I’ve been asking them about their favorite and least favorite moments on stage because at its heart Messenger No. 4 is about the lengths we go to to create the former and erase the latter (both on stage and in life). Whether those erasable forgettable moments happen because it’s truly bad play or because of cosmic confluence – they never quite leave us… nor do those good moments… whether transcendent performance moments or crises managed with casts you adore.

I want to hear your war stories.

What was your favorite moment on stage?
What moment do you wish you could simply erase forever?

Drop them in the comments here or write a post of your own and link it in the comments below.

and here, a portrait of the artist as a young man as an old man.

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.

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?

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.

For a company with as short a production history and as skinny a wallet as Cambiare has, we have been blessed to work with the very best people. Today the B. Iden Payne Award nominations for 2009-10 were released and several Cambiare alums were honored:

Outstanding Performer in Youth Theatre
Rachel McGinnis (Queen Honey, Just Bee) – Pollyanna Theatre Company

Outstanding Director of a Comedy
Derek Kolluri (Dead White Males) – Sustainable Theatre Project

Outstanding Director of a Drama
Derek Kolluri (Dying City) – Capital T Theatre

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama
Rachel McGinnis (Maggie, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) – City Theatre Company

Outstanding Featured Actor in a Drama
Gabriel Luna (Lover, Machinal) – Paper Chairs

Outstanding Featured Actress in a Drama
Smaranda Ciceu (Cassandra, The Trojan Women) – UT Department of Theatre and Dance

Outstanding Lighting Design
Megan M. Reilly (Murder Ballad Murder Mystery) – TUTTO Theatre Company and VORTEX Repertory Company

Outstanding Sound Design
Adam Hilton (Bug) – Capital T Theatre
Adam Hilton (The Cherry Orchard) – Breaking String Theatre

Congratulations all, and also to our many friends we haven’t worked with yet who were also nominated. Austin is a town bursting with talent – now we just have to work long enough to work with you all.

My answers weren’t needed for the eventual post due to my non-Chicagoanity but spurred by Dave Charest’s repurposing of his answers I’d like to share mine as well.

What role is social media playing in regional theater?

It is playing a very small role thus far. Like any good business Regionals are waiting for smaller, nimbler companies to create best practices and proofs of concepts around social media that ensure some stability before they risk time or treasure on it. 

Is social media a valuable use of resources in this sector, considering the time and effort it takes to build these kinds of relationships with patrons/artists? 

The time and effort is comparable to a large traditional print/mail campaign. It feels more time intensive because it is every day, but re-aggregated I think you would find that social media consumes about the same or less time than a week of folding and peel and stick. The benefit of crafting a long term narrative for your theatre? Of creating a narrative around your stable of performers (which you should have or be building) and of creating a Voice for your theatre is quite literally priceless. The ability to have instant access to anyone who has mentioned your show or theatre or is on your email rolls? It changes your customer service role from reactive/negative to proactive/positive. Your customer service staff (whichever other roles they fill) can reach our and make contact with people who are happy with the shows/theatre/staff not simply be confronted with unhappy patrons. 

Is it too easy? What are the dangers of using social media for this purpose?

Is social media too easy? The access is easy. The dangers come in message creep and in simply hiring the wrong person. A professional social media campaign requires the same writing skill as any other and planning like any other with additional gaps filled in with personal reaching out. Using SM software in the vein of Hootsuite you pre-write your campaign and time-release it.  If you simply put a junior intern on Twitter and tell them to talk? The informality will turn off most of your older base and the lack of information won’t draw folks to you. Much is made of the informality of the networks, but the non-stars drawing traffic are those that are either dispensing real knowledge or those engaging in real conversation – in shorter words: authenticity. If your feed or representative is inauthentic you will lose all the time you have put into it. 

Does it have a valuable return in relationship to the demographic it reaches?

Proven authenticity is valuable to all demographics, an extended voice/narrative is valuable to all demographics. Getting out of your building and extending beyond the people who’ve opted in to the folks who are interested in your form but never touched your space? Or who are interested in a topic related to the show or season? It may not pay off with the folks you already have – they respond to whatever you were already doing – but it is a fantastic way to reach out to folks where they already are.

What are the pros and cons of social media in the regional theater market?

Pros? Narrative – I think that going forward Regionals are going to need more than "We’re Good" to carry on, they need a personality around the space, the staff and the talent – they need a narrative for who they were, who they are, and who they’re going to be. In the past you let critics and arts columnists do that for you… now you don’t have to.

