One Theatre World 2013

The One Theatre World conference came to Cleveland last week. Formerly a once every three year festival -- now biennial -- and produced by Theatre for Young Audiences/USA, OTW2013 coincided (on purpose) with the International Children's Festival at PlayhouseSquare.

I wasn't actually registered to attend the conference, I was fortunate enough to get an "all-entry" pass because I'm am a well-connected Cleveland writer person, and frankly I have been so wrapped up in annual gala benefit business and fringe festival business and two kids playing two instruments and playing on three different teams business to really notice the difference between the ICF and the OTW, anyway, I thought they were related not merely co-incident.

Regardless, by the end of the week, while I had experienced a couple great, international children's show, I saw all these excited theater people from everywhere walking places together with their Big Red Passes hanging from their necks, and the weather was perfect (unlike this weekend) and once more in my life I had the distinct and sinking impression that I was missing something.

On Friday morning I had the great good fortune to be crossing Euclid Avenue when I was and saw this guy who looked sixteen years older than a guy I knew sixteen years ago and the name "Marty" popped into my head and I looked at his Big Red Tag and it said "Marty" in large, readble letters, and I called out, "Marty?!" and recognized me, too, right away.

The first long-form improv we presented at Dobama's Night Kitchen was The Realistic World, and Marty was one of seven housemates in Tremont (people got confused ... no one was actually living together in a house in Tremont, it was a play we improvised.) The last I had heard of Marty, my wife and I were on the last night of our honeymoon in Fairbanks, Alaska. I saw a poster for a children's show posted in the Pump House. This play was directed by Marty Johnson. He is now Education Director for iTheatrics, the folks who edit and license all those "Jr." versions of hit Broadway shows.

This is the kind of thing I mean when I have the creepy feeling I am missing something. I knew there were workshops going on, but I just couldn't make time for those, but I was missing all the new, exciting people in my midst. Lucky for me to run into him, that was great catching up, and he introduced me to a few others and then I had to get back to my business in the Bulkley Building and that was okay.

But I cancelled previous plans for Friday evening, and the wife and I came downtown to skull around with our VIP passes. We stuck our noses into The Girl Who Forgot to Sing Badly so she could see what that was all about and then joined, well, everybody else to see ZooZoo. The Ohio Theatre was packed.

My goal was to catch Finegan Kruckemeyer's closing, keynote address that evening. Staff was scrambling to get everyone a seat, including all those like me (and many, many others) who had passes but no reservations. We were seated in a block of OWT participants -- right in front of Marty, as it turned out, and next to some kind folk from Pittsburgh, and behind Tim and Chris from Alvin Sputnik but I wondered allowed, given to delayed curtain, as to whether it were possible we might miss the address? The man sitting next to me motioned directed my attention to seats behind and to the right observing, "Fin's sitting right there, they can't start without him!"

If there is one thing I regret in life, it is that I have not had enough mentors. I cannot remember who gave me that advice, or when, but "Find a mentor, attach yourself to them, be near them, apprentice yourself," was once recommended and more than most I know I not only ignored this advice, but actively strove to achieve great things entirely unschooled and ignorant.

Joyce was a great inspiration to me, and I learned many things from her about management, communication, hard work, and unapologetically maintaining core beliefs. Daniel taught me honesty, responsibility, loyalty, dignity and joy. There were also many college professors and instructors who wisdom I heard, but failed to deeply plumb.

So having the opportunity to enjoin, engage and listen is to me (especially at this point in my life) some hard to come by by also deeply treasured. Attending a conference is like searching for a parent I never had.

Fin.

Last Spring (as I noted last week) Fin led a session on playwriting which was truly eye-opening, and I had high hopes for his address which were entirely satisfied. How much can you learn in one 45-minute lecture? An awful lot, actually, when the speaker is well-prepared, interesting and impassioned, as Fin was. His main point, which was not coincidentally the summation of my last post on the subject, is that as creators of children's drama (a subset of children's literature) many have become to concerned with the why or the how, instead of being solely immersed in the what.

As one whose occupation is in theater education -- and for the last four years not merely the facilitation of theater education, but one who writes grant proposals for corporate, government and foundation support of such work -- I knew of what he spoke. The justification for children's theater can be the wet blanket thrown over the art of simply telling the story, letting the story happen, after which someone else can determine its significance, its learning potential, how it satisfies key educational benchmarks for achievement.

