I issued a challenge (admittedly, somewhat inspired by Thomas Garvey's provocations) to those critics talking about the lack of diversity in the theatre (especially with regards to the playwrights) to find under-appreciated, and relatively unknown plays and playwrights they deem worthy of production and advocating for them whether their advocacy appears in print, on the blogosphere, or even on the stage. In the ensuing discussion both here and elsewhere, (such as on Guy Yedwab's blog, CultureFuture) I elaborated by noting how common it is for music writers to publish lists of bands, musicians, or recordings, "you probably never heard, but should" and suggested that theatre writers should consider a similar format.
Isaac Butler, whom I concede that I unfairly criticized on several points, did acknowledge in the comments section to my proposal, that while he primarily directs the works of new playwrights who are not part of the MFA system, he hasn't done much to promote those writers much on his own blog-- though in the essentials, we are largely in agreement.
Yedwab (who has since coined the term, "the Ian Thal method of diversity") notes, of course, that this proposal is not enough:
[I]f my friend the playwright isn't being performed, I may not know the right people to pull connections with to get them performed -- and if they don't get performed, I can't send anyone to go see them.Part of the equation is precisely where a social media platform like BushGreen comes in as a place where new scripts can be posted and read. However, there's also what playwrights can do themselves.
One thing I have done over the course of this past year is realize that Total War was going to be in limbo for a long time if I waited for other parties come in to help develop it, and decided to take a proactive stance, and do it myself: recruiting actors, and presenting readings, and then writing a new draft (in fact, I just booked my next reading for March 28th, so watch this blog for more details.) Any writer can do this.
But I should point out that while I am agitating working around an institutional theatre industry that many seem to believe is not working to produce great new plays, there are some who haven't waited for my call to arms. As August Schulenburg of the Flux Theatre Ensemble pointed out in comments section at CultureFuture, he had already compiled his list of Plays that Need Doing in NYC and noted that
...blogs like Clyde Fitch, Visible Soul, CultureBot, Just Shows To Go You, and Adam Szymkowicz are doing yeoman's work championing lesser known artists through great interview series.Of course, Szymkowicz' 100 playwrights include a few well-known names, and he does pose the same interview questions to each playwright. I haven't been a regular reader of the other blogs.
In my own community, Whistler in the Dark, a member of the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston, initiated their Whistler Wednesdays which are specifically for presenting staged readings to new plays and playwrights, where I recently attended a reading of Vladimir Zelevinsky's A Brief History of the Soviet Union
I also have to state my appreciation to Thomas Garvey, who not only showed up at the first staged reading of Total War, offered an extensive critique during the talk-back, encouraged me to rewrite the play, but then promoted the second staged reading on Hub Review. That's precisely the sort of advocacy I'm advocating.
Interestingly enough, as I reflect on these efforts, both my own and those of other cultural workers, I realize that this is a theme central to Total War: if the dominant culture is not providing you with a venue; you have to create your own.
6 comments:
Gary Garrison's THE LOOP has a similar community:
http://www.thelooponline.net/
I'm surprised no one's mentioned it yet.
I'm actually a member of THE LOOP and I linked to Garrison's essay on the O'Neil in the first installment of my Modest Proposal.
The reason I didn't mention THE LOOP is that while I think it's useful, it doesn't quite fulfill the role I'm talking about here. It certainly is useful as a platform for playwrights to talk shop or find out calls for submissions, but it serves a very different function than BushGreen-- which is designed to get the plays into the hands of potential producers and presenters.
At the same time, THE LOOP can't play favorites when it's supposed to be there to serve all playwrights, unlike a critic, whom we hope does have opinions and can make statements about the relative worth of things, and thus advocate for particular plays.
Thanks for clarifying -- and my apologies for missing your mention of Garrison.
Mr. Thal
I have learned that one never wins when contacting those who criticize one's work. And yet is it curious to me that my play has been performed all over the world and to my knowledge you are the only person to ever accuse me of perpetuating ant-semitic stereotypes. I don't know what you saw in Boston four years ago that compels you to keep associating me with Hate, but it saddens me because I happen to take racism/anti-semitism/hate pretty seriously. Maybe you were in the bathroom during the cross examination of Caiaphas by El-Fayoumy? Maybe you were asleep when the play pins 2000 years of hate -- not on "The Jews" -- but on the writers of the Gospels? I don't know... Clearly, you're completely entitled to dislike my play, dislike me, and say whatever you want to say. And you're not alone in criticizing the play -- some like it, some don't. I only hope that when hurling accusations of anti-semitism, that you feel you've done your due diligence to study the subject matter sufficiently so as to to feel confident in your own mind that you're correct in your assertions. You're an artist yourself so you know the deal: you put your stuff out there and people say what they're gonna say. So, I'm not complaining. My play is wildly imperfect, lots and lots of flaws. But, however you received it, I can assure you it was not written in hate. It was written, in all it's imperfection, with love. And with that, in this late night hour, I send love to you. I just wanted to say my piece. So, thanks. And best wishes to you and yours. SG
(Allow me to assume that Anonymous is exactly whom he claims to be.)
Dear Mr. Guirgis,
Thanks for writing. I much rather have a dialogue where in the end I can say "I stand corrected" than persist in some intractable feud.
Because of this, I have to accept your stated intentions at face value, and explore why I felt that quite the opposite of those intentions were communicated to me.
Keep in mind that the production I saw of Last Days of Judas Iscariot was some three-and-a-half years ago: July of 2006, to be exact, and the criticism I wrote was from a few months later after the play was picked for a "Best of 2006." I assure you that I did not nod off or leave for the bathroom during the performance.
I definitely did not get the impression that your play pinned the blame on Christian antisemitism on the Gospel writers , as neither they, nor their sectarian agenda (to make the young Jesus movement appealing to gentiles by stripping it of its Jewish context) was placed on trial.
Instead, the appeal on behalf of Judas (whom some scholars now view to be a fictitious personification of "the Jews") was largely based on finding an alternative Jewish culprit such as Caiaphas, as a representive of the Temple priesthood.
Frankly: I don't remember after all this time whether the other usual suspects of the Pharisees (that is, the Rabbis) and the crowd that chose amnesty for Barabbas were brought up.
And of course, as I mentioned, Pilate and his government are absolved simply because he says he's a Saint in the Ethiopian Church. So it turns into a situation of seeking amnesty for one Jew by finding an alternative Jewish scapegoat.
Now, had there been that meta-textual/meta-mythical turn after the intermission that brought Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and their sectarian agendas to task (as many "left-leaning" Catholics like James Carroll do,) then much of my criticism would have been invalid. However that leap was never made, and since the motion to simply grant Judas divine forgiveness was denied, the mechanics of the play demanded that the deicide charge be pinned on someone else: either a different Jew or Jews in general. So I found that it brought everything back to the bad old days before Nostra Aetate opened up lines of interfaith dialogue.
Again, maybe you feel that you had subtly done just what I suggest, in which case, it was completely lost in Company One's production which seemed more interested in finding "the real culprit."
I moved the dialogue between the anonymous poster who claims to be Stephen Adly Guirgis and myself to its own entry
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