Theater For The Future

And if you missed it, you can see it again.

#1: TCG, with this page on World Theatre Day, has given blessing and gas to the global theatrosphere’s ad-hoc collaboration running up to March 27th. Note the MAP of EVENTS cleverly arranged by @floggingkatie (we need to get Sao Paulo on there!), both easy and more involved ways to participate, and links to handy socially-networked resources like our Facebook page, Twitter updates, and collaboratively-authored blog. Yes, that means that YOUR THEATER can promote and display YOUR World Theatre Day events on this blog, the TCG website, and with the League of Chicago Theatres all with a couple clicks. Let the world work for you.

#2: Da Mare, for this:

I feel like a party after all this. Oh wait, there will be a WORLD THEATRE DAY CELEBRATION at the Chopin Theatre on Friday, March 27, after shows have finished beginning around 9-10 pm. I’m helping on the technical end with a few presentations, and if there’s anything you want to contribute on that front please let me know. I like teching a good festival atmosphere, and the Chopin is a multi-room comfy environment for play and discussion. If you want to participate in World Theatre Day but don’t know how, check here for lots of suggestions. If you just want to show up and have a good time: Do so! Bring your theater, bring your audience, bring the world.

Read this.

And no, it’s not at all like facebook, that’s a common misperception that I overheard about three times between the Merchandise Mart el and Dunkin Donuts this morning. Yes, that’s about 20 steps. That many conversations about one thing means: Use. Wisely.

Twitter is also, at least so far, *not* a way to tap into a new potential audience, though I know that’s what you’re hoping it is. I think it will be eventually, or suddenly by accident, but not yet. Right now it’s the most valuable tool one might have for solving your problems with lots of global, brilliant minds who have worked through similar problems.

h/t @shamelesshussy

I have been thinking about this for a couple weeks now:

I love About Face. Their work is important. Their youth program is solid, and yes, I’d agree that it is unique. Inarguably About Face created several of the best long-running works I’ve seen in Chicago: I Am My Own Wife and Winesburg, Ohio. And there are a lot of others that I missed.

But. I cannot help raise $300,000 for About Face. Other than by drawing your attention to it, as many others have this week. If you can help, you should. But I’ve been trying for what seems like years to raise even $10,000 for my home theater, and that has never easy for a theater of our size under normal economic conditions. And I know from among other things the League Fiscal Survey that About Face is not alone and will not be alone in the coming months. I am imagining, right now, a sea of $300,000 pledge drives and that. just. will. not. work.

I get the pain, even if I don’t really understand of the specific conditions. There was this particular day I visited the offices of the soon-to-shutter Famous Door theater after the run of Great Society that I had worked on, days before they started rehearsals for their last production. This was a company that still inspires me, years later, for their seminal production of Cider House Rules that introduced me to Chicago theater – and what Chicago Theater could be. This particular day the tone in the office was… demoralized. Framed pictures were piling on desks. I remember that. No one was moving out… yet. But preparations were in effect. There was big debt being talked about in rumors. The managing director sheparded into a closed office a last-ditch group of independant funders. It was gut-wrenching to watch a theater that I loved break apart. I wish they had as a company reduced their overhead to a manageable level before they had to cease and burn out. Instead, they seemed to do what was best for the people in the company… dismantle the company to allow everyone to pursue their incredible acting careers.

This is not an idea I enjoy writing. It is a moment of support through challenge:

I can hear the furious typing of reprioritized budgets, and backup plans set in motion. Remember what we all know: we should support most what makes our work live most. (Hint: it’s the people, it’s not the office, the furniture.) It’s only partly the space, though we need to support the venues that support us just as if they were a company member. It’s the work, it’s not the size of the production budget. It is that ability to connect with students in your education program and teach them in a lasting way. You may not be able to pay the people, but find new ways to support and connect with your artists.

We must, must, must, must, must, must, must adapt or we will die. That starts with rationing. This is a climate change for the arts. If we are a polar bear sitting on a melting iceberg we can do four things:

- Wait it out. And drown.

- Panic. And drown.

- Phone a prominent national zoo for a helicopter rescue and a cushy but ultimately transformed life as a toothless and contained exhibit in a museum. And hope they pick up the phone before we count all our unhatched chickens.

- Swim to the nearest rocky outcropping before we float away into open ocean and learn to bite through tough Walrus hide. As if our life depended on it.

Survival is more important than the Money.

