Theater Conservatory Confidential: Hurricane Buddies & Summer Lovin’

Eli Diamond delivers his last blog… for now. 

So this is the end of my journey through New York University’s fantastic theatre program at the Atlantic Acting School. Though I did not manage to spend the two years I should have, I have been able to completely redefine what it means for me to act. In my opinion, through application of the technique, I have become a far superior actor than when I started. Line readings no longer burden me, and I feel a lot freer on stage. I’ve been told that the second and third years of Atlantic Acting School are spent mostly on applying the technique, and though I won’t be able to do that in a classroom setting, I hope to get that same application experience where it matters: out in the real world. I have spent the majority of the first two weeks of this summer auditioning, and have gotten a number of promising offers I plan on following up on. Most of my summer though, will be spent working over at LD Alliance over in South San Francisco. I’ll be working on lights with this company and making some money, which should provide some wonderful technical experience wherever it’s needed. The rest of my summer will be spent in class, making some GE credits for next year.

So recently I’ve been wondering what exactly it is I learned about myself from NYU. I guess I can start with the positives. I’ve learned that I have the capability to live on my own. I’ve learned that I’m not as weak as I sometimes can make myself out to be. I’ve learned that even if a hurricane is threatening the entire city, I can make friendships which I’m sure will last the rest of my life. On the negative side, I’ve learned that I can get incredibly bitter and cynical if left to my own devices for too long. I’ve learned that my mind needs constant stimulation in order to keep myself motivated, and if I don’t get that, I start to go stir-crazy. I’ve learned that I am a much more practical person than I give myself credit for, and have strayed away from the wild ambition that I used to pride myself so much on.

I used to be a wild, proud boy who would do anything to get what he wanted. I would not think of the failures, I would just bolt forward without a care in the world. New York made me see the other side of the coin, and that I can’t just do that or when I hit a wall, I’ll hit it too hard. I need to keep the practical side in my head and in my heart or else I’ll tear myself apart from madness. New York is a cold, passionate, powerful place, and I’m glad to have received everything its offered me. And I hope to bring all my new knowledge to San Francisco, to Olympians IV or Theatre Pub or whatever stage I happen to find myself on. It’s been a blast, and I thank each and every one of you for following me on this journey.

Hi-Ho, the Glamorous Life: Greet Me with Cries of Hate

Marissa Skudlarek ponders the idea that if a bad review is a good sign that good art is going on, does this mean Dan Brown is a genius?

“Melissa Fall has such an interesting perspective on things,” Megan Briggs said to me the other night. (Megan is currently starring in DIVAfest’s production of Melissa’s play You’re Going to Bleed.) “When she was here for the premiere, do you know what she told me? She said, ‘I hope that at least one critic hates this show — really hates it — because that’d mean that the play was effective. We’re trying to do something controversial here, and not everyone should like it.’ Isn’t that an interesting way of looking at things?”

It is, but it’s not a completely unique viewpoint. I’ve heard other artists make that claim; I’ve even thought it myself. In our culture, there’s an idea that great art should shock or unsettle its audiences, rather than appealing to their sense of contentment and complacency. I also think it this has something to do with the idea of the artist being a lonely prophet, a Cassandra, a teller of inconvenient truths. It reminds me of Oscar Wilde saying “Whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong,” or Groucho Marx saying “I wouldn’t belong to any club that would have me as a member.” Or Meursault, at the end of The Stranger, wishing for the crowd on the day of his execution to “greet me with cries of hate.” If you started making art because you felt like a misfit or an outcast, and then people actually like and accept what you make, you must not be doing it right. You must’ve betrayed yourself; you must’ve sold out. At least, that’s how the thinking goes.

But one of the problems with the idea that “great art arouses controversy and gets negative reviews” is that badartists can lay claim to this as a convenient excuse to justify their own mediocrity. This week, I heard a BBC radio news item about Dan Brown’s reaction to the bad reviews for Inferno, his latest potboiler novel. “All you’re hoping to do, as a writer, when you put something out, is make people care about it, make people react to it. I kind of believe if there aren’t people angry, then you really haven’t said much. So, you know what, on some level, I guess I need to welcome those sorts of comments,” Brown said in a clip.

