Name: Megan Minto

Where are you from originally?

That’s a difficult question… My dad was in the Air Force, so we moved around a few times. I was born in California, in the middle of the Mojave Desert. But, to me, home is most likely Fort Walton Beach, FL. We moved there when I was 10, and my mom and sister are still there. When I think the essence of “home town” that’s where my mind goes.

How long have you been in Austin?

I have lived in Austin for six-and-a-half years. Through a crazy series of events, leading from Florida to Georgia to New York to California, I somehow landed in the Lonestar State. I love it, except for the heat!

Who are some of the the folks you’re playing in Messenger No. 4?

I’m playing 16, Messenger No. 4′s sassy ex; Claudius from Hamlet, who I’m hoping will become a little Hitler; and part of a blood-thirsty Greek chorus.

What was the very first show you did ever in your entire life?

I don’t remember the name of my first show, but it was on the cafeteria stage (I was in 2nd grade), and it was a musical about the seasons. I played a green leaf (from a tree). Then, in 4th grade, each student in my class performed a poem in costume. I did the “I think mice are rather nice…” bit, dressed as a mouse. Awesome!

What is the single most fun thing you’ve ever gotten to do on stage?
My mom is pretty conservative, but she’s very supportive of my acting. In college, I was in a production in which my character spends a lot of time talking about her vagina. The night my mom came, I really played those moments up to embarrass her. It worked!

What moment on stage do you wish you could go back and erase from history?

In high school, I was in a production of Guys and Dolls. I played Sarah (the missionary), who has a drunken moment. Sky Masterson picked me up during my tipsy song, and one of my shoes was loose. It flew off, hitting the orchestra conductor in the back of the head. Ouch!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Tags: Messenger No. 4 // Add Comment »

Name: Elena Amelia Nagel Weinberg
(Or as I was once called in 5th grade which sent me home from school crying, Elena "a million bagels" Weinberg)

Where are you from originally?
I was born in Austin, but found my first home in Pleasanton, Texas.  On August 3, 1989, my parents were knee deep in remodeling their kitchen.  My mother was standing in her kitchen sink, sanding a cabinet at the moment I was born.  (That was when they got the call, their adoption was official, and they could pick up their new baby girl in Austin within three days time).  I only lived in our rolling country home in south Texas until the age of 3, thereafter San Marcos became my home.  Although I officially say I am "from" San Marcos, I went to High School in Wimberley, which very much shaped my theatrical future.  So, long story short, let’s say "San Marcos."

How long have you been in Austin?
5 years.

Who are some of the the folks you’re playing in Messenger No. 4?
Elektra, Antigone, Laertes, the "hot bitch" Narrative Inc. trainee (I named her myself), lamp, tree, Pluto the Dog… just some highlights.

What was the very first show you did ever in your entire life?
I invite everyone to my living room to watch the VHS recording of "Snow White" starring Elena Amelia Nagel Weinberg, age 3.  There are two performances, one in which I play Snow White and my Mom plays all the other characters, immediately followed by one in which my Dad plays Snow White and I play all of the other characters.

What is the single most fun thing you’ve ever gotten to do on stage? 
I was honored to play the front half of a pig in Mary Moody Northen Theatre’s production of "Peer Gynt" in 2010.

What moment on stage do you wish you could go back and erase from history?
When I was doing Hamlet at the Off Center a few months ago, the power in the entire building went out just as Hamlet and Laertes were starting their sword fight.  In our version, Ophelia (me) died onstage and stayed there for the rest of the play.. God love them, the boys decided to keep going.  Although there were a couple of close calls, neither one stepped on me or broke anything of their own.  It was probably the scariest moment I’ve ever gone through onstage in which I had absolutely no control over.  I mean, I was already dead, I couldn’t just get up and walk out!

What about Messenger No. 4 are you most excited to be sharing with an audience?
As cheesy as this sounds, I’m just excited to be able to provide our audiences with an hour and a half of pure fun; and to hopefully give them a break from real life for that short amount of time.  There have been so many laughs in rehearsals so far, I pray that our audiences have as much fun and think we are as funny as we do.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Tags: Messenger No. 4 // Add Comment »

If you have been in near-Travis orbit of late you have been flooded with Titus-talk. The hot news of the moment (aside from my eldest sister’s lovely wedding) has been that I have been cast as Titus Andronicus in the Last Act Theatre Company’s Titus Andronicus.

