RE: RAT Re: obscurity

["Sylvain, John" <jsylvain@station.sony.com>]

Ah Jeffries, Jeffries, Jeffries, the greatest of them all!!


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Chris Jeffries [SMTP:cjeffries@seanet.com]
> Sent:	Saturday, February 20, 1999 6:04 PM
> To:	rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
> Subject:	RAT Re: obscurity
> 
> Karen,
> 
> Enjoyed your post.  Please don't apologize for ranting; we all do it, it 
> was your turn, we understand.
> 
> Theatre is a people medium.  Whatever other elements may be in the mix, 
> call them "theory" or "language" or "politics" or what you will, those 
> things do not put on a show.  People put on a show.  And people come to 
> see people put on a show.  That is why Jason and most others prefer to 
> work with people they know; because people is what they work with, over 
> and above "scripts" and "materials," and the better you know someone, the 
> more of a person they are to you and the richer your theatre experience 
> will likely be.  People who select plays read a lot of scripts; all of 
> them find it more fun to feel like they are producing people, or even 
> better, relationships, and not simply pieces of writing.  This has 
> nothing to do with "connections" in the corporate-jargon sense.  It has 
> everything to do with "connections" the real word referring to real 
> things that happen to real people when they work together and change each 
> other doing theatre together, whether or not they are in the same room or 
> city at the time.
> 
> Why _should_ a theatre undertake to produce a script that arrives in the 
> mail?  Isn't there something wrong with that model?  Speaking for Annex, 
> we've done about two hundred shows in a dozen or so years, nearly all of 
> them unpublished, and I can't think of a single one that simply showed up 
> in the mail.  Which is not to say we know every writer.  Sometimes the 
> company does "What?" by "Who?" because the person proposing it has a 
> connection to the piece, and the others choose to trust that connection.  
> But Annex considers itself most successful when the bulk of the work it 
> is doing comes from "in house" -- from people who help take out the trash 
> and sign up to work box office.  This is not to be snotty and exclusive 
> and shut anybody out.  It is because the biggest rewards come when 
> everyone involved feels as invested as possible in the work -- and, in a 
> breathlessly busy organization that doesn't pay people, those rewards may 
> not be dispensed with lightly.  Now, no one guarantees production or 
> casting to anyone who empties the trash, and plenty of people do theatre 
> at Annex who don't do those other things and disappear for months at a 
> time, and that's fine, but who feels more connected?  The ones with the 
> trash bags.  And theatre is connection.  For my money that's a far 
> stronger "why they do what they do" than any "intellectual framework," 
> however appetizing, will ever be.
> 
> RAT was dreamed up (or hacked up) precisely to create connection where it 
> didn't exist, to remove some of the horrible impersonality of American 
> theatre, an impersonality that includes the tradition of cold mailings of 
> plays.  RAT conferences happen, for one, because getting one's work out 
> is often better accomplished by sharing a pizza than by "getting one's 
> work out."  I personally have found it ten times more valuable to have 
> sat down with some of these RATs and talked with them than if I'd 
> received a list of them and mailed them all a script.  I may mail them a 
> script or I may not, but frankly I'd rather hang out and just be people 
> together, not wanting anything from them but _them_.  The way out of 
> "obscurity" is to offer, not your scripts, but yourself.  Ask any RAT.  
> It works.
> 
> When a person whose job it is to choose plays decides to reject a 
> particular script, she or he is thinking about a lot more than just that 
> script.  They are looking at it in the context of other projects already 
> chosen or under consideration.  They are using all of their knowledge of 
> their theatre and its history, its audience, its budget, its personnel, 
> its resources, all of the particular strengths and weaknesses of their 
> organization and its people.  Above all its people, which includes its 
> audience.  Chances are they know better than the playwright which 
> projects are best for their people.  It may be that they are trying to 
> please the "wrong" kind of people for you, in which case you're better 
