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Flux Sunday, July 17th

Wednesday, July 20, 2011 0 comments

By August Schulenburg


Our second Flux after the end of Ajax in Iraq was a roll-up-your-sleeves kind of day. We took on a ton of pages from Perse, reaching the climax of the play; we neared the end of Viva Fidel, and we moved towards the middle of Now Comes The Night. Beginnings are exciting, and endings feel good, but this was a day of working the middles.

We also filmed some videos for TCG's I AM THEATRE campaign, so a special thanks to Anthony, Isaiah, Ingrid, Anna and Carissa for sharing their stories; and to Kelly for filming.

Playwrights: EM Lewis (Now Comes the Night), August Schulenburg (Perse), Isaiah Tanenbaum (Viva Fidel)

Directors: Heather Cohn, Marielle Duke, Kelly O'Donnell

Actors: Ken Glickfeld, Anthony Wills Jr, Carissa Cordes, Jane Taylor, Ingrid Nordstrom, Anna Lamadrid, Rob Maitner, Becky Byers, Jen Kipley

Highlights:
- Um, Becky Byers as the gangsta-Beiber Joey Berger in Perse? Unforgettable, especially in the scene where she and Carissa made up the blocking because we ran out of staging time. Yeah, improvised violence!
-Is there anything that quite compares in groan-inducing pleasure to Isaiah's Jeff/El Jefe wordplay in Viva Fidel?
-Newcomers Rob Maitner and Jen Kipley tearing it up as Michael in Now Comes the Night and Catherine in Viva Fidel respectively.
-Watching the video of Ek Ladki Ko Dekho with the Perse cast on my phone, and then trying to somehow stage that Bollywood magic at Judson (Ingrid and Anna spinning together=treasured memory).

If you were there, what do you walk away with?

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The Money Horizons

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 3 comments

By August Schulenburg


In my interesting comment dialogue with Randy yesterday, I touched on a feeling that I've been wanting to blog about for awhile.

There are two fantasies regarding theatre and money: 1.) That money can buy you quality, and 2.) that money has no impact on quality.

For the first, we have recent evidence that not even sixty-five million dollars can buy you excellence. For the second, the reality of producing on a shoestring budget with stolen hours is that every brilliant choice battles against the degradations of time, money, exhaustion and scheduling conflicts.

Money does increase the chances of a show being good, though it does not guarantee it. However, sometimes I suspect there is another boundary, where once crossed, every additional dollar actually makes excellence less likely. And this is because, once enough money is in play, a host of new adversaries to excellence arise. Every new dollar represents another opinion that must be fed, all risk and uniqueness are sanded down, and the play dies the death of second guesses from a thousand cooks.

It is possible to smuggle excellence across this moneyed border, just as it is possible to cobble it together from almost nothing. But as Flux creeps towards greater resources, this line is always present in my mind, especially as we try to pay our artists more. I think there is a territory where you have just enough resources to make beautiful and essential work without burning out your people; and if we ever cross that shifting horizon, I hope we can keep our balance and not race forward to moneyed death, nor fall back to burned out oblivion.

What has been your experience in finding that fabled land? Is there even a there there?


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The Shakespeare Royalties

Monday, July 18, 2011 4 comments

From time to time, some degree of a moratorium on the plays of Shakespeare is considered. After seeing Much Ado About Nothing at Boomerang (a solid production that reminded me of what a profound accomplishment the character of Beatrice is) and Measure for Measure in the Park (an inconsistent production with a fantastic Lucio and a great concept for the Duke as a bumbling improviser enthralled by absolute personalities), I am even more grateful for every chance I get to spend with his plays. Unlike many others, I find even mediocre productions worth my time; every time I hear his words in motion, I discover something new.


All that said, Isaac was right to be concerned when (over a year and a half ago now) he pointed to a distressing reality in his post Our Shakespeare Problem (based on the data of TCG's Season Preview):
"By not looking at how much Shakespeare is done, we are leaving out a major piece of the puzzle of American Theatre.The numbers in this post are rough and have their issues, but that doesn't make them not-useful. What do you see? In the past decade, Shakespeare gets 1,163 productions, the next playwright down (August Wilson) gets 146. That's almost eight times as many productions! Yikes."
I suspect if the data were expanded to include all theatrical activity in this country, the numbers might be even more lopsided due to Shakespeare's dominance in theatre education.

