a poor player

Dunkirk NY – Buffalo is really a pleasant city in a lot of ways. The summers are very pleasant, the city is relatively safe, it is very inexpensive to live there, and the arts community is alive and active. It has a strong work ethic, it’s very blue-collar at its core, and the residents are quite friendly for the most part.

But it is also a city with a history of corruption and cronyism. City government is a morasse of incompetency and favoritism, not to mention nepotism. Political loyalty and patronage rule the public service sector. In just about every city department you will find some level of corruption, great or small. And finally, although not surprisingly, it has hit the arts community.

Most of the story is in this article from the Buffalo News. You can follow some of the links in the comments section at the end of the article to get earlier news stories on this issue. In a nutshell, the former Executive Director of the Arts Council for Buffalo and Erie County plead guilty this past January to stealing $25,000 from the Arts Council accounts. Now, it seems, another $48,000 has gone missing, according to the Arts Council Board President. That money was the bulk of a New York State Arts Council grant designed to support arts groups around Western NY. According to a former staffer at the Arts Council of Bufalo, the group is about $300,000 in debt. As a result, it appears that by the end of the year there will be no Arts Council for Buffalo and Erie County in existence.

It’s just sad, that’s all. Many small arts groups in the city and in Erie County will suffer. I can only shake my head in disbelief and despair when I read stories like this. Buffalo is a city with so much potential, and for this to happen only means it will get another regional and national black eye. You expect corruption in the city’s public sector departments, and in the local labor unions. But in Buffalo, the sad truth is that even the arts groups are corrupt.  If this keeps up, the arts in Bufalo won’t be worth a plug nickel.  -twl

Fredonia NY – No doubt many of you have read about the troubles surrounding Shakespeare & Company. If not, you can read about it here and here. And should you be so inclined, you can watch their “call to action” here (I found their slogan “non-profit theatre is for everyone” a bit disingenuous. It’s for everyone “who can afford it.”)

There’s a lot that can be said about this event, not the least of which is the evident mismanagement that went along with trying to become large and “important.” But I do want to say that, at this point, any money spent to rescue this company will be further evidence that those who are concerned about “the arts” are really only concerned about the “high arts” and about making sure that the arts and theatre remain an exclusive activity for the well-off. When you read the dollar figures involved, which run within the $2-4 million range, just think at the same time what kind of funding that could provide for small regional companies across the country to help spread theatre at the grassroots level. And remember, these are dollars for one company alone, whose ticket prices are out of reach to mainstream, recession-wounded people.

Now you should understand why I so enjoy and appreciate my own humble Shakespeare festival, Shakespeare in Delaware Park (full disclosure – I am not a full-time member of the staff, but am occasionally employed as an actor during the summer performances). Our festival performs two shows every summer in Delaware Park, the “Central Park” of Buffalo. It is free to anyone who wishes to come. We ask for donations at intermission, and whether we get a penny or a $20 bill from someone, we are grateful for their donation. We work on a weatherbeaten stage now close to 20 years old, which we try to dress up each year with a set budget probably under $5,000 (I am guessing that’s the amount; I am not privy to the budgets). We costume all the actors for about three grand (again, a guess). Equity actors, of which there are maybe two per show, make the Buffalo/Rochester minimum – $426/week. Non-union actors make less, and some of the younger actors make far less. The backstage area consists of a worn construction-style trailer with a dressing room for the women, one for the men, and a space in between for storage. We sit outdoors as we await entrances. There is no running water; our water supply is a ten-gallon cooler, and we use port-a-potties, just like our patrons. The actors are all “home grown;” seldom is someone hired from out of town. And we’ve been doing it this way for 34 years, playing to as many as 40,000 people per summer, all seeing Shakespeare for whatever they can afford, even if it’s nothing.

In Buffalo NY, we can only dream of what $4,000,000 would be like to have. So I have little sympathy for the Berkshire-ites who are in danger of losing their festival. To them, I offer up the Buffalo NY model of doing Shakespeare. We’re going into our 35th year, and due to the hard work, dedication and diligence of a skeleton staff and our local theatre community, we’re still going strong. But of course, should Shakespeare and Company go under, we’ll be glad to have them donate their leftover assets to us. We’ll put them to good use. And shameless promotion time -  should you like to support us, you can become a Facebook fan of SDP by looking on my sidebar and doing the click thing. The setting is wonderful, the plays are fun, the company is terrific. We’d be glad to have you!  -twl

Tommy Flynn

Dunkirk NY – No, you don’t know him, unless you worked in Buffalo theatre somewhere between the mid-80s and the late 90s. He was the proprietor of Ray Flynn’s, a little hole-in-the-wall dive of a bar on the 800 block of Main St. in Buffalo, next to the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo building. It was at one time the city’s theatre bar, where theatre people of all stripes used to come and hang out after rehearsals and shows. There was a time in Buffalo when your day’s or night’s work in the theatre wasn’t complete until you went over to Flynn’s for a drink and some conversation. There was always someone over at Flynn’s to talk to, and even if there wasn’t, there was always Tommy himself. Everyone was Tommy’s friend.

(UPDATE: click here to see Jeff Wilber’s reminiscences about The Golden Dollar at Buffalo Rising, and then check out this page on Forgotten Buffalo on the history behind Tommy’s bar, which includes an image of the Buffalo News story about Flynn’s final night.)

