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.)

Straight Furrows

 from Judson Jones, Artistic Director

I spend the majority of my time at my desk. If I’m not at the theatre or in a meeting or teaching, that’s where you’ll find me. I keep a fairly neat desk. I try to keep a fairly neat desk. I have a stack of plays I need to read, another stack of legal pads with lists of things that I need to get done (some of them are even checked off), an assortment of sticky notes to remind me to look at my legal pads, a cup of coffee that will remain there and mostly full throughout the day, and two pictures. One of my wife and me when we were around 23 years old living in Tyler, Texas; we’re young, ready to take on the world, and I have a full head of dark hair. The other of my great-grandfather and two great-uncles in Idabel, Oklahoma taken sometime in the early 1930s; they’re genuine, stalwart, and robust.

Over the past several days, a story about my great-grandfather, Pap, has continually crept into my mind. My mother once asked him, after spending a day watching him plow the fields, how he made his furrows so straight. He simply replied, “I keep my eyes on the end of the row.” I think about that simple statement and what great truth it holds.

With all that goes into running a theatre company—going from board meetings to production meetings to finance meetings, making phone calls, sending emails, union negotiations, grant writing, drafting budgets, readings, rehearsals, hikes in rent, good reviews, bad reviews, fundraisers, etc. etc. etc.—it can be easy to all of a sudden look up and think, “Where the hell am I ?! How did I get here?” You no longer recognize your mission statement and you’ve forgotten the reason you started the thing in the first place. You took your eyes off the end of the row. You took what you thought was a detour and now you’re on a completely different track altogether. We see this happen all too often.

Perhaps this is why I keep these pictures on my desk, specifically the one of Pap and my great-uncles. It’s a constant reminder of that simple truth. As we look to our busiest season yet, and as our company continues to grow, we promise to stand by our mission and our core beliefs, to keep our eyes on the end of the row. And know that at the center of all that is our commitment to you, our community.

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Our New Mission Statement

Over the past few months, as you've noticed, we've been reshaping our mission statement to better reflect our commitment to you, our community. Last month you read our new vision statement, Putting Community Back in Theatre. This month I'm so very proud to announce that, after months of work, we have a new mission statement. Now the new mission statement doesn't change what we do or how we do it, but it truly defines what we have done in the past and will help guide us through the future.

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Theatre East's mission is 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.

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Advance the dialogue:
We will continue bringing you New York premieres like EYE OF GOD and THE SOLDIER DREAMS that truly discuss the issues that face us as a community. These will be productions dealing with social matters that will cause you to continue the conversation as you enjoy your post-show cocktail or piece of pie.

Shared human experience:
As with our past work, our focus will continue to be works that explore subjects that affect us all. We will continue to give a voice to the understated, the marginalized and the misrepresented. Our desire is that, when you are at one of our productions, you truly see a part of yourself on the stage.

Simple storytelling:
The fact is, we love celebrating the theatre with you. A part of that celebration is truly embracing the power of the stage, the authority of an amazing script, and the stories therein. It has always been our goal to get out of the way of the script and let the story rise. You will most likely not see hydraulics or an actor flying from a web, but you will be moved nonetheless.

Providing our community with a platform:
We will continue bringing you talkbacks where community leaders engage in dialogue, not so much about the show, but about the issues raised by the play. This might be Farm Aid, God's Love We Deliver, The New York Foundling or spiritual or civic leaders. We want to provide an opportunity for you to have a voice, participate in public discussion or perhaps just listen.

Deepen its understanding:
During the first year of the New Rites Collective, our educational program, we were having group reflection time where students shared something they learned that day. A very shy 15 year old Britt'ni, in a voice just above a whisper said, "I learned something about myself I didn't know...I'm beautiful." Through our productions, reading series, educational and community efforts we will continue with programming that truly allows for a better understanding of one another. We will take on our fears, share in our joys, and gather strength for our trials. And we will do it with you.

We look forward to it!

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Proven: Art Defines Civilization

I was catching up on some podcasts the other day, and being a bit of a history nerd (and because I do hold to Theatre East's belief that theatre can teach us about humanity's place in history), I was listening to BBC Radio 4's "A History of the World in 100 Objects." In the series, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, uses a survey of objects spanning human history as a window into what makes us human.

In episode #004, MacGregor examines a carving of two swimming reindeer, made 13,000 years ago by one of the first humans to express their world through art. But why did they do it? According to MacGregor and his guest, archaeologist Professor Steven Mithen, when we evolved into homo sapiens ("thinking man") something dramatic happened in the human brain, allowing for imagination & creativity to emerge. We went from just making tools to shape our world, to making jewelry to adorn our bodies and making representations of the animals that shared our world.

We started making art.

So, there you have it. Modern humans, civilized humans, evolved once we started making art. Art Defines Civilization. QED.

You can find the podcast on the BBC website here and on iTunes by searching history world 100 objects.

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Theatre East Promo 2010

Behind-the-scenes clips of rehearsals; our educational program, the New Rites Collective; and our core beliefs:

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