Bitter Gertrude

Apr 13 2013

I Have Zero Tolerance For Your One-Upmanship: A Rant

Why do some people want to make everything into a damn contest or a display of one-upmanship? The foolery alarm goes off the minute they start a sentence with “Try.”

1. “Teaching middle school is so damn hard!”
WRONG RESPONSE: “Try teaching second grade.”
RIGHT RESPONSE: “I bet! That sucks! I teach and it’s hard for me, too! Let’s be annoyed together! YEAH!”

2. “Wow, my day sucked because I’m sick.”
WRONG: “Try being sick for two weeks.”
RIGHT: “I KNOW! Been sick for two weeks and it blows and also sucks! Let’s complain together! BONDING MOMENT!”

You also know you’re on a ride through Dicklandia when their response starts with “Welcome.”

1. “I had a fourteen hour day today! Whew!”
WRONG: “Welcome to my every day”
RIGHT: “That’s rough! I had one, too. MILLER TIME!”

2. “Aw, damn, I didn’t get the job.”
WRONG: “Welcome to the real world.”
RIGHT: “I’m sorry. It’s been rough out there for a lot of us. MILLER TIME.”

It doesn’t actually have to be Miller

When you say say “Welcome” or “Try” in these contexts it belittles the other person’s experience. It implies that they’ve never had this hardship before and you go through it all the time. It implies that, no matter how difficult the person is finding their experience, yours is HARDER. It’s a dick move, EVEN IF IT’S TRUE. You can commiserate with someone without belittling them. You’ll get your chance to complain. You don’t need to bogart theirs.

And yes, sometimes people are complaining about shit they have no right to complain about. When I was selling my mother’s house (she was ill and towards the end of her life), the real estate agent bitched and moaned to me about how he used to go to cultural events in Oakland all the time, but now there are just “too many Black people.” The appropriate response to that may very well be “Welcome to 2003” with the addition, “YOU ARE A RACIST AND I AM GOING TO A DIFFERENT REAL ESTATE AGENT AT ONCE.” I’m not talking about people who are being awful, racist, selfish, or entitled. I’m talking about people complaining about their regular lives– you know, the kind of complaining we all do. Ow, my back; my kids are driving me nuts; I have no job; my job sucks; my mother-in-law is certifiably insane. You know, the usual.

The people who can’t let anyone else have a moment to do some basic human complaining are the same people who just can’t let anyone have the spotlight for even one minute to celebrate, either.

“I just did an awesome thing! Whee!”
WRONG: “My kid did that awesome thing when they were two, plus I did it seven times with Shatner on the back of a monkey-driven, rocket-powered donutmobile AND I WAS BORED.”
RIGHT: “Congratulations!”

If you find yourself responding to someone and the first word out of your mouth or keyboard is “Try,” YOU ARE NOT BEING COOL. Unless that person is saying, “OW I AM BLEEDING” and you’re saying “Try putting pressure on it,” in which case, carry on. If you find yourself responding to someone and the first word out of your mouth or keyboard is “Welcome,” YOU ARE NOT BEING COOL unless YOU ARE BEING SINCERE.

“Look at this picture of my new baby!”
SINCERE RESPONSE: “Welcome to parenthood! She’s beautiful!”
BULLSHIT RESPONSE: “Welcome to my world. Good luck getting any sleep until February.”

You really do not need to be the winner every single time. Let others have the spotlight from time to time. I promise you won’t disappear if it shines on someone else for a second. It actually feels great, and, as my wonderful former mother-in-law says, it earns stars for your crown in heaven. Not that we subscribe to the same religion. She’s a Christian and I’m a follower of Moradin, god of the dwarves.

The only god who will give you +2 STR and +10 HP just for asking.

Now go be excellent to each other.

This art is by Lauren Gregg, who is a badass. See for yourself at http://www.etsy.com/shop/laurengregg

Apr 12 2013

15 Comments

Theatre

More Tips for Playwrights

This awesome image was taken from http://vimeo.com/19440415

When you’re just starting out as a playwright, a lot about the industry can seem mystifying. Here are some quick dos and don’ts for people out there trying to navigate the wild waters of playwriting.

DON’T send your play to playwrights, artistic directors, literary managers, or dramaturgs asking for feedback unless you’re related to and/or sleeping with them. Maybe not even then. We’re all very busy people, and we get dozens of people a month asking us for feedback on their plays. You’re asking us to do FOR FREE something we do for a living. It takes hours to read a script, evaluate it, and craft useful feedback. Those are hours we must reallocate from our paid work or our personal lives. Then, when we provide that feedback, if it’s not what the playwright wants to hear, all too often they react angrily, ignore our advice, or tell us we’re wrong. It’s almost always a no-win situation for us.

If a theatre, contest, or individual has already stated that feedback will be provided for free, have at it. Otherwise, don’t ask for feedback on your script from someone who isn’t one of the first ten people you’d call to bail you out of county.

DO invite these people to come to informal readings. Feed them snacks. Serve them beer. Have them read your play aloud, then open a dialogue about it. This can be an incredibly useful tool. There’s no substitute for hearing your work out loud. Feel free to invite all the playwrights, ADs, turgs, and LMs you like. If they show up, they’re agreeing to give you the feedback you seek. LISTEN TO THEM. Take their advice to heart. You don’t need to follow every piece of advice everyone gives you, of course, but don’t reject criticism out of hand. If all you want is praise, give the play to your mother, a call girl (tip well), or your imaginary friend. I’d advise against having a public reading of an early draft if you’re just starting out. There are a million reasons, but the most important is that professionals will give you advice about how to make your play do what YOU WANT it to do. It’s a specific skill. Save the public readings for a more solid draft or until you’ve found your footing as a writer.

DO consider hiring a dramaturg. Professional dramaturgs often specialize in helping playwrights develop new work. Another option is to find a director who understands your vision and will be on board throughout the development process. I understand (oh so intimately) that most people don’t have a lot of extra money, so this may not be an option for you. Perhaps you know a dramaturg who’d be into a barter agreement. I’d trade dramaturgy for massage therapy in a hot second. Now if I could just convince Karin Wertheim to start writing plays…. (If you’re located in the Bay Area, you really need to check her out. Her bodywork is INSANELY good.)

DON’T make rookie mistakes in your cover letter. Don’t tell me in your cover letter how “hilarious” or “moving” your play is. If it’s a comedy or a drama, it’s fine to say that. But don’t praise or otherwise evaluate your own work. Also, always proof read. I don’t mind when playwrights have the name of another AD or company at the top of the email due to a copy and paste error (it’s fine, really), but I do mind when the email is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. I don’t think you need to be a Grammar Ninja to be a good playwright, but a cover letter riddled with errors shows a lack of care and attention. The squiggly red line is there for a reason, chaps. Finally, I’m very interested in your play. I am completely uninterested in the letter of recommendation you’ve attached to it from a famous playwright. I have nothing but respect for Theresa Rebeck, but she knows nothing about my theatre or its needs, so her recommendation is useless to me.

