To read and consider—as you move through your plan for the week.
I want to deliver two seemingly contradictory messages.
1. Keep working.
2. Don’t keep working.
Check out this important post from Medium. Nicholas Berger argues that we should stop making theater as if we were all in the same room... that we should not perform “business as usual” by pretending that Zoom and Facebook Live are neutral mediums through which we can keep on making theater (or share old work in a meaningful way). He’s speaking not just to the theater community but, a little, too, to enterprises like, well, Bryn Mawr, who have asserted that we are gathered together just the same, whether we are actually with one another OR “gathered online.” (I got some email yesterday about plans for a virtual May Day...for example.)
Enough of that, Berger says. Stop pretending. (And he makes some really compelling arguments in a well-written piece—please read the whole thing.)
BUT there is work to do. So says him. And say I.
Although this is not the moment to pretend that we can make theater and reach an audience in the same ways that we have, out is a GREAT moment—maybe the best one ever—to reflect on our capacities and to invest in making them greater.
There is a lot that the institution of theater needs to be thinking about and working on. In order to protect the health of our institutions, we have fired all the artists and turned them out to fend for themselves. Even when we’re producing, we are not doing a good job of serving the WHOLE POPULATION. Maybe we need new institutions with new values. And now is a time to think about this and...plan. (I recognize that this is mostly outside your ken right now. Or maybe it is.) BUT it is a great time to reflect on just what kind of theater you want to be making, what your values are and how you can make a creative life that lets you live those values.
There is a lot for young artists to work on. People who are in your shoes. A bit of this follows from above. When the worst of this crisis passes, we will be allowed to begin to gather, in some fashion. But it will NOT be in rooms with 1,000 seats. Not for a long while. So: what are our making strategies to address this eventuality? How can we make work for smaller groups? How can this be a virtue of our work and working?
More: what skills do we want to have. This is right where you are all working. You are mostly relieved of the obligation to make a theater piece. And of course that’s sad—we all wanted for you to be able to do this. BUT: you have the time to really work on your chops. To hone the skills that only you can master, working alone. Repeating. Iterating. Getting into the real weeds of your work and developing some FINE skills. This is true of rehearsing. Performing. Creating. Writing. Journaling.
You have this time when you can really tune in to your own impulses in ways that maybe you’ve never been able to before.
And you have the opportunity to try ways of sharing work that are new to you. Maybe some of these will stick. Maybe you were born to make toy theater. Maybe the partnerships you can forge with one another as the eyes and dramaturgical sounding boards for each others’ work will be lifetime strengths that you can draw on. You would not have had the time to really dig into this without this crisis. Without your project being derailed.
All of our lives are harder and more complicated now. No question. I spend time cooking and cleaning and laundering face masks and trying to make sure my kids are OK and etc. that is more time-consuming than before. And everything I do reminds me of how sad I am that we are all separated, that the entire world is to be presumed toxic. When I am washing greens in soapy water and singing to myself to be sure I give them the full wash, it hits me. And I don’t sleep so well. And many times a day I just get this rush of terror that comes from no place in particular. And I watch the news. And read about it.
All of this is hard.
But there is also time to work if you want it. There is time to invent something if that’s what you need to do. There is time to conspire with yourself about how you will set about things as we emerge into he new world that we will all be climbing out into ... as this things, eventually, begins to loosen its hold.
1. Keep working.
2. Don’t keep working.
Check out this important post from Medium. Nicholas Berger argues that we should stop making theater as if we were all in the same room... that we should not perform “business as usual” by pretending that Zoom and Facebook Live are neutral mediums through which we can keep on making theater (or share old work in a meaningful way). He’s speaking not just to the theater community but, a little, too, to enterprises like, well, Bryn Mawr, who have asserted that we are gathered together just the same, whether we are actually with one another OR “gathered online.” (I got some email yesterday about plans for a virtual May Day...for example.)
Enough of that, Berger says. Stop pretending. (And he makes some really compelling arguments in a well-written piece—please read the whole thing.)
BUT there is work to do. So says him. And say I.
Although this is not the moment to pretend that we can make theater and reach an audience in the same ways that we have, out is a GREAT moment—maybe the best one ever—to reflect on our capacities and to invest in making them greater.
There is a lot that the institution of theater needs to be thinking about and working on. In order to protect the health of our institutions, we have fired all the artists and turned them out to fend for themselves. Even when we’re producing, we are not doing a good job of serving the WHOLE POPULATION. Maybe we need new institutions with new values. And now is a time to think about this and...plan. (I recognize that this is mostly outside your ken right now. Or maybe it is.) BUT it is a great time to reflect on just what kind of theater you want to be making, what your values are and how you can make a creative life that lets you live those values.
There is a lot for young artists to work on. People who are in your shoes. A bit of this follows from above. When the worst of this crisis passes, we will be allowed to begin to gather, in some fashion. But it will NOT be in rooms with 1,000 seats. Not for a long while. So: what are our making strategies to address this eventuality? How can we make work for smaller groups? How can this be a virtue of our work and working?
More: what skills do we want to have. This is right where you are all working. You are mostly relieved of the obligation to make a theater piece. And of course that’s sad—we all wanted for you to be able to do this. BUT: you have the time to really work on your chops. To hone the skills that only you can master, working alone. Repeating. Iterating. Getting into the real weeds of your work and developing some FINE skills. This is true of rehearsing. Performing. Creating. Writing. Journaling.
You have this time when you can really tune in to your own impulses in ways that maybe you’ve never been able to before.
And you have the opportunity to try ways of sharing work that are new to you. Maybe some of these will stick. Maybe you were born to make toy theater. Maybe the partnerships you can forge with one another as the eyes and dramaturgical sounding boards for each others’ work will be lifetime strengths that you can draw on. You would not have had the time to really dig into this without this crisis. Without your project being derailed.
All of our lives are harder and more complicated now. No question. I spend time cooking and cleaning and laundering face masks and trying to make sure my kids are OK and etc. that is more time-consuming than before. And everything I do reminds me of how sad I am that we are all separated, that the entire world is to be presumed toxic. When I am washing greens in soapy water and singing to myself to be sure I give them the full wash, it hits me. And I don’t sleep so well. And many times a day I just get this rush of terror that comes from no place in particular. And I watch the news. And read about it.
All of this is hard.
But there is also time to work if you want it. There is time to invent something if that’s what you need to do. There is time to conspire with yourself about how you will set about things as we emerge into he new world that we will all be climbing out into ... as this things, eventually, begins to loosen its hold.
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