Halcyon Theatre and Caffeine Theatre present Return to the Upright Position, a reading of an online text collaboration which conceived and edited by Caridad Svich.

Written during the six months after 9/11/01 by Cusi Cram, Mitchell Gossett, Julie Hebert, Llysa Holland, Julie Jensen, Jennifer Maisel. Julia Pearlstein, Brad Rothbart, Gregory Romero,Caridad Svich, Ann E. Taylor, Elizabeth Wong, Michael Wright and Allison Eve Zell.

A staged reading, Sunday September 11, 2011 at 7:30pm central time at the Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln.

Running time is approximately 60 minutes, with no intermission.

The performance features Carey Lee Burton, Gordon Chow, Yadira Correa, Mouzam Makkar, Daniel Smith. The performance was directed by Tony Adams, with dramaturgy by Dan Smith.

So you’re at the Humana Festival of New American Plays and you’ve got a few minutes. You’ve seen the art, you’ve looked at the gifts, you’ve had a beer. Maybe you’re in the mood to play a game.

Maybe you’re looking for something to engage audiences at your own theatre company.

Take the 2amt challenge.

First, download the SCVNGR app on your smartphone. Don’t worry, it’s free.

Sign in and create an account if you don’t already have one. Then, let it locate you at Actors Theatre of Louisville. You’ll see a list of four simple tasks that will earn a possible 13 points in total. These are simple things like taking a picture of the Press Table in the main lobby, finding me in the crowd, et cetera.

I’d tell you what the tasks are here, but then you’d have no reason to get the app and play along…

One task will ask you to also download the Broadcastr app as well. It’s free, too.

With this app, the challenge will ask you to record a quick audio message. Just introduce yourself, tell us where you’re from and what you’ve enjoyed at the Festival so far. The audio file is automatically tagged to the location–in this case, Actors Theatre–and anyone will be able to listen to it using the Broadcastr app or the Broadcastr website.

Each of these tasks is simple, part of a “game layer” on top of the real world, as the SCVNGR folks like to say. For the theatre world, it’s a fun way to engage your audience with more specific tasks and challenges themed to your current productions or festivals. It’s also a way to drive patrons into your sponsors’ places of business–the bonus round in the 2amt challenge will take you down the street to the 21c Museum Hotel to take a picture. While you’re there, maybe you’ll look around, get a drink at their bar, check out the menu.

Ideally, audiences would engage not just with the challenges and the production but with the sponsors’ business as well. Of course, tasks at sponsors’ locations can be more involved if you’d like, we’re keeping it simple this time for demonstration purposes.

Best of all, this game layer can be activated at any time–you can create these “treks” filled with challenges ahead of time and let audiences complete them as their schedule permits. Use them to build awareness for upcoming shows. You can make it a real live contest, first person to X number of points wins two tickets to the next production, or the tenth person, fiftieth, etc.

Which reminds me. First person to 13 points gets a drink on me.

See you at the Humana Festival!

Live from the stage of Actors Theatre of Louisville, a panel discussion about festivals and community.

From the Humana Festival of New American Plays to the IdeaFestival, Louisville, Kentucky, is home to a growing variety of high-profile festivals that celebrate the arts and culture, reflecting the joy of conversation and community in our city.

Why and how did all of this festivity begin to happen there? How do festivals impact the life of a city and vice versa? This panel features leaders from a handful of Louisville’s festivals examining these questions and more.

The panel features:

Marc Masterson, Humana Festival of New American Plays
Kris Kimel, IdeaFestival
Elaine Davis Steele, St. James Court Art Show
Leslie Broecker, Kentucky Derby Festival
Stewart Lussky, Festival of Faiths

Moderated by Stacey Yates (Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau)

The American Theater Wing, the Public Theater and 2amt are hosting a tweetup at the Public.

Are you a theatremaker? A theatre patron? Come mix and mingle with us. This is a tweetup for people who participate in the 2amt conversations, enjoy the American Theatre Wing’s videos and podcasts, admire work of the Public — this is a gathering for anyone who loves theatre, period.

We’ll be at the Public on Saturday, March 19th from 11:00 am until 12:30 pm..

