The main purpose of the Schollah Holla is to present scholarship in a way that is both relevant and accessible to audience members and working theatre artists, as well as to create opportunities for junior scholars to share their knowledge and expertise with said audience members and artists. 


One of the things about how this project is turning out that I'm particularly proud of is how the panels balance intellectual rigor with accessibility.  The overwhelming majority of our panelists thus far have been not only accomplished scholars and educators, but also working theatre artists.

What distinguishes The Schollah Holla Project from other panels is that it is an academic panel (in the strict sense) geared towards a popular audience.  This means that everyone on the panel either has a doctorate or is actively engaged in the advanced stages of completing one.  This is not in any way meant to disparage research done outside the academy, but it does mean that everyone speaking has passed through a specific rigorous process and has had their ideas and knowledge tested formally at the highest levels.  With that said, these scholars are asked to share their expertise without defaulting to specialist language that is only really understood by other advanced academics. This does not mean that the material is "dumbed down" by any means.  The great physicist Richard Feynman once said words to the effect that any aspect of physics that could not be taught in an undergraduate lecture was an area that science did not yet fully understand. 

I wrote a bit about our first panel a few months ago.  That first panel spoke to a full house, some of whom changed their tickets in order to attend, others who had seen a previous performance and came back to hear the scholars' panel.  We had an incredibly positive response, and so we decided to move forward with it as an ongoing project.  I had been jokingly referring to it as our "Schollah Holla," and then the name stuck and we made it official.  As these panels were originally envisioned as "fireside chats," the informality of the name seems appropriate.  Our second Schollah Holla was held in conjunction with our co-production with ArtsEmerson of Ted Hughes' Tales from Ovid , and also had quite a turnout. 

Should anyone be interested in duplicating our project, this is the recipe:

I recommend that theatre companies looking to initiate such a project enlist a scholar to curate it.  That said:

   1) Panelists are first selected/enlisted based on how their research specialties speak to the production at hand.  Ideally, there should be a range of disciplines represented that each relate to the work in a different way.  For example, our panel for Trojan Women included a theatre historian, a performance theorist, and a Classicist. 

   2) Panelists/Schollahs are sent a list of talking points a week or two before the Holla, and invited to add talking points of their own, and/or specify which points they would like to address during the Holla itself.

   3) They attend the show (we've decided that Hollas work best after a matinee) and after the Holla is announced they have a few minutes to confer briefly with the moderator (myself in this case) and each other about any additional specifics they'd like to touch upon.

   4) The panel itself takes place.  For us it runs about an hour and is split into three parts (remember that most of the audience has already seen a performance and so this is essentially adding an extra act): 

  In the first (and longest) section, the Schollahs address selected talking points as prompted by the moderator and respond to each other.  As we are dealing with high level academics, they've often read (or reread) the play they are responding to as well as secondary sources and background information in preparation for the Hollah (sometimes in the original Klingon).  This is often where the audience can learn more about the cultural and historical background of the work, as well as critical and philosophical responses to the material.

  The second section (which tends to be brief) is where the Schollahs can ask questions and respond to performers and production staff members who have chosen to make themselves available.

  In the third part of the Holla, the floor is opened to the audience to respond and ask questions of the Schollahs.  As Whistler tends to attract smart audiences, this segment has proven to elicit some pretty smart discussions.  (At no point has anyone turned to an actor and asked them "How did you manage to learn all those lines?") 

As we're looking forward to this being an ongoing project, we're always looking to meet new scholars who can take part in these panels.  I've chosen to use people from advanced candidacy to junior faculty (and independent scholars with doctorates) as within that range, academic hierarchy between panelists is not an issue, and also because providing junior scholars with a public forum is in fact a service to the academy.  I would encourage other theatres to enlist a scholar and follow this formula to create their own Hollas (and welcome any questions on how to get it started).  I also have ambitions on how to expand the project, and I hope to get to write more about those as they come closer to actualization.

What I personally suspect happens in many of these cases is that an actor might have been choreographed by a competent fight director in a production or two, become really proficient and comfortable with the stage combat that their role required, and walked away with some well-deserved confidence in themselves as a physical performer.  This is a sign that the fight director did their job well.  But, performing one or two set fights with the same scene partners over the course of a show, no matter how good it felt, is not reason enough to list stage combat as a special skill.


