Blog and Bloggage from Bag and Baggage

Crimes of the Heart

2011-08-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

Pat Conroy, the famous novelist, wrote, “All southern literature can be summed up in these words; On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to sister.”

There is something so funny about that statement, about the extremes of tragedy contained in the layers of despair and horror in those 15 or so words. The hogs ATE Willie? On the same night that Mama DIED? After she heard about what Daddy did to sister????

God lord, that is one rough night, y’all.

Crimes of the Heart is one of the most famous examples of Southern Gothic literature, and falls, alongside Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Faulkner and Tennessee Williams’ work, as one of the most enduring examples of the genre. “When you cross drama with the macabre isolation of small town life, and throw in a touch of whimsy, you’ve cooked up some Southern Gothic.” It is the combination of drama and romance, of dread and comedy, and the creation of unusual characters, often “not quite right in the head” that defines the literary form, and Southern Gothic literature is concerned with the grotesque; deeply flawed characters, decay, claustrophobia, sinister events, often tied to racism, poverty and violence…. Taken out of the south, the genre is more often known by its less geographically limited term, Tragicomedy.

Tragicomedy has no formal classical definition. From Aristotle we get basic notions of Tragedy and Comedy, and philosophers, poets and playwrights have, for centuries, dabbled in development of these two genres of literature, but we all know that, almost without exception, these two genres usually overlap or, at the very least, share the stage with each other all the time.

Tragicomedy, as a term, originates with Plautus. In his prologue to Amphitryon, he uses the phrase to justify the introduction of Gods in a play that is largely about the plight of normal mortals. In essence, he says “this may be a play about the foibles of human life, but there are gods, people, so let’s get serious…The profane and the sacred exist all together at the same time.”

And, let’s be honest, tragicomedy is really much closer to the reality of our lives than any straight comedy or straight tragedy. Very, very few of us experience life as Titus Andronicus did. Very, very few of us experience life as the actors in Noises Off do. Most of us have lives that are a mixture of the dark and the light, the simple and the complex, the hard and the easy, the tragic and the comic. Often at the very same time. Just as we see in Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley.

Henley is a prolific writer, although she is largely known only for Crimes and perhaps The Miss Firecracker Contest. She has written more than a dozen plays, and her work has been directed by such theatre luminaries as Jonathan Demme, Kathleen Turner and others. What is interesting about her, even with the fact that she is a Pulitizer Prize winner, is that her work has not received the same kind of academic or theoretical attention that many of her contemporaries, or comparators like Tennessee Williams, have received. Very little has been written about Henley’s dramatic perspective, and what has been written is largely focused on her place in the Southern Gothic tradition, her literary influences such as Willa Cather, Anton Chekov, Tennessee Williams, and others.

Julia Ann Fesmire wrote the definitive analysis of Henley in her 2002 text “Beth Henley, A Casebook” in which she writes a series of essays about Henley as a southern voice, as a feminist and as someone with a particular fascination with dramatic ideals of the grotesque.

Fesmire writes, “The intricate balance between the affirmation of life and the dangers inherent in living exists within all of Henley’s work, and she often creates a mixture of comedy and profound violence. Henley herself has confessed to a particular delight in being frightened by morbid or violent images. The grotesque, she says, provides life with a tangible quality of realness, of the sensation of being physical present. “The reason things can be so funny is that they can be so sad; the reason they can be so beautiful is that they can be so ugly.”

Crimes, and much of Henley’s work, is often compared to Chekov, particularly given that Henley herself consistently references Chekov’s work as the greatest influence on her as a dramatist and because, like Chekov, Henley’s work seeks to bring elements of both comedy and tragedy into the mix. Henley says, “When I wrote Crimes, I was mainly thinking of Chekov and The Three Sisters, and have always thought the two plays should be done in rep.”

Anton Chekov once wrote, “In life, there are no clear-cut consequences of reasons; in it, everything is mixed up together; the important and the paltry, the great and the base, the tragic and the ridiculous.”

Crimes, in terms of narrative and plot structure, is not only Southern Gothic, it is tragicomedy; it attempts to combine suicide and attempted manslaughter with laughter and the celebratory embrace of sisterhood and family. But, it is the question of “balance” that is most interesting to me, the question of how much tragi there is in this tragicomedy and how much comedy…

Alan Woods, a theatre professor and literary critic, notes that “although the play may ostensibly celebrate the power of the individual over a repressive society, it may celebrate the power of sisterhood, the celebration is only temporary; Babe is still going to court and, at minimum, to jail or an insane asylum, Meg is still no closer to finding happiness, is still shattered by her discovery of their mother’s body and has no direction now that she understands that Granddaddy’s wish for her to be a singer was completely misguided. Lenny’s ovary is still shrunk, and her future happiness is completely in the hands of some man named Charlie. Doc has likely committed adultery, Barnette is unlikely to achieve his vengeance and redeem his father’s memory and Chick…well, Chick still has to be Chick when all is said and done, until her very last breath.”

Fesmire notes, “Henley’s failure to dramatize solutions to the character’s dilemmas is a realistic response” to an inherent fact of life; tragedy happens, and no amount of quipping or lemonade can change that fact. No amount of “sisterhood” is going to keep Babe from going to jail.

It is this inherent sadness, the depth of current and potential tragedy, that I find so powerful and moving about Crimes, and what I have found so frustrating about productions of the play that put the emphasis on shtick, schmaltz and cheese. These are women, and circumstances, that are truly disturbing and really painful, and the heartwarming, tug at your heart strings, hold hands and sing Kumbayya at the end of the play approach…well, it just doesn’t work for me.

I’m not the only one who finds the scales unbalanced in the play versus production. Leo Sauvage, in his review of the original Broadway production of Crimes found nothing enthralling in what he deemed “the poorly emotionally adjusted, if not emotionally retarded, Magrath sisters.” Anthony Masters, in his review of the 1983 London production, noted that “only someone with a disturbingly sick sense of humor could relate to the play.”

The play does contain ridiculous and, some might say, ludicrous, plot and circumstances. Horse gets hit by lightning, girl shoots husband while making lemonade, a shrunken ovary and a 30th birthday. The hogs ate Willie on the night Mama died…But it is not the theatre of the absurd, it is not outside of the world. In fact, the play is grounded in a very, very specific and historically relevant period and place.

In a 1981 interview in Mississippi Writers Talking, Henley tells a story about her inspiration for the motivation for Babe to shoot her husband: “I heard this story about [a moment when] Walter Cronkite was sitting up on the front porch of these rich people’s house in the South, and this little black kid came up and said he wanted ice cream, and the man came down and socked him in the face and said, ‘Don’t you ever come around to this front door again.’… I thought, ‘God, I’d like to kill somebody for just being cruel like that to some innocent person.’

The McCarter Theatre provides some very specific information on the racial and ethnic backdrop for Crimes in their background info for their March 2011 production of the play. “Even though the Civil Rights movement had peaked in the late 60s, for many Mississipians, the 1970s was a period of profoundly uncomfortable adjustment. Segregation, poll taxes, and race-based hiring discrimination were no longer enshrined in law as acceptable practices, but personal and institutional racism were still the norm as many white Mississippians looked for ways to act out and capitalize on the disaffection and fear they felt in the new world order. “

The threads of violence, the images of the murdered Emmett Till, the lynchings, riots, dogs and water cannons were all powerfully close to the people of Mississippi, even after a dozen years, and this incredibly strong social pressure exists throughout the play; the pressure to conform, to follow the rules, to be a good girl, to be a good southern girl, to be “safe,”, to marry, to marry right, to have children, …And the Magrath sisters are, by their very nature, a threat to those standards and a rejection of those pressures, but there is a price to pay, in the south, for not going along to get along…

Babe didn’t just seduce a hot black kid for a romp in the hay, Babe violated a deep and profound sense of racial and geographic identity and she will suffer for that, she will be punished. These are deeply rooted belief systems in the South, especially at the time this play was written, and the line that Babe has crossed is a very serious one; and, plus, she shot her husband, even though it is likely he deserved it.

McCarter Theatre goes on to discuss Hurricane Camille, which swept through the Mississippi gulf coast in 1969, and remains the second most intense hurricane in recorded US history. It was classified as a category 5 storm, and, although all wind-speed recording equipment was destroyed, NOAA estimates that the peak winds were close to 200 miles per hour. Gulf coast residents were forced to evacuate after the Air Force reported that storm surges could bring tidal waves of 25 feet to the shore. When making the decision to evacuate, the civil defense director of Harrison County called the Air Force report “the difference between survival and 10,000 tombstones.”

As noted in the play, Meg and Doc weathered the storm in Biloxi, and the impact of Hurricane Camille on the region cannot be overstated, and the impact on Lenny and Old Granddad would have been profound. Why would Lenny move back into that house? She had no other choice; unmarried, with little hope of a match and no hope of a career, the only other decision would be to live in abject poverty. Back to the family home, not owned by her, where her mother died, and where her Grandfather consistently showed his favoritism for Meg and for Babe….and, their home and their community would have been devastated by the Hurricane, and everyone in town has likely been hit hard economically.

The list of “realistic” and “historic” foundations could go on for pages; Suicide, attempted suicide, infertility, alcohol and substance abuse, poverty, domestic violence, family cycles of mental illness, adultery, racism, sexism, classism, and on and on…. It is a real downer….

Is there humor here? You bet, but the humor is found in between the hogs and Willie, and it is found in the fact that Mama died on the same night she found out what Daddy did to sister…

Henley said, “I’ve always been attracted to split images; the grotesque combined with the innocent, a child walking with a cane, a kitten with a swollen head, a hunchback drinking a cup of fruit punch. Somehow these images are a metaphor for any view of life.”

It is interesting to note that, in the past 10 or 15 years, many of the critical reviews of American productions of Crimes have been in one of two camps: they either PRAISE the sickly sweet, 80s rom-com feel of the play or they DENIGRATE that quality by saying that treating the script as a comedy is too shallow and not reflective of the darker, meatier substance underneath the dialogue.

No matter which camp you find yourself in, the play is challenging for us simply because of its timeliness, or lack thereof. The New York Times said, “If the material seems somewhat dated and soapy today, it is because our generation of theatergoers has been raised in its shadow; the popularity of Crimes of the Heart has led to innumerable lesser imitators…” We know this story, these characters, this house, this kitchen. It can all feel very, very familiar, and not as engaging as other, more recent treatments of the same familial struggles.

What is important in Henley’s script are two things: what the characters say and what they DON’T say. It would be terrible easy to drape the stage in lace curtains, to cover up the characters in 80s shoulder pads, to focus attention only on the absurdities, and to allow the play to be exactly what many people believe it is; a museum piece. A little slice of time that is actually not particularly relevant to modern audiences, to avoid the profoundly embedded emotional struggles of these women and their families. Easy, but not Bag&Baggage.

We need to remind ourselves that this play received the Pulitzer Prize for drama, alongside A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of A Salesman, Buried Child, Glengarry Glen Ross, and Fences. There is more here than meets the eye…

As one reviewer put it, “Crimes of the Heart could easily be the kind of wholesome stage treacle that the Lifetime television network has all but made obsolete today. But Henley's portrayals, which completely avoid condescension, still disarm with their loving honesty, and needs only the sparks of in-tune actors to bring their troubles to crackling life.”

2011-06-29T15:37:00.001-07:00

The Tempest is generally believed to be William Shakespeare’s last play, although we know he also had a hand in writing The Two Noble Kinsman a decade or so later. Shakespeare’s Tempest is a delicate thing, combining elements of tragedy and romantic comedy, and has been called, by many, the finest of his great and late romances. It has been called “an inherently theatrical work; unfolding in a series of spectacles that involve exotic, super-human and often invisible characters; it is a multi-sensory theatre experience, overflowing with exotic imagery, lyrical sound and a palpable lushness.” It is, in a word, a work of genius by a man at the height of his skill. It is rich, complex, and an extraordinary example of a great work by a great writer. It is a thoughtful and compelling exploration of nature, of civilization, of imperialism, of the connection between the natural world and the world of artistic expression, and asks, at its very core, the most basic of questions: what does it mean to be human?

But Shakespeare’s The Tempest is not the play we are performing this summer. Not at all. Not even a little. Nope. Not doing it. Not the play we are doing.

Shakespeare’s Tempest was likely performed in or around the year 1611 at The Globe, but the first recorded performance of the Tempest was at the Banqueting House at Whitehall for James the First on Halloween. It was performed for James a second time in 1613 at the marriage of his daughter, Elizabeth, and included the addition of the masque (the fairies and sprites dancing and singing) to meet the needs of the occasion. Shakespeare added this little festive flourish in order to recognize the occasion and also to take advantage of the fad for masques that was sweeping through Elizabethan theatre at the time.

From 1613 to 1650, Shakespeare’s The Tempest achieves a remarkable Shakespearean milestone; it is the least performed Shakespeare play of the era! There are only 31 mentions of the play in the historical records, many of which are simply references to earlier productions or are dismissive of the overall quality of the work.

But, really, we can’t blame the Bard for writing what audiences of the time thought was a lead balloon. The mid to late 16th century was a bland time for English theatre. The theatres themselves had been closed due to social and political upheaval, and because many thought the theatres to be morally bankrupt (damn Puritans!), with a Parliamentary order to close the doors specifically in 1642. Between 1642 and 1660, the English world was turned upside down again and again; a king was beheaded, a new republic was established, the English church was shut down, and theatre practitioners were forced to sidestep the law by holding small, private “recitals” of “dramatic readings and music” for patrons and the wealthy. A bit of historical detail for you: Oliver Cromwell led England during the 11 years between 1642 and 1653, a time period called the Commonwealth. When Cromwell died his son was unable to keep government stability so Parliament invited Charles II back from exile to rule in 1660 and the crown was restored. It was a RESTORATION! Get it?

