Before I begin, you have prerequisite reading: The Empty Spaces, or, How Theatre Failed America, an essay from the Seattle Stranger by Mike Daisey.  You must read this before you continue.  Don’t worry, I can wait.

…

Ready?  Okay.So a question has been laid on the table: How do we save theatre?  Well first, let’s think about what theatre is.  I’m not talking about some fancy Webster’s dictionary definition¹, I’m talking about the essence of what it means to go on stage every night for six days a week.  No, it’s not money.  No, it’s not success.  It’s not fame.  It’s your soul.

Art is putting your soul out there for people to see and appreciate.  Theatre is doing that by creating a story.  Painters do it by putting brushes to canvas.  Dancers dance.  Singers sing.  Writers write.  And we all do roughly the same things: a musician, for example, has twelve notes² to utilize.  You’ve heard a million songs in the chord progression I – IV – V, from the Beatles to blues to rock to folk, etc etc ad nauseum.  But it never gets old.  Why?  Because of the persons giving you the music.  The Beatles would never be the Beatles without John, Paul, George and Ringo, period.  The Rolling Stones without Mick Jagger and Keith Richards would be nothing.  Carrie by Stephen King would be different if written by someone else.  This is just how it is.

One of the great things about theatre is that it inverts the concept of creation: with music, it’s usually one act creating many songs, or one artists making many paintings, but in theatre, it’s one play inhabited by thousands of actors.  Imagine all of the people who have played Hamlet.  I guess from an actor’s point of view it’s one person becoming a thousand people, but still.  Every play is like a cover band.

So what is the problem with theatre?  A couple of things.  One, it’s becoming too commercialized.  Regional theatres are becoming national theatres in the sense that, instead of hiring brilliant regional actors, they’re outsourcing to New York, which is a silly, stupid idea.  Regional actors are who regional people want to see, plain and simple.  I’m going to talk about the Boise theatre scene for a second because it’s so small it’s laughable, but also because I know more about it than anywhere else.  Boise has two big theatre companies: the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, and Boise Contemporary Theater.  The former does summerstock, or theatre in the summer, in an outdoor venue.  They do maybe one Shakespeare show just so they can keep the title, and then do other shows. A couple of years ago they did Arsenic and Old Lace, which I actually thought was pretty gutsy of them, considering Arsenic is almost exclusively a community theatre play.  But mainly they are a “spectacle” theatre: fancy sets and costumes, boisterous actors, physical comedy — stuff to entertain the masses.  Style without substance.  One of the crutches of theatre is that people assume the script is the substance, but it’s not.  The substance of theatre is the play happening on stage (and, to a lesser extent, to the rehearsal process).

Anyway, ISF outsources to New York, especially for their musicals, which is a fucking travesty because we have an enormous group of very talented singers, dancers, and actors at Boise State who would love to be a part of that experience.  Here’s where the “regional” aspect comes in … some of the non-outsourced actors have been there for several years, and that’s part of the charm of it all: patrons keep coming to the theatre to see the shows, but also to see their favorite actors performing.  They look for nuances in each performance.  They grade the actor based on past experiences.  These actors aren’t celebrities, they’re almost part of a family.  Unfortunately, it’s a family that only rich, white people can see.

This would be okay if ISF also didn’t make it look like they were raising young actors to eventually be a part of their stage.  As with all theatres, they have youth classes and whatnot, and one of those classes is the Apprentice program, wherein a bunch of rich kids pay a lot of money to get taught by the ISF staff over the summer, taking “master classes” (I fucking hate that term) and being glorified stagehands and extras.  They become part of this “family” that’s really just a clever money pit, because once these kids are too old to be a part of the program anymore, they either get the illustrious job of being assistant stage managers (read: stagehands), or they go to college and major in theatre because they’re so full of the spirit of it all, and get their degree and audition for the artistic director in an audition that can only be called a favor to the department chair, only to be told that they need a graduate degree.  And that’s frustrating, but fuck it, they’ll go to graduate school, do their two years learning how to become a puppet of corporate theatre, and then finally get into ISF — a theatre company they gave their hearts to eight years ago — only to be in a shitty version of Midsummer Night’s Dream set in Studio 54.  Oh, the audiences will eat it up; Puck is dressed like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever!, the “magic potion” given to Titania and Lysander is actually cocaine!, everyone does the electric slide at the end!  Congratulations, you just sold your soul in a way you never thought you could.

