Home Page

Turning Our Professions Off

October 20, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

I don’t usually talk about specific actors on the blog but I heard some amazing things in an interview with Terrance Howard on NPR this weekend. I heard the 12 minute version that aired but went and listened to the 40 minute uncut version via the NPR website. (The broadcast version is there as well.) I haven’t been following Howard’s career with any devotion but I may just do so now to see what he is thinking. He seems to have a real sense of his place in the world acknowledging the bonds that run back to his actor/musician great-grandmother, Minnie Gentry, to his mother through him and down to his son. Despite his success, he does a lot of carpentry work professionally and pro bono. His greatest hope seems to be that his son will become the scientist that he wanted to be before acting deflected him from that path.

I am not quite sure if his explanations of scientific matters are completely accurate but I am impressed by his intellectual curiosity and rigorous pursuit of knowledge much the same as I was in Danica McKellar.

What grabbed my attention most was his observations on one consequence of acting being that you insulate yourself from life and begin to observe. In the interview he reflects on this in relation to his mother’s death just two weeks ago.

Starting at about 24:00 full version of the interview-

“As an actor, the saddest thing. You stop experiencing moments. You start watching them as if you are storing them for future reference. … It’s like when I was sitting there with my mother for the last two weeks. There were moments when I couldn’t turn that actor off where I was watching her. You know. And wondering what was going through her mind…And trying to stop myself…”
[…]
The actor sometimes takes over in places that you don’t want it there. Maybe I was just afraid to face the emotion that was happening so then I began to watch.”

This state is difficult for people to deal with, he says, and as a result, “And I think that’s what happens to a lot of actors, and therefore they get hooked on drugs because they’re desperate to get away from not feeling. They want to be excited or something.”

I can empathize because I have had similar experiences. I have difficulty enjoying performances because I analyze how effects are being accomplished or I wonder what is happening backstage. The technical director at work often thinks about how he could improve the lighting for shows or events like weddings. But even outside of performances in real life, I some times realize I am watching myself experience an event. I can’t recall doing so during a something as highly emotional as watching someone die. Certainly, I haven’t filed it away for future use the way Howard suggests he does.

I don’t know whether to pity him for not being able to feel or envy him for being able to insulate himself from negative events. I suppose if he is equally unable to fully experience joyful events, then it is a net detriment.

But I wonder if every vocation doesn’t hold a similar threat. Had he become a famous scientist as he planned isn’t there a chance that he would instead be talking about how science removes the wonder from his life. That he can’t enjoy the rainbows, blowing bubbles and sunsets without analyzing the forces that went into creating them. Perhaps he might talk about how science has isolated him from those he loves because he can’t experience the world with the same joy and wonder they do. As interested as he is in science, he still looks to explain events and occurrences in terms of grandness and wonder. He talks about a soap bubble existing because the universe is finite. Commenters to the NPR piece talk about surface tension.

Even as he looks upon the road not traveled with some bittersweetness, perhaps the lesson he and all of us should take away is that engaging in other interests in the manner of professional-amateurs, we can avoid those aspects which might remove the joy from the pursuit. By pursuing acting as a career, Terrence Howard may have taken on an obligation to examine and distill life in order to advance. By pursuing science out of love, he is not necessarily responsible for defining his relationship with it in a specific way.

General Musings

No Comments

Getting The Dead To Blog For You

October 15, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

Thanks to an interview with librarian on my local public radio station, I became aware of a fascinating blog written from beyond the grave. The grandson of William Henry Bonser Lamin is publishing his grandfather’s letters home from the trenches of WW I exactly 90 years after they were written. The first letter, written on February 7, 1917 was published on February 7, 2007. His grandson had to make some allowances in his publishing schedule since 2008 was a leap year and 1918 wasn’t. But he remains true to all gaps in letters whether due to loss or his grandfather being home on leave. Only the Lamin family knows whether the senior Lamin returned home or perished in the trenches. All misspellings, grammatical errors are preserved.

While the same element of a suspense over an unknown fate may not exist for some of the more famous artists in history but the basic idea might be one arts organizations could use either over the course of a season or in the weeks or months leading up to an event. If the letters are accessible, the organization could post them in some manner appropriate to their plan. What was Tennessee Williams writing in his correspondence while he was writing A Streetcar Named Desire? Or Van Gogh when he painted Starry Night? He had committed himself to a mental hospital at the time so it is sure to pique some interest based on that fact alone even if there is nothing untoward in his letters.

A release plan that was paced slow enough not to overwhelm people or make them feel it was a burden to follow but frequent enough to give people an excuse to return to the website regularly could be welcomed by patrons of all experience levels. This could be a good alternative to attempting to have performers and creative teams contribute to a blog during rehearsal and performance periods. A reproduced letter with notations that the untimely death of a sister referenced by a composer were the primary motivation for a symphony will probably motivate a respectable readership.

