tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85529832417914923802024-02-19T23:37:02.375-08:00Theatre Arts In AmericaA blog devoted to the art of theatre making in our regionZack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-61141048433179246402021-07-19T17:31:00.002-07:002021-07-19T17:31:27.761-07:00Response From a Local Community Member to "Toward a Gonzo Theatre..." Unedited<p><b>This local theatre community member graciously permitted me to share her response to my opinion piece under protection of anonymity. The following is her response unedited. Thanks to her for participating in the discussion. </b></p><p><br /></p><p>Shit Zac. So much to
unpack here. I will say, on the mobile
app, that the blog only started with Part 6.
I wasn’t until I got to a computer that I was able to read Parts
1-5. Which is crucial to understanding
Parts 6-12.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ok, I’m biting. Part
1 talks about an issue that really grinds my gears: the virtue signaling of woke, wight,
privileged folks, who, in their desire for wokeness, actually forget to call in
and ask the BIPOC folks what they actually want and need. I don’t get to tell black people what they
need. What I get to do is ask them. And if that makes someone uncomfortable, so
be it. In Part 2, where you talk about
substantive justice……makes sense, but impact is always greater than
intent. Whether it <i>should be</i> that way makes no difference to the fact that <i>it is</i>.
BUT, I’ve come to learn over decades of therapy and 12 step programs
that if I am going to be OK with my feelings on a situation, I have to realize
that another person’s actions probably <i>have
nothing to do with me </i>and <i>everything </i>to
do with them. I am not the end-all
be-all. It actually isn’t all about
me. “The theatre must challenge
everything in its view in order to function at all. It’s not smooth……It’s not
comfortable. It’s not safe for the ego. It’s not a place for the faint of
heart, nor for anyone who would want to set systems in stone. The theatre is a
place of openings. It’s a living organism.”
Ah, and if it were not a living organism, we’d call it a Boomer and set
it on a shelf. “Without the right to
fuck up, theatre makers would never make any kind of decent work.” Isn’t this true of us all?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Part 3, The Rehearsal Room.
Where feelings get hurt. Or as
you say, where these conversations must be unavoidable. Dude, I fuck up a lot. I say the wrong thing. A lot.
And I rely on my friends to call me out when I do so. And they rely on me to say “sorry” and change
my behavior. Because that’s all we’re
trying to do. Well, some of us. To get better and to learn. But there has got to be space for grace and
for nuance. Otherwise this whole shit
and shebang is pointless.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Part 4. Now you’re
making me uncomfortable, buddy. Because
I don’t want to look at myself. It
hurts, it’s messy, it’s ugly, and most of all, because I don’t know who I am without
my trauma to define me. So…..what if
there’s no one on the other side? But
therein lies the problem. What if there
is? I have to have the courage to walk
through that. You talked about abusers
controlling, through me putting them in that situation……this is a lesson I
started to unpack at 34. I went for 34
years, making every decision in life based on the opposite of what I thought my
mother would do. Except guess what? That
meant that I was still putting her in that position of power to dictate how I
lived my life. There’s that stupid-ass meme going around, something alone the
lines of ‘a drug addict has two sons, one never used drugs because of his
father, and one became an addict because of his father’. I forget what the shitty punchline is
supposed to be. But that’s my
point: when my abuser quits abusing me,
either actively or subconsciously because of the role that I give them in my
head, and I base my life’s decisions on that relationship, said abuser is still
in control. I mean, what if I just
learned how to make my own decisions?
But that doesn’t come until I start unpacking this shit.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But let’s do talk about the issue of safety. We do all deserve to feel safe, most
especially physically, but the reality is, it’s not going to always happen
emotionally. Shit happens, people are
people, and we get triggered. I’m not
responsible for my own first thought, but I am responsible for my next
action. I sometimes get super triggered,
not even knowing why I am triggered, react badly, and am shitty to those that I
love. But it’s still not that person’s
fault for triggering some part of my trauma that A) they did not know about and
2) to be honest….I didn’t really know about either. Trauma is a tricky thing when there are years
and decades to work through. I’ve
noticed during Covid, that weird things are triggering me…..things that I had
no idea were there. And if I don’t know
that they’re there, those around me damn sure don’t. I mean, I was recently triggered for being
asked to wear a headlamp. No seriously,
this is real. And I completely lost my
shit. Except, how could anyone have
known that that was a trigger? Most
don’t know that I am a recovered addict who used to be domestic violenced based
on the amount of lights in my house after dark (this is a real thing, paranoia
is a mother f87ker). In any case, my
reaction and how I treated the other person afterwards was my own. I was at fault. And now I have to do something about it. Lest we have more PSPSs and I need a headlamp
<span style="font-family: "Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol-ext; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: "Segoe UI Emoji";">🥴</span>. “And
don’t take it personally.” “Being honest
with yourself is the act of accepting what is the reality of a situation or the
world or an issue, and releasing your attachment to how you think it should
have gone.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Your trauma is just that: Yours. You have made the choice
(not the same thing as a decision. A decision is a move against, whereas a
choice is a direct action toward) to carry that trauma through your life. It
sits there, in the cue, waiting for triggers to flare it up so that you can
continue your story of oppression; a story that you are somehow less capable,
less valuable, less viable as a human being in this life than others. A story
that you need a parent, some outside force, to discipline the world who is
bullying you because you are incapable of defending yourself.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I don’t like this Zac.
Not one damn bit. I have an ACES
score of 10. Always wanted to be a
winner, never meant for it to be winning at trauma. But no matter how much I don’t like it, it’s
invariably true. Like I said earlier, I
didn’t know who I was without my trauma.
And I did use it for years to continue that same sad story of
oppression. But shit, I grew tired of
continually victimizing myself, either directly, or by choosing to have the
same sorts of people in my life. If I am
always a victim of my trauma or my abusers, then I am never empowered to do
something about it. I can’t change
them. But I can change me. And that is powerful. “Your traumatizers have forgotten about you
long ago. What they did to you doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to you.”---cannot
stress enough how much I love this line.
This one too---"You can’t have it both ways: you can’t be a victim
and control how your victimizers abuse you.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On Louis CK---I remember that post. It wasn’t triggering to me at the time
because I had no idea what the controversy was.
Even this morning, I had forgotten.
But after reading your essay, I went back and read the Vox article on
it. And he’s a bad guy, Zac. He’s a real bad guy. Not for having a kink or a fetish (who
doesn’t?!) but for the power he wielded over those women with whom he had a
professional relationship. A very
similar thing just happened to me. Eight
weeks ago. And it has been pure
hell. But even having had a very similar
thing just happen to me…..I’m not going to run around and cancel every single
artist in the world. Because a good
portion of them are garbage. As are
humans. But if I cancel all artists who
are garbage……then we have no art. And
that just won’t do. I give zero f87ks that
you think Louis CK is a great comedian.
I am sure that he is. He is also
a garbage human. Neither of those exist
in a vacuum. He can be both. <o:p></o:p></p>
<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: times;">Ok I am done.
Well, almost. I see comments
saying that your piece comes off as aggressive…..I don’t see that at all
Zac. It sounds like a sincere cry for
help for a community that you love, that you see eating itself alive. This community claims to be inclusive, but I
can promise you that I haven’t ever felt included. I was never the right “enough” of whatever
that super-special-theatre-unicorn-sprinkling shit is supposed to be. I know that other fellow cast mates feel the
same---felt ostracized for not fitting into a group that feels the need to
define who gets to be in the group, therefore the opposite of inclusion. I see other posts in that group from people
who want to scream from the rooftops “USE THE RIGHT WORDS!” But continue to
shit on marginalized groups….with their words.
