Just Wrought

Recovering playwright, once won a STRANGER Genius Award for theater. Now writing a bloated novel about… G-d help me! Theatre.

Tag: Paul Mullin

  • The Macallan Talks – Side One

    The Macallan Talks – Side One

    Giving my demons the year off  has left me time to take care of some housecleaning, like backing up my old files to the cloud before my next hard drive crashes.  About a week ago I ran across a couple of old Word files that I thought were lost forever: transcripts from something called “the Macallan Talks”.  The premise was simple: two full fifths of Macallan 12-year-old scotch, a cassette tape recorder, William Salyers and myself.  We would talk about what we always talked about, but capture it on tape finally so that I could transcribe it and then possibly either publish or stage it.  Or at least that’s what I recall the plan was.  This was over thirteen years ago, so I’m not really sure what I was thinking.  All I know is that this conversation has never seen the light of day until now.

    Mostly you get an ardent exchange between two friends who love talking, especially to each other.  Bill and I still blather like this, whether on the phone, since we no longer live in the city, or into the wee hours over scotch and illicit cigarettes, on the now ever rarer occasions when we do manage to get together in person.  What strikes me most clearly now looking over these transcripts is how little our positions have changed in the intervening years. Bill still ardently defends his “craft” against any woo-woo incursions of higher powers or purposes.  I still maintain that what we do, when we do it well, matters in sublime and fundamental ways we can only barely glimpse in fleeting, incomplete flashes.

    Had I made these discussions public at the time, I am convinced that they would have been dismissed as the pompous rantings of a pair of third-tier theatre artists who thought way too highly of themselves and each other.  Now?  Well, nothing’s changed.  All of that is essentially still true (sorry Bill, at least you have a television career), but somehow I imagine (hope?) that the intervening near decade and a half gives our arguments some resonance beyond the moment.  Of course, the final analysis is up to you.  I publish the full first cassette side transcript at the end of this post.  I will publish the second side in another upcoming post.  In the meantime, some highlights from the first half:

    On lying and acting . . .

    (I try to start the tape without Bill knowing but he can tell something’s different about my face.  I’m a horrible liar…. )

    PAUL:   So let’s talk about lying.  Is a good actor a liar or not a liar.

    BILL:  Well you know what Plato thought about that?

    PAUL:  What?

    BILL:  He literally thought–

    PAUL:  Micky Mouse’s dog?

        (beat)

    BILL:  I was about to imitate him and then I realized I couldn’t. 

        (He laughs.)

        ‘Cause he doesn’t–

    BILL & PAUL (together):  Say anything!

    . . . .

    BILL:  From what I remember reading in college, Plato said that actors should be killed because they lie.

    PAUL:  See I consider myself a pretty good actor and I cannot lie to save my life.

    BILL:  Well, I can lie but I consider them to be two separate things.  I don’t… I don’t lie unless I absolutely have to, and I hold that to a pretty high standard.  It’s not about my convenience.  I’ll take a lot of shit before I’ll tell a lie.  Because of that thing we were talking about.  About how it’s an allowance.  How responsibility comes with the power.

    PAUL:  Right.

    BILL:  And the only way I can tell a lie is to buy into myself.

    PAUL:  Yeah, so you involve yourself in the Dark magic.

    On art versus craft . . .

    BILL:  . . . I think the word “art” is pretty useless.  It is so subjective as to be pointless–

    PAUL:  Like “love” or something like that?

    BILL:  Exactly.

    PAUL:  Well, what would you replace it with?  Or would you?

    BILL:  I’m not sure that you need the word.  It’s almost used to describe that which people don’t have the capacity to describe another way.  When someone says “art” they’re either collectors talking about something that’s worth a lot of money, or they are people who are moved beyond the ability to express… that.

    PAUL:  What about when somebody says, “The way that guy does phad thai is a frickin’ art?”

    BILL:  he’s talking about a transcendent experience     that goes beyond what he understands as being the execution of… the act.

    PAUL:  Well, what about that?  Is there something to that?  I mean this “transcendent experience”– if we don’t have a name for it beyond “art” shall we not call it that?

    BILL:  I think it’s the height of craft.  When I approach a role there are a whole lot of givens.  I think particularly in acting, and particular among young actors, there’s a need to over romanticize what we do.

    PAUL:  Well, yeah… and then you get into that nastiness of Method and that whole “I-must-go-through-that-which-my-character-has-go-through” nonsense.

    BILL:  Yes.  That’s right.  And actors saying things like– in all seriousness– “I don’t like to like to take about the craft ’cause I don’t like to over analyze it.  And if I over analyze it, I’ll kill it.”

