Community Arts Network Website Closing

August 31, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

It was announced today that on September 6th the Community Arts Network (CAN) website will be closing. CAN has been a great resource for me in the past year as I learn more about community-based arts and what was the history of the movement, along with all the great work that is currently happening. I have referred many students to their Places to Study page to see what schools are offering degrees in arts and community/civic dialogue. I am even having my Introduction to Theatre students read field notes about two LA community-based theaters that was written for the Grassroots Ensemble Theater Research Project.

Linda Frye Burnham and Steven Durland stated “we have spent much of the past year trying to develop a stable environment for CAN to move forward, but in the current economic environment those efforts have not been fruitful. With no money for staffing or basic operational costs we have no choice but to stop. It is our plan to seek funding for the purposes of preserving the CAN’s content in an online archive so it can be accessible, but until we find such funding the site will be dark. We will attempt to accomplish this task as soon as possible.

We hope this decision does not signal the end of efforts to establish a CAN 2.0 that will build on CAN¹s history and network and provide vital services for the network that has developed around CAN during the past 11 years. There has been much hard and significant work done in that direction by extremely dedicated people and we hope they will continue to move forward with those plans.

It does signal that we, Linda and Steven, will not be in the leadership of that process. We sincerely hope those efforts continue, and we will contribute what wisdom we have as it might be found useful, but we can no longer be a driving force in that process. We have initiated a CAN Facebook page where were inviting folks to post information and to initiate and participate in discussions.”

Filed under: Acting, Chicago, Civic Theater, Devised Work, Educational Theater, Ensemble, Los Angeles, New Works, New York, Theater/Theatre
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Pilots’ Income = Actors’ Income

July 14, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

“The only reason people stay flying (or acting) is because they love it and management (theaters with executive directors making $400,000) take advantage of that.”

“I took out $100,000 and by the time I pay it back at this rate, it will cost me well over $500,000 with interest and fees and penalties, it something I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it because it is one way I get down really quickly about my chosen field.”

Filed under: Acting, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Theater/Theatre
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Reflections on 2010 Sojourn Theatre’s Summer Institute

July 3, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

To read why I did this workshop read the blog post The Future Of Theatre.

Shelley Virginia, institute participant, summed it up well: “Finished Sojourn Theatre summer institution devising civic theatre, led by Michael Rohd. Amazing! I recommend it to any theatre artist, educator or community leader interested in using theatre to build community and create space for civic discourse.”

The participants were theater practitioners who were doing devised and applied theater work in a various of settings and were looking to learn more from Michael Rhod. The format of the workshop was familiar from my classes at NYU. We would be wearing two lenses while in the workshops. One lens was that of participant and the other lens was that of facilitator. We would first experience the sequence of exercises, or games as they were called, and then afterward we would reflect and ask questions about the facilitation. The experience level of the institute was broad, ranging from undergraduates just starting in the work, to older professors who have had years of experience as facilitators. This lead for great conversations and insights.

Michael Rohd is best known for his book, Theatre for Community Conflict and Dialogue: The Hope Is Vital Training Manual. It is a great book that introduces the author’s “Hope Is Vital” program and methods. It shares his vision and methods for creating performance workshops that actively investigate social concerns. The book consists of a series of gradually intensifying exercises leading from fun warm-ups to image-building bridge activities. While he has moved away from this process work, and into generative production work with Sojourn Theatre, his mastery of facilitation is based on this model and has deeply influenced aspects of the rehearsal process for their current production of On The Table.

A big component of the book is the purposeful sequencing of games in order to parse out a theme, idea or concept that the ensemble would be willing to explore. This was demonstrated through out the whole workshop. The first set of exercises we explored how can a new ensemble begin to connect to one another through using a common, physical vocabulary, which lead into a discussion of how an ensemble works through collaboration, aesthetics and dramaturgy. In the afternoon, games were played and the theme of responsibility emerged and the ensemble agreed upon wanting to explore that further. With the partner we had for the previous game, we shared personal stories of responsibility (or lack there of). From there we shared to the whole group one sentence summaries of the stories we heard, and then each pair picked a sentence they remembered someone else saying and created a physical presentation of that sentence. From there we discussed in small groups how one or two of the same stories were picked by each group and how we would could further explore those themes as facilitators.