Hosted by
Howard Sherman, American Theatre Wing
Nella Vera, the Public Theater
and David J. Loehr, 2amt

Space may be limited, so please RSVP.

A short film for the holidays, written by Adam Szymkowicz…

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Moment

Featuring Susan Louise O’Connor & Jeff Biehl

Written by Adam Szymkowicz
Directed by Scott Ebersold

“When Jane goes in to talk to her boss, in an instant of clarity, she notices something different in him that she never saw before. He sees it too in her. A new world opens up for them. Anything could be possible if they could just hold onto that moment.”

Produced by Lauren Fritz, Scott Ebersold, Marc Solomon
Director of Photography Greg Emetaz
Edited by Andrew McNown
Sound and Music Design by Ryan Maeker
Art Direction by Nicholas Vaughan and Kate Rusek
Costume, Hair and Make-up Design by Kate Rusek
Script Supervisor Barry Paul Hitchcock
Craft Services and Production Assistance Jennie Crotero

“We regret to inform you that of the 19 nominated plays, none was deemed sufficiently realized by the selection panel to receive the Prize. As a result, the Wasserstein Prize will not be presented in 2010. While the panel thought that many of the scripts showed promise, they felt that none of the plays were truly outstanding in their current incarnation.”

For a more complete story on the 2010 Wasserstein Prize or lack thereof, check out Kris Vire’s post at Time Out Chicago and playwright Michael Lew’s open letter to the Theatre Development Fund, which has taken over administration of the prize this year.

We find it hard to believe that 19 solicited playwrights failed to create anything worthy of the prize, but our taste shouldn’t be the counterpoint. We thereby propose presenting those plays to a wider audience.

We invite those 19 playwrights to allow readings of their work, convened nationwide and streamed live via the internet. And we invite 19 theatre companies to join us in presenting these readings, one per company, over the next several months.

If your theatre company is interested in presenting a reading, please fill out the form below.

If you are one of the 19 playwrights, please email Travis Bedard here.

We will create a special mailing list to get in touch and coordinate the project. Your information will not be shared outside of the project.

Thank you.

It should be clear that we at 2amt like Twitter just fine. But where do you draw the line? After this story about how some theatres in Australia are using Twitter during performances, an idea that some theatres are trying in the U.S., the question started flying around the #2amt hashtag. Here are a couple of opinions on where–or if–we should draw the line.

Feel free to chime in with comments and join the conversation.

GWYDION SUILEBHAN

Let me say off the bat: as a general rule, I don’t think audience members should be Tweeting during most performances, at least not until some new technology would let them do so without affecting the experience of non-Tweeting theatergoers. (Those bright cell phone screens in a dark house? Wretched.) A good production of a good play will reward focused attention every time, and Tweeting undoubtedly diminishes one’s attention for what’s on stage.

But…

It’s a fallacy to assume that theatergoers are entirely passive/receptive when they’re sitting in their seats. Our attention ebbs and flows throughout a performance. We start composing the things we want to say to our fellow patrons during intermission half an hour beforehand, for example, or a particular line of dialogue sends us spinning off into thoughts about Aunt DeeDee’s health struggles, or somebody’s performance makes us cringe and regret coming. Until now, we haven’t had a way to channel those thoughts into public expressions. We set them aside in our minds, as much as possible, and refocus on the story (although to be fair, many theatrical traditions allow audience members to shout, comment on the action, boo, hiss, and so on). Now, however, we have Twitter… and perhaps a safe place for those random thoughts to go.

Assume for a moment that we could overcome the problem of cell phone screens distracting other theatergoers and decomposing the sacred space. Would it still be problematic for audience members to Tweet what they were thinking? One might argue that they’d be better off not Tweeting and just paying more attention… but if they were only hurting themselves, should we stop them? And is it not possible – possible, anyway – that by Tweeting those thoughts, we’d be getting them out of our heads and making focused attention MORE achievable?