    PAUL:  Which– yeah– sounds like somebody who…

    BILL:  Doesn’t know what the fuck they’re doing.  that’s exactly right.

    On going the dangers and responsibilities of playing a dark role

    PAUL:  … Ok, I’m gonna go on the record about TUESDAY.  I think that the reason why TUESDAY was hard was because you had met the wall with your “craft”, and with TUESDAY you had to be an artist.  And you were an artist, but it hurt because you were entering a realm where– to use those fantastic mytho-terms– you entered the realm where you were naked and raw.  It’s like the total hero’s journey.  At the beginning we see the hero and he’s kick-ass, but he finally meets the challenge that is capable of kicking his ass.  And then it becomes interesting.  That’s where the heart becomes involved.  And that’s why I argue this art-versus-craft argument over and over again.  And that’s why I’d like to try and get to the meat of it.

    BILL:  So you’re a masochist, because art has to hurt.

    PAUL:  No…   No…  It’s an old Buddhist thing.  You see Westerners misunderstand Buddhism because they think it’s nihilism.  Because they say, “Well what a Zen Buddhist does is he sits in a room for eight hours, and that’s torture!”

    BILL:  Mmm-hmm.

    PAUL:  And it is torture, and I do kinda share the opinion that the people that are attracted to Zen are masochists, but I do it, and I’ve sat in a room for 8 hours and I’ll probably do it again.  See the problem is most Westerners misinterpret Buddhism as saying “You must suffer.”  And I would interpret it slightly differently.  I would say true Buddhism is: “You will suffer.”  But ultimately the suffering is as unimportant, if not more unimportant than the pleasure.

    BILL:  So you don’t glorify the suffering.

    PAUL:  No.  Not all.  The suffering is a message.  And there’s something to be said for computer metaphors– the suffering is like an error message, saying, “Ok, error in sector B.  You’re suffering.  Why?  Why are you hurting?”  Like, why does it hurt to do TUESDAY?…  And you’re looking for reasons like your technique wasn’t quite right,  and I’m saying no.  You’re doing everything right.  You just refuse to admit that that which you are doing is more important than you think it is.  And that that which you are doing is more connected and more vital and more rooted in who you are than you feel comfortable with as a craftsman.

    BILL:  Well my reaction to that is first of all is that… if we go that way for a moment, if we accept that as a truism, I have absolutely no problem in saying I’m not interested in that.  I’m not interested in self-flagellation in public.  That has no–

    PAUL:  Well, first off that’s not what I’m talking about.  And second off, if you were to say that to a Zen master, he’d probably give you a whack on the head, but then he’d say, “Who cares what you’re interested in?”  No one cares what you’re interested in.

    BILL:  But remember I act for selfish reasons.

    PAUL:  Well, maybe it’s time to wake up. . . .

    To follow is the full transcript of the first side of the cassette. 

    (more…)

    Posted at 12:09 PM in Art, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (8)

    Tags: Acting, actor/playwright relationship, Art versus craft, lying in acting, Macallan, Paul Mullin, playwriting, Seattle theatre history, William Salyers

  • NewsWrights Reads WikiLeaks

    NewsWrights Reads WikiLeaks

    If this be treason, make the most of it!
    Patrick Henry

    A couple weeks ago— though it seems like half a year in this hyper-speed news cycle that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have helped spin even faster— incoming Tea Party Congressman, Allen West stated publically that he not only considered Assange’s decision to leak classified State Department cables to be an act of treason, but equally treasonous the  further dissemination of  the leaks by any news agency in the country.  He baldly called for American news outlets to be censored for running stories based on the WikiLeaks’ cable dump.  [Read more here.]  Then later Allen back-tracked and said, “I didn’t say ‘censored.’  I said ‘censured.’”

    Last Sunday evening, while the Seahawks staggered to their NFC West Championship win, NewsWrights United’s Wes Andrews led five other theatre artists: Jose Amador, Llysa Holland, Spike Friedman, Ramon Esquivel and Josh Parks, in publically reading excerpts of the leaked cables at Annex Theatre in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.  Personally, I was proud to be in the audience participating at least vicariously in what the blow-hard Tea Bagging demagogic moron, Allen West, considers sedition.

    The excerpts the actors chose to share originated from consulates spanning the globe from Venezuela to Iran, and included both inspiring stories of personal heroism to gossip about absurdly profligate parties thrown by quasi-governmental gangsters in the Caucasus [see here].  Perhaps the most striking feature of these communiqués is the remarkably consistent quality of writing: far better, far more cleanly evocative than most of what passes for journalism these days.  Apparently the authors, diplomats spread across the globe, all consider themselves members of a secret elite club who compete to impress each other with their wry yarns spun from foreign adventure.

