flyover

I had to laugh out loud when, after a brilliant "Daily Show" segment on Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race, Jon Stewart dropped the yuks for a moment and said (to paraphrase): "And so it is that a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race as if they were adults." Stewart hit the nail on the head. Although I haven't had a chance to watch Obama's speech in its entirety yet, from what I have seen, it was an honest, direct and nuanced attempt to grapple with a complex problem.

All of this leads me to something I had meant to blog about a couple of weeks ago, when I saw a preview performance of Madison Repertory Theatre's current show, Thomas Gibbons' "Permanent Collection." The show blends art-world and racial politics as Sterling North, a black corporate exec, takes on the directorship of the Morris Foundation, which houses a priceless collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, as well as some little-displayed African art. North's desire to incorporate more of the African pieces into the displays rankles the museum's white director of education, and controversy ensues.

After the preview-night show, I felt invigorated in way that, frankly, I rarely do when leaving the theater. Sure, there are good plays to be seen in Madison, but this seemed to me an almost perfect blend of entertainment with meaty ideas. The production was fiery, at times funny and offered characters with real moral complexity. It's a play on race and culture that treats the audience as if they were adults, capable of seeing the merits of each character's position from shifting angles.

I was previously unfamiliar with this play, and I'm glad Madison Rep chose to make it a part of its season. Madison is a changing city but its older generations - you know, the people who are more likely to go to professional theater - are largely white. We like to think of ourselves as an enlightened, progressive place, and to a good extent I think Madison is, but anyone who doesn't believe that they have blind spots regarding race is probably fooling themselves. In that way, I thought Madison's Rep choice of this play was especially well suited to its community. Being entertained and being made to think - in equal measure - is, for me at least, a perfect night at the theater. And if art, as well as political speeches, can move forward our national dialogue on race, I think this is the sort of play that can accomplish that.

For some local reviews of Madison Repertory Theatre's production of "Permanent Collection," see Isthmus, the Capital Times and the Wisconsin State Journal. The show runs through March 30 at the Overture Center for the Arts.

Two weekends ago I experienced San Antonio theater from the other side of the fourth wall. Yes, I, a critic, was in a play. Written by another critic. And I played a man: Menander, the master of New Comedy (so I'm not sweating it either).

This particular production was especially commissioned for an interactive Greek and Roman art exhibit/event at the San Antonio Museum of Art, a castle-like structure just a short walk from my pub's headquarters. Called "The Complete Fragments of Menander: Some Assembly Required," William Razavi's one-act was billed as an "edu-tainment" play for all ages. And indeed, the performance incited laughter from Classics professors and small children alike.

The show was reportedly met with enthusiasm from a representative of another local vis-art institution (which shall for now go nameless) possibly interested in collaborating on something in the same vein.

I always get psyched when different art-form tribes join forces. In mythical, Factory-like environments the lines between media, vis, and theater artists are always represented as blurry. I'm still learning about how much of that exists here (holy crap, look at this: http://www.potterbelmar.org/); our arts editor tells me that SA's other major art museum, The McNay, has begun to develop a resident theater troupe. I'm on the edge of my seat (on the side of the stage where I probably belong).

A few weeks ago I took a look at the front page of Arts + Life, our Sunday features section in the Lexington Herald-Leader. There was a story about a double bill of plays by University of Kentucky Theatre, a piece about UK soprano Afton Battle in the national semifinal round of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and, inside, a story about a new UK ­musical and operetta club.

A few nights later, I was in UK's Singletary Center to hear the Lexington Philharmonic Orchestra, and I noted that concertmaster Daniel Mason directs UK's string program, principal violist Joseph Baber teaches composition at UK, principal ... well, you get the idea.

Even when you're not dealing with a UK organization, there's a good chance there will be a tie to the university.

That is not to diminish the efforts of artists from other area schools. I'm reminded of folks such as Stephanie Pistello, a Transylvania University theater graduate who now directs the New Mummer Group in New York; John Ellison Conlee, who graduated from Centre College's theater program and went on to a Tony Award nomination for his performance in The Full Monty; and singers such as Corey Crider and Norman ­Reinhardt, who got their starts at Morehead State University and Asbury College, respectively, before filtering through grad school at UK on their way to burgeoning opera careers. We have a wealth of colleges and universities in Central Kentucky with substantial arts programs. And covering UK arts extensively is not a subversive effort at boosterism (my dirty secret: I was born and raised a Duke fan -- one of UK's mortal enemies in basketball).

