commas and ampersands

It's the responsibility of any artist to champion the creation of art that he or she disagrees with, doesn't understand, or is offended by.

This is a theory that I've been mulling over for a while--about a year now, I guess--and I think that I can fairly confidently boil it down to that statement.

( Let's explore that statement, complete with footnotes. )

Submission isn't something that people like to talk about much. It conjures images of being a doormat, of being weak, of abuse and domination, and of power struggles and inequality--and all those things are part of the cultural baggage that comes along with submission. And yet, submission is a biblical, godly concept that reflects an image of who God is and His relationship with humanity, and because of that--because of the inherent fact that everything that God has created is good--it has to be redeemed and understood somehow.

( Read more )

So... thesis. Let's discuss, shall we?

Because this is CalArts and we tend not to do things the "normal" way, there's no prescribed format for my thesis. I'm not writing a traditional research-based thesis with a dissertation defense and all that stuff... I get to choose my project's format and do what works for me.

Some disciplines have more prescribed theses: MFA3 directors, for instance, do a thesis project, which is one of the shows in the season. MFA3 playwrights also have a show fully produced in the season. MFA3 and BFA4 actors do their grad showcase in New York and L.A. as a showcase for agents and managers. Producers, though, get to do whatever we want. Kind of.

I could direct a show, if I wanted. I could put together a project and try submitting grant proposals to get money for it to happen. I could write a traditional thesis. I could develop a website to draw together a community of a certain subset of the theatre world.

In terms of a project-based thesis, the main thing that I'd want to do would be to try to run a pilot program of my theatre company. I'd want to try and get the money and the people, put together a one-year project, and then evaluate it at the end. That would, ideally, be a terrific thesis project for me. Unfortunately, it's also somewhat time- and cost-prohibitive. Grant applications generally have to be happening at least 18 months in advance, and since my estimated project budget (including salaries, since I couldn't ask people to volunteer that much time) is close to $40,000, I can't really go forward with it in this format without having time to pursue some sources of financing.

So, I started to explore some other options. I didn't see a lot of value in directing a show for the Coffeehouse (our student-driven performance space). I know that I can direct, I've had training as a director, and it's not my major, so while it would be fun and I could present a show that deals with subject matter that interests me, it doesn't have a lot of long-term benefit. Same with writing a play, which was another option presented to me. It would be a personal challenge, for sure, but I don't see it benefiting my career in the long run.

Instead, I started examining the various aspects of what I want my theatre company to be. While I'm interested in youth-oriented, mentorship-driven theatre, I feel like there's a lot of information out there about that kind of stuff already. There has been a lot written about educational theatre, and the idea of using mentorship as a teaching tool is nothing new. I'm interested in that, but I feel like delving into it would be really reinventing the wheel, to some extent.

That leaves faith-based theatre as the last, most interesting, least examined piece of the puzzle. People are doing it, and there are organizations (like CITA -- Christians In Theatre Arts) that are based around it, but I don't know as much about it. I want to know who the key players are. What companies are delving into faith-based work? What non-faith-based companies are exploring works that deal with faith, and why? What are other faiths besides Christianity doing in the field of theatre? What's out there educationally? Who is recognizing and supporting this work? How does faith-based theatre differ from theatre within the church? What does the next generation of faith-based theatre artists look like?

That's a lot of questions, and it's a very broad field, but I'm planning to spend the next year interviewing as many people as possible to find out what's out there. I envision the interview process being very much a game of six degrees of separation, asking people who they work with and who their influences are, and going on to those people, and so on. Even before that, putting together a preliminary list by doing online research, linking directors, actors, and designers through the different companies that they're working with.

I think it's going to primarily focus on Christian faith-based theatre, although I want to get a sense of what's going on in other faith communities. I can see that being a slightly more peripheral part of my research, though. I want to know how the communities are interacting with each other and influencing each other, but I can't focus on everything in great depth, so I'm going to focus on Christian-based organizations and artists, for the most part.

When it comes to presenting the work, I want to write it as a book. That doesn't necessarily mean that I'll pursue publication, but I want the format and style to be a reader-friendly, informative, challenging manuscript that could be published as a book on the arts, rather than an academic thesis. Part of what I want to do is to compile as comprehensive a list as possible of the faith-based theatre companies and artists that are operating in Canada and the U.S. today, and the other part will be... well, we'll see. It'll be some sort of exploration of faith-based theatre, its origins, its relationship with both the church and the artistic community, and... who knows what else. Or whether all of those things will be in there. Like I said, I know that's very broad and it doesn't really have a distinct "thesis" in the traditional sense, but I want to go with the interviews first, and then extrapolate the discussion and conclusions from there.

In terms of a timeline, I'm looking at immersing myself in this for the next year. I'm still planning to finish up at CalArts a semester early, which means that I'll be finishing up in December 2009. Right now, I'm doing some of the preliminary research and trying to get myself set up in some of the more practical ways, so that I can start digging in as of January. Hopefully I can get as many of the interviews and conversations as possible within 8 months, and then spend the fall semester next year writing. Maybe I'll use NaNo 2009 as my big push to get it all finished. :)

So that's where I'm going with it. It'll define itself more clearly as time goes on, I'm sure, but it's gotta start somewhere, right?

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a budget meeting to go to.

So, yesterday was Ash Wednesday.

Last year, I talked a little bit about my own personal history with Lent, so I won't reiterate most of that, although I'll probably digress a little bit into the reasons for the whys behind it at times.

Where to start? There are few trains of thought that I want to follow here, so... let's just jump in, shall we?

( This season )

( Thoughts on marriage )