A Moment of Truth

from Todd Eric Hawkins, Managing Director

This past week I attended a preview of one of the new musicals opening on Broadway this season. It was a Monday night, I wasn’t particularly excited by the star, nor was I really in the mood to sit in the theater. But...I had a ticket so off to the theatre I went.

One of the disadvantages of being “in the business” is that there is a tendency to
be hyper-critical of theatre, especially when you are not in the mood to lose yourself in the story. Admittedly, this was one of those nights. I will not mention the show, because I am sure that my impression of it is completely based on my own psychological state, not on the quality of the show, or the performances. However, even in my disgruntled mood, a single line, in the hands of an incredible actress, pierced through all of the crap that I was carrying around. With just a few words, she was able to deliver that elusive, magical moment of truth: an emotional connection so strong that the audience has no choice but to connect.

At that moment, everything in my otherwise unremarkable, slightly annoying day fell away. For the first time that evening I stopped looking at the lights and the set and wondering how much they cost. I stopped nit-picking every performance and every song. I stopped being an ass.

Of all of the shows I have seen, I can only think of two occasions when a member of the
ensemble delivered, in my opinion, the best performance of the night. I have always heard the adage, “There are no small parts, only small actors.” Both of these performers have proven that statement.

It is rare for actors—especially those in the ensemble—to hear how much their performance affects audience members. I think good work deserves praise, no matter how small the role. So, while I will not mention the show, I would like to thank that actress—in spirit here, and in a letter delivered to the stage door—for reminding me why I am in the theatre.

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When Life Gives You Lemons

from Judson Jones, Artistic Director

When life gives you lemons, make saturated calcium hydroxide¹ 

We’ve all heard the old adage before. And while we know it to be true, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

The year is 1990. I’m a junior at Whitehouse High School. And for some reason, in the infinite wisdom of a 17-year-old, I opted to sign up for Physics class. Why? I still don’t know. I could say that I truly wanted to ponder the mysteries of the universe. Most likely there was a cute girl in the class; at 17 you tend to follow certain parts of the body more than others. So there I was. I had already plastered my textbook cover with my favorite bands, I had my new Chuck Taylors on (which I think the cute girl noticed), I was ready for some Physics. Then Mr. Tom Young walked in. You know that look on your face when you smell something but you can’t figure out exactly what it is, and you kind of turn your head one direction and then another to see if you find the source? That was my face for the next 50 minutes. Who cares about Bon Jovi? Who cares about red canvas Hi-Tops with black laces? Who cares about the cute girl?! I’m going to fail Physics!!! After school that day I went and drowned my sorrows in a tall  suicide² Slush from Sonic.

As I lay in bed that night two thoughts kept creeping into my mind. Over and over. Incessantly. No matter how hard I tried, my mind was plagued with fear and grief. One: Cop Rock. Really?! From the same mind that created Hill Street Blues?! It made no sense! That was the problem with the ’90s! Things were too good! We left the depressing, gritty, cocaine-filled, recession-induced dramas with the ’80s! We didn’t want to see a brooding cop with a dark past who nurses a bottle of Scotch each night just to blot out the nightmares of the streets arresting some arrogant drug lord that had the cop’s partner taken out in an undercover sting that went bad two weeks ago! We didn’t want to see that! Instead we wanted to see the same brooding cop and the same arrogant drug lord SINGING AND DANCING TOGETHER! Ugh! It was such a rough time. Oh, and the other thought that kept penetrating my mind was sitting in Mr. Young’s Physics class for the remainder of the school year.

But much to my surprise Physics class got better. There was something incredibly special that Mr. Young brought to class every single day: Passion. And it was contagious. He loved teaching. He loved his students. He didn’t try to make science cool, instead he simply showed us how cool it was. Listening to him talk about quantum behavior or how a Dunking Duck works was like listening to a master painter talking about a piece of art. He was the myth buster before MythBusters came along! Plus he always had assignments you could do for extra credit. This was the secret to me passing. (Oh, and after the 11^th episode—“Bang the Potts Slowly”—Cop Rock was canceled.)