It’s frustrating, and it’s disheartening. I commend you for at least trying Zac. You gave it the old college try. And for me, that is enough.</span></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-47775481496148232572021-07-16T13:28:00.002-07:002021-07-16T13:28:22.242-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Conclusion<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: underline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Conclusion</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-c890f8dc-7fff-4965-f00c-8bb48bf51391"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m wracking my brain to see if I’ve covered everything. Well, hell. If I missed anything I’ll just add it in later and republish it. This is a living document anyway. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve really talked a lot here, haven’t I? Here I was, just blabbing away and I didn’t get a chance to hear your point of view. Sorry about that. I’ll try to listen better the next time we jaw. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’ve covered the dangers of Newspeakianism (George Orwell), Rhetorical vs. Substantive Justice, the Rehearsal Room, a whole lot of psychology, taking radical responsibility for our mental health, honesty, curiosity, work ethic, not taking things personally, bullying, generational differences in the woke movement. We had a hard talk about trauma, and I hope you weren’t offended by my take on that. I don’t like it when people are mad at me. It’s silly of me to care, but I do. We had a little history lesson on the generations, a couple of anecdotes from my own experience. We talked about how a regenerative theatre must go Gonzo. That about cover it?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh! I told you your show sucked. How rude. I didn’t even see your show. How would I know?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s see… I gave some ideas that I have floating around in my head for ways to move us into the future. I’m sure you have a bunch of your own and you’re screaming in your head, “Why didn’t he include that obvious thing that I’ve been thinking about for years!?” Well, email me and I’ll write about it. Or </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> go write on it, how about that? If you tell me where it is, I'll read it. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Boiled down, we have a steep hill to climb, and like Sysephus, as soon as we get to the top something will roll our boulder back down. That’s just the way of life on this planet. We can get depressed about it and quit. Or we can say, “I don’t do this for anyone else to approve of. I want to do it, and so I will.” And that’s enough. There are no wrong choices in this life. Only choices that make us less or more comfortable, increase or decrease our enjoyment of our extremely limited time on this earth, are more or less efficient by some arbitrary standard, etc… Who cares? Just do what you like and try not to get in other peoples’ ways. Try not to be a dick. Oh, you’ll be a dick. I promise you’ll be a dick. But notice when you’re a dick and say sorry. This is what “Do Better” should mean. Just do your best. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t put up with bullshit. But don’t let other people’s bullshit derail you. It’ll be your fault if you do. Don’t say yes when the answer is no. Free yourself from rules. Blaze your own trail and fuck the haters, of which there will be plenty, my friend. Especially when they see you’re on your own path, not following the rules they thought were set in stone. They’ll come out of the woodwork to hate on you for your strength of character. You don’t have to engage in that hate, but you can facilitate their freeing themselves by</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">listening and being curious</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Ironic, isn't it? Haha. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hope I didn’t paint too dark a picture. There is real hope for some breathtaking theatre coming out of this difficult last century. We’re the ones who’ll make it. We’d better get after it. Time’s a wastin’.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zack Preston Rouse</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June 21st, 2021</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eureka, CA</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ziggidyone@gmail.com</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-41761004336478333852021-07-16T13:24:00.001-07:002021-07-16T13:24:12.594-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 11 - Ideas for a Regenerative Practice<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: underline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ideas for a Regenerative Practice</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-ac2276ba-7fff-c64d-216d-db6ec9f93bb4"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All what’s behind us in this essay are the description of our problem areas, and a couple ideas for solutions to them. That said, I will outline some ideas for how a regenerative theatre might look in practice. None of this is meant to create an industry jargon or a dogma that people can worship. We need another religion like we need another ice age. NOT AT ALL. Some of these things will come as second-nature. Use what you will and enjoy the journey.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Note on Hierarchy</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes it is necessary for a production’s success or the success of a company to maintain a Producer/Director hierarchy. I suggest that even in a hierarchical structure, you put in place the understanding that a Director or a Producer plays a specific role in the ensemble and that role serves the production and the group. No role is better than another, and no one should be motivated to take a position in order to accumulate power or accolades. If anyone attempts to use these positions for that purpose, or defaults to that modality by force of habit, this becomes an unavoidable conversation that might very well lead to a change in the position to someone who is perhaps a little more intimately in touch with their virtuous attributes. In any case, it’s a great opportunity for dialogue and growth within the group. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A worker-owned cooperative model is highly suggested when putting a company together. Thus, if a particular production is deemed to need a hierarchy, the Director answers directly to the members of the cooperative, keeping their role cemented as subservient to the group’s needs. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All the members of the cooperative have an equal say in the choice-making process, and all major actions are taken by a simple majority vote (democracy). These organizations can be set up in any manner of ways, usually have a board of directors who oversee the grand plan of the company, and people naturally fall into leadership positions as their personalities dictate. Note that a worker-owned cooperative doesn’t stop corruption or a charismatic leader from accumulating social power, as mentioned above. All organizational types are social by definition and therefore are subject to any of the entrapments of a society, including power grabs, corruption, lingoism or jargonism, sycophantism, and celebrity-style worship. In a worker-owned model, as in every other model, each member must be diligent in the protection of their own self as equal stakeholder in the company, and like all social structures, the group will (whether by nature or policy) set the social rules to keep order for the betterment of the group over the comfort of the individual. </span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some Ideas To Chew on</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Look at your rehearsal room as a sacred, spiritual space.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Theatre is a parallel art to religion. It requires ritual. It’s free of dogma when done right. Spiritualism is an element of our nature. Dogma/religion is a set of rules designed to control people. A regenerative theatre discards the concept of genius and stupidity, and naturally regards everyone as having unique talents that contribute perfectly to the whole experience of humanity and its cultural endeavors. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Set the room up so that it is warm, inviting, and comfortable. Often we have to rehearse in the back room of an old defunct school where the floor tiles are cold, the lighting is institutional, the chairs uncomfortable, and it smells like a ditto machine and rotten milk. Let’s work to make our rehearsal rooms more like yoga studios. Let’s put carpet down, bring in some warm lamps, pillows and fabric, make it feel more like a living room than a surgery theater. Let’s make it a sensual place to hang out for hours and hours and work out the problems of a script and our personalities.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Build camaraderie. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bring food and drinks for your people. Set up regular potlucks for cast and crew. Go out together. Go camping if you can. You’re building a family. Period. It’s either going to be a functional family, or a dysfunctional one. Do your damndest to make it a functional one. That’s your greatest chance to make a great show. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Set the tone for honesty.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Demand at the outset that people be honest about how they’re feeling. The last thing you want is someone saying yes when they really mean no. If you sense that someone is doing that, ask them if they want to discuss it publicly or in private. Do what they need and listen. Don’t try to lead. Just shut the fuck up for a second and listen to someone outside yourself. You’ll learn something new, I promise. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ban phones in the rehearsal room.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Get people focused on the project, which is more interesting and fun than some app or game anyway. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every production has an Eeyore and/or a Karen. Nip those in the bud right away.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> They’ll take your whole enterprise and throw it in the gutter, all with a wry grin on their face. This can be a tough one. Your job as a leader or an ensemble is to hold the space for everyone, not just a couple of squeaky wheels. Have a counseling session where you listen well and give sympathy. Ask them what they need. Then make it crystal clear what the collective expectations are. If it seems like they’re going to be a problem, ask them clearly if they’re going to be able to meet them. If they give a vague answer or a no, they’re gone. Nicely, but they’re out. No time for that nonsense. That’s them trying to make you a part of their trauma game. Don’t play it for one second or you could lose your whole production, and it won’t be their fault, as they’re unable to see their own behavior. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prioritize the conversations that need to be had.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Some conversations are more important than others. Your job is to choose which ones to see to fully, which ones require a little attention, and which ones are a waste of everyone’s time. You’ll know right away whether an issue could unravel the production. Deal with that fire first. Get everyone lovingly on the same page. Everyone doesn’t have to agree with each other! It’s okay for people to get offended as long as they don’t use that to be offended by a whole person (in other words to write someone off entirely for a disagreement) or to derail their mental health. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Again, in the making of a regenerative theatre, we can’t allow for trauma to dictate our work. We’ll never get anything done. Make sure that those who are traumatized feel listened to, but make it clear that their trauma is theirs to deal with and they can do that on their own time, or leave the production to deal with it. The therapy of the theatre is in the assembly of a healthy community to do a great show. That’s it. Anyone who can’t participate in that must go. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Conflict resolution</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> can be hard if everyone is working with their own system and/or at cross purposes. Make sure the group has a protocol, however loose or tight, that effectively addresses interpersonal conflict. And not by avoiding it or glancing at it and then moving on. People are not going to get along all the time. That’s the nature of humanity. Some people are going to plainly dislike each other. Rarely, it can come to blows. Resist at all costs the urge to undercut, cannive, backstab, build a case, build a clique, use exclusionary tactics, or reduce relationships to good and evil. Save it for the stage. Leave personality differences in the dust and work on the logistical and psychological problems of the piece. Find that common “enemy” in the challenge at-hand and you’ll build a partnership to defeat it that will supersede your personality differences. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The act of creating theatre is a sacred responsibility. Do your best to be good, and don’t require others to parent you. You’re a grown-ass person. Be your own parent so that others don’t have to parent you, and so that you can be an example to those who are learning that lesson after you.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Emphasize curiosity.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> There is a remarkable lack of curiosity in our society today. Have you noticed it? Because of the fact that we are being constantly barraged with information, most of it crap, there is a natural tendency to shut down the curiosity function. A regenerative theatre practice requires a robust curiosity from its participants. There are so many ideas that have yet to be discovered. There are so many relationship dynamics that have yet to be invented. There are so many new styles, genres, archetypes and storylines that are waiting in the ethers to be pulled down. And who else is going to do it? We are the ones! Find ways to encourage curiosity in your ensemble, and institutionalize its practice so that it becomes second-nature again. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was a time when humans didn’t know what was around the bend. We need to get back to that place in order to make great theatre again, and as well in order to survive the coming mega-crises that threaten the planet and our species. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Collaborate with artists of all media.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> If you have the idea strike you that a painting would go great in the piece, find an artist to collaborate with. Same with music! There’s a powerful genre of theatre called New Music Theatre, wherein music plays an elemental role in the movement of a story narrative. It’s not the same as a musical, in which a song stops the action in order to make itself known, or that a plot is haphazardly weaved around established songs. Musicals are wonderful for what they are and we love them, of course. New Music Theatre is a genre that seamlessly weaves story and music together. Find musicians to collaborate with from the beginning to make an amazing piece of theatre. Execute collaborations that make a new genre happen. Build something that you yourself can’t pigeon-hole with a label. