn’t have a unified voice.

So when we produced our first award ceremony, we were met with a lot of skepticism. We had a lot to prove and we were reaching pretty high. We reached out to Charles Busch to host our ceremony. Charles had worked Off-Off-Broadway for many years. He knew the challenges that we face. He knew the insanity of self-production. But the IT Awards weren't anything. We weren’t anybody. He had no incentive to say "yes," but he did. In that moment he lent his prestige, to our fledgling organization.

When we walked into offices and said, we are having an event at the Lortel Theatre, we are already sold out AND its being hosted by Charles Busch, people started to take us seriously.

In 2009, Julie Halston hosted the ceremony and she said – “I can’t believe how much this has grown.” And it is true, we have grown faster and bigger than we could have imagined, but honestly I do not think that we would be where we are today had we not had that little injection of legitimacy that Charles so generously gave us at such a critical time in our development.

Having never met Charles, he was an influential force at two very pivotal moments in my life. Through the honesty and brilliance of his talent he contributed to an experience that was so powerful it set me on a career path. And through the generosity of his spirit and willingness to celebrate his roots, he helped build the Innovative Theatre Foundation. I can’t think of a better example of a luminary.

 

Congratulations to Charles Busch the 2011 Luminary Award recipient.

Center Stage Needs Your Help

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Shay Gines.

As some of you know Center Stage is facing eviction on January 3rd if they do not raise $17,000. They have raised $6,000 in the last 2 days and need to come up with another $11,000 in the next 72 hours to avoid having the doors pad locked on Monday morning.

This would be a significant loss to OOB especially on the heels of the closer of the Ohio Theatre and news that after 86 years the Cherry Lane Theatre will be sold and it is another indication that our community is in crisis. 

 Center Stage Theatre has been the home for many OOB companies over the last 11 years including; Boomerang Theatre, terraNOVA, The Vampire Cowboys, Impetuous Theatre Group and Partial Comfort Productions to mention a few. 

According to Jill DeArmon, Artistic Director for Center Stage, the rent has risen dramatically over the last few years and is now "too high for the theater to survive here." Their goal is to raise the money for back rent so that they can finish out their season and honor the rental agreements that have already been made through May and of course avoid litigation.

Financial problems for Center Stage started in 2008 when sponsors, corporate funding and donations to companies throughout our community started to be reduced. "Many companies that had rented from us for years all of a sudden weren't able to put money up front for their seasonal space needs, which of course put a lot of gaps in our calendar when we ourselves were bringing in less" explains former Office Manager, James David Jackson. "The major clientele we were bringing in (Indie/Off-Off-B'way) really couldn't pay the hourly and weekly rates that we would have needed to rise the rent to. Plus the space needed some major renovations to justify the new price we would need to charge. So we've come to a cash flow problem."

If you can spare a few dollars this weekend, please consider making a donation to Developing Artists Theater Company (http://www.developingartists.org/support.html) the not-for-profit arm of Center Stage.

UPDATE: Monday, January 3, 2011 1:30PM
Center Stage is within $4,000 of their goal. They have 12 hours to raise the remaining money.

UPDATE: Monday, January 10, 2011   10:30AM
Center Stage did receive the money it needed to keep its doors open until May. It will now be able to honor the remaining rental agreements and close its season as they had intended. So while they were able to meet their goal, it is only a temporary stay. We will update you with future plans for the company and for the space as soon as we can.

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My favorite things about OOB

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Shay Gines.

There are so many things I love about OOB. Here are some of my faves.

Kick Ass Parties

We all work so incredibly hard. We make miracles happen with every production. So when the pressure is off and we are able to party, look out! OOB knows how to throw an awesome party. Live bands, burlesque performances, free booze! Come on! Plus, let’s just admit it, we are the cool kids. We are the hip, free spirited NYC artists that the Wall Streeters wish they were.

