Yes, my mid-season intermission continues, driving me ever closer to madness each day it trudges on, seeming to get no nearer to that first Assassins rehearsal... Help meeeee....
Today, Judith Newmark, theatre critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, published her annual "Judy Awards," a nice way to wrap up the year and pay some compliments to the theatre community. Luckily for us, Judy usually likes our work a lot, and she has honored us with either a "Best Musical" or "Most Ambitious Production" every year (except one) since 1997. This year, she gave us the nod for our Urinetown, of which I was mighty proud, thank you very much.
There used to be a lot of year-end reviews, but there are only three now -- the Post, the Ladue News, and the Riverfront Times. Of course, Dennis Brown is the main reviewer at the RFT and we banned him from our theatre in 2004 (he compared The Nervous Set to a stillborn baby in his review, how fucked up and creepy is that?), so that means our shows won't be making an appearance in the RFT's retrospective any time soon. A small price to pay, though, for the deep satisfaction of banning a needlessly hostile critic. And though Mark Bretz of the Ladue News generally likes our work, he's been raving about us less than he used to.
There are two or three local reviewers who are writing fewer and fewer good things about us lately -- even though our audiences and the other reviewers seem to think our work is just getting better and better. Don't get me wrong, we still get pretty strong reviews most of the time, but a few of the local reviewers just don't like our shows the way they used to.
That might bother me, might make me question our work, except that our audiences still seem to love our shows. We sell out a lot (probably less now that we're in a bigger house), and the company remains very successful. I think what's at play here is that we're evolving as a company, doing more and more adventurous work, breaking more and more rules. This last show, Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll was a genuinely abstract evening of theatre and followed very few of the rules of musical theatre. Some reviewers find that stimulating and fun; others find it disorienting and unsettling. So it seems we may be doomed to a perpetual mixed reception, some reviewers loving our work, some fairly hostile to it, with our audience mostly on the "loving it" side.
And though I can dismiss some of their criticisms as just ignorance of what we're attempting, I also have to be careful not to get too smug or contented with the quality of our work. I always have to question in the back of my fevered brain whether we're doing the best work we can, whether we continue to challenge ourselves and take risks. I never can get overly comfortable with the sweeping generalization that the naysayers just don't "get it." That's a slippery slope...
I guess we're lucky that Judy Newmark and Calvin Wilson, the two reviewers for the Post, really do get our work and they routinely write intelligent, insightful reviews about our shows. That's not to say their reviews are always raves, but they do get us, and that's pretty terrific considering we're in culturally conservative St. Louis, in the shadow of the Muny and Stages. (There are quite a few excellent reviewers at KDHX who like our work as well.)
I suppose if we wanted everyone to love us, we'd have to be pretty bland -- Pajama Game, anyone? A fate worse than fuckin' death by mega-musical, in my humble opinion...
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
This is a long intermission...
Yes, I'm still between shows and it's driving me crazy. We closed the infamous Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll on October 20 and we're still not starting Assassins rehearsals for another two and a half weeks! My head may explode. I'm caught up on paperwork, I've got next season pretty much set, I've updated and partially redesigned our website, and I've even started working on a song list for our next concert at the Sheldon in January 2009. Quick, someone get me into rehearsal before I end up writing a sequel to Johnny Appleweed!
(One of the things I've done in my boredom was create a secret link on our website -- go to our homepage, scroll down to the picture of the 2001 Hair tribe, and click on it...)
Well, at least with all this down time, I'll be ridiculously prepared when rehearsals start. Famous last words.
I keep running into people who gush, "I can't wait to see Assassins!" I hope that translates into ticket sales. This will be our third run at this show, but it sold great both other times, so I assume it will this time too. And it's been ten years since we did it last, so a fair amount of the regular New Line audience wasn't with us yet back then and haven't seen the show...
We have some terrific, artsy, new designers -- Steve Moore designing lights and David Carr designing sets (with his co-conspirator Jeff Breckel), which I'm very psyched about!
And what a kick-ass cast we've assembled! It's mostly another New Line All-Stars (like Bat Boy was), but we've also got two new faces, Bob Mitchell (artistic director of The NonProphet Theatre Company) and Andrew Keller. Here's the cast:
But until we start on January 14, I'm BORED! So send me an email. Or a male escort. Or some banana bread.