We were getting close to midterms and we were each directed to conduct an experiment and document the process FULLY. This would count for half our grade. The stakes were high. So I chose the old lemon-powers-the-digital clock experiment. I already had a head start: we’d bought my dad one of those setups years ago for Father’s Day and my dad keeps everything! I had my digital clock, my piece of copper, my galvanized nail, my wiring, and most importantly my lemon. It went off without a hitch! Then I had to write about it. What was the chemical process that made it work. Mind you, this was before one could just Google it or go to Wikipedia to find out that it’s just an electrochemical reaction caused when oxidation and reduction occur. (I’m still not certain what that means.) Anyway, I pored over texts and labored over my predicament for days. And the night before it was due I found myself staring at the blinking colon on my lemon-powered-digital clock. Then an idea struck me. Partially because I’m stubborn and partially because it’s rumored that I’m a smart ass…I would write a play. Which Way Did He Go George could be called an homage to Of Mice and Men with a Frankenstein twist. It centered around an ill-fated lemon named Lenny and the painful choice that George would have to make. I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but yes, George kills Lenny! Sorry. But then George decides to resurrect Lenny in spectacular fashion and thus documenting my experiment began. I finished my masterpiece, went to class the next day, and handed in my death sentence with a smile.

When we came back from the break Mr. Young promptly started handing out our graded term papers. All but mine. He simply asked me to stay after class. Great. I was going to get an F and a lecture. I could hear it already: “You don’t apply yourself.” “Was this supposed to be funny?” “You’ve learned nothing in my class.” After everyone left the class I slowly made my way to his desk and was prepared to lay prostrate and receive my lashings. Mr. Young handed me my paper. B–. “I would have given it a higher grade but I felt like the plot sort of fell apart towards the end. And it seemed a bit contrived at times.” I just stared at him. Oh my God, I’ve fallen asleep again. That’s what’s happening. I’m asleep at my desk and at any moment something is going to wake me up and I’m going to spring back and let out something like, “Uhwoodowha?” That didn’t happen. I was indeed awake. Mr. Young broke the silence, “You probably think I'm teaching you Physics don't you? I’m not. I'm teaching you that when you're faced with something and you don't know what to do or how to move forward…you don't close the book. You don't give up. You DO something.”

...

In this business of theatre, we are told “No” so many times. Whether it’s seeking a role, funding for a production, a home for a play, presenting a design or a score, we will hear “No” many times before we will hear “Yes.” And all too often it makes us want to throw up our hands and simply close the book. Over the past couple of weeks Mr. Young has come to mind often. Every time I think I can’t send another email, I can’t reach out to another possible funder, I can’t chew another TUMS…I take a moment. Breathe. And think, “Don’t close the book.”

Thank you, Mr. Young for that gift. It has made all the difference. What you put in motion…has stayed in motion.

Are You Not Entertained?

from William Franke, Director of Development & Communications

 

While I realize that quoting the catchphrase from an Oscar-winning film from 11 years ago may not seem the most timely of ideas, I couldn't help but think of Maximus bellowing to the crowds at the Colosseum after reading the latest post at An Uncommon Mind. Subtitled An Autodidact's Guide to Public Education, it is the blog of Joanne O'Brien, who is a high school teacher as well as a longtime friend of Theatre East*.

 

In her post from last Sunday, Joanne addresses the challenges of Engagement vs. Entertainment in education, asking "How did we come to confuse engagement with entertainment, and to insist that teachers perform like marionettes, bouncing around the classroom, mouthing scripts prepared by others?" She goes on to argue that truly engaging educational instruction "challenges the student to seek out the answers to questions of 'how' and 'why' in addition to the 'what' and 'who' of a topic. This search goes hand-in-hand with challenging activities, and rewards students for delving deeply into subject matter."

 

As I read this, it occurred to me that what Joanne strives for in the classroom is what Theatre East strives for in the theater. In the classroom, the "why" makes learning so much more interesting than the simple rote memorization of names, dates & places. And of course in the theater it is enjoyable to see complex characters in interesting situations and it's rewarding to be able to parse out the "why"—the motivation— behind each character's words & actions. But that would stop at being merely entertaining. At Theatre East, as we lay out in our core beliefs, we believe that theatre enables a greater connection to the world and to each other & that it is a catalyst for critical thinking.
We seek to advance the dialogue of the shared human experience through works that utilize simple storytelling,providing our community with a platform to deepen its understanding of themselves, each other and the world we share...works that provoke you to see the "what" up on stage, think about how the "who" is you, and challenge you to debate what your "how" & "why" would be under those circumstances. And not to have the solution laid out up on stage, but rather allow it to be  something you discover & unlock inside of you.

I feel we've done a pretty good job wrestling with some meaty issues in our past couple of seasons with EYE OF GOD (what are the limits of faith, especially where they intersect with a woman's right to choose?) and THE SOLDIER DREAMS (who has the right to make end-of-life decisions for a loved one? and how can we connect with them before it's too late?) and I look forward to the discussions that will follow NORMALCY in August-September. What will those post-show conversations be like? Well, you'll have to come to the show and see for yourself!