The evenings were spent observing the rehearsals for their production of On The Table that opens July 15th. Most of the rehearsals that week were spent working on act one. Act one (read more about act two and three here and here) consists of a four person cast, each in Portland and Molalla. Through the research the actors have done, they created fictional characters that have come to together at a memorial service in 1980. The memorial service is also for a fictional character in the town, that is in some way connected to the fictional characters the actors are portraying. The goal of act one is to set-up the idea of people and place. During the performance, the actors pop in and out of being the narrator telling about the research and portraying characters in scenes they created. During rehearsals the teams set up the presentation of act one as a game where there are rules the actors follow, but the order in which the stories are told is kept open and fluid. It was interesting to see the same game structure used in the workshops being used in the rehearsal process. The teams were creating the script on their feet and exploring how structured the content needed to be in order to be clear to the audience, while at the same time fluid and conversational. This lead to some frustration as the week continued as some actors were eager to keep exploring the rules of the game while it was clear others wanted to have a set script and/or outline. What I connected to most was that is was truly an ensemble of people creating the show. While it was clear that Rohd was directing/facilitating, many times it was his role of asking the actors what they needed or wanted to explore that determined how a rehearsal was structured. The lack of hierarchy seen in a rehearsal of a traditional commercial, narrative script was refreshing.

Due to the type of institute participants that were present, the theme of leadership was strong. The last day and half Rhod talked more about site specific theater work. We were then broken into four small groups and picked an outside location in which to present a site specific devised work around the theme of leadership.

Filed under: Acting, Arts Entrepreneur, Civic Theater, Creativity, Devised Work, Educational Theater, Ensemble, New Works, Theater/Theatre
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Don’t Think, Act.

June 12, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

Doing a lot of reading in preparation for the Sojourn Theater Summer Institute. Here are some that are sticking with me:

Educating the Creative Theatre Artist by Sonja Kuftinec
“Should we be training students more pre-professionally, undergraduates for performance jobs and graduates for teaching jobs? Or should we focus more on interdisciplinary collaborations across fields that would redefine students as inquirers and artistic entrepreneurs? Surveys…suggest a focus on redefining undergraduates as artistic entrepreneurs, while experience with graduate students…suggests a model for more explicit teacher training.”

“…when asked what they would teach and what they wish they had been taught, reveal what might be lacking in some of our undergraduate training: collaboration, ensemble building, idea development, interdisciplinary approaches to creating art, listening, conflict resolution, community engagement, and application of artistic skills in a wide range of settings.”

“Conventional [undergraduate] production (and I would add BFA pre-professional) training tends to recycle a system that emphasizes the passivity of the individual actor rather than graduating students who can think critically and creatively about the value of theatre in society and who act upon those thoughts.”

Rehearsing Democracy: Advocacy, Public Intellectuals, and, Civic Engagement in Theatre, and Performance Studies by Jill Dolan
“A member of the acting faculty in my department at the University of Texas at Austin has a decal pasted on his office door designed in the ubiquitous Ghostbusters symbolic style that transliterates as “Don’t Think, Act.” Although I very much respect this man and his work with students and department productions, walking past this declaration of his values each day challenges everything I believe in as a theatre educator.”

Filed under: Acting, Arts Entrepreneur, Educational Theater, Graduate School, Teaching, Theater/Theatre
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The Future Of Theatre

June 2, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

The below video put me over the edge. It started when I was taking an applied theater course at NYU. Learning about the work of Rhodessa Jones and Cornerstone Theater Company, I saw theater in context of true community. Being raised in the commercial theater context, I believed that participating in theater and community meant going to watch a play and sit in a dark theater, and then leave afterward with very little interaction with the other people there.

