Confessions of a Teaching Artist

It was great to have a job that was finished by lunch time.  On the good days.

This one seemed to be good.  I taught four different classes that morning and it seemed to have a very positive impact.  Of course, from my perspective the determining factor was always leadership.  It was about the Principal.  And, this elementary school which stood in the shadow of RFK Stadium in DC, had a Principal who seemed to know the name of every child.  No matter he mixed the special needs kids in because he said, “when they get out of here and have to take their shirts to a laundry mat no one will care what their special needs are.  These kids live with their Grandparents.  No one is going to hold their hand.  We have to prepare them to survive.”  This led to having one young boy in particular who couldn’t focus jump around mockingly making my job nearly impossible.  He was the laughing stock and the teacher wasn’t allowed to tell me this was indeed a disorder and not a bad day.

Still.  This one was a success.

The feet always stood out to me.  These students wore uniforms to school.  So, even on a sunny day there would be these extremely colorful galoshes and pastel plaid heeled tennis shoes.  It threw me at first.  Then I realized.  The human spirit will express wherever it can.  And in this case, it was on feet.

Many of my students were out at recess.  This was a blacktop playground surrounded by a very tall fence.  Four or five girls came running over to me as I was walking to the car, “Miss Randall, Miss Randall!”.  “Great job in the theatre workshop ladies.”  “When are you coming back?”  “Oh, that was your last session. I’m done here.”  “For good?”  “Well, maybe I’ll be sent back here again soon.  You girls are smart you will have all kinds of fun people teaching you.”  One girl steps forward.  She grabs the fleshy pinky side of my hand and gives it a slight pull down toward her.  I lean down and look directly into her eyes.  She tugs.  “Don’t leave me here.  You can’t leave me here.”

I drive home.  Sobbing.

And, that was the drill.  I either drove home with elation because the experience was so powerful and positive or I drove home sobbing because it was very difficult to step into the world of these children who absolutely deserved the best of everything and were mostly being screamed at and punished for much of the day.  Especially devastating were the times when I would get the students moving and doing the vocal work and their teachers would fly into a rage and take away recess because they weren’t being quiet and standing in a single file line.

I taught Seniors at Dunbar.  They had a top-notch English teacher and she lined up the required reading with shows in town that staged the stories.  This was brilliant.  She took her students as much as she possible could.  She was in her sixties and had been teaching for more than 40 years and had no intention of retiring anytime soon.

It was, “A Lesson Before Dying”.  Most of the students hadn’t gotten around to finishing it.  I told them, “Look we are going to the theatre next week to see this play.  I want to know what you think.  How can you tell me if you haven’t read up?”  Then, I used positive peer pressure.  So, the activities I taught were more fun when you knew the story specifically although they worked without knowing anything too, but it wasn’t as fun.  By the second session all but two of the students finished the book.  In one exercise, they were to use the characters from the play and place them in any setting as long as it had simple story structure.  So, one group decided to put the characters on the set of Jerry Springer.  Each character had their time to explain WHY they were behaving the way they were and complex relationship dynamics surfaced.  It was informed.  Intelligent.  It was HILARIOUS.  The entire class was in the library pod area chanting, “Jerry, Jerry”.  I’m sure this made the librarian fill with hatred toward me.

When we went to Round House to see the play we were seated up in the balcony.  I told the students to always read their programs, talked about the lights, pointed out the booth, and told them to pay close attention to the set.  I asked what that thing was on set under the desk?  They said, “just a bunch of old laundry or something.”  Once the show began, they were leaning it.  All of the students.  And, when the main character came rolling out from under the desk after being preset before house opened, the students could not contain themselves.  I’ve never seen an audience more engaged in a story.  Ever.

In my follow up session, they had so much to say.  They disagreed with some of the liberties taken and I agreed with them.  In particular, they couldn’t believe that two female characters had been blended into one.  They thought that was disrespectful to the original intention and voicing of the novel.  They were BRILLIANT!

Then came Anacostia.  On one side of the road was a complex that was state of the art.  The classroom was almost sterile.  We were prepping for “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and I was struggling with the content, or lack thereof, of this particular selection as an educational device.  But, it ended up being flawless.  On the other side of the road was a school that had me sobbing on every break.

Driving up to this place you hardly knew you were at a school.  It was cold outside and there were sheets of ice on the sidewalks.  I watched one student go down quickly smashing the back of her head into the sidewalk after her feet flew up just in front of the steps to her bus.  She tried to get up and walk it off.  She was hurt.

This place.

There were bars on the windows and constant flooding on the lowest classroom level.  The heat did not really kick in until the sun was up a bit to help it.  So, the students met in the cafetorium each morning.  Wearing their coats and scarves.  Getting lectured.  This Principal had some unresolved emotional issues.  Once the day got moving along and there was movement through classrooms it seemed that the Principal would get into a screaming match with one of her students about every 45 minutes.  Physically threatening them.  I always said that I refused to yell at children.

To my great sadness I found that in this environment, without screaming you did not exist.  Finally the Counselor and I hung out and chatted.  She explained to me that these were the “crack babies of crack babies”.  And, she said, “not even that anymore because the drug has changed.  These kids don’t stand a chance.”  These kids physically could not hold a focus or stop bouncing in their shoes.  The counselor told me the story of a 3rd grader.  She said most of the Dads were dead or in jail.  She said this one little boy wanted to come to school so badly that he drove himself.  His Mom took to the streets so he dressed himself and set off each morning.  He loved coming to this hellhole.  He got up in the morning and got behind the wheel of his Parents car and found a way to drive himself in.  Once they found out about it he was expelled.

It was unimaginable, this place.

I had been threatened at other schools.  One time, while I was standing beside the Principal and a boy was repeating “white girl” over and over through the microphone and the Principal was laughing with him and giving me the death-glare.  Another time, the teacher was largely absent and I don’t know who the man was sitting in but he sent his assistant to buy him a sandwich and soda at 10am and we all watched him reprimand her for not giving him the proper change back.  Then we watched him eat.  The we watched him leave.  And, I sat in a room with some older students who did not like me cutting into their social time.  They pulled out a pair of scissors.  I told them, “I am supposed to leave.  This is dangerous.  You’ll have to decide how this is going to go.  Listen, I get paid no matter what.  So, if you want to spend your time talking over me and threatening me I can just go and finish my coffee and read a good book.  I get paid the same no matter what.  Your call.”  And, the best result I got that day was getting these students to put away the scissors and sit in a circle exchanging ideas for 10 straight minutes.

But, this Anacostia school was beyond dangerous.  Beyond devastating.  During one exercise a 7 year old mimed rolling and smoking a joint.  Very specifically.  One male teacher spent so much time threatening his male students I thought I was going to watch him have a heart attack.  He was so threatened. He HATED those boys and they laughed at him outwardly.  On the inside though, a rage had to be brewing.  He was so abusive.

What was going to happen to these kids?  The disparity from one school to another was shocking.  Shocking!

On Capital Hill there were some great experiences.  One student named Russell tended to talk over me.  So, I’d say, “Who’s the director?  You or me?  You have to show your director respect.  You’ll get a shot to share your ideas, I promise.”  I found myself right inside of it with these kids.

After that session ended Russell’s teacher asked if there was a way I could be there permanently because it was a very successful experience.  I was flattered and had too much on my plate to figure it out.  She explained that Russell was just about to fail 10th grade and the he would not show up to do his make-up test for science and didn’t seem to care about anything.  It was clear that even this very positive place had written this kid off as apathetic.  She said, “He never missed one of your workshops.  We need our students that invested.”