DO follow all the submission guidelines. They’re there for a reason.

DON’T expect a personal response. No, it’s not “just polite” for a company to respond with a personal note to a submission. We all get hundreds and hundreds of submissions, even theatres without paid staff. The workload is nuts, so most of us are barely keeping our heads above water. Many have stopped responding to submissions entirely. And please don’t come out with, as I’ve heard some people say, “Then don’t accept unsolicited submissions at all if you can’t respond to them.” There are an increasing number of theatres who have decided to do exactly that. I don’t have any plans to stop accepting submissions, but I understand why a company would make that decision. I think playwrights would want to encourage those avenues of access to stay open. So don’t always expect a response, don’t imagine that the reason you didn’t get one is because the theatre is impolite, and don’t tell us we should stop accepting submissions if we’re not sending out personal notes to all 412 playwrights who submit each season. I assure you, we’re all doing our best.

This week’s submissions

Another thing I hear frequently is “You should state in advance whether or not you respond to submissions and how long it takes.” While I agree that companies that don’t respond to submissions should state that in their guidelines, remember that even theatres that do not accept submissions at all get hundreds of them, and playwrights are often sending submissions based on a third-party post. (I’ve sent numerous emails to various playwriting sites attempting to correct errors about our submission process, to no avail.) There’s no reason why a theatre that does not accept submissions should respond to yours, and a theatre may have in their guidelines that they don’t respond to submissions unless they’re interested in producing, and yet that fact never made it onto the third-party website you’re reading. Again, don’t assume the reason a theatre isn’t responding to you is simple twattery.

No theatre can accurately predict how long it will take to respond. Generally speaking, the longer the better. We can turn a rejection around quickly, but when a play is being strongly considered, it takes much longer as it makes its way up the chain.

“Here, have some dynamite down your pants” is never a good response to rejection.

DO respond courteously, if at all, to rejection. While most playwrights are awesome, often literary departments and ADs are confronted with angry playwrights who are upset their play was rejected. I’ve personally received dozens of angry emails from rejected playwrights. Once we had a playwright resubmit a play, telling us that he had rewritten it to include a Black character “since that’s what you people seem to like over there.” I’ve been called an “asshole” more than once. I’ve been told I was an “idiot” who couldn’t recognize good writing. I was told once that I “require objects of condemnation.”

I’ve even received angry emails from playwrights who didn’t like the rejection letter itself. I’ve received emails complaining that the rejection was a form letter. I’ve received emails complaining that the rejection was NOT a form letter. I once received a lengthy email telling me I was “everything wrong” with theatre because our rejection letter had a formal greeting (Dear Mr. Malcolm Reynolds, etc).

I know rejection is hard, but I assure you it’s not personal. Since there’s no such thing as a rejection that every playwright thinks is “best” (they all want different things, vehemently at times), theatres must make a choice that works for them. So take a deep breath, and then call me an idiot who can’t recognize good writing when you’re at the bar with your friends, not in an email to me.

DO tell me anything practical you think I might need to know. Are you open to casting some of the male roles with women, or using different music than the music stated in the script? Are the difficult technical moments able to be done in a low-tech way? How do you envision that being accomplished? If the script calls for an actor to play the accordion, are you open to other instruments as well? Are you open to double casting?

bring it

DO watch your language. You can drop all the f-bombs on me you can muster. Creative swearing brings a smile to my lips and a song to my heart. However, be very careful about using words that are considered hurtful. I’ve seen in two scripts recently the usage of the word “retarded” in stage directions: “Staring at him like he’s retarded.” I’ve seen racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia. I’m not referring to characters’ points of view– of course people write all the time about characters with unsavory opinions– but language that reflects the point of view of the playwright. I’m going to trust that your statement that the right theatre could “jew you down” to a lower royalty rate comes from a place of ignorance rather than outright racism. So review your statements carefully.

That’s all for now. You know I’ll have more later, right? I can’t stop myself. I’m pathologically helpful. I know that starting out in theatre as a playwright can be confusing and overwhelming, but hang in there. It won’t take long for it all to seem like home.

Tagged new plays, playwrights

Apr 06 2013

8 Comments

Theatre

Rethinking the Conversation Around “Diverse Audiences”

There’s a lot of handwringing over the dismal stats released on a regular basis about audience diversity in the theatre. I’m not going to retrieve the stats for you– you’re already on the internet and can find the eleventy brazillion articles about it on your own– but suffice it to say, they are dismal, even in ethnically diverse communities like the Bay Area.

Scholars are insistent that theatre will “die” if the industry can’t diversify its audiences. Because the country’s ethnic makeup is getting more and more diverse, so the thinking goes, theatre will eventually die unless it can make its audiences more diverse.

It’s true that people of color do not attend THE THEATRES THAT WE MEASURE in numbers representative of their percentage of the population. But we only measure certain types of theatre. We measure Broadway. We measure large nonprofit theatres. We measure theatres that exist within the models we deem relevant.

We do not measure small theatres, indie theatres, or any theatremaking that exists outside of the mainstream models. For example, despite the fact that it’s a multimillion dollar industry, we do not measure gospel musicals.

I think what directs that thinking is that traditionally white-dominated artistic endeavors are labeled “high culture” and everything else is “popular culture.” Then, from there, we worry about why people of color aren’t participating in the art forms and styles we’ve decided are “best” or “important.” We laud the Latino who plays the violin in an orchestra and discount the Latino who plays the violin in a mariachi band. We see this within theatre all the time– what’s “serious” theatre “counts” and everything else exists in semi-visible strata beneath that.

My classes are extremely diverse, and you’d be surprised how many of my students have participated in performance-based activities. Those activities don’t always conform to what white America thinks they should. Many people have lives that are inundated with art, but mainstream culture very often believes that that art just doesn’t “count.” We put ballet dancers in a class above Polynesian or flamenco dancers. When I tell people I used to sing opera, they react as if I’d done something remarkable and worthy of respect. Tell someone you rap, and the reaction is completely different. I could be the worst opera singer in history standing next to the best rapper who ever lived, and I would still be accorded a measure of respect the rapper will not get. Someone who’s been to 20 church plays is not considered a theatre-goer.

We need to stop discounting performance forms that don’t conform to our expectations of “importance” or “high culture.” People of color are participating in enormous numbers in arts of all kinds, but we’re upset because not “enough” are attending the arts events we want them to attend.

In addition to opening our eyes to other theatre forms, we need to check ourselves, all of us. More than one person of color has mentioned to me that this desperation to get people of color into “our” theatres smacks of paternalism- that we’ve decided what people of color “should” be doing and we’re handwringing over the fact that they’re not choosing what we have to offer them in the numbers we want. (WE DID FENCES, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT?)

Personally, I’ve become deeply uncomfortable with the fetishization of people of color in our audiences. It’s uncomfortable to me to hear people bragging about or complaining about their audience diversity, like people of color are pogs. And I get, deeply, that much of this anxiety comes from funders who are demanding to see an increase in the number of people of color in all theatre audiences, which is a whole different discussion.