There's something to be said for having a major land-grant university in your city. It elevates the possibilities for what you can do and what your community demands.

Should promoting audience etiquette be part of our jobs?

I'm thinking about this because of a Guardian UK blog post about theater etiquette.

I'm also thinking about it because in the town where I grew up (which I believe Terry Teachout calls something like a "second-tier" city, in no doubt much more elegant terms), the classical music critic for the daily paper wrote about audience etiquette. I'd say "often" or "a few times," but the truth is that just because I have strong memories of the few times doesn't mean it was, or wasn't, often.

That critic, whose work I remember reading in high school and perhaps college, was Scott Cantrell, now of the Dallas Morning News. (I emailed him to see if I was making this up; I'll update when I get a reply.)

Michael Friedman, Jim Lewis and Steven Cosson (L-R) discuss This Beautiful City, the play they created about the evangelical community in Colorado Springs, Colo., which is part of 32nd annual Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actor's Theatre of Louisville. Photo by Maggie Huber | Lexington Herald-Leader and LexGo.com.

Last week, I saw a performance of Lee Blessing's new play, Great Falls. It was an excellent piece of theater that belied the bells and whistles of so many shows today by focusing on two terrific, well-traveled actors under the guidance of a first-rate director.

And I was nowhere near New York City. Not even Chicago or San Francisco. I was in Louisville, a town most people only think about the first Saturday in May. But every year, somewhere around the last weekend in March, the Derby City becomes the center of the theater world with critics and theater professionals flocking in for the Humana Festival of New American Plays.

The festival, which has launched critically acclaimed plays such as Crimes of the Heart, is now into its fourth decade. It has had its up years and down years, but with recent hits such as Dinner with Friends and Omnium Gatherum, people still come to Humana hoping to be among the first to discover the next great thing.

Nowadays, when people describe Humana, it's often compared to the Sundance Film Festival, another major arts (yes, it attracts glitterati, but most of its offerings are geared to the art houses) event that thrives outside of major mets. Look south to Charleston, S.C. (John, are you ready?) and we have Spoleto, a major arts festival with a schedule that will make you da-rool, da-rool.

Chatting with Jim Clark, the president and CEO of LexArts, the United Arts Fund here in Lexington, he pointed out that one of the common denominators of these and other major arts happenings outside of the cultural capitals of America is that they didn't have great infrastructure to launch. What they had was a great vision that serious and substantial work could be done right where they were. It's the kind of success that should make you look around and wonder what could happen, wherever you are.

I don't know Carol Furtwangler, but I'm sure we'd have a lot to talk about. She's the Post and Courier's theater critic (in Charleston, S.C.) and she turns reviews around on a regular basis. Problem is, she doesn't have much room to do a proper job.

For Fiddler on the Roof, a production that opened Friday and that was the first time the Charleston Stage Company had collaborated with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, her review got six paragraphs. By the time she'd finished with the requisite exposition, there was little inch-count to make a sound judgment.

I know what this is like. When I was a daily reporter, I wrote reviews that we shoehorned into the smallest of spaces. Aware of space restrictions, and cynical about being cut even further by insensitive copy editors, I wrote tight without much nuance, even if that meant veering into hyperbole.

In Furtwangler's case, she leads by saying Fiddler on the Roof was "a triumphant production," but doesn't expound. Inference does the work for her: The very fact that Charleston Stage did this big, ambitious, and expensive project with the CSO made it triumphant. The next five graphs of the review were devoted to who did what and when -- in other words, the exposition.

I have to give the P&C credit: It devotes space to the arts. I spent years writing overnight reviews that ended up near the obituaries. That's pretty disheartening. Though Furtwangler's reviews are small, at least they are present. And they are present on page 2A -- a great endorsement for the arts.

