Let’s go to a show!
I still need to get a second job for the summer, since my internship with Calgary Arts Development is not quite full-time, but I have to admit that I’m dragging my heels a little bit in getting something set up. There’s so much going on in this city that it kills me to think of eating up my evenings with a second job. I don’t take advantage of nearly enough of the stuff that Calgary offers, but these days, it’s coming across my desk constantly. When I’m more aware of what’s happening — and around people who are more excited about it — I’m reminded that I need to be out there, seeing and doing more. I want to be getting out there and doing something at least once a week, and there are that many opportunities (and more!), if only I didn’t have to work evenings elsewhere.
It’s the same thing when I’m in school. While I was working in the Public Affairs office, I knew about virtually everything that was going on at the school and at REDCAT, and there was always so much I wanted to see, but there’s just never enough time for all of it.
I make it more of a priority than some people, of course. Even in a “bad” month, I’ll see at least one performing arts event. It’s very, very rare that I’ll go longer than that without seeing something, but occasionally, it happens. Still, I aim for at least two events a month. It’s made somewhat easier by the number of people I know in the arts — even if I only go see events that have friends in them, I’ll see an average of 12-15 events a year, and that’s not even getting to everything that my friends are in.
I try to go beyond just the places where I know someone, though. That’s a good place to start, but it does tend to be a bit limiting. I’m a fan of subscribing to half-price and other listing services (TicketWeb in New York, Goldstar in L.A., ArtsMart in Calgary) and choosing something random with a company I’ve never seen before.
With my job at CADA, I’ll have the opportunity to see all kinds of work. Part of that is, like I said, simply because I’m more aware of what’s out there. Part of it is because I have access to tickets. I just hope that whatever other job I get doesn’t interfere too much with the important stuff in life, especially during the summer, when I don’t have things like classes and rehearsals to fill my time. Even though the summer is traditionally the down season for theatre and regular season programming, there are more than enough festivals, concerts, special events, and exhibits to see, and I plan to take advantage of as much as I can.
I’ll try and post once a week with a roundup of what I’m seeing, reading, listening to, watching, and browsing. It’ll keep me accountable to make sure I’m not getting lazy with my arts intake, and it’ll maybe give Colin and I an excuse to go see things we wouldn’t otherwise see.
How much do you see? What do you wish you had time for? If you’re in Calgary, what’s the most important thing I should make an effort to see this summer?
Die young, leave a beautiful corpse
I love Bryan Fuller’s shows; I think he’s brilliant as a show-runner.
However, I have a theory.
Part of the reason that he’s so brilliant is that his shows always get canceled too early. Wonderfalls was 13 episodes, 4 aired. Dead Like Me was two short seasons and a movie. Pushing Daisies is two short seasons.
And as tragic as that is, and as much as I’d love to see his shows last longer, they never have the chance to jump the shark. The plot devices don’t have time to get old; the premises don’t get worn out; the original, fresh storylines that are the impetus for the beginning of the show aren’t played out; the characters don’t have the chance to become something different than what they were in the beginning.
In that short a time — 30 episodes or less, basically — the shows can remain these encapsulated moments of brilliance, and the showrunner is never faced with the challenge of sustaining the world created in the show for a long period of time. I mean, any show that runs for more than a season faces a weak season; a show, no matter how brilliant, can’t sustain the same level forever. Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, Heroes, Ugly Betty, Everwood, Joan of Arcadia — those are just a few off the top of my head that I’ve watched recently, but each of them has strong seasons and weak ones, and each of them has storylines that are generally considered to be weaker than the others. (And, incidentally, each of those shows had first seasons that were widely considered to be exceptionally strong.) Individual fans’ favorites may differ, of course, but the fact is, when a show runs past the initial premise, there are going to be developments that don’t work as well as others.
So, as much as I think it’s tragic that Pushing Daisies was canceled early, and as much as I would have loved to have seen any of these shows go on and live longer, maybe it’s not completely a bad thing. I’d love to see how Bryan Fuller would do as a long-term showrunner, and how he would carry a show through multiple seasons, but at the same time, the circumstances a) allow his reputation as an excellent showrunner to be preserved, and b) allow the various ideas floating around in his head to see the light of day, in one way or another.
(And yes, I realize that he’s working on Heroes now, which is great, and from what I hear, he’s been a big part of turning it around after the very weak season 2. I haven’t caught up on the third season yet — to be honest, it lost me after season 2 — but I’ve heard that it got exponentially better in the second half of season 3, so I need to catch up and see for myself. I’m talking a little more specifically about shows that are his own brainchild, though, as opposed to already-existing shows that he’s working on.)
What do you think?
Creating the audience, not just the work
I spent last summer working as the production manager for the Canadian Badlands Passion Play, a huge, outdoor, site-specific work depicting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It’s a pretty spectacular production in a lot of ways, with a huge outdoor set, live animals, a cast of over 100, and completely acoustic sound effects (many of which are provided by a choir and orchestra).