My audience is diverse because we market to young people in the Bay Area, and that demo is diverse. I don’t feel like it’s some particular achievement that we staged world premieres by Enrique Urueta or Prince Gomolvilas. But I’m as susceptible as anyone else to this conversation, and I DO talk about these things as if they’re achievements, all the time. And it’s starting to make me feel awful.

I’m getting more and more uncomfortable with the way this dialogue goes. It always ends up with talking about people of color like they’re collectible lunch boxes. We need to start examining our underlying assumptions, starting with this idea that people of color “should” be attending “our” theatres.

I’m not saying we should ignore issues of diversity. Theatremakers of the future will be more diverse and include more women in part because we insist that it be so. We need to be vigilant about creating equal opportunity for people of color and for women at all levels of theatre. When theatremakers are more diverse, theatre audiences will be more diverse, partly because of the programming they will create and partly because the entire population will be more diverse.

What I’m saying is: Theatre’s never going to die. The multimillion dollar nonprofit model might die (and it might not), but there will always be people doing theatre, always. There always has been and there always will be. We need to step away from claiming so much definitional authority over its terms and processes. We need to step away from this desperation to “save theatre” by enticing more people of color into certain doors while ignoring other doors, and realize there’s more theatre in heaven and earth than in our philosophy.

UPDATE:

The brilliant Cindy Im, former Impact resident actor and current AEA actor whom you should hire for ALL THE SHOWS, had this to say:

“After my mostly white school took me to see a play, my parents told me I couldn’t be an actor because theatre was for white people. This was not because they had other cultural outlets, but because they felt excluded. Once I dragged them to the theatre so I could see plays, they felt more comfortable and started attending on their own. Who knows how many thousands of people there are who would love to attend the theatre but don’t feel comfortable or don’t know anything about it, who might love it if they had the exposure?”

I think the issues around access and diversity are incredibly complex. While it’s true that we’re just not measuring the cultural outlets that are dominated by people of color in the same way that we measure traditionally white-dominated activities, and while it’s true that we accord traditionally white-dominated activities a level of respect that we do not accord activities traditionally dominated by people of color, the fact remains that creating avenues of access for diverse audiences is still a crucial consideration for the theatre community.

Open dialogue about these issues is the key, I think. We need to listen to each other and find a way forward, together.

Tagged audience development, audience engagement, diversity, producing, racism

Apr 01 2013

3 Comments

Theatre

I Wrote a Letter and So Should You

Lexi Hart, as Cinderella, poses with a student from Malcom X Elementary. How many theatre companies give you the opportunity to meet CINDERELLA? All right then.

The Bay Area’s awesome African-American Shakespeare Company is facing a 400% rent increase. This is MADE OF NONSENSE.

What’s nonsense is that they pay any rent AT ALL, considering how much the building gets in subsidies from the San Francisco Arts Commission. They should be given a 50 year lease at $1 a year, as so often happens when a theatre is in a city-run building and vital to the surrounding community. Af-Am Shakes keep ticket prices accessible and they do classic plays, so, basically, they’re not going to be able to suddenly start turning some monster profit, and anyone who’s had 15.3 seconds of experience in the nonprofit world knows that.

A 400% rent increase looks like an assassination attempt to me. We all know what happens when a company is forced out of their long-term space and into a volatile rental market.

So please join me in writing or calling the San Francisco Arts Commission TODAY in support of this fantastic theatre. The letter I wrote is below. You are more than welcome to copy and paste whatever you like from it to use for your own letters.

Peter Temple, ZZ Moor, and Tyrone Davis in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Photo by Lance Huntley. Maggie’s about to make her big announcement.

==============================================

To the Members of the San Francisco Arts Commission:

I urge you to protect the vital theatre institution that is the African American Shakespeare Company.

This company is one of the most valuable theatres in the Bay Area. Theatres are constantly being told that we need to have more diversity on our stages and in our staffs. African American Shakespeare Company provides more opportunities than any other organization in the Bay Area for Black theatremakers to hone and showcase their skills. Theatres are constantly being told that our industry will soon die if we can’t attract more diverse audiences. African American Shakespeare is creating those diverse audiences. Their annual holiday production of Cinderella has, over the years, turned thousands of children of color into theatre lovers who will grow up to be our audience members, subscribers, and donors. Their lively, high-quality, impressive productions of classic plays attract the most diverse audiences in the entire Bay Area. The importance of this company to the health of our local theatre community, both theatremakers and audiences, cannot be overstated.

A 400% rent increase is unsustainable for ANYONE, let alone an arts organization. Like all small theatre companies, African American Shakespeare is struggling to make ends meet. This is not a situation where they have more but are just unwilling to part with it. Artistic Director Peter Callender is doing an exceptional job navigating his company through a difficult economic time. African American Shakespeare is a very successful small company, but it’s unrealistic to expect them to turn the kind of profit that can sustain such an outrageous rent increase. It’s unrealistic to expect them to turn a profit AT ALL, since almost all nonprofit theatre companies cover their expenses largely through grants and donations. If you want to keep ticket prices accessible, you simply cannot make enough earned income to cover your expenses. In this economy, where grants have become tougher to land, and donations have fallen off, a rent increase of any type can spell the end of a company.

It’s a shocking move. Such an enormous rent increase looks, to those of us in the theatre community, like an assassination attempt. Everyone knows what it means to be forced out of your space. Most companies never recover. It’s actually shocking that African American Shakespeare Company pays rent at all. Many resident theatres do not pay rent, and with the gigantic subsidy the space receives, one wonders why such a valuable asset to the space is being asked to pay rent at all. I know, as the SF Arts Commission, you are already aware that theatre is a destination business. It draws people into the neighborhood who would not otherwise be there, ready to pay for dinner, after-show drinks, and otherwise patronize neighborhood businesses. In addition to its value to the neighborhood, African American Shakespeare Company is creating the diverse theatremakers and audience members our industry will wither and die without.

Considering their exceptional value to the building, the neighborhood, and the theatre community both locally and nationally, they should be given a 50 year lease at $1 a year. Let the subsidy pay their rent. The annual $500,000 from the city is more than enough to underwrite this crucially vital company, and much, much more.

If Ms. Hayes is having trouble sorting out how to handle the finances of a nonprofit organization, and cannot generate a budget and development plan that incorporates this proposed $1 a year rent, there are literally hundreds of people in the Bay Area theatre community who are more than qualified to take the reins.

Again: Save this vital company and ensure their continued, invaluable contributions to the theatre community. Step in and stop this nonsense. Their rent should be subsidized. Negotiate a contract—like so many resident companies have—of $1 a year. It’s an investment in the health of the future of the theatre community, both locally and nationally.

Sincerely,

Dr. Melissa Hillman

=============================================

BECAUSE I BRING THE TITLE OUT WHEN IT’S IMPORTANT, OK? Don’t give me that look.

