2012 NYC World Theatre Day events!

SPLAT PERFORMANCES

Are you an actor? Or a theater person? Or a just a lover of Shakespeare?

Well. This is for you!


Saturday the 24th


There will be performances in Times Square celebrating World Theater Day! Or as we call them, SPLATs! (Site-specific Public Large-scale Acts of Theater)

One of the performances happening will be a large group recitation of Hamlet's To Be or Not To Be speech.

So. You wanna celebrate Theater? Shakespeare? Flash Mobs?

Come find the actors and musicians in Times Square and give the Bard's most famous speech your best shot with the rest of us! ( if you don't know it by heart, don't worry. We will have copies of it you can read aloud with us)

We will be performing the speech at 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, and 4pm on Saturday.

We will be right at the south end of the pedestrian plaza at 42nd street and Broadway.
Feeling shy? Well, then just come and listen and lend your support and appreciation for theater!!

See you there!

NYCWTD Online

Also check out the NYC World Theatre Day blog and website

Follow on Twitter @nycwtd

WORLD THEATRE DAY HAPPY HOUR

Join us as we raise a glass in honor of World Theatre Day on 3/27 at the Houndstooth Pub.

TUESDAY, MARCH 27 from 5PM to 8PM
The Back Bar at Houndstooth Pub
520 8th Avenue at 37th Street
Hear the message read aloud and raise a glass with
fellow theatre makers. Drink Specials all evening!

Own up to your cultural diversity

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Kevin R. Free.

Hey, all. Today, on its Broadway Power list, Backstage reminded us that most of the power on Broadway is held by white guys. No surprise there, but I spent a few moments feeling disheartened and powerless.

Then I remembered having a discussion with one of those white guys on that list about how people of color don't have a "theatre-going lifestyle," so there's really no use marketing to them.

Then I was pissed off.   

Then I went to brunch.*

So:

1. There are folks who cannot afford full-price Broadway tickets. Many of those folks don't even know what indie theatre is.
2. People of color don't chomp at the bit to attend theatre, because they are rarely represented onstage in theme or in person.
3. There are folks who like theatre, but don't have regular access to it; or they don't even know yet that they like it.
4. There are folks who love indie theatre, but don't attend theatre created by the unfamiliar (the others, as I discussed earlier this week).

All of the people listed above are a part of our community. We just have to figure out how to reach them/us/you. How do we do that? Christopher Burris and Derek Lee McPhatter offered ways to stay on top of it on this blog. Pun Bandhu has started the conversation about the inclusion of Asian artists in New York theatre. Kelley Nicole Girod blogged about her struggle with her multiracial identity, and now I'm adding my voice to the chorus.  

Perhaps it is time for the indie theatre community to own up to its own cultural diversity. To rejoice in - or, at least, raise a glass to - our differences, and ask each other for help when we want to reach our colleagues who are "other." We, the indie theatre artists, have power. We can reach more people, make more art, change more lives, and inspire more change than the dudes (and one lady) listed in Backstage today.  We've done it separately, in silos, but we can do it as a group, too. And I think we should.

My sister,  who's not a theatre person, once said to me, about my 17-year (really) quest to become a principal actor in a Broadway show: "But you don't really want that, do you? You make your own stuff. There's more power in that."

Indeed. Let's use our power for good.

*I had brunch with a white guy who makes indie theatre regularly. We both ate eggs, but they were prepared differently.

Othernesses

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Kevin R. Free.

I recently worked with a (white) woman who said, upon seeing the title of a theatre piece (a title which I cannot mention here), that she hoped that the play wasn’t “about being mad at white people.” I (a black man) remarked, nearly simultaneously, that I was suspicious, when I saw said piece, that it featured no people of color. We didn’t speak at length about our reactions, or about our expectations, which I really think are the issue in this situation; but - as I knew I’d be contributing to this here blog this week - I decided that we’d wrestle the expectations in this forum.

So. Let’s talk about titles. What do they do to you? I learned how to title my plays when I wrote for Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind (30 Plays in 60 Minutes). Often, I titled my plays to be provocative or funny, because I wanted our audience to see the titles and really, really, really really really (really) want to see them. So when I expanded my series of plays from Too Much Light into a full length called A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People, I am not sure what I expected, other than for people to want to see it. What kind of play do you expect when you read that title? Do you want to see it?  Are you intrigued? Are you afraid of what it could mean* (dramatic music)?