But reviewers are angry at Brown precisely because they think that he hasn’t said much; they think that his novels are trashy, the literary equivalent of empty calories or worse. Still, how can Melissa Fall (a writer I respect, and know to have serious ambitions) and Dan Brown (a writer of airport thrillers who finds himself in a place of undeserved cultural prominence) both say the same thing about their art? How can they both claim that a negative review is the greatest proof of the value of their writing?

I’m also tired of the related idea that art that wallows in nihilistic or degrading sentiments — what is traditionally meant by the term “shock value” — is more valuable than art that expresses something more positive or uplifting. (Perhaps Allison Page and I are on the same wavelength here.) To that end, I was fascinated and intrigued to learn that the most controversial play in New York this past season was The Flick, by Annie Baker. From what I gather,The Flick is a quiet, slow-paced, three-hour drama about three disappointed people who work at a small-town movie theater. Sounds innocuous enough, but evidently droves of people walked out of the play, wrote angry letters to Playwrights Horizons (the producer), and threatened to cancel their subscriptions. Playwrights Horizons eventually published an open letter defending their decision to produce The Flick and explaining why they supported Baker’s artistic vision.

So The Flick was controversial, but not for the usual reasons of sex or violence or political content or other forms of shock value. It made people uncomfortable because it was too quiet, too subtle, dare I say, too feminine. I hope that Annie Baker took a perverse pride in the controversy she raised. While I haven’t seen or read The Flick, I have to feel that Baker is doing something right.

Marissa Skudlarek is a San Francisco-based playwright and arts writer. If you wish to give her bad reviews (or good ones) you can see more of her writing at marissabidilla.blogspot.com or on Twitter @MarissaSkud.

Everything Is Already Something Week 7: On The Importance of Happy Theater

Allison Page wants you to get happy.

When asked, “What’s the best role you’ve ever played?” my impulse is to respond with whichever was the most grueling. The most grueling is easy enough to ascertain – it’s Lavinia in TITUS ANDRONICUS. Grueling to the max. She’s raped by a couple of guys and disfigured. Her hands are cut off, her tongue cut out, and then – just because, ya know, not enough has happened to her yet – her dad kills her. The particular production I was in was just completely exhausting. I wore a bloody straight jacket and scream-cried through a gag for what seemed like an eternity. The gag was soaked with fake blood, which I basically ingested every night and would cough-up or sneeze-out for weeks. It was really difficult and actually physically painful sometimes but I got a lot out of it, and because it was a horrifying thing to watch, naturally I was praised for it. Because it’s one of those things that sort of makes you feel sick. You leave the theater and it’s hard to sleep because FUCK, that was horrifying, right? That show really made me feel like the world is a pit of darkness filled with angry snakes and bees. Yay! We love tragedy!

Anthony Hopkins is having a GREAT TIME.

Look at the Academy Awards some time. How often are nominated films deep, dark, sad pits? LES MISERABLES was nominated the last time around and it literally has ‘miserable’ in the title, in case that happened to slip by you.

It seems people tend to think (particularly creative people inside the various facets of the entertainment world) that the more grueling story is the more valuable. The more horrific, raw, heart-crushing, hope-squashing, wallowing in sadness stories are the most worth telling. Show us the lowest forms of humanity! Show us those huddled masses you’re always talking about! This seems to me accentuated even more so in the bay area. The more creative we think we are, the more creatively involved we are in the world, the more prone we are to want something to be wrenching in order to consider it real art. (Whatever ‘real art’ means.) Suck my soul out and spit it into a toilet full of other cast-off souls! That’s the only way to make me feel alive! Punch my heart out with the darkness of humanity! OMG let’s make Joseph Conrad’s HEART OF DARKNESS into a stage play!

