Archives for November 2009

Here’s a list of qualities that British theatre productions seem to think they need to possess in order to “succeed” in the U.S. market:

1. A cast of actors, most of them speaking in middle-class Home Counties accents with just one or two “regional”-accented actors (e.g. a token Welshie or Scouser) thrown in for color.

2. Period costumes.

3. Live music, preferably played on period instruments.

4. Live animals on stage or beautifully-constructed puppets.

5. A bare-bones approach to scenery (it’s all about the actors after all).

6. Shakespeare (or references to Shakespeare if not the performance of one of the Bard’s plays.)

7. At least one comical septuagenarian actor with a neatly-trimmed beard.

8. Microphones.

There’s something to be said for the fact that retreat centres try to get the people who visit them to unplug for the duration of their stay. That’s the whole point of going on a retreat — to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. But following an experience I had during a recent visit to the Esalen Institute at Big Sur, I’m wondering whether this attitude can go too far.

I was sitting quietly in the dining room eating lunch while reading a book when one of the staff members at the Institute rudely came over and told me to put my book away. The reason? The book I was reading wasn’t made of paper — I was reading it on my iPhone and Esalen has a rule about not using computers at mealtimes.

I have great respect for the anti-laptop edict in general. Who wants to eat meals in a sea of computers with people clacking at keyboards, yakking on skype, IMing on FaceBook, checking their email and putting up screens between themselves and others? It’s hardly very zen.

But if reading a book is allowed, as well it should be (and it is allowed at Esalen — no one told me off when I whipped a paperback out at dinner the same day) then why should you have to read the words the old-fashioned way?

As more and more people start digesting text via Kindles, iPhones and other electronic devices, Esalen might have to take a less hardline stance on mealtime regulations vis-a-vis electronics. After all, reading and eating at the same time is one of life’s great pleasures.

“I’ve Got Nothing”, the crowd-pleasing, “crowd-sourced” song created by the YouTube community under the auspices of four British teens, demonstrates just how easy it is to mobilize large numbers of people to create the kind of pop music product for free (well, for nothing but sweat equity) that was traditionally produced by a handful of professionals in a proper studio and with a sizable budget.

According to the BBC Chartjackers website (through which the project is being developed) the song came into being through the following process:

“The lyrics of the song are made up of YouTube comments, compiled into a song by another YouTuber. The lyrics were released and then YouTubers wrote a melody for the lyrics, and we picked our favourite. We held YouTube auditions via video response to pick the band, found the producer of the song through YouTube, and the music video is made up of literal interpretations of the lyrics, clapping and singing along, by YouTubers!”

I am pretty impressed with the result, I must admit. For a song that’s been created by piecing together shards culled from the flotsam and jetsam of the Internet, it’s a remarkably coherent piece of music. The “I got plenty o’nuttin'” / “one meatball”-type theme of the song is an old one. But it’s one that everyone feels strongly about in the current economic climate. In the sunny key of G major, the music skips along, making the listener want to get up and dance. The tune is simple to sing. It mostly moves step by step and the refrain is catchy. The structure is a tried and true pop formula. There’s even a short guitar break and a bridge passage. The song is sung as a duet by two sweet-voiced teenage Brits (a girl and boy) and generates extra goodwill by virtue of including a chorus of YouTubers singing along and clapping in the final refrain.

As saccharine as the thing is — the video, which alternates between images of the singers skipping around London sharing ice-cream sundaes and cuddling an oversized teddy bear and snippets of YouTube footage, takes the sappy lyrics and boppy beats over the edge — it gets right under your skin. I’d be quite surprised if “I’ve Got Nothing” doesn’t make it into the higher echelons of the British pop charts as well as raises quite a bit of money for charity — the project’s two goals are to get into the Top 40 and generate funds for Children in Need.

I wonder if the same process could be applied as successfully to, say, a string quartet, opera aria, or piece for gamelan / steel drum band?