I tend to see a whole lot of actor resumes.  Sometimes because I am involved in casting something, sometimes because I get a sneak peak at who I'll be working with on a project.  It's also an experience I seek out because the entrepreneurial imperative of the American artist is a major scholarly interest of mine.  For those of you who are not ShowFolk, acting resumes have a very different format than their conventional counterparts.  One of the most noticeable differences is the "Special Skills" section.  This is where an actor lists skills, abilities, and additional training that might help them in a role that requires that that specific action or set of actions be performed.  This would include things like being proficient in various sports, martial arts, playing an instrument, speaking a foreign language, and perhaps, stage combat. 


This applies to anything that ends up on the Special Skills section, but I'm focusing on stage combat because from my own perspective it appears to be misrepresented rather a lot (I admit that there is probably some sampling error involved here, but my point stands).

And my point is this: if your stage combat training and experience begins and ends with a ninety-minute workshop and/or consists of being in a couple shows where you were choreographed to do a handful of moves, it is misleading (and therefore a bad idea) to claim stage combat as a skill.  If you are an actor who moves well, a competent fight director can build an effective fight with you.  If you are not an actor who moves well, a competent fight director should still be able to build an effective fight with you based on the movements you are capable of and comfortable with.  Should you claim skills and training that you do not have, you will seem at best amateur, and at worst dishonest (at the very worst, you or someone else in the cast may in fact be in physical danger).  Neither will get you more work.  A fight director (or any production staff member for that matter) would much rather be surprised and delighted by how well you pick up technique and how useful the bits and pieces you retained from previous shows are, than disappointed with a misrepresentation of training. 

There is a logic I have heard thrown around that an actor should have anything and everything in their Special Skills section because you just don't know what will get you the audition/role.  There is a fallacy there.  If a person could manage a cartwheel back in high school, and they put "Gymnastics" on their resume eight years later, they would in fact be wasting the time of anyone who called them in to an audition for anything that required actual gymnastics skills.  The general rule is that one should not put anything down on a resume that they could not effective demonstrate on short notice.

Stage combat can be tempting to exaggerate (often with the best intentions) as there are plenty of legitimate brief introductory workshops happening all the time (I happen to teach lots of them in and around Boston these days).  But a one-hour workshop does not an actor-combatant make.

If a person is auditioning for say, the role of Hamlet, their ability with classical text might make a director or casting agent pick them over another actor who is a fine swordsman but has middling diction, while the pair going up for Tybalt might have a different casting outcome.  But if that first actor represented themselves as being highly proficient in theatrical swordplay and then when the time for fight choreography came they did not understand basic terms and this exchange happens:

Fight Director: "Didn't you say that you trained with [Famous Stage Combat Teacher]?"/"I thought I was told that you had stage combat on your resume?"

Actor: "Yeah, (s)he was great!  It was only a one-hour workshop though.  Wow, that was seven years ago!  Which end of this thing do I hold again?"

The actor makes a significantly worse impression than if it occurred this way:

Fight Director: "Have you done this before?"

Actor: "I took a workshop a couple years ago.  We didn't cover chainsaws though."

Fight Director:  "Not a problem, I'll show you what you need to know."

In the first exchange, the actor has made a misleading claim (perhaps innocently).  The fight director, and probably the stage manager, will have doubts about the actor, and this can very well effect future relations.  The mental energy expended in reassessing the actor's fight capabilities would have been better used in teaching them what they need to know.  In the second exchange, everyone is on the same page and the rehearsal should proceed smoothly.  I have been the fight director in both situations.  I much prefer the second.


Now, there are a couple ways that combat might end up listed on a resume.  One is under Special Skills, the other is under Training.  If it's listed under training, like anything else the instructor is listed alongside the track. If an actor did a ninety-minute workshop in stage combat, they should perhaps list their training on their resume as a workshop so as not to be misleading.  The reasons to take such a workshop include both learning the skill and being more employable.  As far as the matter of being more employable goes, it's important to represent one's training accurately. 

By way of example,  The Society of American Fight Directors requires a minimum of 30 contact hours in any discipline before someone can take one of their Skills Proficiency Tests. Passing a test (or several) after 30 contact hours (per discipline) as compared to a one-day intro workshop is quite a significant difference.  Even so, that organization is extremely careful about articulating what passing one of their tests does or does not mean.  When I discussed this issue with colleagues in the stage combat community there was a fairly wide spectrum of opinion of when it would be fair to claim stage combat as a skill and what that would entail.  What was consistent was that many actors make the claim with insufficient training and experience. 

In short, if you make a claim on your resume, be able to back it up.  If your claim is proficiency in stage combat, think about what led you to make that claim, and if you might be misleading yourself or potential employers.

And always, Fight Safe. 

This past weekend I had the pleasure of performing in Experiment America 2012 at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) in Boston.  My director was Mikhael Tara Garver and the event was part of the Emerging America Festival.  

