BLOG: Why So Negative?

"I'm pretty sure if we sat down and had a conversation about it, it would be pretty apparent that you love theater," he said. "But when I read your column, I'm not sure that I get that feeling." I looked up from my beer, with the feeling I was being called out. If this was a movie, this would probably be a pivotal moment in my character's evolution, where the small, insightful comment from another character would cause him to begin questioning his entire life. But this is not a movie. It's not even a play. It's not even a YouTube video. This is two guys sitting at the bar. "I do love theatre," I said. "That's why I want it to be better." "You don't want to sound negative all the time, do you?" "This is about all the times I said I hated the Tonies, isn't it?" Even though I was joking, I began to have this creeping feeling that maybe I did sound hateful in my little forum. "The problem is that the column is called 'News and Notes'. I depend on what actually gets published in the news. I don't like to mention reviews, because those aren't really news. Anything else that newspapers turn out about theater is either puff pieces or controversy, (or sometimes an attempt to turn controversy into a puff piece), and you know which one is more interesting." "I guess I can see that," he said, going back to his beer. "Or you get articles that are dashed off to fill space. You know, the ones where more than 2/3 of the words are lifted verbatim from somewhere else. I know that newspapers have mostly gotten rid of theater coverage, but, damn, most of what we've got isn't thoughtful coverage at all." "That's the reason we have the site." "And how well is that paying?" "Do you really want to talk about the site's finances on the site?" "I'll just skip over this part of the conversation," I said, "Since I was just using it as an excuse to segue into talking about MinnPost's fundraising to pay for more arts journalism." "We didn't actually talk about this at the bar." "Because I didn't even know about it then," I said, "But time is fluid here because I need it to be to make my points." "Did they make their fundraising goal?" "I don't know. Halfway through, they raised over $7,000, but the last update didn't give the final tally. But, here's the weird thing. MinnPost isn't the only site doing this kind of thing. There's an outfit in Boston doing the same thing." "You find a lot of stuff from all over," he said, "And you do a good job of giving everyone a bigger picture of what's going on." "I feel like the Twin Cities can be pretty insular. We forget that we're part of this larger ecosystem. That's why I'm constantly reading theater writers in other markets, like Chris Jones; or pulling in interesting counter-narratives, like a piece about how ongoing discussion about the lack of diversity when it comes to theaters picking playwrights. It feels like every other theater community out there is having these discussions in the public forum, except for us. "But, you know, try to remember every four weeks or so that we do have a local scene." "Yeah, you're right. Everything going on in St. Paul, especially with Bedlam now being open, is both newsworthy and positive. And I completely missed mentioning this year's McKnight Theater Artists, or the Distinguished Artist award going to Sandy Spieler at Heart of the Beast. Or the fact that the 2014 Fringe Festival site goes live today! "Wait…" he said, "Today? Don't you mean on July 1, which is still a few weeks in the future?" "Yeah, but I'm just writing about our conversation now, which is that day, not then." "This is pretty temporally confusing." "I freaking love the Fringe Festival, and I'm not afraid to break time conventions to talk about it." "You know," he said, "You didn't actually say all of this while we were actually here having this beer." "Yeah…" I said, "Artistic license is a bitch." "But you have freedom to report on whatever you want," he said, "I feel like you know a lot about what's going on in the local theater scene. Don't feel like you have to limit yourself only to what's printed in the papers." "I don't know," I said. "The few times I've done that, I've had people push back on me, like they didn't want me mentioning names. This town's weird like that." "You can always say that you were talking with 'someone' about this topic you want to write about. You don't have to necessarily mention their name." "Hey, you're right!" I said, finishing my beer. "Thanks!"