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
(One of the things I've done in my boredom was create a secret link on our website -- go to our homepage, scroll down to the picture of the 2001 Hair tribe, and click on it...)
Well, at least with all this down time, I'll be ridiculously prepared when rehearsals start. Famous last words.
I keep running into people who gush, "I can't wait to see Assassins!" I hope that translates into ticket sales. This will be our third run at this show, but it sold great both other times, so I assume it will this time too. And it's been ten years since we did it last, so a fair amount of the regular New Line audience wasn't with us yet back then and haven't seen the show...
We have some terrific, artsy, new designers -- Steve Moore designing lights and David Carr designing sets (with his co-conspirator Jeff Breckel), which I'm very psyched about!
And what a kick-ass cast we've assembled! It's mostly another New Line All-Stars (like Bat Boy was), but we've also got two new faces, Bob Mitchell (artistic director of The NonProphet Theatre Company) and Andrew Keller. Here's the cast:
Aaron Allen (Oswald), Aaron Benedict (Guiteau), Christopher "Zany" Clark (Czolgosz), Brian Claussen (Byck), Cindy Duggan (Moore), Matthew Korinko (Booth), Amy Leone (Fromme), Scott Tripp (Zangara), Jeffrey Wright (Hinckley), Robert Mitchell (Balladeer), Zachary Allen Farmer, Alison Helmer, Andrew Keller, Terry Love, and Kimi Short. The show will be directed by Scott Miller and Khnemu Menu-Ra, with costumes by Russell Bettlach, sets by David Carr and Jeff Breckel, and lighting by Steve Moore.
But until we start on January 14, I'm BORED! So send me an email. Or a male escort. Or some banana bread.
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
INTERMISSION
We had our seventh annual New Line holiday dinner this week and so I'm thinking about New Line tonight, its creation, its success, its longevity, its adventurousness, its national reputation. I'm thinking about what it is that has given us such success for so long. Is it that we say fuck on stage a lot? Is it that the majority of our shows kill off main characters? Is it that we use nudity once in a while? Is it that we all seem batshit fucking crazy? (Yeah, crazy like a fox... a fox who loves musicals and curses a lot... and kills people...)
Yes, probably all those things are factors (especially when it comes to our more fucked-up audience members), but I think there's more to it. I think a lot of our success boils down to some things that happened very early in the company's history, going back sixteen years.
Holy shit, sixteen years?!? Am I really that old? Yes I am, and I have a body to prove it.
From our very first show in 1992, we made a personal label out of our company name -- we were The New Liners. It just happened. Everybody working with us adopted that phrase. Even the press did after a while. And that changed the experience of doing a show with us in a fundamental way -- New Line wasn't just a company, it was an identity.
And that also led us to think of ourselves from the very beginning as a family -- not in a schmaltzy, warm-fuzzy, Michael Landon kinda way, but in a palpable, deeply interconnected sense. So many actors have told me that this is one big difference between New Line and a lot of other companies: actors (and designers and musicians and techies) work with other companies, but they become a permanent part of ours. Even if they only do one show with us, they are forever a New Liner (it's like herpes -- you can control it, but you can't cure it). During every show we do, some actor who's working with us for the very first time will nonetheless ask what shows "we" are doing next season. They become a part of the tribe without even realizing it.
I've also always been very conscious of watching my pronouns. I try never to talk about New Line in terms of "I" or "me" -- I make it a habit to always say "we" and "ours." And I believe that has an impact.
We also (unconsciously) created a company that has the feel of a Cool Kids' Club (perhaps to soothe the wounds of being "drama geeks" in high school?). We refer to our work as "alternative," we say fuck onstage a lot (and I mean, a lot), we use nudity, we use rock & roll. We frequently worry what our parents will think of what we're putting onstage. I can still see Jeff's mom in the audience, shaking her head, while Jeff is running around the Rocky Horror set in his gold thong. We are seen by many local theatre people and audiences to be among the hipsters of St. Louis theatre. They see us as adventurous, fearless, a little crazy, even radical. And a lot of people want to be part of something like that.
And others find it terrifying...
