Obsession: Katie Mitchell

I've been low-grade obsessed with UK director Katie Mitchell since this fall. The Guardian has a great interview with her today. (Read it, you'll love it.)

Notable for the big conversations happening in the theatreblogosandbox:

Do you suffer for your art?

No. It is a source of great joy for me, and I still pinch myself that people pay me to do it.

Career: Joined the Royal Shakespeare Company as a director in 1998. Is now an associate director at the National Theatre, London (020-7452 3000), where her production of ...Some Trace of Her opens on July 30.

High point: "I don't do highs and lows. Theatre is hard graft, and I try to maintain a steady equilibrium."

Notable just because:

What's the best advice you've had?

A Russian woman called Professor Soloviova once saw a hit show of mine and said: "It looks very beautiful, but there's absolutely nothing going on between the actors." It set me up to ensure that was never the case again.

Quick anecdote:
I went on a Kurosawa and sushi date with an old friend this weekend. After the movie we started talking about how we're both devoted to oddballs like David Lynch and Akira Kurosawa, but I've never liked anything by Stanley Kubrick or Alfred Hitchcock. (I know, right?) I appreciate them as genius artists, but I find their films pretty boring. Anyway, I think my Kubrick/Hitchcock ambivalence is mostly about this feeling I get that neither of them care about their actors. Ms. Mitchell's quote made me think of that conversation, and how live performance can fall into a similar trap of looking great but feeling pretty empty.

Oh, and, bonus, Mitchell's Waves is coming to Lincoln Center this fall. See you there!

Notes on the 2nd Indie Theatre convocation

As with many other artists at the Barrow Street Theatre on Saturday, I attended under a few auspices. Personally, I was there for the IT Awards, as an actress/producer and to see how The League of Independent Theatre has evolved since its beginning stages (disclosure: I am on staff at the New York Innovative Theatre Awards and was in the beginning meetings of litny’s Steering Committee as a then member of Horse Trade and a founder of the FRIGID New York festival).

The purpose of the convocation was to reconnect the community, catch up on progress made over the last two years, learn about NYTE’s new web launches, and to introduce the new advocacy group for Off-Off Broadway: The League of Independent theatre, or LIT, or litny. I was excited to catch up with many people I haven’t seen in awhile, and had a good time; some highlights were:

Rochelle Denton’s speech that talked about how we define ourselves as Off-Off theatre artists and made the case for maintaining our individual definitions, missions, language, goals and to honor our Off-Off heritage while uniting under one new idea – indie theatre. The title had required some defense and justification, as I know of some artists that were confused as to the meaning of the term, whether their work garnered the indie theatre label, what it meant, why it was necessary, etc. Rochelle’s speech did a nice job of clearing the confusion a bit, and besides the fact that she’s hilarious and great to listen to - I’d be interested to read others’ comments.

Indietheatre.org: 2.0! Martin Denton announced a “web 2.0” launch to contribute to the existing indietheatre.org site that involves an artist directory, an RSS feed, video trailers, evolving his already successful podcast into a video podcast & more, all to be in effect come fall. Congrats and thank you for tapping into this, NYTE.

We learned how AEA members can join the Off-Off Broadway Committee, which is the best trajectory to make code reform a reality: ANY AEA member can call the OOB rep at Equity and tell him you want to take part. He will contact you to attend a meeting, and as long as you attend two, you will be a member. You are not obligated to attend every meeting. The hot-button code reform issue carried a more positive and hopeful tone than I’ve heard in at least a year.

In the end, I was happy to have so many people together and glad I attended, but was with the majority of people commenting on Martin’s blog in feeling left in the dark about LIT’s specific goals for the convocation. There has been some discussion there, Chris Harcum had some good ideas for the league, and John Clancy responded to the confusion with some clarifications. I'd like to hear more people's thoughts.

My most pertinent suggestion to LITNY would be to start an online presence IMMEDIATELY – re-open the blog, start a Facebook group, I’d really LOVE it if they started a ning or something like it – but at least an interim web portal is necessary: where people can read the statement of purpose & articles of incorporation, what litny thinks the issues are directly affecting us and their goals to achieve them, and be informed about litny events. There was mention of a TCG free night of theatre marketing event with litny that I’m sure people want to know more about, for example, and there is another LIT event next week. People need a forum to post questions, concerns, accolades, comments, etc, and most importantly be informed. The point was made that it’s difficult to repeat town hall-like events to gather community opinions – which is true – and the web is a place where most of their prospective members sit for at least six hours a day. It would benefit LITNY to be there, too.

The next litny event will be next week at the UndergroundZero festival on Tuesday, June 22nd at the Manhattan Children’s Theater, which I look forward to. The IT Awards will be at that event and have been given time to discuss The Off-Off Broadway surveys we are conducting in order to better advocate on behalf of the community with litny, currently surveying demographics among individual artists. Our last findings were published in the Off-Off Broadway budget report, which was very exciting, and created a buzz about the actual numbers OOB works with, which were higher than expected with the participating group. We need a much broader base for our current survey: 6,000 by October...You can help make that happen here.

Cultural Capital Freakout-Geekout!

