There came a point, sometime during the Chicago TCG conference over a year ago, where I decided to go all in, where talking about building a better future for theater was not enough.  Maybe it was big audacious calls to action from folks like Chris Ashworth or the 2amt crowd.  If the purpose of a blog is to investigate your own ideas, internally, and then maybe others can benefit from them, I felt like I had completed a couple rounds of writing about the same challenges facing theatre and needed a completely new set of experiences to draw from.  As the slogan for the TCG conference said:  Ideas into action.

In the time between that moment and now, I did some stuff.  And now I’m finally beginning to process it.

May 2010 – Taking the Leap from Goodman.
I began owning up to a few facts.  I’m good at building and supporting ensembles, and I was not satisfied with the life I had chosen for myself as a full-time theatre technician and artist.  I had worked at the Goodman Theatre as a sound engineer, which both paid my bills and served as advanced training in collaboration, theatre operations, and programming.  At the same time that I was running about five to six shows a year, I was also designing about 15 – 20, and at a certain point running shows was no longer the source of wonder and excitement that had drawn me to it in the first place.  After mixing a Broadway-bound musical (Million Dollar Quartet) to prove I could do it and see if I felt fulfilled by it, I knew that my interests were increasingly in design, web work, and the leadership that goes, and that meant finding or building a leadership position.

September 2010 – Marshall Creative goes full-time.
One of the central problems I have (and I share this with most theatre folks I know) is it’s not second nature to value my own time and expertise enough.  The saturated labor market does this to us, and when you apply the ancillary skills you develop when running a theatre company or two to another position, you suddenly realize you’re a creative manager who can deliver on deadline.  So:  very valuable.  An ensemble of theatre creatives – myself, Sandy Marshall (of Schadenfreude and Second City), my wife Marni (New Leaf Theatre’s production manager), Bilal Dardai (playwright and content writer extraordinare of the Neo-Futurists), Dan Granata (another accomplished theatre programmer of Chicago), Brad Dunn (of Metropolis Performing Arts Center), and for a time permalance graphic designer Steven Lyons (of Impress These Apes and currently enjoying a stint in a Second City revue on a boat somewhere in international waters) – went all in with this idea.  Right about the time this blog went dormant (last labor day) we opened up shop for a uniquely theatre- and comedy- powered agency, Marshall Creative, in an office downtown near the Merchandise Mart, with me first in the role of Chief Operations Officer and then focusing tighter on the Chief Technology Officer role.  Our work is in the areas of content creation, branding, and the technological support platforms that serve that content, our clients began in the arts and financial fields and quickly expanded through referrals into real estate,  health care, nutrition, and deeper into the arts.  In exchange for our using our creative powers, we generate full time salaries and benefits that are compatible with theatrical side projects – creating a lifestyle in a way that we can own and call the shots on.  While building any business is all-consuming for the first few years, Marshall Creative has the potential to let us create sustainable lifestyles with the freedom to exercise our creative and technical muscles by day.   And with several theatrical clients including Black Box Acting Studio (and some other big ones in the works), we’re still building technology that serves the theatrical community.

New Leaf – Sound Design leads to Producing
While my Sound Design career continues on, it became clear to me that my work is better when I have a strong relationship with my collaborators, and that led to me greatly focusing my work to a smaller number of projects that I invest more time in.  In particular, my artistic home of New Leaf Theatre has been the beneficiary of this attention as we produced a few ambitious projects and explored new directions for the company in the past few years, including laying down the technology foundations behind a more concerted audience development campaign.  While New Leaf has a reputation for quality productions and production values, it also has one of the smallest budgets in Chicago theatre, largely due to the institutional knowledge of its producing ensemble, equipment inventory, and great rent arrangements with its home venue.  That said, marketing and audience development remain huge challenges for the company, and ones that we must, must, must improve in the coming years if we want to continue to take pride in our work.  After all, what good is theatre if the audience isn’t there to share it?  That question is one I have started bringing, for better and worse, into my every sound design process of the past few years.  After all, we’re fighting for our work, our voice, and our ability to change people’s lives with a story, and we have this tendency to fool ourselves into achieving less than that.

December 2010 – Organizational Partnerships – Ranalli’s and Preservation Chicago
To that end, one of New Leaf’s initiatives in the past few years – led by our brilliant, fearless and intrepid Managing Director Eleanor Hyde – was to use our theatrical storytelling skills to their greatest benefit by partnering with other companies and organizations to mutually solve our company goals (an initiative we laid out on the New Leaf blog in December 2009).  Last December, we struck a deal with our after-show bar, Rocco Rannalli’s in Lincoln Park, to perform an in-restaurant off-night holiday show penned by our most frequent playwright collaborator, Bilal Dardai.  The result was Redeemers - a modern riff on the story of Bob Cratchit and Mr. Scrooge as told in a modern-day corporate holiday party.  The result was also a huge amount of off-night business for Rocco Ranalli’s in exchange for a free space.  We struck a similar partnership up with Preservation Chicago and performed an intimate reading of  our 2007 hit The Dining Room for a group of donors in the historic Glessner House museum in the Prarie District of the near south side of Chicago.  That fundraiser cemented new relationships with donors for both Preservation Chicago and New Leaf, and exposed us to a new audience who shared our love for unique spaces and architecture – people who love the stories hidden in the walls and delighted in seeing them come alive.  This kind of initiative is probably the most both artistically and financially successful program New Leaf has generated, and its the model I most hope gets picked up by others.  Because it’s easy and great for all involved once you get the hang of it.

2010 – 2011 New Works – Treehouse
In the spirit of seeing a problem and then working to fix it, Artistic Director Jessica Hutchinson brought on New Leaf’s Literary Director, Josh Sobel, and together they launched a unique reading series, New Leaf’s Treehouse, a program that focuses on “play polishing.”  For the past few seasons, New Leaf has opened a call of submissions for plays on a particular theme (for instance this year is all about “Critical Mass”) that are looking for their second reading and getting pushed forward in the development process.  Our plays are read with our audience in house, and then processed using a uniquely active talkback in which the audience gets on their feet, playing a kind of thematic battleship in which reactions and resonances are explored as a group.  Then, out of the slate of six treehouse plays, we produce one of them.  Yeah.  Again, we go all in.  In the last few years, our world premiere productions of Lighthousekeeping and Burying Miss America have both been products of Treehouse development.  In addition, we’ve helped develop some gems like Idris Goodwin’s old school hip-hop coming-of-age story How We Got On, which was picked up by Victory Gardens and is now slated for production at the Humana Festival.  Much of Treehouse is also available for internet consumption on New Leaf’s Treehouse Podcast.  After all, most of these plays are ready for production in other markets other than Chicago.

Lighthousekeeping
Our first foray into the downtown DCA storefront space was a leap of faith for New Leaf.  We brought an untested world premiere play (a new adaptation of Jeanette Winterson’s post-modern, kaleidoscopic tale of an orphan girl who learned to shape her splintering world with story) into a space with a larger palette gave our producing ensemble a unique opportunity to show what we are capable of in a large format – a story of what it means to hold on to childhood flights of fancy as we grow up and shape a new life for ourselves.  I am still fiercely proud of this story about storytelling in particular in New Leaf’s canon.  I helped to bring the play into the world by encouraging my friend, playwright Georgette Kelly, into the Treehouse fold and introducing her to a creative partnership with Jess Hutchinson and New Leaf, pouring most of my creative energies into sound designing it (all 450 cues), producing it with our company of seven, and creating and spreading marketing materials in the corners of time left over.  In the end, it gave us the opportunity to answer a question that we had always asked ourselves – what would New Leaf look like in a space with more resources and flexibility?

Choose your own extension
One of the advantages of being small is that you can take crazy risks and share those ideas with others who wouldn’t otherwise be able to learn from the experience.  In our case, we had availability to extend Burying Miss America – with not even much else in the way of rent – but were faced with the common problem of not knowing if we’d be able to get the word out in time to have any audience actually show up for an extension.  In the end, we put it to a vote, encouraging audience members and their friends to vote for a slate of show times.  If any particular slated performance got enough votes, we’d do an additional extension performance for that day and time.  This was the right kind of ownership for our audience – this encouraged people who were otherwise going to miss the show to help us promote it.  And it also made our jobs easier in deciding whether an extension was a good idea or not.  In the end, there weren’t enough votes to extend, which ultimately was a success for the program.  While the show received rave reviews, it also performed in the middle of a packed fall season in the midst of a down economy.  We were able to hear what our audience wanted.

