Postcards

Friends,

As most of you know, I have been writing for “Postcards From The Inge” from the perspective of a Theatre Communications Group Future Leader grantee and the temporary Associate Artistic Director at the Inge Center.  I recently left my position at the Inge Center to take a position managing a program called “Radical Hospitality” at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis. I have had to give up the rural, sweeping plains of Kansas for an urban center.  Therefore, I am passing this particular blogging torch and its focus to the team at the Inge Center.  I have also given them permission to continue weaving their institutional tale via their own blog with the same title: “Postcards From The Inge”.  I hope you’ll find and follow their journey on that site (stay tuned for an announcement of the web address).

I will be moving my own blog to “The Wandering Ideal” (click on the blog title to be redirected to that page) starting November 1st, where I will continue to chronicle issues facing the US theatre—particularly those in my own neck of the woods.  Mixed Blood’s Radical Hospitality initiative is remarkable, and I look forward to thinking out loud about the country’s first no-cost admission program for a full mainstage season.

My time at the Inge Center has been very valuable; I have learned a great deal about the ins and outs of managing a rural theatre organization, and far more importantly than that, I have spent some time with very dear friends.  You know who you are and it is my true wish that you feel my love, always.  Independence is a remarkable community full of wonderful people.  I look forward to my next visit.

I will take away so much from Independence.  If I could leave you one thing then, in return, it would be this: do what you do best.  Celebrate art rooted in place.  Honor the work of artists who create with great humility.  Value artists who, for better or worse, pursue truth-telling.  Trust only artists who are generous with what they are exploring, learning and feeling.  Give voice to plays that are written in the name of love…or some framework nearly that big.  William Inge left you a tremendous legacy, but you already know this—take from him that we Midwesterners can be but are not just simple, humble people.  We are also a people born of immense and complex emotional life, great moral fiber, unflinching work ethic and the capacity for huge change.

Thank you for sharing your lives with me this year. 

With Love,

Amanda

Well, here it is, friends—the final installment of the Randy Gener trilogy.  Thank you for tuning in this week to read Randy’s words, and many thanks to Mr. Gener for his insight, commitment and generosity.  This last section of our chat focuses on how the PQ and its design inspirations affect Prague and the rest of the world.

AW: Some people might take a cursory glance at the PQ’s promo materials and website and think this gathering is all about “high art”—inaccessible design work and invite-only conversations between artists. What is your goal as the Editor-In-Chief of Prague Quadrennial Newspaper — is it tomake what happens there of interest to the general public, or to the attendees?

RG: My goal is to transform something as esoteric as scenography and as magpie a discipline as performance design into a pop-culture conversation.  The articles need to have depth and substance so that it piques the interest of the attendees, but you also have to mix in lively materials, accessible language and entertaining items.  You need to achieve that balance through the right mix of editorial content, critical commentary and splashy graphic design.  I think in pictures.  I write in pictures.  I edit in pictures as well.  The work is not that different from publishing American Theatre magazine.  Every issue of American Theatre offers a picture of what’s crucial and lively and contemporary in the U.S. theater.  Necessarily, that picture changes from month to month, depending on the geographical focus or cultural makeup or class issues (small theatre versus flagship theater).  I promoted American Theatre and Theatre Communications Group at the PQ; I worked to extend the magazine’s brand internationally.

 This is the second consecutive time I have worked as an editor of a PQ publication. The first time around, I collaborated with a British theater designer, Martin Paling, to realize the publication within the framework of the Scenofest section.  We had a team of 12-14 writers, all of whom were young designers.  We had an online division, Sceno.org, which we did not have in 2011.  I was the only professional editor and writer in the team, so I found myself spending much of my time teaching these young designers how to write, or showing them how to reconstruct their musings and interviews into publishable articles.  In 2011, our editorial team was smaller, so I had to double as a reporter (once again, similar to the American Theatre paradigm).  Since I do not speak Czech, I co-edited the publication in collaboration with Mariana Hola, a tough-assCzech writer.  Both experiences have taught me that there is a great need to train the new generation of critics, arts writers, editors, even young designers, on how cover and write about scenography and performance design.

AW: So, if this is an international conference and competition…how do you make the people of Prague feel welcome while they serve as hosts? On a much smaller level, this is an issue faced each year in Independence during the William Inge Theatre Festival. What is a lesson or two we theatre administrators could learn about community outreach from the PQ?

RG: Your question sets up an interesting comparison. I did once attend the William Inge Theatre Festival; as an independent scholar from New York, I gave a paper on Lanford Wilson. Coming from the big city, I suppose local Kansans and Missourians feel that we, New Yorkers, are basically invading their spaces. And what’s being celebrated every year in Kansas are the lifetime achievements of playwrights who are also mostly outsiders. A similar dynamic happens in Prague. In the summer the Czechs are very leery of the arrogant foreigners and Western tourists who run riot all over the city center to party and play.  Regular Czechs stay away from the city center, unless they have to work or shop there.  The difference is that PQ by design is a meeting place for the world. Expectations at PQ are different from an annual festival that, during other parts of the year, functions as a non-profit play development center.

One lesson I find empowering at PQ is its solid investment in scholarship and research.  The event visibly touts authors, scholars, design teachers and theorists who have something major to say about design and architecture.  In the U.S., we segregate these geeks in a classroom where they are left to read an obscure paper to an elite few.  PQ wears its intellectualism proudly on its populist sleeve.  At PQ, thinkers and theorists are offered prime venues, museum spaces and large auditoriums to give their presentations.  They are accorded a place in the jury or in the planning committees.  When I attended the architecture lectures at the former St. Anne’s Church in the center of Prague, I loved having to walk up the steep stairs to attend a serious talk that took place at a gorgeous promontory that overlooked the Architectural Exhibits down below. The aura of it mattered very much.

