Many new things and "A Grimm Reality"

Well,

I'm not a very good blogger.

Sorry bout that. You're probably all gone now.

Maybe that's for the best.

I was starting to feel pressure about doing this for people to read. Like this needed to be a really good blog.

But I've missed doing this and I think it does me good.

So maybe now I'll keep doing this but for me.

No offense, if anyone else is still listening.

So what has happened in the the last 3 months?

Well I have a respectable day job.

2 in fact.

One of them is teaching Meisner at NYFA. I love it. Love it, love it, love it.

It's great in many many ways, but not the least of which is that I get to teach MEISNER. Not just acting or scene study, but strict regimented Meisner.

It's been rejuvenating. Teaching others the principles and beliefs that shaped me as an artist has helped me reconnect to them again in a deeper way.

It's fantastic. And I love my students. Being around people who are truly just concerned with the art of acting is a wonderful change of pace from trying to get money or a job.


A Grimm Reality is a reality now.

Bryant Park gave us final approval, finally.

July 24, 31, August 7, and 14.

Right now we've had a few meetings with an ever expanding group of people. Actors, writers, designers, and others.

It's a big beautiful mess right now, but I think it's going to be something truly truly special. Something created by a group, and experienced in an immersive environment. And free. Couldn't fit the principles I laid out much better than that. Thanks to, well, everyone for their support and helping things fall in place for this.

Theatre 4the People is also a reality now. We've applied for fiscal sponsorship with Fractured Atlas, should be approved soon.

We also had our first "prequel" kind of performance. Robert Lyons offered us a week at the OHIO and we threw together a festival of short plays in a couple of weeks. SHORT LOVE at the OHIO was a success and yours truly was onstage in a real live show for the first time in 6 years.

Felt good. Couldn't have done it without Adam Belvo carrying me through most of it. And Justin Swain's fantastic NEW CAR PLAY...it was a really great experience. To get to act with such a great actor and good friend, and to speak such wonderful words--and I got work again with Jake Witlen, who is a damn fine director. The kind of director who lets you be the best actor you can be. Swain, Witlen, and Belvo, I can never repay you guys enough.

Bekah Brunstetter gave us a short play and bunch of monologues--we made the evening a little bit interactive with some pieces happening in the audience--and it just me made hungry to do more. I got to work with a lovely actress, Julia Davis who is a very sincere and very very brave actress...my friend Kara Ayn got to direct her boyfriend Edward (my Lee from TRUE WEST last year) in Bekah's short play. And they were all awesome.

Erin McCarson reprised her role in DRAMA PLAY or as it's often called the "God Bless Harry Potter" monologue. Which is so amazingly fantastic that everyone who sees her do it, immediately becomes enamored with both Erin and Bekah. For good reason, it's the best monologue I've ever seen. There's been some discussion of Bekah writing a whole show for Erin as that character. I love the idea, but I'm also terrified of messing with something so damn good. I think it might be too tempting not to see if we can't do it. It's worth a try.

I'm still heartbroken about the OHIO, but I thank God for the opportunity to perform in that hallowed space one last time. It was magical. We had a great group of people and plays and everything was really fun and inspiring.

Dan Kitrosser made a splash with a new song by a character he created for Desiree Birch's bday party a while back: BIG GAY STORYTELLING FROG is everyone's new favorite character. Dan and I will have to create a whole show for him. The people demand it.

To think that was Dan's companion contribution to his poetic and affecting play ON THE WAY TO MY ABORTION which despite the jolting title was a lovely, touching piece of nonpolitical of theatre. I'm glad you're on my side Dan, cause you're a formidable talent. Not many people can write nonpolitical abortion plays. Even fewer can write good ones. And I doubt anyone else has the juice to bring BIG GAY STORYTELLING FROG to life. I just don't see how.

Also, my good friend Roberta Colindrez (hope that's spelled right, 'Bert) got to do a piece written just for her by Bekah. And she was great. That was her first performance in NYC, I think, and she got to do it at the OHIO and with Bekah's words. I was incredibly proud. ('Bert also just became a Neo-Futurist, so again I am proud and feeling damn lucky to have such talented friends!)

Anyway, it was a great time and raised a little cash for THEATRE 4the People.