Just because the theatres were closed, that doesn’t mean theatre died. We are, after all, a hearty bunch. Clever, hardworking, and often hungry, theatre practitioners figured out ways around the laws; private parties. These private performances largely took the form of “musical entertainments” or, an incredibly apt term, in the form of drolls. Drolls were short adapted versions of well-known plays and stories, often done in a spirit of mockery and as a form of social and political commentary on the restrictions of the Commonwealth laws. Directors, writers and actors would adapt the plays into funny, sassy, little tongue in cheek “violations” of the rules. Naughty little stories that flouted the law and the prescriptions of the Commonwealth. These performances would take aim at the Puritanical rules and norms and skewer them, lampoon their advocates, and titillate and excite their audiences with their inappropriateness. Drolls were naughty, they were wicked, a guilty little delicious chocolate covered pleasure enjoyed behind closed doors with a nod and a wink…

When Charles, who was referred to as “The Merry Monarch,” was restored to the throne, particularly in the early days of the Restoration, theatre artists were able to break free from the restraints of the Commonwealth and theatre was able to develop and flourish. Naturally, theatre started its return to greatness by taking the DROLLs and making these short, comedy retellings into full-length commentaries on the period. It was a wild, explosive, creative time for the performing arts. Charles allowed actresses onstage (instead of just little boys), audiences were dominated by the wealthy and slightly smug upper class, individuals familiar with theatre, history and mythology, and sexually suggestive dialogue and plots were THE trend. After the Commonwealth, the rich and powerful were up for a little debauchery, and there were a LOT of people willing and able to give it to them.

In 1660, when Charles re-opened the theatres, one of the underground success stories of the Commonwealth period, William Davenant, had his chance to become a superstar. Davenant had made a name for himself by producing “musical entertainments” for the wealthy and the nobility, and his fame, behind closed doors, put him the perfect position to launch a full-fledged career during the Restoration.

Sir William Davenant was a Playwright, Theater Manager and a Poet. He was extremely successful and a staunch supporter of Charles II, who bestowed upon him the title and the rank of a Knight. Davenant was one of two theatre managers to receive a royal writ from Charles to open a theatre in London. His “The Siege of Rhodes,” performed in 1656, is universally considered the first ever English opera, and Davenant’s production of The Siege of Rhodes helped to establish the convention of using a proscenium, perspective-based scenery, and allowing women onstage as…gasp, horror…actresses! Some would argue that it was the Siege of Rhodes that gave Charles the idea to allow women onstage and Davenant’s success “behind closed doors” assured him of a pre-eminent place in line during the Restoration.

Davenant was an alchemist, combining theatrical and popular cultural elements together into a heady, intoxicating mixture of pure entertainment. Exoticisim, eroticism, spectacle, comedy, bawdy humor, lampooning manners, and allusions to Shakespeare, Jonson, and Fletcher made Davenant and his work hugely popular, though not particularly good. Davenant was a character right out of his own plays:

Rumors persisted that Davenant was, in fact, Shakespeare’s illegitimate son…He was imprisoned on multiple occasions, probably died from syphilis, and has been described as “a leading debaser of the English stage.” His reputation as a scoundrel and provocateur persisted for hundreds of years, and the Encyclopedia Britannica, in 1905, said this of Davenant: “His adventures have always given him a prominence in the history of literature which his writings hardly justify. His plays are utterly unreadable, and his poems are usually stilted and unnatural. His influence on English drama must be condemned as wholly deplorable.”

I like him a lot.

He was known to have worked with another popular playwright and poet of the time, John Dryden. Dryden is another favorite of mine not only for his skill as a writer, but also because he spent so much of his time trying to persuade his fellow English playwrights and audiences of their appropriate but sometimes misguided love and affection for Shakespeare! Dryden was a critic as well as a writer, and he knew Shakespeare was good, but he also knew Shakespeare wasn’t perfect, nor was he the only great writer of his age. Dryden’s work, and his literary criticism of Shakespeare and other writers, so dominated the literary scene of his day that these years came to be known as the “Age of Dryden.” His first play, The Wild Gallant, was a farcical comedy with some funny bits, but mostly it made its name because it was full of filthy dialogue, and he continued to make the most of that reputation throughout his career.

Dryden is fascinating to me because he combined three of my great loves into a single, hugely successful career; literary criticism, playwriting and adaptation! Dryden wrote musicals based on Milton’s Paradise Lost at the same time he published essays on the work of Milton, he adapted Troilus and Cressida, badly, and the incredible All For Love, based on Antony and Cleopatra, which is arguably his masterpiece, and a work that is almost never, ever performed in modern times but which, in my opinion, stands up to any of Shakespeare’s work in its genius.

It was between 1680 and 1682 that Dryden would do his most exceptional work, earning himself the title of the greatest verse SATIRIST that England had ever produced. He was a master of the lampoon, the mock, of parody, of caricature and ridicule. He took aim at everyone; writers, playwrights, actors, clergy, nobility, businessmen and poets…he was so successful in satirizing Lord Rochester in 1679 that Rochester hired a gang of ruffians to beat the shit out of Dryden in an alley behind Covent Garden on December 18, 1679, an attack that nearly killed him!

In the earliest days of the Restoration, when audiences and patrons were truly willing to let the good times roll on stage, John Dryden and William Davenant were two of the very best at rewriting earlier plays and turning them into expressions of the Restoration spirit, and it is not surprising that these two greats collaborated occasionally throughout their careers. In the mid 1660s, John and Will joined forces and turned their attention to one of the last plays of the Elizabethan period, a play that people remembered and that had been included as the first play in Shakespeare’s folio; Shakespeare’s Tempest. The Dryden Davenant version, The Tempest, or the Enchanted Isle, premiered on November 7, 1667.

This was neither playwright’s first attempt at adapting Shakespearean work. In fact, Davenant had a huge history of mining Shakespeare for his own plays. The first, The Law Against Lovers (produced in 1662), is an altered version of Measure for Measure with the importation of the Beatrice-Benedick plot from Much Ado About Nothing. The Rivals (produced in 1664) is a freewheeling adaptation of The Two Noble Kinsmen with two acts, the first and the last, completely new. Considered an improvement upon Shakespeare and Fletcher's original, it was revived for the court as late as 1667.

It was in Davenant's handling of Shakespeare's plays at his theater in Lincoln's Inn Fields that he is probably most often remembered. Davenant took an old London tennis court and turned it into an outdoor theatre; a practice that would become commonplace throughout the late 1660s. Davenant loved Shakespeare almost to the point of idolatry and wanted his audience to share that love. To convince them of that greatness, he recast Shakespeare's plays in the image and taste of his own times. As one critic of Davenant’s writes, “Before one joins unthinkingly the chorus of Davenant denigrators, one should cast a critical eye on some Shakespeare productions of our time where a director insists on emerging egotistically from a submerged text; without approving Davenant's meddling, one can at least understand his motivation.”

Hamlet, cut nearly in half and with its diction mutilated, was the first Shakespearean play to be given on Davenant's new stage at Lincoln’s Inn Field. No other tragedy of the time, it was said, got more reputation and money for the company, partly because the lead actor "did the Prince's part beyond imagination." One critic declared that "the old plays begin to disgust this refined age, since his Majesty's being so long abroad." Macbeth was also elaborately restaged, omitting the witches, enlarging the part of Lady Macduff and cutting the porter, an edit I am personally wholly in support of… Before Shakespeare’s "restored" Macbeth was produced in 1774, Londoners saw more than two hundred performances of Davenant's version, which was first acted in 1663…It was Davenant’s Macbeth that people saw for more than 115 years, not Shakespeare’s.

The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island (produced in 1667), was a partnership with Dryden and this adaptation was performed in various guises for nearly two centuries. A huge amount of Shakespeare's lyricism is cut, and, a little tidbit that makes me more happy than I can tell you, Davenant was the very first person in history to develop and use a wind machine on stage. This version of The Tempest was so popular that the King paid for five performances of it over a period of the first six months.

In his adaptation, Davenant, knowing his audience, focused on clarity, elegance, and theatricality. Alfred Harbage has written that "as a result, abstract and lyrical passages, those most figurative and imaginative, in a word, most Shakespearean, were recast, abbreviated, or completely excised." Arthur Nethercot wrote that he “deplores Davenant's violating hand [that] rove murderously among the greatest lines in English literature. That hand resisted no temptation to rewrite and there was no restraining it.” What was right about Shakespeare, this version often wronged, but what it wrought was unique unto itself and literally eclipsed Shakespeare’s original.

It was a huge success; the Dryden/Davenant, hereafter what we ALL mean when we refer to The Tempest, contained less than 1/3 of Shakespeare’s text and was an attempt to increase the comedy inherent in Shakespeare’s earlier, and decidedly less funny, play.

It was so successful, in fact, that Thomas Shadwell wrote one of the very earliest English operas based on the Dryden and Davenant, and these two versions essentially dominated the stage until 1838.

From 1700-1732, the Shadwell opera was produced in 26 out of the 32 seasons at Drury Lane. In 1746, Shakespeare’s version was revived at Drury Lane but was closed after 6 performances; In 1757, Garrick attempted to revive the Shakespeare text, again at Drury Lane, but he cut nearly 500 lines, removed a bunch of scenes and it was still a flop.

From 1789 until 1802, John Philip Kemble arguably had the most impact on the Dryden and Davenant text as the dominant version of the story. Kemble, who was the resident director (basically) at Drury Lane, rewrote Shakespeare’s play to include most of Dryden and Davenant’s new characters, and also included a number of the Shadwell songs; Kemble made the Tempest into a Broadway musical! When Kemble took over Covent Garden in 1806, he revised the play again, removing most of the operatic elements but keeping the Dryden/Davenant plot; THIS version remained in rep at Covenant Garden until 1817 and was the standard performance text of The Tempest until the 1840s. It was only after 1840 that Shakespeare’s version began to return to dominate staged performances of the story; 1840! Before that time, it was, generally speaking, the Dryden/Davenant/Shadwell or some variation thereof that you would see when you went to see The Tempest, not Shakespeare.

It has been exactly 400 years since Shakespeare produced his version of The Tempest, and, for at least 173 years of that time, it was Dryden and Davenant’s Tempest that was the most successful and most often performed.

It would not be overstating my point to say: The Davenant/Dryden Tempest has a pedigree and performance history as long, as rich, as varied, as important and as historically relevant, as Shakespeare’s. This is the play we are doing. We are doing a remarkable, funny, bawdy, comedic lampooning of Shakespeare’s original, a skewering of the sensibilities embedded in Shakespeare’s Tempest and represented by Elizabethan and Commonwealth theatrical norms, a clever and twisting comedic tale of betrayal, revenge, love and supernatural sex, and, by doing so, we are engaging in a process as rich, varied, important and historical as any doublet and hose, rigidly iambic pentameter focused, Shakespeare-as-bible production of The Tempest you could see in any of a thousand theatres or parks this summer.

The real difference is this: We are the ONLY ones doing THIS Tempest, and we will be the first people in American history to do so, and the first professional theatre, anywhere in the world, since 1840, to do it. Anybody can do Shakespeare. We are doing something different. And I hope we will make the most of it!

And how, exactly, will we make the most of it? By indulging in the driving forces behind the writing of the play, the values of Restoration Comedy. Restoration Comedy is, by its very nature, parody; it was born in the back rooms, living rooms, dining halls and inns during the Commonwealth period as a way of mocking, insulting, critiquing and lampooning the restrictive morality of the time. Once it hit the big stage, the inherent nature of the theatrical form remained intact, and continued to be used to deride not only the conventions of the Puritanical Commonwealth period, but the general manners, values and beliefs of the dominant culture. Restoration comedy is mockery, it is parody, and asks, of its actors, that they use all of their skills and talents to question, mock, and deride the manners and beliefs of the time.

What are those tools?

Peculiarities of speech, affectations of movement and gesture, witty lines delivered with caustic intent, amorous adventurism and the unflagging satire of pretentious fops. Inventive physical punctuation of language, inventive and creative physical and vocal flourishes, exaggerated characterizations, mockingly overstated aristocratic style of address; intricate vocal pauses and complex timing in delivery, rapid speech; highly graceful and elegant patterns of movement which are precise and intricate; gesticulation, overly expressive facial expressions (winking, grimacing, smiling, over-reacting); overly precise or overtly poor enunciation; the en passant (a slight bow from the waist) without losing the pace of the walk; mincing, strutting, copious flowing hand gestures, posing; hand kissing, emphasis of cuffs, lace, handkerchiefs, walking sticks, fingers, breasts, crotches, feet, shoes, hats, eyebrows and lips, men walking in straight lines with overly emphasized directness, turns and poses upon arrival at your destination, women walking in graceful curves, spinning and mugging, and generally put, everyone playing the body in a detached awareness of your character.

Yep, that’s pretty much it.

Twelfth Night Meets The Great Gatsby!

2010-06-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

One of the main sources for Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is the story of Apolonius and Silla, written by Barnabe Rich, and told in his anthology of tales entitled “His Farewell to Military Profession.”

Although the plots are very similar in nature, the nature of the characters, the feeling of the original, is much, much darker. For example, Rich’s tale begins onboard the fateful ship before it is wracked by storms and, Silla (later Shakespeare’s Viola) is on her way to meet her beloved. While on board, the Captain “seeing Silla’s singular beauty” calls her to his bed, offers her his hand in marriage and, when she refuses, says to her, “Seeing you make so little account of my courtesy, from henceforth I will use the office of my authority; you shall know that I am the captain of this ship and have power to command and dispose of things at my pleasure seeing you have so scornfully rejected me to be your loyal husband, I will now take you by force and use you at my will; there shall be no man to protect you, nor yet to persuade me from that I have determined.” Silla prays to god for deliverance and, suddenly finds herself and the ship in the middle of a terrible storm, “the terror whereof was such that there was no man but did think the seas would presently have swallowed them.” Silla survives and, in abject terror for her life and her maidenhead, or, as Rich puts it “to prevent a number of injuries that might be proferred to a woman in her case, she determined to leave her own apparel and to sort herself into some of those suits, that, being taken for a man, she might pass through the country in the better safety. She called herself Silvio, the name of her own twin brother, whom you have heard spoken of before.”

The genesis of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is in a story of great threat, danger and, indeed, terror. The characters in Rich’s story are fearful, frightened, frightening and, in many ways, more suited to a tragedy than a comedy. Although Shakespeare altered this tale significantly, it is my belief that he was not able to completely divorce his play, described by Samuel Johnson as “light and exquisitely humorous” from the essential bones of darkness and pathos found in the original sources.