What’s Next?
2012 began today, and while 2011 was a big year of earth-moving change in my life, 2012 promises to be more so.  We have begun to taste the fruits of our labor at Marshall, and we have a lot of dreams yet to turn into reality.  I know with absolute certainty that with the group of people that I’m working with, that they are the right dreams to be working on.

While I’ve been happily tapped with these new creative and productive outlets, it means that my writing here will continue to be intermittent.  That said, I promise a couple things:

This year I will continue my work to make things better and bring new ideas and innovations that help us spend our creative energies more wisely in theatre – to focus on art while covering artistic management.

I will make sure I can sustain myself and my artistic family so that we can continue to make things better.  Thank you all for the coffees over the years.  It’s been an amazing show of support.

Let’s make it more awesome this year.  Shall we?

Two of the most mind-blowing conversations I’ve had this year have both been late at night and joined in by a bunch of twitter pals. They’ve been energizing and challenging – I seem to do better in creative, collaborative brainstorming environments – and at the end of it all, I think I understand the theater ecosystem we’re trying to create much more clearly.

If you don’t like combing through other people’s conversations for bits of inspiration, I’ll be summarizing with handy flowcharts later.

Read the full conversation after the jump

ericzieg: @TheNineChicago re @parabasisThe game will change when it catches up to the success of other venues for perishable, live experiences.
TheNineChicago: @ericzieg I’m interested, not sure if I’m on the same page, though. Are we talking sporting events? Live music? Dance?
TheNineChicago: That’s a’ight, I’ll be that guy.
ericzieg: @TheNineChicago Any venue offering a liminal, perishable experience: the restaurant model, the club model, the store model.
TheNineChicago: @ericzieg So, in a nutshell, the game ain’t changing.
ericzieg: @TheNineChicago I articulated it a bit in the comments at @Chris_Ashworth‘s blog last year: http://bit.ly/KgLDy
TheNineChicago: @ericzieg Ah, I see. I’m mainly talking playwrights — how the current institution has little interest in them.
TheNineChicago: @ericzieg What with the amount of underpants being wrung that someone who is essentially part of the institution called them whiners.
ericzieg: @TheNineChicago Where I would draw an analogy is: who is the equivalent of the playwright at these other venues, and how are they paid?
“ericzieg: @TheNineChicago (Ah, I was relating this more to Isaac’s post about quitting the game, and suggesting that that “”game”" will be replaced.)”
TheNineChicago: @ericzieg …aside from the fact that Jones is fine with the game and Isaac also thinks it should be replaced.
TheNineChicago: @ericzieg Oh oh oh, I’m with you there, the ‘game’ should be replaced. I just don’t think Isaac and Jones come up with different answers…
ericzieg: @TheNineChicago All the sold-out shows in small theaters in the past few months suggests to me the possiblity of greater self-sufficiency.
ericzieg: @TheNineChicago (i.e., good shows that weren’t given exceptional coverage but found an audience: Strange Tree, Redtwist, BackStage, Snnermn)
TheNineChicago: @ericzieg That’s my hope for Outrageous Fortune — not that we ‘fix’ theatre, but we realize we can do it ourselves.
TheNineChicago: @ericzieg Self-sufficiency’s the name of the game. Naturally, the higher up the food chain you go, the less people are going to agree.
TheNineChicago: @ericzieg And the best part is that them not agreeing doesn’t really matter. That’s why the outrage baffles me.
nickkeenan: YES. RT @ericzieg All the sold-out shows in small theaters in the past few months suggests to me the possiblity of greater self-sufficiency.
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago @ericzieg Restaurants are doing it already. All word of mouth, and provide a delicious shareable local experience.
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago That is my definition of fixing theater – doing it ourselves, sustainably.
TheNineChicago: @nickkeenan Perhaps I should have used a capital Theater. So much agreement on what’s wrong makes me wonder who we’re trying to convince.
travisbedard: @nickkeenan eh. If I wait long enough Steppenwolf will fix it for me.
TheNineChicago: @nickkeenan The bigger picture system that’s in place isn’t going to change, so yes, let’s stop playing that game and make our own.
TheNineChicago: @nickkeenan That’s what I meant. We don’t fix Broadway, we stop worrying about it and do it better.
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago It is true. Today is one of those days that makes me want to sever connections with that side of the industry.
travisbedard: @Ericdoggettremember that you’re smarter than me, I could be missing something big, just didn’t see it in my once over.
travisbedard: @TheNineChicago Trying to convince the untired people with money who aren’t us, so when we wake up we’re closer to Zion.
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago Not in a bitter way – just, acknowledging that we function as differently as local restaurants and MickeyDs.
travisbedard: @dloehr can you drive one down here? I’m all mopey.
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago We’re trying to convince the audience, Bries.
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago remember that all your project’s goals are compatible with going off the grid. Mine are not: I want a more local grid.
nickkeenan: @travisbedard T-shirt! (Why worry? Steppenwolf will fix it for me.)
krisvire: @nickkeenan Bingo. But don’t you also want to have a series of local grids that can better serve, say, Toni Press-Coffman?
travisbedard: @nickkeenan Somebody had better, this bejeweled ain’t gonna play itself.
travisbedard: @krisvire Does Ms. P-C like eggs?
travisbedard: @krisvire or @ToniChristianoif you’re nasty
nickkeenan: @krisvire Yes indeed. And I want a blueprint for such a grid (like we have in foodie-dom) to exist in every community.
“travisbedard: @Ericdoggettyeah just let her know I followed with an “”it’s not you it’s me”" and then you can roll your eyes and say “”hh…Actor”"”
nickkeenan: @travisbedard Too Much Light, naturally.
nickkeenan: @krisvire We need the support of hometown critics for that – who prefer good local food over M-Fing Applebee’s.
travisbedard: @nickkeenan what’s the theatre equivalent of braised short ribs and minted quinoa?
travisbedard: @nickkeenan BAM. Sold.
TheNineChicago: @nickkeenan We convince the audience with our work, not with books and studies. (Which reads more bitter than I intend.)
nickkeenan: @dloehr The sustainability is the hard part. A restaurant requires the support of a network of people who know how a restaurant works.
krisvire: @travisbedard Is this all about you missing dinner?
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago The work is part of it, but the framework is also part. Great chefs go under because they don’t connect with their hood
travisbedard: @krisvire if you’re going to be all perceptive about it. Apparently YES.
travisbedard: Seriouly guys – Monofonus Press (a multimedia label) in Austin with a reading I WANT to go to: Teleportal Readings http://is.gd/5WhVo
TheNineChicago: @nickkeenan I do love that The Nine doesn’t have to deal with some of this, but I swing both ways. The Signal hat changes priorities.
krisvire: @nickkeenan Well. Yes. I mean the cheese biscuits at Red Lobster are made from magic. But I tend to favor the neighborhood places.
travisbedard: @dloehr use it to come up with metaphors to fix and label theatre. GO (and not CSAs that’s taken)
nickkeenan: @krisvire And thus we have cheese biscuits = xanadu.
krisvire: @TheNineChicago The study’s not for audiences, but it got this discussion going among us, yeah? Curious what the Monday thing will be like.
TheNineChicago: @nickkeenan @krisvire Local grids = yes. But this isn’t new info; we’re working on it. What frustrates me is all the time and energy…
TheNineChicago: @nickkeenan @krisvire …spent railing against McDs. They don’t care, we know they don’t care. We’re in two-wheel drive, we could use four.
krisvire: @nickkeenan I’m on a streak of torturing metaphors this week.
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago The problem is that this is where the metaphor breaks down. Everyone’s talking about McDs instead of Bayless in theater
krisvire: @TheNineChicago @nickkeenan OK, but then we have to decide what Goodman & S’wolf equal. Topolobampo?
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago Without dialogue with audience, you don’t have theater that matters.