I also got to work on Donnetta Gray's play THE NEW NORMAL with Coyote Rep. I don't know yet if I'm directing the fall production of it. I think her old professor is supposed to, but maybe not. Anyway, it was great to work on, and I think Donnetta is becoming a pretty good playwright. (She's on a new show called Rubicon-I think that's the title-so she's pretty much kicking ass) Whatever happens, I think the play is going to be great and I'm glad to be a part of it in whatever way I can. Got to work with an old friend, Michael Mason, as a director on that and it felt like coming home again to work with such a talented guy I've known for over a decade. Need to do that again soon Mikey.

So yeah. Busy. Good. Friends kicking ass. Good things all around.

Now it's time to buckle down and start getting Grimm Reality built.

I'll write again soon.

Maybe I can keep up a weekly thing. Like every Saturday or something.

We'll see. Right now, I don't really know what I'm doing. Everything seems suddenly fast and furious, like a roller coaster or a car joy ride spinning just out of control. Like I should be scared, but instead I am having a fine, fine time doing what I'm doing.

Guess we'll see how it all plays out.

"Alan: I mean just imagine it, see the car wrapped around it, the sap pouring out slowly, the smell of the inside of the tree, like the forest, the real forest, like wilderness...and and no more this beautiful clean new car smell. No more of this fakey fake processed pine tree, and fake fakey life. No more. We will have blood dripping from our mouths. We will taste death. We will walk with the Whales. We will ride the High End Rooster.

Adam: What!?

Alan: I'm reaching for something, c'mon let's do it."

Excerpt from New Car Play by Justin Swain

Understatements. (________was right.)

Next September The Ohio will no longer be a theater. You can read about it here.

It could rain all day everyday for a year and I couldn't feel any worse.

To say that the Ohio is an irreplaceable home for NYC theatre artists would be an understatement.

To say that the Ohio is one of the few places left in NYC where theatre artists who took big, grand scale risks were encouraged, nourished, and rewarded by both the space itself and by the good people of Soho Think Tank would be an understatement.

To say that the Ohio is my favorite theatre (or maybe even just my favorite place) in NY would be an understatement.

To say that I was always both giddy and inspired when I got the chance to work there would be yet another understatement.

I'd say that this September, NYC is going lose another big piece of what makes this city special.

But that would be just another understatement in a long list.

Well, NYC let's just keep this going. We let the Provincetown Playhouse (the birthplace of all of Eugene O'Neill's plays) be remade into another part of NYU Inc.' s image***, we're going to let the Ohio become god only knows what (a Banana Republic? Condos?), and we've let theaters and other homes for artists close down by the dozen in the last decade.

You know, I can't help but wonder when I read about soulless moneysuits that ruin people's lives, the welfare of entire nations, the physical health of entire communities, and the livelihoods of their own countrymen all for the sake of making more money...if maybe it's because we're creating these people.

When we deaden the soul of our city, our community, our home--how are we not deadening our own souls?

A dead city of chain restaurants, condos, corporations, and banks.

Dead cities breed dead people.

Two good things to come out of this.

The movement to get the tax credit for landlords that rent to non-profits is an important one. As disheartening as loosing the Ohio, we must strengthen our resolve and not lose the new found power we've created in working together.

The unity and dedication that is taking hold in the Indie/Off-off community is a good, good thing.

A lot of people are a part of that, but I have to to give a big, big shout out to the NY Innovative Theatre foundation. I feel like they're really doing so much to help the community--Keep it up guys.

United we will grow; divided we will wither and die.

The other positive is that theatre is going to have to evolve and adapt to new spaces and venues. It's going to have to become "immersive" or as I've started calling it "3-D".

But I can't help remembering the hyperbolic graffiti slogan of my good friend scrawled everywhere they went, ___________(name left blank for their protection), and how it used to infuriate me.

But maybe it's time to call a spade a spade. Without a proper diagnosis, we can't fix this.

And fix it we must, because we're fighting for our lives now.

Two quotes today.

One to remind us why the work we do is so important.

'I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. "
(Maya Angelou, Professor of English Literature Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC )

The other because it's time to call it like it is.

"New York is Dead"
(_________)




***Correction: NYU did not tear down the Provincetown Playhouse entirely as I originally wrote. They are"building around it." Thanks to Joshua Hill for correcting me.

I assumed they were tearing it down because the last time I walked by it they were obviously tearing down one of the walls. Which as it turns out they did even though they weren't supposed to.