    While the events described vary widely, one theme came clearly through each of the cables read Sunday night.  People in other countries care deeply about the United States of America.  No, they don’t love us, perhaps don’t even respect us.  But they care what we do and what we think.  A lot.  And those of them that hate and/or fear us don’t do so because of our aggression and our imperialism.  These crass aspects of Americanism are the ones they actually understand and abide, and even hope to emulate.  No, it is our blithe and breezy free-thinking, our defiance of authority, our belief in the individual and his or her right to express themselves openly— in a word our liberalism—  that that they fear, as these cables give evidence time and time again.

    One of the notes I jotted to myself while listening to these classified cables being read was “Theatre is inherently subversive.”  In a digital world, the simple act of consuming your art or your journalism off the electron grid qualifies as low-grade sedition.  Adding leaked classified documents as source material serves to spike the punch to an intoxicating level.  Tom Paine would recognize this work as what it plainly is: a tiny tune-up of world democracy.  It was theatre like this that gave birth to the Czech Republic.  No one person can ever fully comprehend or appreciate the enormity and the pervasiveness of its power.  But you can catch a glimpse.  And so I did, Sunday night.  NewsWrights United  currently plans to stage more of these WikiLeaks offerings, I’ll be sure to let you know so you can catch one too, and share the delicious sedition-steeped fun.  (Thought to be certain you keep current on NewsWright United’s doings, you should “like” us at Face Book.)

    Long live the United States of America.  And long live the blend of art and the treason that makes her rise, often against her own mendacious, mediocre volition, to her best.

    Posted at 12:09 PM in Art, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (8)

    Tags: Acting, actor/playwright relationship, Art versus craft, lying in acting, Macallan, Paul Mullin, playwriting, Seattle theatre history, William Salyers

  • Demons’ Year Off

    Demons’ Year Off

    I started in show business as an actor.  Well, strictly speaking I started as the lead singer for a rock-and-roll band, but given that I was thirteen when I auditioned for “Paradox” in Jimmy McNally’s cramped basement, and that the pinnacle of our public performances was playing the midnight “Rock ‘n Bowl” at the Timonium Fair Lanes, where Jimmy also worked as a fry cook, let’s just say for simplicity’s sake that I began my show business career as an actor.

    No one, least of all I, should argue that an actor’s work is easy; but the discipline it requires, in my experience, can be leveraged largely from external sources.  If you have some talent and ideally get a little training, then you can start auditioning for jobs.  If you manage to land those, then someone other than yourself will be telling when to show up, what to do when you do, and when to go home when the rehearsal or show is done. 

    Anyone who decides, like I did back in the late 1980’s, that they also might want to wright for the stage, soon learns that the coterie of people in place to whip-crack— the teachers, directors, and stage managers—are simply not there for playwrights.  This is because– and we all know it is true, whether or not we care to admit it– no one in or out of this business really cares if anyone ever wrights another original play. (I promise I will dedicate another essay to this subject, so save your outraged disputations to this easily provable fact for when I do.)

    So what do you do when you want to create new work in an art form that does not want new work?  And how do you drive yourself when you are used to others imposing the necessary discipline?  Well, if you are me, in the late 80’s, an impoverished, arrogant and charmless college drop-out, working as a day laborer at the National Archives, you do what your Irish Catholic forbears taught you to do: you create demons.  With time and careful nurturing, these demons will grow strong enough to drive you to create.

    I won’t enumerate the various demons I have spawned to spur me over the years.  Some are deeply personal, others closely held trade secrets.  If you want demons to propel you, conceive and grow your own.  I will share, however, a fairly prosaic one which I have employed probably with the most success over the longest periods of my career: the demon of hours tracking. 

    Here’s how it goes.  Decide how many hours you can devote to creativity in a given day, week or month.  Shoot for that goal.  If you make it easily, adjust it higher.  If you miss your mark, consider adjusting it lower, but first try again to hit it.  Keep upping your goals over the weeks, months and years of your career.  In 2010 I put in more “creative hours” in a single year than I have since 1997 when I was working full-time as a freelance documentary writer; and to my credit, I have been more conservative over the last half decade about what counts.  Back in the 90’s, when I was single and had little to care about besides putting food and booze in my mouth, getting laid and becoming the greatest playwright you might ever meet, everything I did that was even remotely creative counted against my “writing work hours”: all the movies I saw, all the books I read.  I remember describing the discipline to someone at a party and joking, “Hell, even this conversation counts.  I can count sexual fantasies against my hours, though they usually don’t take me all that long.”

