Earthborne Valkyries. Who knew?

Governor Ed Rendell has signed legislation that provides a temporary budget for the state of Pennsylvania. It’s flawed, incomplete by his own admission- but it ensures that state workers will be able to take paychecks home. In his statement to the press, he said, “I believe the bill presented to me for signature today is technically flawed and cannot be viewed as a constitutionally balanced budget enacted with the best interests of the citizens of Pennsylvania in mind; therefore, I am exercising my constitutional right to line item veto all but those appropriations that will allow state employees to be paid and those serving immediate basic health and safety purposes.”

State workers should get paid, and basic health and safety purposes need to be addressed. Despite this budget crisis that affects all areas of our state, the arts community in the Greater Philadelphia area is in an uproar. It’s being said that Governor Rendell plans to eliminate all arts and cultural funding from the budget for fiscal year 2010.

If state arts and cultural funding is eliminated, what'll happen to the Christmas lights in Rittenhouse Square?

Casinos are being viewed as a potential generator of tax revenue for Pennsylvania and industry. Mayor Michael Nutter said at the Mayoral debate on October 30, 2007, “The potential negative impact of casinos in Philadelphia I think we’ve not fully come to grips with: traffic, congestion, gaming addiction, as well as crime. It was not the best idea. It’s certainly not the way to try to develop our waterfront.’ (1) Since then, he and many other Philadelphia leaders have changed their minds. It’s incongruous that the potential entertainment factor of casinos could be considered such a saving grace while the arts and culture are ignored.  Creating entertainment opportunities via gambling, and taxing them, is a short-sighted measure. More attention to our state’s arts and culture will enhance our state, and create greater tax revenue, without the significant drain on our city and state resources that casinos would cause.

Proponents of the casinos claim that they will bring jobs. The Sugarhouse casino is being built in a Delaware River vacant lot, so supporters believe that this will enhance our waterfront. There is a theory that casinos in Philadelphia will enhance tourism and attract money that would otherwise go to Atlantic City. Greater arts and cultural opportunities throughout Pennsylvania will do all of these things and much more.

At the risk of boring the pants off of you with statistics and numbers, let’s look at the facts.

According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the state’s arts budget is $14 million. Writer Alice Carter broke this down to costing “each taxpayer a nickel per week or $2.60 a year.” (2)

Arts and culture are a $1.99 billion industry in Pennsylvania, says Citizens for the Arts in Pennsylvania. The arts provide nearly 62,000 full-time equivalent jobs and generate $282.98 million in local and state government revenue.(2)

So, essentially, the state of Pennsylvania puts out $14 million for arts and culture and gets two hundred sixty-eight million, nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars back. That’s quite a return on the investment.

Arts and cultural organizations spread the wealth around. “Nonprofit arts organizations and their audiences generate $166.2 billion dollar in economic activity every year—$63.1 billion in spending by organizations and an additional $103.1 billion in event-related spending by their audiences, proving that the arts are an economic driver in their communities that supports jobs, generates government revenue, and is the cornerstone of tourism,” Americans for the Arts reported. (3)

To put it more simply: “The typical attendee to a nonprofit arts event spends $27.79 per person, per event (excluding admission) on transportation, lodging, and other event-related costs. Nonlocal attendees spend twice as much as their local counterparts ($40.19 vs. $19.53). Thirty-nine percent of attendees are nonlocal. Few industries can boast this kind of event-related spending.”(4)

If you needed proof that casinos don’t enhance local business opportunities: The number of independent restaurants in Atlantic City dropped from 48 the year casinos opened to 16 in 1997. (5) Within just four years of the casinos’ arrival, one-third of Atlantic City’s retail businesses had closed. (6) But why should they try to help out other businesses? Why would you want your patrons to eat at a restaurant outside your casino when you can have them eat at a restaurant inside your casino? Play to win, folks.