And it is not just Rich’s original text that feeds Shakespeare’s play with darkness; HB Charlton points out that Shakespeare also borrowed from an incredible play, John Lyly’s Gallathea, where, we are told, every year Neptune, arriving in a great storm, sends a monster to devour the fairest and chastest virgin in all the country. Two shepherds, each convinced his daughter to be the most likely candidate, separately decide to disguise their daughters as boys and send them out into the world where, of course, the two girls meet and fall in love with each other and where, eventually, one of the girls is forced to offer herself to the goddess Aphrodite as sacrifice. Shakespeare borrows liberally from Lyly’s play, taking whole sections of Gallathea and adapting it into dialogue between Orsino and Viola.

So much of the foundation of Shakespeare’s play has its roots in darkness, in pain, suffering, and even the first years of performance help to draw our focus to the inherent elements of tragedy in Twelfth Night.

One of my favorite descriptions of the play comes from Hotson, where he writes, “To see Twelfth Night is to be reminded of those occasions when we are making merry with those who are closest to us in sympathy and affection, and yet, though the pleasure is keen and genuine, we are fractionally conscious that the formula is not quite right. We cannot quite keep it from ourselves that a real effort is required for the creation of harmony. The moment comes when we look coldly on the merry making and the good relationships and see the precariousness of our tolerance for one another, the degree of pretense in all sociability.”

There is something dark at the heart of Shakespeare’s comedy.

Remember that, when Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night, he was just ending a period of writing that would see him produce some of the greatest of his romantic comedies, such as Much Ado and As You Like It, but also immediately before he wrote his some of greatest and darkest tragedies. G K Hunter, in his essay onTwelfth Night, writes, “Seen in the context of Shakespeare’s canon, the melancholy mood of Twelfth Night cannot well be kept apart from the tragic vision of plays like Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet which are its contemporaries. The comedy ends with happiness for some, but the happiness has no inevitability.” In Twelfth Night we see echoes and undertones of the great tragedies written at the same time. “In Twelfth Night the impetus towards reconciliation (harmony, comedy) is tentative enough to allow doubts, and in such doubts lies the death of comedy.”

There is something dark at the heart of Twelfth Night.

When I first started thinking about Twelfth Night, I was also revisiting a list of must-read American novels again, including F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and the parallels between the two works are…well, it may be a stretch to say remarkable, but they struck me as profound.

Both works take place in a location near the sea. Both works are about love found and lost, about love spurned. Both works are about people creating new selves, about hiding their true origins. Both works take place in a social structure where love is a game, where money is no object, where hangers on and poor relations live under the roofs of the weathly and idle. Both works are concerned with wit and the way language can be used to both hide and reveal. My initial instinct was to actually intersperse sections of Gatsby throughout our script, actually weave Fitzgerald’s prose into Shakespeare’s, and I tried, but, only a few nights before sending out the final script, I realized that it wasn’t necessary to do so. What Shakespeare and Fitzgerald did was to layer the light and the dark, to mingle them together, to create a kind of amalgam of comedy and tragedy. More tragic in Fitzgerald and more comic in Shakespeare, but still, essentially, similar in tone.
In fact, with a little liberal trimming and clear focus from the actors, I think our script will enable us to re-divide Shakespeare’s play into its two component parts: The comedy he was driving at with Toby, Andrew, Maria and Malvolio and the tragedy he was given in the story of Viola, Orsino, Sebastian and Olivia.

It has often been said of Twelfth Night that it isn’t really that funny. It is charming, delightful, festive, clever, witty, sweet, and pleasant…but not really funny. Clifford Leach writes, “This is not a comedy with a lot of laughter in it.”

William Hazlitt, although he didn’t agree with this assessment, gets close to what I mean when he wrote of Twelfth Night, “Shakespeare’s comic genius resembles the bee, rather in its power of extracting sweets from weeds or poisons than in leaving a sting behind it.” Shakespeare attempts to draw sweetness from weeds and poisons, but does not accomplish the feat of really landing a sting of hysterical comedy. I would like us to do a little bit of both; find some of the weeds and poisons and also try to land some significant bee stings of humor.

And, let’s be honest, only some of this stuff is actually funny and much of that humor is based on cruelty, selfishness, humiliation and rejection. Even within the so called “comic characters” there is a mixture of anger, hatred, humiliation and despair. I believe that Twelfth Night sits almost perfectly balanced between As You Like It and Much Ado on the comic side and Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet on the tragic side, ultimately creating a not so funny comedy and a not so tragic tragedy that would benefit from a little distance from each other.

The challenge we have before us is to create two different plays that work hand and hand with each other. One the one side, the Tragics: Olivia, Orsino, Viola, Sebastian, Antonia and Valentine. This group will be our Gatsby crew, the actors asked to dig into motivation, emotional truth, and find the kernels of sadness, loneliness, fear and need at the very heart of Shakespeare’s play. On the other side, the comics: Toby, Andrew, Maria, Feste and Malvolio. Feste and Malvolio are perhaps closer to the middle of this range, but in essence these are the characters that Shakespeare used to lighten the freaking mood, to give us a chance to laugh a little, make fun a little, and giggle at. There will be times when both teams will need to share the burden; the tragics being a bit funny and the comics being a bit sad, but those places are easy to find and will not necessarily be the greatest challenge that we face as a cast.

Remember how Shakespeare’s play ends. Russell writes, the play does not end in a communal feast, a dance, or a grand gathering as do many of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies. Instead, Shakespeare leaves us with Feste, alone, to sing of man’s folly and disorder, of the passing of time, and of the wind and rain, a reflection back to the chaotic storm that starts the play. In Twelfth Night, the “conclusion” of the chaos and mistaken identities is not, in fact, a re-instatement of order. In this, if in nothing else, Twelfth Night does not follow a traditional Shakespearean comic trajectory. It is something different.

Marjorie Garber, in Shakespeare After All, writes, “ Some of the play’s characters find that their fantasies do come true, while others are punished for daring to have fantasies at all.”

One thing to remember about Feste’s final song. Does anyone know the only other place in the canon that this song is used? Feste’s song is also sung to an aged king, alone with madness born of grief, in the middle of a terrifying storm, by Lear’s nameless and tragic fool. Shakespeare may have written the song for Twelfth Night, but it found its true home in Lear.

Scott Palmer, Artistic Director

more information on dates, times and ticket prices can be found at http://www.bagnbaggage.org/!

First Preview went well!

2010-06-03T13:47:00.000-07:00

Hi Board! Sorry I've not seen most of you lately... missed a couple board meetings due to rehearsals but I'll be back for the next one! Weren't we going to look at changing the board meeting day to help with directors at rehearsals?

Anyway, just wanted to update briefly that the show income is now over $4000, with when combined with pass ticket income for the season should put us at about 1/3 of the way toward the shows income goal... I believe. I'd love if we were 1/2 way there by opening, but hopefully with reviews and press now starting to break sales will pick up.

The audience of about 40 patrons at first preview loved the show and we sold 15 passes (60 tickets) for next season at the show (we're offering the extra special pass discount if they buy at the show, same as we did for Season Announcement and will offer at Twelfth Night. That brought in $765 toward next season! This show is PERFECT for marketing our season, so I hope that trend will continue.

Looking forward to you all seeing the show. Maggie is, in a word, incredible.

Do you know what "assonance" means? You will after you see it! :)

Spike

Please share a story about your best, worst, or funniest teacher

2010-05-20T12:56:00.001-07:00

We're trying to generate an active discussion and sharing of teacher stories related to the production of Educating Rita. There's two ways you can share your teacher story.

Facebook discussion - just type your story to our discussions page on facebook - http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=119916835134&topic=16081

Yahoo video - use your computer web cam to record a video to our youtube page to share - http://www.youtube.com/user/BagnBaggage

Facebook is just typed. Youtube would be even better with a video response of you! Either or both would be GREAT!

And also, please encourage your friends or colleagues to do the same, and share on their facebook, twitter and other social media outlets.

Thanks!!

Spike
----------------------------------------------------------
Personal Theatre Portfolio - http://www.spikeonline.info

Consulting Spike - Website, publication, nonprofit consulting, more - http://www.consultingspike.com

Director of Client Services for Ticket Turtle - http://www.ticketturtle.com

Board Member, Director of Audience Development - Bag & Baggage Productions - http://www.bagnbaggage.org

2010-2011 Venetian Theatre Season is officially ANNOUNCED!

2010-04-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

A fantastic night at The Venetian! The wine was flowing, the VIPs were dressed to the nines, the board was busy schmoozing and selling season tickets, and a good time was had by all! Another incredible event for Bag&Baggage at The Venetian for our official Season Announcement!

So...enough about how much fun we had, right? Let's get to the good stuff...the actual season itself!

Since becoming the theatrical production company-in-residence of Hillsboro’s classic Venetian Theatre in 2008, Bag&Baggage has drawn ever-increasing audiences for each season’s slate of plays. Each season has a pattern: The first show is an American classic, such as last season’s Death of Salesman; the second is a highly unique Christmas play, or a clever adaptation of an old favorite; the third is a special Bag&Baggage version of a Shakespearean play; and the fourth is often a comedic classic with British overtones.

For the 2010-2011 season, Bag&Baggage will present:

September 22–October 10, 2010: The Glass Menagerie

Tennessee Williams rewrote his short story "Portrait of a Girl in Glass" into the classic, autobiographical, The Glass Menagerie, which won the prestigious New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1945. The Wingfield family: Mother Amanda, daughter Laura, and son Tom (Tennessee Williams’ given name), struggle with the difference between dreams and reality, broken promises, failure and reconciliation. Tom is our guide through the play: "Yes, I have tricks in my pocket; I have things up my sleeve. But I am the opposite of a stage magician. He gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth. I give you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion." Directed by Marion Rossi, prominent OSU theatre professor and last season’s Willy Loman in Death of A Salesman.

December 8–23, 2010: The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge

It’s the Trial of the Century! A year after his miraculous transformation, Ebenezer Scrooge is back to his old ways and is suing Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future for breaking and entering, kidnapping, slander, pain and suffering, attempted murder and the intentional infliction of emotional distress. The ghosts employ Solomon Rothschild, England's most charismatic, savvy, and clever barrister. Scrooge, that old penny pincher, represents himself. B&B Artistic Director Scott Palmer will direct. Marion Rossi, who played Scrooge in 2009’s A Christmas Carol, plays him again in this hilarious Carol sequel.

March 9–27, 2011 Macbeth

If Macbeth did it all for the glory of his lineage…where are the children? Bag&Baggage always does something original with Shakespeare, giving rise to the company’s tagline, “See a classic again for the first time.” For this new adaptation of "The Scottish Play," artistic director Scott Palmer delves into the same source materials that the Bard used to craft his story, and emerges with a Macbeth that remains true and fatally fascinating, with a bloody new twist. Palmer also directs.

MAY 11–29, 2011 The Mystery of Irma Vep: A Penny Dreadful

In The Mystery of Irma Vep, playwright Charles Ludlam managed to parody at least a dozen literary and cinematic paragons, including Joyce, Wilde, Poe and Ibsen (the play steals its opening lines directly from Ghosts), classic horror movies, Gaslight, Wuthering Heights, Gothic novels and the movie Rebecca, which provides the basic plot points. Two intrepid actors portray eight characters, changing identities at lightning speed. New York Times critic Clive Barnes told his readers not to read his review, just to buy tickets…we recommend you do the same.

Each play will be integrated with outreach into schools and have a designated charity night, in which $5 of every ticket sold goes to benefit a local 501 C 3 organization.

Don’t miss out! Buy season tickets on the Bag&Baggage website—www.bagnbaggage.org—or by calling 503-345-9590.

Four-show season ticket: $51-64 per person for the entire season! About a 25% discount—four plays for the price of three—and access to special events and discounts not offered to the general public.

Three-show flex pass: $47-$59 per person for your choice of three plays, about 20% the single ticket price, and access to special events and discounts not offered to the general public.

About Bag&Baggage:

Bag&Baggage was created in 2005 as a professional theatre company based in Hillsboro, Oregon, to produce live theatre in Oregon communities without a resident professional company of their own. The company is now the theatre-in-residence at the historic Venetian Theatre in downtown Hillsboro. We focus on the classics of English and American drama. As a text-based company, we hew to the playwright’s vision for the play, always seeking to bring a fresh look—we call it, “Seeing a classic again, for the first time.” We always partner our work with educational programs for local students. Our mission is to inspire Oregonians to engage in creative, accessible and moving live-theatre experiences. Bag&Baggage is a 501c3 non-profit organization.

Have we got news for YOU!

2010-04-17T12:23:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, April 18, will be an exciting day for the cast, crew and board of Bag&Baggage!

A little context: In 2005, when a small group of actors got together and decided to travel the state performing little shows in communities without a resident professional theatre company, we didn't "announce" a season...in fact, we weren't convinced that we were going to have a season, or even do more than one show! Piling our costumes and props into our "bags and baggage" and driving to Sandy, or Corvallis, or Astoria, or Hillsboro and performing our cheeky brand of theatre...well, lets just say we weren't even THINKING about a season announcement! We were far too concerned with whether or not we would actually get audience members to come!

But we did...and they just keep coming.

Over the years, we have grown in ambition and skill. Now that we are the resident theatre company at The Venetian Theatre, and now that we are seeing audiences grow from show to show, and as we reach out to more and more people...well, we are working with the big dogs now, and have to start acting like it!

Our colleagues across the Portland Metro area (ART, Miracle, Portland Center Stage, etc) have already announced their season of work, but we waited...why? Well, in part so that we wouldn't have programming conflicts like we did last year! You may recall that our final show of last season was "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde....and our production opened just a few weeks after Portland Center Stage closed their production. Imagine our horror when we found out, just weeks after we announced our choice of shows, that PCS, the Portland theatre juggernaut, was doing the same show, just a few weeks before ours. Lets just say it was NOT a good day!

So, this year, we decided to sit back, have a beer, put our feet up and wait...Wait for our friends "in the big city" to announce their seasons so that we could make sure there wasn't a conflict with show choices. And guess what...there won't be! Go figure!

SO....tomorrow night, April 18, at the Venetian, we will be joining together with more than 250 of our friends and supporters, to announce the exciting line up of shows we have planned for the 2010-2011 season! The event starts at 6:00pm at The Venetian with a wine reception, and then at 7:00pm, we will be joined by Tom Hughes (former Mayor of Hillsboro, current candidate for Metro President, and a HUGE supporter of the arts and culture) and Kimberly Howard (manager of the Oregon Cultural Trust and a real kick-ass actor in her own right!) for the announcement of our season.