    About three months ago I began to toy with the idea of giving my demons, especially the “hours-tracking” demon the year of 2011 off.  The fantasy felt delicious.  When you let demons drive you, you often find yourself feeling like you work for them instead of the other way around.  Even as I write this I’m thinking to myself, “Well, this is taking quite a while to get right, but that’s good, because it’ll count against my hours for the week.” Only it won’t, because I am not tracking them anymore.  It feels odd, like I’m writing this essay for free; but of course, I’m always writing these for free.  My only payment before was the satisfaction I got from beating back my demons for another week.

    Messing with one’s discipline has consequences.  One result will soon become apparent to readers of Just Wrought, as the output here is sure to diminish.  That is part of the plan though, since I am looking to listen more than talk going forward.  Other consequences are less predictable.  I could slip into a slough of laziness: watching more TV, reading more trashy books, staring more often out the window at nothing but the trees.  Frankly, all of that sounds pretty good right now.

    Potential upsides include happening onto new veins of creativity to mine, ones that were obscured by a slavish devotion to appeasing my demons.  Or I might finally decide to give up writing all together.  Seems unlikely, but odd things happen when you cut yourself loose.

    Posted at 12:09 PM in Art, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (8)

    Tags: Acting, actor/playwright relationship, Art versus craft, lying in acting, Macallan, Paul Mullin, playwriting, Seattle theatre history, William Salyers

  • It’s Been a Year

    I launched Just Wrought a year ago today with the essay “Towards a World Class Theatre”.  I am glad I did it, but now for reasons completely different from those I had when I started.  Back then I had no idea that through this blog I would gain the good friendship and professional working relationship I have with Jim Jewell, now the Managing Producer of NewsWrights United; or that I would get to know Lyam White, Jose Amador, and Omar Willey so much better.

    Conversely, I honestly did not suspect that I would lose some friends simply by saying publicly what I had always said to them in private bullshit sessions; but alas, this too is true, as some have conflated my arguments here about failures of leadership, courage and imagination in Seattle theater with personal aggression towards them and their livelihoods.  Some, but happily not all, or even most; because even more surprising than the estranged colleagues have been the artistic leaders who have reached out to me to say essentially, “I think a lot of what you say is crap, but I am glad you are saying it.”

    Just like nearly everything we do as artists—or really, humans— I have no idea if this project has succeeded, and I may never know.  I do not suspect for a minute that I have yet made even the slightest dent in the status quo of how theatre gets done in Seattle, but I do sometimes flatter myself with believing I have helped simultaneously broaden and sharpen the conversation.

    Of the thirteen formal essays I set out to write, I have managed to finish only five over the last 365 days.  Looking at the list now, I realize with certainty that I will never write at least three of them.  “Since When Are Directors Indispensable?” was going to point out that directors are a relatively new species in the long history of theatre, and that playwrights like Shakespeare and Moliere managed incomparable dramatic brilliance without them; but honestly, I don’t know of a single working playwright who leans more heavily on the talent of the directors he collaborates with than myself.  I literally cannot imagine producing Tuesday at Annex Theatre, or our current Living Newspapers, without Dawson Nichols, and the thought of the erstwhile Empty Space’s production of  Louis Slotin Sonata without John Langs at the helm, bringing together as he did all the amazing acting and design elements (not to mention his kick-ass choreography in the second act dance number) literally depresses me.  I could not do my work without directors, so what sort of non-hypocritical point was I hoping to make?  Perhaps only that the rising stock of the anti-collaborative idea of singular stage director auteurship, borrowed as it is from filmmaking, is a mistaken and destructive direction in theatre, especially when regional houses make season selections based on which plays will entice particular directors to work with them.  Throughout the 20th century stage directors gained power   mostly at the expense of playwrights.  The art form will regain health when that inequity is honestly addressed and steps are taken to resolve it.

    I also no longer plan to write about the deleterious arrangement Seattle theatre has with Actors Equity (the stage actors union), or how the viral nature of MFA programs for actors, directors and playwrights is weakening and rarifying our art form in this country.  I realize after this year of speaking out that as a college-dropout actor-turned-playwright, these are no longer my battles to fight.  Only the actors in this town can fix things so they have the same right to develop new works for the stage as actors in Los Angeles and New York; and only young people themselves can wake up and realize that chasing the imprimatur of higher education only takes them further away from the audiences that really need them, and that the excuse of needing a degree to make a living by teaching their craft only perpetuates the virus, while ultimately helping no one, including themselves.