krisvire: @nickkeenan Or did we both come up with that at the same time? shudder
krisvire: @nickkeenan Thank you for following me down that treacherous path.
TheNineChicago: @krisvire I shouldn’t have had to Google that just now, should I? hangs head
nickkeenan: @krisvire Dude. Steppenwolf is totally Wolfgang Puck.
TheNineChicago: @krisvire Annie’s coming to town, right? Consider the Cracker Barrel position filled.
krisvire: @TheNineChicago Yep, and Mamma Mia = Olive Garden.
TheNineChicago: I gained three followers in the last hour. Thanks, Outrageous Fortune!
krisvire: @dloehr @nickkeenan I agree. Steppenwolf doesn’t put its name on grocery store frozen entrees.
TheNineChicago: @dloehr I already blame him for far too much.
TheNineChicago: @dloehr Also, good to make your acquaintance!
nickkeenan: @krisvire @dloehr I don’t know. Grocery store frozen entrees are the solution to all MY problems.
krisvire: &and employers/training grounds for up-and-comers?
krisvire: For (semi)serious though, do Goodman & S’wolf = Rick Bayless & Grant Achatz, our grid’s ambassadors to larger world&
nickkeenan: @krisvire Correct. And while being semi-franchised, they’re still a bridge with the community.
dloehr: @krisvire @nickkeenan Obv, I’m not in Chicago itself, but seems like they’re a better/stronger bridge than in most cities.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @krisvire It’s not the same with our area, which, for the sake of discretion, rhymes with Hooeyville.
krisvire: Um, for those not playing along at home, my BobFalls:RickBayless analogy is part of a much larger at-reply conversation. Ahem.
TheNineChicago: @krisvire @nickkeenan And things like S’wolf’s GarageRep reinforce that. We can work together. And separately. And should do both.
nickkeenan: @dloehr dur. I mean cities.
nickkeenan: @dloehr In smaller theaters, I think the model needs to not require a bridge.
dloehr: @TheNineChicago @krisvire @nickkeenan I would love for something along the lines of GarageRep. If more places were open to such projects…
dloehr: @TheNineChicago @krisvire @nickkeenan …they might find more people coming into their buildings, maybe get a cross-pollination of auds.
rwkozlowski: I walk away from Twitter for three hours and the place is going crazy with food metaphors. Can’t I leave you people alone for two seconds??
krisvire: RT @WillActForFood: @krisvire & a convoluted 1 at that. had to follow at least 3 new ppl/cos to make sense of it. and now? totally hungry.
nickkeenan: @dloehr I think what helps places like Hooeyville is financial support for a portion of small-scale tours & cost effective remounts
dloehr: @nickkeenan They’re confused when new and different people come there to see these dinky little theatre groups in the cabaret.
dloehr: @nickkeenan Ideally, yes. But it’s amazing how ossified ATL’s gotten, even with the new play festival and the baby-steps cabaret series.
nickkeenan: @dloehr And I think in kind, cities need that fringe festival element that brings in latest work from Hooeyville.
dloehr: @nickkeenan And then figure these folks’ll be so enthralled with ATL as is, they’ll buy tickets on the spot. But they don’t.
nickkeenan: @dloehr It’s audience training. It’s like the first time you eat from a street vendor. It’s risky, but so rewarding, and delightful.
dloehr: @nickkeenan Ah, but those are doing fine. The KY Center for Arts packs them in for the tours and such.
dloehr: @nickkeenan Indeed. We did one year where all of our shows were out of town, because that’s where we got support.
nickkeenan: @dloehr I think I’m thinking about Chi. We see a lot of international, but not indiana (that isn’t in process of moving here)
TheNineChicago: @nickkeenan You’re taking this metaphor to the bank, aren’t you?
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago It works! I’m finding it incredibly valuable. Plus I need to hold on to sense of humor as tight as possible today.
krisvire: @nickkeenan Exactly. Which is why I have such hopes for @ChicagoFringe.
dloehr: @nickkeenan –we do okay with the 40-50 seat space, room to add chairs if need be.
dloehr: @nickkeenan Yeah. We’re about 40 miles from L’ville, so that’s our civilization. Local pop is 25k for the entire county. So locally–
nickkeenan: @krisvire That would throw so much fuel on Twitter. I would love to see Austin, IN, and Vancouver bring shows here and vice versa.
krisvire: @nickkeenan Hmm, now I’m trying to imagine a theater version of the Taste.
dloehr: @nickkeenan L’ville has so many little groups that do good work, but they die quickly because there’s nowhere to do it. But if ATL–
TheNineChicago: @dloehr @nickkeenan And this is how National becomes National, not NYLACHI.
nickkeenan: @dloehr I think that’s the perfect size to serve a small community or neighborhood. Program the hell out of the space.
dloehr: @nickkeenan And you know what they push as the draw? The beer. Honestly.
dloehr: @nickkeenan –of their occasional cabaret thing late one Friday night every three or four months for ten minute shows, loud music and beer.
dloehr: @nickkeenan –were to support a rotating series of shows from homegrown theatre artists, they’d pull people in on a regular basis instead–
nickkeenan: @krisvire its what loopapalooza should be
dloehr: @nickkeenan This space isn’t ours full time, but we’ve got a guy who’s developing a little complex and he wants us as the draw.
nickkeenan: @krisvire And I think it’s most of the way there. Chaotic, fun, centrally located. With a map and schedule that is best left at home.
dloehr: @nickkeenan And programming it continuously is my goal.
“nickkeenan: @rwkozlowskiYou’re not hungry enough. “”Pizza”" “”Mashed Potatoes.”" “”Hamburger.”"”
dloehr: @krisvire @nickkeenan I’m hoping to bring something up to @ChicagoFringe, depending on my actor’s schedule…
TheNineChicago: @nickkeenan Looptopia? But that’s dead now, isn’t it?
dloehr: @travisbedard This is a good thing. I was worried I’d have to break out some of the 5yr’s knock knock jokes.
dloehr: @nickkeenan That’s really 90% of the local battle–a dedicated space that people are aware of and visit regularly.
rwkozlowski: @nickkeenan I’m full as hell. Wife and I got a large pizza from I Monelli. Almost finished the damn thing.
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago My brain is totally fried. Yes. Looptopia. And THATS why we need sustainability.
krisvire: @nickkeenan GarageRep, O’Neill fest, FugardChicago & RogersParkFlexPass are all almost-there models to build on, too.
TheNineChicago: @krisvire What ever the at-reply version of retweeting is, I’m doing that right now.
nickkeenan: @krisvire Each one of those programs reduces the risk of experience that CJ is so deathly afraid of.
nickkeenan: @krisvire All just selling our stuff together to create an audience culture that values that kind of performance experience. Patron choice
dloehr: @WillActForFoodWe do great with pay-what-you-can Thurs nights, often make as much as regular nights. Sun are tougher, depends on the show.
nickkeenan: @krisvire If one component sucks, you have three or four more to make your date happy.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @krisvire Then you’re part of something more, and even the lesser shows are still fun.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @krisvire That’s the beauty of the Capital Fringe (and others), where you enjoy the experience itself, see a few shows at once.
rwkozlowski: Chicago improv is modeled on exactly that. RT @nickkeenan If one component sucks, you have three or four more to make your date happy.
krisvire: @nickkeenan Exactly. Risk-minimizers. Only diff now is, if you’re not digging something at Lolla or Looptopia&
krisvire: @nickkeenan &you can drag yr date away to another perf happening simultaneously. With thtr models, it’s try again another night.
TheNineChicago: @krisvire @nickkeenan If we can get to a place where something like FugardChicago is planned ahead? Dialogue for aud./artists/everyone.
nickkeenan: @TheNineChicago That’s why the league is trying to make FugardChicago a model.
krisvire: @TheNineChicago @nickkeenan YES. On the fly is undeniably awesome, but on purpose is way better.
krisvire: @TheNineChicago @nickkeenan And that’s, frankly, what O’Neill was. Which is to Goodman’s bridging credit.
“nickkeenan: @krisvire @TheNineChicago so we need more “”Free Nights of Theatre”" for the next 10 years until people WANT the full night of theater”
nickkeenan: @krisvire @TheNineChicago Thanks. This discussion really clarifies where I should be putting my energy in next six months.
ericzieg: Momofuku Ko in NYC has 12 seats. Top restaurant in NYC. Someone will figure out how to do this with Chicago theater. http://bit.ly/28IpFY
ericzieg: The dovetailing of a theater’s work and its physical space – as in @buildingstage. In the 2010s Chicago theater will have its Grant Achatz.