Well … I didn’t expect to go on such a rant right there.  I just really dislike the Apprentice program.  For the record, I never participated in the program; my family was too poor.

The other theatre company, BCT, fares a little better.  They do occasionally bring in the out-of-state actor (or, say, Lauren Weedman for her one woman shows … but of course that’s understandable).  Their shows are small and intimate, usually three to four actors, which is nice.  And they’re trying to reach out to the actors in the city, with staged readings and other internships and whatnot, but they still cast the same actors in every show.  Which is good, because they’re local actors and they’re very good, and like I said earlier, audiences like to see the same actors, but it just means no opportunities for fresh faces.

They’re also having a “Season Opening Celebration” which is a thinly veiled fundraiser.  How much does it cost to get in?  $100.  Fucking ridiculous.  Contrast that with the Manor of Art, a week long event here in Portland, right across the street from my house, with I believe eight to twelve bands, a ton of art in about three hundred rooms, all of it incredible, and how much did it cost to get in?

Suggested donation.  That’s how much it cost.

Theatre is not the fucking Freemasons.  It’s not some secret club that has a special handshake that you need to know to get in.  It’s a collaborative art form that includes the AUDIENCE as part of the collaboration.  It’s not a rich white people society, where white-haired old ladies watch August Wilson’s “Fences” only to talk about slavery on the drive home, totally missing the point, and perhaps the plot, of the entire play.  And it certainly, certainly should not cost one hundred dollars to go to a theatre opening celebration.  That’s fucked up, plain and simple.

I’m getting a little off topic, and I apologize.  But to all my actor friends in Boise (those who aren’t in ISF or BCT) I implore you to leave.  Move away.  Go to a city that has more theatre opportunities.  Get some gigs under your belt.  Then maybe come back.

So the answer to the big question: how do we save theatre?  First and foremost, cut ticket prices across the board.  Plays cost anywhere from $20 to $60 these days, while movies only cost $10, and people always complain about the cost of a movie.  Theatre is not more “special” than a movie.  It’s a different experience, sure, but they’re essentially the same medium (an audience watching actors), and one should not cost more than the other.  Make theatre tickets $10, maybe $5 for senior citizens.  No one is turned away then. We live in an age where a few people make a lot of money, but most people don’t, and those people don’t want to have to choose between a play, or groceries.  If you’re wondering why so many people watch TV, this is one of the big reasons: because they can’t afford to go to anything else³.

This will invariably lead to budget cuts for costumes, props, lighting, etc.  This is a good thing.  The old theatre adage is “Keep it simple, stupid.”  Yet if you look at Broadway these days, or any of the big theatre companies, you see this is clearly not what they’re thinking.  And so what happens is that the story gets bogged down by spectacle, by style, by exuberance of novelty.  I think — I hope — that we’re finally reaching a point in our society where this is starting to die down.  Probably not, but you never know.  Unfortunately, keeping prices low will mean more audience members, but less money overall, but that’s a good thing!  It means you have to A) innovate, and B) act better! so that people will say “Oh that play was great!” vs “Oh that set was pretty!”

This is a good thing, I promise you.  I know that the costume designers and set designers out there will feel left out by this proposition, but I assure you, it’s a good thing.

Another obvious solution is to not spend so much money on equity actors in New York, and instead spend slightly less on, you guessed it, regional actors!  I suppose artistic directors think that this diminishes the quality of the theatre they produce, but I guarantee you it doesn’t.  This is what auditions are for, to weed out the shit actors from the good ones.  Unfortunately acting is all about “networking” now, which is a business way of saying “kissing ass.”  They call it networking because it obviously is not making friends.

I know, I know, you theatre companies have children to feed and houses to pay for.  I understand all of that.  We all do, because we all have rent and children and dogs, etc etc.  But we all share a common bond: we all love theatre.  We love giving a piece of ourselves for the good of the community.  We love an engaging story that brings the audience to a feeling of higher consciousness.  We love making people laugh.  We love making them cry.  It’s not manipulation, it’s storytelling, and we’re going along with them.  But stories should be for everyone, not just the privileged few who can afford it.

Ultimately, the ticket prices is just one aspect of theatre that we can control.  We can’t control the motion of our culture, the fact that young people would rather watch the stupidity of Transformers 2 than the brilliance of, say, Eric Bogosian. Or Mamet.  You think kids would love Mamet, buuut no.  They want to be dumb.  They are being funneled into mindless job drones, carefully manipulated into getting a job doing the same stupid shit eight hours a day until they die.  Honestly, I think art is what is going to fix this country.  I wish other people felt the same.