PQ is not afraid to commission and create artistic projects that fall outside of established disciplines. You can probably argue that much of the Intersection program of PQ 2011 was neither scenography, theater nor performance design, but there was no question that high culture was equated with adventurousness. Successful community outreach focuses on an issue’s relevance to the community and acknowledges the community’s challenges in addressing the issue.  In this case, the issue is the relationship between theater design and everyday life.  It is no accident that the quadrennial happens every four years in Prague.  Scenography first attained full legitimacy in the former Czechoslovakia.  In this climate, Josef Svoboda (1920-2002) became known internationally as the godfather of modern scenography.  Svodoba was an important artistic export promoting the high culture of this former Soviet bloc.  Although designers in Western Europe and America were slower to adapt, Czech design developments seeped out of Eastern Europe and gradually became known everywhere as a new vocabulary and lingua franca for contemporary scenography.  In those days, the Soviet government’s active promotion and support of all kinds of cultural and artistic exchanges were justified as a kind of glory that reflected back onto an “enlightened” communist regime.  Nevertheless, PQ cemented the Czech Republic’s reputation as a world leader of theatre design.  PQ reinforces that unique image through wild commissions, European Union-funded artistic collaborations, and most especially in its strong advocacy of international scholarship and artistic research.

AW: What does the PQ mean for Kansas?  That is, how do you feel this international symposium for theatre design can ripple out into the world from when/where it happened?

RG: For me, the real question is: What does Kansas mean for PQ?  If designers in Kansas, Missouri and other parts of the Midwest are not willing to play in an international art environment such as PQ, then they will be seriously left behind the curve.  They might as well be mice trapped in someone else’s art experiment and running in circles.  Exhibitions are a scene and marketplace for reinvention.  The discussions and international projects at PQ raise new questions about the relationship between scenography and performance in dramatic activities, in the art world and in everyday life.  They will impact, over the long haul, the look and feel of the theater productions Kansans see onstage.  They will affect the design curriculums of colleges and universities everywhere.  Because of rapid globalization, they will show up in the blockbuster art shows where Kansans like to party and network.  At PQ, the designer is acknowledged as a creator of the spatial or theatrical event.  The future is increasingly becoming hyper-local and immersive.  The designers of the future will have to provide valuable insights into how, why and where we create new performance environments.  They will determine the shape of theatre architecture to come. What’s the matter with Kansas if it cannot see that the techniques of illusion shape our reality, and not the other way around?

AW: What should we look out for in the US that came out of the PQ this year?

RG: From the Edge will be re-mounted at the USITT National Conference in Long Beach, California, from March 29 to 31, 2012. In addition, USITT is creating a database on its official website that will document PQ 2011 and previous PQs.  That database will be an invaluable guide to anyone who will create a US pavilion for future editions of PQ.  From the Edge rocks the boat. It offers a high benchmark on how to install a U.S. pavilion that covers the sociopolitical themes and artistic risk-taking facing performance makers in the U.S.  Future curatorial teams will really have to find the courage to contend with the challenge of displaying the U.S. anew — of re-envisioning U.S. design creativity within a competitive international design environment.  I believe the future of U.S. participation in the PQ rests in the continuing advocacy of acts that delve into “designing performance” and “performing design.”  We need to lay bare the wider potential of scenography and performance design to re-invent the way human minds create in virtual spaces, in theatrical spaces and in everyday life.

Here is the second installment of my interview with Randy Gener, former Senior Editor of American Theatre Magazine, about the Prague Quadrennial.  I’ve included some of Randy’s photos of the US Exhibit throughout.  Tune in Friday for Randy’s final insights for Postcards From the Inge!

          The USITT team outside the USA exhibit

(Cont.)

AW: The PQ is also a design competition; the US competed with From The Edge, in addition to entering the Student Section competition, the Architecture competition, and the Extreme Costume exhibition. How’d we do?

RG: Brazil was the major winner of this year’s Prague Quadrennial for Performance Design and Space. Other awards went to Croatia, Latvia, Hungary, New Zealand, Mexico, Greece, the UK and Norway. Brazil grabbed the coveted Golden Triga for the Best Exposition. Greece and Mexico shared commendations for Best Work in Theatre Architecture and Performance Space, with each country winning gold medals. In the student section, Latvia won a gold medal for the Best Exposition in the Student Section. In the Extreme Costume Exhibition, Emma Ransley is the gold medalist for Best Theatre Costume for her work in Inhabiting Dress, produced in 2008 in Wellington, New Zealand. What I found strange was that this year’s PQ jury did not choose to hand out any silver or bronze medals. The winners reflect the opinions of the jury. Our exhibit was one of the great favorites in Prague, I am proud to say.

AW:  I think there was such a feeling of immediacy to the exhibit—design highly contextualized in place and time.  I explored obsessively in my time at the PQ, and I think I would say the most inspiring part for me came as a surprise. It was the Student Section—I was excited to see what wild creativity and innovation the world has to look forward to in emerging theatre designers. What were you most surprised, impressed or moved by at this quadrennial?

 RG: I agree with you. The Student Section is blissfully unencumbered by the politics of prizes, the demand for aesthetic formality, the pressures to fully represent, or the necessity to offer a vivid sense of national identity. Something about the double imperative of creating a national exhibition that also opens up new scenographic or architectural horizons inhibits both the Architecture and National Sections of PQ from cutting loose.

 I spent most of my time exploring how the new edict of performance manifested itself at PQ.  2007 was the last year PQ billed itself as an exhibition of “World Scenography and Architecture.”  PQ 2011 has now evolved to become an exhibition of “Performance Design and Space.”  To put an even finer point to it, PQ wants to be seen as “not exactly a festival” and “more than an exhibition.”  So I embedded myself inside PQ 2011 to critically investigate the full meaning, breadth and substance of this re-alignment and re-positioning.  Scenography remains at the center, but the actual practice and critical discourses flow outward to foreground the visual composition of performance.  At the quadrennial, I was most moved by my discovery that a majority of performance-design proponents I had met were refugees from their original disciplines.  They did not want to be confined to well-defined fields, such as music, theater, literature, linguistics, gastronomy, fashion, media or choreography.  They were striving for something else.  I felt a real kinship with these active searchers.