    Of the five essays I did manage to write I am proud and stand by them.  Locally grown new plays do matter, and I see signs that Seattle is making more of them.  World Class Theatre does mean something, even when it cannot and should not be defined precisely.  Playwrights and designers can form some amazing alliances, and I earnestly hope for more of them, for myself and for the world of play development at large.  One-person shows are an easy way for a theaters to shirk the hard work of actually making new plays.  (All props and apologies to Mike Daisy, Jose Amador, Marya Sea Kaminski and everyone else who does such amazing solo work.  I don’t want you to stop.  I just want theatres to stop selling live story-telling  as “plays” {And yes, I understand that even that won’t happen.})

    That leaves five essays unwritten and unspiked.  The one most likely to see daylight in 2011 is “Stop trying to be Respectable, You’re in Show Business”; because I still see way too many of my Seattle colleagues cozying up for financial support and social legitimacy to the very same powerful interests that they should instead be looking for ways to indict theatrically.  I wish I had a condo payment for every time an otherwise  brilliant artistic administrator has baldly insisted to me that theatre is an elitist art form and therefore must depend on the good graces of corporations and  the upper class for its existence.  If I believed this, I would not only quit today, I would start doing everything I could to darken every stage currently producing plays in this city.  Thankfully, I know better.  As show people, we are at our best playing the dangerous fool, telling the wealthy and well-placed  who would teach us our art, what Lear’s Fool told Lear, “I am better than thou art now; I am a Fool, thou art nothing.”

    Just Wrought’s first year has been an often hectic, sometimes even bruising struggle.  Lately I have had to remind myself and others that I am an artist first, and an advocate only much further down my list of priorities.  Over the last few weeks I have been feeling a growing need to take time to lie fallow here for the sake of my creativity.  I resolve to listen more than I talk in 2011.  Of course that doesn’t mean I won’t be talking at all.

    Expanded conversations.  Bruising struggles over important ideas.  Greater clarity around the issues about which I should just keep quiet.

    Lost friends.  Gained friends. 

    It’s been a year.

    Posted at 12:09 PM in Art, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (8)

    Tags: Acting, actor/playwright relationship, Art versus craft, lying in acting, Macallan, Paul Mullin, playwriting, Seattle theatre history, William Salyers

  • The Uses of Art

    The Uses of Art

    Art…

    • Reminds us we are going to die
    • Keeps us interested in living
    • Breaks us open
    • Gives hope
    • Devastates
    • Terrifies
    • Delights
    • Comforts the afflicted
    • Can help us to shut the fuck up for a blesséd moment
    • Afflicts the comfortable
    • Makes us human*
    • Magnifies the greater glory of God†
    • Joins the long conversation
    • Engenders reasonless gratitude
    • Offers the means to become other people
    • Demonstrates unprovable truth.

    I have been noodling on this list for years, mostly because I like to have reasons handy when I teach playwriting. (An investigation of the uses of playwriting would open a whole other can of worms.)  I have arranged these in a loose, ostensibly amusing order of my own choosing. I would be truly delighted to hear suggestions for additions, adjustments and deletions.

    Over the last century or so we have tended to shy away from objectivity in the arts and have emphatically discarded any objective means of defining exactly what art is. “It can’t be done,” we shrug; or we toss down the glib gauntlet, “Art is whatever I say it is”, knowing full well that if that were true, then art would be, by extension, whatever anyone says it is, and by further extension, simply everything. And when something is “everything”, it achieves equivalence to “nothing.” Or perhaps even less than that.

    So I would like to suggest that art might only be objectively defined in the context of its utility. Or in plainer words, in order to know what art is, we have to talk about—and maybe can only talk about— what art does.

    I understand I have no special standing to proffer such a list. I quit college after my sophomore year. My plays are only rarely and mostly marginally produced. I am an administrative coordinator at a biotech company, a husband, a father and a person. That last post is the only one I believe entitles me to talk about art; but I stand fiercely by that standing, because, after all, if art is not for persons, then for whom is it?

    My plan over the next few months, or—let’s be honest—years, is to write a short essay about every one of the uses I listed above, and maybe even some I have not yet thought of— maybe some that you suggest. Please be warned, however, that my track record for delivering on promised essays is spotty at best. 

    Happy Holidays.

    2010

    *Not always a good thing.

    †Even if there isn’t One.

    5/28/14 To see my more recent essay, “The Misuses of Art”, please click here.

    Posted at 12:09 PM in Art, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (8)

    Tags: Acting, actor/playwright relationship, Art versus craft, lying in acting, Macallan, Paul Mullin, playwriting, Seattle theatre history, William Salyers

  • Another Step in the Right Direction from ACT

    Another Step in the Right Direction from ACT

    One of the most vital infrastructural components of World Class theatre towns like London and New York completely missing in otherwise vibrant theatre towns like Los Angeles and Seattle, is the intra-city play pipeline: a means for moving, within a given city, successful shows from smaller venues to larger ones so that they can reach more people and, yes, make more money.  With its announcement that it will be bumping up the recent hit Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog from its birthplace at Balagan Theatre on Capitol Hill to the Allen Theater space at A Contemporary Theatre in the heart of downtown Seattle, ACT seems to be indicating its willingness to attempt opening just such a pipeline.  And as much as it might pain a perpetual complainer to give credit where credit is due, this is by no means the first time in the last few years that ACT has taken a bold step.

