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Today in a discussion with one of my favorite collaborators, Chris Ashworth, we had a great talk on the notion that intimacy is at the center of our significant actions as human beings.  Either in a relationship (with a lover, parent, friend, or animal), or the intimacy one has with work, or with an ideal.

Everyman Theatre is special in large part due to the intimacy of the house. I love art museums because you can be intimate with the actual work. I relish an intimate conversation with a friend, family member, or stranger where you drop your guard, lower the walls, and say what you really think while challenging your own assumptions. I love that it took an intimate conversation to reach this discovery about intimacy.

Note: I wrote this during the month of June in 2009, when Giti and I were in Wroclaw, Poland. I originally wrote it when I was a guest blogger for the now defunct Baltimore Theatre Alliance blog.

It is going to be impossible to keep this post as short as it should be and convey what I hope to convey but I am going to attempt to be brief.

I’m writing to you from Wroclaw (pronounced vroots-vauve), Poland from the World As Place Of Truth Festival, which is the three week peak event of the 2009 UNESCO declared Year of Grotowski.

So what does all that mean? Well, first things first, on one level, this event is happening because a theatre artists named Jerzy Grotowski decided to do things differently back in the 60′s. And then he never stopped doing things differently. And then a lot of other theatre artists saw the work that was coming out of this guy, and they decided to do things differently in their own way. It’s impossible for me to even start to explain what it was that was so different in the amount of space here, but if you want to go down the rabbit hole, either pick up a copy of Towards a Poor Theatre, or send me an email and I can direct you to someone who knows what they’re talking about.

Regardless, the work of this one man who only did theatre in the “traditional” sense for 10 years of his 30+ year “theatrical career” (forgiven the quotation marks–Grotowski is impossible to conveniently put in a bottle) made such ripples to the work many of us do today, that UNESCO decided to delcare 2009 The Year of Grotowski. And at this event, a bunch of master directors have decided to bring pieces to Wroclaw for the peak event festival here I mentioned earlier, The World As Place of Truth. The work happening here is staggering. There are productions of and conversations with some of the greatest theatre artists of the last 50 years–Peter Brook, Tadashi Suzuki, Pina Baush, Anatoly Vassiliev, Richard Schechner, Eugenio Barba, and the list goes on and on. Through the advice of one of Baltimore’s theatrical treasures Philip Arnoult, founder of Theatre Project, who spends at the very least half of the year out of the country forging connections between theatre artists world wide with his company the Center for International Theatre Development, my wife, Giti, and I decided to come out for the festival. Now one week in and with roughly one week to go, we are not sorry to have come.

I wish I could take the time to describe every show we’ve seen, but that would take too long, so if you’re interested in reading further I’m going to direct you to the blog (click here) of another American artist (and soon to be Balitmorean), Dara Weinberg, who is also here at the festival as part of the strong American contingent here. On that blog you can read the musings of Dara and a number of the other participants of the U.S. Artistis Initiative at the festival. I’m keeping my own 20th century “blog” in my personal journal–but if anyone is interested in more details, let me know.

All I can say is that being able to attend an international theatre festival (this is my second) has been one of the richest theatrical experiences in my life. If you can scrape together the money for a plane ticket, and you can decide on a festival you’d like to attend, contact the good people at that festival and chances are they’ll be able help guide you (getting tickets, where to stay, what to see) to a truly transformative experience. It’s easier than it sounds. There’s nothing like leaving the country to help you better understand what’s going on at home–and there’s no better way to understand the work you’re doing, and the work you always wanted to do but never knew it, then to see some of the truly mind boggling stuff happening around the world.

We have an obligation to our audience. We have to make our art matter.

Having been a mindless consumer of art at times (actually mostly during the time in my life between six and 18 when I was sharing space with a TV), I believe artists, whether they be writers, visual artists, performers, or otherwise, are in a position to actually make people feel, think, or experience something.

Please clip my wings if I don’t give my audience (and my artists for that matter) something they haven’t had before, or if I don’t use the platform I’ve developed to actually accomplish something. Entertainment is a great thing–but it has to be coupled with honesty, intelligence, or something that provokes the spirit, and whispers “come hither”. Entertainment only is empty calories. Sure they feel good, but in our cultures we waste far too much time as it is.