I'm not trying to nitpick here or play the inconsolable extremist. But whatever the "reconstruction" of the playhouse is or is supposed to be, the fact remains that I personally have very high doubts that any real remnant of what it was and what it represented will remain. Some old bricks and a plaque on the wall just isn't quite the same thing. At the end of the day, NYU bought it so it could tear it down and build more office space. If they keep 3 of the old walls and the floor and build an office building around it, it's not really gonna be the Provincetown Playhouse in spirit anymore. Not that it has been for years. I hope I'm proven wrong.

Back from the Future

Hi there!

Been a while.

Over a month actually.

Why the gap? Well, I have actually had a little more employment, plus my Bday, plus my childhood favorite football team finally went to the big dance and won it all, plus....

I can't write 9,000 word essays all the time.

So now I have to actually restrain myself and talk less and say more. I don't know if this is possible yet. I'll do my best.

Oh yeah.

One other thing happened.

One other little time eating distraction....


Dan Kitrosser (you remember Dan, he of the "AWESOME conversation?) and I are starting a company.


Theatre for the People


We're doing a show this summer in Bryant Park.

A Grimm Reality

Modern adaptations of Grimm's fairytales, in Bryant Park, free of charge.

We have a ton of of work to do.

But yeah. It's on.

So I guess this just became my actual Work/Company blog.

Thanks for reading my long rambling rant and giving me a place to turn my thoughts into something real. Who'd have thought that a blog of all things would have given rise to a whole new company.

Guess it's time now for me to walk the walk. Time to put up or shut up.

Man, I am excited. I have no idea how to do what we're going to try and do, but it's gonna be fun figuring it all out.

Click on the subscribe to this feed button and you'll get a notice when the new shorter (I promise, I promise) entries show up.

Well, that seems long enough.

Time to go actually work on the future.

(Cue the quote)

Be the change you want to see in the world--Gandhi

A must read

Read this article.

Different topic from what I've been railing on and on about, but it's exactly the same kind of thinking applied to a different part of theater.

Read!

Batman Stunt shows and "The Word that changed Theater forever"

A few revelations already about what I've been saying.

As I was talking about development and audience involvement, I realized that was actually a key part of Accessibility.

I am going to need to revisit that principle later because I think what I'm ultimately looking for is a way to build theater that is a part of the community--accessibility not just economically but throughout the life of the theater.

The next item on the list is what I originally termed "authenticity."

I have a problem with using this word for several reasons.

1. It's part of the catch phrase for WMC. "Authentic. Original. Theater."

Which is an awesome catchphrase. But it's WMC's catchphrase.

I'd rather not start a new venture using part of the old terminology.

2. What does it actually mean?

The dirty little secret about that catchphrase and WMC is that everyone had a different idea about what it meant.

The phrase actually came from Brenda a friend of WMC that worked in Nonprofit fundraising/marketing.

That's why it has such a great ring. Original simply meant New Works--everyone agreed on that. But "Authentic?"

It meant different things to different people in WMC. I tried to nail down what Authentic meant to us but I got so tired of hearing everyone else turn it towards to what they liked or wanted it to mean--whenever someone asked me what it meant I just found ways of avoiding any definitive answer.

(One thing I really like about the direction WMC is heading now is that I think as a group they have a clearer more singular vision of the type of work WMC should do is. They can probably all agree on what "authentic" means to them now)

3. Authentic is a buzzword now.

Of course it is. People take classes in how to be on reality TV shows. Even worse, we all know this. So now, any Reality TV, Documentaries, Youtube videos--are all under immediate suspicion and scrutiny. It's fake until proven real these days.

And everywhere around us the word authentic is popping up and is used as high praise.

Which means over saturation and diffusion of meaning for the word "authentic" is just a short while away. Remember when every book/movie/tv special/article was about

"The ____ that changed _____ forever"?

Whatever that means.

So what does Authentic mean to me?

So part of what authentic theater always meant to me was, as a friend of mine recently said, "theater from the gut."

Visceral.

As in not solely reliant on intellectual ideas.

It also meant that to be visceral it required emotionally honest, organic acting.

Part of what it meant to me was, problematic. That is, not a neatly tied up story that serves as a lesson.