Soon after I signed up to attend Sojourn Theatre Summer Institute, I read the below quote from artistic director Michael Rohd, “One thing that gets said a lot about theatre is that a bunch of people come into a room and they laugh and they cry together in the dark, and that builds community. But I’m starting to think that’s bullshit: People crave something that involves more than sitting and watching.” I will be participating in a six day workshop June 21-26th, in Portland. This will be a time where I will determine if my artistic journey will take on a new path. To quote Cameron, one “not out of economic necessity, but out of deep, organic conviction that the work [I am] called to do can not be accomplished in the traditional hermetic arts environment.” To dive deep into becoming the professional hybrid artist that I feel I am already becoming. To become the person I already am.

My goal is to blog daily about the experience with my work at Sojourn, even though my days will be packed with ensemble work during the day and observing rehearsals in the evenings. Here is a little about the show Sojourn is creating, from their website. “On the Table is a theatre production involving inter-city travel, public dialogue, video and participation within the performance itself. Sojourn Theatre, in partnership with Molallas Arts Commission, The City of Portland and numerous local and statewide organizations, is creating this original world premiere theatrical event as an opportunity to start conversations that bridge urban/rural Oregon and wrestle with issues of identity, resources, values, and governance. Exploring the histories and connectedness of community partner sites Portland and Molalla, it goes beyond metaphorical bridge-building to physically move audiences across urban/rural boundaries.

Act I occurs simultaneously in Portland and Molalla, with a cast of actors performing for a fifty person audience in Portland, and a separate cast of actors performing for a fifty person audience in Mollala. Act 1 tells the stories of two families, one in each community, in the year 1975. Act 2 puts both audiences on buses with the actors driving towards each other. Act 2 brings the stories of these two fictional families from 1975 up to the present, so that when the buses arrive at a location halfway between Portland and Molalla, the story has reached the current moment of 2010. Act 3 brings all 100 audience members together, seated at tables of ten; each table consists of five Portlanders seated next to five Molallans. The play concludes, strangers meet and share a meal during this final act, and the buses then take everyone home.”

Some of my favorite quotes from the video:
We are engaged in a fundamental reformation.

Move from a time of audience numbers plummeting, but the number of art participants, people who write poetry, who sing songs, who perform in church choirs is exploding beyond our wildest imaginations. These people are being called PRO-AMs: Amateur artists doing work at a professional level.

We live in a world not defined by consumption, but by participation.

We have tended to polarize the amateur and the professional, the single most exciting development in the last five to ten years has been the rise of the professional hybrid artist. The professional artist who does not work mainly in the concert halls but around women’s rights or human rights around global warming issues or AIDS relief or more.

_________
2 days left to win the Business Contest. Leave a comment with your favorite business card at the below post before 6pm EST on Friday, June 4th.

Filed under: Acting, Arts Entrepreneur, Chicago, Civic Theater, Creativity, Devised Work, Educational Theater, Ensemble, Los Angeles, NYU Steinhardt, New Works, New York, Theater/Theatre
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Guest Blogging

April 20, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

I have been busying guest blogging, love for you to check them out:

2amtheatre.com is site that acts as a “gath er ing place for the atre ideas.” We’ll col lect and curate blog post ings from var i ous sources that con nect to one another and try to fol low ideas as they develop.

Guest Posts:
Delete Twitter Theater Profiles
A Theater Should Be Like A Bookstore

Theatre Arts Curriculum Transformation (TACT) is a website dedicated to the assessment and re-imagining of theatre training and education at the college and university level.

Guest Post:
Theater Curriculum Based On Professional Entrepreneurial Model

Filed under: Acting, Arts Entrepreneur, Chicago, Social Media, Theater/Theatre
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Memorizing

March 25, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

I have been away from blogging as it is a busy teaching time and I have been memorizing:

First Folio Shakespeare Monologue Class:
Lysander, Midsummer, Act I, Scene 1: “I am my Lord, as well derived as he”
Enobarbus, A&C, Act II, Scene 2: “I will tell you/The Barge she sat in”
Lorenzo, Merchant, Acy V, Scene 1: “How sweet the moon-light sleeps upon the banke”
Auffidius, Coriolanus, Act I, Scene 10: “Condition?/I would I were a Roman”

Small Sword SAFD Skills Proficiency Test:
Edmund, King Lear, Act V, Scene 3

Picasso Understudy, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Two River Theater Company.

