SRO Update

I haven't written about my senior project recently, and we have certainly been busy. The second project of Standing Room Only is work on the McCoy Theatre's production of How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel. This is a difficult play to promote because the content deals with sensitive issues of sexual molestation between a girl and her uncle (by marriage). It is a memory play that does not follow sequential order but instead reveals critical parts of her story at particular moments. We have devised a strategy, however, that we think will encourage a conversation about this production.

First, Luke Branim is helping us by moderating some "fireside chats" that we will hold on both Saturdays of the show in the lobby of the McCoy Theatre. We decided this conversation should take place without the cast and director to encourage students to speak about their reaction to the production instead of asking questions about how the performers put the play together. We're having both of these evenings catered.

Second, we have giant posters that will go on the corners of our McCoy triangle to promote the show. Kevin Collier was able to get the Communications department at Rhodes to print these for us for free, and we will pay to mount them and then attach them to our yard signs. This should really compliment our McCoy triangle on the grass.

Third, we have bought 60 t-shirts that we are distributing to students to wear only on show days. These t-shirts have the words "Show Tonight" on the back below the McCoy Theatre symbol and the name "McCoy Theatre Rhodes College." This should provide further publicity of the show.

Finally, we are trying to partner with the V-Week ladies at Rhodes to perform a scene or two at their art opening. Performing for ladies who are concerned with women's issues, this presentation could certainly reach a target audience.

I must applaud my team for their hard work. In addition to these tangible steps, Jessica Batey and I have worked on writing a "Constitution" so that we will be an official student organization that can request funds for future years and projects, allowing this organization to continue on!

a broken city. a tree. evening.

Last week I was the first CODA student to present in a semester-long process of student presentations, providing us each with the opportunity to improve in our public speaking abilities and also present something about the arts that we find interesting. I spoke about the production of Waiting for Godot in New Orleans from November of 2007. It is a wonderful story of an idea taking root and coming to completion.

This particular production was produced by the Classical Theater of Harlem in the ninth ward of New Orleans, evoking those themes of people who have been waiting for over a year for their particular "Godots" to show up. The performance took place in two locations, a former busy intersection of two roads that now lies empty and in front of a house that had been destroyed by the flooding. The show ran for five performances and thousands of people came in support of the project.

This entire endeavor was the brainchild of Paul Chan. Chan is an artist (educated at the Art Institute of Chicago and Bard College) and political activist. He found this project as particularly intriguing because it combined his two interests. Chan visited Tulane University in 2006 to give a talk about his art, and while he was there he decided to go and see the Hurricane Katrina destruction. What he saw moved him deeply and also caused him great unrest, an unrest that required action.

Chan says that this experience reminded him of Samuel Beckett's tragicomedy, Waiting for Godot.

"The sense of waiting is legion here," Chan said. "People are waiting to come home. Waiting for the levee board to OK them to rebuild. Waiting for Road Home money. Waiting for honest construction crews that won't rip them off. Waiting for phone and electric companies."

This caused Chan to contact the arts-funder and programming institution, CREATIVETIME. This New York based organization is designed to support public arts projects, and they jumped at the chance to support Chan. With the funding coming from CREATIVETIME, Chan contacted Christopher McElroen, the artistic director of the Classical Theater of Harlem, who had previously directed Godot in New York, staged on a rooftop surrounded by water.

With the organization in place they went to New Orleans to meet with the civic leaders, but these leaders were wary of the work of these individuals, seeing them as privileged artists coming in to make a statement, soak up the glory, and live. Chan and CREATIVETIME worked to reverse this assumption. Chan volunteered to teach art in the public schools in the area for several months before and after the production, and CREATIVETIME created a fund that would encourage private donors to match the $200,000 production costs.

The event once again reminded us of the work that is still necessary in New Orleans. It reminded us that we are all waiting for something, that we are all bonded together and that often that is all we have to rely on. As one blogger put it who went to see the production, "we came in the hundreds last Saturday night, over a thousand; turning our back on the well-lit streets of the sliver by the river, forgoing the restaurants of Magazine and the lively nightclubs of Frenchman to go to the edge of the empty zone to try, at least, to sit through this difficult work, a comedy as black as the streets were for months in this part of town, as dark as the windows remain in so many of the empty brick boxes that line the streets. We came because all of us are so like these characters, lost in a landscape from which familiar references have been erased, clinging to the one thing that keeps us all from dropping over the brink: each other."

This production shows us the power that the arts can still create in the world, in a broken and devastated situation, to provide uncommon hope, hope in each other. This is the work we are called to create.

A Lesson Before Dying

There is a real challenge in adapting great works of literature into plays. As with film, when deciding to compact a book into a two-hour production many choices must be made. In the theatre, however, even more must be sacrificed because you are limited in stage size, technical abilities, cast sizes, etc. Circuit Playhouse’s recent production of A Lesson Before Dying was a poor attempt of adapting Ernest J. Gaines’s book by the same title.

First let me highlight some of the positives on this production. I must applaud Playhouse on the Square’s staff for selecting a play that should be regionally applicable. The story of A Lesson Before Dying deals with a young African-American man who is accused of a murder that he did not commit, and because of his inability to adequately express himself or follow the proceedings of the courtroom, he is sentenced to death. His aunt convinces the boy’s former school teacher to come and meet with him. What makes this story unique is that there is never an attempt to overturn the verdict. Instead it is the story of a man who gains his dignity through education, through understanding what it means to be a man and to die with the knowledge that you are as good as anyone else.

