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.

I started this train of thought when I happened to find several lists on the Casual Girl Gamer blog of “Games That Make You Think About Life”.  The first list had 5 games (here), followed by lists of 10 (here), 20 (here), and 10 again (here).  I played most of them and several of them really do make you think about life.  Isn’t that a big part of the point of art?  We all have our talents: I can write you a poem, but I can’t program you a computer game.  Is this the future?

They’re all free to play and mostly very simple and short.  Here’s the list of games that I would most recommend off those lists (in roughly an order that I would recommend them):

• Elude – A mesmerizing and serious message about depression
• Covetous – Revolting, disturbing, and thought-provoking
• Flight – Addictive, sweet paper plane throwing game
• I Wish I Were The Moon – Quirky poem of a puzzle game
• 3rd World Farmer – Realistic issues in subsistence farming
• Super Karoshi – Dwell on the futility and pointlessness of life
• Loved – Memorable exploration of obedience and authority
• The Majesty of Colors – Be a tentacled sea monster!
• Don’t Look Back – Themed on the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice
• Every Day the Same Dream – Rebel against the rat race
• A House In California – Starts slow, then dazzling
• One Chance – A few breathtaking moments
• Air Pressure – A puzzling metaphor or something?
• I Can Hold My Breath Forever – Sucks you in
• Passage – Ruminations on the passing of time
• Colour My World – Poetry with a tone in game form
• Alter Ego – The Sims, kinda, pre-graphics
• American Dream – Wildly, gleefully nihilistic
• The Company of Myself – All about the ambience
• The Tower of Heaven – God keeps spitefully changing the rules
• Ute – The very adult game of sex before marriage
• Gray – Persuade the majority of your point of view
• Coma – Beautiful and puzzling
• Distance – Can a game do this?

My only warnings would be that the games “Silent Conversation” and “Yet One Word” both looked excellent but hung up my system.  Play at your own risk.

Enjoy!

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.

Catherine Garratt & Jennifer Ferrigno

Again, everyone was warned.  It’s a visual age.  If your organization doesn’t have pictures of your performance available, then I’m forced to make them myself.  The results aren’t nearly so pretty.

***

Perpetually single, people often ask what qualities I’m looking for in a girl.  A difficult and stressful question.  Ever-evolving, I’ve got to rethink it every time.  It’s not like I keep a “must have” list on my wall.

Curiously, whatever I say first always ends up seeming superficial and unimportant.  Good hair?  No, that’s not really it.

But if I skip right to the real answers, it comes across as evasive.  Compatibility?  Magic?  A good sense of humor?  What does that even mean?

In college, my non-linear path started out in engineering and ended up in philosophy.  Along the way, I took what might’ve been the single most interesting and useful class of my undergraduate experience: Mate Selection & Marital Relations.  Obviously elective, the class was all about dating and relationships.  If I could remember the teacher’s name, I’d compliment him here.

One of the lessons that stuck was that people are drawn to mates like themselves.  We may say that opposites attract, but that’s not how it generally works out.  People tend to be attracted to others of similar looks, social status, intellect, and world view.  Since I’m still single, this must mean I’m fairly unique, right?  (Just like everybody else.)

“No one I think is in my tree.  I mean it must be high or low.”  – Strawberry Fields Forever

So that’s the fundamental problem with asking about someone’s potential mate: You’re indirectly asking for an intimate, personal self-assessment.

• Who are you looking for?  A nice, quiet Christian girl.
• Who are you looking for?  I dunno, but she’s got to be hot.
• Who are you looking for?  A friendly girl with a big smile.
• Who are you looking for?  Women that have their stuff together.
• Who are you looking for?  Somebody amaaaazing.

Nukri Mamistvalov & Tatiana Ledovskikh (two names that are fun to type)

In choosing other people, you’re inadvertently revealing a lot about yourself.

So let’s swing this discussion around to the Alabama Ballet.  I went and saw their recent @ Home performance.  It’s still probably my favorite ballet event in Birmingham because the audience gets to watch and listen to the dancers from right up close.  They performed three pieces: Lilac Garden, the Swan Lake Act II Pas de Deux, and Be Major (by Roger Van Fleteren).

I’m always hoping this group expands, but my favorite two dancers at the Alabama Ballet are still Jennifer Ferrigno and Catherine Garratt.  I know embarrassingly little about the technical side of dance, but I do know that these two seem to have mastered the technical stuff well enough to focus on the qualities that I’m more likely to watch for: an apparent warmth along with emotion and expressiveness.  Beautiful is more than just a smile.

Here’s where I tie a nice, neat bow: I think those choices may reveal more about me than they do about the Ballet.  I’m an unusually expressive guy.  I think I’m pretty good at getting a point across even if (God forbid) I had to do it without using language.  I’m also sensitive to subtle changes in other people’s affect and mood.  I’d be pretty decent at charades or Pictionary.  So of course I’m attuned to similar qualities in the artists and art I like.  What I’m not so good at in my real life – or at least it’s something I have to work at – is technical protocol and perfection.  Remembering to “point my toes” and “maintain my lines”, so to speak.  But that, I’m not so good at.

I’ve visited the Alabama Ballet with other people, though, and they will regularly pick out other dancers as their favorites.  For example, I can remember breathless and enthusiastic compliments on both Lindsey Sara Barber and Tatiana Ledovskikh.  So it’s not like I’ve got any monopoly on taste.  I remember one visit where my date talked about watching a dancer’s hands the whole time.  That’s just not something I would think to do.  It makes me wonder what focusing on hands (or feet or toes or hair or costumes or any other darn thing) might reveal about the watcher.  Any audience, seeing dance or art, may find that their most fundamental qualities and characteristics are reflected back at them.  People see what they know how to see.

No wonder being a dancer is so hard – you’ve got to seem good at everything.

So what do you watch for?  Does that reveal a little about who you are?  Maybe next time, I’ll make it a point to watch hands – and learn something.  Go visit the Alabama Ballet and pick out your own favorites.

Thanks again to Katy Olsen and the Alabama Ballet.

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.