Let’s imagine a different scenario: a play that was devised to incorporate audience Tweets into its storytelling. The model here was established by (I think) Tim O’Reilly, noted Web 2.0 guru; at his conferences, attendees Tweet like mad… and a feed of their Tweets is projected behind the speaker at the podium for everyone to read and follow (and for non-attendees to follow as well). The experience – I’m speaking personally here – is demanding, but effective. It is definitely possible – especially for those of us who’ve lived in the Web 2.0 generation for several years now – to understand both the speaker and the Twitter feed. Nothing is lost; the speech is enhanced by the ambient intimacy and hive mind of one’s fellow attendees. Social norms generally prevent bad behavior – nobody wants to look like an ass by Tweeting anything adolescent – and rarely are thoughts on-screen duplicative: once someone has Tweeted what you’re thinking, you don’t need to.

Clearly the repercussions of this scenario need to be more fully understood… but what if they were tried, if only as a test, in the theater? Not as part of a production of Death of a Salesman, mind you – though that might be interesting, too – but as part of a play particularly written to incorporate the device. I recently learned of at least one playwright who has tried it (Max Sparber’s NSFW), and if others haven’t already, they certainly will soon. I’ve been thinking about incorporating a Twitter feed into a devised piece myself; just give me time.

Again, all of this isn’t to say that in-show Tweeting should become the dominant mode, but that there’s room to experiment… and that in doing so we might attract a younger generation of theatergoers who are accustomed to multi-tasking and (more importantly) who don’t assume their voices should be silenced as soon as they walk into a theater. As long as it isn’t a gimmick, but an inherent part of the story being told, why wouldn’t it work? And might we not discover an entirely new art form – Twee-ater – in the process? That would be grand.

Gwydion Suilebhan is a playwright and a member of the board of the Taffety Punk Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. Follow him on Twitter: @Gwydions

KATE POWERS

To tweet or not to tweet seems like the merest birth pang of a question that opens onto several more, like so many threads in the Twitterstream: when to tweet, with whom, while perched where? Should theatres invite their audiences to tweet during performances? Should theatres tweet at their audiences in flagrante delicto? I offer a resounding “maybe.”

If we are aiming to transform our audiences, to move them, to challenge them to consider some aspect of their emotional lives, the political situation or the world afresh, mightn’t we want to strive for conditions slightly better than trying to watch YouTube while inputting data into Excel? If one is tweeting, which is right up there with texting, how fully can one devote one’s self to the journey of the play? The studies about the dangers of attempting to drive and text proliferate. I am not suggesting that tweeting and watching theatre are on a par with driving and texting; I am suggesting that tweeting takes one’s attention away from whatever the second activity is, to some degree. Sure, there are plays that don’t require full activation of the brain pan or one’s emotional core and, alas, some that don’t deserve it, but we don’t want to start with that proposition; we only resignedly discover that along the way. I cannot tweet and carry on a conversation with a live person in the same room without missing a little something or feeling as if I have taken a small detour from completing my thought. Many of my colleagues say that they can happily tweet without being distracted, without limiting their availability to being swept along by the story, and if that is true for them, I am impressed. Skeptical but impressed.

So what are we talking about? Are we talking about allowing / inviting individual spectators to live tweet a performance event? Are we talking about the theatre offering would-be tweeters a special seating section where the blue glow of their devices will distract the rest of the audience less, but possibly mar the effect of a well-considered black out? Are venues going to release a stream of tweets throughout the performance to enlighten, clarify and enrich the performance? Are auditors going to tweet and are the actors going to respond?

Wolftrap, amongst others, has had success creating a ‘keep your device on’ section of the lawn and tweeting a virtual pop-up video of information as varied as biographical details of the composer and analysis of particular measures or the significance of the arrival of the horn section into the piece. As someone who is not particularly literate in symphonic music, I can see the value of this, particularly at an outdoor venue, where the lighting is not a component of the storytelling. Yet even while I see the utility of it, and might enjoy the info, my experience of the concert would be altered by it. I might benefit from the deeper understanding of the horn section, but I am less likely to engage emotionally with the music while I am busy reading my tweets. As Stoppard helpfully says, “If the answers are at the back of the book, I can wait.”

I love Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band: when I am in the pit, I want to get swept up into the tent revival euphoria that Bruce creates; I don’t want a tweet explaining the derivation of a Tenth Avenue freezeout (Bruce made it up; even he doesn’t know what the hell it is.)