> off without them.  Or it may be that they've tried projects like yours in 
> the past and had bad experiences for one reason or another.  They didn't 
> do it justice and felt bad about it, or nobody liked it, or it got them 
> into debt, or the theatre down the street could have done it much better 
> and everybody knew it.  Every theatre, every group of people, is unique 
> and special, and so the best way to get produced is to be familiar with 
> what's unique and special about a particular theatre and offer them 
> something that either fits them like a glove or stretches them in a 
> positive way.  This, again, is why it helps to know people.  It sounds 
> very hard and very slow.  IT IS.  But that is the difference between 
> building relationships that matter and sitting around giving strangers 
> the power to make you feel more or less "obscure."
> 
> And if all else fails, say "fuck it" and do it yourself.  That is why the 
> Compound and On The Boards were formed, that is why Y York is 
> self-producing this spring, that is why Bret Fetzer self-produces if no 
> one else is excited about what he wants to do.  We've all been there and 
> yes, we've all experienced doing a great show that nobody cares about.  
> So what.  If you have to do it, you have to do it.  Even a worst-case 
> scenario is an opportunity for everyone involved to exercise tremendous 
> patience and generosity, qualities this country desperately needs, more 
> than it needs theatre.
> 
> Chris
> 
> >Subject:     RAT Re: obscurity
> >Sent:        2/19/19 2:13 AM
> >Received:    2/20/99 3:07 PM
> >From:        Karen Cronacher, kcron@ix.netcom.com
> >Reply-To:    rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
> >To:          rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com
> >
> >hi brad,
> >
> >I love your list and didn't take my omission personally.  I just have a
> >basic rat question:  how do we get far-out language plays, that are black
> >comedy and avante-garde, etc., produced???
> >
> >i've discussed this topic with Mac Wellman and heard Jeff Jones speak on
> it.
> > Basically they were very sad and embittered.  They both told me they'd
> sent
> >out their plays to every theatre in the country, spent a lot of money,
> and
> >nothing happened. (this was 10 years ago, before they were known).
> >
> >My friend Y York warned me before i sent my play out that no one would do
> >it.  And jason neulander warned me that even he rarely produces a play by
> >someone he doesn't know.
> >
> >so i sent my play out anyway, spending $2,000 i don't have, after
> spending
> >another $2,000 to produce my own solo show in the Seattle Fringe, which
> >received reviews that said i could win the Pulitzer (i'm not kidding--i
> was
> >shocked) but still no one came and i lost all the money.
> >
> >basically, no one will produce my play, tho every rejection comments on
> my
> >brilliance, my wildly imaginative play (magic theate, playwrights
> horizons),
> >how much they love it, etc.  this just makes me crazy--everyone knows
> it's
> >good, it's been done successfully, it got great reviews, it's won awards,
> >but no one will do it.  I have this  faith--i believe if you have talent,
> >then people will recognize it, but i'm totally wrong and it's really
> about
> >connections. 
> >
> >so, i'm in a quandry, an existential crisis, etc.  i'm thinking of coming
> to
> >the conference.
> >
> >about grad school:  my years at Brown were the happiest ever.  I just
> lived
> >the passion of writing and working with people, and didn't have to think
> >about the real world.  My years at the U.W. were horrid--no one was alive
> >with ideas.  But i got a ph.d. there a while ago with Sue Ellen Case, who
> >was very abusive.
> >
> >i just wanted to let you know where i'm coming from.  I will send you the
> >play, and see what you think, thank you for agreeing to read it.
> >
> >seattle has a lot of theatre going on but none of it is idea-based or
> >language oriented.  The compound does some interesting non-linear work
> and
> >on the boards is great (i've performed there) and Brett fetzer does
> >Mabou-Mines type stuff, but i've studied lots of theory, and no one comes
> >from that place.Also, even the interesting stuff is so apolitical.
> People
> >do not seem to know why they do what they do--they don't have a sense of
> >theatre history or an intellectual framework.
> >
> >i do not usually rant, i swear.  What is your opinion of all this?  We
> can
> >open up this discussion on the list, too, if you want.
> >
> >--Karen