Speaking from notes but flowing as though these thoughts were spooling out from the top of his head, Fin launched into numerous lists of companies and artists from around the world who satisfy the what in their work, and unreeled a panoply of premises for stories like he was that Dream-tortured author from Sandman.

We had the opportunity to chat only briefly following the talk, there was a babysitter to release, but I promised to send him the revised draft of Slumberland once I get to it, which I hope is sooner than later. Last week's reading, the variety of shows I had experienced last week, and Fin's closing address made me more confident in this new work, which is good. It would have only been too easy to look at the professional delights before me and think, Good Lord, what is this piece of crap I have spent so much time on? I am glad that this is not the case.

Recently, my daughter's violin teacher moved from the Heights to Orange. The girl self-started, almost three years ago she asked if she could learn the violin -- which was odd because my wife and I do not have an instrument ... true, on my wife's side there are some fine musicians -- and we said, oh, ah, of course. She is a dedicated pupil and her mother has added to her world of responsibilities the care and tending of daily practice.

Her teacher is quite excellent, and while we were at first a little concerned about the new, forty-five minute drive to lessons each week, it was really only twice the amount of time it took to get her across town. One family friend suggested we find someone else nearby, that our schedules are so full as it is to be worth the trip.

I would have imagined that ten would have been too young to already be advising my girl to "find a mentor". Having already found one, however, the least we can do is drive her there.

Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero

Larry Tye's Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero, is a very interesting book until about two-thirds of the way through. What began as a pretty straight-forward history of the most iconic comic book superhero ever created -- which is something none can dispute -- runs off the rails right about the same time the Man of Steel "died", which is to say, in the early 1990s.

There is a more recent book, Glen Weldon's Superman: An Unauthorized Biography, which purports to describe how the character has morphed throughout its history to reflect the times. Tye's book already illustrates this rather successfully, as the pro-downtrodden hero of the thirties becomes the anti-Fascist of the 40s, and all of the successful radio, television and film adaptations that followed through the decades.

However, following a description of the sad de-evolution of Christopher Reeves' series of films, this historian shows signs of having consumed his own Kool-Aid, returning to the comic books themselves, and straining to describe a variety of late 20th century comic book story arcs as important, relevant or iconic in and of themselves.

Just a tip: Never describe the plot of a comic book in a historical text and try to make it sound original or interesting writing. I like comic books, but its just embarrassing. He also quotes a number of die-hard, latter-day Superman enthusiasts, who have eschewed more popular figures, like Batman, or anyone in a Marvel comic.

One was quoted as saying, "Spider-Man tells us that even heroes are human and can be hurt ... Superman is here to say ... I'm not going to preach to you.'" Tye then proceeds to preach, and preach, insisting how Superman is unique, and that he is and always will be the best superhero ever created.

And I do not believe him. It's not just because he glosses over the fact that Superman (The Movie) is embarrassingly dated, that Superman II has really terrible dialogue, a whiny protagonist and a horrible plot (he seems to think the "Kiss of Forgetfulness" is a totally brilliant Deus ex Machina) that Lois & Clark was good for one season and horrible for the rest, and even holds up the much-maligned Superman Returns as an example of Superman's exceptionalism.

Really. A 76% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a paltry $391 million in box office (foreign + domestic) for Superman Returns had not "once again demonstrated why (Superman) belonged as a summertime Hollywood blockbuster." 71% percent of the audiences on Rotten Tomatoes liked Jack Reacher.

In the world of this book, every Superman story idea is a good story idea -- in fact, a great one. The idea of Superman, it is true, is greater than the sum of all the pulps, and shows and actors and writers and everybody. The origin story is solid, and mythic, and biblical, and that's why they retell that same story, over and over again, every time they get the chance. They're doing it once again this summer with Man Of Steel.

But once you've gotten past the myth, the day-to-day act of just being Superman can seem entirely mundane.

International Children's Festival

Last time I was Fringing in New York, I missed an opportunity to see The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik, Deep Sea Explorer. There were three companies that had arrived together from Perth, Australia, Tim Watts' Weeping Spoon, producer of Alvin Sputnik was one. Mark Storen (see below), whose A Drunken Cabaret I did get to see was another.

Watts' show received some very nice press, including an interview in The NY Times, and by the time it had come to my attention I was either scheduled for the same time or it had sold out. So I was surprised and delighted to see that it was on the slate of productions presented as part of this, the fourth year of PlayhouseSquare's International Children's Festival, a fantastic celebration of live theater arts which truly explore the vast possibilities inherent in and unique to live performance.