Community

When I first got to the city, there was no “community” in the OOB community. It was actually that fact that inspired the IT Awards. Everyone was working so hard and was so focused on their own things that they couldn’t see what an amazing network of artists were right there in the trenches with them. I am so very proud of our community that we are reaching out to one another. We are building strong ties and are becoming a force to be recognized. Organizations such as The Community Dish, LIT, TRU and ART/NY (and I’d like to think that the IT Foundation also played its part) have all contributed to helping us create these bonds. More importantly however, it is the individuals who made it a priority to get more involved. On top of day jobs, personal relationships and artistic endeavors, you have made time in your already ridiculously busy schedule to attend meetings, write letters, make donations, get informed and make a consorted effort to contribute to and strengthen this community. And that is truly inspiring.

Ingenuity

Do you watch Project Runway? I do. I even DVR it just-in-case I am not available to catch an episode. My favorite challenges are when the designers are taken to the recycling center or the carpet remnants store or given a bin of used computer parts and expected to “create fashion.” Why? Why are these episodes so much more fun and interesting and exciting? Because the challenge is so much bigger. The designers have to be MORE creative, MORE ingenious and the risk of failure is so much more possible. However the end results are often the most amazing because they had to stretch their imaginations and be so much more creative with the resources that they were given. That is one of the most exciting elements of OOB to me. I love to see shows where the set is a series of huge flipcharts; where the costumer has created 6 distinct character looks using a reversible jacket, a hat and a pair of glasses; where the director has cleverly created a huge advancing army using shadow puppets. Our shoe-string budgets often force us to be more innovative and theatrical. I love that we accept that challenge with such enthusiasm and joy.

Passion

You don’t do OOB theatre for the money. You don’t do it for the prestige. You don’t do it for your parents. You don’t do it because it’s easy. If you are working Off-Off-Broadway, it is because you love theatre, because you want to have some control over your artistic endeavors and some ownership over the work you do. You do OOB theatre because that’s what you do.

Angles

There are some amazing people in the OOB community that selflessly give so much to our community. We all have our angles. Here are some of the people whose generosity I am profoundly grateful for and who I think are truly champions for our community: the ladies at FAB, Jonathan and Ian at United Stages, Paul Adams, Nick Micozzi, Akia, the entire IT Staff, Roman Feeser, David Pincus, Tim Errickson, Amanda Feldman, Abby Marcus, Katie Rosin, Jenn Darling, Judith Malina & Brad Burgess, David Anthony, Patrick Shearer, Erez Ziv, Ben Hodges, Robert Zuckerman, Martin Denton & Rochelle Denton. I could go on and on and on and there is a beauty in that too.

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If I Won the Lottery

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Shay Gines.

I have spent so many millions of dollars in my mind. I know that we’ve all done it.  We’ve dreamt about everything we could do if we won the lottery.

Of course I’d do all the obligatory personal stuff; pay off the credit cards and my mortgage, go on a fabulous world tour, make some luxury purchases that I’ve always dreamed about and maybe have a visit with the plastic surgeon. Once all that nonsense was over, this is what I’d do if I suddenly found myself with millions of dollars:

1.  I’d hire a personal assistant.

2.  I’d set up a not-for-profit organization and donate enough seed money to it to buy and renovate a building in Manhattan and provide funds to maintain it for the first 5 years. It would include theatres, rehearsal rooms, meeting rooms, offices and a for-profit coffee shop/bar (similar to the Des Moines Social Club  that Zachary Mannheimer has set up).  The idea is that the coffee shop/bar would rent space from the non-profit organization and help offset costs. Plus it would provide employment for artists.

3. I’d set up an endowment that would annually provide grants to OOB companies.

4. I’d make lots of donations to OOB companies – and a few other non-profits that are close to my heart.

5. I’d set up a marketing fund that would, among many other things, purchase bulk advertising in local and national newspapers, magazines and websites which would be divvied up and used to market current OOB shows. It would also produce a monthly booklet of OOB show listings that would be placed in hotels and at tourist spots around the city.

6. I’d set up a show swap with cities around the country – and around the world for that matter. Whole productions would be sent to other cities so that we could share our work outside of NYC. Likewise we could provide a venue for independent theatre artists from across the country to perform here in the city.

