Theater Around The Bay: The Great Blog Re-Cap Of 2015 Part I

Today is the first of our three installments of 2015 recaps from each of our nine staff bloggers. Each has their own unique angle on this past year, so make sure you come back for the rest tomorrow and Wednesday. The Stueys will post on New Year’s Eve.

Top Five “Words of Wisdom” From Folks I’ve Interviewed by Barbara Jwanouskos

2015 marked the first year of shifting “The Real World – Theater Edition” to a mostly interview-based column mainly focused on generative theater artists, new work, and playwrights. As I reflected on the year, five “words of wisdom” moments sprung to mind that I would love to set as an intention moving forward into 2016. They resonated with me when I initially interviewed each of the people below and then again as I reviewed the interviews of the past year.

I think it’s best to let these words stand alone without any framing or reasons why I chose them. After all, when something resonates for you personally, it just does. There’s not much more to it than that. Hopefully, though, highlighting these five artists will also bring new ideas and wonder to the forefront of everyone reading too!
In no particular order, here are their words again:

1) Ariel Craft, director
“Don’t be afraid of not knowing, and don’t be afraid to admit that you don’t know. You can’t be expected to have all the answers in the beginning and, if you think that you do, be cautious of those answers.”

2) Donald E. Lacy, Jr., comedian, radio DJ, performer, writer, director, and community leader
“For other writers and artists I can’t tell them what to write or how they should address social ills, but the first advice I would give is to say you have to feel passionately about what you are writing about, whatever that may be. Sure, there are exceptions to this rule, but for me, I have to care. Especially as it relates to social issues and or injustices. I despise injustice. I despise racism, so having such strong feelings about those issues, it makes it easy for me to tap into what I want to say about those particular issues. But for me, I like to support my point of view with facts.”

3) Alan Olejniczak, playwright, librettist
“You must also really love the subject of your play as it may take years to develop.”

4) Savannah Reich, playwright, performer, and producer
“For me the simplest way to get your play produced is to do it yourself. It is only very recently that other people have wanted to produce my plays, and that is a new and exciting thing, but it’s important to me to always know that I can make my own work, and that I never need to get picked out of the pile or get the grant or win the contest to make my art.”

5) Marisela Treviño Orta, playwright
“I make a point to wait until I’ve gotten a play into several drafts before sharing the script with anyone. I need that time to really get to know what the story so that when people have notes for me I’m able to determine if those notes help me realize the narrative I’m trying to write or if they are going in another direction.”

The 5 Most Surprising Things that Happened to Me This Year by Charles Lewis III

I wouldn’t call 2015 my favorite year, but it was an interesting one theatrically. Some of it was by design, some of it was happenstance, but all of it taught me something. With all the moments I now recall, here are five that came out of left-field.

1) I sang. I’ve auditioned for so many musicals over the years that I’d long-since stopped holding my breath about actually being cast in one, let alone two in one year (one of which also required me to dance). But between appearing in a brand new musical and singing “Pinball Wizard” at the top of my lungs, I finally got over a stage-based fear that’s been with me since high school.

2) I saw the Red Planet. I was part of the writers’ pool for this year’s two rep shows by Wily West Productions. It was my first time being part of a group, this one led by Jennifer Roberts. One of the two scripts, Zero Hour: The Mars Experiment, had a performance attended by actual candidates of the Mars One project and got a reading at the Otherworld Theatre in Chicago.

3) I learned to like costumes. Not that I ever hated them (although I’ve worn a few horrendous ones in my time), I just didn’t ever want to be the one making the decisions about them. But a director kinda has to make those decisions and I wound up directing a lot this year. To my pleasant surprise, I wound up liking the things my actors wore: I created a cartoonish burger-place cap for On the Spot; I got my Olympians cast to look like a pack of scented markers; and as for Texting…

4) I made a skimpy man-thong into a prop. A proud moment for me. Nothing I put on my resume will ever top it. Speaking of which…

5) I gave up my reluctance in calling myself a director. I only acted in two projects, which would normally lead me to calling this a slow year. But I felt envigorated after doing them. This occurred in the same year that I found myself at the proverbial “helm” of so many projects that I finally felt confident enough to put “Director” on my theatrical CV and told people to consider me for projects – which they have.

Oh yeah – I also ran into Colin Firth on the streets of San Francisco, but no one wants to hear about that, do they?

