Woooooo.....You will be visited by three blog posts this holiday season, expressing the joys of theatre past, present and future. Read these messages from Artistic Director Charlie Flynn-McIver, and if you feel so moved, support NC Stage with a contribution before 2010 is gone. Remember what the ghost of Jacob Marley said to Scrooge..."BUSINESS? Mankind was my business! Their common welfare was my business!"
Warmest of holiday greetings to you!
Recently I've been thinking about an aspect of the holiday season that is often overlooked. Whatever you celebrate during this time of year, it’s all predicated on a story. And not just any story, but a compelling story about triumph over adversity, about compassion from strangers, about hope for a future of peace and kindness.
The existence of NC Stage is also predicated on the notion of telling stories. We seek out plays that capture the imagination and speak to some universal truth about the human experience. A playwright's job is to take these universal, abstract stories and make them concrete for us - to connect them to the here and now. And our job as theatre professionals is to create a conduit between the audience and the playwright’s story. Whether it’s a Shakespeare tragedy or an American classic or a contemporary drama or farce, the plays we produce help us understand the unfamiliar and experience the familiar in a new and profound way.
We hope that you value this as a vital part of your life and as a necessary part of your community. We certainly couldn’t do it without your help and financial support, but more importantly, we couldn't do it without your participation in the performance. Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists to be seen and evaluated from the unique experience you bring to the theatre.
So as we all wind down this year and begin a new one, I'd like to take a moment to tell each other our stories. Think of the stories that have been an important part of who you are and where you’ve been. Please post a comment and tell us what plays you have found to be irresistibly compelling stories, and what you felt like after seeing them. And if you value the stories that NC Stage tells, I hope you'll also consider making a donation online before the end of the year.
Thanks!
Charlie Flynn-McIver
P.S. Charlie starts off the comments section with a story about the founding of NC Stage and a play about an East German transsexual that changed his life.
Warmest of holiday greetings to you!
Recently I've been thinking about an aspect of the holiday season that is often overlooked. Whatever you celebrate during this time of year, it’s all predicated on a story. And not just any story, but a compelling story about triumph over adversity, about compassion from strangers, about hope for a future of peace and kindness.
The existence of NC Stage is also predicated on the notion of telling stories. We seek out plays that capture the imagination and speak to some universal truth about the human experience. A playwright's job is to take these universal, abstract stories and make them concrete for us - to connect them to the here and now. And our job as theatre professionals is to create a conduit between the audience and the playwright’s story. Whether it’s a Shakespeare tragedy or an American classic or a contemporary drama or farce, the plays we produce help us understand the unfamiliar and experience the familiar in a new and profound way.
We hope that you value this as a vital part of your life and as a necessary part of your community. We certainly couldn’t do it without your help and financial support, but more importantly, we couldn't do it without your participation in the performance. Art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It exists to be seen and evaluated from the unique experience you bring to the theatre.
So as we all wind down this year and begin a new one, I'd like to take a moment to tell each other our stories. Think of the stories that have been an important part of who you are and where you’ve been. Please post a comment and tell us what plays you have found to be irresistibly compelling stories, and what you felt like after seeing them. And if you value the stories that NC Stage tells, I hope you'll also consider making a donation online before the end of the year.
Thanks!
Charlie Flynn-McIver
P.S. Charlie starts off the comments section with a story about the founding of NC Stage and a play about an East German transsexual that changed his life.
When I was living in New York in the 90s, I was given a couple of tickets to see Hedwig And The Angry Inch. It was getting a lot of press as being something you must see and experience. At the time, I was emerging from the break up of an 8 year marriage. And like most break-ups, there was a lot of pain involved.
ReplyDeleteAll I knew about the play was that it was about an East German boy who had gotten a sex change operation in order to marry an American GI so he could escape from behind the Iron Curtain to a better life in the United States. Simple enough, right? The twist was that the surgeon who performed the operation was not of a very high caliber. Thus, the angry inch. And what did I know? It had rock music in it, the date I was taking was thrilled, it was hip and edgy. But what I was really thinking was, “Yeah right. What can I possibly have in common with this character or this story?”
But as the story unfolded through this incredible score and script and the mesmerizing performance of Michael Cerveris, I started to relate to this story in an entirely different manner. I saw the plot device of the botched sex change operation as an expression of confusion about this person’s identity - or lack of identity. He was a blank with only a vestige of his former self and no idea of who he thought he was.
And at the end, as Hedwig stood at the stage door of the theatre, facing out to the world without all of his costume and vestments that had defined him for so long, and the guitars and voices were wailing on the last song, I realized that I had everything in common with this person. I thought of the life I had led up to that point and realized I too had no identity after I had defined myself by the relationship that had recently ended.
I too was now in a position to either retreat into the bitter expression of my disappointed expectations or to boldly face the world without all the comfort of the familiar I had depended on.
It truly was a life altering experience that I will always value. A play did that. The combined talents of a writer, performers and designers transported the entire audience out of their own lives for an hour and a half and changed the course of events. In fact, it is that experience that I credit for helping make NC Stage a reality. And that’s why it was the first show of our very first season.
I remember seeing "The Merchant of Venice" at the RSC in London when I was 15. The production starred Antony Sher, whom I didn't know at the time was a big deal, and the profound urgency of the production, its cruelty and eloquence, totally struck me dumb. It's the first time I remember having that feeling of absolutely needing to take time to let this work of art unfurl for me--now that I had seen it, it was going to take some time to truly get it.
ReplyDeleteI remember with, great excitement, the beginings of NCSTAGE. I was working across the road @ Zambra's, when I had the opportunity to meet Charlie Flynn-McIver. We spoke of Shakespeare(my favorite)and wished him well in this new endeavor. It was my good fortune to see "Hedwig" on it's final night. It was amazing, thrilling, emotional and funny. The performances were outstanding as was the entire play. The long-lasting standing ovation was proof of that. When I left,I thought how lucky we(Ashevillians) are to have theater such as this. I knew immediately this would begin my love affair with theater. Since then I have attended many more plays and volunteered as an usher, concession, ticket window, whatever. I remember seeing the actors in character parading around downtown Asheville. As they passed by the restaurant, I came outside to applaud them. As I returned to work, I thought to myself,"This is why I live here."
ReplyDeleteThanks N! I remember chatting with you those first months! Thanks for the nice words and I hope you can get out to see another play soon.
ReplyDelete