Friday, October 26, 2007

Movin' On...

Well, after a long wait between the notice and the final hours (8 weeks, possibly a new record in the annals of resignation...), here it is in all its glory...

The subject of my last post has become even more poignant in that I'll be gainfully employed at Jones Hall less than 12 hours after my last duty has been discharged here at the Alley (notes session for the second preview of The Scene) loading in the Shaolin Warriors show at 8 AM tomorrow morning.


This is not meant to be an indictment of anyone (past or present) in the Alley Organization. It is merely an explanation (to myself as much as anyone else) of the reasoning behind what is the biggest decision so far of my Adult life. I spent about 16 months actively considering the reasons, pros and cons of making this decision.

Initially, my decision was based on the premise that the next two and a half to three years would be very intense and time consuming ones in terms of the operations of the theater and the production department (especially lighting and sound). It was looking like it would go something like this:

After Carol opens this year, the theater kicks into high gear for about five months, culminating with the second of two musicals (Paris) opening after two and a half weeks of tech and two weeks of previews. Instead of taking a week or two to recuperate, the lighting and sound departments will be called upon to pack up everything that they have in the 615 building not in use in Paris and ship it off to one of three locations:

cold storage with limited or no access for the season produced offsite,

easily accessible storage for instruments/speakers and other miscellaneous equipment,

whatever office space we would be using for the 08-09 season.

This would take a few weeks, followed by another frenzied period of packing up everything that was used in Paris and hauling it off to the appropriate location.

Once all of 615 is cleared out and the building is ready to undergo its magical transformation, the grind of the offsite season will be upon us. I don't care how close the venue is or what type of reduced season we produce, it is still going to be a grueling experience, mainly because it is going to involve producing theater in a completely new and foreign manner. We're pretty spoiled here at the Alley in several ways. The facility is ours, and we can do whatever we want, whenever we want and answer to no one but ourselves. Not so wherever we end up. We are self encapsulated in our little universe on the 600 block of Texas Avenue. Whenever we need something, need to build something, it's right there where we can get at it in 5 minutes or less. At an offsite venue it may take someone five minutes or more to get to their vehicle and get on the road to storage or the shop or wherever they need to go.

In addition to that every member of the shop head staff as well as the production office will also be vetting and checking in on the work occurring back at 615 Texas. Clint and I will spend the most time over there, but Jason and Nancy would probably need to take some time away from the shop to make sure things in their world were going according to plan down there as well.

After a season on the road, the summer would (ideally) be spent by everyone moving everything back into 615, feeling out the new amenities, and figuring out exactly how we're going to initially approach producing theater in a totally new environment. This would be followed by the start of a full slate of high profile titles designed to celebrate the return of the Alley Theater company to it's renovated home. As new discoveries are made and new methods of doing things developed the additional layer of stress will no doubt make what would have been a challenging season in the old facility all the more daunting.

By the following May, several shop heads and staff members could conceivably be coming off 30 months of intense production and work without a significant break. Even if a break or two were secured for everyone, the things that potentially slipped through the cracks during those breaks and having to deal with them when they returned would offset any relief provided by the time off. And all the problems probably won't be discovered and solved by the end of that first season back in 615. I can confidently say that we weren't in a comfortable place in terms of producing in the Neuhaus until after about four seasons, and there are still discoveries that are being made.

I didn't want to pass the "point of no return", as I saw the opening of Carol this season, and get sucked into the maelstrom that would be the next two and a half years of my life essentially devoted in some form or another to the Alley Theatre. And once the renovation got pushed back a year, that maelstrom went from being 2-1/2 years to 3-1/2 years (potentially 4-1/2 with the postponement of all of the previously documented activity), essentially putting me in my early to mid 40's before I could look around and even think about doing something like what I've decided to do now.

Twelve years of regional theater at the Alley, and another four before that of freelancing between Philadelphia and New England have taken a bit of a toll as well. The schedule for me as the head of the sound department essentially was a flexible one that altered between a traditional five day nineish to fiveish week format during the period of time when a show or shows are in performance (after they have opened and are being presented for paying audiences) and a six day a week 14-16 hour day format during the period of time we called tech, but which is also known as production, where we are in the space with the actors and all the technical elements coordinating everything before an audience gets to see it.

This fluctuation made it hard to have any kind of stable consistent life outside the theater unless it was with someone from the theater (and even then it wasn't always guaranteed success, especially if the other person wasn't from the production/performance area), and we all know the saying about mixing personal relationships with the workplace. But it went beyond the ability on my part to maintain a romantic relationship while working in the production department of a major regional theater. There have been countless times over the past nine years since I became the department head where I've heard about something happening that I'd really like to attend but had to say "I'm in tech", or I heard about something that had passed (either in a 'that was really great' vein or a 'where were you?' vein, always having to answer, "I was in tech" with a resigned sigh. I'm kinda over that and want to be able to be a part of my friends' lives on a more consistent basis.

