The Boy Who Cried "Awesome!"

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Joe Mathers.

I’d like to hear from the OOB world about something – and it’s a touchy, nasty, unpleasant subject that I think most of us stay away from. 

We are our own community most of the time.  Very often, when there are multiple projects all happening at the same time, we are torn between which ones to go see, which ones to spend our money on, and which friends we can possibly support.

That can be stressful.  So, what usually happens is that we turn to reviews to help us decide.  Given one night to see two different shows, and all things being equal, one assumes we’d select the best show based on our interests, and whether or not it has been reviewed favorably.  Marketing a show lets us know it’s happening, and the reviewers and good word of mouth get more folks in the door!

The other thing we do is something I’ve gotten a lot of people to admit to over beers, or walking home from rehearsals, late nights on the train, but a lot of those people won’t admit to this “in public.” 

We ask the friend in the show, “Is it good?”

Invariably, they say “Yes!” 

Then we say back, “Dude, seriously, is it good?  Like, GOOD good?  Or good like ‘I have to say it’s good so people come see it good?’”

And they say, “Welllllll… it’s OK.  I mean, it’s fun, but it’s not great.  It’s not the best thing ever.”  Or, “The writing is a little odd, and the director is sort of blah.”   Or  “I’m kind of feeling ‘meh’ about it and we only run for five shows, so it’s not, you know… whatever.”

Whether or not we’ve actually had a similar conversation, I know a lot of theater artists who have felt that way about a project they’re involved in.  I know I’ve been there.  How do you handle it?

For me, personally, I try to “fix it” whenever I feel like something’s off.  I’ve met with success and failure in that arena.  Often it depends on the show and the writer and director and how they work.  I approach the subject along the lines of “I think this could be so much better than it is.”  Sometimes I get lucky and I’m part of a team that is amenable to making changes and we come out with something I’m proud to be a part of. 

But sometimes it doesn’t materialize, and the show becomes an unpleasant weird lurching hunchback of a production (I can say that hunchbacks are unpleasant, weird and lurching because – little known fact – were it not for nearly 4 years in brace, I'd be an unpleasant, weird lurching hunchback myself).  

What do you do then?

How do you face your friends and “fans” with a show some producer/writer/director passionately believes in yet you think is best burned, the ashes scattered among various sealed vessels, each buried deep in sanctified ground so that it may never rise again?

Why, yes, I have done that with a script or two in my time.  Yes, it works.  Can we move on?

I admit, I sometimes lie about it or politely decline comment.

Why?  Is it out of kindness?  Is it out of political necessity – to stay “popular” in a very small world?  Is it simply economics of producing a show?

I think it’s a combination of many factors, but I wish we didn’t have to lie when we don’t like a show.  Even if we’re in it.  It’s OK to not be super psyched about every project we do.  Sometimes we expect that things will be one way and they turn out another. 

Do I want people to come see the final week of Dear Ruth?  Yes, yes I do, because I like the show, it’s warm, it’s fun and the people who produce it do good work.  I’m not lying.  Did I want people to come and see some of the other shows I’ve done in the last few years?  Not necessarily.  I didn’t think they worked. 

Is Dear Ruth for everyone?  No – of course not.  My brother probably won’t be coming to see it, simply because he’s not into fun, charming rom-com’s of the 1940s.  He does however like... well… I don’t what he likes.  He watches a lot of Law & Order.  Maybe I can find a procedural drama to be in that he’ll come see…     

My point is this:  not every show we do is going to be a shining work of high art.  Sometimes it’s a steaming pile of poop.  I’m not saying I should ever attack the people who may have produced what I think is a steaming pile of poop, but we shouldn’t have to be obligated to cheerlead for stuff we aren’t so excited about simply because custom demands it. 

Cheerleading for a project you don’t believe in is a risky proposition – I call it “The Boy Who Cried ‘Awesome’ Dilemma.”  Proclaim the magical goodness of a project too often, and you become incapable of being trusted to discern which productions are actually widely regarded as good.  On the other hand, if you don’t self promote to a certain degree, no one sees when you do make something awesome.

The obvious solution is to not get involved with projects you aren’t in love with, but that doesn’t always work either, and we can’t all drop out of projects when they aren’t working, right?

I don’t know – this is something I struggle with from time to time.  And my close friends know I can be pretty vitriolic about a show I’m not digging.  I’m putting this out there – how do YOU deal with the “Boy Who Cried AWESOME Dilemma”?  Write a comment or two, or assault my Facebook page – I’m asking for some opinions. 

