General Musings

I have been thinking lately about the contradictory nature of some artist’s relationships with their own performance. Mainly how you would think aspects they possess would pretty much remove performing as an option in their lives. For instance, there are many performers out there who have had terrible stage fright but go out and perform. Donny Osmond comes to mind as the most extreme example. And everyone knows the story about how James Earl Jones overcame his stutter to become the Voice of everything from Darth Vader. Verizon, CNN and cartoon characters.

I got to thinking this because my own quirk is that I hate being around crowds of people and yet, I try my damnedest to attract them to shows and make them comfortable. I just spent a Thanksgiving where, after calling my family, I didn’t utter a sound for three whole days except to speak to a librarian. It wasn’t the first time I have done it, nor is it the longest I have gone without speaking or human contact.

When I went to the Smithsonian for a summer vacation, I would be there when the doors opened and then would have to leave by 2 pm because the press of the crowd just annoyed me. I wanted to punch out the school kids running unsupervised through the place heedless of the fact I almost stepped on them. (Not the mention the fact they hogged all the interactive exhibits!) I would hop back on the Metro and go back to my camping spot in rural Virginia. Then I would go back in and continue the next day.

When I go shopping I park out near the edges of the lot and walk back in because I don’t want to deal with the lot sharks who circle and circle looking for a spot up close. Worst of all, they stop, blocking traffic out to the road while they wait for someone to back out when they can drive 3 car lengths and have their choice of 5 empty spots.

The thing is, I have worked at and even organized outdoor festivals where tens of thousands of people show up. I have worked hard to insure there is sufficient parking, a variety of food, enough trash barrels and smooth process for admitting the audience. I don’t mind this at all. Perhaps it is a control issue because subconsciously I know that I have the power to throw ’em all out.

Lest one think I didn’t mind because I had hundreds of acres to spread my crowd out over and avoid bumping in to them, I point out that I have turned the same planning to indoor shows seating thousands of people as well.

I can’t say that it is because I enjoy organizing and throwing big parties because despite being a pretty good cook, I have never had anyone outside my family over to my house for any sort of party. I usually end up picking up the trash after any event I do so it isn’t like I enjoy organizing these big events because I have someone else around to do the clean up.

So there you go, I have no idea why an anti-social person like myself would ever invest himself so much into attending to the details of organizing events for the enjoyment of large crowds of people–and then work hard to rectify their complaints.

Anyone else feel they or a friend are in a similiarly strange arrangement? Let me know!

So, if you have been reading my recent blog entries, you will know that I am working my butt off at my new job. I could really use an assistant!

The problem is, no one will apply.

Today ended the second time I have advertised for an assistant. The first time we had one applicant, but we couldn’t hire her because she didn’t meet the minimum qualifications (BA or equivalent, spreadsheet and desktop publishing knowledge.) We reduced the qualifications so that many things were desirable rather than required and now no one has applied.

Part of the problem may be due to the fact that Hawaii’s economy is BOOMING. People feel fairly safe from terrorism here (the interstates actually connect armed forces bases to each other, we just get to use them). Tourism from Pacific Rim countries is high and available hotel rooms are low–mostly because they are being converted to condos for repeat visitors. A lot of service industry jobs are going unfilled because of the low unemployment on the islands.

What this means for me is that I will be handling the hospitality, graphic design and front of house arrangements along with budgeting, marketing, season planning, contracting, personnel issues, facilities management, fundraising, outreach, long range goal planning–essentially everything I railed against in my Executives without Direction Entry—just a wee bit longer.

So my next production is an in-house show, Metamorphoses, by Mary Zimmerman. She adapts Ovid, not Kafka so there are no giant cockroaches on stage. There is, however, a giant pool of water. Water being a great metaphor for change is really appropriate for the production.

The technical worries on the other hand…

The set is essentially a 30′ wide by 25′ long pool of water on two levels. The depth ranges anywhere between 6″-9″ to 24″ in one spot. Water is interesting to work with for a number of reasons, the fact that it is pretty damned heavy, being one of them. The weight bearing capacity of the stage was a real concern.

Of course, another concern is that water will find any opening it can and leak out. The pool liner is one continuous piece which prevents that problem. However, since the change of depth of the pool is fairly extreme and localized to a small area, the aesthetics of a heavily creased liner is a little bit of a concern design wise.

Another discovery we made was that despite our best guesses about how far water would fly during the fight scenes and how much would be displaced when people entered, the water flew farther and ran over the edges and splash guards we had in place. Fortunately, because it was designed to overflow on to the lower level anyway, there wasn’t a big flood. Unfortunately, because the pump hadn’t been installed, the rehearsals had to stop while the water was bucketed up to the top level again.

Needless to say, the show really lends itself to exciting press releases given that there are Greek gods and heroes as well as the Greeks’ very definition of spectacle in the form of the big ole pool of water.

I am just dreading 2-3 years from now when things start warping and rusting…

Some people will say that this retreading of stories is an indicator of how desperate Broadway is to stay alive.

But from my point of view, this is what was always exciting about Greek myths when I first discovered them as a boy. And it also seems better to retread the classics which have the potential of being rediscovered whereas a successful retread of a Disney movie just encourages that company to push for extensions of copyright. (And a really creative adaptation of an out of copyright work like Ovid’s just goes to show how extensive copyright protection may indeed stifle creativity!)

I will let folks know how it all ends up.

Wow! Four entries in a week! It is amazing how much more ambitious I feel when I only work 10 hours a day instead of 11.

Anyhow, I thought I might do a reflective entry on some recent experiences. I think I wrote it somewhere in my blog, but I can’t seem to find it at the moment, that one of my biggest priorities for visiting performers is to make them feel comfortable. They are many miles from home, you may be stop 18 on a 30 stop tour. They are tired and perhaps grumpy. The best thing you can do is have everything they need available when they arrive to set their minds at ease.

This seemed even more true now that I am here on Hawai’i. We just had the Flying Karamazov Brothers perform at the theatre and they were really great. However, they were trying to bring a show they did on the Mainland to Hawaii. This had to have caused some angst because they had a great show with fabulous props and now they were faced with having to scale it down and take it with them to keep the costs practical for their island hosts. On the mainland it is a simple matter of tossing things in car trunks or the back of large trucks or buses. But that ain’t gonna happen with 2500 miles of water between you and Hawai’i.

To their credit, they did a great job of bringing their gear and clothes in the same bags and then shuffling it all around on departure so each piece of luggage would be under the 70 lbs limit of the airlines. (Which underscores our need to have scales it seems). There were a couple simply things they forgot which we replaced and a couple things we had they decided they liked so much, they integrated into their show. (Watch for a little mop–that is ours!)

Despite my less than total knowledge of my resources and abilities of my crew, I think I did a fairly credible job of keeping them happy throughout their visit. Hopefully, I will be able to hire an assistant soon so I don’t have to do the credible job alone. It just taught me that I have to anticipate needs even more than usual because the circumstances of people’s arrival may vary and imagination might have to be employed to replace things not readily available on our island kingdom.

I did get an unintential opportunity to be part of the show. I waited in the wings to give them leis during the curtain call and got the cue to go out from their company manager. Only they started running off stage away from me. I break into a run saying “Wait, wait…” holding the leis outstretched. By that point, one of the brothers shouted back that they were coming back out, which they did for another curtain call. The audience loved it though as did most of the crew because it was one of those things you just couldn’t have made look as good if you planned it.