There will be a few performances and short scenes from our good friends Will Goblirsch (remember Romeo? Death of A Salesman? Taming of the Shrew?) and Amanda Long (remember Juliet? Death of A Salesman?) and, of course, Maggie Chapin (remember...well, every single show we've ever done?)....and, after the presentation, our guests will be able to buy Season Tickets for dirt-ass cheap! Up to 35% off the regular price of tickets, allowing you to get a full season of shows for as little as $14 a show!

There are still a few tickets left, so go online to get them (for free!!!) or just show up at the Venetian after 6:00pm and get your tickets at the box office. Help us celebrate the incredible change we've gone through, learn about our exciting line up of shows, get your tickets for the season as ridiculously low prices, have a glass of wine on us, and show your support for professional theatre in Washington County!!!

It has been a long trip, and we are happy we have arrived! It feels good to be so successful that we have to hold a Season Announcement event! Be a part of it!

Scott Palmer

Fwd: Click And Blast Is Not The Best Opening Salvo

2010-03-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

Some good short articles in here about fundraising, etc.... I think it shows we're doing the right things! I really recommend joining the nonprofit times email newsletter as a free resource. Of course their published newspaper is even better.

Spike

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: The NonProfit Times Instant Fundraising <newsletter@nptimes.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 10:47 AM
Subject: Click And Blast Is Not The Best Opening Salvo
To: Patrick Spike <spike@spiralstage.org>

March 16, 2010

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Take advantage of Network for Good's handy new eGuide, The Online Fundraiser's Checklist, to ensure you don't miss a thing. We've got six checklists that coverthe basics of online fundraising: website home page, donation form, writing style, email lists, email campaigns and thank-you programs. Check the boxes on the worksheets & use the helpful resources listed to improve. Happy fundraising!

In This Edition:

Click And Blast Is Not The Best Opening Salvo

Tips Section

Grants …
Read the match criteria before asking
Major Gifts …
6 essential keys to getting major gift donors
Donors …
Channel surfing for fundraisers

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Click And Blast Is Not The Best Opening Salvo

By Carrie A. Martin

"There's more. Get out your notebook."

If you're a movie buff, you will recognize this quote from the 1976 movie, "All the President's Men," in which Deep Throat, arguably the most famous secret source in history, provides Bob Woodward, played by Robert Redford, with crucial information that leads to the unraveling of the Watergate scandal.

The term "source" isn't just reserved for clandestine informants meeting in dimly lit parking garages. It can and should apply to nonprofit communicators, who work with the press every day, effectively managing organizational reputation. This is accomplished not by divulging insider secrets but by providing factual, accurate and timely information to reporters.

Most media relations professionals have the responsibility of either gaining visibility for, or mitigating the impact of a crisis upon, a trusted brand. In today's click-and-send world of blast emails and multi-media press releases, reporters must equate the sheer volume of pitches they receive every day to air-dropped pamphleteering over a war zone.

Throw into the mix a dizzying array of new ways to communicate, including Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites, and journalists now have to cull through an even greater stream of clutter to get at the heart of what's real news. Hosts of NPR's Weekend Edition recently posted some tips of how they use Twitter in the newsroom, citing that it has "proven to be a critical tool for getting first-hand information," but that the key is to verify that the tweets are authentic.

To Read Complete Article Click Here...

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Did you know... the full time employee turnover rate for all nonprofits is 14%? Learn how you can attract and hold onto great employees in the new NonProfit Times 2009 Nonprofit Organizations Compensation & Benefits Report. To order, click here.

Grants …
Read the match criteria before asking

Although grants can appear to be a limitless source of funding just waiting to be tapped, the reality is that grant-making organizations receive huge numbers of requests and need to make tough decisions about where to distribute their help.

In her book "How to Say It: Grantwriting," Deborah S. Koch recommends finding a grantmaker that is a good match for the project or organization requesting support. In fact, Koch reports that grantmakers consistently report that their rejection of a proposal comes because it is not a good match with their goals, preferences and limitations.

Koch further suggests conducting research on a grantmaker to learn about its preferences. Look at:

Does a grantmaker fund what it says it does? Does it fund organizations or projects like ours?
For small and local family foundations, do they only give their money to the same grantees each year or only to mainstream or big-name organizations?
Where are organizations like ours getting funding from?

Once those questions are answered, Koch recommends seeking out the following match criteria:

Is your organization an eligible applicant?
Is your organization within the funder's preferred or restricted geographic area?
Is your work in alignment with the funder's stated subject matter interests?
If you are applying under a specific request for proposals (RFP), does the subject you propose respond to the specific issues the RFP addresses?
Is the amount of money you seek appropriate for that funder?
Do your organization's problem-solving approach and pont of view match the funder?

Major Gifts …
6 essential keys to getting major gift donors

What would a murder mystery, soap opera or conniving-family comedy be without a will? It's all about that winning combination of motive, intrigue, money.

It might be a good plotline, but 50 percent of all people in the USA do not have wills, and that includes the extremely wealthy.

That insight was offered by James R. Hackney Jr., managing partner of Alexander Haas, during Blackbaud's Conference for Nonprofits in Charleston, S.C. Hackney was speaking about nonprofits and major gift donors, and he offered more interesting tidbits, such as the fact that only 4 percent of the U.S. population makes $100,000 or more a year and 48 percent of people worth $20 million did not make any charitable gifts last year.

Further, most mega-gifts are the donor's idea, the best chance is to keep the jet-rich involved, and the idea must be worth the funding.

Stewardship is important, so the ask should be face to face, with the right timing and the right person, asking for the right amount, but also listening, anticipating objections and following up. The essential keys to major gift success:

Long-term investment in the process.
Consistency and quality of activity.
A personalized approach.
Continual evaluation and fine-tuning.
Sensitivity to a prospect's time needs.
Appropriate use of volunteers.

Donors …
Channel surfing for fundraisers

The future of fundraising is on the Internet, unless it's in direct mail. That is, if it isn't in some other format.

One thing that is fairly safe to say is that multi-faceted approaches and flexible thinking will be big parts of the fundraising future. During a recent DMA Nonprofit Conference, representatives of the Save Darfur Coalition, A.B. Data, the National Wildlife Federation and ParadyszMatera discussed multi-channel marketing as an effective means of fundraising.

The panel offered several interesting and possibly challenging observations, some taken from individual fundraising campaigns and others from analysis across several efforts. Among the findings:

Although some view email as the future of fundraising, direct mail donors are easier to stay connected with and some donors are still more inclined to give by mail rather than by email.
The way people give and the solicitations they respond to are lifestyle issues, not age issues.
Contrary to popular opinion, direct mail donors are not dying off quickly. A progressive donors survey conducted 12 years ago by A.B. Data showed that the average age of the direct mail donor was 65. Today it is 68. The percent of direct mail donors who were over 60 years old did not change in those 12 years.
Direct mail donors are more discerning. They prefer more accountability, broader public education, keeping issues visible and financial transparency.
Email donors are more impulsive givers.

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The Price of Success

2010-02-23T15:26:00.000-08:00

This has been a difficult few months for Bag&Baggage, but not for the reasons many might think. Since we became the in-house theatre company at The Venetian Theatre, the US economy has...well, tanked, basically, resulting in a wave of panic and fear throughout the non-profit performing arts world. In Oregon, we have seen many of our colleagues in the professional performing arts making some very difficult decisions; closing their doors completely, reducing their programming, cutting back on pay for actors, literary managers, designers, and production values, limiting their seasons, or selecting works they don't fit with their artistic remit in the hopes that "bums in seats" shows will save the day.

For Bag&Baggage, we have faced different struggles (not lesser, just different).

We have seen our audience numbers more than double in the space of one year, and have seen a significant increase in audiences from outside of Hillsboro attending our performances. The largest increase in audiences have come from Portland, but also from as far afield as Vancouver, Salem, Corvallis, McMinnville and Tigard/Tualatin. More and more people are coming to see our work!

We have seen an increase in the amount of press attention our performances have received, including having every one of our performances this year reviewed by The Oregonian. It wasn't that long ago that getting a listing in the calendar section was considered a victory for Bag&Baggage, and now we are seeing regular features, reviews, stories and updates in a wide range of regional press.

Our artistic reputation has grown, and we are becoming known for our challening approach to the classics, and for our commitment to excellence in our vision and our craft. We continue to pay our professional artists a highly competitive wage for the region, often outpacing wages paid by comparable (or even "larger") theatres in Portland.

All of this is good, right? Onward and upward, right?

Well, sort of...

In the midst of all this success and growth, we have also seen changes that speak to the ongoing struggle of all performing arts non-profits: a decline in individual contributions and an overall reduction in corporate sponsorship.

As anyone in the business knows, if your theatre company is surviving on ticket sales alone, you are just that: surviving. You are not growing, you are not prospering, and you are not thriving. So, although Bag&Baggage has more than doubled our audiences, increased our reputation, expanded our program offerings and increased the participants in our education program, we are still facing the same challenge many of our colleagues face: how to grow and thrive, not just survive.

We are ambitious, and want to continue to provide the kind of challenging, artistically engaging work we have become known for...Bob Hicks said it best, in his Oregonian review of our current show The Taming of the Shrew & The Woman's Prize: "This is exactly the sort of provocative, intellectually curious project that contemporary theater should be taking on..."

And we want to continue to do just that; take on provocative, intellecturally curious projects that challenge our audiences, that stretch our artistic imaginations, and entertain and educate. Now, we just need to pay the price of our success; raise more money.

Scott Palmer
Artistic Director

The Bravest Writer In Elizabethan History: John Fletcher!

2010-01-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

As long as there have been plays by Shakespeare, there have been adaptations of his work. In fact, Shakespeare himself is perhaps the greatest practitioner of the adaptive arts, having based almost every single one of his own plays on the previous works of other writers, poets and playwrights. The play we are going to perform is just one in a very, very long line of adaptations based on Shakespeare’s work, most of which have been miserable failures. It is my hope that our production of The Taming of the Shrew and The Woman’s Prize into the much smaller, but altogether more satisfactory, category of successful adaptations of Shakespeare’s work.

I have been contemplating this adaptation for 10 years, ever since I became aware of, and (to be honest) a little obsessed by the plays and the life of John Fletcher. From my perspective, Fletcher got screwed by history and by the modern habit of canonizing Shakespeare and his works. Not that the Bard doesn’t deserve all the praise and adoration he receives, but not, in my mind, to the exclusion of Fletcher or any of the other more prolific and more popular poets of the time.

Shakespeare was one of three great Elizabethan playwrights and, some would argue, the least of the three. From my perspective, the great trinity of Elizabethan playwrights includes Shakespeare, of course, but also must include Fletcher (and his uncomfortably close collaborator, Francis Beaumont, who not only, it is reported, shared a home with Fletcher, but also clothes, mistresses, and a bed for some 16 years) who was neck in neck with the greatest playwright of the age in terms of popularity; Ben Jonson. Not William Shakespeare. Jonson: number one. Fletcher and (when collaborating) Beaumont: number two. William Shakespeare: number three.

Today, we have all but forgotten Fletcher, and are only passingly familiar with Jonson as a result of the popularity of his comedy Volpone. Fletcher, however, lives not only in the dark shadow of Shakespeare, but in the almost complete anonymity reserved for hacks and jingle writers. Who among us can name any of the authors who have penned Hallmark cards? No one, and quite rightly so…But Fletcher? Fletcher was not only good, he was great, and his works were among the most popular Elizabethan plays and his notoriety far outstripped Shakespeare’s at the time.

In fact, Fletcher is unique in all of world history as the only playwright to create a response to a Shakespearean work during Shakespeare’s own lifetime. Alone among the playwrights of the Elizabethan period, only John Fletcher was brave enough, and creative enough, to write a critical reply to one of his colleague’s popular, but deeply flawed, works. Fletcher responded to Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew with his own sequel, (a spin-off one might say) that attempted to address many of the flaws of Shakespeare’s original and help to give Shrew the balance, the finality, that Shakespeare’s play lacked.

John Fletcher, born in 1576, was the son of a powerful and influential Anglican bishop, and by 1606, Fletcher was living in London and moving in London’s great literary circles, including associating with Ben Jonson and Beaumont. By 1613, at the tender age of 40, had written a number of plays, including the hugely popular comedy The Scornful Lady, which was published in 8 editions by 1660, more than any other Shakespeare play or Elizabethan play of the period. According to Gary Taylor, editor of the Revels Student Edition of The Tamer Tamed, “Beaumont and Fletcher quickly became the most famous partnership in the English theatre, and retained that status until late in the 19th Century when they were finally eclipsed as the greatest theatrical duo in history by Gilbert and Sullivan.” According to Charles Boyce in his Shakespeare A to Z, “In the 1630s and again in the 1660s, the popularity of Beaumont and Fletcher surpassed that of all other English dramatists, including Shakespeare.”

He was a truly prolific writer, having written at least 16 full plays on his own (including The Tamer Tamed) and was well known as an affable and amiable collaborator, having written additional plays during his partnership with Beaumont, and even more works with his other favorite collaborators, including Shakespeare, Massinger, Jonson, Chapman and Middleton.

According to gossip of the time, Beaumont and Fletcher lived together on the Bankside, not far from the playhouse, both bachelors…they lay together, had one wench in the house between them, which they did so admire, the same clothes and cloak, between them…” The relationship between the two men was so close that is was suspected of being sexual, and their alleged sharing of a wench between them scandalized the court. Fletcher was, from the very beginning of his career, something of a rebel, flying in the face of convention both in his personal life and in his writing.

But it is Fletcher’s decision to write, while Shakespeare was still alive, his “reply” to Shrew that is most interesting to me, and speaks to Fletcher’s bravery, creativity and insight as a playwright. There is no question that Fletcher was a figure of great influence during Shakespeare’s lifetime, and his work had an enormous influence on Shakespeare, and all other writers of the period. It is unique in all of Elizabethan literature to have one living playwright craft a critical response to another. It was common for playwrights to borrow each other’s poetry and verse, to “riff” on each other’s themes and plot lines, but only Fletcher wrote an entirely new play that continued the story started by one of his colleagues. I find that remarkable, and noteworthy in its own way, even without the nature of Fletcher’s response.