The biggest criticism I could get as someone walks out after one of my pieces is, “that was a waste of time”. Perhaps I’ve taken too much time to say what I want to say–my pacing can be slow, but sometimes it takes time to get to “It”. Some audiences aren’t interested in getting “It”. The world is rough enough as it is, and they just want to tune out. I’ve been there, too, and I’ll be there again. But they shouldn’t come see my show.

We have an obligation. Don’t go through the motions. If you’re going to create something sweet, make it magical. If you’re going to make them smile, make them roar. If you’re going to make them sad, make them feel. And if you’re going to make them question, make them wonder.

I have issues with the way some artists stop making the work that needs to be done, and start making the work that pays. I understand it is a necessity. I don’t know what to do with that. I guess we’re doing it for different reasons. But empty art is just more garbage, and our landfills are full enough already. If you’re going to make trash–call it trash, celebrate in its trashiness, say something about why you made trash. Whatever you do, you have an obligation, so make it matter.

As I’m living in Baltimore, and as I am an artist, and as Baltimore has tremendous social problems, and as I believe art has the power to change, alter, and address social problems, and as I’d like to see Baltimore become a better place, and as I haven’t done really any art specifically about Baltimore, I’d like to do a piece of art addressing some of the social challenges Baltimore faces.

But what? Where? And with what authority?

Several ideas have popped into my head. It would be amazing to do something neighborhood based (using the city’s defined neighborhood map), but as there are something like 225 neighborhoods, unless I wanted the project to take a decade (which I don’t think I do), it would have to be scaled back. But the thing that’s so important is to think about the 225 neighborhoods of Baltimore simultaneously existing every day, and each is distinct enough to have its own history, character, and issues.

Next, instead of using geographics as the scope, what if I were to do a post card project (ala PostSecret) called, “What is Baltimore?”.

Then, curate a show from the postcards, breaking them out by theme. Then, in a venue (Sub Basement was the space I was in when I was thinking about this), you do a round robin of sorts–bring together musicians, dancers, an improv group, an improv enesemble–and they get 3 minutes to tackle the theme they’re standing at. Perhaps you have six themes, so then every 20 minutes they switch, until they’ve done all six. All performances would be improvised (or if not improvised, then motivated from), and they’d pull inspiration from one of the cards.

Audience members give a $5 suggested donation–one third goes to the house, and the other two thirds to the artists.

Then from there, you really could build a full performance from the material.

The Single Carrot ensemble is comprised of eight individuals. When it began, I had turned 21 two days earlier. Now the company has three 28 year olds, three 27 year olds, and two 26 year olds. I’m the youngest of the 27 year olds, making me the third youngest member of the company. Since the entire company went to CU, most of the others first met me when I was the new kid. I think a lot of people, myself included, often see someone younger and assume a higher status. This is why I grew a beard–so people would think I was older, and give me more respect. It’s the same reason people dress nicely. It makes moving through the world easier.

In Hiking the Horizontal, Liz discusses the impact of Robert Nisbet’s The Quest for Community on her. There’s one portion I’ll quote here that I’ve been thinking a lot about.

“Finally, he gets to a wonderful description of the difference between power and authority, which has had a profound impact on the way I lead. First he explains that power is external and based upon force. Authority is rooted ‘in the statuses, functions, and allegiances which are the components of any association.’ But what really excited me was his discussion on multiple authorities. He wrote, ‘There must by many authorities in society, and that authority must be closely united to objectives and functions which command the response and talents of members. Freedom is to be found in the interstices of authority: it is nourished by competition among authorities.’ Without knowing it, I was discovering some principles for running a dance company.”

Yesterday, I had lunch with someone who is facing the daunting challenge of directing her ensemble this fall. She’s never directed any of them, she’s never directed a full length play, and she’s going to be directing the artistic director and production managers.

It turns out I have plenty of advice on this topic. I think some of my points are useful when coming into any rehearsal, and some are especially pertinent for working with a low budget ensemble.

Please keep in mind when reading this that this is the kind of rehearsal I prefer to run, other people do it other ways. I like to create an atmosphere of generosity and safe space where each individual artist is able to grow and develop, and bring lots of ideas to the table. I like a drama free environment–as I often say, I’m the only one who gets to be a diva. Everyone must have a healthy respect for everyone else (and that means you, too).