After all, opinions are what art is about – and my shining symbol of artistic vision is probably being scraped off the bottom of someone’s else shoe right now.  Possibly Tim Errickson's. 

Does someone smell sawdust?

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Joe Mathers.

 

Hey folks, Joe Mathers again.  Thanks for reading the last post I wrote, and if you didn’t, well, you’ve no one to blame but yourself.  Or the internet.  There’s a lot of funny stuff out there.  You’ve seen the one with the kitten, right?

Ever notice that when you’re in rehearsal for an OOB show, and you show up in the rented theater space a few days before opening and you start running the show, and there’s a half a set there, and then the next day there’s a whole set there, and then suddenly its all painted and decorated, and has working doors and doesn’t fall apart on you (hopefully)?  And then someone makes it look even cooler with lights? 

Most of us know that there are a bunch of dedicated super beings doing the work there, and we’re aware that they’ve worked hard.  Hell, in some cases it’s the same people who are in the show, or producing it.  But what I want to talk about today are the people who bust their butts and really don’t get to take a bow. 

We’ll start with designers – a lot of the time the designers are yes, paid.  Let’s face it.  There are fewer designers than performers, and they have to be really good.  By which I mean, you can do bare bones theater with nothing but a space, a little light, and people saying lines from a play as directed by someone else, but if you want to do something more, producers have to pay to play.  And good designers aren’t as dime a dozen as good actors.  (I know.  You are a unique snowflake.  Just like everyone else.)  Set, lights, costumes, sound, effects, props, fight choreography and so on – that can get expensive.

Designers get credited in the program at least.  Electricians and carpenters… not so much.  Sure, they get paid – usually – and often it’s just another job… but seriously.  Let’s stop and think for a moment about the people who actually do the heavy lifting and the dirty work. 

I’m not taking the place of Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs or anything, but I bring up these people who climb the grid, swing the hammers, cut the lumber and bruise, slice, bludgeon and work themselves into a filthy grimy mess all so we can look so so pretty onstage (and we do.  We’re all going to prom!) because I think it’s worth remembering them. 

It’s worth remembering that while we’re talking about the community of New York’s OOB scene, we should be cognizant that there is a virtual army of unidentified workers who bust their butts to make that show as awesome as it is, and all for less than a few thousand dollars.

I don’t want to start a revolution here or anything… but do we give awards to our run crews?  Our electricians, carpenters and those mysterious geniuses called technical directors?  Those people who take a designer’s drawings and translate them into physical reality are – and I really think this – as valuable to the art form itself as the actors who perform the writer’s words. 

Wouldn’t be something to see a guy like Jason Paradine or Elisha Schaefer win an “Independent Theater Carpenter of the Year” award?  Mostly because I think he’d give a funny speech, but I think you folks know what I mean.   Our community of theatrical artists is so much bigger than just performers and writers.  More than that – it’s the technicians, designers and front of house teams.  We’ve actually got a sizeable population here, all of us working (paid and unpaid) to make something we believe in. 

A few years ago I was a partner in a small business – a scene shop that built for independent theater – No Time For Love Productions.  I recall late one evening (or was it early one morning?) we were tired and grouchy, complaining about how damned tired we were; no one cares, there’s no money in it… blah blah blah… when my biz partner and buddy Joe Powell said something I’ll never forget.

“If everyone who worked in independent theater was instead searching for the cure for cancer, we’d have it done in no time.” 

Now obviously, that’s not totally true – but it was a clear statement about when this community decides to do something, it gets done because we will work until it gets finished. 

That is another reason I love doing OOB theater.  Even the biggest jerk in the scene shop is here for the same reason as everyone else.  To make the best show we can.  And because I can say this… the biggest jerk in the scene shop is usually my pal Brian Smallwood, because he’s a big jerk.  Who, like a jerk, taught me much of what I know about technical theater, and carpentry.   What a jerk.  

Why "Do" OOB Anyway?

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the week, Joe Mathers.

I get to follow up Gus Schulenberg?!  Great.  Well folks, you’d best get ready for some dumbing down.  Gus is a rather prolific writer, and has a way of explaining the world in a way that makes you feel like you’ve just been raw dogged by Aristotle.  In a good way.

I’ve been in NYC for the last 12 years with a variety of companies, doing all kinds of different roles, both onstage and off.  After all, when you’re doing OOB Theater, you rarely can do just one task.  Even you purists who say – “I’m just an actor!” probably do more self-marketing and self-promotion than call girls in Vegas.

