Why Indie Theatre?: Erin Smiley

 

 In celebration of Indie Theatre Week (July 23 - August 1, 2011),
we asked members of the OOB community to answer this question, "Why Indie Theatre?"

For me, this question is actually a two-parter: Why do Indie Theatre? and Why see Indie Theater? First with the doing:

At first, I did Indie theater because it was what came easily – it was where the opportunities were, so I took them. I had a wonderful time working for and with others, easily juggling a 40-hour a week survival job plus 20-30 hours of rehearsal, wondering the whole time what on earth “regular” people did with all that extra time on their hands. Then came the most dangerous phrase in Indie Theater: “Let’s start a theater company.” And that way, my friends, madness lies. If you already successfully run a company, you probably know what I’m talking about. The endless planning, negotiating, booking, fundraising, publicizing, casting, rehearsing, performing, managing, meeting, discussing, smoking and drinking that all goes into a company. So, why do it? Because it’s hard. And tremendously rewarding. And exciting. And banging-your-head-against-a-wall frustrating. And wonderful. And perhaps the hardest thing you’ll ever do. But for many of us in this community, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Now, with the seeing: See Indie theater because for about the price of a movie ticket (and way cheaper than IMAX 3D) you can see just about anything and it can be amazing. Or terrible. Or something in between. But no matter what, if you select wisely, chances are it will be memorable. There is a tremendous amount of talent in the Indie theater scene – it never ceases to astound me just how many tremendously gifted performers, designers, directors, playwrights and other theater professionals call Indie theater their home base, their place where they get to really create. There is tremendous diversity in Indie – classics, musicals, new works, new interpretations of old works – some companies choose to specialize in one of these areas, I’ve been fortunate to run a company that does them all. There is a tremendous amount of experience in Indie – some Indie Theater artists have been at this longer than some of us have walked this Earth and they have learned how to put together a damn good show in that time. And on the flip side, there are new, fresh ideas from young up-and-comers in Indie, highlighting ideas and plays that have not yet been seen or experienced. The breadth of talent, type and quality of theater is all over the map in Indie, and this is both its greatest asset and, to some, a great detriment (which, I think, is partially the issues with the Showcase Code (which I won’t even get into, as that’s a whole other can of worms) and the “hey-the-Times-came-to-review-a-show-at-the-venue-I-booked-last-week-and-they-hated-it-and-thought-it-was-ridiculous-and-amateurish-and-they’re-never-going-to-schlep-up-4-flights-of-stairs-to-see-my-brilliant-and-amazing-opus-in the-same-venue-because-of-them!” factor or, put simply “hey, those guys are making me look bad!”) But if you want my suggestion, I say go see it all. See shows in festivals. See things at venues you’ve never heard of. See free Shakespeare in the park (that isn’t produced by The Public). See everything you can and discover what you like and find more shows/companies like it. Support those companies by following their work and attending their shows, their readings, their events, and tell your friends just how great that show you saw last week was. Encourage them to go see it for themselves and when they ask “Why should I go see an Indie show?” tell them all of the things I’ve told you. Or none of them. Give them your answer to the question and just keep passing the word along.

And finally, a postscript. I intentionally never used the word “love” in this post, not because I don’t love Indie theater or love what I do, but because I don’t think any of us would be here, working in any kind of theater if we didn’t love it. We can scream from the rooftops why and how much we love theater and the answers probably won’t be terribly different. So, I just take the love as a given. Which is not a bad thing, as far as I see it.

 ___________________________________________

Erin Smiley is Producing Director of (re:) Directions Theatre Company. Her work with RTC has included directing the New York premiere of Figaro/Figaro by Eric Overmyer, curating the Anybody But Shakespeare Classics Festival, directing the first production of Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt's Celebration in New York in nearly 40 years and directing the NYC premiere of Liner Notes by John Patrick Bray. Outside of RTC, she has directed new works, musicals and operas with companies in and around New York and also works at a teaching artist. Erin is a graduate of Vassar College, a two time member of Lincoln Center Directors Lab, happily married to an amazing and talented man and delighted more and more every day to be Mom to their little co-production. 

Why Indie Theatre?: Edward Einhorn

 In celebration of Indie Theatre Week (July 23 - August 1, 2011),
we asked members of the OOB community to answer this question, "Why Indie Theatre?"

I began my theater company nearly 20 years ago, almost on a whim.  I knew someone who owned an art gallery.  I had recently read a play about art, Tom Stoppard’s Artist Descending a Staircase, which I sort of wanted to direct.  I was interning at New Dramatists and knew I had some free rehearsal space.  I named the company Untitled Theater Company #62, at the suggestion of my friend Daniel, as a joke about the titles of the paintings.  The company’s name also had a secondary meaning; it was one of thousands of semi-anonymous theater companies, something that would briefly bloom and die thereafter.  Why did my company need a name for such an ephemeral existence?

