It’s a great, pithy article, full of examples from people Novick knows and knows of (including the Neo-Futurists, who are my faaaaavorite). She cheekily titled the article “Please, Don’t Start a Theatre Company!” but what she really meant is, please don’t get sucked into the standard non-profit model. There’s too much competition with large, established non-profits for scarce resources; there’s a sense of oversaturation in the market that might be turning off potential investors; people don’t really know why or how non-profits work so they don’t know what they’re investing in (and even using the term “investment” can be dangerous these days); the structure focuses on bulking up administrative efforts, but turns actors, writers, directors, and tech people into migrant workers, to be blunt; there’s no sense of sustaining the art, just the mission statement; there’s a desperate need for movement toward permanence, rather than being willing to form temporary producing bodies that do what they exist to do, and then disband; and there’s this insinuation that if you work as an artist only, you’re too sensitive to handle paperwork, which is bullshit because most people who work for theatre companies and are artists generally work as administrators for large companies, while desperately trying to make the transition to being full-time artist.

Here’s some of my favorite quotes from the article:

Neither the field nor the next generation of artists is served by this unexamined multiplication of companies based on the same old model. The NEA’s statistics on nonprofit growth, set against its sobering reports on declining arts participation, illuminate a crucial nexus for the field, a location of both profound failure and potential transformation. The proliferation of small theater companies sits at the intersection between the necessity to imagine different structures for making theater and our field’s failure to provide career paths for the next generation of artists. Since the Ford Foundation’s investments kicked off the regional theater movement fifty years ago, there has been tremendous collective buy-in to what has become a fossilized model of a particular type of nonprofit theater. Within this structure, there is now a critical lack of opportunity for emerging artists and leaders, leaving the next generation of artists no alternative but to start companies of their own, companies that often replicate the problems of established theaters on a smaller scale.
…
Context matters as much as content: It’s been seven years since Todd Brown and his partner began transforming a small house in San Francisco’s Mission District into what is now the Red Poppy Art House: a gallery and presenting space, a training program for artists interested in self-producing, and a hub for neighborhood-based arts events. “As an artist myself,” says Todd, “I’m interested not only in content (my own work) but in context. I want to empower artists as space-holders, as creators of the artistic context. Instead of the old model of building a big cultural center, I imagine a thriving cultural neighborhood with diverse, scattered artistic hubs that each become an epicenter for different communities.”
…
I spoke to a number of funders who were forthright about foundations’ complicity in perpetuating the problem. “Why build a building and such heavyweight infrastructure for this thing [theater] that is both underfunded and ephemeral? This just doesn’t make much sense,” says Moira Brennan at the MAP Fund. Diane Ragsdale (still at the Mellon Foundation when I interviewed her) agrees: “Funders and others have had such a limited idea of what a theater should look like, we’ve institutionalized the process to such a degree that we’ve constrained these organizations in terms of how they’re structured, how they make work, who they make it for. We’ve lost track of what we really need to put on a good show. Do we need 150 administrators?”

The Hewlett Foundation’s Marc Vogl concurs: “Funders have been in service of perpetuating the structure we know. But focus on the work has to come first.” The Hewlett Foundation, Marc reports, has begun to aim for more nuance in its funding decisions, beginning, for example, to support fiscally sponsored organizations and “understanding that ‑because organizations do different work, they may need different structures to support their work.”
…
When funders talk about sustainability, they have generally meant that an institution looks stable enough to continue forever. Diane Ragsdale is no longer sure this is the point: “Why should funders wonder whether this is a twenty-five- or fifty-year plan? Why not just support the two-year plan without worrying that everything must exist in perpetuity?”

But please, do read the whole thing. I’ve worked for non-profit theatres of many kinds in several capacities over the years, and I’ve been thinking for a long time that this model, with its pathological insistence on fundraising, is failing. Kickstarter might be a great funding wave of the future, but that’s because people get something out of it aside from an assuaged sense of civic duty or middle class guilt. In fact, I think Kickstarter and the ilk prove that people want art to be funded, but that they also want to be the direct recipients of the benefits. It’s not just about beautifying their community or spreading a certain political/moral message anymore. It’s about directly supporting people who clearly work hard and want their supporters to be happy, satisfied, and interactive.

Viva la revolution!

