We’re All in this Together

We’re All in this Together

by | Sep 29, 2018 | Blog

“Cause we all have the potential to get there together.” – Masta Ace, ‘Together’

 

We all want to be happy and great (and successful), but as with any other theater company the reality is that we first need the “holy trinity” of:

  • Money.
  • Audience.
  • Stories.

 

Greatness is Our Mission, But This is What It Takes

 

Our goal is to tell stories of diversity. Great stories that portray real life in its nitty gritty brilliance that touch people right at their core.

We want to tell YOUR stories.

BUT – in order  to put these stories on stage we need money.

In order to get this money we make weekly appeals on social media. You’ve probably seen them. We ask for $10 contributions because want to make it easy for people from the community we serve to donate. To come join us so we can get there together. We also hope that the more successful members of the community will give back and donate more. Those people we contact individually.

So, we are trying to build an audience through social media. It’s where our audience is and how they communicate with each other. We are experiencing a slow, natural growth. Ten to twenty new followers on Instagram each day.

Hey, it’s a start.

 

To Be Great We Need Stories

 

The kind of stories we want to tell are of three types:

  • historical stories
  • stories that show hip hop culture
  • stories about issues in the hip hop community

We want to tell history from a different point of view. Just like Hamilton. If you have stories like these, please contact us.

We also want to document and celebrate the culture of Hip Hop that we share. We are working on a hip hop documentary on how and why the seminal group Public Enemy became Public Enemy. We will soon start working on other stories about the early days of Hip Hop. We would really like to work on stories that show how hip hop became the culture of the world. If you have stories like these, please contact us.

Finally, we want to do work on issues that affect the community. We’ve already done this. We coproduced a play on the issue of gun violence called The Assignment. We produced Ursula Rucker’s one person show My Father’s Daughter about her growing up in in Philadelphia. However, gun violence and racism are only two issues that effect the community. There are others and we want to tell them. If you have stories like this, please contact us.

 

Hip Hop is who we are. Our mission is to bring it into theater. Please support us.

Our mission is to be the greatest storyteller of Hip Hop stories, but we can’t do it alone. Greatness is in all of us.

Tell your story onstage. Tell other people about our hip hop stories. Join us in helping hip hop artists put their stories on stage.

‘Cause we all have the potential to get there together.

Cost of Doing Business?

Cost of Doing Business?

by | Sep 14, 2018 | Blog

There was a gentleman who ran for public office in NY a few years ago. His platform consisted of one sentence: The rent is too damn high!

I thought about this the other day when someone told me they didn’t go to the theater as often as they wanted because they couldn’t afford it. In other words – theater tickets are too damn high!

 

Why Does Theater Cost So Much?

 

When you ask someone in the theater why ticket prices are so high, you get the same answer. It’s the other guys fault.

Actors blame greedy producers (when they are with other actors). Producers blame greedy actors, except when they are talking to an actor, then they blame greedy theater owners.

“It’s always someone else’s fault” is a comforting narrative, but it’s wrong.

 

Prices depend on two things:

  • how much a thing costs to make, and
  • how many people want it that you can sell it to.

 

Prices go down or stay the same when things can be made cheaper but the demand remains the same. Prices go up when the demand is really high but the supply stays the same. (Think Hamilton tickets.)

In a business other than theater, when demand is weak, other steps can be taken to make profits stay consistent. For instance, you can adjust the pricing. If something costs less to make, the profit can stay the same even if you sell fewer than you did before. And if the demand is high, you can make more. It’s productivity.

 

The Economics of Theater are Different

 

Neither of these things can happen in theater. The number of seats per performance is the number of seats per performance. Producers can’t make more of them. And although there are exceptions (I helped produce Bedlam’s Hamlet/St. Joan and 39 Steps so I know there are exceptions), a four character one set show is a four character one set show.

Theater is as productive as it was in Shakespeare’s time. Neither of the things a regular business can do to keep prices in check (reduce production costs or increase supply) can be done in theater.

 

Some things CAN be done though, and I want to mention how we are working to keep the costs of theater down.

  • First, we are making theater for New Yorkers. For people who live here. So you’ll be able to see our shows initially Off-Broadway at Off-Broadway prices before we go into the “soak-the-tourist” Broadway mode.
  • Second, we are planning on using social media exclusively to market our shows. We won’t be spending money to send an ignored email blast to people who don’t know who we are. We will keep all of our followers up to date on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Another reason to follow us if you aren’t already.

