Category Archives: Artists

The Alligator Farm

Artists, Playwright, playwriting, Writing

by Chelsea Sutton

I just came back from a three month residency in Taos, New Mexico. As someone who is not independently wealthy and has a few (many, loud) obligations to people and entities that cannot be put on hold for an entire, unbroken three months…it was not exactly the most peaceful or focused period of artistic creation anyone has ever had. Life must go on, after all.

But I never (truly) expected it to be. Hoped it would be? Sure. Expected it to be? Naw.

While a residency is meant as a time to take a pause on the rest of the world and focus only on your art…they are, in my experience, more than that. Yes, how lovely would it be to truly turn off the world (especially the world as it is right now) and just create. But to me they are opportunities to live, for a time, in a place I would never be able to afford to live in (or perhaps even think about moving to) otherwise. It’s a chance to be filled up with new experiences, a new environment, new people. It’s a time to be inspired by others’ practices, art, and points of view.

But I think most importantly, it’s also a time when you keep your artistic practice at the forefront of your mind — even when you are not actively creating, you are aware that you are there to create. And that time is limited. It’s pressurized time. That simple awareness and ticking clock makes you prioritize the work, and to look at everything that happens there as fuel for that work. Even interruptions. Even the things that don’t go as planned. Even the things you miss while you’re gone.

It’s easy to allow your priorities to slip in every day life. It’s easy to forget things that are important to you. And sometimes a change of scenery is the thing you need to remind you of what you do and why. And maybe discover something you’ve lost.

And one thing I was reminded of while in Taos was my love of late night radio. I am such a Spotify bitch — I don’t listen to radio anymore, only the endless playlists and podcasts. I even find myself listening to the same episodes of the same podcasts over and over, like a kind of security blanket.

But in Taos, I began to listen to the local radio station True Taos Radio — and I was even a guest one early morning to promote an artist showcase. But what started my new obsession for the station was the segment “Monotone Mondays” on Monday nights from 10pm-12am during which the DJ listed the artists he was about to play in such a performance poetry adjacent vibe that it made me stop the conversation I was in the middle of and listen. I was hooked.

I began streaming it as often as I could, and often when I was writing. I came to love the listing off of the local events that day, mentioning locations I was familiar with and sometimes artists I’d met who would be performing at the Taos Inn or the Alley Cantina; the ads for local businesses; the casual DJ voices; the always new, always a bit odd, always changing music choices. It made me remember how something can be hyper-local and still feel strangely expansive.

One Monday night, I kept listening past when Monotone Mondays ended. I was writing, pushing to meet a deadline I’d made up for myself. It was Tuesday morning at 1am…and suddenly I discovered “The Alligator Farm.”

I was only able to catch it a couple times, but what I remember of The Alligator Farm was a mix of macabre sketches, oddball music, non sequiturs, and high strangeness that again made me stop and listen. It was chaos and whimsy at 1am. And I loved it, even if I didn’t understand it.

I suddenly remembered years of driving late nights listening to George Noory. Being seven years old and hosting my own radio show in my room that I recorded on cassettes in my boom box. The early morning radio I’d look forward to on my long commutes to a job I hated.

I don’t know where this remembering, this discovery may lead to. Maybe nowhere. Maybe the act of remembering and being inspired or being made to stop and listen to something fleeting, that I can’t go back and replay, is enough. Maybe THAT is just another way of keeping these things present in our minds. THAT is what I got from the residency.

That’s the scariest thing about leaving a residency. That any progress you made shaking off bad habits or a poor artistic attention span will slip right back to where you started.

Remembering is a practice, just like mindfulness, just like writing. It is active.

Perhaps I didn’t finish the great American play at the residency. But I got The Alligator Farm. And you know what I’ll be doing at 1am (12am PT) this Tuesday night. So I can keep remembering. So I can keep this feeling at the forefront of my mind and not let that ticking clock out of my sight.

Here’s to you. Finding your own Alligator Farm.

Give Up?

Artists, LAFPI, Playwright, Writing, , , , , ,

by Leelee Jackson

Give Up? 

When do you give up? Like when do you finally throw in the towel and call it quits? Being an artist is hard work these days. We face constant rejection at an alarming rate, oftentimes with no real understanding  as  to why we were rejected in the first place. Art centered establishments who have the power to change lives are underfunded, overworked and sometimes even corrupt. The world has broken and will a poem fix that? Can a play help it heal properly? Will the film adaptation evoke change in the necessary hearts and minds of those who can undo the very  policies that broke the world in the first place? It’s all so strange being a creator these days. Our biggest competition has become AI. I wanna be like Dwight from The Office when he outsold the website in a single day. Like with hard  work, focus and dedication, I too can beat technology. But what if I can’t. And  to be honest, I don’t know if  I  even want to try. Like if a robot writes a play better than me? Or paint a picture better than Amy Sherald, what can I do to stop that? Where would I even start? 

