Jess forwarded this to me from Andrew Gall, who has apparently come upon the DDS blog. Here is what he wrote:

I don’t know how blogs work, really, and I don’t want to crash private conversation but tonight I had some free time and thought I would share some thoughts. You are free to post them, delete them, whatever, but I really felt moved to share. So if this is intrusive forgive me, delete this now, and that’s fine.

SCOTT’S DEFININTION OF ART:

Right on. I think the word artist, artistic, and my favorite “artistic home”, are abused. Artaud, and I am paraphrasing here, compared the artistic life to a priesthood- and in this day and age of the post-Warhol celebrity phenom- the notion of humility and the element of selflessness that goes into creating has been forsaken. The “artist” who persues his/her craft and carries too much ego-baggage is only going to fuck up things for those of us who are putting ourselves out there and trying to do something meaningful in our communities. The proliferation of theatre that is done for purely self-promotional purposes makes me sick, it is one of the reasons that I left Chicago, and the experiences I saw in the dealings of mounting shows on Broadway and the amount of money that is WASTED on productions that have, in my opinion, the same objective as the rinky-dink traveling carnival- take as much money, pack as many in- and will we open in time for Tony noms…. It makes me want to puke. Oddly enough, one of the most humble and modest theatre people I have ever had the privilege to be influenced by is Arthur Miller. His example and his simplicity and openness is what has made him enduring both in the physical/corporeal sense (he is QUITE elderly now and yet spry as hell) and as a playwright. He would never call himself an artist and for many of the reasons Scott has articulated.

Theatre has become far too “artist-centered”-meaning that the work is about the artists and their concept/message and this in turn has little to in common with the audience watching it. In order for any theatre be it the most simplistic of church pagents or the broadest musical comedy on Broadway- it must meet the needs and expectations of the audience. Shouldn’t it? Our theatre- at least as we conventionally understand it- was derived from ritual performances that told stories about gods, heros (tragic and triumphant), intelligently poke laughs at our foibles (lest we take ourselves too seriously) and sought to comfort, entertain, and collectively bring people together. In many ways those conventions are still why people return to t! he theatre, and it is the singular ability to communicate those concepts that make theatre different than film/tv, books, and other mediums that rely on narrative and imagination to move a third party. Contemporary audiences are not concerned with many of the issues that get so hotly debated in artistic circles. This does not mean that we must pitch to the middle and forsake expressing complicated or controversial ideas and theme in drama. Nor does it mean that we turn the stage into a forum for our own personal agendas or bully pulpits- the theatre is not JUST for the theatre person. The validation we seek in the theatre can only come from an appreciative audience. For theatre to be meaningful it must be created from an impulse that meets some kind of need (hence meaningful) that exists in the audience that will leave their home, travel to the venue, park their ! car, purchase a ticket, sit in what is generally an uncomfortable seat, and proceed to watch your play. God help you if you bore them- AND FAR TOO FREQUENTLY WE DO. Theatre, and art, comes from not from a need to gain recognition for one’s accomplishment (this happens organically in the wake of notable achievement) but more from the desire to reach people and bring them closer together and remind us of how we are all afraid to be alone and we are afraid to die; or through communal laughter help to offer hope that they too can transcend struggles.

WORKSHOPS OF NEW PLAYS/PRODUCING NEW PLAYS/THEATRE IS EASY

Workshops are almost always bullshit. Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller did not workshop their plays nor did they need to. Good plays are the product, I believe of a single source of inspiration. Also, plays- at least as we conventionally understand them, are formulaic and constructed along a linear narrative model. Not that this is bad, but for the past few thousand years- this is how plays that have endured have been written. Their have been experiments in genre, theme, and the use of spectacle over time that have allowed the theatre to change with the times, but for the most part,&nbs! p; the process of creating a lasting piece of dramatic literature has remained relatively the same.

Workshops, which in began with the best of intentions, have truly degenerated into a grist mill in which the potentially great is ground into mediocre. I have tried to figure out a system to generate new works but have always been stymied by the whole workshop thing. I won’t do them now. As for no one producing new plays in Asheville- I take great delight in saying that Highland Rep has produced 6 plays (and a combined production cost of appx $42k) that would meet the definition of a new work/or adaptation in the past three years. None of which have been terrific successes, but I remain committed and open to new plays. I have some issue with being labeled as “gutless and lacking in! vision” as I have spent nearly every day of my life since late 1997 to producing theatre. It is easy to criticize producers for their apparent lack of vision and taking us as a group to task for not producing more new work. I would agree that opportunities for new work are simply not there for playwrights here in Asheville and most everywhere else. I think more new plays would get produced if there were a better relationship between theatre and audience (are you seeing a pattern in my comments here?). An issue for me as a producer is that I would like to produce more new plays, but because I also have an audience expectation to meet I have to have new plays that are not only worth the $20 ticket but must be! at the same level of quality as everything else in our season.

