Welcome to 2019

by Patrick Blake | Jan 7, 2019 | Blog

Happy New Year!

Our wish for you is that the best day of last year be the worst of this year.

The story goes that one day in January 1937, a young high school girl cut her high school typing class to have some cokes with friends. A Hollywood insider saw her and said in effect, “ Kid, I’m going to make you a star”.

If indeed it happened that way then, unfortunately it no longer does. This is especially true in the hip hop world. Before he became famous Jay-Z sold CDs out of a car trunk. So did 50 Cent. So did Eminem, and almost every hip artist that came out of Texas.

The point is that they became successful by hustling for themselves. They didn’t stand around on the corner waiting to be discovered.

It’s a Team Effort

This attitude is even more necessary in hip hop theater.

The play or musical you have written is no different than the CD you have created. It needs to be promoted.

If we are working with you it’s because we believe in you. The question is, do you believe in us? Do you believe in what we are trying to accomplish?

It is a team effort. In spite of the success of Hamilton, the theater side is still not convinced of the artistic merit of hip hop theater. So we must rely on our hip hop artist members, and the community in general, for our base of support.

If you are reading this then we count you in that group.

There are two things you can do. Both are both centered around social media, and both follow the principle that repetition produces action.

How many people who follow you on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook do the same for Rhymes Over Beats? They all should be.

Two Things You Can Do

I’m asking for a post a week on whatever your favorite platform is. That’s it; just one post a week, reminding people of two things:

Post the Rhymes Over Beats logo. Stand with us for the future of Hip Hop Theater. Your comment should be something to the effect that, “ If you are following me, you should be following them.”

Remind everyone that we are a not for profit theater company and that we thrive on the donations of members of the community that we serve. We say this every day. We hope our friends can remind their friends of this at least once a month.

Thank you. Looking forward to a great year for everyone.

Pat

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Thanks for Your Support

Hip Hop is Today’s Culture

by Patrick Blake | Dec 17, 2018 | Blog

In these blogs I try to be practical instead of inspirational.

Rather than verbally sketching a picture of a kitten clinging to a cord and saying “Hang in there,” I say things like, “First extend your claws, then grip the rope with them…”

You know. Practical how-to advice. That’s the kind of guy I am.

But every once in a while, something happens where I just have to put on my preacher’s robe….

Hip Hop is Today’s Culture

I was on Bart (what we call our local subway in San Francisco) the other day. A person who could have been an older relative (except he was wearing a suit) was staring at me and seemed to be humming something. He noticed that I was looking back, so he said, “I’m looking at your hat trying to figure out what the tune is.”

Ah. This has happened before.

For anyone who has not seen the Rhymes Over Beats logo, it is the letters of the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet – abab cdcd efef gg – over musical notes. The notes are free clip art. They don’t represent any tune specifically, which is what I told him.

He then asked what the logo meant. I started to go into my pitch about hip hop theater, and his immediate response was, “It’ll never work.”

What the….. ??

I tried to enlighten him by talking about Hamilton, which seems to be working reasonably well. But he wasn’t buying it. He thought that Hamilton was “just a fluke.” He told me that the very fact that there were no other hip hop shows on Broadway or anywhere else proved his point.

My defense was that there were other hip hop shows, they just were not being marketed that way.

And Tomorrow’s Too

About then is when I decided to write an inspirational blog. This blog.

The fact is that hip hop IS today’s culture. In art. In fashion. In music. At the Super Bowl Halftime show. and increasingly more and more in theater. People just need to claim it and label it as hip hop.

So, in the spirit of giving and in community with everyone else in hip hop, I’m asking that in addition to #rhymesovebeats on your social media posts I’d also like you to put #hiphoptheater.

Looking Toward 2019

This is the last blog of the year. I’m spending the next couple of weeks getting ready and getting focused on going into 2019 at full speed.

I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a joyous and peaceful holiday season and the best ever new year.

See you in 2019!

via GIPHY

You Got Stories?

by Patrick Blake | Dec 10, 2018 | Blog, Storytelling

Today I got a call from a playwright who had been referred by a producer friend. He had written a play my producer friend thought I’d like. The playwright called to make sure that it would be something, in terms of theme and subject matter, that I’d be interested in doing. This was exactly what he should have done. I’m looking forward to reading it.

I started thinking that I have not specifically spelled out the stories we are looking for when we ask Playwrights to send us their stories. I hope this blog clarifies things.

I don’t want to give instructions like I did in the blogs on how to increase the chances of production. What I’m writing here are more in the line of direction signs.

The first direction to go in is subject matter. We are a hip hop theater collective. We help tell hip hop stories. So if your story is about how your childhood was messed up because your parents only had day help, not live in help, we are probably not the company for you. Hip hop is a reaction to a culture of oppression. Stories of the toll this oppression takes on the spirit is exactly the kind we want.

Hip hop theater does not require these kind of stories, look at Hamilton. They are just the ones we feel like telling.

You had to overcome being educated in a substandard school? You had to shop in a grocery with poor selection, low quality food that was overpriced? You had to get up before dawn to take a bus for hours upstate to see an incarcerated parent or sibling?

These are the stories we want to help you tell.

If the direction you want to go in to tell your story is a musical format all the music need not be rap. Hamilton is not all rap. The music can’t be all theater music either. There needs to be a healthy mix.

The final direction is how the work is marketed. In traditional theater the playwright is separate from the marketing. Because we intend to market using social media almost exclusively, we expect you to participate in the effort. You’ll need to use your social media to promote the show.

