I've Moved

In case you all haven't discovered it yet, I'm doing most of my blogging over at the Chatterbox.

Chad Jones Jumps the Fence

The news that Chad Jones, former theatre critic at Oakland Tribune and the man behind the TheaterDogs, “jumped the fence” to become the new communications manager at Berkeley Rep has been flying around email inboxes and theatre lobbies. The obvious questions come to mind, specifically: Will he still write TheaterDogs? Will he still freelance for the Chronicle (and Theatre Bay Area, for that matter)? But the bigger question seems to be what happens to a theatre critic once he or she starts working for a theatre company? Traditional thinking says that once the critic jumps the fence, he can’t jump back.

Now, Chad hasn’t been the first critic to jump the fence, so his move is by no means groundbreaking. But most of us can’t think of another high-profile critic who’s done so in the past several years. So, while I wonder what will happen to TheaterDogs and all that, what I think about more is what a move like his says about the current world of arts journalism, both online and print. What does it mean when one of the Bay Area’s best theatre critics, one of the best theatre writers and the most successful (in terms of readership) local theatre blogger chooses a fulltime job at a theatre company, leaving the journalism career he built up over decades?

Let’s get two things out of the way: I am not criticizing Chad’s decision, and I’m not belittling fulltime jobs at theatre companies.

What I am wondering is if the journalism is changing/imploding so quickly that the traditional lines between journalists and their subjects (theatre companies) are blurring. In his Diacritical blog at ArtsJournal, editor Douglas McLennan asked, back in April: “Why don’t arts organizations have critics in residence?” Theatre companies turn more to Facebook, Twitter and other social media (and their own sites and e-communications, I hope) to communicate with their audiences because they can no longer rely on newspaper reviews and features—yet a 2008 Patron Mail survey showed that reading arts features was the third most-popular thing people did online, after reading email and searching Google. And it’s not news that laid-off journalists—even those with huge national bylines—are starting their own blogs and not getting paid for them because they feel a responsibility to, to the best of their ability, keep important stories in the public discourse. That’s what TheaterDogs is all about.

You know, all the layoffs at our local papers do hurt theatre companies in terms of coverage, but if more of these journalists started working at theatre companies like Chad has, it could be a huge asset to the companies. Berkeley Rep’s press release announcing Chad’s appointment noted that he’s seen every show at Berkeley Rep except one in the past 12 years. What company wouldn’t want a talented writer, who’s been writing for local audiences, with that kind of knowledge about their productions on their staff?

A Futurist Shakes Up Theatre

The concept of “bubbles” came up a few times at the TCG Conference: individual artists around the country feeling like they were in bubbles, the bubbles of cities (and Bay Area citizens can definitely relate), economic bubbles and the theatre bubble. With all the drilling down that breakout sessions and coffee-break conversations engender, I felt very tunnel visioned.

So, no surprise that I believe the most relevant, inspiring and brilliant speaker at the Conference wasn’t a theatre person, but a futurist. His name is Andrew Zolli, a friend of the arts and proud Italian with an impeccable sense of comedic timing. His talk, “The Road Ahead,” encompassed population demographics, global warming, trends in communications and technology.

Regarding trends in the media, he showed three images of threats: Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and a disappearing glacier. The threat of terrorists, he pointed out, would affect 1 of several tens of thousands of people. The threat of global warming would affect 1 in 6. Yet we spend trillions on terrorism and nothing on global warming. Many reasons for this, but his general point is that humans respond better to fast-moving immediate threats. We are not conditioned to respond to slow-moving ones.

He went on to talk about population, the gist of which could also be found in the article he wrote a few years back for Fast Company. The main points: Nearly half of the world’s population in 2050 hasn’t even been born yet, and the world’s largest cities haven’t been built yet—and most will be in Asia and Middle East. His example: two photos of Dubai; one in the early 1990s and one in 2005. In just over 10 years. Stunning. The US population will look like an hourglass, with a high population of boomers and Gen Yers/Millenials with us poor, pessimistic Xers sandwiched in the middle. He pointed out that women my age will take care of their mothers longer than they took care of us. Thanks to the current economy, half of Boomers will not retire and most of them will live so long they’ll run out of money and move back in with their Xer children. Half of Xers will hit the glass ceiling that the unretired Boomers built, and the Yers will make up the majority of the workforce (because their population is greater).

His other main point: The Internet is not a technology, it is a philosophy. It’s a philosophy of community. And here we theatre people are wondering how to use Facebook to market, how we use Twitter to market, and many of us (sorry, Boomers) hide our heads in the sand saying we don’t understand this “Internet technology.”

And, oh, by the way, this so-called recession is actually a massive reorganization. Things will not go back to the way they were before—financially, socially, etc etc.

Zolli’s talk echoed some of the thoughts and concerns that have been brewing in the back of my mind, and—depressing as some of his facts seemed—I walked out with some sort of sense of relief that I could start connecting my daily life with the larger world and future trends.

