Theater For The Future

Scott Walters (I know you’re listening) has reminded me with his comment from the last few posts that we’re already in danger of forgetting or distracting ourselves on the theatrosphere from a real and immediate touchstone document of change – Obama’s Arts Plan.

I’ve also heard from several writers today wondering what’s next, and how to engage.

We have energy now. Seriously: read it. Remember my to do list from yesterday? Same stuff. It is our list now. How best to make it happen?

Call a theater educator. You already know one. Find out what programs they’re working on right now to unite professional theater and educational programs, and find a way to both participate and improve or enrich the experience for the students.

Follow up: A lively discussion is going on about this last bit over in the comments on an earlier post.

By the end of this week, any way we roll, I have this feeling that the country is going to wake up to the resolution: “Party’s over. Time to fix this shit already.” There’s a good reason why everyone seems to be talking about that JFK quote these days: “The torch has been passed. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” The time has come, and we all seem to know it.

So in order to distract me from exit polling and my browser refresh button, I’m reviewing today what still needs work close to home.

- Arts in Education is in trouble – and that is a trend that has been pretty alarmingly linked to higher rates of dropout, truancy, and lower academic achievement. (See the wonderful movie OT: Our Town for an excellent cross section of the problem, as seen from a school in Compton)

- Arts coverage in the print media – and unfortunately by extension all journalism – is in trouble, and it’s our fault. You can say that ultimately our fresh perspectives are a good thing, but losing quality journalism in any sector is not a good thing. (Keep an eye on the Reader this week… Remember that little spat about sound reinforcement trends a couple weeks ago? Well Deanna Isaacs rang me up, and I’m really looking forward to the results.)

- Our work needs to be better, and have greater resonance with more of the public. That pretty much always seems to be the case, and it doesn’t mean we need to be dumbing down our work. If anything, it means we need to be more clearly insightful and truthful in our work. But I think the stakes are suddenly higher now – we’re at a time where doing that self-improvement and honing work could actually make a difference for our society’s future.

- We have lots of policy makers on the blogosphere, and a much smaller ability to implement those policies. We all want to take action to do the right thing. But we must continue to educate ourselves, and test our assumptions with the best data that we can collect. Good arts policy (whether it is better opportunities for women playwrights or fair pay for arts leadership or stronger regional connection to theaters) demands the best ideas, and both the blogosphere and the big-box theaters and organizations succeed in generating better policy when that policy is informed by real trends and real data. Ignore the data, or fail to see the whole system, and our policies will simply move the problems around.

You know who taught me that? Barack Obama. As you were.

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.)