But rather a story that is viciously honest with the audience and deals with a honest, human problem and does not give predigested answers designed to "better" the audience.

So let's combine those two ideas and see what we come up with.

We put emotionally honest actors in problematic stories that wrestle with difficult issues.

I suppose what I meant by authentic is "honest"

But "honest theater" is a bit of an oxymoron if you think about it.

And you can't really escape the fact that any storyteller or group of storytellers are going to have a point of view that will color their narrative.

But I don't think that that means we can't have a real struggle. But it can't be too finely choreographed.

When I was in highschool I went to Six Flags Theme Park and saw a "Batman Stunt Spectacular."

Spectacular isn't the word I used to describe it then.

It was a mildy entertaining live show that featured a few stunts that I'm sure were very dangerous to attempt in a time sensitive manner in a live show twice a day, but compared to what we see on tv and in film everyday--not very exciting or impressive. Definitely not spectacular.

Even worse, some of the stunts were obviously faked. Physically different actors doubling each other, smoke and mirror tricks that weren't very tricky, and some BAD stage combat.

Now I don't advocate dangerous physical situations for actors, but I do want to see actors take emotional journeys onstage. Ones with high stakes. In stories that have fair fights--not fixed outcomes.

I'm not talking about improvised endings, but honest stories about real issues. No propaganda.

If everyone walks out of play with the exact same experience and feeling about what they just experienced--I'd rather just skip it.

I believe that if everyone working on a play actually investigates the story that they're telling--writer, director, actor, designer--that they will find an honest way to tell the story each time.

To be sure this requires a vigilant commitment to honesty and self awareness. We must be objective investigators and careful creators; we cannot make ourselves into wise prophets and glamorous heroes.

Authentic Theater:

A theater where genuine conflicts and real human problems are honestly and sincerely wrestled and struggled with by all the artists involved.

Or as Sandy said about acting: Living truthfully in imaginary circumstances.

That's (in my opinion) the most perfect definition of acting and damn close to what I'm getting at...okay...round 2...

Authentic Theater:

A place where imaginary circumstances are both created and lived out truthfully.

Oof.

That's as close as I'm going to get today.

Any feedback or suggestions are welcome.

"I hear a blue heaven crying

Some folks just call it a bird

Call it what you will, I'm heartbroken still

Words are just words

Some call an end a beginning

For right now they'll go unheard

Call it what you will, I'm heartbroken still

Words are just words"

Joe Pug, Call it what you will

A Gift.

Reduction #1

So far if we were to boil all these words words words (why am I so damn longwinded??) down to simple sentences what would we have?

1: I want to create non-proscenium theatre productions using both traditional and nontraditional approaces that are designed to give people a full, 3Dimensional experience.

2. I want to create a deeper relationship between artists and their community by relying on a Pay What You Can ticket price to insure accessibility to all people, and a profit sharing approach to compensating the artists.

3. I want to develop new works and new productions with a holistic, integrated approach to all aspects of a production in an artist driven system.

I also talked about training actors. I think that may actually belong in this section.

Authenticity. Or Problematic.

I'm not really sure what the title is yet.

But I know what I'm after.

I think.

But since I've been entirely too long winded I thought I'd just post this short little bit of thought as a gift--a breather--before I return to my normal long windedness.

You're welcome.

If you're in NYC, enjoy the snow.

Isaac

"Brevity is the soul of wit"

Mercenaries, One night stands, the F word, and my kind of army

NOTE: This entry is too damn long. Seriously. Like Lord of the Rings Extended Director's cut Special Edition long. Read it only if you're really hard core.

Otherwise just note that I believe in committing to producing work and then developing it. Not developing work to see if it should be produced. I want to train actors because I believe in a continuity of style and certain aspects of acting are very important to me and integral to what I want to do. Audiences should be part of development but not in charge of it. Invite them to support your work and the artists involved but don't hand the reins over to them.

That's all.

Whew. I just saved you like an hour of reading time.

You're welcome.

Cue the extended director's cut now.


Okay. This is a looong entry. Sorry. I'm thinking out loud here. But I value your feedback so I hope that you talk back to me on this one.

So we've tackled the first two principles of my rough manifesto, Immersive Theater and Accessibility. And in doing so we've addressed two of the major reasons why attendance at performing arts is down all over the country: Price of tickets and competition from Film and Television.

