In the Club

All you theater people out there have had this experience. Your mom or brother or cousin or coworker or friend's boyfriend's old friend who's in town over the weekend who doesn't really ever go to see theater gets talked into coming out to see you perform in a new show. They travel to some building they've never seen before is some part of town they don't usually go to in order to have the privilege of watching you perform a piece that you've sweat and bled over for months. After the show is done, you've toweled yourself off, and the dozen or so people who showed up to watch filter out of the space, they meet you by the door and throw on that nervous smile that inevitably precedes the famous phrase, "That was interesting."

You maintain your smile, you do the obligatory hugs, but that word interesting sticks in your brain like a jagged chunk of concrete blown loose from a natural gas explosion. They didn't get it. You know they didn't. Then you go out for the obligatory drinks in which your mom/brother/cousin/coworker/friend's boyfriend's friend congratulates you on doing "a really good job", but fails to engage you in actual artistic conversation about the deep significance of the beautiful piece you just bestowed upon them. Appetizers are served. Drinks are quaffed. The check comes. People yawn and say they have to get up early. Everyone walks out the door, the razor edge of interesting still buzzing in your ear as they say in that awful hollow tone how they should totally catch the next thing you're doing.

You walk out into the streets, alone. They didn't get it. Your sexy post-apocalyptic dance/poetry mashup of Hamlet and Caucasian Chalk Circle was utterly lost on them.

But the next night, your friend who just started her MFA program came to see it. The two of you got trashed on two bottles of cheap wine afterward, and you talked for hours about the deep similarities of Brecht and Shakespeare, and how that Miley Cyris song in the second act worked on multiple levels, at once sincere, ironic and post-ironic. You get each other. You understand. There is a connection. You're in this together, and those others, those normals, can never get it the way you do. Interesting? Bah! This is changing the world!

Then maybe you two kiss. Or maybe it goes further than that. In my version, it definitely goes further than that, but, hey, it's your life. Do what you want with it.

All you need to know is that you've found someone else in The Club.

I recently came across a blog post by UK theater writer Jake Orr, in which he worries over a comment from his non-theater boyfriend that there is “A contemporary theatre club that I’m not part of”. That is, that modern theater (basically, anything that's not a somewhat realistic "play") is so far down it's own rabbit hole of intellectualism that it basically exists for its own small, exclusive club and that the uninitiated average joe need not apply.

This is worrisome. I had no idea that the outside world knew about our club. You guys better not let them know what the secret handshake is!

There's an intriguing article in a recent edition of The Atlantic, in which William Deresiewicz recounts the evolution of the people who make "art" from Artisan to Genius to Professional. The democratization of what "art" is caused by the rise of the internet, though, has been pushing "artists" back into the old role of Artisan; that is, a craftsman, one of many. However, the entire institutional structure of the arts world, and therefore the dominant self-view of the artists themselves, still appears stuck in the Genius and/or Professional realm. Though we talk and talk about "accessibility", plenty of people who aren't already in theater don't feel that they're really allowed into it, like there's some bouncer in the lobby waiting to boot them out because they don't know the code words and handshakes.

Now, of course, you know that's not true! You want everyone to come in! Everyone's welcome! It's one big, all-you-can-eat buffet of love and inclusiveness over here in theaterland! But, maybe we're not as good as we think we are at persuading people of this. We like to blame the slow demise of arts journalism (and the Walker will be holding a big arts journalism conference where I'm sure this will be discussed); but what Jake Orr said in his article is what I find most true: "What we do need to address is the fact that theatre just isn’t accessible for most people. It is a club. A club with rules. A club where we dress up and laugh at the gaiety of life on the stage."

Anyway, let's move on to something that's not so mired in theater world navel-gazing…

Theater Award Shows!

