that one time social media produced and created a play

I've been doing theatre for about twenty years. Scary thought, huh? In that time, I've been very fortunate to have had a lot of good day jobs, but none as fun as social media strategist for my day job Catalyst Ranch. In the year and a half I've been working with social media, I've learned a lot and had a great time. I've grown accustomed to my worlds crossing. Actor A will be a creative consumer for Ideation Group B who is holding their meeting at the Ranch. Actress C dated Actor D in Production E and now we're working on Show F together. No big whoop. But I never thought that social media and theatre would cross significantly. All I've ever seen any theatre use their social media accounts for is blasting ticket specials and promoting their shows. Sure, you'll get some audience interaction on Facebook pages. Some. But ultimately, no theatre group (in my radar) was using social media for anything groundbreaking or innovative. Until last week.

Last Wednesday, I was working at my desk, minding my business. In the white noise that is my Tweetdeck, I see a retweet from social media maven Sue Koch from social media maverick Tim McDonald. We'd all met at a social media luncheon with the Tekkite Group a month ago. What was Tim up to? His company Zaarly was partnering up with the Filament Theatre Ensemble to create a play in 36 hours. It gets better. Not only would they create a play in 36 hours, they would source the content and title through social media channels and use Zaarly (and some extent Twitter) to produce the show. That's right, all props, all costumes, all set pieces were going to be sourced completely through social media. As a passionate theatre artist and social media geek, I HAD to catch this story.

I followed the happenings on Twitter, following #sustain36. I knew when they'd chosen their title. I knew when they were rehearsing. I knew when the Alderman came by to visit. Through Zaarly I knew that they were in need of a red tie, which I happened to be wearing, so I brought it with me. You can still follow the #sustain36 convo on Twitter and it's pretty cool.

The energy when I arrived at the storefront in Portage Park was pretty electric. I'd seen Filament do Sarah Ruehl's Eurydice last season, so knew that their aesthetic was one of true collaboration and sustainability. The artists excitedly rehearsing and rewriting, the social media folks running a tight ship behind the scenes...I mean, I'd never seen so many smart phones and Macbooks out in my life. It was pretty sweet.

What impressed me most was how they utilized the space. They really worked with the architecture of their found enviornment and maximized the artistic potential of it. I won't go on about it too much, as you'll see the full story below. Just know that it was one of the coolest artistic events I've ever experienced. And I hope it happens again real soon.




Bonus video
One of my favorite scenes from the night. More footage coming soon!

that one time classic American theatre got rebooted

Like a lot of people following American theatre, I was very excited when Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis were announced to play the title roles in a Broadway-bound revival of Porgy and Bess at American Repertory Theatre. Chicagoans enjoyed a beautifully simple staging at Court this season, which put the music (as gorgeously directed by Doug Peck and sung by an amazing cast, including the imcomparable Bethany Thomas) at the forefront.


great interview with director Charles Newell; BT & Doug performance at 6:08 mark

"What an exciting time for this show," I thought. It looked I might be in NYC when ART production would be running and was very excited. Then the reports of the changes started coming in. Director Diane Paulus brings in playwright Suzan-Lori Parks to collaborate with. Now, this isn't the first time anyone has "tweaked" this piece. In 2006, Tony Award-winning director Trevor Nunn updated his London production a bit by turning a lot of the recitative into naturalistic book scenes (maybe he was inspired by the movie version of RENT). And it flopped. Mind you, Nunn's production still stuck with the original plot and (most controversial to the ART revival) ending. For ART, Ms. Paulus and Ms. Parks have expanded character bios, omitted key scenes and songs to accomodate said additions and changed the ending (no spoiler alert here) to be more upbeat and "happy".

When NY Times  writer Patrick Healy broke the story for the Arts & Leisure section, many readers expressed their concern in the comments section. Michael Musto had a hilarious response on his blog. But the most vocally outraged was prolific composer Stephen Sondheim, who wrote an eloquent and poignant response to the Times. Here are some excerpts:



-Ms. Paulus says that in the opera you don’t get to know the characters as people. Putting it kindly, that’s willful ignorance. These characters are as vivid as any ever created for the musical theater, as has been proved over and over in productions that may have cut some dialogue and musical passages but didn’t rewrite and distort them.

-What Ms. Paulus...fails to recognize that Porgy, Bess, Crown, Sportin’ Life and the rest are archetypes and intended to be larger than life and that filling in “realistic” details is likely to reduce them to line drawings.

-Among the ways in which Ms. Parks defends the excavation work is this: “I wanted to flesh out the two main characters so that they are not cardboard cutout characters” and goes on to say, “I think that’s what George Gershwin wanted, and if he had lived longer he would have gone back to the story of ‘Porgy and Bess’ and made changes, including the ending.” It’s reassuring that Ms. Parks has a direct pipeline to Gershwin and is just carrying out his work for him...

-I can hear the outraged cries now about stifling creativity and discouraging directors who want to reinterpret plays and musicals in order to bring “fresh perspectives,” as they are wont to say, but there is a difference between reinterpretation and wholesale rewriting. Nor am I judging this production in advance, only the attitude of its creators toward the piece and the audience.

Which brings me back to my opening point. In the interest of truth in advertising, let it not be called “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” nor even “The Gershwin-Heyward Porgy and Bess.” Advertise it honestly as “Diane Paulus’s Porgy and Bess.” And the hell with the real one.



Mr. Sondheim brings up some excellent points. You learn very early on in studying directing that your job first and foremost is to present the play as the playwright intended (thanks Sheldon!) It is the basis of many awesome collaboractions between director-playwright-director I've seen in my career. So when does one ask the ethical question "am I changing this because I prefer it this way or because it's what better serves the play?" And who polices these ethics?

In the same breath, should creativity and innovation lose out to tradition? David Henry Hwang approached the Rodgers & Hammersein estate about revamping Flower Drum Song in 1997. Like P&B, FDS was believed by many to be outdated in its portrayal of its subject ethnic group and to have perpetuated stereotypes. Hwang gained approval for his rewrite from both the Rodgares & Hammerstein estate and from the author of the original novel, C.Y. Lee. Hwang's book (with the collaboration of director Robert Longellow) streamlined the story, matched the seriousness in tone of the original novel and bringing old-world immigrants struggling with the assmilation of the American-born generation. I am very biased as I saw this revival on Broadway in 2002 and can say as an Asian-American, I was thankful for the revisions: I connected to it more than I ever did with the film version of the original.

In both cases of Porgy and Bess and Flower Drum Song, the respective estates that own the rights to the works have approved the changes. The artistic and production staffs of the ART revival of P&B are standing behind their process and as artists, they should. But the questions remain: should tradition win out over innovation? At what point is the ethical line crossed when a playwright's work is rebooted posthumously? And if the core intention of the playwright is to connect with an audience and their work is revamped to "better" connect to an audience of a different era, is their intention still being honored?

And the ultimate question: what is more important, the artist's intention or audience's reaction?