Say Musicals Aren’t Serious Drama, But They Are Seriously Hard To Emulate

Telling a story in an interesting and compelling way ain’t easy. Sure, we all know that, but an article about efforts Chinese creatives are making to tell their own stories through musical theater reminds us it isn’t as easy as it looks.

Broadway and West End musicals are pretty popular in China, but Chinese artists understandably have a desire to see works with domestic origins onstage as well. While China has opera traditions that were considered to have reached their maturity 800 years ago, the basic format and practices don’t easily translate over to musical theater conventions.

“People prefer to see foreign musicals because they’re more mature productions,” said Jin. “Our original musicals still have many issues — with the market, theaters, production, rehearsals.”

One particular issue, believes Qiu, is that Chinese musicals suffer from clumsy scripts. Many playwrights consider musicals to be simply a matter of “adding a storyline to a gala” or “a drama plus songs,” he said.

“Our creators and producers are lagging behind actors and musicians,” said Jin. “They need to slowly work out the laws of musicals.” Jin believes that most local productions are hastily thrown together without a clear development process; he previously complained… that domestic productions focus too much on visuals and too little on the music and script.

In contrast, Zhou pointed out, successful international productions often center on strong narratives and timely themes. “Americans are good at telling stories; they’re good at finding problems that exist in the here and now,” she said. ….“Only when we find things that we want to express will we truly find the soul of original musicals,” Zhou said of Chinese productions, which she believes rarely address contemporary societal issues. “Only then will musicals really be good and will people really want to see them.”

The lesson I take from the perspective of outsiders trying to adopt the form is that we often take for granted just how much development, both rapid innovation and quiet increments, has been involved in familiar modes of artistic expression.

Last year I saw an Ira Gershwin musical from the 1930s that sounded good on paper but left me wondering how it had won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The experience gave me a greater appreciation as to why shows like Oklahoma! were considered groundbreaking for unifying story, song and dance. So much of what I expect from musical theater is a result of the changes Oklahoma! brought to the stage. No one could imagine hewing to the previous conventions after that.

Given that the performing arts in the West are faced with a similar challenge of finding a new narrative with which their audiences can relate, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that Chinese creatives might help provide the template for doing so.

Know Thy Self And Don’t Keep It A Secret

Last month Barry Hessenius made a post that expanded on a concept proposed management guru Peter Drucker’s article, “Managing Oneself,” that I wrote on a decade ago.

Drucker had suggested that people understand how they work and then communicate that to other people to help others help you to be more effective.

“Whenever someone goes to his or her associates and says, “This is what I am good at. This is how I work. These are my values. This is the contribution I plan to concentrate on and the results I should be expected to deliver,” the response is always, “This is most helpful. But why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

And one gets the same reaction – without exception, in my experience-if one continues by asking, “And what do I need to know about your strengths, how you perform, your values, and your proposed contribution?” In fact, knowledge workers should request this of everyone with whom they work, whether as subordinate, superior, colleague, or team member. And again, whenever this is done, the reaction is always, “Thanks for asking me. But why didn’t you ask me earlier?” Organizations are no longer built on force but on trust. The existence of trust between people does not necessarily mean that they like one another. It means that they understand one another.”

Hessenius suggests very much the same thing in the context of writing a “Users Manual” for others. He cites some suggestions made by Abby Falik, founder and CEO of Global Citizen Year,

She synthesized these answers into a six-section manual: Note: See link for her excellent user manual for ideas.

My style
What I value
What I don’t have patience for
How to best communicate with me
How to help me
What people misunderstand about me

Then he added some of his own suggestions:

Here are some variations of the above (with just a couple of ideas in each) along the same theme:

How I communicate – preferences (e.g., do you prefer direct contact, phone calls, emails, tweets, Facebook or something else)
What’s important to me in workplace relationships (e.g., do you like blunt, direct communication or do you prefer gentle tact)
What I don’t like, what I try to avoid (e.g., do you abhor people who are late, or are you flexible with timelines? Do you like ad hoc conversations or consider them a waste of your time?)
How you can help me work better……
How I can help you work better…….
Things that don’t mean much to me (e.g., is getting credit really important or is the idea itself what you are after?)
What I’m not so good at, but trying to improve (e.g., do you have a short fuse or are you calm and steady; are you detailed oriented or a big picture person?)
Bad habits that drive me crazy (e.g., does it make you crazy when people tell you they will call you in the afternoon with an answer and then don’t?)

