Weekly Missive #13 August 7, 2009

This missive comes in the form of "how I spent my summer vacation." Only it was just a weekend and it wasn't really a vacation (although it was fun.) I travelled to Chicago for the "First Look Repertory of New Work" festival at the Steppenwolf Theatre, seeing five plays in two days and attending a panel discussion. Chicago is cool (the weather was nice too.) The plays ranged from good to great. The panel was edifying. I thought I'd use this space to share my impressions. My cab driver from the airport took me on an educational (if somewhat queasy) tour of Chicago. Fortunately it was a flat rate. First up in the festival (at 10am on Saturday) was a staged reading of The Boys Room by Joel Drake Johnson (r). This was the best thing I saw all weekend. An extremely well written family drama that was dark, funny, moving. The dialog was so strong in act one I kept wondering when the writer would run out of steam. He never did. Characters: two middle aged sons whose imploded lives have driven them back to the "boys room" in their mother's house. The mother, who is learning Spanish so as to nurture a burgeoning (and possibly imaginary) romance with a Hispanic man she passes on the sidewalk each day. The wife one son has abandoned because she has breast cancer. Their sixteen year old daughter. The director, Sandy Shinner, happens to have directed Julie Harris at the Victory Gardens Theater. We had a nice talk at intermission and she introduced me to the playwright whose other work I am now eager to read. Next, fully produced in the Garage Theater (their black box), was Honest by Eric Simonson. Compelling story about a young, successful memoirist who turns out to be a con man and a pathological liar. The play moves backwards and forwards in time ultimately revealing his true story which is both creepy and tragic. Very producible for WHAT. Saturday night I saw their mainstage show, UP by Bridget Carpenter. Based on a true story about the guy who attached weather balloons to a lawn chair and managed to reach an altitude of 16,000 before landing safely. He tried to transform his :15 of fame into a career as a motivational speaker. That didn't work out. In the play we see a guy who struggles to realize a dream, resists the quotidian world of real work despite the fact that he has a wife and son to support. The son hooks up with a pregnant schoolmate and goes to work for her mom, telemarketing office supplies nationwide from 5am. That doesn't work out so well either. I think the play is good but there was something missing in this production that I can't quite put my finger on. You want it to soar but it didn't. We might be able to do it better justice. You can see a scene from UP here. Ski Dubai by Laura Jacqmin - also in the Garage - was well done (they were all well done) but left me cold (pun intended.) A young architect is lured by the crazy inflated salary to move to Dubai to inject green technology into a massive construction project. The defeat of her idealism is marked by the progressive rejection by her employers of descending levels of LEEDS certification (Platinum, Gold, Silver, etc.) She also struggles against the unrelenting artificiality of her environment, the (by now well documented) cultural oppression of women and the advances of her married "roommate." I didn't care. Finally, Sex With Strangersby Laura Eason (r) was a winner. So much so that it will probably be a runaway hit and we won't be able to touch the rights for awhile (sigh.) Two characters. Simple set. Sexy title. Brilliantly written. Producers from coast to coast are warming up their abacuses. I'll let the Steppenwolf PR department do the heavy lifting: "Ethan Strange is a hot young scenester whose online journal of sexscapades have turned him into the "it" boy of the blogosphere. Olivia is an attractive 30-something whose own writing career has crapped out. After they hook up, sex turns into dating and dating into something more -- but their online exploits threaten to destroy their real-life connection." It works. And now the panel. These things can be deadly but there were some great questions on the table starting with a quote from Brecht (l): "A theatre which makes no contact with the public is a nonsense. Our theatre is accordingly a nonsense... All those establishments with their excellent heating systems, their pretty lighting, their appetite for large sums of money, their imposing exteriors,[ringing any bells yet?]together with the entire business that goes on inside them. All this doesn't contain five pennyworth of fun. ..." And the questions: "When was the last time you had fun in a theater?" Provocative stuff. Another, "To what degree is the theater in a generational crisis...?" And finally, "Who sets the agenda for the American theatre now? Artistic Directors? Audiences? Playwrights? Critics? The Board?" This led to a wide ranging discussion with the setting up, almost immediately, of a rather obvious divide between two types of theaters: the young and scrappy vs the established and institutionalized. Chicago is swarming with "storefront" theaters who rely on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter for their marketing - not necessarily because they're hipper, but because it's all they can afford. The "institutions" (like The Goodman, Victory Gardens and Steppenwolf) do a fair amount of hand wringing about the aging of the audience and wondering what to do about it. As I listened (uncharacteristically keeping my mouth shut) it struck me that WHAT straddles both worlds, especially given how our programming at the Harbor and the Julie - and the differentiation between the two - has evolved. Another way of looking at it is that we have the problems and the opportunities inherent in both structures. No easy answers, but it's always good to ask the questions. Other News: Noises Off closed out its record breaking run last Saturday. Ted, Victor and the crew then plunged into what they tell me was their most difficult and complicated "turnaround" - ever! The massive Noises set was dismantled and removed, likewise the turntable which had been in place since the early spring when it was installed forIrma Vep. Then the set for The Little Dog Laughed,pre-built in our offsite shop in Eastham, was loaded in. We're talking 25 hour days here. Of course Little Dog(David Nelson & Robert Kropf, l) opened last night so you can see the fruits of all this incredible hard work.[Most of this missive was written yesterday and the day before. I'm happy to report that Little Dog was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm last night. I'm tremendously proud of this show. Try to get there soon.] Our other shows continue: Laughing Wild & Death by Chocolate at the Harbor; Puss in Boots under the Tent and The Happy Oyster Spectacular Show, on Sunday nights at the Julie. Meanwhile our next Harbor show, Speech & Debate (opening August 19) is in rehearsal. Yeah. Lots going on as usual. The LAB has been generating lots of excitement. Our intention was to start it up in mid September at the earliest since that's when the rehearsal studio opens up. Then John Kolvenbach, who has rented a house here in Wellfleet for the month, asked if we had a space where he could work on re-writes for Mrs. Whitney (part of our Willy's reading series last March.) Just so happens thatThe Blue Roomdoesn't go into rehearsal for a couple of weeks. So (drumroll) we have our first LAB project! It's nice having John around too... Our next special event is "The People Speak," the new film based onA Peoples History of the United States by Howard Zinn and Voices of a Peoples History Edited by Zinn and Anthony Arnove. Not surprisingly this event is already selling like hotcakes. [Yeah, yeah, they always say that. Well, we've already sold 125 and remember we can't sell the first two rows. That leaves about 50 available seats and we haven't even put up the poster! Nuff said.] New England Foundation for the arts has awarded us a grant to present Avner The Eccentric (l) next winter. Kudos to Deb and Kathy for bringing this one home. Just over the horizon, good stuff from The Metropolitan Opera and The National Theater London. MET Opera Guild Members can purchase tickets starting August 21. The Hoi Polloi must wait till September 8. One reason why our Opera Guild membership is growing... That's all for now. I have real work to do!

As always... Jeff Zinn Artistic Director