Still, why not more? Furtwangler's review had to compete with wire copy from the Associated Press, stories on J.K. Rowling's suing of a Potter fan and Frank Sinatra Jr. getting a star on the Walk of Fame (with a large picture that takes up a lot of space). From a editorial perspective, one has to weigh the value of copy. For my money, the local theater review is the most valuable. The other stuff can be found elsewhere, but a newspaper can't buy a local theater review from the wires. That's unique and therefore the most valuable.

I could talk about how daily newspapers don't get it (that it's not enough to put material out there; that they must also engage readers in order to keep them), but I think the P&C does a pretty good job. Like I said, at least the arts are present in the paper. Other publications are doing away with them altogether.

The problem with tight space is this: Furtlanger wasn't able to be accurate. It is indeed a triumph of sorts for a city's professional orchestra to accompany a city's largest professional theater company. But that isn't enough.

I attended the opening of Fiddler. The show was not triumphant. I would say that it could have been triumphant, that it had all the ingredients for triumph, but it was far from that for one key reason: John Fennell, the lead actor (pictured).

Aside from a passel of debits (uneven pacing, stalled momentum, that dreaded sound problem that continues to plague Charleston Stage shows) and bevy of credits (great costumes, a terrific dream scene, and touching chemistry between actors, especially between Tevye and Golda), Fennell just couldn't sing well.

Maybe he was sick, I don't know. But his singing voice was bad. His acting was superb. He was very, very funny. But his singing? Not good. With his character playing a central role in the story, and with the CSO providing the music to which this central role sang, the collaboration was hardly triumphant.

I would give this show a mixed review. (So did CP critic Kinsey Labberton. She noted the sound problems and Fennell's lackluster performance. She also asked why choose Fiddler when a historic collaboration between two major arts groups in Charleston was an opportunity to be really daring. A fair observation.)

Because it's the obligation of the critic to explain himself when leveling a mixed review, he or she requires space. Without that, you're stuck giving a mere thumbs up or thumbs down. If Furtwangler wants to try her hand with the City Paper, we'd give her the space she needs. She's welcome to call me anytime.

Like I said, I think we'd have a lot to talk about.

Cross-posted from Unscripted.

Jen's Arts Day may be over, but I have a question: Should arts journalists be arts advocates?

If so, how should we do that -- simply by writing about the arts? Or should we do things like go easier on a theater company or art gallery that is having a hard financial time? What's our responsibility to our communities and to the arts that we cover?

What about podcasts (I like those of Jen Graves at The Stranger, Q&As (Rich is really good at this on his blog), panels and other ways for arts writers to get the news out about the arts?

Maybe this is a "duh." As in, "Duh, Suzi, if we aren't arts advocates, we won't have jobs at all." But I'd like to hear what others think about ethics, balancing reviews and previews and informational articles, mixing financial analyses with the desire for local arts groups to, well, keep on going, etc.

Yo! Eugene checking in.

I'm Suzi Steffen, career graduate student, still (after almost two years) thrilled to have a job where they pay me to write. Even though I adore that job -- as performing and visual arts editor (and copy editor -- small paper) at The Eugene Weekly -- I'd rather be living in Portland. But I guess that wouldn't be flyover-land, and I'd be sad not to be living my dream and blogging for Flyover.

I'm a rather serious person, given to long contemplation of Serious Topics About Art and Architecture and Books and Funding and Music and Theater, but I also like LOLcats. I expect both to influence my posts here.

Tomorrow, March 5, is Arts Day here in Wisconsin. It's an annual event organized by Arts Wisconsin, a statewide arts advocacy group. Although it works closely with our state Arts Board, it is an independent organization. Part of the goal of Arts Day is to get Wisconsin's artists, arts administrators, educators, etc. together with state legislators. Legislators are unlikely to fund what they don't even know about, and they need to know about what their constituents are doing. Arts Day is spearheaded by the vocal, passionate and determined Anne Katz, and I've asked Anne to do a guest post one of these days to talk about the role of arts advocacy from her perspective.

Arts advocates have had some recent successes here in Wisconsin, one of which is the passage of tax breaks for films (and other forms of entertainment) made in Wisconsin. While the knee-jerk liberal in me typically views any sort of corporate tax break with suspicion, I think this is great news. We've lagged behind nearby states in this regard, losing potential business to them. The first major film to be shot here, after the tax incentives took effect on Jan. 1, is "Public Enemies," based on Bryan Burrough's book about John Dillinger and starring Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard (whee!) and Christian Bale. UW-Madison graduate Michael Mann will direct.