Fletcher wrote, according to Molly Smith, “a living commentary on Shakespeare’s play, one that comments on, rewrites, and undermines the very ideological assumptions of Shakespeare’s play. Fletcher’s play presents itself in relation to Shakespeare’s, but does so as its reversal, or opposite, in which the women triumph over the men.” Again, according to Gary Taylor, “Sometimes only a man can afford to be a feminist, and Fletcher was just such a man.” As a man, as a sexual dissident, and as one of the most popular writers of his time, Fletcher could “boldly go where no woman in 1610 dared to tread: on to a feminist stage.”

In writing his sequel, Fletcher was finishing what Shakespeare started, but never finished…a good old standard Shrew story, and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Shrew tales upon which Shakespeare based his version…Shakespeare was taking part in an ancient tradition as old as Chaucer, writing a story where a husband outwits his scheming wife and, in turn, the wife outwits the husband.

Wait.

Not quite.

Shakespeare gaves us the first part, but not the second.

According to Salgado, “In Medieval and Tudor literature, Shrews were commonplace” and, in those stories, both husband and wife were outwitted by each other, with the plays ending as a testimony to the power of equality and fairness in marriage, at least by ancient standards.

Shakespeare wrote the first part, but never got around to the second. Ann Thompson writes, “In writing this sequel, Fletcher was putting both his play and Shakespeare’s back into the ancient traditional context of the “war of the sexes” in which, as can be seen from Chaucer back, one story of a husband outwitting his wife is capped, or balanced, by one in which the wife triumphs over the husband. The moral of these traditional tales had always been, for centuries, that, despite practical male supremacy, the best marriages are those based on a greater degree of equality and mutual respect.”

Most criticism of Shakespeare’s play from the time seems to support this flaw…critics respond that the play seems cruelly unbalanced, and that Kate’s taming somehow devalues both she and Petruchio…One critic of the time wrote, “Twere better yet if Kate had stood, at the ending of her speech, and broke Petruchio’s head with a jug of ale!” Where is the balance? Where is the comeuppance? When does Petruchio learn his lesson? When are the men made the fools, and the balance restored? Not in Shrew. It happens in Fletcher’s “sequel” where he deftly and bravely finishes Shakespeare’s story, and gives us a rounder, more balanced battle of the sexes where neither man nor woman wins without the other.

Fletcher was a trailblazer, a truly creative writer, and one whose influence on the craft of English drama should not be underestimated. Often mocked, but more often mirrored, Fletcher’s love of the common people and their humors, his willingness to fly in the face of convention, and his remarkable literary bravery all mark him as a literary and historical figure that deserves our attention and our praise.

Fletcher wrote his plays with one thing in mind; to entertain, whether provided in high flown rhetoric of love, or farcical romantic entanglements, or in disgracefully decadent and bawdy escapism. Fletcher was unique in all of English literary history, a writer of great skill and passion, and one that deserves his time in the sun. I am proud to place Fletcher alongside his more famous, but no more talented, colleague of the time, William Shakespeare.

There are a number of things that make our production unique: First, it is the first time in American history that Shakespeare’s work The Taming of the Shrew has been produced with The Woman’s Prize as two halves of a single play. The two plays were mounted, in full, before the court of Charles I in 1633, but they were performed back to back in their entirety. Second, it is possible that this is the first time anywhere in the world that the two plays have been performed together as a single script. Many companies, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, have produced the two works in tandem, often sharing lead roles, but I have not been able to find any record of the two plays having been adapted together into a single script. Third, this will be the first “Shakespearey” Shakespeare play we have ever done as a company. Usually our adaptations take the form of modernizing the style, or including original source materials, or some other visual and stylistic alteration to the plays. But, given that this script is just Shakespeare and Fletcher, with a little bit of me thrown in, we are going to give our audiences a good old fashioned groundlings show. Dirty, dangerous, sexy, bawdy, fast and furious.

Just like Fletcher would have wanted it.

Scott Palmer
Artistic Director

Celebrate the Season, and Give Twice!

2009-12-16T14:56:00.000-08:00

When I first came back to Oregon, after living in Glasgow and in New Zealand, I had the great pleasure of working as the Manager of the Oregon Cultural Trust. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Trust, it is (in my opinion) one of the crowning acheivements of our state. This is an important time for cultural non-profits, and we need your help.

Here is the low-down from the Trust's website:

"The Cultural Trust is a statewide cultural plan to raise significant new funds to invest in Oregon's arts, humanities and heritage. Funds will be distributed to local communities to support their cultural priorities, through competitive grants for projects of regional and statewide significance, and through grants to Oregon's statewide cultural agencies to support their ongoing efforts.

The Oregon Cultural Trust was created by civic, business and cultural leaders to preserve and strengthen every aspect of Oregon culture. Its goal is to create a protected endowment of over $200 million to provide long-term support for culture in Oregon. While the endowment grows, the Trust will invest in:

Grants to county and tribal planning groups for cultural activities and priorities, helping them shape programs that increase access to culture.
Grants to expand and stabilize cultural organizations throughout the state.
Funding for cultural agencies to strengthen programs and support new partnerships (our partner agencies are the Oregon Arts Commission, the Oregon Council for the Humanities, the Oregon Heritage Commission, the Oregon Historical Society and the State Historic Preservation Office)

Supporting Oregon's culture makes practical sense. As an investment, it creates vibrant communities by strengthening the economy, improving education, and bettering our quality of life. This is an important time for the Oregon Cultural Trust.

In the next few weeks, the Trust will be reaching out to Oregonians and asking them to make a contribution to support our state's unique cultural life and heritage. As you may know, the Trust has a goal of raising $3 million and dramatically increasing the number of donors from across the state by December 31st.

In the coming weeks, as we all spend time with our families, enjoy seasonal performances and visit our most cherished venues and historic locations, we are asking that you take the time to make a donation to the Oregon Cultural Trust.

And in most cases, your donation will ultimately cost you absolutely nothing.

How? Through a tax credit on your state income tax for contributions to the Trust (keep in mind a tax credit is different than a tax deduction. Your tax bill is literally reduced by the amount of the credit!). To earn the tax credit:

First, make a donation to your favorite Oregon cultural non-profit (Bag&Baggage, anyone?). A list of qualifying 501(c)(3) non-profits is available at www.culturaltrust.org.

Second, make an equal or greater contribution to the Oregon Cultural Trust online at www.culturaltrust.org.

Finally, claim your 100%, dollar for dollar tax credit for your gift to the Trust on your Oregon state income tax (up to $500 for individuals, $1,000 for couples filing jointly and $2,500 for Oregon Corporations).

Supporting Oregon's culture couldn't be easier or more important. To learn more simply visit the website or contact the Trust via email at cultural.trust@state.or.us or by phoning 503 986 0088.

Celebrating Culture Collaboratively

2009-10-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

Today is Oregon Day of Culture. Across the state, thousands of people are celebrating Oregon's unique culture by attending performances, visiting galleries, volunteering at libraries, touring public art installations, donating money, and otherwise just being joyful about the incredible cultural landscape that is the amazing state of Oregon.

Bag&Baggage is celebrating by (go figure, what a surprise) doing a show! Tonight marks the first of our final four performances of our powerful production of Arthur Miller's Death of A Salesman. The show has received stunning audience and critic reaction, and we are incredibly proud that, as Hillsboro's only professional theatre, we are able to bring such high quality, challenging drama to our friends and neighbors.

But producing work is only one way for us to celebrate Oregon's unique culture. In fact, it is the smallest way: from our perspective, celebrating the cultural and artistic treasures of Oregon means promoting and collaborating with our colleagues, and Bag&Baggage is proud to be involved in a unique and innovative new program: a Washington County Cultural Collaborative marketing group.

As you know, marketing is expensive! Advertising, flyers, posters, websites, ticketing systems...they all cost money which, in turn, means we have to charge more for our tickets! Our new collaborative group is based on a simple principal: if someone comes to see a Bag&Baggage show, they are more likely to be interested in attending other types of arts and cultural experiences. Attendance at arts and culture is a predictor of future attendance at arts and culture...simple as that.

So! We have partnered with our colleagues in the professional arts throughout the county to swap ads in our programs, to list each other's events on our websites, to promote activites and gallery openings during our curtain speeches, and to hand out flyers or display posters in our venues. In this way, we save a lot of money but also get immediate and direct access to audiences from throughout the county who we KNOW are interested in the arts and culture!

Who is involved in this great project? The best arts and culture groups in the county, including:

The Glenn and Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center, offering a wide range of classes, live music performances, visual art exhibitions, and events. They are just right down the street from the Venetian, and have an amazing (almost dizzying!) array of events on offer! Check them out by clicking here!

Pacific University's Performing Arts Series is one of our areas best kept secrets! The series provides some of the world's best musicians and performers an opportunity to play to audiences in Forest Grove and beyond, and offers students at Pacific University the chance to get access to world class performers right on their own campus! Check them out by clicking here!

Washington County's biggest, sassiest, and best musical theatre company (the best in the state, for that matter!): Broadway Rose! We love Broadway Rose, and we know you will love them, too. With a program that ranges from original new musicals to blockbuster Broadways favorites, Broadway Rose is Washington County's best bet for a lively night of theatre! Check out their production of Bingo running now! Click here for their website!

The Washington County Cultural Coalition and the Beaverton Arts Commission are also partners in our collaborative program, and their websites are full of information about the wide range of culture and arts available throughout the county. Click on the links above for more details.

Finally, our other partners include:

The Oregon College of Art and Craft, showcasing the amazing visual art talents of students and professors....

Sequoia Gallery, Hillsboro's own visual art gallery in the heart of downtown, featuring the work of dozens of the region's best artists...

The Washington County Museum, the center of our county's heritage and history with dozens of incredible displays...

Print Arts Northwest, a collaborative of visual artists whose prints are sought after across the globe...

And finally, but by no means leastely!: Washington County's Collaborative Library Services, managing our county's incredible network of libraries. Our libraries are our greatest treasure, and there is always something amazing happening at your local library!

Just imagine if each of these organizations, all of whom offer Oregonians access to heritage, arts and culture of unprecedented quality, were able to share resources, share audiences, and promote a lifelong love of arts and culture!

What a way to celebrate Oregon Day of Culture.

Happy Guatamalan Independence Day!

2009-09-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

You know you have a really great cast when even 3 hours of amplified Guatamalan music doesn't throw them off their game!

Yesterday was our very first "Senion Sunday" matinee performance for our production of Arthur Miller's Death of A Salesman. As I sat sipping coffee Sunday morning at around 12:00 noon, my phone rang. It was Marion Rossi, who plays Willy Loman, asking "Did you know about the wedding?" "What wedding?" I replied. "The wedding being held in the parking lot behind the theatre, right beside the stage door?"

I hung up, grabbed my coffee, and rushed to the theatre.

Thankfully, Marion was wrong. It wasn't a wedding. Tragically, it was something even worse (for us, obviously...I mean, we are all really happy that Guatamalans gained their independence!): A Guatamalan Independence Day celebration with about 200 chairs, a closed parking lot, ballons in the colors of the Guatamalan flag, and a very large stage with very large speaker stands.

This was at about 12:30 and our matinee started at 2:00.

A brief discussion with the organizers of the event made it clear: we were going to be listening to music throughout the show. No question. Not an option to turn off the sound. No way.

Enter Denzil Scheller, owner of the Venetian, who rushed over to his nearby shop and literally ripped sound insulation out of the walls and handed the strips of padding to Rachel, our stage manager, who, with gaff tape in hand, began to completely enclose the stage doors.

Even though we stuffed every available bit of fabric and insulation we could find into the stage door area, we could still hear the music, and the announcements, and the applause, coming through the door. I think it was fair to say that the actors were "concerned" about how the noise would impact the quality of their performances and the expeirence of the audience, but we didn't have any choice...we had to roll the dice and see what happened. We went ahead with the show, and made an announcement that if anyone was having a hard time hearing the show, or if they wanted to come to a different performance, we would happily refund or exchange their tickets.

At intermission (after an hour of tearing what is left of my hair out), not a single person complained. No one left. Not one person asked for a refund. Not. One.

In fact, one of our audience members said, "It makes it even more realistic! I lived in Brooklyn, and there is constant noise, all the time! It made it feel like home!"

Someone else said, "The acting is so great, so strong, I completely forgot that there was any other sound. The actors are forcing us to watch and listen to them."

At one particularly touching, quiet moment in the play, when Willy tells Charley that "you are my only friend..." the delicate sounds of "La la la la la bomba..." drifted through the doors! Almost on cue!

Not a single actor seemed impacted by the noise, and not a single audience member was upset.

It is something that I learned while directing for Glasgow Rep: if the audience sees the actors truly struggling (through rain, mud, mosquitoes, or 110 degree heat, which never happened in Glasgow but did happen this last summer in Hillsboro during R&J!), there is an immediate sense of connection and compassion created in the audience. It becomes a shared struggle, a shared journey, and can help to create bonds of closeness and intimacy between cast and audience that a "perfect" show never can.

On Sunday afternoon, a group of 10 actors worked their asses off, performing one of the hardest and most emotionally draining plays ever written, for an audience of incredibly appreciative and remarkably patient supporters.

The actors not only performed well, they performed brilliantly. The audience was moved not only by skill and talent, but by the sheer tenacity of the performers. Together, we worked through a difficult play, in less than ideal circumstances, and came out the end with a performance of unique power and grace.

Happy Independence Day, Guatalama! Thank you!

Celebrate Oregon Day of Culture: October 8, 2009

2009-09-23T13:15:00.000-07:00

Oregon’s culture surrounds us, sustains us, shapes us, and informs who we are. It can be found at a county fair, at a ballet recital, in a local library, in a high school auditorium, in the strings of a violin, in the sound of a Broadway show tune, in the verse of a Shakespearean monologue, at a rodeo, in native languages and dance, in finger paint, on a potter’s wheel, and on historic Main Street. Oregon’s culture is everywhere.

It is a part of who we are, where we have been, where we are going, and it is alive and well right here in Washington County.

October 8 marks the anniversary of the creation of Oregon’s unique cultural tax credit and, last year, the Oregon Cultural Trust created “Oregon Day of Culture” to celebrate the many ways in which arts, culture and heritage organizations impact our lives. This year, the Trust has created a new website, http://www.oregondayofculture.org/, that features a searchable database of hundreds of events being held, statewide, to celebrate Oregon’s unique cultural life.