I am delighted and terrified. I am a 20-year character actor tackling a difficult Shakespearean lead. Titus is for my money Quentin Tarantino’s Lear. Titus is Lear if Lear were bent toward action instead of away, if Lear’s madness were reflected in the world he inhabited instead of rejected by it. Titus is Lear without subtlety. 

Titus also talks a LOT. Non-stop truth be told and my brain hasn’t gotten younger even once in the last 20 years. I haven’t had a lead in three years and before that another 5. I am daunted. There is a mammoth task ahead of me. But I will learn my multiple fights. I will cram all of the words highlighted in blue into my head and I will choose and then navigate the insane emotional path that old Andronicus hurtles through.

But there’s always a chance that I won’t.

There is always the possibility that the show won’t go on, that I won’t ever really own my lines, that I will only make the safest choices and wave at them halfheartedly. I could mouth it as some of our players do. I am a radically pragmatic man. I know that this can happen. That’s the nightmare.

What does a pragmatic man do when he knows failure is a possibility? He leaves himself an out. An escape hatch. A pressure release valve. I do this all the time. Frankly, it’s a primary reason I’m not a more successful artist.

You begin by hedging. There’s this impediment and that resource hole. There’s not enough of X and too many Y. Rehearsal got cut short due to mono and we never really got to work a third act dance number…

You move to lowering expectations.
It’s a young company.
I’m just a character actor.
It sure is hard and I don’t know…

But the biggest weapon in this niche arsenal is?

Secrecy.

If an actor fails in the woods and no one is there to see it it doesn’t matter. If I don’t tell you I’m doing something you won’t know. Entertainment Weekly doesn’t cover me like they should…

So you don’t mention it to the folks you respect, you don’t bring it up up the ladder of artistic success. You mention it to your friends and family who have to love you even if you really do kill Mutius in 1.1. And if it goes south? You have a story to tell and no blame.

But you can’t do something as hard as Titus Andronicus halfway. You’ve got to be all in.
So if you’re in near-Travis orbit and you’re already a little tired of the Titus-talk? I apologize.
But I have to hold myself accountable to this process.
I can’t hedge.
I can’t hide.

We open on October 20th. Less than a month.
Titus Andronicus in all of its violent, operatic sprawl.
Fierce and funny and brutally tragic.

I am Titus.

Will you join us?

Popularity: 11% [?]

Tags: Uncategorized // 5 Comments »

Those who operate in near-Travis orbit will hear me repeat phrases and motifs repeatedly as I hammer out a life’s philosophy before I die. “All we have is time and people” for instance. Or lately there’s been a lot of “design for your budget dammit, don’t design as if you had money and build halfway”. On-line it’s a gentle thrumming of “the repetition of asynchronous communication drives me crazy” and #neverbedark and being an advocate and talking about what’s good.

I understand that I’m repeating myself and I promise it’s not some sort of crazy-uncle disease where I just keep telling the same stories over and over again. Consider it me getting off book for The Show. And forgive me for another recurring theme: my repetition of the fact that I don’t have a career. I’m trying to figure out what that means to me and for me.

As a long time generalist I don’t really fit anywhere. It is after all a system made of specialists (on the paid side). But more to the point, only the work qualifies you for the work, and frankly I haven’t done enough to qualify me for anything. I also am unwilling to give up my security for an unpaid internship at this point in my life. That choice limits on-ramps to the paid universe.

Kate Powers asked:
Do you feel like it’s too late for you to dive into a position at an institutional theatre? (assuming that path interests you)

The answer is

Of course I feel that way,
of course it’s not too late, and
I haven’t invented the position and institution that I will be part of yet.

I am not the me that will be hired somewhere yet.
The me that is ready will have 51% answers to 49% questions.
The me that is ready will have an answer to “what do you want?”
The me that is ready, in knowing what it is I want, will be ready to sacrifice something for it.

I believe that the best fit for me will be in an umbrella or ASO type institution that advocates for new work and new work creators. That position will come about as a result of work that I initiate on my own in support of my desire to advance new work.