In other, suddenly-announced news, there’s a new building going up – slated for completion in 2014 – that will be right across the street from Velocity Dance Center. It’s called the 12th Ave Arts Project, and features housing, office space, and Seattle Police Department parking (it was formerly just an SPD parking lot), with some resident artists, including Washington Ensemble Theatre, New Century Theatre, and Strawberry Theatre Workshop – three of the most dynamic, talented, and innovative theatre companies in the city.

With all of this on top of the recent revival of the West of Lenin Theatre Space, it looks like the self-pitying days of Seattle Theatre are behind us.

This innovative experience takes audiences through a rabbit hole on a visually stimulating online adventure. Stories evolve on social networks with multimedia components from YouTube and Sound Cloud. It can be hard to decipher what’s real and what’s fiction.

Before shows open on stage, the audience gets to interact with characters on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr accounts. The theater company works with actors to develop the fictional characters on social media accounts.

…

“I feel like it’s like a medium where stories can be told in a whole bunch of ways,” NPL’s artistic director Whit MacLaughlin told Mashable. “I wanted to find out how you use translate theater into an online space. You have to figure out the narration of social media — how to convey something about a person.”

…

Actress Annie Enneking played Fess Elliot in the production. Enneking created Elliot’s online persona for close to a year, taking pictures, writing songs and updating her Facebook 24/7 as her fictional character.

“I felt very vulnerable to do it,” Enneking said. “I was creating the character online for nine months. Suddenly the day the play went up, we had to go through back in time and publish posts given the timeline of the life of production.”

Separating herself from “being Fess” was difficult when the play was over.

“What I loved the most was that I had a constant outlet for my creativity. I would follow my impulses. I was creating little pieces for my character,” she said. “After the show closed, it felt like a little death.”

I’ve known web comic authors – like Questionable Content – to create twitter accounts for their characters, to entertain the audience between comics. There’s also a few plays done in a Facebook newsfeed style – most infamously, Hamlet. And definitely theatre companies use Facebook and Twitter, among some other social media, to spread the word about shows. But this is the first instance that I have heard of of a theatre company using social interaction online to develop characters and plot, and I think it’s brilliant.

Tempting to steal the idea for my own purposes, it’s that good. Nice work, NPL.

So I’m developing a solo show.

This is very different for me. I don’t consider myself an actor, although I do consider myself a writer, director, dramaturg, critic, and other sorts of theatre artist as necessary. But I haven’t been onstage in 3 years or so, and I haven’t created my own material – outside of a class in college – ever.

I just finished Marya Sea Kaminski‘s solo performance class at Freehold. Marya is one of those people who radiates intelligence and poise. She is genuine and generous with her praise, and has the rare ability to balance real praise (finding something good in each work) with truly constructive criticism. Comments for improvement land exactly as they should, without the pain criticism can normally have (even when well-intentioned). In short, while I have not seen her solo work yet, I can say for certain that she is a brilliant and creative teacher.

We were also a pretty brilliant, interesting, entertaining class, with a variety of stories to tell.

On our first day of class, we were asked why we were there. I signed up, although I feared the performance aspect, because I want to develop my writing skills, especially for stage. I have this dream, you see, that one day I will study with the Neo-Futurists and bring the incredible concept that is Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind to Seattle. I saw that show about two years ago now, in Chicago, my first night there. I saw a variety of theatre in Chicago that was amazing, but TMLMTBGB is still my favorite.

So, I signed up for this solo performance class because I was looking to beef up my writing skills, in anticipation of someday (not this year, as originally intended, but someday) going to Chicago, studying with the Neo-Futurists, and starting a theatre company that does something like Too Much Light.

But as soon as I signed up for the class in November, I started stressing out about it. I didn’t want to write anything about me, personally. I will talk about my personal life, but I didn’t want to – as one student in the class later said so pithily – cut my veins open and bleed on the audience. A friend of mine, Jenni, happened to be in the class and we discussed what we wanted and what we feared before going into the very first session. I told Jenni I really didn’t want to write something autobiographical. She said we probably didn’t have to.

About the time she said that, class was about to start, so we grabbed out belongings and moved into the blackbox space. And I am not kidding when I say this, but just as I crossed the threshold into the theatre, inspiration hit me.

