State of the Arts

As I thought, Drew McManus featured my account of my orchestra attendance on his blog today. I hadn’t expected him to essentially quote my entire letter to him. I am pleased that he did (and corrected some of my lapses where my mind sped along faster than my fingers).

What really tickled me was that Patricia Mitchell quoted from the letter I wrote Drew on her blog, Oboeinsight.com. I guess what I had to say made her happy because her only comment is “YES”

I obviously think my letter on Drew’s blog is worth reading so go take a look!

Just for the record, I did email the marketing person at the Honolulu Symphony and suggested they take part in what I bet will be a national trend by next May. I haven’t heard from her, but considering that they are approaching their season finale and departure of their music director, it is not surprising that she would be concerned with other things.

I would take myself to cultural events more often, but I am such a ungrateful date. I never thank myself for the lovely dinner before hand or the thought that went into picking the event. Sure I am easy and will go home with myself on the first date, but all I get out of the evening is listening to myself snore.

I am sure I will enjoy the experience more if I take a friend the next time as Drew suggests.

I was sort of heart broken to read that the South Jersey Performing Arts Center is going to be closed. SJPAC is located in Camden, NJ and has always been in the shadow of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark when it came to state funding.

In fact, most of the arts organizations in New Jersey’s rural south have been given the short shrift by the NJ legislature until recently. By law, funding was supposed to be distributed equitably between the northern and southern parts of the state. Lawmakers tried to get around that by giving the northern groups more money in return for taking programs to the southern part of the state. A lawsuit straightened that arrangement out a few years ago.

The thing that really makes me sad is that for the second time in three years, through no fault of his own, the executive director, Mark Fields is out of a job. Three years ago, the president of Rowan University decided to close the Glassboro Center for the Arts, a performing arts facility located on the campus.

This raised a bit of a furor because he cited lack of funds despite the fact he had just spent HUGE amounts of money on his own house, including a very expensive piano which neither he nor his wife could play. He also chose that time to pour a lot of money into the football team. As a result, there were fewer opportunities for arts exposure in South Jersey, especially given the fact the facility did a fairly large number of school performances.

The impact of the whole situation was made somewhat better by the fact that Mark would be taking his passion to SJPAC. Now that is gone as well despite the success he brought to the organization.

What’s more, SJPAC is almost the last presenting organization of any size in South Jersey. The state is pretty much deciding to export its citizens’ entertainment spending across the river to Philadelphia. And, of course, it is sending out the message that a cultured populace is not important.

The facility is also about the only one with any ability to serve a large number of school children. And let me tell you, Camden is in pretty sorry shape as it is. Having an oasis of culture upon which to anchor improvements was about the only thing it might have had going for it and now that is gone.

I was reading today about how companies are trying to use graphic novels to get kids interested in reading. I was briefly filled with some hope, thinking that perhaps a child who read a graphic novel of a great work might become interested in seeing a play based on that work too.

Then I remembered it has been tried before.

In the 1940s, Classics Illustrated tried to turn great works into comic books. According to an entry on Toonopedia “The idea behind Classics Illustrated may have been to use the methods of the “enemy” against it, to expose young comic book readers to great literature, and thus awaken their intellectual appetites.”

According to Toonopedia, it didn’t work. There was too much book to squeeze into too few pages. Unfortunately, kids used the books as a substitute for reading the books. A woman who gave me some old Classics Illustrated told me they were the Cliffs Notes of her generation. (Ironically, Cliff Notes were the internet term paper mills of my generation.)

According to the graphic novel article, there seems to be a greater attempt to stay true to the stories and so readers should get more from them than the Classics Illustrated. Though I suspect kids will still hand in papers based on the adaptation rather than the original.

On the other hand, if it provides a degree of cultural literacy where none might exist without them, then bring on the comic books!

I was a monster reader to begin with, but I will admit, I first learned about Crispus Attucks (A black man, he was the first casualty of the American Revolution when he was killed at the Boston Massacre.), George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman and Johnny Cash’s destructive alcoholic life before he found Jesus because I picked up anything that looked like a comic book.

In the 30 years since I picked up the comic book on his life, I have seen Crispus Attucks named mentioned in books maybe 4 times. So in some regard, the medium might actually be more effective at communicating information about important, but generally overlooked people and subjects. The visual format might help students remember the subject matter too. I still remember that Attucks was very mechanically inclined because I can still recall the picture of him working on a clock.

Hard to weigh the pros and cons though. Promoting academic laziness by implying that a graphic novel can replace a book vs. offering visual stimulus to reinforce the information being learned.

A year ago I wrote about how my one sister lives within 10 miles of some of the best theatre and arts venues in NJ, but has a perception that anything not on Broadway isn’t worth seeing (including Broadway tours.)

I have come up against a similar feeling at my current theatre. A graduate of the college is the artistic director of a dance company. He grew up on this side of the island and got his start in modern dance because of the school. He has decided he wants to give something back to the school and our side of the island by doing his shows in my space.

He is getting intense pressure from his board about this decision. His shows haven’t been doing well in our theatre and I feel sort of bad about it. His shows do much better at the big Broadway touring house in town. He barely fills a third of the 1400 seats in that theatre and they charge him much more for renting the place. However, he does attract enough of a crowd to pay his bill and go home with money in his pocket.

When he does a similar show in my 600 seat theatre–which would appear much fuller if he attracted the same crowd–he hardly attracts anyone.

The problem is, people think that if a show was any good, it would be at the theatre in town. This isn’t something I am just assuming–I overheard people reinforce this idea with comments. The most extremely example was when Ladysmith Black Mambazo performed here and sold the house out. Two people arrived late because they went to the theatre in town.

If that wasn’t bad enough–they had called my theatre, ordered the tickets and had them with my theatre’s name emblazoned across them in hand when they arrived! Despite this, the prejudice over powered them and they ended up trying to use the tickets to see Carol Channing.

I can appreciate this artistic director’s dilemmia. I tried to give him an out and pointed that it is tough enough trying to do art these days without purposely placing impediments to making money in your way. (I mean on top of the fact non-profits are not supposed to be covering all their expenses with earned income.)

My concern isn’t really about losing the income from renting to him. I rarely have an open weekend to rent. We are just beginning a partnership to develop a work for a world premiere in Fall 2006. I am excited by his vision and really want my theatre to be associated with the work.

With all the related educational programs being developed in conjunction with a museum and local arboretum, I don’t think we will have any problem creating enough buzz between now and the opening to overcome the perception that we present substandard work. We should have very nice attendance.