I explained to her that while they saw a problem child, I had the great advantage of being a visiting artist which lent me an entirely different perspective.  To me, Russell was a natural leader.  Sometimes overenthusiastic but it was clear that his peers naturally followed his lead and that he was a brave individual and incredibly smart.

“Don’t leave me here.  You can’t leave me here.”

Then came the assignment in Columbia Heights.  This was one for the record books.  Metal screenings at the front door to ensure safety.  Every class was gender divided.  Either all boys or all girls.  This confused me at first.  I had my own judgement around it.  Then, I went in to teach.

On the wall of one of the classrooms hung three huge lined sheets of paper.  Each student in each class had written their greatest dream and hope in one sentence down the sheets of paper.  “I hope I won’t be raped.”  “I wish everyone could be nice to each other.”  “I wish my Parents had a lot of food and didn’t argue.”  I couldn’t stop staring at these words.

After speaking to one of the teachers I found that there were incidences of rape on this combined campus.  Rape.  So, they separated the boys from the girls.  The all male class I had was…wow.  The teacher was an incredible woman and she was at the end of her rope.  Again, I saw her physically grab students and slam them against the wall saying, “TUCK IN YOUR SHIRT BEFORE YOU COME INTO MY CLASSROOM!”.  I couldn’t figure out why she was so physically abusive and why she was treating children like criminals.  I couldn’t figure it out until one boy untucked his shirt.  That’s all I can say about that.

In my mind I can’t leave them there, you know?  I have to set up a structure.  A program.  A way young people can get the tools that were easily given to me without anyone even giving it a second thought.

So, the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities has released a report entitled, “Reinvesting in Arts Education”.  After reading the 88 pages yesterday these stories from working in DC haunted my dreams.  It leaves me with a singular conclusion.  We need adults.  We need leaders.  The children should be the ones under 18.

“…students with high involvement in the arts…performed better in school and stayed in school longer than students with low involvement… Low-income students involved in band and orchestra outscored others on the NELS math assessment…in drama showed greater reading proficiency and more positive self-concept…”

This is something I could see only short-term.  But, to see how it affects the longevity of success is a stunner.  It got me thinking about going through the public school system in Prince George’s County in the 70′s and 80′s.  We caught the end of busing.  We had students from the projects, from mansions, and every blue collar station in between.  So, when I read Arne Duncans words about this being the Civil Rights issue of our generation it was the only thing that made sense.  It is unacceptable that the gap between quality education is directly proportionate to the class divides.  This flies in the face of decades of strife and good work.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan:

“Nothing -nothing- is more important in the long-run to American prosperity than boosting the skills and attainment of the nation’s students…Closing the achievement gap and closing the opportunity gap is the civil rights issue of our generation. One quarter of U.S. high school students drop out or fail to graduate on time. Almost ONE MILLION students leave our schools for the streets EACH YEAR. That is economically unsustainable and morally unacceptable.”

Hearing about the crisis in general is upsetting.  But, when we break it down to kids who have fathers that are either dead or in jail.  Kids that are born addicted.  Kids that get expelled for driving themselves to school because they’d rather be learning than picking up street life.  It shatters emotionality.

“and, for some demographic groups and geographic areas, the statistics are far worse. By some estimates, approximately 50% of male students from disadvantaged minority groups leave school before graduation…An estimated 2 million students attend a high school in which fewer than 50% of the students graduate-schools that have come to be known as drop-out factories…Studies about the reasons for these trends provide a remarkably consistent picture: students report being bored…show the signs of risk for dropping out as early as 6th grade…”

For those who make it through.  Who find a way to show up and pass the tests.  We are failing them too, and all of the sobbing in the world won’t change that.  It will be changed by a new social understanding around the right of every American to have a quality education.  This should have nothing to do with the class divide.  This should have nothing to do with racial discrimination.  Segregation should NOT exist in 2011.  Every child is sacred and this is simply unacceptable and intolerable on a human level.

“The narrow focus on only teaching the basics clearly has not been the answer. Many high school graduates lack the skills to make them successful in post-secondary education and later in the workforce….problem solving, critical and creative thinking, dealing with ambiguity and complexity, integration of multiple skill sets, and the ability to perform cross-disciplinary work.”

It was affirming, liberating, and uplifting to discover that there is a term, a phrase, a way to describe it.  Creativity Crisis. 

He was amazed by a boy who, for a class science project, rigged a tracking device for his moped with parts from a cell phone. When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education…“After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’ ”

It is also devastating.

I put together a video with hopes that the Prince George’s alum would begin to step forward and speak.

And, I’m offering two for one camp registrations.

I’m responding to a very simple request.

“Don’t leave me here.  You can’t leave me here.”

Shame

I read this piece on Rosanne Barr in New York Magazine that Carolyn posted on FaceBook last night and I woke up thinking about it.

It takes so much courage to speak up and to overcome the shame that silences.  It’s something I’ve been wrestling with my entire life and I think that reading her words was a liberating experience for me as well as many others.  Just at the end of last year I was reassessing where to go next with my Company.  I related so much when she wrote:

I couldn’t take it any longer—the abuse, humiliation, theft, and lack of respect for my work, my health, my life.

I’ve been thinking a lot about tolerance and endurance and how the two relate to each other.  The problem with building up endurance through tolerating what maybe should be called out is that it changes the shape of what’s happening.  The good news is that it’s incredibly powerful.  That WE are incredibly powerful.  If we want, we can change the shape of things but shame tells us we can’t.  That’s the great lie.  When we buy into it it grows and surrounds us in these exterior ways.  It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Rooted in a lie it sets up a life that is constantly off-kilter.  This is only good if you live inside of a snow globe and enjoy the snow.

In producing the work of woman on the stage for over a decade now, this shame is something I need to always process and know intimately.  In my mind it falls under, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer”.  Shame is the greatest enemy I have ever had.  Professionally, it has kept me from celebrating real accomplishments because there was always something about the achievement that I should be ashamed of, no matter the level of difficulty or success.  It’s terrible.  A real living hell when you can’t get real about the beauty and grace of your own actions.

So, as my teachers always taught me, I decided to dig into it more deeply over the years.

The root of the shame in my life comes from my upbringing.  It’s hard to talk about it or even remember it.  PTSD is a powerful thing.  What I know about myself personally is:

-The world outside was much safer than my home as a child.

-Strangers fascinated me.

-There was always more to discover and learn in the outside world.

-There was always a teacher, a job in theatre, a cast of beautiful actors, or a character that would come along and transform everything.

Everything I ever needed appeared and never from where it was traditionally supposed to be.  It’s incredible.

-When my honest accomplishments could not be imitated and purchased for others pretending to show up in their own lives I was free.

I had to stop caring about the things I could not change and embrace what I could effect.

-I will never have interest in the snow globe existence – unless it’s a staging concept.

Success in my life was undeniably defined as failure in their world and I was to feel lucky for any sort of pat on the head in the way of acknowledgement, and I see this in my career as well.  I think this is why I am relating so strongly to Roseanne’s story.

When the show went to No. 1 in December 1988, ABC sent a chocolate “1” to congratulate me. Guess they figured that would keep the fat lady happy—or maybe they thought I hadn’t heard (along with the world) that male stars with No. 1 shows were given Bentleys and Porsches. So me and George Clooney [who played Roseanne Conner’s boss for the first season] took my chocolate prize outside, where I snapped a picture of him hitting it with a baseball bat. I sent that to ABC.

