I Dreamed a Dream

Contributed by Caitlyn Piccirillo

 Hi all! My name is Caitlyn Piccirillo and I am the Off-Off Broadway Database Intern for the Innovative Theatre Foundation. As this is my first ever blog post, I thought it would be appropriate to tell you all why I began to love the theatre in the first place, and what inspires me. We all know the theatre can be a place of chaos, excitement, story-telling, intrigue, and social change; but for me, it all started out as magic. 

When I was three, my mother took me to go see the original production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast on Broadway.  Being a well-versed Disney-child, she figured that it would be the perfect place for an outing with a young kid.  Little did she realize the obsession that would begin to bud from that first night. 

I could not believe my little eyes.  The lights, the costumes, the singing, the utensils were all real; something that I had seen dozens of times on a screen was alive in front of my eyes. If I wanted to, I could’ve ran up and touched them – I knew in that moment that I had to keep connected to this magical life.  The life that brings animated characters from my dreams into reality.

From then on I saw at least one Broadway musical a year; being fed in the meantime with a cassette we had bought from Noodle Kaboodle (Anyone remember that store?) that had all the big numbers from all the popular musicals of that time.  The one song that finally fanned my obsession into an open flame was “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables.  I listened to that song over and over; watched the 10^th anniversary religiously.  I was very determined to see that show. Every time I passed that billboard, I would beg my mom to take me to see it, and after so many Maybe’s I figured I would never get my chance. 

But then one day, my mother finally realized I was “mature” enough to understand the show.  That night was the best night of my young life. I watched Valjean sweat and spit; I figured out how the trapdoor worked; I caught the revolutionaries’ fliers; I spoke to the conductor at intermission.  I knew from that day forward that I could not just be connected to the theatre; I couldn’t just be an idle observer – I had to create. 

From close study of the musical Les Miserables, I realized I had a penchant for social justice issues (I mean, give Fantine a break – why can’t she be a single mother?).  I realized as time went on that theatre wasn’t only for entertainment, but could be used to make a difference.  By creating good theatre, I know that I can change someone’s entire life – either by helping a social cause, or by inspiring someone else to join our crazy, chaotic, magical world.

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Caitlyn Piccirillo is currently a rising senior in Adelphi University’s Acting program.  Besides working as an actress, singer, and stagehand, Caitlyn is helping develop the Off-Off-Broadway Database through the Innovative Theatre Foundation. Some of her favorite productions worked on include: The Vagina Monologues, Fahrenheit 451, and Who Will Carry The Word.  She is excited to be embraced by the Indie Theatre Community, and hopes to continue immersing herself in its culture.

Theater for Social Change

Contributed by Gabrielle Nieporent

As a current college student studying theater, Stage Management to be specific, I know it would be close to impossible to predict where my life will go once I graduate from school. Sure, I make tons of plans and set goals for myself, but I think it would be unrealistic for me to say I know exactly what I’ll be doing two years from now.  But there is one thing I can say with certainty: I will be making theater. No matter what it takes, I know that theater will always be a part of my life.

Why theater? I often get asked. I do theater because it is living, ever changing, and has the power to reach people in a way nothing else can. By being so immediate, theater taps deeply into human empathy. This power allows theater to be an impetus for change.

I was fortunate enough to experience theater as an outlet for social change last summer. I was interning for Karen Armstrong, the Production Stage Manager of The Normal Heart while the law to legalize same-sex marriage was being put to a vote. The Normal Heart was written by Larry Kramer in 1985 chronicling the early years of the AIDS epidemic, specifically the delayed support of the government due to the demographic [gay men] the disease was targeting. (I highly suggest you read it if you never have). At the end of the play, a mock deathbed wedding takes place between the two lovers. As I watched this play every night for two months I couldn’t help but think ‘yes, we have come so far, and yet we still have so much farther to go,’ in terms of equal rights for the LGBTQ community. And that is why the revival of the play was so necessary at that specific moment in time. The play pulls you in and takes you on a full cathartic journey, making you feel anger, sadness, frustration, and even humor all in one night. It is impossible to see this play and not be moved. The night same-sex marriage was legalized in New York is one I will never forget.