ericzieg: See also arena concerts instead of Schubas, X-Box not Whirlyball RT @nickkeenan Everyone’s talking about McDs instead of Bayless in theater
krisvire: @ericzieg @halcyonjennHey y’all, welcome to our weirdo Friday night jam session.
ericzieg: Went to The Counter on Diversey tonight, which absolutely holds its own against Chi theater as $15 for sensory surprise/satisfaction/depth.
krisvire: @ericzieg Love @buildingstage, but doesn’t it sit fallow when not booked, in a culture desert? I think to audiences it does.
ericzieg: @krisvire If a place like @buildingstagewere a cultural gym, with the hours and membership model of a gym, maybe gym model would work.
ericzieg: @krisvire If any restaurant had the limited hours of a storefront theater, there’s no way they would stay in business…but, conversely,
ericzieg: @krisvire …if a theater space had the hours and daily number of customers as a restaurant, could it work as a for-profit?
krisvire: @ericzieg Hmm. So expect large auds in evening, small auds mid-afternoon & late-night (w/lighter staffing)? I’m trying to follow you here&
ericzieg: @krisvire Maybe yoga in the morning, kids shows or classes in the afternoon, theater in the evening, music at night.
ericzieg: @krisvire See also: Old Town School and Second City. Both are open from about 9 a.m. to midnight, in one capacity or another.
ericzieg: @krisvire If a space is membership-sustained, some use it quarterly, some daily; like the private old-boy club model + gym model.
krisvire: @ericzieg OK, I see where you’re coming from now.
ericzieg: @krisvire As Adam Thurman wrote, churches don’t propser through Sunday services but through what else they do: http://bit.ly/AOcFI
“krisvire: @ericzieg I spent a decade waiting/bartending to pay the bills, so I’m slightly resistant to “”it’ll all balance out”" memes&”
krisvire: @ericzieg &just based on my own experience about the way dayparts play out. But smart programming could allay that.
krisvire: @ericzieg Adam’s totally right about 11-12 on Sunday not paying the bills, but a lot of churches waste a lot of time too.
krisvire: @ericzieg And for what it’s worth, I love me some Adam Thurman.
ericzieg: @krisvire I think it’s a really exciting time for Chi theater, with the talent here combined with you/Thurman/Keenan/et-al pooling thoughts.
krisvire: @ericzieg Thank you, sir. I can only hope that I (in conjunction with those way more awesome minds) can do some good for the cause.
nickkeenan: @dloehr Serial plays often discussed in Chicago, BTW – there’s even a historic precedent in WARP by Organic.
nickkeenan: @dloehr Yowser. It is goood to get those ideas out there. Many things to think about now.
dloehr: @nickkeenan I think it’s a natural idea right now, give people a reason to keep coming back in, esp one acts/cheap tix.
dloehr: @nickkeenan And we the public are so conditioned to the TV model, why the hell not? We can write that, too, dangit.
dloehr: @NEW_PLAY_BLOGSeems to me, that’s one lady blogger right there who should be on your list…
nickkeenan: @dloehr I think Slings and Arrows / West Wing is the model for theater serials though – L&O is leave-on-in-background noise
dloehr: @NEW_PLAY_BLOGAlso violenceofarticulation.blogspot.com.
nickkeenan: @dloehr And that’s actually what I use TV serials for – comfy as an armchair. Theater is different – demands attention.
dloehr: @nickkeenan Oh yes. The one we filmed is a police interrogation, so that was the pitch. Crowd went nuts for it, which was nice.
dloehr: @nickkeenan I’m more a Homicide type than L&O, myself.
dloehr: @nickkeenan It would sort of be a bait-and-switch for exactly that reason. Once in the theatre, they’d be surprised by the electricity.
travisbedard: @nickkeenan @dloehr and you do it in a pub. A Theatre Pub: http://is.gd/66RZG – @directaddress
nickkeenan: @dloehr @travisbedard exactly. You don’t want to remove the comfort from the serial. Needs beer & cheese fries & community.
dloehr: @travisbedard @nickkeenan I would love that. There’s sort of one in L’ville we’ve worked at, awkward, bad area, small auds, but still…
travisbedard: @nickkeenan And a cheap place that benefits from repeat business
travisbedard: @TheNineChicago I had never run into it before… omg so good.
dloehr: @travisbedard @nickkeenan Tho this isn’t overly serialized, they’re meant to be standalone if need be. So serial isn’t quite the word.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @travisbedard But it would be easy to design a lighter, more serialized collection to run in such a setting.
nickkeenan: @dloehr @travisbedard in Chicago, we see this most prevalently at The Spot and Chopin Theatres – Spot has great food, Chopin couches & booze
travisbedard: @dloehr even on a basic level. Running Cheers IN a bar.
dloehr: @travisbedard That would be a lot of fun.
nickkeenan: @travisbedard @dloehr Oh duh, and Our Hamburger Mary’s has Mary’s Attic – a tiny alt performance space.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @travisbedard L’ville’s got the Rudyard Kipling, perpetually in danger of closing. But free stage space. Mostly music.
nickkeenan: @dloehr @travisbedard What would you do in this room (notice the bar) http://bit.ly/80Fxpy? (Note: this is home of Chicago WTD09)
dloehr: @nickkeenan Is there an actual stage space that’s hidden? Or would it be immersive theatre?
nickkeenan: @dloehr @travisbedard More views at http://bit.ly/7HjG1P Owner would LOVE to do something like this on Sat. afternoons.
dloehr: @nickkeenan Oh, wait, I’ve been to their site before…
nickkeenan: @dloehr They have 2 stages, but I think think their studio lobby is a worthy performance venue in itself and would rarely conflict w/renters
dloehr: @nickkeenan Yeah yeah yeah, I was reading about the I-fest months ago. (Why am I not moving to Chicago tonight?)
dloehr: @nickkeenan I’m good with small/odd spaces–we’ve had to be, down here. The DC fringe show last summer: woman, suitcase, chair.
nickkeenan: @dloehr Everyone in the world should meet Lela and Ziggy. They are some of the craziest, hardest-working, most generous theatricians ITW.
travisbedard: @nickkeenan Do I only get that room?
krisvire: @nickkeenan @dloehr @travisbedard dont 4get Mary’s Attic ran serial The Ville 4 last couple yrs & has Charles Busch fest starting nxt wk.
nickkeenan: @travisbedard Well… it’s configurable. Baby Grand piano, couches can be reorganized, and anteroom & cafe is fair game but tight.
krisvire: @nickkeenan Oh, I’m not tweeting fast enough.
nickkeenan: @krisvire I’m trying to think of other theater pubs… Plagiarists use Black Rock to great effect.
dloehr: @krisvire Yeah, we’ve been fast and furious tonight.
krisvire: @nickkeenan @dloehr I WILL CATCH UP TO YOUR TWEETS, KEENAN
krisvire: @nickkeenan @dloehr That downstairs lobby space is totally underused. And owners Zyggy & Lela are some of the Earth’s finest denizens.
dloehr: @krisvire @nickkeenan I think I heard that all the way down here, what, five hours south?
krisvire: @nickkeenan And Viaduct can be a theater pub of sorts, when used creatively.
dloehr: @trishameadThen it edges closer to dinner theatre mystery, less marketable for (hopefully) larger theatres. And they’re not all crime…
travisbedard: @nickkeenan @dloehr so you ficitonalize it AND the length and breadth of the history of the theatre
travisbedard: @nickkeenan @dloehr You don’t have a res. company (that I’m aware of)
travisbedard: @nickkeenan @dloehr I totally go the Slings and Arrows route.
nickkeenan: @dloehr @krisvire If we keep having these theater ecosystem convos, Vire & I are both going to heart attack. But they’re as good as sat. fat
krisvire: @nickkeenan Sandbox did a play at Matilda’s some years back to great effect. And Town Hall’s a comedy pub, no reason it couldn’t do thtr too
travisbedard: @dloehr You’ve listened to Stuart Maclean yeah?
travisbedard: @krisvire that was so much louder than a Popeye’s bag.
dloehr: @travisbedard Why do I know that name?
dloehr: @travisbedard @nickkeenan In the right setting, sure. That’d be fun. Doubt we could do that here, for various reasons.
travisbedard: @nickkeenan @dloehr Serialized company prepped for a show upstairs
nickkeenan: @krisvire Right… EVERY comedy club is like this… serial shows, booze, snacks. Skybox, iO, on and on… Maybe thats why we don’t do it?
krisvire: @nickkeenan @dloehr @travisbedard Seriously, Nick & I will OD on this stuff. And if @ericzieg is around…
ericzieg: @nickkeenan EP has canned beer, a bit pubbish; Seanachai used Atlantic Bar & Grill; upstairs at The Spot; Walkabout and panto @ The Hideout.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @krisvire I call them intellectual catnip. And my pupils get freaky just like the cats’ do.
travisbedard: @dloehr He’s your godfather?