The thing about shame being a liar is it can eat up all of your time and energy because it never makes any sense.  So, the time you spend trying to figure out nonsensical things could probably be better spent say…knitting.  Shame is a world populated with cowards.  And, cowards hide under rocks.  So, the best way to remove shame and all that comes with it is to expose everything to light.  Full disclosure.  My family stopped harassing me exactly when I said, “I will not keep your secrets.”

The one thing shame inducing entities never suspect is that they have pissed off a writer.

Those of us coming up through the blue collar ranks are rarely suspected of having any sort of intelligence.  It should be one or the other.  Sweat and grit or thought and business suits.  Fascinating.

Hollywood hates labor, and hates shows about labor worse than any other thing. And that’s why you won’t be seeing another Roseanne anytime soon. Instead, all over the tube, you will find enterprising, overmedicated, painted-up, capitalist whores claiming to be housewives. But I’m not bitter.

And, today Jack Johnson is appearing on indictment charges.  So, there is the shame of Prince George’s County.  The County where I grew up.  The school system that exposed me to theatre that now has essentially cut the arts (therefor the hearts) out of its programming.  The place where my Grandmother ran a boarding house for the wives of soldiers and my Grandfather donated land so that Forestville would have a fire house.  The county that gave about 1/2 of the land to DC so that the district would exist.  The county that is shamed by shameful people hiding under rocks.  Shamed.  And, I have pride here.  Pride.  And, hope.  I’ve met the new leadership and they bring me so much hope.  I think we’re all fed up.

Also, in the news today is that Arnold and Maria are splitting because he fathered a child with another woman.  Just like John Edwards.  Actually, this should probably be its own blog entry.  Naming the men in politics who have fathered children outside of their marriages.  Rosanne has her own story on that one too!  The question is, why do the wives suffer the shame?  In the statements of the men they have had errors in judgement and want to protect their families.  This must be a cut and paste statement.  If they really felt that way then why didn’t they just fess up before forced into it?  Say it gentlemen.

I cannot keep my penis in my pants and sometimes I create children that I may not even know about but I really don’t care because it feels good.  It has nothing to do with my wife.  I’m just a noncommittal polygamist at heart.  The shame is all mine.  I will now divorce my wife and take full responsibility for lying to so many people by say…NOT lying anymore.

The shame is always put on the wife and it has nothing at all to do with her.  That’s the thing about shame.  It’s like a pantiless sex fiend at Studio 54 in the 70′s.  It doesn’t care.  It just wants what it wants – to spread its venereal diseases – and if you are standing there willing to give it any kind of space or time it will TAKE it.  Shame is therefor, a lying pantiless diseased whore.  Have I made myself clear?

I’ve been thinking about this shift out of shame.  This is a place of real integrity and honesty.  It’s incredible really.  The love that I feel now was not something I ever thought possible as a youth.  Sincerely.  And, that’s the lesson for me.  The truth.  Exposure to light.  Stepping through the journey.  It’s worth it.  And, it’s worth it because of what lies at the other end which is real growth and integration.  So, as I see myself confrontational in meetings which I have been for the past month, I have no shame around that because I am speaking my truth.  Make no mistake, I am PISSED OFF.  I’m ready to fight.  I.  Am.  Ready.  To.  Fight.  Not because I’m violent but because I’m tired of carrying some lie because I offered to hold the shame-purse with the intention of helping somehow.  Tired of the gag orders issued by the snow globe police.  It is liberating to speak truth.  It is.  Of course, we were supposed to know that already.  I should have.  Life.

This producer was a woman, a type I became acquainted with at the beginning of my stand-up career in Denver. I cared little for them: blondes in high heels who were so anxious to reach the professional level of the men they worshipped, fawned over, served, built up, and flattered that they would stab other women in the back. They are the ultimate weapon used by men against actual feminists who try to work in media, and they are never friends to other women, you can trust me on that.

And, it’s here that I have to wonder about shame and its legacy for women.  Because until we honestly fall in love with ourselves.  Until we take that dark walk and fess up and face it we are passing on the grim diseases to the next generation.  In the news today, the Kardashians.  Mother’s throw their daughters under the bus because of their unresolved shame.  Women become their bodies and deprive their spirits.  It must stop.

Enough.

May we all keep talking.

May we bring on the light!

Venus Training Challenge

Starting tomorrow, Monday April 4th, I will be giving myself this challenge for the entire month.  Please feel free to join me.  I’m basing this on Cynthia Coopers play, “How She Played the Game”. Venus read the play in 2002 and spent several  years touring it as a solo work.  It focuses on six incredible athletes that should never have been erased.  So, if you’d like to remember them with me this month, please take up the challenge.

We’ll be opening an international premiere in May and anyone who has committed to and completed the challenge will get a free ticket to the show.  Scouts honor.  Feel free to comment and I’ll put this on Facebook as well for comments and photos.

Here it is:

EVERY MORNING BABE DIDRIKSON

MORNINGS ARE FOR BABE:  set your alarm 30 minutes early and log in 2 miles before your morning shower.  If you miss it you can use all day to make it up.  Run, jog, walk, or crawl but this is the central challenge and should happen Mon-Fri everyday.

There is no doubt that Babe Didrickson is one of the greatest athletes who has ever lived.  She played every sport.  In her later years she loved golf.  She played baseball.  She single handedly won a basketball championship.  In fact, in 1932 she competed in 8 events at the AAU meet which also served as the Olympic try-outs and she WON SIX OF THEM!  Her trainer Colonel McCombs told the press:  “She has no equal.  Her only fault…is that she unconsciously and unknowingly overtrains…”.  His training for her was to have her get up and run two miles before breakfast.  Eat/Shower/Dress then spend the day in the field training for every event in which she would compete.  There were ten.

“She won the shot put and long jump, and broke the world record in the javelin, the baseball throw, the 80-meter hurdles, and the high jump. Her overall point total amounted to 30, eight more than the entire 22-woman University of Illinois team.”

AFTERNOONS WITH ELEANOR, ALTHEA, TRUDY, SONJA, or GRETEL

AFTERNOON DELIGHT!  most of these women were olympians.  You can google them or order Cindy’s play to learn more.  This is a great parent child activity by the way.  These athletes trained several hours a day and in our world you don’t likely have that kind of time.  So, here are some options that can also be effective as weekend events with the family.  They should last 45 minutes, minimum.  I’m designating days here but feel free to shuffle them around, print them out, cut them into slivers, and put them into an activity jar and have someone pick randomly, if you like.

ELEANOR SEARS MONDAY

Add a 45 minute walk after dinner.  Set your mind to the challenge by envisioning some obstacle in your way and every Monday, simply walk beyond it.

alternate:  go horseback riding.

There’s not a ton known about Eleo because she is the furthest out in the time line.  Her name keeps popping up here and there and slowly we learn more and more about her.  On a dare she walked and won the right to wear pants.  She also played polo and was an all around sports woman.

ALTHEA GIBSON TUESDAY

Put off immediate homework plans in the late afternoon and hit around a tennis ball for 45 minutes before dinner.

Althea won Wimbleton long before the William’s sisters were around.  She was also a recording artist.  Parties were held in her honor and often she was not allowed to attend them due to racism.  Althea grew up in the streets of Brooklyn and had quite a temper. She tended to get into fistfights.  A trainer spotted her and taught her how to “beat the liver and lights out of the ball.”

GERTRUDE EDERLE WEDNESDAY

Get in the water.  45 minutes moving in it.  Walk, swim laps, tread water.  45 minutes before you get home from work or school.