Tagged producing

Mar 29 2013

5 Comments

Theatre

Playwrights of Color

Lisa Kang and Dennis Yen in Impact Theatre’s production of Ching Chong Chinaman, by Lauren Yee, directed by Desdemona Chiang. Photo by Cheshire Isaacs.

Like most producers, I’m looking for ways to increase diversity at my company. I’m guessing you are, too. So I put together (with the help of a bunch of awesome people, especially the excellent Sam Hurwitt) a list of playwrights of color from my neck of the woods, the San Francisco Bay Area. All of these playwrights have scripts ready and waiting for you to read, love, and produce repeatedly. There are even some musical theatre and opera composers included.

And just for fun, I included at the end a list of solo performers you should know about, too, just in case a funder gave you a fat wad of cash to bring one of these awesome people to your area.

If you have anyone to add, you can email me at bittergertrude@gmail.com and I’ll put their website on the list!

Christopher Chen

Philip Kan Gotanda (Of course you already know his work!)

Chinaka Hodge

JC Lee

Marisela Treviño Orta

Marisela Treviño Orta

Michael Gene Sullivan

Michael Gene Sullivan

Ian Walker

SOLO PERFORMERS:

Thao P. Nguyen

Tagged diversity, new plays, playwrights, producing

Mar 27 2013

16 Comments

Culture

When You Say “Weakens The Institution of Marriage,” You Sound Like An Idiot

I don’t have a lot of patience for stupidity (perhaps you’ve noticed) so I have no quarter for the phrase “weakens the institution of marriage.” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? In what specific ways will the INSTITUTION of marriage change when we have marriage equality? What specific weakness do you see in, say, Iowa that you don’t see in Alabama? How is marriage “weaker” in New York (third lowest divorce rate in the nation) than it is in Oklahoma (third highest)? YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW, so stop pretending that that phrase has any meaning whatsoever.

In discussions of marriage equality, “the institution of marriage” is a phrase that specifically refers to the ability of two consenting adults to enter into a legally-binding contract. The law has nothing to do with any church or religion anywhere. You can get “married” in every church, synagogue, mosque, and mandir in the nation, but unless you’ve been issued and then subsequently properly file a marriage license with your county, you are not legally married. “The institution of marriage” is ONLY a civil matter AS COVERED BY THE LAW, and the law is what we’re discussing here, not any religious doctrine.

So “the institution of marriage” is, essentially, two people signing a form and paying $50 to a county clerk who then gives those two people a different form, which those two people fill out later along with two witnesses and any rando licensed specifically for that purpose. The two people are considered “married” when that form is properly filed with the county and entered into the, I don’t know, googledoc or excel spreadsheet or whatever they use now to track these things.

How, specifically, does gender weaken that? Would issuing licenses to two women make the spreadsheet unresponsive? Would issuing licenses to two men make the paper more liable to tear? Are there only so many marriage licenses in the nation, and if TEH GAYS take them all, there will be none left for straight people? Where, specifically, does equality affect this process? SHOW ME WHERE. You can’t, because it’s a bullshit argument, and you KNOW IT. Where, specifically, is the “weakness” created by equality? Nowhere.

Out to destroy the institution of marriage through the twin powers of love and facial hair.

Out to destroy the institution of marriage through the twin powers of love and epic facial hair.

“No, I mean when they’re living married in the world and say they’re married and live together and get to file jointly and drop their kids off at school and we all just have to TAKE IT because they’re CRAMMING THEIR LIFESTYLE DOWN OUR THROATS so when THEY can be married instead of just US, it weakens the institution of marriage.” OK, first of all, no one is shoving anything down your throat just by existing. Secondly, you have no idea who is or is not legally married unless you’ve gone down to the courthouse and checked those records for yourself. The couple last weekend whose wedding you attended aren’t married if they burned the license instead of filing it (so you might want to check before you pay off the crystal decanter you put on the card).

Was this even on the registry?

Same sex couples exist and have always existed and will continue to exist both inside and outside the “institution of marriage.” Your experience of anyone’s relationship (including your own) is not in the least impacted by the existence of a legal contract, something you take their word for 9999 times out of 10,000 at any rate. When’s the last time you asked to see someone’s marriage license when they told you they were married? Whether that lesbian couple you see at preschool dropoff every morning is legally married or not makes no practical difference to you. You have no way of knowing what their legal status even IS without reviewing their documents. Their legal standing with each other is not visible to you, or experienced by you. Their legal standing with each other, therefore, cannot “weaken” anything for you.

Equality is what America is FOR. The purpose of the “land of the free” and “all men are created equal” is, you know, “freedom” and “equality.” You DON’T have the right to the “freedom” of living without LGBTs. First of all, IMPOSSIBLE (Your brother’s roommate is his boyfriend; your maiden aunt who’s lived with her “dear best friend” for 47 years is a lesbian; your pediatrician, five co-workers on your floor, and your personal trainer are all gay; your boss’s husband is transgender) and secondly, THIS:

The fact that you don’t WANT a certain group to have equal rights, for whatever reason, is not germane to this discussion. Your opinion about what impacts “the strength of the institution of marriage” is not germane to this discussion.

Nor is it Jermaine to this discussion.

Nowhere in the constitution does it “define” marriage as “one man, one woman.” Shit, it doesn’t even do that in the BIBLE. Ask Abraham, Jacob, and David about “one man, one woman.”

I’m not even getting into Lot and his daughters. YOU’RE WELCOME. (Painting by Joachim Wtewael, 1595, entitled “Lot and his Daughters.”)

Your OPINION about what rights a minority group should have, and whether that group should have rights equal to your own, is just not constitutionally relevant. It wasn’t for Loving v. Virginia, and it’s not for this.

There are well over 100,000 same sex couples in the US who are already married. If the “institution” of marriage were to “weaken” (and I still believe that YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT THAT EVEN MEANS WHEN YOU SAY IT) it would have happened long ago.

These two look particularly dangerous.

Stop pretending that marriage equality will have any effect on your life whatsoever. We all know you’re lying, you know you’re lying, and we know you know you’re lying. Now you know we know you know you’re lying.

SO KNOCK IT OFF.

Tagged civil rights, marriage equality

Mar 21 2013

82 Comments

Theatre

Why Your Play Was Rejected

I recently received a submission of a play we rejected not two months ago. The playwright attached it to an email directly to me (bypassing my new Literary Manager, the wonderful Lynda Bachman), which is fine. I generally just forward those to my LM unless I have a personal connection to the playwright or to the person sending me the play. But this email was different, and I hesitated long enough to read it, and, unfortunately, respond.

The playwright decided she was going to resubmit her play so soon after its initial rejection because she noticed that I had “replaced” my literary manager (our outgoing LM, Steve Epperson, left to pursue other career options, not because he was “replaced”), and believed that I would better understand her play because I was a woman.

You would imagine in that case the play would be about something specific to the female experience, but it was about writers and mythological characters. My vagina and I read the play together and were able to ascertain almost immediately why Steve had rejected the play: It had technical requirements that were outside of the physical capabilities of our idiosyncratic space and, more to the point, it was poorly written. The playwright showed some promise, to be sure, but the play had all the earmarks of a young writer’s early work– undifferentiated character voices, derivative narrative, clunky dialogue, privileging the “Big Idea” over the stories of the characters.