Washington County has a rich and diverse range of cultural organizations, and we hope that everyone who lives here, in our beautiful county, will help us to celebrate Oregon Day of Culture by attending an event, visiting a gallery, touring an historic home, or buying a ticket to a performance. Better yet, residents of Washington County can make a huge difference on October 8 by making a charitable donation to one of the many worthy arts or culture groups that call our county home.

It is often the case that people think of Portland when they think of arts and culture, but, for those of us who live, work and play in Washington County, we know that culture thrives right here, in our own backyards. We believe residents of Washington County deserve access to the arts and culture, where we live, and are calling upon our friends and neighbors to show their support.

Celebrate Oregon Day of Culture by celebrating the local culture of Washington County.

Join us, October 8, for Oregon Day of Culture. Visit http://www.oregondayofculture.org/ to find an event near you, and help the arts and culture grow in Washington County.

Death of A Salesman: It Is About A Family In Brooklyn

2009-08-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

Every day, in some part of the world, an Arthur Miller play is performed. In the nearly 60 years since its first production, Pulitzer Prize-winning Death of a Salesman has become a classic, a staple of school anthologies of American literature and of acting companies’ repertoires. It has received worldwide productions, whether as a study of parent-child relationships, as in its landmark 1976 production directed by Arthur Miller in Beijing, or as a critique of Western capitalism, and has been filmed once for television and twice as a feature film.

The enduring appeal of the play seems to lie in the fact that Miller tapped into the hopes and fears of not only an American but a global public; Universal human questions about the nature of happiness and success, of aging and of family responsibility, of fathers and sons, of the impossibility of the American Dream, and the power of hope and dreams to both enrich and destroy our lives. Death of A Salesman has taken on an almost mythic quality, something out of Greek mythology, and the characters in the play have become iconic representations of America, of capitalism, and of despair. The play has become a kind of American Hamlet, or, as one critic puts it, “the theatrical equivalent of the great AMERICAN novel,” idealized and canonized as the pinnacle of American dramatic form and skill, and nearing perfection in its ability to speak to a uniquely American life…a uniquely American life that has, since the play’s first performance in 1949, become an almost global way of life. Selling, buying, getting ahead, upward mobility, potential and possibility, and earning money…

Many critics, in fact, most, hail the main character of Willy Loman as a kind of transcontinental, trans-cultural “everyman,” whose struggles to attain his dreams of success resonate within us all. Some critics say that Miller’s play puts the political and sociological question of how the capitalist American Dream myth impacts an ordinary family at the center of the piece. As our world becomes increasingly affected by American culture, this is a question that is becoming more and more relevant to a global audience, and, to be honest, is the focal point of most international critiques of the work. These qualities have confirmed the play’s place in the canon of ‘classic literature’ and ensured that since its premiere, there has never been a time when Death of a Salesman was not being performed somewhere in the world by some company as an example of GREAT DRAMATIC LITERATURE! (echo, echo, echo….)

This is Death of A Salesman: it is the perfect American play, and it has become so big, so important, that it is now as much a part of the DRAMATIC FABRIC of American theatre as Shakespeare is to British Theatre.

Death of a Salesman is so integral a part of our theatrical lives that we often forget just how radical a departure it was, just how much of an experiment it was, when it debuted 59 years ago. Miller did a bold thing, summoning Willy’s dreams about the past to the stage to intermingle with his miserable present, and this dramatic tactic was unfamiliar to American audiences, and not particularly familiar to Miller. The play is also a radical departure from traditional dramatic conceptions of “tragedy” as Willy Loman is, indeed, an everyman, but not one of a particularly grand kind in any way, and the world in which Loman operates is almost completely bereft of a moral order. The play truly is a great work, a visionary work, and that very quality makes it incredibly difficult to stage!

From my perspective, the greatest challenge in producing and directing this show comes from the fact that it is so well known and admired! The play is MEANINGFUL. The play is EPIC. The play is A GREAT WORK OF DRAMA…(echo echo echo). We all know it: the play won tons of awards, it has been performed a billion times, it is in every single “great American plays” anthology ever written, every student of English and Drama studies or reads (or is at least assigned it) and, as trained actors, academics and dramatic critics, we all come to the play with 60 years of criticism, debate, discussion and perspective clouding our opinions!

Here is what one critic said after a review of the last 20 years of performances of Death of A Salesman: “If there’s something that typifies productions of Arthur Miller’s most famous play, it’s either slippage—a lack of focus on the true living characters who exist only in this play at this time—or too much focus; exclusively on the lead role, or on some social or psychological conception of “What It All Means,” leaving out the simple fact that this is a real story of a real family, a story that is at once intimate in it’s narrative and sprawling in implication.”

This story is not about WILLY LOMAN as a symbol. It’s not about all broken relationships between a father and son in the history of broken relationships, nor is it about career choices of the middle-class. It is not just a critique of American capitalism, nor is it an examination of the change wrought in America’s nuclear family by changes in industrial modes of production. It is not about that. It may MEAN that to some people, but these should not impact a theatre’s choices in performance.

This is a story about a family in Brooklyn.

Just that: a story about a family in Brooklyn.

Audiences and critics can make of that what they will, but for our actors, for this show, it will be a story about a family in Brooklyn.

I believe three things about this show:

First, I believe that it is immediate and intimate. It is about these specific people at this specific time. In this way, our work must be focused on Acting 101 techniques; character analysis in the most basic and, to be honest, informative ways. Our actors may be doing some meta analysis of the play in their own time, but on stage they will be thinking about character, relationship, stakes, plot, objectives, reactions and emotional truth. The end.

Second, I believe that any “statement” about the meaning of the show will be made clear to our audience through our collaborative work as actors and directors.

Third, I believe that everything we need to know to make this show a clean, clear, honest and profoundly moving theatrical experience is in the text and in the skill of our performers. We don’t need anything else. Nothing else. We could do this in jeans and t-shirts on an empty stage with the work lights and it would be a success, because the power of this play, the force of the play, is in how the words are spoken and how they are heard.

We must not give in to the greatness of the play, the place of the play within the canon of great American drama. We must not cloud it with our own sense of history and grandeur, with our own perspectives of heady motivation and condensed thematic analysis. We must not.

No one we know lives in that world. My father doesn’t live in that world, my mother doesn’t live in a world rife with theoretical possibilities, my brother’s dreams and hopes are not consciously grounded in esoteric conceptions of American upper-class mobility. No one real lives in that world, and if there is one thing I know about the Loman family, they are real.

This is a play about a family in Brooklyn. We are going to tell that story.

In The Steely Grip of Jackbooted Bardolators

2009-08-05T17:03:00.000-07:00

I guess 150 to 1 isn’t a bad score, right?

Bag&Baggage just closed our three week run of our major adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” at the Tom Hughes Civic Center Plaza in Hillsboro last Sunday. Although “summergeddon” didn’t help out our ticket sales (I mean, who would want to watch two teenagers fall in love and commit suicide in 107 degree heat? Much more a winter sport, methinks) we still had a great overall turnout and responses to the play were, with one exception (wait for it), overwhelmingly positive. We had a great review in the Oregonian, achieved some of the most significant press coverage we have ever had, and attracted brand new audiences from as far away as Seattle and San Francisco to see our work. We sold huge numbers of Season Tickets to our audiences, and got dozens of complimentary emails and phone calls from audience members who were thrilled and delighted by our retelling of Shakespeare’s classic tale of star crossed love. Overall, we got hundreds of compliments!

With one exception: A local actor, who identified himself as having an MA in theatre and a history of work with local community theatres, sent me an email on Monday that called into question the legitimacy of doing “adapted” Shakespeare productions as (in his words) they “corrupt Shakespeare.” He also indicated that, if, as a company, we were to continue doing these kinds of shows, he doubted we would be around for long and that we were unlikely to get the support of the community and of our theatre colleagues. His biggest beef was that our adaptation featured text that was not Shakespeare’s original work and he wondered who I thought I was to alter Shakespeare’s original, essentially corrupting the play with the inferior verse of other writers.

To be honest, I get these emails a lot. In fact, just in the last year, I’ve had letters from people who HATED our productions of Comedy of Errors (done as a Warner Brothers cartoon), our The Importance of Being Earnest (set in the 1920s and cross gender cast) and our silent film homage production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. All of those complaints had little (if anything) to do with the quality of the acting, the set, the costumes, the skill of the performers, or anything related to the craft of our artists and designers. All of them, without exception, were complaints about “what we did to the play…” almost as if, by engaging in creative and (some might argue) subversive performances of classical work we had destroyed every copy of the original scripts. I recall a conversation I had with a very irate woman after a WWII era production of Much Ado who said, “You destroyed the play.” To which I responded, “Funny, I have a copy of the original on my bookshelf at home.” She wasn’t amused.

My biggest problem when I get these kinds of comments is that I don’t just ignore them and send a sweet “thank you for your feedback” response. But, for some reason, these kinds of comments just get under my skin and I feel the need to respond in some way…perhaps as a way of engaging in a discussion about the validity of adaptation, the universality and permanence of Shakespeare’s work, the crucial need to keep the plays engaging and relevant to modern audiences, or (as in the case of the R&J letter) to help illuminate or clarify misconceptions about Shakespeare, his plays, and the debt he owed to previous authors as a result of his out adaptive process.

When Shakespeare sat down to create Romeo and Juliet, in 1596, he was not starting from scratch. In fact, the young William Shakespeare adapted his play from a 3,000 line narrative poem by Arthur Brooke (The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet published in 1562), who himself adapted his story from a French poem by Pierre Boaistuau, Rhomeo and Julietta (1559) that, itself, was adapted from an Italian story by Matteo Bandello (1554), which was adapted from Luigi da Porto's Giulietta e Romeo (circa 1530), which was adapted from Mariotto and Gianozza by Masuccio Salernitano, published in 1476. Mariotto and Gianozza itself borrows plot lines from a tradition of tragic love stories dating back to antiquity, including Pyramus and Thisbe from Ovid's Metamorphoses, a 7th century anonymous Arabian poet’s story Layla and Majnun and a 3rd century work by Xenophon of Ephesus called The Epheiaca.

All told, the story of star crossed love that we know as Romeo and Juliet is, in fact, the product of more than 1,800 years of adaptation! Even after Shakespeare put his immortal stamp on the story, it didn’t stop there…

In fact, Shakespeare’s version of the Romeo and Juliet story has been performed "adapted" longer than it has been performed “straight!” Throughout the late 16th and the whole of the 17th century, producers and directors took enormous (and sometimes just plain crazy) literary license with Shakespeare's original work. In some productions, Romeo and Juliet survive their ordeal to live happy, fulfilled lives. In others, one of the lover’s dies and the other survives, Juliet dies before Romeo, the two lovers are resurrected after death, they sit and talk for 12 pages before they die, and on and on and on…. One of my favorite versions comes from 1679 when Thomas Otway interwove Romeo and Juliet with Julius Caesar, creating a version of the play called The History and Fall of Caius Marius, set in Augustan Rome. Sound crazy? Well, Otway's version was so popular that, for seventy years, it stopped Shakespeare's own Romeo and Juliet from appearing on any European stage!

The story of Romeo and Juliet has a long and ancient history, and really, only a small part of that history belongs to Shakespeare. The bard clearly did something remarkable in his play, something truly inspired, such that his version has lived on for so long as an icon of tragedy, love, beauty and creativity. But that doesn’t mean that Shakespeare cornered the market on the story, or that his is the final and definitive version. In fact, I believe there are many elements of the original stories Shakespeare borrowed and adapted that are more engaging, more interesting, and have more narrative consistency than the Bard’s work.

Does that mean that I think Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is without value? No. Do I think that it means we should destroy every copy of the script and put forward only the adapted version we performed. No. Does adaptation ruin or otherwise reduce the value of the original? No. Does adaptation improve the original? Not always. Do the adaptations we write and perform elicit strong positive and negative reactions from our audiences? Hell yes, and quite right!

I am, as a director, perfectly content with getting a reaction from someone who says, “I didn’t like your show. The acting wasn’t great, the costumes didn’t fit, and I couldn’t see anyone because the lighting was bad, and the actors didn’t project.” Fine. Those are substantive concerns that are based on artistic critique. They are a matter of opinion, in most cases, or are relevant to the quality of the performance. What I’m not content with is this: You don’t have the right to (fill in the blank). You may not like it, you may prefer the original, you may believe that Shakespeare’s work is all perfect as written, but that doesn’t mean that artists should be limited to one way of performing, one way of reading, or one way of acting a role. Imagine the world where that were the case.

Further, I get frustrated by people who don’t understand that Shakespeare was not only a great writer, but perhaps his greatest strength was as an adapter of other people’s writing. In fact, Shakespeare and his contemporaries were genius in their sharing, adapting, rewriting, borrowing and sometimes just plain stealing each other’s work and the work of earlier writers to create new stories that were relevant to their particular audiences. I believe that Shakespeare’s greatest skill was his ability to take old stories and breathe new life into them, both through writing his own new poetry and verse, but also by picking and choosing elements from other great writers and fitting them together into a new, bold and engaging story that was both original and referential. That, my friends, is genius. That is hard work.

It is also interesting to me that so many people who hold up Shakespeare’s work as “perfect as written” are also either unfamiliar with or unwilling to credit to the hundreds of other writers who worked with Shakespeare. Indeed, many of the scripts we use in modern productions today consist of half-remembered cue lines from Shakespeare’s actors who wrote them down years after performing them and years after Shakespeare’s death. Much of what Shakespeare included in his plays was taken directly from classical Greek and Roman plays, translated and adapted by Shakespeare, but still not original. Some of Shakespeare is, in fact, Jonson, or Fletcher, or Beaumont, or Brooke, or some other forgotten or semi-forgotten playwright of the era. So, is it Shakespeare’s genius as a writer of plays we are applauding, or are we applauding his cleverness in borrowing, adapting and rewriting the works of other authors? Which lines of Romeo and Juliet was Shakespeare, himself, personally, 100% responsible for writing?

Our adaptation of R&J asked our audiences see this familiar play in a new way, from different perspectives, so that they can (as we do) both appreciate Shakespeare’s genius and get to know the genius of the many writers who influenced, shaped and breathed life into this immortal tale of star crossed love. It asks audiences to make a judgment: what was lost? What was gained? What angered or delighted you? How do you feel about these changes? Did they explain, explore, explode, or alter your feelings about the play, the characters, the playwright, the director, the space, the art?