Hessenius’ thoughts are a good update from Drucker’s original concept given the advances in technology since Drucker originally wrote “Managing Oneself.” What technologies and methods of communication people are comfortable using might be included in the manual.

Since there is a blurring line between work and personal time, someone might want to declare whether they are open to being contacted after 5 pm, on weekends and vacation periods. Likewise, organizations might declare their values are that no one is expected, overtly or tacitly, to regularly work or respond outside of regular business hours.

Indeed, since there so many options and opportunities for collaborating to reach certain goals than in the past, the necessity of creating a statement about your process and expectations may be more of a requirement than an option.

It also occurred to me that someone might be inspired to use such an “owners manual” at some point in a romantic relationship. While I honestly think it could help avoid a good deal of misunderstanding and miscommunication, when I imagine people using it, I envision Frazier and Lillith from Cheers. (I am sure there is probably a similar scene from Big Bang Theory, but you gotta love the classics)

The Secret of Magic (And Pretty Much Everything Creative)

I was catching up on episodes of This American Life this weekend and came across a great piece that illuminates so many underappreciated elements of the creative process.

They speak to Teller of the duo Penn & Teller about a magic trick he worked on.  It was a re-imagining of a trick that was created in 1920s/30s so you might think the adaptation process would be relatively easy but it took him 18 months to get it to the point he was satisfied with it.

To some extent, mastering the technical aspects were easy compared to being satisfied with the framework of the trick.  Teller’s partner Penn disliked the trick, even when it eventually became part of the show but there were points in the process where he hated it. When it became part of the show, he just disliked it because it wasn’t too his taste. Still there was a point where Penn told Teller he would be fine with making it part of the show but Teller wasn’t satisfied and kept working on the presentation.

What I loved about the story is that it explored all the elements that went into the creation of the piece: How Teller would work on the trick every evening after the Vegas show and in his pajamas while on vacation. All the input Teller got from different people about how to frame the trick. What bits of psychology and storytelling are important to creating and presenting a trick.

Perhaps most significantly, despite the long,  uncomfortable series of conversations Penn and Teller had about the trick. These type of conversations have been part of a 40 year partnership.

Ira Glass

… Here are these two men, who respect each other but don’t socialize or hang out together, who have been arguing, they say, constantly and fiercely, but productively, for over 40 years, and Penn knows how much work Teller has put into this trick and how much he would enjoy performing it every night.

Penn Jillette

He’s not saying this outright, but it’s implicit. This is beautiful. This is mystifying. This is entertaining. People will love it. It’s really important to me. All those five things are true. So it’s very, very uncomfortable.

Ira Glass

Uncomfortable because Penn agrees. It’s a great trick. It totally works. He just doesn’t like it. It doesn’t feel like their show to him, this red ball that’s also a disobedient puppy….

Part of the solution that gets the trick on stage is letting the audience in on part of the secret—the trick is done with a piece of thread. This actually isn’t ground breaking given that Penn and Teller are known for telling people how tricks work. They believe this adds to the enjoyment of the trick.

Teller

If you understand the good magic trick, and I mean really understand it right down to the mechanics at the core of its psychology, the magic trick gets better, not worse.

[…]

Ira Glass

Teller gestures to the ball like he’s summoning it with his hand and it glides along the thread to him. That’s the sound you’re hearing. Now, what’s mind-bending is that David and I can actually see that he’s tilting the thread downwards and that’s why it slides towards him. We can see the ball’s on a thread. We can see how it’s done. We hear it sliding along.

David Kestenbaum

God, that’s pretty.

Ira Glass

And at the same time, it totally looks like he’s this sorcerer who enchanted this inanimate object into obeying him.