Those are the directions. What are you waiting for? Send us your stories.

And Now A Bit of Creativity…

by Patrick Blake | Dec 3, 2018 | Blog

For a change of pace this weeks blog is a hip hop sonnet I wrote about the death penalty.

Goodbye Heading upstate one final time. Saying goodbye to my pops. Glass so thick divides us that I need to be a mime. Five past midnight his story stops. My mom’s never gone. He got the ultimate penalty son. Done is done. Gotta move on. No more battles to be won. I swore I’d study the law. Swore I’d learn every Perry Mason trick. Swore I’d spin gold outta straw. Swore this be the injustice I’d fix. Been making this trip nearly half my years. Tomorrow is time enough for tears. *Words by Patrick Blake So, in the words of the late Mayor Ed Koch, “How am I doin’?” 🙂 Your comments are welcomed!

In Gratitude and Thanksgiving

by Patrick Blake | Nov 26, 2018 | Blog

In Gratitude and Thanksgiving

By now everyone should have finished thanksgiving leftovers. One of the things that I’m thankful for is that I don’t have to decide what I’m going to eat on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

But there are others as well. This blog will remind us all of the things we as Rhymes Over Beats are thankful for this past year.

(And I also want to mention that Tuesday November 27, is Giving Tuesday. The day everyone gives a little back for the blessings they have received.)

Counting Our Blessings

We are thankful for the opportunity to work with a true artist and gentleman – Masta Ace. We are excited to be the company to present the first hip hop musical by a hip hop artist. May this just be the first of many.

We are thankful to everyone who participated in our very first benefit. It was great fun and we want to remind everyone to save the date for ROB II April 29, 2019.

We are thankful for Michael Alden for allowing us to participate in the documentary detailing the rise of Public Enemy, When Reagan Killed Roosevelt.

We are thankful for the refuge of the Players in Gramercy Park.

We are thankful to be living in a time and place in human history where plays like The Assignment, My Father’s Daughter and The Falling Season can be produced and presented. This has not always been the case.

We are grateful for the success of Hamilton and the creation of a demand for more hip hop theater. We are in a very good place to provide that.

Likewise, we are thankful that the twentieth century, with its days of overt racial prejudices and segregation, is over. I am grateful that the 21st century gave us our first Black president and first family, and many other inspiring models to follow.

Finally I am thankful for the help and support of two people who I cannot do without – Cate Cammarata and Donna Hart.

Giving Tuesday and 2019 Goals

Which brings me to the second point of this blog. Giving Tuesday was designed to offset the commercialization of the upcoming holiday season. You donate to the non profit organization of your choice. Like us.

We are so very grateful to you, our readers, and the support of this community that is our mission to serve!

What’s next for 2019? In a nutshell, our plan is the following:

We will create and produce hip hop theater.
We will provide work for actors who don’t get hired in traditional theater.
We will provide work for people backstage and front of house who don’t get hired in traditional theater.
We will go into the community and train and mentor the next generation of hip hop theater artists.

If you support our mission please go to our donation page and give whatever you can.

Even if it’s not Giving Tuesday.

Thank You for Your Support of Hip Hop Theatre

Lessons on Producing Part 5

by Patrick Blake | Nov 19, 2018 | Blog

(This is the final of a five part series called “Lessons of Producing.” You can read the previous Lesson 1, Lesson 2, Lesson 3 and Lesson 4 on our blog.)

We are finally at the end of these series of blogs.

You have had a producer, read, like, and want to produce your show. What happens next?

Next Steps: The Option Agreement

You need an agreement between the producer and you to produce the show. It’s called an option agreement.

The Option Agreement gives the producer the right – but not the obligation – to produce your show. The key to getting a fair option agreement is knowledge. If you don’t know what to ask for, you are at a disadvantage.

What to ask for?

The best resource I know of for playwrights is the Dramatists Guild. You need to join immediately. They know more of what you need to know, and even better, they are on your side.

The Dramatists Guild will tell you based on their experience if the option agreement being offered by the producer is fair to the writer. But they will not negotiate for you. You have to do that on your own.

Working With Your Producer

You and your producer are now a team. More things can go wrong at this point when playwrights insist on things that seem unreasonable and unnecessary to their producers.

While putting together a creative team for the production, playwrights need to keep in mind some things in mind:

First, theater is a collaborative art. You wrote the words, but the actor and the director decide how they are said. Best to think of your relationship as that of a parent to an adult child. You don’t get to dictate like you could when they were little. These are professionals and their input should be respectfully considered.

Second, you need to keep in mind the difference between your rights as a playwright and things that are out of your control. You have the right that what you wrote will not changed without your permission. You don’t have the right to have your cousin star in the lead role instead of the “A” list movie star the producer wants.

Third, you have the right to attend rehearsals. You don’t have the right to attend the business meetings of the show, nor to dictate who is selected to do the marketing or advertising.

Fourth, keep in mind that your negotiating power depends on who you are. If this is your fifth production I’m more likely to listen to you than if this is your first.

Finally, if you are at this point you are so close to a production! Please don’t sabotage it by insisting on things you can’t have. A good collaboration sometime involves compromise for the sake of the work.

How Do You Get to a Production?

Often, it’s not what you know it’s WHO you know. We’re looking for good scripts for the Hip Hop community right now. Do you have one?

Let us know below in the comments section or by contacting us. We’ll listen to your pitch and read your work, and take it from there. Let’s get started!

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