During this process I also had the opportunity to work closely with Will Pickens, the sound designer and voice director, who directed and recorded me in an A Brief Guide, an "audio tour" written by Jason Gray Platt, as well as with Jeff Stark, who guided me through the suitcase installations (more on those later on).

Experiment America was a large immersive theatre experience  utilizing the entire museum.  It was a big project.  Really big.  The sort of thing that falls under Richard Schechner's concept of Performance of Magnitude; that is, a performance that is too large for any one spectator to experience the entirety of.  Keeping that in mind, I cannot hope to describe the event as a whole.  My own small part, however, was interesting and fun enough to give me plenty to write about.

This post describes the process I went through from audition to performance.  I'll talk a bit about some of the other things that happened around me, but as the experiment involved many independent agents, there is a lot of stuff that happened in this performance that I know nothing about.  I'll leave the recording of the audience experience to those who had it.

This was a really ambitious project.  It contained elements of scripted theatre, improv, installation art, dance, radio drama, and multimedia, all coming together into a party with a whole lot of audience participation.  Each performer had to have an awareness of the micro and macro elements of the evening, though they themselves would only be personally responsible for their own performances. 

The majority of the Boston-based performers were first gathered at the ICA on June 17th.  There were quite a lot of us, and another significant chunk of people had yet to come up from New York.  The first rehearsal began with an orientation and general description of what the event would be and how it would be in dialogue with both the architecture of the building and the art inside.  There was also quite a bit about the planned technological components.   

I had auditioned for this a few weeks earlier at the suggestion of a friend who was already involved in the production in a technical capacity.  It was my first audition in years.  Being that acting isn't really my focus these days, the Doctrine of Love Or Money is a bit stricter when it comes to actually getting onstage myself.  I very much enjoyed meeting the people involved, and the project sounded very interesting.  So there I was.

Day One involved two major tasks for me:

    1) Familiarizing myself with A Brief Guide,  a one-person audio play by Jason Platt that I would be recording with Will Pickens the next day.  This was an "audio tour" of the Permanent Collection that did not in fact have anything to do with the art.  It was by turns funny, heart wrenching, and philosophical.  I had a lot of fun with it.  I hope that the recording ends up available online, but I'm not quite sure how that would work (I will update this post when and if it becomes publicly available). UPDATE: it is now online on Will's SoundCloud account.

    2) Coming up with questions for audience members that I would be using in my role of "Head Bellhop." This was the bulk of my responsibility during the performance itself, it involved me simultaneously curating mini-installations for individual audience members and/or small groups, and managing/entertaining the people waiting to experience the mini-installations.  At first all I knew was that I would be asking people "questions that were fun to answer," though my main preparation for that role actually started at about 6PM on the evening of the performance.  Because we cut things really close in the world of experimental cross-genre performance.  More on the bellhop thing later...

Now, I'm not sure what the public awareness of the event was, but the ICA had a power outage just as we were going into the final preparations for the event.  The building was evacuated and no work could be done on the setup for over an hour during the final leadup to the event.  I believe that we were allowed back into the building only minutes before audience members started to line up. 

I have to say at this point that the director and production staff exhibited extraordinary grace under pressure during during the power outage.

When we were let back into the building, it seemed that the internet was down.  This was a major problem as I understand it as a large part of the show's concept was to be audience members getting texts telling them where to do and who to interact with, as well as numbers to call and codes to press in order to hear "audio tours."  I still don't know to what extent that problem was fixed and how much of the text message aspect did get activated.  It's really sad that the technology didn't work out for reasons beyond anyone's control.  But, the actual live performances still happened.  (And from what I saw and heard, those exceeded expectations.)

As we got back into the building with just limited time to prepare, I went back to what I had been doing: familiarizing myself with the suitcase installations.  This was a pretty cool assignment.  Mikhael had commissioned several artists to create mini-installations inside of old suitcases that audience members would be assigned, take to a viewing station, and have a private viewing of before returning them back to me.  I wish that I had had time to learn the name of each artist and be able to associate them with a suitcase.  I can tell you though, that Jeff Stark guided me through each one in such a way that I was prepared to face an audience and assign suitcases to them in record time.  Each one provided a completely different experience then the others.  They ranged from a colorful net that threw glitter onto the person opening it to an intense family story involving child molestation, exhibitionism, and death in prison.  Others included an intricate abstract sculpture, a choose--your-own-adventure story, a piece about burlesque, one with animal puppets, and a naked mermaid peep  show.  Audience members were given jigsaw puzzle pieces that they were to bring to me in exchange for an experience with a suitcase.  When they gave me the puzzle piece, I asked them a question or two and then determined what suitcase they would experience.  If they were in a group I would ask everyone in party something else.