1) Establish Authority

• Refer to the above on the difference between authority and power.
• Be an expert on the piece (if it has a script). Know the subject matter backwards and forwards.
• Do your homework. Research, google, wikipedia, YouTube. Learn it, know it, love it.
• Have an idea about every character, and have respect for each character (even if they are a despicable character–if you don’t respect them, the actor won’t, and the audience won’t, and then it won’t work.
• Analyze each and every relationship and dynamic.
• What are the arcs?
• What are the themes?
• Why was this play written?
• Why does the audience need to see it?
• What are you trying to say? What’s the message you want to convey? What is it all about? It’s okay if you just want to say what the playwright is saying, but make sure you think you know what the playwright is saying.
• Find the love. Find the humor.
• Don’t try to do all of this in one day. Develop a relationship with the piece.
• Once you become an expert, communicate all of this to your ensemble, without coming across as a “know-it-all-jack-ass”. Help them discover a lot of this information. Use your dramaturg (if you have one), bring in guest experts, play games around the research (think back to how you learned this stuff in fourth grade), have fun, make discoveries, and make sure your ensemble not only knows the piece backwards and forwards, but is engaged in the piece top to bottom, and, finally, make sure you’ve been seen first as the expert, and then secondly as the guide that led everyone else to expertise.
• Since you’ve become an expert, make sure you’re acting like a real expert. Don’t assume you have the correct answer. Experts have explanations and answers, but when a better answer comes along, they recognize it, celebrate it, and embrace it. If a bad answer competes with their good answer, they tactfully address it, find what works, discuss what doesn’t, and puts it to rest. (I hope experts really do act like that.) Nothing will make you loose authority faster than shooting down everyone’s ideas without really listening to them. Also, don’t ask for ideas when you don’t want them. It’s always okay to say, “I think there’s a lot of merit in what you’re saying, but it doesn’t jive with the overall vision. But thanks for putting it out there.”
• Understand that you have “political capital” every time you go into a new process. But it isn’t that you have a finite amount of it. We gain and spend political capital all the time, and in every relationship. When you walk into a new rehearsal, assess how much political capital you have, and then work your ass off to gain more, because in order to really have a dynamic experience as a director, where you get to take risks, have large failures, and even greater successes, you need to be liquid–constantly gaining and spending. Nobody likes a director with too much or too little capital. When you have too much, you’re unapproachable and other people won’t take risks in your presence, and when you have too little, it generally indicates that you’re a selfish ass-hole who can’t see past your own eyelashes. You can assess your political capital walking in by thinking–what is my history with this company? What is my reputation with this company? Who have I worked with in the ensemble, and what kind of relationship do I have with them? Which of my artists have a reputation for being generous? And who has a reputation for being difficult?