I gave her some feedback that was honest without being assholic (so I believed, anyway) and encouraged her to work on her craft and continue submitting to us. And of course she responded angrily, which is exactly why we don’t give feedback in rejection letters, even if we could. We receive between 300-400 unsolicited submissions a year, and we just don’t have the womanpower/manpower/level ten cleric power to give feedback to all of them. Then there’s the very real issue that not all feedback is created equal, and feedback you get from some random theatre company that has never met you and has no idea what your vision is or what you’re trying to accomplish with the play will be almost always useless (unless what you’re after is why that one specific company rejected your play).

And I really do understand the anger. It’s hard to be rejected, and playwrights are rejected over and over and over. I can understand why a playwright, in order to stay sane, would look for reasons like, “They rejected me because the LM doesn’t understand my work” in order to avoid having to think “Perhaps my play is not ready to be professionally competitive.”

Part of the problem is that theatres almost NEVER speak honestly to playwrights about why their work is rejected. So I’m going to, right now. If you’ve ever received a rejection letter, the reason is one or more of the following, I guarantee it.

1. Your play is actually awesome, but not right for the company. We have very real limitations that we cannot avoid, such as tech limitations, space limitations, or financial limitations. Some of us have resident actors, and we need shows with solid roles for them. Perhaps your play is outside the theatre’s aesthetic, or outside the theatre’s mission. Maybe your play doesn’t fit well with the plays already selected for the season– perhaps it’s too close in tone or feel to the play already locked into the slot before or after the one for which it’s being considered. Perhaps another theatre company in our area just did a play almost exactly like yours. You would be AMAZED at how many awesome plays get passed over for practical reasons like these. It happens to me multiple times, every single season.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Hang in there. Believe me, when we find a gem that we can’t stage, we’re whoring it out to other companies trying to get someone else to stage it. I’ve done that with tons of scripts. I just sent four out today, in fact, plus two last week. You can also research theatre companies online to see what kinds of plays they do, what their missions are, and what their aesthetics are in order to better target your submissions. If your script is truly awesome, it will eventually find a home. Be patient, especially if it’s very demanding to produce. This can include things like a big cast (very expensive) or difficult tech (requiring two levels springs to mind as a common problem that can be difficult both physically and financially) or challenging casting (such as, an actor of a very specific type who can sing while playing a portable instrument, or actors with specific physical skills, such as contortionists). But even a very demanding play will eventually find a home if it’s truly awesome– look at Kristoffer Diaz’s The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, or Aaron Loeb’s Abraham Lincoln’s Big Gay Dance Party. So hang in there.

2. Your play is not well-written. The most common problems are all the ones I state above (undifferentiated character voices, derivative narrative, clunky dialogue, privileging the “Big Idea” over the stories of the characters), plus things like lack of continuity, or “therapy plays” (where the playwrights are less interested in telling a story and more interested in working out issues with their mother/ex-wife/abuser/etc). Playwriting is fucking HARD, and even good playwrights write bad plays from time to time. Artistic Directors and Literary Managers will never, ever tell you your play is just not very good because we’re afraid of hurting your feelings and destroying a relationship. Playwrights who start out sending bad plays often end up, after getting some training and/or experience, writing GOOD plays, and we want access to those good plays.

Look on the bright side! At least you didn’t write THIS.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Work on your craft. Read this book. Read every play and see every play you can. See more theatre than film or TV. Yeah, a lot of film and TV are high-quality, and you can get good ideas from filmmakers and television writers, but theatre is a different animal with different demands. Learn how to feed it.

3. The odds are insane. My tiny company, as I said above, gets 300-400 unsolicited submissions a year to fill 3 slots. I recently spoke to someone who works at a large theatre that focuses on Shakespeare and does not accept unsolicited submissions, and she said they still receive about 200 annually. Someone else in that conversation said her theatre gets 900 a year. Your play is one of hundreds and hundreds out there. There are easily 100 plays for every production slot in the country, if not more. Let that sink in: Every single open slot in every single theatre in the country easily– EASILY– has 100 plays competing for it. In order to beat the odds, your play not only has to be VERY good, but it also has to be the right play at the right time for the right company.

NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS.

Luckily for you, you live in the WORLD OF TOMORROW, where submitting a play is as easy as hitting “send.” Take a moment to think of the poor playwrights of yesteryear (15 years ago) who were copying out scripts at work when their supervisors were in a meeting and having to mail them out to theatres at $2.50 a pop if they didn’t work in a company with a mailroom (I remember getting submissions from Lehman Brothers regularly). The flip side of the newfound ease of the submission process is that we’re all getting hundreds and hundreds of scripts, all the time. Even if your script is fantastic, is it better for THAT THEATRE at THAT MOMENT than the other 412 the theatre will get that year? Maybe the AD has done three comedy-heavy seasons and is considering moving to a more drama-heavy season the next year. Maybe the theatre is hoping to work with a specific director and looking for scripts that will appeal to her. Or perhaps this director is already involved in the selection process. Maybe this director had a recent personal experience that increases her interest in a certain topic, and although your play is just as awesome, the play submitted right after yours is about exactly that topic. The point is: You don’t know. The variables are endless, and the competition is just insane. When I’m in season planning season (ha) in Dec/Jan, I’ll sit at my computer and open file after file after file, reading plays for hours every single day. I don’t even glance at the name of the playwright or the title of the work unless I’m already interested in moving it up to my contenders file, or if I’m sending an email to my LM indicating which ones to reject. It’s truly crazy how many plays we get, and we’re the smallest dog on the block.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Again, hang in there. Target your submissions. Develop relationships with ADs and LMs. I have personal connections with a few playwrights who know they never have to go through our formal submission process, but can send plays directly to me, AND I WILL READ THEM. They go directly into my personal season planning folder. I know these playwrights are creating quality work and I want to get my hands on it. There are playwrights whose work I have rejected numerous times because it wasn’t the right play for us at the right time who know they can submit directly to me, because despite the fact that I haven’t produced them, I believe in their work and think they’re superstars. If I can’t produce the script for one reason or another, often I’ll send it to someone who I think might be interested. I recently fell in love with a playwright who has a script I can’t produce, and I’ve been sending her play all over the place. ADs and LMs are your CHAMPIONS, not your enemy.

4. Content. This one is rare, but it does happen. We reject plays with misogynistic, anti-Semitic, racist, or homophobic content. We rejected the play that was made up of scene after scene of child pornography.

