March 9th, 2009, No Comments »
Today I followed a link and found this story on the BBC website. It’s entitled “Shakespeare’s first theatre found”, and refers to the discovery of the remains of the confusingly-named Theatre, the first theatre in which Shakespeare acted and his plays were performed.
That seemed vaguely familiar to me. Scanning the article, I spotted another headline in the ‘See Also’ section of the sidebar:
That article, from last August, is called “The Bard’s ‘first theatre’ found”. That’s actually when the discovery was announced by a team from the Museum of London. You can read the original Museum of London press release, and today’s subsequent one that spawned the confusing headline. Maybe the BBC needs some kind of “check for duplicate heading” functionality in their content management system?
To make matters worse, the Daily Mail used the headline “Remains of Shakespeare’s first Globe Theatre unearthed in East London”. This is technically accurate, but deeply misleading. In 1599, the Globe Theatre was built with timber from the aforementioned Theatre. The Mail used that headline despite the discovery having been made six months ago, and the Theatre only being tangentially related to the Globe.
And, since I’m being all nitpicky, why does London Museum’s Taryn Nixon refer to The Theatre as “probably the second theatre ever built”? in the video associated with today’s article? What about all those Greek and Roman theatres? Maybe she means “the second theatre ever built in London”?
From a theatre history perspective, this is a really important find. It is, for example, almost certainly where “Romeo and Juliet” was first performed. Appropriately, the Tower Theatre Company plans to build a new theatre on the site.
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February 10th, 2009, 2 Comments »
Lately I’ve been enjoying The Next Stage, a Vancouver blog about the business and marketing of theatre. The other day Simon, the blogger behind The Next Stage, linked to a diverting interview with Jim McCarthy, CEO of Goldstar, which I gather is an American discount ticket seller.
I’m always interested in the business of local, live entertainment, and the interview covers plenty of ground. My favourite bit is McCarthy’s view of advertising:
I’ve literally heard people say they were about to send out 5000 postcards for their show and so they were going to wait to see what happened after those hit before they figured out the rest of their marketing plan. Well, let’s do the math on that: 5000 postcards get delivered, but maybe 20% get read. That’s 1000 postcards. If 10% of the people who read it are interested, that’s 100 postcards, and if 10% of those people actually remember how to buy the tickets and actually go through with a purchase, that’s 10 customers buying a couple tickets each.
The simple fact is that most traditional advertising is overwhelmingly ineffective now. Even “traditional” web advertising has dropped to levels of responsiveness (or unresponsiveness) that we would have been startled by back in ‘98 or ‘99. If you’re counting on some kind of media buy to solve your marketing problems, you’re going to have a hard time hitting your goals, so you have to do something else.
When I give talks, I do my best to disavow any social media marketing zealotry. I emphasize that, at best, this new webby stuff is just another tool in one’s marketing toolbox.
I am a zealot, however, about measuring. I tell whoever will listen that they need to precisely measure every marketing activity they undertake. If they do that, then they’ve got the answer to the frequently-asked question “how should I spend my time?” is simple. If, for example, their billboards and bus shelter ads prove to be a better spend than time spent on Facebook and Twitter, then get thee away from thy computer.
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January 16th, 2009, 3 Comments »
Three years ago, I wrote about the moment that I knew the idea of podcasts had entered the mainstream. A friend from the theatre industry referenced an audio program that they listened to on the BBC. I asked if he had downloaded it, and he replied “no, it’s not a podcast or anything–it’s streaming.”
Last night, I had a similar experience with Twitter. I was at the opening of the Belfry Theatre’s production of “The Real World”, and chatting with two theatre artists before the show. Knowing of my day job and, uh, geeky predilictions, one asked me “what’s this Twitter thing about? Is it some kind of Flickr knockoff?” The other jumped in and said “yeah, I’m hearing about Twitter everywhere. What is it?”
These are both Normal Humans who, I think, view the computer as a tool they occasionally need. When friends and colleagues outside my geeky circle start asking about a technology trend, it’s a good indication that the thing has, as the kids say, tipped.
