Tales From The Industry, II

Well, I've been painting all day and I'm exhausted. It was not supposed to take this long! There are ten sections to the fence, and how many did I get done, after starting at 8:30am and finishing when the sun set at 4:30pm (ish)? Three. The first took as long as the second two since I only realised that I was not going to be a contender for the Turner Prize for modern art rather late in the day and so dropped my brushstrokes from "daring, yet playful; he'll confound the critics", to "let's just get this stuff on the wood...please!" So after tedious cleanup of painting things (I hate having to do that), showering (with brutal use of a scouring pad to get the day's paint off), and preparing for this evening's delights (editing an article), I thought I would settle down with a glass of wine and blog for a bit and tell you about my evening from last Sunday. It's another tale from The Industry, and it starts in the Hollywood Hills.... It was in the lovely Hollywood Hills home of..... Actually, I don't know if I should say, as I don' t know if it is appropriate to do so. So I won't as it does not matter. I'll start again. It was in the lovely Hollywood Hills home of a patron of the Arts, specializing in Theatre, who has produced rather a lot of interesting work in the city. Gathered together for the evening was a very interesting collection of people. (It would have been even more interesting had the Hollywood Christmas parade traffic not nixed a couple of others... It made me 40 minutes late and I only live 20 minutes away....). First and foremost among the present were my friends Oliver Mayer, the playwright and USC School of Theatre professor, and the actress Marlene Forte. Marlene (a profile article is here) was going to do a 15 minute excerpt from a new play by Oliver. There to watch was our host, along with another actor and writer Marco Greco, another actor Gary Perez (and another whose name I can't recall), and some other friends of the host (who I think have also produced plays and films). (The imdb links don't contain their extensive theatre work, unfortunately) The last group was the owner of a well known Hollywood nightclub and his assistant. I've forgotten their names too. (This is is why I'm not in that business. I'd offend so many people at networking parties by not remembering their names......) Oh, and I -firmly an outsider- was lurking around. In conversation, people assumed I was in the Industry too (perhaps a playwright too), and I had to tell them that was not the case. (I'm about as much of a playwright as someone who calculates their change from a $20 bill at the grocery store is a mathematician.) Rather pleasantly, I did not get the "I was never good at physics at school" speech when I said what I do, which was good. So quite a collection of people. Why am I telling you about this? Because it was fascinating to see the creative interaction between these different parties over the matter in hand. Marlene did the extract in full character and costume, and we all sat with drinks in the living room and watched. Then there was discussion afterwards. Not because we were watching a completed work, but because there were several interests in how the piece would be completed. The potential producers were interested in it to see if they wanted to financially back it, and Oliver and Marlene -the primary creative artists in this venture- wanted to show it to these parties. Very interesting was the presence of the nightclub people. Their interest was in new work and new directions. Their venue is equipped to do the usual stuff -bands, dances, etc- but they are looking to start doing (and have already started) a wider variety of shows that will appeal to not just the kids coming for the loud stuff, but people looking for more depth in their entertainment. They are trying to be a new venue on the theatre circuit. So they came along as a potential space in which this piece to be performed. Why was the interaction interesting? Because everyone had their different takes on what they saw, which was interesting, but in addition because the play itself will be affected by this process. Everybody had such good ideas! So the final work will inevitably be shaped a bit by the views of the various parties assembled. It will be wrapped around the shape of the space of the club, and maybe developed in directions that allow it to take advantage of the space, and its new multimedia audio/video facilities. It may end up being something completely new, infused with traditional theatre, cabaret, movie and multimedia, etc. I spoke with the host afterwards and she thinks that more of this could well be happening a lot more in the future. The business model of traditional theatre is broken, in her opinion, (has been for a long time -there is no huge government subsidy like in other places, for a start-), and rebuilding it will probably involve changing the art form itself. It is very interesting to see all these different parties assembled in one space, perhaps helping to shape these new forms that we will all go and see. I imagine it was like that long ago too, hundreds of years ago when the modern form of theatre was being shaped. Back then, there was input from patrons and producers, from the space owners, right alongside the input from the more obvious artists. Here's an additional exciting note...albeit a footnote. There was a scientist there too. Perhaps, given his social agenda (links e.g., here and here), there'll be a bit of science sprinkled in the new forms too. At least a bit more than there is in the traditional forms now. Cross your fingers for luck, please. -cvj