I was sitting in the green room with some of the understudies, refreshing our phones as many times as we could, searching for the conclusion of the vote. As the play ran on the TV monitor. It was the second the actors stepped on stage to do their curtain call that the vote was passed. Those of us in the green room jumped up in celebration and proceeded to run down onto the deck of the stage to tell the crew as well as the actors as they filed off stage. It was a moment of triumph—a moment that made us believe change for the better was coming, and that our show playing at that time was not just some coincidence. After hearing the news, our actors proceeded to walk back on stage and notify the audience for the first time of this historic moment. That mock wedding that took place at a deathbed could now become a reality in the state of New York. Re-experiencing the past struggles and devastation of the gay community through this play made this moment that much more triumphant. Everyone in the theater that night experienced history being made. It was a thrill to be there. We couldn’t help but feel that this play and this vote happened at the same time for a reason; that somehow the education and experience we had provided really did make a difference. If a theater production can change at least one audience member’s perspective in some way, then it can lead to change. Change comes from the individual. From people becoming educated and seeing something in a way they hadn’t before, and then acting differently because of it. Due to its empathetic nature, theater is an incredible way to accomplish this. We create social change by altering one perspective at a time, and by enabling people to see a situation in a new way by appealing to their desire to be entertained and their ability to feel.

I will remember that moment in that theater for the rest of my life. It reaffirms why I do theater. What I already believed—that theater has the power to facilitate social change.

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Gabrielle Nieporent is a current Theater and Sociology double major at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. Her main area of interest is Stage Management. Last summer she was the Stage Management Intern for The Normal Heart and The Addams Family National Tour. Past college credits include: Self-Fictionalize (stage manager), The Intruder (stage manager), Dog Sees God (assistant stage manager), Romeo and Juliet (assistant stage manager), and The Servant of Two Masters (assistant stage manager). She is the Co-General Manager of the Skidmore Theater Department. This summer she was the company management intern for the Innovative Theatre Foundation.

We Love Our Interns

We have a truly awesome group of amazing theatre creators helping us out this year.  Our entire staff keeps saying how incredible they are. They are smart, responsible, capable, fun and very talented.

In honor of them, next week will be "WE LOVE OUR INTERNS" week here on our blog.

We will be featuring posts by these wonderful artists.

Connected

Like most Indie Theatre organizations, we have many ways you can "keep up," "stay in touch" and "be in the know" about the actives of the Innovative Theater Foundation. We are live and virtual. We are diversified, multi-channeled, multi-mediaed and socially networked.

Here is some of the ways you can "connect" with us:

Facebook: Events, activities, photos, quotes, updates, interesting Inide Theatre related stuff. We share it with our friends. Do you like us? or do you "Like" us like us? Friend us on Facebook.

Twitter: We're twitterpated. Almost like Facebook but in 140 characters and forwarding stuff we think you'd be interested in. Follow us on Twitter.

Blog: We ask some of the most interesting artists working Off-Off-Broadway to contribute to our blog. And umm, it kicks ass. Want to know about creating gore for the stage? We've got a blog about that. Want ideas about how to green your productions? We've got a blog about that. Do you want to know why theatre is like Cosmology? Yep, We've even got a blog about that. Want to know what is on the minds of theatre artists just like you, check out our blog. Look at that, you are already here.

Pinterest: Show us yours and we'll show you ours. Follow us on Pinterest. We share some of our favorite photos, graphics and images. We'd like to see some of your favorite theatre images as well. 

YouTube: Videos from the Nominee Announcement Parties, Ceremonies, tribute videos, interviews with theatre people and other stuff that we've recorded. Check us out on YouTube.

Update: Our Update is sent out once a month and includes stories about the community, information about important events and happenings, details about our activities and spotlights OOB artists. It is currently going to 21,000 theatre lovers in the NYC area. If you want to be one of them, sign up today.

MySpace: We do actually have a MySpace page. If you do too and you feel we've done a crapass job of updating it, you're right. Leave a comment and tell us that you use MySpace and we should do a better job of keeping it up to date. Our MySpace page.

Website: Our website is really the hub of our activity. From there you can: register your productions, vote on shows, take the surveys, read the results of the surveys, check out community events and news, read about us and find shows that you want to attend. AND we are planning a big redesign to be launched very soon.


Our busy season is upon us and we have some really exciting things that we are currently working on. If you want to stay connected, choose your poison.

The Camp Dilemma

 
In celebration of Indie Theatre Week (July 23 - July 29, 2012),  we asked members of the OOB community to share some of the Indie Theatre moments that inspired them.

Contributed by Joshua Conkel






After a performance of my play, The Sluts of Sutton Drive, a straight friend of mine said sheepishly, “I liked it. It was kind of… campy?”

“Campy?” like that, with a question mark. As if this friend were afraid to call it camp, like something couldn’t be campy and be thoughtful, smart or touching. But I wear camp like a badge of honor. It’s my art, and as much as it sucks that you may not get all the fancy awards for writing camp, I proudly place myself in a long line of tough, funny queer playwrights like Charles Ludlam, Chris Durang and Nicky Silver etc. People try to discredit camp, but it’s always been a part of the queer vernacular.  I think it’s useful and powerful and important, so I could only laugh when my straight friend was afraid to use the word as applied to me.

