The “star” system for grading performances feels woefully inadequate.  What exactly does it mean when something gets “Four Stars”?  Doesn’t it mean two entirely different things when a critic gives 4 stars to two entirely different films like, for example, Bridesmaids and The Artist?

It’s bad enough that we’ve “progressed” from letters to emails to texts to 140-character tweets.  But today, major media sources flirt with constraining critics to just five characters: * – *****.  Well, here’s a new system: I’m going to give your performance a grade based purely on whether you successfully fill your seats.  For arts organizations, isn’t that part of your test?

“As for love, no thanks.”

I recently saw the Samford University School of the Arts do a highly entertaining version of White Christmas.  Let me tell you, the Samford folks don’t seem to do small.  Last year, I saw their version of Thoroughly Modern Millie and was pretty impressed.  They said Millie was “one of our largest productions in the last 10 years,” but this version of White Christmas was an extravaganza.

According to the program, it was maybe forty performers, fifty-something listed members of the University Chorale, about twenty artistic staff, a thirty-something piece orchestra, and around a hundred production staff.  Huge, stunning sets with multiple glittery and sparkly costume changes for the whole cast.  (From my notes: “The clothes are good or even great.”)  The show’s iconic snow was actual diamond dust, imported specially from Detroit.  Birmingham’s tiny, struggling theatre companies can eat their hearts out.

“Breakfast all day and waffles all night.”

So how many people showed up to the (rather large at ~2500) Wright Fine Arts Center?  Depends on how you count it.  Opening night was sold out – so that would be a grade of 100% (or an A+).  When the lights went down, my count was around 90-95% of actual people in non-balcony seats – so that’s still a solid A.  After intermission, though, a notable chunk of people left.  I’d say it filtered down to around 85% full after the break.

“There’s a little bit of larceny in all of us.”

I wouldn’t believe anybody left this show because they thought it sucked.  College shows are a little different.  A chunk of the audience is students.  Most wouldn’t go to an on-campus musical unless 1) a friend or family member was in the show or 2) they’re getting extra credit.  Once that friend is offstage or they’ve seen enough of the show to write a one-page report, they’re outtathere.  I guess I could draw a conclusion about the show not being quite entertaining enough to keep students engaged, but then again, not everyone likes musical extravaganzas.

“Love and the weather can’t be depended upon.”

Why is this a good way to judge a performance or an organization?

• Arts groups shouldn’t work their tails off only to give subtle, beautiful performances that no one sees.  The audience is half of the equation; trees that fall in the forest make no sound.  You want people to show up because you believe in it, right?  If your show stinks, no one will come – so attendance is a fair reflection of how good your product is.
• Attendance is also a good reflection of your last few shows.  If you’re consistently entertaining, ticket buyers will trust you and come see whatever you’re doing currently.  It works in reverse, too.  It’s a relationship, baby.
• I’ve worked in restaurants; I recognize that attendance fluctuates randomly.  So I might just be taking a snapshot of an off-night.  This is why the mission is always: sell out the venue.  If you’re shooting for half-full, then some nights you’ll get a quarter full – and that’s no fun for your audience or anybody else.  Also, the quality of live performances fluctuates night-to-night, so that’s no excuse.
• I guarantee that David Bowie must have created otherworldly performances for sleepy, quarter-full clubs before he was David Bowie.  Still, this method would be a fair snapshot of how well he was doing in, let’s say, 1967.  And some shows sell out, but totally suck.  That’s the critic’s job: to recommend that more or fewer people should be seeing any particular show.
• Administration must pick the right venue for the job.  A positive for this measurement is that it grades the people behind the scenes.  I understand that Samford has a bigger production and advertising budget than places like Theatre Downtown.  The ASO has more money than the Magic City Choral Society.  No matter, the mission is always the same: sell out the venue.

“Falling out of love can be falling in love again.”

Which is why Samford’s White Christmas gets high marks.  It wasn’t challenging or unsettling in the slightest, but I smiled pretty much the whole time.  There’s a clean, unironic Miss America-ness to having such reputationally wholesome kids perform a wholesome musical set around our most wholesome war and the most wholesome of holidays.  You’d have to be a grump not to appreciate this level of earnestness – or to leave at intermission.

“That oughta sweeten your pancakes.”

A couple of quick notes.  I’ve now seen two different musicals at Samford where the dance was notably terrific.  If I knew who else to compliment as most responsible, other than Choreographer Roger van Fleteren, I would.  Since the dancers are students – not professionals – it’s obvious that they have a wide range of talent and skill.  It’s a gift to find the right combination of Goldilocks choreography that isn’t too basic for the advanced, isn’t too hard for the amateurs, uses the students’ natural enthusiasm, and looks great for the crowd.

“I think we could turn that guy into an opera.”

Lastly, oh please, either fix any technical issues with the microphones or stop using them.  If a person auditioned that was otherwise a beautiful dancer, but had a trick knee that would make them fall over six or seven times during a performance, you couldn’t cast them.  Then why do we insist on microphones that repeatedly fail – jarringly – in the middle of performances?