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do plays in the forest. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do plays in a house.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do plays in a restaurant at dinner time. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do plays in a bar. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do plays at a park.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do plays in the dark. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do plays with green eggs and ham in your mouth. I digress.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Figure out your marketing strategy.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> One of the most critical elements of a regenerative model for theatre makers is getting butts in seats. This is more complicated than it might seem. You must find out from your roommates, your relatives, your coworkers, questionnaires, woman on the street interviews, etc… what would people leave their couch to watch in a room full of strangers post-COVID. People go to see some all-CGI Star Wars movie (again, know when you’re the product) that took three months to make. What do people want to watch? Is Forum Theatre successful in your area? Improv? Free sandwiches? Are you in a college town? A retirement community? What are the demographics of your community and how can you leverage them to maximize interest in your material? Advertise. You can’t survive without people knowing what you’re doing, learning that they’re interested in it, and how they can get into it. Advertise. Advertise. Find free publicity wherever possible. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And try like hell to stop relying on grants. Again, this is back to taking responsibility for yourself and your work and your worth. If we are reliant on outside sources of sustenance that don’t directly relate to the work we are creating, we are doomed to fail. Make work that your community wants to participate in, and watch your community support and grow you. Ask questions that will make your community think. Support your community in a whole, adult way rather than as a beggar on the corner, and you’ll see better results. The sad-sack narrative for small theatre companies has never worked.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Get away from a scavenger mentality with your organization.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Be proactive, be industrious. Find sources of money and materials that are earned and not gifted. Our society is built on rugged individualism. Become a rugged organization that makes its successes out of producing work and services that people in the community are willing to pay for, with whatever “money” the community uses. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Moving past capitalism should be the goal for all of us at this point, and that’s fantastic. If we want to move past a monied paradigm, we’ll need to think about how people can pay us to do the work we do for them in the theatre. Is it food? Drink? Do we get paid in toiletries? Space and time in a building? For many of us who make theatre, we have another source of income which allows us a little bit of time to do theatre for free. If we want to create full-time employment in the theatre, other solutions have to be found. Again, go into the community and ask the community what it wants from you. Decide if you are willing or able to provide that to your community. If you’re not, you have your answer. If you are, enlist those community members who support your efforts to help you get butts in seats. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Consider rehearsing a show until it’s ready</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> before marketing it to the public. Too often in our fast-paced society, we are prone to setting deadlines and opening dates, and conforming our project to those timelines. But how often is a show ready for its opening date? Never? Ten percent of the time? Consider rehearsing a show until it’s at its peak of effectiveness and quality. Then, choose a run schedule, do the marketing, book the venue, sell the tickets and run the thing. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll be honest with you: most theatre sucks. That’s partly why people don’t go to it. Oh, I know you’re attached to this role or that relationship or that theatre you worked in. It has a sentimental value to you, so you feel like it was a good show. Nope. It sucked. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Your show blew. You want to know why? Because you didn’t spend enough time on it, the people involved weren’t skilled enough, the budget suffered, you couldn’t find the cast it needed… It takes months to put a show together. Just a show. Not a good one. Just any show. Months. Look at the next project you want to tackle, and then envision spending 5 months working on it. Now, envision spending ten months or a year developing it. Double your time investment and the quality level will improve vastly. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Have talkbacks at every performance. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even if it’s Mama Mia. Your audience wants to hear from the people who worked so hard to put together the thing they just experienced. It involves the community in the event. It creates buy-in for your main support structure: your community. And if the show tackled any issues of substance, you get the invaluable opportunity to engage in a live, open dialogue around the issue. </span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stop doing the same tired shit. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You think that Much Ado will pull people in because it’s known. I will submit to you that the reason your theater is half full is that you’re doing the same tired shit. Make new work. Take the time to invent new stories that threaten the mainstream cultural narratives. It should be entertaining, of course. Take the time to make a show. I’m not oversimplifying, here. Take the time that it takes to make a show where there was none before. Maybe do ONE cover in your season. It’ll sell out, right? Maybe. Make new work. Do playwriting contests and ask for submissions. Develop work with a troupe of actor/creators who have an imagination and who are curious. Stop paying royalties to Samuel French in order to do theatre. Make new work.</span></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-12702757295149955082021-07-16T13:20:00.000-07:002021-07-16T13:20:15.590-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 10 - Where To Now?<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: underline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where To Now?</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-45aad2b8-7fff-ea80-4ba8-fc528adfc173"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The BIPOC community has always known that the American Dream represented a false promise for them. It was never built for them in the first place. Policing itself was invented to stop black people from attaining equal status in society, and it still serves this function today. It has taken us ghosties a couple hundred years to start feeling the same pain that our more pigmented sisters and brothers have always been navigating, and it took the state failing to do it. In other words, we’re all in the same boat now. Now that the economy has finally failed for white people, these issues of race inequality, non-binary performers’ rights, inclusive casting principles, selection of material that expands beyond Neil Simon, a voice for the marginalized in leadership… all these issues are now front and center because white people are on the same page. Our eyes are open.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s the rub: White people are of mixed race too. None of us is white. None of us is black. We’re all just people with complicated genetic paths that made us, and we make it more complicated with every generation that slides down the tube. (What are you?) So, truly, moving past color is going to be the ultimate success for us all. Evolution takes time, and we’re working on it. I’d like to caution again against the sinner narrative. All it will accomplish is more division.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So: What are we going to do about it? Are we going to yell at each other over some platform that relishes in our cultural demise? Or are we going to walk the walk, finally? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My advice to all of us, is this. Focus on listening more. Try to prove yourself less (you’re already valid. You’re in the room. Your insecurities aren’t helpful). Take notes and feedback with an open ear and a grain of salt. Take nothing personally. Take control of your mental health. Don’t let others control your mood. Fight for substantive justice. Learn to ask questions that will help you find out what people’s intent is. Find a reason to be curious. Refrain from buying into a punishment ethos. Look for common ground. Stop engaging in social media witch hunts. Be aware when you’re the product. And adhere to the Golden Rule, as my Grandfather, the Prespyterian minister Harry Preston Walrond taught us: </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seems simple, doesn’t it? Then do it! Actually do that that’s in that sentence you just read. Just do that and things will be at least a little better for us all. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-3712498889709224052021-07-16T13:15:00.000-07:002021-07-16T13:15:11.649-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 9 - A Little Story<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">A LIttle Story:</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-d6e56bc5-7fff-d552-4d8c-0901ef896a92"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My father (a Baby Boomer) is a distinguished and extremely well-regarded (retired) investigative journalist. I’ll refrain from outing him by name. He worked at a number of newspapers around the country during his career. He broke some huge stories and his focus was always on protecting those who could not protect themselves. One of the stories he broke in the 1980’s was how asbestos in insulation was making people get lung cancer when it broke loose of plumbing pipes or as it aged out in walls. He broke the story of cigarette manufacturers who used asbestos in their filters, killing hundreds if not thousands of their factory workers who made these cigarettes in the fifties and sixties. He broke the story of ATV safety and how the major ATV manufacturers are largely immune to safety regulations that car manufacturers are required to adhere to, thereby allowing them to build vehicles that were top-heavy and would roll over and cut your arm off. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Enough said, right? He is in many ways a juggernaut force for good in making people safer and better taken care of by our society. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, when my dad retired from newspaper work, he wasn’t ready to call it quits. He’s a bulldog and needs to be helping as long as he’s able. He started a news site that engaged in original reporting around consumer affairs. He operated this tiny outfit with the help of a few younger, engaging journalists who were passionate about the mission of protecting the public from corporate malfeasance. It was a struggle from day one. In the media landscape of infotainment, fake news and the death of the newspaper, finding money to run a news operation of 500k a year or something was incredibly difficult. But guess what? He did it anyway. He went to everyone he knew with a little money and got them to contribute to the cause. And it worked. Well, fast forward to nearly ten years later, and he’s ready to retire. His organization has a set mission of consumer affairs reporting, which intertwines but doesn’t focus directly on issues regarding equity for marginalized people. He interviews a younger reporter for an editing job. After not being offered the position, this younger reporter posts to his 30k followers on Twitter that this man, who has worked tirelessly over forty years to protect those who need protection from big business, is racist and non-inclusive in his organization for not agreeing to change the organization’s mission statement to suit this privileged, white, bitter tweetstar.</span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">POOF. Whole enterprise gone in a tweet. Now, think about this for a second, and if you really want to know the details you can probably find the information without me giving it away. Does this seem right to you? At whatever age or generation you are. Does this seem like the right and proper way to go about changing our society? To throw an ally under the bus to virtue signal your fan base? </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">End of Story</span></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-69183646031433817712021-07-16T13:11:00.003-07:002021-07-16T13:11:55.164-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 8 - A Word to Our Younger Generations<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: underline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Word to Our Younger Generations</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-a057d8dd-7fff-2293-06de-9ef534a59766"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Context</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I talk about the “younger generations”, I’m referring to Millennials, Gen Z and all the subsequent lemmings who fall in love with a life in the theatre. I’m from Generation X, which is largely ignored these days, or called “Boomer”. Boomers are actually our parents’ generation. They’re the generation who were the children of the “Greatest Generation”, of the Great Depression era just post-WWII. When the soldiers came home from World War Two in the late 1940’s, they missed their wives somethin’ fierce. And from that reunification came a whole lot of babies. That’s why it’s called the Baby Boom. That is my parents’ generation. Thus, I’m Gen X. Some of you will already know this, but a lot of people don’t have a context for where the generations came from in time, and it's an important context to have. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I was a kid in the late ‘70’s into the ‘80’s, we were just past the Vietnam War era. TV shows were Taxi, Barney Miller, Mash, All in the Family… shows that tackled hard issues of family, sexism, racism, and more. These shows largely focused on domestic issues and left world politics to the politicians (with the notable exception of Mash). But they were great about how they discussed these issues. They were honest, direct, and they didn’t pretend to know all the answers. They asked questions of their audiences that were difficult and with a bent toward progress. This was the TV of that day. I highly suggest getting on some nostalgia tv network and watching Barney Miller and Taxi. It will blow your mind what these shows were tackling with such alacrity (brisk and cheery enthusiasm). </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because cable TV was in its infancy during my childhood, I got the best of all worlds. I got to see the shows of my youth at the time they were airing: A-Team, Knight Rider, McGiver, Magnum PI, Family Ties, The Facts of Life, Growing Pains, Three’s Company, etc... and all the shows that came before me, in the first rounds of reruns. The shows of my youth were already veering away from substantive justice toward straight entertainment products. Some were still looking at issues of family health, but now they began to take on a kind of fluffiness that would protect all sponsors equally. It wasn’t as bad as it is now, but as the Ronald Reagan years took hold, a distinct change in our cultural willingness to look at ourselves was pivoting us away from self-awareness and toward a culture of consumption. Needless to say, this hurt our arts communities deeply. This is when advertising truly took over our airwaves and we as audience members became the product. The shows were now simply vehicles to deliver us to the companies selling laundry soap. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For a little more mind-blowing context, I didn’t have my first cell phone until after I was out of college. When I was in college in the 1990’s there was no internet. My junior year I was given an “email” address for the intranet which was the university web server. It ended in .exe.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The younger generations have been born and raised with this consumption culture from day one. I can see that it would be very challenging for them to know what to talk about when it’s time to activate and make change. You work with what you know, and the incredibly important progress of the MeToo, LGBTQ+ and BLM movements has created a momentum for our younger generations to grab onto. I love this so much. At the same time, there is a lack of nuts-and-bolts awareness of things past, movements that came before, the reasons for these movements, and how effective change can be made without reinventing the wheel. And so we who identify as liberal or progressive are stuck in the Rhetorical Justice model that I outlined above. It may be hard to wrap our minds around getting away from a lexical dogma as the way to institute change, but it’s really important that we learn the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I notice a lot of Gen X’ers like myself, and Boomers, talking trash about our young people these days. I’ve been guilty of it, too. I admit that. I’ve seen a lot of what I refer to as a lack of interest in hard work. It’s called “work ethic”, and I’ve bitched about Millennials and Gen Z’ers having none of it. I’ve noticed a willingness to bail on booked commitments, and a seeming lack of concern for the wasting of other people’s time or money. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I think I get it, too. I think our younger citizens are seeing our society implode and they understand something that we don’t yet: The US is on its way out. Why waste 40 hours a week for a crappy wage at a stuntingly dull occupation? They’d rather live at home until 30, start a tik tok empire, or couch surf than kill their soul in an office with a half-hour lunch break. (I feel the same way, and always have. I became a Realtor as my backup occupation and it works great for me because I don’t have office hours or a desk I’m mandated to sit at for constant hours.)</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When my parents’ generation was out in the streets protesting the Vietnam War, they knew that when they were done with that exercise in what we’ve now jadedly come to realize as a futile one, there would be a steady, 9-5 job waiting for them back home. They could be anything: an accountant, an engineer, an artist, a teacher… When I came of age in the early 1990’s, that possibility had all but dried up. I saw, sarcastically, the opportunity to work somewhere twenty years just to be laid off or fired right before I could collect benefits. It was already a different landscape. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Imagine how seniors must be feeling right now about all of this wokeness. It must be hard to have been raised in a world where if you had a job, you could have a car and a house (if you were white). It must be hard to have a certain way of talking about things, and all of a sudden you’re told you are wrong, that’s the wrong word or the wrong way to think. It must be very difficult to be an ally of marginalized communities, having been on the streets with your brothers and sisters protesting the most evil war in the history of our country (as of then), or in the civil rights struggles of the late sixties, only to have the younger generations tell you that you’re the problem; that you need to instantly fix all of the cultural problems that exist in our society. That your age, your color, your economic status are all proof that you are endemically a sinner in need of repent (Wait a minute! Am I in church again?). That you need to shut up and take the firehose of complaints from everyone who has ever been wronged in our society, and commit social hara kiri this instant.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s what our current cultural landscape looks like to the older generations. We need more listening and compassion across the board. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-47828089117769871282021-07-16T13:09:00.004-07:002021-07-16T13:09:29.043-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 7 - Social Media<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: underline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Facebook and The Rest</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-a973ec18-7fff-8608-8c82-63c35738ae80"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Get the fuck off of it. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s entirely unproductive. That platform should have become a central online meeting place for people to gather and share in-depth conversations about issues that are near and dear, invite people to your house for parties, share wedding photos and support people who are in need. Instead it’s the Jerry Springer of the internet. Here’s the slugline: Your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend is coming for you. Right here, right now, in front of everyone. And she’s looking for blood, “bike racks three o’clock” style. You’re about to lose some hair, bitch.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seriously: social media is a place for people who are afraid of real life, are socially awkward, loathe actual interaction, and want to lash out at phantoms, continuing their trauma cycles. Not that everyone on there is this way; it’s just that those people own the public discourse with their bullshit. Don’t play that game. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll relay a little story to you about the trigger event that caused me to abandon that platform. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m a Louis CK fan. There. I said it. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Did that trigger you? That I said I’m a Louis CK fan? It’s my opinion. I maintain my right to have that opinion.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Last year, I posted something on my facebook feed about Louis CK’s show, “Better Things”, a series that he co-wrote and produced with his friend and colleague Rebecca Adlon. She’s incredibly talented and was also in the “Louis” show as a woman that Louis is infatuated with and who won’t give him the time of day. “Better Things” is a show about a working actor (Adlon) who is also a single mother, living in LA and trying to work in the Hollywood industry while raising her three precocious, woke teenagers. The show is excellent. I highly recommend you watch it. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Okay, that’s the background. Now, against the backdrop of the cancellation of Louis CK for masturbating in front of young comediennes who later took umbrage, and for masturbating on the other side of the phone on a business call (highly inappropriate activities but not rape and not illegal), I posted this to my facebook page:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Fuck the Haters. Louis CK is great, and Better Things is a feminist show.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I own that. That’s what I said. It was late at night, I’d had a few glasses of wine, and I’d been bingeing Better Things. I was jazzed on that show! And I wanted to open a dialogue about cancel culture. Boy, did I get what I asked for. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, there’s a couple of ways to look at this.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One way you could look at this statement is pretty uncontroversial: people are hating on LCK and this dude likes him. He has an opinion that the comedian is a good one, and that the show he made has a feminist bent. Dude is stating his opinion on his own page on facebook. A conversation can ensue with anyone who wants to about the quality of the man’s work, whether the show actually is feministic in its bent, and if you want to get into the weeds, whether we as a society should/can choose to separate a person from their work. All kinds of weird people do great work in their field. Pete Rose comes to mind. Myriad jazz giants. Pablo Picaso. This list is a mile long. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A second way to look at it goes something like this: Wow, what an asshole. This guy is kicking the people who LCK abused while they’re down. He’s supporting a member of the white elite ruling class who act with impunity. He’s supporting white patriarchy and believes rape and sex trafficking are okay. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And the third: You triggered me! I’ve been abused and you are abusing me now too. You are the devil. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those, as far as I can tell, are the three ways you could interpret what I posted. Bear in mind that I’m not defending my choice of wording. It was controversial, there is no doubt. I said Fuck the Haters. If I was to post it now, I might word it differently. But I didn’t. I said what I said and that’s that. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Screaming Woke of facebook chose a hybrid between the second and third interpretations. Note that in our current cultural climate, intent is decided by the interpreter, who has zero curiosity about the author or his actual intent. This is the Consequential model for justice, which Jordan Peterson talks about. No questions are asked for clarification of said intent. No interest in understanding why the commentator likes this publicly masturbating comedic giant or his show about professional women’s issues. People came out of the woodwork to attempt to assassinate my character. My “commitment to Sparkle Motion” was questioned (Donny Darko film reference). I was called before a tribunal of local theatre community leaders to discuss whether I should be stricken from participating in leadership activities henceforth. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was likened to the comedian himself</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for saying that I like him publicly. I was now a rapist sympathizer, which might as well make me a rapist myself--despite the fact that the person in question isn’t even a rapist. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This isn’t at all a “woe is me” kind of story. I own what I wrote and I fully recognize that the wording was controversial. And I’m not telling you this story to somehow vindicate myself. If you thought I was an asshole then, you still think I’m an asshole now. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s the takeaway: The content of my post was completely ignored, and my words were used by a handful of rabid anti socialites to force a popular narrative forward that I didn’t conform to. That’s a perfect example of Newspeakianism in action. Brow-beat people who don’t fall in line until they go silent or conform. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s fascism.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ve had something very similar happen to you, I’m certain of it. Everyone has put something on that platform that some swarm of piranha ate you alive for and it’s into the history of that website; it’s on display for everyone to see forever. You can never redeem yourself from it. All that can happen now is some fresh meat will show up and your faux pas will be forgotten in the frantic effort to obliterate someone else’s social standing. And so it goes: we move from bike rack to bike rack, just like Jerry Springer. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now. To </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The actual meaning of my words:</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> People are railing against LCK and lumping him into the same category as Jeffrey Epstein (a convicted child sex trafficker and pedophile), Harvey Weinstein (a convicted rapist) and Kevin Spacey (a child rapist). LCK is none of those things. He’s a weirdo. He masturbates in front of people. That’s a fetish. He is a famous comedian, arguably the Michael Jordan of comedy. He has access to mates everywhere he goes. It’s not like it’s hard for him to find a woman to sleep with. Yet he chooses to do this weird activity instead. It’s his kink. That ain’t rape. It’s not child sex trafficking. And it’s not illegal. It’s just weird, and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">maybe, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it could be interpreted as an abuse of power, and only by those involved. Secondly, he made a show with a long-time collaborator who happens to be a strong female actor in Hollywood. Their show is feminist in its nature, and it’s really good. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Agree or don’t. Argue with me about whether it is feminist, or if he’s a good comedian. Tell me you think what I said was crass and I should not have used the f bomb on the f page. But don’t use my words to advance your conform-or-die social bullying platform. You’ll always, every time, turn your allies into enemies engaging in that behavior. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Social media is good for one thing and one thing only, in my estimation: publicity. Use it to post events that you are hosting from your professional page. That’s it. And try your hardest not to get swept up into some smackdown. Go to rehearsal instead.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-85250484099476226522021-07-16T13:07:00.005-07:002021-07-16T13:07:47.693-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 6 - A Tidbit and an Anecdote<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Personal Tidbit</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-66a229da-7fff-e768-df64-55bbce92a58e"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I do a production, I assume that everyone is whole when we start working. I don’t even want to be the director. I want everything collective, natural, organic. Best laid plans… Inevitably, one or two people break down at some point because they’re not whole (they don’t know they’re whole, that is), and the lack of a parental figure makes them feel unsafe. They not only lack someone to follow, they lack someone to blame. Convenient, isn’t it? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I see this breakdown start to occur, I smile kindly and wait for them to answer their own question. We all have the right answer inside us. Sometimes a problem needs a companion to work with to find a solution. Ask for one instead of pouting or breaking down. That’s called adulting. If you do have to pout for a minute, or even throw a temper tantrum, do it and get past it fast. Be embarrassed by it, and stop it next time before you embarrass yourself again and make yourself look unhinged. Take control of your emotional state. It’s not only more effective for getting things done: it’s empowering to know that you can solve it. You can self-soothe. And once you can self-soothe, you’re now capable of helping others learn to do it, too. </span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anecdote</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I built a guest house in my backyard. I ordered a shed kit online and it showed up in a bunch of pieces on a pallet and now I had to figure out how to build the damned thing. I’d never built a building before. My father in-law, a very talented builder, was gracious enough to help me get the structure up. Then he flew back to Pennsylvania and I had to figure out the rest. I’d never done plumbing. I’d never done electric. I’d never put a sink in a dresser all shabby chic style before. I did it anyway. I made a bunch of mistakes. I asked my experienced friends for help which they generously provided. I looked at videos of how to do things myself. Well, a year and change later, I had a fully finished guest house with a bathroom in it that worked. I still have repairs on the thing that I don’t know how I’m going to fix when they break. I’m not some genius carpenter, I’m not all that handy. And I’m not all that spiritually enlightened, either. I freak out a little, I flail about in my head wondering if I’m screwed, and then… I just figure it out. That’s adulting, as far as I can tell. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-12406144279402465172021-07-16T13:06:00.005-07:002021-07-16T13:06:37.517-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 5 - Trauma<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trauma</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A lot of people who have experienced trauma in their lives are drawn to the theatre. This is largely because the theatre is a welcoming and warm home for marginalized people. Trauma causes us to feel marginalized, regardless of our pedigree, race, gender, etc…</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trauma is a cycle. Your parent or older relative, your sibling or best friend growing up did something to you many years ago that hurt you deeply. You carry that hurt around with you like a saddlebag, shifting it from shoulder to shoulder as you walk through life. The theatre gives you a little respite from its weight. You can display it in a character for people to watch, and they take the weight on for two acts or a show run. That makes you feel better, temporarily. And that’s lovely. Then the show ends and it’s back in the saddle again for you. You wonder why you need to string shows together back to back and keep playing roles that let you flirt with that trauma of yours. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now I’m going to say something that is going to offend some of you. Enjoy it. Relish in it. Use it. Embrace it. It’s good for you. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your trauma is just that: Yours. You have made the choice (not the same thing as a decision. A decision is a move against, whereas a choice is a direct action toward) to carry that trauma through your life. It sits there, in the cue, waiting for triggers to flare it up so that you can continue your story of oppression; a story that you are somehow less capable, less valuable, less viable as a human being in this life than others. A story that you need a parent, some outside force, to discipline the world who is bullying you because you are incapable of defending yourself. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I call bullshit. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So on social media, as is an aspect of the current epidemic we face, someone posts something that is an opinion of theirs (maybe even from a trauma </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> chose to carry), it may even be racist or sexist, it may be classist, even just crass, and we use their words to pull the trigger on our cued-up trauma so that we can keep our narrative going. For the record: That’s not their fault. Your trauma doesn’t equal someone else’s abuse of you. We need to learn to tell the difference between the outside world and our own psyche. We need to learn not to take personally what others say or do. Further, we must stop expecting an apology from our abusers. It’s never going to come. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now I’m going to say something else that’s going to offend some of you. If you need to pause for a moment before proceeding, you might want to do so here. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your traumatizers have forgotten about you long ago. What they did to you doesn’t belong to them. It belongs to you. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take your time with that. Does that make you feel silly at all? It should. Not because we are silly intrinsically, but because we acted silly in carrying around someone else’s trauma for years, decades, or most of our lives, and the person who abused us is often long dead, or doesn’t remember us or the event anymore! (If you are currently being traumatized by someone, get the hell away from them! What are you doing?) </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For whose benefit are we dragging along that saddlebag? Is it for us? It would have to be, wouldn’t it? Because it certainly ain’t for anyone else’s benefit. Trauma begets itself. It’s a cycle. Our traumatizers are victims whose trauma was so heavy that they couldn’t stand to hold onto it another second, and they thrust it upon us; and we graciously took it from them. That was really nice of us.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not your fault. But you made a choice, conscious or un, to accept their offer of trauma to you. Metaphorically, they said, “Hey! My trauma is too heavy! I need you to take some of it for me!” and you replied, “Okay, sure. Gimme some.” </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why’d you do that? Well, it depends on the circumstances, but there are many reasons why we’ve taken on the bullshit of other people and carried it for years and years for no useful purpose at all. One is that we were a child and children accept everything that is given to us. We are completely open vessels, angels who carry the burden of a life we’ve not yet lived. Our parents abuse us and we say, “that must be the way of the world. Give me more.” Another is in relationships. Our spouse browbeats us with their trauma and because of our own upbringing, we are accustomed to taking on trauma from our loved ones; it’s a natural carryover into relationships to accept trauma from our husbands or wives. We have children ourselves, and we pass the trauma torch to them like a medieval relay race to light the villages downstream: a sacred badge that must be coddled and cared for at all costs. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nonsense! Your trauma is yours and yours alone. You purchased it with your story of woe. That is an ego game. Play it if you want, but don’t blame others because you want to play the game. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, when someone triggers us by saying something that is offensive or hurtful or just plain stupid, and we light up our trigger response, what is actually happening is that </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are continuing the cycle of trauma by blaming them for our abuse. We are abusing them and ourselves. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This can be a hard concept to grasp, I know. Some of you will stop reading this essay now and call it a waste of time. That’s sad, but that’s your decision. And that’s okay. All decisions and choices are okay. There are no good or bad selections in this choose-your-own adventure. It’s all a matter of your comfortability in this life. </span></p><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All of this information is to help us move forward in making a theatre that is truly, substantively just and equitable. A Gonzo theatre, not unlike the journalism of Hunter S. Thompson, who so famously used his own character flaws to relay critical cultural information to his readership, calls us to expose ourselves in full view of the audience in order that community healing may take place. A Gonzo Theatre is absolutely impossible if members of our community shut the art form down to force us all to carry their trauma. We’re all guilty of it at one point or another. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deal with your trauma. Let it go. Release it to the ethers. The ethers are conscious, too, and they are happy and able to process your trauma. Give it to them; none of us wants it. We’re all busy working on our own bullshit. Start to understand the difference between decisions and choices, and your life will improve vastly overnight.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A final note on trauma and acting: Once we release that trauma, we realize that nothing anyone else says or does has control over us. Oh, it may affect us in a moment. But it never has control over us. And once we realize that it’s us and us alone who are responsible, that it’s us who holds the power over our own mental health, we are going to make great theatre. Until then, we will always be fakers, because we don’t know ourselves well enough to portray someone else. And our audiences will always know. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t give your power away to others. That is inappropriate and it’s abusive to those you are putting in the position of power over you. That’s called topping from the bottom. You can’t have it both ways: you can’t be a victim and control how your victimizers abuse you. That’s a weakness of character and it’s anathema to the practice of theatre. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Trauma and Bullying</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some traumatized people turn to bullying to prop up their self-narrative of how the world should have gone. Bullying is simply the act of attempting to maintain a trauma narrative by forcing others to conform to the fictional universals that one has set up around their trauma. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One way that we bully others is to use “triggers” and passive aggression to make others feel badly for not buying into our trauma narrative. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A trigger is not a thing. A trigger is simply us using others’ words or actions (other than violence) to offend ourselves. That’s not bullying in and of itself. Someone who is triggered, and takes the time to move through and past it, is behaving in a healthy manner. It only becomes bullying once we involve someone else in our drama. Bullying occurs when we choose to tell others how to speak in a certain way, or to apologize for a statement, or to change their behavior for our triggered trauma. That’s bullying. Don’t do that. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bullying is to be guarded against, and we must defend ourselves against this behavior. If we don’t nip it in the bud, we will all continue to be nudged all over the place in a wild goose chase that will never yield us a bird. Those who trigger will fall all over ourselves apologizing for others’ trauma and they’ll never be happy, and we’ll drag ourselves through the mud for their bullshit. Don’t do that either. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Likewise, the triggered among us will never be happy because we’re not dealing with our trauma, but instead are just trying to shove it at the people around us until they get the shits of it and leave us to our personal hells. Don’t do that either either. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Simply stated: </span></p><ol style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-inline-start: 48px;"><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: upper-alpha; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t ask others to change their behavior for you (unless they’re actively abusing you). That’s being a child</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: upper-alpha; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t let others brow-beat you into apologies or a dampening of your character</span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: upper-alpha; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stay away from a victim mindset</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (self-identified victims attract abusers. It’s bad for everyone to engage the victim/abuser dynamic. That’s a remnant of our animalistic minds which we no longer need) </span></p></li><li aria-level="1" dir="ltr" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; list-style-type: upper-alpha; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"><p dir="ltr" role="presentation" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t deliberately be an asshole. If you’re an asshole, apologize. Learn to know the difference between triggers and actual offenses</span></p></li></ol>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-89454737295862238632021-07-16T13:06:00.001-07:002021-07-16T13:06:12.268-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 4 - A Psychology for the New Theatre Overview<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: underline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Psychology for the New Theatre</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-f9352c89-7fff-9ffd-5757-fdb1bf1d7633"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, this issue of safety is a sticky one. This is important. If you skimmed the rest of is blog, don’t miss this: Sometimes, under the cover of safety, we will ask others not to express themselves because it may trigger, hurt our feelings, or offend us. It must be understood that you will be offended. Sometimes. You will be triggered. Guess what? That’s okay. Sit with this for a second. It’s okay for you to be offended sometimes. You’ll live. That’s what being human is. Use it! Take that energy and funnel it into your work. You may even learn something about yourself by being offended. It could even be an epiphone for </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And don’t take it personally.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everything is personal. But it’s never about you. Everyone is too busy judging themselves to care about judging you. If they do judge you, they’re actually judging themselves through you. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Judge yourself and let others do the same.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Get out of yourself for a second and try to learn their intent. Get curious about something outside yourself. Ask questions. Feel free to express yourself and tell the person in a calm manner that they triggered you. Tell them what they said made you feel unsafe. 99% of the time, they were not trying to make you feel unsafe or offend you. They were simply expressing themselves and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you used their words to trigger yourself.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> That’s your responsibility. It’s nobody else’s responsibility to protect your mental health. That responsibility is yours and yours alone. That’s called being an adult in a world with other people. You’ve offended people in your life and you have hurt others. Did you intend to hurt them? No! You were simply expressing your point of view and someone used your point of view to offend themselves. You understood that then… understand it now. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You must allow yourself to go through the emotions of grappling with your triggers and your offenses. You must work through the traumas that you have acquired over your lifetime. This is the maturation process. You must learn to live with the things that have been done to you by others, and separate the actions of those who have hurt you in the past from the actions of those in your life today. More on this later.