Tag Archives: theatre

The Liminal Space

{05 August 2020}

I made a thing. :)

https://www.courttheatre.org/about/blog/the-liminal-space/

The genesis for the project came from a visit I made to the theatre about two months after we closed everything down. Everything happened so suddenly; we closed THE LADY FROM THE SEA a few hours before the first preview and there was no chance to clean up or strike anything. 
When I did return to check on the building and pick up a few items we needed for working remotely, walking back into the theatre was a sort of punch in the gut. Everything was right where we’d left it. The stage manager’s prompt book lay open on her table. The director’s music stand. My special tech coffee mug. Props on shelves backstage and costumes hung up haphazardly in the dressing rooms. The circle of chairs on stage where the acting company gathered as we wrestled with whether or not to close the show. It reminded me of my first visit to Pompeii, the way everything was just frozen in time. 


It’s a ritual of mine to sit alone in a darkened theatre, usually after everyone else has gone home at the end of a long tech day. I tell myself that it’s inertia keeping me in my seat, that I’m too tired to face the commute home just yet. But really, those moments of stillness are like church for me. It’s when I reconcile with my love for the theatre despite all of the difficulties. It erases the doubts. And I tap into the energy of all the actors and audience and emotions that have inhabited the space in the past. I first discovered this ritual while working in my spooky old college auditorium and have been doing it ever since. 


So, returning to the theatre after our hasty departure gave me a chance to sit in a seat and absorb all those feelings the way I used to do at the end of a long tech day. It felt raw and beautiful and tragic – exactly the way live theatre should be. And I wondered if there was a way to capture and share that experience. Coincidentally, that same day, our Director of Marketing emailed me to say that she’d heard of a theatre in the UK that had set up a webcam on stage, and could we do something like that? Boom. The project was born. 


 I tasked our Sound and Video Supervisor with figuring out how we might set up a live stream of the theatre and operate the video projectors and audio remotely and our Master Electrician with getting a set of programmable LED light bulbs.  I borrowed a set of 4 ghost lights from Manual Cinema (because weirdly, we’ve never owned one). We reached out to the artistic team to see if they were comfortable with my repurposing their work for this new thing we had in mind. I asked the marketing team if “The Liminal Space” was too nerdy a title (they reassured me that nothing is too nerdy for UChicago). 


And so we launched it at the end of June.  Some days I visit (virtually) and monkey with the lighting multiple times a day, other days it feels too raw for me to open the link at all. In my work as a Production Manager, I support/shepherd/facilitate the artistic process, but I rarely get to curate any work of my own. I was touched by the response from many of my fellow theatre artists. (It turns out I’m not the only one who likes to sit in an empty dark theatre. :) 


As I write this, the piece is nearing the end of it’s first phase: a sort of meditation on what we created, and lost, with THE LADY FROM THE SEA. The sound effects, music, video and visual elements are all from work that was created for that show. Next I hope to expand out to video and audio from other Court productions as we celebrate all the spectacle, large and small, that has taken place over the past 40 years. After that I’d like to invite other artists into the space to use the set as a sort of canvas for their own work: a multimedia artist might use the video projectors to share something, or a musician might use the stage for a live solo concert. In its final stage, I hope to leave the camera on as we dismantle the set and return the stage to empty in preparation for moving forward into the next phase. Only then will we turn the camera off and “go dark.”

Press:

https://www.hpherald.com/arts_and_entertainment/theater/court-theatres-the-liminal-space-is-more-than-it-may-seem/article_8204c1f2-c220-11ea-a254-2bbdab1b1282.html

https://www.americantheatre.org/2020/07/07/onscreen-this-week-and-beyond-midsummer-nights-streams/

art by the numbers

{11 January 2010}

this is probably the wisest and most succinct summary of my job that i’ve heard in a long time:

“We have three variables which are finite, and none are personal. Time, Money, Labor. It’s all just an algebraic equation from there.