That’s nothing new I think, especially for anyone who’s a reader of the various blogs, and publications, or keeps a weather eye on the ITA site.  If you’re generally aware of the independent theater scene, especially if you’re an active participant, you know that we’re all pretty much self-made.

OOB theater, or yes, as I like to call it, Independent Theater (it just seems kinda sexy right?) is a vital part of what constitutes the art form as we know it today.  With the costs of producing a large-scale show exploding year after year, and the resources available to do so shrinking at an alarming pace, I believe independent, OOB Theater is even more important than ever.  It’s always a good gamble – and I’m continually astonished that people plunk down their hard earned cash for dreck when they could see 5-10 great shows instead of “turning off the dark.”

On a personal level, independent theater is where I’ve been fortunate to do a lot of my work and on the whole it’s been work that has made me supremely happy.  But here’s a great question – why?  Why bother?

People who know me can tell you I’m a relatively practical person, and so I’ll be honest up front – if I had the opportunity to be making vast sums of money (or hell, even a comfortable living) performing on Broadway, on TV or in film, sure – I’d be doing that.  I’m not an idiot – but I wouldn’t confuse that with what happens in independent theater – which exists for art, not commerce.

Alas, opportunities to sell out to commercial interests have been few and far between for me.  I’ve had a few lucky breaks, and made a little money here and there, but like many of us, I’ve had to put in the “day job” hours.

Those day jobs however have allowed me to pursue projects and endeavors that I can be very choosy about.  I firmly believe that if I’m not getting paid to do something, I’d better love doing it.  And I do love it.  It’s incredible to be a part of this community.

I think that’s why OOB is such a great thing for those of us who are making independent theater. When everyone is involved in a project because they want to be there, even though it’s costing them time, sleep, or shifts at the restaurant, I find there’s something different to their work – no one is phoning it in.  Or if they are, they don’t tend to be seen around a lot.

I’m not saying what happens in independent theater is always amazing – in fact, I’ve seen and been seen in or built a lot of theater that is… well… not to my taste.  Oh hell, some of it’s been awful.  For those who saw that 1999 production of The Lottery at Center Stage – well, there you go.  Sorry, it wasn’t my best work.

But – even at it’s worst, when it is failing spectacularly to be watchable, and I want to gouge out my eyeballs – there is something noble and magical happening. I may hate it, but this isn’t happening to please me, or fill some economic niche.  It happens because people believe in it.  There’s a story they want to tell.  I don’t have to like it, or the people who make it, to admire it.

All that said, I’ve been fortunate to be lumped in with some incredibly talented people over the years.  The folks at Flux, Impetuous, Gideon, Nosedive, Vampire Cowboys, and on and on – and from each group of people I’ve learned something crucial to my own work.

For example - currently I’m performing in Retro Productions latest endeavor – Dear Ruth.  I’m not spoiling anything to tell you that I don’t have a gigantic pivotal role, but I have a fun role.  And the cast I’m working with is incredibly talented.  I count any show I’m involved in as successful for me if I’m doing good work, and I’m able to steal a few things from my fellow performers.

Or, maybe steal is the wrong word.  Borrow?  No wait… it’s an homage.

I mean – can I “homage” someone’s thought process and interpret it for myself somewhere down the line in another show?  Can I add a dash of Matthew Trumbull’s timing to my bag of tricks?  Can I “homage” Becky Byers’ simplicity in a vulnerable moment?  Actually, probably not - but I can try.

Doing Dear Ruth allowed me to sit in the room and watch artists create a show, and take part in that creation.  Seeing Shay Gines take what was ostensibly a rather dreadfully racist caricature and turn it into a fully realized person with her own odd sense of humor is priceless.  Being present for Heather Cunningham and David Sedgwick turning a bunch of witty banter into warmth and storied affection is just as great, and as a performer, I learned a few tricks from watching them.

I do OOB because I learn more and more about performing and making art in a single show than I did in all the classes I took in college.  Granted, we were doing selections of friggin’ Key Exchange so watching Alisha Spielmann fall for Douglas Giorgis’ warmth and tempered strength is obviously way better.  And heck, I’m playing a guy who cozies up to Matilda Szydagis, and I get to wear a snazzy 1944 Army Air Corps uniform.

It’s not like I’m being tortured here.

I did that last year – it was called The Vigil or The Guided Cradle.

I love independent theater because I am part of it and I have built up some truly cool skills along the way.  I’ve learned to do a lot of stuff.

What other stuff goes on?  What else have you learned?  Why are you asking so many questions?  What are you, a cop?

