Open Wardrobes

This past month, in my goal of trying to write five rough drafts in 2010, I've been working on an idea with the working title of My Wife the Dictator about a couple that goes to visit their friend in a reclusive (and fictitious) Eastern European country ruled by a ruthless dictator, only to find that their friend's wife is the dictator. This was one of those pieces, however, that didn't end up going at all where I thought it would. I started it with the idea that it would be a comedy, but it didn't take long into the piece to realize it just wasn't very funny. At this point I'm not quite sure what exactly it is (and I could tell while writing it that it was suffering from a lack of identity). And now, having reached the end of it this evening, I'm not even sure if there's much there.

That happens sometimes. You start a piece with high hopes, but somehow the idea fails to gel. I spent awhile before starting the draft sketching out ideas for characters and all of the various motivations. It felt like there was plenty of material, but then while writing it just didn't feel very interesting. If nothing else it was an exercise and good practice, but I'm not sure that anything will ever come from it. It may end up just being one of those rough drafts that gathers dust, never to see the light of day again. Or I may come back to it with a fresh vision on where it could go. I've learned that sometimes you have to write a lot of bad stuff in order to sift through and find a few bits worth saving. Certainly in writing Illinois Jane and the Rainforest of Retribution I went through pages and pages of truly atrocious stuff before I finally figured the piece out and ended up with something I'm very proud of.

I set myself the ambitious goal of five rough drafts in order to keep myself writing, to try out different ideas, and of course just to see if I could. After all, every word we put down on paper in the end makes us better writers.

So today I came across (thanks to a Facebook friend) a link to an article by Tim Gihring in Minnesota Monthly which mentions a proposal to ultimately eliminate the Minnesota State Arts Board. Gihring puts this in the context of discussing some of the actions our current governor has taken on arts-related matters, but I think it brings up a broader question which has been nagging at me for some time. And this latest article has led me to finally put my thoughts in writing. What I am about to say will undoubtedly be considered highly controversial, especially among the Twin Cities arts community. But at the risk of offending the broader arts community of which I am a part, here it goes:

WHETHER OR NOT THE GOVERNMENT DOES OR DOES NOT FINANCIALLY SUPPORT THE ARTS IS ULTIMATELY NOT THAT IMPORTANT

Now before my fellow artists all rush for their pitchforks, let me be clear: I am NOT saying that I think the government shouldn't support the arts or that such support is a bad thing. If such money is distributed wisely it can be a boon for artists and arts organizations, especially smaller ones, and may indeed make the difference in some cases between an organization staying open or closing its doors. But all of us in the arts know that if nothing else state arts funding is a fickle, fickle beast. Arts are usually one of the first thing to be cut in difficult times and we ignore this historical lesson at our peril. There will always be politicians who increase arts funding, and those who will cut it. This is the reality in which the arts live, and while it is often a frustrating one I think in the end it is a matter of secondary importance.

What I am trying to say is that we all too often emphasize government support of the arts over what is truly important: the support the arts and artists have in their communities. Gihring makes a great point in his article that the arts are a major factor in what draws people to Minnesota and that to lose our vibrant, thriving arts scene would be a major loss. I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly, but I would argue that what has created such an amazing place for the arts is not (primarily) the degree to which the state government has provided the arts funding. Just looking at the Twin Cities, here is a community that contains countless theaters, including one of the largest Fringe festivals in North America, not one but two world-class orchestras, several major art museums, dance companies, a major opera house, small publishers, a thriving local music scene, and arguably the best public radio station in the country. And we got where we are not because of state funding (for we all know that it has often been in spite of such funding), but because of the broad support of the arts this community enjoys.

Simply put, Minnesotans love the arts and that is why they thrive. No arts organization, large or small, can support itself without creating a base of support in the community in which it lives. Very few arts organizations, in fact, can support themselves on ticket sales alone (at The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra where I work on staff only about a fifth of all revenue comes from ticket sales), which is why any ticket you purchase is likely to soon be followed by a letter asking for your further support. If we want the arts to continue to grow in Minnesota then we need to first be asking ourselves how to win over the people who don't yet support us (i.e. the people who think that money should be taken away from the arts so that we can build a new Vikings stadium), how to teach them the importance of the arts, and how to grow and mentor a new generation of both artists and audience members. The Minnesota Fringe Festival is a great example of how artists can create beautiful work on a shoestring budget, and when they do people come. I would argue that arts funding itself should be focused primarily on organizations that are seeking to build this very support (for example, the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent (CHAT) has as part of its mission to create community support for the arts within the Hmong community where it has not traditionally existed).

In the end neither the current governor nor any other politician has the power to either create or (more importantly) destroy the arts community we have all built. So yes, by all means let us rightfully resist the elimination of the Minnesota State Arts Board and continue to ask our elected officials to support the arts (and parks and libraries, while we're at it), but let's remember that whether arts funding is at a high or low, odds are it's a temporary state that may easily do a 180 in the next election cycle. The arts community that we have built goes deeper than that. If we want it to thrive, then that lies entirely within our control, even if state funding shrinks to nothing. We are the ones who buy tickets, volunteer, give donations, and most importantly create the art itself. The government may play a supporting role, but the responsibility for the arts is ours, and as a playwright, actor, and lover of the arts, may I say I know that we are up to the challenge.