See, I’m also a major science fiction nerd. Over the summer, I read two huge anthologies of scifi short stories and was deeply inspired by them. Well-done science fiction has a way of immersing my imagination in incredible worlds, which makes me think, “Yeah, I can see humans/aliens doing that/being like that.” One inspiring story featured aliens like giant centipedes, which had a ridiculously structured caste system and spoke with a sort of sign and vocal hybrid language. One story featured humans genetically modifying themselves into all sorts of bizarre creatures, one of which created a colony on the moon and tried to secede from Earth – humans were the only aliens in the solar system. One was a post-nuclear apocalypse where aliens landed but didn’t interact with humans – but they did interact with dogs, and noticed that dogs interacted well with humans. Amazing, incredible, and not unreasonable ideas for the future, distant and near. Passionate stories that need to be told because telling stories makes us feel, so deeply.

Because I read these anthologies – along with The Hunger Games series – my mind has been roiling with ideas. I’ve started writing several short scifi stories. I wrote an outline but not a first paragraph for one.

It just happened to be a near future dystopian political story, told from the point of a woman who was reflecting on her childhood.

It would be a brilliant solo show.

Maybe. If I could overcome my fear.

So, this class was only 6 weeks long and I had nothing to lose but a few hundred dollars and possibly some dignity in front of a couple of people whose opinions I value deeply, but I’ve made an ass out of myself in front of them before so really. Nothing to lose.

I wrote the show. I had so many ideas that I found I actually had too much material. I cut it down to a painful limit, I changed some things for the sake of 10 minutes or less.

It was a success. My partner and I actually talked for a long time, late one night, about the world of the show and what he’d seen, and what I’d intended, and what he wanted to see more of.

He wanted to see more.

Between that and the encouragement of Marya and my classmates, I have – GULP! – decided to try to extend the show into a little over an hour. It will still be a solo show, but will feature more than the daughter character. And hopefully, the characters will have names when I’m done. We’ll see.

Part of my difficulty is reminding myself that my stories are worthwhile too. What do I have to say that’s worthwhile? How do I justify myself?

Well. Sparks are sparks. And sparks are worth turning into fire, regardless of who you are. Here’s some artists that remind me of that, with their extreme talent, and extremely big gonads. I mean, if you think about it, these ideas are pretty ridiculous.

Anna Deavere Smith – made famous by the brilliant Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles – is an incredible solo performer, who dares to perform real people that she interviews.

Why? Why?

Because it’s fucking important to know these things that’s why! Not in a journalistic “The More You Know” sort of way, but in the way that these images sink into our imaginations and simmer there, and somehow come out later through some other form of inspiration, be it for a play, a painting, a moment of kindness between strangers, or a riot for freedom.

And then, there’s STREB:

Elizabeth Streb is a trained professional modern dancer who has, by her own account, taken a turn. She creates moving human architecture, for lack of a better word, and the above video is a particularly poignant example of the lengths these dancers go to so they can realize a vision. It is incredible, daring, painful, and awe-inspiring. It is a visual for the definition of insanity, in my opinion.

Why? Why do this?

Because clearly the human body is capable of it (when in decent shape, after hours of practice, anyway), and because it’s impressive.

So. I’m developing a solo show. Because I can, because I like the idea, other people have liked the idea, and it’s fun.

Did I mention I’m thinking of taking it on a European tour next year? I’m definitely applying for Bumbershoot this year, as that will, whether I get in or not, give me a deadline.

I’m developing a solo show.

I think the producers’ rebuttal sums this up much better than I ever could:

Producers shot back late Friday. “It’s very disheartening for the former director of the show to take no responsibility for the consequences of her actions while, at the same time, trying to claim credit for the show’s success,” Dale Cendali, an attorney for the producers, said in a statement.

And, from NPR, can Kickstarter fund the arts better than the NEA?

One of Kickstarter’s founders bragged that he expected the three-year-old site to give more money to the arts this year than the National Endowment for the Arts.
…
Kickstarter gave about $67 million to core arts in 2011; the NEA’s budget is $146 million dollars for 2012, of which $118 million will be distributed as direct funding.

Nevertheless, Kickstarter and other crowd-funding platforms are clearly on the rise, while government support for the arts is buffeted by funding crises and politics. Kickstarter opens an avenue for creators who don’t have the resumes and grant-writing skills to get government funding in the first place.

But Johnson says that comparing Kickstarter to the NEA is like “comparing apples to spaceships.” The site treats funders like investors, generally promising products and incentives for contributions. “In some ways Kickstarter is a lot more like shopping than supporting art,” Johnson says. “The NEA is not necessarily worried about giving the taxpayer back art directly for their investments.”