This southern story is a great fit for Memphis, a town of decades of racial strife, and it presents a message that is applicable to all people. This play should spark discussion among those who see it, but the adaptation gets in the way of the message. Romulus Linney, the play’s adapter, chops the story into many short scenes which breaks up the general flow of the play. The audience is never taken into the world of the play. You feel like you are watching a lyric soprano trying to get through a Mozart aria while suffering from the hiccups.

The performances were also not fluid, and this also seems to relate to the “choppy” nature of the production. Characters operated often on two levels, either intense anger or intense sadness. There was very little in the middle. Jefferson, the convicted man, often verged on melodrama, making his performance at times almost comical. There were obvious line fumbles and other mistakes that also took the audience out of the play. The best performance was given by Keith Patrick McCoy, a resident artist at Playhouse on the Square right now, who had a clearer view of the role he was playing. There were strong moments in his performance that really drew in the audience.

A Lesson Before Dying runs from February 10^th, and I would recommend it if you were able to use a CODA $5 ticket, but if you have to by the normal $20 student rate that the Circuit Playhouse requires, I would advise you to skip this one and wait for a future production.

Back from Break/ Chicago Madness

After almost six weeks of no new posts, I have returned to the world wide web with new posts full of insights, humor, and honest searching. Breaks are always a wonderful way to refuel and help to rekindle the passion for what is everyday work of college life. My break had very little formal arts participation until the CODA crew went to Chicago to learn about the cultural innovation taking place in that city.Chicago is an amazing town. Even though we were there in a fairly "dead" time for arts happenings and in the coldest time of the year, the energy of the city is one of creativity and innovation. Instead of trying to present a daily play-by-play of our events, I will outline the events we participated in and offer some comments on those I found most meaningful.

Our events were well-planned and free time was organized well with our scheduled events. We met with Rhodes alumni living in the arts world, sharing conversation and dinners together. We went on tours of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Harris Theatre, and all of Millennium Park. We met with some of the leaders in the Department of Cultural Affairs and with the retired CEO of the Sara Lee Corporation, Rhodes Alumni, and arts advocate John Bryan. In my free time I went to see a play at the Steppenwolf Theatre, visited the Museum of Contemporary arts, and as a finale to our trip, the group went to see Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, a show of improv/sketch comedy/poignant social commentary smashed into 30 plays presented in 60 minutes.

For this entry, though, I wish to highlight two of these events, our tour of Millennium Park and our visit with John Bryan, to events that are very closely linked. Mr. Bryan was the chief fundraiser for the Millennium Park project, helping to raise $250 million dollars in private donations for the creation of a public park that was make classical music and visual arts available to all Chicagoans for free.

Millennium Park is an amazing piece of innovation. Located off of Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago, this beautiful park used to a rail yard. It actually still is a train station and a parking garage, but these are now locate underground, with the park positioned above them. With the depth of soil in the park, trees, grass, and other plants can grow and thrive not only provide aesthetic beauty but also an environmentally conscious "green roof" above the transportation station below.

The park consists of the the Harris Theatre, which is an underground theatre used for dance and music performances, as well as the Pritzker Pavilion, an outdoor playing space for concerts. Speakers are strategically placed on a lawn that will accommodate up to 7000 people. In the summer, the Chicago symphony plays here regularly, and the events are free to the public. Designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, the park is not only practical but also the cutting edge in modern architecture.
Around the performance spaces are other visual arts creations such as the Crown Fountain and the new symbol of Chicago, Anish Kapoor's "Could Gate," lovingly called "the Bean" by locals. The park is free to the public and provides all ages, genders, racial backgrounds to gather around the visual, interactive arts, musical presentations, and active recreation. This park is an amazingly innovative way of engaging people with the arts, taking them off of an elitist pedestal and giving to the people.

As part of this experience, we had the opportunity to meet with Mr. John Bryan, the chief fundraiser for this massive project. Going to the home of the Bryan's was an artistic experience in itself, but I'll let others speak of his collection. Instead, I want to share some of his insights into how to create this communal sense of responsibility for bringing about artistic creation to communities.

Mr. Bryan first gives credit to his friend, Mayor Daley of Chicago. Civic leaders are invaluable to artistic creation, and Mr. Bryan was given the permission of the mayor to take on this project without much bureaucratic interference. With that permission, Mr. Bryan decided to play to the ego of potential contributors, creating a "exclusive" club of donors required to give at least $1 million dollars. By subtly mentioning what he, Mr. Bryan, was contributing he could call on his business acquaintances to contribute as well. By having a wide base of potential donors, he could play to the personality quirks of each person, offering some the "immortality" of having something named for them while others would be more inclined for the social impact of the park.

What I learned from viewing this park and meeting the chief fundraiser is the impact one person really can make on his community and the necessary elements that create that kind of influence. First, civic leaders are important to any artistic endeavor. Without the support of the local government, artistic creation is going to be difficult. Connections with people with money is also important. The more influential people you know, the more influence you have. Finally, and most importantly, is if the project you propose is one that can bring people together, can enrich the lives of the people of your city, and provide both a more joyous lifestyle and economic revitalization for the community, it is a project that must be completed.