Given that I can't bring myself to advocate for less of something I love so much, I wonder if there isn't a way to take advantage of the imbalance.

What if every production of a Shakespeare play paid a small royalty towards a national fund dedicated to supporting living playwrights?

If even half of the theatres producing Shakespeare opted into this program, and if the royalty payments were as low as $25 a performance, a sizable annual fund could still be created without placing a significant financial burden on participating theatres. The effort would of course need to be voluntary, as the last thing we need is even more financial/legal red tape on the creative process, especially with theatre's most central texts.

How to allocate the funds raised would be a more challenging question; I'd hate to see the money go through a traditional granting process, as so often those grants seem to support already relatively successful playwrights and theatres. As all playwrights are the inheritors of Shakespeare's artistic legacy, all playwrights should somehow be connected to this potential resource legacy.

Perhaps playwrights and participating theatres could each be given a vote in the allocation of the funds raised, with an online database used to tally and distribute the funds on a proportional basis. Such a voting process might be more likely to truly support the national breadth of playwriting activity then the more cloistered and mysterious process of traditional grantmaking.

But whether the funds be distributed through new or traditional means, the Shakespeare Royalties could go a long way to righting this imbalance in play production. Shakespeare theatres could produce our greatest playwright while at the same time helping to create opportunities for living playwrights, moving our playwriting ecosystem away from its Shakespeare-bound monoculture without throwing the Bard out with the bathwater.

Of course, theatres are unlikely to agree to something that isn't in their immediate self-interest unless there is a compelling wave of communal purpose. So, what do you think internet? Is it better to bar the Bard, or share in the Shakespeare royalties?


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Twitter as Conscience

Friday, July 15, 2011 1 comments

By August Schulenburg

An odd thing occurred to me several days ago. I had my Tweetdeck open, and was following a number of hashtags, including #MarriageEquality, #Iraq, #Afghanistan and #Women2Drive.

For those not Twitter-inclined, this means two things: streams of 140 character messages relating to those hashtags are updated in real time on my Tweetdeck platform, and some of those messages pop up in the right hand corner of my screen.

What this means is, while I'm working, tweets about #Iraq or the Saudi campaign for gender equality will appear. If I'm focused, I don't notice the tweets, but when I'm between thoughts or projects, they'll catch my eye, and if they seem important, I'll click on them.

While this may seem like inviting a restless three year old into your brain to poke at your mind, it actually functions as an odd sort of conscience. If you're like me, you pay lip service to caring about the consequences of our wars in #Iraq and #Afghanistan; in theory, you support gender and marriage equality.

But life moves fast, and it's all too easy to go weeks without thinking about these things, let alone doing something about them.

That is not possible with the tweetdeck open and the hashtags blazing. And so however absurd it might sound, twitter has become a part of my conscience, reminding me hourly of the pain of our wars and the hope of our recent human rights revolutions.

It is too soon for me to say what deep impact this will have: so far, it's upped my slacktivist signing of online petitions, and doubled my contact with my elected representatives. That's not enough, but it's more than I've done in a long time, and it wouldn't be possible without my Twitter conscience occupying an increasing space in my consciousness.

For all the utopias and dystopias Twitter has inspired, it remains a platform, a tool, an extension of and gateway to the human spirit. It can be used to the widen the circle of empathy and promote civic engagement; just as it can also bring out the gang within us, as we #hashstone those that displease or bore us.

All of this grows out of the feelings in my last post, You Must Enter The Theatre Through The World. Following up on that post, here are some more Flux-framed thoughts that my desktop Jiminy Cricket brought me:

Ajax in Iraq: Yesterday, I found two heartbreaking stories of soldier suicides: Jamie McMullin "He lost a lot of friends. He had 12 poppies tattooed on his right arm, and each one was for a friend that he had lost over there"and Ian McConnell. The picture of Sgt. McConnell shaking hands with the Afghan boy is especially moving, as is the determination of both families to share these stories to prevent this from happening again. As Pisoni says, "We should have paid better attention..."

But there is also this story of courage from Kabul, where women protested against the constant harassment they face in the streets. Whatever my feelings about the war may be, this kind of protest never could've happened under the Taliban. I was also heartened by these stories of amateur astronomers in Afghanistan, and UNICEF's use of comic books to communicate with illiterate Afghans (where there is a 28% literacy rate).

