So long...

Well, I haven't been keeping up with the postings, and have been reprimanded. Sorry, Gabe. I'll try to do better.
In my own defense, I have been "slightly" busy.
So here's the deal: Much ado about Nothing went into rehearsal with an amazing cast, and then we opened, got a lukewarm review ('A' for effort, but not so much with the concept and execution--who likes reviewers anyway?) and finished the run on Saturday the 6th of August to a packed house. Then we took down the set for another event in the space, only to rebuild it the following week for the opening of Romeo and Juliet.

The interesting part is all the stuff that took place between those bare facts.

We opened the show on July 14, the hottest day of the summer so far (108) hoping to get at least 100 people to come out on a Thursday night. We had 210. Friday and Saturday, with the only news item of the day being how hot Fresno was going to be, we held strong at 180 and 190 respectively. The following Thursday was our lowest count at 170. Friday our review came out, lackluster response at best, and we again had over 200 and never dipped from there. Our third Saturday we hit 260. Our final week we broke 300 on Thursday and packed out our final performance with 430. The attendance for a 4-week run, for a brand-new theater company, in FRESNO, outdoors during the 3rd hottest July on record was OVER 3,000 PEOPLE.

Fresno is changing, and I am so honored to be a part of that change!

So, some shameless self-promotion: come to see Romeo and Juliet. We open August 25!

The Company

(Click on "the company" to see the cast list)
After a long and somewhat irritating process (because we had some really tough choices to make, and the audition schedule was not ideal) we have our first ever Company. Can I get a great big "woo-hoo" from everyone??
The cast for this summer is just going to knock your socks off. I would love to highlight some people, but that would end up in a posting longer than the entire blog... and the other posts are plenty long. ;D Suffice it to say, the 38 people on this list, plus the stage managers and designers are simply amazing. I could gush for ages. Tom Hanks once said that what he looks for in a director is a fan, someone who appreciates his work. I am a certified fan of each and everyone of the people acting in our shows this summer!

So, lift your glass, and toast with me: "To Mr. Shakespeare! To the Woodward Shakespeare Festival! To the Company!"

Why are things the way they Are?

Or- What's up with Fresno?

This posting falls under the category of contributing to the problem rather than the solution, but I feel the overwhelming urge to whine today. It seems to me that Fresno is all about individual visions. Whether you agree with him personally/politically or not, Mayor Autry has a vision for the direction Fresno needs to take. And so does every other member of our City/County government. The problem is that none of those individual visions are the same. Forget the two steps forward, one step back routine... that at least is progress. We seem to be pretty much all about one step in fifty different directions.

But, wait, I must stop myself in mid-whine... could this fall into the same category of the common lament, "there's nothing to do in Fresno." Being a part of starting WSF has taught me on SO many levels how wrong that is. The problem with Fresno isn't that there isn't anything to do, nor that no one can find something to do, but that people don't LOOK for things to do. They don't open the paper, they don't subscribe to mindhub, they don't look on the Creative Fresno or Fresno Famous websites (or the dozen or so other sites that promote things in Fresno), they don't google "activities, arts, events, literature (replace the word as appropriate) Fresno." Someone hit it on the most recent posting of mindhub regarding Fresno, "since we're a 'Last Minute' town.... " We don't plan to do things, we just go--if we feel like it. Please note that I am totally including myself in that "we," at the end of the day if I don't have to go somewhere, I would frankly just prefer to go home and watch Gilmore Girls re-runs on TV. But, as the Fresno Bee has so succinctly told us with their events magazine: GET OUT!

But I digress (as usual, you all scream!).

A great deal of my knowledge of the above, actually all of it, has to do with my being a participant of the above. WSF joined FCASH (get a website, guys, so I can paste a link!) and through that organization I became involved/aware of the other stuff.

Does this mean that I have to start going to City Council meetings so that I will stop whining about the way Fresno is run?? Say it ain't so!

Presence

I would like Christien to know that I have joined the blog, that the world indeed does revolve around her, that my very joining of the blog is evidence to that effect. But that I have nothing to say at present, except that I am...uh...present. Pass the mead please.

