Well, if you've been following the news, you know that quite a bit has happened lately. I've written before about how August, the month when the world is on holiday, tends to be a month for mischief, with bad actors working behind the scenes to set up a fall full of political misery. This August, as you already know, has been a bit different, and I plan on discussing that fact as well as other recent events over the next couple of days.
I have been writing this blog for nearly 14 years and, in doing so, I've tried to keep a fairly consistent schedule when it comes to both frequency and length in posting. My standards in both areas have shifted, in part because I've experimented with different approaches to see what readers respond to the most, and in part because of the demands of other areas of my life. In addition to blogging, as noted on the Twitter account to which TRH connects, I have three occupational lives: as an attorney, an actor, and a historic preservationist. Lately, however, I have begun to add one more occupation that I have wanted to try for a long time, and I am very excited about taking the first steps toward doing so.
As a preservationist, my focus has primarily been on historic theaters, especially historic Broadway theaters in New York. One of the earliest lessons I learned as I began to pursue this area of preservation came from Brendan Gill, the late Broadway critic for The New Yorker. I wrote him a letter asking for advice about how I could help prevent theaters from being "adaptively reused," which is preservation-speak for taking an old structure and preserving most or sometimes just parts of it while giving it a function for which it was not originally designed. Sometimes, this is inevitable, but not always. Despite competition from a wide variety of other related media, the performing arts have always had a demand for space. And, since that space is often very expensive to construct from scratch, why not take a building that has already been designed for that purpose, and reclaim it for that same purpose? Especially in the age of the green economy, with the greenest buildings being the one that are already built?
At any rate, in my conversation with Gill, he pointed out to me a simple truth that subsequently--and successfully--guided my efforts to help save Broadway's Biltmore Theater, the home of the original production of "Hair" and now the home of the non-profit Manhattan Theatre Club. In his view, the best way to keep a theater a theater, as opposed to a delicatessen or a disco (two potential fates for the Biltmore at one point) was simply to ensure the existence of a steady supply of productions. Simple in one sense, of course, and not so simple in another. Starting in the 1960s, and continuing well into the 1990s when my preservation efforts started in earnest, Broadway had anything but a steady supply of productions. The physical and social deterioration of Times Square played a role in that, but there were two other forces that played a larger role: the rising costs of productions, both in capital and operating expenses, and the changing cultural tastes of the public, especially the under-30 cohort. Both of these trends led to the growth of non-profit theater, where costs could be institutionalized and more experimental work could be attempted. In fact, in the case of the Biltmore, "Hair" was initially launched off-Broadway by Joseph Papp at the Public Theater. This would become a template for future Broadway shows, as not only off-Broadway in New York but regional and foreign theater companies began to move their productions to New York. The result has been a perpetual booking jam on Broadway since the mid-1990s, interrupted only recently by the pandemic. And part of that has come from several other non-profit off-Broadway companies taking over several Broadway theaters, as MTC has done.
Forgive the digression. Back to me.
At the same time that I was getting into theatre preservation, I was also getting back into acting, first in community theater, and later in professional productions. In the course of doing so, I became a reader for the Baltimore Playwrights Festival, which solicits, evaluates, and selectively produces works by professional and amateur authors. A number of the plays I have read over the years, including several that were not selected for production, impressed me greatly, and I began to think about the possibility of being the person that found a way to get these potential shows in front of an audience. Some of that thinking came out of my own experience as an actor: aging has severely limited the range of roles for which I am plausible, and even the unions encourage self-producing as a means of breaking out of the unemployment rut. (There was also a random encounter with a palm reader at a shopping mall one Christmas, but I think I'll save the details of that for any memoirs I might write.)
The upshot of all this?
Well, several things. Two of the contacts I made during my save-the-Biltmore days, in addition to their regular work, are aspiring playwrights, and I have begun to work with both of them on what I expect will be co-producing efforts to get their shows up and running somewhere. But I have also taken it upon myself to form a production company, Flipping The Script Productions, that I am dedicating to the production of works by underproduced segments of the populations (e.g., women, LGBQT authors, Blacks, and people of color). I have optioned for production a play that I read though the BPF about which I'm very excited, and have found a director who shares my excitement. We expect to put together a series of readings, perhaps a festival presentation or two, and then, ultimately, a professional production, which hopefully will reach New York at some point.
What does all this mean for TRH, and its readership?
Well, frankly, it means change. As you can probably tell, I've always lived a life in which I've enjoyed wearing multiple hats at once. But I have also needed to recognize, from time to time, that in the course of wearing all of those hats, there's an upward limit, at which point one of those hats has to come off. At least permanently, if not temporarily.
As I have gotten more and more involved in producing, with the expectation that the involvement will continue to grow, I have realized that something has to give in my schedule, or I will have to abandon eating, sleeping, and spending time with my family--in other words, things that I can't and won't sacrifice.
And I have decided that TRH is the thing that has give. At least, to a degree.
I might have made this decision in any case. I will be 66 in a matter of a few days. And, while much of politics in this seventh decade of my life has been a cause for distress and even sleeplessness on my part, it has also had a series of inspirational moments. From the first presidential campaign of Barack Obama, to the rise of a new generation of digital and street activism, I feel hopeful, if not 100% optimistic, that the American way of government, and life, will not only survive the current crisis, but thrive even after I am gone, for the benefit of my children, grandchildren, and later generations to come. I am therefore ready to share the proverbial torch, if not completely pass it. As one of the characters in Stephen Sondheim's adaptation of "Merrily We Roll Along," says: "You know what true greatness is? It's knowing when to get off!" I'm not quite at that point. But I can definitely see it, on the horizon.
I will continue to post here at least once a month, on politics and other issues. But the posts will be fewer and shorter (I'm hoping the latter will, if nothing else, be an improvement). I will be using the time freed up by doing so to work on producing the play I've optioned. In fact, I expect to be setting up a Web site for my production company soon, and have as part of that Web site a blog that will keep people informed about what's going on with it. When that happens, I will be sure to post about it here, and invite all of you to follow this new chapter in my life.
I thank all of you who read my posts, and welcome any comments at any time in response to what I write, or any comments about subjects you would like to see me cover. That has always, and will always, be the case, so long as I am above ground and typing.
And now, onward to the events of the day ...
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