Finally, do you write plays? Rap? Submit your scripts to info@rhymesoverbeats.org

What’s Your Story?

What’s Your Story?

by | Sep 7, 2018 | Blog

Everyone Has a Story

 

The Rhymes Over Beats Theater Collective is very active on social media. Instagram. Facebook. Twitter. We are able to do this because we have adopted a common principle of marketing, which is:

  • When you have a message to convey, one of the keys to success is repetition, repetition, repetition.

So therefore we have created a series of rotating posts here on this blog, each of which push a specific concept.

The most important one is people.

 

Help Us Tell Your Story

 

First, all of our social media followers should donate $10 to Rhymes Over Beats to help us tell the stories you want to see. Money is really helpful in doing this.

The second most important is Tell us your story.

These two posts are the most important, because without content and the resources to produce this content. we don’t exist as a collective.

And your voice isn’t heard.

 

Two Types of Stories

Hip Hop rose out of a culture of oppression, first in Jamaica, then in the “Bronx is burning” days of the early 70s.

There are three possible responses to an oppressive situation:

  • escape
  • rebellion
  • acceptance

Hip Hop is the reaction to the acceptance that the mainstream culture preached. Its rebellious side became Gangsta Rap. How I’m fighting back.

Escape is everything else. Rapping about how I’m getting out/got out.

These are the two general types of stories that we want to tell. If this seems limited, remember how many boy meets girl-boy looses girl-boy gets girl back stories there are. When you look at the details of a story, the limits go away.

I’ve written a ten minute hip hop musical about four children who grow up challenged by different things. One character fights for a decent education in a failing school system, and becomes a teacher to change things. One spends hours on the bus to visit an incarcerated parent and becomes a lawyer to change things. One waits for hours in the emergency room with an ill relative and becomes a doctor to change things. One, upset at the local grocery store’s poor selection and exorbitant prices becomes a businessman to change things.

That’s my story. What’s yours?

There are as many different stories as there are people in the community.

If you want your story told, please contact us.

 

Oh yeah, and donate here. 🙂

Soft Power

Soft Power

by | Aug 31, 2018 | Blog

by Patrick Blake

Hip Hop is beginning to change theater.

It has already changed art, fashion, and music. Not just in the United States, but the world. Hip Hop culture is the world’s culture.

What is Soft Power?

The other day I saw a production of a new musical by David Henry Hwang and Jeanine Tesori called Soft Power. Don’t worry, I’m not going to review it, even if it has rap in it.

I want to talk about what the musical is about – the idea of soft power.

There are three ways a country can dominate the world.

  • It can use economic power. Make something the world wants and sell it to them.
  • A country can dominate through military power. This is not the end of World War II when America had the biggest army and was the only country with an atomic bomb, but the US still does ok.
  • Finally it can dominate the culture. Soft Power. The fact that a particular country is a leader in the first two areas does not mean it dominates in the third.

Who Dominates?

Even though the Roman Empire had the weapons and the gold, they did not dominate in the important area of culture. Roman art was a copy of the Greeks. Roman religion was the Greek gods renamed. It’s philosophy was Greek. So, it’s legitimate to ask who dominated the ancient European world? Greece or Rome?

Once upon a time America dominated the culture. Everyone wanted American movies, rock and roll, and blue jeans. No so much any more.

Rap is Universal

Rap is universal. It is transnational. Everyone raps, but not everyone raps in English.

The other day I went by a freestyle table set up in the subway and someone was rapping in French. This is because rap grew out of and as a response to a culture of oppression. Even if the oppression was 200 years in the past, like Hamilton.

Hamilton has shown that history is a subject for a rap musical. And it does not have to be American history. The world’s history can be given the hip hop treatment.

For the first time in history the dominant cultural form is unconnected to any particular country.

We believe this is a good thing, and are committed to helping it along.

Stay tuned!

Are Actors Compensated Fairly?

Are Actors Compensated Fairly?

by | Aug 21, 2018 | Blog

by Patrick Blake

 

One of the things I do is go on the theater discussion boards. Last month there was a discussion of Hamilton and how the actors were compensated compared to other creative members of the team.

Hamilton has sold hundreds of millions of dollars in tickets – which means the writer, director, and choreographer have made hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions). But the actors, assuming they are still with the show, have only made tens of thousands. The person who posted on the board did not think that was fair.

The belief was that being paid for the current work (acting in Hamilton) was not enough. The person posting believed that, like all other creatives, actors should get paid from future revenue.

 

Who Creates the Work? And How Are They Paid?