Sorry for rambling, I tend to do that a lot.  I just don’t want my college education to go to waste.  I think we could easily save the American theatre, but doing so will require a huge sacrifice — by everyone.  Money, first, time, second.  And if you’ve read this far, I’d love to hear your opinions too. 

Shakespeare ebonics?

Does that sentence make any sense whatsoever?  I get what they’re trying to do but it just looks stupid.  It looks like stupid, bad English.  I mean, let’s say they conjugated “to be” in this sentence.  Then it becomes “Is portrait being or not being only of Shakespeare?” Which quite frankly sounds like something I would read in a Russian spam e-mail.

Again, I get the implications, but it just doesn’t work, CNN.com.  Sorry.  And judging from this picture you appear to be making Shaksey blush a little bit.

Actually, you know what’s weird?

SHAKESPEARE LOOKS KINDA LIKE TIM ROTH!  Especially the eyes.  Whoa.

You can listen to my FAWM output here: http://www.fawm.org/fawmers/zornog/  I think I did really well this year.  My songs are starting to find their niche — mostly pop/folk stuff, with some straight up rock thrown in there for good measure.

In a couple of days I will update the FAWM tab above to include an annotation of the songs, how I wrote them, what they’re about, etc.  Stay tuned for that.

Now, as for the show … I had mentioned in various cryptic Twitter messages that the show was getting kind of crazy.  I said I was going to blog about it, but after thinking about it for a while, I’ve decided that I won’t talk about what happened.  I owe everyone in that show a huge debt of gratitude for ushering me into the Portland theatre scene, and while not everything worked out perfectly, it was still a great experience and I appreciate everyone who I worked with.  Plus it’s just unprofessional and childish to write about things like that.  It wasn’t even anything serious, really.  No murders or extravagant gossip.  Sorry to burst your bubble.

So: what now?  Good question!  I plan on spending some time building up my monologue collection for future auditions.  Tangential sidenote: I went to Powell’s on Sunday for the sole purpose of purchasing a book of monologues¹ and ended up buying The Confusing, System of the World, and Cryptonomicon, all in trade paperback, for $8 bucks each, thus completing my Baroque Cycle collection.  My reading year is complete!  Anyway, the point of this sidenote is that monologue books suck.  I’ll have to make a second trip but really the whole ordeal made my brain hurt.  There’s a lot of new plays out there that I have yet to read, and having to choose one or two is difficult.  I wanted to just grab Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and be done with it, but I knew I should be more discerning with my play choices².

NEXT ITEM!

My hair is currently dark brownish because of Perfection.  I have the option of dyeing it again, or letting it grow out to it’s natural color.  Which do you prefer?

This:

Original color.

Or this:

nnndarkdarkdark

Please note that that is not the greatest picture of me (the second one, I mean).  I do look a bit “cadaverous” as my friend Emily put it.  It’s just the glare from the computer screen, though.  I think it looks pretty good myself.

1.  The Twitter Stripper.  

A week or two ago I was walking to the bus stop from work, when I passed a young, attractive punk-ish looking girl walking a tiny dog and getting stuff out of her van.  She wore black tights and leopard-skin bike shorts, and a big leather jacket and a “fuck you” sneer on her face.  Needless to say, I was in love.  As I passed by I wondered if she lived at the house next to us — an older looking brown house with Halloween decorations  (tombstones, spiderwebs, etc) still affixed to the front lawn.  It seemed like a perfect fit.  But, alas, my poor social skills forbade me to talk to her.  Besides, she might punch me in the face or something.  She probably has a Billy Idol shrine in her closet.

So I passed her by.

The next day, on Twitter, I see this tweet from PDXPipeline:

Just saw Portland’s favorite exotic dancer, Malice,walking her mini Dobermans outside Creme. New hair color http://twitpic.com/1bge0

I, being a fan of pretty ladies, clicked the link.  And guess who it is?  It’s the punk lady from the other day!  Crazy hair and leather jacket and all.  I knew there was more to her than meets the eye (or less, I suppose, once she gets on stage…).

This led me to the following thought: What would I say to this woman if she was giving me a lapdance?  I’ve always been the Embarrassed Guy at the strip club (and I’ve only been to a strip club once, so we’re talking 100% success rate¹), and all I could imagine was how I’d try to work in that I knew she was a stripper from Twitter.  Something like this:

SCENE: Strip club.  JOSH, sitting in a chair in a private booth.  MALICE enters, fully nude.  She clutches a twenty dollar bill in her teeth.

