Like a Complete Unknown

Got home from work. God the F train was crowded. The Prospect Park Concert Series was ending tonight with Bob Dylan. Usually tickets are a $3 donation there. His tickets were $50-$100. When a big name plays the park, this nabe turns Manhattan busy.

I went to the gym. All the machines were crowded. Ten minutes later, I look up and the room is empty.

So I went with the salmon up the 9th St. stream and wandered the path near the bandshell. The perimeter was covered with 9-foot high green masking. I guess that makes sense. I bet 2,000 people were on blankets and whatnot even though they had absolutely no view just to hear Bob wail. I heard his first two songs, “Everybody Must Get Stoned” and “Lay Lady Lay”. He sounded good.

I hate that I was working on the evening of June 12th. I got back just in time for the season opener at the bandshell to be finishing and to watch a sea of happy people stroll away from the park. It was Isaac Hayes. Here’s a taste of the good stuff from that night.

When we were digging through pictures for his obit in the paper on Sunday, I came across one with Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes sharing a big laugh on the set of the Bernie Mac Show. Eerie. I don’t know how we’re going to replace the giants of funny and cool.

Triple 8s

Friday was the official kick-off of 2 Olympics. The one the world is watching is in Beijing. The one the indie theater world partakes is mostly below 14th St the next couple of weeks. The good, the bad, the famewhore-ish. Some of it is made with good intentions. Others for reasons that can only lead to a psychiatrist’s couch. While I’ve read a couple of pieces about whether content or transmission is truly king, I believe it’s what’s used in both.

FringeNYC with its 201 shows can bring a strong man to his knees. It’s everything it takes to put up a normal show times 20 with less time, resources, and manpower.

One guy who seemed to have it in proper perspective is from teatro oscuro, from the Bronx (represent Bx!). They’re putting on La Vigilia. What he said during his time at the Fringe kick-off was right from the heart and had lots of wisdom. He said success from these festivals can be hit or miss. It’s the creative kick you get from putting up the show and meeting all the people from the other companies that makes an ambrosia that brings you back again.

That’s the kind of people whose work should be valued. That’s the person who will take time to remember you as well. Time+persistence+good citizenship+bringing yourself back to the work = audience+a body of work. It isn’t so much whether you make or break it with THIS show. It’s what happens over the course of 5 years, maybe longer.

The guy presiding over the Fringe Kick Off at FringeCentral was the one and only, Mr. Martin Denton. He runs many Indie Theater ventures with the awe-inspiring Rochelle Denton. I didn’t really understand the term advocacy until I met them. They engender Indie Theater advocacy with each action they take.

I first saw Martin in 2003 when I did my first solo show at FringeNYC called Gotham Standards. He was doing the Fringe Kick Off at a church near Washington Square. I was still kind of new to town and didn’t understand how things worked, what nytheatre was, or who this guy was yelling enthusiastically about what great things you’d see at the Fringe.

That year the place was running over with people dying to be the next show to leap from the Fringe to Broadway or beyond. People walked by me with a turned-up nose when I offered my postcards. Tangent: I know they’re a necessary evil but I don’t like postcards. They aren’t very green and people trash them fast. I’m going to avoid using them and come up with other ways of marketing. Also, there’s nothing worse than to put your soul into something only to have someone brush off your postcard like you’re shilling cell phone discounts.

But back to Martin. I don’t know if the genuine thread and spark of NYC theatre festivals would go as they have without Rochelle and him putting the word out and covering so many things. I really don’t. We have a better world because of them.

Also, 8/8/08 is supposedly lucky, especially to the Chinese. It was Martin’s birthday that day and he made it a point to be down there firing up the pilot light so we can all have some heat. I was there at the Kick Off but stayed out of the way. I like to disappear when I’m just a spectator. Then I had to run to work. I didn’t realize it was the man’s birthday.

If you see him hopping from one show to another, wish him a Happy Birthday. Maybe give him a nice baked good to keep him going as he writes reviews for a dozen or so shows and copy edits and posts reviews for the other 188.