2) Establish Safe Space

• There’s a concept I stole from my wife, Giti. Basically she says to the group, there are three zones, and if viewed from above, it looks like a target.
• In the center, is absolute safety.
• This is like walking down a street you’ve been on every day of your life, the sun is shining, you’re saying “hello” to everyone.
• Go back a step to the next zone which rings the center circle–that’s where you feel out of your comfort zone.
• It’s like walking down a familiar street at night, where you know you’re safe, but it doesn’t feel the same. No one is out, but you have absolute faith that if trouble happened, you could knock on any door, and a friend would be on the other side to help.
• Go back another step into the third zone which rings this middle zone, and you have a place where you feel totally unsafe.
• This is like being on a street you know you totally don’t belong. People are either coming up to you to threaten you, or to inform you that you should not be there, and that they’ll give you directions to the closest way to a better neighborhood.
• Now think about these three zones, and apply the concept to trying new things. If you feel totally out of your element, confused, stupid, and unsafe, you’re going to shut down and you won’t learn anything–except that you don’t like what you’re learning. If you feel absolutely safe, you aren’t going to learn anything (although you may feel safe and be having fun, you may also feel safe and utterly bored). The best place to be is slightly out of your comfort zone. When you go slightly out of your comfort zone, you feel braver, you’re willing to try that new thing on for size, because you know things aren’t going to get out of control, and you know you can fall back a level and be okay. Pretty soon, when you’ve been working outside of your comfort zone on something new, you discover that you feel safe there–all of the sudden, your inner circle becomes wider, and you’re ready to push out further–sometimes into territory you would have felt completely unsafe in before.
• Rehearsals for me are all about spending time to first and foremost establish completely safe space. Ice breakers, games, you name it. You’re building a new community, who is given a very specific task. Everyone must trust everyone else, and must respect them. Build a functional community.
• Once you’ve built safe space, challenge your ensemble. Push them, as a group, into the next zone. Drop them into a highly structure improv. Put them into games with goals, put them into mock competition. Push them collectively, and they’ll push themselves individually. Single people out for praise, don’t single people out publicly for criticism.
• Let the collective self-regulate, but don’t let them self-police. Once individuals feel like someone else in the ensemble is judging them, the space is no longer safe.
• Make sure you regulate. Constantly establish the boundaries on what is good behavior. When members of your ensemble are behaving badly, use humor to acknowledge it, and then own it. Example–I had a small cast, and I happened to have a counter bell lying around from a previous show. Someone was getting a little high on their horse about something, and I spontaneously rang the bell and joked, that they’d stepped over a diva line. For the rest of the process, whether the bell was around or not, I could ring the bell, just say “ding”, or someone else in the ensemble would yell out “ring the bell”. We all got to laugh about it, and it was an important way to keep us grounded. In fact, whenever I’m working with anyone from that show, we still joke about ringing the bell. It became part of our shared language, and helped us build an ensemble. But, if I ever “ding” someone in a new show where I’m working with new people, I always tell them the history of the bell. People love working with a close knit group–but only if the close knit group lets them into the circle. Don’t accidentally keep people on the outside, it makes them feel inferior, or stupid, and kills ensemble.
• Whatever you do, don’t push your ensemble into the third circle. If you accidentally do (and which I did in grand fashion once with an “It’s Tuesday!” exercise lifted from Keith Johnstone–we just were not ready for it, and it made everyone feel like hell), call everyone back as quickly as possible and admit your mistake. Re-establish safe space. Luckily, since we were able to talk about it, I was able to use “It’s Tuesday!” as a joke on myself, which gave the ensemble a chance to poke fun at me, too.
• So much of safe space is showing people it is great to fail. Because you’ll never have great success if you don’t also have epic failures. An ensemble willing to fail, is an ensemble that will sing 99% of the time. And the other 1% will give you all of your favorite stories to tell in the bar when you’re 99.
• In other words, establishing safe space is establishing the culture of the rehearsal process. If you don’t do it as the director, someone else will for you, and you better hope in that case that it is someone good natured.
• Don’t be afraid to have a really honest conversation with someone who isn’t buying in to the process. Other people recognize it, and it makes them feel stupid/angry/resentful when someone else isn’t being part of the group, and then they’ll wonder why you, as the leader, aren’t doing anything about it. This is where I always struggle. I let a lot slide–being late to rehearsal, not sitting in the circle, not participating fully, allowing people to take shots at me or at others under the guise of something else and not calling them on it immediately. It’s something I’m working on being better at.

3) Practice What You Preach

• Try to be the kind of artist you like to work with.
• Lead by example.
• Call yourself out frequently.
• Don’t make excuses.
• Take accountability.
• Challenge yourself.
• Don’t be afraid to change your mind, and communicate to others when you do.
• Don’t ask for something you wouldn’t try yourself, and if you are asking for something you wouldn’t try yourself, let your artists know, and indicate the respect you have for them for trying it. Don’t let people feel like you’re using them. Or better yet–don’t use them.
• Be generous.
• Be direct.
• Be thoughtful.
• Keep the other person’s current state of being in mind–not everyone is at your same place in life.
• Don’t assume that others can read your mind.
• Don’t assume that just because you’re the director, that you’re special.
• Be special.
• Use humor.
• Lie, and tell people you love tech rehearsals. Then one day, you’ll be able to say it without lying.
• Encourage feedback.
• Keep trying to be a better director, a better artist, and a better leader, and communicate that you’re trying to become a better director, a better artist, and a better leader.
• Establish intimacy.
• Don’t step over the boundaries. Ever. Have the decency to wait until the process is over–the power dynamic will get fucked up, and it really isn’t worth it to you, the other person, or the ensemble.
• Don’t ever screw with peoples emotions, psyche, past, present, or future just to get something interesting on stage. Your artists are people, and they are trying to live their lives in a positive way. Give them a good experience, that they will remember fondly, and make them want to work with you again.
• Don’t take yourself so seriously.
• Respect the audience.
• Respect the space.