I fall into that category all too often. If I’m doing sketch comedy or improvising or doing a stand up set – sure, let’s have a great time! But if I’m doing theater? Ohhhh it better be making you feel fucked up beyond measure or it’s not worth it! So you can imagine my surprise when, last night – opening night – of PRELUDE TO A KISS, I found myself feeling just…amazing. Happy to be alive. Happy to be doing this show. Happy to be HAPPY. Happy to be making other people happy. Stop the theater train, I want to get off! Where’s my required misery? Where are my MISERABLES? Why isn’t Julie Taymor cutting my hands off and shoving sticks into my arms? This isn’t art, this is…what is this?

In case you don’t know anything about it, PRELUDE is sort of a romcomdram, but one with real heart. You meet these two characters: Rita (that’s me, ya’ll) and Peter (played by the magnificent and dreadfully handsome Nick Trengove). They fall in love really quickly in spite of Rita’s fear of the world and all the bad things in it, the uncertainty of it all. They get married, and at the wedding reception an old man (Richard Wenzel) asks to kiss the bride. He does, and as the kiss happens, they switch souls. (Word is still out on whether it happened on a Friday and whether or not that Friday was freaky.) Peter then has to spend his honeymoon with someone who looks like the woman he loves, but he can feel that something is terribly wrong. SO WACKY, RIGHT GUYS? All of that is good fun, but shit really hits your heart-fan when Peter finds the old man containing the soul of the love of his life. Important questions are raised about life, love, perceptions, fear, illness and death. They still love each other, but she’s in an old man’s frail body. What does that mean for them? What does it mean for us? What does it mean for you?

Make no mistake, PRELUDE is here to make you feel good. I mean…REALLY good. Heart-swellingly happy and contented. Life is worth living, people are worth loving and though you will not always be alive, you are alive right now (if you’re not, let me know, I’d love to meet a ghost.) and you must not waste this. Do not waste this. It’s all you’ve got.

It was pointed out by the director during rehearsals that one really interesting thing about this play is that there aren’t any bad people in it. None of the characters are out to hurt each other. No one is evil, malicious, or war-mongering. They’re honestly all good people. How often do you see that? You might think that’s a red flag that the story won’t be interesting or engrossing but it absolutely is. It just also happens to have the side effect of making you feel really good about being alive.

Maybe some of the big blockbusters are full of war, blood, pain, sorrow, murder, tragedy and constant strife, and there is definitely a place for that but maybe we need something else, too. Maybe we need to be reminded that we’re not here only to suffer through things and never see the light at the end of the god-forsaken tunnel, but that we’re also here to experience happiness, bliss, powerful love, complicated connections to other human beings, great sex, passionate embraces, a smile given and a smile received, a knowing glance, a hand to hold, and the knowledge that it cannot last forever, and so we must enjoy it now, because there’s no better time. It’s the type of story I think people really need. It’s a story that feels like coming home after a long journey. If that’s not art, I don’t know what is.

Catch Allison in PRELUDE TO A KISS at The Custom Made Theatre Co. Thursday – Sundays and/or follow her on Twitter @allisonlynnpage

Bring Out The Dead!

Every year on June 16th, fans of James Joyce celebrate “Bloomsday” – the day upon which the novel Ulysses takes place. But what is to be done on the day after?

Join us on Monday, June 17th, for San Francisco Theater Pub’s staged reading of Joyce’s famous short story, “The Dead.”

Performed Reader’s Theater style, this adaptation of The Dead, by our very own Jeremy Cole, ran for six seasons at Hunger Artists Ensemble Theater in Denver, CO.

The year is 1904. It is a snowy winter’s night in the city of Dublin. Gretta and Gabriel Conroy are among the guests at the Morkan Sisters’ annual dinner on the Feast of the Epiphany and the last day of Christmas. An evening of laughter, music and dance ends in introspection and Gabriel has an epiphany of his own.

The Theater Pub cast features: Melissa Clason, Siobhan Doherty, Jean Forsman, Cameron Galloway, Heather Kellogg, William Leschber, Theresa Miller, Rhio Ossola, Vince Faso, and Sara Breindel on the harp.

