Vik Muniz

Arts Journal "video of the day" features Vik Muniz talking about creativity.

N.B. - Arts Journal only archives videos for two weeks. To see the creativity video now go here.

Save The Lorraine Hansberry

The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in downtown San Francisco is at risk of being evicted from its home of 25 years. The property has been acquired by the Academy of Art College and has given the company a deadline to leave. The Lorraine Hansberry is the only African American theater in the City's theater district and the only African American Equity house on the West Coast. It has hosted 120 productions, including its annual holiday classic Black Nativity and has an ongoing partnership with Cultural Odyssey and the Medea Projects Theatre for Incarcerated Women. Read more here. Go here to see how you can help the company.

God and Fame: Two Animations

Meme-Tagged Again:

This time by Mr. 5am, Patrick Gabridge.

The Nature of the Meme: 8 Random Facts About Yours Truly

The Deal:
Bloggers must post these rules and provide eight random facts about themselves. In the post, the tagged blogger tags eight other bloggers and notifies them that they have been tagged.

Okay, here goes:

1. Before I had my first son, I had a massage therapy practice. I am certified in Shiatsu, Sports massage, Deep Tissue, and Swedish-Esalen. My clients were high-performance athletes, physical therapy clients, and autistic children.
   
2. Foods must maintain a reasonable boundary from each other when they congregate on my plate. No mixing. Don't talk to me about casserole.
3. I was strip searched by a Royal Canadian Mounty who kept insisting "we know you have ducks (drugs) in your car." (I had neither.)
4. I can't stand wearing nail polish. I can feel it and it drives me nuts. In fact, I can't stand having long nails, I don't like feeling the space between my nail and my finger. I don't know why and I don't care.
   
5. My great grandfather came from Italy and was a glassblower. He went blind working in a glass factory in Hartford City, In.
   
6. I really don't think silverfish should be allowed to live. See what I mean?
7. I am addicted to the physical sensation of reading.
   
8. I played William Tell with a neighbor boy when I was eight and was shot in the head. Do you think playing Doctor is safer?
   

I tag - this is tricky since thing has made the rounds, so I'll tag these people: Get Down!, Ming-Zhu, Lauren, Chris Boyd, Allison (this is becoming very Australian-centric), Enrique, and Tim, and Scott. My apologies to Dorothy, I pulled the trigger on this post too soon and had originally included her (but she, alas, has already been tagged.)

Please Me

I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is: try to please everybody. - Herbert S. Swope

5/5 Meme: The Area of My Expertise

I've been meme-tagged by Ming-Zhu. Said meme originated with Laura Axelrod who writes:

it's purpose is to get people talking about their passion in life. It’s called the 5/5 meme. Five questions, then pass it to five people. “Expertise” could be your profession, hobby, or area of intense interest.

If I haven’t named you specifically and you would like to do it, feel free. I’d love for everyone to answer these questions. I’ve named five just to get it going.

Remember: This is a “get to know you” meme. It’s supposed to be breezy and fun."

1. Name your area of expertise/interest :

playwrighting/performance devising/directing

2. How did you become interested in it?

playwrighting - jealousy & frustration (now I do it out of love & frustration)

performance devising - seeing the work of SITI Company & Forced Entertainment

directing - necessity. I founded a theater company and the director of our opening production had to take the lead role when the actor we cast dropped out. Became deeply interested after seeing Picnic directed by Anne Bogart at Actor's Theatre of Louisville. I was seriously considering quitting the theater and becoming a lawyer until I saw that play.

3. How did you learn how to do it?

I've learned from watching or working for other people. I've learned by doing. By running a theater company and training other artists.

I'm also surprised sometimes by how much of what I do I learned from my highschool drama teacher. Especially about the idea of professionalism - showing up on time, getting along with other people, not being a prima dona, doing my work, committing to the show.

Oh, yeah. And undergrad work at the University of Louisville
from this woman

and from this man.

I've trained on and off with the SITI Company and Anne Bogart since 1996. I've taken workshops with Tim Etchells, Ruth Zapora, and Mary Overlie. I went to grad school and took my first formal writing class - in screenwriting and then took many more writing classes.

I read a lot. I see a lot of theater and dance and performance-related events. I watch a lot of movies.

I learn some new thing(s) every time I direct a show or read a new play. I learn from the actors and designers I work with. I learn from my kids.

I'm still learning.

4. Who has been your biggest influence?

Hunter S. Thompson

5. What would you teach people about it?

Art comes from a gift-giving place.
Open yourself up to life and be willing to be surprised (for good or ill).
Communication is key. It is the fundamental line between actor and director/actor and audience/director and playwright, designers, etc.
Trust yourself.
You can never have too much information.
Energy follows attention.
The energy and attention that go into the process are reflected in the product.
You must be passionate about your work.
You can't hide.
Ask questions.
What about the text?
What about the relationships?
What about a plan?
Have a healthy sense of what you do not know, a deep interest and ability to question what you do know, and a sincere willingness to be honest, open, and compassionate with yourself and those with whom you are working.
Honesty is priceless.
No one can be honest unless they feel safe. (well some can and god bless them)
Take care of each other.
There is freedom in structure.
Getting stuck, lost and/or making a mistake can be an incredible opportunity for everyone.
The director is ultimately responsible for every thing onstage.
The director is ultimately responsible for every thing that is not onstage.
Sometimes it’s not personal, it’s dysfunctional.
Sometimes you have to dig in and fight the fight.
You must have an unshakeable faith in yourself.
Remember to breathe, then push on.
It's called a play. How cool is that?
Have fun.