The questions themselves became as much a part of the performance as the suitcases. People started to become invested in hearing the questions and answers, and getting close enough to see and hear the exchanges became a priority for many participants. 

Among my questions were:

    What is the best location for a second date? (This became my favorite, if only because of the look on people's faces as they processed it.  Incidentally, only two people said that it depends on who the date was with.)

    Have you ever deliberately given someone else's child a loud toy?

    What is the sexiest accent? (One person said the Hebrew language was her favorite.  I switched languages for her.  Experiment America provided personalized experiences.)

    What is the furthest distance you have ever run? (Other than the one marathoner I encountered, most people answered between 2-10 miles.)

    If you could wake up tomorrow as an expert in any style of dance, what would it be? (Tango (Argentine when I asked them to specify), Salsa, and Breakdancing were the big winners.)

    Was the last person who betrayed you happy?

    Where were you the first time you heard your favorite song?

    Have you ever gone skydiving? What's stopping you?

    Has anyone ever written a poem about you?  Was it any good? (One person said that they had to spellcheck it.)

    Do you remember your college fight song? (Several people broke into song for this one. I also managed to get a handful to dance for me.)

    Does a healthy society need scapegoats?

    Do you know your father's favorite book?

I believe that I curated the suitcases for over three hours.  Most of that time my area was pretty much at capacity.  How a person reacted to a question had as much or more to do with the suitcase I gave them as their actual answer. 
 
I managed to catch just a bit of the dance party that marked the end of the evening.  By the time I got there a pretty sizable segment of the audience had already had a significant interaction with me, and it was nice to see them (and the rest of the cast) again. 

Now, there was a whole lot more to Experiment America than what I've described here.  I caught a bit of the security guards being briefed before we opened.  The phrase that I took away from that was "You're going to see a lot of stuff tonight that you don't normally see in our gallery.  People are going to be singing at paintings."  There were several short plays going on in various spaces at various intervals, dance pieces, larger installations, and a DJ.  Mikhael's concept involved a massive framework in which many artists would contribute, and as that concept was executed successfully (even without the expected technology), there was more going on than I could have possibly seen.

For this genre of performance, nearly every spectator was also on stage one way or another for part of the evening.  The overall structure of the event meant that everyone there was seeing and being seen by everyone else.  The actual cast was facilitating structured performances by the audience almost as much as we were performing for them.  Some of the plays had formal plot structures, while other aspects of the evening were far more abstract.  A DJ was as much a performer as an actor or a dancer, and all of the performers augmented and were augmented by the plastic arts that were on exhibit.

It's been a long time since I've worked on anything like this, and even longer since I've been involved on the acting end.  This was a really great way to come back.

On a more serious note, Whistler in the Dark is a major part of my life as an artist in Boston.

I officially came on as an artistic associate this past October, but for several years prior to that I was already collaborating with this company in every way that is important to me: as a playwright, a fight director, a scholar, a director, and if you count this video, now as an actor.

We recently initiated what will become a series of scholarly panels wherein advanced doctoral candidates and recent PhDs from New England Universities can share their knowledge with the theatregoing public in a relevant way within the context of a production.  I'll have more to say on that soon.

We've set an ambitious fundraising goal, because we are planning an ambitious season. 

Please help if you can. 

Not very long ago I shot an abuse-prevention training video/PSA at Triangle Inc with Ablevision as part of their new IMPACT: Ability program.  

The last time I acted on camera was a little over a year ago for Malarkey Films, which in turn was the first time I'd done that in several years.  That shoot involved a stuffed monkey puppet and a gas mask.  This project however, had a significantly more serious tone.

It was great to be a performer again, as very few other arts have the same degree of immediate gratification.  I had almost forgotten how fun it is.

This however, was not a typical shoot...

The production company, Ablevision, is unique in that everything is created and produced entirely by people with disabilities (physical and/or cognitive).  The disabilities are hardly an issue when it comes to the work itself.  These people are professionals and really have their stuff together. 

This video is for a new program called IMPACT: Ability that is essentially an offshoot of IMPACT Boston.  IMPACT Boston is a non-profit violence prevention organization that primarily teaches self-defense through classes that work via adrenal stress operant conditioning.  I've been an IMPACT instructor part-time for several years now and have worked with a wide variety of populations ranging from trauma survivors to middle school students to healthcare providers.  IMPACT: Ability deals specifically with the safety and empowerment of people with disabilities.  This video is about both abuse prevention and proper procedures for reporting abuse.  I believe that I was tapped to play the part I did more because of my theatre & film background than my IMPACT credentials.  In the scene that I acted in, I played a horrible, horrible human being...