The cons? You can’t get away with anything. At all. Ever. That has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not  you (or the theatre) are participating in SM that’s part of the ubiquity of information… but it is a con.

I buy that.
<sidebar> I will also buy that I really hate gaudy faux gilt frames around pastoral landscapes </sidebar>

Jonathan Mandell (@NewYorkTheater) over at the Faster Times, in the wake of the American Theatre Critics Association wingding last week, drew up a broad post discussing the state of criticism in America. It was a really fun post that ranged far and wide, from the necessity of criticism, to the death of critics, to John Simon averring that bloggers are vermin (I am) and Stephen Hendel admitting publically that he doesn’t read George Hunka or Lucas Krech.

I have no use for the argument about whether blogging is valid. Publishing is publishing. If you haven’t found something to read that makes your pink parts tingle that doesn’t invalidate the medium. Neither do I care to (further) discuss the “death” of anything like criticism, as that conversation is expressly about the ability of Professional Whatever to make as much money as they feel like they should be making, not about the thing itself.

What I DO have use for is what I want criticism to do.

Not reviewing. Lord we have a lot of reviewers. We have citizen reviewers and professional reviewers and pro-am reviewers and the irascible Don Hall reviewer and friends and family and cast and crew and the butcher, the baker, and candlestick maker.

Criticism.

In a time of centralized (truly Mass) media the upper echelons of each field could be recognized and the average person would know at the very least who the Biggest and Brightest in each small niche were. It wasn’t a broad knowledge or anything like even a basic working knowledge of a niche, but you could play word association games – Theatre? Arthur Miller! Poetry? Robert Frost!

In a time of fractured media and self selection of sources it’s more difficult to assume any knowledge whatsoever of a niche.

There’s no context whatsoever for what we’re doing. We talk about microlabels inside our niche “indie” theatre versus “pro-am” or whatever… do a man-on-the-street and ask who the biggest star on Broadway is. Who has the number 1 album on Billboard?

People like knowing what they’re talking about. People like knowing that what they’re seeing is the best, the first, the something-th. They have no way of knowing unless someone knowledgeable steps in provides that knowledge for them. If they walk into the small and oddly shaped Hyde Park Theatre and see Annie Baker’s Circle Mirror Transformation this week they don’t know (without someone telling them) that they’re seeing a Obie-winning play directed by an in-town Hall of Famer with a cast that has a few closets full of awards and nominations. Despite the irregularities of the space, the informality of the evening and the affordability of the ticket,  you should have high expectations for both the show and the performers. This isn’t a Waiting for Guffman extravaganza written by a bored 5th grader.

I want for the critics of the now, print or on-line, paid adequately or not, to be those context providers. Every town has a narrative. Every town likely has multiple narratives on multiple levels, but let’s stick for the moment stick to the singular. If our critics in each town look to that narrative to inform the coverage and the features we continually build hooks into creating broader interest in what we do. Who is the bad boy of Minneapolis theatre? Who is the rising star of Seattle?

It seems a little trite. But I believe firmly in selling our people and if we only ever talk about plays as product? Wow are we missing the boat. I know allotted column inches are shrinking, I know budgets are shrinking, I know that many critics are working multiple jobs and don’t have time for features.

So my call to action is this:
Critics give your audience context for each show you talk about. A an extra online paragraph. Feature the author, or a performer, or the venue – how does this production fit into the town? Or the season? Robert Faires did this really well with his “The Classics Comeback” piece in the Chronicle.

YOU. You have a blog. Tell us about folks you love in your town. Stop whining about how no one is doing something and be the person who does it. Be an advocate! Out Adam Szymkowicz Adam Syzmkowicz! It isn’t our job to research the best and brightest in your town, it’s your job to tell us.

Frame the picture for us, so that when we come to see your art we have context.

1. AD’s honestly believe that there are no good plays anymore. Because of course Really Good Play means Tartuffe.It is really not clear to ADs at major shops who have been running Shakespeare, Moliere, Shakespeare, Chekov, O’Neill for a decade that reading a new unproduced play isn’t going to have the same effect on them, not because it isn’t good, but because:

   A.) You’ve only been working with Hall of Fame scripts distilled by 500 years of production winnowing the field

   B.) You’re older, more experienced, more broadly read and you’re not going to be as easily impressed as you were when you were 22.

   Baseball metaphor: hitters will always tell you that Old Ace Pitcher was the fastest ever, much faster than Young Flamethrower. Because of course he was 19 and seeing Big League fastballs for the first time out of the hand of Old Ace Pitcher and seeing Young Flamethrower’s work after 20 years of seeing Big League fastballs.