The show went well.  I was proud of the performance, the audience seemed to enjoy it, and I actually made money on it (OK, about $100 net, which I think had to pay to repair a window I accidentally broke while cleaning).  So…then came another.  This was a bit more expensive, lost money.  But the show went well.  Then another.  Then…

The more my company existed, the more it grew an identity.  When we incorporated in 1995 as Untitled Theater Company #61 (my brother took as his lawyer’s fee the new number, corresponding to the year of his birth), I was hard pressed to define our mission, except as plays that I liked.  Plays that, essentially, I sort of wanted to direct.  Or that I wanted to write and direct.  I was proud of the quality of the work, but somewhere in my mind I considered the work a sort of audition, for some random theater impresario who would see it and take me on.

For years the company was an island to itself.  I barely had contact with the theater community, as such, I just did work and tried to get people to come.  Few did.  Then, in 1996, I directed Richard Foreman’s My Head Was a Sledgehammer at NADA.  Suddenly, I was part of a larger community.  Suddenly, I found like-minded theater folk who shared the same passion for theater that I had.  I had found independent theater.

Of course, I had been doing independent theater all along.  I had been perhaps the most independent of all—independent of community, of press, of audience…independent in ways that, I suspect, many young directors in the city find themselves, until they find others like them.

But before I found NADA, I remember, I had found theater to be a sometimes lonely place.  The actors would come and go, and I enjoyed their company, but often I would be alone in the theater, working on lights, loading in, loading out, and doing all the things that made the show ultimately happen.  The support that NADA gave to me, and specifically that Ian W. Hill gave to me for that show, has been the support I have found throughout my time in independent theater since: fellow souls who find that theater is not merely something they enjoy, it is their calling.  Ian worked with me not just to support me, but because that is where his heart lied as well.

I found myself involved in downtown festivals, when those festivals were a rarity, not an everyday occurrence.  And the community grew.  And then, I decided to put together the Ionesco Festival.

There is nothing that makes you appreciate the depth and breath of a movement than putting on 39 plays in 13 venues.

That festival changed the company and me in ways I had never suspected.  First, it defined the company.  It was years till I came up with the phrase Theater of Ideas to describe what we do—a subtitle, of sorts, to our Untitled identity.  But many of the people we work with today were found during the Ionesco Festival, and truly, nothing defines a theater company more than the people involved.

Equally importantly, that festival let me begin to realize the unique capabilities of independent theater.  I had had the crazy idea to produce every single Ionesco play, because, essentially, that was my passion.  That was a dream of mine, to sit in the theater and watch every single show, onstage.  And it happened.  Because I found enough people to fill 39 shows with their own passion, enough actors and designer and directors and producers to also believe in what I believed in and bring the show into being, no matter what.

The festival was scheduled to be three months long.  Our first show was on September 6, 2001.  All the theaters were downtown.  After September 11, of course, the whole city paused.  But when the city came back, when the subways were running, three days later, the shows began again.  No production was cancelled.  And by the end of September, we had shows that were turning people away.

Since then, we have produced a number of festivals, all of which have galvanized the independent communities in their own unique ways.  But even our stand alone productions are events that could only happen in independent theater.  We just produced a new play/operetta by Václav Havel, and when I saw it a year ago in Brno.  His agents asked, who could possibly do this show in the United States?  Think of the budget it would require.  You need opera singers.  Live musicians.  A large cast of skilled actors.  People who really knew and understood the history of the Czech Republic.

That sounds perfect for us, I said.  Then later, I mentioned—the director is going to add video and a full meal as well.  And maybe some rock band for pre show and post.

How could all that happen?  Because of the support of the Ice Factory Festival, which it was a part of, and the staff of the Ohio.  Because of the facilities and staff of 3LD, where the performance was held.  Because of the skills and passion of every one of the very talented people involved.

Because we were working in independent theater in New York City, a unique place where those very particular sort of dreams and passions can come to life.

 ___________________________________________

Edward Einhorn is the Artistic Director of Untitled Theater Company #61, a Theater of Ideas: scientific, political, philosophical, and above all theatrical.  He has curated The Ionesco Festival, the NEUROfest, the Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas, and the Havel Festival.  Other prominent productions include Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep at 3LD (adaptor and director); The Velvet Oratorio at Lincoln Center (librettist); Rudolf II at the Bohemian National Hall (playwright); Cat's Cradle at Walkerspace (adaptor and director); and the Off-Broadway production of Fairy Tales of the Absurd at Theater 80 (co-writer, director).  He is also the author of numerous children's books.