David Kestenbaum

That is so beautiful, actually, when you see the thread.

[…]

Ira Glass

He then takes the hoop and spins it around the ball in various ways, which makes it look like there can’t possibly be a thread there. But of course, we can see the thread.

David Kestenbaum

Can I say that’s crazy? That’s so convincing. Your brain really cannot sort that out.

Teller

Your brain cannot sort this out. It’s visual double-talk. It’s amazing. I’m sitting here and I’m doing it, and it’s still fooling my brain.

I felt like this provided some reaffirmation about inviting people to witness and participate in the creative process. If even the guy who knows exactly how it is done is fascinated, how much greater still is the enjoyment of the people who are allowed to witness the secret?

The secret isn’t just the technical execution of the trick. It is understanding what makes your mode of creative expression work. It is the commitment to not settling. It is acknowledging that conflict is part of productive partnerships.

I have written before about how often we just assume a great idea or skilled execution springs fully formed from the brain of geniuses whose abilities we can’t match. The truth is pretty much every creative work or idea is the either directly or indirectly the culmination of previous efforts.

As I listened to the program, I also realized that it isn’t just enough to literally or figuratively give a back stage tour in an effort to provide insight into the process. Backstage tours can be illuminating and intriguing for those who have never been, but they also tend to present a superficial perspective into what really goes on.

It is one thing to say people work together to develop elements of a performance. When you talk about the challenges Teller faced in developing a trick, how he sought to resolve them and how sometimes the solutions were perceived as worse, it provides much deeper dimension to the concept of working together to develop something.

How to do that effectively is called good storytelling. Sometimes you need someone else to help you do it. Could Penn and Teller have told that story in 20 minutes or was This American Life best suited to the task?

Here is a video of the trick by the way. You may actually enjoy it more if you listen to how it came together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZDoXUWGhtQ

Hoping To Not Just Change The Name, But The Smell Of The Rose As Well

In the last couple weeks two arts service organizations have taken the arguably long overdue step toward establishing greater parity among their members.

Last week at the Arts Midwest Conference, Ohio Arts Presenters Network (OAPN) president Robert Baird announced that the organization would be changing its name to Ohio Arts Professionals Network. While the acronym remains the same, the change was effected to acknowledge that agents, artists and other professionals were members of the organization.

Today, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) made a similar announcement that going forward they would be the Association of Performing Arts Professionals.

This isn’t the first time APAP has changed its name to reflect the composition of its membership. It started in 1957 as Association of College and University Concert Managers (ACUCM). In 1973 it changed to Association of College, University and Community Arts Administrators (ACUCAA) and became Association of Performing Arts Presenters in 1988 to acknowledge the membership wasn’t primarily based in higher education any longer. (Though I think ACUCAA, pronounced ah-koo-kah, was a lot more fun to say than APAP)

More than just superficially changing the name, APAP committed to a new program to help artists become members,

In addition to the updated name, this year the organization has introduced a pilot initiative called Artist Access, a one-year introductory membership program allowing qualified individual professional artists who have never been an organizational member of APAP, and who have never attended APAP as a full registrant, to become an APAP member and attend its annual members conference at reduced rates. More information is found at artistaccess.apap365.org.

Certainly, there is more work to be done to help everyone feel like an equal member of the respective organizations. (As with my cable company’s special pricing, I wonder where are the discount and benefits for long term loyal artists who have felt marginalized.) The format of the artist/agent/presenter interactions at the conferences often leave all involved feeling uncomfortable.

There have been efforts to change this situation. Over a decade ago, the Western Arts Alliance started experimenting with the physical layout of their conference, seeking to change the power dynamic.  Along with the name change, last week OAPN expressed their commitment to making attendance at their conference feel less confrontational by shifting the focus to a block booking format where artists, agents and presenting organizations sit down and try to set up beneficial routing arrangements that save the presenters money and get the artists working.

It will be interesting to see how these efforts develop and what new initiatives emerge to address concerns about the state of this corner of the creative and culture industry.