But perhaps the finest video out there is this recent one by PagetFilms. It’s a short promotion film detailing why Buffalo NY is such a great theatre town. Take a look for yourself and see why I think so highly of the city and its theatre scene.

Speak the name “Manny Fried” in the city of Buffalo NY, and you probably won’t find one union person or one theatre artist in the city who can’t tell you a story about Manny Fried. A gentleman, a scholar, a playwright, an actor, a union activist, a worker, a teacher, a husband, a father – Manny wore all these hats and more. He passed away at 97 years old, four days short of his 98th birthday. If ever I had to use the word “icon” to describe anybody, it would be Manny Fried.

Manny Fried

Manny was already into his late 70s when I first came to Buffalo in the late 80s. I did a few shows with him, and certainly can claim his acquaintance. I remember particularly working with him in the Irish Classical Theatre production of Three Sisters that opened the new space on Main Street. Manny played Ferapont, while I was playing Kulygin. The dressing room (the one dressing room) was quite crowded, and Manny and I found the area up by the shower to be a space where we could get away from the pressing crowd. Always ready to tell a story or share some reminiscence, Manny ofter regaled me with union stories or stories about the old days of Buffalo theatre. He was a marvelous character to behold; spry, homespun, down to earth, unpretentious, real. He was fiercely dedicated to the working class, always for the little guy, and his plays reflected the life and realities of living in Buffalo in the late 50s through the late 70s. Plays with titles like Boilermakers and Martinis, The Dodo Bird, and Elegy for Stanley Gorski just about tell you everything you’d need to know about the guy.

I admired most in him the fact that he was a man of deep, deep principles. Read his obituary as well as this article in ArtVoice by Tony Chase, and you will be struck by the the depth of principle and character of this man. When he first told me that he had been summoned to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era, you could have knocked me over with a feather. He had been blacklisted, even in Buffalo, and I was duly impressed. Perhaps the most fascinating tale he told me during the run of that show was how Karl Malden got the part that Elia Kazan first offered to him in the movie Boomerang! because Manny decided to stay in Buffalo and continue organizing unions (Tony Chase recounts this same story. He must have loved telling it!). I wanted very much in that moment, I recall, to ask him if he ever regretted that decision. I didn’t, because it didn’t feel right (and I felt I really didn’t know him well enough to ask), but the more I got to know him, the more I realized I didn’t need to ask the question anymore.

What particularly saddens me about Manny’s passing as I think of my own career as a theatre artist and as a teacher is that I don’t think my current students will ever “get” a guy like Manny. I am not sure most theatre people today will “get” a guy like Manny. They will find it very hard to comprehend why someone like Manny would actually choose to remain in a city like Buffalo; why he would choose to write the plays he wrote; why he would choose to combine a working man’s career with the life of a theatre artist; why he never went “pro.” I’m not sure I could adequately explain to anyone, let alone my students, why Manny is a man worth admiring and emulating. Perhaps he was a man of his time, and perhaps that time is over. But there is so much to admire about those times and the men and women who lived through them that you can’t help but wonder if we just can’t get a piece of that back every now and then. Manny belongs to the generation that I grew up watching, emulating, studying, and wanting to be a part of, but when my turn came to step into those shoes, the times had begun to change, rapidly, and the world had moved on to other things. It bear re-stating that for all his prominence in Buffalo, for all his connections with the Group Theatre generation, Buffalo’s Studio Arena Theatre, the now-defunct LORT B theatre in the city, never once did his one of his plays. They would have been better off to have done so.

When I read about all the various ideas and issues that surround American theatre these days, I think today I can boil my thoughts about these issues down to one sentence – American theatre needs more Manny Frieds. His life was that of a common man doing uncommon things for common people. And we loved him for it.  -twl

To some degree, that worked. I really never felt too guilty after about 10 days of not writing. As the weeks passed, I found that my desire to write did wane a great deal, and it gave me some pause. You really do get to learn how insignificant all that information and writing is. The world of theatre moves on with or without you, and in the larger scheme of things there is very little chance of having any major impact. I discovered that paying attention to my own slice of the theatre world was about the best I could hope for, so as I began to do more of that, I began to feel less guilty about writing.

What have I been up to, then? Most of my time has been spent in what I would call the “usual manner” – teaching classes, directing a production of The Altruists, and chairing my department. I took on an extra honors course this past semester, looking at Greek plays for their relevance to modern culture, so that added a bit to my workload. And I was also on the “visioning committee” for the creation of our upcoming College of Visual and Performing Arts, to be inaugurated in Fall 2012. I am also on the steering committee for the planning of a new addition to our arts center, which they say will break ground in as little as two years. October-November was particularly intense. I took a quick trip in NYC the weekend before Thanksgiving, but did not see any shows, concerning myself rather with meeting with alumni and other family matters.

