I know that's probably the most pretentious title ever but it does leave me wondering.
Mostly because there are two plays I haven't seen yet in NYC and I really want to go,
TRIBES and Annie Baker's UNCLE VANYA.
I've heard mixed things about TRIBES but I still want to see it. And of course I adore Annie Baker.
There's something about her plays that appeal to me.
They are plays I want to work on with my friends.
I like them because they aren't what I consider "the cool kid plays," "NYC Hip," or as I prefer to call them, "Look at me I'm so smart and I'm going to be emotionally selfish." Yeah I hate those plays and New York is full of them. (Sorry fellow playwrights.)
The crazy thing is, UNCLE VANYA isn't my favorite Chekhov play. But I'm excited like it's the opening of a the new Dark Night movie.
So back to my original question: why do we go to the theatre?
For myself, I go when I can afford it. (A movie is so much cheaper.)
When someone else drags me. (I'm a bit of a shut in.)
When a friend is in something. (That's why I go to half of the plays I see.)
When I don't have to pay for it. (Yup, I'm a jerk but 99.9% of the theatre I see in NYC is pretty awful, so why pay?)
The sad truth is, I don't go because I want to.
I'm a theatre artist and I don't go to the theatre of my own free will. I go out of obligation.
Shoot me.
Seriously.
Please.
I should be ashamed of myself.
I actually started making a conscious effort to avoid theatre. Every day I was getting hit with things from every friend I know inviting me to their show. Most of them bad. I can't really afford to see all of this crap anyway, so why should I go? To see you or go to see a good show?
Get ready fellow theatre makers, here's me being a complete douche, "Please stop making bad theatre."
There's a reason I don't work in a lot of NYC theatre anymore. I started saying no to projects.
I would audition and they would call me back and after having met the creative teams and realizing they were morons who found money, I started saying no to things. I refuse to be in a show (when I'm not really making any money) that I think is bad.
It started one day with an offer to do some really bad avant garde Shakespeare project downtown. In the call back I realized I knew more about how to speak and how to interpret The Bard than the people who were supposed to be in charge.
They were victims of the school of, "I never learned what the rules are, so I'm going to break them all HAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!
I hate those people. You shouldn't be allowed to color outside the lines until you've at least made an effort to color inside them.
When the offer came in I told my agent, no. That I would be miserable. And low and behold, he understood. (Oh how I loved that agent!)
So that's how it started. The power of no. I stopped auditioning for crap I didn't want to be in.
Terrible ideas are terrible ideas. A bad play will almost always be a bad play.
I refuse to be that guy who works for the sake of working. (At least in the theatre.) I'd rather spend my time at home with my loved ones or writing a new script than being a part of a show that I think sucks. I don't want to be bitter about being at the theatre and feeling like we are wasting the audience's time.
I'm tired of being ashamed. (At least when it comes to theatre. There's too much work and not enough money involved. A commercial or TV gig? Bring it on, I'm shameless. Mostly because it asks so little of the audience. The theatre asks a lot out of the audience.)
Now I should also turn this back on myself. Wesley, you currently run a theatre. That's true.
As a playwright, I write stories that I have to write, that I have to tell. I don't put on plays for the sake of putting on plays.
Everyone, please promise me this. No one ever work with me or my theatre for sake of putting on a play. Unless you feel a burning in your heart that you have to be a part of this project, please, go somewhere else.
There is no money in off-off Broadway. So let's tell stories we think are cool, awesome, that the audience the will learn from - let's do it to change people in some fashion and to entertain.
NOT for the sake of being on stage.
Please don't waste my time because of a need to validate your expensive BFA or MFA.
I'm just saying.
I love my art.
I feel like I have to protect it.
Let's conspire to be brilliant and leave the audience different from when they walked in. Since we are asking so much from our audience, let's give them two-fold back in return.
If I don't go to the theatre, why am I excited at the prospect of these two plays?
I don't know. I can't articulate it yet. I have hope that what these plays ask of me as an audience member will be returned in spades.
But I am going to make this promise. I'm going to go see more theatre of my own free will.
Yup. I'm going to spend more time looking for plays that I want to see.
I'm going to invest in the theatre in a larger way. As an audience member by choice.
I want to be entertained or I want to be moved. Hopefully both.
Until next time True Believers . . .
