Theater Is For All Audiences

Tonight I saw Stick Fly on Broadway. I knew it was a family drama, starring Tracie Thoms and star produced by Alicia Keys. And I'm really glad I went.

Today there was a tempest in the theatre twitterverse. You've Cott Mail, a popular theatre email list, posted several blogs under the title "Is it bad to admit theater is for white people"?

It's not a surprise that Broadway audiences are wealthy and white. Most of the Broadway content creators are wealthy and white. The surprising part was that a serious proposition was made, stating that we, as a community, should just accept that theatre audiences are comprised of rich white folk and move on.

Let me tell you about the audience I saw tonight. It was not just white. And that is a welcome relief. Stick Fly is a solid piece of craftmanship about family drama. It had me engaged emotionally and thinking critically at the same time.

The audience tonight was different than the regular reserved Broadway audience. There was music in the house as well as onstage tonight. Sure, all of the Christmas present iphones were vibrating like crickets- but there was also solid waves of vocal appreciation. The laughs were longer- both nervous and joyful. I heard so very many different kinds of laughs tonight. People talked back to the characters in a way that made the audience feel like extended family.

One of my favorite etymologies is of the word 'entertain'. It originally means to bring together. Home entertainment systems miss the original meaning, and even a theatrical intermission contains less chatting with your neighbor and more reconnecting online (and Stick Fly is no exception, it had a program insert encouraging contact with its various social media accounts).

But the audience tonight was varied in its demographic in that the audience was not just white people, but people of color. The varied audience present tonight was engaged and committed to the show. I don't think the director anticipated this kind of enthusiasm, as it was a pronounced departure from the more typical and reserved Broadway response. At times, some dialogue was lost and that was disappointing. But the incredible work of the cast, especially Condola Rashad, made it a great night at the theatre.

One of my favorite plays is Jane Wagner's Search for Signs of Intelligent Life. In it, there's a vignette about how some visitors forgot to watch a play- they were too busy watching the audience. After the standing ovation, as I stood to get my coat, it was a real pleasure to watch the audience gathering their things and preparing to disappear into the night. The woman in front of me had a large smile and two tears paused midway down her cheeks. Couples stood in place, debating the politics and the poetry of what they had seen. And there were so many different people leaving, who had been able to come together to share in this art.

There is great theatre being made every day by people who aren't the typical Broadway content creator. And some of this great theatre has come to Broadway. Stick Fly is not alone. The Mountaintop also opened this season, and Audra McDonald & Norm Lewis come to Broadway next week in The Gershwin's Porgy & Bess.

The field has been dominated by wealthy white people. That's known fact. The primary demographic is also wealthy white people. Also known fact. To assume that these facts will persist is foolish at its best and foul at its worst. The core theatre-going group is rapidly aging out. The Great White Way will die when its theatre-goers do.

If theatre-makers continue to focus solely on the historic theatre-goer, they are focusing their efforts on only a small slice of the people seeking entertainment. And they'll miss out on another great entertainment experience- the response of new audiences.

Work is it's own cure. You have to like it better than being loved. - Piercy

I'm doing a reading of Cymbeline with a company I've never worked with before: Shakespeare Saturdays.

I got the audition appointment at the last minute. A Shakespeare company I had worked with before sent out the notice to its email list, and I received it at almost midnight the night before the audition. I emailed the artistic director, and thank goodness for blackberry culture* sometimes, because she had checked her email and let me know I had the appointment before 11am.

I went to work (a children's birthday party in Westchester) and then flew down 87 to upper Manhattan. The audition was less structured than I was used to, and certainly less formal with some polite chitchat (email, facebook culture, headshots). I did my Shakespeare monologue (Desdemona), and she asked me to sing sixteen bars a capella and I went with the tune in my head "I Remember". She asked me to dance as I sang the second time, and it was so much fun and my voice was so much more resonant.

And I was cast! I was asked to sing The International Year of Astronomy Song (Up, Up in the Sky) for a Planetarium Lecture Series. And I'll be playing Guiderius in Cymbeline. Quite exciting.
The performance is on March 28th at 1pm.

Soon after I found out that a surprise party, my wedding shower, had been planned for the same time. I've always wanted a surprise party, but I also want to continue to do great theatre work and I had committed to this show. It was an obvious choice for me, and now the date's been rescheduled. Some family didn't understand- it's a major life event! it's a surprise! But the people who understand my passion understood.

I twittered about it, surprised and excited.
And then the other day, the same company asked me to perform in their concert. I was so tickled to have been asked. Until they told me the date: the same date as my wedding.
This was a no-brainer in the other direction. I couldn't cancel my wedding for a concert.

I'm sure that it's not always this easy. But this time, it was.

*Is the plural of the device "blackberries"? or would it be "blackberry's"? Notice my convenient rephrasing.

Year-In-Review

This year, I became quietly happy with what I am, realizing in a deep way that I could be no other. Perhaps Celine in "Before Sunrise" says it best:

If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.

Something large and new for me this year was realizing that there's hardly ever mastery, except in the demonstration of attempting something beautiful (either a play, something new, or some deep understanding). The act of doing is as vital as the act of the accomplishment. We have never made it, we have only begun to understand what making it would mean.