The festival proper opens today, May 9 and runs through Saturday but there are also school matinees, so yesterday I had an opportunity to sneak in and share this astonishing "solo" show with a roomful of kids that looked about my son's age.

The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik, Deep Sea Explorer

I used italics around the word "solo" because though Watts is the featured person -- the guy with the recognizable face -- he works with an small, experienced team of artists and puppeteers to make it all work. And I use the word astonishing not only because of the delightful and surprising use of puppets, screens, video, live music, sound effects and darkness, but also subject matter which is at once reassuring, sweet, loving, and very, very bleak.

Let me put it this way, without giving away too much -- the premise is based on ecological disaster on a global scale. That's at the beginning. But following the protagonist as he manages and copes with his world sets in motion a melancholy hero's journey driven entirely by love. There is also an eight-inch tall hand puppet in a diving suit that can breakdance.

Sitting in this darkened room, as one with children, and one who works with children, I was at once thrilled and terrified. Can you actually do this? Sure, most of these kids have seen The Avengers, destroying things is part of their daily roleplay. But this is different, isn't it? Or is it. The very real threat posed by global warming and rising sea levels. Will there be nightmares? Or resolution to change things? Maybe both, who knows. Is it an artist's job to worry too much about what will scare the children, or just to stay honest, be clear, and be gentle.

Because that's, at last, what I saw in Alvin Sputnik. It is honest, it is clear, and it is gentle.

The Girl Who Forgot To Sing Badly

Yesterday, we saw The Girl Who Forgot To Sing Badly, written by the Tasmanian Finegan Kruckemeyer and produced by the Irish TheatreLovett, which is not gentle, but rather brash, velocious, and has really great hair. Louis Lovett spins a yarn -- well, I mean, he unpacks it out of many boxes and then spins it, which is a terrible thing for me to have done to a metaphor -- and revels in his own personal awesomeness.

Though his work is very physical, he exhibits tremendous focus. It is very clear, inspiring movement work, and an inspiration to men like me, who do not think of themselves as lithe or graceful. I thought, I can do that. I really should try. Do not fear the clown, but set him free.

Because even though the production features a great set, comprised of boxes within boxes within boxes (even Lovett's costume is a box within a box within a box, if you follow me) and though Kruckemeyer has crafted an irresistible story (another box w/in a box which, like Alvin Sputnik features end-of-the-world elements) it is the direct, clear, concise, animated, fantastic and outsized storytelling of Lovett upon which the success of the piece rests.

These two pieces of children's theater -- which can be enjoyed by absolutely anyone, really -- acknowledge and honor their undersized audiences in two different ways. In Girl Who Forgot it is the weight of detail and demand for attention that puts kids on notice that there will be no dumbing-down, keep up, children, you will get this, and in Alvin Sputnik the almost absolute absence of narration for long stretches of the production where we all just watched spellbound as wonderful and even frightening things developed and played out in elegant ways.

But seriously, what does this all have to do with David? I am so glad you asked. On Monday evening I had the opportunity to hear Adventures In Slumberland read for the Playwrights' Unit. In general it was a reassuring success, most comments were very positive. The crew that had assembled to rehearse once and then read were instrumental in the reading coming off all right -- especially as there are several turn-of-the-last-century melodies which they learned on their own time, primarily by looking up ancient wax cylinder recordings on YouTube.

Having never before written more than something like a short sketch for children, I wanted to try something special and new, unpredictable ... but not so odd as to be incomprehensible. What are the lines? Where are the boundaries? How much will I allow myself to trust the child? Readers of this blog may expect to read more grappling in the months to come.

As should now be abundantly clear, a children's show can be anything, about anything, anywhere, or everywhere, or nowhere. Kruckemeyer himself held a workshop here a year ago (thanks Deb for chronicling his writing exercises) which cracked open my perception of what writing can be and how a story can be successfully built.


Tim Watts, Finegan Kruckemeyer and I have one mutual friend: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Mark Storen. NOT SAFE FOR CHILDREN

The New York International Fringe Festival

 
Excellent news! Double Heart (The Courtship of Beatrice and Benedick) has been accepted into the 2013 New York International Fringe Festival. Just received news over the weekend, and have been waiting for the right time to tell everyone.

