Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Guidance

Everyone needs a teacher.

For some people that means a therapist. For others that means a mother, a father, a good friend, a mentor, a boss, or even a good book. Regardless of what form that teacher takes, everyone needs one.

I'm finding that I can be a good compass for others but I often have difficulty finding my own bearings. All the static from everyone else's life tends to intrude and I need the assistance of someone else to tone down the noise and figure out what is really true for me. I've lost touch with my teachers and now is the time for me to return.

Some friends have recommended therapists to me lately. Therapy is fine, but I think what I truly need is good scene work. I don't take personal direction well. When someone says to me "You need to take care of yourself" or "Wow, you're really hard on yourself" I get defensive and block off the message. I don't know how to fix those things. But if I can talk to someone about Martirio's soul eating rage or Blanche's desperate need for affection I can map out strategies. I can discover parallels between myself and the character and recognize behaviors that cause me discomfort. I can see and dissect how these characters make their choices from moment to moment and I can learn to spot those choices in my daily life.

It is much like when you are a kid and your parents get a new car. After that new car purchase you see that same make and model in every parking lot and on every street. It seems as if your parents have started a new car craze, but the reality is much simpler. In reality your eyes have been trained to look for that car, to search for its familiarity. Suddenly, you notice something that has probably been going on for a long time and your awareness shifts. It is much the same with this craft. Once you recognize and identify Hamlet's foibles you begin to see them in yourself. Your awareness opens and when that happens you can begin to make conscious choices.

However, you will need the guidance of a good teacher to recognize these things. I miss my teachers. For the benefit of my own teaching I need to get reaquainted with my teachers. I need to be able to place my trust in someone else for a while so that I may stumble and make the mistakes I need to make in order to grow.

I used to think that a good teacher prepared you to live without them. To a certain extent, I definitely still believe that, but I am beginning to see the necessity of a constant voice of wisdom throughout my journey as an artist and as a person. I've always been a bit of a bootstraps kind of gal, but I am beginning to see the folly in that viewpoint. Seeking guidance is not weakness or a sign of incompetence. It is just the opposite. As we have seen in the Iraq war, "going it alone" is not so much a sign of strength as it is a sign of stubborn stupidity.

Of course, one should always be wary of "gurus". A teacher should never feed off the student. A true teacher calmly watches like a well adjusted parent, setting the environment to let you fall without getting irreparably damaged. At some point the good teacher becomes a trusted friend that is happy to see you ride off into the sunset and pleased when you return with tales of your adventures and honored when you solicit their honest opinions. A teacher should never drain you of your energy. If he/ she does, you know this is not the right teacher for you. A good teacher invests him/herself in you but never lets you know how much because the teaching isn't about the teacher. It is about the student.

And this is why teachers need teachers. A teacher cannot give so much without having a place to refuel. This is why everyone needs guidence.

Everyone needs a teacher.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Why Theatre?

What are we doing?

I can't help but wonder why I am involved in this pursuit at all. There are these corny answers floating about in my head about expression, the cultural importance of storytelling, and the magic of strangers sharing an experience together, but that doesn't really give me any satisfaction. In fact, there is a nagging feeling that this whole exercise is about validation and that bothers me. As much as I put the whole of myself into anything that I create, I don't want this to be masturbatory and yet, that is almost impossible to avoid. Yes. Validation is a major reason to do what I do and I am sadly conflicted about it. I would like to think that there is a larger and more important reason for me to act beyond the fact that I get attention for doing it.

I've got this Kurt Weil song stuck in my head. It is very theatrical and has that characteristic Weil fingerprint that is dark, cynical and clanky. My brain plays it over and over and over trying to dissect the notes and the words that crawl into my body and rearrange the way my heart feels inside my chest. It is both uncomfortable and thrilling and therein lies a piece of the puzzle, I think. It frightens me. The way I can listen to that song and imagine the darker part of myself- the fact that there even IS a darker part of myself- coming forward and claiming its place in me is terrifying in its appeal. As I listen to this song, I recognize how this musical moment somehow encapsulates what I am reaching for in my theatre work. It is a "safe" way to explore that which frightens me about myself and the world I live in. For me, theatre is about fear, challenging it and searching for ways to conquor it. Sometimes when I step into the fear I find myself in a state of complete surrender that is nothing short of a revelation. Those moments are few and far between, but once it has been experienced it becomes a lifelong search to find and maintain such moments. It is even better when those moments are shared with an audience. They get a taste for what you are experiencing and for a moment, a brief moment, they lose themselves as well. Through this we all have the opportunity to stretch ourselves, to expand ourselves beyond our own self imposed limits and we learn something.

A friend sent me a quote which I will have to paraphrase because I no longer have it handy, but the idea is basically this: Entertainment is that which you receive without effort. Art takes an investment of self but in return you receive much more that what you have put in.