I repeat: SCENE AFTER SCENE OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY. ::shudder::

What we’d never do is reject a play because its content is too “radical” or too “challenging of the status quo” or what have you. We didn’t reject your play because we “weren’t ready” to have our “minds blown” or because we’re trying to “silence” your “anti-patriarchal dissent.” We produce in Berkeley, you know? Nothing is “too radical.” That said, I can imagine a theatre in American Fork, Utah rejecting a play that espouses the kind of liberal values Berkeley takes as a matter of course. So who knows? I can’t speak for the theatres in Beaver County, Oklahoma. Would I reject a play that espouses conservative values? I’ve actually never received a play that was, for example, anti-marriage equality, and of course I wouldn’t stage it if I did, so I suppose the answer is a provisional yes. Artists on the whole are a liberal-leaning bunch, so I don’t get plays about why we should fund a tax cut for the wealthy by eliminating food assistance for poor children, but if I did, it’s likely we wouldn’t stage it. So no need to send it to me, David Mamet. But yes, playwright in Utah who recently contacted me with a concern that his play might be too controversial, I do want to read your play about a transgendered person. I want to read it so hard! Theatre is like 99.99% cisgendered, so anything that can address that lack of visibility automatically interests me. I can easily see, though, how that view might not be shared by an AD in, say, Kansas.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: If you’re writing plays with misogyny, anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia, or child pornography, stop writing plays. For the rest of you, target your submissions accordingly. Online research is your friend. Check out a theatre’s production history. Follow the AD or LM on twitter. There are lots of ways to ascertain which companies might be a good fit for your work.

Again, I want you to remember that there are over 100 plays for every production slot in the country. I have to pass on plays I adore every single season. I have 3 slots for new plays, and we get between 300-400 unsolicited submissions, in addition to the ones I headhunt. The unfortunate truth is that the odds are overwhelmingly against you.

HOWEVER. We are on your side. I’ve dedicated my life to championing new work, and there are hundreds just like me out there. WE BELIEVE IN YOU. That’s why we chose this field. You don’t acquire wealth or power producing nonprofit theatre. Far from it. Even the highest-paid LORT ADs still make a fraction of what they’d make in a similar corporate job. (My brother laughed out loud when I told him with awe how much the head of a local LORT makes. Having spent my entire career in theatre and academia, I had no idea these salaries were so small compared to the corporate world.) We didn’t start these companies because we thought we’d become wealthy and powerful. We started these companies FOR YOU. If I could stage 20 plays a year, I would. I believe in you and your work. I wake up in the morning and answer emails and hire directors and schedule auditions because your work deserves to be seen.

Remember that we’re on your side. Remember that a rejection is not always a comment on the quality of your play, and even while you’re reading that rejection, I may very well be sending your play to another AD. Remember that there are so many of you out there that 99 plays must be rejected for every 1 that gets accepted. And always, always remember that we’re here because we love you and think you’re superstars.

So hang in there. Try not to let the rejections get you down. Work on your craft. Create relationships with ADs and LMs, a simple thing to do now that you can facebook friend us or follow us on twitter. (I found an amazing play we’re producing next season through a friendship I developed with a playwright on twitter.) Target your submissions. And KEEP AT IT. We need you, OK?

Tagged new plays, playwrights

Mar 11 2013

5 Comments

Theatre

What Actors Should NOT Be Doing Online

Haha, you thought I was going to say “Get drunk and post naked selfies.” Nope. Go right ahead. Unlike the Cheesecake Factory or the local unified school district, the theatre is forgiving of indiscretions of that sort, don’t you think? Or they damn well should be, I mean, come ON.

A selfie I took hiding behind my desk when one student took the entire two hour final exam period to finish a final everyone else knocked out in an hour. It expressed my soul.

No, I’m talking about how to deal with the fact that your facebook profile and email address are getting in the way of you getting hired. Here are some simple, easy-to-deploy tips you can use to make things easier for me and other people like me, who are looking to cast our plays, films, web series, and industrials as painlessly as possible.

1. DO NOT make your email address impossible to find, use, or tolerate. Create an email address that is at least partially recognizable as yours. Do you have any idea how often I use autocomplete to try to find someone in a hurry? About as many times as I have directors, casting directors, and filmmakers email me asking for suggestions for actors, so a scrotillion times a week at minimum. Evidently I’m the non-union actor fairy. So if I can’t type part (or even all) of your name into the field and have your name pop up, I move on to the next actor. If I really, really want you, specifically, I’ll make the extra effort to find your headshot in my files or swing over to your facebook page (more on that later), but generally I’m burning through a list of the first ten or so people I think might be a good fit for that role while the project I’m working on at the moment is on pause. I can’t allocate an hour to answering an email, so if your email address is “singing4lyf@yahoo.com” and the name you’ve connected to it is “SingerStar DramaLife,” I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THE FUCK YOU ARE . If you simply must make your email address “DramaGrrrrrl47@aol.com” you better make damn sure your actual name is attached to that. But seriously, get a gmail address that is at least partially related to your name.

Also, please don’t share an email address with your husband, wife, parole officer, or dog. You are a GROWN UP. Get your own email address for professional use. No one cares if you share an email address with your spouse for personal use (I mean, we care in that we wonder how you manage to function like that, but we’re not judging you). For professional use, however, we need to be able to find you quickly. When I’m trying to locate an actor in order to recommend her to someone who wants to hire her, again, I can’t find Beth Ishikawa if her email address is “mattandbeth@gmail.com” and the name attached to it is “The Ishikawas.” Make your email address “beth.ishikawa@gmail.com” and make all our lives better.

2. DO NOT make your facebook profile picture the Eiffel Tower, a cat, or a dreamcatcher. Make it a picture of YOU. Should I be using facebook as my personal casting garden? Yeah, maybe, maybe not. But we all do it, all the time. Why? Because often we don’t have your headshots in our files and are trying to track you down, plus we’re already on it all the time, it’s easy as hell to find people that way, and we can tell at a glance if you’re still in the area or if you moved to Chicago like we think we remember you telling us once in an email a few months ago. Sometimes I’ll even just browse my facebook friends if I’m particularly stuck in a casting quandary, hoping for a flash of inspiration. Now, you know I love you all deeply and personally, but sometimes in the heat of the moment, it’s hard for me to remember exactly which Mark or Jessica you are. When your facebook profile picture is of a sandwich, YOU ARE NOT HELPING. It doesn’t have to be your headshot, but it should be YOU.

This should not be your facebook profile picture.

Which leads me to:

3. DO NOT “protect” your email address on facebook. You’re “protecting” yourself from getting hired. Put your professional email address on your facebook “about” page. Create a special email address just for this if you must, but be sure to check it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cruised over to a facebook page to find contact info for an actor whose headshot isn’t, for some reason, in my files or in TBA’s talent bank, only to find that their information is “protected.” YOU’RE AN ACTOR. There should be some way to contact you prominently displayed on your every public profile. I will, more often than not, just move onto the next actor rather than leave a facebook message unless we’re already facebook friends because I know you don’t check your “other” folder.

5. DO NOT forget to check your “other” messages folder on facebook. This is where messages go when they’re from companies, or people you don’t know. Chances are you all have a fourteen-month-old message from me in there asking you to come in and read for a role.

6. DO NOT forget to update your TBA Talent Bank info. If you are a Bay Area actor, you should be a member of Theatre Bay Area and you should have current info posted in TBA’s Talent Bank, because we use it all the time.

