Judson Church, and a Mission Statement Check-In

So...remember that mission statement I worked on/navel-gazed about, several posts back?

MISSION INTO ACTION!!!

Yesterday, I directed a reading of a play of mine at the Judson Church.

Self-producing a free, site-specific reading?  - Check.
Partnering with an organization committed to low-cost theater? - Check
Getting the work on its feet rather than seen by the "right" folks? - Check! (although there were some terrifically smart theater folks there, and I was grateful for their presence!)
Embracing non-realism, breaking the fourth wall, and trying to connect with the audience? - Check, check and check.  That fourth wall was in pieces on the floor.
Connecting to old stories? - Check
Screwing up? -- Oh yeah.  Absolutely "check."

I was incredibly excited about the day; it's one of the first times, in a long time, that I've felt like I was in the driver's seat.  It felt GOOD to talk directly to my actors, it felt GOOD to feed them lunch, it felt GREAT to be doing the work we were doing in a place built for people and God.

And...the play totally doesn't work yet.  People were focused on things, asking questions about things, that to me felt incidental, missing other huge things, things I thought should be mysterious weren't...I mean a laundry list of "this ain't it, Kid."

But Oh my God, how great to be able to be in a room with a real audience, a diverse audience of people who LOVE theater and people who only KINDA like theater...and to get a whole range of reactions!  How amazing to be out in the world with an early draft of the play!

YES!  More, please!

I got to work with some amazing actors, people I'd work with again in a heartbeat, and who offered to come to my living room to do reads of rewrites any time ( ! :)  ).

Hurray.

The guy who made it possible, Micah Bucey, is one of my new favorite people on this continent or the next.  He's the arts minister at Judson.  I mean -- ARTS MINISTER?!?  Can every institution in the world please have one of these?  Can I be one?  How amazing to facilitate, curate, invite, organize...He's like Bacchus meets Jesus or something, I mean REALLY.  I want to make plays just for him, and for that space!

So...this whole "mission" thing...so far, so good...

Theatrical Innovation: Thoughts from Howard Shalwitz

This is from the TCG website; it's the transcript of the speech with which he opened this year's tcg conference.

I think it's hugely important to figure out how to "be in the room" as a playwright, in a theater culture that seems, in my mind, to be moving toward models where the most interesting work marginalizes the playwright/text.  I want in on that work!  I think I'm necessary in those rooms!  If we're seeing "found" plays and "devised" plays...I think there *is* room for a more generous, less afraid kind of writer...I think there's room to have ego, but not egotism.  Shalwitz is arguing toward the same thing, I think.

http://www.tcgcircle.org/2012/07/theatrical-innovation-whose-job-is-it/

Journey, Destination, and "Scripts."

A couple Saturdays back, K and I headed up to the Farmer's Market to load up on veggies (and yes, if  picturing two white DINKS wandering the streets of Park Slope, coffees in hand, has you groaning under the weight of that much privilege in one place...well...I groan too).  And we pass a little boy.  Three, maybe four years old?  He's got one of those nifty/obnoxious Razor Scooter things that every man, woman and child in our neighborhood seems to own, he's got a helmet on -- this kid is built for speed.  Except he isn't speeding.  Kiddo is hunkered down at the corner of the sidewalk, examining the lone dandelion within a ten-foot radius that has managed to fight its way up through the concrete.  And he is fascinated.  Then he looks up, walks about another foot, sees a crack in the sidewalk, and is fascinated all over again.  Like you start to wonder if those ten feet of concrete are like speaking to him in some language that we grown-ups are too deaf to hear.

Twenty or thirty feet ahead of him, a woman.  Mom.  Lulu Lemon Yoga-geared from head to toe, svelte, clutching a coffee.  Urging him, the way you would urge your dog, to heel.  Because "doesn't he want to go to the play ground and have fun?" Because "we don't have long to play at the playground."

Lady.

Your son is having plenty of fun.
Your son is having so much fun.
You know what would be even more fun?  If you came over and checked out the cool canyon he found in the sidewalk.
You know all that "journey is the destination" stuff you yoga teacher is always saying while you're in Savasana?  Your kid has already figured it out.
But you're training him to be a particular kind of New Yorker (start 'em young).
The kind who rushes to get where he's going so that he can have the kind of fun you can recognize.
I'm not a parent yet.  And I know that the "kid-who-moves-slower-than-molasses" can be maddening and ruin your morning...on a weekday morning, when you gotta get him to day care, when you're trying to get out of the house.
But on a Saturday morning?  When all you got on the agenda is "play with kid in park?"
You are in Savasana, friend.  Be in Savasana.

What's the lesson here?  I'm still figuring that out.

Is it: "I'm the mom, my play is the kid?"
Is it "I'm the mom and the kid, and the dramaturgy is the DINK watching me from the other side of the sidewalk?"
Is it "I'm the mom, my career is the kid?"

The lesson is somewhere in there.