Arts organizations try many different tactics to get young people through their doors, from offering low-cost tickets and organizing party nights with DJs to doing in-schools programs and partnering with other organizations that are more closely tapped into youth culture like capoeira clubs and skateboarding stores.

SF Playhouse has come up with what seems to me like a particularly straightforward way of inspiring the next generation of theatre goers. The company’s new “Rising Stars” program provides sophomores and juniors from five different schools the opportunity to each see four plays from SF Playhouse’s 2009-2010 season.

The funding structure behind the program makes a lot of sense: A group of SF Playhouse’s regular subscribers (around 75 of them at the moment) each pledged an extra $100 on top of their annual subscription fees to cover the cost of one student’s four tickets. In addition, the program director (SF Playhouse Lindsay Krumbein, who donates her time to the project) provides curricula for pre- and post-play lessons that focus on anything from theatrical devices to theme to set design.

The first group of students – from Impact Academy in Hayward and School of the Arts (SOTA) in San Francisco — attended a performance of SF Playhouse’s World Premiere The First Day of School on October 27. In addition to Impact and SOTA, Jefferson (South SF), Oakland School for the Arts, and Oakland Tech will join the program this year.

After each show, the students are expected to write a letter to their donor describing their experience with the play. At the end of the year, participants will all meet when the theatre gathers everyone together for a closing celebration. The company’s goal is for each student to then take part in a second year of Rising Stars, seeing a total of eight plays in two seasons at SF Playhouse. The company hopes that the project will motivate the young people to develop a personal interest in theatre and seek out additional opportunities for theatre attendance and participation.

SF Playhouse producing director Susi Damilano told me the following about the impetus to start the program and the impact so far: “We started the program because we love kids. I have lots of nieces highschool age and none have gone to theatre before we began ours. And they LOVE it! We have been wanting to find an affordable way to get a program going and finally realized subscribers might be interested. Then came Lindsay who is donating time to put structure around the program. We hope to find grants to pay her, fund bart for the kids, and even increase numbers. The kids were so joyful, it was worth every penny.”

Whether the students on the program end up being regular theatre goers remains to be seen. The SOTA students are already arts-centric, so I guess SF Playhouse already has a willing audience. But what personally appeals to me about this program is that it seems highly sustainable. The company is already producing high quality work and the funding model is simple: it draws on an already-established subscriber base and asks those subscribers to chip in a reasonable amount of money – 75 subscribers at $100 apiece generates $7,500. The theatre normally charges $40 per ticket, so the program covers close to 200 tickets, which is a good start. Given the paucity of arts education in schools around here right now, Rising Stars seems like it couldn’t be more timely. It would be great to see other arts companies that have strong, established subscriber bases following SF Playhouse’s lead.

Three Bay Area-based dramatists had the following to say in response to this question:

Trevor Allen: “I don’t chose to direct my own work anymore. I have been very fortunate to have been able to work with some amazing directors who “get” my weird plays (Kent Nicholson, Rob Melrose etc.) However, I also don’t think there should be an immediate negative reaction to a playwright directing their own work. As long as they know what they are doing–directing a play that they happen
to have written and not rewriting their play while trying to direct it at the same time. If they know the craft of directing, then more power to them!”

Mark Jackson: “As a playwright who quite often directs his own work, I of course think it’s a good thing. But of course it’s not for everyone. Some playwrights also have a knack for directing, and some do not. The garden variety con that usually gets mentioned is that a playwright would not have the proper objectivity to direct his or her own work. Again, I think this depends on the person and as a generalization does not fly as anything more than a seemingly logical theory. The garden variety pro is that, as the playwright, one has an invaluably intimate understanding of the play. Really, though, I think the question of whether or not playwrights should direct their own work depends on the individual, and so as a general question it is irrelevant. Should THIS playwrigt direct his or her own work? That is a question to ask, I think.”