So let's march on to the third principle:

Brave New Voices, I think I called it. Not happy with that "title." Suppose you could just call it development. But I'm not sure that entails what I'm talking about.

The Pay What You Can model should attack the Price problem and hopefully a focus on creating an Experience rather than just a "Show" should help differentiate our "product" from film and tv, but there is a remaining problem....Risk vs. Convenience.

It's still a lot of time and effort to go to a play. AND, there really is nothing worse than going to a bad play. It's like listening to someone sing off key. Just stomach churning. It's a big Risk.

Well how do we attack this problem?

We develop better art and create a reputation for high quality. And we have to give them a sample that let's them know it's worth their time.

I'm not just talking about just script development. I mean complete development of what we are doing.

Direction, design, script, acting, and the audience involved in the reading, workshop, and production of a piece.

First and foremost, there should be goals and questions set up by all the artists involved and agreed upon beforehand, revisited throughout the process, and used as a guide towards reaching culmination.

Design

With design, I think it's crucial that to create an experience the designers are involved from the initial reading on. Let's have a commitment to that. let them experiment in workshops with the lighting, set ideas, and sound. Let's hear what they have to say in the reading process.

Designers are often hired guns and treated as so. They come in late to the process usually after a show is already slated for production. Why? Let's invest in their artistic ideas and experiment with them as we develop the show! If the playwright is struggling with how to address a problem whose to say a designer won't have a technical answer to an artistic problem that will affect the whole show.

It often feels like almost everyone in a show is a "hired gun." The director, the designers, the playwright, and the actors.

Well I don't want mercenaries, however effective they maybe, I want a real army. One that is loyal, patriotic, and dedicated to the cause. It doesn't have to be the same army every time. But it should be the same army throughout that particular war.

Let's give designers the chance to experiment in workshops before they have to gamble on ideas in a full scale production and let's let them be a real part of the growth of a show. Not just someone who comes in to help shape the final product.

Direction. As my personal area of focus I have to say I have come around to a specific belief.

I believe in monogamous relationships that eventually lead to marriage.

Playwrights and directors should agree to develop scripts together early on.

If there is to be a change in directors as the process as it goes on--I think it should come from either the playwright, the director, or the Artistic producer. And the process should start over.

It maybe sped up at that point, but the process should be restarted.

I firmly believe in the "marriage" of playwrights and directors. And I think that artistic marriage should be well defined, understood, utilized, and nurtured. If a marriage doesn't work, then let's not try and replace a marriage with a one-night stand. What a poor sad substitute for a real relationship.

The playwright, the director, and the artistic producer should be in agreement before a step in the process begins as to what the benchmarks or questions are that must be addressed in this new stage. Only when everyone agrees that they have been addressed adequately would the next step begin.

Again, I think that all the artists involved must, MUST be allowed to FAIL during this process. That's right. I'm using the big ugly "F" word.

What we need more of in theater is FAILURE.

But the right kind of failure.

There's is simply too much pressure on theater artists to "NOT FAIL." One step behind the curtain into the world of TV, Film, and Big budget Theater and it becomes easy for anyone with eyes and ears to see that the emphasis is on "not failing" rather than risking a real achievement.
Well personally I'd rather see artists struggle and reach and grow--then just rehash their greatest hits.

But when it's just a bunch of hired guns coming in for a one night stand and there's immense financial pressure on everyone to not tank the show, or the season, or the theater company with a failure...well that's not a good time to fail, is it?

So let's invest in that time to fail! R&D is crucial but you can't experiment with bias and expectations! You need to be able to truly experiment, to fail, and to look at your results with clear eyes. This is where we should encourage failure! True experimentation.

But wait you say, "Isaac, again you're just saying stuff everyone already knows. Almost every theater already does readings and development."

Well this is where I have some experience my friend. WMC did a TON of readings and I was one of three people leading the charge on that. But I made a lot of missteps and mistakes. As did everyone involved I think. We tried to develop directors and plays and actors at the same time. AND we tried to use it to determine what shows WMC produced. (Wait isn't that what I'm talking about now? Read on and see what I'm talking about)

To be honest, I don't think this ever worked how we wanted it to. With the exception of SHE LIKE GIRLS which has some very specific traits that make it a bit different which I'll list in a bit, I'm not sure we ever did this very well.

