A director friend of mine wrote to me this morning: “Who says theatre is dead? How can it be dead when all these folks are chomping at the bit to chime in? Amazeballs!”
I completely agree. However, with all this talk about underprivileged children- I have to reiterate: Do Not Bring Kids To This Show. It is rated R for violence, language sexuality and dead babies. Everywhere Theatre Group simply stated the fact that we come from poor families and are still making art and that we aren’t going away. I was actually really confused as to why people thought that we were trying to promote this show to kids until a reader emailed me and explained it to me by saying “I think probably the difficulty people are having, and why so many of us thought you are reaching out at inner city kids or poor people or something, is that is is difficult for people to understand your frustrations about being “poor theatre artists.” Not because people don’t recognize the difficulty of being a poor maker of theatre, but because they assume, pretty much rightly, that makers of theatre (actors, writers, directors, et. al) are ALL POOR. Now obviously, this is not true, as there are many actors and directors being propped up by their rich parents, and it does require a certain amount of backing and support to even attempt a career as a theatre artist nowadays. But you understand, this is a difficult message to get across to people because they feel like, well duh, you are in the theatre, of course you are poor.”
Maybe. I don’t know. I also think my definition of poor ( poverty that roots back that isn’t fun or cool at all- rather than, my parents are physicians! and I’m a broke theater artist black sheep! yipee!) is totally different from a lot of artists. And regarding audience- as I said before- I mean, we’re trying to reach out to as many people as possible. We love our audience. But for the love of God, no children please. Anyways, sometimes, our work speaks for itself. Below you can check out the amazing trailer #2 Chase Voorhees made for Flying Snakes in 3-d!! You can check out trailer #1 here. Hope to see you at Flying Snakes on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm! Buy tickets here! We’re sold out for this Thursday night, but you can get on a waitlist at the door and more tickets will be released!
And Now For More Comments:
I’ve been following this interdemensional controversy for a while now, but a bunch of stuff Kevin said up there I can’t help but comment on.
Since I help run Tenement Street (an art collective) I thought I might reply as if what Kevin said had been brought up in one of our weekly board meetings and the issues he raises have to be resolved.
Issue:
“Obviously, theatre cannot provide the level of effects or production values of movies, but we can tell stories that are just as young and exciting, and we can fill them with sexy, fit actors with strong voices and minds”
The Board Resolves:
To recast our next production with people from David Barton’s gym and rescind membership status to anyone bigger than a peanut. We will also revise Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” into Chekhov’s “Three Hot Lesbian Sisters.”
Issue:
“We cannot see the theatre as the dumping ground for all things too “arty” for the cinema, and we cannot give ourselves a pass as “theatre actors” to be shlubby, out of shape, nerds. This is not an argument against character actors, but an argument for theatre actors holding themselves to the same high standards as movie stars. (Stay in shape, eat right, be flexible and limber, keep stylish) ”
The Board Resolves:
To become movie stars…
Issue:
“Yes we have to do stories we are passionate about, but you still gotta “give-em-what-they-want” so to speak”
The Board Resolves:
To understand exactly what they want and how to give it to em’ while continuing to be sexy ass movie stars. (we’re lookin at you Brad Pitt…The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? Really?! HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT WOULD DO WELL?! Damn you Brad.)
Issue:
“Not many 17 year old black kids from the inner city Bronx are coming out there to the Lorimer stop on a Friday night, get real”
The Board Resolves:
To send a bus every Friday night to Mosholu Parkway and pick up 17 year old black teenagers and drop them off on Lorimer.
Send hate or love to thankyou@tenementstreet.org
John,
You must be doing extremely well over at Tenement Street in order to take such a glib tone in response to my comments. I find such a snarky response to my earnest concerns about the perception of the theatre to be actually quite telling. (Thank you for proving my point, so to speak.) It is exactly this, our inability to look at our art as business, the inability to look at ourselves as entertainers as well as artists, that will continue to speed the decline of an art form I dearly love.
I think I was pretty clear in my discourse that I was not asking for all theatre actors to be or look like movie stars. Only that we begin to take a serious look at the theatre as a business, and hold ourselves to a higher standard in terms of how we present ourselves. In order to continue to survive, and to grow, the theatre needs to begin to look at itself through more of an business lens. It seems that within the last century, perhaps because of the rise of film, many theatre producers and creators have taken a pretty indignant track in the mounting of their productions. The attitude I perceive in many shows, and from many companies is; “this is ‘art.’ if you don’t like it, you’re stupid.” Now, I am aware that this statement sounds childish, but I cannot believe that you have not felt this while watching many shows in New York City. Do you really think that any film studio would last long if they took that attitude toward their movies? You didn’t see any studio heads out defending “Batman and Robin” when they released that movie. The watched the movie, looked at the critical and audience reaction, said to themselves…’people hate this movie.’ Then they got a new director and reset the path of the franchise. Look what happened, they packed the theatres, and created a better product in the process. Unfortunately, this is not the response of many theatre companies. They often respond with childish indignance (Leah gets a pass on this one, as her defense of ‘Snakes’ was intellectual and spoken with passion not merely defensiveness.) rather than with cold blooded, practical, objectivism. I would argue though, that having an ear to the desires of the audience is not impossible as you seem to imply, or in fact foreign to the theatre. Shakespeare performed his plays to packed houses that ran the gamut of the citizenry-from the richest to the poorest. It is well documented that he revised his work constantly in response to the reactions of the audience. So when I say ‘give them what they want’ I think I have some pretty good shoulders to stand on.
Look, John, I am an actor and I have been in many shows and worked with many great actors, directors, and writers. There is no doubt in my mind that many actors will find my position objectionable. They will say, “oh, looks should have nothing to do with it. Business should have nothing to do with it. Like you they will say, ‘well, we can’t all be movie stars.’” Obviously, that’s true, if the guys and gals in the Tenement Street art collective had Steven Spielberg on the phone this morning, I doubt they would be showing up for rehearsal tonight. That being said, why can’t we look at ourselves in the same way and with the same respect. Not everyone can make a violin like Stradivarius, but that doesn’t mean they should not strive to. I believe that we should all make an effort to go on stage with the finest instrument s available to us. Obviously, everyone’s is different, but that does not mean we should not keep them tuned, polished, and well maintained.
I also have to say in closing that I find your final comments about sending a bus to the Bronx to be disheartening. All I was saying is that if we want to reach a wider audience, we need to do theatre sometimes where that audience is. That being said, why couldn’t a theatre send a bus to pick up poor kids and bring them to a show? Many productions have spent their budget dollars on less important things, and they would be creating new potential audience members in the process. I don’t want to waste any more of Leah’s blog space in defense of my statements, but I stand by them. I want the theatre to survive and to flourish, and I firmly believe that a better attention to the business end of theatre puts us in the best possible position to continue this important art form. Thanks for your comments, and best of luck in the work you are doing. I wish you, and all theatre artists success, despite the differences in our philosophy.