Indie Theatre Week

July 23rd - August 1st, 2011

How are you celebrating Indie Theatre Week? The Community Dish, United Stages and The Innovative Theatre Foundation have several events planned to celebrate this amazing community.

Indie Theatre Midsummer Classic and Picnic
Saturday, July 23rd · 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Central Park's 65th Street ballfields
with after party at Malachy's pub (72nd and Columbus)

Who will get bragging rights for the next year, the Indie Outlaws or Team Awesome?

Get more info. 

Life Offstage Podcast

Wednesday, July 27th

With Tim Errickson and Susan O'Connor
Get more details.
Check it out on the 27th.

Community Dish Meeting
Details forthcoming.

Nominee Announcement Party
Monday, August 1st · 7pm to 10pm

Celebrate the 2010-2011 IT Awards Nominees

at the historic Off-Off-Broadway Venue
Demo Hall / Carmine St. Center at Our Lady of Pompeii
located at 25 Carmine Street (corner of Bleecker)
Tickets are $10 and are on sale now!

Blog
July 23rd - August st
Starting tomorrow, we are dedicating our blog to Indie Theatre Week. For 10 days we will host a roster of all-star OOB community members each of whom address the question "Why Indie Theatre?"

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.

What? More changes to the Nom Party?

Yes and No.

We've changed the date. The 2011 Nominee Announcement will be held on Monday August 1st. 

On June 20th, we announced some changes to the Nominee Announcement party. The most significant of which was that unlike the previous nominee events, the nominees would not be informed of their nomination in advance of the public announcement. The intent was to bring a different kind of excitement and surprise to the event, to encourage a wider celebration of the community and we wanted to try something new. 

However since we broke the news, we have received overwhelming feedback asking us to reconsider. We have met with community members and had many conversations about the event, our objectives and the changes.  

Read some of the comments.

And we've decided we will inform the nominees in advance of the public announcement.

Read more about this decision.

We will begin making phone calls later this week.

So what do you think?  Did we make the right decision?

We do hope you will join us.

Monday, August 1st

for the

2011 Nominee Announcement

at the historic Off-Off-Broadway Venue
Demo Hall / Carmine St. Center at Our Lady of Pompeii
located at 25 Carmine Street (corner of Bleecker)

from 7pm to 10pm

All tickets are $10 and are on sale now!

Dishin' on the Fringe with Tanya O'Debra

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Andrea Alton.

Happy Fourth of July Weekend Everyone!

My name is Molly “Equality” Dykeman and I am a poet/security guard at PS 339. My good friend Ms. Andrea Alton (she’s actually kind of a douchebag) took off to the Catskills and left me with this blog. I gotta be honest, I know nothin’ about theater. The last play I went to I fell asleep at but that may have been cause I was drunk. Regardless Andrea asked me to interview the very hot Ms. Tanya O’Debra who I met at last year’s Miss Fag Hag Pageant at Comix (RIP). It was a benefit for The Harvey Milk School.  See I can do nice things.

Oh…I also gotta plug my show. I’m doin’ a solo show at The New York Fringe Festival cause I heard it was a good way to meet ladies. Like most people out there, I only got into theater and poetry to get laid. It’s called The F*cking World According To Molly and the shows gonna rock!

So you don’t get confused, my interview with Tanya (who I secretly love) starts now.

First off, let me get the most pressing question out of the way cause I know my readers want to know. What do you think of my mullet?

“I love it so much that I want to stuff it -.” (At this point, Tanya’s language got so graphic that I passed out and cannot print what she said. Here’s something I learned…ladies that you meet at pageants tend to be a little crazy. Very hot, but a little crazy.)

Let’s move on…but my mullet and I would like to thank you for that. What was your craziest fringe experience?

“In 2001, I participated in my first Fringe with a play I co-wrote called "Fuck You or Dead Pee-Holes; an American Tale in Thirteen Acts" with a cast of 21 people who we were all about 20 years old.  The White Trash Hamsters (our theater company) decided to try a little publicity stunt by protesting our own show.  We invented a fake Christian organization, I think it was called something like The Society for Purity in Theater, then split the cast in half.  We went to Tompkins Square Park (it could have been Washington Square, but I am too old to remember) and half of us flyered for the play and the other half protested.  It ended in a West Side Story style fight between the two groups, just without the dancing and gun violence.  The police drove up to the park with the sirens and the lights and broke up the altercation.  It was pretty exciting, and I was so glad not to have been arrested.  Ah, youth!”