But let's jump forward just a bit. It's a brisk October 5th morning, 2009. Bekah Brunstetter and I have just finished a really successful reading of MISS LILLY GETS BONED a few days ago as part of Playwright's week at the LARK and are at the Assessment Brunch.

I tell John Eisner, the producer director and one of the founders of the LARK Play Development Center, that we felt incredibly supported there and were able to really focus on certain goals AND that we never felt any pressure at all--and that was a big part of our success.

I knew part of the reason was because at the LARK they really hound you to lay out specific goals, revisit those goals during the process and change them if needed, and they also beat you over the head that the public reading should be viewed as an invited rehearsal. This is crucial. Lark readings are free and are almost always filled to audience capacity--they are also very high profile in the theater world. But they have a vast and loyal audience that expects to see unfinished work. The audience and the LARK themselves would be disappointed if they saw a finished product or a "show." And while audience members are free to leave comments (on a guided questionnaire), or go up to the playwright or director after the reading, they don't usually hold talk backs at the LARK--saving the writer and the director from hearing about everything they "should" be doing or defending the play.

When I said I thought this was really helpful, John Eisner said:

"There are three types of readings and all of them are fine things to do but they can become deadly when you try to mix them together. There is the reading that is an audition for a production, the reading that is there as cheap season filler (cheap for producers and audience members) for theater companies, and there is the reading that is solely focused on helping the writer develop the script. At the LARK we do the third and because we don't produce plays, there is almost no way for the reading to be anything else."

So basically what I tried to do with WMC is combine ALL three of those things AND also in the beginning we also threw in the idea of using readings to develop actors and directors. Which led directly to some rather disastrous experiences. Throw in the obligatory "attack and defend the play" talkback and no wonder those readings were often drudgery.

There were readings that were often vague auditions for directors--the scripts the weren't the focus of those readings!!! The director was putting on a show for WMC! Not fixing problems with the playwright in the script!

There were readings we did just to try and help build audience--those were usually fine but why did we pretend like they were developmental readings???

All of our biggest successes--To Nineveh, Men Eat Mars Bars, Penetrator, Fresh Kills--we decided to produce because we liked the script before we did any readings!!

All of those shows went through some kind of change or development during rehearsals, some not as much as they needed, but they all were chosen for production before any reading was planned. Like SHE LIKE GIRLS.

That script was actually developed at the LARK first!!

Our reading of the script was an audition, but really more for us as a company for Chisa than for the merits of the script. We had to win her over so we could produce it. The workshop was an audition for her agent and for investors--although there was some refinement on the script during that time, but nothing more than you expect from a new work being rehearsed.

So what was developed during all of this? Excitement about the production on both WMC's side and Chisa's side. Momentum. Jared's directorial vision about the script, the actors, and the design. His relationship with Chisa. The cast. Both in WMC's casting choices and the actors that were involved in more then one part of the process got to develop their handle on the material. Audiences came to the reading, the workshop, and then excitedly told people about the upcoming production of this awesome play they had seen developed!

No wonder She Like Girls is so successful both artistically and commercially!

Can a producing company develop a script?

I think so.

But I think that there has to be a commitment there on both sides. I think the script audition part of the process has to go out the window. That should be handled in a submission process.

I don't to create another "development hell" (definition: a process where scripts go with the promise of an eventual production and end up stuck in a cycle of readings and workshops never quite satisfying the producing powers that be) but I think there is a smarter way to handle this.

Just make the commitment for a small scale workshop production from the get go.

The director and the playwright should be in charge of when the play is ready to move from readings and private workshops to that small workshop production.

They will have deadlines and commitments to live up to in the development process beforehand (because those things actually help spur progress) but they won't "audition" for a full production until they're ready. That "audition" will be actually be a small scale production so the playwright and director have no reason to rush into a large production before it's ready. If the producer doesn't want to go all in--the work was still produced the playwright can use that production as means of attracting other possible producers.

You don't usually cast people off of cold readings. You usually hold callbacks. Imperfect method, but certainly better than just a cold read. Because hopefully people are prepared and rehearsed. Hopefully, you've been clear and open with them and they know what you're looking for by that final callback.

I believe that this process could work because it still has the pressure of an audience watching it at certain stages which I do believe is crucial, but I feel like letting the director and the playwright choose when to move to that "audition" stage helps relieve the pressure. I also think that by the time that audition stage arrives all the parties involved will already know what the fate of the show is going to be.