Johnson worries that Kickstarter’s success will encourage calls to abolish government funding of artists.

I don’t think anything along these lines will abolish government funding for artists, but it does give artists a valuable venue to interact with their fans. I think Kickstarter is hugely valuable as one of the many yardsticks to demonstrate value to the community, in fact, which is one of the points grant organizations, private and public, look for. Without a history of merit (which is very difficult to attain), grants are almost never awarded. So Kickstarter is sort of like an entry level job, or the first grant for artists.

Also, Kickstarter allows artists, with it’s rewards system (which I personally don’t see as much different than donor benefits for large art institutions) helps artists interact directly with their fans, give a personal thank you, something like that. The immense popularity of Kickstarter is based, I think, on this personal interaction. It’s a social network in which money changes hands for a good cause.

It’s an interesting yardstick to see what people actually think is important. They don’t want distant artists, they want their art up close and personal.

But, you know, not falling from the ceiling onto their heads, Ms. Taymor …

HowlRound and Julie Felise Dubiner dare literary managers and dramaturgs to reach new heights with play development.
One of my favorite quotes:

We must read books and newspapers and travel and meet other theater makers and people who make something other than theater. We have amazing skills, but we have become unable to fully utilize them or grow as artists and people in our own right. We must get out of our offices and bring ourselves back into the creative process. How dare we tell artists what to do or not to do if we are not willing to do it ourselves?

However, I think Dubiner falls into the trap of echoing what so many theatre artists are echoing today, which comes right out of Outrageous Fortune (grumblegrumble) – mainstream theatres are too ingrained, too staid, and inflexible. They don’t know what new play development really is. And then she, rightly, challenges them to develop new works – with dramaturgs and literary managers spearheading this effort.

I’m a dramaturg, from time to time. The way I explain that aspect of my craft is that dramaturgs are the nerds of the theatre world — we do all the historical research on plays, we research the crap out of everything. If you’re developing a play, you want to be where the action is, not where glued to a musty old encyclopedia in the basement of the library. I do. I love that crap, and I will do it for you all day long.

Trouble is, I think this is seriously disrespectful toward theatre art in general. Disrespecting history, philosophy, and science — the hard and sometimes boring things one needs to research to fully understand plays — does a massive disservice to the playwright, the timeperiod of the piece, and ultimately to all the artists involved. I’m a director, too, and I always do my own dramaturgy because I think it’s fascinating. Does it affect my interpretation? Yes. Does it keep me out of the action, the heart, of the play? Not at all, and in fact that research usually brings me deeper into the world of the play and into my imagination. I think all theatre artists should be their own dramaturgs, and if you don’t love the craft enough to do that while building a character, or a set, in your head and then on stage, then you’re not really practicing the full spectrum of the art.

But dramaturgs do save time, in that respect. One presentation, then a presence during rehearsals, and occasional production meetings and conferences, is usually enough to help the other artists understand what they need to understand about the world. Despite my love of research, one of the greatest pieces of advice I got from a director (I was an actor in his show), regarding our actor packet, was to read and absorb all the information, and then come back to the next rehearsal and not touch the packet again. To just trust ourselves to remember what we needed. I like that bit of advice, to this day (the dramaturg for the show was clearly not crazy about it).

Now, ironically, one of the things Dubiner proposed in her essay was for someone – “us” in general, no particular agency was pointed to – to develop a national database for new plays to be read, instead of relying solely on submissions and the submission process and the development process and literary departments to filter and tame the work before it gets to the artistic director. I think this is, in general, a great idea. But who will fund it? Who’s in charge? This could lead to some potential censorship, depending on, for example if Dramatic Publishing takes the project on, or the NEA, or even perhaps the Facebook-like website Theatreface.

And then I saw this:
Seattle’s 4Culture is Decommissioning it’s artist registry

Their reason:

Diminished revenues have made hard choices in Public Art 4Culture programming necessary. As part of our 2012 Annual Plan development, we carefully examined the Artist Registry program and the intensive staff time and funds committed for outreach, selection, and production and maintenance of the complex web resource. We conducted a survey of artists and constituents and received an overwhelming show of support for the continuation of the program. We understand that the Registry termination will be a loss to many.

If we’re going to point fingers at large theatres as the gatekeepers, and therefore jailors, of new plays and new play development, we might have to curry favor with them later to get their money and help for a new play registry. In the meantime, an organization that exists to fund artists and their work in Seattle is defunding a similar registry.