An Artist’s Prayer (A Work in Progress)

Let me have another day to express my creativity. Let the blocks and obstacles gently move to the side. Please allow me to be an open channel to reveal truths about our world. Give me the courage and generosity needed to continue on my path and share what I have with others. Help me have the wisdom to make smart decisions and the strength to execute them. Please guide me to being a fully realized person so my art may do the same. Give my instincts fine tuning, my humor proper nourishment, and my dance with destiny a pulsating beat. Keep my body strong, my voice clear, and my mind sharp. Please give me an audience with whom I may commune and death-defying collaborators to expand my world. Bring mentors to me when I am ready and let me be a guide when needed.

For this I will do my utmost-through my art and life-to leave the world a better place than when I found it.

Indie Theater

I went to the 2nd Indie Theater Convocation yesterday. Going to that did what going to good theatre always does for me. It reminds me I’m not alone in this pursuit of human stuff. It was great to be in a room with people who make theatre from a place of passion, intelligence, humanity, and with craft. Huge big thanks to Rochelle and Martin Denton as well as John Clancy and the rest for hitting the metaphorical bottle of champagne against the ship setting us all off on the most amazing adventure.

(Side note: There was a lot of talk about Actors’ Equity Showcase rules mucking us all up. As a member of Equity and this world of self-producing real work, I know we will push it ahead. We should call ourselves Progressive Members of Equity while we are in the wave of creating a sea change.)

I have a dream for The League of Independent Theater and will share with you the flashes, images, and crazy notions I would love to see come true from this.

1. A change in the mentality the public has about Indie Theater. I think we should stop using off-off for awhile and see what happens. What will off-Broadway do?

2. Gain respect through good marketing and branding. LIT should mean quality. A great image/logo. T-shirts, stickers, etc. Maybe cool League of Independent Theater trading cards. Kids will say, “I’ll give you 2 John Clancy’s for a Chris Harcum.”

3. A League of Independent Theater TKTS booth in Times Square, Union Square, and with posts at the big schools here.

4. A LIT Development Center where work grows so we can move beyond some of the slapdash cramming of festivals. I’m not knocking festivals. I’m suggesting other choices besides festivals, showcases, and evenings of work.

5. A LIT connection with colleges. Internships. Field trips for schools with multiple shows in a weekend. Talkbacks. Workshops connected with productions to give the serious drama major across the nation insights into methodologies and real-world conditions. Wouldn’t it be great if the Plays and Playwrights Series had a play going up at every college across America and worldwide? Scene study done with pieces by our colleagues and not just Williams, O’Neill, and Pinter?

6. Seeing a great show run for 8 months in a LIT space because it can.

7. A reclaiming of important theatre spaces. I never was here when the Caffe Cino was the Caffe Cino or the Theatorium was the Theatorium. They should get historic designations. LIT spaces should have 80/20 rent. I know this is also a problem with rock clubs. Maybe we can start a revolution here.

8. A working relationship with the Producers League so the people who want to learn how to produce theater can do it with LIT shows. Or have them help LIT peeps learn how to produce work better. Or an exchange/learning center so you don’t have to kill yourself to mount your first Fringe show (or your third). I put up a bunch of shows I still have an existential crisis when I have to sit down to make a budget for a production.

9. Volunteer hours as part of yearly membership. I think we would all benefit if we gave 10-20 hours a year helping shows in which we aren’t directly involved. We would learn from how other artists work and they wouldn’t have to cry into a bowl of despair cereal at 2am because the show opens Thursday and they are too busy to eat a real meal. It would be great if being with LIT got rid of the “I’m all alone here/no one gives a shit/why am I doing this” syndrome. Or some of it anyway.

10. A code of ethics. We’re in this together. Don’t push aside someone else’s postcards on a table for your own, etc.

11. LIT teen series. Wouldn’t it be great if kids around this theatre mecca city started doing indie theater early? How many voices are we not hearing? How many hearts are wandering in silence?

12. Get on tourists’ radar. Have deals with tour bus companies to drop them in nice, safe areas where great indie theater is done. Get listed in Lonely Planet and other tour guide books. Get connected with hotel theater desks.

13. A LIT Majors Revival Series. What if 3 shows a year were chosen to have 10 week runs the next year?

14. No awards ceremonies. No divisiveness. You mount a LIT production, you get to be certified officially. Maybe a post on Gawker or Wikipedia but no awards. New generation, new rules. You want competition go play chess boxing.