As you might expect with a show that size, there were a lot of ups and downs over the course of the summer, and overall, I was really proud of the show that we put up and the work that I did, but the thing that was most disappointing was the audience. I realize that it’s partly because we had an average audience of 2000 per show, so the cross-section of people is going to be much larger than the type of theatre-goers who go see other forms of theatre. Most of the audience, proportionately, was fine, but there are those few people who just ruined it, and their behavior was one of the things that was the most disconcerting for me last year.
Site news
I’ve been a little slow in getting this blog into a regular posting schedule, despite my best intentions. I’m still wading through almost 8 years of my personal blog, finding the entries that I want to rewrite and post over here, and I’ve also got a whole bunch of new content that I’m starting to work on. Hopefully by next week, I’ll be into a regular schedule and routine with the posting; the past couple of weeks, I’ve been in the middle of finishing up the semester, driving back to Calgary from California, unpacking, running errands, and enjoying a few days off.
I’ll have some new content to post later today, and next week, we’ll be back on track!
Grin
I don’t think there’s anyone out there who hasn’t seen this yet, but it’s making me smile tonight, so I feel like re-sharing.
In the spirit of Improv Everywhere, here’s “Doe, a Deer” in the Central Station in Antwerp. Yeah, I know you’ve all seen it, but I’m also willing to bet that it still makes you smile every time.
Enjoy!
Everyone and no one
I directed a show a few years ago that still sticks out to me very vividly, not because the show was particularly memorable, but because of the reactions it got and my own reaction to it.
It was a Christmas show (200… 4? Yeah, it had to have been 2004), which we’d ended up starting from scratch at the end of October. As in, we had no script or anything. We’d started rehearsing a different script (which I’d still like to do one of these years) in August/September, but for various reasons, it just wasn’t the right show with the right people, so we scrapped it and wrote something entirely new, six weeks before it went up. Well, I didn’t write the new script, but a new script was written, and I pulled together a completely different cast and started directing it with less than six weeks to go. (Keep in mind, this is a volunteer cast, so six weeks of rehearsal when you’re only rehearsing once or twice a week for 2-3 hours at a time means something very different than it does in a professional setting where you can put in 30-40 hours of rehearsal a week and 4-6 weeks is a normal rehearsal period.)
To be honest, it wasn’t any of our greatest work — actors, writers, me. Artistically, it didn’t push any boundaries, and the concept was okay, but not great. The staging wasn’t what we wanted it to be (some of our decisions were overridden by people higher up the food chain than us), and the laughs, while genuine, were sometimes a bit cheap. It served its purpose as the church’s Christmas production that year, and it had a good turnout, as always, but there was something about it that left a stale taste in my mouth.
I found that there were three distinct reactions to the show. First, there were friends that I’d invited who just loved it. They laughed, the whole family had a good time, and they had a nice evening out that didn’t ask much of them. Second, I had colleagues who came who gave me those very reserved congratulations. You know; the kind that are masking their real opinion while trying to find something nice to say. It wasn’t that they thought it was an awful show, but they knew that I had the talent and skill to do something better. Third, there was my team’s reaction. The core team had pulled through a lot to get the show up, and we were proud of the fact that the show came together, despite everything. We knew it wasn’t the best work any of us had done, but we also knew what it took to make, and because of that, the experience glowed a little more than it would have otherwise.
So whose opinion counts?
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When “good enough” isn’t good enough
One of my primary goals when I was working with the drama ministry at the church was to see it become as professional and high-quality as possible, because what’s the point of putting on shoddy work? Too often, I think that the attitude within the church is, “Whatever we give God, he’ll do something good with, so I don’t have to give my best.” And yes, while it’s true that God makes beauty out of our brokenness, it doesn’t give us the excuse to be lazy or to give less than our best–not only the best of what we currently are, but the best of what we can be, through training, practice, and honing our skills.
(And if I ever end up back in a position of leading the drama ministry at Foothills, one of my goals is to make it a place of training, mentoring, and growth for the team members themselves, as well as a place to use theatre as a ministry to the church and community.)
Mom and Dad gave Colin and I the movie Fireproof for Valentine’s Day. We haven’t watched it yet, but despite not having seen it, I’ve been pretty vocal with my disappointment in it (and maybe I’ll post a review of the movie itself once I’ve seen it, but this isn’t a review of the movie; it’s a discussion of the reactions I’ve heard). I’ve read reviews from sources that I trust, and everything I’ve heard indicates that it’s a pretty formulaic “Christian” movie: overly expository writing, not-so-great acting, less-than-subtle conveyance of its message, and mediocre production value.
Even the opinions of people who liked it have been mixed. They thought it was a good story, but the acting wasn’t the best they’ve ever seen; or they thought the message was good, but it could have been told better.
My argument against it from the beginning has been this: Why put something out there on a stage where it can’t possibly compete with the best that’s it’s up against? Why create something–with a God-honoring message, and with the best intentions in the world–to a standard of mediocrity, where even the people who like it only like it with reservations?