a poor player

I’ve been visited over the past few days by people and events. Two alums paid me a surprise visit beginning Tuesday afternoon, and we have spent some time together reminiscing and catching up on careers and lives. One young man has been working as an understudy for Putnam Spelling Bee, having made his debut in the show last December, and doing commercials, while the other has begun the pursuit of an academic career after finishing a tour with the Missoula Children’s Theatre company. In talking with them I gain an acute awareness of my theatrical isolation here in Dunkirk, and how much I need to have those great conversations about the nature and direction of theatre. They’ve also been informally chatting with the students. We have such a good network of alumni out there now that it’s good to tap their experience, and for our current students to at least see the various levels of succcess and struggle that goes on once you leave college. It’s been very pleasant and social.

The end of the academic year brings with it a whole new level of student anxiety, and my free time is being taken up with students who want individual work sessions on their assignments outside of class. I see a bit more stress in them the past few days as they struggle to get all their assignments done not only for their theatre classes but other classes as well. You spend a lot of energy at this time of year trying to prevent student meltdowns. I continue to search for an aesthetic of teaching theatre which will work to alleviate stress and not add to it. Hopefully over the semester break I can put enough thoughts together to articulate some ideas on that topic.

And I’ve also received a new temporary assignment at Fredonia. Our present dean is leaving in January for a new position in France, and I have been appointed as Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities. The appointment is for one semester while the college searches for a permanent replacement. I’m both awed and excited by the proposition. I never really had it in my head as a career path to become a dean, but I received some encouragement to apply for the position, and I figured it’s an excellent opportunity to explore what such a position is like. So for now, the catchphrase will be “I’m not a dean, but I play one at SUNY Fredonia.” I hope this won’t affect postings too much, but don’t be surprised if there is a slight change in the nuances of the postings. I suspect the experience and knowledge I’ll be gaining will find their way into a few paragraphs here and there. Please wish me luck, as I need all the help I can get! -twl

On the northwest corner of 14th St. and 7th Ave. is a narrow hole-in-the-wall donut shop called The Donut Pub. It consists of nothing but a small counter and maybe 20 red stools lined up against the counter. The donuts are run-of-the-mill; crullers, jelly, creme, glazed, old-fashioned. No fancy flavors here. The coffee is is industrial-strength brew served straight from the Bunn brewer to you in a paper cup. The sizes of coffee are small, medium, and large. They ask if you want it light and sweet. The biggest luxury in the place is that they use either half-and-half or whole milk; don’t ask for soy milk or 2%. The place has been in existence since 1964. It’s my kind of place, and one of the few remaining places in the City of New York that I can remember existing more or less as it was during my high school/college/post-undergrad days of traipsing about Manhattan. Continue Reading »

Need a laugh over the weekend? Try these from YouTube:

“Stanislavski” on Good Acting

The Red Method

-twl

I’ve returned from a whirlwind of theatregoing in New York City – saw five shows in three days. I’ve not returned as soon as wanted due to family issues, so I am not taking the time to write them up right now. All my children will be arriving over the next 24 hours or so, and so I have too much to do to prepare for their arrival to do any writing. But quickly, here’s what I saw:

• Antigone – QED Productions at the Hudson Guild Theatre in Chelsea. Lighting by Lucas Krech of Light Que 23.
• The Sunset Limited – A Steppenwolf production at 59E59 Theatres. Written by Cormac McCarthy, featuring Austin Pendleton and Freeman Coffey.
• Fall EATFest 2006 – Emerging Artists Theatre. A collection of four one-acts. I saw Series A, which featured a friend who was on tour with me last year.
• The Internationalist – The subject of the latest Blogger’s Night, playing at the Vineyard Theatre.
• The Bronx Balmers – A play by Jerry Handelman presented by Off The Leash productions at the Turtle’s Shell Theatre in the Times Square Arts Center.

All these shows are now closed with the exception of The Internationalist, which closes this coming Sunday Nov. 26th.

It was quite an interesting weekend, not only in the type of shows I saw but also just sort of taking in the New York theatregoing experience. I also spent a good deal of time on the trains and other waiting times reading Martin Denton’s anthology of “best indie plays” from 2005. So when I get maybe a moment or two during the upcoming Thanksgiving madness I’ll try to throw in some words. If not, you’ll have to wait until the shouting’s over. -twl

Carmen is complete, and by what one would call standard measures of achievement it was a very big success all around. I’d say more than 1,900 people saw the production, and that’s a lot for this area. From the outset I did not have that much at stake artistically, as doing a semi-staged version on a concert hall apron does not allow a lot of theatrical choices. Basically I staged some very simple, pretty pictures and let the singers do their thing within those compositions. I think the larger success goes to our School of Music. The student singers and members of the orchestra were very good; the sound was rich and full. That’s were the real kudos belong in the final analysis.

So now that the production is complete, I am taking a short break to catch up with many things at school, vegetate at home (I watched two John Ford movies last night!), go to New York City to see a few shows over the coming weekend, and welcome my children home for the Thanksgiving holiday. When I return to writing, probably sometime around the 27th of November or so, I hope to begin a series of essays on the state of academic theatre. Hopefully you’ll return to read my thoughts on that subject. Til then…. -twl

I have been reading the simmering discussions on the question of arts funding at Superfluities and Theatre Notes. The question is rife with political thorns and quagmires, and is one which brings out considerable passion in people. For what it’s worth, this is my thinking on the issue.

Since the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts during the Kennedy Administration, artists by and large have steadily drifted to the political left. Today, the situation is such that art itself has been inextricably linked with the political ideology of the left; art is a “blue state activity,” if you will. The result of this trend is that in the US, there is virtually no significant right-wing artistic expression to speak of. As a result, the funding of the arts in this country is consistently viewed by the right wing, not as “funding for the arts” in any absolute sense, but funding for the political left to express their political views through the use of art. Those who attack the arts generally hold conservative viewpoints, and their criticism is usually based, not on the issue of whether or not arts funding in and of itself is good or bad, but in the view that the artwork itself is being used to promote a political agenda and to denegrate their particular conservative beliefs. Continue Reading »

Carmen has been steadily improving. It seems that some of the problems the past couple of days have been related to what constitutes a sitzprobe. The singer types within the group had one idea, but the conductor had a slightly different approach. So after a compromise on this issue was finally achieved, things went a bit more smoothly. We got through running the show with one cast today. Tomorrow we have a tech run without the orchestra, and then two dress rehearsals before we open. This is a pretty fancy concert version, so I am hoping it all holds together. A 1200-seat concert hall is a pretty difficult place to do staging with all the people involved in this show, but everyone came away from today’s rehearsal feeling optimistic. All this for one performance for each cast. Please don’t make me think about how all this money might be better spent! Continue Reading »

I’m a little frustrated at the moment of writing this, because we are in the final week before Carmen opens, and people are becoming a little edgy. Last night’s rehearsal was something of a disaster, because the conductor came in with a schedule which nobody else knew about. I was expecting to come in, work with the Children’s Chorus (all 43 of them) for their short sequences, and then move on to the rest of the opera. Instead, the conductor just barrelled right in, began with a completely different scene, and nobody knew what was happening. Continue Reading »