Re: RAT Collaborations question explored in a very stoned & self-involved way

[Gleaball@aol.com]

Jack -

I like the way you think.  Yes, event.  A coming together to mutually 
experience a moment - a celebration, a shared acknowledgement of willingness, 
of interest; a reason for why this day is like no other; a stopping long 
enough to 'be here now'

...We must call it an event, market it as an event, but most importantly 
<believe it to be> an event - one worth creating, one worthy of passionate 
investment, one worth yelling loud enough in the playground to get everybody 
else's attention to see if they'll come and play with you kind of investment 
!@##?@@!!!  
"The world - champion 4-square tournament 
is being held right over here!  
Come one, come all... 
Never before in your life have you seen 
A six foot four gorilla girl 
swamp the playground 
with such 
innuendo!  
How will we bounce our rubber balls in that folks?!?  
So step right up gentlemen (and ladies) 
for I assure you
that if you take the challenge
and try your level best,
you will not be disappointed! 
4- SQUARE !!! It's better than Hollywood Square! " 

And yes dammit, make it good; be your fucking best or don't waste people's 
time. The intimacy of your committment is what will make it intimate, no 
matter how visually driven it is. Demonstrate how much you care in the most 
profound way that you know how and then see if it doesn't open up some 
intimate small place in the hearts of your audience.  As someone else said 
(with my personal twist added): silence is better - then not laying it on the 
line - each and every time.

God I'm tired of this.  I'm home, post-party, post-play - stoned.  Been 
examining the relatively old existential artist questions, again...Do they 
ever go away? Not that this is a dear abby column, but how come we rarely 
talk about what it ~feels~ like to be an artist?  Is this unimportant to the 
larger goal of being an artist?  What it feels like to being an artist is 
what you see up on that stage right? - or actually, maybe that's just a 
director's gig, or a writer's gig...but, I don't think so.  It's sort of a 
collective experience designed to be shared with an unsuspecting collective 
so that it ever-grows in it's rippling effect.

Directors out there, here's a real tough one - how do you stave off 
depression after opening a show?  Or is this my solitary experience?  (which 
would make it all the more depressing.)

So one of my newest theories is that theatre must be a celebration, it has to 
be joyful somehow.  It has to make us want to stop and smell the roses - to 
enjoy the beautiful moments - to take a ride. So, considering I just directed 
"A Bright Room Called Day" (which if you don't know it, is less than bright) 
how do I resolve this dilemma?  The joy must come from the experience of 
getting to "be here now" in front of some other folks who hopefully are 
experiencing being here now as inspired by the joy created, the real-ness of 
it all, the event.  Oh, do I make any sense to anyone but myself?  I'm really 
not so sure anymore... (You know Salvador Dali didn't make much sense to 
people either and it worked for him...)  So no, I'm not really asking you all 
to tell me how to solve my dilemma, just wondering about your experiences, no 
matter whether they mirror, solve, or surpass mine.  Just curious...

But collaborations - (For someone who is stoned, I read remarkably drunk, 
just try reading it all with a slurr and suddenly it all sounds like, I don't 
know, your Aunt Martha or something...)  I don't know what about marketing 
collaborations.  I think it's a great idea and I think that it can be done 
with smaller groups.  See who in your immediate geographical area is 
interested in marketing as well.  Create community within your spacial 
community and then invite alot of people in, to be part of it.  A restaurant 
that's near by.  Set some marketing thing up with them.  A tax night theme!  
or with a gallery... or a book store.  That's a collaboration that's always 
made sense to me.  Get the bookstore in your neighborhood to put up a window 
display featuring material that relates to the play that you're producing.  
Autobiographies, histories, art books, share your inspirations with the 
literate community.  And then ask if you can peddle books at the shows.  (Hey 
and if you try this method out, please report on it, because I've never been 
able to implement the idea at the same time that I've actually had a 
production up...)  Is everybody else this over-worked and 
under-paid...(qualified by: in relation to the white lower-middle class model 
that I was raised on?)

Whatever -  I'm babbling.  But yeah, I'll keep ponderin' that one - more 
ideas for marketing collaborations...hmm.  And thanks for the yummy late 
night bon bons for thought - its like a raid on the refrigerator at three in 
the morning...

gb in la