15. A place to post needs and jobs like a LIT craigslist.

16. Performances captured and preserved on video. Great LIT on PBS?

17. A great slogan. “If it ain’t LIT, it must be $^!+.” Or something better.

18. A brochure to explain to our parents we haven’t thrown away our lives.

19. A street named after Rochelle and Martin Denton. Preferably while they are living.

20. Have it be noted in Theatre History books that July 12, 2008 is when LIT started a revolution.

An interview

Here is an online interview with nytheatre mike 2.0. Just click on the link.

INTERVIEW

Things have been going well with the show. I felt the opening was really rocky. Today’s matinee was much smoother. Opening was like 1st tech/1st preview/press night/opening night all in one. I got a great review and my worst review ever. Actually, after one bad notice for my writing early on, it constitutes my only bad review. It felt like there was some agenda behind it. Hard to say. I guess I didn’t create the kind of show she expected. I also wasn’t 100% on my game. I’m not going to say too much because it will only sound like sour grapes. There are reviewers and there are critics and they are very different animals. This person seemed very angry and missed a lot of points in the piece. I’m trying to find the positive, which is difficult since it was all negative, and looking for how to use it to improve. Considering how quickly this project came together and how many different obstacles there were in creating it, it’s a miracle it exists at all. I’ve been told to blow it off but it is going to take some time to work through this. After looking at this person’s other writing, it seems she has a preference for more classical work. She slammed some of the monologues. One in particular she said was too far-fetched. The funny thing is that it’s all based on the truth.

Amercian Badass Review

American Badass

reviewed by Martin Denton

Feb 28, 2007

The subtitle of American Badass is “12 Characters in Search of a National Identity,” and that encapsulates this terrific show quite nicely. In it, writer-performer Chris Harcum portrays these dozen different people (plus a few more in inter-sketch interludes), and he zeroes in on much of what constitutes the “American character,” circa 2008. For its wit, its intelligence, its fearlessness, and the great skill with which it is executed, this is a standout show, not just at FRIGID New York, but of this still-new theatre year.

Harcum begins by disarming us, portraying some supposed acquaintance of his who is reacting to the idea of a one-man show called American Badass. This armchair performance artist proceeds to explain what would be good and what would be lousy in a show like this, and it’s hilarious but it’s also way too true for comfort as he talks about how the show needs to be somewhat, but not too, relevant because you don’t want to bore the audience or risk offending them.

Luckily, Harcum disregards his own first character’s advice and treads boldly into terrain that seldom gets play on stage or screen these days. One of the vignettes is about a retired George W. Bush in the near future, playing golf and reminiscing about that fateful day when the Twin Towers were hit by airplanes and he was trying to decide what he ought to do in that Florida classroom. Another is about an American mercenary who works for Blackwater, back from Iraq and trying to pick up a woman in a bar by impressing her with tales of his bravado in combat (“I’m Superman,” he tells her, bragging that bullets never seemed able to penetrate him). A third depicts a one-time military interrogator who is trying to repent his acts of torture via the services of a dominatrix.

Some of the pieces are much more lighthearted, such as the one about a “competitive eater” in training for the Coney Island hot-dog-eating contest. And in the first segment, Harcum demonstrates some really dazzling talent as he explores the notion of a one-man stage combat show—this bit is not just spectacularly impressive physical theatre, but extremely funny as well.

But American Badass is purposeful theatre, and the last piece—in which a character who may well be Harcum himself announces to a small but swelling crowd on the sidewalk that now that he’s old enough to be President of the U.S., he feels like he needs to figure out what needs to be done to fix our obviously ailing Union—brings this socially conscious artist’s concerns right to the fore. The show is always provocative but never polemical, reminding us that political/protest theatre still has the power to arouse us.

Harcum, a fine actor and writer, is well-supported by director Bricken Sparacino and a design team that provides him with appropriate quick-change costumes and a projected backdrop of drawings, graphics, and video to keep the piece flowing interestingly. (There’s also a short film by Evan Stulberger in which Harcum talks about his real-life day job as a teaching artist in a Bronx public school; sort of a gentle rebuttal to Nilaja Sun’s No Child, it seemed to me.)

It’s not easy making an audience laugh and think at the same time, but Harcum accomplishes exactly that throughout American Badass. It’s a combination that I highly recommend.