Flash Theater LA: The Future of Los Angeles Theatre or just Another Passing Fashion?
Colin Mitchell | Sep 22, 2011 | Comments 19 |
I applaud Playwrights’ Arena Director and Founder Jon Lawrence Rivera for his passion, creativity and all around chutzpah in coming up with the idea of Flash Theatre LA highlighted in today’s LA Stage Times article A New Theater Form Takes to the Streets of LA – Flash Mob Style written by Stephanie Jones.
It’s a dynamic response to the Social Media Generation, it’s energetic and it has flair. But this quote from Rivera made me stop:
“I feel that a lot of the young people who are all invested in their Twitter accounts, into their Facebook and all that stuff, they’re not interested in ‘Oh, there’s a show that runs blah blah blah at the Mark Taper Forum. Tuesday to Thursday – whatever. Right? That scheduled thing, that’s a formality that was created many, many years ago, and I’m not saying it doesn’t have any room at all. That should exist and continue to exist,” Rivera explained. “ I just feel like the young kids don’t care about an eight-week run of any show. The thing for them is the immediacy of things. When they go to Twitter and say, ‘Oh my gosh. Justin Bieber is going to be at Barnes and Noble – oh my gosh!’ They just go. So, I said, ‘To really capture that kind of excitement with the young, we have to do it the way that they think about stuff.’”
Here’s my question: should the future of theatre be guided by what the “audience” thinks they want or what the artist thinks they need?
The cast of Flash Theater LA assembled. Credit: Julie Anderson/JR Photography.
Now personally, I think the answer lies somewhere in-between. If left solely to the artist you’re probably going to get a bunch of esoteric crap that has no basis in what’s actually happening in the world and more likely happening in the artist’s lonely and twisted mind. Sometimes this makes for great and visionary art, more often than not it becomes masturbatory psycho-babble that’s better left to the therapist’s room. On the other hand, if you leave it up to the audience, you’re probably going to get Reality TV, live-tweeting and re-hashed spectacle that appeals only to the senses. Or a game show. Which is basically what Rivera is describing here:
“At some point, we’re going to come up to [the] theater [and] it’s [going to be] just like how people decide on who’s the winner for America’s Got Talent. We’re going to have keypads in each theater and we’re all going to decide how the play’s going to end,” Rivera speculated. “At intermission, you press [a button]. There is something about the culture where they want to have control over what happens and I feel like at some point there’s going to probably be some lever that people decide – does [this character] die or live? They’re going to decide, so that they have a say in what happens.”
Now Flash Theatre is basically just Street Theatre for the “I Want it Now” Generation. Immediate, unannounced, spontaneous. Sort of. Rivera and Playwright’s Arena’s idea sounds more like Flash Entertainment or rather Flash Spectacle intended to appeal to a young audience that likes to be in the know, likes to know now and likes to know now that his fellow know-nows are now in the know-how. And how. And most of all, they want to be able share and participate in the event, or else it just doesn’t make the grade.
So in this sense, it could have some legs. And heck, it looks like fun. It’ll sure as hell be fun for those participating I imagine. Then again, like most ideas that cater to “what the people want right now” – see “fashion”, “trend” and “style” – rarely will they be what that same audience wants five years from now. To this, I would guess Rivera and Playwrights’ Arena would say, “That’s fine. We want to get their attention now, so that they’ll still be interested later when they mature enough to enjoy the more traditional and sophisticated forms of theatre”. And again, that’s a valid and valuable contribution. Rivera pretty much echoes this sentiment with this quote from the article:
“I’m not sure that it will have that exact effect that I want, but what I hope will happen is that the young kids will really get excited about the form, about theater, about the onset of ritual, music, and text. That they get excited about it enough that they will be invested at least to see the next few flash theater [shows],” said Rivera. “What happens is that these kids who are 16, 17, 24, 25 – at some point they will transition into moving into the theater. But what I want to do, what I want flash theater to do, is to get them excited so that they don’t get to 24 [or] 25, then go, ‘I’ve never seen theater. I don’t know what it’s about.’ I meet so many kids now when I teach at USC or if I’m directing at CalArts – some of the kids that I hear go, ‘Oh, I’ve never seen live theater.’
Director Jon Lawrence Rivera directing the cast of Flash Theater LA. Credit: Julie Anderson/JR Photography.
It seems to me that this is yet another attempt to marry “theatre” with social media and see what comes out on the other end. Fair enough. And hell, it might be pretty entertaining. Only thing, I’ll probably miss it cuz my life is too damn short to be watching the Twitter feed for the next Flash Theatre Extravaganza. Though I might be able to catch the first one. Cuz it’s actually a SCHEDULED Flash Mob! God forbid.
Here’s the info on the Flash Theatre LA Inaugural performance:
Flash Theater L.A., Spring Street between 5th and 6th (the LATC block), Sept 27, 8:30 pm. After the initial performance, information about subsequent performances will be accessible only by following Flash Theater L.A. on: twitter.com/#!/flashtheaterla orwww.facebook.com/pages/Flash-Theater-LA/
You get the idea.