Admission is, as always, FREE with a suggested donation, and of course, we’ll have Hide Away Blues BBQ there so arrive hungry and get there early to ensure a seat!

The Pub From Another World Arrives Tonight!

Tonight, for one night only, Cafe Royale transforms into THE PUB FROM ANOTHER WORLD, an inter-dimensional crossroads where theater is not bound by the constraints of reality! It’s a world where time travel is possible, where unicorns exist! From the minds of eight Bay Area playwrights—including a four-year-old girl featured on Boing Boing (http://boingboing.net/2013/03/02/horrorsf-play-by-a-four-year.html)—come imaginative tales of everything from superheroes to surrogates, monsters to mad scientists, and other flights of fancy. This night of staged readings will be talked about for all eternity by those afflicted with immortality, so don’t miss it!

This strange brew of stories was concocted by Timothy Kay, Audrey Kessinger, Sang Kim, Allison Page, Sunil Patel, Bridgette Dutta Portman, Kirk Shimano, and Marissa Skudlarek. The intrepid troupe of actors includes Giovanna Arietta, Sam Bertken, Andrew Chung, AJ Davenport, Colleen Egan, Caitlin Evenson, Paul Jennings, Timothy Kay, Dan Kurtz, Meg O’Connor, Sunil Patel, Peter Townley, and Olivia Youngers.

The wormhole will be open for one night only: Monday, May 20, at 8 PM at the Cafe Royale. Admission is free and no reservations are required for this journey, but we recommend you come early for the best seats. Hyde Away Blues BBQ will provide food for all human guests.

Falling With Style: Don’t think about pink elephants (or doubt)

Last time, Helen admitted that she still loves theatre, she’s just not *in love* with theatre. So while she waits around to see if the loving feeling comes back, she tries to connect with the underlying creativity that led her to the form in the first place.

I’ve spent the last two weeks moving from Palo Alto to San Francisco. Honestly, ever since I dubbed myself the family project manager for the move, I’ve gotten a little obsessive. The move and its hundreds of to-do’s have consumed most of my waking thoughts. But now here we are, newly carless, about 1/3 of our previous stuff tossed, sold or Goodwill’d, and almost all unpacked.

The other day, in the middle of all this commotion, I was unexpectedly forced to chill out. On Tuesday after dinner, I locked myself and my leash-less dog out on the back porch of the new place. I had no phone, no keys, and short sleeves. I knew my husband would be home late, and I don’t know the area well yet — so I just decided to wait.

I sat and stared into space, with no time-telling mechanism, no other means of distraction except for my imagination and my dog. For the better part of 3 hours, I hardly moved from my spot, huddled against the side of the apartment as the sun set.

It was the first time in ages that I’d spent so long with so little to distract me. I felt the twinge of an old, atrophied muscle as it tried to respond to a stimulus it hadn’t felt in decades.

As a child, I was a wildly creative daydreamer. I’d dream up a story and realize, upon re-focusing in the real world, that the dragon I thought I’d seen was actually the backpack sitting in front of me. I remember writing fables, plays, picture books — all by hand in loopy cursive. But it’s been many years since my last great picture book, entitled “Socks: The White House Cat.”

The type of mind-wandering I engaged in on Tuesday goes by many names, but whatever you call it — meditation, flow, imagination, sweat lodge-induced hallucination — it is the breeding ground for creative inspiration.

Where I’m at now feels like a Catch-22: I’ve been shying away from creating space for flow because it feels like it takes so long to get anywhere “useful.” Or, to say it another way: because my muscle is so out of shape, I need a lot of time to get plugged in to a place where the creativity is flowing. As I sit there waiting for flow to hit, I get anxious and doubtful about how my time is being used. (“Ugh! I could be crossing so many other things off my list right now!”) And of course, every time the doubt creeps in, my chances of finding flow in that sitting are all but nil.

I’d laugh if I weren’t so frustrated, because the lesson I’m learning from this quest to regain creative flow is one that’s already made itself known in my relationship, my personal spiritual practice, and my career search. The lesson, which I keep trying to get a second opinion on, is that I can’t control a thing, and furthermore, life is going to unfold however it damn well pleases.