Deinde: I was very much reminded of Deinde by this story of how our minds have adapted to Google. Instead of remembering the information, our brains remember where we can find the information, hence the title, The Extended Mind.

Collaboration: I'm fascinated by this audience engagement measurement tool, though before we use it at a Food:Soul, here is a helpful corrective to letting crowdsourcing solve all our problems.

Joy: I was intrigued by the sound of Paul Bloom's book How Pleasure Works, and especially by this quote:
"If you look through a psychology textbook, you will find little or nothing about sports, art, music, drama, literature, play, and religion. These are central to what makes us human, and we won’t understand any of them until we understand pleasure."
I've written here about how the evolutionary advantages of pattern recognition became our sense of beauty, and it seems like his book explores similar themes. Flux book club, anyone?

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You Must Enter The Theatre Through The World

Wednesday, July 13, 2011 2 comments

By August Schulenburg


"You must enter the theatre through the world."
-Joe Papp

This quote, shared by Todd London at the 2011 TCG Conference (and tweeted by me), has continued to stick with me, touching on a feeling I tried to put into words nearly a year ago in The Wider Frame.

As I wrote then: "Increasingly, I am seeing the problems that face the theatre as woven into a larger context; and I am coming to believe that we can't talk about the problems facing the field without also talking about that wider frame." I tried to explore those frames through our season of Dog Act, Ajax in Iraq and Menders.

That feeling has only grown in the past year, though I have been woefully bad at putting those feelings into action. Recently, that has changed, and as I've been taking more steps towards direct activism, that feeling of connection between making theatre and achieving social justice has grown.

I have come to believe increasingly in the words of Teresa Eyring's closing speech at the conference:
"...but there are some ideals we cannot relinquish; there are some dreams that we won’t let go. The ideal that every human being has a right to peace, freedom, and creative self-expression; the ideal that every community is sustained by that creative self-expression; and the dream of a global stage where the stories of those communities are freely exchanged; we hold onto these things, because without them, theatre has no meaning.

Because theatre does not exist in opposition to Facebook and Twitter; theatre is not in competition with television or film: all of these forms, old and new, are in service to the expression of the human spirit. When Twitter helps spark a revolution against an oppressive regime, that is a victory for theatre..."

To that end, and in hopes of reinvigorating the sometimes fading energies of this online space, I'm going to be letting the world in.

I will try to steer that engagement through the lens of our Core and Aesthetic Values, and the plays that Flux has produced or developed that have shaped our mutual experience. I will preface each piece of the world through one of those values or plays, to hopefully lend a coherency to this effort, and keep this from feeling like we're moving too far afield from more Flux-centric updates and musings (which will of course continue).

So, here we go!

Ajax in Iraq: The Marine Times reports on the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, and the HuffPo has some interviews with soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan who are not looking forward to the end of their tour of duties. This reminds me of many quotes from our recently produced play...and this petition is an easy way to help a soldier's family keep their home.

Dark Matter: The holographic theory of the universe is gaining adherents. For those not obsessed with cosmology and physics, this theory essentially states that our universe is a four dimensional projection of a five dimensional universe. Says physicist Kostas Skenderis:
"If we look forward to 50 years from now, we will see this period as a precursor to a time when physics is totally reformulated in the language of holography," he says. "Once the theory is properly fleshed out, we will be able to apply it to almost any problem."
Menders: I recently discovered this blog Gender Across Borders, which recently posted a penetrating look at the Saudi Women Drivers movement, #Women2Drive, and the movement's surprising lack of support from the United Nations' UNWomen.

Indie Theatre: The good folks of the New York Innovative Theatre Awards have reversed their new nomination party policy based on feedback from the community. Kudos to an institution being responsive and nimble enough to alter course and better serve their constituency - no easy feat.

Collaboration: Have you heard about Citizenside? This post explains how the crowdsourced citizen photo journalist project builds trust and engagement among its users. The quote struck home for some of my recent thinking about the challenges facing theatre:
"The traditional one-way vertical relationship from the mass media to the audience does not exist anymore. Indeed, the whole notion of audience does not exist anymore, as users are now taking an active role in the creating and distribution of media."
There is already some stir about crowdsourced dramaturgy in generating source material for plays, and I'm very interested in Flux exploring this.