    While Intiman flails about trying to figure out how to stay alive, and the Seattle Rep continues to… well, do whatever the hell it believes it’s doing  (Really?  Dancing with Lughnasa is so burningly urgent that you need to stage it every fifteen years?),  ACT has, under the artistic leadership of Kurt Beattie, and the entrepreneurial vision of Carlo Scandiuzzi, charged forward with innovation and risk-taking with an eye towards reaping the significant rewards that taking such risks can bring.  By introducing such novel programs as the Central Heating Lab and the ACTPass, maintaining the success of the Young Playwrights Program,  and nurturing informal partnerships with promising groups like New Century Theatre, Awesome and now Balagan, just to name a few, ACT has managed to do something few regional theatres anywhere can honestly claim: it actually lives up to its hypey catch phrase: “ACT: A Theatre of New Ideas”, and as a result, seems to be positioning itself to dominate Seattle’s theatre scene by creating an eclectic, constantly brimming shopping center of performance in the gorgeous historic old Eagles Building right next door to the Washington State Convention center.

    Apparently for now, of the Three Bigs, only ACT believes that Seattle really can be a World Class theatre town and that one of its LORT houses really can take steps to make that happen.  Now, will ACT keep it up?  In the past they have let crucial programs such as FirstACT and FringeACT die while they strived to stay alive.  The pressure of success is an all-together different beast than the pressure of failure.  Can they keep moving forward when expectations for their operations begin to rise beyond simple survival?  Can they keep taking chances even when some risks will inevitably reap failure?

    Golly, I hope so.  And what’s more, I’m really starting to believe it.

    Posted at 12:09 PM in Art, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (8)

    Tags: Acting, actor/playwright relationship, Art versus craft, lying in acting, Macallan, Paul Mullin, playwriting, Seattle theatre history, William Salyers

  • NewsWrights’ Awareness & Fundraising Event – How’d we do?

    NewsWrights’ Awareness & Fundraising Event – How’d we do?

    NewsWrights United held its first ever awareness/fundraising event, Journalism: a.WAKE.ning? this past Monday night.  After taking a few days to recover, I thought it was high time to take a look at how we did.

    Goal 1: Raising Awareness

    The Excerpt Reading

    The evening’s kick off entertainment came with Dawson Nichols’ staging of the first scene of our working script for upcoming second edition of our Living Newspaper: The New New News, featuring the inestimable talents of Robert Agostinelli, Shawn Belyea, Khanh Doan, Amy Love,  Joseph P. McCarthy, and our own Wes Andrews.  It is rollercoaster fun for a playwright to watch talented professional actors read, after very little rehearsal, words one collaborated to wright.  One moment you stand horrified helpless witness as they mangle laugh lines you crafted and treasured so dearly; the next moment thrill blossoms again as they find whole new laughs you never expected or designed.  Shawn Belyea embodied the definition of a professional actor– versus, say, a very talented and eager amateur– when he managed to wring the biggest laugh of the night out of losing his place in the script.

    Excerpt Reading from The New New News: A Living Newspaper featuring Robert Agostinelli, Khahn Doan, Amy Love and Shawn Belyea (left to right)

    The Panel Discussion

    Our Consulting Producer, Tom Paulson, ran this discussion of the current state of journalism, with such local luminaries as legendary sports columnist Art Thiel, new media maven, Monica Guzman, Mark Higgins, Metro Editor for The Seattle Times, Brendan Kiley, Theater Critic and Features Reporter for The Stranger, and Chris Grygiel, coordinator of political coverage for the Seattle P-I.com.  Personally, I found this panel discussion the most exciting portion of the evening.  Tom pointed hard-hitting questions at everyone in the room, and not one of the panelists shied away from answering frankly, a rare occurrence, as you would know if you have attended similar discussions in the last couple years.  Journalists have been very leery about hashing through the woes of their industry.  For a quick rundown of the various points-of-view represent, I cannot do better than the rundown provided by Jake Ellison over at Seattlepostglobe.org, which you can check out by clicking here.

