WTF Is Devised Theater, pt. 3

A look at how playwrights fit into devised theater:

So, why do I, as a playwright, do devised theatre?

You see, I have a box. It’s made up of my experience, my preconceived notions, my talent, my skill. It’s made up of my limits. I work in it, I live in it, I think in it. A few years ago, I began to make a concerted effort to expand my box. For my MFA thesis, I wrote a play that included music, dancing, a drag show, and a slew of Erik Ehn-inspired impossible stage directions–all things that I loved seeing on stage, but had never attempted to put there myself. Afterwards, my box was a lot roomier. But like a goldfish, my ambitions grew to fill their environment.

(...)

So, would I ever give up writing plays on my own to do devised work full time? Probably not. I have too many stories to tell, and our devising process is a slow burn. But because of working in that process, my box is constantly expanding and the stories I tell are the richer for it.

Devised theater isn't just about firing the playwrights.

Oops Bloody Bloody Oops

I'm pretty proud of this Orange Hats video that I edited. More than just an audience response, it's a conversation between two audiences: the audience of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, and a particular audience of BBAJ that was so incensed it created it's own musical, Oops Bloody Bloody Oops.

The question of who the audience member is, what is expected of them, and how that's tied in to responses to work that some consider offensive was really interesting. There should be a part 2 coming on this video.

Aaron Landsman on Participatory Democracy and Theater

You don't need to know anything more than that. RTWT:

For the last ten years my shows have been presented in places where people perform their daily lives. This has so far included offices, homes, the sidewalk, and barrooms. I’m most excited by situations that are inherently performative: a real estate sales pitch, a therapy session, Happy Hour. Some recent pieces include: Open House, commissioned and produced by The Foundry Theatre in 24 New York City apartments; What You’ve Done, in a Houston row house; Desk, in an office atrium; and Appointment, a series of one-on-one performances in offices in five cities and counting.

Now I am taking what I’ve learned by working outside of traditional performance spaces and using it to bring a specific kind of interaction and participation into a theater. My new project City Council Meeting is a provocation to the form, a way to engage audiences differently, an invitation to sort through and question the ways we govern ourselves. I call it “Performed Participatory Democracy.”

You Think It's Bad Nowadays...

"In January 1923, the Democratic minority in the Rhode Island Senate began a low-intensity filibuster against all major legislation in an effort to force the Republican majority to call for a new constitutional convention. They were aided by a Democratic Lieutenant Governor presiding over the Senate, Felix Toupin, who refused to recognize any Republicans seeking to make motions, except a motion to call for a convention. This conflict reached a peak in June, 1924 when the Rhode Island Senate stayed in continuous session for 22 hours until the Republican majority simply got up and left. Three days later they returned for a 42-hour day-and-night session which began with a mass fistfight over control of the gavel and ended when Republican operatives placed a poison-soaked rag behind Toupin to gas him out of the presiding officer's chair. No one was permanently harmed, but the Republican majority relocated to Rutland, Massachusetts for six months until Republican victories in the 1924 elections put an end to the struggle."

TAKE THAT, MODERN DYSFUNCTION!

How We Make Our Case X: In Summary

I said it before, but I think Scott states it succinctly:

Recommendation: The NEA ought to confine itself to providing seed money for theatres in underserved communities.

My hunch is that when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it, Scott and I would disagree on what constitutes "underserved communities" in some cases but not in others, even with that disagreement at times it's still a good framework.

I'm not sure I necessarily agree with Scott that it should limit itself to only seed money. There may be some underserved communities that may require continuing support to remain served. At the very least, such an organization should be able to make a strong case as to why they couldn't be self-sufficient after 5 years, rather than just assuming that grant money is perpetual money.

Inception

Finally saw Inception. Shows you where I am in the world's cultural history. I can see all of the flaws that people have pointed out to me, but I still love it. If I had seen it in something remotely approximating when it was new, I would probably write at length about it, but I'm late to this party so my punishment is that I'll have to ruminate about it to myself.

Public's Losses

File this under "things I didn't know":

The Public lost $750,000 on “Bloody Bloody” and about $200,000 on “Hair” in London.

Why were such popular shows a loss?

“Members of the board were determined not to again gamble on a Broadway production, and were not informed that they were gambling with the Public Theater’s budget to produce these plays,” said someone close to the Public.

What happened next?

On Feb. 2 the theater announced that [Executive Director Andrew] Hamingson had resigned after only two and a half years in the job because of “personal reasons.” The Public Theater has refused to elaborate on the reasons for Mr. Hamingson’s departure.

A bit baffling, and quite upsetting.