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Start doing things to yourself that move you in a healing direction. You must allow yourself the tough job of working through that discomfort so that you can grow the muscles of self-awareness and internal core strength, without which you will fail at accomplishing anything meaningful in your life, especially the building of a good theatrical production. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While the rehearsal room is a safe space for all, it is not the place to protect your ego or your delicacies. That is anathema to the practice of theatre. </span></p><br /><br /><br /><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Word on Honesty...</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A critical element of taking responsibility for yourself and your own mental health as a theatre maker is the practice of being brutally honest. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">True</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> honesty is the most loving path anyone can take. It’s not that easy. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is easy is to blame others for how you’re feeling. It’s easy to say that someone triggered you or made you feel badly. But have you ever considered who the center of those activities is? </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Felt. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> were Triggered. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> angry. It’s all about you. It is you!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Think about that for a second. Did you ask any questions when you felt like someone offended you, or did you simply get offended and walk away? Did you yell a beautiful, improvised monologue in your car that made you feel vindicated and look silly to other drivers? Did you prod your insides to learn about your triggers, one of which was tripped when So and So said such and such? Or did you just get triggered and cancel lunch next week? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The theatre requires of its participants a brutal honesty that kills your dead puppies at the door (from a very talented director friend of mine, Ryan Parham). Your puppies died an hour before rehearsal and you brought them into the rehearsal room with you; you projected them onto your castmates and anyone who would listen. They were sympathetic at first but then, when you insisted on making them look at all your dead puppy pics on your phone, they were put off. And so you blamed them for being insensitive. You. You. You. It’s all about what’s going on in your head and heart. A brutally honest actor notices when she does this and uses athletic silence and his super-power listening abilities to recalibrate their psyche. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A regenerative theatre requires this brutal self-reflection that questions everything, including our triggers and trauma, and even our smug wokeness. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Honesty doesn’t just mean setting our boundaries or making sure people know where we stand on an issue that’s dear to our hearts. Honesty is actual, blunt awareness of what</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> vs. what you </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wish</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was. Being honest with yourself is the act of accepting what is the reality of a situation or the world or an issue, and releasing your attachment to how you think it should have gone. We’re always going to be disappointed and angry if we try to make the world around us conform to our own very esoteric, unique snowflake universal rule set. There are no universals. I am not the arbiter of good taste, nor the gatekeeper of some universal truth that everyone is just waiting with bated breath for me to tell them about. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The universe has no opinion. There is no judging sentience that requires us to conform to its will. Leave that to the religions. Without this realization, we will always be fighting with people, failing to make deep connections with co-workers, battling the circumstances of everyday life, and making shitty theatre. An honest and regenerative theatre requires the release of anything that is outside our purview, in order that we may find concert with the greater energy that we are inextricably a part of. It’s that simple and difficult at the same time. This is what a regenerative theatre demands of us. This is indeed what survival on this planet demands of us.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the context of the rehearsal room and just as importantly performance, honesty takes the form of an open, gentle quietude that asks for input rather than demanding to express itself outwardly and loudly. An honest theatrical reaction can only come from listening, and it will never come through a pent-up response to past trauma. Honesty requires at its core the understanding that there is no subjective truth, but that as an individual, I must and have no choice but to take my own shape, of my own design, chosen entirely by me as I do it in the moment, in a dance with whomever is there with me now. Isn’t that beautiful? Let’s embrace that! </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-52706737973454372632021-07-16T12:58:00.000-07:002021-07-16T12:58:10.698-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 3 - The Rehearsal Room<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: 700; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Rehearsal Room</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-c9584e86-7fff-016e-3ce9-34d862fe3ca0"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The rehearsal room is a term that I use to refer to the space we hold as creators of theatre. Wherever it is that we prepare a performance for our audience is the rehearsal room. This room must be a safe space for everyone. Recently this has been forgotten in this movement/desire to “do better”. We’re so focused on doing better and regulating those who we perceive as unenlightened in the new protocols that we’ve made the rehearsal room a superfund site. And that will kill the theatre faster than any lack of budget or audience (or the five dollar Costco cookie). </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve noticed a general cultural shift to assuming the worst intentions of our colleagues. Everyone is now a stranger, an enemy… a sinner. I’ve seen veteran members of the community and even founding Artistic Directors “cancelled” for speaking in terms that last year would have never fluttered an eyelash. This mob-style rule is inherently dangerous to our field and must be guarded against at all costs. The rehearsal room is a place where our older members must be safe to bring and express their generational norms, unaware of the new ways of doing things. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let me expand: We must allow </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of ourselves to freely express our established world views, our judgments and our prejudices so that they can be aired, discussed, debated, relieved, re-educated, sometimes affirmed, mostly unwound... That’s right. All of us. We’re not monks. Monks aren’t monks, they’re just playing them on TV. </span></b></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is not an “all lives matter” statement. Understand that our movements for justice for all marginalized people are valid and we need our leaders to listen and make change. That’s not what I’m talking about here. We all have prejudices. All of us. We all harbor generalizations borne out of experience, and out of fear and fantasy. We all deserve to have those inconsistencies in our characters, and we have the right to work on them, or not to. In the rehearsal room, everyone is truly equal. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It must be safe for us to be fully ourselves in the rehearsal room. If a conversation needs to take place that will educate or shift members of our community who may be behind the culture curve, those who are facilitating the discussion must be patient and kind in the discourse. There’s a tendency for us to instantly want others to understand what we understand and be perfect now that we’ve told them. Maturity is the understanding that evolution is a slow process. It requires the processing of information over a period of time that leads to epiphones. It’s like building a theatre show. It’s thick and lurchy. That’s just the way it is. </span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Further, education is a two-way street. Some of our oldest community members are Baby Boomers. Some of them fought in, or fought to stop the Vietnam War. They helped to usher in the Civil Rights movement and have supported marginalized groups their entire lives. They have something to teach us as creators. They’ve participated in the most dynamic lifetime since the Great Depression, and they have something valuable to offer us. We should do a lot more listening and a lot less lecturing. The rehearsal room is the place where these conversations must be </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">unavoidable</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. If an older or a less woke troupe member makes a faux pas, it must become an opportunity for dialogue, not a surprise public humiliation (as a colleague put it recently). This is absolutely critical. Approaching any actor/creator as a sinner smacks of Christian patriarchal dogma and it must be militantly guarded against in my view. Everyone has a right to be heard, and everyone has a right to feel safe. And everyone has the gawd-given right not to be a monk. </span></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-39868652937371473772021-07-16T12:53:00.000-07:002021-07-16T12:53:31.574-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Part 2 - Rhetorical V Substantive Justice<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rhetorical vs. Substantive Justice</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6bb94924-7fff-a429-f567-98493e630d9e"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have “coined” a couple of terms for use in the discussion of this topic. Use at will. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, definitions. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rhetorical justice</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a justice of language. It’s an attempt to make the words that we use more sympathetic to marginalized people. On its face it’s a great accomplishment that we (for the most part) no longer use the “R” word for the intellectually disabled, or trigger pronouns for minority groups. Rhetorical justice is the way we speak in a restorative manner about everyone in our society. It’s a good little sibling to substantive justice. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Substantive justice</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the justice of action and intent. It encompasses what people are thinking and how they act in the attempt at restoring justice to all for whom justice needs restored. In a substantive justice model, we look at the intent of an “offender”, and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">then</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> their words. We ask questions to learn the intent. We look for common ground. We embrace those who have wronged us and assume good intent from all. We look to improve future interactions through education and love, and we move away from the ineffective and draconian punishment paradigm. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Currently, due either to laziness or a lack of awareness, our culture at-large, and our theatre communities, are not embracing substantive justice principles; they are instead giving almost sole focus to rhetorical justice. This is very dangerous for theatre makers. It creates a hollow infrastructure: one in which saying the proper words, using the proper style book (a style book is a hard-bound book that is produced by The Associated Press periodically to alert newsrooms to changes in socially acceptable terminology) is as important or more important than providing substantive justice. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Simply saying the right words without substantive action is an ego-maintenance activity, and has no place in the theatre. An example is described by the buzz-phrase you’ve heard: “Virtue Signaling”. Substantive justice is required moving forward in order for future theatre companies and creators to address issues that are salient and in need of attention in an effective, change-making way. Words beget words, actions beget actions. Rehearse as you will perform. We are performers and we must solemnly take a hard shift if we are to build a regenerative stasis for the preservation of our art form.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The nature of the theatre is one of experimentation. It’s one of endemic faulty steps and trip-ups. It’s one of constant re-education and debate. It’s an art that challenges everything: established systems, outmoded ways of thinking, the fetishism of the new, the lens itself through which the paradigm is visible, even wokeness.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The theatre must challenge everything in its view in order to function at all. Push and pull are the lungs of the theatre. There must be tension and release, the gears of relationship clunkily grinding in and out of gear, as if forging a road out of wilderness with a machete. It’s not smooth. It’s not comfortable. It’s not safe for the ego. It’s not a place for the faint of heart, nor for anyone who would want to set systems in stone. The theatre is a place of openings. It’s a living organism. It’s a flower reaching for the sun, changing direction as needed to grab the most nutrients. It’s a people outstretching their arms to the heavens, begging for something fresh, new, enlightened, nourishing. The theatre is a place for the wild ones. It is a place for explorers with no hard limits and nearly no sense of self-preservation. The theatre is a place for adventurer souls to collide in a loving, sweltering, sometimes violent dance that shows the true nature of the human condition, without artifice--beyond the presentation. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Without the right to fuck up, theatre makers would never make any kind of decent work. We’d make things that require a laugh track: shells of shows that discuss trivial mundanities as if they were cultural earthquakes. Disingenuous tripe... the deadly theatre that Peter Brook talks about in 1968. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-5791729800890765892021-07-16T12:44:00.002-07:002021-07-16T12:44:54.769-07:00Toward a Gonzo Theatre: Substantive Justice and a Regenerative Practice Part 1<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-align: right; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zack Preston Rouse</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-850da60e-7fff-1680-314b-1ffe29a41d0b"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">June, 2021</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Greetings!