Last week, I saw a friend’s musical play off-broadway. It was quite good: well-performed, well-written, and well-produced. But, as I watched it, I realized there was no representation of myself in it. I mean that not only in a where-are-the-blacks-where-are-the-gays way, but also in a where-are-the-smart-people-who-struggle-with-existence-and-identity-in-a-world-that-values-happy-endings way. Before I saw the show - because of its title (which I will not name) -  I had a feeling that that would be my experience, but I bought a ticket and I attended anyway. I left the theatre depressed, because of how silenced I felt, but I also left feeling inspired to create more of the kind of work I like to see: challenging, thought-provoking entertainment that isn’t quite so easy to sum up, categorize, or dismiss.

I told the woman with whom I worked last week not to be afraid of provocative titles, and I hope she heard me. If you are white and you see a play that features angry black people shouting because they hate white people, or what white people do, or what white people have done and have plans to do, realize that those black people aren’t talking about YOU. They’re talking about WHITE PEOPLE. The monolith. The construct. They’re only talking about you in the abstract. BUT. They are talking about you if you aren’t there to hear it. But you know what they say: “If an angry black man shouts about white people in an empty theater  - or in a theater full of black people - does anyone really hear it?”

I decided long ago that I like to see race or ethnicity in a title. Love it. It lets me know that I am in for a ride. I believe that - for better or worse - we are bound by race in this country. Your whiteness, your blackness, your asianness, your definition of those nesses (and all the other othernesses) inform my identity, because we have all enslaved one another; I cannot separate my history from yours, no matter how hard I try. So. I’m provoked just by seeing you, and I am silenced when I don’t see me (“you” and “me” both being relative and abstract).  

I have never seen The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and I am trying to forgive myself.

*I wrote my first Black Plays for White People when I was in Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. I wanted to write parodies of classic Black Theatre, and there were no black people in the company for whom I could write.

Guest Blogger of the Week: Kevin R. Free

We are so happy to announce that this week's guest blogger is Kevin R. Free.

Kevin R. Free has been either an actor, playwright or director Off-Off-broadway since 1996. His full-length plays, Face Value and A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People have been published by indietheaternow.com. An alumnus of the New York Neo-Futurists, several of his plays have been published in 225 Plays by the New York Neo-Futurists from Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind. His play (Not) Just a Day Like Any Other, co-written with Christopher Borg, Jeffrey Cranor, and Eevin Hartsough, was the recipient of the NY IT Award for Outstanding Ensemble in 2009. In April/May, he will appear in a new Neo-Futurist  nerdcore musical about video games and identity, You are in an open field at HERE Arts Center. (www.kevinrfree.com)

A Complete Guide to the NYC Black Theater Revolution

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Christopher Burris.

We are amidst a revolution. The world at large may not be aware yet, but they will. As prophesied by our dear brother Gil Scott-Heron, this revolution will not be televised, but it is being staged in theaters throughout NYC. Black theater artists all over the city are taking control of their own stories. They are no longer looking to institutions headed by those outside of the community to produce their work. They want their stories told their way, with their artistic sensibilities so that their cultural and social livelihoods might be expressed in a more authentic, relevant way.

I can't tell you when it started. I don't know if there was a specific event or date that sparked this theatrical awakening. I can, however, tell you the exact moment I became aware of it's existence. August 14, 2011 at about 8:11 or 8:12. A group of Black producers, Harlem9, (Spencer Scott Barros, Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, Bryan E. Glover, Garlia Cornelia Jones, Eric Lockley, Jonathan McCroy, Erin Michelle Washington, Erin Cherry, and Deborah Goodwin) put on an evening of new short plays written, directed and acted by some of the best and brightest Black theater artists on the NYC scene.

The event, called 48 Hours in Harlem, was a sold out, standing-room smash. Yet even more important than the evening's monetary success was it's artistic accomplishments. When I went to sleep the Friday before the event, there was nothing. I awoke on Saturday morning with the red light of my phone indicating that there was a new play waiting for me to read, and later that morning, to direct. I believed in our play and the late night efforts of our writer. I also would have trusted my cast with my life, so I was thrilled to share our work with the world that Sunday. Yet, it wasn't until I saw the other plays that I realized that this evening would live well beyond it's two hour running time. 

Were you there, dear reader? It hurts me to think that had I not been involved, I too might have missed out on this night that I now know changed the artistic lives of so many young professionals. I wish that I could replay that evening so that you might be able to witness the same brilliance that I witnessed. I wish that I could describe the energy to you in a way that's not trite or simply anecdotal. I wish that I could have bottled up some of the magic in that room so that it might be preserved for future generations of artists. I can't do those things. What I can do, is tell you whose talent touched the stage that night: Ayanna Maia, Dominique Morisseau, Keith Josef Adkins, Derek Lee McPhatter, Mfoniso Udofia, Harrison David Rivers, Tamilia Woodard, Melissa Maxwell, Russell G. Jones, Nicole A. Watson, LA Williams, Bruce Lemon, Laura E. Johnston, Axel Avin Jr., Chanel Carroll, Heather Alicia Simms, Crystal Dickinson, Gillian Glasco, Jamie Lincoln Smith, Jocelyn Bioh, Elain Graham, Samuel T. Gaines, Willie Teacher, Tamela Aldridge, Marcus Naylor, Gerald Joseph, Ayo Cummings, Alano Miller, and Charles Browning.