     The Journalism: a.WAKE.ning? Panel. Tom Paulson (in cap) moderates Paul Mullin, Mark Higgens, Monica Guzman, Chris Grygiel, Art Thiel, and Brendan Kiley. (Left to right.)_

    One moment seemed to leap out for nearly everyone in the room.  Several good friends gave me their feedback in the days after and nearly all of them specifically mentioned the earnest and well-argued exchange between Art Thiel and Brendan Kiley regarding the definition of a journalist.  Is it, as Art argued, an expert in a certain field or, per Brendan, an aggressive novice?  One friend clearly felt Brendan played the wrong-headed asshole in the debate; the other friend, however, remarked on how freaked out he was by what he viewed as Art’s vehement defensiveness.  To a playwright this sounds like magic.  When you can produce something on stage from which different audience members can draw diametrically opposed notions of who the villain was, then you are most definitely cooking with gas.

    GRADE FOR AWARNESS RAISING – 95% – “A”

    Goal 2: Raising Funds

    Of course, the second and co-equal goal for Journalism: a.WAKE.ning? was to raise additional funds for our upcoming second edition: The New New News: A Living Newspaper.  We did that, posting a considerable surplus for the evening, but we could have done it better.  We are a new organization and still learning out how to do the all things we need to do to survive and thrive.  We will get better at this.

    GRADE FOR FUND RAISING – 82.7%  – “B-minus”

    And now to you . . .

    Because we continue reaching for our support goals, I would like to ask you right now to consider joining the NewsWrights team as a supporting member.  We have a wide spectrum of levels at which you can join.  I ask you to consider coming on as at least a “Cub Reporter” for a donation of $25.  Dawson Nichols smartly modeling the vintage, limited edition Seattle P-I cap available at the $50

    At the $50 level you will be listed in our program as a “Columnist” and in recognition of your generosity, you will receive, while supplies last, a limited edition Seattle P-I ball cap just like the one you see Artistic Producer Dawson Nichols smartly modeling in the photo  to the right.

    At the “Desk Editor” level, representing a $100 gift, you will receive two hats,  plus two reserved seats to any performance including one of our three opening nights, as we deliver the paper to Seattle’s doorstep in three neighborhoods: West Seattle, Capitol Hill and Northgate.

    At the $1,000 “Media Mogul”  level you will receive all of those perks, plus coverage of any local story you want by NewsWrights United, because we, like certain cable TV news operations, can clearly be bought.

    Finally, if all you can spare is $10, we would be deeply grateful to have you join our team as a “Newsie”. 

    The bottom line is we want your support– any support– because your support represents your “buy-in” to our mission, and that keeps us strong both fiscally and spiritually. So please consider joining us at whatever level you can.  It’s as easy as clicking on our trusty upside-down  NewsWrights Support Fedora, below.  It will take you to our Shunpike donation page. 

    Donation hatThank you so much for filling our hat with your support!

    (Also, if you have not already done so, please consider “liking” our Face Book page here.  For now, it is the very best way to keep track of our doings and some very evocative discussions around current journalism issues. )

    Posted at 12:09 PM in Art, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (8)

    Tags: Acting, actor/playwright relationship, Art versus craft, lying in acting, Macallan, Paul Mullin, playwriting, Seattle theatre history, William Salyers

  • Better-Late-Than-Never Breaking Press for “Journalism: a.WAKE.ning?”

    Better-Late-Than-Never Breaking Press for “Journalism: a.WAKE.ning?”

    Extra!  Extra!

    As luck and irony would have it, all the press for Journalism: a.WAKE.ning? is breaking late, fast and furious.  Here’s a rundown of what came across the wires this weekend:

    The Stranger

    The Sunbreak

    Seattle Theatre Examiner

    • The Gist:  Now is exactly the time to gamble on locally grown new plays.
    • The Pull-quote:  “The previous golden age of American theater was smack-dab during the last Great Depression,” said Mullin. “We must not sit around on our hands waiting for the rich to pay us to make art for them. The rich don’t need our help and they will not share our vision. We need to make art for the people who are suffering in these drastic times, and let the chips fall where they may. We need to enter the fray.”
    • The Link: http://www.examiner.com/theater-in-seattle/no-better-time-to-produce-theater-seattle

    Late buzz is better than no buzz at all, and we are grateful for it. 

    So if you haven’t already bought your tickets, don’t feel bad but DO IT NOW!   Click HERE to make your order at Brown Paper Tickets, or if you’re feeling lucky and pressed for time, buy them at the door.

    Either way . . .

    We’ll see you tonight!

    Posted at 12:09 PM in Art, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (8)

    Tags: Acting, actor/playwright relationship, Art versus craft, lying in acting, Macallan, Paul Mullin, playwriting, Seattle theatre history, William Salyers

  • Get your Tix Now for the Journalism/Theatre Event of the Year

    Get your Tix Now for the Journalism/Theatre Event of the Year

    Tickets just $20 at Brown Paper Tickets.

