Micro Hysteria

Marketing guru and unknowing theatrical genius Seth Godin coined a new term last month -- "micro hysteria."

Far better to obsess about owning the micro audience, at least for a moment, than to waste your energy trying to be everything to everyone.

It's a sentiment that is at least as old as Aesop: "If you try to please everyone, you'll wind up pleasing no one." Seth is taking a moldy old law "everyone" knows and turning it into an active rule of thumb with micro hysteria: "Go after the niche."

To find packets of the population that interact with each other and create [micro hysteria].

In the theatre, the problem of promotion is how to fill seats. The most common form of promotion out here in Los Angeles is the color postcard, stacks of which litter cafe counters and theatre lobbies and laundromats all over town. This is stupid promotion, equivalent to a street preacher yelling at passersby from a megaphone. There's no connection, no conversation.

Well, no surprise. There's no audience, just random strangers.

In a town as fractured and spread out as Los Angeles is (and here I mean the whole of Los Angeles County taken as one megalopolis) random shouting is lost among the din of all the other random shouting going on. The theatres that thrive seem to have a strong subscriber base, or at least dedicated regulars. The community is there, it just needs to be nurtured.

Food for thought.

Proverbs of Theatrical Hell
(with a wink to William Blake)

Timidity is the death of theatre.

Life in art and art in life are one.

The audience is judge, jury, executioner, and unindicted co-conspirator.

A personal statement crumbles mountains.

A self-indulgent statement brings laughter and derision.

A blind man hearing color is art.

A deaf man seeing music is art.

Fire of passion heals.

An actor on stage is more honest than an actor in the house.

Tragedy is primer.

Comedy is relief.

Conviction is godliness.

Lazy playwright, lousy playwright.

Acting is total awareness and no awareness.

"Enough! Or Too Much!"

Mad Theatrics Journal

"... [creating theatre] is not just a question of wooing an audience. It is an even harder matter of creating works that evoke in audiences an undeniable hunger and thirst."

--Peter Brook, The Empty Space

The MAD THEATRICS JOURNAL is accepting submissions for our premiere issue!

I should probably post some sort of submission guidelines, but this first issue is going to be very loose. There is no theme. Anything goes!

We are looking for the following types of material:

• Short plays
• Theatre theory/history
• Reviews
• "How to" articles
• Humor/satire

This ezine shall be published in PDF format, with no support for hypertext. I, Andrew Moore, shall be the dictator-in-chief. Submissions can be sent to me at dalmotion@sbcglobal.net. If you have any questions, shoot me an e-mail or comment below.

I am pleased to announce that I (Andrew) have joined Write Act Rep!

Later this year I will be workshopping Torrid Affaire for the company. I will also be designing and overseeing the construction of a full cast of puppets for an exciting period epic.

The theatre has always been square zero for me. My home. When Pamela and I produced Torrid Affaire last year it just felt right. Sitting in the darkened house, making notes during rehearsal, coming down to the line . . . I actually felt relaxed. That's just crazy.

I wanted more of that feeling of -- dare I say "completeness?" -- so I had planned on self-producing Sonny this year. And then Pamela joined Write Act. I tagged along to work calls, took in a few shows, and just fell in love with the whole thing. The facility is capacious yet cozy, and the people are dedicated and so very talented. The concern I felt about taking on (again) the awesome task of self-production eased off. There was no longer any need to "go it alone."

I've found my group!

Here's an Idea ...

I was reading over Andrew Rhodes' great comment to a recent post, when the thought occurred ... why not do a quarterly "Mad Theatrics" journal/magazine? An e-zine about theatre from the trenches? Sort of a bruised-knuckle, roar-of-the-greasepaint/smell-of-the-crowd take on "American Theater Magazine." The content would be assembled from general submissions from whoever wants to submit. Articles can be written by theatre professionals or theatre fans. We can print reviews, theory, short play scripts, etc. And the whole thing is a free download available seasonally.

The editorial board shall consist of me (for right now.) If this thing turns into something interesting, maybe I'll expand the board and get more sophisticated, but for now it'll just be a Rough Theatre e-zine lorded over tyrannically by me.

Thoughts?

"Moves the Air Around It"

From John Mayer -

"This is the greatest expectation you can have when it comes to art - that you can create something that moves the air around it, something that can at least hold (if not remove) some of the weight in a person's life."

www.johnmayer.com/blog

Hear, hear!

METATHEATRE

For lack of a better word. If there is a better word, someone please educate me!

What I mean here is a theatre experience that encompasses and includes the audience in the proceedings. A "fourth-wall" breaker.

Examples: A Company of Wayward Saints, murder mystery dinners, The Victorian Hotel [http://www.rogueartists.org/projects/victorianhotel.php], Director's Cut, etc.

"Meta" as in "transcending."

I'm thinking "metatheatre" like "metafiction" and "metaverse." An all-emcompassing experience.

So that's the term, and what it means to me.

It's a fascinating form to be a part of, let me tell you! It's immersive for the audience, and a challenge for the performer. It requires an ability to improvise, yet keep things moving in the direction of a predetermined narrative.

So how the hell do you write for it? I know how my friend Pete [www.thepete.com] wrote for it with Director's Cut. And I've read A Company of Wayward Saints a few times. both of those examples are pretty linear ... how do you write for a show that has three or four scenes going on simultaneously in different spaces?

Hrm. Not much theatre/playwriting theory in this blog entry.