August 14, 2011. The night I was awakened to the revolution. Since then have noticed that the Black theater community has hung a little tighter. I have made an honest effort to support the work of every artist from that night and feel that they have done the same for me. We are working to stay connected to each other. We have finally moved past politeness and into the kind of open and honest critique that helps us grow as artists and as beings. We have started to recognize the power we possess when we come together. When we take the energy spent trying to be accepted by White institutions and refocus it on ourselves, then we are truly shining a light on the gifts we have been given.

We're not just dreaming bigger. We're dreaming Blacker.

Since that night in Harlem, I have been more aware of other artists that are a part of the movement. I can't list them all. I can't know them all. (Feel free to respond by naming those I have missed.) Nevertheless, these are the writers, directors, actors and organizations that should be on the tip of the theater community's tongue. These names should be spoken, for they are worthy: Bridgit Antoinette Evans, Jesse Cameron Alick, Dennis A. Allen II, Kelley Girod, Germono Toussaint, Camille Darby, Kevin R. Free, Tracey Conyer Lee, J. Holtham, Hazelle Goodman, Bianca LaVerne Jones, chandra thomas, Clinton Lowe, Nedra McClyde, John-Andrew Morrison, Suzanne Darrell, Ione Lloyd, James Halloway, Lisa Strum, Lexi Rhodes, Johnathan Payne, Lynette R. Freeman, Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Erich McMillan-McCall, Shaun Neblett, Stephen Hill, Toccarra Cash, Lori E. Parquet, Freedom Train Productions, The Movement Theatre Company, Under the Spell Productions, Liberation Theatre Company, ActNow Foundation, A Cherry On Top Productions, Take Wing and Soar Productions, and The New Black Fest.

These are the soldiers on the frontline of this revolutionary moment in our theatrical times. Google one. Google them all. Donate to their projects. Most importantly, go see their work. The talent and skill are undeniable, and there is a new sense of empowerment that saturates everything they touch. Each one carries a torch that, united, will set the entire NYC scene ablaze.

The Godfather of Black Theater

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Christopher Burris.

Today, I officially proclaim Woodie King Jr. the Godfather of Black Theater and I advise you all to attend a party in his honor. Though not as recognized outside of the Black theater community as many think he should be, Mr. King has provided an artistic home for hundreds of actors over the years, and has been influential in launching the careers of some of our most cherished and famous theater artists. The evening will begin with a wine and cheese reception followed by an intimate conversation with Mr. King about his personal and professional journey. Kamilah Forbes will moderate the conversation, with champagne and photos to follow. Godfather expects to see you all there...

Honoring Excellence in Black Theatre:  A Night with founder and Artistic Director of The New Federal Theatre, Woodie King Jr. Monday February 27, 2012 from 7:00pm until 8:30pm. ADMISSION $10
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/225865

Guest Blogger of the Week: Christopher Burris

We would like to thank Derek Lee McPhatter for posing such an important question for us last week.

We are excited that this week's guest blogger is Christopher Burris.

Christopher Burris: New York directing credits include Kevin R. Free’s A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People, which was a FringeNYC 2010 hit. He also directed Dennis A. Allen III’s The Mud is Thicker in Mississippi, a winner in the 2010 Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival. He has directed several short plays for Sticky at the Bowery Poetry Club, including Life's Terms, ... in Which Bishop Eddie Long Loses His Battle with the Demons, and Gaga of the Dead. In addition to a series of staged readings for Freedom Train Productions, (including Derek McPhatter's Bring the Beat Back) he has directed numerous projects for Phare Play, Unconscious Collective and The Fire This Time Festival. He holds a BA from UNC Chapel Hill, and an MFA from UC San Diego. @christopherbnyc

What does Diversity mean to you?

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Derek Lee McPhatter.

Indie Theater is, in my opinion, the artsy, gutsy creative, risk-taking counterpart to more mainstream and institutionalized Theater. 

