Watching Hamilton?

by Patrick Blake | Jun 30, 2020 | Blog

Virtual Theater?

Last week the Slate Culture Newsletter published a short piece on the upcoming Disney+ showing of a film of a performance of Hamilton.

Their argument is that there is no need to watch it. Because it is a sung-through musical, everything revolutionary about the work is already available – you can just listen to the recording (which has been available for years).

According to the article, if you don’t watch it, all you are missing are the sets, the costumes, the choreography, and the staging – none of which is revolutionary. If you don’t don’t watch it, in short, you don’t miss much.

I disagree.

I wonder, if the author were talking to someone who could read music, if he would tell him to only read the score instead of listening to the recording? There is nothing revolutionary about the acting and singing.

Really?

All the Elements Work Together

To me, the production of a work of theater is a unity of elements.

To experience it as it was meant to be experienced, you must see it as the creators intended. Ideally, that means LIVE and in person in a packed theater.

Sadly, that is not possible for everyone. Initially it was because of the cost (I was lucky enough to have seen it at the Public Theatre when the price was more in line with an average person’s budget). Now it is because of the pandemic.

While viewing a video performance is not ideal, the Disney+ presentation is as close as we are going to get to a live performance for a while. AND the price of admission is much less than I paid five years ago.

Watch it if you have not seen it in person. Watch it again if you have.

I’m going to. I’m not throwing away my shot at seeing, again, the best musical of this century.

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Coming Soon

by Patrick Blake | Jun 23, 2020 | Blog

Advice to the Playwrights

I was recently asked what advice I would have for a playwright who is just starting out.

If I had just one piece of advice, it would be this: learn to think like a producer. A playwright does the writing, but the producer decides when, where and if at all the play or musical gets a production.

Producers and Playwrights

Producers and playwrights have overlapping and contradictory goals when it comes to mounting a production.

A playwright wants a production that fully realizes their vision.
A producer wants a production that most fully realizes the playwright’s vision that sells the most tickets.

For instance, any playwright knows which actor they feel would be “ideal” for a particular part in the play.

The producer knows an actor who is ninety percent there and would sell thousands, or tens of thousands, more tickets. The same goes for who the director should be.

It does not serve the playwright if the fully-realized play is only seen by the playwright’s family and best friend in the living room. Therefore, a playwright needs to think like a producer: which actor “works” in the part AND is a draw at the box office.

Wait For It

This is just one example of many ways playwrights think differently than producers. I’m in the process of writing a book on this called Writing Producible Plays.

Keep watching this space for when it is available and how you can order it.

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The Message is the Meaning

by Patrick Blake | Jun 17, 2020 | Blog

Turbulent Times

As a citizen of the United States, this is a turbulent time.

But as we enter the second week of protest marches, it is also a hopeful one. For the first time, a majority of citizens seem to be aware that there are unresolved issues of race in this country.

If you are a writer, this is a productive time to be alive and working. This is especially the case if you write plays, musicals, or screenplays on social justice issues. There is so much raw material.

Historical Accuracy?

However, there is a problem if you are a playwright.

The problem is that a historian can write a six hundred page book on the history of systemic, institutional racism. A playwright cannot.

A play about the same subject can only have around ninety pages.

So, the main artistic challenge for a playwright is how to condense a six hundred page book into a ninety page play. I think the best way to do that is to focus on the story of one individual.

It does not even have to be an actual person. In fact, it is probably better if it isn’t. It saves you or your producer having to pay a real person “life rights,” which is something you don’t need do if the person is a creation.

What’s the Story You Need to Tell?

By focusing on one individual, you ignore parts of the story. You open yourself up to criticism, such as that directed at Hamilton – that the work is not historically accurate.

You shouldn’t care. No play about historical events will ever be historically accurate. It is a work of art.

Instead of portraying historical accuracy, you should care more that the message is authentic and true. Theater should not be a history lesson.

What matters is what the audience takes away from your show. The message is the meaning.

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The Next Phase

by Patrick Blake | Jun 8, 2020 | Blog

Thoughts on the Next Phase

As of today there are two different ways of presenting works of theater.

A company can look back into its filmed archive, if it has one, and broadcast it, ether at no cost or for a fee a previous performance.
The second is to film actors, all in their separate spaces, reading the lines of the play.

The first way is a good choice when you want to attract anyone who didn’t get to see the original production in person, or has a serious case of nostalgia, but not much beyond that. The second is, I think, ideal for a new play reading, but not much else.

Performances of plays require the actors to interact, which is difficult to do when everyone is in a different room.

But What’s Next?

This is the situation today, but what about tomorrow?

Eventually we will see full productions again in front of live audiences, which will happen I’m guessing when there is both an effective vaccine and a treatment that works. Without these assurances I don’t believe the audience will be there.

Between what we have now and what we will have again in the future there could be a middle ground – some way of producing theater that can happen sooner than a vaccine and a treatment.

We can tell if someone has the virus or not. We can tell if someone had the virus. A producer can use this information to put together a cast that is safe, film it and then show it online just as producers now show archived material.

What do you all think?

Stay safe.

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Facts

by Patrick Blake | Jun 3, 2020 | Blog

This is not the blog I was going to write.

Circumstances changed it.

The circumstance was the death of George Floyd in police custody.

As a hip hop theater collective, we stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and the protesters in the streets.

There’s No Excuse

There is no excuse for what happened to him.

The sad fact is that innocent, unarmed black people are killed by fellow citizens, quasi-police, and police all too often.

The sad fact is that there are people who are trying to change the conversation. The point is not that there is property damage during the protests. That is a side issue to the protests.

Just as was the case in the Boston Tea Party, if all you want to talk about is how those poor tea companies were injured by the protests you have missed the point.

The Fact is Racism Still Exists

The fact is that there is still systemic institutional racism in this country. It underwrites and justifies individual acts of racism.

As theater artists, our mission is to hold up a mirror to this society. As hip hop theater artists, we do this by creating works of theater to tell seldom-told stories of the community.

Black Lives Matter. So do the stories of those lives.

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