Flux Theatre Ensemble

Andrew Taylor at the Artful Manager has posted a link to the PDF of the Wallace Foundation's Engaging Audiences, a report that came out of their Grantee Conference in Philadelphia this April. Some parts feature the uneasy truisms of social media; other parts feature interesting anecdotes of one time fixes to long term problems.

But one section stood out: the relationship between the professional and amateur artist. Here is an excerpt:

"(Wolf) Brown cited several surveys of audience members that indicate a strong correlation between the extent to which people engage in various forms of musical, theatrical, dance and artistic experiences in their lives and their propensity to attend professionally-presented events.
For example:
ƒ -Among current subscribers, former subscribers, and single ticket buyers across six orchestra audiences surveyed, 71 to 77 percent reported experience singing or playing a musical instrument.
ƒ -Among a sample of Steppenwolf Theatre Company patrons, 43 percent reported frequently or occasionally reading plays for their own enjoyment and 12 percent reported frequently or occasionally writing, performing in or working on plays or musicals.
ƒ -People taking music lessons or classes, acting lessons, performing dances as part of a group, or visual arts or crafts classes at least once a week were much more likely to attend performances of these art forms than people who had less or no personal involvement in the practice of music, theater, dance and visual arts."

This is not new - Scott Walters has been working with the importance of this idea for some time, including one of my favorite posts regarding the decline of piano sales and the rise of radio here.

But sometimes you have to listen to something a number of times before you actually hear it. Now I've heard it. And the first question I have is why is there such a divide between the professional artist and the amateur?

Fear, probably; when professional arts organizations perceive their value in a state of siege, they must draw rigid lines to protect it. Logical allies are pushed aside out of fear their amateur status will somehow contaminate the brand. The idea of a professional artists' quality over the audience must take precedent to their value to the audience.

But, as Lynne Connor states later in the report:

"I believe what today's potential arts audiences most want out of an arts event is the opportunity to co-author meaning. They don't want the arts; they want the arts experience....They want to retrieve sovereignty over their arts-going by reclaiming the cultural right to formulate and exchange opinions that are valued in the community."

The second question is, of course, what can be done about it. It has to go beyond blog posts and comments (though if you saw Volleygirls, please do comment!) and education programs (though they are important). I think it will ultimately take a reconsideration of the value of ownership of the arts; a reframing that does not diminish the awareness of quality, but places it in its proper context. To re-purpose Byron, the professional artist must be among them AND of them; the amateur must be an equal partner at the table; the audience must be empowered by excellence to create themselves.

How to apply that practically? I don't know. I do know that an excellent example can be found in the work of the SITI Company. For all the recent talk of experimental versus traditional structures, SITI Company has created an immensely devoted following for very experimental work. How? Anne Bogart says:

"An acting student at Columbia once told me that her father is a surgeon and that surgeons have a saying: "Study one, do one, teach one". When I heard this, I jumped with the knowledge that this formula is exactly true for me, too."

Teach one, study one - it's not enough to simply do one. How this will play out in Flux's work, I don't yet know. But I am coming to believe that this is one of the essential steps we need to take as artists - to expect more from our audiences so they will expect more of us. Read the full story

The event went really well! Thanks to everyone who made the trek on a grey day to support our work and share in Rob Ackerman's Volleygirls. Our extreme staged reading was a whirlwind process, but we landed in a good place, and thanks to the commitment of the cast, the reading captured a little of the kinetic thrill of Rob's play.

We'll be posting pictures and a deeper round-up, but I wanted to try something new on the blog by first directly soliciting feedback from the audience and artists who were there in the comments section: what did you like? Any performances or moments you thought were particularly successful? Any sets you weren't quite able to spike? Any thing we could've done to make the event run more smoothly? PLEASE post your responses in the comments.

As for me, I'm remembering many things fondly, but here's a few specifics:

1. Tiffany's Jess chastizing Isaiah's Xavier immediately after kissing him.
2. DeWanda's 'nice' face as Ingrid - it still makes me laugh when I think about it.
3. David's Phil and Jane's Carla rocking out to the Ladyhawk's cheers.
4. Jessica's delivery of "passing" as Marisol - a little detail that probably no one noticed but me - but she captured Marisol's conflict of needing to lead but being afraid of the consequences in that one moment (and throughout).
5. Cotton's "And I am by myself. All alone. Do you get that?" as Katie, the girl who has dominated everyone she meets, and by doing so, made herself entirely alone - in that moment, Cotton showed us the cost.