That's why. Because I want more. More life, more experience, more understanding, more compassion...I want more of what the world has to offer and this is the best way I have found to get it. I've no choice. It is my compulsion.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

A Fool and His Money...

One of my favorite Tom Waits' lyrics is "There's a sucker born every minute/ You just happened to be comin' along at the right time". It makes me maliciously delighted each time I hear it. Alas, we all have our moments of playing the fool. Sometimes for better reasons than others.

Producing a tiny show in NYC is the ultimate act of foolishness. The odds are against you and the audience for small shows is so much smaller than you could possibly imagine. It is like pulling teeth to even get your friends to cough up $10 to support you while you get your sea legs. To be fair, your friends know that most things produced on this scale are usually so esoteric they want to shoot themselves or in such bad taste they want to shoot you. They're just too polite to tell you that. Well, I am lucky because our show is actually good. But no one will really believe that until they see a third party review. Rumor has it, we'll be getting one soon and if we do it will mean a longer life for our little show.

Small is not always bad. I do lean toward a poor theatre as my personal aesthetic, mostly for practical reasons but also because I do truly think that the theatre needs to separate itself from the slam bang spectacles of over stimulation that we've become accustomed to in this culture. No one is coming to the theatre- but people are out there searching in these troubled times. They are searching for solace and looking to religion and spirituality to make sense of their world and there is no reason that the theatre can't play a part in that sacred dance. In fact, I think it is vitally necessary that we strip away all pretense and acknowledge what the theatre truly is. The theatre is NOT film. It should stop pretending to be so. I never understood the idea of bringing movies to the stage (regardless of the fact that I have participated in one of these efforts- much to my own personal shame). It makes sense to make movies out of plays. To do so is to take a piece of material to a wider audience. To bring film to the stage is to limit the scope of a cinematic story and bring it to a much smaller, niche audience. This does not compute. Plus it just speaks to the producers' inability to take risks or say anything of any immediate relevence.

Theatre has the ability to be nimble. It has the ability to be immediate if we don't bog it down with unnecessary pyrotechnics and splashy numbers designed to compete with the cinema or television. Plus those flashy things raise the cost of a production so high that it becomes cost prohibitive for the general public to see it. If a regular citizen, such as myself, wants to go see a Broadway (or increasingly even an Off-Broadway) show they would have to save up to see one. Maybe they could see one once or twice a year. That doesn't seem quite right to me. The flash and need for profit have made a commercial theatre that is flaccid and without any real social or political weight. I would argue that social and political relevance is preciesly the role of theatre. Or it should be. Theatre should be about something. Anyone (and I say this both with excitement and trepidation) can put up a show in 4-6 weeks. There should be more theatre about NOW. But there won't be until producers grow some balls.

Now, I also have a problem with not-for-profit theatre. Not as a concept, because for a long time I thought that was definitely the way to go in order to have a viable company. Now I am not so sure. There are a lot of fingers in that not-for-profit pie and an awful lot of opinion about what is being said or done. This also seems to be a severely limiting force in the theatre. With these forces in place, it certainly seems that the theatre going public is being offered an awful lot of nothing.

Don't write me and complain that I am over simplifying because I know that I am. I know I am being general and that there is good work going on all over the place. The only problem is, I can't afford to go see it and I know there are plenty of others in my position. So, I have offered a really good show and a good price and it is still like pulling teeth to get an audience. Everything is a bit of an uphill battle, isn't it?

Of course there is no courage without fear, no profit without loss and no victory without challenge. I am not so jaded as to believe that the struggle is not worth the effort. In fact I believe the struggle is all we've got and we had better get a taste for it because it isn't going away any time soon.

And I wouldn't want it to.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Challenge is a Gift

I say that on rather wobbly legs at the moment. As it turns out, the show itself is not the hurdle. It is getting the show to a place where it can grow on its own. But like any seed, the likelihood that it should flower and survive the growing season is remote. It is not doomed because of any flaw inherent in the makeup of the seed, but environmental hardships play a big role in whether or not the plant should grow large enough to survive and to procreate.

Enough of the plant analogy.

Committing to producing ANYTHING, anything at all is a monsterous undertaking. Regardless of the cost of the production, it is hard to stay alive without making some kind of sacrifice. A few external circmustances have made my involvement in this current project a bit more challenging than I had anticipated. Now is the time that I find out what I am really made of. Can I stick it out? Can I fight the good fight like some cheesey doctor in a 3rd rate soap opera centered around an emergency room screaming "Live, damn you! Live!"

I suppose I could.

At the moment it is not just me making the sacrifices. My family has to be on this ride with me. This is no small thing to ask. But people keep telling me that I am different, that I seem happier and look better since I've been back into the full swing of a production. I do feel better. I don't feel as helpless as I had before, but this means I must require more from my family. I can't take care of everything on the home front anymore. It is funny how having it all somehow means you have more of less. I miss my kid. I miss my husband. I miss having money.

Not that I'd have any more money if I wasn't doing this show, but I certainly wouldn't have less.