Interesting timing.

Finally, a human interest story:
Rebirth of a Director: Mike Nichols talks about bringing “Death of a Salesman” back to Broadway.

This article seems mainly about the relationship between Nichols and Elia Kazan, the infamous director behind the original Death of a Salesman and A Streetcar Named Desire. However, there are some nice bits of advice for directors, including my favorite:

Something else Nichols has learned — and which he points out is evident in all great plays, including “Salesman” — is that there are only three kinds of scenes: “fights, seductions and negotiations.”
Ponder that, and you won’t have to waste your money on drama school.

Happy Leap Year Day!

With such a high standard, I was disappointed by “Cocktails at the Centre of the Earth,” which I went to see on Friday evening. However, I need to put some caveats into place before I continue:

1. I am biased against nearly everything Steampunk-related. I am not intimately familiar with the literature that inspired the genre, but I have read some short stories and a novel set in a steampunk universe, and I’m familiar with the current incarnation of steampunk in Pacific Northwest culture, which seems to have more to do with wearing a corset and pocketwatch, and gluing a cog to your hat, than anything related to, say, Babbage’s Difference Engine or Steam-powered engines. I’ve been a big scifi nerd practically since birth, and while I do enjoy some truly terrible science fiction movies and shows, I have a pretty high standard for narrative in the genre, and thus far I have not found anything steampunk that has met these standards.

Steampunk also bothers me because it is very white- and upper-class-centric. I’ve said this several times throughout the blog, but I am a white and culturally-middle class human being, but I do try to be conscious of other narratives, and I often find them more interesting because they are not as familiar to me. Steampunk glorifies the 19th century, a time when the white Western world was doing things like attempting to destroy Chinese civilization with opium, massacring Native Americans, using capitalist economics to enslave all kinds of cultures, from English and Irish to Indian to African, and discovering how cheap and plentiful fossil fuels were. Yes, there was a great focus on the power of science, knowledge, and exploration – this is also highlighted in the Indiana Jones movies, in case those in my age group have forgotten. But unlike Indiana Jones, steampunk focuses on the mystery, the magic of these ideas, and how nice it must be to be a brilliant upper class Brit who has nothing better to do with his (almost never her) money than explore the world on an airship, with no thought to how such a ship could be manufactured.

Imperialism is bad, racism is bad, ignorance and superstition are pretty harmful, and yet I find steampunk glosses over these aspects of the glorious Victorian and Edwardian eras and focuses instead on how pretty petticoats were.

2. The script has the same witticism, timing, and many of the stock characters, of a drawing room play. Again, I’m biased against such plays because they’re all about the dialogue, with a very thin romantic plot.

So, with these two biases of mine in mind, one could understand how I did not enjoy the play as much as I hoped to. The costumes were indeed lovely, the characters were indeed very steampunk, and the plot took place in a series of more and more fanciful cocktail lounges, with burlesque routines and live music sandwiched between scenes. The writing was pretty weak – the end, in which all the characters pair up, came out of nowhere. The characters themselves are unsympathetic cardboard cutouts in fancy clothes (I just don’t feel anything for a series of bored and deceitful stage presences, and I don’t care about the miniscule problems they have). The music is nice but again, has nothing to do with the play (I’ve directed two shows now which involve live music, and I had a brilliant composer friend write the music for me to fit the show, specifically). And the burlesque routine wasn’t even that exciting as the dancer herself looked bored out of her skull.

I will say this: it is a very Seattle play, culturally. Burlesque and steampunk are both huge here, and the music was a nice distraction – it really had nothing to do with the show, other than two of the characters happen to be singer/poets. It felt more like a cabaret with occasional funny dialogue between stock characters.

HOWEVER. If you like steampunk, if you like light-hearted fanciful comedies, if you like live music, then you should go see this show. It has all of these things, and does them decently.

The deal announced Thursday should leave Taymor’s Spidey-sense — and wallet — tingling: She will reportedly receive full royalties of nearly $10,000 a week through the show’s entire New York run.
…
Under the agreement, Taymor will also collect unspecified compensation when the production recoups its $75 million investment and if there are additional productions of the Spidey show.

But, Taymor’s not satisfied yet:

Taymor, in the federal case, has said she wants half the profits earned from the original “Spider-Man” book that she worked on with Bono and The Edge.