How well these are applied to an artistic, flexible, emotional outcome is the art of the production manager.” – M. Botosan

sometimes i LOVE my professional network.

no longer unemployed

{01 July 2009}

i’ve started and failed to finish a whole series of posts about my new home (lots of spiders, deer in the front yard at twilight) and new town (people are so small-town quirky and friendly, it’s like i live in the west coast version of that town the Girlmore Girls live in, only everyone here is all tanned and into mountain biking after work).

i’ll get to some of that, but the past few evenings, given the complete lack of nightlife/social life here in the MV, back aching from shoving boxes to and fro all day, i’ve curled up in my arm chair in the front room and read or re-read all the scripts of the plays we are producing this season*. and they are great. all of them. it’s good to have a reminder of why i did all this: why i put myself through all the work of itemizing and evaluating and selling or donating or packing and unpacking and sorting every one of my belongings, the administrative detritus of closing and reopening utilities and bank accounts and registrations and addresses, through the dismantling of my personal life and all the doubts and regrets and heartache i’ve incurred on that front. when i start work tomorrow, it will be such a relief to finally be spending my days thinking about something besides moving. and to start doing what i am good at (what i will hopefully continue be good at): making good theatre. it’s definitely not going to be easy, not this first year, or probably the years after that, but i believe in these plays. it always, in the end, comes back to the text — i learned that working in a company that produced classic works and now that i’m back to doing new work, it resonates even more clearly. i want to make theatre that has some teeth to it, some truth to it. it’s okay with me if it’s messy around the edges. but if there is a moment of truth, if there is a moment of perfect beauty — i live for that, i will turn my life upside down and move across the country for that. and each of these scripts strikes some chord in me somewhere. now, let’s see if i can realize them in a way that strikes a chord in the audiences and artists that come in my doors. when, tomorrow, they become my doors.

* which are, for the record: My Name is Asher Lev, by Aaron Posner (adapted from the novel by Chaim Potok); Boom, by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb; Sunlight, by Sharr White; Equivocation, by Bill Cain; and Woody Guthrie’s American Song, by Peter Glazer

get thee to a lexicon!

{23 April 2009}

H was kind enough to alert me to the fact that today is, per Mayor Daley and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, “Talk Like Shakespeare Day.” I’m pretty sure that has the potential to be even more annoying than International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

And, regrettably, as H points out, whoever wrote the suggestions of how to talk like the Bard thinks that that “thee” is plural, not accusative. Alas. How will our children ever learn to use “thee” properly if we do not set a good example for them?

But 445th Happy Birthday to the Bard, anyway. I got my start working in Shakespeare, and I do love it in (most of) its many many (many) forms.

never underestimate the power of feminine wile

{13 March 2009}


spent bulbs for cute theatre chick

so in the show we’re producing right now, there’s a scene where a character goes out into the hallway and breaks three light bulbs. the sound designer decided that a live bulb-breaking sound was better than the recorded version, which meant that i needed a source of light bulbs to break (about 25 per week). it seems ridiculously wasteful to break brand new light bulbs, so i called the facilities services on campus to see if they could hook me up with a source of burned out light bulbs. about 6 conversations and referrals later, i ended up in touch with a guy at the campus steam plant, apparently one of the only buildings on campus that still uses incandescent bulbs instead of recyclable fluorescent ones.

so i explained what i was looking for, and the next week i hiked out there and a nice guy about my age gave me the box of burned out bulbs he’d saved for me. as per my usual, when someone does me a favor like this, i told him we’d be happy to comp him a pair of tickets for the show, and gave him my business card.* we set up a standing appointment for me to drop by at 1pm on fridays to collect spent lamps for the rest of the run of the show. so today i stopped by, and my pal wasn’t there but his manager was and when i explained what i was looking for he remembered what was up and had some other guy bring out the box of bulbs. it wasn’t until i was bringing in the box later that i noticed the penned inscription on the side. tee hee. what i love about this is not that the steam plant guy was willing to save light bulbs for me because he thought i’m cute, but that his buddy went to the trouble to scratch out the phrase “cute theatre** chick” with a ballpoint pen before bringing the box out for me.

bets on whether anyone asks me out before the last light bulb pickup? or maybe the scratching out of “cute theatre chick” was an editorial on the part of the second guy.