MALICE.  One of your friends bought you a lapdance, huh?
JOSH. It appears so.
MALICE.  Gotcha.

She plops down on JOSH’S lap, begins to grind slowly.

A beat.

JOSH.  So, how are you?
MALICE.  I’m good, baby.  How are you feeling?
JOSH.  I’m fine.
MALICE.  Are you ready for me?
JOSH.  Uh … yes?
MALICE.  Good.

Beat.  MALICE is lapdancing, JOSH is looking awkward.  He feels he must initiate some form of conversation, so that he can rise above the “average” lapdance receiver: the grimy dude with his front teeth missing or the fat trucker with the wicked mustache.  So:

JOSH.  You know, it’s funny…
MALICE.  What?
JOSH.  You live across the street from where I work.
MALICE.  Oh yeah?
JOSH.  Yeah.
MALICE.  That’s not very funny.
JOSH.  I didn’t mean funny “ha ha,” I meant funny strange.  But not strange strange, I mean–
MALICE (puts a finger to his lips).  Shhhhh..

She continues to writhe on JOSH’S body, making all kinds of noises that would turn a regular man on.  But JOSH is no regular man — he is a socially awkward nerd.

JOSH.  I saw you on Twitter.
MALICE (sighs).  What?
JOSH.  I mean, I saw you at my work, right, but then later on I saw you on Twitter.  That’s how I knew you were a stripper.
MALICE.  What’s Twitter?
JOSH.  It’s a social networking site.  Like blogging, but only 140 character.  Microblogging, they call it.

Beat.

MALICE.  Your time is up. 

The end.

And that’s how I assume that would go.

2. The Introvert’s Penmanship

All of these stories, by the way, are linked by Twitter.

And this isn’t really a story, it’s just a theory I had while working today.  Basically, my theory is that introverted people have bad handwriting, and extroverted people have good handwriting.  Why?  Because introverts don’t need attention from others.  The most typical introvert characteristic is that they (we, I should say, I’m pretty introverted) feel drained after being around people for an extended period of time, while extroverts feel energized.  Penmanship, I believe, is something that reflects this introvert/extrovert characteristic, because writing is ultimately viewed by other people.  Introverts can’t be bothered to write well, I guess, is my ultimate point.  Extroverts WANT to write well so that it (and they) look good to others, but introverts don’t care, because interaction with people isn’t important to them.

Something like that.  The idea makes sense in my head, but the English language is lacking the words I need to express myself, heh.

3. The Pale-Faced Play Review

Perfection, the play I am currently in, has been featured in the Oregonian twice:  once as a story about the meaning of the show itself, and now as a review.  I can’t really tell if the reviewer enjoyed the play or not — he says it ventures too close to “melodrama” and is “emotionally overwrought,” both of which aren’t untrue, necessarily (the play deals with a heavy subject), but he doesn’t specifically say that those detract from the show itself.  He insinuates it, of course, and insinuation is the reviewer’s best friend — the ability to say you hate something without saying outright that you hate it.

I don’t generally pay attention to play reviews.  I know actors say this a lot, and while I will admit that I think it kicks ass when I get a good review, I don’t get all distraught if I get a bad one.  I can tell if I’m in a bad show, and I’ve been in a couple².

But in this review the guy said I was “intriguing” but looked “ghoulish” with my stage makeup and the stage lighting.  I guess this must’ve distracted him from my acting ability.  All I can think is that he added the “stage lighting” part because he must’ve realized, at some point in writing the review, that I can’t not be pale, and so he blamed it on something else.  My makeup can’t save my paleness; it has to be the same shade as my face or else it looks like I got a terrible fake tan.

Anyway, it just bugged me because this is my first show and the review for the show is that my makeup/the lighting sucks.  All the other castmates (save for Alex and Brian, who didn’t even get mentioned — what gives?!) got glowing reviews, but Josh is a pasty ghoul.  Le sigh.  I’m not planning on tanning any time soon, dude.

Helen, the playwright, is worried that the review will lower ticket sales, so we’re not sure if we’ll be playing past this Sunday.  Honestly, the reviewer’s stance on the play itself is merited — it is a little melodramatic, but I don’t know what else it could be.  It’s about sterilization of people, for Chrissakes!  That’s a tragic thing, and this is a tragic play.