7. DO NOT forget that everything you post on the internet is ON THE INTERNET. Yes, I know some of you still believe in Santa Claus, the Chupacabra, and Facebook Privacy, but rest assured that if you post it on the internet, at some point, every human on earth will eventually see it. Again, I’m not referring to drunken naked selfies (go on with your bad self). I’m more referring to things like, “I love this show! This is the best director I’ve EVER worked with!” or “This theatre is my favorite place to work!” Now every other director and every other theatre you’ve ever worked for has the sads. Conversely, don’t think you can post “Grrr! I hate this costume! It looks like barf!” without your director, costume designer, and castmates all seeing it within the hour. Every human has been guilty of this at one point or another because humans have EMOTIONS and emotions make us ACT OUT, but this is what the delete function is for.

That’s all I have for now, based on the flurry of casting I’ve been doing over the past few weeks. My usual “Wow, this is a lot of casting” level has been dialed up to “ZOMG I HAVE SO MANY THINGS I HAVE TO CAST RIGHT NOW THIS SECOND AND TEN EMAILS JUST CAME IN ASKING FOR EVEN MORE ACTORS.” So help me find you! Because you know I want to.

Tagged a life in the theatre, acting, actors, casting

Mar 04 2013

15 Comments

Theatre

Defining “Professional”

It’s a question of lust; it’s a question of trust; it’s a question of– oh wait, no it’s just a question of money

How we define who is and who is not a “professional” in the theatre community has always been a hot-button topic, especially when you throw companies into the mix. When you start discussing this topic, a lot of people will immediately open their mouths to pour out a response that has something to do with money. This makes no sense whatsoever in the theatre community.

Sure, we could define “professional” as “making enough money at theatremaking to cross a predetermined threshold” (such as hiring AEA actors, or making your living solely as an actor as opposed to a waiter/massage therapist). This is, however, a problematic definition to say the least. Many people who are in love with using this definition for theatre companies do not pass this definition in their own careers as artists. If we’re going to define “professional” for theatre, it needs to have a single definition for us all, not one for producers, one for actors, one for designers, and one for theatre alley hobos.

If an actor lands a role that makes her AEA, and then, as is all too common, sits for two years at home working out every possible ending of Dragon Age but never landing any roles, is she still a “professional”? While the money-based definition above says no, I say YES, and I bet you do, too. She’s still auditioning, maybe taking classes, certainly attending theatre to see others’ work. She’s working at her chosen profession, just not making money at it. Her experience, training, and dedication do not evaporate just because she can’t get hired. That actor is still an actor, and I would call that actor, without question, a “professional actor,” despite the fact that it says “lab assistant” on her 1040.

I really should work on that Rosalind monologue at lunch

If an actor can retain the label “professional actor” without actually making any money as an actor, then it makes no sense for anyone to be held to a money-based definition, including producers and companies. Either “professional” means meeting specific financial criteria, or it does not.

In an industry where very, very few people are making their living solely as theatremakers, and almost no theatre in the nation is generating enough earned income to pay their bills (most of their budgets coming from donations and grants), what is the point of a financial threshold? What MEANING does money have? Are we honestly going to grant “professional” only to those artists who get hired frequently, and withhold it from those who do not, disproportionately shutting out women and people of color? Are we honestly going to grant “professional” only to those companies that sell lots of tickets or land high-value grants, disproportionately shutting out small companies that do experimental work or serve low-income communities? This is an arts community that purports to have The Art as its primary consideration, and yet so many of us are distressingly willing to make money the most important consideration. But only for others, amirite? Because while plenty of people condemn other artists and companies with “not professional,” they still consider themselves professionals even though they’ve done nothing but 2 waiver shows and a staged reading since the Bush Administration.

No, we can’t draw financial lines for each other and say, “You must be this wealthy to ride this ride” because it leaves far too many worthy artists and companies out. We need a single definition, and it can’t be money. An artist for whom money is THE most important consideration in the definition of “professional” is an artist who is deliberately shortchanging the worth of other artists and companies. Gross.

So money is out.

What about using quality as the defining factor? “Professional” implies a certain level of quality, does it not? Perhaps, then, we can use excellence as the defining factor. Let’s consider that more deeply. OH WAIT. We already tried to define “excellence” and failed. Remember when the entire national theatre community suddenly started talking about holding each other accountable for “excellence”? It went nowhere because no two people can ever completely agree on what makes a work of art “excellent.” This is ART, and one person’s heartbreaking, brilliant, moving production is another person’s self-important, pretentious dreck. So using “professional” to mean “always high quality” doesn’t work for companies.

It doesn’t work for individuals, either. I know many like to draw the line for actors between AEA (“professional”) and non-AEA (“amateur”). But anyone who has spent more than five minutes in casting knows that union affiliation is no guarantee of quality for an actor. Sure, in the aggregate, AEA actors are “better” than non-AEA actors, because the class of “non-AEA actors” includes those with little or no experience, and those who think they are actors but will shortly discover they are directors or playwrights. Or audience. Or donors! (THINK POSITIVE.) But we can’t cast in the aggregate; we have to cast individuals, and when you compare one individual to another individual for any specific role, union affiliation is not going to indicate anything useful to you about which individual actor is more “excellent,” or more anything else, for that matter. This is why we have auditions. There are stunningly brilliant nonunion actors, no question, just as there are stunningly brilliant AEA actors, and jaw-droppingly mediocre actors both union and non. It’s useless as an indicator of INDIVIDUAL excellence. And of course, even if we wanted to use union affiliation as a marker for excellence and thus “professional,” what about all those people who are directors, designers, playwrights, art directors, and so on, for whom union affiliation is a completely different ball game? Union affiliation is useless as a definer of “excellence” for individuals. In the end, though, it matters little because “excellence” is useless for defining “professional.” We can’t all agree on what “excellence” is.

You may actually believe that all AEA actors are always “better” than all non-AEA actors (because of course all actors automatically go from sucktastic to brilliant the moment they sign, right?), and who would be able to prove your opinion of nonunion actors wrong? It’s your opinion. You may actually believe that a big, expensive set or a full orchestra make a show “excellent,” and who could argue with you? That’s what you enjoy, and therefore it’s “excellence” to you. My point here is: when you can’t pin down a definition for “excellence,” you can’t use excellence to define “professional.”

So money is out and “excellence” is out. Then what the sriracha-flavored fuck CAN we use to define “professional”?

I’m still trying to work out “sriracha-flavored fuck”

I have an idea! I baked it just for you and I hope you like it. I made it out of my lifelong obsession with etymology and my need to accrue respect to theatremakers of all income levels.

So, no surprise, I own a copy of the OED. I cracked it open (any excuse, right?) and looked up “professional,” “profession,” and “profess.” Yes, I know that a dictionary definition is going to have limited applicability on its own in this context, and there is something obnoxious about using a dictionary definition in any argument, but bear with me for a second. The main concepts throughout all the definitions of “professional” in the OED (and Webster, which I also checked for fun) are: professing (self-declaration), depth of commitment (making something your main daily activity; your “profession”), and expertise.