“I’m weary of the ways of the world” 

How could I not be? I’m constantly (disarmed) distracted by social media. Doom scrolling content to make sense of it all but only confusing myself more. “Post something idiot”  a voice  in the back of my head that pressures me to contribute to the madness. Believing I got something to say that the people need to hear and that if I really wanted to,  I could easily get in the creators fund. I’m smart. Funny. Passionate and creative enough right? I could go “viral” or whatever the kids are doing. “Why not?!” that same voice justifying why I spent two hours on social media calling it “research”. Still not posting what I want to. Just regurgitating what has already been said while believing I’m saying something different. Thinking that if I wanted to be heard, this is the way to do it. And if I’m not heard here, I’m not heard anywhere. So what’s the point in speaking at all?  

Is there a point to defeat?  

I’ve been overwhelmed lately with the feeling of wanting to be important. To be someone that people will listen to for real. I don’t know if it’s because I lost my parents but for some reason, the last few years I’ve been thinking heavy on my legacy, how I want to be known in the world when I’m no longer in it. How will I be known? As a failed artist or as an artist who stopped trying? 

“I have hopes for myself” 

But I lack hope in the rest of life. The world has broken (again and again) and I’m struggling to know how I can help fix it. I’m just a writer, which I know is no small feat. But when will I get to write about love and not war? Kindness and not hate? When will the human experience be soft for me (Black folks) instead of constant protest and creative efforts to fix a world I ain’t even break?  I wrote out 31 of my  favorite plays to read and all 31 centered gender, class and race. I wonder if Black people have ever gotten the stage to write about anything different?  

This shit is hard. When do you give up? Take your losses and find a quiet lil life  for yourself? Turn around and head yo ass back home? You tried it in the little city and couldn’t cut it. When do you give up?  Find a better role to play? 

I believe the fundamental job of an artist is to create. To make. To offer another perspective at something we’ve looked at before but never in that way. But damn, all these rejection letters got me feeling like I’m saying the same shit. Making me feel like there is nothing new to say because it’s all been said before since Black people’s work is only celebrated when it centers a limited range of topics (gender, race and class). Is it time to write about keeping myself and my plants alive? 

“Struggling through the work is extremely important – more important to me than publishing it.”

Toni Morrison is always right. If this is the work, then giving up sometimes has to be a part of the process; at least contemplating it…deeply considering it. 

But I’ll never be romantic about how hard this is. If it weren’t hard, would it be a struggle? But do we always have to struggle to do the work? 

But I hope not. 

From One To Another

Artists, playwriting

By Leelee Jackson

For the past few weeks, I’ve been creating a one act play I was commissioned to write about the legacy of writer Dr. Maya Angelou. 

It’s been amazing getting to know her. 

It’s not just a play either. The project is comprised of several unique storytelling tools that fill up (and out) the world in which Dr. Maya Angelou has directly and indirectly impacted throughout her life. Using dance, music, poetry, rap, critical fabulation, call and response, rep/rev and vignettes that were built using motifs collected from interviews, books and poetry. 

One of the most alarming facts about approaching this project is that I didn’t know shit about Dr. Maya Angelou. She’s not glorified in the university like her peers James Baldwin or Toni Morrison. We didn’t learn about her in elementary school either; only Malcolm X and MLK (her personal friends). But though I’ve never learned about her, I’ve always known her. Like Hip-Hop or saying hella. This is just my culture. I never had to learn about her because she was always there. Tupac. E40. Maya Angelou. I remember seeing her in the film Poetic Justice and I already knew her name by then. I was only 3 or 4 when I saw the movie. My mom coming in during the Bar-b-q scene to let me and my sister know Maya Angelou wrote all the poetry in the movie. 

Before this project, I only really knew two things about her. The first is that she was a poet. The second is that she was kinda family. My aunty fell in love with Bailey, Maya Angelou’s big brother. She’s from the Bay too you know? She is the godmother to my cousin but I had never met her. Everybody know somebody that know somebody in the Bay. So I never met her. 

Still. I knew why the caged bird sang. A film my teacher put on for the last day of middle school. No one was really watching. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. 

Maya Angelou

I have learned so much about her. I love what I’ve learned. She was so good with children’s poetry, which is so hard to write, but she wasn’t only a writer who wrote poems for 10 year olds to recite at their 5th grade promotion. 

She was a teen mother 
A sex worker 
A SA survivor 
A singer 
An activist 
A actress 
A filmmaker 
A director too. 
A friend 
A lover (to many)
A voice 
A body
A mute child 
An Aries (like me) 
A fighter

I love her so much. I believe I met her right when I needed to. Her complex love life was interesting and fascinating to pay attention to. She was married and remarried and dated and re-dated all the men she wanted to. And refused to stay with them if the love was lost. 