    Monday November 15, 2010 – 7:30-9:30pm

    The Upstairs Gallery above Theatre Off Jackson

    NewsWrights United is throwing a party. What kind of party is up to you.

    Do you want to toast the rebirth of journalism, or drown your sorrows at its untimely demise?

    We’ll start your evening with a complimentary glass of champagne or shot of rye (toasting or drowning?). Visual art and installations, complimentary hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar await you in the gallery.

    We’ll offer up a preview scene from our upcoming Living Newspaper, The New New News, and highlight the evening with a panel discussion on new media and journalism moderated by NewsWrights producer Tom Paulson and featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning P-I political cartoonist Dave Horsey, Monica Guzman of Intersect.com, Publicola‘s Josh Feit, local sportswriting legend Art Thiel, The Stranger theatre critic Brendan Kiley, and Chris Grygiel, coordinator of political coverage for the P-I blogs.

    Get ‘em now before the all get got!

    Tickets just $20 at Brown Paper Tickets.

    Posted at 12:09 PM in Art, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (8)

    Tags: Acting, actor/playwright relationship, Art versus craft, lying in acting, Macallan, Paul Mullin, playwriting, Seattle theatre history, William Salyers

  • Chicago Posts: Dead and Alive

    Three nights ago my old friend Louis Slotin and I each got one of those chances that only theatre can offer.  He got to be alive while I got to be dead.

    Everybody loves a dead playwright.  The deader the better.  Living ones are prickly and unpredictable.  Actors and directors assume, sometimes rightly, that living playwrights have special insight into their plays because, well, they wrote them.  Such insight can be resented as often as welcomed.  Rehearsing a play is a process of discovery.  No one wants to do an Easter egg hunt with someone they suspect knows where all the eggs are hidden.  Smart playwrights understand when it’s time to walk out of the rehearsal hall so everyone else can breathe a little.  They do this even though they know that they do not in fact have all the answers and really might like to stay and hunt for a little treasure too.  In other words, a smart playwright knows when to roll over and play dead.

    As I confessed in an earlier essay installment of these Chicago Posts, I have seen every full production of every play I have ever written.  Often I have been part of the development process, even if the play has already had its world premiere.  For Louis Slotin Sonata’s second production which was staged off–Broadway at Ensemble Studio Theatre I rewrote substantially, adding at least one scene, which I would later cut.  I was living in New York at the time, so I could attend as many rehearsals as I wanted (and thought wise.)  The same was true for the third production at the now dead Empty Space Theatre.  By then I had moved to Seattle with my wife and kids and was able to work with the director, John Langs, to touch up the script, and most importantly, completely swap out the second act song, replacing it with the utterly original “Sodom Saki Shuffle” for which I wrote all new lyrics which the incomparable Mark Nichols then brilliantly scored.  (Click this to hear the Seattle version of the Sodom Saki Shuffle.)

    For this fourth production of the play at A Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago , I had nearly zero input.  I answered a few small script questions via email from the director Karen Kessler, but otherwise I really might as well have been blissfully departed.  So I had no idea what I was in for when showed up at the storefront theatre in Old Town two nights ago.  I have sat through productions I had nothing to do with that blew me away with their unforeseen brilliant interpretation of my script, and I have sat through shows so awful, so utterly antithetical to the play I imagined that I was struck quite literally catatonic with horror, rage and shame.

    Louis Slotin was just about to leave Los Alamos when he had his accident.  His bags were packed.  He was showing the “crit test” to Alvin Graves, his replacement at Pajarito Canyon labs.  The next day he planned to fly out to the South Pacific to see the Navy explode the very plutonium core he held in his hands.  From there he would head to the University of Chicago to continue his studies in his original field of biology.  Of course, Slotin never made it to Chicago.  He never made it out of Los Alamos alive.  They put his radiation-ravaged body in a lead-lined casket and shipped it to Winnipeg, Manitoba, his hometown.

    Two nights ago I saw Louis Slotin alive in Chicago.  He was occupying the body of an actor named Steven Schine, who through happy happenstance looks a hell of a lot like him.  I watched as that long-ago dead man was forced to, via long distance phone call, break the news in Yiddish to his father Israel Slotin that he was dying.  Israel was inhabiting the body of an eminently accomplished veteran Chicago actor named William J. Norris.

    I watched those men relive a pain that no one should even have to live through once.  I watched and I wept.  But I also felt a great strange satisfaction.  After 64 years Louie had arrived where he was going.

    Maybe I should play dead more often.

    Posted at 12:09 PM in Art, Seattle, Theatre | Comments (8)

    Tags: Acting, actor/playwright relationship, Art versus craft, lying in acting, Macallan, Paul Mullin, playwriting, Seattle theatre history, William Salyers