And now? Well, I am trying to pick up on this blog because in two days I leave for India, and will be in the city of Pune, at the Foundation for Liberal Arts and Management Education (FLAME Institute) for three weeks. I would like to blog about my experiences there, and so this post is the beginning of that process. I am taking an inter-term (we call it J-Term, “J” for “January,” where we offer mini-courses) class to India, and they will be having a “Discover India” experience. I will be giving a lecture on musical theatre and a guest workshop in improvisation for acting. I am also going to be setting the groundwork for possible student and faculty exchanges in the arts over the next few years and see if we can set up those cultural exchanges as part of our international education component.

The big event for me will be watching a performance of a street play by the Indian students, a play about literacy in India. They have a very strong component in their theatre program dealing with theatre that is rooted in the Indian experience. The person who wrote the play, Safdar Hashmi, was killed by a rival political party for his outspoken views. I am hoping this experience in India will further inform my views on rooting theatre more in communities.

And in perhaps my most promising news, I am in the planning stages of preparing curricular revisions to our BA program that I hope will result in a BA degree in “entrepreneurial theatre.” The attempt will be to carve out a degree program that emphasizes theatre creation in an entrepreneurial and independent fashion. I hope to add a component to the program that includes the use and creation of spaces outside our fine arts center, utilizing empty spaces in the Dunkirk-Fredonia area and perhaps creating an operating theatre in Buffalo as well. I am taking my lead from the new NEA emphasis in “creative spacemaking” that was unveiled on the NEA website around mid-November.

There are other matters to write about, of course. One issue that took place recently in Buffalo was a major political battle concerning the funding of the “culturals” by the county of Erie, where the city of Buffalo is located. It was a major saga that, for the moment, has died down, but has had serious repercussions. What happened in Erie County is an ongoing indication of the dire state of the arts politically in this economy, and I think it has national implications, as you here more financial experts talk about the coming bond crisis and potential bankruptcies in state and local governments. As cities and states nationwide go broke, the consequences in terms of future arts funding are perilous, and it seems to me artists everywhere better start looking to other models and means of keeping themselves going. I hope to get that post up pretty soon.

So here is my first attempt at a comeback. Like something out of Rocky Balboa.  -twl

Last week, though, while I was on vacation visiting family in Massachusetts, I did manage to squeeze in two days taking in the three Shakespeare offerings at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox MA. In fact, I got to do a fairly quick buzz around the Berkshires, from Lenox down to Stockbridge, then up to North Adams, across to Williamstown and back down through Pittsfield to Lenox. It was interesting. I liked Pittsfield the best, because it seemed to preserve most if its working-class history, and there was much more diversity visible in the community.

Having completed my own Shakespearian stint at my hometown Shakespeare Festival, it was quite interesting to compare the two and see what a difference money and location can make. When we talk about class, culture and the arts in this country, to me it becomes readily apparent that theatre has become the domain of the white and the wealthy. Comparing the way the two festivals go about producing Shakespeare, as well as looking at the eventual product, makes this pretty clear.

Shakespeare & Company – indeed, the entire Berkshire area – appears to cater to people with means, or at least the ability to scrape up the means for a short period of time. The audiences for all of the plays I saw were what you’d expect: elderly, white and predominantly female. Scattered within the audiences were families bringing their children for some cultural education. No people of color, with the exception of the matinee audience of Comedy of Errors, which had an audience composed of a few elderly people and a group of Upward Bound students from the Boston area on a day trip. More on those kids in a minute.

The town of Lenox is composed mostly of small, expensive shops of many kinds. I stopped in a bookstore, a leather goods store, and an art and chocolate store. My wife and I ate in a small Mediterranean restaurant that was not in any of the guides, and it had very reasonable prices and only one other family group in it (we visited the area over a Wednesday-Thursday). The atmosphere was one of cultured genteelness. Lenox is also home to Tanglewood and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Company, and the mixture of classical music, dance and Shakespearian theatre is very heady. The whole place gives out the vibe that smart, sophisticated, successful individuals live or vacation here. The town was not totally void of non-white faces, but it was always a long period of time before you saw one.