Frustration

Today I just want to know WHY the rest of the world doesn't just get with the program and do what I want them to?

Okay, okay! I get it! The world doesn't revolve around me. But couldn't it just for one day? One? Please? Alright, I'll settle for local bureaucracy revolving around me, or at least WSF. No? Well, why not??? Seriously, I want to know!

It's all about the Mead

I don't, as a rule, like alcohol. Period (see previous posting re: control issues). I am trying, for the sake of a very dear friend who is a wine connoisseur, to develop a taste for wine. The problem is that Red Wine tastes... icky. White tastes like I think Red should taste. Do you remember the first time you had coffee? It smelled all rich and sweet (especially if it was flavored) and tastes bitter and just... icky. That is how wine is for me, especially red; I think it should be rich and sweet and it is dry and somewhat bitter. I am developing a taste, or at least trying to. I like Gerwurstraminer and Reisling (even though I can pronounce neither)--both very sweet wines. I recently tried a Mondavi Cabernet (I think it was a Cabernet--Deanna, would you comment when you read this?) and liked it. It's a slow process. But, I am making progress.

What, you must be asking, does any of this have to do with Shakespeare? Well, I'm glad you asked. This past Saturday was our first annual "Birthday Bash for the Bard" (April 23, 2005 was Shakespeare's 441st Birthday). We performed some scenes, had a birthday cake, hors d'oeuvres, and offered wine tasting. I requested the company that provided the wine to offer mead, if they could. They did! (http://www.fullcirclebrewing.com/) I LIKE Mead. :)

Oh, yeah. The party was great too. Everyone seemed to enjoy it. The food was good (Whole Foods donated it, http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/), the cake was Great. Since I was sort of the liaison between the "party" and the "actors" I only got to have one glass, and barely finished that, but it was pomegranate Mead. SO good! People weren't running away, they seemed genuinely regretful when they had to leave early, disappointed at what they missed when they arrived late. The weather predicted rain (we planned to be outdoors, on the lake, Jim and Gayle Philips have a gorgeous home) but the weather was perfect, turning chilly about 7:30 and encouraging those who lingered to be on their way (the party was from 5-7). All in all a wonderful night. Wish you could have been there!

Re-iteration of a Recent Post I Made to Mindhub.org (or a bunch of shameless plugs for some really awesome folks)

Thursday night at the Crest Theater in Downtown Fresno I went to the New Valley InForum Lecture Series (http://www.lylescenter.com/inforum/2005.htm) featuring Rebecca Ryan (http://www.nextgenerationconsulting.com).

When the event was over Craig Scharton (http://www.onebyoneleadership.com/edstaff.htm) asked me what I took away from it, and I told him that I needed to process before I could answer. So, this is my answer--just in case someone can benefit from my own personal epiphany. Something I am currently struggling with (and I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not the only one with this problem) while trying to build this amazing thing that is the Woodward Shakespeare Festival, is letting other people take some of the responsibility off of my hands. I sat down with Cynthia Cooper the other day (sorry FCASH or the Fresno Coalition on Art, Science and History doesn't have a website) and discussed what our project needed and who in our organization was covering those needs. I found myself answering me a lot. A. Lot. Those few times that I didn't answer me? I really wanted to answer me. What I was feeling was that nobody knows as much as I do, nobody cares as much as I do, nobody else can do it right.

(My grandmother instilled two truisms into my head

1. If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing right...

not so bad until you couple it with:

2. If you want it done right, do it yourself.)

What Rebecca Ryan said at the very end of her lecture--after a whole bunch of stuff that was really great and useful and exciting and inspired me to take down several pages of notes--that finally connected to me personally, and to my situation and struggle to build a company:

When nobody cares who takes the credit, amazing things happen.

