The Times, They Are A-Changin’

The Times, They Are A-Changin’

by | May 21, 2021 | Blog

Timing is Everything

 

Last week I talked about how it is my belief that hip hop theater needs to be about something serious. This week I want to talk about how this is the right time for hip hop theater.

The birth of hip hop is usually calculated to be the ‘back to school jam’ that DJ Kool Herc gave on August 11, 1973. This August, a person born on that date will be forty-eight years old. The music they grew up on was hip hop. A person younger than that, just starting out in theater, was probably introduced to the music by an older sibling or relative. When they think about expressing themselves, they look on hip hop as the natural musical medium for their creative expression.

The time for hip hop theater is now because the people who are making theater are the people who were raised listening to hip hop.

In the 1920s, the young people of that time were raised on ragtime and jazz and composed that kind of music in their theater as well. They created a revolution of telling stories with music that changed the art form of theatre – and the same thing is happening today.

 

HAMILTON is proof

 

You need only look at the most critically celebrated and financially successful musical of the last decade to realize this.

We are at the start of the next revolution in theater. People involved in theater today must make a decision. There’s a battle outside and it’s raging. In the words of the Nobel laureate poet, “Please get out of the new one, if you can’t lend your hand.”

For the times, they are a-changin’.

Hip Hop Musicals Reflect Hip Hop Culture

Hip Hop Musicals Reflect Hip Hop Culture

by | May 13, 2021 | Blog

What are Hip Hop Musicals About?

 

As the artistic director of a hip hop theater collective I get plays emailed to me that the playwright wants me to produce. Before I read them I will first check to see if the play is told with hip hop music, or is somehow connected to the hip hop community in some way. If it is, then I’ll start to read it.

I say start to read instead of read all the way through because some hip hop plays or musicals use hip hop as a gimmick. Those don’t interest me and I stop reading the minute I realize that.

 

Hip Hop Music in a Musical

 

In the late fifties the new music was rock and roll. It was a reaction to the staid boring times. The music was wild, rebellious, and loud. In theater it was used, when it was used at all, to create that sense of rebellion that it reflected in real life – like in the musical HAIR. (Film was a different story. The movies, especially the beach party movies, violated the spirit of the music.)

I stop reading hip hop theater works when they violate the spirit of the music. Hip hop arose as a reaction to a culture of oppression. The subject of hip hop theater needs to be the same. “Frankie and Annette rap” does not have the appropriate subject, the appropriate feeling connected with it thematically. Americans overthrowing British tyranny, however, as used in HAMILTON, does.

When you think about sending your play or musical to Rhymes Over Beats, make sure it’s about a subject that respects the culture that created Hip Hop music in the first place.

Rappin’ in the Classics

Rappin’ in the Classics

by | May 2, 2021 | Blog

The Greeks Figured It All Out

 

I’m often asked about why we as a collective focus on hip hop.

Hip hop is new, but theater is really old. Usually I talk about how theater originally started as stories told in spoken word over instruments. The original plays were hip hop plays, just in Greek. We are not breaking from traditional theater with our hip hop focus, but instead, returning to the roots.

 

Classical Theater

 

I didn’t make any other connections with the Ancient Greeks, but then the other day I was reading a book on theater history and came upon the following passage:

“The dithyrambs, songs honoring the god Dionysius, were, according to Aristotle, the precursors of classical Greek tragedy, and although these became literary compositions as time passed, they began as improvised ecstatic expressions by the poet-actor who led the dithyrambic chorus, speaking the lines inspired as the god entered his body.”

— Theatre: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions Book 402) by Marvin Carlson

 

The Greek Chorus was Hip Hop

 

I hope you are realizing the same thing now that I was then – at least I think you should.

It’s not just hip hop as a form that was alive way back then – even if the content of the modern form arose from a specific set of cultural conditions. I can’t think of a better description of today’s freestyle than “improvised ecstatic expressions”.

The next time you watch two rappers battle it out, imagine you are in the Lyceum in class with Aristotle, as he demonstrates in The Poetics.

 

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Should We Go Back?

Should We Go Back?

by | Apr 21, 2021 | Blog

Back to “Normal”?

 

The question for this week’s blog is, should we go back to theater like “normal” when we can, or should we use what we learned during the pandemic as an opportunity to make necessary improvements in the way theater is done?

The defining characteristic of theater in the past has always been in-person participation. The performers and the spectators were in the same space. For the three stages of development (table readings, staged readings, and performances) we were always all together in the same room.

But since the pandemic, online experiences replaced all of these. We had to do all development over platforms like Zoom.

Now that things are opening up and we will be able do these steps in person, should we?

 

Cost and Convenience

 

The answer to the question above, in my opinion, is NO. We shouldn’t automatically going back to doing all development in person.

The reason is money and convenience.

Putting a group of people together in a room requires that you spend money on the room and try to schedule around times that everyone can meet – including the time it takes everyone to travel to the room.

Table readings are a way to let the playwright hear what they wrote out loud. These can be done more cheaply and more conveniently online. It’s just the actors, playwright, director, and producer. No one even has to be in the same city, and no physical space is required. Online table reads can replace those in person.

Staged readings are used by the producer to attract money to the production. It gives potential investors a feel for how the production will look and to watch how an audience reacts. For instance, It probably won’t be a successful comedy if no one laughs. I believe that some in person staged readings could be replaced with ones online.

 

It’s a New Day

 

Once I thought that all performances could only be done in person. I still think that. Mostly.

But please, let me know what YOU think…..

 

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Getting Back to Normal?

Getting Back to Normal?

by | Mar 23, 2021 | Blog

The End is Near

 

We seem to be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel as far as COVID is concerned.

New case numbers are going down, more people are getting vaccinated, lockdowns are easing. This means theater will be back to live performances sometime in the near future.

The issue is how much back to normal do we get? How much back to normal do we want to get? These two questions are the subject of the next two blogs.

 

“Normal” Theater?

 

“Normal” is in person, in front of people. Initially, it is presenting a version of the script in front of people who will potentially like what they see and invest in the show.

Assuming this happens and a production raises enough money to go forward, “normal” for theater is a live performance in front of a audience.

For this to come about, one very important thing needs to happen.

Theater, especially commercial theater, makes money by selling tickets. Theater needs to be able to open and stay open by selling enough tickets to make a profit – which is determined by selling enough tickets to cover the expenses that are necessary to run the show. Theater rental, actor salaries, advertising, things like that.

I always assume in my budgets that I have to sell about sixty percent of the available tickets to break even. This means that unless and until I can have this ability to sell 60% of the house, things aren’t yet back to normal.

 

The “New Normal”?

 

This is, or rather was, the normal. It was the old normal.

The question we should ask ourselves is, is this the normal to which we want to return?

Tune in next week for what I think is the answer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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