 

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*(and wife to Theatre East's Resident Composer & Sound Designer, Scott O'Brien.)

Planted Seeds

Jim's aunt, grandfather, visiting relative (actually from NYC!), and uncle (L to R)

We're excited to have our first guest post! This one comes from Theatre East community member & supporter Jim Farfaglia:

Seeing plays in New York City is a big deal for an upstater like me, so back in December 2007, while in town visiting a college buddy, I was looking forward to a good show. The tickets to a play at the Beckett Theatre were a gift from a friend of a friend, who offered just a brief preview as he placed them in my hand: “I’ve heard good things about this one.” I was ready for the larger world theatre can offer our certain lives. I was ready to see things fresh. But what I wasn’t ready for, standing and applauding that performance of Harvest, was what broke ground in my opening heart as that curtain closed.

I was raised in a rural area near the Great Lake Ontario, where winter blizzards and rain-filled springs create rich muck farms. Two of my uncles’ families made their lives on those farms, and my earliest memories are filled with all the drama homespun lives can produce. The characters of Harvest wrestled with that kind of life, and watching their passages through the play was a tender reminder that only a few of my uncles’ generation were still with us and, when we buried them, we would also be burying the farming life. The emotion I felt for both the Harvest performance and my ancestry stirred with my applause—and the seed to somehow honor my family was planted.

A few years had to pass before I could nurture that seed to fruition. I took every opportunity to talk with my relatives—the older the better—asking them to share what they remembered from those farming days. We nosed around the root cellars of our memories, compared notes over dinners made from Grandma’s recipes, held photos of our loved ones like prized produce.

During the first half of 2011, I wrote feverishly, something within me urging: Now is the time. By September the book was complete and Country Boy, a collection of poems about the people, places and thinkings of my youth, was bound. How fortunate I was to be able to place a copy of it in my father’s hands six weeks before he passed away, and how my memories curled up with his in our last talks.

It’s not often that we can see so clearly the line between a life-changing event and its humble beginning.  Today, when I attend a book signing and read from Country Boy, I always start by telling the audience about a little theatre company tucked away, like the sweetest farm garden, in a corner of New York City. And I tell them about a play that brought me to my feet, that brought my pen to paper. Thanks Jud. Thanks Christa. Thanks cast and crew. May you always hold close the truth that Harvest did not die with its last performance. In fact, it thrives.

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you can find Country Boy on Amazon.

you can find a schedule of Jim's readings at the CNY [Central New York] Arts Center here.

Advocacy and Inspiration

from Todd Eric Hawkins, Managing Director 

“Before we sang, we spoke. Before we danced, we walked. Before we wrote, we told stories. Before we told stories, we lived.

Those songs, dances, writings allow us to speak to one another across generations. They gave us an understanding of our commonality long before the DNA told us we are all part of one glorious procession.

At any point on the timeline of human history, there are tales to be told, of love and loss, glory and shame, profundity, and even profound stupidity– tales that deserve retelling, embellishing, and, if need be, inventing from whole cloth. This is our story. This is our song. If well sung, it tells us WHO we are and where we belong.” 

These words come from the opening lines of Wynton Marsalis’s lecture “The Ballad of American Arts,” delivered on March 30^th, 2009 at the 22^nd Annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy. Speaking to a sold-out audience gathered in the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Mr. Marsalis’s lecture focused on the importance of arts and culture to the American identity. It was the most powerful speech on the arts in America that I have ever witnessed.  (View the entire speech here).

The lecture, held each year on the eve of Arts Advocacy Day in Washington DC, is named after the second Chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts, Nancy Hanks. During her eight-year tenure (1969–1977), Ms. Hanks was able to grow the budget for the NEA from $8 million to $114 million—an unbelievable feat considering she was able to do so at time when members of Congress disputed any funding of the NEA at all.

Ms. Hanks believed strongly in the value of the Arts, dedicating her professional life to ensuring that the arts were a vital part of the American dialogue. It is fitting that the lecture is targeted to an audience of arts advocates from across the country the night before they meet with their elected officials to reinforce the value of the arts in their districts back home.

Arts Advocacy Day is the only annual event that brings together a broad cross section of America’s cultural and civic organizations, along with hundreds of grassroots advocates from across the country. Each year the event is instrumental in the advancement of key legislative initiatives, maintaining levels of funding for the federal cultural agencies, and influencing tax, international, and educational policies. (learn more about Arts Advocacy Day 2012 here)

We must ensure that every American has the same opportunities that we at Theatre East had growing up. Not to turn everyone into an artist, but to give everyone an understanding of what the arts make possible, and to capture the imaginations of those who will find it their calling.
Before we produced, we learned.