I can imagine a similar set-up at an outdoor Shakespeare festival (indeed, I just received an invitation to ‘tweet from my seat’ at Richmond Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra, using the regrettable but perhaps inevitable hashtag #TonyandCleo10), where arcane words, historical references and allusions might be tweeted during the performance. Sort of pre-show discussion in progress. Again, if you are reading a tweet about the director’s concept, about the meaning of squeaking Cleopatras, or the anachronism implicit in “cut my lace, Charmian,” can you possibly be available to get swept along on the breathless journey of the play? I want to be engaged, I want to be moved, at the very least, I want to be told a good story. In the theatre, we struggle as it is to accomplish these aims. Is tweeting helping to tell the story or is it diluting the auditor’s attention? The jury is too busy tweeting about the deliberations to let us know the verdict thus far.

If we are talking about engaging the audience anew with Twitter, I am all for it. As long as it is in service to the storytelling. I know there are plays in development as I type that were written with a Twittered audience in mind, and if it supports or enriches the storytelling in a new play, then I say, “go play, boy, play.” I am urging thoughtful consideration, though; if we throw devices at our stages without care, we are creating gimmickry and not better storytelling. If we don’t weight the gains tweeting might provide against the losses it may inflict; if we don’t think through what live tweeting means to that portion of the audience that doesn’t particularly want to listen to little tiny keys clicking, doesn’t want to see a hundred glowing squares afloat in the house, we are sacrificing our sacred space to a trend.

Kate Powers is a New York based director and a volunteer facilitator with Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Follow her on Twitter: @DirectorKate

TRAVIS BEDARD

Kate Foy of Groundling stirred the pot on an otherwise slow Monday by asking around for thoughts on livetweeting in the theatre. An undistracted stream of theatre Twitter-ers chimed in. The arguments quickly broke down over poor audience members not having the silence and blackness they require, or the text not being honored. Lord that’s a boring conversation. If I have to hear one more person whine about candy unwrapping…

The conversation I want to have isn’t about how to shoehorn new technology into the theatre we already make. I have seen zero examples to date of instance of non-disruptive livetweeting. Existing plays weren’t created to be seen while commenting or participating, so adding on (or stapling on as I pejoratively phrased it on Twitter) is counter to the reasoning for presenting the show anyway.

But what can this technology enable for a playwright or deviser creating NEW work?

This is another possible tool on the utility belt for writers. It is indeed another entire plane of existence for characters.

Can extra-stage characters exist only in the Twitter-verse? Can the audience team up with one another for or against the stage characters?

What does the interaction between the sequestered, in-space audience and the free range Twitter audience look like?

How well can the playwright and director control that?

It’s hard to separate the personal from the hypothetical. It’s not easy to remove yourself from an equation when the whole point (really) is to figure out how you specifically can benefit from an innovation. The answer is, let’s figure out what we can do with that innovation first The stance that “I hate livetweeting the way it exists right now so I won’t even discuss what might be possible with it” is destructive to the conversation. This (or any) line of innovation might not be for you or even your brand of theatremaking, but that doesn’t render the conversation unworthy of having.

Travis Bedard is the artistic director of Cambiare Productions. He usually likes using the caps lock button. Follow him on Twitter: @travisbedard.

Some more pull quotes, this time a quick conversation from Twitter between playwright Kristoffer Diaz and Tony Adams, artistic director of Halcyon Theatre in Chicago, maybe spinning off a little from comments on yesterday’s post about scripts and AD’s…

Introducing a new feature here, Pull Quotes, which will feature a few thoughts from several people in the #2amt tag on Twitter. This time around, we’re following up on our earlier post about programs like Chase Community Giving and Pepsi’s Refresh Everything project.

Feel free to chime in with comments and join the conversation.

REBECCA ZELLAR

Chase considers Arts and Culture to be viable charities. So do I.

However, if it makes you feel icky to ask for votes for a theatre company, you can vote for primary and secondary education, youth development, healthcare, housing, community development, the environment, combating hunger, human services, and animal welfare. (And, if it makes you feel icky, in general, to participate in this competition then just put a bubble over your head for the next 18 days. It’ll be over soon. No need to worry.)