The Top Five Venues of 2015 by Anthony Miller

Hey you guys, it’s the most wonderful time of the year, when my Top 5 format becomes everyone’s format. It’s much like the 90’s, when what I already wore became fashionable. At the beginning of the year I made 2 resolutions, 1) Read The Great Gatsby and 2) Leave the house more often. As we come to the end of the year, only one of those really worked out. As it stands, I have read 17 pages of The Great Gatsby, it took all of 2014 just to finish the introduction. So we’ll table this one again. However, I did manage to get out more, consequently I got to see a lot of different shows in a whole bunch of places. So let’s look at my five favorite venues of 2015.

1) Pianofight
Wasn’t this everyone’s favorite venue of 2015? I’m not the first person to say it, but what Rob Ready and everyone at Pianofight has accomplished is amazing. It’s always fun to be there, the bar is great, the fried chicken sandwiches are the best, and it’s provided a clubhouse of sorts for SF theatre. With three stages, it’s hosting shows from every facet of the Bay Area performing arts scene. All the mini-scenes in the bay are getting together in one place and it’s resulting in more shows and bigger audiences. Whether I’m seeing a show or producing a show there, it’s always fun. I see a huge 2016 for this place, and they deserve it.

2) The Curran
While the 100 year-old Curran Theater is going under renovations, it has been hosting an exciting new series of plays called Curran: Under Construction. I was lucky enough to see a lot of these this year, and because I knew most of the house staff, I got to see not only a lot of cool theatre; I got to explore the place like crazy. By putting the audience on stage with the show, it turns the historic Curran stage into an intimate 150 seat venue that just happens to overlook a 1600 seat theatre and a giant chandelier. The sheer variety of shows I saw was vast There were immersive theater pieces like The Object Lesson, one man tributes to Lenny Bruce, and the Theatre Rock awesomeness of Ghost Quartet and Stew’s Notes of A Native Song. Add that to hanging out on a stage that has hosted hundreds of theatre legends, exploring their basement, fly rails and sneaking into a box seat and drinking a beer, and it makes for an awesome experience every time. And entering through the star door is pretty fun; It’s a really nice stage door.

3) Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theater
For purely sentimental reasons, The ol’ Roda Theater makes my list. After roughly 3 years of House Managing for them, I left for greener pastures. Sure, the Roda can be aptly described much like Ferris Beuller described Cameron’s house; “It’s like a museum it’s very beautiful and very cold, and you not allowed to touch anything”. But I did have a lot of fun there. My co-workers were great, and as nerdy as it sounds, there is something absolutely thrilling about getting 600 people seated and giving the house away on time. Not to mention, I saw Tartuffe there, which was easily my favorite show of 2015.

4) The Grand Lake Theater
OK, this is a movie theater, but it is noteworthy. The historic Grand Lake Theater in Oakland is my favorite movie theater in the world. I saw Star Wars Episode 7 in classic 2 projector 3D there and whenever I can see a movie here, I do. It’s a beautiful old fashioned theater that still raises a curtain when the movie starts; an organist plays before the show, and it’s got a pretty ceiling. Not to mention the fiercely liberal views that are often displayed on the marquee. Let me be clear, this is best movie theater in the Bay Area. They’re currently hosting the “Roadshow” Version of The Hateful Eight in glorious 70mm, You’re doing it no justice by seeing it at the Kabuki AMC, Go to Oakland, see a movie there. You won’t be sorry

5) The EXIT
I just can’t quit you EXIT Theater, I love you and your pee-pee smelling sidewalk. I don’t see a world where I don’t see shows here. It still remains a place where independent theatre artists can find a home or just get started. It’s the home of SF Fringe, The Olympians Festival, DivaFest and everybody’s first show in San Francisco. With great new venues like Pianofight and the Strand opening up, the Exit is still the Exit, the CBGB’s of SF Indie Theater.

Charles Lewis is an actor and a director and a writer. Barbara Jwanouskos is a playwright. Anthony R. Miller is writer and producer, he’s a got a very busy 2016 coming up, keep up with it at http://www.awesometheatre.org.

The Five: Have You Written Anything Lately?

Anthony R. Miller checks in with tales of inactivity.

Hey you guys, so last Monday was the TERROR-RAMA 2 reading/ fundraiser. I gotta say, it went pretty great. We had a packed house and a very game audience, it was nice to see two plays we had put so much energy into making great be so well received. Not to mention I finally got my Olympians play done (OK, OK the first draft, I gotta fix a few (hundred) things. I just turned in a huge amount of work for that freelance dramaturgy gig I do. So on Tuesday evening, as I got home from my trusty day job, it occurred to me “I don’t have anything immediately pressing to do”. Oh sure, there’s things I could do; research for the freelance gig, Olympians edits, (which I’m sure my director and cast would appreciate sooner than later.) Not to mention a preponderance of half written scripts. But none of it was due right now. Since I work better with a little bit of pressure; I took this opportunity to do…nothing. Which is not to say there were no highlights of the last seven days, on the contrary, there are five.