Here is a list of things I am doing to help my collaborators continue to do the work they do in the face of nightmare scenarios. I have no resources to my name other than time, connections to other awesome people, and ingenuity. So I know these ideas don’t require significant amounts of money. Post your own additions in the comments:

– Unemployed? Spend your time learning new skills. I am training about five people right now about skills that are marketable beyond the arts., and as you can tell from that link, have already gotten some dividends on that training in a little over a year. HTML, PHP, Ruby on Rails Web Programming, Graphics Design, Podcast recording and production, DVD authoring. It is HARD to learn while you’re unemployed. It is hard to battle through the feeling of personal whatever to make small steps of progress again. So latch on to people who know skills like and beyond these, make them breakfast, and learn from them as if your life depends on it. Think about the possibilities you can tap into: there is an expanding market right now for highly-skilled freelancers as full-time coders and records. It’s not a pretty situation any way you slice it, but I’ve seen theater workers, who need these skills anyway to support their primary work, bring a unique and attractive creative energy to technological and design work. It’s vastly easier than managing the logistics of creating theater (yeah, I said it, eat that private sector) and in the right proportions will support the work rather than sap time away from it.

– Fighting an uphill battle against the tide alone? Collaborate. No collaboration can stand without building a trustful relationship first. Be dependable and depend on others. Theaters all need to face this problem three days/months/years ago, and each theater is still coming up with solutions in their own private laboratory. For the love of god, there’s a reason why the medical community publishes their work. Share your thoughts, plans, and goals with other theaters towards the end of mutual support. Get specific, get vocal, get transparent. Those seem to be the traits that are rewarded by community attention right now. Perhaps itemize what specific line items your $300,000 fund drive will go to support. There is often a $5,000 solution to a $20,000 problem… if many eyes are on the lookout, you’ll find it faster. Also, on a really basic level – talking out your problems with your peers provides all kinds of psychological support that helps nurture creative problem solving.

– Closing down the office? Where will we have in-depth creative discussions? Where can we focus our energy? I’ve explored the low-cost possibilities of public spaces, online forums, and all the wonderful breakfast joints this town has to offer for a more efficient kind of collaboration. And you know what, it’s hard, but it works.

For more on this problem as it relates to Chicago Theatre, listen to this analysis / Q&A from Justin Kaufmann, Jonathan Abarbanel & Kelly Kleiman at WBEZ.

I’ll say it one last time (since it is a mantra):

The last weekend of Companhia Triptal’s Cardiff found some small pockets of free time for the company to explore Chicago, and especially Chicago theater. I had been talking with Bries Vannon about how much he had been inspired by Triptal’s work, and I had been talking with Triptal director André Garolli about how much he wanted to witness as much Chicago theater as he could fit in. It was around 4 pm on a Saturday between the matinee and the evening performance, and there was a wide open slot and a desire for exploration. I told André that a small local theater company was doing a highly experimental production by Fernando Arrabal and his eyes lit up. I told Bries that if the company could arrange a 4 pm run, a few folks from Triptal could catch the dress rehearsal, and his eyes lit up.

This is the mechanism of international cultural exchange. Making this one connection made me hungry for more, and deeper connections.

Sometimes it just falls into your lap.

As I hinted in the last post, it hasn’t just been New Leaf that’s been all a-twitter in the past few days. After all, the regular contributors to the #theatre feed on twitter include local tribes from Vancouver, Australia, Texas, Toronto, London, and a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated localities, all hungry for a deeper cultural exchange.

As Jess Hutchinson lays down the gauntlet today on Violence of Articulation, March 27 is the day all these tribes and the communities they represent have an opportunity to connect. The world of theater could get a whole lot closer. Read her whole post. It made my heart race.

On March 27th, we have a unique opportunity to celebrate that choice, and build our global connection and sense of collaboration at the same time. What’s this World Theatre Day, you ask? I’ve never heard of World Theatre Day, you say? Neither had I. Luckily, Rebecca Coleman can explain it for us:

World Theatre Day takes place every year on March 27, and is the brainchild of the International Theatre Institute. It’s aim is to: “promote international exchange of knowledge and practice in theatre arts (drama, dance, music theatre) in order to consolidate peace and solidarity between peoples, to deepen mutual understanding and increase creative co-operation between all people in the theatre arts”

Little time and less (read:no) money might look like prohibtive factors to our successful participation on March 27, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my family of fellow artists here, when it comes to a challenge we prove that Yes We Can. In a town where our lighting grids are often held together with paper clips and hope, our rehearsal spaces also serve as our studio apartments, and our costumes are pulled from our own closets – we’re not going to let something like a lack of funding keep us from getting our voices in the mix.

Simplicity will be key.

Damn Right.

So I’ve been thinking… How do you have a *simple* World Theatre Day? It’s something we’ll certainly be comparing notes about (and talking about face to face at the League of Chicago Theater meeting on Feb. 20th – hope to see all you League members there)

Well, you take the advice of master Chicago architect Louis Sullivan: “Form follows Function”.

To me, the ITI’s “creative cooperation” language is the most energizing call to action. The primary function of having a World Theater Day is to connect the local community with a sense of global community through the medium and experience of theater. Simple, Creative, Cooperative, Connection are the key ideas there.