I will be going to this:

Saving Our Cultural Capital:

The Challenges Facing Independent Venues and Artists in Manhattan
Saturday, June 7th, 2:00pm – 6:00pm
Wolman Hall, 64 West 11th Street

A symposium hosted by The Tank, Milano The New School For Management and Urban Policy, and Fractured Atlas, in cooperation with Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer

Co-hosted by Collective Unconscious, chashama, The Field and Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts

New York City is a world-renowned cultural destination: from big-budget Broadway shows to dance performances in small Brooklyn lofts to Chelsea gallery openings. The performing arts drive the city's economy and tourism and give New York the cultural texture that makes it a uniquely dynamic environment.

As cost-of-living and real estate prices continue to rise, can young artists and small venues still call Manhattan home? New York – and Manhattan, in particular – cannot lose the energy brought by these individuals and organizations, and the higher-market entertainment industry in the city relies on their innovations…but can we still make New York work for the emerging arts? This event will bring together city officials, arts professionals, business representatives, advocates and freelancers for an afternoon of conversation about solutions to the challenges facing independent venues and emerging artists in Manhattan.

This event is FREE and open to
artists, advocates, policy-makers, foundation representatives
& everyone committed to keeping Manhattan the cultural capital of the world.

Saturday, June 7th, 2:00pm – 5:30pm
Wolman Hall, The New School, 64 West 11th Street
Program:
2:00pm: Doors open
2:30pm: Keynote speech by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer
3:00pm – 4:30pm: Panel discussion on the challenges facing independent venues and artists in Manhattan, followed by a Q&A session
4:30pm – 5:30pm: Livable New York Services Fair and Happy Hour with complimentary drinks, highlighting the resources available to freelance artists and small organizations including healthcare, accounting and law services. Featured organizations include:
• The Actors Fund
• ArtBusiness Initiative/Seedco Financial
• Arts & Business Council of New York
• Fractured Atlas
• New York City Performing Arts Spaces
• Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts

RSVP: Rachel@thetanknyc.org
More information: http://www.thetanknyc.org/culturalcapital

See you there!

Weird and Wonderful

In Scott Walters' Theatre Ideas blog, Mr. Walters makes some good points about the geographic and demographic breakdown of nonprofit theatre dispersal in America. Walters also name-checks the amazing Mike Daisey's recent Under The Radar performance of How Theater Failed America (via Isaac Butler's Parabasis blog). I haven't seen Mr. Daisey's show, but I have to admit I'm a little put-off by the title.

Walters takes issue with the high concentration of NEA donations to theatres in the Northeast and on the West Coast (actually he takes issue with the massive concentration of theatres on the coasts, but stay with me). How relevant is NEA funding? According to TCG's 2007 Theatrefacts, out of the 105 theatres surveyed, about $45,000 in contributions came from the NEA. State agencies contributed more like $195,000, corporations $350,000, and foundations $630,000. But what is consistently the most impressive source of unearned income in nonprofit theatre? Individuals, at $850,000! (That's not ticket sales, that's donations. Tickets sales make up a whole other income source... so some people are giving twice.)

I don't have geographic data for these individual contributions, but the numbers clearly imply that single people are by far the most relevant source of funding. These contributions come from the community. The American funding model is not perfect, but if anything, it is diverse. And maybe I'd prefer to live in the Netherlands, where the state funds arts groups indefinitely, but there's something I like about the diversity of our funding options.

Ok, the subscription model is dying. Thank goodness. On the topic of audience relations, the incredible Zannie and Glenn Voss come to some fascinating conclusions in their study "Strategic Orientation and Firm Performance in an Artistic Environment". I won't go into the data sets, but the study essentially suggests that customer-oriented theatres (organizations that make most of their decisions based on what they think their customers want) in fact perform worse than theatres that focus on their competitive environment or their own programming.

These findings pretty much contradict conventional marketing wisdom (find out what your customers want, and do that), and suggest that arts organizations perform better when they make strong, innovative artistic decisions. This study actually suggests that arts customers want to be told what they want! And really, why do people patronize the arts? Is it to get some kind of instant gratification, or is it to be inspired, engaged, and provoked by an innovative aesthetic point of view? My money's on the latter.

Zannie and Glenn Voss see the nonprofit theatre industry as a market "boundary condition", meaning it's an industry that behaves totally differently from most other business models. But instead of apologizing for being so strange, and trying to pretzel the arts into traditional business models, they suggest that the greatest merit of the nonprofit theatre community is our weirdness.

So, has theatre failed America? Well, first of all, it's cool that Mr. Daisey is even bringing this up. But personally, I'd ask different questions - like what resources are available that we're not taking advantage of? How can we encourage and create community? How can we fix the massive wage inequities? Not as catchy as Mr. Daisey's title... but I'm not willing to believe that theatre has failed America. At least I don't think we're going to get very far thinking that way. I obviously don't have the answers, but I do believe we can do better.

I was planning to start this blog as a straightforward resource for young arts professionals, which I still want to be the main thrust, but I found myself so engaged by what's been happening on these blogs that I really wanted to respond. So thanks for that... I appreciate the kick in the pants.