And all that, in turn, leads to something else really wonderful. Many of the people who work with us start to think of themselves for the first time as artists. They come to believe that theatre is important and that what we do serves the community in an important way, that what we do isn't just putting on a show; it's creating art. Some say there are two approaches to theatre: the cathedral and Broadway. We believe in the cathedral approach, that theatre is sacred, that art is how you touch God (but not in an inappropriate Catholic priest kinda way). For many actors and designers, they've never thought about theatre that way before and it is incredibly empowering. It gives them the courage to take gigantic risks because they see that there is a goal bigger than just their own personal satisfaction or nice reviews.
Now in our seventeenth season, New Line has a core group of 30 or so actors who come back season after season, we have a terrific group of loyal contributors, and an ever-growing audience of adventurous theatre lovers who come back show after show not because they think every show will be perfect (I'm sure some of them dislike some of our weirder shows), but because they know every show will be an adventure. They don't come to be safe; they come to go on a ride. Well, some come to be safe, but they don't generally come back... so fuck 'em.
So it's up to us to never let them down, to never shy away from challenging material (or an exposed penis), to never doubt the intelligence or daring of the community we serve. I hope that we will always be worthy of them.
Just a little nonprofit existentialism between shows...
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
Yes, probably all those things are factors (especially when it comes to our more fucked-up audience members), but I think there's more to it. I think a lot of our success boils down to some things that happened very early in the company's history, going back sixteen years.
Holy shit, sixteen years?!? Am I really that old? Yes I am, and I have a body to prove it.
From our very first show in 1992, we made a personal label out of our company name -- we were The New Liners. It just happened. Everybody working with us adopted that phrase. Even the press did after a while. And that changed the experience of doing a show with us in a fundamental way -- New Line wasn't just a company, it was an identity.
And that also led us to think of ourselves from the very beginning as a family -- not in a schmaltzy, warm-fuzzy, Michael Landon kinda way, but in a palpable, deeply interconnected sense. So many actors have told me that this is one big difference between New Line and a lot of other companies: actors (and designers and musicians and techies) work with other companies, but they become a permanent part of ours. Even if they only do one show with us, they are forever a New Liner (it's like herpes -- you can control it, but you can't cure it). During every show we do, some actor who's working with us for the very first time will nonetheless ask what shows "we" are doing next season. They become a part of the tribe without even realizing it.
I've also always been very conscious of watching my pronouns. I try never to talk about New Line in terms of "I" or "me" -- I make it a habit to always say "we" and "ours." And I believe that has an impact.
We also (unconsciously) created a company that has the feel of a Cool Kids' Club (perhaps to soothe the wounds of being "drama geeks" in high school?). We refer to our work as "alternative," we say fuck onstage a lot (and I mean, a lot), we use nudity, we use rock & roll. We frequently worry what our parents will think of what we're putting onstage. I can still see Jeff's mom in the audience, shaking her head, while Jeff is running around the Rocky Horror set in his gold thong. We are seen by many local theatre people and audiences to be among the hipsters of St. Louis theatre. They see us as adventurous, fearless, a little crazy, even radical. And a lot of people want to be part of something like that.
And others find it terrifying...
And all that, in turn, leads to something else really wonderful. Many of the people who work with us start to think of themselves for the first time as artists. They come to believe that theatre is important and that what we do serves the community in an important way, that what we do isn't just putting on a show; it's creating art. Some say there are two approaches to theatre: the cathedral and Broadway. We believe in the cathedral approach, that theatre is sacred, that art is how you touch God (but not in an inappropriate Catholic priest kinda way). For many actors and designers, they've never thought about theatre that way before and it is incredibly empowering. It gives them the courage to take gigantic risks because they see that there is a goal bigger than just their own personal satisfaction or nice reviews.
Now in our seventeenth season, New Line has a core group of 30 or so actors who come back season after season, we have a terrific group of loyal contributors, and an ever-growing audience of adventurous theatre lovers who come back show after show not because they think every show will be perfect (I'm sure some of them dislike some of our weirder shows), but because they know every show will be an adventure. They don't come to be safe; they come to go on a ride. Well, some come to be safe, but they don't generally come back... so fuck 'em.
So it's up to us to never let them down, to never shy away from challenging material (or an exposed penis), to never doubt the intelligence or daring of the community we serve. I hope that we will always be worthy of them.
Just a little nonprofit existentialism between shows...
Long Live the Musical!
Scott
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