7.  I’d get a large storage facility that OOB companies could share. It might also include a costume/props/set exchange.

8.  I’d set up a company that recorded and archived all of the OOB productions… I mean of course only those OOB productions that we are allowed to record.

9.  I’d fund an OOB Cheer Squad that would perform customized cheers for productions on opening night and more generalized OOB cheers at events and locations throughout the city.

10. I’d buy several vans that could be signed out, like library books, to companies during load-in and load-out.

11. I’d buy us all a subscription to American Theatre Magazine. Maybe I’d buy us all a Coke.

12. I’d host an ice-cream social and invite lots of big Fortune 500 companies and figure out how to get them to give OOB money. Maybe I’d also invite or William Shatner or Oprah or Johnny Depp. What am I saying? Or? And! William Shatner AND Oprah AND Johnny Depp. And Eddie Izzard and Michelle Pfeiffer …. and Giovanni Ribisi … oh, and Annie Lennox.

So here’s my question for you… If you won the lottery, what would you do with the money and who would you invite to your ice-cream social?

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Unique Challenges

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Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Shay Gines.

We all have a unique set of challenges that shape our artistic abilities and choices. We learn to work around them when we need to and sometimes use them to propel us further or focus our efforts.

I have a disability.  It is true. People who have worked with me or know me have seen its effects and know my limitations. People walking down the street would have no idea. You yourself may have noticed something weird but couldn’t put your finger on it.

I have chronic joint disease. It is a very tenacious form of rheumatoid arthritis. It is an autoimmune disease, which means that my body is basically attacking itself. I was diagnosed with it almost 15 years ago. It is also a degenerative disease, which means that it could (probably will) get worse over time. 

I have not always had this disability. I was already well on my path to working in and completely being in love with the theatre before I was diagnosed. I was trained as an actress. I attended a rather rigorous four-year program that emphasized character development/embodiment including a lot of physical work and years of dance classes to boot. I’m not sure if the disease had manifested itself earlier in my life if I would have made the same choices that I did, but it has certainly changed my work in and my outlook of the theatre.

                  

In the beginning, there was a lot of pain and I was completely unprepared to deal with what was happening to me both physically and psychologically. Within a matter of months, I went from being a strong, healthy, confident young woman to not being able to get in or out of the shower by myself or button my own shirt or turn a doorknob. I had trouble spraying hair spray and standing up from a chair. It also took almost a year to figure out what was wrong with me. Maybe it was Lyme Disease. Maybe it was Lupus. Maybe it was something else. They didn’t know.

Once I was finally diagnosed, there was another year of experimenting to find the proper “cocktail” of medications to help manage it. Since everyone’s body reacts differently to medications, what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another. I was on steroids for a while and, oh boy was I a bitch to be around. I gained 20lbs and was completely at the mercy of my emotions. Looking back, I feel terrible for my friends who had to deal with me during that time. At one point I was prescribed a drug that I discovered I was allergic to and ended up in the emergency room with a 104 degree temperature. It was definitely a trying experience.

The most significant challenge, however, was that I had an identity crisis… I’m not going to say it was an identity “change,” I think of it more as a “shift.” I was no longer the person that I had been. I couldn’t climb the ladder to get to the lightboard at the Charnuchin Theatre. I couldn’t help move set pieces up and down the stairs to the Red Room. I couldn’t get up from the floor easily, gracefully, swiftly – sometimes not even at all. I couldn’t jump or dance or climb. Sometimes I could fake it… sometimes not. I was depressed, in a bad mood and sleep deprived most of the time because in addition, the disease tends to deplete your energy. So while friends would go out for drinks after a show, I could barely get myself home. I couldn't be social in the way I used to or wanted to be. I resented that and it made me bitter.