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November 20th, 2008, 8 Comments »
The Belfry Theatre is, in my view, the best producer of mainstream theatre in the province. They’re more consistent than The Arts Club or The Vancouver Playhouse, and yet they take more risks with the play choices.
Yesterday I got a media release from the Belfry, summarizing their AGM and reporting on their last year’s work. It reminded me that they’re also currently one of the most financially stable and successful theatres that I know of.
They have an huge subscriber base of 6700 people for a theatre that only seats 277. Their average attendance for their mainstage shows last season was a mind-boggling 92%. They recently extended their production runs from four to five weeks when many Canadian theatres are reducing theirs to three.
I’ve always been an keen observer of arts funding and economics, and so was interested to see where the Belfry got its money from. And, as regular readers know, I love a chart. I produced a couple. The first shows where the Belfry’s revenue comes from:
The second shows the blue chunk of the big pie–private fundraising:
I asked Mark Dusseault at the Belfry about why ‘gaming money’, funding from BC Lottery Corporation, is under ‘private fundraising’. He explained that there were various reasons: government accounting practice, no peer review process and the way the money used to be doled out.
When gaming was originally set up we (staff and volunteers from the theatre) had to go and work the events. We spent a couple of days a year either at a bingo parlour or casino. We were, in essence, fundraising. We had to apply to participate and there was no guarantee as to how much money we would make (or lose).
I actually remember doing this once at a casino for some Vancouver theatre company.
The green slice is public money from sundry agencies: Canada Council for the Arts, CRD Arts Development and BC Cultural Services are the biggest contributors. Their entire budget is about $2.3 this year.
Where Does the Money Go?
I suppose the other question is how is that money spent?
I don’t have any great insights into these numbers. I just wanted to explore them a little, and make pretty charts. Do you have any insights?
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November 17th, 2008, 1 Comment »
Last week we had the good fortune to be invited to the opening night of “Brilliant”, an Electric Company show (there’s a company that deserves a Wikipedia entry) playing at the Belfry. Here’s the blurb:
Brilliant! The Blinding Enlightenment of Nikola Tesla is an explosive, extradimensional and alarmingly theatrical exploration of one of the most formidable inventing minds of the past one hundred years.
The story, set in turn of the century New York, chronicles the career of Nikola Tesla, the inventor of alternating current, whose work in the field of electricity ushered-in the modern age.
The show was terrific. It’s the second Electric Company show I’ve seen, and they produce what feels like the most contemporary kind of theatre. It’s lively and detailed and a little provocative. The company draws on all the tools at its disposal–dance, song, gorgeous projections, clever staging–to render a satisfying if ephemeral vision of Tesla’s life. The show was exceptionally well-rehearsed, and the performances, staging and technical aspects were all a delight to watch.
In one scene, Tesla and Edison have a kind of singing and dancing duel at the World’s Fair. In another, Tesla walks among human-sized pigeons whose physicality is extraordinarily bird-like. The piece de resistance is a hilarious rendering of what early film looks like–all silent, flickering and performed at about double speed.
Plenty of Telling, Too Little Showing
One side effect of all this on-stage action is that the few ‘regular’ scenes feel banal and talky. This is probably reinforced by the play’s portrait of Tesla as an hermitic automaton. Very little character gets revealed–nobody really undergoes a change, in the classic dramatic sense. Two supporting characters thus feel pretty moot. In truth, I’d be happy to dispense with them, so that we just experience the dream-like story and stage magic for 90 minutes.
I also wanted a clearer explanation of Tesla’s inventions. The play takes pains to tell us just how extraordinary and ingenious the man was, but pretty much fails at showing us what he did. There’s plenty of talk about alternating current and direct current (wondering illustrated, I might add, with Slinkies), but nobody establishes why one is better. There’s passing mention of other inventions, but we’re mostly expected to take Tesla’s genius as a given. I’m not disputing that genius. But I do think it’s the play’s burden to explain it clearly.