Which brings me to my favorite part of this particular competition.

You can vote for what you believe in and you can know your vote counts. Or, on the other hand, you don’t have to vote. It’s your choice. But, above all else, a choice is given to the people, the fans, the supporters, the believers. The people have the say. The little guys can win if they try. It’s an equal playing field. And, once you vote, you can vote for 19 other charities so you can help out your fellow community. It’s very much about the give and take.

You don’t have to donate a penny to a charity, though, of course, the charities will use your pennies wisely.

It takes a few seconds to vote for your chosen charities. It’s as hands off as it gets. You don’t have to open a Chase Banking Account. They’re not passing out t-shirts to wear. Once the contest ends, you can remove the application. Done and done.

Read more at the GreyZelda Theatre blog…

Rebecca Zellar is the artistic director of the GreyZelda Theatre Company in Chicago. Follow her company on Twitter: @GreyZelda

NICK KEENAN

I take the pretty darn unpopular view that the Chase grant is encouraging some of our worst theater-to-audience relationship behaviors. I get why this is unpopular. Is this is some of the easiest money to be had right now? Absolutely. Theatres, even small theatres, DO get these grants with as few as 2,000 – 5,000 votes. And yet, I’ve chosen to not participate at this stage even when both of my theaters might really be able to benefit. Why? What’s the catch?

Look no further than my facebook wall. Like many Chicago theatregoers, I’m a facebook fan of dozens of theatre companies, about 20 of which are going for this grant. Each of those, to reach that 2,000 vote threshold, need to ask their fan base about 10 times to get out enough vote (which means each of their core fans ALSO asking 10 ten times to their network). If I’m connected to even three or four fans from each of these companies – In my case I’m usually connected to 20 – that means that ON FACEBOOK ALONE I’m getting asked to vote for someone or other 5 or 6 times a day.

Not gonna lie, that’s a waste of my time and makes me want to unplug my computer and unfan a bunch of people. It’s like a pledge drive without the promise of five minutes of Car Talk.

Here’s the damage: By playing this grant to win, we’re necessarily devaluing ourselves and our relationships to our fans. Our work has value, and we already have a tough time justifying that to our patrons. We will need our patrons’ support over the long haul to help make the case that their deep commitment to art in their life yielded massive rewards. Filling their facebook wall with spam disconnects current and future patrons to that value, and demands that they make a half-hearted commitment on faith paid for by Chase’s ad revenue. In addition, we lose our own messages and missions in the noise of Chase advertisements that eat our brands and identities for lunch. When you look at the theater communities’ message during Chase Community Giving season, it’s not “If you don’t have art, You don’t have a society,” (Chicago Mayor Daley during last week’s TCG Conference), it’s “Chase Community Giving — Help Blah Blah whatever win $20,000!.” Your theatre’s name isn’t even first. That’s not partnership, that’s hijacking of your mission in the name of advertising a bank.

Have you heard of a friend leaving facebook? This is why. I don’t care if facebook goes away, but I valuate the worth of my deep connections with my patrons and my audience far more than a single $20,000 grant. And I believe that IS the choice you make.

Nick Keenan is a Chicago-based theater artist, and his trades include sound design, web and graphics design, production management, and playwriting. Follow him on Twitter: @nickkeenan

ERIC ZIEGENHAGEN

A theater company sets an example when it proves that a particular convention is a choice rather than a necessity. Tickets are a necessary convention of putting on a show until someone demonstrates that they aren’t. Charging admission at the beginning of a performance is a given, until it’s not. Wednesdays are the best weekday for a matinee, until someone demonstrates otherwise. Similarly, the Chase Community Grant program breaks conventions of arts funding in some notable ways.

For the most part, theater companies are nearly powerless in an awards process, whether it is a foundation grant, a Tony award, or a rave review. A company makes the best work possible, presents it in the best possible way, writes the best possible proposal, and leaves it in someone’s hands to judge: a critic, an awards committee, a program officer. What strikes me about the Chase program is that it completely empowers the arts organization itself, eliminating any decision-making process on the part of the grantor.

In this way, it reminds me of corporations who choose to match employee donations in lieu of, or in addition to, an active giving program, similarly eliminating any process of proposal review, site visits, and evaluation.