The obstacle is: That advocacy is rewarding for me. It is ultimately rewarding. But it isn’t fun. Part of my hesitance to move in that direction is that theatremaking is still fun. The idea of giving that up to advocate for others still rankles. It harkens back to my days at the Exit Theatre guarding the doors while others made art.

That’s the sacrifice I’m afraid to make.

There is a place for me in the machine. But that place isn’t as a theatremaker it’s as an advocate and I’m not ready to leave Neverland just yet.

Popularity: 32% [?]

Tags: Meta, Practice // 7 Comments »

Last fall the New Works community in Austin was awarded a planning grant from the Mellon foundation to explore (and model) infrastructure to support the creation of… well… New Work (http://goo.gl/y0TcS). That process continues apace and one of the identified areas of need was a better outreach to other makers and supporters, in other communities around the continent and the world.

The more we build relationship, the more contact makers have with those outside their own sphere the better the work will be and maybe we can ease the martyr/persecution complex just a bit…. you are NOT alone.

So.

If you are a maker or supporter of new performance work we would love for you to raise your hand and be counted via the short form linked below. We wouldn’t know who to sell you out to if we were interested… and we’re not. Someone from the Austin NWC might contact you with some questions but there probably won’t be math.

Thank you.

Down the Rabbit Trail: http://goo.gl/H8R8X

Popularity: 29% [?]

Tags: Uncategorized // 2 Comments »

A friend asked what I felt a vibrant theatre community was. Disappointed to realize I hadn’t already defined that term in this space I told her I would write up a post.

This is that post.

A vibrant theatre community is one that is connected vertically and horizontally, larger and smaller, more and less resourced, and across genres. Andrew Taylor uses a image in his creative ecology talk of the Honey Mushroom (armillaria ostoyae). To quote the linked article, “To go into the forest where this giant makes its home you would not look at it and see a huge, looming mushroom. Armillaria grows and spreads primarily underground and the sheer bulk of this organism lies in the earth, out of sight.”

Armillaria are to scientific knowledge the TWO largest living organisms. But you never see the whole thing. You see it shooting up here and there but the truth of it’s life and interconnectedness lies out of sight.

The hallmarks of a vibrant theatre community:

• A talent base.
  Every community has a best, most talented person. A vibrant community has a pool of talent that like sourdough starter can be dipped into again and again and mot be diminished.
• Opportunity to begin, opportunity to continue.
  The bar to entry is low enough in terms of resources that you can enter the community and (without hitting the lottery) sustain an artistic effort.
• Culture of Making
  A vibrant creative environment needs to be rooted in creating opportunity rather than waiting for opportunity.  
• Artist Awareness
  While taking a breath from their own pursuits individual artists look up every know and again and recognize that others exist and are doing the same things they are. Occasionally they may talk or even share a meal with another artist.
• Cooperation, not competition.
  Each sees and supports each. There needs to be room for each creator to root.
• Overlap between producing groups.
  Friction creates both heat and light, keep rubbing up against new thoughts and ideas.
• Variety of goals.
  A town only producing musicals or design driven reflections on the work of Anne Sexton can’t sustain a broad enough population of artists or audience to maintain continuity.
• Ambition
  Of some kind.
  Whether is for innovation or simply drive for greatness. The needs to be an animating force for something more than “I want to do a play”.
• Continuity… and churn
  Like the ocean, a vibrant community needs a foundation of “elders” and community pillars underlaying a froth and chop of high kinetic energy, high entropy groups forming, crashing and reforming in a flurry. The two energies feed each other.

There is of course an equation hidden in all of this that would quantify it and balance the factors but lord knows I got 99 problems but a math ain’t one.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Tags: Uncategorized // 7 Comments »

Once upon a time in a blog post not so terribly far away I mentioned that you should be careful not to post the same platitudes on Twitter every one is posting every day because I was seeing the same quotes DAY after DAY after DAY and the only thing worse than Successories posters are Successories posters on every single wall of every single office.

The primary offender on a theatre feed is of course the Samuel Becket quote, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

I love it, you love it, we all own t-shirts and mugs with it emblazoned in Beckett Estate approved fonts…

But every day was a bit much.