Trudy loved to swim.  I met her only one month before her passing at the age of 98 and she referenced the downpour outside saying she could swim on the sidewalk.  She told me as a child she’d jump in the Hudson River at Sandy Hook and swim to Jersey and back for fun. She swam the English Channel breaking the records of the three men before her by hours…in a storm…swimming extra miles…

SONJA HENIE THURSDAY

Get snobby.  Feel pretty.  Do something delicious that may cause others to scoff at you.  Take a dance class and wear tights proudly on Thursdays.

alternate: put on 45 minutes of your favorite music and jump around your living room after giving yourself a make-over.

Sonja was around before Barbie.  She was wealthy.  As a girl in Norway, she wanted to keep up with her big brother who seemed to live in his hockey skates.  So she did.  She also took ballet and was a wonderful dancer.  One day on the frozen pond not far behind her brother she mixed the two and began ice dancing.  At the Olympics her skirt was too short and her style was outside of the guidelines.  She finished last and was humiliated.  She was known to be competitive and stuck to an incredibly rigid daily routine.  Her pre-performance ritual included sleeping in her hotel room until her manager/Father sent a car to pick her up exactly 1/2  hour before she had to be on the ice.

GRETEL BERGMANN (MARGARET LAMBERT) FRIDAY

Run and jump.  Find an outdoor obstacle course and challenge yourself to face whatever seems impossible.

Gretel was not able to compete in the Olympics because they were in Germany and she was Jewish.  Hitler allowed her to stay and train and think she would compete until the US announced that they would indeed be a part of the games.  This was 1936, the year Jesse Owens made his triumphant victory.  Gretel wasn’t allowed to train on Aryan facilities but was kept in cut off shorts to train in the potato fields.

“The Women’s Olympic High Jump gold medalist three weeks later equaled Bergmann’s German record mark. Without the Jewish High Jumper, Germany’s remaining women jumpers finished third and fourth in the event. (The fourth-place finisher would reveal 30 years later that she was a man.)”

We stand on amazing shoulders.  Everyone has a fascinating story to tell.  I’d LOVE to hear yours.

I’ll see you at Venus Theatre in May.

Treat yourself like the beautiful woman that you are and remember them, do them proud, don’t hold back now!!!

Women’s History Month-INDEED!

Well, hello.

Time got away from me for a second there.  Things are going really well at Venus Theatre.  So much is in the hopper.

We bid farewell to March (Women’s History Month) having pulled together a band called the sheshes and produced three solo shows.  Two of them were developed at Venus.

That’s why I’ve been a little out of touch.  Today, I cast our international premiere which will be coming to you in May.  It’s called, “The Stenographer” by Zoe Mavroudi.  What an incredible writer she is!  Her solo work has gotten some notice on BBC Radio as well.  Just incredible.

Zoe resides in Athens, Greece so we have about a 12 hour communication gap between us.  Once I get her completely updated, I’ll let you know the details.  I’m really excited about this play.

Some things I’ve learned over the past month:

-Taxes come around every year so might as well just roll with that and not give into too much stress, even if you have to stay up late for a bit.  I say this as I type having been up for about two days on tax deadlines.  *shakes fist at sky*

-Celebrating Her-Story was an incredible journey at Venus Theatre this year.  Women are strong.  And have been since the beginning of time.  Finding their stories is liberating and empowering.

-The stories of strong women are important to men too. Two male playwrights brought women to life this month.  In working with them it became very clear how the stories of women are also the stories of men.

-Maryland is an impressive state.  With 13.3 mill budget passing yesterday the arts will stay alive here.

-BRAC at Ft Meade is going to expand the area of Venus Theatre in ways that are hard to articulate.  The numbers are shockingly higher than we were once told.  Approximately as many as 60,000 new jobs are being created in Howard County.

-Venus Theatre is located in Laurel, MD.  Four counties meet in Laurel.  To the North, Howard.  To the South, Prince Georges.  These two counties are simply divided by the Little Patuxent River.  To the East, Anne Arundel.  And to the West, Montgomery.

Add to that the participation Venus has with the Laurel Board of Trade, the Helen Hayes Awards, and the League of Washington Theatres and you can see that life has been keeping me busy.

This is just a quick jot of a blog post.  Hoping your Spring will be magnificent!

Venus Begins Year 11 with Charlotte Cushman.

A couple of months ago, I decided it would be a great idea to revamp my vision and dive back in at Venus Theatre.  We begin the year with a solo play called, “The Last Reading of Charlotte Cushman”.  I wanted to enter into the new decade of Venus by embracing different forms which give artists a kind of liberation.  Solo works have been important to many of us and I really wanted to offer up a platform for Women’s History Month.

Watching Karen Shields perform Carolyn Gage’s play is an experience for me that I can’t quite wrap my brain all the way around.  Of course I can’t because it’s not a thought, it’s not a theory it’s an experience.  The pride that comes up when I watch Karen on my stage is hard to describe.  This is it.  This is the world I want to support, the art I want to bring to my community, the reason I wake up in the morning and dive in.

Turns out Cushman was the director of the Walnut Street Theatre in 1843.  And, Karen taught me that the Walnut Street Theatre is the longest running theatre in the United States.  Fascinating.  Cushman supported her whole family with her acting.  She was the first great American actor.

One thing I love about the writing of Carolyn Gage is her levity.  Many people focus on her politic.  Her radicalism.  To me, Carolyn is a prolific writer with a sense of comedy that really can’t be touched.  I’ve always seen this in her writing and it’s always been an amazing experience staging her works at Venus.  But this time Break the Mold Productions has already done the work.  Karen and this piece have been nominated for three awards in New Orleans.  I just sit back on my heels and watch the woman work after setting a few lighting cues with Technician Lauren during one tech rehearsal.

Hearing about the person Cushman was is so interesting but falling into classical pieces of writing with Shields is something I don’t think I’ve ever experienced in the theatre before.  It’s the power of immersion.  While structures are flying up and budgets are so extreme I can’t even fathom the numbers, what’s happening under my roof is very simple.  Modest even.  Incredibly human.  We share breath.  We go all the way inside of the experience because the space is so intimate and the experience is so intimate and the moment is so precious and the artistry so pure, and there we are.

We.

Me.

Karen Costanzi who runs box office, and four patrons who have made it clear I should keep my doors open so they can keep coming to see the work at Venus.  And, Alan.  My singular support system.  There we are.

A humiliation sets in.  This woman has traveled from the Delta.

A rage blows through me.  Why can’t people walk 10 minutes or take a 20 minute drive to experience this?  Where are the young actors that I have put on my stage and why aren’t they exposing themselves to the brilliance of this work?

Then outrage.  Not even 8 people.  Four paying customers.  Four.

I think, for the resource it takes to run my theatre, I could travel the world and expose myself to incredible works.  Why am I doing this?

Why?

Then the beginnings of ridiculous jokes start to run through my brain, Snookie and Charlie Sheen go to a Lady Gaga concert…

I don’t know what to think.

I’m up half the night ranting.

I know for sure that if I hear one more person begin a sentence with, “You know what you should do…” I will shove some accessory of theirs into some orifice of theirs and who needs that?

A long time ago I knew that I must write the definition for the success of my own life.  I knew that if I didn’t I would either be dead pretty quickly or lost in the armpit of dysfunction.  And, a long time ago I decided that I would wake up everyday doing the work that I love to do.  And for many years I tried to pretend that work happened in a cubicle under florescent lighting.  I organized insurance offices.  I waited tables.  I invented office systems.  I answered phones.  I got sick from a toxic life of pretending I was fine.  But, I had health insurance.  There’s a strange balance.

