Love's Labors Lost: December 2011

December 5, 2011

Walking the talk on moneyballing theatre

As my plans for the 2012 production of Tulpa, or Anne&Me start coming together, I'm in a pretty good position to apply some of the ideas I brought up in my "What If . . . Theatres Played Moneyball?" post. As I'm researching venues and running the IndieGoGo campaign (which you should contribute to if you haven't already), I'm also thinking of ways to describe what I'm looking for in various members of the cast and crew.

Being that the director is the keystone person in all this, I created a job ad for a director that lays out, in simple terms, what I need that person to do. When writing it, I gave myself a few "rules" to work with, such as:

Must be written as "can do," not "must have"
No less than 3 but no more than 7 requirements
Directly mention the people I want to apply

What I came up with was:

This play needs a DIRECTOR who can:

apply anti-racist principles and practices to all aspects of production

create an amazing theatrical experience with limited tech and budget

work within the guidelines of the AEA showcase code

respect the playwright's voice and vision

collaborate with the playwright to select cast and crew

schedule and attend all rehearsals

maintain a healthy working environment

Although education and experience are definitely helpful, what matters most is your passion, vision, and commitment - and how easy you are to work with. Because of the play's subject matter and my personal interest in giving opportunities to underrepresented theatre artists, queer women of color are strongly encouraged to reach out.

I am seeking to make my final decision by January 15.

Please send all inquiries and supporting materials (if any) to [my personal info].

Hopefully, this will draw people who would be the biggest assets to the production and not just those who interview well. I'm sure that some experienced theatre artists may look at my requirements and go, "Well, duh!" But I've heard a lot of stories about people who get involved in projects without being solid on the "Well, duh" parts and wind up creating a complete clusterfuck. As time goes on, I've learned to give myself credit for the fact that, while I make mistakes, I don't have to make ALL the mistakes ALL by myself to learn.

I hope that, should I find a director this way, I can apply the same thing to the rest of the cast an crew.

What about you? Do you have any experiences with "moneyballin" theatre? How did it turn out?

Words, Words, Words

. . . a lot of it [fostering rather than smothering students' playwriting] has to do with finding a way to construct a dialogue about ongoing work that empowers the writer. A lot of it has to do with making sure there's a diversity of voices around you. A lot of it has to do with thinking of the writing program as a brain trust for writers, not as some infantilization in which the dramaturg gets the power. And basically trying to find a place where everyone's aesthetic in the room grows larger rather than smaller. There are many ways to do that. It's really not a hard thing to do.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

Here is what seems to me an elementary truth that must precede any other: namely, that the theater, an independent and autonomous art, must, in order to revive or simply to live, realize what differentiates it from text, pure speech, literature, and all other fixed and written means.
--Antonin Artaud, letter, 9/15/1931

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all I need for an act of theatre to be engaged.
--Peter Brook, The Empty Space

My work is characterized by one thing above all --- invention. In theatre we imagine the world, we do not record it, we are not documentary makers. I hold all social realism and journalistic theatre in contempt. It is a sordid habit. And the social realists have the impertinence to pretend they are 'telling the truth…'
--Howard Barker, interview

Women and writers of color are still seen as threats because, in essence, when a woman or writer of color is defining a play world, there's another definition of what our society is, and that's very threatening.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

Through this experience [working on " . . . and last week it was a mountain"] I learned the importance of the life and the dynamics under the words, and began to see the power of working from the silent space within - the emotions, the images, the experience and the feelings - rather than relying on the words.
--Sande Shurin, Transformational Acting: A Step Beyond

How does it happen that . . . the Occidental theater does not see theater under any other aspect than as a theater of dialogue?
--Antonin Artaud, Theater and Its Double

All conventions are imaginable, but they depend on the absence of rigid forms.
--Peter Brook, The Open Door

I never 'say' anything in my work. I invent a world. Let others decide what is being 'said'. Nor do I claim to tell the truth or enlighten people. We are suffocated by writers who want to enlighten us with their truths. For me, the theatre is beautiful because it is a secret, and secrets seduce us, we all want to share secrets. That is also its politics, if it has any politics at all. And modern democracies hate secrets, they want everything transparent. Obviously the critics collaborate in this desire to expose everything to the light of day, they are the police force, after all.
--Howard Barker, interview

I think that form is content . . . I've always been more interested . . . in the formal devices and the structure rather than in the subject matter . . . I really am a follower of Viktor Shklovsky, who said that in some ways the subject matter doesn't even matter. It's whether or not we see the subject matter anew that matters.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

I am well aware that the language of gestures and postures, dance and music, is less capable of analyzing a character, revealing a man's thoughts, or elucidating states of consciousness clearly and precisely, than is verbal language, but who ever said the theater was created to analyze a character, to resolve conflicts of love and duty, to wrestle with all the problems of a typical and psychological nature that monopolize our contemporary stage?
--Antonin Artaud, Theater and Its Double

The mediocre artist prefers not to take risks, which is why he is conventional.
--Peter Brook, The Open Door

"Transcendence became my life theme. I wanted to be lifted beyond everyday circumstances and everyday reality."
--Sande Shurin, Transformational Acting: A Step Beyond

I actually think of writing for the stage as not writing . . . It's about structuring, about gaps between the language that are really filled in by the collaborators and the process. It's all about indirection rather than a direct statement . . . It's like a three-dimensional chess game in a way. If I say this, will the director go in this direction? If I say this, will the actor respond? And one of the delights of the process is actually not having your intention fulfilled, but finding out at times that other people's interpretation or intention is actually more interesting than you originally thought of.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

The person who has an idea of what this language is will be able to understand us. We write only for him. --Antonin Artaud, letter, 9/28/1932