So set your Twitter alarms, Lemon Heads, and make sure you’re downtown around 8:30pm. Cuz like a flash, it’ll be there and gone.
Until the next one of course.
Filed Under: colin mitchell • Featured • Ponderings
About the Author: COLIN MITCHELL: Actor/Writer/Director/Producer, award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Broadway veteran, Marvel comics scribe, Van Morrison disciple, Zen-Catholic, a proud U.S. citizen conceived in Scotland and born in Frankfurt, Germany, currently living in Los Angeles and doing his best to piss off as many people as possible.
How thrilling and unexpected: the tedious naiveté of each young generation believing it has invented sex and everything else under the sun. In the 60s, these sorts of things were called “be-ins” and the principles rounded up an audience not by tweeting, but via the ubiquitous clacking of mimeograph machines late at night in student unions around the nation.
As to having the audience vote on a play’s outcome – how brilliant is that? No more will we have to suffer through Juliet’s foolish downing of her poison vial! Now, thanks to viewer sentimentality the lovers will escape the feuding morass that is Verona and go on to a life lived happily ever after, perhaps meeting up at the Padua Starbucks. I mean, come on, they’re so cute together! And on other nights, when the audience is rife with Xbox 360 gamesters, we can be sure that Shylock will get to tear the beating heart out Antonio because, goddamn, that would be so cool — right out of Grand Theft Auto IV.
Oh brave new world, that has such innovations in’t.
Please.
I love that Rivera is doing this, and that he’s getting some coverage. I think his nods toward ‘young people’ and “Twitter[...] and Facebook and all that stuff” betrays a pretty cursory understanding and commitment to integrating social media. Just announcing a play on Twitter, even if it’s a flash piece in public, doesn’t make it integrated with social media. He gets a lot closer when he mentions audience feedback into performance as a future element of a more engaging and audience integrated performance.
As usual, your curmudgeonly attitude toward artists (your presumptions of artists tendencies to masturbate is so patronizing) and the interests of the audience, specifically young audiences, shows that your idea of performance is limited to a standardized commercial model that has been dying for fifty years. But I am glad you’re writing about it.
‘Flash theatre’ has been around since the first prophet stepped into the forum and gathered a crowd. The sixties was full of stuff like this. Protest artists have been performing spontaneously forever. This isn’t a fad, and it isn’t particularly new. It’s simply using a new technology to do what people have always done. Social media gives this kind of work a bigger outlet for finding and building audiences, but the impact and meaning of the work ultimately derives from its content, not its media. If the audience experience is novel and meaningful, then who cares if its trendy or not?
LOL, didn’t see TT’s comment till after I posted, but lo how we agree and disagree in equal portions.
What was old is new again.
Wow. Prejudging much?
The author has no idea of what this show is going to be, sneers at the very idea of it,and sneers at anyone who goes because they saw a notice posted on social media, and ironically does this ONLINE. Full disclosure, I’m involved in this show, am absolutely biased, and pretty much love it in an entirely non-objective way. But at least my objective in lfe is NOT to piss off as many people as possible. Way to go, Mr. Mitchell, you’re achieving your aim and yes, the taste is bitter indeed.
Success!
But seriously, Ken, why so judgmental? I’ve actually done this show a service by writing about it and highlighting it for our readers. Something that Mr. Jette – with all his fair criticism – was at least able to accept. I could have ignored the show altogether, but I didn’t. Why? Because it’s interesting and seems to be a worthy and valuable effort. Something I mentioned several times in the article. I even said I might catch it if time permits. Yes, I’ve offered some skepticism – the mode offers much to be skeptical about – but I in no way have rejected the show or the idea outright. So, again, Ken, why so touchy?
Maybe what LA artists really DO want are a bunch of empty-headed cheerleaders running around shaking their pom-poms at everything they do, singing nothing but “Ra Ra’s” and “Sis Boom Ba’s”. Clearly that’s what you want.
Guess what? Not everybody’s going to to enjoy your show no matter how innovative or “non-objectively” you like it. That’s the nature of theatre and art. My suggestion is you grow a thicker skin and a modicum of a sense of humor – and SOON – or else you’ll find yourself making a lifelong investment in therapy wondering why nobody likes you.
Break a leg!
I’ve gotten my fair share of bad reviews and I’ll be the first to admit, I do not fare well with them, and I do wish my skin was thicker. But they were reviews, meaning the writer had already seen them. You saw fit to shit on an idea before you even saw it, and I happen to think that truly sucks and is pretty much antithetical to the creative process, so I’m shocked that it comes from a self-described theater artist. I don’t need empty headed cheerleaders shaking their pom-poms at everything I do – though that would be very nice – but I really hate douchebags who make snarky remarks about something they know nothing about and think that doing anyone a service. At least you don’t have to pay a therapist to find out why nobody likes you.