So, now I wake up and I work with some of the best actors I’ve ever seen.  And, I give a space for some of the wisest writing I have ever found.  And, I dive around inside of a classic.  And, I’m actively meditating on Charlotte Cushman, and Gabrielle Bompart, and Lou Salome.  EVERY DAY.  This is my life.  And, I’m fighting to turn the neighborhood my theatre is in into an arts district.  I don’t have health insurance and my income ranks at poverty level, so there’s that.  But, I’m showing up as best as I can and I’m praying to sell ten tickets to each show.  It’s such a modest goal.  I’m wondering about all of the Universities that surround us.  My own not even 20 miles away.  Wondering about the Board of Trade where I was elected a Director.  No one shows.  Wondering about the Prince George’s County Arts Council some of whom have never been to ANY theatre ANYWHERE.  Wondering.  Where are the people!?  Where ARE they?

Are these people insulating on their couch in some microcosmic virtual snowglobe trying their best to be still and not shake up the plastic flakes?  And, if so, what does that say about small professional theatre?  And, what happens to the writers?  What happens to them?  And, what happens to process.  Where did it go?

Did we lose process to the information age because now things appear at a single push of the button.  Because of extreme accessibility to information and virtual communication are we now going to lose the ability to connect in a room together?  Not knowing the script?  Not being able to jump to another hyperlink if we, for a single moment, become uncomfortable or bored.  I mean, what happens next?  Really.  The world terrifies us.  Right now are people in the comfort of their snowglobes live streaming Japan attempting to process another tsunami, extreme loss of life, to see if there will be a nuclear holocaust?  How horrifying and may Japan be showered with love and light!!!

Do we have so much extreme violence in our world that we need stillness in our culture?

Maybe we don’t want to be pushed.  Maybe we want safety.  I understand that.  But, it’s important to keep growing and connecting.

Fear or Love?

Choose.

I’ve been avoiding writing anything like this but now, I can tell you that I merely provided the space for the Cushman piece, and some housing.  I haven’t directed it, produced it, or written it.  It comes in from New Orleans after three nominations including best actor and best drama.  This announced on the night the Helen Hayes Awards once again ignored an entire years worth of work at Venus Theatre.  With the Chairman of the Bored announcing that they embrace the very old and the very young.  What about everything in between?  What about process?  What about risk?  What about discovery?

What will I do?

What will we do?

Because I think this is epidemic.

I go back to watching Shields perform.  To watching a single human being embody a force of nature.  To watching the risk and catching my breath with her and laughing in a room together with people I don’t know outside of this place and sharing the well up in the eyes of tears too.  To feeling, going, being and what else is there for me to do?

This form saved my life.  I invented worlds.  I came to understand some kind of unseen chorus that made sense of it all and that became a restoration of human spirit.  Hope.  Understanding that all things are possible.  And for me, just to BE, to stand at the back doors of a theatre was something that healed my soul when I was younger.  I could go anywhere.  I could do anything there.  Labels didn’t exist there.

Only story.  Only adventure.  Only choices.

So, tonight you’ll find me in my theatre.

Where else would I be?

Maryland Arts Day.

Exactly one week ago I had the great experience of attending this event in Annapolis, MD.  I know many of my contemporaries are as booked out as I am and so I wanted to post some of the things I walked away with.  I found the whole experience incredibly inspired.

Venus Theatre was gifted a grant from the Prince George’s County Arts Council last year.  I was able to meet Melanie Griffith who is our representative on the council.  Interesting, because we spent the morning prepping to make the case for arts funding and when I found myself in the room with Representative Griffith she seemed to be more articulate than I could ever be on the subject.

Her philosophy:  if we fill our childrens hands with all things expressive and artistic they will have no means or desire or time to pick up crack pipes and guns.

As a kid I grew up in the county.  Went to public schools there.  Was exposed to theatre there.  Because they offered the class.  Went on to be the Prez of the Drama club at PGCC where I learned to produce and direct.  Also, my family was somewhat influential a while back.  My grandfather gave land to build the Forestville Fire House.  And, after touring around and performing in various states, I must say being home is an incredible feeling!

We were advised to speak to the Economic Impact the Arts has on a community.  In 2009 for example, arts businesses generated 1.4 billion dollars and gave jobs to 12,000 people.

This came out to 41 million dollars collected in state income taxes.

Maryland is hoping to hold onto level funding.  Even though the numbers don’t go up, the fact that they don’t go down is considered growth in this economy.  The state hopes to give a level 13.3 million in arts funding this year.  They do this by taking 1/10 of 1 percent.  So, one penny on every ten dollars.  There’s also a chance that another million will be generated from the taxation on bingo machines.  But, that’s got to go through the general assembly first under something called the BRFA bill.

Then Eliot, a man largely responsible for the existence of Strathmore Hall spoke.  In all fairness, before he spoke he auctioned off a cartoon image of the President created by another speaker, DAR.  So, in about two minutes the man raised $400 for the arts.  Teaching me at least, that until you ask you’ll never get it.  It was a powerful and spontaneous demonstration.

His talking points when it comes to talking about one’s art org and the need for funding shone up on the wall as follows:

Compose your story

Be early

Have a fast start

Be respectful

Be grateful

No more than 3 talking points, 2 is better, 1 best in this economy

Listen well

Answer only what you know

Make THE ASK

Give yourself a clean getaway

This idea came up in the morning too, the Quarterback.  I’m not so good at sports so I may screw this metaphor up.  But, the Quarterback announces the important person at an important event.  But, you’re supposed to meet them off season so they can pay attention to you on season.

During lunch Bill Pensick spoke about the War of 1812 and the memorial being heavily funded by the state.  The history is very important and the memorial should be beautiful.

I only paid so much attention to his powerpoint presentation because the veggie meal provider slowly crashed into a phone pole on the way and we were all hopped up on chips and soda while awaiting an emergency pasta rescue.

In this powerpoint blur I believe I learned something about another Randall.  Aquila Randall gave his live on September 12, 1812 at the age of 24.  I wonder if there is a relation?  I love hearing about good Randall’s.  There are some treturous ones out there! If there is a connection this may explain away my leaning toward identifying Irish when there’s been no real evidence.  Anyway..

Sue Hess gave an award to E. Scott Johnson.  This was the main MCA event at the center of the day.  This was so moving.  Mr. Johnson, being a true advocate of the arts, made his speech about information and further advocacy with absolutely no sense of entitlement or being owed.  It was a beautiful moment.  He talked about Maryland Lawyers for Artists.  Being a full time lawyer, this was his baby and he still stays in touch with the organization.  He also talked about CAMM, Community Arts Alliance of Maryland.  Very gracious, arts loving people were everywhere!  About 400 of them.

Soonafter we went into break out sessions.  There were three.  And, I chose to attend something called, Connecting Cultural Organizations to the 21st Century Skills Movement.

We heard from Helen J. Wechsler, Sr. Programs Officer of  the Institue of Museum and Library Services Partnership for the 21st Century.  www.p21.org.  She pointed out some really useful tools and the new ways of thinking that must happen in order to move us all forward.

Helen asked us to picture a five year old in our lives.  Then, she asked us to imagine them at the age of 20.  She asked what that world would look like.  Then, she said that we need to check in with our structures to see that we are setting everything up to land there.

“There’s a world ahead of us.  Kids need to be prepared.  How do we do that?”  www.imls.gov

Then, this man spoke who actually put my brain in proper order.  His name is Gary Vikan and he is the Executive Director of the Walters Art Gallery.  I was completely absorbed and I’ll try to reiterate what he was saying in some bullet points:

-Informal/Lifetime learning is increasingly critical (as opposed to formal institutions)

-When it comes to one’s business, ask yourself- is the above a part of the mission?