My final complaint is that “Brilliant” was strikingly similar to “Studies in Motion: the Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge” (I wrote a short post about it two years ago). That’s not surprising. They’re both biographical studies of difficult, creative inventors working in the first half of the twentieth century.
All of these are minor criticisms. “Brilliant” has already played in Vancouver (though I gather the Belfry’s is a ‘revamped’ production). But if you get a chance to catch the show, I heartily recommend it.
Alas, the Nerd Bias Reigns Supreme
Incidentally, Tesla’s Wikipedia entry is proof that the online encyclopedia has not beat the nerd bias. I checked a bunch of other Wikipedia entries for towering figures–Ghandi, Mandela, Picasso among others–of the 20th century. Not one of them had an entry as long as Tesla’s.
Disclosures regarding my relationship with the Belfry: I just figured I’d take a shot at this. Let’s see…in my final year of university, I did an independent theatre history study course and wrote a history of the Belfry Theatre. So, you know, I’ve always felt a little indebted. I have written a couple short pieces that, years ago, were presented in the studio theatre there (also, indebted). I have friends and colleagues amongst the Belfry’s artistic staff. Our tickets to the show were comped, because Julie and I have done a very little ad hoc consulting for the Belfry. We seriously considered the Belfry as a venue for our wedding…the list goes on and on.
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July 9th, 2008, 2 Comments »
Back in the late nineties, we ran a little theatre company in Vancouver (also Darren’s First Web Design). We needed a coffin for one of the shows (George F. Walker’s excellent “Theatre of the Film Noir”, if I recall correctly) and, in light of our shoestring budget, couldn’t afford to buy one.
A member of the creative team had a day job in a retail store, and the store had a ton of pallets in the basement. He got the excellent idea to ‘borrow’ a few of these pallets, tear them apart and build a half-decent coffin out of the wood. It worked out nicely.
I remembered this little anecdote when I read about making temporary housing out of pallets:
Pallets are great material for this application because they are sturdy, inexpensive and readily available. In most cases in a disaster relief effort many of the pallets will arrive as part of the transpiration of food and materials requiring no additional logistics to procure them. If more are needed I-Beam states that they can be built by hand at a rate of 500-600 pallets per day. One transitional shelter measuring 10′ x 20′ would take 80 pallets to build and cost approximately $500.
After those darn plastic chairs (put to great use by Brian Jungen), pallets feel like one of the most ubiquitous human-made objects on Earth. Plus, other forms of aid usually arrives at disaster areas on pallets, so nothing goes to waste.
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June 20th, 2008, 3 Comments »
On Thursday night, I was thrilled to see “Dead Man’s Cell Phone”, a play at Chicago’s famed Steppenwolf Theatre. In terms of new American drama, Steppenwolf is one of the more influential companies in the country.
While not being exactly to my tastes, the production was executed at an exceptionally high level. I really enjoyed Polly Noonan’s performance in the lead role. Reading her bio, I noticed that she was credited with an appearance in the 1986 comedy classic, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I couldn’t imagine who she might have played.
When I got home, I looked it up. She’s the “girl on bus”, who Principal Rooney talks to in the closing credits. She has this awesome line:
Gummy bear? It’s been in my pocket; they’re real warm and soft.
Here’s a murky little photo, and here’s some dodgy, auto-playing video. She has the rare honour of being credited in the closing credits before her appearance in the film.
To add to her peculiar resume (don’t get me wrong–she’s done a ton of impressive theatre work), the lower-half of Ms. Noonan’s face appears on the cover of The Lemonhead’s album, “It’s a Shame About Ray”.
While looking for a clip of a young Polly Noonan, I discovered a clip from Siskel and Ebert’s review of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
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May 1st, 2008, 3 Comments »
Just a quick public service announcement in support of the local arts scene. Two plays that sadly, I probably won’t get a chance to see:
Both shows run from May 1 to 10.