 

Let’s look at how a creative work, especially a piece of theater, comes to be.

There are three main groups of people who create theater:

  • the creators (playwrights, composers, lyricists)
  • people who fund the enterprise (producers, investors) and
  • people who bring the work to life (actors, designers, dramaturgs, directors, and technical staff members).

Creators do not get paid, except for a small token payment to take the work off the market until the show is done. Period.

Producers and investors do not get paid until the show they funded is in production and/or profit. Period.

People who do the work get paid when they do the work. And, unlike the other two groups, if the show never goes into production (or fails) they still get paid.

 

Contributed Value to the Production

 

It is easy to see why the creatives and the producers get paid throughout the run, however long it may be; it is, after all, the only payment they receive. But what are the arguments for the workers then?

In the case of every worker but actors, the argument is that their contribution is ongoing. The set is used, the actors follow the instructions the director gave them, the play incorporates notes from the dramaturg.

But in the case of actors, the question is, which group of actors?

  • There is the group of actors who participate in readings.
  • There is the group of actors for the opening of the show – the original cast.
  • There is the group of actors that stay with the show for the entire length of the run.

Which group of actors should get to participate in the ongoing revenue? Which group of actors contribute the most?

This is an impossible question. There is no way to determine which group of actors contribute the most.

 

In Summary

 

So therefore, since there is no way to determine which group of actors contributed the most value to the ongoing production, the answer to this question [on which actors should be paid ongoing revenue] is: no one should.

Do you agree?

 

What is Rhymes Over Beats?

What is Rhymes Over Beats?

by | May 9, 2018 | Blog

by Patrick Blake, Artistic Director

[Editor’s note: This is the speech that Patrick gave at our Fundraiser/Benefit on April 30, 2018.]

What is Rhymes Over Beats?

Thank you, and welcome to the first of what we anticipate will be an annual benefit and fundraiser for the Rhymes Over Beats Theater Collective.

Since this is the first, I want to briefly tell you who we are and what we are about.

 

Where We Started

Almost sixty years ago popular music and theater music split apart, to the detriment of both. I was in a cab with Donna Hart talking about this a few years ago when, like the deus ex machina from old Greek plays, the idea just popped into my head.

We believe a living theater, a vital theater, a theater that is not just for the very few, needs the connection to the culture popular music provides. That tells its stories using popular music. This is why we are a hip hop theater collective that tells seldom-told stories of the community.

As a result, we are about –

  1. Increasing, as Hamilton did, the number of roles available to a diverse group of actors.
  2. We will increase the number of stories told by a diverse group of creative artists by creating a three year residency program where playwrights can develop the stories that need to be told.
  3. Finally, backstage, we will increase the diversity of the pool of directors, designers, stage managers, and front office personnel.

We’re All About the Work..

Last year we co-produced The Assignment, a play about the effects of gun violence, and produced Ursula Rucker’s one-person show My Father’s Daughter. We are also involved in the documentary When Reagan Killed Roosevelt, a story about how and why Public Enemy became Public Enemy.

For the future we are developing projects with Deaon Griffin-Presley, Masta Ace, and Freedom, a musical I wrote with the MC Chi-ill about the problems in the criminal justice system.

By being here you celebrate and support our mission, and for that you have the gratitude of the Collective. Our MCs, DJs, beat writers, playwrights, actors, designers, choreographers, and producers thank you.

We Need You

Now, it wouldn’t be a fundraiser if I didn’t mention money.

Normally at this point, benefits have auctions, silent or live. People bid more than the things are worth for stuff they really don’t want. We are hip hop. We don’t pretend. We come out straight and ask.

Please donate what ever you can whenever you can as often as you can.

  • We need $2,000 for each reading we do.
  • We need $20,000 for a one-person show like My Father’s Daughter.
  • We need $750,000 for full length production like Masta Ace’s or Deaon’s.

I know you spent quite a bit on your tickets, but if you can please do more. Every dollar gets us one step closer to doing more of the kind of work you want to see. Just make the check out to the “Pat Blake I’m going to party in the Bahamas next 420 fund.” I mean Rhymes Over Beats. 🙂

Theater is typically produced because a rich person or two (or ten) writes a $10,000 check. We are hoping that 10,000 people each donate $10. If you can’t do that, at the minimum please go on social media. Post pictures, and tell your friends what a great time you had here, and how they should donate. We put a button below to make it easy to donate.

Thank you! Enjoy the rest of the program.

Click Here to Donate