As for things we could have done better, I wish I'd taken Rob's suggestion for Jocelyn's entrance - she rocks out privately to some MJ before realizing she's being watched, then runs from embarassment - and I chose to have her notice the audience watching her. Despite Caitlin's hilarious and heartfelt cut-loose dancing, I think Rob's suggestion of having Katie (another character) walk by and notice her might have played more clearly - I had thought the convention of the audience being an equal partner in the play would carry the discovery, but I think Rob was right.

SO how about you? What do you think worked? What didn't? And THANK YOU again for everyone who showed their support! Read the full story

As we lead up to our fall production of The Lesser Seductions Of History, I'll be posting things that inspired the play's writing or echo its concerns. I heard Stanley Kunitz read from his poem Night Letters in the days before the second Iraq War, at a Not In Our Name gathering during a blizzard in Manhattan. He was in his late nineties then, reading a poem written during Hitler's rise, and craned up to the mike to deliver his poem; and the excerpt I give here lives at the center of The Lesser Seductions Of History, especially those last six lines:

I suffer the twentieth century,
The nerves of commerce wither in my arm;
Violence shakes my dreams; I am cold,
Chilled by the persecuting wind abroad,
The oratory of the rodent’s tooth,
The slaughter of the blue-eyed open towns,
And principle disgraced, and art denied.

My dear, is it too late for peace, too late
For men to gather at the wells to drink
The sweet water; too late for fellowship
And laughter at the forge; too late for us
To say, “Let us be good to one another”?
The lamps go singly out; the valley sleeps;
I tend the last light shining on the farms
And keep for you the thought of love alive,
As scholars dungeoned in an ignorant age
Tended the embers of the Trojan fire.
Cities shall suffer siege and some shall fall,
But man’s not taken. What the deep heart means,
Its message of the big, round, childish hand,
Its wonder, its simple lonely cry,
The bloodied envelope addressed to you,
Is history, that wide and mortal pang.

Read the full story

I had meant to post a link to Arlene Goldbard's talk at the NET Summit in San Francisco some time ago, but time keeps on slipping, slipping. However, now is still as good a time as any, maybe more so after posting Ellen McLaughlin's commencement address on the twin births of theatre and democracy.

Both are concerned with art's role in civic life, and both engage with that concern by widening the possible/necessary in exciting ways. Read together, they offer one compelling answer to the question of value I raised here.

Here is an excerpt from the talk to tempt you into going to her website and downloading the whole thing:

"Now it’s up to us to apply this knowledge to the problem of national recovery and the challenge of building a humane, sustainable civil society right here in the United States. Now is the time for a radical re-understanding of the social role, the critical importance, the public interest in creativity, specifically artistic creativity. We can close the gap in understanding that has prevented so many people from seeing that artistic and cultural creativity is not just a nice thing to have around, and a really special amenity when you have the resources to invest in something extra, but a necessity for recovery, survival and sustainability.

How do we do that? We have to begin by enlarging our own thinking, speech and action. I estimate that I have been in about a trillion conversations, read about a billion arguments, that end in the slogan, “support the arts.” Accustomed to long-term deprivation, conventional arts advocates tend to think small, focusing on saving the tiniest government agencies, on hoping not to lose too much more this time around. Many conventional arts-support arguments are silly; for example, the “economic multiplier effect” of buying theater tickets: people who go to the theater may eat in a restaurant or pay to park their cars, they may have a drink after the performance. Each additional expenditure multiplies the economic impact of a dollar spent on tickets. That’s the economic multiplier effect, and, yes, it all adds up to jobs. But so what? Going to a dog show or a football game or lady mud wrestling has the same economic impact. And that’s one of the strongest conventional arts-support arguments! After decades of this stuff, conventional arts advocates have worn themselves thin stretching a point, with almost nothing to show for it. Adjusted for inflation, even the recently expanded 2009 NEA budget is worth only a bit more than half its value in 1981, the year of Ronald Reagan’s first budget cuts.