Each of us can share stories of teachers who saw something in us that no one else saw, or community theatres that gave us our chance to play and explore. People who encouraged us to major in drama, and continue to hone our crafts in graduate school.  Without that support system, how would any of us have had the courage to move away from home to put it all on the line in New York City?

Today we must remember that we were afforded those opportunities because someone before us fought to make the arts part of the American dialogue.  This year as I represent Theatre East in DC, I would like to take with me your stories of how the arts have impacted your life.  What about the arts has changed you? How would it have been different without the arts and why is it important to you? Please share your stories in the comments below, or email me directly at Todd@TheatreEast.org.

There is power in numbers, and together we will ask that the arts and arts education be a national priority.

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Sacred Spaces

 from Judson Jones, Artistic Director

So this post is a bit like the stew I made this past week: It’s a little bit of this and a dash of that. But I promise you there’s a rhyme & reason to it.

While spending time with family over the holidays, Christa & I found ourselves in the tiny town of Winona, Texas and ended up taking a tour with some family through the old forgotten high school. Winona is a small, sleepy town of around 582 people. I seem to recall dating a girl in my youth from Winona (or perhaps it was Mineola). Anyway, we were walking through the abandoned hallways when we came to the auditorium, now filled with debris, discarded desks, and dust of years past.  I love high school theatre. I'm not sure why exactly. Perhaps for the same reason I love watching high school football: You see a lot of mistakes and a lot of missed opportunities, but there's so much heart. As I walked through the old theater, you could almost see the audiences of the past. Hear their laughter. Feel their suspense. I sat in one of the old wooden seats and strained to hear the heartbeat of the old place.  You just don't see auditoriums like this anymore. Everything has become so utilitarian. Art, by itself, is no longer enough to deserve its own space. Art now has to be art-and. These once magnificent sanctuaries have been replaced by Cafe-toriums and the like. The works of Shakespeare aren’t enough. It can’t be just Horton Foote. It has to be Horton Foote and a Fiesta Station. Sorry. Wasn't my intention to get on a soapbox.

Back to the auditorium. I made my way through the space, across the stage—most of the boards rotted away by time—and found myself in the wings, right outside the dressing room. This is such holy place for me. I stood there, staring at the closed door, and could almost smell the pancake makeup. I thought of how many young actors must have stood there…waiting for the moment. The call for places has been made, but the opening music hasn’t begun yet. You hear the audience just beyond the curtain, people are rushing around, there’s electricity in the air that is palpable…and then there’s a pause. A beat. A divine moment. Everything goes quiet…and you breathe it in. This may not be the Nederlander, but to these magnificent souls it might as well be. As I stood there I thought of the countless students that stood in that same sacred spot. And I felt them. I felt their hopes and dreams, their passion, their love, their nervousness, their joy. And I cried. By myself. Just stood there and took in the moment.

Saturday night Christa and I went to see the Harold Clurman Laboratory Theatre Company’s production of Imagining Heschel at the Stella Adler Studio—a production I highly, highly recommend seeing before it closes on February 11^th. I was again reminded of the holiness of the theatre: to see actors pouring out their very hearts and souls for the audience; to experience a designer’s work as it folds into this world that will become your journey for the time you are there; to hear the words that a playwright has labored over, sometimes for years, to make sure that every word, every bit of punctuation is perfect and needed; to realize a director’s work, the hours of planning and pacing and doubting, all in the hopes that this piece of art connects in some real way with those present. Oh, it is something to be revered. For me, there’s no other place like it on earth.

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Commitment

from William Franke, Director of Development & Communications

Those of you who have been reading this blog & paying close attention will note that this post is a few days later than usual. Which is ironic, as I am usually the one cracking the whip to get those other jokers to turn in their blog posts (and then they turn in some great stuff, don't they?).

It's this state of affairs that has gotten me to thinking about the word "commitment" for a couple of days now. It does seem like commitment is a pretty rare commodity nowadays. Meteorologists change their forecasts; corporations push back their product launches; politicians renege on their promises; judges & lawyers adjourn court dates; blog posts come in a few days late...

But when I think about the theatre, I cannot help but be a bit proud at the level of commitment shown by all involved. Despite the bad rap that artists often get, their commitment is often the strongest thing going. When you go to the theater, that curtain comes up because all of the artists involved made a commitment—to put on that show, to share something with the audience who have taken the time, spent the money, and are giving their attention to the folks on stage. They made a commitment of their time, talent & energy months in advance (often for little pay) to design the lights, write the score & design the sound, craft the set, learn the lines, delve into the characters...to create this world to share with an audience for 90 minutes a night (and beyond the walls of the theater)...to meet that curtain deadline with a quality product worth sharing. 

