Taking Note and Taking Notes - Meron Langsner

Art School Supplemental: Studying Finance & Marketing to go from Surviving to Thriving

6/27/2020

"You think about money the old fashioned way. Money is not a thing, it is not even a process. It is kind of a shared dream." - from Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

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A post shared by Meron Langsner (@meronlangsner) on Feb 28, 2020 at 2:23pm PST

I'd like to discuss artists as functional adults who deal with money on a regular basis. And who have jobs. And who would like to be in a position to see money not as a problem, but as a solution.

This post is aimed primarily at young (or not so young) artists who do not have significant (or any) outside financial support. In many ways it is a continuation of the thoughts I put down in The Doctrine of Love or Money.

One thing that has led to several blog posts is when I find myself being asked for the same type of advice repeatedly, and then find myself giving the same and/or similar answers over and over.

This suggests that:

1) It is an existing and consistent issue with which people need help.

2) At least some of my suggestions are useful and/or I seem to be someone who has at least partially figured out how to address the problem.

3) My lazy ass can just write it down in one place and send people here.

I'm going to discuss learning about money, marketing, and business. Especially as pertaining to those of us in the arts. We live in a world where it is gauche to discuss such things. I see that mindset as a luxury belief and ultimately extremely classist.

I've written elsewhere about how my experience as a freelance fight director ended up being excellent preparation for success in NYC real estate. What I want to do now is point to some resources that were valuable to me that I consistently find myself recommending.

What follows is a series of recommendations of books and courses about finance, business, and technology that I have personally found useful. All of the listed recommendations are either free or extremely low cost.

It is a place to start. As theatres are likely to remain closed for some time, and as many of us are still in lockdown, it is also a way to prepare for whatever comes next.

My Mom's Hummus Recipe

5/19/2019

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In a departure from my usual content and in honor of Israel's wildly successful hosting of Eurovision 2019, I am posting my mom's hummus recipe for easy access reference for those who keep asking for it.

This is the way of hummus. As taught to me by my mom, in a phone call, in about a minute:

Ingredients:

1 can chick peas, rinsed (I asked her about using the dried ones and she told me "In America we use a can. It is much faster.")

Juice of 1 lemon

1 spoon of tahini, and an equivalent amount of water

1 clove of garlic (or more to taste)

Parsley to taste (fresh is great, dried is fine)

A splash of olive oil

Cumin if you have any

Salt

Optional: hot pepper of some kind

Preparation:

Put it all in a food processor. Puree.

Splash some olive oil over the top and sprinkle paprika if you'd like

Seriously, that's it.

Takes me under five minutes typically.

Serve with bread or vegetables or whatever.

Other options/suggestions: Top with harissa (paste or powder) and/or za'atar. I have also added green onions into the mix now and again.

If you are feeling ambitious I imagine you might make your own tahini or harissa. I imagine there may be places where it is hard to find those in a store, but these days you can order anything online. A single jar of tahini will make a LOT of hummus (I live in NYC and can get pretty much anything).

Former Students/Current Colleagues

12/23/2018

This past May I had the honor of being asked to give the keynote address to the graduating class of my former students at the Tom Todoroff Conservatory in NYC, where I am currently on the Core Faculty teaching Dramaturgy & Theatre History.

Below is an edited version of my remarks.

A phrase that I love using as an educator and working artist is “former student/current colleague.” So with that, Good Morning Colleagues!

What does it mean to be colleagues? I put my nerd hat on (let’s face it, it never comes off), and dug into the etymology. The word itself means professionals working together towards a common goal.

I originally thought the word must come from the same root as “collaborate,” which would have been fodder or all kinds of waxing poetic this morning. But, I was wrong.

I learned that it descends from the Latin verb legare, which means “to choose or to send.” So as colleagues we have chosen to be in a community of artists.

And that brings me to my absolute favorite thing to be able to say about someone in our community, which is “that person is an artist who supports other artists.” I am happier to use this description more so than to say someone is talented, because talent alone is nothing.

Dutchman 2018 - Dramaturg's Notes

2/6/2018

Below are my dramaturg's notes for Dutchman, opening this week at The Secret Theatre in Long Island City, NYC.

I have the pleasure of being both dramaturg and fight director for this production, working alongside director DeMone Seraphin.

The two leading actors, Megan Smith & Alphonso Walker Jr., are former students of mine. As an educator, one of my favorite phrases is "former student/current colleague," and I'm proud to be able to use it in this production.

Dutchman plays from February 8-11, 2018

______________________

In 1965, the year after Dutchman opened, Amiri Baraka published “The Revolutionary Theatre ,” where he stated, “Americans will hate the Revolutionary Theatre because it will be out to destroy them and whatever they believe is real.” This manifesto came after Dutchman, a play that embodies many of the ideas expressed in the essay, and is in fact referenced in the manifesto.

There is no small irony to The Revolution going mainstream.

Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman premiered at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City in 1964. It was awarded an Obie and made into a feature film; it is a touchstone in American theatre history. Baraka hoped to create art that would incite revolution, calling in fact for the destruction of America and the rise of new, more just world.

This is a play written in anger. A brilliant expression of a righteous anger that still resonates today, as many of conditions have not changed. But we are producing it in a spirit of love and the radical optimism he later embraced, in the hopes of illuminating what we might become.

Taking us back to the time of the play itself, Baraka, born LeRoi Jones in 1934, was in the process of severing his ties to his prior life, as he embraced Black Nationalism.   Prior to this, he and his first wife, a Jewish woman, had founded a press that published the like of Allen Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac. Along with his new identity, he divorced his wife, saying he could no longer be “married to the enemy,” and created increasingly political and controversial work.

Many times in the process of creating this production we have said that the Amiri Baraka who wrote Dutchman would probably have hated what we are doing. Would have had a fit at the fact that half the production staff are Jewish, and would have hated the spirit of benevolence and cooperation in which we created this. We also said that the man he later became, a self-described “Radical Optimist” would have loved what we are doing and where we are going with his work.

___________________________

I have far more to say about this play (and playwright) than I can fit into a program note. Some further reading I recommend includes:

"My Favorite Anti-Semite: How Amiri Baraka Inspired Me" - Jake Marmer in Tablet

"Amiri Baraka and the Black Power movement deserve more credit" - Daniel Matlin in The Guardian

"Amiri Baraka's Legacy: Both Controversial and Achingly Beautiful" - NPR Obituary by Neda Ulaby

#dutchman2018

Joining The Theatre Times

1/22/2017

Proud to announce that I've joined The Theatre Times to write about stage combat.

The Theatre Times is a new outlet for global theatre news and articles with editors based around the world..

My first piece written for TTT is a dramaturgical analysis of the duels in Hamilton, which you can read here:

"Dramaturgy of the Duels in Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton"

https://thetheatretimes.com/dramaturgy-duels-lin-manuel-mirandas-hamilton/

Additionally, some of my more popular posts from this blog will also be reprinted there.

I will still be using this blog to write about other topics, both Theatre/Film related and otherwise. Of late I've had a lot of thoughts about technology, real estate/finance, and other topics I haven't written a whole lot about in the past, so you may see some of that on here as time goes on.

Meanwhile, check out The Theatre Times! It's a great project and I'm proud to be a part of it.

The Fight Director's Bookshelf: What Early Career Fight Directors Should Be Reading

10/6/2015

As some of you know, I recently had the privilege of teaching a dramaturgy workshop to the Choreographers' Track students at the 2015 Summer Sling NYC Regional Stage Combat Workshop.

One topic that came up repeatedly during the entire program and was of special interest during my workshop was what early career fight directors should be reading.

I submit the following list as what I might call, "a good start" as this list would hopefully serve as a launching point towards further study, and would also give one enough general knowledge to put that further study into perspective.

Link to Guest Post on THE DEVIL'S OWN GAME on TTFP's Blog

10/13/2014

Life After Hell: Writing THE DEVIL'S OWN GAME -
turntoflesh.blogspot.com/2014/10/life-after-hell-writing-devils-own-game.html

Buy the play on Indie Theater Now! - http://www.indietheaternow.com/Play/the-devils-own-game

Text of my post below the break.

Playwright's Note for Mortal Folly Theatre's Production of OVER HERE @ The 2014 NYC International Fringe Festival

8/18/2014

Below is my Playwright's Note for the program of Mortal Folly Theatre's production of Over Here for the 2014 NYC International Fringe Festival. I am reproducing it here as the play is getting a fair amount of press, and I am frequently asked about it in relation to current events.

Script Analysis for Fight Directors

4/5/2014

From BURNING UP THE DICTIONARY

Like any other design discipline, fight directing begins with the text. I'd like to take a moment to discuss approaching a text as a fight director and/or a movement specialist. While it's obvious that the play must be read before any other work is done, what one is looking for when they read and how one's findings are utilized hasn't had a whole lot of public discussion.

Review of SHIN GI TAI: KARATE TRAINING FOR BODY, MIND, AND SPIRIT by Michael Clarke (YMAA: 2011)

11/17/2013

The review below was originally commissioned by The Journal of Asian Martial Arts, just before the journal discontinued their print edition. I am presenting it on my blog as I feel that this book is deserving of attention. I've added a small handful of hyperlinks for the purposes of this post.

Shin Gi Tai: Karate Training for Body, Mind, and Spirit by Michael Clarke (YMMA: 2011)

Michael Clarke’s Shin Gi Tai: Karate Training for Body, Mind, and Spirit is simultaneously an auto-ethnography of a prominent Karateka, a series of history lessons on the system as a cultural practice, and an anthropological analysis of the current state of karate from a very definite perspective. Instructionally, it is not so much a “how to” book, but a guideline for those who are finding their own way (though there are detailed descriptions of example exercises).