-Arts are not expendable, they are deeply necessary, this is a culture/value situation.

-The assets artists and arts org’s bring to the table are public assets

* quality of life * Strategic future of the United States *

-Advocate within your own tent.

Finally, Chris Woodside spoke.  He is a lobbyist for the arts.  I know.  I thought all lobbyist were evil arts hating starched suits.  Nay.  To sum up Chris’ experience of what is most effective:

We have to get the kids to the forefront.  If we don’t, if we insist on clinging to old ways of thinking and communicating the country will take a back slide.  There will be a gap and we will become an inferior place.  So, we need to pull children in at a young age and get them invested in their communities and the world.

All of the above is my paraphrasing from a week ago.  Apologies if I slipped anywhere.  But, this is what I walked away with,

And, you know, I felt really lucky.  To be able to create in a world that has a tendency to destroy is a great gift.

Tremendous.

Following up with important dates:

Thursday March 3 – House Budget Hearing in Annapolis

Monday March 7 – Senate Budget Hearing in Annapolis

Monday and Tuesday April 4 and 5 – Washington, DC  Federal fight to keep NEA alive.

Be there if you can!

 

 

 

The bAnd.

Okay.  So, on February 14 we will launch 2011 officially here at Venus Theatre.  SO EXCITED!  I’ve had two months to really think and now a month and a half to put people and projects together.

One thing I discovered in my moments of meditation is that I need to continue to celebrate creatively.  Without that, I become an administrator/middle management.  I was born to play and to build a playground.  Using theatre as the medium.  Period.

So, I’ve decided to pick up the guitar and get back to my Molly Passion.  Eventually my play was published in an anthology.  It’s the last play in the collection.  The first is written by Jason Miller.  He was the Priest in the original Exorcist film.  I digress.

We’ve formed a band!  It’s comprised of Amy Rhodes.  She was in the initial Molly Maguire cast.  She plays flute and bass.  And Andrea Abrams.  She was in the touring Molly Project.  She sings and plays a sort of keyboard bagpipe wooden box-thing.  And then, there’s me.  I play guitar and sing.  We mostly know the same songs.  I mostly wrote all of them.  But, we are just learning to play them together.  I find this to be really invigorating and exciting.

We have band practice tomorrow.  Alan is going to be there.  He’s the musical director of Venus Theatre.  He’s a musical genius.  So, I wonder how I’ll sleep tonight because I’m really excited to be in the bAnd.

Here’s the thing.  The name.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hurled band names around.  Rancid Butter.  That’s the one that stuck most.  But, that’s definitely for when I plug in the electric and do socially conscious shredding laced with a feminist message.

The bAnd.  The name?

Okay so I was meeting with a friend.  Okay, we were drinking beer.  Okay, it was a bar crawl in Fells Point.  And, she tells us this story.  Her five year old son is now noticing his anatomy along with the anatomy of well, EVERYONE.

He tells my friend, his Mother, that boys have penises and girls have giants that live in clouds.  Brilliant.  So, I want to name the band Cloud Giants.  But, I don’t think it’s folky enough.

So,  here we are.  In the shows Maeve has been the named singer.  Daughters of Molly Maguire is the name of the initial play.  Then it was, Are you a Daughter of Molly Maguire.  Then, it was the Molly Project.  That became the umbrella.  But, we already have Flogging Molly out there, so I think there’s not much left to do with Molly.

In the initial show I named the characters after celtic goddesses.  So, Amy’s character was called Findabair (white phantom).  So, what do you think of Finda?

For some reason it’s sticking with me.  We are bringing back stories of the dead with this project, always.  And, we are pale women.  My other thought was Mab.  Which is the same character as Maeve.  Or Queen Mab.  Shakespeare used her spelled that way.  She’s Queen of the fairies no matter how you slice it.  Magic.  And, also there’s the beatious poem written by Shelley in 1813.

So, that’s that.  I don’t know.  Thoughts?

Patterns of History

So, I was wondering about the classics.  Shakespeare, Moliere, Ibsen, Strindberg, and on and on.  Because there are few female writers preserved through the annals of time, there must be ways women have had to play catch-up.

As for me, I’ve done four solo shows.  One by John Ford Noonan.  That was, “All She Cares About Is the Yankees”.  He wrote to me that Samuel French had put it out of print at the time and that it was his favorite.  It was an incredible experience.  Then, Cynthia Coopers, “How She Played the Game”.  Six female athletes that had gone virtually unacknowledged.  I was able to meet one.  Gertrude Ederle.  She was humble and joyful and 98 years old.  I sat with her in a nursing home for three hours.  We chatted while Kobe Bryant was on the news talking about buying his way out of infidelity with diamonds.

I wrote two solo shows myself.  “Til It Hurts”.  And, eventually it did.  It really did.  I started performing that piece on the birthday of my estranged Father and wrapped on my own birthday.  None of this intentionally planned.  That was the play that should have had the kitchen sink fall out and onto the stage instead of a curtain call.  I was able to perform it EVERYWHERE.  Bookstores.  The back of bars.  Source festival.  Arts on Foot.  Innovator’s Series at Gunston Arts Center.  All, or sections, of that play were performed from April to October 1999 (I think).  I remember having to wait at 1409 Playbill for Joy Zinnomen to wrap up her Mother’s birthday dinner so that I could clear the room and take the “stage”.  The stage that some patrons had mistaken for a bathroom in the middle of a monologue.  It was an interesting journey.

Then, after writing a show for twelve performers, then two, then three, the Molly Maguire ten year obsession turned into a one-woman show.  This is published in an anthology and taught in a class at Penn State.  I performed this piece for years and years.  Through states. There were moments where I met with Grandchildren of the woman I portrayed and told them about their own relatives.  Stories they’d never heard.  Really fascinating experiences, altering.

As I read my Strindberg and Moliere and Shakespeare and Ibsen, I yearn for the female perspective of yore.  Virginia Woolf said that Anonymous was a woman.  Funny.  True.  Strange erasure.

So, it brings me to question the female solo show.  Because at least half of the time (and, this is based on no scientific study) the characters are resurrected from history.  My friend Carolyn has one about Joan of Arc, Calamity Jane, and it leaves me wondering.

I remember waiting tables at the Paper Moon in Georgetown in the 80′s.  Lily Tomlin came in because the French restaurant was overbooked.  Everyone bought her wine and when I offered her a bottle from my table she asked if they wouldn’t mind buying her a cup of coffee instead.  How I wished I could have pulled up a chair and asked her some questions.  Like, what was the significant of “Searching for Signs of Intellegent Life in the Universe”?  Was it a vehicle for her?  Why would she take on such a risky task when she’d already acquired status and experience?  I know that someone else wrote it.  It was a collaboration.  It wasn’t historical.  But, it did give her a chance to fly through varying roles and embrace many facets of her abilities.  I wonder about it.

I myself am standing here on the corner of Walk/Don’t Walk and wondering.  Trying to adjust the tinfoil on my head, one could say.

First, in terms of filling in the historical gap.  Just looking at process alone is staggering to me.  These men usually were actors first.  They were writing for other actors they liked to work with in many cases.  Company  members.  They were oddballs.  Outcasts.  I’m generalizing, I know.  Which is always dangerous.