A random woman who didn’t know I was the playwright (or maybe she did and just didn’t care) liked the play less. She left the theater saying to her husband, “I hated it. It was just plain nasty.” What? I’d only wanted to make people laugh. Who were all these pearl clutchers, anyway? How had I written what I thought was a fun comedy, but somehow alienated a large portion of my audience?

I remember the first time I realized there might be a brand of queer, campy humor that is sort of exclusive. The play was Okay by Taylor Mac, a play in Ensemble Studio Theatre’s 75th Marathon of short plays. My friend Mallery and I held each other’s hands, trying hard to hold back laughter, whispering, “Oh my god,” to one another in disbelief at the audacious comedy we were watching. The play was hilarious, vicious and oddly… beautiful. Yes, beautiful. It’s still my favorite short play of all time.

We left the theater beaming, ecstatic, thrilled to see a play that was funny and bold and queer and young and how we wished more plays could be. This was years before I was in Youngblood or a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre myself or even knew who Taylor Mac was, which I can hardly believe now. What I remember most about Okay though was finding out after the play, by reading reviews and later in conversations about the play, is that some people fucking hated the play.

I’ve since learned that people felt the play was mean, ugly, exploitative. One critic made a point of leaving out the actors’ names, saying that he or she didn’t want to link the wonderful actors with such a disgusting piece of work. I was shocked because to me it was just a kitschy comedy, and sure, it was an over-the-top comedy, but certainly nothing to get your panties in a bunch over.  Clearly I was the play’s intended audience.

I thought of Okay again recently while reading the reviews of David Adjmi’s 3C. I finally decided to email Taylor Mac and get his opinion on the matter.

“What is funny to me is often horrifying or aggressive to those who don't consider themselves queer.  And when people who aren't queer are confronted with queer culture they can sometimes get defensive (as if someone else's culture is an attack on theirs) rather than curious and celebratory.”

But here’s my question: what if our campy plays are attacks on mainstream culture and we just don’t realize it? It’s true that camp is an important part of the collective queer voice, but it’s also always been a way for queer folks to write about a mainstream culture that excludes us. Camp, by definition, is the art of finding humor in the banal. Well, I certainly find mainstream culture banal and I’ve definitely made a career or making fun of it.

The error in judgment I’ve made is to assume my audience is full of people like me but clearly, as evidenced by Miss Pearl Clutcher, they are not. I think of plays as rollercoasters and myself as the designer. I want to take the audience on a fun ride full of shocks and laughs and surprising twists.

It’s easy to forget that lots of people don’t like rollercoasters.

Taylor Mac understands my dilemma. “As queer artists this means, to me, that if I want a non-queer audience to hear my play I need to think of ways to set them at ease and invite them into the world before jumping in hog-wild with my queer sensibility.  It doesn't mean censoring myself, but holding back before the onslaught is usually a good technique.”

I agree, but it’s also annoying. I can’t tell you how many straight people plays I watch where a straight couple shuffles around a fixed set for two hours (usually a Tribeca loft or a vacation home somewhere) and talk about money or their babies or whatever it is they talk about. Personally, I think these plays about neurotic wealthy people are more offensive than anything Taylor or I could ever write, especially given the state of our nation right now. Maybe that deserves to be made fun of?

I guess the dilemma is this: how much should queer writers soften their voices so as not to exclude mainstream audiences? I guess that depends on how established they want to be. In an American theater trending toward understated realism, their chances of mainstream success aren’t great anyway.

Charles Ludlam once said, “Straight people don’t understand camp because everything they do is camp.” When it comes to mainstream audiences, was he right?

Editorial note: I use the terms “queer” and “mainstream” somewhat loosely. There are lots and lots of straight people I’d call “queer” and lots of LGBT folks who are “mainstream".

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Joshua Conkel is a playwright and the author of The Chalk Boy, MilkMilkLemonade, The Sluts of Sutton Drive, I Wanna Destroy You, Sprawl and The House of Von Macrame. 

Creative Casting

In celebration of Indie Theatre Week (July 23 - July 29, 2012),  we asked members of the OOB community to share some of the Indie Theatre moments that inspired them.

Contributed by Sofia Landon Geier

I’m thankful to an actor I recently cast for sending me a message a few days ago regarding my theater company’s use of the term “race-blind casting.”  He feels that by using the word “race” at all, we are perpetuating the thinking that the color of an actor’s skin is a factor.  I should say the color of a non-white actor’s skin is a factor.  In the world of casting, we recognize black (African-American), brown (Latina/Latino), Asian, South Asian, Native American, etc.  We do not recognize “white.”  It is taken for granted.  A character is white unless stated otherwise. 

