Oh, my! An actual theatre post!

Had the first rehearsal for my new show last night.  I'm basically part of the movement ensemble plus a big monologue and a smattering of additional dialogue, and that's fine because I took the show for the movement work.

I feel like I'm in a good spot for a show like this.  The last time I was involved in this kind of work, I had just gotten in the best shape of my life.  That was back in 2001/2 when I had just shaped up to play the God of frickin' Love in a production back in Portland.  While we were striking that show, I ran into some folks that suggested I go audition for this other show.  I got cast, and I really enjoyed that work even though I wasn't trained for it, and I must have done well enough as that company made some overtures of membership when we were finishing up.

So here I am, having gotten in the best shape of my 30's, and I find myself as a member of my 2nd ever movement-ensemble.  Last night was basically 2+ hours of non-stop moving.  High and low, fast and slow, I sweat plenty, but was never sucking air.  So the conditioning is holding up.

The work itself seems promising so far.  A lot of emotional availability being generated by the movement direction.  And everyone seems committed.  At this point, I'm pretty optimistic about the show and my place in it.

What is the value of local theatre?

As I continually struggle to define the value of live theatrical productions as part of  the art and entertainment landscape going forward, I thought this piece from Carey Perloff at the Huffington Post was an important piece of the puzzle.  It's not very long, so you should read the whole thing, but a choice nugget would be:

What's happened to the American non-profit theater in the interim is interesting. In a desperate attempt to feel relevant in an increasingly digital universe and to remain solvent at a time of huge decreases in arts funding, the regional theater has all but abandoned its alternative stance (the whole notion of a permanent company of actors being one of the first ideas to go) and now actively pursues commercial success and a presence in New York. It has become standard operating procedure for regional theaters to accept significant "enhancement money" from commercial producers in exchange for the use of their theater and their subscription audience to try out Broadway-bound material. While this has allowed large-scale musicals to be developed and previewed across the country, it has also sapped the regional theater of its artistic muscle and its individuality. Since he who pays the piper plays the tune, it is inevitable that the artists working on an enhanced musical are far more likely to take direction from their Broadway producers than from the non-profit theater's artistic team, with the result that the work is "local" in name only.

This has come into focus for me quite a bit since I moved to Chicago.  Here, the phrase "going out to the theatre" seems by default to mean seeing one of the big musicals downtown.  I know people that go to these shows all the time, that have never even been to see a show at Steppenwolf, The Goodman, or Chicago Shakespeare, much less anything on a smaller, more home-grown scale. 

When I lived in Portland, I struggled with a similar quandary to the one Ms. Perloff mentions.  Portland LOVES the Local and the DIY when it comes to anything.  But when it comes to performance, that means  snything except theatre.  Live local music, festivals of local films, reading by local authors, even live comic-book making.  But not live theatre.  I don't actually believe that in Portland it's for the reasons that Ms. Perloff suggests (the Portland-New York theatre circuit just doesn't really exist that way in my experience). Also, she should probably attribute more of her show's success to the built-in local audience for the adapted material.  I doubt if they could boast the same revenue/audience turnout if the text had been wholly new.  Yet rejecting New York aspirations could be a valuable tool in trying to maintain a pinky-hold for live theatre.

Anyway, this is something I've continued to think about often over the last decade, and will probably subject the non-existent readers of this blog to further ramblings in the future.