</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a theatre creator, I have found the making process of a theatrical production to always be </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">everything, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">regardless of scale. Literally, it’s inspiring, it’s heartrending, heartbreaking, breathtakingly beautiful. It’s an exercise in futility, a simple exercise, a romp, and a snooze. Theatre is life. And it’s hard. It’s insanely hard to build believable characters who breathe like real humans. It's hard to produce shows that reflect humanity in all of its immense depth and breadth. All the circumstantial, financial and psychological trappings that are endemic to our discipline have, over the years, created a kind of collective trauma in our community that needs to be dealt with. Add to this our current cultural awakening that calls us to create true equity across our society, for everyone, now and finally, and we have a tall task ahead of us. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In order for us to move into a new, regenerative model of theatre making in our culture, it is critical we take a few steps to correct some bad habits that we’ve formed. This piece, of which this post is part one, is an attempt at outing these habits in an open forum so that they can be seen, aired out, and moved beyond. We all have these habits to some degree or another, and reading this with an open heart will be more effective than taking the stance that you’ve seen it all before. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll probably fail at my task, but the show must go on so I'll try. I’m going to be very direct and honest in this. If you are offended by something I wrote, I’m sorry. If you’re triggered by something that is in this piece, not my intent. It’ll probably happen. I don’t do passive aggression and I don’t coddle. That’s not to be mean. It’s to be efficient and effective with my words, but equally important is that it’s just my personality. I don’t do small talk very well. And I don’t walk on eggshells. I believe open, honest communication to be the most loving path. I’m sensitive and get my feelings hurt too, sometimes. We all have the right to get offended, feel the way we feel, and get over it. I wrote this piece out of love for you, my theatre community. Take that intent throughout, and any offenses should be less painful. I hope. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh, and I curse sometimes. I think it’s fun and adds to the color of my writing. I have tourette syndrome, and that may have something to do with my saying things in a way that is sometimes controversial. Who knows? This is my take and you can take it or leave it, in whole or in part. That’s what freedom is. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Intro</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the lifespan of my involvement in the making of shows for an audience (I’m 45 years old), I have seen my artistic community work diligently (almost undyingly) to become a more just, more inclusive, more egalitarian, more healthy field of study and practice. In my estimation, theatre communities are the most liberal you’ll find on the planet. They’re so liberal, in fact, that they will play with Christian fundamentalists and not judge them (except by the same standard as everyone else: did you give a good performance?). That said, there have always, as far as I can tell, been systemic issues of patriarchy, hierarchy, racism, sexism, institutionalized and change resistant phobia-maintenance… </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Theatre people are people. And we’re people in a greater society that experiences these issues at-large in built-in ways. The theatre, for how liberal a practice it is, is not immune to the character flaws of its greater culture, and we should hope it would never be, because there are no monks. As audiences we want to see ourselves on stage and screen, reflected back at us in a truthful, honest, sometimes heroic and often pathetic manner so that we may attempt, through self-awareness, to grow beyond our limits toward an ability to evolve as a species. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recently, we’ve seen with the necessary development of movements like Me Too and Black Lives Matter, some wonderful cultural shifts. We’ve started to see a film industry by and for women. We’ve started to see a larger cultural awakening (Whitey getting woke) to the apartheid nature of our so-called democracy along race lines. And we’ve seen actual prosecutions of murderers in uniform. These are all necessary advancements in society that are now finally happening. And as humans are prone, along with these great strides has come a regrettable Newspeakianism (a kind of leftist fascism of thought a la “1984” by George Orwell) that threatens to shred the very culture that is working so hard to “do better”.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Against the backdrop of a deepening economic and climatic crisis which may render all of these progresses moot in the coming decades, we in the theatre community actively watch our greater society swirl around and through itself: a dying beast kvetching in turmoil over the soul’s lack of agency to save the body. We too feel the push to make Hail Mary maneuvers. Hell, we just want to make work in a world that ignores live theatre as if it’s the 90 year old deaf blind grandmother in the corner with a lemonade. “She’s fine, eat your cake.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Theatre has been dying for decades. It’s the art form that nobly and tragically accepts one solitary audience member, for the show </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> go on. We often perform for tiny audiences, we feel dejected by it, we go to the bar and drink ourselves into oblivion, and then we go back to the theater the next night and do it again. Why?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This passion and dedication for the art form shows a resiliency in our field that is second maybe only to journalism. Whole generations of theatre makers come and go with nearly no audience for whom to perform. When I pass someone on the street and they say, “Hey! That was </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in that thing I saw, right?!”, I'm ecstatic. Not because I got an accolade, but because someone came to the theatre. Does that make you want to cry? Go buy a theatre ticket, then. You can’t, you have rehearsal? I get it. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the crisis that I’ve been living with for the entire time I’ve been a theatre maker. How the hell do I get butts in seats? What the hell are people willing to leave their couches for? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So when the “Woke” movement hit my small-town theatre community during the pandemic, I became aware that a crisis within a crisis was beginning to develop. It started as a trickle. Some of my colleagues started talking about how this word or that word is no longer allowed to be used. “We use this word now because that’s respectful of this group of marginalized people. We don’t talk about that issue this way anymore. We now look at this issue through this lens or in this framework.” It’s certainly a good thing to keep looking at ways to include more people in what is truly the grand socio-self-reflective art. The more the merrier, I say! But then the trickle became a flash-flood.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whereas pre-pandemic we were all wedged like Dirk Gently’s couch into an unsustainable yet somehow still going paradigm of Scavengerism (begging foundations to prioritize a show over a meal program for poor kids), now we’ve added to this fundamental crisis a new lexical crisis of conscience. If we naturally assumed the best in everyone, and looked at intention when judging a person’s behavior, this year-long homebound respite should have created an opportunity to make some serious headway toward substantive justice.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But alack, we are humans. The result seems to be more of a smorgasbord of intellectual cannibalism. A new lexicon of consequence (vs. intent, as Jordan Peterson discusses) is emerging out of the chaos of swirling linguistics and social media smackdowns. A lack of production and a glut of rancor is now all the community can seem to muster. Previously productive companies are hamstrung by woke protocols and are now impotent to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">just make the work</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for fear of being cancelled entirely--which they are anyway by default. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like all human endeavors, there are growing pains. When the term “non-traditional casting” became the new buzzword (decades ago, now), the progressive companies rightly adopted it to show solidarity with minority groups and marginalized performers: performers who were in every way as talented and passionate about the art form as anyone else, but who for issues of systemic prejudice weren’t given the same opportunities to </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">just work</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as white men. “Non-traditional casting” was the OG BIPOC-friendly term in theatre circles. You knew if you were a performer from a background that wasn’t male and white, that you had a place in a theatre that was bold enough to publicly state their participation in the practice. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unfortunately, conjuncting the overarching current philosophy of a true crime entertainment--the lowest common denominator content that will sell the most ads (we have collectively decided that what the most people can tolerate to watch is violence and so that’s nearly all we make anymore), we now have this industry </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">autosarcophagy taking place</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This grimaced pathology of assuming the worst in each other has led to a community, already beleaguered by too numerous challenges to count, that appears to want its own total demise and is leaping toward the edge of the cliff like a peaking tweeker. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Older community members post audition notices saying that they’re using inclusive casting methods, and self-labelled leaders in the community smack them down for not using the proper wording. People pile insults onto a hapless victim who was simply trying to include everyone in the rare opportunity to be in a paid production. Debates ensue about whether it’s okay to cast a teenage girl as a teenage girl anymore, or if the girl must now be played by a member of a marginalized group to show solidarity. White, privileged company managers brow-beat the community over social media about what the BIPOC community wants and needs (Thou doth protest too much!), dissertating to such a degree as to drown out any hope of dialogue--or even just the sound of an actual BIPOC voice coming through.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My heart is broken. I watch my own community dismantling itself as systematically as the oppression it purports to make inroads against. I worry that theatre may now, finally, totally be dead, not by the hand of American Spartan capitalism as oracled, but by the hand of its own practitioners over what to call a coffee mug: it’s now to be referred to as a ceramic cylinder. “Get it right. It’s Ceramx.”</span></p><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I jest as I cry. And yet I hold a glimmer of hope that we can pull something together. Like a show in a moldy basement, the dryer rumbling low during the performance. It could still open. There could still be an audience. There could still be a <i>thing</i> to do and see and learn from. There could still… after all of this last century of challenges, be a theatre </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">art </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">again.</span></span>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-1714185215317078902013-07-06T14:23:00.001-07:002013-07-06T14:23:08.305-07:00An Actor's Greatest Moment And He's Absent For ItMy greatest moment as an actor (so far) was in college. I was playing
BAAL in a student production. Being a Senior, I had been very lucky and
had great success getting cast in meaty roles all the way through
school...so I thought I knew my shit. <br />
Student productions tend to have very short runs, two weekends at
most. So you have to get to it if you want to learn anything. I was so
obsessed with acting in those days that all I did was learn lines,
interpret character, smoke pot and get deep, talk shop to anyone who
would listen. I breathed acting. But I have the age-old problem, like
many of us, of having two minds on stage: The character's mind; and the
actor's mind. The actor is constantly distracting the character and
making me drop out of the moment for whatever trite thought about a
lunch date or a botched audition, or worse, how cue 212 was dropped by
the SM, and how am I going to change my blocking so that everyone can
see my beautiful mug for my monologue. <br />
Well it was our second to last performance, and the production was
quite experimental. The student director had decided to add all kinds of
artifice to the elegant, simply brilliant modern Shakespearish gait of
Brecht. He cast painters and musicians in character roles, ignoring good
taste and quality (in my naive college aged view). By this point in the
run I had my lines and blocking so cold, all my intentions decided and
re-decided and re-interpreted once again. I was on autopilot. I was
doing what I think is wrongly called by many, "Phoning it in". This is a
wrong term in my opinion because this is the space where the magic
begins. A necessary rung on a ladder that most of us never see the top
of. <br />
Something else was at work. There was a magical dust that settled
over me that night. Somewhere in the middle of the performance, I can't
remember when, because, it's magic, things started getting very fuzzy.
The veil began to lift for me as a performer, where it never had before,
and very rarely ever did again (so far). And when it came time for BAAL
to die, begging for his mommy to return him to her bosom, the most
basic of all human needs returned at once after a life of incivility and
relentless adolescence, rape, murder and abandonment in the name of
independence (what an irony!), Zack Rouse was gone. Actor man, with all
my analysis, all my judgment, all my opinion, had simply vanished, and
where there had been a personality driven by ego to surpass the
competition, do everything perfectly and achieve the adoration of
professors and peers, given awards and told I no longer have to attend
class because I'm just an ACTOR now, there was now a dead BAAL. <br />
Blank.
Blind.
Empty Body-vessel.
Actor.<br />
I awoke at curtain call, which was one severe bow and an exit, to sit
in a chair for half an hour, waiting while my ego returned to me. And
fortunately, when I got back, I had no opinion about what I had done
that night. I didn't think I was the greatest actor who ever lived. I
didn't envision myself receiving an Oscar and thanking the Academy. I
didn't care. 60 people watched my performance that night. Hardly world
changing. <br />
For those who are religious, I will challenge that this is what
preachers are talking about. They are talking about a unification of
humanity in the internal/eternal world of the "Open Vessel".<br />
I will submit to you all that indeed, I ceased to exist for a period
of time. The universe had no need for the ego identified as Zack, with
its prescribed tastes and opinions. And so for a time, Zack died. And
was reborn when the vessel that held this ego was finished with its job
of representing BAAL. <br />
This is why acting is not an ego pursuit. This is why acting is at
its very core the spiritual and solemn endeavor to map the universe.