In a time of economic crisis, when people are worried about surviving, when it is hard to fund schools, housing and medical care (but still not so hard to finance war, unfortunately), arts support arguments become even more half-hearted and desperate, and therefore even less effective. You don’t need me to tell you what’s happening to your own organizations and your own communities right now. I am reminded of the dream of right-wing crackpot Grover Norquist, who said, “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” That is what has happened over the last three decades to the arguments for arts support, which are circling the drain as I speak.

The remedy isn’t more shrinkage but the opposite, to think big. Conventional arts advocates claim art enriches, beautifies, expresses and entertains. These are important social goods. But the elephant in the room right now, the large, unacknowledged truth that we had better hurry up and shout from the rooftops, is that in a uniquely powerful way, art can save us.

Does the grandiosity of that assertion make you uneasy? Just give me another ten minutes before you make up your mind whether to listen to your uneasiness or to your hopes."

Read all of it here - and it's worth the read. Read the full story

And what a cast:
Read the full story

Today at 8PM is your last chance to see Founding Member Candice Holdorf in the excellent Never/Cracked.

It's also your last chance to see Flux friend Carissa Cordes in Hamlet.

And then next week, Lynn Kenny from Pretty Theft plays Medea (yikes!) in a modern adaptation called Maddy - be sure to check it out.

Also next week, Flux friend Connie's Avant Garde Restaurant plays the Ice Factory - if you haven't been to this amazing (and delicious event) ((and even if you have)) - go now.

And also also next week, Rising Phoenix Rep opens Daniel Talbott's Slipping - Heather and I saw a recent preview and it was really lovely work (and includes an unsettling must-see performance by Adam Driver) - make sure you see it before it closes August 15th.

Then it's FRINGE TIME...but that's a big thing and really a whole different entry.

What did I miss? What would YOU recommend?

See you at the theatre! Read the full story

Heather here. Exploding Moments #2 features the play Two Girls written and performed by Gabrielle Maisels, produced by Dina Leytes. Before launching into the exploded moment, I should say that you have one chance left to see this play:

About the Play

"South Africa, 1988. Two girls—Lindiwe, Black, and Corinne, Jewish—are coming of age in the twilight of apartheid."

Two Girls is a remarkable one-woman play tracing the journeys of two children of apartheid South Africa: Corinne, Jewish, and Lindiwe, black. Gabrielle Maisels vividly portrays nine characters, delving into the deep pain politics can inflict, and the fierce hope that the two girls struggle to sustain. The play is written and performed by Gabrielle Maisels, who is the granddaughter of Israel Aaron Maisels, leader of the defense team that secured Mandela’s acquittal in the 1956 Treason Trial.

The Exploded Moment

Midway through the play, the elderly house keeper, Beauty (mother of Lindiwe), finds out that Lindiwe did not pass her regents exams, which means she may not graduate high school. Beauty, who up until this point has held her head high, showing love through her tough demeanor and discipline, crumbles in this moment. All her hopes and dreams that her daughter will live a better life than she herself has are crushed, and Beauty literally collapses to the ground in a fit of hysteria. Gabrielle navigates this emotional breakdown for Beauty with such grace while simultaneously popping out of that character to portray young Corrine and Corrine's mother coming to Beauty's aid. I wanted to discover how Gabrielle's training and rehearsal process led to the seamlessness and tragedy of Beauty's collapse.

The Questions

NB: I asked the questions in one order, but rightfully so Gabrielle chose to answer Question 2 before Question 1, so I present the answers to you that way:

Question 2: You never lost the precision of motion/movement even in Beauty's collapse. What was the process for writing this scene? And how did you rehearse this scene?

GABRIELLE: The answer to this is in the acting technique that I use, which is Carol Fox Prescott's “Breathing, Awareness and Joy.” She has this brilliant idea – which is sometimes very hard to comprehend as a new actor, but which is the linchpin of my acting, I think – that the “joy” she talks about comes from letting every possible human emotion flow THROUGH you, and RELISHING that experience. So, if you're playing someone who is bitter, or anguished, or murderous, or despairing, or any of those emotions that you wouldn't think would feel good to feel....the joy is in 150% filling yourself with that experience, because there is something delicious and pure in being fully human in that way, and expressing something that every human feels whether to a very small or very large degree. And, perhaps most importantly: it's not “yours.” Beauty's anguish is not “mine.” It is flowing THROUGH me, PHYSICALLY, and in a split second, another experience can flow through me – because, as Carol says, we all have the entire universe of human experiences within us at every moment, so it's simply a matter of being a supple and receptive instrument and being brave enough to let an experience that big flow THROUGH me, without getting overwhelmed by it, or resisting it in any way, because I know that, as long as I keep my breath moving and my energy releasing, then in the next second, I can access something else (in this case Myra, and her concern for Beauty.)