travisbedard: @dloehr Well I’m looking at @nickkeenan ‘s Noel Coward salon
dloehr: @trishameadDown here, they keep asking us to do that, but they don’t know what goes into it. I’ve seen the Shear Madness script…
nickkeenan: @trishameadActually, no, what happens? Is it like drinking flat cola?
ericzieg: @nickkeenan Seanachai’s ‘Our Father’ worked well in the back room – audience all around the actors (Dan Waller, etc.), far better than thtr.
dloehr: @trishameadYes, but I got them hooked. Score one for theatre.
travisbedard: @trishameadbut you already HAVE them in a theatre, and they’re drinking
nickkeenan: @travisbedard AWWWW YEAH COWARD.
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan Finished some work, took a bath, I’m ready for round #97.
dloehr: @trishamead@nickkeenan Flat cola with Pop Rocks, maybe?
dloehr: @nickkeenan @krisvire Exactly. My idea is, here, here’s something you’re familiar with, but in a theatre. Look what else we can do…
dloehr: @travisbedard OHHHH yes. Brain went dead. Vinyl Cafe. Yes, there are some on my phone right now.
“krisvire: @nickkeenan Also perception prob of calling it “”theater”" means auds must behave differently stay in seats, no talking&”
ericzieg: @krisvire …and how if there were a theater equivalent of the Old Town School, that could be (or become) it.
ericzieg: @krisvire Oh, I was thinking today how the Center on Halsted is a model space that folks can make their hangout, is open most of the time.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @travisbedard Love me some good Coward.
nickkeenan: @ericzieg But how amazing to see theater and then grocery shop in same building.
nickkeenan: @ericzieg Center is a great space. Though: the design is cold. I just had a really awkward time in their upstairs lobby.
“travisbedard: @trishamead@nickkeenan @trishamead@krisvire For me the goal in serialized theatre is the bridge, the “”no this IS for you, PROMISE – LOOK!”"”
“nickkeenan: @krisvire I love using the word “”performance”" for everything. Then people only expect to see something.”
ericzieg: @nickkeenan @krisvire Have you guys been to the Guthrie? I loved the old space, was against rebuilding, but it’s such a 21st century bldg.
nickkeenan: @travisbedard That was the beauty of WARP – it appealed to anyone who got lost in a Star Wars world.
ericzieg: @nickkeenan @krisvire Minneapolis has fantastic spaces at all levels: Bryant Lake Bowl, Open Eye, The Jungle, Southern, Jeune Lune(rip)…
dloehr: @trishameadWould that we could at Humana. Oh, such potential in that bldg, and to see how they spend it…
nickkeenan: @ericzieg Not yet. This is the decade of me taking those trips.
dloehr: @travisbedard EXACTLY. That’s why mine is loose, not full-on serial. Enough to connect, but valid theatre pieces individually.
travisbedard: @krisvire can we call it Bagel?
“krisvire: @nickkeenan And not for nothing, but my buddy Piatt’s been making inroads on “”performance”" at Ricochet’s.”
dloehr: @trishameadIt’s in toys, w/creative stuff, I forget the brand, but it’s with science-y things. Comes with a pack of Mentos, too.
dloehr: @trishameadThat would be brilliant. They’d never do it. (I’ve suggested similar things.)
travisbedard: @dloehr Oh. I don’t DO valid theatre. We’re on different pages
nickkeenan: @krisvire I love his salons. The one I saw (at Black Rock) was pure Federal Theatre Project. Giddy.
krisvire: @nickkeenan @ericzieg Nor I. But love the idea the Nat’l model that Chris J keeps going on about.
ericzieg: @nickkeenan @krisvire Davenport’s actually has lots of rigid (in a good way) theatrical conventions to its space, lights, sound, design, etc
“dloehr: @krisvire @nickkeenan Maintains the “”order”" of sitting in a show while allowing the looseness of beer/drinks, fun.”
dloehr: @krisvire @nickkeenan ATL’s doing an occasional late night cabaret series, normal theatre with a cash bar inside. Works well.
travisbedard: @dloehr I’m kidding
krisvire: @ericzieg @nickkeenan VG has been rolling beer carts into the theater for its latenite Fresh Squeezed programming, FWIW.
dloehr: @travisbedard I knew. You had that look in your eye.
dloehr: @krisvire @nickkeenan But they don’t program it as well as they could, run it as consistently as they could. So it flounders.
nickkeenan: @dloehr Which comes from not connecting to an audience. By focusing on musical standards & guest singers, Davenports thrives.
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan The Guthrie basically has design and function combined along the lines of the Violet Hour-a passageway before a show.
dloehr: @trishameadYup. That’d be the thing. They’re trying to use the bldg late at fest now, free shows w/apprentice co. Bleh.
dloehr: @nickkeenan Theatre groups don’t jump at it because it’s too short form for them, and the music sucks. ATL fills a slot themselves now–
dloehr: @nickkeenan –right there is how/why they don’t connect.
“dloehr: @nickkeenan –just to fill the bill. We’ve performed a few times, have gotten praise as “”the coherent act.”" Which I don’t mind, but that–”
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan (and when I talk about design and function, it’s not about $ or fancy- EP does it intuitively- a rare homemade space.)
dloehr: @krisvire @SMLois@travisbedard @nickkeenan It’s like intellectual, theatre-based Mario Kart.
nickkeenan: @ericzieg Right… each design FITS the space, fits the audience, fits the content.
dloehr: @krisvire @travisbedard I suppose, given the tweeters, it’s superfluous…
travisbedard: @krisvire @dloehr I’m a hack and tend to not deliver cleanly unless I’m being oppressively earnest.
krisvire: @ericzieg @nickkeenan I’ve seen lots of examples of limitations birthing innovation at EP, for sure.
dloehr: @trishameadYeah, that works. (I’m getting lightheaded again.) : )
travisbedard: @dloehr @krisvire @SMLois@nickkeenan BANANA SHPEEL!
dloehr: @travisbedard @krisvire @SMLois@nickkeenan …the horror….the horror….
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan And the EP experience starts with having to go down the alley to find the space, then having to hang out.Redmoon same.
travisbedard: @trishameadwow Tweetdeck just isn’t going to let that happen
nickkeenan: @ericzieg @krisvire I need to get down there to see what they’re doing. I am kind of excited that it’s a hub for @ChicagoFringe
krisvire: @travisbedard @dloehr @SMLois@nickkeenan You had to go there, didn’t you?
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan Going to EP/Hideout/Hopleaf/Hugen Hall/Profiles/Building Stage is like a tweet; some theaters, as space, an auto-post.
travisbedard: @krisvire You wanna rule the USAian theatre world? You have to own the bastard children. We let you have UNH ALUM Molly Brennan
krisvire: @ericzieg @nickkeenan Jeez, how did I not think of Hugen Hall yet? Talk about a theater pub.
dloehr: @krisvire He did. He really did. #davidshiner #whyyyyy
travisbedard: @nickkeenan so sad I couldn’t afford ChiFringe this year
nickkeenan: @krisvire @ericzieg Oh! And is The Heart of Gold still happening? An underground one, but probably the best hangout of them all.
ericzieg: @krisvire So many years of actors going to Konak before Hugen Hall. Talk about the difference of a theater going 8-1a.m. instead of 8-10.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @travisbedard I’m hoping to bring something up for the Fringe, mainly as an excuse to visit…
krisvire: @ericzieg @nickkeenan And too, what @thenewcolonydid last year at DANKhaus FRAT was promenade + open bar.
dloehr: @nickkeenan Which is a shame; she’s great, and possibly the second coming of Carol Burnett, I kid you not.
dloehr: @nickkeenan Funny, a good friend lived there briefly last year and left because it was too haphazard, she couldn’t take it.
nickkeenan: @dloehr Well: It is a PERFORMANCE VENUE that people tried to LIVE IN. Haphazard is built into the lease.
krisvire: @nickkeenan @ericzieg I think Heart of Gold is defunct, but The Inconvenience has taken its spiritual place.
nickkeenan: @krisvire Dankhaus is absolutey becoming one of those places… especially since that’s where we’re having @ChicagoSFSummitmeetups
dloehr: @nickkeenan Such an odd concept. Yeah, she’s not Felix Unger, but it was too much for her. But the concept sounded cool.
ericzieg: @nickkeenan @krisvire O and in so many ways @2ndstoryis a strong model – bar performance, single performances, unintimidating, social.
nickkeenan: @ericzieg So true! @dloehr, @travisbedard You guys should check out @2ndStory– Chi’s answer to The Moth.
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan The lit scene is thriving now because of bar shows: Quickies, Rec Room, et al – not academic/stuffy/off-putting.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @ericzieg @travisbedard Very cool. Reminds me of Speakeasy back in DC, too, similar idea.