“If you had better legs and some personality, I’d marry you.”

Thank you very much to Lisa Gibbs and everyone associated with the Samford University School of the Arts.  Check out the related article in the Samford Crimson.

They’ve got some new chairs at the Red Mountain Theatre Company.  (And apparently, Theatre Downtown has gotten a parallel seating makeover.)  For the recent production of Sweet Charity, my backside got to enjoy the sweet seats on the side of the stage.  My cheeks give ‘em a non-raspberry, hopetimistic bravo.

“I hope his tight Italian pants choke him to death.”

It probably says a lot about me that – if it’s an option – I often prefer sitting off to one side of the stage.  Draw your own conclusions.  One reason is that it gives me a good angle (and a good excuse) to look back at the audience before and during the performance.  I’ve said it before: the audience is a big part of any show.

“For a weirdo, he’s very nice.”

One thing you can notice from this perspective is that audiences are usually deadishly sedate as compared to the action on stage.  In particular, Sweet Charity requires boatloads of energy.  Morgan Smith (Charity Hope Valentine) had every bit of the effervescence required for this part.  I’ll bet she collapsed into bed every night and prepped by running marathons.

“That girl’s built for everything but conversation.”

Is that a big reason we like watching theatre and dance?  Because they involve “acting out” in a way that we can’t?  Most people’s daily lives are one kind of drudgery or another.  Maybe yours isn’t.  Maybe it is.  But I’ll bet it’s not the exuberant kind of six-year-old running around the room fun.  I’m not usually a brass band.  What do most adults do that involves the same kind of explosive energy expended by dancers, singers, and actors?

“We defend ourselves to music.”

So if I don’t get to spend that kind of energy, it’s at least fun to get to watch it.  It’s one part of the release.  It must be strange for hard-working performers to look out and play against a reserved audience.  I read or heard the other day that watching a person do something can stimulate the same part of the brain as if you were doing that thing yourself.  Most people’s days involve some eating, some hygiene, some commuting, some paperwork, and some sitting.  Possibly running or biking or yoga for fad people, but otherwise we don’t get any long periods of extended bounce and sparkle.  Maybe this is the secret of the arts – capitalizing on our ability to use others to empathize an experience or a feeling?

“Without love, life has no purpose.”

I like to imagine that there are real world couples out there that are constantly meeting cute.  Making eyes at each other.  Dancing in elevators.  Singing quietly in her ear.  Gentle fingertip drumming.  Drawings on napkins.  Adorable texts.  Planning appreciable outfits.  Appreciating those outfits.  Nothing but a Sweet Charity-ish bounce and sparkle all day long.  But probably not that many.  The rest of us are the audience.

“You’re lucky to have someone worried about you all the time.”

Regarding the meet cute, I’ve got to praise Isaac Lamb (Charlie/Vittorio Vidal/Oscar Lindquist).  Terrific on his own and especially in any scene where he was allowed or encouraged to move – notably as Oscar Lindquist.  I’m not positive who would be most responsible (Stephanie Lang?), but the quality of the movement at Red Mountain Theatre Company is second to none.  Darien Crago (Helene) was another notable standout.

“What the hell was up with all that hand kissing?”

Here’s to Nicole Smith and all the future Red Mountain Theatre Company audiences who get to enjoy the new chairs.

Without

I did a couple of earlier poetry pieces about this year’s Sidewalk Film Festival (here and here).  Here’s a quick one in prose.

They give awards at Sidewalk, sorta like the Oscars.  There’s a list of the 2011 awards on their website.  The awards for narrative features went:

• Without by Mark Jackson (jury winner)
• The Dish and the Spoon by Alison Bagnall (jury runner-up)
• A Bag of Hammers by Brian Crano (audience choice)

Not me.  I didn’t see The Dish and the Spoon or A Bag of Hammers (you can’t see everything), but Without wouldn’t have been on my list.  If you forced me, my list for narratives would be something like:

• Kidnapped by Miguel Angel Vivas
• The Robber by Benjamin Heisenberg
• Sahkanaga by John Henry Summerour

Guilty Pleasures

The Sidewalk awards for documentaries were:

• Guilty Pleasures by Julie Moggan (jury winner)
• Where Soldiers Come From by Heather Courtney (jury runner-up)
• Man in the Glass: The Dale Brown Story (audience choice)

I didn’t see any of those, sadly, but my list might be:

• Project Nim by James Marsh
• Puppet by David Soll

Mr. Happy Man

Lastly, I’m not going to fret too much about the awards for short films, because I didn’t see that many:

• Terrebonne by Jeremy Craig (jury – short narrative)
• Mr. Happy Man by Matt Morris (jury – short documentary)
• An Inconvenient Youth by Slater Jewell-Kemker (jury – student film)
• The Dancer by Seth Stark (audience choice – documentary)
• Annie and Her Anger by Tam Le (audience choice – narrative)

An Inconvenient Youth

I will say that I really liked Mr. Happy Man and An Inconvenient Youth.