So how about this: “Professionals” in theatre are those people who are openly dedicated primarily to the activity of theatremaking. A “professional” individual in theatre is someone who has made a commitment to the art of theatre, and has made that his or her primary daily activity, or has theatre as a primary daily activity as his or her goal (we don’t want to leave out that AEA lab assistant). A “professional” theatre is one that is staffed with such individuals, regardless of what that theatre pays them. “Theatre professionals” are people who have made theatremaking their lives, and “professional theatres” are the companies that are staffed with those people.

I believe that resistance to this idea, and assertion that “professional” must have strict financial criteria, comes from a place of elitism. It comes from a place of wanting to protect one’s own privilege, and not have to share it with others one has previously been able to keep out. I don’t think those are useful concepts in theatremaking, so I hope to see the day they’re discarded in favor of becoming more inclusive and diverse.

MAKE ROOM FOR OTHERS. They deserve to be there. Honor the artists and companies around you, no matter how much money they have. Think of looking at the world, and at our art, in ways that do not privilege money over everything else. Yes, we all have to make a living, pay bills, and buy Dragon Age 3, but we do not need to make financial considerations the centerpiece and main defining characteristic of our art. Leave that to Scary Movie 12, porn, and A Doll’s House on Broadway starring Kanye West as Torvald and Kim Kardashian as Nora. (YOU KNOW IT COULD HAPPEN.)

Imma let you finish, but the Tarantella is the BEST DANCE OF ALL TIME

Before I go, I want to say a word about “community theatre.” “Community theatre” is a wonderful, precious resource that exists to allow people who are not professionals to participate in making theatre. My wonderful former father-in-law, a retired chemist, spent the last years of his life acting and building sets at a truly excellent local community theatre. It enriched his life greatly. He had no intention of becoming a professional actor, but he wanted to participate in theatremaking. I truly adored watching him onstage. He was terrible, but he loved to be there, so he was a joy to watch. When he died, they renamed the theatre space after him in honor of the many ways he had contributed to that company. THAT is what “community theatre” is. It’s valuable, and important, and I won’t hear another word about it being somehow “lesser” than professional theatre. When I hear “community theatre,” I see a retired chemist, grinning from ear to ear, on a stage full of people thrilled to be there.

UPDATE: A couple of people have asked me if I’m referring to specific AEA language that appears in some of their documents. Let me explicate: No. I’m discussing how theatremakers talk about each other. If I were discussing specific AEA documents, I would have said so. I’m not really coy about these kinds of things. AEA is one union that represents one segment of theatremakers, and I’m discussing us all.

Comments for this article are now closed.

Tagged acting, actors, producing

Feb 22 2013

3 Comments

Culture

Your Hypocrisy About Video Games Makes Me Want To Punch A Wall

The wrestling scene from my production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It at Impact Theatre. Stacz Sadowski as Charles the Wrestler and Miyaka Cochrane as Orlando. Photo by Cheshire Isaacs.

It’s been ages since I’ve blogged, I know. Being an actual theatremaker has gotten in the way of blogging about being a theatremaker. My show previewed last night and I can finally reallocate time away from frantically acquiring last-minute props and crying over the fact that V.4 needs to be reblocked at the last minute. My cast and crew are amazing, and this show has broken all records for advance sales in our company, so I’m exhausted but happy.

During the past few weeks I’ve been slowly trying to work my way through Dead Space 3, carving out bits of time here and there because NECROMORPHS DO NOT KILL THEMSELVES (for the most part). And during this time I’ve seen approximately eleventy scrotillion people shoot their mouths off about the EVIL DANGER that is violent video games. The thing that’s RUINING OUR CHILDREN AND SOCIETY is something humans have always loved to talk about (unmixed wine, polyphony, reading the Bible in the vernacular, reading at all if you’re a girl, jazz, comic books, rock and roll, television, rap, etc), and gaming is just the latest installment.

I’m not going to link you to the many fine articles that discuss in detail why video games do not lead directly to violence, or why the studies that say they do are deeply flawed (you can’t compare random, extra-narrative violence to, say, saving a town from an invading horde of darkspawn). YOU’RE ALREADY ON THE INTERNET. I’m sure you can handle it on your own.

No, I’m speaking directly to something particular that chaps my hide each and every time this issue is discussed, because COME ON.

Do you hate violent video games? Oh, you do? Well, do you eat meat?

EXACTLY.

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 20 years. I’m not an angry, shamey vegetarian– the only people I lecture about food are the people who came out of my uterus. Eat whatever you want. If you’re polite about my vegetarian ways, I’ll be polite about your Sandwich of Cruelty. (Haha, kidding, I know you only eat meat from animals that committed suicide in a field of daisies after a long, happy, fulfilled life of published books and TED talks and Pulitzer noms.)

But where I draw the line is right here: People who flip directly out about violent video games but feel perfectly justified in killing and eating an animal for no real reason other than they feel like it. No one *needs* to eat meat. I know people like to say, “I just get so [adjective] without meat. My body NEEDS it.” I respect the fact that you believe that, and I’m not going to get up in your face about it when you’re ordering (or ever, actually), but, physiologically speaking, you’re wrong. Should all the meat in the world disappear tomorrow, you’d be fine. I don’t doubt that you crave it, but I assure you that you don’t physiologically require it. Your resilient human body is just not that delicate. You eat meat because you want to. That’s OK. Own it.

When I’m playing a video game, I’m killing PICTURES of monsters and bad guys. When you eat meat, you’re killing an actual, living animal smarter than your dog, with as wide a range of emotions.

When I’m playing a video game, I’m wrapped up in a narrative about saving people, or myself, or about struggling to survive in harsh conditions. I’m killing pictures of fictional vampires with a fictional sword because they’re threatening the village where my fictional children are sleeping (Whiterun FTW). When you eat meat, you’re killing an actual, living animal who can see, feel, hear, love, and fear because you’re slightly hungry and can’t be arsed to have a PB&J.

What I’m shooting in Dead Space. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t shoot the fuck out of this if you saw it running at you.

What you killed to make your sandwich.

I’ll never get in your face for eating meat. It’s a personal decision that I’m not qualified to make for you. My husband eats meat and the amount of shit I give him about it is zero.

HOWEVER. If you’re planning to stomp around accusing my gaming of creating violence in the world, I’m going to have to ask you to TAKE A SEAT if you’re a meat-eater. When you’re done being ACTUALLY violent, we can have a chat about my PRETEND violence.

So eat your meat. Create violence in order to create your food. Kill animals and devour their flesh. I won’t judge you, I really won’t, until you start asserting that your real-world violence is in any way superior to my imaginary violence. Eat all the meat you want, and we’re cool. Just don’t try to pretend that you’re somehow better than someone who spends an afternoon shooting a fictional gun at pictures of monsters.

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Blogging about Culture, Equity, and the Arts since 2013