Also, this process would put the playwright in charge of the development, but also make them really seek out and develop a relationship with a director. It makes the director really create a complete vision/mission statement for the show. It forces the producers to either choose material that is already developed or to commit to or commission work from artists they know, admire, trust, and want to support.


Actors.

I, of course, now look back with great embarrassment on my idealistic intention of using script developmental readings to also help actors develop. What a disastrous attempt that was!

But there is something else that I do believe needs to be addressed.

I think it is important that there be a cohesive style among the actors, a common artistic language between the actors and the director, and an artistic standard that is expected of the actors.

It's a delicate subject, I know.

I'm not saying that I think my preferred approach to acting or that any specific type of acting is better than any other. But I do think it is important to make a some specific choices here.

I like to watch a lot of different styes of theater. I enjoy watching all different styles of actors too.

But I'd be lying if I said that plays that had organic, unforced, emotionally charged performances didn't do a heck of a lot more for me than plays that don't have that.

Faking it just leaves me cold. Even if you fake it well enough that I buy it enough to be moved by it--it's just not a substitute for the real thing.

We have to train actors. That's all there is to it.

If an actor comes in and is able to organically, honestly, give an emotionally charged performance and they have different training--no one will care as long as they doesn't disrupt other people's process--and the workshops will let us know if someone is a disruptive presence.

I'm not saying we only use actors that we have trained, but I think that there are two reasons to train actors.

One: you are helping make sure that there actors who work how you want to work and can achieve what you're looking for. Meisner, Kazan, Strasberg, Clurman, Grotowski, Brook, Bogart, and Stanislavski all did or do it. Why shouldn't we?

I don't believe I am God's gift to teaching but I do believe I can teach people a lot about acting and that I (like everyone listed above did) can grow and refine myself as a teacher. I know what I like in an actor, who's to say I shouldn't start cultivating those traits? Am I able to teach actors everything they need to know? No. But I know that I can help them learn what I need them to know.

Two: very few things are more commonly detrimental to a production than fundamentally different styles in acting onstage. Nothing hurts like watching actors with vastly different acting styles try to get through a scene onstage.

They must be trained. But not just by "doing the work." Nope. That as I explained above must be a seperate operation.

Audience.

Let them be a part of everything--but don't give them control over the process.
Let them be a voice. Let them come and see the work in various stages. But only when appropriate. Don't let mob rule dictate your work. But don't ignore it either.

Don't build a long list of subscribers that run the theater instead of you.

We are not there to be the servants of the audience, to obey their every whim.

Let them be part of the family. Encourage them to adopt your company, take care of the individuals in it. Get to know them. Invite them to become a patron who is connected to the people behind the art. Who doesn't want to help artists?

Let there be food and wine. People who eat and drink together become friends. The LARK offers free coffee and cupcakes at their readings--it's brilliant. You don't eat and drink among strangers or enemies. You eat and drink among friends. As a good friend of mine said a while a long time ago, "I just don't believe in theatre without cocktails." You know what? I don't either.

Let's make friends--real true friends--with our audience. That type of friendship that supercedes family because it's based on love and respect instead of fate and duty.

Friends like that may argue and fight, but they tell each other the truth and they support and love each other. And they listen to each other.

If the audience feels like they are part of the art--they will support it. They will hardly have a choice but to support it.

However, while I think the audience should be used to help development--I think it needs to be clear that this about appropriately participating in something--not an extra thing we do for our audience or certain patrons.

We invite them to be a part of the process, but we don't do the process for their benefit. That's fake.

Let the watching the process of the art be a part of supporting the art.

Which would you rather have on your side?

A group of mercenaries gathered for a one night stand afraid of both of failure and or doing anything that would offend their far off masters?

Or an army trained together, working cohesively together in concert to achieve something wonderful for their family and friends?

I know what I choose.

"Our legacy is our friends.

We write our history onto them and they walk with us through our days like time capsules, filled with our mutual past, the fragments of our hearts and minds.

Our friends get our uncensored questions and our yet-to-be reasoned opinions...they get the very best and they are stuck with the absolute worst we have to offer.

Our friends get our rough drafts. Over time, they both open our eyes and break our hearts" Steven Dietz