When I first came to Buffalo in 1989 it wasn’t long before I was taken over to Flynn’s. The place was named for Tommy’s father, Ray, who started the bar. Before it started hosting the theatre crowd, it was a popular hangout for newspaper people, in particular those who worked at the defunct Buffalo Courier-Express. The C-E had ceased operations in 1982, and slowly the patrons of Flynn’s morphed from the newpaper crowd to the theatre crowd. The bar was a two-block walk from Buffalo’s Theatre District, an area around the 600 block of Main St. It was close enough to walk to after a show or rehearsal, but in just a bad enough section of downtown that nobody but theatre people wanted to go there. There were maybe four or five booths, three or four tables, a curved wooden bar, and one hell of an odorous bathroom. You had to get buzzed in by Tommy due to the potential for robbery. Continue Reading »

Dunkirk NY – Well, tonight is closing night. I am looking forward to having more free time and resting my body for a spell. After that comes a quick visit to see my son down in the Blue Ridge Dinner Theatre in Ferrum, VA, and then some lazy dog days in August. It’s been a pretty good summer so far, but I have sorely neglected my Middle States work. It rests uneasy in the back of my mind. August may be consumed with getting that together, as well as preparing to teach the 100-student large lecture class I have this semester.

Last night was rained out. Just enough rain fell on the stage to make it unsafe, so the show was called. That’s always a disappointment, but in this case we had a pretty good cast party to make up for it. Our SM and ASM both had birthdays yesterday, so we went downtown to celebrate. It’s nice to sit and chat with young actors for a buit, but eventually you find your self hanging with the old-timers swapping war stories and what have you. One thing I absolutely love about Buffalo is the feeling of community. There are so many actors who have been on the scene for 15-20 years now that it really makes for a nice community atmosphere. Sitting at a bar, just drinking and passing time, re-living old productions or talking about new ones coming up – it’s pleasant. Even when you’re poking around for work, it’s pleasant. I don’t have anything lined up for this coming season, but having done this summer perhaps something will show up over time. But I am not worried about it all that much, truthfully. A little slowing down could be good for the soul.

This week I discovered protein! In doing summer orientation I was talking with my colleague Sam Kenney (our dance instructor) about diet and such, and how my muscles were so sore. She suggested that it was possible I wasn’t getting enough protein in my diet to replace my muscle mass, and that because I was burning a great deal of energy and muscle during the show (and, frankly, because I’m not as young as I once was), I needed to increase my intake of protein to help the process along. And I think it worked! At least, this week I have not felt nearly as sore as I have during the previous three weeks, and I wake up with more energy and ability to accomplish some tasks during the day rather than just crashing on the couch not moving. It’s really apparent in my legs. So I’ve increased my intake to about 40g of protein supplement to go along with my regular diet. I may keep this up a bit, and perhaps it will help me lose a bit of weight as well.

Not much more to say today. I did upload some pictures to my Flickr site of the production, so you should be able to see them using the picture link on the sidebar. Here’s one below just to tempt you on.  -twl

As Stephano - "Then to seas, boys, and let her go hang."

Dunkirk NY – I am quite loathe to admit it, but it becomes increasingly clearer to me each year that the physicality of acting takes a deeper toll on my body than I think it will. The result has been that I find I need all the rest I can get inbetween performances, and when you’re performing six days a week that does not leave much time for recuperation. Even blogging becomes an effort.

So while you’re waiting for Rock and a Hard Place Part 3, here are two links for your consideration. This link is a review of The Tempest. Summary: an entertaining evening with a questionable concept. This link is to a situation in Buffalo theatre which would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. Buffalo is the butt of so many national jokes, and this particular incident makes a Polish Joke out of Buffalo and Canisius College. If you feel inclined to let the powers that be at Canisius know your feelings about this incident, feel free to click here. It may make some difference to them if they feel some national attention is being paid to this incident.  -twl

Dunkirk NY -  In the last post I mentioned all the reasons I became an actor. That’s “the rock.” What I think is fair to say about me artistically at this point is that my interest in acting in today’s theatrical climate is waning. If I had to sum it up all in one thought, it is simply that I feel that the theatre, at almost every level, has become commercialized and commodified. That holds little interest for me. That’s “the hard place.”

“Show business” is the reality of the day, and I was not, never have been, and probably never will be a good businessman. As I’ve mentioned before, early on in my career – about three years into pursuing a professional career in New York City in the late 70s and my subsequent failed attempt at NYU – I realized that the business aspects of theatre were going to be my professional undoing. I just didn’t like that aspect of it, and I think if you’re going to be a professional actor you really have to like all that as well as the time you spend on the stage. Hence the choice to become an educator. Continue Reading »

(UPDATE – They made it, of course. Over $400K in contributions. You can read about it here.)

Shakespeare Santa Cruz - "The Glen"

Dunkirk, NY – No doubt I will be expressing a minority opinion here, but in my estimation the bailout of Shakespeare Santa Cruz is, in artistic terms, equivalent to the government bailout of Wall St. I do not approve.  Why, you may ask? Well, think of every reason you can as to why you might not agree with the Wall St. bailout, and you’ll begin to see the interesting parallels between the two situations (note: facts taken from the San Jose Mercury News article linked above):

• Wall Street firms spent years living large off other people’s money and selling products which appeared to be producing profits but were in fact just running the company more and more into debt. SSC lived for years off the subsidized largesse of the University of California-Santa Cruz, and went 500 large in the red from their 2008 season, which added to an already-existing $1.15 million in debt. The $300K it needs is the equivalent of the university’s subsidy, which UC-SC said it could no longer provide because of its own budget troubles.
• Wall St. is pretty much populated by rich white people. I’d be willing to bet the audience and artistic staff of SSC consists of well-off white people. Bailing out the institutions of rich white people has become quite trendy among the trend-setters  in the USA today. Continue Reading »