The #Newplay convening at Arena Stage was like a funhouse with creator after creator reflecting back about the need for risk and failure. It was it’s own sort of convening game… how many different ways can you say “create a safe place for risk taking”. The answer is: a lot. Most of them involved some variation of the phrase “room to fail”.

I loved it. It was good. It IS good. It’s an attitude and a reality that we need in theatre making.

Spider Man: Turn off the Dark is apparently apocalyptically bad. Last night was the longest listed press opening so everyone went all in and it got the critical lambasting we all knew was coming. I love Ben Brantley raging out as much as the next guy. I love snark and I love the sword of justice falling.

But this is after two years of snark and six months of active schadenfreude on the part of the Twitter community that I am surrounded by. This isn’t even news this was a moment of gleeful grave dancing. Noting that the sinner in this case is not a war criminal I’ll ask: when is enough?

So here’s what I want. In return for your continued bile and your smug derision. I want you to either expunge to phrase “room to fail” and “we need to find ways to take risks” from your vocabulary or you need to append to the end of each use, “in support of projects or people I like at price points I don’t find objectionable even though it’s not my money and never had any way of becoming my money.”

It won’t fit in a twitter post so you may simply add “I’m a hypocrite, ibid.”

I don’t want to hear about waste.
I don’t want to hear about how you don’t like her style.
I don’t want to hear how you think Broadway should crumble into the sea.
Because see, here’s the cold truth:

There is almost no shot I like the theatre you’re producing.

Like, a 15% shot. But by all means go and make it!
A theatre-going culture is a better culture for me even if you aren’t making the art I want to see.
I financially support what I can, I see as much as I can, I advocate for just about everydamnthing on a stage.

You cannot (unhypocritically) root for space to fail for you and your friends and not root for room to fail for Julie Taymor, or as Kris Vire portmanteau’d last night U2Mor.

They, by every non-Glenn Beck account, have failed. They have failed on every card and on a scale I actually literally never dreamed of. [They failed with half the Yankees payroll. Only the Cardinals and Mets do things like that] I would love to have that money. I want the chance to fail that big. Chances are you would too.

But instead of singing me song after song about how much the Spiderman teams sucks: dream the dream. What would YOU build given that kind of opportunity?

Popularity: 60% [?]

Tags: Meta // 2 Comments »

This has been a fallow year for Cambiare Productions. We’re not dead. You can’t kill a guerilla group made up of two people and a mathematician (hi Amanda!). We’ve been busy bathing in other things that interest us, Will has been taking 120 or so shots a day and honing his immense talent for photography into razor sharp skills. Amanda has been chasing free range theorems and proofs all about as she pursues her 17th post-grad degree in the maths. I have noodled about with social media and the infrastructure of New Play development, learning a lot of nuts and bolts about how the bottom of this system works and how social media can make it work better.

That work will continue into the new year, and Will will continue to become the best photographer in Austin, and Amanda will take her math cudgel to an area high school.

Cambiare will take this year to really figure out how we develop plays. We began development on the “Childhood” project last year, aided by three phenomenal talents, but lost traction in part to the fact that as a team we have no process in place to develop works from scratch (adaptation we have a handle on). We put “Childhood” back on the shelf before we broke it beyond future use and decided we needed a new approach and better discipline.

So this year will be spent on at least two development projects with hard deadlines. One of Will’s devising and one of mine. If we manage to develop a presentable piece for next years’ Frontera Fest all the better. If not? Well, we at least hope to share the process here and with other member of the Austin theatre community.

We plan on working closely with the Austin New Works community on the Mellon initiative exploring new works models, and we plan on supporting indie theatre in Austin as much as we ever have.

With a low risk, low budget plan for next Cambiare doesn’t need your end of the year donations. But we would like to suggest places you can drop those final charitable doubloons of 2010 if you are so inclined:

Capital T Theatre is producing some of the finest work in Austin, they are doing it with a high degree of technical polish, they strive to treat their performers professionally at every turn and they lost %70 of their funding for the next year.

Rubber Repertory is making theatre that defies what you thought theatre could be. They do it every year. You leave a Rubber Rep show changed in some way.