Peter Sinn Nachtrieb: “I haven’t directed my own work since college, except for a few readings here and there. I think it’s an admirable skill to be able to wear both hats at the same time and i think leads to the generation of work that can have a very strong point of view. For myself, especially when a play is new, I really enjoy just focusing on the writing, though I will give extensive notes and observations to a director. But I like not having to be the one responsible for managing those notes and tech and actor process. As “just the playwright” I can worry about my own part of the puzzle and then be able to take notes from my perspective . I also like how a director that’s not me can expand my work and insert their own awesomeness. I like the wiggle room within a play’s process, the particular combination of bodies in the room that ultimately shape how a final product will look. That being said, never say never. But I think if I do ever direct my work again in the future, I think I would pick a piece that I feel like I’ve really finished writing.”

A bit about what each of these playwrights are up to right now:

Trevor’s drama The Creature is playing at The Thick House under the auspices of Black Box Theatre Company.

Mark is currently in Germany co-directing a group-devised adaptation of Heinrich Heine’s Deutschland, Ein Wintermärchen, commissioned by Schauspiel Frankfurt.

Marin Theatre Company is about to stage Peter’s Boom. Peter is in Bloomington, Indiana right now visiting another production of the play at Cardinal Stage. In fact there are multiple productions of his plays going on right now around the country. Read Peter’s blog to find out more.

Finessing a sudden change in mood from comedy to tragedy and visa versa in the theatre is a challenging feat. I was reminded of this fact last night at a performance of Dominic Dromgoole’s Globe Theatre production of Loves Labours Lost at Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley. The production is currently being presented under the auspices of Cal Performances as part of The Globe’s current US tour. 

Shakespeare’s sophomoric 1598 comedy of love and wordplay has one of the trickiest temperature shifts in the dramatic cannon, when, in the final part of the play, the celebratory mood that pervades almost the entirety of the proceedings is suddenly broken by the announcement of the death of the Princess of France’s father. Managing the about-turn from ecstasy to depression effectively can make or break a production of the play. To my mind, the change has to be extreme. If it feels half-hearted, the ensuing denouement and final weird song about the cuckoo leave the audience feeling puzzled rather than floored.

Unfortunately, the temperature bumped rather than plummeted in the hands of Dromgoole and his British cast. I felt a change in atmosphere in the room, but it felt relatively tepid, like an English summer day.

The scene before the shift was marked by an eruption of movement and hilarity that felt inorganic to the rest of the production, as if the director were purposefully setting up the big moment, rather than letting it catch us unawares. Actors ran around the stage for no apparent reason, and threw bits of baguette around.

When the messenger walked on stage to deliver the news, he stood out front so we could see him clearly. The cast took a while to notice him, with the princess herself being the last to stop bombarding the stage with bread. This created a lovely bit of dramatic irony, as the princess was the last to hear the news — news that concerned her before anyone else on stage.

But somehow, the timing was off and the messenger’s proclamation felt flat and stagey. The Princess’ grief seemed real enough. (Michelle Terry is a wonderful performer — I found her haughty-gamine Princess to be completely engaging throughout thanks to her lively physicality and sonorous speaking voice.) But the entire moment fizzled and the final cuckoo song, though quirky and melancholy, did not carry the weight of tragedy. The entire last 15 minutes of the production seemed more like a balloon slowly letting out air than one that went pop.

I wonder if Dromgoole might improve the staging of this final scene by listening to Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Mozart’s Don Giovanni and pretty much any of Beethoven’s symphonies? Mozart, Mahler and Beethoven are masters of sudden mood changes. Dromgoole could learn a thing or two from these guys.

When headliner Nadja Michael (pictured) became “indisposed” last Friday for that evening’s performance of Strauss’ Salome at San Francisco Opera, stand-in soprano Molly Fillmore was flown in from Arizona at the last minute and hustled on stage.

Considering the fact that Fillmore, who is performing the role at Arizona Opera this month, had very little rehearsal time, she did a serviceable job, though the orchestra was too loud and it was quite often difficult to hear the soprano’s voice especially in the higher part of her register.

If only Fillmore hadn’t had to do any dancing.