JAN 12 - Theatre Serials, Theatre Pubs and Multi-Disciplinary Events

nickkeenan: @ericzieg @dloehr so maybe key to Serial performances is partnerships. Get a lit group, theatre troupe, musicians, and pub and light it up.
krisvire: @nickkeenan @ericzieg. Totally. With props to Dollar Store, Mortified too. And Chicago’s Moth is holding its own, I hear.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @ericzieg Now you speak my language. Each element draws people and maybe piques interest in the other elements.
dloehr: @ericzieg @nickkeenan Busboys and Poets in DC is mildly like that. No theatre, but spoken word, music, talks/lectures. Big hit.
nickkeenan: @dloehr because the theater troupe is going to be best at staging, not necessarily picking the right literary source of serial literature.
ericzieg: @nickkeenan @krisvire The Hideout does it in their way, with music/performance/community each week; so much potential for more like it.
nickkeenan: @dloehr And that’s why I see theater rather than poetry slams – the spotlight / mic / transition music thing is cool, but could be improved.
dloehr: @nickkeenan Yup. The space we’re theoretically helping to develop here might be able to handle that; there’ll be a restaurant/bar, I know.
krisvire: Why isn’t there more cross-pollination of 2ndStory, DollarStore, LateNightLateShow(rip), TheVille, Mortified, etc? Do we need variety shows?
“dloehr: @nickkeenan Poetry slams, as “”exciting”" as they can be, turn off more people than pure storytelling, I think.”
“ericzieg: @dloehr What’s great is that these lit events in Chicago have none of the baggage of “”spoken word”" and “”poetry slam”" and “”performance art.”"”
ericzieg: @krisvire They’re happening, but there isn’t a clear place to list them: Reconstruction Room and Cabaret Vagabond pack the room each time.
dloehr: @ericzieg Right. Down here (Madison/Hanover, IN), we sell plays/readings as ‘telling stories,’ which is something people can grasp.
nickkeenan: @krisvire Isn’t that the low-risk sampler pack we were talking about in the last session?
dloehr: @nickkeenan @krisvire @ericzieg I see what you mean about the heart attack/OD thing…I should be asleep by now…
krisvire: @ericzieg We actually have this convo weekly at TOC: where to list multi-genre stuff?
nickkeenan: @ericzieg Are they promoted sufficiently via facebook? (damn, would have liked to catch dictionary reading http://bit.ly/60y0VL )
krisvire: @ericzieg @nickkeenan & most of these only submit to 1 section or another, so we don’t know to x-reference.
nickkeenan: @krisvire @ericzieg I don’t understand or trust my own need to categorize performance types. But it’s there.
nickkeenan: @krisvire The web 2.0 answer is tagging by style, content, subject?
krisvire: @nickkeenan @ericzieg Holy Christ, have I mentioned how awesome The Encyclopedia Show @ the Chopin is? But what is it?
“ericzieg: @krisvire What’s exciting is that there isn’t a blanket term for them yet – it’s like SoHo in 1978, no “”performance art”" yet, no “”new wave.”"”
nickkeenan: @krisvire It sounds like visual RadioLab.
ericzieg: @nickkeenan Yeah, Facebook groups are the main promotion. Cabaret Vagabond sold out Martyrs; I’d never heard of 13 of the 15 acts.
“nickkeenan: @dloehr @travisbedard I have a new t-shirt for us based on tonight’s convo: “”Re-invent and Prosper.”"”
dloehr: @krisvire @nickkeenan @ericzieg Sorry to have vanished there; I hit my TweetDeck limit for the first time. But I really do need to go…
dloehr: @krisvire @nickkeenan (before I go) Visual RadioLab would be a fantastic thing.
dloehr: @krisvire @nickkeenan @ericzieg But a wonderful conversation. Thanks!
nickkeenan: @ericzieg It’s funny. I’ve never heard of any of these and they’re ALL SOLD OUT.
krisvire: @nickkeenan Pretty much, yep. Yr 2.0 thought is right(& I hope we get it right in our next upgrade), but what of our 50K print subscribers?
ericzieg: @nickkeenan What’s healthy about the lit/variety shows/Hugen Hall is that they’re catalysts for folks to create new work but as party games.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @travisbedard I like. R&P.
nickkeenan: @krisvire You guys have good luck with bubbles. What about cross-pollenation bubbles? Theater lovers would dig this restaurant.
krisvire: @dloehr 1st Wednesday of every month at Chicago’s Chopin Theatre.
krisvire: @dloehr @nickkeenan @ericzieg Twitter FTW in 2010.
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan What’s also exciting is that these are, fiscally, some of the healthiest arts orgs, though no board, 501c3, mission.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @ericzieg @krisvire Indeed. (And zzzzzz.)
dloehr: @nickkeenan @krisvire Oh, that’s good. (I’m sleep-tweeting now. Stupid iPhone.)
nickkeenan: @ericzieg Missions are so much bigger than a 10-person company. It’s not a good model fit. Whereas being awesome IS a good fit.
ericzieg: @dloehr This American Life is absolutely the model for things like @2ndStory, so a live take on RadioLab makes perfect sense.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @krisvire @ericzieg Soon, the iPhone will be able to pick up thoughts and tweet them without typing.
nickkeenan: @krisvire ha. Except folks who aren’t following all of us think we CRAZY.
krisvire: @nickkeenan We love our stupid bubbles. But if 2ndS submits to Books, for instance, Jonny doesn’t know they haven’t also notified me.
dloehr: @ericzieg Yes. I download both as podcasts, listen weekly, would love to get something up and running like TAL et al down here.
krisvire: @nickkeenan Yeah, there’s that.
ericzieg: @nickkeenan You joke, but I’m absolutely sure that @rickbaylessand @gAchatzwould collaborate with their equals in the arts.
ericzieg: @nickkeenan I was putting together an event for the Sundance Lab and invited C. Trotter – the event fell through, but he was 100% game.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @krisvire And now, exeunt pursued by a bear.
dloehr: @nickkeenan @krisvire Seriously. My wife follows a few, but not all, and only catches pieces of conversations. The confusion is fun.
nickkeenan: @krisvire Tricky. But wouldn’t cross-pollenation be best with established (and predictable) institutions? 2nd Story, The Spot, Encyc. Show
nickkeenan: @ericzieg @krisvire. @rickbaylessreturns to the theater model discussion for a 2nd night. And scene.
krisvire: @nickkeenan @ericzieg Friggin’ food metaphors again.
krisvire: @nickkeenan Makes sense. They all have their own sold-out crowds; can they be integrated?
ericzieg: @nickkeenan @krisvire All right, we’ll get the chefs in on this by the end of the week. As spacial wizards too, I bet they’ve got ideas.
nickkeenan: @krisvire Here’s where mission hits me: SHOULDN’T they all be integrated? aren’t we a little compartmentalized in this city?
ericzieg: @krisvire They kind of don’t need to be integrated if they’re selling out venues appropriate for the work-but each show reflects its host.
nickkeenan: @ericzieg So true. Bayless could cook paella while 500 clown sous chefs and Encyc show could demonstrate chemistry of food.
krisvire: @nickkeenan @ericzieg We’re definitely compartmentalized. Should we be? Or is it a reflex?
nickkeenan: @krisvire It’s reflexive. We overindulge in our hobbies. I really value that TOC shakes me out of my habits.
nickkeenan: @krisvire For example, I’m now kicking myself that I don’t see more lit events. I habitually ONLY read the theater & food sections of TOC.
krisvire: @nickkeenan @ericzieg This morning’s TDF convening has me thinking it’s reflex (protect yr own interests), not best practices.
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan As I teenager I saw folks like Tom Waits, Laurie Anderson, John Lurie…were they actors? musicians? writers? artists?
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan They were doing all that stuff, and they were in a world where that stuff overlapped, and folks inspired each other.
nickkeenan: @ericzieg I wonder if it’s a factor of internet culture to date, where finding interest was all about categories and searching for keywords.
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan I hosted a few potluck nights in ’09 with writers/musicians/etc, and the potluck part made it curated but inclusive.
nickkeenan: @ericzieg Which was a response to label-esque top-down culture – which was well-edited but monocultured and more solidly counter-cultured.
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan Off to bed. Looking forward to seeing actors, musicians, writers, and @Rick_Baylessin the same variety show someday.
nickkeenan: @ericzieg @krisvire Love it. That is a sweet vision to feed a dream. Y’all are brilliant.
krisvire: @ericzieg @nickkeenan Indeed. Looking forward to continuing the conversation, but morning comes soon.
ericzieg: @krisvire @nickkeenan (P.S. I go back to food metaphors because an exact number of people eat a meal, same as see a play. Same rules.)

