A Short Scene on an Agent Audition

[The following is an email I got from good buddy (and pompous D-Bag) Rob Ready, AD at PianoFight, and I thought you bloggotubey folks would enjoy]

CONTEXT: I had been taking a Commercial Audition class which also set students up on auditions with commercial agents. It was a great class, I learned tons about auditioning, specifically that I HATED reading those commercials. I felt awkward whenever I read some quirky monologue about peanut butter or Dorritos, so my buddy Ahmed and I wrote our own commercial and I auditioned with that.

SCENE: Agents Office. AGENT is behind desk. ROB enters.

ROB (extending his hand)
Hi, I'm Rob Ready!

AGENT (not looking up or extending hand)
Hi.

ROB (pulling his hand back slowly)
It's nice to meet you.

AGENT
You ready?

ROB
I was born Ready.

AGENT (finally looks up, is not amused)
Go ahead.



ROB
Are you tired of waiting around all week for Communion? Then, when the time finally comes, having some old guy just stuff it in your mouth? Well not to worry because new, from the makers of Holy Water and communion wine, in conjunction with the producers of America’s most beloved cracker, Cheesits, comes the new communion wafer, Jeesits. Pre-blessed by Pope John Paul Eisengoldbergstein III, these crunchy communion crackers will cleanse both your palate and your soul; Jeesits, delicious as sin, with an after taste of absolution.

AGENT
I'm Catholic



(BLACKOUT)

Our Pal Ahmed Killing at Stand-Up

Our buddy Ahmed kicking butt on the stage ...



Way to go buddy!

A Brief Note On Calendar Editors

Running publicity for anything means constantly pestering calendar editors, feature writers and event websites to get your show listed, recommended or written about.

I often wonder if Calendar Editors ever feel like the only adult at a kids' birthday party constantly being pestered by every child in attendance to "Look at meeeeee!" "Watch thiiiiisssss!" etc.

So I guess the question for publicists or artists promoting their own work is, if you were a child at that birthday party, how would you get the grown-up's attention?

Possible Answers:

1) Feign Injury -- in the theater world this could be as simple as the tried and tested fund raising drive titled "IF WE DON"T RAISE A BILLION DOLLARS BY TUESDAY WE'RE TOTALLY F-ED IN THE A!! FML!!!!"

2) Fight the Bully -- Bully's suck, and if you're feeling an overwhelming desire to sock said bully in the mouth, turns out, this is a great way to get attention. The rough theater equivalent is: "Gay theater 'secedes' from California"

3) Do Something Totally Awesome -- At a birthday party, blindfoldedly stepping up to the pinata and smacking the shit out of it on the first try would seriuosly wow any dad who moonlights as a Tee-Ball coach. In theater, it would go something like this: "PianoFight's SHIT Show Deluxe in Cross Hairs of Rotten Veggie Hurling Audiences"

The nice thing here is that we should be able to judge this theory rather easily based on the number of listings, write-ups and reviews SHIT Show Deluxe receives. My bet is that we've got some Little League coaches moonlighting as Calendar Editors who will be thoroughly impressed by Actor 1 perfectly fielding a high fly tomato to deep center stage.

Tix Booth in Union Square Needs a Sign

I walked through Union Square this morning and couldn't stop myself from glancing over at our city's venerable half price tickets bastion, Tix Booth. First and foremost, this is a solid operation that usually swings PianoFight somewhere between 5 and 12 tickets each night we perform. The staff is competent and courteous, and doesn't mind if you stand around in front with flyers hawking your show to the tourists.



Looks nice right? However, I couldn't help but notice that if you didn't already know it was there, you wouldn't have a clue that this establishment even existed. It might be the most poorly marked/signed business in the city.



In case you can't see it, it's smack dab in the center of that photo, just below the St. Francis Hotel.

This is a far cry from its East Coast cousin, TKTS in Times Square.



The signage there is no comparison. I remember the first time I saw Times Square, and those giant red letters really do jump out. The only thing is, the City of New York did theater one better, by turning the collection of trailers and tents that used to house TKTS, into this:



Here's another view of it:



Freakin awesome right? Now listen, I'm not saying that the City of San Francisco needs to rush out and build a giant light-up staircase in the middle of the most heavily trafficked block in the city, but don't you think a big, brightly colored sign with the words "THEATER" and "TICKETS" written in large, friendly letters would be a serious boon to the local theater scene?

Raelle Myrick-Hodges of Brava! For Women in the Arts, lamented in a recent interview that there was no centralized theater community in the Bay Area. While I do agree with the comment, I have a nagging feeling that it's a utopian pipe-dream. However, a nice, big sign in the heart of downtown, showing how proud this city is of its art scene, might be a good start to centralizing that community.

Daily Californian Sums Up State of Bay Area Theater

Finally, an article on the state of theater that is actually positive:

In a time when businesses in many industries are closing their doors, theater companies in the Bay Area continue to operate in full force.

Many thanks to Arielle Little for taking the time to interview a load of companies (including PianoFight) and make an objective judgment on the community as it stands. It's a far cry from other Bay Area media outlets, who appear to believe theater is headed straight down the toilet.