 AW: What was your favorite part of PQ 2011?

 RG: My favorite part of PQ 2011 was being part of the USITT team that curated and created From the Edge.  I sat beside costume designer Linda Cho at the LaMaMa Annex to take in Ping Chong’s The Devil You Know; we knew we wanted to include Ping but weren’t clear which show would best represent him.  I got to work with Allen Hahn, whose lighting design work for the Builders Association I frequently discuss in my lectures.  Don Tindall, the sound curator, surprised me by his ability to make sound emanate from the installation. Jason Lindahl is a wizard media designer.  Lighting designer Chris Akerlind was on the committee until he got too busy, and he rightly pushed us all to look for good work without a lot of preconceptions.  Chris Barreca, the scenic design curator, challenged our thinking over and over.  For example, Chris stated that he personally does not believe that you can separate the work of the director from that of the designer.  He also felt that the exhibit should focus on the American social and political experience. That doesn’t mean the work needs to written by an American but be in some way uniquely about our experience in our culture.  I think he is a genius.

 William Bloodgood has a strong architectural eye.  When I covered PQ 2007, his flowing scenic design of Nilo Cruz’s Lorca in a Green Dress graced the cover of American Theatre magazine for a good reason.  His stage designs are among the most lyrical in the U.S. theater.  This time, I had the unique vantage point of seeing Bill create a pavilion from initial conception to full realization.  He took the wild ideas that came from the curators.  He observed our painstaking deliberations.  Then he summed up From the Edge in one powerful architectural gesture.  Brilliant.

 I am greatly indebted to Susan Tsu’s artistic leadership from the beginning to the end.   She was a curator of the PQ 2007, and she served on the TCG board of directors.  Without her, there would have been no foreign media relationship forged between PQ and American Theatre in 2007. Without her, I would not be involved in 2011.  In the winter and spring, we were running around New York filming video interviews of directors and designers.  Having seen her patiently conduct the entire process, I see that I have much to learn.  She is the reason I have twice been involved in the PQ.

 AW: What’s the inherent value in the PQ? Is it about fostering a sense of community in the field on an international level, an opportunity for artists to influence each other’s work?

RG: The values you mention are inherent when we participate in any international event.  They are part of the ethics of international exchange.  Time and time again, we have seen how artistic modes, playwriting styles and acting practices have advanced light years ahead in the crucible of the international encounter.  The Peking Opera had a great influence on Brecht’s concept of the epic theater.  Eugene O’Neill expanded his vision as a dramatist by drawing his plots and structures from ancient Greek stories.  The British director Peter Brook consistently drew from Persian, Afghan and African forms of theater to achieve his major Shakespeare breakthroughs.  Where would Hollywood film acting be today if Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg never encountered the work of the Russian actor-director Konstantin Stanislavski and his Moscow Art Theatre?  In the hothouse of an international encounter, you never know what might result in a revolution or a life-changing event. Ellen Stewart’s directing changed because of her encounters with Croatian and Romanian theater (specifically, the stage/opera director Andre Serban).

 None of these values, however, are intrinsic to PQ or similar design exhibitions. (World Stage Design, for example, exhibits the work of individuals rather than of countries or regions.)  Biennial- or quadrennial-type exhibitions enhance the inherent value of theater design, architecture and performance design in an environment where designers and architects in the field of theater often take a backseat to the writers, directors and actors who dominate the mainstream narrative. These events, on a practical level, raise the public’s level of awareness of the importance of good creative design.  They affirm the professionalism and creativity of outstanding designers and theater architects.  And these events have demonstrated an economic impact to the countries that host them.

Those core values lead me to bring up a powerful value one that might not be apparent to a person who goes to PQ for the first time. Mega-exhibitions perform a process of legitimation.  That process engages with issues of cultural ownership, the politics of commissioning, and the nature of what the Obama administration has called “smart power.”  The visual art world thrives in a silo that is isolated from theater design and architecture.  Perhaps it is a standoff.  Whatever the case, it has been impossibly difficult to find museums and galleries that would be agree to tour USITT exhibitions of theater design in cities around the U.S.  Our art institutions and curators have closed themselves off from the possibility of seeing theater design as equivalent to artworks.  Ironically, more and more artists are turning to live performance and site-specific exploration, as can be witnessed in the Venice Biennale, to execute their ideas.  PQ works to break that stalemate through a process of providing legitimacy to design as a practice (a doing), a production (a thing done, a thing that performs), and as a performance (a thing that acts).

 I see the process as very dramatic.  Compare the US pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2011 (which did not win the coveted Golden Lion), and the USITT-sponsored US pavilion at PQ.  The U.S. exhibit in Venice, by Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla, is comprised of five installations, collectively called “Gloria” (which translates to “glory” in English).  When you approach Bloodgood’s USA pavilion of theater design in Prague, the first thing you confront is a huge graffiti of Obama’s face painted on the side of a performing garage.  In Venice, the first thing you encounter is an overturned 60-ton tank with an exercise treadmill on top of the tank’s right track — where a real U.S. Olympic athlete jogs in 30-minute stretches.  The overturned tank can easily be interpreted as a symbol of America’s faded glory, whereas the Obama wall offers an ambiguous message.  Inside the US performing garage, you see a welter of theater designs that express complicated viewpoints about America: shows about healing and obsessions with death and loss after 9/11 and hurricane Katrina; the pull of conscience inevitable when a country is engaged in war; the rising political polarities in reaction to the first African-American U.S. president to be elected.

