Storytelling, play development, arts criticism and the power of musical theater

Arts advocacy impacted by weather Last Wednesday, February 29th, was Arts Advocacy Day 2012. Due to snowstorms the evening prior and on that morning turnout was reportedly very low. Here’s State of the Arts’ take on the low number of attendees. Seem like this is all the more reason for art makers and art consumers to contact their legislators directly to let them know how significant the arts are to their lives. Minnesota Citizens for the Arts makes it easy to find your representatives and shoot them a message. It’s a well used five minutes of your time. Contact your legislator _______ Sustainable theater conference The Minnesota Theater Alliance is presenting a Sustainability in Theater conference this Spring. Hosted by the Brave New Workshop and put together in partnership with the Theatre Communications Group and the Center for Sustainable Practices in the Arts, the MN Theater Alliance a day of speakers and discussions on the various aspects of sustainability in theater followed by a day of action. Marianne Combs asked MN Theater Alliance big boss Leah Cooper five questions about sustainable theater. 5 Questions for Leah Cooper The conference takes place on April 30th and May 1st, so you’ve got some time, but you can register now. It’s also worth noting that virtual attendance online promises to be a viable option for this conference. #convenient! ________ It was posted a couple weeks ago but I just finally got to reading playwright Kira Obolensky’s interview with 10,000 Things Theater artistic director Michelle Hensley for HowlRound. They talk storytelling, audience engagement, and the value of an artistic home. Worth a read. ________ For this weeks New Play focus I want to mention an opportunity to be a part of a new play as it’s still in development. Savage Umbrella Theater is definitely trying to engage with their community in their development of Rachel Nelsons ‘Rain Follows the Plow.’ ‘Rain Follows the Plow’ is described as being about a “… struggle to reconcile idealism and the exhaustion brought on by the Great Depression.” What really interests me, though, about this production is the making public of the process of creation. Savage Umbrella shares blog posts on their website featuring conversations with playwright, actors, directors, and other members of the creative team. Here’s an interesting entry from their blog focusing on stage direction. This Friday and Saturday, March 9th & 10th, Savage Umbrella is presenting a public workshop at the Playwrights Center. The workshop will consist of staged readings/performances from the play. According to a press release, “Over the past three months, the Savage Umbrella creative team have been developing Rain Follows the Plow, expanding and shaping the script and the story, and now is the time to bring in the public as a critical voice.” I encourage folks to follow the creative process on Savage Umbrella’s blog and to attend this workshop anc provide that critical public voice. Have you found ways to share your creative process? Have you seen other artists sharing their process with their audience? ________ I know I’m a bit biased what with my working for his magazine and all but Alan Berks has been on something of a theater essay writing tear lately. His latest, Learning to love arts criticism, makes me not just want to read better art criticism but to become a legitimate arts journalist rather than just a word on the street arts news hound. Who’s your favorite arts journalist alive or dead? Have you read any great arts journalism lately? ________ A study published in ‘Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts’ on Feb 27, 2012, looked at whether people attitudes on an issue can be affected by musical theater. The study focused on a specific show and the sample size was quite small but the small amount of data collected does point to musical theater having the ability to actually impact and change attitudes. Here’s a breakdown of the study for Miller-McCune I pull three things out of this research. 1. It’s fantastic that researchers are interested in and able to get funding for study of the power of theater. 2. I hope the impressive results of this study encourage more and deeper research. 3. Makers of musical theater have a lot of power in their hands and should be using it in focused ways. ________ Keep letting us know about interesting and noteworthy goings on in the Minnesota theater world. And remember, if you want to convince someone of something adding a little song and dance may make all the difference. -Levi