It is this presumption that proud Actors’ Equity member Evan Edwards takes issue with.  He is launching a one-man crusade to popularize the term “Creative Casting.” Edwards is playing the role of Harry MacAfee (made famous on Broadway and in the movies by Paul Lynde) in UnityStage Company’s AEA Showcase production of Bye Bye Birdie.  Harry MacAfee is “traditionally” played by a white actor, but, Unity Stage went the “non-traditional casting” route by inviting Edwards to take on the role.  Edwards actually came in to read for the role of Albert Peterson.  We had reached out to black actors for the part played on Broadway and in the film by Dick Van Dyke.  Edwards sang and read well, but, he wasn’t what we were looking for, when it suddenly occurred to me that standing before us was an actor with power, comic timing and a certain quality that spoke of an “old-school 1950’s family man” – he was the Harry MacAfee I had envisioned.  I just hadn’t envisioned him black.  So much for being race-blind!  Edwards got me thinking, and the more I thought, the more I realized I was far from being able to come up with an answer.  I decided to invite some people I’ve worked with for their thoughts.  You’ll see that we don’t reach a conclusion, but, we definitely hit some nerves.

Actor Imran W. Sheikh is impatient with the entire discussion. He says, “You can make the label [Creative Casting] sound as politically correct as you want, but it's still a label. Audiences should come to see a story, brilliant performances. Not skin color.”  Casting Director Kim Graham (TV’s Homeland) agrees with Edwards. “I love what he said! I think those old phrases were transitional attempts in our industry to open up the diversity factor.  But, we’ve moved past that now and our language should reflect that.”

LA actor Clyde Kusatsu remembers being told by his college drama teacher to forget about an acting career. The rationale? “There's only "Tea House of the August Moon" or "The King and I"....how could you possibly make a 'living'?"  Kusatsu didn’t let himself be defined by others, even surviving his role as Margaret Cho’s father on her short-lived sitcom.  Cho’s show famously failed due to insistence by producers on demeaning, out-of-date stereotypes.  “Rots of ruck” – oh really?  But, Kusatsu has had the last laugh – he works constantly, in a variety of roles.  He’s in basic agreement with Edwards, though, about the label, saying that  “each generation needs to be either reminded or re-educated.”

Jade Justad gets where Edwards is coming from, but, she doesn’t have time to wait for the unenlightened to catch up. “I do think it is kinda bizarre that in the world of theater where we will make believe ANYTHING - we're riding on a train, there's a big forest fire, I'm an elf- it is considered a "bold" move to cast, say, an African-American actress as Hedda Gabler.”  A conservatory trained stage actress, Justad does not see a viable career for herself in the theater.  She jokingly refers to it as “a white kid’s sport.”  Instead, Justad is writing, directing and acting in her own films.  Now she’s the one doing the casting, putting her own vision out there. 

I requested a black roommate at college.  Why?  I had never spoken to a black person and I wanted to put an end to the narrowness of my life.   Until Edwards contacted me, I thought “race-blind” was progressive.  “Progressive Casting” is the alternative suggestion of actress Veronica Reyes-How, who made it to the top in ABC’s Diversity Showcase.  Diverse casting? Progressive casting? Creative casting?  Just “casting?”  Honestly, I want to cast the best person for the role.  But, I have found that if I don’t specifically ask for actor submissions from a particular ethnicity, actors of that ethnicity do not respond.  And, I don’t mean that old saw “actors of all ethnicities are encouraged to apply.”  Very few actually apply.  So… any answers out there?  Or will the answer come with time, through just the doing of it?  If we cast without regard to race, then at some point, will it all become moot?   Can we envision a post-racial creative world?    

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Sofia Landon Geier is the Founder & Producing Artistic Director Unity Stage Company. She began her theatre career as an actor, studying drama at Northwestern University where she gained experience performing everything from Greek tragedy, Shakespeare and restoration comedy to Second City improv. Sofia acted with several of America’s leading repertory companies, including Connecticut’s Long Wharf and Stamford Theatres, Albany’s Capital Rep (which she co-founded), and Actors’ Theatre of Louisville where she was directed by Jon Jory. Sofia received a Drama Desk nomination as Best Actress for her critically-acclaimed performance of the title role in Peg O’ My Heart. On Broadway, Sofia played Clelia in Larry Shue’s comedy The Nerd opposite Peter MacNichol.