 You can obviously see the relationship between politics and art in both pavilions. You also register other relationships; you can think about assemblage, sculpture, communication, sound, performance design, theater.  In both pavilions, theatricality is ubiquitous.  The U.S. State Department ultimately chooses who will represent the United States at the Venice Biennale, whereas the American pavilion in Prague is organized by an independent team of designers and sponsored by a U.S. nonprofit membership organization.  That difference sends out clear messages about what kind of U.S. art is being legitimized internationally and by whom, how this process of legitimation is being conducted and why.  In Venice, the pavilion is an example of “soft diplomacy,” a U.S. government tool of foreign policy.  At PQ, the ability to fund design exhibitions in countries, which have a long history of government support of art and culture, becomes a political act.  For two PQs in a row, the French government did not fund an exhibit of French designs at PQ.  This year China made a strong showing, whereas in 2007 the Chinese recalled its artists in protest and left its pavilion empty when Taiwan refused to merge “China” to Taiwan’s title.  Governmental decisions to support or not support culture frequently become the theme of the pavilion itself, as in the case of the Lithuania whose designers created a monument plaque re-printing the letter they received from the Lithuanian government declining to give them funds for an exhibition. 

In Prague, teams of U.S. designers and technicians annually realize their own exhibition projects on an international scale.  I think that’s pretty significant — a pox on the house of U.S. news media for failing to recognize that.  The USITT-USA National Pavilion is both a formal experiment and an expensive public commission.  It is an opportunity to experience abstract concepts — theater design, performance design or architecture (depending on which sections we’re talking about) — as visual objects that both project and perform.  Design elements extend the performing body.  If displayed with artistic intention, design elements can also perform without and in spite of the human body.  I would go so far to say that, after post-structuralism, communication is now the dominant force in design innovations.  What’s less understood in art-world discourses is that theater and live performance re-stage the material world and re-frame the virtual world.

 Mega-exhibitions like the PQ raise the status and intrinsic worth of theatrical performances within the context of these global developments. At PQ, stage design is being exhibited on a pedestal of contemplation.  We all know that artworks are objects that have no inherent worth beyond what society agrees to invest in them.  Yet every night in the theater, we collectively invest design artifacts (propos, costumes, objects) with narrative or symbolic values through our willing suspension of disbelief.  PQ helps to level the playing field.  It provides designers (by extension, all theater artists) with an international art-based platform where they can wrest back the centrality of time-based performance modes, which visual artists have ruthlessly co-opted for their own ends.

RANDY GENER and I met in Prague this summer, where we were both attending the 2011 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ).  I was wandering through the exhibits, soaking up the inspiration and the beauty of the city; he was serving as both curatorial advisor of From the Edge (USITT’s USA National Pavilion) and Editor-In-Chief of this year’s PQ daily newspaper.  When he is not in Prague, Randy is an editor, writer, critic and conceptual artist living in New York City.  He is a 2003 New York Times critic fellow and former senior editor of American Theatre magazine, where he received many awards, among them the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism and NLGJA Journalist of the Year.  Randy has created, been a part of and accomplished more than I can post here; please visit his website for more information on his work.  

IT’S PRAGUE QUADRENNIAL WEEK on Postcards from the Inge!  Randy agreed to talk with me about the PQ, and there’s so much in this interview I want to share with you that I’m going to post it in three parts, so look for the second installment on Wednesday and the third this Friday.  

AW: Randy, you were on the committee to curate the US exhibit, From The Edge.  Because work from all over the world was represented at the Prague Quadrennial (PQ), it must be a daunting task to select representative pieces of theatre for the United States.  How does that process work? Do you choose successful productions from the past four years? Companies that best represent the PQ’s themes or aesthetic?

RG: USITT has organized and sponsored every single American exhibit to the Prague Quadrennial (PQ) since the U.S. began its participation in 1975.  The USA did not participate in 1967, the year PQ was established.  From the Edge is the 10^th time the USA has participated in this world arts event, one of the theatre design community’s most important international competitions and events.

In terms of form and content, From the Edge is an audacious departure — compared to previous exhibits, it is a trip to Mars. The 1999 exhibit was swamped by academic works. The 2003 exhibit had over 300 items from more than 200 designers, and the curatorial choices were deemed as mostly safe.  Because of the size of our country, USITT-USA PQ exhibits tend to be behemoth affairs.  The 2007 exhibit, designed by Nic Ularu and the late Ursula Belden, had 120 Broadway, not-for-profit and university productions, representing some 95 designers of diverse ethnicities and nationalities.  Surprisingly, the 2007 exhibit succeeded in presenting innovative and ingenious U.S. designs that were in the same league as that of European countries.

From the very start, From the Edge was conceived imagistically.  The curators immediately embarked on a search for a metaphor.  We also purposefully focused on fewer productions in greater depth.  Susan Tsu was the artistic director.  The field-discipline curators were Chris Barreca (scenery), Linda Cho (costumes), Allen Hahn (lighting) and Don Tindall (sound).  William Bloodgood, the designer/architect of the pavilion, went to Prague in 2007, and he felt compelled to return with an environmentally styled space, as opposed to a traditional assembly format.  USITT officials had agreed that this time around Susan Tsu’s stronger curatorial concept would dominate.  It was okay not to be democratic.  This decision liberated the curators. We were free to take risks.

Susan’s new curatorial imperative was also an extremely tall order.  Exactly what kind of work pushes traditional boundaries and redefines the field?  How are they bold and cutting edge within the context of the present state of U.S. theater?  Productions from the past four years were chosen based on an open-submission process.  The team paid special attention to work that came from young companies that have not been exhibited at the PQ before.  It took a tougher stance when it came to big-budget productions from commercial producers and large nonprofit companies, except in those very special cases where the designs clearly redefined the edge or pushed beyond that boundary.  We sent emails to individual designers and directors, especially freelancers and interdisciplinary artists who worked outside the main stem of U.S. theatre production (including dance and opera), to submit works for our consideration.  