PearlDamour is creating a work called How to Build a Forest that I am preemptively in love with as they develop it here in Austin via smaller Forest builds. A long term exploration of the very concept of “forest” and our relationships to them, the finished product in New York will be must see. Get in now and follow the process and you’ll be amazed how touching that process is.

These are the sorts of places that my attention and money go, if you trust me and have no other direction for your year-end giving? these folks will put it to good use.

Every blessing in the New Year from all of us at Cambiare.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Tags: Uncategorized // 2 Comments »

I made them for you so you don’t have to think too hard.

The average theatre human finally discovered Twitter in 2010. There are plenty of folks coming behind you so please get out of the doorway but you aren’t the first either so settle down.

The primary faux pas that folks make when first wading into the Twitter waters (it’s also true for blogging and e-blasting but less so) is ignoring the “social” and focusing on the “media”. So let’s see if we can shift that a bit…

To wit:

1. I’m sure you’re very good at what you do. That doesn’t mean I have any idea who you are, what you do, or where you’re from and that doesn’t make me stupid. Give context in your posts as to where you are and what you’re doing.
   
2. As to #1: Make sure there’s a reason that you’re sending this message about what you’re doing to the universe. Twitter is powerful because it’s a broadcast medium. But as with all broadcasts people stop tuning in if te content isn’t worth it to them (right NBC?). Is this message or event something that belongs in your Facebook posts, on your blog or only in your newsletter? It’s okay to not shout every piece of news to the heavens. (this is of course for company based Twitter-users)
3. Don’t just cut and paste lines from your press release into the Hootsuite or Tweetdeck window. It reads like your Mom yelling into her cell phone because she can’t hear you very well. Yes this thing works, yes we can hear you. Now say something and say it to us not at us.
4. Loosen up your tie. It is okay to not have a business voice at all times. Of course comply with your companies agreed upon guidelines (try these to build off of if you don’t have any) but allow the person who is speaking for your company (or heck just you if it’s you) to really speak. Astoria Performing Arts Center, Boston Court, and American Shakespeare Center all have %100 more of my attention than they had before Twitter solely because of the engaging personal nature of their social media presence. You can do it too.
5. Don’t spam. Don’t spam – don’t. Don’t do it Sam I am. Do NOT SPAM. It’s a block-no-take-backs.
   Okay sure simple advice, but here’s the trick – you probably don’t think you are. If you push all of your content every morning at 9AM EST and you have 9 posts or 35 posts… it reads as spam. No matter how much content you have packed into those 140 character morsels, if you highjack my feed at any point it reads as spam. That doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person – but it is a problem. There are easy (free) technological fixes to the problem in terms of scheduled posts. Look into them.
6. Be there (aloha).
   Have you ever ridden one of those electricity generating bikes like at the New England Museum of Science? You power a row of light bulbs with your mighty ministrations and are amazed at how much energy you produce! Until about the end of that sentence when you rev your little 10-year-old legs down to normal speed and realize you only light two bulbs. Until you get too tired and need to go get some popcorn and you light zero lightbulbs.
   