So while I have not succeeded in the sense that I am not solely supporting myself from my acting work, I have succeeded in that I have the freedom to explore and engage with what I really want to do. Every time I attempt, I succeed. That is really nice. And a new perspective.

This year, I kept working to make my theatre dream happen. I went on many auditions. I started a serious acting class. I applied to an actor training school and didn't get in. I spent half the year working on a play with a deliberately cruel director, something which I will never do again. I also professionally stage-managed an Equity reading (Virtuosa), was paid to help produce an original musical(Love, That Four Letter Word!), underwent trial by fire on how to run spotlight in a regional theatre (Westchester Broadway Dinner Theatre), directed in the Bad Musicals Festival (Virgin Dictator, on an impossible timeline and a budget of 0$), fundraised hundreds of dollars for charity with two concerts (one with The Artist's Crossing and some incredible Broadway Stars, the other with a friend's company (Group Therapy) on Long Island) and ended the year performing The Velveteen Rabbit in community theatre (Talegate Productions). In the last role, a young fan gave me a doll dressed as a bunny, which is currently decorating my very first Christmas tree (that's mine as an adult, in my house).

In 2009, I look forward to continuing my actor training, dancing and singing as much as possible and generally making magic happen. That musical theatre magic, where things wrap up with polite pithy sentences. Just before a song.

I intend to

Class

Last night in acting class, I felt very frustrated. I cannot consistently breathe life into new material- and I feel as if I should be able to at least service all material.

In my mind, there are three kinds of actors: the ones who are not up to the task, the ones who do a serviceable job, and the ones who transcend the material.

As coincidences have it, the monologue I was struggling with was Gypsy Rose Lee's monologue from Gypsy. Which is just wonderful.

Tonight, my acting teacher (who I have tremendous respect for) emailed me this:

You have the desire...I certainly know that. You will continue to grow because you really want to. That kind of desire is not all that common. It is one of your best tools.

And it makes me feel tremendous.
I know I will get there. I just have to keep going for it.

Real Star Power

I hope that I am the kind of classy Broadway star that Lin-Manuel Miranda is.
This grand gesture is inspirational.

Audition Feedback

After a misty morning spent domestically, running errands with M, I returned home to find a great voicemail: Audition feedback.

I love audition feedback. I wish they would mail me their notes of what they thought. I love feedback, especially from a strange situation such as an audition. And the more specific, the better.

It was the director himself (someone inspirational to me), calling to thank me for auditioning, that it was good to see me, that he's a big fan of my work. He hoped that I would audition for the playhouse again, and then told me that he had a specific type in mind for the role- and since several talented people of that type auditioned, he decided not to give me a callback.

Which is perfect. It could not have gone any better.

I gave a good audition, but still learned how to give a better audition. I got great feedback, and praise for my work. I wasn't sure how I'd be able to schedule the evening rehearsal schedule around work at the restaurant and class: and now I won't have that conflict, I can concentrate more fully on training my technique and my physique.

I'm really happy. Today was good.

Audition

Two Auditions recently.
Probably no work, but good lesson.

Audition 1. NYC, 9am. For a regional theatre season, including two high-glamour musicals.
Next time, I will be dressed more glamorously for musical theatre audition. At least kitten heels, at least semblance of styled hair, and coordinated outfit. It is a performance, and I should dress as I would for going onstage.
Next time, I will not disagree with the piano player. If he says that the intro is "wrong", rather than doing it anyway, I will politely take his advice and choose a different song- I have plenty in my book.

Audition 2, Rockland County, 7:30 rainy night.
Rather than responding "in character voice", I will try to respond, even in cold readings, honestly and organically off the other person. I was so set with trying to play my objectives that I failed to build off what was happening in the room and use the full instrument of my voice.

Acting Class

Exercise: Tell a story, with each person contributing one word. The goal of this exercise is not to create nonsense, but to develop a coherent plot. Sample text:
A: One
B: Day
C: My
D: Father
E: Said
A: That
B: I
C: Should
D: Eat
E: Only
A: Delicious
B: Things
C: Period

We did an improvisation exercise, where two players volunteer and the teacher gives them both separate and secret objectives. It was fun to play, I got lost in the plot, and I also received a good reminder to keep choices personal. Rather than extrapolating about off-stage characters, the action is stronger when it is kept between the two people talking (the two characters that the improvising players are familiar with).

Next worked on a scene (about "Medusa", circa 1995). The scene could be strengthed with stronger objections: there is a need to acquire the information this person has, there are consequences, there is a deadline. Having a controlling idea to carry one through the text makes the text come alive-

In my own experience, this was best demonstrated in an audition that I did at Frenchwoods Festival. Reading the copy that we were to coldread, I understood that it was seduction. And once I understood that all the words were to the point of seduction, I could act within that and make best choices. That was a wonderful audition and a good show to work on.

In this process, I am most interested in discovering what will make me my best self. I mean to contribute to the world as best I can, as a performer, as family, as citizen, as friend.

Something I'm thinking about, not directly related to theatre, is about the helpfulness of apologies. I have been swayed from my thinking that apologies are the best remedy. It seems to me that many people prefer to merely forget the problem and see improved action instead. This confuses me, as in my ideal world, everyone articulates everything completely and communicates fully.

Then again, in any world, there is a time limit.

Here She Is World!

Here's Rose!

Brady Amoon, musical theatre performer
(*extraordinare*)