So...that's a start. What world are you walking through to enter the theatre?
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Flux Sunday, July 10th

Monday, July 11, 2011 4 comments

By August Schulenburg
(What is Flux Sunday?)

We're back! After an Ajax in Iraq sized hiatus, we returned to the friendly confines of Judson Memorial Church for some Flux Sunday action. It was a full day - we went over our 7PM limit - and everyone was really bringing it.

Playwrights: Fengar Gael (The Cat Vandal), EM Lewis (Now Comes the Night), August Schulenburg (Perse, The App of Paradise), Isaiah Tanenbaum (Viva Fidel)

Directors: Heather Cohn, Kitty Lindsay, Brian Pracht

Actors: David Crommett, Jane Taylor, Ken Glickfeld, Heather Nicholson, Kari Swenson Riely, Anna Lamadrid, Matthew Archambault, Ingrid Nordstrom, Vern Thiessen, Ryan Andes, Becky Byers, Leila Okafor, Carissa Cordes, Drew Valins

Highlights:
-Brian Pracht and Matthew Archambault found some really funny phone business in Viva Fidel, the play that routinely requires three times as many props as any other scene.
-Ken accidentally kicked my character's wounded leg in Now Comes the Night, and wow, that really helped my intensity the rest of the beautifully ravaged scene! Ellen said she might even keep it...
-No one gathered at this Flux Sunday will ever forget Ryan on the yoga mat as the cat-possessed Omar in Mary's The Cat Vandal. A supple kudos to Andes and director Heather.
-It was really cool to see two Perses and two Melindas in the long chunk of Perse we did - Anna/Becky and Heather/Ingrid each found completely different energies in the roles. I'm also unclear as to how they directed such a long scene so cleanly in so little time. Magic?
-Drew Valins was back! And he brought a real tenderness to Paco in The App of Paradise that grounded such an idea heavy short scene.

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New World Iliads, Part Two and Three

Tuesday, July 5, 2011 0 comments

(Photo: Anna Lamadrid. Pictured: Jelena Stupljanin, Jason Howard)

New World Iliads was an interesting ForePlay series for Flux. On the one hand, our benefit that kicked off the series was well-attended, and represented a high water mark for quality in the series.

The two that followed were both strong artistically, but due to the overwhelming pressures of producing Ajax in Iraq, we weren't able to bring in large audiences, and that was a shame.

On the plus side, this marked our first ForePlay that featured a cross-discipline collaboration. Our partnership with Carrier Pigeon was really fruitful, and I hope we can build on that for future ForePlays and beyond.

It was also a wonderful opportunity to work with Flux vets we'd been itching to reunite with, like Lynn Kenny and Carissa Cordes; and a chance to develop new relationships with artists we admire, like J. Holtham and Jelena Stupljanin.

Still, how to manage this series at the same level of attention now that our Membership is the smallest it has ever been is a serious challenge, and I expect we'll be relying more on our excellent Friends of Flux moving forward.

What follows are some pics from the event courtesy of the wonderful Anna Lamadrid, and some images from the Carrier Pigeon artists that inspired the playwrights.
(Art by Kristy Caldwell)
June 12th, 2011: Afghanistan
CSV, Flamboyan Theater - 107 Suffolk St
The Plays:
The Labyrinth of Enduring Freedom by Aja Houston
The War Museum by EM Lewis
By the Victors by Isaiah Tanenbaum
NEO by Mac Rogers

Featuring: Carissa Cordes, Ken Glickfeld, Lynn Kenny, Rob Maitner, and Kathleen Wise
Directed by Jordana Williams
(Art by Bruce Waldman)
June 21st: Bosnia
CSV, Flamboyan Theater - 107 Suffolk St
The Plays:
Slobodan Život Šimpanza (The Wild Chimpanzees) by Will Ditterline
All Apologies (or Ana in the White City) by J. Holtham
A Footnote by Brian Pracht
Book of Memory by David Ian Lee

Featuring: Kira Blaskovich, Jason Howard, Joshua Koopman, Anna Lamadrid, Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr., and Jelena Stupljanin
Directed by Heather Cohn

(Photo: Anna Lamadrid. Pictured: Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr., Jason Howard)


(Photo: Anna Lamadrid. Pictured: Jelena Stupljanin)


(Photo: Anna Lamadrid. Pictured: Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr., Jason Howard)

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