From the Edge was limited to productions that opened between June 2006 and April 2010.  All entries needed to be received before March 1, 2010 so that we could actually have the materials in hand to create a pavilion.  Between March 29 and April 2, the curators were holed up in a hotel conference room in Kansas City, going through submission after submission.  It was intense and strangely exhilarating.  We looked at slides, pictures of models, images of sketches.  We watched videos.  We listened to audio samples.  We read out loud project narratives and visited company websites.  We waded through a huge number of site-specific productions and technology-driven projects.  From the Edge was three years in the making.  About 360 submissions were whittled down to 37 pieces for inclusion. That number includes six well-known avant-garde companies that the curators wish to give special recognition: Builder’s Association, Cornerstone Theater, Ping Chong and Company, SITI Company, Theatre de la Jeune Lune and The Wooster Group. Additionally, August Wilson and Ellen Stewart were paid tribute for their life’s work and inestimable contributions to the American theatre.

Of course, the team had met and argued (and enjoyed each other’s company) many times prior to Kansas City.  Also, it is important to point out that the team did continue to deliberate on the inclusion of shows that premiered after April 2010, except that by then the curators had juried themselves into a mature concept for From the Edge.  The choices that were made in Kansas City had fully developed both the theme and aesthetic.  Susan Tsu sums it up perfectly: “From the Edge not only refers to the brave and dangerous edge of creation but also refers to our country on edge.”

Above all, the designs selected had to be visually and aurally arresting and innovative.  As Susan Tsu told me, “All in all, curating the PQ is a thrilling job. One of the hardest aspects of curating design in the USA is that we are such a large country. We tried to keep the focus clear and sharp; therefore, there is much good work that we had to pass by.”  A lot of amazing productions were powerfully conceived and politically edgy, but if there weren’t actual designs or artifacts to exhibit in Prague or the available production images available were terrible, then those shows posed a real problem for us.  Here’s an important lesson for all theater companies and ensembles:  Invest in a good photographer who will take artful photographs of your show’s production values, and not just the actors.  Make sure you post them on your website. 

At PQ, the team succeeded in showing the world a perspective or an image of American theatre that is not typically shown. From the Edge is a buoyantly self-critical view from the ground.  It delivers the hard news: this is who we are now as Americans, and this is how we irreverently created serious performances during the dramatic unraveling of the Aught Decade, which resulted in a worldwide economic recession.  The period in consideration coincided with great socio-economic tumult and a political transition in the White House —  a wrenching reevaluation of core American values that brought about the rise of an African-American as our country’s 44^th president.

AW: It was impressive, and that tension—the sense of our country on edge—was a palpable part of my experience in the space.  I really appreciated the gallery talks with US artists involved in the presented projects. Were the people who attended them mostly from the US, too? How did your team imagine these talks supplementing the exhibit?

RG: From the Edge, to our knowledge, is the first USA pavilion to present actual bodies (performance-makers Pat Olesko and Paul Zaloom) as part a live display.  When they performed in the pavilion, their performances weren’t supplementary to the exhibit. They were the exhibit.  In a similar vein, the daily gallery talks were opportunities for the live bodies of U.S. designers to be “on display.”  In many cases, new theater collectives eschew the typical process of creating sketches or of model-making, with the result that the only tangible evidence left that a design process took place are the production photos, the snippets of video and the audio excerpts.  Sometimes the design was the internal discussion in the midst of creation (such as Ping Chong & Company’s Inside Out, and Fatebook by New Paradise Laboratories of Philadelphia).  Political ideas were often more paramount (as in the case of Bond Street Theatre’s Beyond the Mirror, the first-ever U.S.-Afghan theater collaboration).  In presenting Bob Fall’s Desire Under the Elms, we were honored that the designers Walt Spangler and Ana Kuzmanic went to Prague, because we needed to hammer the message of why this startling re-invention of a Eugene O’Neill classic drama stood out among the literally hundreds of play revivals put on in U.S. nonprofit institutions.

The most effective, most immediate and most human way to recuperate all of that contextual complexity is to have the designers, directors, creators and artists in the room directly interacting with design professionals, regular Czech people and foreigners who have never seen the original productions.  How do you exhibit the quality of the lighting design for Apollo without Justin Townsend and Nancy Keystone being present in the same room?  You can watch the video or hear the audio samples for The Poor Itch, an unfinished play by John Beluso, but the presentation becomes an extremely different animal when you’ve got Robert Kaplowitz himself talking about how he created the original music and sound. Many people have never heard of the play being exhibited; after the discussion, they wanted to know how they could get hold of a copy of the script.  After listening to Kevin Cunningham talk about Losing Something and Chuck Mee’s Fire Island, a lot of tech-heads, academics and artists expressed their desire to visit 3LD Arts & Technology Center in New York City.  Visitors I talked to had a completely different view of the fresh innovations of hybrid theatre works that are presently emerging from Philadelphia, because the Philadelphia Theatre Institute of the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, led by Fran Kumin and Murph Henderson, came out in full force by bringing a delegation of Philadelphia-based artists.

I am delighted to hear that, as a visible member of the TCG delegation, you appreciated the gallery talks. Thanks to Joan Channick and Emilya Cachapero, the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute, which is housed at TCG, has made a staunch point of bringing to PQ delegations of U.S. designers, leaders and artists. That commitment needs to be noted.  At one point in time, Martha Coigney’s leadership of ITI/US played an even more critical role in U.S. participation at PQ.  Back in 1975, which saw the USA’s first participation in the PQ, ITI/US published the catalog to the 1975 national exhibit, organized by Ming Cho Lee, Elden Elder, Howard Bay, Donald Oenslager and Joel Rubin.

AW: Thanks very much, Randy. Please stay tuned for Part II on Wednesday, when we’ll talk about the PQ’s implications for international theatre design.  