To kick off the brainstorming (and please, Blog on, ye travelers)-

1) CREATE A FLICKR PHOTO FEED TO SHARE IMAGES GLOBALLY
Connecting people can be done richly through online media exchange, though some online media can be too time-intensive and complex for an in-the-moment event. Video and Audio streaming becomes not necessarily expensive financially, but expensive in terms of making computers, video cameras and microphones available to the local public. Photos, on the other hand, and the ubiquitous Flickr, are both well supported and integrated with a range of software, operating systems, and smart phones. Plus Flickr has some simple features to feedback the content to each locality: Setting up an ongoing slideshow of captured moments is as easy as hooking a computer up to a big screen or a projector. Comment-enabled photos make a global conversation about a local moment possible. The twitter folks have started experimenting with this service to share production photos… check it out and see what it can do.

2) CREATE CENTRAL INTERNATIONAL & LOCAL HUBS TO DIRECT TRAFFIC TO ALL THE WORLD’S CONTENT
Global events can get a little chaotic, and without reinforcing newly-minted connections with established channels of communication, each local event may experience confusion and difficulty connecting to the global movement. It’s important to prebuild the event with central infrastructures that encourage the generation and funneling up of local content. I think Rebecca Coleman already has this tricky bit started with the group-authored World Theatre Day blog that can be expanded to feature all kinds of content, planning, and exposure in the coming weeks. The 2/20 meeting at the League will be a great way to establish this hub of participation between the interested theaters of Chicago.

3) CONNECT, INVOLVE AND SUPPORT YOUR EXISTING INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATORS
In Performink, Kerry Reid lays out the incredible flowering panoply of Chicago’s current international collaborations. From the Goodman’s internationally-aimed O’Neill festival, the recently announced collaboration with Linz, Austria on the upcoming Joan Dark, Chicago Shakespeare’s World Stages presentation of the Rwandan production The Investigation, and the more homegrown DIY internationalism of Chopin Theatre’s I-Fest, Chicago demonstrates an existing adeptness at connecting the international dots. While creating new connections will be a huge potential value from WTD ’09, it will be easier to Simply Connect our existing international projects to the event, and reap the benefits of deeper dialogue and a higher international profile.
Establishing a blogging, twittering, or other content-sharing partnership with a single similarly-sized sister theater company may be a great way to draw attention to both theaters with a mitigated risk of local branding issues. You know, “Don’t forget your theater buddy!”

4) CONNECT YOUR LOCAL AUDIENCE WITH THE GLOBAL EVENT
Here’s where each theater’s approach can be anything goes. You have a relationship with your audience and you know what they want and respond to. The goal here is to create a global feedback loop of excitement and experience.

Maybe you arrange a backstage tour. You bring a photographer or videographer to capture images of your audience walking through, experiencing where the magic happens. Those images get uploaded during the show, and the global community responds to the images. After your show, as your audience leaves the theater, you invite them to see what the global community has said about your pictures, your show, your moments. Maybe some audience members from your sister company are ready to talk on Skype. Maybe your audience can spend some time browsing images of other global events, and making comments of their own. Maybe you present them with a website or the address of an after party where they can continue the experience.

This is just the beginning of what is possible… What is the fastest, simplest way for your theater to connect your audience’s experience and the experience of your work to other audiences across the globe?

The events of our lives – and an organization’s life – flow like a river. A big, powerful, deep river. The river brings potential – maybe it’s transportation, resources, energy, trade. But it also brings a daily supply of erosion. Silt buildup chokes our harbors. Periodic floods overflow the banks and destroy existing homes while at the same time providing rich fertilizer. Organizational infrastructure – our skills and resources – are the tools we can use to harness the river.

Do we have-to-have-to harness the river? No, we can chose to let it go by like wise Buddhas, free from attachments. Do we need to consider other fair uses of the river downstream and upstream before initiating that giant dam-building project or sewage-disposal strategy? Absolutely, because we’re creative people, not dickheads.

Sustainable solutions only come from asking three basic questions

(on personal, local, and global or life-long scales:)

What do we want to accomplish? (Our Mission)

What do we want the world to look like when we’re done? (Our Vision – and our Values)

What is the best tool to achieve the short term goal AND the long term goal at the same time?

Dan asks this question on a human and personal scale today, and he reminds me of two three things:

1) I think that’s the closest my name has ever come to being used as a verb.

2) I owe several people a further exploration of the ideal company retreat process, myself included.

2) Dan’s geeking out about the iPhone app Things (and the similar and decidedly more geeky and sync-friendly OmniFocus, which I’ve been beta testing for nigh on two years now) reminds me that it’s once again time to plug the idea behind it. David Allen’s common-sense driven Getting Things Done approach to holistic project management, which inspired countless to-do applications and personal calls to creative action – this blog included – is the core reason I’m able to maintain a high rate of productivity in my work without wanting to set my hair on fire at the end of the day. In case you were wondering.