Thanks to Rebecca Pugh, Rachel Morgan, and everyone responsible for one of Birmingham’s hidden gems – the Sidewalk Film Festival.  There seemed to be a bunch more attendees in 2011 and I hope the pattern keeps up in 2012.  Better and better.

Thanks to actor and jack-of-most-theatrical-trades Patrick Johnson, we now seem to have a real honest-to-goodness theater calendar.  Check it out at the new website, sowhenisyourshow.com.  Here is also a direct link to his excellent and comprehensive dramatic performance calendar.

If I could figure out how to add a permanent link to the top of my “On The Radar” section without making the HTML all mutant goofy, I’d do it in a heartbeat.  Terrific idea and great job.  Also, let me be the first to pre-encourage you to keep up the enthusiasm and effort three months from now, six months from now, and at one year.

Why Not?
(based on Terrebonne)

Why not
Just take
The prettiest people you know
And film
Them in
The prettiest place you know?

The Hinterlands
(based on Sahkanaga)

Don’t look away,
Says Hollywood.
Nothing good is happening
(Without us)
In the hinterlands of Georgia
Or anywhere else.
Look at this
Explosion!
Watch the stars
Fuck!
Keep your eyes
Here!
When you crave
Quality art,
You’re trained (Sit! and Stay!)
To expect
SAG, ILM, CGI, and 3-effing-D.
Even our punks are polished
And processed –
Think Green Day.
We don’t photoshop
Ugly girls.  The fact that
We went through
All that trouble
Means she must be beautiful.
The fact that
You can’t afford to have us
Airbrush your picture
Means you’re not worth it.

Technology
(based on Catfish)

For some,
The only good use
Of technology
Is for US
To beat the snot
Out of THEM.
Future generations
Might laugh at Dr. Salk
For not charging us
To use our legs.

Persistence
(for Johnny Barnes, based on Mr. Happy Man)

Love mostly seems silly
In small doses,
Like my crush on
Today’s redhead.
It gathers meaning
By persistence
Through spans of time:
Will you still love me
Tomorrow?

One Of Us
(based on The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement)

Thinking that Obama
(Or anyone else) is
One of us
Because of his color
Is as wrong
As thinking he’s not
One of us
For the same reason.

Grown Men
(based on Walla Walla Wiffle)

I’m all for
Giving grown men
A chance
To act like
Twelve-year olds.

An Inconvenient Youth
(based on An Inconvenient Youth)

Several generations
Have quietly internalized
The central lesson of
The activist sixties.
It wasn’t
That the people
Have the power
To advance an idea
Through concerted activism.
No.
The insidious takeaway
Was that dissidents suffer
And still lose.
Look around:
Colored America
Has gained little ground
In fifty years.
Vietnam stretched out until
Everybody knew it was over.
The house always wins.
The only ones
Not yet accepting this
Are the inconvenient youth
Protecting the global poor
From our hostile environment.
But given enough time,
They will.

Flourish
(based on You Must Be Something)

Your scenic nature walk
Will completely change
When you realize
That any bushes
Which flourish
Were fertilized
With human blood.

Only Numbers
(based on Standardized)

Don’t despair
If you can’t take every trick
With a bad deal.
No one could, and
No one expected you to.
Just do your best.
High expectations
Rest just on those
Holding the aces.
But if you find,
Every time you play,
You’re passed only numbers,
It’s time to
Shoot the dealer.

Go Fish
(based on If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front)

Legal advice
Almost always
(See, there it starts)
Includes a “maybe”
Or “it depends.”
About the only
(See, there again)
Hard and fast rule
Is to never
Under any circumstances
Talk to law enforcement.
No, you’re not smart enough.
No, you’re not charming enough.
No, you don’t know how fast you were going.
No, you don’t want to answer a few questions.
No, you don’t want to help.
No, no, no, no, no, (politely) no.
Those guys
(Set an odd moral example and)
Are allowed and encouraged
To flagrantly lie to you,
But if they (for any reason) think
That you or your story smells
Even slightly fishy,
You’ll regret it.
If they actually had the goods,
You’d probably
(See, one last time)
Already be arrested.
Go fish, Sir.  Go fish.

Soap, Cars, and Insurance
(based on Page One: Inside the New York Times)

If 90% of everything is crap,
Then the wars
Are all in the editing.
How many new YouTube videos
Post every day?
What’s 10% of that number and
How do I know to look at those?
If the government can release
100 proclamations on any given Tuesday,
Who’ll tell me
Which 10 are important?
Will it be the White House reporter
Who comes back and says,
“Nope, not mine today”?
Seems like a bad idea for job security.
All I want is
A credible critic
To tell me what’s good and
What I need to know.
But once you waste
My energy and goodwill on
Soap, cars, and insurance –
Bought and paid for like a whore –
You’re not a credible source.