Yikes…and hello there.  I’m ashamed of how long it’s been since my last post.  (Not that you’re waiting with bated breath to hear from me, but this should be a ritual of some regularity, yes?) I’ve hesitated about jumping back in, had some “bloggers block”, so I’d like to casually tell you about what I’ve been up to and ease back into the pool.  

Through the generosity of Theatre Communications Group and their granting partners (the Andrew W. Mellon and Doris Duke Charitable Foundations), I was given the opportunity to attend the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space last month….in Prague. 

The PQ, as it’s known by its fans, is an interactive forum for theatre artists and aficionados from all over the world, whereby they gather every four years (clearly) to experience what’s happening on the cutting edge of international theatre design.  Admittedly, I have not ever personally been on the cutting edge of theatre design; I’ve seen the cutting edge, stood looking up (and down) at it, admired its elegance in many a production, but I’m not a designer myself.  It was, actually, a really terrific way to experience the PQ 2011—I had the riveting chance to see work from all over the world from the point of view of a performing artist.  

The PQ is positively fractal in its complexity, and it would require more of your time than I intend to take to explain every bit of it.  You should check out the PQ 2011 site when you have time to get a curatorial sense of what went on this year.  Suffice it to say that there was more happening than I could possibly have taken in; the Inge Center’s Artistic Director, Peter Ellenstein, attended the PQ as well, and even going to different events and sharing notes we weren’t able to cover the full extent of the programming.  There were lectures, presentations, performances, individual symposiums and demonstrations on architecture, costumes, sound, lighting, new design models/materials and scenography; all designed to draw a connection between the power of the visual and the immediacy of performance. 

We hear a lot these days about the limitations put to contemporary theatre by our economic and sociopolitical times; I get the pragmatism of this, but like my colleagues, I get tired of seeing seasons full of budget-friendly one- and two-person plays set in an elevator or bathtub.  The PQ addressed this matter poignantly, and I return from the front lines bearing this news: wildly creative and imaginative theatre design is alive and well all over the world.  These “limitations” are serving as guidelines for rich and thoughtful work, often within strict parameters—and there’s no limit to the ways artists can and do create, no matter the materials and resources they’re given.

I spent a lot of time in Prague thinking through what our work at the Inge Center has to do with what I saw on this international stage, and it comes to this—stretching the way we think about supporting new work is as important now as it ever was.  We are obligated to think about different ways to create, develop, rehearse, produce and present; for the Inge Center, that does not mean producing “Piss Christ, the Musical” in an effort to push our audience into new norms—that isn’t smart business, particularly not here (and it’s a balancing act at the Inge Center to give our playwrights freedom of expression in developing their work and also to speak to our community, our audience, in a language they hear).  And that’s not what this experience was about, anyway.  We are a play development center, and as such we tend to focus on words, language.  I think that’s appropriate.  This trip, however, was a reminder for me that the visual—images—are a part of what creates powerful dramatic writing.  It’s urgent that as leaders of this process, we maintain a sense of dimension in creating new theatre. That might mean, then, working outside the Inge Theater in site-specific or non-traditional spaces, considering environmental sustainability in our scenic and costume designs, finding new ways to engage our audiences in our developmental process throughout the year, and telling more stories native to this region.  

I’m going to post a few pictures of work I saw at the Quadrennial shortly, and stay tuned for an upcoming interview about the inner-workings of the event with Randy Gener, a member of the curatorial team for the US exhibit at PQ 2011.  Randy was also Editor-In-Chief of this year’s PQ daily newspaper, and is an award-winning editor and writer for American Theatre Magazine.

  Mixed Blood Theatre: broadwayworld.com

Mixed Blood Theatre is housed in a former firehouse on the West Bank in Minneapolis.  It’s been around for 35 years—a very young Jack Reuler founded the company in 1976.  Mixed Blood has been working at the forefront of American theatrical ideals since its inception; it’s developed effective strategic partnerships, embraced and supported diversity, created site-specific work, and focused on being a relevant ground for social growth and change from the start.  And this month, it’s embracing yet one more ideal: the notion of accessible theatre for every single person in its community.

 Last Monday, Mixed Blood announced its new ticketing program— Radical Hospitality.  The idea is that any person who wants to see a show in the mainstage season can come to the theatre and, on a first-come-first-served basis, get a free ticket to that evening’s performance.  The theatre seats 250; if you desperately want to reserve a ticket in advance, you can do so for a fee ($15) either online or by calling the box office.

This is not a new idea in theatre marketing.  It’s a concept that gets right to the point of what we’re trying to do—find our full and complete audience and share our/their stories with them, relieve them of grief, remind them of their history and possibilities, charge them with something higher.  Theatre companies are social service organizations; how we keep the doors open to do our work has always been another matter.   And access to those patrons who may or may not feel that they are interested in, can afford, or have a place at the theatre is not easily gained.

So why “Radical Hospitality”? In reading about the program on Mixed Blood’s website, I found their explanation: “Father Daniel Homan and Lonni Gollins Pratt coined the term ‘radical hospitality’ in their 2002 book ‘Radical Hospitality: Benedict’s Way of Love.’ They write: ‘When we speak of hospitality we are always addressing issues of inclusion and exclusion. Each of us makes choices about who will and who will not be included in our lives…. Hospitality has an inescapable moral dimension to it…. All of our talk about hospitable openness doesn’t mean anything as long as some people continue to be tossed aside…Hospitality is the answer to modern alienation and injustice.’  For Mixed Blood, radical hospitality has not only social, but also political and economic implications; Radical Hospitality exercises our commitment to justice.”