I just gotta say that’s a classy name for a play and I would go see it. Who wants to see a play called Normal Heart or War Horse? Boring. Out of these three options, what's your favorite food? Chicken fingers, nachos or raisins?

“Nachos.  Definitely.”

Me too! Nachos and a two liter of Orange soda is my favorite meal. Speaking of food. What was your grossest fringe festival experience?

“For "Fuck You", we needed large amounts of fake blood that could be washed out of the costumes every night.  Someone had the brilliant idea to use laundry detergent with some sort of coloring added.  The whole cast ended up with terrible chemical burns.  So, instead of getting different blood, we'd slather ourselves with Vaseline before each show.  Obviously.”

I would love to slather you with Vaseline. Or nachos. Nachos would be kinda cool. Hey what was your funniest fringe experience?

“In 2001, the Fringe was still in its kamikaze phase.  Imagine our surprise when our masterpiece, "Fuck You", was placed in a garage instead of a theater.  We were not pleased.  Since this garage was right next to the old Present Company Theatorium, we expressed our displeasure by naming our venue The Butthole Theatorium and printing that on our postcards.  Even though I know that was not a nice thing to do, it still makes me laugh to this day.”    

I don’t mean to sound crass but I love a good butthole story. What's the biggest thing you had to overcome?

“I think the biggest obstacle for any show to overcome is the fact that your show is part of a festival, not its own separate production.  You have to tailor your show to your festival, not the other way around.”

I would tailor my life around you cause you are so f*cking hot. Do you remember the first show you saw at the fringe?

“The first show I ever saw at the Fringe was a show by The Beggars Group, and lord help me, I can't remember the name of it.  But The Beggars Group was a truly fearless duo, Liz Maher and Randy Anderson, and I loved the show. “

And my mullet and I love you. Did you meet someone special or fall in love at the fringe? I don’t mean to be negative but please say no.

“Sorry Molly. I met my boyfriend, Gregg Bellon, at last year's Fringe. I was the Venue Director for the HERE Dorothy B. Williams Theatre, and he is the Festival Technical Director.  At first we hated each other, but now we live together.  Go figure.”

That’s a very nice story. It touched my bloated heart. I mean I threw up a little in my mouth but it was still nice. Did a homeless person, mouse/roach walk across the stage?

“Probably, but who can tell the difference between those three beings.  Here in NYC, they're all roughly the same size.”

Good point Tanya. Did the A/C work or were you sittin’ with a bunch of smelly people?

“The A/C in the Fringe installed in the Butthole Theatorium was less than stellar.  Thankfully the Fringe no longer houses shows in non-theatrical venues.”

How do you stay looking so HOT?

”It's probably all the kegel exercises I do.”

Maybe I should give those a try but my body is anti movement. What’s your fondest fringe memory?

“After all the craziness of the 2001 Fringe, with the Butthole Theatorium and the chemical burns and everything, "Fuck You" ended up winning the Excellence Award in Overall Production.  It was pretty great.”

I think you are such an amazing person I would like to give you an Excellence in Hotness Award for Overall Achievement in Being HOT on behalf of the New York Innovative Theatre Awards and Molly “Equality” Dykeman Enterprises. I guess I’ll have to check with Shay before I make it official so it’s unofficial now. Actually Shay’s really Hot too so I’m gonna give her a Hotness Award also. And lastly, have you ever made love in a vat of chocolate while eating Oreo’s?

“What I do in front of a webcam in the privacy of my own dungeon is none of anyone's business.”

I gotta get my computer fixed. I love ya Tanya. Thank you for being a good interview. I’m gonna go buy you some nachos and Oreos now.

And to anyone reading this, I’ll see you at the fringe. I’ll be the one with the mullet, safety vest and a lady on each arm. Feel free to say hi and come see my show so we can go party together after.

My good friend and possibly my future wife Miss Tanya O’Debra has been involved with the festivals listed below and will be a Venue Director for Dixon Place at this year’s fringe festival. If you see her, tell her Molly sent you and that you think she should dump her boyfriend and give me a try.

2001 - Fringe NYC "Fuck You or Dead Pee-Holes; an American Tale in Thirteen Acts" - co-writer/co-director/actor

 2008 - Philadelphia Fringe "Straight Up Vampire" - Actor

2009 - Edinburgh Fringe "Radio Star" -writer/performer

2010 - Fringe NYC Venue Director for HERE Dorothy B. Williams Theater

2011 - Orlando Fringe "Radio Star" - writer/performer; Montreal Fringe "Radio Star" - writer/performer; Fringe NYC Venue Director for Dixon Place