*by coincidence, last friday was the first time in two weeks of tech that i didn’t need to be dressed in grungy working-on-the-stage jeans and t-shirt, so i took advantage of that and the spell of warmish weather to wear a pretty new shirt. and actually wash and fix my hair, and put on some makeup. apparently it worked to my advantage. i don’t think a lot of women hang around at the steam plant, is my guess.

**i give the steam plant guys props for spelling theatre with an “re”

more theatre closings

{}

my old pal Kevin (hi Kevin! how are you? where are you? how many beautiful kids do you have now?) reminded me that i left a major company off the list of regional theatres who have closed their doors in the past year – Buffalo’s Studio Arena. which is silly that i left it off the list, given that i worked there for most of a season. so, yeah: add Studio Arena to the list.

tipping point

{25 February 2009}

About Face Theatre
Magic Theatre
Theatre Jeune Lune
American Music Theatre of San Jose
Seaside Music Theatre
Milwaukee Shakespeare
Shakespeare Santa Cruz
House Theatre

of course, there are many many more theatres than what i listed up there, those are just companies that are large enough to be nationally recognized or else local to my own vital theatre scene in chicago.

i’m just wondering how many times theatres in financial crisis are going to be able to post an appeal to the tune of “give us xx dollars by next tuesday or we’ll be forced to close our doors!” before the american public grows weary of these bailouts. or not weary, but just unwilling, unable, to give enough money. all of the theatres listed above tried that tactic in the past year, some met with success, some closed their doors for good. don’t get me wrong. i’m all about funding the arts. it’s my livelihood, for god’s sake. i’m pro-government, -foundation and -individual sponsorship. there is no functional model where theatre can be produced here in american funded on ticket sales alone*. but i am skeptical that going “holy crap! we can’t make payroll!” isn’t going to meet with the same criticism coming from a not-for-profit arts organization as it is from a major national bank. because my own question is the same, regardless of the company: how did you not see this coming?

the answer is that many arts organizations have limped along with large debts and poor financial management practices for a long time. and in years of The Good Economy, many of those theatres were able to get a free pass. credit was extended and extended again. individuals and foundations were generous without asking hard questions about the company’s bottom line. but the fact that arts organizations don’t function on a dollars earned/dollars spent model doesn’t mean that we are exempt from fiscal responsibility. it makes it about 100 MORE important. i look at companies who were skating along with $1,000,000 in debt that suddenly got their line of credit yoinked and say, “you MUST HAVE KNOW THIS WOULD HAPPEN SOMEDAY!” it drives me bonkers.

it sucks sucks sucks to have to program smaller projects, hire fewer actors, fewer artisans, to rely on lower-quality, cheaper labor, whatever. all of the companies i work for/with are doing that now and in their upcoming seasons. but you have to do the hard thing if you want the organization to survive. lop off the finger to save the hand (god that’s a gross analogy – why did i just bring gangrene into this?). i write this knowing that i’m going to have to face those hard decisions many many times in the coming year – when i take over my new theatre position in July, it’s knowing full well that i may have to make hard decisions about how much employment i can offer to talented professionals, how many resources i can make available to the creative team. i know full well that i’m taking a risk that i could be joining a company that could be a victim of the recession in a year (they tell me their books are solid but…you never know these things until you get there). but for all my bleeding heart liberal ways, i am as practical and proactive at heart as any one human being can be. what i can tell you is that, as much as i am able to control it, we won’t be deficit spending on my watch.

and while i’m not getting all sunshiny about the Great Depression that is bearing down on us, i truly do believe that working against those constraints forces artists to make better, more creative work. does a bolt of $500/yard silk REALLY help us tell the story?

* don’t get me wrong, plenty of small theatre companies function without significant sources of contributed income. but they don’t make it on ticket sales alone, either. they make up for it by not being able to pay their employees. what you can’t pay for in dollars, you can pay for in sweat equity. and this works, but only up to a point. there’s a limit with what you can do when your reason for getting up every day doesn’t pay the rent. there is finite amount of energy and time available to each of us.

hometown pride

{05 November 2008}

photo is circa 2006
with the exception of my boss, everyone else in this photo no longer works here. oh, and Obama doesn’t need to practice for his senate-race debates on our stage any more.