In order to really talk about abuse prevention, you must have an example of how abuse might go down.  I played the abuser in this scene.  What was new and unusual for me in this particular setting was that my scene partner, Ernie (a longtime crew member of Ablevision and an IMPACT: Ability graduate), is a person with a cognitive disability.  That being the case, supervision and permissions and such were handled and supervised via disabilities services professionals from Triangle.  This extra step was one of the only differences between this experience and other professional shoots I've been on.  I have to say that Ernie was a great scene partner and clearly knew what he was doing as an actor.  I hesitate to go into technical detail as I don't know how to do it in this case without sounding condescending, so I'll just say that the man was great to work with and helped me create what was a pretty difficult character.

As an IMPACT instructor, I have been taught about various types of human predators.  I've also been doing additional research about some of the scarier types as I'm starting to formulate a full length play based in part on a monologue piece I wrote a couple of years ago called Lying Makes Me Feel Like A God.  To this end, I've been doing a bit of reading on Psychopathy, Borderline Personality Disorder, and various forms of pathological liars.  What was most useful for this scene was the understanding of various manipulation tactics and the reasons that such predators might be hard to spot.

My character (Bill), pulls Ernie's (Sam) away from the his friends because he "has a special job for him," perpetrates a crime, and explains to Sam why he needs to keep quiet about it.  Bill is a popular supervisor who no one would believe is capable, let alone guilty of, such behavior, which is in part why he expects to get away with it.  I pulled many of my character's tactics from a book called The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout.  Dr Stout points out that one of the surest signs of a sociopath is not just poor behavior, but the attempt to elicit pity.  In fact, she states that in her research she had found that the manipulation of pity was one of the strongest tools available for those who want to take advantage of good people (I found this particularly disturbing when I read it).  This particular aspect of the behavior was one of the most useful elements of playing this character, which in turn has been really useful as I start to work on my new play. 

My scene was one of many that are being put together for this video.  I should say that my character does get reported and dealt with, and that several other types of abuse are addressed, along with proper and improper responses.  I'm not sure that I'll be publicizing the release of this particular bit of acting as my character is especially distasteful, but I will take a bit of pride in that one of my co-workers from IMPACT who was also on set was well and properly freaked out by my character when I was playing him at his most charismatic.

For more info on Ablevision:

    http://ablevision.org/
    On twitter: @Ablevision
    On facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ablevision
    On YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/ablevision

Last month I had the pleasure of having a public staged reading of my new full-length play, Burning Up the Dictionary, performed with Vagabond Theatre Group.  This took place at Trident Booksellers & Cafe as part of their "There Will Be Words" reading series.  

Before I say much more I do have to point out that I was very amused to have a play that's largely about language appear in a series called "There Will Be Words." 

Readings are a step in the development of a new play.  I once discussed this process with a computer programmer friend and we realized that we had something significant in common: neither playwrights nor programers really know what they've done until they get to see it running.  The staged reading is a sort of a test run of a play wherein the writer can figure out what changes they intend to make as the work evolves.

This was the first time I've heard the play in its entirety in front of an audience.  I did have the privilege of a table reading of an earlier full draft at the Lark Play Development Center this past November (which I blogged about here) and I got to hear a chunk of it at a Small Theatre Alliance reading back in September (which I also blogged about) after earlier development through Playwrights' Commons' Summer Playground.  All three were really useful experiences, and the script has come a long way because of them, but this last piece was a larger step as it was an opportunity for me to evaluate the current (more advanced) draft under more public conditions and figure out what to do with it next.

Vagabond Theatre Group is a relative newcomer to the Boston scene, and I must say that I had a great time working with them.  They've been doing their TWBW (There Will Be Words) Reading Series for a while now, and seem to have a pretty good relationship with Trident Booksellers & Cafe (which is not only a great venue for such an event, but is where parts of the play were written).

They acquired a cast great actors for me (Caitlyn Conley and Josepd Eward Metcalf), and arranged for a very productive rehearsal process leading up to the reading, as well as a pretty effective publicity campaign that got butts in seats for the event itself.

My play was selected back in March, which is a pretty good lead time for a May event.  I had done a pretty significant rewrite since its last incarnation, so I was pretty happy to know that I'd get a chance to hear it again in front of an audience.