Now about producing….. Anybody who tells you that theatre is easy is completely out of touch with the realities of producing theatre. I have founded 2 companies and pulled a third one out of potential bankruptcy. I have worked with two of the most respected theatre companies in the US, as well as for some of the shittiest, rinky-dink operations around. I have produced well over 100 plays in my career as an “Artistic” Director/producer, and a good 10-15% of them have been new. I have directed probably half of what I have produced as well. I have had to figure out how to finance nearly all of it, sometimes having to pay for sh! ortfalls personally and it has not been until recently that I have secured any kind of long-term philanthropic sources of funding- and it is barely worth mentioning. I have done some fabulous work that has made the really crappy shitty productions worthwhile. (And there have been quite a few) None of it has ever been EASY. I love what I do- don’t get me wrong- and there are many times I have despaired well into the wee hours over the price I and my incredibly loving (and non-theatre) wife pay. I work well over 100 hours a week, and less than half of it is in a rehearsal room and for most of it I do not get paid. Getting passionate about a play project, idea, season, rehearsal, whatever- sure this is easy. Coming up with the money, venue… deploying the appropriate promotional tools to attract an interested ! audience, having the resources to be able to secure the participation of like-minded collaborators, keeping all the promises you have made, is NOT easy and while anyone can certainly give it a whirl—the odds will never be in your favor. Producing theatre is like constantly running for office. You have to keep your audience happy, your cast/crew happy (you certainly are not paying them enough to put up with too much BS). You need to be personally secure enough to be able to do a lot of work for very little personal recognition from those you are working with- as they will generally take you and the opportunity you have provided for granted. You need to be able to solve problems diplomatically and quickly. You must be fast to praise others and remind them how valuable they are, and at the same time listen to their complaints and insecurities. At the same time you must maintain your vision, integrity, and sense of humor. Producing theatre is not a job for the weak-stomached or insecure. Personally I think more theatre students should have to figure some of this stuff out, especially if they want to make ANY money doing theatre- and believe me you will not make much even if you are successful.

That all sounds really negative- so let me also say that I am very lucky. My hard work has paid off, in the sense that I get to work on my craft full time. I have never waited tables, cannot remember the last time I had to look for an outlet for myself creatively. I have a viable career producing theatre in a great region, and my work is supported and appreciated for the most part. The range of collaborators available to me here are people who share my passion, believe in what I am doing, express confidence in my ability to lead, and are first class human beings that I actually enjoy on a personal level.

I have truly enjoyed reading the stuff on this blog thing, and will certainly keep doing so.

A

I knew it! I always did feel like a genius cripple with the ability to control the physical world around me with naught but the power of my mind...
Jess



You are Professor X!

You are a very effective teacher, and you are very
committed to those who learn from you. You put
your all into everything you do, to some extent
because you fear failure more than anything
else. You are always seeking self-improvement,
even in areas where there is nothing you can do
to improve.

Which X-men character are you most like?

John,
You ass! ;-) I still do believe in teaching students how to think. Of course, you can't teach them how to think separate from content. For instance, my History II class this semester will use critical thinking techniques and standards as a way of taking discussions to a less superficial level -- but the discussions will still be about plays and ideas. In the case of a Senior Seminar -- that 1-credit class we've just started giving -- it is supposed to be focused on practicalities: preparing seniors for the step toward their own goals. If I were teaching one, I would focus on two things: 1) the practicalities of living, and 2) defining your goals and values.

Scott

I agree with you, Kate -- food is probably the best place to cut costs. In Miserly Moms, McCoy recommends paying attention to what is on sale (particularly meat and produce) and buying more than just a week's worth of those items. Also, shop several stores and compare the prices on specific items that you use all the time -- it is amazing the price range out there. Also, plan your meals before you shop, and buy only what is needed (i.e., avoid impulse buying), except for those things that you buy in bulk (for instance, INgles had a sale on boneless chicken breasts for $1.99 a pound, so Laura and I bought about 10 lbs). We pay the most to buy processed food for things we could make ourselves. For instance, it takes no time at all to make granola, or make granola bars. Bread is incredibly expensive in the store -- why not make it yourself? You can do it with a breadmaker, or just do it by hand, which is kind of fun. Laura has a yogurt maker. Yes, it takes time to do this, but the idea is that you are buying time by saving money. If you can figure out how to live on, say, 25 hours of work per week instead of 40, you've got 15 extra hours to devote to your interests. McCoy says you can eat well for $20/wk per person, if you shop carefully. Laura and I have it down to about $32 a week per person, and we're eating like royalty. It just takes planning. Eating out, even at McDonald's, is extremely expensive compared to what you would spend to cook at home, and not nearly as tasty or healthy.