Now I have to tag five others and they are - Malachy, Dan, nick, Dorothy, and Lauren.

So I've been thinking...

...what blockbuster or cult classic films would make Big Time Spectacular Broadway Musical adaptations? I made a list. Mind you, I'm not saying I'd necessarily want to see any of these shows (well, a couple are kind of intriguing).

You can thank me later.

1. Forest Gump
2. Hellboy
   
3. The Princess Bride
4. Gone With The Wind
5. The Day the Earth Stood Still
6. Night of the Living Dead
7. The Shining
   
8. Crumb
   
9. Shrek
10. School of Rock
    
11. Walk the Line
12. Dirty Dancing
13. All About Eve
14. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
    
15. The Matrix (all of 'em)
    
16. Terminator (wouldn't you like to see the Governator sing?)
17. Robocop the Trilogy (tagline - I'd buy that for $100!)
    
18. Weekend at Bernie's
    
19. Watership Down
20. Rocky
21. Reservoir Dogs
22. Donnie Darko

What about you? Surely, there must be some jewel I've missed.

Breath

Century of the Self

A six part BBC series. Oops. Make that 6 parts of one episode.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6

Look At This

Malachy Walsh's Getting People To Look At Something They Don't Care About: Theatre

Tony Who?

I have to admit that I didn't even realize the TONYS had aired until I read Peter Birkenhead's article. And yeah, I was watching the other Tony that night (and yep, I thought my TV went out - which it actually did. Our new DVR got overheated and died, not as spectacularly as A.J.'s SUV - there was no slow-mo sound of Dylan burning. But that is another story and symbolic of something altogether Different).

At first blush there were a few things I agreed with Birkenhead on. Like the whole idea of the avant-garde, and non-linear storytelling. For awhile there I agreed with the whole thing. It was What I Wanted To Hear - expressing what I secretly feel and sometimes not so quietly say about the theater I see in my neck o' the woods. Clearly the article is reactionary and appealed to that reactionary side of myself. But after the smoke clears - I find that none of what Birkenhead writes is news. The theatrosphere has been hashing this stuff out for over a year now - with a lot more succinct and useful discussion. Articles like Stephen Leigh Morris' American Theater's Failure of Nerve or Jason Zinoman's New Dramas, New Voice, Below 14th Street that made the rounds earlier this month convey an awareness of theater beyond Spring Awakening and Doubt (a play which I found woefully pedestrian and old-fashioned in spite of the great work of Cherry Jones). Birkenhead argues nostalgically for the theater of the thirties before it was tainted by non-profit grant strategizing and development hell (has he read Harold Clurman?), which means he still endorses the idea of Broadway as the exemplar of how theater should be produced and what theater can be (which may be correct, but is an assumption that is certainly open to question).

Check out what others had to say:
LitDept Theater Ideas
On Theatre and Politics
Adam Szymkowicz

Monument to Disappearing

I'm looking at site-specific/installation work at the moment just as a way of exploding the idea of a play (yeah, I know this isn't anything new). I'll be posting what I find.

Found via A Confrontation with Falling
See also - Tower of Song

And Then, You Act

I just finished reading Anne Bogart's new book And Then, You Act. Like A Director Prepares, there's much to inspire and provoke. Ostensibly, the book is about creating art in difficult times, namely in the aftermath of 9/11. It's about an artist's role and responsibility in their community and the world. It breaks the act of creating/presenting work down into the themes of context, articulation, intention, attention, magnetism, attitude, content, and time. I found much to inspire and provoke. And for me, it's certainly a case of right book to read at the right time.

I needed the encouragement. I needed to hear what Anne had to say about creating work not just in our current political/cultural context, but in my own context of working alone rather than devising with a company, trying to figure out where/how to either produce or get my work produced, and coming to terms with the fact that my work and interests combine the political and the artistic ( I don' t feel they are mutually exclusive). Plus, the idea of getting older and running out of time has been affecting my attitude lately. But that is my kettle of fish and you have yours.

Since my situation dictates that I work in the spirit of festina lente (making haste slowly) that Anne advocates in the book, my plan is to go through the book a second time and then I'll write posts about my response to each chapter. In the meantime, read the book yourself.

Ideas & Opinions

Albert Einstein

It is not enough to teach man a specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good. Otherwise he - with his specialized knowledge - more closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person. He must learn to understand the motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings in order to acquire a proper relationship to individual fellow-men and to the community. These precious things are conveyed to the younger generation through personal contact with those who teach, not - or at least not in the main - through textbooks. It is this that primarily constitutes and preserves culture. This is what I have in mind when I recommend the "humanities" as important, not just dry specialized knowledge in the fields of history and philosophy. Overemphasis on the competitive system and premature specialization on the ground of immediate usefulness kill the spirit on which all cultural life depends, specialized knowledge included. It is also vital to a valuable education that independent critical thinking be developed in the young human being, a development that is greatly jeopardized by overburdening him with too much and with too varied subjects. Overburdening necessarily leads to superficiality.

Ecoute

two excerpts from Miroslav Sebestik's documentary: