This article was first published in the April Issue of Scene4 Magazine
The American theatrical blogosphere has been awash these past few months with responses to Rocco Landesman’s recent speech in which he asserted that the supply of arts in America has outpaced demand. If, as Mr. Landesman believes, attendance at American theater is decreasing while simultaneously the number of theaters is increasing, than clearly we have created an unsustainable business model. There has been both outrage at Mr. Landesman’s comments, and some agreement. Are there too many theaters? Are there too few theatergoers? Is this the wrong time to start a theater company? Whose work is worthy of support in such a competitive atmosphere? Has the American theater community nurtured a business model that is destined to fail?
But perhaps the heart of the issue isn’t that American theater audiences are declining, but rather that American theater isn’t finding its audience. Perhaps the most important question is where are today’s audiences – and how do we reach them?
In a recent article for American Theater Magazine, Susan Miller wrote of the joy she has found as a theater artist discovering that she can write, produce, distribute and have full creative ownership of her projects when she works in online video. Susan writes that working online harnesses all the energy of our younger years when “Lets put on a show!” was a thrilling call to action, be it in a high school auditorium, an out of the way black box, or even a barn – Mickey Rooney style. The key difference? This show has the capacity to be seen by thousands and thousands of people and continues to be seen long past the final curtain.
I love Susan’s notion that online video is the next great frontier for theater artists. And I think there is a specific facet of web video that holds the most promise to those of us who have spent our careers on stage. The natural pairing of theater and online video …live-streaming.
As theater artists who thrive on the spontaneity, danger and electricity of live performance [click to continue…]
This post was originally published on the 2AMt blog. It summarizes the history, the reasons behind, metrics, the technical and aesthetic requirements of and the successes of our production of Better Left Unsaid TV, the first of it’s kind interactive live streamed play. To skip to the section that most interests you click the appropriate word in the previous sentence.
Miguel Govea and Jessica Arinella in Better Left Unsaid by Joey Brenneman
On January 21st of this year, my producing partners and I began previews of the first of its kind, interactive live streamed play. This was a full length production of Joey Brenneman’s Better Left Unsaid, cast with professional New York actors, staged in a small off-off broadway house in front of a live audience for a three week run. AND…simultaneously Better Left Unsaid was shot with four cameras, mixed in real time and streamed live to the internet so that anyone, anywhere in the world could see the show. The bonus for online viewers was that they could interact with the live streamed theater experience via Facebook, Twitter and chat rooms.
Producing a play is complicated. Producing a live streamed play incorporates everything it takes to produce a play and adds to that everything you need to do to produce a live television shown- with the always wavering unknowns of live streaming technology thrown in to the mix. We climbed a lot of hurdles to reach opening night, almost as many to arrive at our final performance and ended our nine month journey on the highest of notes. We had over 50,000 unique viewers join us for the final three performances of Better Left Unsaid. We received virtual standing ovations from people all over the world. We proved that people will in fact pay for online video, at least if it is positioned as theater. Finally, we had the great honor, joy and sometimes nervous breakdown of launching a brand new theatrical paradigm, born of today’s technology.
Why live stream a play? Honestly there are a million reasons- the most obvious are… click to read post…
(crossposted at BetterLeftUnsaid.tv)
A friend of mine, a theater professional with 20 years of professional experience was just offered an audition, via their agent, for a workshop of a new play. The director of this workshop is an Academy Award winning documentary director. The pay for 25 hours of work is $100 dollars. Total. That’s 4 dollars an hour…for a professional…with 20 years experience. Can you imagine a headhunter calling you and saying “Hey! this is a one week job with a great company! They aren’t going to pay you, but you’ll have an in, maybe, with an important company!”
So what do you get if you take this job? Finish Reading Post
The past few years have taken me off track.
But throughout my foray into the business side of online video I kept praying inwardly, please let this teach me what I need to know about monetizing my online video work, so that I can get back to being what I am, an actor.
Now acting is hard. It’s hard for everyone for different reasons. Acting is hard for me because it addresses my deepest weakness- my belief that I don’t have a right to be me, to be here. To be seen. Try rehearsing a difficult play or performing brilliantly in a broadway audition when you don’t believe you belong. When you are certain that everyone in the room thinks you are a fraud, and hates you for it. (If this sounds insane to you, you are not an actor-being an artist, publicly, is hard.)
read more about my teacher