Her best friend was her son Guy who was often asked if he felt like he grew up in his mother’s shadow at which he responded “I grew up in her light,” and I love that. 

One of my skills as a writer is my ability to use critical fabulation to tell stories in vignettes. These collections are no different. Most of the vignettes (like Comb Your Hair) take on an approach of addressing a personal, historical and lyrical narrative all in one bite. I didn’t know that was a skill I could be proud of. She’s helped me be a stronger storyteller and writer and researcher. 

I feel so seen. 

I hope this body of work touches all of us who need her the most. 

From one poet 
To one mother 
To one lover 
To one teacher 
To one person struggling to tell the truth

This is for you. 

The Empty Triangle (or, Why American Theatre is Falling Apart)

Artists, Audience, Performing Arts, Playwright, playwriting, Producing, Theaters, Theatre, , , ,

By Tiffany Antone

I’m wrapping up my week here with an excerpt from my article on why American Theatre is falling apart. It’s a long read (grab your beverage of choice and find a comfy spot to sit for a little while) but I think it’s a useful perspective and it contains actionable steps, so like, it’s not just an “idea” paper, you dig? And then, after you’ve had time to digest, let me know what you think! I’m all about the conversation because nothing survives in a vacuum.

EXCERPT FROM “THEATRE’S EMPTY TRIANGLE”

THE TWEET

Listen, theatre is not inherently a public good. Yes, we say we welcome everyone, but we don’t. There are gatekeepers all over the fucking place, companies get tribal, artists get catty and resentful, ticket prices go up and up and up (not to mention the cost of parking!)… none of this is actually welcoming. What theatre is, (not due to a philosophy, but rather due to its very operation) is collaborative. It takes oodles of people to make a play. And that does mean it has the potential to bring people together. But we have to stop assuming that community is a given. Community is an action.

And that’s why your theatre space, should you own one, needs to be MORE than just a theatre space. It needs to be a third space. It needs to have a coffee shop or wine bar, or sandwich shop… it needs to have reading nooks and community art space, and live music and OPEN FUCKING DOORS. It needs to be integrated into the community — not just plopped down somewhere and offered as a culture stop “because culture is good for you!” Like we’re some kind of soul vitamin.

Theatre can be a soul vitamin, if it wants to, and if it is looked at as an act of service. And I don’t mean it has to be volunteer — service organizations can still pay their personnel. But the inherent philosophy and its actions/engagement need to shore up. If you just want to make plays for people, you ain’t a vitamin; you’re popcorn.

And I like popcorn! I really do! But I don’t need popcorn, you know what I’m saying?

Anyway, what follows is basically a manifesto of sorts, with diagrams, asides, and a lot of research (as much as I could get done, anyway… no one is paying me to write this) And I’m going to be honest: I started working on this before the pandemic, but then the world went sideways and the whole goddamn theatre system screeched to a halt. I almost had a (much more academic version) of what you’re about to read published during year one of the pandemic, but the book fell through, so now I’m publishing here (with a fair bit of swearing) because fuck it. Maybe it will be useful.

FOREWORD

I’m going to start things off with an anecdote. The story is not my own, rather it was told to me years ago and stuck. I’ve employed it in various lesson plans and teaching moments over the years, but it feels especially apropos here.

The story goes like this: A mother is making ham dinner for Easter. She gets out the ham, cuts it in half, places each half into a different baking pan, and puts both in the oven. Her daughter watches all this and asks “Mom, why do you always cut the ham in half?” The mother brushes the question off with “Because that’s how you bake a ham.” Her daughter presses her “I’ve never seen anyone else bake ham that way.” Her mother laughs, “Well, that’s how I’ve always done it.” Her daughter isn’t satisfied though: “Are you trying to cut down the cook time or something?” The mother pauses, annoyed, but realizes in her irritation, that she doesn’t know why she cuts the ham in half. It’s how her mother had taught her to bake ham, and that’s that. She tells her daughter that the reduced cook time is probably the answer, now can they get back to preparing Easter dinner, please?

But the question sticks with the mother, because she doesn’t like not knowing the answer. So that night she calls her mother long distance and after the usual “How do you do’s” and “Happy Easter” chit chat, she asks her why you need to cut a ham in half in order to bake it. Her mother laughs, and says “You don’t.” The woman insists: “But, that’s how you always made ham. And how you taught me to make it!” Her mother thinks a moment… then answers “Are you talking about when you were growing up? In our old house? I had to cut things in half because the oven was so short. Are you still cutting things in half? Lord, that’s funny!” The woman, red cheeked, thanks her mother and never cuts the Easter ham in half again.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

The prevailing theatre model in the US is one that’s been handed down to us. Its design, and the circumstances under which this system was codified, belong to generations past. And yet, we continue to recreate this model again, and again, because “that’s how we’ve always done it.”