The company is getting mixed reviews about the program.  Some, like me, believe in it, and find it to be the most ethical future for the theatre.  I feel strongly that this is the way we can continue to reach out to our communities and exercise the great value and power of the art form.  I believe this is the way to approach the inextricable link between theatre and community/artist and audience.  Some aren’t so convinced—they are concerned that it will diminish even more, in an ever-unstable economy, the value of a theatre experience.  When I talked with one fellow theatre adminstrator about Radical Hospitality, he said, “I’m so tired of people constantly throwing their money at the arts and only paying $18 to see a 3D version of a Disney movie. Telling the audience that we’ll perform for them for free is exactly what the arts need in order to tell people that we’re basically worth no value at all.” 

Minneapolis, like most communities, is made up of an immensely diverse group of people.  Jack Reuler’s team believes that by granting access to these plays, by asking the full community to join them in that space, they will garner support from the community as an organization committed to resolving social differences.  The company says, “By revolutionizing access, Mixed Blood believes audiences will grow to be truly inclusive and reflective of the entire community. With that growth, Mixed Blood believes that audiences and supporters will embrace the egalitarian core value of the company, providing support in return.”  The theatre company has faith that, along with the assistance and support of entities already helping shoulder their financial obligations, the community will step forward and contribute individually.

So what do you think; are they right in their approach?  Will you support Mixed Blood’s effort this season?  How about in your own community…or your own theatre?  Is it possible for this to be a sustainable and imitable model, even for smaller, rural communities?

For tickets to Mixed Blood’s 2011-2012 mainstage season, contact the Box Office at (612) 338-6131, Tue–Fri: Noon-4 PM, or visit them online at www.mixedblood.com.  Or….show up that evening and see the show for free with everyone else.

This is, as you may know, a small theatre organization.  There aren’t many of us who wake up every morning and drive into work for the sole purpose of furthering the progress of the William Inge Center for the Arts.  This is ok, and this is exciting, and this is more often than not really rewarding.  It does also require a certain commitment to going “zen” during the day.  To taking a few deep breaths now and again, and to resigning oneself to 47 projects that need to be accomplished by end of day and that all require what one can muster of intellect, passion and focus.  It also means that in there somewhere, one needs to check email lots, read one’s favorite 11 blogs in the theatrosphere; peruse the NY Times, Washington and Huffington Posts; monitor Twitter account/s; check Facebook and send a few things out on Hootsuite.  Oh…and get the digests from online trade magazines and playbill.com.  I’m not unique—this is not news to any of my friends in this field.  Well…in any field, really.

Enter my friend Matt Hoven, who teaches Creative Writing here at ICC.  Professor Hoven came into the office the other day to talk with us about an article he read on The New Atlantis online called, “The Myth of Multitasking”.  Written by Christine Rosen, the article asserts that this business of trying to focus on many things at once is not only counter-productive, it’s counter-intuitive to learning and long-term personal/organizational growth.

Click here to read the full article.

One of the bytes I found most startling in the article is from a 2005 BBC research study on time-management: “Workers distracted by e-mail and phone calls can suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.”  And here I am feeling unsettled every morning as I sit at my desk with that first cuppa—and also feeling, well, frantic, really, about not knowing everything that’s going on.  In my field, and Everywhere.  I’ve been operating under the assumption that the more I expose my mind to every single day, the more power I have to manage information and resources, and to stay on top of the continually moving trends in theatre curation, marketing, and management.  The Inge Center is in this small town, away from many of the country’s news and cultural centers.  It’s the job of a rural theatre administrator to keep this little company relevant, right?

Rosen suggests that scientists and researchers have been grappling with the notion of multitasking and its effects on the human brain for centuries; her earliest reference dates back to the 1740s.  Rosen posits that we are taking on more than our minds are built for—we are, in fact, creatures constructed to focus.  On one thing at a time.  She quotes UCLA Psychology Professor Russell Poldrack, who has done extensive research into how we use different parts of our brain for learning and cataloguing data when we are “distracted”.  Poldrack says, “We have to be aware that there is a cost to the way that our society is changing, that humans are not built to work this way.  We’re really built to focus.  And when we sort of force ourselves to multitask, we’re driving ourselves to perhaps be less efficient in the long run even though it sometimes feels like we’re being more efficient.”

The article cites a UC Irvine study that found that every time people are interrupted by a phone call, email or other brief distraction, it takes them an average of 25 minutes to focus again on their former task. (This bit of info has given Matt great delight; he now loves to pop his head into our office and say, “Hi, guys!  It’s going to take you 25 minutes to get over this!”)

So what does this mean for me, and for the staff at the Inge Center, and for other small rural theatre companies and for all arts organizations all over the world?  Sometimes it’s difficult to ”hear the truth above the noise”—when you don’t have one facet of a company to focus on, it can be difficult to find peace and space to intelligently work on mission-based programs and processes.  My Dad, Dr. Dennis White, whose field is organization leadership, sent only this in an email to me yesterday:

“Art cannot be counted on to mend the rifts within or without.  Its work is to take us to the brink of clarity…Clarity, whether we’d have wished for it or not, is a genuine thing.  And any instance of the genuine, no matter how discomfiting, and though it may not seem like it at all, is something to be grateful for.”  -Mark Doty, “Return to Sender: Memory, Betrayal and Memoir”

We are required as arts leaders, first and foremost, to approach our work each day with clarity.  That must mean something different for every leader and every organization.  For this girl, it means taking large chunks of time in the morning and afternoon to handle correspondence, and then putting down the iphone to focus on writing grant applications, reading scripts, and thinking through meaningful ways to approach programming.  It means abandoning any efforts at multitasking if they interfere with meaningful interactions with our colleagues or patrons.  It means taking the time to eat well, get some exercise and find personal inspirations outside my office.  It means trusting that I can have conversations with my colleagues and the ICC students to gather some insights I might otherwise find on a blog or two.

And it means trusting that my mind and spirit are learning, as well, from the process of living—that as an artist, I can allow personal creativity, interaction and intuition to lend me calm and focus.

What about you?  Have you found any healthy ways, as an artist or arts manager, to focus or think beyond “multitasking”?

