An Unexpected Party

Community theatre spends a lot of its time defining itself by the things it isn’t, the things it doesn’t have. The resources, the attention, the - y’know - roofs and walls to keep the elements off the story. Folks want very badly to be good at the things they do and recognized when they are in fact good at the things they do. They want the platform they are using to be recognized as Just As Good as those things that they consider good.

For all that they feel is missing though, without significant contact with the rest of the art making world the average community theatre practitioner has no idea what they are free of. What restrictions don’t exist for them because there are no capitalist expectations - because the only person who thinks that they should be making a widget or “content” is them. They are under no obligation (imo) except to not waste the time others choose to spend with them and to do no harm.

It is a dizzying amount of freedom.

Absent market forces and expectation, absent an employer’s brand and mission, absent salaries to pay - what would you make?

I never know.

I don’t have a wish list of things I want to make. I am a craftsman, not an artist. If you hand me a project I’ll give you nine ways to make it and puns to pair. But given an Empty Space™ and time I will sit there with my brain droning like a midnight refrigerator. Just nothing at all in the hopper.

But introduce an ingredient and the engine turns over.
For me, If that ingredient is people-related the engine turns over a little faster.
Then a goal.
With ingredients and a goal my brain starts to plot a path. Multiple paths.

While plotting those paths my brain is simultaneously creating lists of blockers and friction. Reasons why the paths won’t work or are a bad idea and most loudly why I am the wrong person to do it.

My brain was droning after seeing a show. I was in a long period of doing shows just to help out. To pitch in for community need. No projects I was in love with and no one making projects with me in mind for any reason. I was mostly having fun but not being recharged.

And after the show Kyla asked a question.

When Kyla asked a question she cheated.

Kyla broke the system.

Kyla accidentally showed up with half the problems solved and a short circuit for the biggest blocker.

Kyla proposed a project we’d already discussed at length, that fit into the community for reasons we had discussed at length, and she had a space at a price I couldn’t argue with.

Kyla asked: if Romeo and Juliet were in Broom Street Theatre’s next season would I direct it?

If you have a space, a text, and an angle, and rent is covered? Your blockers get Real Small.
Then it comes down to inverse ego.
It comes down to well why shouldn’t I?

The primary producer of classical work in town had loudly averred for literal years that he would never do Romeo and Juliet. And there was no chance if he were to be hit over the head and confused into producing it that he would let Kyla be Juliet. That he, less than a week after we decided to do it, announced that it would be in his season is entirely beside the point.

So the only real blocker in the equation was that I’m not a director.

Which: fair.

I last directed a full length production before hanging chads had been invented or my wife had declared her theatre major. There are going to be folks in my ensemble who literally weren’t born when I last directed a full length show. But here’s the thing: that’s a reason why you shouldn’t hand me a $50K show for a company with a mission and a house style.

This is going to be a community show at a body shop turned experimental performance room in a small USian city. There are very few folks more ready to help a dozen actors put together a dirt-Shakespeare show they’re proud of in those circumstances than I am.

So I should.

So that’s what we’re going to do.

I’m going to take a group of 12 folks I trust - and who I will bribe to trust me - and we’re going to do the stuff that I -do- know how to do - ensemble and intense, earnest scene work - and we’re going to make wildly analog Shakespeare that folks are going to sit very close to and feel big feelings about.

Because at the end of the day Broom Street Theater doesn’t need me to hold up a quarter of their budget. They need me to throw an interesting party and not waste your time. It will be wildly different from what Grant and Madison Shakespeare Company are building with their Romeo and Juliet - which opens less than a month after we audition (tickets here).

And that’s the fun.

We are auditioning at the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center on Sunday, October 11th from 1pm-3pm and Monday October 12th from 7:15-10.

The leads are cast - or in process - so we’re looking for the last 4-5 ensemble members to join the team. This group will be the folks who create the swirl of servants and family and physicality of the world using:
ladders &
planks &
globe lights &
canvas &
mop handles.

If you want to be in a fun room working really hard to do something you’re excited to show the rest of the community swing by the Wil-Mar and show two minutes of Shakespeare you’re proud of or sing a song or another monologue or I can just hand you something.

We want you to be be excited to perform and want to see the best you have to offer right now.

You can sign up here: AUDITION FORM

We have ingredients, goals and an opening date.
I have several possible paths plotted out, but we can make almost anything we want.

and I am incredibly excited.