reviewing my notes

I'm starting to review my notes from this past weekend's conference at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, entitled: THEATRE, DEMOCRACY & ENGAGEMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY.

lots of ideas...lots to decompress. some highlights/things that are staying with me:

"Have we, and maybe the field of theatre in general, been too disconnected to the political world in DC?"

"Who is our audience?"

"How do we define community engagement?" Community engagement versus the plays we produce.

"Are we happy with the theatre's place in society right now?"

From Nilaja Sun...
- Woolly needs more than just PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN Nights. It needs 5 shows a week where it brings the Rosa Parks kids that are used to sitting in the back of the theatre up to the front; mixing their energy in with the REST. ...secretly weaving, clandestine, integrating...just like breathing.

From Alison Carey...
- Artists and Audiences are essentially the same.
- Create art with your audience, not for them. People invtest only in what they create.
- Families should be engaged with the theatre again. They go to churches and sports matches, but not so much the theatre anymore. Why?
- Parents won't let their kids come and see a play if the word FUCK is in it. However, parents will let their kids come and see a play with the word FUCK in it if they helped write or make it!
- Big cast plays reguarly. We cannot tell the stories we need to tell with small numbers of characters.
- Get over the world premiere media. Nobody cares. (i loved this lady)
- Find out what theatre DOES to people. What does it DO to the audience's brain? Conduct studies. We have studies done on actor's brains, on kids and their engagement with art and music...but what does theatre actually do to the theatre audience's mind?
- More plays on science, multi-linguistic, open rehearsals, more stories about what people actually DO.
- Playwright in residence with the US Congress. They should have a pass in the Cafeteria.
- Don't take shortcuts. Defy expectation, rather than convention. The Beatles never did the same thing twice.

From Erik Ehn...
- It's about an exercise in understanding a memory, along with a great unknown will of our own.
- We are constructed to live.
- "Our audience is Death." - Beckett
- We need to move toward plays that make us helpless.
- We must remember that our business is based in play.
- Why do corporations cut off our civics?
- The best theatre in times of certainty is criminal.
- Death is the only market that stages infinite growth. *
- The Wise need growth.
- Make room for more loving.
- Theatre is a movement. It is a project. It is transition. Give it away for free.
- If we are water, the wheel will find us.
- Meaning is the new loyal. Cite everywhere. Let the world blow through us.

From Charles Mee...
- Ivo's theatre company in Amsterdam did a play with all hugh school students. Did his play "The Perfect Marriage" with students from a conservative Dutch high school and with kids from a Muslim high school. The action of the play were these two families.
-- In an 18th century gold opera house. Two communities brought together to the theatre. Electrifying in the audience, led to conversations. New and adventurous work-- new generation of people brought in, never been before...

From Andy Shallal...
- The power of art and restaurants, when mixed, can catalyze change.
- U St used to be Black Broadway.
- "Oh. THIS is Washington." -- we don't have this identity yet, unlike NYC, Chicago, etc.
- We have not been able to move away from the shadow of the Capitol.
- Moment of ReDefinition is here.
- Peace Cafe's being implemented at Theatre J after Jewish/Muslim conflict-themed plays.
- Change people's paradigm momentarily, hosting conventions in communities.


0 Are we in the middle of a cultural revolution? The 1960's are now the mainstream...
0 Is it time to expand the circle once again?

----

so many ideas its mind numbing while exhilarating.

some things i do know. the circle needs expanding and the culture/community needs re-definition. most people do not truly comprehend the power of theatre, its many forms, nor even psycho drama therapy. i think that the Art should come first, and everything else just follow right behind it. we can't denouce or resist whatever art is bubbling inside of us. we must speak out.

that being said, a balance needs to be met between aesthetics and community outreach/engagement. a theatre must engage in its aesthetics, follow its mission, and create its very own expression of beauty and truth. but i feel community engagement is a responsibility of the theatre in the 21st century, and it must be in the mix. i think this for two reasons. 1. the theatre audience is droppping steadily. if we don't reach out to the community, let people know that The Theatre is for them too, then we'll lose them. And once you lose an audience, it can be very hard to get them back. 2ndly: theatre is, in essence, community engagement. that's what it is. The theatre can do grand costume dramas or musicals, but they must engage and be influenced/inspired by it's whole community too. it's whole community--the rich the poor the black the white the healthy and the HIV infected.

The National Theatre of Sudan is mentoring fomer child soliders on plays they are writing as well as engaging the children in drama therapy, various sensitivity/vulnerability exercises. And then the teens are performing their works together. This is amazing, and this is what I mean.

That theatre company reaching out to the Dutch and Muslim communities in Amsterdam, a community in Amsterdam known for its conflict...again, this is incredible. and it's impacting real people, real communities.

If a theatre company can maintain a season which follows its own mission as well as engage in this REAL kind of community theatrical engagement, than i think theatre will continue to evolve into something very important to different communities.

Maybe this is a do-able solution, maybe it isn't. Maybe I'm really just expressing my own feelings. For me, I want to continue saturating myself in art. I want to grow as an artist, but I've also, very recently, been hearing about this incredible power that theatre has in different engagement settings. Like in Sudan, Amsterdam, or even going into the projects and get kids to put on a play. This work, this REAL-kind of work, really excites me.

I just saw the film PRECIOUS the other night. Whew. I'm noticing the signs...