Today's Vocabulary Lesson
Good morning, class! Mr. Miller is feeling kind of vindictive today, so you're getting a vocabulary quiz tomorrow. Hooray! I don't hear any of you saying "hooray"! Perhaps you'd like two vocabulary tests? That's what I thought. Please spend the rest of the hour studying the following terms. I will quietly lean back here behind my desk with my eyes closed while you proceed to draw as many vulgar things on your handouts as you can in 60 minutes. Don't you just love this class?
Ambitious Launch [am-bish-uh s lahnch] ; noun
The beginning of an endeavor that has high expectations and/or lofty goals. May be appropriate as a a descriptor for the start of an experimental model for audience engagement at a theater, but maybe less so when the the first play in the series is about the Challenger disaster.
Beloved Gamble [bih-luhv-id gam-buh l] ; noun
The tradition of staging big musicals as a way to pay for the rest of a season, even knowing full well that big musicals can still just as easily lose money. See also: "Middle Ground in Broadway" [archaic].)
Chamber Opera [cheym-ber op-er-uh] ; noun
The tradition of staging small operatic pieces, because operas are probably tired of losing money.
Colorado [kol-uh-rad-oh] ; noun
Surprisingly, the number one state for people actually attending theater.
Cripping Up [krip-ing uhp] ; verb
The act of a non-disabled actor playing a disabled character. Can lead to winning a Golden Globe or an Oscar, unless you're Sean Penn.
Diversity Initiative [dih-vur-si-tee ih-nish-uh-tiv] ; noun
An attempt to increase the diversity in a given field; also, the best way to insure that a lot of people fight it tooth and nail.
No [noh] ; adverb
What a successful and popular stage actor says when he's asked if he would like to run the Guthrie after Joe Dowling leaves.
North [nawrth] ; noun
Describing the middle northern portion of the United States in and around Minnesota, which is desperately trying to prove that it is too cool to part of "the Midwest" or beholden to Hollywood.
Persuade [per-sweyd] ; verb
What most arts organizations fail to do when seeking new audiences. (See also: "Selling Audiences".)
Selling Well in Toronto [sel-ing wel in tuh-ron-toh] ; idiom
When a production sells well enough outside New York that the producers put off going to Broadway; alt: when a productions pre-sales are going so badly in New York that they put off going to Broadway.
Spornosexual [spohr-noh-sek-shoo-uh l] ; noun
A portmonteau of "sports", "porn" and "metrosexual"; a heterosexual male with an intense dedication to chiseling his abs. Also may refer to the movement in major Hollywood films to transform all male actors into unreasonable ideas of ideal body shape (See "Chris Pratt Before" vs. "Chris Pratt After"), thus achieving parity in representations of men and women in movies in the most unhealthy way possible.
Trickle-Down Engagement [trik-uh l-doun en-geyj-muh nt] ; noun
The act of funneling money and resources meant for critical community engagement through large third party organizations, thus ensuring that most of the money and resources will not actually go to the people it is supposed to help. (See also: "Creative Placemaking".)
