Extra Criticum

Artist = Helpless Child = Not Charming

There are people in this business (You know who you are) who love nothing more than to infantilize the artists they deal with. Sometimes these people are lawyers. Sometimes they're agents or producers or executives. Sometimes they're even D-girls, if you can imagine.

And there are artists who slip into the role of helpless child with such ease and frequency that slowly over time, imperceptibly at first, they get sort of glued in stuck into the costume. And they end up prisoners of a sort... ambling through life like helpless innocents looking for guidance to all the adults in the room. I don't have a lot to say about this syndrome, save this:

Puppets Ask Us Not to Steal That Song

Impoverishment is the default condition of most theatre artists, including playwrights, composers and lyricists. Very few make a living from their art and many struggle to make ends meet and lack health insurance. This sad state of affairs was well aired in 2010 by the book Outrageous Fortune which documented how the economics of theatre disadvantage writers.

Mixed Feelings About Theft

The question of theft came up for me again recently when my longtime friend and collaborator John Tilley pointed me to a pirated version of my first feature film, ALL THE RAGE, online. Of course, the truth is, pirating is a form of stealing. The person who uploads an entire feature film onto YouTube without permission is theoretically depriving my distributor (and by extension, the filmmaker) from any potential revenue that may or may not have come from those viewers actually buying a DVD or ordering up the title on Netflix.

So, full of righteous indignation, I dutifully followed the link to the YouTube page. I wasn't sure what visiting the link would tell me but I clicked on it anyway.

And then I saw the number of views.

New York Theatre Workshop revises its Fellowship Program

Preliminary applications are now open for NYTW's Fellowship program, which has been re-imagined as: The 2050 Fellowships.

Here's the official announcement from our friends on E. 4th Street:

When it comes to Art, I have a strong bias.

I recently contributed a small amount of money to a theatre company whose work I like. I had received an email from them asking and I didn't hesitate to give. Oddly, right after their email came in another email from a similar small theatre company came in, also run by people I know and who I think are talented.

And yet. The second company didn't get a dime of my money. Why?

Pulled from the Archives: Biz & Money Questions

Every few months or so, the editors at E.C. take a stroll through our archives and pull a group of interesting posts that are loosely related in theme to offer up to our readership for a second read. If you have a favorite post you'd like us to "pull from the archives," just email us and we'll try to locate it for you. Or, you could also just use the handy Search box in the right sidebar.

 

$146,500 for a Development Consultant?! by Rolando Teco

A Brave ACT at the Box Office by Duane Kelly

The Future of Independent Film Financing by David Licata

I Should Be So Lucky by Sara Pauley

There's a downside to operating "in the black." by Rolando Teco

New Straight Plays Bleed Red Ink on Broadway by Duane Kelly

Broadway Jackpot Not Total Mirage for Writers

The Washington State Lottery identifies the odds of winning its Lotto jackpot as one in 6.99 million. That’s one of 6.99 reasons why I never buy a lottery ticket. The odds of writing a play that will have a successful run on Broadway are probably in the same statistical stratosphere. Fortunately, getting to Broadway is not a reason that I grind it out at my desk every day.

In theatre circles the author of a straight play (non-musical) is advised to forget about Broadway.  “Artistic merit is a minor consideration there anymore” and “it’s no longer the pinnacle of playwriting success” are views commonly heard. (In this vein top TV comedy writer Ken Levine has blogged about how Broadway aspirations have waned for TV writers.) Persevere locally and focus on craft, we are told. I’ve heard this counsel loud and clear, and I follow it.

Gwydion Suilebhan on Artistic Peacock Communities

Fascinating talk given by activist-playwright-blogger Gwydion Suilebhan on the need for communities to tip the scales in favor of locally-grown art over imported art.

The Guthrie: Big, Expansive, Expensive, Seductive

There's been a lot written about the way in which America's regional big boy theatres have spent the past few decades building up their physical plants and thus taking on the heavy burden of sizeable mortgages to cover the roof over their heads. Ben Pesner and Todd London's Outrageous Fortune probably does the best job of articulating and highlighting the various ramifications of this trend.

And still, in spite of all of that understanding of what it means for American Theatre that our theatres have become expansive and expensive pieces of real estate, on a recent visit to the Guthrie in Minneapolis, I have to admit I couldn't help being swept up in the beauty, grandeur and bravado of the place all over again. Here are 4 snapshots I took, in an efffor to capture what I felt.

Two Worlds, One Message: "Slow down."

I had the rare pleasure of attending two conferences back to back over a 4-day period this past weekend. One was the American Composers Forum's Choral Connections conference in Minneapolis, populated (as one might expect) largely by composers. The other was City Wrights, a conference of playwrights put together by City Theatre in Miami. Both were roughly the same size and both were well put together and full of informative sesssions and panels and--most encouragingly--full of talented artists dedicated to furthering their careers and honing their skills as artist entrepreneurs. Let's face it. If you live in the United States, you pretty much have no choice about the question of whether to acquire some business savvy. It's sink of swim in the U.S. and frequently the difference between a career and an unrealized dream is in large measure determined by grit and moxie.

It may not be surprising and yet I think it's worth noting that in spite of the cultural differences between the worlds of classical "Art" music and theatre, there were common threads, the most notable being the inspiration for the title of this post: "Slow down."

Here's a sampling of what one might have heard at these two gatherings:

The Gershwins' Death of a Salesman?

In New York City it is now possible to purchase a ticket to The Gershwins' Porgy & Bess. You can also purchase a ticket to Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. But not Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park. Just Clybourne Park.

What's up with this trend (do two shows consistute a trend?) of shoehorning the authors' names into the titles of their shows?

"Choose Patti's Encore Song" - an interesting example of tying ownership binds between audiences and live entertainment

So Patti Lupone is opening a new cabaret space in New York called 54 Below. (It's below the former Studio 54, now home to Roundabout Theatre Co.) I was struck by this promo that hit my INBox today inviting me to purchase tickets and email the date of the performance I'll be attending with my personal request for Ms. Lupone's encore number. Presumably, these emailed requests will then be pulled from a hat and one lucky audience member will glow as the opening chords of that little obscure ballad they've dreamed of hearing interpreted by Lupone fill the room.

But what about the other hundred folks whose song was not selected? Do they endure the encore thinking how much they wish their suggestion had been picked and how much better it would have been had it been?

Cartoon: My Kingdom for a Comp

CARRIE closes (again) demonstrating the power of conventional wisdom -- always conventional, seldom wise

The New York Times attempts to explain the recent closing of CARRIE by interviewing producers not connected to the show. That's sort of like asking executives at Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile what the devil's wrong with AT&T. Here's a sampling of the imaginative conjecture that now qualifies for Arts-related news on the pages of the Times.

Several theater producers contacted recently said that “Carrie,” no matter how well acted and sung, presented far more than the usual share of difficulties, the most insurmountable being that nearly every character is dead at the end.