The process for writing the scene: I had written a scene in which they all discover that Lindiwe hasn't passed – but it was a much “smaller” scene, emotionally. Beauty didn't show her reaction. Then, after performing that scene a time or two (rehearsing? I think) and dramaturging/rewriting the play, I think I could sense that I was “hiding” from something big in that scene because it was somehow “scary” to me emotionally – and potentially embarrassing, as a performer. So, again, this is where I go to my technique and try to let the impulses flow – and I think I did that on my feet? If I let myself be free, physically, then the emotion of the moment arises in me – and then I knew how huge this would be for Beauty. I hadn't “known” that before. It's all a process. I think I remember improvising it rather than writing it first? But i'm not sure.

Question 1: Throughout the play I was struck by the precision, almost choreography, of your physical movements. How did you discover/rehearse the stylization of the piece?

GABRIELLE: In terms of the “precision of motion/movement” – that's interesting to me, too. Because I don't use a specific physical “technique.” I just fully inhabit the characters, and, again, FULLY release my energy – and then my body wants to do what that character does. It's much more about getting OUT OF THE WAY, than about “doing” something physical. There's nothing cerebral about it. I never made decisions about certain postures or gestures for each character. (Carol has beaten into me her prohibition against “making decisions” about anyone! Because it kills the process. How can you decide something about a full human being? Humans change all the time.) So, the technique has more to do with courage, again. If I am brave enough to let my own mannerisms and protections fall away, then impulses arise all the time – and I have trained myself to follow those impulses, and trust them, and release that energy fully, and then a full character emerges in a split-second.

In terms of “choreography” – I know that Beauty collapses at that moment in the play – but my guess is that I do it differently every time? I think Joey [the director] might be able to speak to that. [Joey's answer below]

When I don't trust my technique, and my impulses (e.g. when I was first rehearsing this, and was worried that the audience wouldn't be able to distinguish characters) then the transitions between characters actually gets muddier. Because then I'm in my head, “trying” to “show” the audience that “Now I'm Corinne!”. Again, from Carol: I have to just do it for MYSELF. If I try to “show” something, then it gets stiff. If I just have the experience, 200%, for myself, and relish it, then the audience just gets to join me on the wild ride.

JOEY (the director): When we began the process of staging this play, I knew we had to find the landmarks that would guide Gabrielle through this story. We would find the structure that would give her the freedom to bring these people through. We began at the beginning and found the map that felt the most organic and "right." We rehearsed one moment at a time. It was like being on a treasure hunt. Each gem lead us to the next. We didn't decide how each character moved or talked, it was more like we gave them space and structure so they could come through.

The moment that you are talking about is one of my favorites as well because four different people come through with no transition time and you get the sense of how everyone is reacting in the moment as if you can watch all of them separately and then you realize they are all coming through one person. It is a little different every night, but every night it is incredibly precise because of Gabrielle's commitment.

Question 3: I don't remember Beauty coming back again after that scene. Can you talk about why we don't see her again?

GABRIELLE: It wasn't a decision. I hadn't noticed that, until audience members started telling me they missed her in the second half. (I miss her too! I love her.) But I think it's just right, so it happened that way. In some way, Beauty's story is over. Beauty is so, so much a product of apartheid, in that incredibly painful, terrible way. She's amazing. But she isn't the future. Lindiwe and Corrine have to wrestle with the future. It's theirs.
_____________________________________________________________________
This "joy" that Gabrielle speaks of most certainly comes through in her performance. The first thing I mentioned to someone when talking about the show was how giving Gabrielle is as a performer. As an audience member, I felt so welcome and loved. And now with the insight above--learning about Gabrielle's training and process--I understand why.


Read the full story