From the moment we saw this post from Chris Ashworth in October, New Leaf buckled down to create a vision of what sustainable theater could look like in the 21st century. It was a clarion call for an idea that had been churning and developing in the company for years.

I cannot tell you how excited I am to begin to roll out the results today.

Our theater must move away from a patronage model of funding and towards a partnership model. I don’t think any of our patrons would argue that art and the artists that make it couldn’t use more support in our society, both financial and social – we have all seen the ancillary benefits that are generated when you connect an artist with their passion – beauty, clarity, revelation, emotional release, simplicity, dialogue. But we also believe that society, corporate culture, and community organizations could directly and immediately benefit from a creative integration of the artistic process and the byproducts of artistic thinking into their work and daily experience. Most of America’s exposure to art is the finished “product” – a couple hours of watching a play, taking in a recital, or browsing paintings at a museum. If what we offer is an experience, our product is not the result, it is the entire experience from concept to creation to completion. And audiences routinely miss or are restricted from the meat of what that experience has to offer.

READ THE WHOLE PLAN

I’m not gonna lie – this feels like a crazy risk right now, at one in the morning. But putting your mouth where your money is always was going to be a risk.

I’ve immersed myself in the past few months in histories of artistic renaissance both ancient and recent, reading stories about the financial models of the Medici and how they funded one of the most vibrant and ultimately constructive cultural revolutions and sequences of rediscovery in history. The mob-esque patronage model of the Medici was highly supportive of the artist, quite untransparent, seems pretty attractive out of the context of plague, excommunication, brutality, and almost certainly political dysfunction, which all makes it seem oddly familiar to an artist in Chicago.

And on the other hand I’ve also read up on the organizational work of the generation that are now my artistic mentors – the folks that built Chicago theatre and specifically storefront theatre from the ground up and found ways of making it work that lasted through at least a couple major recessions.

(sidebar: if you wanted to know what it’s been like producing in Chicago in the last ten years, check out these decade-wrapping articles from New City. There’s some stunning archival work on display.)

I also feel like, as per usual, it’s a crazy long post. But we have several difficult cases to make. On the one hand, we have to make the case that in an economic downturn, investing in art in general and theater specifically can be directly beneficial to the investors, not just indirectly beneficial in the form of some vague warm feeling of generosity. Which brings us to the other case to be made: Theater may be non-profit, but we need to get out of the mentality that we therefore deserve financial support. Because if donors give money out of guilt or a heart that bleeds for unsupported artists, it’s misplaced. I’m sorry, but we just don’t need money like organizations that fight poverty and hunger and violence and disease do. If anything, we should be working for them. We must either be satisfied with just putting on plays with our own resources alone, which I think is a perfectly acceptable way of producing theater, or if we produce for the benefit of broader social goals, we need to articulate those goals and create direct and accountable value in our donor’s lives.

This shouldn’t leave us in a quandry or a place where we need to suddenly justify our existence, however. The answer is that we need to do a better job of featuring our people. Your company, after all, is your people, and their talents, and their projects, and their dreams, and their vision. To forget that is to risk losing them, and so instead you fight for them. You fight to keep them, you fight to support them, you wrangle and jostle to provide them with rich opportunities in which they will thrive.

I think the mistake we’ve had to make as theaters, especially mid-sized and small theaters, in the past few decades as we often aimed our ambitions towards national and grand scales is that we largely forgot that “our people” includes our audience. We must embrace our scale and scope and choose to feature them too, not just take their money and tell ourselves “yes, we deserve to take their money.” We must draw them out and be able to say: “this person paid for this set, this prop, this sound design. This person made this happen. And it wasn’t just humble generosity, no, this person has talents and dreams that match ours, and we want you, dear audience, to take this thing we made out of that energy and that support and go and support them, and each other.”

It’s so crazy. Here’s hoping it just works.

This post was brought to you, once again, by E. Hunter Spreen. She is a supporter of this blog and my coffee habit that I would like to draw your attention to. She stopped blogging for a time because she had the H1N1. I hope you will join me in forgiving her for having human limitations and reading her just the same. And after being inspired by her example, I actually put her coffee money towards a brief upcoming mental health break from technology and the city that I love. Cheers, E.

It was time to bite the bullet.

Today is the final day of my last two shows of the season, High Holidays at the Goodman and End Days at Next Theatre. To celebrate, I’m officially (and finally) migrating this blog to its permanent home at theaterforthefuture.com. Welcome.

You *could* update your blogrolls / links / feeds / etc. But I’m hoping that I’ve got these 301 redirects and feedburner settings set up that it should be nice and seamless. I’ll be keeping those redirects up in perpetuity. You were nice enough to link to this site and my articles. The least I could do is reduce your workload.

Let me know in the comments if you notice anything weird.

This past week, I had five shows open at the same time. So that was fun.

As they start to close down, I’m delightfully surprised how other thoughts are popping into my head other than “OH GOD WORK OH GOD EAT OH GOD WORK OH GOD sleee… NO! GOD!”

For instance, something that is probably broken inside me told me to jump in on the (continuing) discussion on Playgoer about micing actors – now in straight plays – and what it means for the future of theater. It’s something I think about a lot as I mix microphones and other sounds at work, but that doesn’t entirely explain why I’m arguing a) to limit my employment opportunities for the good of all and b) why storefront theatre is financially destined to supersede big box theatre. If I was to be honest with myself, we’re oh so very not ready to make that conclusion yet.

But here’s the argument for it anyway.

On the one side is CLJ’s “good” or transparent sound – sound that is properly delayed and sourced to the actor using the principle known as the Haas effect – (look it up). It is truly convincing, so much so that we as engineers often get asked why we’re not amplifying the actors – when we are. On the other hand is over-amplified sound that makes actors sound like they’re breathing like walruses hanging from the giant center cluster in the grid. That’s not helping anyone push the art forward. And there are gradients in between, and times when over-amplification is the aesthetic goal.