At least among Chicago theater companies, the ones who benefit most are those who have cultivated the largest Facebook-using community—simply enough, they have the ability to earn the most votes from their supporters.

The exciting part here is that the program can reward a company that may not articulate itself well in proposal form, or even please critics, but nonetheless is building a following. Simply enough, the criteria for the award is unique: the most votes win.

Last year, two Chicago theater companies won the Chase award: Sideshow and The New Colony. Neither company was well known in funding circles or even among critics. However, they did demonstrate the ability to rally support and to execute a voting campaign. Just as the companies of tomorrow may rely less on earning the accolades of a daily-newspaper critic, these companies were rewarded based on a criteria separate from impressing traditional donors. They simply earned the most votes.

The Chase model will not replace the traditional model of grant proposals and site visits, nor should it. However, it does set a different metric for reward, and finds a different path to measuring a charity’s strength. It also creates a public competition in an era when public competition draws high ratings, versus the discreet process of applying and competing for philanthropic funding. The transparency, the simple score of tallying votes, and the egalitarian nature of the program make it an exciting and competitive addition to the ecosystem of arts funding in America.

Eric Ziegenhagen is a theater guy, music guy and idea guy. He’s based in Chicago. Follow him on Twitter: @ericzieg.

BRIES VANNON

Let’s get one thing straight: I want theater to be supported financially. The idea of theater companies in my town receiving $20,000 gets me all happy in the guts, be it from an individual, a foundation, or a dreaded corporation. But when we talk about the whoring that has become pervasive in the Chicago theater community surrounding the Chase Community Giving campaign, it has little to do with the money or where it comes from. The issue is how we are going about trying to get it.

Chase has thrown open the floodgates with their lax requirements. They’ve basically thrown cash on the table and said whoever does the best job getting to it wins. Unsurprisingly, this brings out the simplest, grabbiest behavior in us as humans. The deluge of vote requests on Twitter and Facebook (interesting that no one has asked me in person) has been endless. But it’s all been a mad dash to see who can get the most friends to ask their most friends to spend their votes. “It’s okay, you get 20! You can afford to use one on us!”

What I haven’t seen from anyone is a why. Am I supposed to give you a vote just because you make theatre and so do I? Because I’m a friend of yours? Because…. anything? I have companies whose work I’ve never seen asking me for their vote. Are they good people? Certainly. Does that mean I trust that they would use $20,000 more responsibly than Theater Company X or non-arts NFP Y? God, no. The closest anyone has come to giving me a reason to vote is The Hypocrites with their “We gave you Our Town, will you give us your vote?” campaign. Yeah, it’s a little shallow, but it’s honest and I certainly can’t argue with the premise.

I don’t deal well with popularity contests, which reward the loudest and most well-connected participants with absolutely no regard to value. Such is the situation here, where Chase has washed their hands of the value side of things. This means it’s up to the participants to grab the slack. You want my vote? Prove you’re better than an outstretched hand.

Chase is getting far more marketing out of this than the cash they’re spending, and that creative thinking is why they are in the seat of power in this conversation. We purport to be creative types; find a way to make this worth more than a one-time $20,000 payment. Use Community Giving to increase your presence in your own community. To find new audience (and not just to ask for a vote). To build ongoing publicity. The example that came to my mind was to unify Chicago theatres in asking for votes for a single cause (Season of Concern or another arts-related *actual* charity), rather than fighting to get their own outstretched hand slightly more prominent. But that’s just one possibility (and one vote).

We can fight each other and annoy at least part of our audience/peer group to get one show or one season paid for. Or we can work towards something bigger, bolder, and wider reaching. “I want money” is a subpar message the first time and grating the next fifty. We claim to be storytellers; let’s come up with something worthy of a story. It may not be how we get $20,000, but it’s how we get attention. It’s how we get new eyes and ears.

It’s how we get my vote.

Bries Vannon is a company member with Signal Ensemble Theatre, The Right Brain Project, and WNEP Theater, none of which he has voted for. He is also the creator of The Nine, an ongoing performance series.Follow him on Twitter: @TheNineChicago.