Rehearsing a reading is not the same as rehearsing a production.  For the uninitiated, there are several levels of readings.  They range from actors around a table to almost full out productions with the only real indication that it is not a finished product being that the actors are carrying scripts (which they might barely glance at).  This reading involved seated actors with music stands, and the company's literary manager, Zach Winston, reading stage directions.  The actors had two rehearsals leading up to the event, and some brushup work prior to the reading itself.  After the reading there was a moderated talkback with the audience consisting mostly of questions I had for them.

I made several edits to the play during the rehearsal process.  Oftentimes it was because I have a belief that if a line continually sounds awkward coming out of the mouth of a good actor who has had time with the script, there is a good chance that there is a better way to write that line.  Actors are the final mediators of your characters, and I have a firm belief that their input is important in the playwriting process.  I know that Joe is on his way to an apprenticeship at the Actors' Theatre of Louisville next season, where some very lucky playwrights will benefit from his input.  He and Caitlyn were instrumental in helping me reimagine the next steps in the writing process.

Working between myself and the actors was Vagabond's Artistic Director, James Peter Sotis.  People of Boston: This is a director to watch.  He has great insight into the psychological and subtextual undercurrents and that drive characters on stage, as well as a solid grasp of spectacle and theatricality.  I repeatedly had the experience of hearing him describe what's happening in a scene on a deeper level than I originally saw it myself and being able to go, "Yeah, that's exactly what I meant."  For a script in progress, having emotional undercurrents described in detail by a third party is very valuable information as you move on to the next draft.  It allows you to zero in on the heart of a moment and bridge it to the next one with a clear idea of how and why the scene is moving in that direction.

As was pointed out in an interview on the Vagabond blog leading up to the reading, Burning Up the Dictionary is an anti-love story.  I enjoy describing it as being akin to When Harry Met Sally possessed by the demonic spirit of Neil Labute (I've also billed it as "A Story of Language, Love, Lust, and Loss").  The play tracks the dissolution of a relationship through anachronologically distributed scenes.  The couple in the play have come to speak their own language; every word they say to each other is layered with multiple meanings, and we learn the definitions of words as we progress through the play. 

My questions for the audience were largely centered on how much they understood the changing definitions of words, if they were able to keep track of where we were in time from scene to scene, if the shifts in power were clear, and if they were rooting for the characters. 

Talkbacks are often a delicate performance in and of themselves.  I hope I do not offend when I say that the best skill for a playwright to develop during talkbacks is separating what is useful from what is noise.  I was fortunate to be working with a group that let me prepare the questions the audience would be asked in advance, which meant that most of what I heard was useful. 

I'm already will into the next draft of Burning Up the Dictionary.  I hope to have more to report on it in the near future.  I already know that I'll have more to talk about regarding Vagabond, as I'll be switching gears a bit and composing violence for their upcoming production of Thom Dunn's new play, True Believers.

This post is largely about backstory.  I will try to avoid spoilers, but lately I am becoming of the belief that there are very few real spoilers out there for those that are aware of plot structure and the societal background of many of the stories we tell.

I bring this up for two reasons.  One: I recently saw The Avengers (which was awesome).  And two: Whistler in the Dark is not only producing Trojan Women, but through them I have put together (and will be moderating) the pilot panel of a new initiative called Scholars' Echoes, in which advanced doctoral candidates and recent PhDs from New England universities will be sharing their expertise with our audiences.

You may be wondering what these things have in common...

One of the things that was most striking to me about the story structure in The Avengers was that it was in fact the sequel to five other movies.  Those would be: Iron Man (1 & 2), Thor, Captain America, and The Incredible Hulk.  Supporting characters from those films appear with little to no exposition and play key roles in major turning points in the plot. All this while exhibiting character traits and relationships that were established at length in earlier movies that were in theatres over a year prior to the release of The Avengers. 

There is a conversation to be had about marketing to a built-in fan base, and another to be had about establishing and cultivating said fan base via carefully constructed products and their strategic release.  And another just on branding as it relates to this franchise.  But I want to talk specifically about narrative.

I've started referring to The Avengers is a compound sequel.  It continues stories established in several other films and brings them together.  The next event of note in Captain America's narrative as left off by the movie named for that character is that he joins the Avengers and saves the world.  The same can be said for Thor, Iron Man, and the others.  All of the earlier films provide backstory for The Avengers, and each central character's individual narrative comes into play in the ongoing story.  This movie is not Iron Man III or Thor II (though those movies are probably in the works if I were to guess).  This is a compound sequel built on the individual narratives established in the previous films.

We've seen this before in comic books of course, so it's no surprise that it would be a comic book movie that succeeded in being a compound sequel.  But where else have we seen this? 