I guess we’ll see what happens this weekend.  If you’re in Portland, you should come see the show!  Here’s the website for more details.

And now to work on Test Comic comics and FAWM songs!

It is February (or Febyewary for those of you too lazy to pronounce things correctly), and I am swamped.  The show that I’ve been rehearsing since January has finally opened.  I think this Twitter post sums up the night:

First show done! The audience was drunk and I finally realized how much of a villain I am! Eeeexcellent

Our opening night house¹ was bought by some special interest group called Just Portland.  They imbibed copious amounts of wine and had what I can only imagine was the worst/most awkward talkback ever (talkbacks are usually held after the show, to talk about the show — this one was before the show, and lord knows what they talked about.  The weather?).  They were nice and sauced when we came on stage.  Regarding the “villain” part … well I could clearly tell within the first couple of scenes that no one was buying my shit whatsoever.  It threw me for a second — I started to wonder, “Are they laughing at my acting or because I’m such a bastard?”  This was around scene 3; by the second act I knew they were laughing because they were drunk and weren’t putting up with my nonsense.  I realized, then, that I was the villain in this play.

I should state, too, that they weren’t laughing all of the time — it’s just the laughter that threw me off at first.  There are some genuinely funny parts in the play, but most of the laughter was the snide kind that you hear from someone who thinks you’re a total asshole.

It’s great cause it means I can let go –I have my own feelings about my character, about how I’m “misguided” but a good person inherently, but you know what?  People aren’t going to see that.  I’m doing my best to keep as far away from melodrama as possible, but the truth is that I’m a villain and a hypocrit.  And that’s that.

So that’s what I’m doing with my weekend.  Besides tweeting about random stuff I do during the day, of course.  Oh, and I guess my picture was in the Oregonian’s lifestyle section on Thursday, which would mark the first time my face has ever been in a major newspaper, unless you count that time I raped those kids.  But that was the front page, baby.

As for FAWM, I’m still working on it.  I plan on recording stuff on the days (nights, really) when I’m not doing the show.  And on the weekend.  My other projects are still very active — Test Comic will come back this Monday, FAWM is still a go (I just restrung my guitars!).  Umm … if I get a chance I will play my FAWM songs at an open mic somewhere.  You know, cool stuff like that.  Oh, and the website work is still in progress.  joshuabelville.com is pretty much done except for small pages.  Now I just have to redesign zornog.net… it’ll take time.

So that’s that!  I will try to update this more often now, but I suggest that you follow me on Twitter if you haven’t already, because I update a lot more there (especially if I’m out and about).  This is primarily because I have no friends and am a la-hoo-se-herr.

Oh, the things we do for our art.

I have a new haircut.  And, um, a new color.  What lays upon my head is “Fall Chestnut,” a color that is largely dark brown but shines a little red under the light.  It is for the show that I’m performing in February.  It apparently will get lighter as the weeks progress.  Yes, my eyebrows were dyed as well, but they will fade quickly.  This happened last night, in a salon called Akeni or Akani, tucked away in a building on NE Williams St.  There was wine and fruit.  My beauty steward was named Denise, and when all was said and done, hair styled and makeup applied, I looked like this:

Me in twenty years (hopefully).

This post could quicky turn into how much I hate my facial features.  I will refrain from following that path.

So this is what my life has been for the past couple of weeks.  I get up, go to work for a stretch of time, then go to rehearsal until 9pm, then come home and talk to my girlfriend on the phone for an hour or so, then sleep.  Wake up and repeat.  A couple of months ago I had all the time in the world.  Now I have none.  I’m not complaining; I much prefer having things to do than not, but sometimes I wish those things were a little more exciting than doing data entry all day.  However!  Having a job is much more important these days than what kind of job it is, and my job is pretty awesome either way.

Okay, important stuff happening in March to my website!

My site will soon be split into two!  I am planning on purchasing a domain name for just my music/acting stuff (like joshbelville.com or something), and leaving this website as my personal one.  This is Good because I can put more fun stuff on this site and make it less “professional” (or something).  But I won’t have time to focus on that stuff until March, cause February is when my show goes up AND when FAWM is happening, and I’ll be busy like a mofo.  So I’m just telling you now to STAY TUNED, and be ready to bookmark a brand new site!

Now I really ought to go back to memorizing lines.  If you’re in the Portland area, come see my show!  KTHXBAI

And as I was talking to her I saw this:

click it for larger image

And this was my face:

So naturally I sent a resume.