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Re: RAT Re: obscurity
Chris,
I appreciate your passion for the Annex's model of doing things, and if a
director wants to do my play there, i'd love it.
But i feel strongly about a coupla things: number one, writers have to be
paid.
number two: writing is hard enough to do and getting your play produced is
twice as hard without having to take out the trash too.
number three: just as i have a wild and cluttered busy inner life as a
writer, i happen to have an external life that does not allow time for
"hanging out". please, i am a woman! i mean no offense here, just
explanation. like other artists, my whole life is art, and full of
meaningful projects,im in my 30s, etc.i am renovating a house, gardening,
and i have two dogs, a talking parrot, and a cat. i put all my spare time
into writing, two hours a day if i can get it! And writers (not actors or
directors) have to do that.
number four: if getting work done is all about people and connections, then
why do some unstable, nasty people get their work done?
number five:if your theatre doesn't have a mission statement, and doesn't
judge plays according to any intellectual framework, if there are no
dramaturgs, if no one knows what good writing is, then what is the point?
Bad plays aren't going to change minds, lives maybe. It may be all about
connections and hanging out, but if there's no purpose--like to produce well
written plays by a consensual definition of what that is--then it is just a
bunch of people taking out the trash and putting up lights.
The auality of the script, as it reflects the mind of the playwright, is
everything.
--Karen
----------
>From: "Sylvain, John" <jsylvain@station.sony.com>
>To: "'rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com'" <rat-list@whirl-i-gig.com>
>Subject: RE: RAT Re: obscurity
>Date: Mon, Feb 22, 1999, 10:35 AM
>
>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
>