Keep watching – and this week I’ll tell you what I know about the other side of OOB – the dirty, seedy underbelly of it all… not the sex and drugs, but the carpenters and electricians who build and light it, the stage hands who move it, and occasionally the fight choreographers who make it look like people are beating the snot out of one another.

And I won’t even talk about what it’s like to form a company, and produce theater.  That’s more insane than anything, but without those loonies, where would we be?

Well… we could be stuck hoping our $250 tickets to commercial formulas (comic book fans + U2 fans = revenue) were worth it.

Guest Blogger of the Week: Joe Mathers

We would like to thank August Schulenburg for his - ahem AWESOME posts last week.

We are very excited to announce that this week's guest blogger is Joe Mathers.

Joe Mathers has been in NYC since the late 90's after graduating from Syracuse University, and relocating from his home in New Jersey to Queens.  As a performer, producer, electrician, carpenter, or fight choreographer (sometimes many at once) he has worked with companies such as Boomerang, Impetuous, and as guests of Nosedive, Brown Bear Productions, and The Vampire Cowboys.  In 2001, Joe was a founding member of APAC and some years later was also a founding member of The Flux Ensemble.  He was a managing partner of a small scenic construction shop called No Time For Love Productions, which closed down in 2009-10 and while he misses the constant sawdust, he has been performing steadily since, currently appearing in Retro Productions latest offering Dear Ruth, and will also be making a showing at The Brick Theater's upcoming Comic Book Festival in June as Karl Marx in Action Philosophers by Crystal Skillman and Fred Van Lente.  

Document your 2010-2011 productions

Contributed by Shay Gines.

I hope you had a fantastic and very productive 2010-2011 season. I want to document and archive your theatrical activities from this last year.

For the last 67 years, Theatre World has been documenting Broadway and Off-Broadway productions and has become the leading archivist of information for American theatre. In 2009 they began to include Off-Off-Broadway

The editors of Theatre World recognized the legitimacy of our community and felt that it deserved a place in this archive and I was honored that they asked me to help collect information about our amazing community.

It is so important that our community is represented. It helps to shed a light on the importance of this sector and demonstrates, the number of productions, the variety, the innovation and the determination of the work being created in our community. 

 I need your help.

 1. Please complete the online form documenting your company's season (see below)

 2. Please forward the link to this post to your fellow OOB producers and ask them to do the same.

What I need is your production information from the 2010-2011 season (shows that played between June 1, 2010 and May 31, 2011), for inclusion in Volume 67, including individual production information as well as benefits, readings, workshops, etc.

I know as an OOB producer your time is valuable, but the annual Theatre World publications are one of the premiere archives for American Theatre and it is so important for our community to be represented. I ask you to take this time to provide the information requested, so that your company's production(s) will be recorded and referenced everywhere by theatre scholars, students, casting directors, producers, and other industry professionals daily. In addition, it will be a part of the permanent record of Off-Off-Broadway and placed in important research and reference libraries from The Library of Congress to most colleges and universities across the country.

Here’s the link to the form:  http://ow.ly/4DCNn

PLEASE SUBMIT ALL MATERIALS BY JUNE 17, 2011 TO ENSURE INCLUSION IN THE 2010-2011 EDITION OF THEATRE WORLD!

Theatre World is the oldest pictorial and statistical record of the American theatre, published annually as a hardcover book by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books (America's foremost publisher of theatre and cinema books) and has been continually published since 1945. It is the most comprehensive and definitive record of Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theatre, and Off-Off-Broadway, and is available for purchase at many fine online establishments, including applausepub.com, amazon.com , or barnesandnoble.com.

Thank you for your cooperation in helping us to maintain the most complete annual record of the American theatre!

We Are Such Stuff

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, August Schulenburg.

“I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.”

The infamous first lines of Peter Brook’s The Empty Space have set a tingle racing up the necks of undergrads ever since it was published in 1968. “Yes, that’s what it is, all it is, that’s all you need!” I remember thinking triumphantly in the sun-soaked quiet of Trexler Library.

The more you turn the statement over in your mind, however, the more its simplicity gives way to something more difficult. Theatre is not just someone walking across a bare stage with someone watching; or rather, that simple act has many different meanings. And so, our conversations about theatre are often defeated by the sheer size of the word, and the many different ideas it contains.

So what exactly is this stuff that dreams are made on?