According to the AP, the film company plans to spend about $20 million in Wisconsin and will earn about $3.9 million in tax credits.

While Wisconsin's Arts Day will no doubt touch upon these sorts of large-scale economic issues, the overall vibe is much more local and grassroots, and the arguments put forth in favor of the arts are certainly not all based on dollars. Rather, it's a time for anyone who cares about the arts and arts funding to have a say based on what is most important to them -- and it's a challenge to all of us to try to become arts advocates in some form throughout the year, not just one day in March.

Jeff Day, at The State newspaper (in Columbia, S.C.), reminds us that Renee Fleming, at the top of her game as the Met's leading opera diva, got her start at Spoleto. His article today also serves as a reminder that artists of Fleming's caliber had to start somewhere. In fact, Fleming graduated from the same small New York state school that I did: The Crane School of Music at SUNY College at Potsdam. She eventually went on the Eastman, as many Crane graduates did. Before being taken on the Metropolitan Opera, she gigged with Spoleto, just as many artists past and present have. Fleming is among opera's elite, but her journey took her to many out-of-the-way places outside of New York, London, and Milan.

In recent weeks, Renee Fleming, one of the biggest opera stars in the world, has been singing the role of the doomed Desdemona in the Metropolitan Opera's "Otello."

But 21 years ago, she was a young singer just starting out when she filled a supporting role in the opera "Platee" at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. The opera was reviewed by The New York Times, but she wasn't even mentioned.

She was back at Spoleto in 1989, singing the role of the Countess in "The Marriage of Figaro," which she also performed at the Italian version of the festival.

That time she got noticed.

"Spoleto was actually my training ground," Fleming said in an interview from New York last week. "I spent three summers at the festival both in Charleston and Italy. It was a terrific experience -- I loved both places."

Full story . . .

Cross-posted from Unscripted.

Joe has raised an interesting issue--one that I would love to do further research on. In fact, I'd love to find a graduate student willing to do some in-depth quantitative research about theater as a career in flyover communities.

For a long time, all I ever heard was that if you wanted to make money in theater, you had to go to Chicago or New York. Lately, I've been wondering if that still holds true. Granted, you're unlikely to become rich or famous working in Michigan. Yet, there has been plenty of interesting anecdotal evidence in which people are moving back to Michigan to pursue theater and arts-related careers because this is where they want to live.

This despite the fact that we've had some pretty rough years as far as arts funding from the government goes. In fact, "pretty rough" is an understatement.

That said, in the past few years, two new Equity houses have opened in the state and I've talked to many performers who are choosing to stay here to make their living. Most of those people are those who can also teach--either at schools or in studio settings. They're also people who are versatile and willing to do commercial and industrial work.

My curiosity is aroused now: What does it take to make a livable career in theater and what sacrifices to you make to do so?

It is with great excitement and delight, I must say, that I'm grateful to be able to join the fray of my fellow flyovers and contribute here at ArtsJournal. I have to admit that a recent show just opened at Duke University's Nasher Museum - "Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool" - brings a much needed cosmopolitan jolt to the Triangle art scene and almost has me feeling like I'm in a non-Flyover location at present. Well, almost.... The fact Barkley has his very own Superman painting in there makes me especially interested to check it out... will report back with further superheroic gallery-going adventures ASAP

Now that Ashley Lindstrom has broken the ice as the newest Flyover blogger, please allow me to bow in. I'm Rich Copley, culture writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader, primarily covering performing arts and film.

That is a gig I am proud to say, as of March 9, I will have had for 10 years. Like a lot of young writers, when I took the job, I thought we'd be here three-to-five years and then off to a bigger town with bigger theaters, orchestras and all that. But, in the intervening time, my wife and I had a second child, we settled into jobs and schools, and we are now buying our second house in Lexington. We've stayed. And that hasn't been hard to do. The Bluegrass is one of the most beautiful regions of the country, and Lexington is a place where you can kind of set your pace. It's a small city or a big town, depending on how you look at it, and there are lots of ways to look at it.