Research sponsored by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development demonstrates that arts programs in public housing areas increase neighborhood pride, decrease vandalism, provide safe havens, improve inter-generational communications, and increase tolerance between different cultures and ethnicities. (4) and also, public art and a vibrant cultural community beautifies and animates cities, provides employment, attracts residents and tourists, complements adjacent businesses, enhances property values, expands the tax base, attracts well-educated employees, and contributes to a creative and innovative environment.(4)

It’s unbelievably easy to come to the conclusion that the arts are good for our communities. Yet it’s still being ignored. Maybe there’s a stigma that the arts aren’t an honest, hardworking profession; maybe there’s some stigma left over from our earliest Quaker settlers, who believed that the arts are frivolous. Times have changed, and we need to remove the stigma. We need to get out and enjoy the arts and cultural opportunities available to us, and we also need our legislators to take notice.

These are the people whom you should contact. Tell them that having the ability to go to museums, learn about history, see performances, and do something with your life other than shop, work, eat and watch television is important to you. Tell them that an investment in Pennsylvania’s arts and cultural opportunities will come back to the state government many times over.  Or just tell them that you think it’s a good idea. Thank the ones who are working for us. Nobody ever says “thank you” enough.

And thank you for taking the time to read this.

Senate

• Dominic Pileggi, R-Chester County and Delaware County. He’s the Senate Majority Leader and former mayor of Chester. Voted with the party for a budget that would eliminate cultural funding. http://www.senatorpileggi.com/ I’m sure he loves the Brandywine River Museum too much to see it go to waste.

• Jake Corman, R-Centre. Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Voted with the party for a budget that would eliminate cultural funding. http://www.jakecorman.com His “News You Can Use” section reminds you to use sunscreen, and that DEER ARE ON THE MOVE.

• Jay Costa, D-Allegheny. Costa is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and showed his support for the arts as a speaker at the recent Rally for the Arts in Harrisburg. http://www.senatorcosta.com/

House

• Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia. He’s the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and his office crafted the $29.1 billion budget plan that would retain cultural funding. http://www.pahouse.com/evans/

• Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne. Majority Leader of the House. http://www.toddeachus.com . He’s very concerned about healthcare.  You could tell him about how the arts aid in patients’ emotional and mental health and recovery. Or you could print this out and mail it to him: http://artsusa.org/pdf/get_involved/advocacy/research/2008/healthcare08.pdf

• Sam Smith, R-Jefferson. He’s the House Minority Leader, and voted for a budget that would eliminate cultural funding.  http://www.samsmithpahouse.com He says, “Real People Pay Taxes.” We know. Remind him about that $282.98 million in local and state government revenue.

Sources:

(1)    Casino-Free Philadelphia, casinofreephiladelphia.org

(2)    “At $14 million, the arts are a bargain for state’s budget” By Alice T. Carter, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Sunday, August 2, 2009

(3)    Arts and Economic Prosperity III, Americans for the Arts, artsusa.org

(4)    Talking Points, Economic Impact, Americans for the Arts, artsusa.org

(5)    Evelyn Nieves, “Our Towns: Taste of Hope at Restaurants Casinos Hurt,” New York Times, March 23, 1997, section 1, p. 39.

(6)    Robert Goodman, The Luck Business: The Devastating Consequences and Broken Promises of America’s Gambling Explosion (New York: Free Press, 1995), p. 23.

In the meantime; as I was stuck in traffic on driving up I-95 the other day, I was inspired to write a haiku. I had seen the same piece of advertising for that movie one time too many, and the straw had officially broken the camel’s back.

Nuh-uh.

The title role will be played by Jayne Houdyshell.

I first met Ms. H years ago at the McCarter Theatre where she was cast as the jolly and forthright Mrs. Fezziwig in the annual production of A Christmas Carol. She re-defined the role, though there wasn’t much to do, seeing as it’s a British panto in Princeton. Later I met her again at The Wilma in The Clean House, where she played the lead character’s sister desperate to clean, and clean, and clean, all through her sister’s nightmares and breakdowns and rebuilding, vacuuming pots of tossed topsoil from snow-white rugs, competently and vigorously cleaning as if it would save the world, with a deep, smooth voice dispensing humor so dry you could sand oak with it. She’s now known as Madame Morrible from Broadway’s Wicked, and has won or been nominated for numerous awards.

Ms. Houdyshell was, according to Wikipedia, born in 1953, and is not small in any sense. I would be so excited to see her bring her considerable talent to this role. What are little girls made of?

It’s playing in a 200-seat theatre (the Lortel), the perfect size for magic and terror.

Leigh Silverman, I’m quite impressed with your choices. Be wise, be brave, be tricky indeed.

The most frequent obstacle that playwrights face is not cruel critics or cowardly audiences. It’s script printing.

A copy of a full-length script can cost around $20-$25 after it comes out of your friendly neighborhood self-serve copier. If you’ve written something with four characters in it, and you need a copy for your stage manager and director, that’s six copies right there. Without even getting into the deforestation issues, the monetary cost of getting your script physically in the hands of the people who need it most can run into triple digits.

Every single time I print copies, watch the slices of dead trees pile up, and that little counter tally up how much more of my money it’s eating, I feel an ounce of blood slipping away and wonder if it’s worth it to be a playwright. Last time, I thought it would have been more cost-effective and better for my sanity if I had bought six Kindles for the cast, director and stage manager, and found a way to upload the scripts into them.

But you can’t make notes on a Kindle. (Can you? I don’t know, I prefer books that are wireless and never need charging). You can’t write in your blocking or whatever else you need to, and those notes end up being just as important as the original text.

But what about this? What if you integrated the touch-sensitive screen on an iPhone and made a way that you can display the script on a touch-sensitive page so you can add notes to it? True, an iPhone is small enough that your actors would sue you for eye strain by the time all is said and done. and it’s not as satisfying as a big thick meaty juicy script in your hands, getting worn and creased and the edges curling, with pages half falling out. It’s not as nice as being able to look at your penciled and highlighted notes five or ten years later and think ‘we were all so young.” It takes the kinesthetic pleasure out of it. I’m sure every lighting and set designer who had to lug 12 scripts around in their backpack would disagree, and wish they could upload scripts into their iPhone.

We all know an iPhone isn’t cost-effective for the average human (Don’t even think about trying to tell me anything different. If iPhones were reasonably priced, they wouldn’t be the new trophy toy and we would slap people for playing with them while you’re trying to have an actual conversation with them), let alone a working artist. But it’s definitely something to think about.

Check it out, developers! An iPhone app that can have real-world impact.

Oh, fine, go back to watching your Twitter feeds.

I think success is starting to spoil her. I don’t think she’s the girl we all first fell in love with.

Oh, sure, the only constant in life is change. To have the Hollywood fantasy of the Vanity Fair cover, we had to let go of  silken Rose from Titanic, the bawdylicious Maddy the laundress of Quills. To meet those sweethearts we had to let go of the rough and tumble ruffian Juliet of Heavenly Creatures. Kate Winslet’s approach to her roles gives us a multifaceted heroine and a dish of many rich flavors. But what fresh hell is this?

See this grin? The clenched jaw, bared teeth, glassy glint in her eyes? The white in her knuckles as she’s gripping that Golden Globe?  From the looks of this photo, I think if she doesn’t win an Oscar this year, she might just make sure every Academy voter dies a very slow, very painful death.

This new thin, streamlined, Aryan-blonde Kate isn’t one I want to like anymore. She’s had all the life and individuality sucked out of her so she can fit into not only any producer’s concept of a role, but any audience’s concept as well. She’s mainstreamed herself to the point of losing her individuality and soul.  Is she going to get thinner? Make herself more marketable? Sell a little more of her soul? I’m worried.

Kate, honey, chill out for a second. Come on over to my house, I’ll make you some pho. I’ve got some vodka in the freezer, we’ll play with the dogs. It looks like you need to get back to where you once belonged. We’re all a lot of fucked-up girls looking for their own peace of mind. Stop trying to please Hollywood. We miss you.

…well, I may be late but I’ll be up to date when I can shiv ‘em like my sister Kate, oh, yeah…

In any case, this morning as I was cleaning the kitchen, the song “Right as Rain” by pop singer Adele came on the radio. Out of nowhere, I was compelled to dance like a rag doll, like a Peanuts character, like a Muppet. My dogs ran in barking, and I danced with them while they barked and wiggled in circles and wagged their tails joyfully.  This song always makes me dance, and I’m not a dancer.