Another large part of this decision has been the direction that the theater has taken in the past few years, mainly artistically but also operationally. The artistic mission statement of the theater outlines commitments to "interpret existing dramatic works boldly and with insight," to "bring forth new writers and plays destined to be the classics of tomorrow", and also to be "the collaborator of choice for artists and arts organizations, learning from these exchanges and exporting our work to the nation and the world." While these are inspiring sounding and commendable aspirations, the Alley is still in Houston, which is far off the beaten path of the 'traditional' theater circuit. We haven't had a corps of resident designers since Greg Boyd took over as Artistic Director nearly 20 years ago, and the lofty goal of expanding the resident acting company to 24 members has proven to be a difficult one at best. Much of this can be attributed to the high and stringent standards and demands of Greg (rarely, if ever, is local acting talent tapped for roles larger than that of the 'spearcarrier' category and the decisions of what shows are slotted where in the season are largely dependent on the availability of well established and acredited designers, most of whom are based out of New York where they do the majority of their work), but making the commitment to base oneself in Southeast Texas has an effect on the type of work and the amount of commitments in the rest of the country that one can reasonably expect to secure in a calendar year.

Part of why the renovation has been put off so many times is that there has never been a physical plan in place that satisfies the needs dictated by this mission statement. The consistent philosophy exhibited by all the versions of the physical renovation of the 615 facility essentially state that the Alley aspires to be a self producing theatre with a resident acting company in a facility that can be utilized as a roadhouse, so as to be able to easily bring productions in from other theaters and to send original productions on to other theaters. Unfortunately, Nina Vance didn't have this in mind back in the late 1960's. This was quite on purpose. She had been producing theater in two locations previous to the 615 Texas building for almost 20 years and liked the kind of theater that was coming out of the restrictive atmosphere the Alley company found itself in from 1947- until 1966, when the 615 building was designed. She even went so far as to specify that the size and configuration of the Neuhaus Arena Theater replicate the Berry Street location, which it pretty much did, the exception being that the Neuhaus (pre 2001 Tropical Storm Allison and the havoc that she wrought) had on additional row of seats. Being that the 615 building is about as far from being a traditional roadhouse as you can possibly get (no fly loft, tension mesh grid, modified thrust stage, unconventional seating configuration in a rapidly widening arc that plays hell with sightlines) it does not lend itself to this model of theater outlined in the mission statement. It also does not lend itself to change very well, mainly due to the fact that the whole thing (with the exception of the roof) is poured concrete. Plan after plan has been proposed, drafted, vetted by the production and artistic staff, redrafted, and then shelved or shitcanned. One of the most frustrating aspects of the current plan and its one year postponement is the fact that the new management team is in the latter stages of learning this painful truth about the building as it exists now, which is, in its most basic form:

However the facility is renovated and/or refit, it will never be the ideal facility for the production model outlined in the mission statement. Nothing short of building a new facility in a second location or razing the current one and starting anew will achieve this goal.

No one likes to think about this option for a variety of reasons, all of them valid:

The building is architecturally unique, and while it is relatively young, historic preservation has caught on here in Houston and the proposed demolition of it would result in community heritage organizations protesting vehemently. This has been a concern even when considering actions such as changing the roof line to accommodate a fly loft as part of a renovation.

The construction of any new facility brings up the ugly possibility of a season or seasons when the theater would not be producing. This has been determined to be unacceptable due to the loss of staff over the period of non production and the loss of patronage and community exposure over the same period of time.

The fundamental identity of the Alley would be inexorably altered by the implementation of a new facility, be it a replacement or a second space.

The addition of another facility for production would alter the nature of the mission statement in that it would call for additional programming to justify its creation and existence. The space at the top of the Prairie parking garage was originally slated to be a third performance space. It was re-conceived as a new home for the administrative offices and shops after it was determined that the programming schedule was not going to be expanded to justify the existence of a third performance space in the foreseeable future.

My interpretation of the Alley's intentions as far as the programming choices are concerned has always been that, while they need to be accessible enough to generate significant revenue, they also are relevant to the current social, political, and cultural climate in the world. As recently as two years ago, this was occurring at the theater, with productions of works such as the World War I era anti war play Jouney's End, and the very poignant Pillowman, which highlights the direction that our society finds itself being nudged more and more every day towards a totalitarian police state. The past few years have seen the theater take steps toward more Vanilla, mass appealing, revenue generating programming when there are daily events in the world that require highlighting due to the fact that everywhere else (mass media, political parties) there seems to be an elaborate shell game being performed to keep the general population's attention off what is really going on and where we are headed as a country, a society, and a race.

I don't know if I'm over theater as a whole, but I like Houston and Texas, I have a lot of friends that I care about here, and the Alley is the only real regional theater that I can do what I do at the Alley in Texas.

I feel that there is more that I can be doing as a member of the Human Race in the face of the decidedly un-human practices being inflicted by a very small percentage of the world population on a much greater percentage for the sake of power and monetary profit, no matter what the cost in human life and the health of the planet's fragile ecosystem in it's current state (which is the only reason that we have been able to survive and evolve into the world presence that we are).

One thing I plan on doing is to start working with the Pacifica Radio station that is here in Houston, KPFT. I've been listening to it for years and am a firm believer in what the station is primarily about in the form of a mission to serve the community. I don't necessarily believe in the messages and causes advanced by all of the programming, but that is patently impossible, and it is also a primary tenet of the Pacifica format as a listener sponsored and programmed non commercial radio station. I have a fairly unique skill set that can provide me with a steady living here in town but should also be useful in helping out at the station. I'm not expecting to be slotted in right away as an engineer on some of the higher profile shows and will do whatever they need, but I imagine that once I get an opportunity to exhibit my proficiency in audio that they'll be plenty for me to do.

1 comment:

Me said...

Phee!

How are, my friend?

Hope all is fantabulous with you and those you love. Hell, even those you like....

Happy Bird Day!

:)