For me, it was as if that proverbial lightbulb went on in my head. This is not a new concept to someone in the theater, especially me as a director. NOTHING happens on stage due to only the work of one person. There are the actors, the playwright, the designers, the crew (thank god for the crew), the director, the producer, the equipment, I could go on. Even if there IS only one person who is creating a particular piece of theater, it isn't theater until someone else is WATCHING it, so the audience is an equal part of the creation of theater. If we didn't want to perform for an audience we'd all be home reading Shakespeare in front of our bathroom mirrors (the acoustics are usually better there).

Of course! I thought as I considered what I took away from Rebecca Ryan's lecture, I have an agenda, I have something to prove and I want the credit for proving it!

See, when I direct a play, I fully understand the concept of no one particular person getting credit. I also understand that if the play is a huge success, most of the accolades go to the actors. If it is in any way a failure, all of the blame goes to the director. Designers and crew rarely get blame/accolades, unfortunately I need to add playwrights in there. Come to think of it, the audience rarely gets the blame/accolades. Except by the actors, as in Wow, what a great audience, they just energized all of us (actors never say anything bad about an audience, you know!). I just haven't been applying that to the Festival.

The question for me now is, "Do I want the credit or do I want the Festival?"

So, Craig, what I took away from this lecture was that INNOVATION is so, so, so much more important than EGO.

The Woodward Shakespeare Festival needs this innovation. Fresno needs this innovation. The Central Valley needs this innovation. None of the above need my ego.

Local Theater

This past weekend I went to three, yes three, local theatrical productions. At the final one (I'm not going to name names) I spoke to someone who clearly stated that he/she didn't, as a rule, go to amateur productions. This of course means that this person doesn't attend much local theater since that is almost the only option here. We do have the odd traveling show, usually the third or fourth run or the barely professional bus-n-truck tours.

This person, who still remains nameless, doesn't really have an issue with the production quality. For the amount of money available, the production quality on most shows that I have ever seen in Fresno is amazingly good. The issue is the actors. Having come across this problem myself, I can relate, and feel the need to expound.

Even having recently moved back from New York, and having worked with actors there, I don't know if I have any particular insight into why the actors here are so limited and so unprofessional. I did community theater in the areas around New York City and can honestly say that the worst show I have ever seen in Fresno is much, MUCH better than the best I've seen in the equivalent there.

The thing is, the amateur actor isn't driven. Pardon me for going off on semantics again (by the way, the book is Revelation NOT Revelations- it's a linguistic thing, it is easier to say "Revelations 8:1" than "Revelation 8:1" (try it) sort of like "a" and "an" they aren't there for any other reason than it is easier to say "an animal" than "a animal"; regardless, there was ONE revelation given to John that he wrote down, not more than one, so it is Revelation, not Revelations, remember that!) but shall we look at dictionary.com?

Again, I love the American Heritage Dictionary, it includes word origins. Amateur is French, from Latin amtor, lover, from amre, to love. (Or, one who does something for the love of it rather than remuneration of it.) The definitions are as follows:

1. A person who engages in an art, science, study, or athletic activity as a pastime rather than as a profession.
2. Sports. An athlete who has never accepted money, or who accepts money under restrictions specified by a regulatory body, for participating in a competition.
3. One lacking the skill of a professional, as in an art.

This pretty much defines (with the exception of the sports definition) the acting community (for the most part) in Fresno. It is a pastime, lacking the skill of the professional.

There has to be a statistic somewhere about the percentage of a community that will actually leave the house of an evening and go to a "cultural event", and I imagine it is very low. Now calculate in the number who will actually work the long and thankless hours required to produce a "cultural event". This is a pastime, not a profession, for anyone in Fresno. Even if the Woodward Shakespeare Festival succeeded in its goal of becoming a regional theater with an LORT equity contract, making us eligible for the Tony (r) awards, we would still have the same problem. Unless we import the entire cast from out of town, there aren't enough jobs here to support a professional acting community. Even if the WSF succeeded in its goal of becoming a year-round resident theater we couldn't alone support a professional acting community.

Just the fact that I am worried about this problem, though, I think is a good sign, really. The fact that it is plausible for Fresno to host a professional theater year-round is an amazing thing. We just need a way to support the professionals needed to see that goal realized.