   You only exist on Twitter if you’re posting. You only exist broadly on Twitter if you’re interacting with others. This doesn’t need to be full time 24/7 but if you’re not responding to mentions and direct messages you fade from view pretty quickly.
7. It’s a two-way street.
   I want two things in an actor, the first being an ability to listen. Heck it was the first piece of advice I ever got in college. I showed up eager to prove that I was good and that I knew what I was talking about. My friend Jeff pulled me aside and said point blank, “you need to shut up and listen for a minute”. Everyone at school had done what I had. Given time I 1.) learned more 2.) figured out what I knew (or had experienced) that they hadn’t and was able to share that. It can be unbelievably invigorating being in a room full of smart people who love the things you love, but don’t lose your brain. Follow a bunch of folks or lists, or hashtags and simply see what’s going on and get a feel for the dynamic. Then jump in the game.
8. The other thing I want from my actors is generosity. Generosity on and off stage. I like’em punctual and prepared so they’re not wasting time, I like them giving scenes as well as taking them ferociously. You have to be generous on Twitter. You can’t have every idea first. In fact the chance that you had ANY idea first is pretty slim. You can’t be working on every concept. You can’t have read every article ever (or written every article ever). Retweet. Link. Share. It does a few things. It lets people know that you’re listening. It gives people in your sphere an idea of your likes and influences. It leaves a paper trail for you of all the things you’ve read and liked. And heck it’s just neighborly. Do avoid becoming a quote machine though or simply a platitude passer. The theatre folk on twitter get the Beckett quote twice daily. Feel free to affirm the group but don’t shop for your affirmations at QuoteWalmart.com.
9. Have an opinion, but not a binary opinion.
   If you want to rant in talk radio fashion about something? That goes on the blog. If you want to discuss it? Bring it to Twitter. There is no discussing a binary opinion. If there is no grey area, and anyone who disagrees with you is stupid? Go hang out at Digg. Or SomethingAwful.
10. Stop assuming.
    Don’t assume that your not knowing someone means they’re unimportant.
    Don’t assume ANYONE is unimportant.
    Don’t assume that everyone agrees with you. (You’ll be disappointed)
    Don’t assume that no one agrees with you (and whine about persecution)
    Don’t assume their disagreement means they don’t like you.
    Don’t assume that disagreement means lack of “professionalism” on their part.
    Don’t assume that disagreement means they’re stupid.
    Don’t assume that a person is solely the sum of their posts.
    Don’t assume that a person posting means that that is all the theatre they have done today.
    Don’t assume that no one posted anything while you weren’t looking, before you started looking, or before you knew there was such a thing as Twitter.

And one for free?
If you don’t like someone? Don’t follow them just because you’re “supposed to”. Unfollow and make your life better. I recommend to lots of folks that they not follow me because I’m high volume and not always on topic. It doesn’t hurt my feelings.

And folk? I yammer a lot (in general) about the Right Way, but there is only one real rule though. The Golden Rule of Twitter – don’t do anything that you hate when other people do it.

Popularity: 95% [?]

Tags: Meta // 9 Comments »

As has happened so many times in the last couple of years I said something off the cuff that someone else has paid entirely too much attention to.

On November 19th I said:

And yesterday Mr. Howard Sherman, president of the American Theatre Wing responded very thoughtfully. His considered response makes me regret we don’t share a city because I think that this is a discussion that would be an awful lot of fun over a beverage. It also made me regret my mobile status on the 19th because my shout out to the Emperor Jujamcyn was part of a running conversation about the profile of the theatre in America and theatremakers ongoing inability to a.) create a narrative about the work and the field b.) tell that narrative to any member of the press or possible theatregoing public without sounding like we’re on break from a PhD dramaturgy class. 

So let’s start with my appreciation for Mr. Sherman’s history lesson. I didn’t know any of that (save the Regionals on Broadway portion) and I think that it’s very instructive and gives us some pointers for directions not to travel.

My point of departure is: I don’t care if a single show ends up on Broadway. I have never seen a Broadway show. I’ve never stood on Broadway. There’s not a one of my megalomanical inclinations that lands on the Great White Way. But Broadway has The Juice. Being on Broadway signals to the public that This Matters and I want badly for the greater public to know that great theatre is being made every day in this country. Until that greater public has a guide to What Matters in theatre and Who Is Good we can’t begin to give them a narrative.

The idea of shipping things to New York is simply because that’s where the brand juice is right now so that’s an “easy” way to go about it and as I discussed in my post “Is This Heaven, No It’s Iowa” I would rather ship an entire show to New York than store all of my actors there.

So the short answer is that no, Broadway isn’t our national theatre in the way that theatremakers would talk about it and the founding and operation of a true national theatre in DC or elsewhere is a fate I wouldn’t wish on Donald Rumsfeld. But I’m not yet ready to cede broader vitality or a place in the cultural conversation for non-musical theatre. It shouldn’t feel like a Renaissance when we talking about August: Osage County or God of Carnage. Tracey Letts and Yasmina Reza should be cultural stars and most folks have never heard of them. To crib a line from the Bible, we need to stop hiding our light under a bushel and shine forth from the lampstand.

Now where the hell is that lampstand? How to we build it?

I don’t know. 
So I ask smarter men than I.
Often in fewer than 140 characters.

Popularity: 55% [?]

Tags: Uncategorized // 3 Comments »