Greek tragedy and Classical mythology.

We are familiar with many of the stories that make up the background narrative of Trojan Women.  And many of those that come after.  The Iliad and The Odyssey exist as foundational texts in our culture.  We know the characters on some level, we've been told their stories.  Those characters, or their actions, inhabit the worlds of Greek tragedy. Stories are built on other stories; we as an audience enter into the aftermath of one and the prequel of another.  At the first rehearsal, our artistic director, Meg Taintor, said "I find stories about Troy to be some of the best stories we've told ourselves."  This from a person who knows a thing or two about storytelling. 

At the start of the play many of the earlier heroes of the story of Troy are already dead.  Here we're dealing with consequences.  Or perceived consequences, being that we know what happens in The Odyssey.  We are still invested in the characters because they are the foundations of a larger narrative.  And as many of the characters walk on stage, we know not only where they are coming from, but where they are going.  We catch Cassandra, for example, on her way to Greece.  Our investment in that character began long before we set foot in the theater.  I can write at length about the talent and dedication of my colleagues at Whistler in the Dark and how it is their work that is really what makes this production worth seeing, but again, this post is about overarching narratives.

Something that is complementing the narrative in this case will be the Scholars' Echoes Response Panel.  This is a new thing for us.

A couple of years ago I heard a colleague of mine who was studying dramaturgy at the Yale School of Drama describe talkbacks and panels and whatnot as the theatre's equivalent of the special features section of a DVD.  The work stands alone.  But the work has a pretty elaborate and significant backstory.  And the work is in and of itself an element of a larger cultural backstory that goes back thousands of years.  I am sure that when The Avengers is released on DVD, the special features section will be overflowing with backstory.  In the theatre we perform our special features right in front of you.

I've assembled a group of people with the capacity to illuminate the work beyond the experience of the production itself.  We have Ryan Hartigan, who is studying Theatre & Performance Studies at Brown, Sophie Klein, who is studying Classics at Boston University, and Dr. Hugh Long who is a dear friend and colleague from Tufts Drama and who is about to begin a new professorship in Alabama.  All three have distinguished themselves as both artists and scholars, making them wonderful candidates for this particular special feature.  We'll also have the good fortune to be joined by our translator, Dr. Francis Blessington. 

The thing about having the special features live is in part the responsiveness of the interaction.  I would wager that people are moved by events in Greek tragedy without being fully aware of why.  I would say the same for other compound sequels.  (I didn't see the most recent Hulk movie, but the burden that that character bears is profound.)  Making a group of scholars available to an audience is a way of expanding the experience. 

We do smart shows.  We attract smart audiences.  Part of those smarts is the understanding of the deeper roots of the stories being told.  Let's have some smart conversations about it.

If you've read this far: I'd like to add that we're in the midst of Whistler's Annual Donor Drive.  I can say without hesitation that I have done some of my best violence/movement compositions with and because of the artists involved in this company.  I've also collaborated with them as a playwright, director, and now as a scholar. 

Please consider supporting us.  Every bit helps.

This past week while I was the guest-tweeter for the LMDA Twitter Project an undergrad from a school in Utah contacted me as part of an assignment for a dramaturgy course she is taking.  She was tasked with finding a dramaturg and asking them a series of questions about what they do, their methodologies, and how they interact professionally with their various collaborators. 

My first thought was that it's been a little while since I was last billed as a dramaturg on a production, so maybe I should refer her to someone else who regularly holds that job description.  But then I thought about my favorite recurring discussion at the LMDA Conference I attended at the Banff Centre a year and change ago, where the consensus was that dramaturgy is as much a way of thinking as it is a job description, and that ideally everyone involved in a production should be thinking in dramaturgical terms.  Along those same lines, most of the better designers I know across various disciplines generally speak in dramaturgical terms on many levels, so I decided to answer her questions primarily from the perspective of how I apply dramaturgy to fight directing. 

Below are my answers (with minor edits).  I'd also like to thank the student, as her questions made me articulate some stuff I'd been thinking about for a while.  Anyway...

The first two questions were about where I start my research after reading a script and if I've come up with a process that I use for every script.  I see these as really being one question as the first presumes the second. 

I've come to the belief that dramaturgy is at once both a way of thinking and a job description, and that the way of thinking is more important than the job itself and can be applied to any other discipline.  I was at an LMDA conference a couple years back where it was said that in an ideal situation, everyone on a production is a dramaturg.

I always work on a case by case basis with the regulating factors often having more to do with the situation I'm working in than with the script itself.  These days my dramaturgical contribution to a production is most likely to come through my work as a fight director.