Adaptation asks questions, it engages audiences in ways that traditional performances do not. Not in a better way, not in a way that is superior to traditional performances, but in a different way, and I absolutely reject the idea that adaptation corrupts or reduces Shakespeare’s genius.

Shaw coined the phrase “bardolator” in his preface to The Devil’s Disciple, published in 1901, and the term “bardolatry” has been in use in theatre circles for some time since then. Essentially, the term refers to someone who has an excessive adulation for Shakespeare, someone that is blindly devoted to the man and his works. Shakespeare himself was not above a little rewriting now and then, not above adapting other works, not above condensing, expanding, or otherwise hacking away at previously written works. Shakespeare resisted the steel grip of “how it SHOULD be done” and embraced a range of artistic and creative approaches to theatre, and, in fact to his own works. I believe Shakespeare would be proud of what Bag&Baggage does with his works. I’m not convinced he would like them, but he would be proud.

The Good Kind of Busy

2009-07-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

When people ask me how I’m doing, the reply lately has been an emphatic ‘busy!’ A lot of my work as Production Manager happens in preparation for a show even before rehearsals begin – planning, auditioning, hiring, scheduling, more planning, etc. Thus, I have the privilege of receiving resumes and head shots from actors who want to audition with us and then organizing and scheduling auditions. Although it is very time consuming to wade through all the emails, resumes, and head shots, and then work out the schedule for actually auditioning the approved candidates, it is very exciting and insightful.

Amidst an extremely busy weekend (last ‘Romeo and Juliet’ performances, plus two kids’ shows at the Washington County Fair that are performing three times a day), we will also be busy with auditions for most of next season’s shows. I am thrilled to share that this will be our largest audition group ever – we will be evaluating just shy of 50 actors. In the last year to year and a half we’ve gone from having as few as 7 actors audition to now 50. Not only is that a large number of qualified candidates, but the group we are attracting is more varied in experienced and more accomplished than we’ve ever seen. We have actors who traditionally only do musicals eager to be considered for our straight, text-based work this season. We have award winning actors excited by our season choices and the opportunity to work with us. The vast majority of our candidates for this season are also brand new to us – have never auditioned for us before or never been in a show with us already. And although we do have a fair number of Washington County residents auditioning, we are also attracting actors that we used to refer to as ‘Portland actors’ – actors who routinely get work in Portland and who’d likely never even consider us because we are in Hillsboro. Well, they are not only considering us, they are taking the plunge and auditioning. We welcome them eagerly!

This large group of actors for auditions is just one more way that it is evident how much Bag&Baggage has grown in the last year to year and a half. Our candidates have good reason to be eager to work with us – we pay very decent competitive wages to all of our actors and crew, our audience has grown steadily with each of our Venetian shows this season, the quality of work has improved and our production process has become more precise, we have successfully mounted Hillsboro’s first outdoor Shakespeare summer performance which received more press and positive reviews than any other show we’ve done, we have grown our Education program and value the opportunity to bring theatre to students of Washington County, and we have been selling numerous season tickets this summer during ‘Romeo & Juliet’ for the upcoming Venetian shows

All of that success has been a product of a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (quite literally!), it has been vastly worth it. And although it means I didn’t get anything close to a real summer vacation, I am thrilled, proud, and eager to embark on Bag&Baggage’s second season’s partnership with the Venetian Theatre with such a talented group of actors, designers, and collaborators!
After auditions are complete and our casts are finalized, be sure to check out the website for previews of who you’ll be seeing on the Venetian stage in Bag&Baggage shows this season: Arthur Miller’s ‘Death of a Salesman,’ September 23 – October 11, 2009; Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol,’ adapted by Scott Palmer, December 9 – 22, 2009; Shakespeare’s ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ with John Fletcher’s ‘The Woman’s Prize,’ both adapted to be performed together by Scott Palmer, February 11 – 28, 2010; Noel Coward’s ‘Hay Fever,’ June 2 – 20.

~Audra Petrie Veber, Production Manager

Why Pay For Summer Shakespeare?

2009-07-22T11:38:00.001-07:00

Recently, Bag&Baggage received a question about the difference between our work and the work of other companies in the region who are also doing outdoor summer Shakespeare. A number of these other companies offer their work for free, or at a “pay what you will” ticket price, and the question we received was this: Why would anyone want to pay $18 a ticket for a Bag&Baggage show when they can go to see some other company for free?

Having not seen any of the other outdoor Shakespeare shows going on this season around Portland, I’m not really able to discuss, specifically, what makes B&B’s work different from the free “amateur” or “semi-professional” shows currently being performed around the region. All I can speak to is the way we approach our work and why we think it is valuable enough to pay for.

First, we are required by our board of directors, our mission/vision statement and our articles of incorporation to pay all of our artists a “competitive wage” for the industry in our area (and by “artists” we mean actors, designers and stage management). We do this by looking at what other companies are offering for similar work in the Portland metro area and base our wage scale accordingly. For summer Shakespeare, we found that few companies in the area were offering a specific wage but rather were offering various shared-risk payment options (a cut of the take, etc) or no pay at all.

That is not a payment option our Board will allow, so, instead, we decided to offer a wage comparable to what an actor in Portland would get paid for any other show, indoors or out. We know that the wages we pay our actors is well above the average in the region, and we have an iron-clad commitment to paying a competitive wage to all of our staff. As a result of offering a competitively high guaranteed wage, we simply cannot do “free” performances as we need to ensure a specific level of income to pay our actors and crew.

Second, at Bag&Baggage, we require all of our actors to meet some specific training and experience requirements before casting them. Those include, at minimum, a terminal degree in theatre from an accredited 4 year institution (this is base line and is a requirement to get an audition). Above that, we require at minimum one previous professional Shakespeare, experience in outdoor theatre, or an advanced degree in theatre. We have a number of cast members with MFAs, and all others have significant previous professional and/or outdoor theatre performance experience. As a company, we do not feel that we can require this level of experience and training without offering a guaranteed and competitive wage. Again, as a result, we must charge a regular ticket price to ensure we meet these guaranteed wages. I am absolutely certain that many (if not all!) of our colleagues have similarly high standards for their actors, I just can’t comment on those requirements specifically as I don’t know what/how they cast.

Third, we do work with a voice and acting coach for all outdoor shows. All of our performers are put through a rigorous training regiment that, we think, helps prepare them for the challenges of outdoor performance. This includes a series of group workshops, individual coaching and training sessions, and dedicated time during rehearsals (often an hour of a 4 hour block) to work on voice, breath, diction and projection. Again, not knowing what our colleagues do, I can’t comment on their preparatory work, I just know that B&B is rigorous and demanding in our training and development of the voice for outdoor work.

Fourth, we think outdoor Shakespeare is as challenging, as difficult, as expensive, as demanding and as thrilling and exciting as anything that can be produced indoors. In fact, we think outdoor work is harder! As a result, we believe that all outdoor performances, particularly Shakespeare, should be treated the same as any other type or style of performance for a professional company. B&B charges $20 or more for most of our indoor work and, to be honest, I personally feel that offering our work at a reduced or free rate devalues that work.

Let me be clear: that is my opinion of our work and has nothing at all to do with the value or price of any other outdoor performance. From my perspective, and the perspective of our board, offering our work at a “free” ticket price gives the impression that our work is of an amateur quality, or not as valuable or as professional as our other shows.

I also believe, very strongly, that all theatre companies must be allowed to make their own decisions about programming, actors, training, marketing and ticket price and fully support the choices of our colleagues across the region. It is not our choice, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

Outdoor Shakespeare is a staple of summer cultural offerings across the world. I am delighted that there are a wide range of options for the citizens of the Portland Metro area, and am proud that Bag&Baggage is the only provider of this unique art form in Hillsboro and in the whole of Washington County. We are working hard to make our shows as high quality as they can be and, for us, that means guaranteeing a high wage for our artists, and, in return, charging admission. I hope you will support our efforts by joining us for the last two weekends of Romeo and Juliet!

Scott Palmer

Shoot me, I'm a hermit crab!

2009-01-29T08:26:00.000-08:00

Our production of "The Comedy of Errors" at the Venetian Theatre is a hit. Not only did we have record breaking audiences in our first weekend (more than three times the number of people who came to see our first production, "Steel Magnolias" in the first weekend) but the show is also receiving rave reviews from the press and our audiences. I don't think it would be an overstatement to say that this is one of the hardest shows I have ever directed, and one of the hardest performances any of our incredibly talented cast of actors has ever worked on. The ensemble nature of the show, the physical style, the adaptation (which includes new verse, new prose, and an entirely new character) as well as the rehearsal process and the demands of the space...well, let's just say I'm amazed we have all survived the first week!

There are a number of people who have helped make this show the huge success that it is.

First, Todd Palmer, my brother, who (being a nuclear engineer) helped me on multiple occassions come up with dozens of cartoon references and lines from our favorite Saturday morning shows to add into the script. If you see the show, watch for such classic lines as Daffy Duck's "Shoot me, I'm a hermit crab! It's hermit crab season!" and "Dodge, parry, thrust, spin!" Not to mention references to the Flintstones, the Jetsons, Wacky Racers, Snagglepuss, Road Runner, Ariel from the Little Mermaid, and dozens more. In fact, one of my favorite memories from this show (and likely in my entire directing career) was the rehersal where I gave the actors a chance to "bid" for references from the classic cartoons. I sat in the rehearsal space with a four page list of lines, movements, gestures and characters from cartoons and simply said, "Who wants this one?" The actors lept at the chance, debating and arguing for who would be the best person to yell "YabbaDabbaDo!" and "Exit, stage left!" It was a remarkable evening, particularly given that it happened only a week or so before we opened. Todd, you have my thanks for being such a geek about cartoons! We couldn't have done it without you!

Second, Jan Tatom, one of our board members. Just before we started rehearsals on Comedy, we had a board meeting where I threw down the gauntlet for the board to each try and sell an additional 25 - 30 tickets. We desperately needed to increase our average ticket sales by 25-30 tickets per night, and the board (in some cases reluctantly!) took up the challenge. But Jan not only accepted the challenge, but exceeded all expectations! She has, single handedly, sold nearly 140 additional tickets! To school groups from as far afield as Newberg, Canby and McMinnville, as well as group tickets to churches and other social groups. Not only did Jan meet her own target, but she met a couple of our other board member's targets, too! One of the best things that has ever happened to Bag&Baggage was the day that a yellow school bus pulled up in front of the Venetian and abour 40 students from Newberg High School got off and joined us for a Sunday matinee (including the cast and crew talkback after the show!). Thank you, Jan. You are amazing.

Third, Casey Campbell, our friend and supporter from Corvallis. Casey has always been a huge supporter of mine personally, and of the work of Bag&Baggage, but he really went above and beyond for Comedy. He came to our first dress rehearsal, monstrously large camera in hand, and took about 1800 photos of my cast and crew doing what the do best: being big hammy cartoon characters! Those photos not only give us a permanent archive of amazing, high quality photos of the show, but the quality of those photos was so high that the Corvallis Gazette Times (some two hours drive away from the Venetian) decided to run a story about the show along with Casey's incredible pictures. Our audiences in Corvallis, who honestly would have never known what we were up to, got a chance to see the work and (I know for a fact) a number of them have already bought tickets to see another crazy Shakespearean adaptation by Bag&Baggage Productions.

Fourth, Fred Gardner. When Drew Foster told me that we had found "an animator" to do our backdrops, I was releived. When I found out that our "animator" was, in fact, a two time Emmy award winner, I did a happy dance! The work that Fred and his team produced...well, those projected backdrops have become an integral part of the show, a character in their own right. They are incredible. In fact, Audra (our Production Manager, who has also been amazing) said she overheard some audience members on the opening night commenting that they were sure we had just "stolen" some cartoon slides from Warner Bros., they looked so iconic. Needless to say, we were delighted to tell them the truth: an amazing animator from the Portland area used his unbelievable skills for the benefit of our show. Thanks, Fred.

Finally, a special nod to Trisha Pancio from Portland Center Stage. Trish has always been a huge supporter of mine, and an amazingly supportive colleague to us and theatre companies throughout the region. Trisha's work on the Fertile Ground festival, her willingness to include Comedy in the offerings, her tireless promotion of the entire calendar of events. Well, Portland is better for having her, and I know that our show and our company owe her a debt of thanks. Yer neat, Trish, and you know it.

The entire cast, crew, board and all of our volunteers, the staff and management of the Venetian Theatre, the Fertile Ground festival staff and volunteers, and all of our audiences have my thanks for making this a show to remember. With the press we received, the response from the audience, and the inclusion of Comedy in the Fertile Ground festival. Well, I'm pretty sure I can die now...so shoot me, I'm a hermit crab!

The Power of A Great Board

2008-11-20T16:15:00.000-08:00

So, as many of you may know, our host veneu, the Venetian Theatre, is an amazing historic building in the heart of downtown Hillsboro. Denzil Scheller, the owner and mega-property developer, spent tireless months ensuring that the building would be refurbished to an incredibly high standard. And it is a beautiful space, an ideal location and an amazing place to do live theatre. There was one small problem...the building opened without the dressing rooms (located beneath the stage, in the former orchestra pit) being finished.

It is understandable. When you are pouring millions of dollars into a major renovation of an historic building, sometimes the "back stage" areas have to be left incomplete. As someone who has been involved in major refurbishment projects (The Arches in Glasgow, for example; wwwwthearches.co.uk), I understand how, when push comes to shove and dollars (or pounds sterling, for that matter) are running low, some parts of the project need to be given a quick dusting and left as good to go. Such was the state of the dressing rooms at The Venetian. Functional, in that they, you know, had lights, a ceiling and a floor, but otherwise completely bare. Bare concrete floors, no furniture, and no creature comforts of any kind. The ladies of Steel Magnolias can attest to just how "nice" the dressing rooms were! Concrete dust on the costumes, cold concrete on their feet, and nothing but a couple of folding chairs to sit on.

No longer.

Through the enormous dedication and hard work of two of our board members, Dave and Shirley Woodford (and their son Chris), the Venetian dressing rooms have been completely refurbished to a very, very high standard. Dave Woodford, a former teacher and construction worker, pulled out every single favor he was ever owed by his suppliers to get donations of flooring, carpet, electronics (including microwaves and a refrigerator), stools, sofas, chairs, decorative rugs, and full length dressing room mirrors. I can't honestly say the value of all of these donations, but I would put it at well over $3,500. All for free, and all through the goodwill and hard work of two board members.