4.) Plan Well and Plan Often

• Manage people’s expectations–i.e. try to let your artists know what they’ve gotten themselves into and what you, as the director, are going to be like. The first rehearsal, plan to communicate a lot of information.
• Establish the norms.
• Let people know how you like to work.
• Let them know how much you value table work (if you do).
• Let them know if you like to go fast.
• Let them know if you like to go slow.
• Let them know that you’ve never directed a show the same way twice, and that you’re really interested in seeing what happens, and thanks for coming along for the ride.
• Don’t apologize for anything, unless you really have something to apologize for. Don’t establish that you’re going to be making excuses for yourself.
• Let them know if you’re trying something new, and make sure they feel good about it (it might be better to communicate this before they sign on to the show).
• Let them know all the information you have–about the tech elements, about any special movement, about anything you’d want to know about if you were an artist working on your piece.
• Throughout the process, try to make sure you continue to manage expectations–let them know when things change, try to let people in on your thought process. I struggle with this personally sometimes (because I often don’t know where I’m going, and I don’t want to worry people, because I know things always work out, and I want to exude that same confidence I have. )
• Don’t be vague. If you don’t have a certain bit of information, tell people.
• If you have purposefully not drawn conclusions as you want to discover things during the process–tell your artists that, and tell them why.
• By managing your artist’s expectations, you’re getting them to buy into your process.
• The way you structure your process is everything. Just like the way a playwright structures the script is everything.
• If you like a hot mess, go for it–but let people know.
• Your artists generally feel safer when they know what’s going to be happening, so try to give as good of a schedule as soon as you can manage it.
• Don’t over promise. If you don’t know what the second week of rehearsals are going to look like, and you want to let it work itself out, then that’s fine. Communicate that.
• One variable you really have control over in your process is time. Use it well, and use it interestingly, and you’ll get good results. And leave yourself a little extra time if you can for things to implode. And when things do implode, remember that the phoenix rose from the ashes.
• Once your initial plans fail (and they will if you’re letting things develop as they go), make sure you plan again. And again.
• Make sure you hammer out as many details as you can in advance.
• Your stage manager, production manager, and designers will like you a lot more.
• For those details you can’t hammer out, try to let others into the process. You’ll all have more fun, and they’ll like you more.
• Identify your problem areas and prevent crisis. Do you do poorly in table work because you don’t have enough time? Do you do poorly at tech because you weren’t at any of the production meetings, and you didn’t return the lighting designers emails for two weeks because you were too busy with another aspect of the show?
• The key to crisis management is crisis avoidance.
• Admit your failings, and fix them before it happens again. Don’t just say–this is how I work, sorry! And if that’s really just how you work, find some way to accommodate for it.
• Admit the failings of the people you love to work with, and either fix them, or accommodate them.

5.) Clearly Communicate Roles

• If you’re working in an ensemble, it’s vital that you clearly establish the roles and authority of the group. It can be tricky to direct your peers, or the artistic director, or the production manager, or the lighting designer, or your best friend. Hopefully a lot of what I mentioned above will help you avoid any push back you may receive since you’ll have been able to establish your authority and create safe space for the ensemble you’re leading. However, the outside power structure can sometimes create havok.
• If you’re directing the artistic director, have a conversation way before rehearsal begins about who trumps who. Who has final say? Make sure you’re very clear about this, and don’t just expect things to go okay just because the artistic director is nice and generous.
• If you’re directing the production manager, make sure you talk about needing them to be an actor during the rehearsal part of tech, and that they can wear their production manager hat before and after.
• The same goes for designers. It’s a bitch to have your lead designing lights, because they aren’t focused on the show. Just like it was really dumb of me to run the light and sound board for a show I was directing. I missed out on fully directing the cast the entire final week because I was too focused on making sure the cues were right. I should have planned better from the beginning and made sure I had a board operator. Two hours of work to secure a board op would have made my show that much better.
• Plan ahead, and know what you’re getting yourself into when people are wearing multiple hats–especially when one hat is tech related, and one hat is performing.
• If you can avoid it, try not to have too many people (or anyone) wearing multiple hats (unless that’s the way you like it, and you can get the tech worked out well in advance so it doesn’t delay the progress of the acting).