Actors are Astronauts. <br />
<br />
-ZRZack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-56479728502167901542012-10-15T17:05:00.003-07:002012-10-22T01:18:30.189-07:00Harold Pinter's The Homecoming: "Luke, you are my reviewer"<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;">The First Review Is In! Luke is the verdict...<a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2012/10/defunkt_theatre_review_the_hom.html"></a></span><br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><br /><a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2012/10/defunkt_theatre_review_the_hom.html" target="_blank">See Review Here From The Oregonian</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><br />
<br />
So,The Homecoming <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%3Ciframe%20src=%22http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=wwwcreditorwe-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0802151051&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr%22%20style=%22width:120px;height:240px;%22%20scrolling=%22no%22%20marginwidth=%220%22%20marginheight=%220%22%20frameborder=%220%22%3E%3C/iframe%3E" target="_blank"><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=wwwcreditorwe-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0802151051&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe> </a></span><br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;">
is officially open. We had a good first weekend run, and at least two reviewers were there. </span><br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><br />
REVIEWS!!!:</span><br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What a mindfuck. My auto spell check says mindfuck isn't a word, but I think it should be added to google's lexicon. Afterall, if google is a word, why can't mindfuck be?</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mindfuck. So, yes, as an actor working on the HARDEST PLAY EVER WRITTEN, Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, you have to ride the line between broadcasting a metaphor to an audience, laying it all out there for them so that it's easy to digest, showing all the inner turmoil that is the character; and keeping all of it close to the chest so as to leave the decision making up to the viewer. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most <i style="font-weight: bold;">re</i>viewers have no idea what that process is like. The process of developing a piece of living literature for public presentation. Especially in an age of 10 second soundbites and loud colorful images of breasts and dilated female eyes. This play, upon reading, is so complex, so enigmatic, so specific and vague at the same time, that to choose a path and "show" it would be to spit on the memory of the Nobel Prize winning playwright. He didn't want us to broadcast the bitch. He wanted us to play it close to the chest. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I said this to my fellow cast mates in email today:</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #eeeeee;"><br />
<br />
</span><br />
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc;">I think, that with theatre moving away from Drama, and toward a visual experience (meaning away from the written word), it is harder for the viewer to accept literary theatre. This is sad, on the one hand, but it is also just the way things go, as generations flow through time and our artistic forms morph and twist. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc;">Pinter is still of that Dramatic form, the literary form. And we are working with Paul (Angelo) to execute that literature with respect. We're not broadcasting a blunt interpretation of the play to an assumed sense-dulled audience that can only hear the loudest of metaphors. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc;">This [piece] is a challenge to show to the public, most of whom are looking for ten second visual cues that move the story along. Most "modern" pieces have three times as many events occurring in them as this piece has. And yet, the emotional landscape of this piece is unparalleled. And I believe that people have the capacity to ignore the cartoonish nature of their culture when they are interested in something deeper. I believe that people are smarter than the ad execs who barrage them with banal simplicity.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc;">If people can't hear our subtext, then we maybe <i><b>are</b></i> flat. Another possibility is that there are a few who are themselves emotionally deaf as a result of being assaulted by archetypical scenarios.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc;">We are doing a good job. (PAUSE) I think.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc; font-size: large;">I can't say whether we are flat or sufficient. I'm not the one in that position, the reviewer is in that position. But I know, that as an audience member, the worst insult to me, the biggest proof that I've just wasted my last 2 hours and money on ticket, overpriced bad coffee and a shitty pastry(in other words the professional regional theatre experience), is when a theatre troupe doesn't let me make my own decisions about what just happened on stage. That may be the playwright's fault, or the director's. But it doesn't matter in the end. If the Who is removed from the Whodunit, I'm pissed.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc; font-size: large;">I would rather be flat than to be guilty of answering the Who part of the question. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
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Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-83570668709067599382012-08-26T17:05:00.002-07:002012-08-26T17:57:16.468-07:00My Dad's Passing One Year Ago TomorrowMy father, Paul S. Rouse, died one year ago tomorrow. I remembered this today, and a rush of sadness and remembrance came over me.<br />
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He was a brilliant man in many ways. His talents were far reaching, and ultimately un-realized were his dreams.<br />
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He was a photographer of great ability. My grandfather, Paul Rouse,<br />
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was a professional photographer for Indiana University Bloomington, and an actor in Hollywood westerns in the 40's. And my dad inherited his amazing ability to capture the spirit of a person in a photograph. He also had an innate artistic sense which allowed him to take abstract photos and create interesting and beautiful images. I remember a photograph he took from my mom's and my apartment in 1977 or so. He laid down on the balcony, which had a vaguely roman looking railing, and took a picture of the clouds moving overhead the railing. The image is somewhere in my mother's photo albums. None of these have been digitized yet, so they can't be put into blog format. But when I can, I will include these wonderful pictures in the blog.<br />
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Steve was also a writer. He was less disciplined with the writing than he was with other things, like his love of technology, and most of his works remain unfinished. When he died, I inherited his hard drives and a lot of that material is on those drives. I will get to them when I can, and begin sifting through the annals to find projects that I might be able to complete for him, a duty I feel toward my father's work and legacy. He has somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 nearly complete screenplays, and numerous essays and commentaries on life and reflections on the world.<br />
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My dad was a brilliantly talented musician as well. He started with violin as a child, and evidently was something of a prodigy. As he got older, he moved to keyboards and piano, and never took it to a professional level, although he was clearly capable of going all the way if he had focused on it as a career. My grandmother, Vera,<br />
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was a pianist, and my grandparents always had an organ in the house, as long as I can remember. My dad would sit down and tool around the blues for hours when I would visit; and when I was a baby, there is a photo somewhere of me in my diapers, perched on the bench, banging away at the keyboard. I'd love to get ahold of that pic. Again, not yet digitized.<br />
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He was, more than a musician, a listener. His need to listen to music was so great, that it became a career in and of itself to him. He was an archivist and audiophile. His stereos were always the biggest and baddest, he had stereo headphones for each of us when I'd come visit, so that we could watch Raiders of the Lost Arc with the best sound possible. These are wonderful memories for me.<br />
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His chosen career was in TV news. He directed the news in Pueblo, CO for the NBC affiliate in the tiny dusty high desert town where I was born, for a number of years. He and my mother worked together at the station. She was the anchor, and he was the director. He was a fantastic video editor. For his whole life he enjoyed delving into footage and creating a story by clipping pieces of tape together. I too love music and video editing and photography.<br />
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My dad was born in Los Angeles in 1947, and my grandmother, an avid gardener and Irish farm stock, felt it was important to raise the family in the country. Paul agreed. So they returned to Indiana, and that's where my father and aunt were raised. The things that I always remember hearing about my dad's upbringing was the abundance of laughter in the house. Things were always kept fun. I'm sure there were difficulties, as there are in any household. But overall, I think that it was an incredibly nurturing and artistically inclined home.<br />
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My dad was afflicted, you can say. He had clinical depression in an era when it was just being discovered that people had hormonal imbalances in their bodies. He always kind of wandered around in a fog and never had the gumption or wherewithal to complete the most mundane of tasks. I can understand this, having been diagnosed with tourette syndrome myself. I'm more highly functioning that he was, but still have some challenges to success in my areas of study.<br />
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This was hard for the people who loved him to watch. It was so hard to watch someone with endless talent and ability sit on the couch for years smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and watching movies (albeit he had a great collection!). But he was also afflicted with a stubbornness that prevented him from letting people help him get things moving in his life.<br />
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His diet didn't help, either. He never ate much, and when he did, it was usually a Marie Calendar's t.v. dinner, full of enough sodium to kill a horse. Or chocolate candies to snack on while he watched a flick. I think that when you have depression, the very first thing you need to do is fix your diet and exercise regimen and then you can see what truly ails you. If you then still have problems, seek medical or herbal help. But he was either never interested in taking that step, or just couldn't find the momentum to start a change for himself. Add that to 40 years of smoking cigarettes, and you have a losing combination.<br />
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I would say his crowning achievement was his bluegrass radio show in Bloomington, IN, in his final years. He was a great knowledge base on bluegrass music and its history. He hosted a great show on WFHB in Bloomington, IN. I will post his shows as I get ahold of them. He affected so many listeners, turned people onto bluegrass who had never known the music before or had an affinity, and he charmed people with his personality, which was witty, intelligent, and whip-smart funny.<br />
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So, last year, at 64, when he finally began to succumb to the beast that a poor diet and a cigarette addiction will create in your body, I was extremely sad, but not surprised. I had been telling him for years to change his habits. I gave him Oscar-worthy motivational speeches every time we spoke on the phone. I was never too present in his life, from the time he and my mom separated, but we were much like brothers. So similar in so many ways, with similar passions, parallel interests, a love of film, writing, photography, all the visual arts are in our blood, and not going away. My life was just getting started and his was already winding down. This saddens me greatly, that humans and animals often are relegated to passing genes on to the next generation, and that's about all the contact they can have with each other.<br />
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He only met his granddaughter once, and I know that was a source of sadness for him. I think he felt like he'd failed me in some ways, as a father who couldn't even parent himself.<br />
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But he did the very best he could with the tools he was given in this life, and I love him with all of my heart. I am very blessed to have such a great family, with all of their talents, and their endless heart. </div>
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For me, success in life is less about what tasks you accomplish, or how much money you acquire or blow through, and more about the impact you make on those around you: your loved ones, friends, enemies, your audiences...And did you make a positive impact on the world, or a negative one. That's why I can't call business people successful humans on the merits of their ability to produce money. What are you doing for our world? </div>
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My father, Steve Rouse, left a positive mark on this world. And his ripple will continue to be felt for decades. And for me, that is as successful as a human can ever hope to be. I am proud of my Daddy Steve and I celebrate who he IS.<br />
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Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8552983241791492380.post-46620633464708501392012-02-10T17:31:00.000-08:002012-02-10T17:31:33.369-08:00High Fructose Corn Syrup<iframe width="459" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/xs-cKpwbn-0?fs=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>Zack Rouse, Full Service Real Estate Brokerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495827607022700142noreply@blogger.com0