Ladies and Gents, the big moment has arrived….it’s INGE FESTIVAL 2011!! 

To celebrate the Festival Kick-Off, I asked a terrific actor, DAVID WILSON BARNES,to tell us about what he’s up to in Independence this week. David will start rehearsals at the Inge Festival today for a concert reading of HORSEDREAMS, a play written by our Otis Guernsey New Voices Award winner, Dael Orlandersmith.  He shared with me some thoughts about this piece, about new plays in general, and about how he prepares to work.  

David made his Broadway debut in THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE. Off-Broadway you may have seen him in the critically-acclaimed BECKY SHAW at Second Stage, LADY, ST. CRISPIN’S DAY at Rattlestick Playwrights’ Theatre, VENGEANCE with stageFARM/Cherry Lane, THE ATTIC with The Play Company, MEN WITHOUT SHADOWS at The Flea, THE SqUARE with Ma Yi Theatre Company/The Public Theatre, HAMLET at The Public Theatre, JAIL BAIT, JERSEY STORY at The Cherry Lane, MIRANDOLINA at The Pearl, THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE, and THE BALD SOPRANO at La Mama ETC.   Regionally, he’s performed at A.R.T., Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, Geva Theatre, The City Theatre, The Long Wharf, The Cape Playhouse and Acadia Rep.   You may have seen him on television in The Eastmans, Sex and the City, the various Law & Orders, Conviction, All My Children, and As The World Turns, or in the films You Don’t Know Jack, Love and Other Drugs, Company Men, Taking Woodstock, The Scene, Capote, How to Seduce Difficult Women, Ozark Savage, and Hooray For Mr.Touchdown.

AW:  David, you’re playing “Loman” in HORSEDREAMS.  The story is set in contemporary New York City…drug addictions, racial tensions and professional ethics questions abound.  That character name, then….any thoughts on that?  Is this guy the new American “everyman”?

DWB:  I can definitely see the parallels between Miller’s Loman and Orlandersmith’s Loman.  But I’m not sure what a “New American Everyman” even is.  Even when Miller wrote “Death of a Salesman” in 1948, was Willy Loman the Everyman?  Or was he the white-heterosexual-Judeo/Christian-middle class-male Everyman?  He certainly didn’t represent the Black American Everyman of 1948.  Nor the Women.  Nor the Homosexuals.

But I guess if one considers the American Everyman as someone who is searching for the next fix - be it sex, money, drugs, success…basically POSITIVE SENSATION due to a lack of perspective - then yes.  

AW:  You’ve worked at the Humana Festival, and with many organizations committed to new work, with tremendous success—do you like working through the development of a “young” play?  What is it about that process that’s different than working on an established piece?

DWB:  I love working on new plays.  There is something very exciting and innocent about the process.  No one working on it knows exactly where it’s going and what it’s capable of.  There’s an absence of history that allows everyone to be in the same “room” together.  When you are working on an established piece, however, you have historical precedence.  This can sometimes hold a production back.  With a new play, though, everyone’s in the same darkness looking for the light.  It’s wonderful.  And, if when you find that light, it’s brilliant?  THAT IS THE BEST…talk about a high!  

AW:  Did something spark your interest in the theatre?  Is that thing still inspiring you, or are you finding new inspirations?

DWB:  My sister, when I was in sixth grade, sparked my interest by telling me I couldn’t do it.  But then, in grad school, I learned that the fuel of “I Told You So” only went so far.  After that was when I really started to be inspired by what the theatre is and how much I love sharing stories and life experience with a group of people, hopefully walking away from those experiences learning something new about ourselves.  That’s basically what keeps me going today.  Though I still enjoy rubbing it in when my sister’s around…

AW:  So how do you prepare for that?  Do you have a routine to prepare for your work, in rehearsal or performance?  

DWB:  I kind of have the anti-routine-routine.  I’ve never been good at routines and when I’ve tried to implement them, I found they made me too self-conscious.  As a result, I almost go out of my way to not do the same thing before performing, other than have a good grasp on the technical stuff (i.e. knowing my lines, understanding the story to the best of my ability…).  Beyond that, I try to leave a lot of room to be surprised by the moment.  That’s where I’m most comfortable and most excited by acting:  when something happens that I didn’t know was possible, and the less preparation for the future, the more fertile ground for surprise.

AW:  I think preparing and training as an actor teaches artists some universals about living a “life examined”…what are some of those universals?

DWB:  My father-in-law made an observation many years ago about how actors are either extremely spiritual (i.e. present…) or drug addicts.  Now, I know a lot of actors who live somewhere in between those two realities, but I personally find the life of an actor to be very centering.  Life is Uncertainty.  This is, ironically, it’s ONLY certainty (I mean, look at Japan…).  Many people are shrouded in the illusion of security - that you can take steps to avoid uncertainty and escape The Game.  But then those people get laid off from their “secure” jobs and go into a panic because that wasn’t the way it was “supposed” to be.  But we, as actors, don’t have that malevolent luxury.  We never know what tomorrow is going to bring, and if you are to pursue the life of an actor without self-destructing, then you have to live and breathe that fact every moment of the day.  You can’t think about the yesterday (”Life was so good WHEN I was acting!!”); you can’t thing about tomorrow (”Life would be so good IF ONLY I was acting!!”).  That drives you COMPLETELY INSANE.  So, to be happy, all you can do is be in the Present - which, for me, right now, is sitting on my couch, drinking coffee, thinking about my life, with birds singing outside in the breeze that’s wafting through my open window on one of the first warm, sunny days in New York City after a very cold winter.  Not bad.

AW:  Not bad at all!  Have you ever been to Kansas? 

DWB:  Nope.

AW:  Well, we’ll have to do a follow-up interview to get your impressions….  Thanks very much, David, for sharing a bit about your work with me; we’re blessed to have you here.  Looking forward to meeting you this afternoon!