The biggest question for me is sustainability. Both transparent and non-transparent sound have a problem – it’s horrendously expensive to body mic people, and I’m worried that the format of the 1,000 seat theatre is getting less popular. I’ve seen shows easily spend around a half-million to a million dollars to get that sound right – and they need to hire one of the probably a couple dozen sound designers who can effectively design on that scale in a transparent way. I’m talking in the united states. How is that ever going to work?

I wonder if the solution here isn’t an embracing of theatricality. The audience often thinks they want loudness when they actually want clarity. I’m coming from an environment (Chicago) where our best selling theatre is in an increasing number of smaller and smaller houses. The intimacy helps clarity of both sound and performance, and not at a great expense. The quality of the experience improves.

It’s very true – the old methods of vocal projection were born out of necessity, required skill and craft, and we miss those things, and we shouldn’t forget them. Nor should we mistake them for better days. Large houses and big voices engendered a style of acting that clearly communicated to the audience – but became outmoded as technology changed. Look at the difference in acting styles between the silent movie era and the talkies – huge differences brought on by a slight shift in technology. We’re seeing that shift again as the technology has lept forward in the last ten years, but I think our response isn’t as creative – we’re somehow still pursuing the naturalistic realism of what – Miller? nah, that’d be fooling ourselves- when we could be using sound in the theater to further illuminate the human condition. And again, louder does not necessarily equal more illuminating.

The question isn’t how to hang on to old methodologies – it’s how to embrace new capabilities in pursuit of a human truth.

This morning, several Chicago theater bloggers received a robotic love note from the representatives of Cirque du Soleil, who are opening a show in town that I’m only going to wryly allude to. Because I’m insulted.

Chloe Steve (great use of two first names!) writes in my comments:

Its a great idea.I also take immense joy in sharing with you that Cirque du soleil is in Chicago now………It should be great……..

As actual journalist™ Kris Vire gumshoed a few minutes later after HE got a similar comment on his blog, Chloe appears to be a hired hand posting from India.

Now, I would LOVE to have an actual conversation with Chloe “If that is your real name” Steve about Cirque and the intersection of Chicago and south asian theater. That would be cool, and there’s actually an annual precedent for such a conversation.

And indeed my beef is not with the hired hands. It’s with the promoter, and it’s with folks who would look at their numbers and judge the success of their marketing efforts based on butts in seats and nothing else. What encourages me about the emerging style of DIY arts marketing emerging in Chicago, Vancouver, Austin, and now most notably Baltimore is that it is based on real connection and rich conversation instead of mechanical SEO mumbo-jumbo. It is becoming the art and science of nurturing long-term relationships with your audience instead of cynically treating tickets purchased like a widget that you manufacture.

This is a letter of encouragement I sent to one of my web clients yesterday as they launched their website and thus their marketing campaign for a product they’re selling:

Keyword choices should more or less be happening in your copy, which google pays much more attention to than in your meta keywords. Your copy is already rich in keywords like *blonk*, *sploit*, *aWOOOGA!*, etc. So that’s a good start!

The most effective method of increasing SEO for your site that we’ve found at Marshall Creative will be more challenging for you as a developer of state of the art products – the biggest weight that google gives to a site is when trusted sites link or refer to content on your site. This can be achieved by 1) identifying what the trusted online neighborhoods in your industry are and 2) engaging those neighborhoods in content-rich dialogue as a part of your day-to-day marketing behavior. The more you can engage other blogs as a commenter (or even in some cases twittering thought leaders in your industry), or media outlets as an expert, the more likely those sites will choose to feature content links to your site. As you accrue those connections: Bam. Your site results surge forward in all your major keywords. This isn’t a question of just getting people to link to you in your sidebar – you want the right people TALKING about you online.

And sometimes in other odd keywords, as well. It’s not an exact science – at times it can be like drinking from an intermittent firehose. Thanks to this post on my personal blog, I have somehow become very high in google’s results for hog butchering. Luckily, I also have pretty good results in things I ACTUALLY do as well.

See that? Marketing theater is about talking about MORE THAN THEATER, and saying more than just “Chicago theater is awesome. This show is awesome.” In what specific ways is it awesome? For crying out loud, this is DYING for some creativity here. It’s about connecting the dots from the show to the subject, or the creators, or the sheer weight of the craft that goes in to Cirque’s production of [name omitted]. Think about the genius of Redmoon’s Golden Truffle. It’s a show… and a truffle tasting. And they’re truly integrated experiences. Nothing feels awkward or forced about it, and bam: You have brought an entirely new market segment into your theater. Cirque is better than this.

The really sad thing is that before this, I had a really great story pitch that I could offer to Cirque. You see, Cirque (along with the Mouse) was one of the forces that developed LCS (Level Control Systems), the top-of-the-line sound control system that we use at the Goodman. If qLab is the efficient and affordable Prius of sound control, LCS is the crazy expensive but completely configurable James Bond-mobile, and it’s quite useful with complex sound systems used by, well, Cirque, the Mouse, the Goodman, and several Broadway in Chicago shows (duh nuh nuh nuh! snap snap). The story of LCS, (now renamed D-Mitri after being aquired by top-of-the-line audio manufacturer Meyer Sound) is almost as incredible as what it is capable of, but you won’t hear that story, or the story of mad genius sound designer Jonathan Deans or any of his brilliant apprentices, because instead we get “Chicago theater is great! Including Cirque.”

Dissapointing, isn’t it? If the marketing of a show with a budget this large is this disappointing, well then I’m sure the show will be too.

And to all those who got spammed by cirque: Boycott. Boycott. Boycott. Don’t review, Don’t Go. Until the marketing department changes their ways.

(photo by NitaKang)

Things fall apart. But that’s why we like to put them together.

There’s enough moving parts and friction in the Chicago theatrosphere this week to raise the temperature of Lake Michigan 2.4 degrees F.

If you’ve been interested in getting together with a bunch of local theaters to find what common ground looks like…

Now Seems to be a Good Time. It may not be convenient (who needs to launch a season? Raise your hand!) , but when is it?

Some Reading for you:

The New Colony calls for a Chicago Storefront Theater Summit

And some historical perspective worth paying attention to:

Don Hall & friends

Bob Fisher & friends

The RAT Conference & the Storefront Theater Model

And even further back:

What in the world would you call Chicago Theater?

Sharon Phillips Explains the Early History of the Storefront Theater Movement for You

The kids are here.

As the Cherubs program begins (we’re on day 2!) I’ll be going offline through the first week in August to:

Design six shows
Train 2 students to load in a complete rep sound system
Train 3 students to break apart a text and find / mix the perfect sounds to go with that text
Help train 9 students to be amazingly proactive and on-the-ball stage managers
Engage 156 students (along with 49 other jaw-droppingly awesome faculty) in a creative discussion that will form the bedrock of the best summer of their lives.

So, I gotsta go do that. There’s some fun stuff cooking that I can’t wait to announce.

But right now? I get to be here.

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?

A reminder that tonight is the benefit for uninsured actor and off-Loop theater workhorse Will Schutz, who is facing some daunting hospital bills.

Once again, the details from benefit organizer Philip Dawkins:

Our friend Will is currently fighting an illness and, per usual, his hospital bills are pilling up way, way, way beyond his means. Chicago bar HYDRATE (3458 N Halsted St) has very kindly donated their space to the friends of Will (and friends of friends, and strangers!) on Friday, January 23rd between 9 PM and 11 PM in order that we might come together to support our friend and offer up what we can to assist him financially. It’s PAY WHAT YOU CAN, with a suggested donation of $20, though any amount will get you an open bar (well drinks, domestic beer, wine, juice and soda), appetizers and some pretty terrific live entertainment, not to mention new friends. Every penny goes to Will.

If you’re not able to help out financially, no one understands that better than theatre folks and their friends. But we hope you’ll at least consider coming out to show your emotional support in person. And whether you’re able to make it or not, please keep him in your minds and hearts each and every day. He has requested ALL of your prayers and thoughts and well-wishes. God knows, Will is worth every penny you’re able to give, and every ounce of your energy and efforts. And if you don’t know him personally, trust us.

***If you want to donate but can’t come on the 23rd, you can at willschutzpancan.chipin.com ***

We come from all walks of life, and those of us that stick around do so despite greater wealth in other locales, because ultimately, Chicago Theater is a family. And you take care of family.