That music reminds me of years ago when Twyla Tharp visited the McCarter Theatre while I worked there. Her dance company’s show had sold out so quickly I couldn’t get a ticket, and I had to work in the box office that night anyway. I was sitting in the box office when I heard someone whisper, “There she is.” Along one side of our office were floor-to-ceiling glass windows that looked out onto a brick walkway and out into the leafy, blossomy spring evening. A woman was sitting on a wooden bench, smiling and laughing, as another woman stood and told her a story, her back to the window. This woman was petite and all muscle and sinew, like a racehorse, in jeans and a T-shirt, with a cap of bobbed silver hair. It was Twyla Tharp. As she told this story, which none of us could hear, she became more and more animated, all elbows and hands, knees and feet, bounce, swing and glide, rhythym and melody, and her friend laughed. We sat in the box office like the wrong species in a duck blind, looking across the darkened office to the bright window, as she made her friend laugh uncontrollably on a spring evening.

It was better than the show could have been.  I bought her book on creativity. Before I could even get through the first two chapters my mother “borrowed” it from me and then “lost” it. I’m still furious about it and I want it back, Mom.

I sincerely wish Twyla Tharp would choreograph a dance piece for Adele‘s song “Right as Rain.” I think their styles go together.

But in the meantime, try this, because it’s really fun.

1) Go to emusic.com and sign up for a trial membership. It’s free and you get free downloads.

2) Download Adele’s Grammy-award nominated album, 19. It’s good stuff.

3) Go to YouTube and bring up BeetTV‘s video, Dancy Dancy by Twyla Tharp.

4) Hit Pause immediately, but let it load.

5) In the YouTube video pane, mute YouTube’s sound.

6) Open your mp3 player and bring up “Right as Rain” by Adele. Cue it up and hit pause.

7) When you’re ready, hit “play” on the mp3 player and then play on the YouTube video.

I guarantee you, this is at least as much fun, if not more so, as Dark Side of the Wizard of Oz.

Take family planning, for example. What does family planning really mean? Family planning means providing birth control and medical assistance to anyone who might have reproductive organs. This is a healthcare issue and a social issue. However, it feeds into environmental issues such as overpopulation. The economy isn’t immune, it certainly doesn’t need more mouths to feed, to put it lightly. Then we start getting into tax dollars for education versus tax dollars for war, and so on and so forth. Family planning, ultimately, is everyone’s issue, and it does affect aspects of your life about which you might be unaware. We’re all in this together, and until all of us are free and safe, none of us are free and safe.

My dear friend Elle has come up with a simple analysis of the situation. Let’s say you have five dollars. You could donate that five dollars to Planned Parenthood and do a good deed for people who don’t and/or do want to reproduce everywhere. You could even donate it in honor of Sarah Palin, and they will even send her a kind card letting her know that your five dollars has gone to ensure that more women do not end up following her shining example of preaching abstinence and breeding a softball team without thinking first. Elle has a Cafepress store that provides an analysis of the importance of family planning in a clear, concise way so that not only can you enjoy it, but also, you can share it with others. Every shirt on this cafepress store is marked up only $5 and sends that as a donation to Planned Parenthood, in honor of Sarah Palin. And Palin will get a little card in the mail, for each one.

Because, ultimately, funding for birth control now means more tacos for you later.

Thank you.

Essentially, the whole conceit of Assassins is that the American experience is a game; striving to succeed, get a piece of the pie, realize your dreams. However, you and I (and, fortunately, Sondheim) all know that the rules of the game don’t affect everyone the same way, and a lot of people don’t succeed without cheating. A lot of people who try to play by the rules will get swept by the wayside. So the central issue of Assassins is this: The American experience is a game. You pay to play and shoot to win.