Explaining the "Model"

A few weeks ago we put out a press release detailing how Combined Artform and PianoFight are expanding their theater management duties in both LA and SF, which prompted local playwright and all around theater blogger Tim Bauer to ask this:

"I'd like to know more about the "for-profit, non-government aided" model. I suspect that's the wave of the future, and would free you up from writing grants and producing the kind of work that you may not want to do but that will sound good to a funder. How's it work and can you share the model with other artists who might want to follow your path? Thanks!"

I can't really speak for Combined Artform here, and to be honest, we're still figuring out what PianoFight's business model is going to be. And I don't really think that our "model" is too different from what most artists do on their own, we've just applied it to a company, but here goes:

1) Produce your own work out of pocket

2) Keep producing until your work is making enough money to pay for itself (ie, you're no longer funding it out of pocket)

3) Keep on producing your own work until it's paying you a living wage

Right now, we're somewhere between steps two and three.

Our basic thinking was that if we get behind something, in this case PianoFight, and work collectively to promote the company as opposed to an individual promoting him or herself, the whole thing would gain traction much quicker with multiple people avidly working towards its success.

PianoFight, thanks to Matthew Quinn, picked up management duties of Studio 250 at Off-Market in 2007, and over the course of the first year a community started to form around the company and venue. We then registered PianoFight as an LLC (which is cheap and easy to do), and had to pay an $800 tax for our first registered year in business in 2008 (which was neither cheap nor easy to do). 2009 marked the first time that anyone in PianoFight received a paycheck (the SF run of FORKING!).

The checks were small considering the amount of work that went into FORKING!, but everyone was paid equally (from the producer to the light/sound tech to the actors), with the idea that over time, as our audience grows and sales increase and the company's other revenue streams begin to grow (theater rentals, merch etc), that those paychecks will get bigger each time we issue them, and eventually it will be a living wage supporting everyone involved.

As I said above, we're somewhere between steps two and three, and we're still figuring this model out. What's liberating about the for-profit model is the freedom it provides to do whatever the hell you want, and change a plan of attack on the fly.

Example: in March of 2008, we expected to have a renter in Studio 250 from April through June, however, a week into March, the renter decided to go to another space. PianoFight was left with a three month hole to fill, and after a few bull session sitting around the theater, we came up with ShortLived, our annual audience judged playwriting competition, which went on to be PianoFight's highest grossing and attention getting production. ShortLived 3 (in 2010), will run concurrently in LA and SF. Because the company has not been beholden to funders or a board, we've had the opportunity to move quickly and without reproach, and learn along the way what works and what doesn't.

I hope that answers your question, Tim, and as I said before, I imagine our "model" is not far from what artists do on their own produce their work til it pays while making career moves which continually provide opportunities to have your work paid for.

If anyone wants to read more about Tim, he's got a great blog, Direct Address, in which he discusses all thing Theater-y and manges to not come across as a cantankerous old-fart like I do.

Tim's also got a show coming up in October, "Zombie Town," which is being produced by Sleepwalkers in October.

Producing "I Heart Hamas"

It's not easy picking shows. What should be produced and why are difficult questions to answer. Those two questions usually translate out into these two:

1) Will it be a good show?

and

2) Will it sell tickets?

About a month ago, as Combined Artform and PianoFight were getting ready to announce the latest venue addition to the SF Solo Scene, Stage 205 at Off-Market, we were approached by Jennifer Jajeh about a potential run of her solo show, "I Heart Hamas."

Matthew Quinn, Dan Williams and I asked the two questions above and signed on as producers of the show before reading or seeing it, based largely on two factors:

1) The people involved (Jennifer Jajeh, writer and star; and Kamau Bell, director and collaborator)

and

2) The title, "I Heart Hamas"

We've known and worked with Jennifer for a couple years now, and have enjoyed and admired Kamau's work for some time as well (both are consummate pros and all around cool people), so it seemed a no-brainer that the two together would cook up a pretty kickin' product.

The question of ticket sales remains, but clearly, we're betting sales will be great, and here's why:

1) The, to say the least, intriguing title, will catch the eye of press and public alike

2) Running the show alongside Brian Copeland's venerable "Not a Genuine Black Man" (premiering on Stage 205 on Fri and Sat evenings Starting Sept. 18) will fuel sales for both shows

and most importantly,

3) Having had the opportunity to sit in on a rehearsal run of the show, I can say confidently that the product will be nothing short of what we anticipated - excellent

Whatever you think the title reveals about the show itself, "I Heart Hamas" does not come down hard on any one side or specific issue, rather, through Jennifer's recounting of her life experience, it explores how someone fairly removed from the situation can easily get caught up in the frenzy while poking fun at the process along the way.

So, will the show sell crazy tickets? Honestly, your guess is as good as mine. But I know that the people who do buy tickets will be in for a relatable, entertaining and thought provoking night. And hopefully, those people will tell their friends.

And they'll tell two friends, and they'll tell two friends ...