EDITORS NOTE: This article is enhanced by listening to “The Lazy Song” by Bruno Mars while reading. Give it a whirl.

Netflix and Stagnate
For me, finishing a major project (Or three) is usually celebrated by turning my brain off for a few days. When I’m knee deep in a script, I’m basically a court stenographer for the voices in my head. Scenes that aren’t working or aren’t finished replay over and over in my head. It isn’t until the words “END OF PLAY” are written do they actually stop talking. I usually celebrate this time with a grand re-watching of a favorite TV show (“Lost” and “The Sopranos” are my go-to’s) but, this time around, I have fallen into a rabbit hole of “The Wonder Years” , which was a huge show for me growing up. When Kevin was 13, I was about 13, so as I grew up in the early 90’s I lived parallel to Kevin Arnold’s Baby Boomer coming of age tales. This is the first time I watched this show since it originally aired. So with this aged perspective, I noticed a few things, like how each episode is just Kevin being a selfish prick and learning a valuable lesson, or how it’s clear that Winnie Cooper just isn’t that into him. The episode where they put on “Our Town” is especially fantastic.

“I’m Natalies Boyfriend”
So recently, Natalie, my significant other scored a pretty great job working for Curran: Under Construction. While the Curran theatre is being renovated, a series of smaller, experimental shows are being produced for weekend runs. And like a good boyfriend, I’m there to represent, and see stuff for free. On Saturday, I saw “The Object Lesson” a crazy immersive theatre piece where you are surrounded by hundreds of boxes of stuff. I’ve been loving this series, It’s fun to sit on stage and look into the historic Curran’s house lit up by a giant chandelier. Not to mention, wandering around the place is like going through a museum of SF theatre. The first show I saw in SF was “The Phantom of the Opera” when I was 15. It was at the Curran, so now, a hundred (or 20) years later, I’m standing on that same stage, drinking free wine and introducing myself as the Venue Managers boyfriend, and a playwright, life is weird.

Nerd-Out
Keep an eye out for what’s happening at the Curran, because there’s a lot of cool stuff happening. As things come together, they’re going to be inviting a lot of local theatre artists to perform on that stage. And it’s pretty cool that such a big money group has decided to put a focus on smaller, off the beaten path theatre and try to be a really presence in local theatre. Another great event they had on Monday was a talkback with theatre critic Michael Riedel. Riedel is a notorious critic from the NY Post and most recently got a lot of buzz for calling “Hamilton” overrated. Riedel has just written a book called “Razzle Dazzle” that tells the story of Broadway from 1975-present. He spent a lot of time talking about the impact of “A Chorus Line” the incredible influence the Shubert organization had and how Broadway became a billion dollar tourist attraction. I am a big fat theatre history nerd, so naturally, I loved every second, I was told that a few time I actually smiled. Oh, and I got a free book. So that was awesome.

Hello Laundry My Old Friend
I think any theatre artist can directly correlate how busy they are to the amount of dirty laundry they have. So upon looking at my empty dresser drawers, I’ve been swamped. I consider it one of the great accomplishments of adulthood that I can go several weeks while still having clean underwear. But there is something peaceful and zen-like about sitting on the couch and folding laundry for several hours. I get reunite with T-shirts I haven’t seen in weeks, that sport jacket I forgot to hang up and is now caked in cat fur, and my two dress shirts that I have to alternate between when I need to look like an adult. This is leisure folks.

I Make A Pretty Good Housewife
So with Natalie’s new gig, she’s been working crazy long hours, and with me being home a bit more, the domestic responsibilities have shifted. It’s been hard guys, I’ve grocery shopped, made my own doctor appointments, and even made dinner a few times. (Please note I make 4 things pretty well.)I made her a sandwich for lunch the other day, I don’t even know who I am anymore. It’s weird being the theatre widow for once, but it’s also nice being the supportive one for a change. For the hundreds of times I’ve interrupted her catching up on “The Leftovers” just to pitch a few story ideas at her, or randomly texted not to say loving things but to make sure the deposit check on the venue was mailed. It’s a chance for me to thank her for always being the supportive one.

That’s all for now guys, I’m halfway through season 4 of “ The Wonder Years” and my submission for theatrepub’s Morrissey night is due in a few days, we’ll talk about theatre in two weeks, I promise.

Anthony R. Miller is a writer, producer and avid procrastinator, keep up with him when he’s productive at www.awesometheatre.org or read about his new play “Christian Teen Dolphin Sex Beach Party” which will be read at the SF Olympians Festival next month at www.sfolympians.com.