Damn it! That's still theater world navel-gazing. Just, you know, with a little more pizazz. OK, fine, here we go:

The Washington, D.C. area has had the Helen Hayes Awards since 1985; but this year marks a major turning point for the ceremony. This time around, the awards panel decided to split its categories, giving separate awards for Equity and non-Equity productions. It's an attempt to not only hand out more awards, but to recognize that shows by smaller companies and on smaller budgets shouldn't be put in a position of competing with shows that have six-figure budgets. (To be clear, a show is defined by the awards as "Equity" when a majority of its cast are Equity actors. A "non-Equity" show can still happen at a theater that has Equity contracts to hand out.)

This is not entirely new. The Jeff Awards in Chicago have long had separate categories for Equity and non-Equity shows. However, most metro-area awards ceremonies either ignore small theater companies entirely, or pretend like they're on a level playing field with their multi-million dollar cohorts.

Now, you Twin Cities theater people may be mumbling something under your collective breath about our own Ivey Awards and about how that brilliant Hamlet/Caucasian Chalk Circle mashup you did that I mentioned earlier (title: Everything Is Horrible and Everyone Dies) suffers from a lack of awards because of having to directly compete with the like the of the Guthrie, which can spend more money on shoes than you can on your entire production. Now, there certainly are legitimate complaints about what kind of awards the Iveys hand out; but the one thing I do appreciate about our local passive-aggressive non-competition (and there is one thing) is that it has a purely (and maddeningly messy) democratic underpinning. Anyone can be an evaluator, as long as they put the time in; and the Iveys have made it a publicly-stated goal this year to recruit enough of you smarty-pants theater people to make sure that your opinions go into the mix. In fact, tonight at 6pm they're taking this year's recruits through their paces. Are you Genius Professional Artisan artists a part of it?

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Actor and author David Blixt wrote a blog entry recently entitled "We Are Not In Competition", in which he laid out a common sense approach to viewing all those other companies out there you think are vying for your justly deserved awards and audience members:

"Here's the thing - if a theatre-goer loves your show on a Friday night, that makes them more likely to see my show on Saturday, or next Friday, or whenever they have the night off again. Good theatre begets more theatre. It's not like they have a choice of only one theatre to support and if you win, I lose. If they go to see your show and have a good time, we've both won. Because they're all the more likely to come back for more."

Basically, stop concentrating on who's doing better, because when we all do better, we all do better. And, by "we", I mean those of us in our local theater ecosystem. It is a great ecosystem that produces beautiful, dynamic work and beautiful, dynamic artists. I was reminded of that again after seeing that the final show of the this year's Out There festival (not traditionally known for even noticing that art exists in Minnesota), Red Eye to Havre de Grace featured outstanding work by Minnesota-based artists and just happened to be the most-well received show of the festival.

So, to that end, I've been perusing Playlist's brand spanking new performance calendar (which you should put your shows on, by the way), and making my own personal list of "Minnesota Made" performances. These are shows that were created here by local artists, and will hopefully give you a glimpse of the remarkable daring and diversity of our theater scene. This may be a feature that I continue to do on News and Notes in the future. Let me know if it's helpful to anyone:

This week, February 2-8
Freaks, Savage Umbrella
In the Age of Paint and Bone, Nimbus Theatre
Rehearsing Failure, Theatre Novi Most
These Old Shoes, Transatlantic Love Affair
Trick Boxing, Sossy Mechanics

I also want to give a shout out to Mixed Blood's 55454 series, which, while not necessarily created locally, is aimed at the people in the neighborhood they actually live in, something theater companies rarely do anymore.

Also, for those of you looking to get in on the Minnesota-made action, you should know that applications for the Fringe Festival are still open. The Fringe just announced some stats on the applications thus far on their Facebook page:

Small Venue: 143 (31% chance of getting in)
Regular Venue: 132 (92% chance of getting in)
Site-Specific: 2 (100% chance of getting in)

It looks like you've still got a chance for one of the site-specific slots, if you want to re-adapt Everything Is Horrible and Everyone Dies to fit in that abandoned sewage treatment plant, just like you always dreamed.