In the case of using dramaturgy in a stage combat context (I've started calling this "fightaturgy" as a joke and then it sort of stuck), I'm always looking for how the violence and the work surrounding it supports the story.  I need to say that my first concern in that area is always safety, but I'll proceed with the assumption that that's being taken care of.

I always read the script and take notes as to any incident of scripted violence, as well as where I feel violence might add ot the story, and where the rest of the production staff and the cast might need to know information relating to the violence.  As I've studied this stuff for a while much of it I can relate off the top of my head, but if certain aspects need to be researched I make notes of that for myself.

If the actors are wearing weapons I try to give them instructions on the etiquette & customs of whatever they're wearing. Usually this is modified for the production to some extent but I've come to believe that consistency is more important than historical accuracy.  By way of example: a Japanese sword worn on the right side means that the
wearer comes in peace, whereas on the left it means that they are prepared to draw the sword at any moment.  There may be scenes that do not contain a fight where the tension can be escalated simply by switching the position of the sheathed sword.  This would be applied fighturgy outside of the context of choreography.

In an ideal situation I would send this list to the director and we would have a meeting based on it and go over it point by point.  We might discuss the intensity of various fights and what the characters want and need, as well as scripted repercussions that should be addressed.  If there are things that would benefit from a presentation (customs around dueling for example) we might set a time that I can give one before choreographing, or if an actor only wears/carries a weapon but does not fight I will find a time to pull them aside and instruct them.

If this is a situation where I am writing a program note or blogging, it depends on deadlines and company procedures.

Outside of violence (and here I am assuming that my job decription is dramaturg), it depends on what I do and don't know about the script/period/subject/whatever.  Last year I  turg'd (and FD'd) Neighbors, which has several blackface characters.  I helped educate the actors on the stock characters from the 1800s that their characters were based on.

The next question was about my interactions with the cast and production staff.

Again, this is all context.  The last time I was a production
dramaturg I was also fight directing the same show so there were a lot of gray areas where my job descriptions overlapped.

If a rehearsal is dedicated to me as fight director, I instruct the actors directly.  The director may or may not be in the room but I would bring them in to ask questions about how things were fitting into the larger picture.  Ideally no one should know where their work ended and mine began and vice-versa.  If I was watching a run I might give the director notes that would go to the actors through him/her or I might get a moment to give notes directly.  Other times my notes go only to the director.

With designers it depends on overlap.  We discuss options and availability of resources and make choices from there.

We then moved on to my job job during the rehearsal process.

Again, all context.  This very much depends on the relationship with the director and/or the writer in the case of new work.  One of the things about dramaturgy as a job description as opposed to a methodology is that there is influence but not necessarily power.  As different people have different styles of diplomacy and facilitation it becomes all about the chemistry of different working relationships.  Asking the right questions is one of the most important skills.  Learning when to pick the right moments to ask those questions is just as important.

It's important to learn to prioritize.  You will find yourself in
situations where you are working with a director who does not know how to use you.  Or one old enough to be your grandparent who lived in the era the play is set in.  In the first case, there is an element of teaching them how to benefit from you without appearing invasive.  In the second, you might think about how to make their knowledge more accessible to the audience and/or cast in ways they might not be aware of.

The hardest question was last.  Advice for someone who wants to be a dramaturg.  Most of this is advice to anyone who wants to work in the arts.

Cultivate multidisciplinarity in yourself and others.  The broader your range of competencies the better you will be.  That said, don't become the cliched "Jack of All Trades Master of One."  Ideally think of mastering 2 -3 disciplines (including dramaturgy if that's your thing), and develop reasonable competency in other stuff as it comes up.  One of my best friends is a prop & costume designer as well as a dramaturg.  I sometimes think that she gets to apply more
dramaturgical thought as a designer than when she is strictly working as a dramaturg.  Multidisciplinarity is hard, and you may find that you aren't taken seriously until you've accomplished enough in each of your main disciplines to be taken seriously in them separately as if they were your only focus.  That takes time but can pay off very well.

Get to know playwrights, and to be especially gentle with the early career ones.  You'll find as you transition out of academic contexts that investing in good collaborators pays off in the long run.  Be good to work with, be good to work for.

Make yourself aware of job prospects as early in your studies a possible.  The money tends to be pretty bleak, in dramaturgy moreso than other disciplines.  That is not a reason not to do it, but it is a reason to cultivate multidisciplinarity (see above).  Multidisciplinarity might extend outside of theatre, and if that's the case figure out what else you can do that enriches your theatre work if that's your first priority.