traveling with stuff for shows

We're off to Monterey & Santa Cruz to perform The Flying Skeletons, a 40 minute show for ages 4 thru 12. Here's where I get to stay the child that I am, flying around waving things, talking in funny voices, dancing my heart out. Yes, it's grueling hard work, many rehearsals, but what a joy to be a child and be a physical part of a story. Everyone needs a chance to do this. Viva imagination. More later about El Dia de los Muertos.... coming at the end of the week.

Non profit anxiety

The anxiety seems to increase proportionate to the media reports of the rebounding economy. Why am I not feeling the financial trickledown? Could it be the number of homeless clearly visible as I drive or walk around Oakland? Could it be the spate of thefts at one of the schools where I teach? Looking at an empty glass -- not even half full -- saps our energies, leaves us desperate for a drop of hope.

In class this week, I used an exercise I learned from one of our teaching artists that introduces the acting technique of intention / objective. We watched students saunter into the classroom in their typical mode. Then we watched them enter again, this time knowing that there was a dollar bill hidden in the room, and that the person to find it could keep it. As one student pointed out, the second time they entered "they had an agenda." Students really wanted that dollar.

Thoughts of upcoming government grant proposal deadlines, cash flow issues, fundraising that needs to happen, seize us with icy worry. Yet, the antidote to non profit anxiety? Our reason for existing in the first place. Art itself and the community it nurtures. Just one moment seeing a group of students who normally quarrel happily planning a skit together, or a woman having the courage to read a poem to others about childhood abuse, or a small child making up beautiful lines in his character as a cloud, opens up my heart and makes me glad to be alive.

Attention - deficit

Went to a 'new' marketing seminar recently. The crowd of non profit arts folks were informed that we are no longer living in an Experience Economy, we are living in an Attention Economy. Unspoken addition: I am living in a deficit world, because deficit is one of the most frequent words I hear.

Those who study our behavior (today's anthropologists and sociologists) note that people's attention is overwhelmedmed and we must shift strategies accordingly. Do I blog, tweat, email, fax, use a stamp, phone, text -- or last resort visit in person -- to get my message across? An invisible Arbiter of How We Do Things is directing our lives by posting online "most viewed by thousands" reports, videos, blogs or photos. Broadway shows are producing Twitter versions of their productions because most people want to see things they've already pre-viewed, so they know they won't waste their money. As we sank lower and lower in our seats, our non profit group was further enlightened with the news that people age 12 to 24 trust online strangers more than their peers (and presumably, their parents). This news was supposed to encourage us because we can reach so many more people with... what?

What does live theater have to do with all this? As an artist, my attention deficit brain responded to the news by conjuring up images of rank on rank of shadowy torsos locked in embrace with computer screens. Maybe ocasionally the torsos sprout legs and peek out their doors to look for food or the rest room.

Another image mocks me: I watch my own funeral because I failed to launch an online community that satisfied unknown thousands' hunger for companionship, failed to be the most viewed on YouTube for a week, failed to reach geometrically expanding circles of friends on Facebook and Linked In. (Sadly, my funeral had a very small audience because no one posted the date on the right blog. Could someone put the video on YouTube? ) In the Attention deficit Economy I miss my own funeral because the live ceremony was too long and I need to keep up with all the social networking sites.

And yet, strange and wonderful. A concerned parent the other day informed me that "live theater has a much stronger impact on children" than TV or movies. Our live theater pieces might frighten the children more than the cartoon dismemberings and deep voiced robot villains they see regularly on tv.

Sorry, have to follow another blog and check yahoo news. More later.