Salome is not one of those “park and bark” operas, where a singer can get away with standing on stage more or less stock still or walk about a bit. There’s a 20 minute exotic dance routine for the titular character right in the middle of the show. It’s the pivotal moment of the story in fact: The princess wiggles lasciviously for the king and coaxes him into making her a rash promise that will cost him his kingdom.

I gather from Opera Tattler that Fillmore, though she had had an opportunity to rehearse the role with San Francisco Opera early in October, had not had much of a chance to learn the choreography. The dance, which in this production draws inspiration from early 20th century choreographers like Isadora Duncan, Ruth St Denis and Martha Graham, has some tricky moments in it, particularly involving the skillful manipulation of a variety of gauzy veils.

Fillmore moved awkwardly throughout. It was rather painful to watch her go through the motions. I was terrified that she was going to get herself tangled up in a veil or, worse, still, trip over her own feet. Plus, she lacked grace and lyricism, making the dance more clumsy than sexy. The twenty minutes went by agonizingly slowly.

I suppose it’s mean-spirited of me to fault an underrehearsed performer who stepped up to the plate at such short notice. And it’s not as if Michael had been earning raves herself in the role. Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times reviewed the production on October 22 and had trouble with Michael’s intonation, though he at least found her slightly more convincing in the part from a physical perspective.

But I won’t forget Fillmore’s Dance of the Seven Whales in a hurry, which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Andrew Taylor’s latest blogpost at ArtsJournal about “portfolio careers” in the arts got me thinking this morning about whether anything has really changed in the way that many people in the arts make a living, despite the terminology.

I first heard the term “portfolio career” applied to arts workers around 10 years ago when a management consultant friend of mine in London said to me, “it’s pretty cool, you’re portfolio lifestyle. I want one of those.” At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at. I didn’t consider my weird mixture of jobs — which in 1999 consisted of working as the junior in the New York office of a big British daily newspaper, freelancing as a theatre critic all over the city, finishing up my masters thesis, moonlighting as a dramaturg for an underground performance art company and playing oboe and singing for a variety of semi-professional ensembles — as being portfolio-like. I just thought of myself as muddling through until a “proper” job came along.

I had always been taught that you weren’t really doing anything worthwhile unless you had a “proper” job, which consisted of going into an office and being paid, hopefully well, for steady work for a single highly-thought-of company over years and years, while gradually earning the favor of your superiors, rising to the very top and retiring at 60 to glory and grandchildren.

But I do remember thinking even back then that “portfolio” had a nice ring to it. The corporate tinge to the word made me feel important. Even though I wasn’t really proud of what I was doing at the time, I started referring to myself as having a “portfolio career” at parties. People looked impressed. as time passed, I started feeling comfortable about my wheeling and dealing. I realized, despite the unpredictability of it all and decidedly shaky prospects, that it was the only way for someone like me to go. It still is.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you call making a living in the cultural industries. There isn’t really any news here — people in the arts (and many people in many other sectors too) have been functioning this way for a long, long time in all kinds of economies, both good and bad. “Portfolio career” means “freelancing” really, but it just sounds a bit grander.

Even the most lighthearted and confident stars of the opera stage suffer from moments of unconscious stress. The bubbly American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham is currently in rehearsals with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra for a series of six concerts of the music of Henry Purcell. She’s playing the legendary Queen of Carthage in Dido and Aeneas. The series begins at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre this Thursday before the artists take off to Palo Alto, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Davis for a couple of weeks.

Yesterday afternoon, while in conversation with Philharmonia Baroque’s director, Nicholas McGegan, Graham — a propos of nothing it seemed — shared the contents of a nightmare she’d had the night before:

“I had a dream last night that I looked at my contract and it read that I had been engaged to sing not only the role of Dido but three other parts too.” Graham’s smooth, powered brow furrowed slightly at the unsavory recollection. But McGegan quickly ironed out the creases on his leading lady’s face. “No, we’re saving you just for Dido,” he said, patting her shoulder. “There will be no costume changes for you. It’s a one-dress show.”