It isn't the back stabbing, clawing, grasping rat race to the top that will tear you apart in New York City. It's the small things that get you. It's the laundry, getting the dishes done, stepping outside your door without having to dig through your sofa cushions for the $4.00 to go to work and come back home. It is the nickle and diming you to death thing that this city does and the fact that everyone else you know has the time/ money to go out and have a beer so why can't you? Everyone else has seen the new MoMA, so why haven't you? It's the $10 movies and the $120 theatre tickets and the slice of quiche with a side salad of mixed greens that should only cost you $6.95 but somehow ends up setting you back $20 that drives you absolutely batty.

This afternoon I took my son with me to a used bookstore to undersell some books for some quick cash. He did not understand this exercise. I told him that I needed a little extra pocket money to make ends meet this week. On the way back home we ran into one of the local homeless ladies. She's the one with the disturbing hole in her forehead who begs people for hamburgers and bus fare. My boy asked me why that lady was standing in the middle of the street screaming for money. I tried my best to explain to him what that was all about. He then asked me why I didn't do that because I needed the money, too.

Good question my boy. Good question.

Mostly, because I don't think it would work. A big challenge for me in 2007 is to understand my worth. A bigger challenge is for me to demand my piece from the Universe and then collect. These are things, admittedly, I do not know how to do. I can make a nice looking turkey dinner out of styrofoam and cheesecloth and yet I cannot accept wealth. Which is why I am facing this personal financial challenge. I guess this is the year I pass the exam.

Right?

Thursday, January 11, 2007

The Unexpected Rigors of a Choose Your Own Adventure Show

I've never had difficulty memorizing text. I'm not the world's best or wittiest improvisor, but I can do it in a pinch. I do love doing it, regardless of my shortcomings at it. But "Adventures in Mating" by Joseph Scrimshaw (see the plug to the right) has provided some interesting challenges for me.

Adventures in Mating (as it is currently being performed- there is an extended version debuting next month in Minneapolis) has over 30 different scene combinations. I can handle the flow. I understand how all the scenes work individually and can make the appropriate justifications to make them fit together. However, I am finding it challenging to justify individual moments with what has come previously because, on any given night we may have run a few different scene combinations before the actual show just to stay sharp. Sometimes it is hard remembering which scenes we've done in front of the audience! I caught myself on Monday night responding to a choice that had been made in an earlier scene during rehearsals that afternoon instead of to the choice that had been made during the actual show. The audience didn't seem to notice and I had corrected myself as much as possible without denying the reality I had just created but it was a cautionary moment for me. I must be well rested to do this show! I need to have extra brain cells firing!

This show is different from any other show. In a regular play you simply fall back on the often linear text and if you derail you and your fellow cast members usually find your way back to the text as it should be. In improv you are not beholden to any text so you do what you can to get yourself out of a jam and move on. Here you are still required to be faithful to the text but if you aren't paying attention you will end up doing an entirely different scene. On Tuesday night I found myself wondering if I was doing the right ending. Luckily I was, but for a good minute or two I had my doubts. Not that the audience would have been any the wiser and I certainly trust Ben and Steve to catch me if I fall (excellent chaps to work with, no doubt) but that was a heady couple of minutes. I'm sickened to say that it was thrilling and that I can't wait to wonder if I'm screwing up again. What sick, sick fun!

I will have to wait until Monday for the pleasure, but until then I will pour over my script and prepare for that horrible day when one of my ex-teachers shows up to show their support. Nothing can mess you up more than trying to prove to a teacher that you still remember all that they taught you. I suppose it is best not to prove anything at all.

Monday, January 08, 2007

On the Eve of an Opening

Preparing for a show as a producer is a lot like planning a big party. It could be any party. It could be a bratty sweet 16, a retirement party, a wedding or a funeral. The anxiety is always the same. Do I rate high enough to get people to show up? You hope. You hand out postcards, hang up flyers, send emails and cross your fingers. Screw the critics, unless they come. It doesn't matter what they write as long as they write about you.

The night before a show I have been known to stay awake all night worrying about things that I should have done. As an actor, these concerns are rather paltry as it is so much easier to feel like you've done your part if you show up and tell your friends that they should come. As a producer you have to have magic powers to do the impossible- get strangers out of their homes and ask them to give you money. It is at this point that I start to wonder if I've given my audience their money's worth. Then I fret about all the mistakes I've made along the way.

Let's not kid ourselves. When Ben and I decided to tackle this project we said we wanted to do it for fun. It's a great script and it suits us to a T. But now that we are less than 24 hours from opening it is easy to come down with a little blood lust. Give me some attention! Give me accolades, kudos and free drinks! Or just come see the show because, damn it, it's a good show.

Tomorrow night we open "Adventures in Mating" by Joseph Scrimshaw at the #43 Stage @ Jimmy's at 8PM. Check out our website which you will find linked on your right. I feel really good about this one. I'm sure you will, too.