Theatre is story: Theatre was the first storytelling medium, a brilliant invention to condense events into a pattern of cause and effect that could be re-enacted by anyone, and so passed down for as long as the story was useful. Because our pattern-hungry minds are so primed for narrative, storytelling is often seen as theatre’s primary function. As a result, it can seem theatre’s closest relatives are TV and Film, two later platforms for the transmission of story.

In reaction to the ease of film’s distribution, theatre retrenched in part by pretending there were stories that were “uniquely theatrical”, and therefore immune from the superior reach of film. This even led to a move away from story entirely, by fracturing narrative to the edge of incomprehensibility; but a confusing story is still a story, and any art form whose whole is revealed through its parts changing through time cannot pretend it is made of some strange new stuff. Theatre is story, and to those who feel this part of theatre most keenly, all that is needed to resuscitate the field are better stories (or the right stories, whatever that means to the person speaking). 

Theatre is place: Inevitably, when the old “theatre” vs “theater” debate comes up, someone will patiently instruct you that “theatre” is the act and “theater” is the place. Regardless of where you fall on that great butter battle, the simple fact is theatre is local. It can only happen in one place at a time. That weakness is also a strength, and theatre people can’t help but rhapsodize about the magic of artists and audiences “breathing the same air”. That many others don’t see that value in breathing the same air, and would instead prefer to be chilling with popcorn and beer as they get their story fix from TV, doesn’t change this unique aspect of theatre in an increasingly placeless world.

Theatre can also change the nature of a place: that charged feeling of possibility in an empty theatre can be translated to literally anywhere. Those who connect deeply with theatre as place often believe that theatre simply isn’t being done in the right locations, and if we free it from the traditional buildings(or change the dynamics of those spaces), all will be well.

Theatre is community: Both the process of making and process of performing a play are social acts, and because theatre is place, that social act invariably creates or reshapes a community. A unique community is created with each performance, and the impact of that event spreads out through the local culture. The invention of the 501c3 has led many not-for-profit theatres to place this civic/social aspect of theatre as paramount, believing that if only theatres better served their communities (whatever they believe that community to be), they would thrive.

Theatre is time: Theatre is never complete; it is always becoming (which I find very becoming (sorry)). Both as a collaborative process in rehearsal, and a collaborative event in performance, it exists only by moving through time, unfixed and in flux. There can be no definitive performance, because when the curtain comes down, it continues to evolve in the leaky cup of our minds. Those who most prize this aspect of theatre says things like “process is more important than product”, and believe if audiences only embraced process more, theatre would be properly supported.

Theatre is play: You might note that all of the above holds true for most religious rituals, and I sometimes think of religion as a play where the audience goes on suspending their disbelief after the curtain falls. But the transubstantiation of theatre, even in the most documentary of plays, is still the province of imagination, and that difference makes all the difference. Consequences of human choices matter both more and less in a play: more, because the pressure of a play’s brevity makes each choice (espresso, diamonds) count; less, because the consequences of those choices disappear into (thin) air when the play ends. The safety of this perilous place is what makes theatre as play so important; and this may be what I love best about it; that all the dead bodies rise again, that all the reunited lovers get on separate trains to go home.

You will note one glaring omission from this list: theatre is business. To make theatre, you may very well need to make some business decisions; and the theatre we end up talking about most is usually made by businesses. But it’s important to separate theatre from businesses who make theatre, as it is truly possible to make theatre from almost nothing (see Rising Phoenix’s Cino Nights); and there is no guarantee that financial resources will make it any easier to bottle the lightning.  

If there is a single characteristic that separates Indie theatre from the other ways to make plays, it may simply be that we live that distinction. We make theatre first, and businesses that make theatre second (if at all). That’s not to say that Indie theatre folk aren’t enterprising and entrepreneurial; some of the savviest folks you’ll meet sling spreadsheets for Indie companies. Nor does it mean that distinction belongs only to those toiling in the Codes. There are theatres producing at the highest resource levels that somehow keep that Indie spirit intact, just as there are many producing on gaff tape and moxie solely to “make it big”.

The distinction is essential in a culture that devalues any human activity that doesn’t make a financial profit, and in a profession where self-worth is so often determined by the financial size of the businesses where you make your theatre. I like artists making a living, just as I want everyone on the earth having enough to live out their lives in peace and dignity. But when you tell me you’re a theatre artist, I measure you first by what stories you’re telling, who you’re telling them for, who you’re making them with, and what they make possible in human life that wasn’t possible before. That’s the stuff Indie theatre artists are made on, so catch us now, because the thin air is calling, and we’ll leave not a rack behind.