So that’s what I think. It’s what I’ve learned. It’s what I’m working on. It’s what works for me. You’ll find what works for you. If you take some of this advice, hopefully you’ll free yourself up to do some great work.

Yesterday I had a great realization: I have wisdom to impart unto others. I guess I’ve known that I know things, but yesterday in a lunch meeting, someone asked me a series of questions about an issue that it turns out I’ve learned a lot about over the years–how do you direct your friends who are the ensemble you’re working with? This made me feel so good, that I feel now compelled to write it out.

This reminds me of when Liz told me a few weeks ago at our coffee meeting that artists have much to teach that they don’t know they have to teach. The question is, how can I take this information that is theatre and ensemble specific, and take it to others?

Reading Hiking the Horizontal by Liz Lerman. I love it. I just got to the second section, which is titled, “Who Gets to Dance?” In it, Liz discusses her journey to finding why she has loved working with older people, and how great it is to see them dance, how much it adds to their lives, and how much it influences younger dancers in an extremely positive way (it becomes a safe space, where they get to focus not on themselves, but on the others, and there’s something that working with older people frees you up from judgement, and they’re full of love to give, etc.). It made me wonder, how can I take theatre to people? Dance is something that you can have everyone working on at once, at their own level, and that the variations (as Liz discusses) makes it beautiful and interesting. Would the same work for theatre? I guess it depends on what we were trying to present. I wouldn’t want to create a show with a group (it doesn’t have to be a group of older people).

This gets me to thinking about The Other Shore–there was something we captured there. What is it that I miss about it? What do I lament about it being over? It isn’t the production or the text–it was the ensemble. I miss the fact that I could throw them any wrinkle, and they’d take it in, and give me something beautiful. I will never forget the final performance, where Christine accidentally lost her cloak, and the ensemble took the cloak, and created this beautiful spectral puppet from it. They were all on the same page, working together in the unknown to create something original on the very last performance in front of the sold out audience. And the most beautiful thing is that they wouldn’t have created it again–they were expressly told not to re-create things, or to hold on to things that worked for this production.

So perhaps the thing that I can use theatre to teach groups is how to create ensemble. The Other Shore ensemble turned into a little tribe. I feel like I could have dropped them into any situation, and they would have thrived. Each appreciated the contributions and abilities of the other. I could have handed them any script, or any idea, and said, “run with this”, and they would have, from Hamlet to Spamalot.

I think this is where I can make “my work”. Build ensemble using the aesthetic and techniques that really create a horizontal, collaborative environment, such as free movement and contact improv, viewpoints, choral work (if there is shared text), Keith Johnstone’s improv work, Krymov’s on-stage design, music, etc. It’s a long haul to build an ensemble, but it is fun. You have to be extremely patient, and build safe space. I feel like creating ensembles is one great skill I have, and a true joy in my life. Once the ensemble has been built, we give them challenges–large or small. Create a story of youth, tell the Odyssey, comment on the day’s news, show me death, perform King Lear. But I have to give the power into the hands of the ensemble–and the power is the power to create–to be a creative individual. It is why theatre is powerful and important. Anyone can do it, and anyone can be an artist, because we can all have original thought, and an ensemble frees you to be an individual. In a tribe, all contributions are respected and celebrated.  I feel like an ensemble can then move out of the realm of theatre, too, and do other things. They can build a theatre–like Single Carrot. They can be political and tackle a challenge. GBCA, in many ways, is working to create an ensemble out of the Greater Baltimore arts community–and it is going to take a lot of time to build it. But once you’ve built an ensemble, you can tackle any challenge.

So now I just have to test my theory with non-traditional or untrained performers.

Saw Harry Belafonte and a documentary on his work at the closing of the Maryland Film Festival last night. Amazing. I was more than a bit ashamed I didn’t know who he was. I’d heard his name, but still.

A few major take aways:

He said “Artists need to stop treating themselves as a commodity, and realize their work is worth more than the producers are paying.”

He quoted Robeson–something like “Artists are the gate keepers of history.  They are the keepers of truth.”