The biggest negative I could see if this became a common practice is that those organizations with money and prestige will be able to do more research and gain exclusive access to estate letters. But the less affluent arts organization can still flourish by employing more publicly available materials in a manner that resonates with their community.

Arts in an Age of Technology, Marketing/PR, State of the Arts, Terms and Ideas

1 Comment

Little Bird, Will You Sing For Me?

October 13, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

Short entry today because I am feeling under the weather. I wanted to briefly reflect on my experience appearing on my local public radio’s fund drive.

First of all, we made the goal for the hour which was $500 more than the goal was last year. Even though I am not a public radio employee, I was feeling a little anxious as the end of the hour was approaching and we were still a little ways from our goal. It would be a blow to my pride if they didn’t succeed while I was there. Not only did I want what I was saying on air to be an inducement to pledge, but I was worried that the tickets I was letting them give away as a gesture of appreciation wasn’t being valued by the listening audience. In the end, all the tickets to one of our performances were snatched up.

One of the most interesting things that happened during my time there was that we were getting pledges from people in California and Louisiana. I thought maybe they were from some homesick people listening online. It turned out that the phone volunteers for that hour were self-professed computer geeks and were appealing to people on their extensive Twitter network to pledge. So we had people making $50 donations who never listened to the station based on their relationship with the phone volunteers.

Last month on my Inside the Arts’ neighbor blog, Scanning the Dial, Mike Janssen wrote an entry, “How Classical Stations Could Use Twitter.” I guess this is another use to add to the list. Of course, the use is hardly specific to radio stations. If you and your patrons and donors have an established network, be it on Twitter or some other social network, you might employ this tactic yourself. Renewals may have to be through the same friend rather than your development office because the person won’t have as strong a personal connection to your organization. But this fact will go that much further in convincing your local supporters that their efforts on your behalf matter and are appreciated.

Arts in an Age of Technology, State of the Arts, Terms and Ideas

No Comments

View From The Other Side

October 8, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

Where Are These People Coming From (And Why Aren’t They Attending My Shows?)

Being around theatres for so long, it is easy to become jaded and forget just how wondrous the on stage perspective of the audience seating area can be for people. Over the last few weeks we have had an inordinate number of tour requests. I have easily given more pleasure tours (vs. perspective rental tours) in that period than I have in the previous three years.

Don’t get me wrong, as I have noted in previous entries, I relish any chance to show the facility and brag about it. I certainly welcome the opportunity to increase awareness of our activities. It has been a great time to have tours due to all the activity surrounding our upcoming production. Actors, props people and carpenters have talked to tours about their backgrounds and what they were doing for the show. Even when no one else was around and I had to go turn the lights on in preparation for the tour, there has still been so much hanging or laying around to point to and ignite imaginations.

So Strange and Exotic

But what has never failed to impress people is stepping out on to the stage. As we move from the scene shop on to the stage people catch sight of the hemp fly system which seems strange and exotic to them. If the wings are filled with props and equipment, they catch sight of this as well and get a chance to see through the illusion of what appears otherwise from the audience.

At some point, they end up seeing the audience seating from the stage and for many, this reversed perspective is the most exciting part of the tour. I usually make sure to take people out into the audience area so they can see how much of what was apparent while standing onstage suddenly disappears from their view. Again the realization of how much of the illusion is preserved by distance and limitation of sight lines is often intriguing to people.

A View From The Bridge

Then there are a few choice groups who get to clamber up above the stage to the loading rail of the fly system, across the catwalks over the audience seating area and up above the lighting gird to look down 70 feet to the stage below. That introduces a whole different set of sensations for many people.

Two years ago our technical director took people up on to the roof of our stagehouse and showed them the expansive vista available from that vantage point. Ever since then one of the tour participants as been looking for an excuse to get up there again. A recent conference he organized gave him that excuse. While most chose not to climb out on to the roof, just about everyone was intrepid enough to climb above the grid. The conference organizer pulled me aside yesterday and told me how everyone appreciated the opportunity and how excitedly they spoke about their experience.

I guess it says something about how interesting the experience is that someone would schedule a break in a meeting include a tour of your facility. With that sort of investment in my theatre, I am going to make sure I keep lines of communication open with this guy so that he is always able to advocate and talk about us whenever he is so moved.

It’s Also Greener Over the Septic Tank I Hear

Certainly it is partially a matter of the grass being greener in your neighbor’s yard or one person’s garbage being another’s treasure. For those of us working in these buildings, the space represent challenges. There isn’t enough room in the wings or on the fly system battens to accommodate everything we need to for the show. On the other hand, we would love if the building were smaller so we didn’t have to go so far to change the lamps and gels in the lighting instruments.

For visitors, ours is a mystical land. I know from conversations with the groups, for many it is their first time setting foot in a theatre much less on or backstage. They hardly have any context by which to process the experience much less recognize the limitations we deal with everyday.

Audience Relations, Marketing/PR

No Comments