As such, the Indie Theater scene enters the “diversity” conversation on different ground from Broadway.  And in terms of diversity, its been my experience that many of the movers and shakers in Indie Theater are there precisely because the kind of theater they are doing, or the sort of background/perspective they bring to the table isn’t being supported by the Big Shots…

The force behind diversity is a commitment to INCLUSION.  So, as a person of color and whatnot, I have some questions for the IT Awards crowd…

What does Diversity mean to you? And how would you think about diversity issues if there was no such thing as a Black History Month?,  Women’s History Month, Gay Pride, etc. etc.? 

Also, what sort of Perspectives/Communities do you feel are NOT included in the Indie Theater community?  What should/could happen to change that?

I’m sitting here at my computer trying to answer these questions myself, and I’ll be interested to see what you all have to say.

Guest Blogger of the Week: Derek Lee McPhatter

We want to thank Kelley Nicole Girod for kicking off our discussion about diversity on NYC's indie theatre stages.

This week's guest blogger will be Derek Lee McPhatter.

Derek Lee McPhatter is a dramatic writer, producer, recently relocated to Los Angeles as a member of the 2012 Guy Hanks and Harvey A Miller Screenwriting Program (The Cosby Program).  He is part of the leadership team for The Fire This Time Festival in New York City, which completed its third season in January 2012. Plays include: Undercover on Another Day of Absence (featured in Harlem 9's 2011 48 Hours in Harlem Festival); The Lattice Crashes (The Tank / Harlem Stage), Bring the Beat Back (Freedom Train Productions), A Better Destiny for Bethany (Horse Trade's The Drafts Fest); and two Fire This Time Festival plays, Citizen Jane and On Troubled Waters. He is a Harlem Arts Alliance/Columbia University Dramatic Writing Fellow, in partnership with New Heritage Theatre. He holds a BA in English from Morehouse College, and a Master's in Humanities from NYU. He is a native of Pickerington, Ohio.

Two snaps and an Amen

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Kelley Nicole Girod. 

Three years ago when I started The Fire This Time festival at Horse Trade Theater I did not consider myself a producer.  The truth is that I also didn't consider myself a playwright even though I had just graduated from Columbia's MFA playwriting program.  When people asked me what I did for a living my response was something lengthy and slightly apologetic, "Well, I nanny right now to pay the bills and I do some writing. I just graduated from Columbia's MFA playwriting program so, you know...." Yes, answering that question had become more cringe-worthy than answering the question of my ethnic background. That one, I have gotten down pat- "Cajun/Creole French, mix of French, Italian, Native American and Nigerian." No further questions needed.  But it took me a while to get that explanation down, to articulate my ethnic background without a question mark on my face or a tinge of apology for not being able to say it in a way that didn't confuse people further.  For years I just accepted what I was told I was without questioning. I still remember my confusion when my father told me that his father was white. "Wait a second," I thought, "for sixteen years I thought my grandfather was black. Ok, so what does that make me now?" 

I never thought that my journey as a playwright and now producer would mirror my journey of actually knowing and understanding my ethnic background. I know what you're thinking "Uh duh, isn't that what artists do?" Yes, but it didn't turn out to be that simple.  Just as racial identification on a birth certificate doesn't automatically make you who you are, neither does an MFA automatically make you an artist (no matter how much money you paid, ouch!) This was the hard truth I had to face and why at the end of the day when people asked me what I did for living I was just as confused about saying I was a playwright as they were about what it is that a playwright actually does (Oh, so you write films? Yeah, I have some great ideas for a novel but I haven't started writing it yet.)

So when did everything change? I can honestly say it was right after graduation when I started to intern with Horse Trade Theater.  I was not familiar with the world of indie theater, but I knew right away that I loved the genuine community and support of the people around me.  Everyday in the little office on E. 4th St was exactly what I imagined theatre to be - young, hip theatre companies squeezing around each other prepping for meetings or rehearsals.  Interns huddling around the heater while they read script submissions.  People climbing up and down ladders from the tech booth to the office.  Jokes and stories being shared over cups of coffee. Loud music from a rehearsal in the Kraine drifting into the desk space where I counted the box office cash and entered in the numbers from the previous night's shows into spreadsheets. It was glorious! And probably the only time I'll ever love walking into a space at nine in the morning to drunken conversations still being had in the KGB that have being going since the night before.  

But the best part of being a part of this theatre scene was the freedom to do the work you wanted to do without explanation or apology. In my mind, this is what made Horse Trade such a wonderful and supportive place. They support young theatre companies that put up incredibly unique and original work.  They actually want to see new things on stage and I remember Erez Ziv, managing director, say "How would we have the standards that we have now if no one had given those artists a chance?"