I was struck by how much he did. It reminds me that you have to be political. You have to be doing something. If you have a platform, you are obligated to use it.

Every day you have to make the effort to right some social injustice.

I thought about Liz Lerman’s book, she talks about the influence of the Civil Rights Movement on her life and work. Then she was talking to a young Gen Xer in the 90s, and he commented that while she had the civil rights movement, his generation had the Challenger exploding. Essentially, there wasn’t a “movement”.  Have there been movements in my generation? There were the anti-war protests in 2003. But all this is born out of 9/11. There’s been the green movement. There is the Gay Marriage movement, but it isn’t one I’ve been tremendously involved in. I think the movement that needs to take off in our country addresses the largest issue facing the world: Corporate Greed. I think it is the single most damaging thing in our world–it’s driving so much of the problems. Where to begin, though? A boycott of all corporations that churn out profit? A righting of the balance.

I also thought the Film Festival was great, and fantasized about how much fun it would be to work year round on building a theatre festival.

I need more training. Embedded in that statement is the desire to grow, and the curiosity to ask questions and challenge my present assumptions about what it is to make theatre.  When I think about how and why I created Single Carrot, it was mainly for practical reasons–very little of it was because I had something specific I wanted to use theatre to say. Over the course of the last four seasons at Single Carrot, I’ve used my directing opportunities to do plays that spoke to me–that interested and fascinated me and the ensemble, and hopefully they spoke to the audience, too. But I didn’t have something I needed to tell the world. I let the playwright do that part, and I tried to present the playwright’s work to Baltimore in the 20 x 45 foot blackbox that is Single Carrot’s theatre. The discoveries were immense, and I’ve had to opportunity to present some of the strongest and most important voices (living and dead) in theatre–Shakespeare and Ibsen, to Kane and Eno. I’ve learned a lot about building ensemble, about presenting truth onstage, about asking for more. Most importantly, I’ve learned that finding buried treasure is only possible collaboratively.

Theatre changes lives. I’m living proof. I was headed one way, and theatre came in and took me another. It isn’t the desire to be famous, or any like that which inspired me to do theatre–it is because theatre has the ability to change lives. That’s an amazing thing. I’m not saying it has to change lives, or that it has to take over lives, but it can shift us, shape us, and show us things outside and inside ourselves. The ability to watch people in a live setting explore the gamut of humanity allows the audience to safely make sense of the most confusing conundrum of all–existence. Like Arthur and Excalibur, the power to transform is a huge responsibility, and I want to be part of it.

The theatre I love to create is about transformation. And magic. With a touch of deep spirituality, commitment to impossible questions, and, of course, love. And stories masterfully told. The artists I love to work with are those who are physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually adventurous. My favorite audiences are those eager to set off on a journey. Affluence should not be a necessity for access to the journey. Anyone who is willing to walk into a room as one person, and walk out of the room changed into another should be able to. The theatre demands people who are capable of living in the moment–even if it’s only for a moment. Theatres must both invite people in, and go to them.

I have these influences I need to bring together in my mind, so that it’s more clear how we’re going to say what it is we wish to say. Over the next part of 2011, my study is going to be dedicated to exploring them.

Here they are:

First, I was reading a dissertation on Philip Arnoult’s Theatre Project, which talked about his influences, which has influenced me to write my influences. Plus, there was a lovely quote from the writer of the dissertation, Benjamin Franklin Carney III:

“A theatre not of the marketplace or museum, but rather a theatre springing from the social and psychic life of the people and representing to the community an accessible and necessary expression of self and society.”

Influence and the Corresponding Resource

Jerzy Grotowski –> Eugenio Barba  –> Double Edge

Augusto Boal –> Cornerstone and Irondale

Liz Lerman

Keith Johnstone

Pina Bausch

Dmitry Krymov

Nikolay Kolyada

Writers and their unique contributions:

One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Glass Bead Game, East of Eden

The magic of Garcia Marquez, the spirituality of Hesse, and the incredible storytelling of Steinbeck.

This feels like a good place to start–these are a lot of things that have deeply challenged and influenced me. Now it is time to pull the pieces together, and to talk about what it is I’ve brought into my own work, and to make sense of who I am as an artist, and this format is as good as any to work it out. So I begin.