Professionally, this job continues to be intriguing and exciting.

About a month ago, Orange County Register blogger Paul Hodgins wrote a post about his conversations with various theater professionals around the Los Angeles area.

His findings are no real surprise:

Those who bemoan the state of American theater should consider this sobering fact: even for its most successful playwrights and directors, it's a world without money or security.

Of course, Hodgins bases what he says on the anecdotal evidence he sees around Orange County and L.A.

Which makes me wonder: Is it better, or worse, in smaller cities around the country? My gut tells me worse; there's certainly no-one in my town of Missoula making a living as a freelance theater professional. In fact, even here -- more than 1,000 miles from Los Angeles -- the only folks I know making a living by writing scripts or acting do pretty much all their business in Hollywood.

But I also know that life in Missoula is a lot less expensive than in L.A. (just ask the scads of transplants who come here every year to get away from the big city, pushing up local housing prices....Not that I'm BITTER or anything...grrrr).

And as a journalist, I had an eye-opening conversation with a senior Chicago Tribune reporter a year ago in which it became clear that my standard of living here is actually no worse and in some ways infinitely better than his.

Journalists aren't theatricals, of course. But I do wonder, can people make a decent living acting, directing, and/or writing plays outside the major metro hubs in America?

Yesterday afternoon, I saw a production of Miss Evers' Boys.

It was one of those plays that gives you a lot to think about afterward. One of the things that most struck me was this: While the play portrayed Miss Evers in a highly sympathetic manner and helped me to understand why should would make the choices that she made, it didn't change my feeling that her choices were wrong.

In many ways, this was the beauty of the play. It provided all the shadings of gray to help us see beyond the easy outrage that gives people easy deniability ("I would never do such a thing!"). However, even while offering an explanation, it didn't try to justify. Yes, there were lots of shades of gray, but using people as guinea pigs and denying them access to the penicillin that would cure them is still wrong.

I'm Ashley Lindstrom, associate editor at San Antonio's alt-weekly newspaper The Current, and newly recruited Flyover blogger. I'm totally psyched to be "holding down the southern front," to quote Mr. Nickell, the person kind enough to invite me to join the ranks after we met at this year's NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theater and Musical Theater.

A little about me: I've been criticizing theater and film at The Current for just over two years (and other things for, I don't know, ages). Although SA is the seventh-largest city in the US -- with an incredible basketball team, ahem -- it's got a small-town attitude. This characteristic has its pros and cons: Folks are plenty warm and friendly, but we're still working on becoming a hotspot for creative-types. I cover about four to five theaters regularly, and film is another beast entirely: We're always the last market to get those limited releases. And press junkets? Fughetaboutit.

Once a year, though, Central Texas crawls with filmmakers of a slightly more national reputation. (Yes, even more national than SA-born Robert Rodriguez.) And flyover folks like myself finally get to talk to them about their work. That time is rolling around: The South by Southwest Film Festival begins on March 7. OK, so I'll have to drive to Austin for it ... and my inbox will be crammed with messages from promoters ... and I'll be virtually begging for passes for contributors. But is it worth it? In a word: Yes.

More on the wonderful world of Central Texas arts to come ... I've got a screening to catch ...

I'm standing in a crease between two towering folds of brushed stainless steel, looking up. A wall of glass fills the seam, partially reflecting the cold glint of metal and city lights outside, simultaneously revealing the warm glow of welcoming light and blond wood inside the building. Rooted in my tracks, gawking, I know I look like a tourist, and I just don't care.

I'm supposed to do this, of course - supposed to be overwhelmed with awe as I walk through the doors of Walt Disney Concert Hall, the most audacious work of architecture in the extravagant history of Los Angeles and the most paradigm-busting concert hall built anywhere in the world during the past generation. A few minutes later, standing inside the lobby, I watch through the glass as a well-dressed couple stops outside the front door and repeats my heavenward gaze.

Can you see what I see, feel what I feel? No, of course; you can't. To twist a familiar truism, writing about architecture is like dancing about music. Words can't create the experience itself - especially when the experience involves Disney Hall. Great architecture, like a great concert performance, demands first-hand engagement for real appreciation.