Weekend Listening

I just discovered this archive of Americans for the Arts video and sound recordings (thanks, Mission Paradox). I'm looking forward to listening to Daniel Pink's address at this year's Arts Advocacy day on the train home tonight - I've heard it was amazing. Also featured: speeches from the 2007 Americans for the Arts convention, 2007 Arts Advocacy Day, and the Americans for the Arts podcast, ARTcast.

Weekend Reading

I know, I know, I should probably change the name of this blog to "Sarah's Writer-Crush on Lyn Gardner"... but how great is this? Let's clone her.

Obsession: Leechblock

According to Google Analytics, most of my readers use Firefox (also my browser of choice). I want to sing the praises of one particular Firefox Add-on: Leechblock.

Leechblock takes about 30 seconds to install, and once it's up and running, you can use it to block time-wasting sites. I've created a few different sets of blocks, like one set of sites is blocked for my entire work day, one set is blocked after I've spent 15 minutes on the site, etc. Suddenly my papers are being written in record time, and I am no longer cruising Facebook all day checking out my middle-school boyfriend's profile. Even emerging arts leaders need some time-management help once in a while.

Lifehacker keeps track of the best Firefox Add-ons, if you're interested in other ways to soup up your browser.

Philadelphia: Christmas in April

This is a nice wrap-up of the massive bailout of Philadelphia's no-longer-flailing Kimmel Center.

My favorite part comes at the end

Now that the debt is gone, Ewers said, the Kimmel will concentrate on two other ambitious efforts: enlivening the public spaces of the center, which are currently populated only around performance times, and undertaking an acoustical remake of Verizon Hall.

Questions about the acoustical work involve not only how to fund it, but also whether the hall's original acoustician or another firm should undertake the effort. Strategies for enlivening the public spaces were unveiled last week in a series of ideas crafted by PennPraxis, the University of Pennsylvania planning authority, proposing physical changes to the building.

Ooh, go with the original acoustician! He deserves a second crack at it.

What's Next?

Adam Thurman has a great post today over at Mission Paradox about using a "who's next" strategy to recruit board members, like if you want to recruit a lawyer, instead of looking straight to the partners, maybe check out "who's next" in the succession line.

This reminded me of something a super-successful director once told me - that no matter what he's working on, he always has a "what's next" ready, like "I'd love to direct a version of King Lear in Sarajevo", or "I want to do a water-ballet version of The Trojan Women", or "I want to direct my friend's script about food poisoning". (None of these were his actual idea, which was so great I don't want to spill the beans on him.)

I am now addicted to "what's next". I love my job, I love going to school, but I know exactly what I would do if someone offered me $10,000 (or $100!). I know how to express my dream in one sentence. I'm not a director, but I think this is a brilliant way to approach any career in the arts.

Like your company just launched a successful new-play festival. What's next? A full production of one of the featured plays? An initiative to add a playwriting fellowship to next year's programming?

Or you just got a job at an organization you love. What's next? Thinking about going back to school part-time? Using your newfound fiscal stability to start a reading series? Writing a blog?

Or you were just selected for a prestigious directing fellowship. What's next? Setting a goal to re-mount one of your shows professionally? The Trojan Women as water-ballet? (Just kidding.)

Technology

Lyn Gardner, on the possible over-use of technology in theatre:

From what I've seen of it so far, Fifty-Nine's contributions to the productions on which they collaborate, whether it is in Black Watch or the adaptation of the cartoon Alex, are integral to the production and always in service of it. But I keep seeing productions in which it appears as if playing with the technologies is the prime interest of the theatre-makers, rather than the show itself.

The Fifty-Nine Gardner refers to is director Katie Mitchell's awesome in-house video production team. This essay is worth reading for the bonanza of experimental-theatre links Gardner has packed into it alone.

Whether technology is over or under-used in theatre is, of course, a concern for American theatremakers as well. The use of technology seems to really aggravate theatremakers' insecurities about our medium's relevance; we think we need to use technology to legitimize our existence, and it ends up being weilded around like a clumsy sledgehammer. A lighting designer friend of mine likes to joke that the measure of a green, usually unskilled director is their insistence on using "slides" in their production. On the other hand, when used well, it is seamless and unbearably cool - an iPod generating random, personal music for a dance piece, or the Wooster group creating a spooky, campy, double-reality Hamlet, or a great little film I saw used in Sweet Bird of Youth at Williamstown a few seasons ago.

Clearly, I live in NY, so my perspective is decidedly Northeastern. I'd love to hear readers' thoughts on the use of technology in regional productions.

Shuffle Culture

My ex-boyfriend is a visual artist (he's very good). Hanging out with him for like 6 years made me realize how totally different the visual art and theater communities are. When it comes to innovation, visual artists outclass theatre artists like it's their job.

Why is this? Well, after years of being lead around to galleries, openings, and gallery-openings, it finally dawned on me that visual art, unlike theater, is free to look at. Anybody can waltz into the Gagosian and check out a Cy Twombly (priced up to like $4.5 million), but free theater is for the most part nonexistant. I think this leads to some other important distinctions, like if I wanted to see something new by 100+ theater artists, it would probably take me six months (a year?), and several thousands of dollars. On the other hand, if I wanted to see something new by 100+ visual artists, all I would have to do is walk around Williamsburg on the second Friday of the month (or Chelsea, or whatever).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of the art scene (there's a reason he's my ex-boyfriend). But oh, do I envy their access. And I'm not advocating a night where 100+ theatre artists open up their rehearsal processes (well... maybe). But in the spirit of communication, I would like to draw your attention to these productions, all recent or ongoing, that are doing some remarkable things:

Contains Violence, currently getting terrible reviews in the UK, which is disappointing, because it sounds awesome. Theatre audience as Hitchcockian voyeur, happening in real time and space.

Democracy in America, Annie Dorsen's open-source deconsctruction/reconsctruction of deTocqueville with the Foundry Theatre.

Conversation Storm, recently at the Frigid Festival, described by Aaron Riccio as a marriage of Phillip Glass and Chuck Mee

Of All the People in All The World, by Stan's Cafe. A play without a plot.

Small Metal Objects by Back to Back Theatre, which I've written about before. Site-specific, tech-forward, and live as anything can possibly be.

The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, a play without words; "people-watching raised to the level of art"

Along these lines, I'd also like to point out this post from the Guardian Theatre Blog, which calls for an "iPod-like relationship between careful planning and chance" in theatre (Merce Cunningham is already all over this). I love this idea, and I think the performances listed above are making real strides in this direction. The live performing arts have got to fit into the landscape of open-source, of shuffle culture, and of personal control over information. I mean, we should own this one. We're live.