Should a truly creative process ever rely on the perspective of an outside observer? Only if so can anything discussed here be seen as antithetical to the creative process.
Every creative process ultimately relies, in part, on the perspective of an outside observer. Art is a transaction between living entities; both the observer and the observed are changed by the transaction. So, yes: I believe Colin Mitchell’s sarcasm about a piece that he hasn’t seen and, in fact, hasn’t even been performed yet, is antithetical to the creative process.
Okay, lot to cover here.
Firstly, that’s MISTER Douchebag, to you, Kenny Old Boy. And secondly, just so I’m clear, I should remove you from the waiting list of the “Friends of Colin” surprise party, yes? I’m just checking. It’s hard to wade through your witty reparte.
Now onto Garfield’s comment, someone who actually has something productive to offer to the discussion other than his own personal outrage at being challenged (God forbid), I’d say, yes, Garfield, you are correct and I’d agree, as far as the actual process is involved, clearly all that matters during that process is what is happening between the participating artists. Which is why I’m not challenging the process, I’m challenging the form and wondering whether it is indeed something new or simply a passing fancy and therefore good for LA Theatre. Both of which have merit, but it’s important to draw the distinction.
David Jette is right to mention that maybe it doesn’t matter if it’s just a passing fancy as long as it incites some interest and gets people fired up about theatre. Seems like that is what Rivera and the Playwrights’ Arena are also saying. Which I also mentioned in my article.
Though I would say that AFTER the show has been opened to an audience then the artist and company should always leave themselves open to quality and productive criticism so that they might better their craft and their show. To not do so, I would say, is TRULY anti-thetical to the creative process. I know D. Jette has some issues with this last part, but that’s something he’s going to have work out on his own time.
And finally expanding on the idea of being open to criticism, Kenneth, if you really are so thin-skinned and weak minded that your artistic process is so devastatingly disoriented by a simple challenge then you really should re-think your hobby. I say “hobby’ because rarely do I come in contact with an actual professional artist who is so lacking in confidence that they have to resort to name calling and anything resembling an intelligent response when someone criticizes their work.
I have been nothing but respectful to Mr. Rivera and Playwrights’ Arena in this article and remain so. The first two words I wrote were “I applaud”. If you can’t fathom the difference between respectful, reasoned skepticism and “snarky remarks” you really should return to weeping into your daily bowl of granola and leave the more intricate conversation to the adults.
I’m going tomorrow night (and am excited). I’m also one of the participating playwrights for the future of Rivera’s (I think very smart) idea. And I know this is off topic, but is Colin Mitchell as handsome as his picture?
I’m hoping to go as well, Michael, though I might have some family duties that make it impossible.
And no, I’m not really that handsome it’s all CGI.
I think it was one of those perfect poses really. I’ve tried to replicate it in the mirror a couple times but it never works. Ah well. Such is life. The photographer was actually my Bitter Lemons partner Enci, so if you’re looking for magic, she’s the one to talk to.
Many thanks for the kind compliment.
How did I end up the reasonable alternative in a conversation on Bitter Lemons?
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
So, I attended this last night and liked it alot. I still contend that it isn ot Flash theater, not really anyway. I tweeted the entire thing and didn’t egt a shred of interaction from anybody (I was hashtagging like crazy too). I don’t think social media was really a driving force in this production – it was publicized through traditional means, performed in front of a theater, and didn’t have much of a serendipitous element. Still, it had beautiful moments and it brought art to the streets.
Excellent. Thanks for the on the scene report. David.
Was bummed I couldn’t attend. I’m guessing the social media element will kick in more for the next show as supposedly it won’t be announced when and where until very close to the actual performance. Then we shall truly see if it has any legs…
I was there as well. There was a huge crowd. When I got there I wasn’t sure who was there to perform and who was there to watch. There was this feeling of spontaneity because I didn’t know when exactly the show would begin and when it did begin, where exactly it would be happening. 90% of the people there all came because they heard about it somewhere, but what I found to be really cool was the few random people I talked to on the sidewalk who asked “what is going on here?” and then stayed to watch.
There wasn’t much live-tweeting of the event, but I don’t get the sense that is an important aspect to it. I think it leaves itself open to it, and Jon Lawrence Rivera is clearly cool with people engaging with the performance however they want. Most chose to take a lot of pictures, video or just watch.
The last thing to report is the interesting dynamic the street naturally brings to this sort of thing. There was traffic, pedestrians and angry shop owners all adding or taking away from the performance…. components you can never really predict.
Very cool. Thanks, Brian.
Anyone else attend?
I’m just reading all this now…interesting.
When Susan Lori did her 365 Days of Plays I told a good friend that I thought it sounded more like a publicity stunt than theater. And he responded, “Isn’t all theater just a publicity stunt now? That is, if you want it to be seen?”
Yikes. Telling indeed.