And while theatre companies are all greatly affected by the immediate financial situation, it is an immediate threat. Any number of them will be lucky enough to avoid this bomb. But if they aren’t paying attention to the melting glacier (what their audiences and workforce will look like, and how Yers/Millenials like to engage/experience things), what will happen to them in the future?

Fun in Baltimore @TCG

TCG wrapped the first day of its conference (yesterday) with an evening reception at the American Visionary Art Museum, a museum dedicated to artists with no formal training--and the most inspiring museum I've seen. The sculpture in front of the museum included a chandelier tree, an art bus, and a huge bird, with a violin for a body, whose head reached the balcony on the second floor that was designed like a nest. The museum itself stayed open late for us, and its exhibits included a floor featuring OCD art (highly detailed geometric drawings so detailed with lines and squiggles that magnifying glasses were provided; 26 pencil stubs each with 1 letter of the alphabet carved out of the lead--incredibly small, precise and carved w/o a magnifying glass), other pieces of kinetic installations--I can hardly describe it all. Of course the gift shop was so awesome. Imagine a couple of hundred theatreworkers set free in a place like that.

Today, day 2, uninspired by the thought of a boxed lunch, I headed across the street to the "world famous" Lexington Market, not sure what to expect. Turns out it's a huge food court of all different kinds of food with musical entertainment in the center court (harmonicas, when I passed by). This is where all the locals were, and I soon stumbled upon Faidley's seafood, with its famous crab cakes. Now, the crab in Baltimore is amazing. The all-lump crabcake is as big as your fist. And they ship all over the country.

You're probably wondering about theatre, and sadly, I haven't been to any. There are no planned theatre outings as part of the conference, and tonight I opted for one of the dine-abouts, dinner gatherings each hosted by a local theatre company at a restaurant in the city. But one dine-about took place at Liz Lerman's house, a narrow 3- or 4-story wonderfully quirky place with a balcony with a view to die for. The featured menu item was Baltimore's best deep-dish pizza.

Actually, what I said about not seeing theatre isn't exactly true. The Albugga Theatre from Sudan performed a 30-minute piece in a conference room. The company was about 12 or 15 performers, but only 8 were granted visas, but no matter. The performance was energetic, funny and very well received--and all was symbolic of TCG's energy around international and cultural exchange, evident in American Theatre's expanded international coverage. (While I did talk a few times with editor Jim O'Quinn, senior editor Randy Gener was off in Switzerland or some such on assignment.)

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference, and I'm jumping on a plane right after, so my next post will probably be after the fact. Happily, the weather is supposed to be clear tomorrow, so I shouldn't have to spend an hour on the runway waiting for 30 other planes, all delayed by thunderstorms, to take off.

Ah, the thunderstorms. Actual repetitive lighting strikes. There's some fun!

@TCG

I'm standing (not sitting) at the TCG Conference cyber cafe, which is comprised of a few laptops on bistro tables in the Hippodrome lobby. Excuse any typos!

We have an awesome Bay Area contingent in Baltimore: Cal Shakes, Berkeley Rep, Cutting Ball (director Rob Melrose is one of the TCG Spotlighted artists, so he had a artist table where he presented his portfolio--the fact that he was able to show video of his work made his table one of the most attractive, and looked like it generated a lot of interest), CounterPulse, San Jose Rep, Dell Arte, PCPA and more.

Yesterday I attended a breakout on email marketing presented by Patron Mail, the premise of which was "are you an e-blaster or e-mail marketer?" They started with statistics based on their study showing that e-mail is an important marketing tool. One of the statistics was something like 80% of respondents preferred to receive info about shows via email. Of course, the respondents were made up of people from on the lists of Patron Mail clients--people who are receiving e-mails from theatre companies and who respondent to this survey sent out via e-mail. Hmmmm. Another statistic showed that while newspaper use was dropping, respondents used the Internet to 1. email 2. google and 3. read news. The second way people heard about shows, behind e-mails from the companies, was through newspaper articles. (Preseumably read mostly online.) More evidence that while newspaper use is declining, audiences for that content is increasing.

At an impromptu meeting at a Starbucks with our executive director Brad and marketing manager Clay and another executive director, where we were talking about online content, the idea was brought up that aggregators (like Arts Journal) were going to be primary in the future. But, of course, aggregators don't have anything to aggregate if all the content providers go away. Most online content that people are looking for is created by newpaper reporters. More to chew on.

Baltimore's John Waters (Hairspray) gave the keynote last night, which was, naturally, much more funny and irreverent than inspirational. Of course.

More later; there's a line.

Pay More Rent

When I got home from Spamalot (such fun!) last night, I received an email from the SHN folks announcing that Rent tickets go on sale today at 10AM for a limited run in October. Yeah, I know, I was thinking the same thing: Why? Especially after that dismal last touring production? Well, because this one features Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp. One hopes in their same roles.

Playwriting's Chronic Identity Crisis

Playwright/screenwriter/director Stephen Belber wrote quite an amusing and insightful piece in LA Times that is therapeutic and instructive reading for playwrights--and should be required reading for producers/artistic directors.

I ran across it via Extra Criticum, which credits someone else for finding it, and so the thread goes.