Helen Laroche is a writer and artist living in San Francisco. You can learn more about her upcoming projects atwww.helenlaroche.com.

Cowan Palace: Sci-Fi Thoughts and Imagining the Future

This week Ashley Cowan shares some feelings about the sci-fi genre.

Looking for an escape from reality? In a land where anything is imaginable? You’re not alone!

Theater Pub’s newest production THE PUB FROM ANOTHER WORLD offers you a chance to experience the infinite possibilities of science fiction with the timeless art of the theater. Which, let’s be honest, is rather rare as the impressive imaginings of the genre can be hard to capture live on stage. But this is Theater Pub we’re talking about here! It’s full of magic! And beer!

But seriously, what’s up with sci-fi? And why is it worth exploring? Well, for one thing, it’s relatively tricky to properly outline as the number of subgenres associated with science fiction continue to populate. But just to give you some food for thought, here are six reasons sci-fi is important:

1.) It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment science fiction became the category it is today. Some believe it grew out of the scientific revolution while there are those who consider it a result of human history as it’s often used as a reflection to explore a variety of cultural and social progressions.

2.) It’s everywhere. It’s not just in literature anymore; pop culture has developed sci-fi into a genre found in television, movies, video games, and even theater. Science fiction provides a creative outlet to further question our human relationship with the world surrounding us. As scientific developments continue to boggle the minds of citizens everywhere, the sci-fi genre grows as well.

3.) Science fiction opens a door of opportunity. It allows us to explore the inquisitive nature of “what if”. Often operating in accordance to basic scientific rules, works of this genre take the principles one step further by incorporating imagined technologies. What is potentially exciting (and possibly terrifying) is our fictional tales of today may be the scientific realities of tomorrow.

4.) Beyond science though, the root of the genre lies within the human condition and putting it under a different microscope. Facing unexpected tribulations is something we can all relate to; and the stories involving people just like us who are forced to survive the complicated twists and turns of solid science fictional antics often prove to be the most rewarding as they provide a glimpse into what may be next for mankind and how we’ll handle it. Science fiction has become a means of expressing feelings of change and a tool for thinking about the future. We can envision a world that may be different than our existing one by meeting current challenges and honestly identifying our opinions on them.

5.) Thinking about the development of science fiction, it’s interesting to imagine what the genre meant throughout various points in history. As we’ve used storytelling as a means to connect for centuries, the imaginings before modern advancements like electricity would be vastly different that those of today. Some say science fiction is a product of ancient mythology and it’s a fascinating concept to envision what impossibilities that once filled their thoughts have become a part of our day-to-day life.

6.) Have I mentioned the subgenres? They are endless! Here are just six of the big ones:

·      Hard Science Fiction: it’s the most hardcore of the group using a base of the smarty pant sciences like chemistry and astrophysics.

·      Soft (and Social) Science Fiction: this one deals in more psychological elements. Usually, the main focus is on the emotional content of the characters.

·      Time Travel: if you were a kid in the Cowan household then this one may be for you. We were raised on The Time Machine (both the book and film), which is said to be where the term “time machine” originated. Since then though, it’s become incredibly popular as a means to explore the concept of our actions in relation to their true consequences.

·      Alternate Reality: this category operates on the idea that perhaps our lives are comprised of several different possible existences and allowing those to play out in altered ways can yield endless stories.

·      Fantasy: this magical subgenre can be a big one as it combines elements of supernatural powers with some of the more common sci-fi themes.

·      Horror: made for those who appreciate gore and a good jolt. Sometimes graphic, sometimes frightening, this subgenre can assume a variety of scary stories.

As you can see, science fiction is a pretty big deal. So unless you have a time machine ready, mark those calendars for this Monday, May 20, at 8pm and watch some of these ideas come to life. You’ll laugh, you’ll be amazed, and you’ll get to escape to a place where monsters can enjoy a drink with a unicorn, superheroes and scientists can share a laugh, and where anything is possible.