Rock Trib 2

I just watched a videotape of New Line's very first show back in 1992, a revue I put together called "A Tribute to the Rock Musicals 2." Why "2," you ask? Because I had already done a "Rock Trib 1" with CenterStage Theatre Company, and so though it was New Line's first show, it was my second "Rock Trib."

What a trip to see that show again! (Shhh, don't tell anyone we videotaped it!) I remember at the time getting a lot of attention for it. We got one review, from The Riverfront Times, and it was really positive, not quite a rave, but not far off...

Now watching it 16 1/2 years later, there are a few cringey parts and a lot of brilliant parts, most notably the entire (well, almost) 17-minute Montage ("Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen") from A Chorus Line. It was fun seeing a whole bunch of people I haven't seen in years, some of them in New York, others who knows where...

The most interesting part of the show to me was seeing me stretch my conceptual muscles as a director. I had directed several shows with CenterStage, but none in which I could really experiment. So I tried a shitload of experiments in this show. So many of the tools I use now I can see myself trying them out for the first time in this show. I had never before had complete artistic freedom to do anything I wanted. Some of my experiments didn't totally work; others totally worked.

The funniest thing to me was the show itself. It was less a revue and more a lecture-demonstration. I'm not kidding, it was a lecture on the history of rock musicals. There was actually a "professor" at a podium lecturing between songs. How the hell did I get away with that? But the audience loved it. Watching the video, there's virtually no coughing, rustling, talking, etc. The audience is totally tuned in. Part of that is because the musical numbers had an incredible energy about them, a lot like our much later productions of Bat Boy, The Robber Bridegroom, March of the Falsettos, Assassins. The Riverfront Times review said the cast was "impressively – sometimes overwhelmingly – enthusiastic, talented, skilled, and well-trained."

As that review suggests, the best part of the show was the voices! Jesus, how did we get that lucky on our first show? Almost everyone in the cast had an amazing voice and real control of it. The power ballads rocked. It was one of those shows where the audience actually cheered after some of the songs. What a cool way to start a company like New Line... Sorta like a statement of purpose...

Yup, it's fun to revisit the roots.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

Obama and Us

This has certainly been the most active, most aggressive, most hard-working first two days I've ever seen from a new president! Not just undoing some of Dubya's more obnoxious misdeeds, but also making extremely strong statements about how his administration will operate. Today Obama signed two executive orders that were particularly relevant to what we do.

He put a freeze on senior staff salaries (in other words, no raises), and he announced really strict rules about lobbying his administration. Why? Because he thinks government should be about public service, not personal gain.

And he fuckin' means it, yo.

So why is that relevant to us? Because nonprofit theatres are different from for-profit businesses in one big way. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court decided that arts organizations could have the same nonprofit status and benefits of hospitals, schools, and other social service groups. Why? Because presenting the arts is inherently educational. It is a social service. We are here to serve our community. And too many theatres forget that.

Our primary goal is to serve, not to make money or win awards. (Although, in all fairness, we do have to make enough money to keep the doors open. Still, that is not the primary goal.) We are, by legal definition, a social service organization. That means we always have to be thinking about if we're serving our community, how well we're serving the community, and most of all, how we can better serve our community. That means being aware of racial diversity, onstage, backstage, in the office, and on our board -- so that our company looks like our community. It means doing everything we can to keep ticket prices as low as possible, so that we don't exclude the folks who make minimum wage. It means making it clear to our audiences how our shows relate to events and issues in their real lives, and showing them how powerfully live theatre can address social and political issues. And it also means serving and developing younger audiences.

Obama is trying to make Service to the Community cool again. And here at New Line, we love that. We created the New Line Free Seats last season. We just announced our first college scholarship to be offered. We're working on developing closer relationships with local schools. We're working on making people of color feel more welcome in our casts and audiences. Our board of directors is 28% African American and 14% Asian American, but we're still working on that too.