For artists, living on less is the best way to buy yourself time to work on your art, or finance your art.

Scott

I suspect that Jess is busy teching, dressing, and eating his guts out with worry to read the DDS blog at the moment...
On the UNCA front, I have now moved out of CBT and into Laura's office in CH. Laura has moved to the office right next to CH 104, and the voice lab computer and software is now set up across the hall in the Tanglewood office. Rob starts moving into my old office today. It really was time for him have an office appropriate for a chair. And Laura is happy to have an office right next to the classroom where she teaches the most, and I am happy to have a bigger office right across the hall from where I teach most office. And I can't say I feel all that bad about getting away from the bruhaha of the CBT lobby!
Classes start a week from today! Thankfully, I seem to be back to full energy and healthy again. Laura (my wife) has turned in her resignation effective October 1st, and we are delighted that she will at last be able to do what she has always wanted to do: stay home, cook yummy food, tend a garden, and quilt. While living on my income alone will be tight, we can do it, and I think we will both be much, much happier. She has already started making homemade bread and rolls (now in the freezer that Jess helped us move into the house while my incisions were still healing), and frozen a bunch of strawberries and tomatoes. In case any of you are interested in living a bit more frugally, I recommend a good book called Miserly Moms: Living on One Income in a Two-Income World by Jonni McCoy. Some excellent tips to follow concerning grocery shopping and cooking. We have cut our weekly grocery budget in half already.
Do you all think that a senior seminar that devoted some of its time to ways of living cheaply would be a good thing? I have been thinking about creating a class like that. Tips on housing, health insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, savings and investment, grocery shopping and cooking, etc? Sort of a "theatre person's survival guide"? What do you think?

Scott

Another great Tony Kushner quotation (John, you can skip this post if you want...):

Q: Ultimately, where do you draw your hope from?
Kushner: You don't look at it as a feeling state; you look at it as an ethical obligation. You look at it as a thing that you generate yourself by recognizing that despair is a luxury. Not for everyone. Some people are really burdened by life, either because of chemicals in their brains or terrible personal circumstances that make despair inescapable. But most people in this country aren't. And since most of us aren't, we h ave an ethical obligation to look for hope and find it. It isn't easy, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. In fact, if it were easy, it would be less valuable. It's like the Jewish search for God. One of the Talmudic ideas for why it's so hard is that you create its value by the difficulty of the search. We all do it. That's what our struggle is. We wouldn't get out of bed otherwise.

He also says:

"I don't know anyone who has paid any attention to history who doesn't say this is absolutely the worst, most dangerous moment the human race has ever faced. I don't hink that is an exaggeration at all. I think our chances of surviving the 21st century are extremely slim. And if you believe that, I don't know why we all sort of giggle about the idea that the Democratic Party matters. Of course that's what's going to win the election and take the White House away from George W. Bush. It isn't going to be the Green Party. It isn;t going to be people with black bandannas over their faces marching down the street next September blowing up Gaps and Starbucks to show Goerge W. Bush whatever they're trying to show him. And of course the Democratic Party candidate next fall will be compromised, and of course he'll make mistakes, and of course there'll be lots of advice saying, 'Don't go to far to the left so you'll sound bad in the debates.' But if people go out and vote for Ralph Nader again, or don't vote... The fate of the world is in our hands, and if we fuck it up, it's our fault."

You're not going to believe this...

Yesterday, I went to the doctor. I seem to be healing up nicely (finally). Then he tells me a few things: apparently, the pathology report came back showing that my appendiz actually ruptured. "It must have been at the end, so I didn't notice," he explains. (I'm not sure if this meant "at the end of the surgery" or "at the end of the appendix.") And that explains all these e-coli infections I have, which has led to the bursting incisions.

Laura was really freaked out, because if my appendix ruptured, it explains the 3 days of fever I had when I came home. She is particularly freaked because 1) an undiagnosed ruptured appendix is dangerous, and 2) it is especially dangerous when they didn't prescribe any antibiotics when they sent me home so I was essentially untreated for nearly two weeks. She says it is a testament to my good health.

Anyway, I seem to be out of the woods now.

Scott