The shows themselves were overall not as good as I would have thought. The grounds of Shakespeare and Co. used to be an old private school for boys, and the Founders Theatre is a converted gymnasium. The first show I saw was Richard III. I did not much care for it. The actor playing Richard was all about effect, and never once did I see a crafty mind at work. The measure, to me, of a good Richard III lies in the Richard/Ann wooing scene; if that’s not done well, the rest of the show usually falls apart. It felt to me like the two actors were mostly standing there speaking well, but not really trying to affect or be affected by the other. The only scene I really enjoyed was IViv, the scene between Elizabeth and Richard where Richard tries to convince Elizabeth to let her daughter marry him. The actor playing Elizabeth was the best in the cast, and she made the scene work because she was actually directing her speech right at Richard. Shakespeare & Co., since it was founded by Tina Packer and Kristin Linklater, does stress vocal work, but it appears that work seems to give the actors the idea that acting is just the act of speaking. Only Elizabeth seemed to conbine speaking with intent and human motivation. Additionally, there appeared to be no real directing in the show, but rather a sense of just letting the “star” of the show go out there, be intense, play for effect, and do his thing. No crafting of pace, style, or intent was really evident.

The matinee of Comedy of Errors was performed by the company’s collection of interns in their newly-built blackbox theatre, and it consisted primarily of recent graduates of university programs. It was performed as if it were a circus comedy, and it was energetic, physical, and boisterous. The performers had a lot of energy, but lacked polish. And again, the hand of the director, while present in some of the concept (such as a bell chiming whenever the word “chain” was utter, which grew absolutely wearying because it had not ultimate payoff), was not much present in helping the young actors shape their performances. Occasionally the actors executed the physical bits to some good effect (with one outstanding performance by a young, tall, black male with an extremely lithe body playing the Courtesan as a cross-dresser), but more often than not they did not have their intended effect due to lack of precision. It was interesting to note that the Upward Bound audience, which was polite and well-behaved throughout the performance, really only laughed at the most broad and bawdy physical humor. I think the rest of it went right over their heads despite the high energy of the cast. If this is an intern company where the actors are supposed to be there to learn better craft, I can’t say that was the case. And had it not been for the Upward Bound kids, there would have been no more than 30 people in the house. The humor, I think, also became overkill for the elderly generation, as one woman turned to her friend towards the end and said “I think this is the last scene coming up, thank God.”

The final show I saw was The Winter’s Tale in its final preview. This was the best of the three. This show is hard to make successful, as Shakespeare seemed to have lost interest in good plot structure with this one. It’s actually two plays in some ways. When the scene moves to Bohemia, the play feels completely different. The director’s hand in this one was most strong, as he clearly was making an effort to create very clear worlds inhabited by very specific kinds of people. The actor playing Leontes, however, was a bit of a disappointment. He’s clearly a very good actor, but he appeared to playing for mood and emotion more so that clarity of story. He kept breaking up the lines in odd places, running sentences together in strange ways, and accelerating and decelerating his pace in what appeared to be an attempt to handle the language with the appearance of dexterity. His presence on stage was very strong, and he’s clearly a fine actor, but his speech patterns were so unusual, broken up in so many strange ways, that his thoughts became hard to follow. He was better in the second half of the play, although his subdued melancholy became somewhat affected after awhile. The courtroom scene was well-staged (as was the whole production), but alas, Hermione’s defense speech was also chopped up for the sake of mood. The actress played the character at that point as very weak from the aftereffects of childbirth, and I think it took away from the strength inherent in the scansion and language of her presence in that scene. Particular kudos have to go to the actors playing The Shepard and his son. Their comic timing and characterizations were spot-on; and indeed, the production was at its best during the Bohemia scenes. I think it was the best staging of the rustic’s festival I’ve ever seen.

Now I point all this out because, in my opinion, the presence of all this money and charm and sophistication did not buy any better Shakespeare. It bought a more comfortable surrounding, and more of a sense of high culture, elegance and art, but it did not buy better Shakespeare. I am no doubt prejudiced, but Shakespeare in Delaware Park is, to me, much closer to what I think Shakespeare was really after. Our production of Much Ado did not feature the kinds of actors you get to see at Shakespeare & Co. (NY credits and the like, although there are quite a few young, non-Equity people in the company). The grounds don’t feature the same genteel, wealthy atmosphere (heck, we don’t even have running water; we have port-a-johns as bathrooms. Very Elizabethan). Our productions do not have the same production values in terms of set, lights and costume. We play a broader style suitable for outdoors.You can hear traffic and airplanes and all manner of noise as the show progresses (two years ago there were even two streakers who crossed the stage during a performance).