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April 11th, 2008, 9 Comments »
First, apologies for the light posting this week. We’re running at 110% at Capulet, writing a book and starting on the house-building process (more on that later), so it’s been a hectic week.
Last night we watched Cat Power (a stage name, as it turns out) at the Vogue Theatre. I don’t have time to produce a fully-nuanced review, but I wanted to make a few observations:
Damn, I’m old. The average age of attendees seemed to be about 25. That’s eight years younger than me. Hopefully that places me in the old-but-still-cool-not-creepy category.
It was general seating at the Vogue. This struck me as odd, as it’s a theatre, but never mind. I got in line at 6:30pm so that I could get good seats. We went in at 8:00pm, and got awesome seats at the centre of the front row of the balcony (hence, nobody standing in front of me).
Despite the ’special guests’ listed on the ticket, there was no opening act Ms. Power didn’t make it on stage until 9:45pm. I’ve written about this before (though I can’t find where, precisely), but why do we permit rock musicians to be so audaciously late? The theatre, movies, ballet, symphony–everybody else starts more or less when they say they will. Why do musicians get a free pass? And you know that Cat Power and her band aren’t backstage doing coke off of strippers. They’re probably just trying to finish Lego Star Wars on their PlayStation Portable.
Their Chaotic and Unpolished Nature
Ms. Power was obviously having difficulty with her monitors (the speakers facing the band that enabling them to hear themselves) all evening. Near the end of the show she apologized for her apparently sub-par performance. According to Wikipedia, she makes a habit of this:
Traditionally, Marshall’s live shows have been notorious for their chaotic and unpolished nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions. Marshall has in the past spoken of her severe stage fright. She has been known to stop playing in order to apologize for a self-perceived flaw in her performance.
Ryan Adams did the same thing when I saw him in Dublin–I find these theatrics tremendously unappealing. If you’re a performing artist, it behooves you to be a professional and keep your complaints and fragile ego to yourself. Drawing attention to your flaws makes the audience uncomfortable, and makes me feel like I’m not getting my money’s worth. Besides, people aren’t paying as much attention as they might think. A musicians has to seriously screw up for the audience to notice.
A Quirky White-Girl Dancer
I did enjoy the show, though Chan Marshall is kind of a one-tricky pony. She’s got an extraordinary and unique voice, but I didn’t hear a lot of variation in her vocal style. Plus, she’s not a particularly articulate singer, so hearing the actual lyrics was a non-starter.
I did enjoy her seemingly-compulsive need to revise songs, both her own and covers. Her version of the Stone’s classic “Satisfaction” was both different from the original and the her version on her Covers album. My favourite Cat Power song, “Lived in Bars”, gained two new tempo changes.
She’s got a peculiar physicality on-stage. She’s a quirky white-girl dancer that’s simultaneously awkward and endearing as she seems to invent new moves on the fly. Physically, she’s the unholy love-child of Joe Cocker and Axl Rose. It’s a bit like she’s still in her teenaged bedroom, dancing alone in front of a mirror.
Would I go see her again? Probably not. Her vocals are remarkable, but her immature behaviour and lack of musical variety kind of turned me off.
UPDATE: Here’s a review from the Vancouver Sun. It shouldn’t, this newspaper continues to surprise with the declining calibre of its writing and reportage. Oy.
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November 14th, 2007, No Comments »
My alma mater, the Theatre Department at the University of Victoria, has recently started something called ‘Spotlight on Alumni’. It’s a kind mini-series of productions produced by and featuring former members of the department.
The producer of Bolloxed, the play I wrote for the 2006 Fringe Festival, suggested that we submit a proposal for a remount in UVic’s 2008/2009 season.
I didn’t much fancy writing a boring dead tree proposal, so I whipped up a little interactive slideshow in Scrapblog. I don’t know if we’ll be sucessful, but it was fun to put together. You can see a small version below, but you’re probably better off checking out the full size one. There’s even some video clips from the show.
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