But, for women everything seems so institutionalized.  How much can actually be accomplished in the context of the educational microcosm which tends to be devoid of the real?  Everything is already paid for.  It changes the stakes.  It alters the color.  I wish I had more access to the contemporaries of these men I so admire.  There are some women preserved.  Note the pic of Aphra here.  Virginia Woolf had to buy a used printing press and she was a novelist, that helps but it doesn’t go all the way in answering what female playwrights were writing.  Edwardian Comedy boasts a deluge of amazing female theatrical artists through the suffrage movement.  Essentally ALL of those plays are now out-of-print.  Why aren’t they being taught?  It’s so confusing.

I have a strong intuition that as a female artist we dig to find it because we need to know who we are and where we come from in order to stand in our best light in the day to day.  It’s hard to do that when one gender has had that power for so long. I mean it drove Shakespeare’s protagonists mad, you know?

It would be amazing to hear stories -if there are artists out there that care to share their experience- with cultivating solo projects.  Because, I’m torn.  Theatre is collaborative by nature.  It’s liberating to be able to throw your set in the car and hit the road with maybe one technician and road manager-if you’re lucky.  But, it’s not really collaboration.  It’s liberation.

It’s such a liberating alternative to playing the standards.  But, it’s limiting too.  Many times we tell our own stories.  Many times, we capture ourselves through the unknown shoulders on which we stand.

How important is the solo play process to women developing their artistic voice?

Transparency.

After running a Company for a decade I’ve learned to put into managerial practice what I have come to refer to as the act of  transparency.

Transparency.

The darkness defines the light.

This frightens people.

It’s kind of the personal equivalent to co-dependency which says, “I won’t keep your secrets”.  This concept has come to me over time.

In times of extreme rage with people who have wronged the work and then run away, I’ve found myself repeating the mantra: cowards hide under rocks.  I think this was my way of letting myself know to keep stepping up into the light and not worry about the creatures of cowardice.  By the way, I have met many of them.  You know that moment, when you finally have a few minutes to deal with the wrong that you’ve been recovering from and saving the farm over for an extended period?  The clouds part and there is a temptation to go coward hunting.  Start lifting those rock and sinking down into the sulfurous mud.  All the while holding a well-worn gardening shoveling above your head ready to take a good cracking swing, you find your arm begins to tire.  Well, I do.

Then, in the sad times, I’ve found myself chanting the mantra:  the darkness defines the light.  This was perhaps powerful and profound, or maybe a masochistic cowardice way to rationalize dark times.  The theory being that even the smallest spark illuminates.  So, no matter how difficult the industry.  No matter how much the 17% refused to shift, it was still 17% light.  Still, 17% of women getting plays produced which is not zero.  Not complete darkness.

Each time a new mantra presented itself I began to notice that always there was this image of light.  Light.  Ah, light.  Alight.

transparent  adj. 1.  Capable of transmitting light so that objects and images beyond can be clearly perceived.

And so, here I am.  Transparent.  Talking about it.  About how hard this job is.  About how amazing it is.  About all of it.  Not keeping secrets.  And, you have to begin to think that there’s some power in that, isn’t there?

So, without crossing a line, let me tell about my year here at Venus Theatre with the intention of transparency.

We produced four full shows and did a reading at the Kennedy Center.  That’s 65 performances this year alone, add-in about 150 rehearsals and a renovation of the space and you begin to see what the workload has been like with very little funding.  Yet, everyone has gotten paid with only eight actors left – a few weeks to get money to four of them and months for the other four.

Let’s do an artistic profit/loss analysis, shall we?

Profit:

Well, we brought Zelda Fitzgerald to life with “Zelda at the Oasis” in a town not far from her burial site with a script that was rejected by the Fitzgerald Organization 13 years prior and had never been produced.  Our Zelda was nominated for an audience choice award with DC Theatre Scene.  I’ll take that as a major win.

We covered four women on death row in Texas in May.  On September 22, the state of Virginia walked Teresa Lewis into her death chamber.  The Venus production of “In the Goldfish Bowl” was able to embrace and explore the conditions these women lived in, and the world in which they committed heinous acts.  It was difficult, at first, to look at unlikeable characters that the audience despised at the start, then amazing to watch them fall in love with those same characters through a journey that was jolting and powerful.

Imagination was alight in September and we defied the laws of physics and nature when Isabel freed her entire family from the self-hating dominance of a Mother-turned-monster with the only tool she had, her imagination.  After the Venus Theatre world premier, “Play Nice!” is now being given an equity showcase performance in NYC in 2011.

We took on breast cancer through the perspective of the love to two sisters.  “Looking for the Pony” moved audiences in ways I KNOW they never expected.  It is the first time Venus Theatre has been given a Helen Hayes recommended status.  Ever. Take into account that haunting 17% dim light and realize that this regional premiere (written by a woman, Andrea Lepcio) held it’s own with major houses in the city producing tried and true works (by male writers).  That’s something right there.  Something that is kind of unheard of.

“Another Manhatten” was an amazing experience at the Kennedy Center’s page-to-stage festival over the summer.  Claudia Barnett used the history of Manhatten Island as well as the the event of 911 to weave a story that was engaging.  When I worked with Claudia I was a little shocked about how excited she was to first receive my feedback to her and then to see our two rehearsals.  She took copious notes and went into rewrites with the utmost respect.  She contemplated my notes with extreme diligence.  It was nice to have a moment of play development over the year.

This is all great stuff.  These are all major accomplishments.  And, I brought in more guest directors than ever before and scaled back on actors this year.  Lots to process.  All of the great stuff is a bit overwhelming.

But, there was loss.  Financial loss, yes.  Loss in the way of disrespecting the form has been the greatest blow, cost, damage to the Company (to ME) this year.  I am a collaborator, not their bitzch.

Loss:

Some of the artistic team of one of the productions decided to remount without going into production negotiations with Venus and actually stole the show.  This was an interesting moment for me.  There was the chance to go into litigation.  I realized when I had five lawyers on it at one time that there are benefits to having incredible friends in various professions.  In the end, after AMAZING guidance, I decided to:  let go of the rope in that tug of war.  In theatre, we must have trust.  And this was a great loss.  Because, I had given these people an opportunity to do a great piece of work and their response was theft.  In fact, it was the first time in my entire theatre existence (almost 30 years) that I was not invited to my own cast party.  I understand they perceive me as some kind of beast.  And, I honestly had them for that.  I hate them.  Shovel-UP-HATRED!

Then, going into the next show one of the actors just pulled out 8 rehearsals into the process.  Oops, just said her car couldn’t make it to rehearsal and then drove her script back to us.  Bye bye.  There were only about 20/25 rehearsals total.  Amazingly, we found another actor who was MUCH stronger and pulled the show up to new levels.  This, coupled with the three actors that held the line, was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever witnessed.

Then, we ran out of money and, for the production necessary on one show, I threw myself back into credit card debt.  Bad move on my part.  But, I deferred to the professionals.  Only, no one knows the ins and outs of my Company as much as me.  So.  I have to hold myself accountable for that one.

Finally, halfway through the final run the Stage Manager who was to be the new Producing Director resigned through an email from his cell phone on a late Monday morning after I had just seen him on Sunday.  I still have so much rage about this I could spit nails.  Shovel-UP-HATRED!  He put the entire project at risk.  It would have been a sound decision to close the show because the guy was running lights and sound, and was allegedly in charge.  But, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and re-teched the entire show in one night.  Two actors and a director from previous shows in the year appeared to keep Venus flying.  I won’t ever forget that.  I won’t EVER forget it.

So, for each devastating loss, there was an even larger lift and blessing.

Yeah.

There is this light of transparency that my artists have gifted me by doing the work that they do best.  I want to rage.  I want to be furious about the people who slipped, let me, moreover MY PEOPLE, down.  But, it doesn’t add up.  It is difficult for me not to expect the very best from every individual.  The truth is, people aren’t always up to their best.  Some people never are.