There's a reason the old adage goes "The show must go on."

I'm not thinking about this only because I'm behind schedule posting to this blog, though. As those of you who follow us on the Facebook know, on Friday the 13th, a number of our staff & design team did a walk-through of the Peter Jay Sharp theater on west 42nd Street. Yesterday, Jud & Christa (our Artistic Director & Associate Artistic Director) returned to put down the deposit on the space—to make a commitment to presenting our next mainstage production there (that's a sneak-peek, first-time announcement for those of you reading this).

Over the past year or so, a number of you have shown your support—monetarily & spiritually—because you have seen what we do and you believe it is worth sharing with the New York community. In return we've made a commitment to keep putting community back in theatre and do so by producing a full season. I'm proud that we've taken this next step in honoring that commitment, and I look forward to sharing it all with you when the curtain goes up.

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Skating to the Puck

from Todd Eric Hawkins, Managing Director 
 

I recently heard a keynote address by Ben Cameron, Program Director for the Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.  Mr. Cameron’s focus was the future of the arts. During the speech he made the following statement:

In looking to the future, I find inspiration in the words of two different thinkers: our 19th century American President Abraham Lincoln, who in his second inaugural address said, “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. As our case is new, so must we think anew and act anew.”

And Wayne Gretzky, the Canadian ice hockey player who, when asked to account for his greatness, said simply, “I skate to where the puck will be.”

   
Mr. Cameron’s words struck me as profoundly relevant.

Theatre in this country faces a quickly changing landscape in which the consumer, that we all so desperately need to fulfill our missions, continues to change. From the emergence of the personally programmable electronic devices available in today’s marketplace, to television programs like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars, consumers are getting more and more accustomed to having the ability to choose what they listen to and watch.

We as theatre producers are being challenged to find ways of making future audiences experience theatre in a new way. This is not to say that theatre in its current form will cease to exist, but rather to suggest that new audiences will require new ways of thinking about what we do. It will challenge us to look at theatre, not as a performance in a dark room at a specified time, where audiences are required to sit still for the duration of the show. Instead, we will need to look for more integrative ways of telling our stories.

The benchmark of success set by our predecessors, the major nonprofit theatres founded in the late ’60s and ’70s, is a level of achievement that anyone in this business would aspire to emulate. The next generation of theatre companies that rise to take their place will need to provide an experience that appeals to a new generation of arts consumers; theatregoers who have different expectations.

To meet to this challenge, theatre artists and organizations need to “act anew”; exploring ways to present our craft that will keep it vital to a new kind of audience.



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In Support of the Arts

from Todd Eric Hawkins, Managing Director 

It is hard for me to watch the news without spending a great deal of time with my head in my hands. I would think this is true for many viewers on both sides of any given issue. We have become an extremely polarized society and, in doing so, we are losing the middle ground.

I don’t claim to be an expert when it comes to politics. I don’t know the intricacies of the banking industry, or the factors that have led to our current economic crisis. I should know more, but it is difficult to wade through the talking points coming from both sides of any given argument. I am not sure when our world became so black and white and uncompromising.

Part of my confusion comes from how I was trained to view the world. I am and have always been a student of the Arts. In the fifth grade, I played the cello in the orchestra. I learned harmony and what it means to be a part of a group, each with their own individual part that makes a whole. In high school, I took Speech & Debate and learned how to present facts, debate issues and, in the process, form my own opinions. In college, I turned to playwriting and was taught how to tell a story, present differing opinions and allow disparate voices a chance to be heard.  The Arts...taught me how to think.

The Arts now suffers the same fate as other debated topics, it has been boiled down to a black and white issue. To one side, the Arts are a waste of tax dollars and less vital to the education of our children than math and science—an argument that has successfully led to the decimation of funding for public arts education. To the other side, the Arts are not only integral to a quality of life, but they have a positive impact on local economies and provide our community with a platform to explore ideas.

As a finance manager I understand that the arts can be seen as the easiest thing to cut in order to make ends meet. However, the very principles that art taught me are now missing from the way we as a society debate our most pressing issues.

As we approach the end of 2011, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has worked so tirelessly and given so much in support of Theatre East. I am proud to be part of an organization that focuses so much of its time, energy and resources to arts education and community engagement.

Thank you for your continued support; I look forward to continuing the dialogue in 2012.

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original photo by cseeman