But it does afford the opportunity to everyone of any means whatsoever to come and enjoy Shakespeare for free (we take up free-will donations at intermission and suggest a $10 donation. The cost of our three shows at Lenox was $191). It does offer solidly performed shows done mostly by local talent or actors with roots in the area. There are always people of all ages, all economic means, and all ethnic backgrounds in the audience. There can be up to 1500 people present on a good day. The wealthy and the poor alike mix in the same location, just as at the Globe. And for better or worse, it’s quintessentially Buffalonian. In short, it has an appeal capable of attracting everyone. It’s more along the lines of what I’d like all theatre to be in an ideal world. If Shakespeare himself had the choice, I think he’d come to Shakespeare in Delaware Park before he’d go near Shakespeare & Co.

Either tonight or tomorrow night I’ll be attending the all-female production of MacBeth now playing up in SDP. The buzz for this show has been outstanding. I’m looking forward to it.  -twl

I came to the realization the other day that I let a lot of theatrical events go by without comment, most noticeably the Tonys (if there is one post I regret losing it was the recent one I wrote on the Arties in Buffalo). I am also not finding much of interest to write about. I attribute this to the fact that most of what I had been reading about isn’t particularly pertinent to me personally. It may be pertinent to my students, and I do feel a need to stay relatively on top of things so that I can address issues with some modicum of intelligence. But I am coming to realize that my interest in things theatrical, at the most deeply personal level, is beginning to fade.

Much Ado About Nothing opened this past Thursday, and starting tomorrow I begin the three-week six-shows-a-week marathon that is the run. We got a somewhat clumsy review in the Buffalo News (I found it interesting that the print version of the newspaper headlined the review “A Clumsy Effort”, while the web headline is “Music Distracts in Much Ado.“). But all of that notwithstanding, of more interest to me is that I am not all that excited about the show. It’s pleasant enough, sure – but not exciting. Almost routine. I was talking about this the other day to an old friend from my undergraduate days who worked for a time as a stagehand on Broadway, and he said to me, “Well, it looks like you’re finally a professional. It’s only another job to you.” And he’s right. I do not get the deep personal satisfaction I used to get. I am not slacking. I’m doing the best job I know how in order to give the audience the experience they came to have. But when it’s all over each evening, there is little personal satisfaction in the evening’s work. I might just as well have made 100 widgets in the widget factory.

This is discouraging. I have built not just my career, but my personal life around theatre. In fact, as I sit here and write this, I realize that at this point in my life, I don’t have anything else in my life other than theatre. No hobbies I can think of. No particular activity that I do when I don’t do theatre. I did have a passion for computers in the early days of the internet when it was all brand new and presented an intellectual challenge, but technology has advanced so far and so fast that computers are no more fascinating or challenging than my kitchen blender. Ten years ago writing this post would have taken some skill and some coding effort; now it’s just a matter of entering it into the text box and away it goes.

Unlike the vast majority of theatre folk who have to have at least another job on top of what they do in the theatre to break up the monotony, my day job is all about theatre from morning til night. When I think, I think theatre. When I write, I write about theatre. I don’t have enough experience and expertise to write about anything else. When I think about writing a novel, it’s about a theatre company. I think about writing plays. When I think about research or writing some sort of academic book, it’s about theatre (a comprehensive traveler’s guide to the country’s Shakespeare festivals, for example, or a book on the teaching of acting). My recent attraction and flirtation with upper administration in higher education no doubt comes from the fact that it would not involve doing and talking about theatre every single minute of every single day. I am actually looking forward to the bureaucratic aspect of becoming department chair and attending meetings on enrollment management and assessment!

I think this is a dangerous thing, but I think at the moment I don’t quite know what to do about the situation. I am forever telling my students to cultivate and maintain a life outside of theatre so that you won’t become stale or lose touch with everyday things in life. While my kids were young and in the house, they were always a distraction, and provided a good outlet. I could always take one of them to a ballgame or play catch or watch a swim meet they were in or something. But with them all out of the house, that distraction is gone. I tried baseball umpiring for a time, but that strained my lower back in a way nothing else did, so I had to give it up after four years. Besides, finding enough free time from my theatre commitments made it tough to schedule games for me. If I have a passion for anything else in life, baseball would be it. Perhaps I should investigate becoming a play-by-play announcer or just work as a summer job doing anything for the Jamestown Jammers (Retirement Fantasy #4 – get an apartment within walking distance of Yankee Stadium and become an usher).

Today is the first day of summer, the longest day of the year. Many people celebrate the day, and rightfully so, because it indicates the fullness of life on the planet. It’s warm, things are growing, people are out and about, all manner of animal and insect life is out there tearing it up. We’re at the top of the cycle seasonally. But of course, from this moment on, the days get shorter and shorter. It’s a few months before you really start to notice that, but it’s there nonetheless. I feel a connection to that theatrically, as if my theatrical “season,” even while I am at the top of it, is growing shorter. This vague sense of disinterest is probably one of the early warning signs.  -twl