Not that I’m particularly good at doing things David’s way – but that’s not the point. It’s just that David’s Book
and his approach to problem solving through is smart, efficient, clarifying, and ultimately, liberating for an artist who wants to accomplish something and simply wants to get their act together. If you’re excited by the possibilities of Things, check out the source.

Seriously. Read it.

More to the immediate point. I just got this [web 2.0 generated form] email from Obama’s campaign. If you donated time or energy to the campaign, you’ve probably gotten one as well: “Change is Coming”, you know the one? Well, it got me thinking. I’ve setup a few informal meetings of Chicago storefront arts organizations in the past, and this seems like a particularly important time to discuss the social and political work that needs to be done – that can be done by us in our work – and it might just be useful to coordinate the way in which we want to do it. I think it wouldn’t be inappropriate to just use Obama’s format and infrastructure to set the thing up. Who’d be interested in that? If I get five takers on this blog post, I’m gonna make it happen.

Because we should meet like this more often.

OMG OMG OMG!

Chris Biddle, local improv gunslinger and Victory Gardens staff member, just shilled in a kind of amazingly personal way for Radio Lab, using his true-to-life story of how the mind-warpingly awesome podcast became a pivotal moment in a recent romance – as a riveting 15-minute pledge drive speech.

The story is one I share. Radio Lab will make you fall in love again with being human.

Also, TOC this week has picked up on the fact that Radio Lab is actually theater – or at least a very theatrical kind of storytelling – on the radio. New media crossover, anyone? Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich are two folks to emulate in their mastery of taking complex issues in the sciences and humanities and breaking them apart like a juicy pomegranate, making their shows both digestible and rich. I’ve got my tickets for the Radio Lab appearance at Victory Gardens on Monday, where they will perform their documentary on the various guerrilla radio performances of War of the Worlds through the decades, right after my all-nighter changeover moving MDQ to the Apollo.

And holy cellists from heaven, Zoe Keating will be there to play live, tense, underscore.

I. AM. GOING. TO. DIE. FROM. HAPPY.

(seriously. do not miss this show.)

Our ongoing experiment with the TCG Free Night of Theater at New Leaf is going so well it’s hard not to draw some very quick and dirty predictions about storefront theaters’s viability in the face of an economic downturn. Some things we’re finding (and I’ll let the rest of the Box Office staff at New Leaf give more detail here in the coming days):

* Most people – sorry, most theater goers – don’t realize that storefront theater exists. And, at least in our experience, they’re excited when they discover the art they already love being done in tiny, intimate spaces.

* Most theater goers don’t realize that storefront theater can be excellent. Because we tend to be experimental and/or developing artists, storefront work doesn’t have a consistent quality other than that intimacy. But there are shows that are hands down excellent in that grab bag, and we’re nearly always intimate, and we’re comparatively cheap, storefront theater becomes a no-brainer entertainment value. Human contact in a time of economic hardship is at a premium. We offer close-camera human experience.

* When patrons get past these two hurdles, and like what they see, they have an exciting reaction: Ownership. They feel they have discovered something secret that now belongs to them and they seem to be more excited to tell their friends about the experience than a regular patron would be. Since storefront theater publicity is often built primarily on word of mouth, this is potentially the most valuable patron experience we could ask for. Of course, the data isn’t in on how these patrons comparatively follow through in spreading the word – we won’t know that until the end of this season at least. But by greeting new patrons with a goodie bag of season information, 2-for-1 tickets and a lobby atmosphere that is more real, genuinely friendly, and built by a community than our big-box theater cousins (all because we’re not paid – we LOVE to be there) we’re hopeful on this front.

So what happens when everyone is worried about going broke? Well, we tighten the purse strings. But that doesn’t mean we stop living their lives. In the case of dining, instead of going to fine cuisine, people opt for Olive Garden. Or they take that chance on that local dive.

So, the prediction: Most of us have already seen how the downturn has made grants dry up quickly as foundations scramble to secure their assets and make larger and more flashy large-scale donations that don’t benefit small theaters. If storefront theater can make the case, this could be a year where as theater goers flake off from their big-house big-ticket subscriptions they take a low-risk chance on the work being done in storefront venues. And if the work is good and the experience is good, they might just stick.

But timing is everything. The election, necessarily, will be sucking all the oxygen out of the local and national news cycles right on through November 2nd. I’ve been talking with several theater companies trying to promote their shows right now (hell, I’m one of them), and my advice to them is: Save your energy, wait, and hit hard after the big election come-down.

After then, theater-going groundhogs everywhere will come out of their Cable News comas and want to be a part of life and collective imagination again. Be ready with your best work, your comparatively cheap tickets, and your comfiest chairs. Communities are built from your neighborhood out.