She’s also seeking another $1 million for unauthorized use of her version of the show.

Turns out, though, that’s ok, because:

The super-hyped $75 million show is now a bona-fide smash after nearly disappearing in a web of accidents, delays and bad reviews. The producers fired Taymor as director in March 2011.

I’m repulsed, horrified, and highly amused. So I guess I’m no better than anyone else who’s seen the show.

I hope the theatre takes notice that the public, in mostly small donations, contributed the bulk of the money raised.

The largest pledges were four $100,000 gifts from repeat Intiman benefactors Sue Leavitt and Bill Block; Eve and Chap Alvord; Marcia and Klaus Zech; and from an unnamed donor. The board also contributed $100,000. And $500,000 in sums of $5 and up was raised from hundreds of donors via an online campaign.

Yes folks, the board only donated $100,000. The board only believes in this theatre $100,000-worth, even though the theatre needed $1 million. So the public believes in the Intiman’s potential more than part of the management.

Also, that whole chunk of money will go toward the summer showcase. I really hope none of it goes to support out of state artists – I’d much prefer if the design team, tech staff, and cast were all local. I think that would show some serious gratitude to Seattle for the $900,000 it just contributed.

Overall, I agree with the assessment, but as an artist, I have a bad habit of procrastination and wallowing. Time-based theatre is a great experience for me, personally, because it forces me to make choices, and any edits in the process are made without judgment. In time-based art, the artist doesn’t have time for personal judgment of work. And frankly, that can be liberating.

Here’s a couple of classics to illustrate our points: Shakespeare, and many other playwrights in history, had deadlines. Tough deadlines. Shakespeare was probably adding chunks to his plays in the week or two of rehearsal the actors got before the show went on stage. If he wanted to edit the plays, it happened after the actors started working the scene, or even after the show went up.

On the other hand, modern playwrights write without as much of a deadline. While self-imposed deadlines might help their writing, selling the play doesn’t normally happen until after the entire play is finished. Sometimes the play can spend months, even years, in work-shopping. This means the play has the advantage of the playwright’s focus, actors’ voices, and lots of consideration before it hits the stage. The final product, in an ideal world, is honed down to what is necessary to convey the story to the audience. Musicals in particular go through this process: they move from work-shopping to first productions at regional theatres to final productions on Broadway or Off-Broadway. The show isn’t considered complete until it hits a theatre in NYC.

On the other OTHER hand, some of the most classic works of art are not officially, according to the painter, complete. The Mona Lisa is a great example. “According to Da Vinci’s contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, ‘…after he had lingered over it four years, left it unfinished….’[...] It is known that such behavior is common in most paintings of Leonardo who, later in his life, regretted ‘never having completed a single work’.”

So there can be benefits for some artists in having a time limit. It forces you to start your work, and it forces you to make decisions, even if in hindsight the piece needs more work.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite pieces of time-based art.
14/48: 14 plays written, rehearsed, and performed in 48 hours.

24 Hour Plays: similar to 14/48, this is a set 6 or 7 plays written overnight, rehearsed during the day, and performed the following evening. Every actor, writer, and director brings one prop or costume piece on the first evening, and the writers then use those props/costumes in their pieces.

365 Days, 365 Plays a collection of short plays written by Suzan-Lori Parks in 2005. It was then performed all over the country in a festival in 2006; plays were divided up into one week per theatre company per city that applied (I directed week 18 for Eclectic Theater Company in Seattle). One short play was performed per day, and at the end of the quarter, each group got together and performed their whole week for a large audience.

National Playwrighting Month (NaPlWriMo): inspired by National Novel-Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), this annual event inspires playwrights, from amateur to professional, to force those creative ideas onto paper during one month. Participation is totally voluntary, and many participants (myself included) don’t make the deadline. But you have a support group to check in with, which can be really helpful, as well as articles and updates from the event coordinators that discuss the writing process.

Neo-Futurist’s “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind”: “Each week, these plays shift as ensemble members add new plays to the existing body of work. Each night of performance, we create an unreproducable living newspaper collage of the comic and tragic, the political and personal, and the visceral and experimental.” Writer/performers create 2-minute pieces, which are rehearsed during the week and performed for TMLMTBGB during the weekend. The audience gets a “menu” on their program, and between plays shouts out the number of the show they want to see next. The group attempts to perform all 30 plays in 60 minutes (the night I went, we made it to 28!). And then the next week, it’s all done again.