As an actress, I had always been athletic and energetic. I loved stage combat and physically inhabiting a character, but now I have to approach characters differently, and of course I have to carefully consider the types of characters and productions that I go out for. And there is, what I consider to be, a moral dilemma when auditioning for someone who does not know I have these… limitations. When should I inform them of it? I don’t want these limitations to stand in the way of me being cast. If I tell them at the audition, it might count against me. However, it is also not fair not to tell them. So this is what I decided; I tell them when they call to offer me the part. If they think they can work around the limitations and with me to find different options, great, I get the part. However if they feel they really need someone who can do physical stuff, then they have not lost any rehearsal time and they can still offer the part to someone else. It has gone both ways. Some directors/producers are fine with it and even excited by the challenge. Others decided to go with someone else and some have even felt like I deceived them and shouldn’t have auditioned in the first place. (By the way, if I know in advance that a production has physical requirements that I am not capable of, I don’t audition.)

As a director and a producer, the long hours are usually the most challenging element for me. I use to be able to work my day job, then go to a four hour rehearsal then come home and work for another hour or two preparing for the next day, get up and do it all over again, seven days a week until we opened. Boy are those days over! Now, I can work my day job, have a two or three hour rehearsal and go straight home and go to bed. I’ll have to sneak prep time in where I can and I have to have at least 2 days off each week to recuperate. 

Can I still make it work? Yes. I just have to be cleverer about it – and in that respect, what a glorious thing age and experience can be. I have also had to learn to recognize the signs that I am pushing myself too hard. Remember when you were in college and you drank too much and you woke up the next morning a little sick, but you were still able to make it to your 9:20AM class and by noon you were totally fine? And now when you drink too much you can’t get out of bed and have to call in sick for 3 days? It is sort of like that. I use to be able to push myself very very hard and recuperate very very quickly. Now days if I push myself too hard there are substantial repercussions that can take days or weeks to recover from and if I’m not careful I could do serious long term damage. So, I have to make sure I’m getting plenty of rest, eat when I should, build downtime into my schedule, take my medication regularly (carry some around with me in my purse, just in case) and not beat myself up for not being able to do what I use to do, or what other people can do.

This disease is sometimes unpredictable. I can be fine and then something will get set off and it could be weeks or months of being in pain and trying to get everything back under control. Sometimes medications stop working and you have to try something new. Sometimes the rigorous schedule of being in production is too much. My disease changes and has to be managed on a daily basis. I have to go to the hospital once a month and get an infusion which knocks me out for that whole day. I have had two surgeries, including a shoulder replacement. I will eventually need to have both of knees replaced and that will create all new challenges. It is a process.

I do have challenges (and half of the trouble is figuring out how to deal with the challenge) however, they are minor in comparison to other theatre friends that I know and that fact is never lost on me. 

This disability is not my only challenge, but it is my most significant challenge. Ultimately, it has made me more patient and accepting. More importantly, it forced me to deal with my own human vulnerability and because of that I think it made me a better artist. There were (and will be again I’m sure) days filled with tears and frustration and self pity, but it has taught me so much about myself and what my limitations and my strengths are. It has helped me gain a perspective that I otherwise wouldn’t have – about the theatre, our community, myself.  It has humbled me, but it has also made me so proud of my accomplishments and appreciative of the opportunities that have been offered to me.

What are the challenges you face as an artist and how have you dealt with them?

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Guest Blogger of the Week: Shay Gines

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We would like to thank Saviana Stanescu for her very engaging post last week.

We are excited that this week's guest blogger is our very own Shay Gines.

Shay Gines graduated from the Actors Training Program at the University of Utah with a dual degree in theatre and marketing. She then made the smartest decision of her life and (despite her father’s wishes) choose to pursue a career in theatre. Since then she has done everything from spackling walls at the Pasadena Playhouse and running follow-spot for the Pioneer Theatre Company to serving as the Artist in Residence for Touchstone Theatre. She has performed in theatres of all sizes from 30 seats to 1,000 across the country, from L.A. to NYC. She is an award winning producer, actress and director. Shay was a Founding Member and the Producing Director for Esperance Theatre Company, one half of the producing team for Theatrical Fair and one of the Executive Directors for The Innovative Theatre Foundation. 

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