It was this freedom that I needed to explore myself as a theatre artist, just as I had needed the freedom from my childhood home to explore my own identity.  And it wasn't long after beginning my internship with Horse Trade that I began to ask myself questions about black theatre, my role in it, what it meant and where my stories fit in.  Up until that moment I had accepted that there were things expected of me as an artist of color. But just like my ethnic background, it got harder for me to simply accept it without questioning. I figured that if I had questions about my place as an artist of color there must be others who have them as well. I brought this up to Horse Trade's artistic director, Heidi Grumelot, and she and Erez were more than happy to give me a space for a week to put up a group of plays by artists of color in which to explore this.  And that was the birth of The Fire This Time festival which has just completed it's third and most successful year.

So now when people ask me what I do for a living I say "I'm a playwright and producer." Period. No further questions except the occasional requests from a family member to have me right them a cameo in my next play.  Asking questions is a great thing. Finding the answers is even better.  But having the space and security to do it is priceless and this is why I love indie theatre.

Guest Blogger of the Week: Kelley Nicole Girod

Kelley Nicole Girod is a 2008 graduate of Columbia's MFA playwriting program where she was named the Stein and Liberace scholar as well as the John Golden fellow for her artistic merit. Kelley hails from Louisiana where she attended Louisiana State University and works extensively with the artistic community of Baton Rouge, most recently serving as a panel judge for Louisiana's artist in residency program. She has had plays produced in Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans, and Columbus, Ohio and has had readings at Primary Stages, the Labyrinth Studio, and Horse Trade Theater Group (NYC), which produced her play Parabolas as part of their downtown theatre festival. She is the founder and executive producer of The Fire This Time, an annual festival that challenges the definition of black theatre. She was also named "Person of the Year 2011" by Nytheatre.com for her work on the festival. 

Where is the diversity on OOB stages?

In 2010 the Innovative Theatre Foundation released the report "Demographic Study of Off-Off-Broadway Practitioners." Among many other statistics we examined the racial breakdown of those people working OOB.

Here are our findings:

 

Compare this with the racial breakdown of New York City.

 NYC statistics recorded Hispanic/Latino separately as part of ethnicity. They note that 26.98% of NYC residence are Hispanic/Latino.

The Indie Theatre Community more closely resembles the National racial make-up.

Indie artists perform in theatres and neighborhoods through out NYC. How can we increase the diversity both on stage and off? How can we be more inclusive of the people who live in the neighborhoods where we perform? How can we make connections with other community organizations that serve diverse audiences? How can we be more a part of the communities and neighborhoods where we perform?

This month we will explore some of these questions among many others.

Please join the conversation.

Theatre for social change, finale: Diversify your damn stage

Contributed by our Guest Blogger of the week, Mariah MacCarthy

Last post of the week! A quickie:

I’ve noticed a few situations in which a population (lesbians, say) is so rarely represented that whenever someone comes along and finally represents it, they get shit for the way they represent it because it’s supposedly unflattering or inaccurate. I’ve also noticed that lots of people who watch or make theatre seem to want more plays by and about people other than straight white men to get produced. I’ve also noticed that even though it’s two-thousand-and-frikkin-ten, plenty of people are still racist and sexist, though perhaps in subtler ways than ten, twenty, fifty years ago.

So while Theatre of Compassion is one way that I think social change can happen, I also have another, simpler idea: just diversify your damn stage.

You don’t need to comment on it. You don’t need to be preachy about it. You can sneak it on people—maybe sneakiness is an asset. Just, say, make your superhero an Asian lesbian. Or make the POTUS a woman like 24 did. Or if you’re a director, encourage actors of color to audition for you. Or if you’re an artistic director, consider that maybe you don’t need ANOTHER play about a dysfunctional white upper-class family in your season, or whiney boys who are sad about the mean girls that leave them for their douchey best friends. If that’s all that people are submitting to you, apparently that’s the image that you’re projecting of the kind of theatre you do, and that is your fault.

The more women/ LGBTQ peeps/ people of color/ people with disabilities/ people of various religions/ etc that we see onstage, the more room there is to celebrate a breadth of experiences without getting flak for not portraying these groups the “right” way. And for my money, the less “significant” it is when these groups of people are onstage, the better. I wish it were as unremarkable to have an all-female cast as it is to have an all-male cast, but sadly, such a move looks like a “statement” even where none is intended. If you WANT to make a statement, by all means, make it. But it seems like people habitually resist statements that look like statements, and I think we can make plenty of progress by just nonchalantly putting more diverse characters and actors on our stages, and normalizing that diversity.

What do people think? Yes/no/maybe? Am I off my rocker?

It’s been great blogging for y’all! Feel free to keep the conversation going at my blog. Ciao!