Staunton, Home

I get around a lot but I've decided to try rooting awhile. I've signed a lease/option to purchase on a beautiful condo in Staunton, which I'm going to make my home base, at least long enough to see if that works. Staunton's a lovely little town, filled with people doing work I admire, and the right-driving distance to regional theater markets on the eastern seaboard and in the south and midwest (markets that include Atlanta, Washington D.C., Richmond, and Philadelphia, not to mention NYC.) Living here will mean working SMARTER in some ways: living in NYC or Philly, an actor can power through slow periods by brute auditioning, but that gets old and the returns can be slow to materialize. From Staunton, I hope to keep active with theater relationships I've already made--on both sides of the country--and, when possible or necessary, make my own work. Auditioning in NYC will still be on the agenda, but in a more selective fashion.

It helps that Virginia is lovely country, and Staunton's within three hours of Washington, D.C., and even closer to Charlottesville, Richmond, and Roanoke.

I'm old enough now to want my feet on the ground so my head may stay in the clouds.

Here goes!

Dumaine

photo by Lauren D. Rogers

Holofernes

photo by Lauren D. Rogers

Malvolio

photo by Tommy Thompson

Malateste

Iowa Wesleyan College

Setting up for Twelfth Night, in Chapel Auditorium, Iowa Wesleyan College

Ben Cameron on new "Reformation" in the Performing Arts

Listening past Cameron's charisma and showmanship, I like the substantive, if perhaps overstated, argument he makes here (link to Ben Cameron's Ted Talk), that we're undergoing a contemporary "Reformation" in the arts, as old institutional structures hamstring innovation, at the same time democratizing technologies--e.g. digital image making, internet--liberate innovation. Cameron also speaks to a mismatch between economic structures and professionalism in the performing arts. He's probably right that a 'Pro-Am' way of doing performance is increasingly going to thrive ( as in Philly, Portland, Austin, Houston, Milwaukee, Chicago....) This is perhaps bad news for those of us who'd like to 'make a living' in the arts, but good news for anyone who can see a way to participate in the arts WHILE making a living (at something else, either closely tied to the arts, or not.)

Undeniably, it takes creativity to find ways to work creatively.

Doing My Laundry in Texas

I did my laundry last night at a huge, NW Austin coin op, just off the freeway, busy with families and workers, most of them Mexican, little kids running around, one middle-aged couple canoodling sexily at laundry-folding station (he looked preoccupied, she was more focused), guys waiting for huge loads of work shirts, jeans, safety vests. The atmosphere was by turns cheerful and stoical. 

I say to heck with anyone who wants to keep these people out of the U.S. They're work'n their asses off.

On "How to Greet Strangers" by Joyce Thompson

I just finished reading my friend Joyce Thompson's entertaining and original detective thriller, How to Greet Strangers, and enjoyed it immensely. It put me in mind of Raymond Chandler. Thompson's hero, Archer Barron, shares Philip Marlowe's moralism and expertise in self defense while allowing himself more outlet for pent-up hedonism than Marlowe ever did. Archer is very much a twenty-first century hero, black, gay, apostate to Santeria (definitely look it up!), HIV positive, glorious drag queen, smart as a whip, and here to stay. I recommend Archer heartily as great company.

How to Read Well

We'd all be well-served to remember what, I think, was Howard Zinn's advice about reading well: before arguing with what we read, taking it apart for how the author's argument fails or how we disagree with it, we'd do better to try understanding it, first. We're better served by first testing for an argument's possible insights or possible truths, for its validity or soundness, and then, only after that, taking it apart for its errors or failures. When I was a grad student in philosophy, I saw several of the better students spontaneously discover this for themselves, in the first semester. Those who didn't figure it out (spontaneously or not) remained not only contentious, but also failed to grow as thinkers. The worst habit that social media enforces is our habit of premature disagreement. Disagreement is a step, but we too often miss the EARLIER step of, so to speak, 'provisional agreement.'