   To paraphrase Bill James: The real level of the Really Good Play is not Hamlet or a Doll’s House and never has been.

2. The book’s opening paragraph’s outline the Utopia found by Chekhov, Brecht, O’Neil, Churchill, August Wilson, Odets and Shakespeare, and Moliere – all writers for the ages who were lovingly tended by theatre’s eager to receive their work…
   Except of course that they were writing members of a group, not Monks on a retreat who returned from the mountain tops wreathed in glory to deliver the Next Work.No one is arguing that groups that develop a work begun by a singular voice can’t work… they’re arguing that they’re broke. Well, not arguing – stating.  What they are also stating is that major nonprofits aren’t doing that. I think that’s a pretty unassailable position.
3. Everyone wants a comfortable job at a comfortable salary at a nurturing artistic home. And a unicorn. Too bad.That aside, the burrowing of our writers from high school to undergrad to grad to laboratory to internship to retreat to incubator is naturally going to lead to disconnected abstract plays. They are disconnected from reality, living inside a bubble of craft, only talking to other theatremakers and primarily only other writers. To be crass? Inbreeding leads to retardation.(Preemptive rebuttal: the fact the YOU Intrepid Wordsmith haven’t Done That doesn’t invalidate my premise… you are not the entire world snowflake)

   Live life in this world and you’ll be able to write about it.
   My favorite current example of the real world leading to good craft is smaller by Malachy Walsh. His experiences inform the subject and round the characters but never supersede his craft in the creation.

More as I wade through the heartache.

Of course the problems that face theatre are insurmountable.

T’was ever thus.

We are trying to perform communal alchemic creation in a hastily pasted on corporate structure. We have no funding mechanism that doesn’t involve the kindness of strangers and a talent base that pays lipservice to the good of the artform while silently chafing that they’re not paid on the level of their similarly educated (less romantic) peers. We have no economies of scale, no national infrastructure, no global networking, no buzzwords of any sort to alleviate the problems.

Reflecting on it doesn’t change it. With no disrespect meant, maybe that’s what happens when you’re inside a system and see the cliffs?

There is no system in the wild. Out here in the provinces we just make theatre. It may not be diverse enough, it may not feature enough women, but it’s pretty high quality and getting better all the time… and efficiently produced as hell.

Pride in indie theatre aside, I have long felt that the entrepreneurial model is a bad idea for theatre. We are forced to it because that’s the language our funders speak so we organize that way.

Theatres should be dealt with as record labels and producing groups like bands. Bands meant to be transitory until you find the true connection and labels to be counted on for a style.

The idea that theatre companies are just like any mini-mart (small businesses with small but measurable ecomnomic effects) is patently ridiculous. Theatremaking is as alchemic as any act of creation. It’s chemistry in four dimensions. Every chemical reaction has a limited effect. One of the components will be consumed by the process and the process will end. Of course we expect the theatremaking to continue just the same, because there are budgets and structures and mouths to feed.

And then we question why exactly theaters fall apart, or slide off mission, or stop taking risks, or any number of things that we expect other theatres to manage to do what we can’t ourselves.

Of course these problems are insurmountable, they are built into the system… But we get up and we keep trying because we need to make theatre. Not for Theatre’s sake, for ours. Theatre was here when we showed up and will be here long after we’re gone. Theatre will die the day after Religion. Stop trying to save Theatre and just make the theatre you think needs making.

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel like a million years ago.

I’d be lying if I hadn’t claimed more than once that this company was three years old. I wasn’t lying it’s just… that was a REALLY long time ago.

Since that time we produced one final show with Gobotrick Theatre Company, Will produced and I performed in (20% of) a five play cycle of Manuel Zarate’s work, I got married, we presented a reading of Seven Jewish Children, and we wrote and produced Orestes. And then took the rest of 2009 off.

We are better at what we do now.
We have a clearer picture of what it is exactly we do now.

I still have no long term plan.
Well… I have no long term plan for Cambiare Productions.

The long term plan is to finally produce the One True Show that really is everything we want in a production and for Will to get spirited off to Louisville or the Arena and go be brilliant where larger amounts of people can see.

The plan is to feature local artists in roles that showcase them to the best of their ability and let them be noticed.

The plan is to keep growing our process to make it as easy on the cast and crew as it can possibly be, providing them with the most opportunity to shine.

We can do that. We can do that with the resources we have (and a little City help) and the talent this community continues to provide. We can be, for a season, another cog in what is becoming a hotbed of new work development.

I should have a five year plan. I know.
Instead I have two consecutive six month plans.
We’ll go from there.