Traditionally, Assassins is presented in a carnival shooting gallery, and Sondheim’s music builds that world, suggesting American innocence tempered with hucksterism. Turner chose to set it in a reality TV show instead, lining the stage with video screens, using cameras onstage to strengthen the Ensemble’s relationship to the audience; everyone wants to be on TV, everyone wants to be in the spotlight, as they fight with each other to make sure everyone knows they saw or heard or was part of a little slice of history.

Sondheim includes actual and attempted presidential assassins in his tale; some win, some lose, but all of them yearn for something greater, to have the place in history that John Wilkes Booth took. Time, fortunately, is something Sondheim is able to play with masterfully; the plot is driven by dramatic intention, not by a ticking clock. Luckily this means we get to see John Hinkley and Squeaky Fromme sing a chilling, precise and pure duet to unrequited love that the world would be smaller without. The mechanism of the game is transformed by its players so that the two game proponents become assassins as well.

Turner’s choices in this show were very strong. The Balladeer and the Proprietor became a Cameraman and a Game Show Host. The Balladeer is Sondheim’s stand-in for the audience’s feelings throughout the show. In this production’s case, he shows the audience where to look, although not how to feel. He would simply sing us the story and let us draw our own conclusions. The Game Show Host led the contestants, stone-faced, through their trials, leading them straight to their chosen targets, and letting them succeed or fail. Because it’s not his job to care, it’s hard for the audience to care about him, and often times he disappeared in these moments because the focus was on the assassin themselves, but a wrenching resolution walked into a book depository. It led up to a heart-breaking conclusion that left the audience shaking but singing on the way out the door, and really, for what more could you ask?

All of the actors provided strong, memorable, heart-breaking but focused performances. Most notable were the two women who played Squeaky Fromme and Sarah Jane Moore. Both had elegant voices and delivered quirky performances that sparkled and provided an excellent commentary on how un-fun it is to be an American woman sometimes. Tina Sheing and Miriam Pultro delivered the sense of these ladies as cut from the same cloth. Pultro’s Squeaky was a spring chicken, full of burning desire to eat the world alive, and Sheing’s Moore a prize mother hen who would take the world under her wing, if only she could keep it all together. Their joyful and determined target practice with a KFC bucket made me so happy.

In fact, every assassin in this show had a moment that should be set up as a case study of How To Make Excellent Theater out of American Pain and Ambivalence. Mike Ware’s Samuel Byck was funny, sad and right as he chugged his cans of Bud and rambled into a tape recorder, begging Leonard Bernstein to write more love songs and challenging Nixon’s failed presidency; Jonathan Dalecki’s Czogloz was brutal in his mechanically fierce descriptions of the factory worker’s life and tender as spring in his gentlemanly worship of Emma Goldman. Mike Renn’s Giuseppe Zangara had a very real fire in his belly that suggested Kurt Cobain and the current healthcare debates, along with a profound voice. Brian Turner’s nearly-silent, restrained but desperate to connect John Hinckley was chilling simply in the way he moved across the stage, his discomfort in his own skin; he was truly the guy you would not sit next to on the subway. Then his duet with Pultro, “Unworthy of Your Love,” made his chase of a flickering Reagan mask and voice so much more painful.

This plays for one more weekend at Wilmington Drama League so get down there.

Ok. I have said it. I saw a Sondheim musical and I enjoyed it, I even drove to see it IN THE RAIN, but only because it was this one, this production, this company, this director, these actors, this time. I will now go back to hating all musicals. Keep your Sondheim away from me.

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, looking scrumptious in red.

NEWS REPORTER: This week’s top story, Republican would-be presidential candidate Senator John McCain stole the thunder of Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama, by announcing his own pick for vice president, Governor Sarah Palin. Selection of Governor Palin, an Alaskan politician new to the national arena, was a move that surprised even residents of her home state.

SOUND CUE: BOMP-BOMP-BOM-BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!

SARAH PALIN: Nnnnooooo one expects the Alaskan Politician! My chief weapon is surprise, surprise and fear, fear, surprise, rrruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to Dick Cheney – I’ll come in again.

(exits, repeat with slight variations ad nauseam)

Thank you. Don’t forget to tip your bartenders and waitresses.