And oh lord, are we paying for it now, or what?

Theatres across the country are shuttering their doors, hitting “pause”, and laying off staff in a desperate bid to diagnose the problem so that it can try drafting a cure. But the very system pausing itself, excising its extremities and furloughing its life-blood in the hopes of rebranding, rebooting, and resurrecting itself, IS the problem.

Maybe we should just let it burn?

Because then, like the phoenix rising from its ashes, theatremakers will be able to repurpose the “Theatre That Was” (beautiful, yes, but also transactional, classist, patriarchal, and racist) into the thing that theatre might become: ubiquitous, transformational, inclusive, and sustainable.

And it begins by admitting we’re not all working with the same oven.

THE EMPTY TRIANGLE

So, non-profit Theatre in America — which is a big goddamn country, huge even! — looks pretty homogeneous. Whether it’s a LORT theatre, a community theatre, or something in-between, if it’s a non-profit theatre, chances are good that the organization follows a predictably hierarchal order of operations. Which means it’s probably got a number of administrators working an insane number of hours to keep the theatre operational via ticket sales, grants, and donations. At every level these administrators make choices with the best of intentions: To stay open! So that we can make more theatre! But this top-down model comes with a host of problems — chief among them being that it grants administrators power over the artists they employ while also rewarding themselves with greater financial security.

Which, in brev-speak, boils down to this:

  • Theatre’s administrators, the granting organizations/big donors they must suck-up to, and the critics/tastemakers who whisper-shout about it all, are Theatre’s Gatekeepers. They have the Power.
  • The artists and audience are the only truly necessary part of the Theatre puzzle, but they only get to play if/when the Gatekeepers say so. They make the Magic.

It’s easy to get stuck inside a system of power, know that it’s fucked up, but not be able to pinpoint WHY. Well, here you go, eyeballs — do your thing:

Yes — this is a visual map of the American Theatre Industrial Complex. Ain’t it pretty? Here’s what you’re looking at:

The map diagrams what each of the primary “players” in American Theatre bring to the proverbial party. The cast includes Funders, Theatre Administrators, The Critical Eye, Creators, and Observers. All five of these entities work in service of bringing plays to life in what I have dubbed The Shared Space of Ephemeral Magic (which is just a really fun way to talk about the physical place where Art and Audience meet).

The whole system relies on ideas, prestige, and money to operate. In tracking each entity’s “Power Lines”, you can see what everyone brings into, and takes away from, the Shared Space.

And, as you look at the diagram, you can probably SEE why everything feels broken right now: inequity is literally baked into our prevailing model, making it nearly impossible for any of us to create with equity at the center of our work.

So yeah, it’s pretty clear why we’re all so fucking frustrated.

And yes, there are very real financial reasons theatre currently works the way it does, but the diagram shows us that there are under-valued nexus points already in play in the predominant operating model which we can refocus our energies into mobilizing.

So, if you’re still with me, I’m going to spend a little time breaking the model down for you and address the obvious questions (Why are you calling it the Empty Triangle? What the heck is the Invisible Triangle? Power lines? What? Do you honestly think you can do better?)

To the last point: Yes, and this whole thing ends with a push for us to invest in an Abundant Circle model of practice instead. So hang with me a bit, and then ya’ll can chew things over and decide for yourselves what — if anything — you want to do about it.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE

cultivating BLAC

Artists, LAFPI, Marketing, race, ,

by Leelee Jackson

Hi Readers! 

As we approach the new year, the nonprofit I’m a part of (Black Light Arts Collective- BLAC) is excited to kick programming into full gear.  For the past two and a half years, we’ve been passionately cultivating BLAC and we’re pushing to raise $75,000 to take programming to the next level. One way we are doing that is by selling merchandise which is available on our website. Your support will sustain a generous amount of opportunities for Black artists to succeed both in California and Internationally. For more information on giving, please visit https://www.blacklightartscollective.com/shop. 

These art pieces were created by the phenomenal Leila Victorin, Haitian-American, Michigan-based painter who uses art as a way to understand her place in the world and to talk about representation and connection in light of her own Black experience. It’s a well known fact that 

This piece was designed to showcase the community built between playwright Lorraine Hansberry, writer James Baldwin and singer Nina Simone. The three of them were good friends and debated theory and politics together over drinks and smokes. Nina Simone wrote a song honoring Lorraine Hansberry (To Be Young, Gifted and Black). Lorraine Hansberry once said “Jimmy Baldwin is arguably the greatest writer of our time.” Baldwin would sometimes share his work with Hansberry in it’s early stages to see what she thought. The love and opinions shared between these three is noteworthy and manifested in the quality of their craft.

For more on the three of them, check out Looking for Lorraine; The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry by Imani Perry.