So honestly, they gave what they had to give.  And, they did what they did and they showed us all who they really are, and sometimes that comes with a good bit of ignorance, arrogance, and an elevated sense of what those individuals are capable of.  Sometimes, life will just jump up and bite a person on the rump.  This truth is a great gift to me on all levels.

As for myself.  I’m proud.  REALLY proud!  Because as much as I want to rip crimped hair out by the roots, or run people over with my little Yaris, it turns out that I am ridiculously sane. Just can’t go loco.  Though, I do have my fantasies.  But, these works this year have moved me too deeply.  They’ve taught me too much.

They have taught me: LOVE WINS, the smallest moments can be the most profound experiences, there is a grace to spirit when it is reaching for growth, there is laughter inside of the growing pains, the rhythms of stories and the people in them make their own kind of music, immortality exists and lives inside of the pens and bodies of the storytellers -and if we want to, we can LIVE it.

LOVE WINS!

To have sanity after a life in this craft is a great gift.  To remain passionate, is a rarity.  And, to be surrounded by fellow artists of passion, integrity, and great talent is beyond anything I could have ever wished for.

I do feel hurt professionally.  That I would have taken my company out on a limb only to be robbed or discredited is nothing less than evil on some level.  But, people are flawed.  And, this is the business of people.  None of that is my doing.  And, I have to ask myself this about the loss:  Is it worth hardening and giving into a system that you know doesn’t work in order to avoid certain devastation?  Nope, self.  Nope.

So…

PROFIT!  (with a side of slight heartache and tears, and time needed to diffuse real hatred Shovel-UP-HATRED!)  Batting cages anyone?

Now, to apply all of this to the future and shape a new animal.

A more transparent animal, if you will.

That’s going to take some time.

Yeah.

ouch.

 

 

 

 

Dear Peter Marks,

Some background

Yesterday, there was a lot of exchange going on with regard to an article in the Post by Peter Marks.  This was all over Face Book.  I first replied very snarkily to one pasting of it.  Then, Jenny at Rorschach agreed with him and it launched a string of exchanges. And, that has me wanting to articulate my point, which means I must talk about my frustration.

This is something I hesitate to do because I’m a firm believer in putting good energy out there to grow great things.  But, sometimes the finest roses are nourished with the darkest crap.  So, with that in mind, here goes…

I understand that very few-if any-people want to go to the theatre and be put to work.  Theatre should be entertaining, always-and hopefully will take any given audience on a specific journey.  The debate about breaking the fourth wall isn’t one I can even engage in really.

Why?  Because I have a blackbox and it’s alley staging.

I asked the question, what is the job of the critic?  It’s a real question.  Because if it is the job of the critic to write in a nationally distributed newspaper all about the desperate need for the fourth wall, then where does any Company stand with regard to nontraditional staging?  IS IT really the job of the critic to define theatre as a noun?  Because, I think that’s dangerous and potentially mortally limiting with regard to growth and expansion in art.  If this is the case, then no wonder he’s never covered my work.  It doesn’t fit inside his parameters of the definition of “theatre”.  So, do I bend what I do to fit into that box, or do I continue on and accept that I will be shrugged off as not really existing?  When I say me, I mean my Company, I mean me, I mean my Company, I mean BOTH!

Ah, the frustration…

Mr. Marks has never seen a Venus Theatre production.  And, we’ve been around for ten years.  So, if he is going to make blanket statements, shouldn’t they be rooted in some sort of comprehensive experience and not just a response to proscenium work?  Because, in immersion theatre it’s a different ballgame.  And, is it too much for me to expect my theatre professionals to be versed in the many languages of the form before publishing public decrees about what sorts of stagings are acceptible?

If this is to spark dialogue, then shouldn’t there be a system of exchange?  It’s not supposed to be a strong-arm widely distributed one-sided communication.  Is it?

In “Homokay’s Medea” the chorus delivered lemonade and cookies to the audience.  That worked.  Do I need to go through here to show times of effectiveness which could have been experiences had Mr. Marks attended the shows?  Like, “Cigarettes and Moby Dick” where the audience moved promenade through an attic and there was no fourth wall at all?  Hell, there was no house to sit in!

It seems to me like Mr. Marks is asking his audience NOT to breath with the actors.  To be entirely distanced and safe.  But, how would I really know?  I’ve never talked to the man.  He begins his piece with a reference to the TV show “The Office” and a Dwight one liner about the musical CATS.  What does this have to do with DC Theatre?  Seriously.  WHAT?!?!?!  [excuse me while I go bash my head into the closest brick wall I can locate].

And, the AMERICAN version of the show too, not even the original British version.  This is what he’s referencing? [bash, bash, bash, sludge]

So, Mr. Marks, in absence of any sort of review of any of the work at my Company of the past ten years, let me give YOU my review:

It seems to me that you would like your audiences to be spoon fed.  Not to have to think too much and definitely not to be challenged in any way.  This seems to be rooted in some sort of assumption that anything which engages in nontraditional ways will not be entertaining.  There is almost an arrogant soothsaying-esque energy to this assumption that really puts me into a fury.  It seems to me that you would prefer to be sitting home on your couch watching a diluted version of a good idea.  And, that sir, conveys into your writing tone as your theatrical appetite, I fear.  When you throw a blanket over how work should be staged, you are covering up things you have yet to see and that is something I can’t be silent about.  I understand you’ve seen crappy work, that’s part of your job.  But, you have had limited exposure and I think you should be more forthcoming about that.

In no other industry does an “expert” HIRED to essentially oversee quality control get to vie one way or the other for any particular “favorite” in terms of style or lack of open consideration for all involved.  Oh, silly me!  There’s Enron, and Halliburton, and the entire ….

IF we had open conversations with our many houses and the people who are supposed to know about them…IF our audiences had real exposure to the wide range of work going in the DC-Metro area (and, here I mean critical exposure and feedback about the work that’s being mounted more then shouts out-however, all shouts out are GREATLY appreciated) then sir, your conversation would be most welcome.  But, quite frankly, in terms of my world you are speaking out of school and doing damage.  It’s not a conversation it’s a decree.  That is how I am experiencing it anyway.  And, full disclosure, I’m furious to have had my company excluded from much needed critical analysis for so many years.  It’s a kind of negligence.  And, at its very center are these precepts about the fourth wall and the very definition of theatre in terms of style and staging.  This is a dragon I’ve been trying to slay my entire career and you have now given it wings.  Those of us who run modest Companies try to survive in a chasm that you have largely built.  It’s a dark valley between the peaks of brand-shiney new, and multi-billion dollar funding.  WHAT does this have to do with theatre?  You have overlooked so many Companies, but I’m just gonna speak from my own perspective here.

You are doing damage because you are adding to the perception that theatre should be shallow and distant and flat.  And that is not where the power of theatre lives.  So, back to my question.  Who is out of line here?  Me, as an Artistic Director or You, as a critic?  Who’s job is it to choose the style of staging, the script, the cast, the creative team?  Yours?  Is some of it yours?  Is this why you can denounce a style?  Isn’t your power about experiencing the work and then critically reviewing that?  I’m so confused.  Maybe that’s because I’ve never met you and so never had the pleasure of experiencing your true brilliance.

Why is that?

We should talk.

Perhaps you should get off of the couch and turn off the TV and see more of the industry you are expected to be versed in. Just a suggestion.

There’s always a seat for you in my house.  I hope to have a one on one conversation with you sometime soon because YOU more than anyone need to see a Venus production.

Thanks.