Finding out whether or not we would be reviving the show this summer, or if we would simply be junking the set and packing away the costumes is something that has been occupying my mind for most of the spring. Like, a lot of my mind. However, getting in was easy, getting there will be challenging. We will need funding. Funding from you. But asking for it comes later, first a lot of planning and plotting and organizing, and also, too: being excited.

This will be my fourth foray into the NY Fringe. The first was easy, if the timing was odd, we brought my wife's play Angst:84 to Lower Manhattan in August 2001. I was running sound -- on a minidisc player. Weren't those the days.

 In 2004 our space was a basement apartment in the West Village (40 seats.)

Oh my God! That's Caroline V. McGraw!!!

Twice since I have produced solo productions there, I Hate This in 2004 and And Then You Die in 2009. Each time, though I was delighted with the experience, I was less-than-satisfied with attendance, attracting maybe a dozen people for each show. It wasn't for lack of good word-of-mouth, or stellar reviews, maybe it was just the entirely-too-personal-stillbirth stuff.

Good thing there's none of that in this show.

I am exhilarated to bring a play, with music and brightly-colored costumes, and a set and a company of awesome fellow actors for a change. I think that will make a big difference. Last time my wife was unable to even make the trip, in spite of my incredible support team, it felt like quite a 'solo' show.

 In 2009 we were in a professional dance theater, across from the Public.

Most of all, I am so delighted that Double Heart has a life which continues. Some great shows I am more than happy to pack up and say farewell to, because they said what they needed to say, people saw it, everyone was happy, it's time for the next thing. But we have a good thing going with this show, and it deserves a longer life, and a wider audience. A New York audience! And it will have one.

O hey, I bought a domain name: doubleheart.info. Cost = $3.00. Awesome.

 In 2013, I will bring a costume.

Every Man Out of His Humour (1599)

Traditionally, I would read a book or a play before commenting on it. These days I am pressed for time and instead believe it would be more efficient to offer an opinion and provide historical background, and then take my time with the manuscript.

Currently I am reading four books at once. I look forward to finishing any one of them.

Every Man Out of His Humour is a comedy by Ben Jonson which was first performed in 1599. There has been speculation throughout the subsequent years as to whether or not this work (which is not to be confused with Jonson's 1598 hit comedy Every Man In His Humour) includes elements composed specifically to mock Williams Shakespeare's latest work, As You Like It -- also first performed in 1599 -- or whether Shakespeare was mocking Ben Jonson when he wrote As You Like It -- actually, possibly first performed in 1600.

It is at times like this we really wish Shakespeare had kept better records.

In Every Man Out of His Humour, Jonson features an introductory character who pedantically sets out the rules for all comedy. The play then goes about strictly following this set of rules, finally issuing his own critique of the play; By God, 'tis good, and if you like't, you may.

Shakespeare then writes one of his most-beloved and oft-performed romantic comedies, its title ripped straight from this challenge. Reminds me of when John Lennon ridiculed Paul McCartney for only writing silly love songs, and then McCartney wrote a number-one single called Silly Love Songs.

In fact, the character of Jacques from AYLI may have been a caricature of Jonson. He speaks mostly to himself, and no one really cares about his philosophy, if they are even listening to it. While Jacques' rumination on the seven ages of man is unarguably a legendary piece of work, no one around him has anything to say about it.

For his EMO Jonson created a vainglorious social-climber named Sogliardo who, like Shakespeare, spent time, cash and special favor to gain for himself and his family a coat-of-arms. While Shakespeare's read Not Without Right, Sogliardo's reads Not Without Mustard.

The difference is, I needed to explain that joke to you while the melancholy Jacques is one of the most beloved figures in "the canon". EMO was a popular failure, a fact German poet and translator Ludwig Tieck speculated, "greatly irritated its author."

Happy birthday, William Shakespeare. You win again.

Sources:
As You Like It (A New Variorum Edition, 1890)
As You Like It: A Guide to the Play by Stephen Lynch
As You Like It (Arden Edition)

The Alchemist (2001)

I blame myself.

When the decision was made to produce Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, I was thinking that I would direct it. My wife's grandfather was an English professor at O.U. and one of his pets joys was the works of Jonson. After a shaky start I was growing to appreciate the old man, and his sense of humor (grandfather Calvin G., not Ben Jonson) and he was trying to make inroads to my affection by engaging me in conversation about classic works of drama. He had given me an one hundred year-old copy of this particular play and in reading it, I found the play utterly hilarious.