I wrote last fall about the PlaywrightBinge group I belong to (and if you're a playwright, you should too) and how twice a year it holds a submission Binge, the idea being that in the space of 30 days you send out 30 submissions. It's a way of helping encourage playwrights to think about the other side of writing: trying to find someone who will actually produce what you've written. I did a personal binge in December/January as I sent out queries for The Princess and the Moon, and for the last couple of months I've been sending out more submissions as I find opportunities, so I'm not sure I'll hit the official 30-submissions mark this time. The current Binge started March 1st, and I've kept up so far with 12 submissions in 12 days. But I'm now reaching the point where the opportunities (at least for the plays I have handy) are starting to run a bit thin. But with close to 200 queries and submissions since early December, I don't feel too bad about that. But it is good to focus on that side of the business form time to time, and since joining the PlaywrightBinge group I've put out many more submissions than I ever did before.

Last night I finally sent off the submission I really wanted to get out: to East Valley Children's Theatre's annual Aspiring Playwrights contest. This is the contest I took second place in last year with The Princess and the Moon and I'm hoping to have similar (or better) luck this year with my new commedia play The Captain's Treasure. I wrote it with the idea of teens performing it for teens (specifically something my friend Brian, who teaches middle school theater, might be able to use to do scene work in his class), so I'm hoping that East Valley will see it as I do as a way to introduce kids to this particular form of theater. The deadline for the contest is Monday, so I managed to just get the piece submitted in time! (Thankfully they accept submissions by email.) At least by sending it in at the very end, I won't have to wait as long to hear the results.

This afternoon I went to see The Royal Family at Lakeshore Players. Loosely based on the Barrymore family, this 1920's comedy chronicles the misadventures of the Cavendish family, from Uncle Bertie's latest attempt to get back on the stage to latest scandal of black sheep Tony Cavendish. It is a chaotic family, with everyone coming and going at every moment, although at times the nearly three hour show suffered from slow pacing. In the end though director Joe Hendren brings us along for a fun roller coaster ride with a family we are secretly glad we don't have to spend Thanksgiving with.

Karen Rene-Peterson as Julie Cavendish helps anchor the family and the cast, as the current leading lady of the family she has to help keep everyone else's life together while trying to keep a handle on her own. She aptly portrays a woman at a crossroads as Julie looks back on her life wondering if she took the path she truly wanted or the one simply expected of her. Syd Stephen and Jan Arford as Uncle Bertie and Aunt Kitty play wonderfully off each other as the bickering couple trying to recapture their former glory. Christopher Kidder does a nice job as the fun-loving, wild son of the family, and James Crews stands out as Oscar Wolfe who has the unenviable job of trying to manage the Cavendish family's affairs. Miranda Mewes also gives a strong performance as Gwen, youngest of the family, whose conflict between the family name and her own desires mirrors her mother's own struggle.

Beyond the comedic surface of the play lies the question of what causes some of us to choose the artistic life, despite all of the trials that such a life brings with it. Julie and Gwen both struggle with this question, with part of them wanting nothing more than to quit the stage and lead a "normal" life. However, in trying to do so they discover that when something is your passion it has a way of drawing you back, however impractical it may seem. Despite the the chaos of the life she lives, in the end Julie seems to realize that the life she has led is the life that has made her truly happy. From my own experience, this is indeed what brings so many of us back to the theater time and time again, despite all of the work involved. Somewhere in the middle of memorizing lines and the long nights of rehearsals, we realize that coming together and creating this ephemeral work on the stage is what brings us joy.

Lastly, Technical Director Dennis Joslyn works his magic once again with a beautiful set that makes you wonder just how he managed to fit it on such a small stage. The Royal Family continues for three more weekends, performing Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM and Sundays at 2 PM through March 28th. 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

You write a play, toil over every word, send hours putting together submission packages, and finally one day it finds a home with a publisher who sends it out into the world. I was curious the other day at just what sort of a reach my plays have had, published and otherwise, and so I decided to pull together all the information I have about where my plays have so far been produced. Fortunately all of the publishers I work with give me this information in some way the basic information, plus I've kept all those details for productions I've licensed as well.

What I learned is that so far I have had plays performed in over 30 US states, in 5 Canadian provinces, and an additional 8 countries around the world across a total of 5 continents. The majority of the productions have been thanks to Illinois Jane and the Pyramid of Peril which has done well so far with Pioneer Drama Service. I have at least one more US state coming up (North Dakota with the premiere of The Princess and the Moon at the Shade Tree Players this summer), and possibly my first South American production as well, hitting continent #6.

It's exciting to see how far my plays have traveled so far and I hope that their reach will continue to grow, as my existing plays travel further and new ones join them in their travels.