Blogging will continue to be inconsistent, but I am always on Twitter.

Filed under: Acting
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I’m Not Delusional, I’m An Entrepreneur

March 14, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

I am loving the below image by Hugh MacLeod. So much so, I am thinking of buying a copy, unless you want to make an awesome donation. His random thoughts on being an entrepreneur is something all artists should read. Is it delusional to think as an arts entrepreneur that I can create a work/life/art balance that allows me to pursue all my artistic avenues?

I was thinking about this when @JessHutchinson commented that artists are imploding by over-commitment, self-overwhelming, inbalance between life/work/art. This led to a conversation (a reason why Twitter is important) with fellow theaterosphere/2am Theatre people (#2amt) @nickkeenan, @RZrow, @dloehr, and @MaxEPunk. @RZCrow reminded us that, “We need to realize there’s time & sometimes we need to take everything in moderation.” I responded that artists “might be over committed, but this artist has to work three teaching jobs, because the art doesn’t pay.” I think this issue is at the heart of arts entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur looks for finical backing to support their idea, project or product. It is no secret that the arts don’t pay well and funding is difficult, so many artists take on other freelance/part-time work, like becoming teaching artists, because it is a way to use their art to connect with others and its freelance schedule allows artist to also work on their art. Due to this freelance nature many teaching artists work multiple part-time jobs to pay the bills. This, at times, creates teaching artists who are more teachers and less artists. Even though the idea that working a freelance/part-time job creates time and space for creating art, instead sometimes more time is spent going from part-time to part-time job and less time is spent on creating art.

As a teaching artist that works with three different organizations pretty consistently, I spend a range of 13-17 hours teaching a week and commuting 13 hours a week for a total of 26-30 hours a week on “teaching”. I also freelance in web design and SEO, to help pay the bills. I have other special circumstances that do not allow me to do theater at the moment (baby and wife that works three nights a week). Does your schedule allow you to create art or are you about to implode? How are you creating a work/life/art balance? Are you working part-time/freelance or as a full-time employee? To end with Jess’ question, “How do we begin to find true balance?”

Filed under: Acting, Arts Entrepreneur, Theater/Theatre
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MFA Theater Degree Pyramid Scheme

March 7, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

“The discouraging truth is that MFA degrees were created largely to provide-and then satisfy-a prerequisite for obtaining teaching jobs. This in effect rendered the entire system a pyramid scheme.” – Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland

Replace the term “pyramid scheme” with “ponzi scheme”.

It sounds like the MFA Theater Ponzi Scheme that Mike Daisey was talking about.

Filed under: Acting, Teaching, Theater/Theatre
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Truth About Theater Education

January 28, 2010 by Dennis Baker 

I am catching up on the last week of theatrosphere blog posts, and while Scott Walter’s whole blog post is a must read, his comment about what he tells his theater students, is what stuck out to me.

I say: “You are getting a degree at a liberal arts university. I am not offering you ‘pre-professional training’ because, frankly, there IS no profession. I am educating you, not training you. I am offering you a lens to see the world through that, should you decide to try to make a life of artistry (which is different from a CAREER in the arts), then you will have four years of reflection and experiment from which to work. If you want to be buffed up for the so-called profession, you need to go down I-40 to Winston-Salem and the NC School of the Arts.” Now, what are others saying? I conjecture that they are selling the Cinderella Myth, pointing at a couple alums who are working occasionally, and teaching their students that what separates the successful from the unsuccessful is that the successful want it more (which is a huge lie, but that shifts the blame for their failure to the students’ shoulders and absolves the teacher entirely). It is a con game, plain and simple.

Filed under: Acting, Educational Theater, Graduate School, Teaching, Theater/Theatre
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