BLOG: Back From the Woods

The Return My friends, I have returned from the wilderness! For seven days, I have been in the northern woods outside of Ely on a retreat with my theater company. For seven days, I have bathed in the glory of nature's cold bosom, heard the wild cries of untamable loons, run through the morning mists of the woods and cried my wild yop to the illuminations of the furthest stars! I also did not have a single bar of coverage on my cell phone, and I had to walk all the way to the other side of the retreat center to get an internet connection. It was rough, man, but purifying in its wildness. "What will you do without your Facebook?" my girlfriend asked me. "I will do as I did before," I told her. "I will live my life!" Besides, the internet connection was too slow for Facebook to work properly. Because of this, until the moment I sat down to write this week's article, I had literally read no news of any kind--theater related or otherwise--for an entire week. I was completely without the chattering classes of the internet for a glorious 168 hours; and while I am just as thrilled as all of you to finally learn about Carrie Underwood's pregnancy, I can't say I missed the internet too much. I was just starting to be able to form sentences without referencing memes, YouTube videos of cats or conspiracy theories about how the Illuminati and Slenderman teamed up to bring down the World Trade Center, and now I have to dive into that hive of scum and villainy (and Star Wars quotes) that is the internet. That's All You Guys Did While I Was Gone? So, what's the first thing I find happened in my absence? The stupid tradition of a high school canceling a play because of "homosexual content" slouches on. This time, it was, hilariously, a production of Monty Python's Spamalot. So, I decided to skip plumbing the depths of of the national scene, and turn to the local, where I immediately ran into a touching and heartwarming story about a man who overcame the debilitating effects of being born the beautiful male child of a powerful politician in order to appear as a contestant on Survivor. I'm sure he can win. He apparently already survived being in the Spider-Man musical. Creative Placemaking II: The Discussioning With the internet rapidly failing me, I turned to my theater news life raft, the Twitter account of Thomas Cott, only to discover that in my absence, he tweeted out my article from last week. Unfortunately, there are only so many times I can make jokes about recursion. One time, actually; and I used that up a few weeks ago. If you recall, last week's News and Notes was a hastily dashed-off history of that funding scheme known as "Creative Placemaking"; and in my re-reading of what I assembled after a few bourbon and Pepsis, I realized that it's kind of a shame that Cott shared my article instead of the real discussion that's been going on here at Minnesota Playlist. At the same time I've been insinuating that Rocco Landesman is the source of all grant evil, Charles Campbell, Ashley Hanson and Molly Van Avery have been wrapping up their much better conversation about this topic that confuses me so. It's a Slow News Week, Isn't It? It must be, Header Title, because I'm talking to you. This is what we do when we're trying to eat up column space. There Is That One Story That Intrigued You Oh, yeah! Thanks! You see, folks, there is but one true way left to perform Shakespeare, and that is by getting completely hammered. Because, booze really heals- No, That's A Terrible Message. I Meant the One That Actually Made You Think. Oh, the article about the reality dating show in which everyone has to be naked. You're right, Header Title, it's a sad commentary on the degrading nature of entertainment. No, The Other Sad Commentary On The Degrading Nature of Entertainment You mean Philadelphia Theater Company? Yes You could have just said so. You're always doing this. Can We Talk About This Later? Fine. Anyway… If you've been reading News and Notes for a while, you will have noticed that I have been following the death spiral of Philadelphia Theater Company with all the care and attention of a personal injury lawyer trailing after an ambulance. Long story short, the company built a new space, but can't pay for it, and is in foreclosure. The patron for whom the theater space is named has been teasing them with the prospect of bailing out their debt-ridden enterprise; but now it appears that help is officially on the way (sort of). The company is still not out of the woods, and may never actually be so, as their programming model has not exactly paid for itself; but cultural institutions like these get reprieves from time to time, even when they've blown themselves up in front of the world. Look at our own Minnesota Orchestra: the former harbinger of the orchestra apocalypse suddenly has wealthy donors throwing money at it. Be Civic I can never champion for an arts organization to curl up and die, but there's something that just feels remarkably unfair about organizations that mishandled their own affairs so badly being rescued by millionaires and billionaires. It's especially troubling when those institutions in desperate need of rescue put themselves in such a place partially by way of programming out of fear rather than vision. It lends credence to the idea of our museums, theaters and orchestras as "cultural palaces", playthings for the wealthy that need not program to the changing tastes and needs of the rest of us. Over at her ArtsJournal blog, Diane Ragsdale shared an incredibly insightful article on the changing nature of civic leadership and arts organization. She makes a good argument that the model of civic leadership that our legacy arts organizations continue to build themselves around is outdated by several decades, and that it will have to change if they are ever to be useful to the general populace. If you read only one thing at all in this slow theater news week, I think this should be it. And if that doesn't work, then instead you'll probably want to choose this guide to why people walk out of shows.