Me. I did. I had an idea of how to create a modern-dress version and that it would work. However, events came together in such a way that my wife and I were to expect our first child within a month of the opening. I was pretending to be the artistic director of a theater company, so I did what I thought anyone would do, I handed to project off to someone else.

When our child was stillborn, I lost all interest in everything, including and especially this project. I think I attended auditions, but maybe not, I have no memory of that. I attended production meetings, I approved of the design, loved the cast (it had a great cast) though I was not pleased with the length. It was going to be three acts, but so was Hamlet, two years earlier, you can do three acts if they are swift and exciting and compel people to see how it all turns out.

Attending the first dress rehearsal, I gave some basic notes to the director. There wasn't much I could do at that point. There was a lot of schtick which substituted for wit -- a bit about choosing a name for an apothecary's shop, which is funny out loud, became this elaborate gag that involved making rebuses which took away from the humor. However, the bit where they constructed a bong out of scientific tools was outright hilarious.


My one significant note involved volume. Everyone was yelling every single line. Every line had an exclamation point. I told the director to bring it down, it's unbearable. That was it, my signal contribution to Bad Epitaph's production of The Alchemist.

Thes note, however, was never shared with any single member of the company. Quite the opposite, in fact. On opening night the director gave the company this stunning, astonishing, jaw-dropping directive:

"Go twice as big as you have ever gone in your life."

The main character of Subtle was played by Nick Koesters. Our director told Nick Koesters to go twice as big as he had ever gone in his life. But it wasn't just Nick, Allen Branstein was given this note, too. "Twice as big."

As my man Bob Golthwait used to say, "Who gave the gun to the baby?"

Now, I am not going to suggest that opening night of Bad Epitaph Theater Company's production of The Alchemist was a howling, over-the-top crackfest. Heavens, no. Instead I will quote the critics:

"A disappointing torment of incoherent yelling." - James Damico

"It had audiences dropping like flies." - Keith Joseph

"I left after two hours." - Roy Berko

However, there was this generous observation from Linda Eisenstein in the Plain Dealer:

"Throughout the evening you can watch the alchemy of the comedy come and go as the revved up players slam about, chewing scenery, then suddenly snap into focus with an exquisitely choreographed bit of business."

I know she's referring to the bong.

If I were to isolate one major error in this production, it would be its length. The verse plays I have directed have succeeded or failed depending upon how much dedication I made to cutting the script, making sensible internal cuts to the verse line, and lots of them. The cast included some of my favorite people I have ever gotten to work with, the design was kooky and inspired, and many of the gags were truly hysterical. But in the desperate attempt to finish the piece in something close to three hours, they were going terribly fast, which contributed to be being terribly loud, and pushing very, very hard. Regardless of whatever else had been going on in my life prior to March 20, I should have cut the script myself.

To promote the show, we got airtime on the WKYC Channel 3 morning show. Most of these TV promotions feature the actors in the background, with the host and producer of whatever program is being featured chatting in the foreground, you barely hear the actors at all. We decided, therefore, to present some of the most visual scenes.

I blame myself.

UPDATE: Sending that video around the Facebook, several company members had the opportunity to comment upon how much worse the stage combat looks with a camera right in Nick's face.

Director Larry Nehring:

"If you show the faces in slapstick combat it looks serious. I remember wanting to grab the cameraman and pull him back to the audience POV. It's hard to answer a stupid question when your soul is yelling, 'stop saying its not funny when you aren't seeing it right!'"

Yes, it looks pretty ugly close-up. However, we did tell them that this scene was going to feature "stage combat" -- the host leads off the segment warning that a fight is about the happen. Then he suddenly gets the vapors and demands to know just what the hell is going on. That was awkward.

So, did it look more funny from the "audience point-of-view"? So glad you asked. Harris was in town for our son's memorial service, and he was on hand to record all of the recording. We dredge up odd bits of video, you decide: 

Double Heart: University of Akron

Hey! The old gang's back together!

By special request, we took the set out of storage (and the glorious people in costumes freshened up the wigs) for a one-day-only revival of Double Heart for the good people in the English department at the University of Akron.

In the space of one day, I got a van, we loaded the van, drove to Akron, did the show -- ripped it down in RECORD time -- brought everything back and into the rehearsal space, and returned the van. It was a big day, but I will say it was worth it.

Someone made a video. I would like a copy of that video.