And we ask our audiences and our supporters to help us with all this. Help us bring in audiences of color. Help us get actors of color to audition for us. Help us reach out to young people. Help us serve our community. And tell us when we fall short. Help us make our corner of the world a little bit better.

We're not just singing and dancing, folks. We're trying to make a difference.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

The Check

This week I begin a long and lonely stretch of seven weeks before I'm back in rehearsal. I haven't had this much time between shows since college. (You know, back when we wrote our papers on typewriters.) The calendar at our new space is really different, but it's a small price to pay for the use of the space.

So I spent the day today uploading production photos to our Facebook page, pretending to myself that was productive in some small way because surely some folks find us by browsing around Facebook and so our Facebook page should be as nice as possible, right...?

Then around 5:00 p.m. I realized I hadn't yet eaten. So I headed out to pick up some Subway, and on my way out I checked the mail. I thumbed through it and, to my great surprise, found a little treasure.

A check to New Line for $10,000.

It happens once a year. Anonymously. And always at exactly the right time. Sounds like a musical, doesn't it?

This has happened several times before, but this was the first time I realized that it means something more than "support" of New Line. It means that this person believes that the work we do matters, that it is important, and that this person trusts us to use their money wisely and effectively to share our art with the community. Writing fundraising letters all the time, I forget what "support" really means. It's not just a compliment. It's a vote of confidence and a vote of trust.

And we have to remember that when we create our work. We owe all those people everything we can give, to make smart, exciting, surprising, provocative, engaging, relevant, emotional theatre. We theatre people sometimes joke about what a shame it is that the days of royal patronage of artists is over. But it's not over; it's just democratized. Now it's public "patronage" of artists. That's the whole point of legal nonprofit status -- the idea that arts organizations are inherently educational and beneficial to the public and therefore should be relieved of tax obligations, so that money can be spent directly on serving the public. The public (though tax policy) pays us to serve them. And we owe them something for their money.

That's my New Year's Resolution: to keep the contributors and audience foremost in my mind all the time. I love my work more than I could ever explain, but we do theatre for the audience, not for us. Without an audience, it's not a performance; it's just a run-through.

Happy New Year!
Long Live the Musical!
Scott

They're ALIVE!

Our revels now have ended. Tonight was our second and final performance of Night of the Living Show Tunes. Both nights went phenomenally well. This was our fourth show at the Sheldon and we're used to getting 100-150 people a night. But this time we got 258 the first night and 225 the second! And what audiences! We could not have asked for better crowds. They listened, they laughed, the cheered -- quite often, in fact. They were so tuned in. I included several story songs this time ("A Trip to the Library," "Fathers and Sons." "And They're Off," "Madeleine," "The World Was Dancing") and the audience just sat riveted. They caught everything, every laugh, every surprise. It was very cool.

Judy Newmark even gave us a mini-review on the Post Dispatch website, singling out several performers and songs for praise. I believe we'll also be getting a review on the KDHX website in a day or so.

I think this was the best of our four outings at the Sheldon so far. I think I'm getting better at putting the song list together, we did the most interesting (and most difficult) material we've ever done in a concert, we had sixteen really talented performers, and there was some wonderful alchemy among this cast. I won't start talking about particular songs or performances because that'd take all night, but it really was amazing.

The part the audience doesn't know is that both nights there were tons of tiny little mistakes, from pretty much everyone, including me on the piano. It kind of freaked some of the newbies last night -- they were beating themselves up over little mistakes. But that's the nature of this particular beast. We put together about thirty songs, including quite a few very challenging group pieces, in a very short period of time. I asked some of our veterans if this material was harder than in years past -- they all said yes. Loudly. Emphatically even.

Hey, I never claimed to make performers comfortable.

Well, it's time to get this tired old body stoned, but let me conclude thusly: It is a genuine big-ass joy to work on material that rich, to perform in a hall that magnificent, with a cast that talented, and to share it all with audiences that warm and receptive. You heard me, a big-ass joy!

Now I'm high on two things! Thank you, cast! You ROCK!

Long Live the Musical!
Scott