These inkind donations not only help raise awareness of our company among local businesses, but they have truly helped improve the overall quality, feel and professionalism of our growing and ambitious company. We have all worked in less than ideal venues, those of us in theatre, but there is something truly amazing about what happens when the venue feels high quality and professional. It makes the actors feel appreciated and valued, that their work and talent is important, and that the long hours and horrible direction they sometimes receive is...well, that is not only worth it, but worthwhile.

A small company like ours, with big dreams and hopes, cannot succeed without the support and dedication of board members and volunteers like Dave and Shirley Woodford. You two are amazing, and you have helped far more than you can imagine.

Thank you.

If you are interested in making a difference for Bag&Baggage, get in touch. Let's change the world! One show at a time. Email us at info@bagnbaggage.org to learn more.

See you at The Eight: Reindeer Monologues!

Scott Palmer
Artistic Director

Every Little Bit Helps

2008-10-29T16:38:00.000-07:00

It will come as no surprise to anyone that fundraising for the arts is getting harder, particularly in these difficult economic times. Those who have given in the past are less likely to do so, and those who haven't aren't willing...not when their retirement savings have vanished, unemployment is on the rise, banks are failing and the media spends most of their time using words like "great depression" and "runs on banks." Who can blame people for not wanting to give? It is a frightening time.

Last night, however, Bag&Baggage saw just how willing people can be, even in difficult times, to open their wallets to give to support high quality artistic work. Last night was the third of our Wine Tasting fundraising events at Renaissance Wines, based at Orenco Station in Hillsboro, called "The Wines of Halloween." The event started at 7:00pm, but by 6:15pm we already had more than 25 people in attendance, and the numbers grew to well over 65 by the time the evening began. Over the course of the two hours of the event, our audiences listened to performances of a wide range of Halloween-themed poetry, played a couple of games, showed off their evil laughs, and left the venue just after 9:00pm having had an amazing time...and having raised more than $800 for Bag&Baggage Productions.

Mike, the owner of Renaissance, has been incredibly generous with his time and his skills, offering us essentially a bi-monthly opportunity to take over his shop, sell raffle tickets, promote our upcoming shows and generally schlep ourselves for as much cash as we can.

In the space of a year, we anticipate that our fundraising events at Renaissance will have generated nearly $8,000 in income for Bag&Baggage, which is more than we have raised in grants and corporate sponsorship in the previous year. One small business owner and a group of dedicated wine and poetry connoisseurs will raise more money for Bag&Baggage in a year than we were able to raise from private and public foundations last year. That truly is remarkable.

Now, I suppose it could be a commentary on how bad we are at applying for grants, but in fact, a small, young theatre company like ours is unlikely to generate significant grant support in our first few years. But what is important to note is that the generousity and support of those people who attend the Wine events actually increase the likelihood that we will be able to raise more money from trusts and foundations in the future. Small fundraising events like the one hosted by Renaissance Wines helps show grantors that we have community support, that we have a committed audience base and an engaged donor base, and that means it is even MORE likely that trusts will fund us.

The Wines of Shakespeare and the Wines of Halloween events may seem like small ways of raising small amounts of money, and I suppose at the core they are...but, in the larger picture, these events help us create relationships with our audiences, develop trust and loyalty, generate some significant income over time and help ensure that Bag&Baggage has a solid foundation for future, larger-scale fundraising activities.

In this economic environment, you may think that your $10 worth of raffle ticket purchases or a check for $20, or having a couple of glasses of wine...you may think these things don't or couldn't make a difference. You would be wrong. Every little bit helps, and often helps in a big way.

Get on our mailing list at http://www.bagnbaggage.org/ if you want to learn more about how you can drink wine to raise money for us...it is a lot of fun. And, if you want to really show your support for Bag&Baggage, buy your wine from Mike at Renaissance. He runs a business that gets how important it is to support the arts, and I truly hope you will show him how much you appreciate his generousity by going in for a glass or three.

Cheers!
-Scott Palmer, Artistic Director, Bag&Baggage Productions

"The Comedy of Errors": The Beginnings

2008-10-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

Last week, the production team for The Comedy of Errors met for an initial design concept discussion. Director Scott Palmer presented his “director’s vision,” complete with a power point presentation to literally illustrate his point (that was a treat for us on the production team – our first Scott Palmer power point “director’s vision” presentation). Set Designer Drew Foster and Costume Designer Lacey Cassidy responded to Scott’s ideas with enthusiasm and we all had questions for Scott. These initial design meetings are always intriguing to be a part of – dubious note taking occurs, a few beers are consumed, those creative juices flow inside the designers’ brains (we assume so, at least), ideas are presented, challenged, and embraced, and of course our conversation also inevitably turns (mostly thanks to me – hey it’s my job!) to discussing the practicality of putting our design ideas onto the stage.

The design concepts for Bag&Baggage’s version of Shakespeare’s “first” play currently involve a key bit of technology (scary, I know!). So our next step will be to do a “test” of the equipment at our host venue, The Venetian Theatre, to see if this particular bit of technology is going to work (easily, or perhaps not so easily) for our purposes for this show. In the meantime, the designers will be doing some research and idea-making of their own – reading and re-reading Shakespeare’s original script of Comedy, in anticipation of our adapted script (to be completed by Scott Palmer within the next few weeks), and combining their own creative ideas about the show with Palmer’s “director’s vision.” After our “spec-tech” (thanks to Drew Foster for coining that phrase) test at the Venetian, the team will meet again to discuss the results of our “spec-tech” and share new ideas in order to get closer to finalizing the designs.

For those of you who may be curious about the design concepts that we are currently spending so much time, beer, and sleep thinking and talking about — without giving away too much detail (partly because the designs are still in the process of being molded), I will say that it looks like our version of Comedy of Errors will be entertaining (of course!), perhaps a bit dark, unusual and colorful (to say the least), and hopefully will challenge our audience to think a bit (or a lot!).

As I mentioned, Palmer is still in the process of adapting the script for our production. Again, without wanting to give away too much, I will reveal that he is adding one character to the script - “The Critic.”

Auditions are also coming up in about two weeks, so that is obviously a big part of pulling the show together and preparing for rehearsals to begin. I’m also happy to report that we have hired a Stage Manager for the show, and are currently finalizing the search for a few other crew positions.

In other Bag&Baggage news, our “little Christmas show,” as I like to call it (The Eight: Reindeer Monologues) has been cast and the actors are in the process of memorizing their lines. The cast includes several actors that you have seen on Bag&Baggage’s stages before, including Company member Maggie Chapin, plus a new face or two. In Scott’s own words, “it is going to be freakin' HE-LARIOUS!”

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned in for more behind-the-scenes updates/insights from Bag&Baggage!

-- Audra L. Petrie Veber, Production Manager

2008-10-10T17:18:00.000-07:00

Well, it feels like the end of an era! Bag&Baggage Productions will no longer be a part of the annual outdoor summer Shakespeare program at Oregon State University (the Bard in the Quad). After three years of developing and managing the program, the University Theatre has decided that a proposed co-production system (one that would see the Artistic and Production team at Bag&Baggage mount a show in Hillsboro and tour it to Corvallis, would gaurantee a minimum of 5 paid roles for OSU Theatre students, and would provide shared resources and shared costs for both organizations) is not workable.

I really do think it is a shame, as I believe that co-production relationships like the one we proposed are of enormous benefit to both the professional company and the University. One need only look to the Globe's relationship with the University of California San Diego, or any of a hundred other professional theatre/University theatre relationships, to truly understand the benefits.

For the professional theatre, it is a chance to augment their educational offerings, train future company members, reduce costs associated with artistic and production staff, raise awareness of their work with students and faculty, gain access to greater resources, etc.

For the University, it is a chance to give their students professional theatre experience, provide faculty with a chance to build their CVs, promote the department and program to audiences, and showcase their student's skills.

I am personally committed to working in collaboration with theatre training programs in part due to what I learn as a director and as a producer of live theatre, but also because I have a personal and professional commitment to growing our industry and providing opportunities for professional advancement for young artists. I am professionally committed to working in collaboration with theatre training programs in part because of the financial and promotional benefits, but also because I feel strongly that a growing and ambitious theatre company must have roots in academic programs.

So...if there are any Portland-area theatre programs on the lookout for a great partnership program, get in touch. We have the will, the ability and the desire to partner for our mutual advancement. We just need a program with the vision and the energy to go there with us.

Come on, it'll be fun!

Scott Palmer, Artistic Director

Hillsboro Deserves Professional Theatre

2008-10-09T15:43:00.000-07:00

It is a tradition, particularly on the opening night of a new show, for the Director to give a curtain speech. For the most part, these speeches are used for standard stuff like thanking sponsors, welcoming guests, announcing the new season, asking for millions of dollars in donations...you know the drill.

For Bag&Baggage, we have used these curtain speeches (which I or a nervous member of the board have done before every single show in the last 2 years!) to make a simple claim: that the residents of Hillsboro deserve access to high quality, affordable and professional theatre right here, where we live, in our own backyards.

Now, this may not seem at all like a controversial thing to say. But, for those of you who are natives of Hillsboro, you will understand that for a very long time, those of us in the Western part of the Metro-area thought of ourselves as not just "the suburbs" but not even really a part of the greater Portland area. I remember when I was in High School, my friends and I used to say we were "going into Portland" in the same way we would have said "I am travelling to London." We were not a city. We weren't even really a town. In fact, we would never have even considered that Hillsboro had cultural offerings or late night activities that would have been of interest to us. Never.

Burgerville, yes. Skateworld, yes. But theatre? Galleries? Live music? No freakin' way.

But things are different now. Hillsboro, and the entiriety of Washington County, is growing up and growing fast. We aren't just a town, we are a thriving community of families, corporations, small businesses, and artists. We have a mall, even, with a Macys! I mean, if that isn't "arriving," I don't know what is...

Well, actually, I do know what I think it means when a place like Hillsboro becomes a real, thriving and truly independent community. Professional arts and culture.

Many of you may not know this, but Washington County is a major funder of the Arts. Just not here in Washington County. We are a donor county when it comes to the arts. Taxes from Washington County that go to support organizations like RACC (the regional arts and culture council) are far more often than not given (in the form of grants) to the largest arts organizations in Multnomah County. As a result, if we residents of Hillsboro want to get access to professional theatre, museums, art galleries or live music...well, we gotta drive 20 miles, pay $30 for parking, upwards of $65 per ticket, and drive home.

Not only do our taxes go to support professional arts in Portland, but so do our cultural tourism dollars. We are supporting an entire sub-economy of arts and culture every time we drive out of Hillsboro and into Portland. We deny our local businesses our money, our local artists and performers our support, and deny our kids and grandparents access to professional creative expression right here in our own backyards, where they live.

To be honest, it seems ridiculous to me that residents of Washington County are providing more money in support for the arts in Portland than we are for struggling, growing, ambitious arts organizations here in Hillsboro. It seems crazy to me that we are paying for parking, drinking wine and buying food from restuarants in Portland when we could be spending that money here, in our community, supporting our own economic development.

We believe that professional arts organizations like the Sequoia Gallery, the Glenn & Viola Cultural Arts Center, The Venetian Theatre, the Kingstad Center, and (yes) Bag&Baggage deserve the support of local government, of local tax dollars, and of local patronage. And we believe that a concerted effort on the part of our community, making our voices heard to Metro, RACC, the Washington County Commission, and to our neighbors can make a real difference.

All of us here at Bag&Baggage hope you agree, and hope you will show your support for professional arts and culture here in Hillsboro by coming to our shows, visiting the Sequoia gallery, attending a live music event at the Walters Center, or (better yet) making a donation to Bag&Baggage. We need your support, and we live here.

Scott Palmer, Artistic Director

Blog and Bloggage from Bag and Baggage

Crimes of the Heart

Twelfth Night Meets The Great Gatsby!

First Preview went well!

Please share a story about your best, worst, or funniest teacher

2010-2011 Venetian Theatre Season is officially ANNOUNCED!

Have we got news for YOU!

Fwd: Click And Blast Is Not The Best Opening Salvo

Click And Blast Is Not The Best Opening Salvo

Tips Section

Grants …
Read the match criteria before asking

Major Gifts …
6 essential keys to getting major gift donors

Donors …
Channel surfing for fundraisers

The Price of Success

The Bravest Writer In Elizabethan History: John Fletcher!

Celebrate the Season, and Give Twice!

Celebrating Culture Collaboratively

Happy Guatamalan Independence Day!

Celebrate Oregon Day of Culture: October 8, 2009

Death of A Salesman: It Is About A Family In Brooklyn

In The Steely Grip of Jackbooted Bardolators

The Good Kind of Busy

Why Pay For Summer Shakespeare?

Shoot me, I'm a hermit crab!

The Power of A Great Board

Every Little Bit Helps

"The Comedy of Errors": The Beginnings

Hillsboro Deserves Professional Theatre

Blog and Bloggage from Bag and Baggage

Crimes of the Heart

Twelfth Night Meets The Great Gatsby!

First Preview went well!

Please share a story about your best, worst, or funniest teacher

2010-2011 Venetian Theatre Season is officially ANNOUNCED!

Have we got news for YOU!

Fwd: Click And Blast Is Not The Best Opening Salvo

Click And Blast Is Not The Best Opening Salvo

Tips Section

Grants … Read the match criteria before asking

Major Gifts … 6 essential keys to getting major gift donors

Donors … Channel surfing for fundraisers

The Price of Success

The Bravest Writer In Elizabethan History: John Fletcher!

Celebrate the Season, and Give Twice!

Celebrating Culture Collaboratively

Happy Guatamalan Independence Day!

Celebrate Oregon Day of Culture: October 8, 2009

Death of A Salesman: It Is About A Family In Brooklyn

In The Steely Grip of Jackbooted Bardolators

The Good Kind of Busy

Why Pay For Summer Shakespeare?

Shoot me, I'm a hermit crab!

The Power of A Great Board

Every Little Bit Helps

"The Comedy of Errors": The Beginnings

Hillsboro Deserves Professional Theatre

Grants …
Read the match criteria before asking

Major Gifts …
6 essential keys to getting major gift donors

Donors …
Channel surfing for fundraisers