"Musical theater writing is not efficient. If you like efficient careers, do something else." - Peter Lerman
Five Things I Learned from the Portland Bad Kitty On Stage Workshop
This week, I was in Portland for the first workshop of Bad Kitty On Stage at Oregon Children's Theatre. I have never worked on a co-commissioned piece before, so I didn't quite know what to expect from this sort of dual development process. Over the course of the two days, I learned some new things and was reminded of things that were good for me to remember. Here's just a handful of them:
1. Theatre people are theatre people.
Prior to the trip, I wondered whether I would notice any differences between theatre folks in Oregon and theatre folks in the Bay Area. I guess I thought that geographic and demographic differences meant that I would feel like a bit of an outsider. This was far from the case. As soon as I met Stan Foote (artistic director of OCT) and Dani Baldwin (OCT's director of Bad Kitty On Stage) and the rest of the production team members, I fell immediately into a familiar patter and pattern of talking. We had just met, but the conversation flowed happily back-and-forth between professional and personal topics, and there were some good laughs along the way. There was a lot I didn't know about OCT or the theatre scene in Portland, but I definitely felt welcome and like I was still part of the larger Theatre community.
2. Actors are awesome.
I've said this before, but it's always such a treat when an actor takes what you've written and gives it life, whether on stage or in the rehearsal room. And for a show like Bad Kitty where the characters are mostly cartoon-like animals portrayed by humans, this was a particularly delightful moment. At one point, actors were playing a dog and cat interaction scene which ended up with frenzied barking and meowing while rolling around on the ground. Instead of being hesitant about any of it, they did what awesome actors do: committed to the characters 100%. This continued to happen throughout the workshop, and made it easy for me and the other creative team members to visualize and hear what the show could become.
3. Feedback can be fun.
After each read-thru of the script, Dani and I spent time discussing the script draft with the actors. The environment stayed very positive, but also yielded some very helpful and straightforward critiques. Throughout the conversation, the tone remained respectful and we also shared some great moments of laughter. I think I'm much better at receiving feedback than I was four or five years ago (when feedback sessions made me want to curl up into a ball and give up - but that's another blog post?). I try to listen first and avoid any desire to be immediately defensive, let each person have their opinion and say, and take notice if it strikes a chord with me, or if I'm seeing a similar trend in other responses. The feedback process is no longer terrifying, but feels like just another part of getting the work of writing done. And if it's with a pleasant group of people, it can actually be enjoyable too.
4. Theatre is best experienced live.
My original thought for the music of Bad Kitty On Stage was that I would be creating a sort of "Saturday morning cartoon" score for the piece. I imagined using grand orchestral sounds to create pre-recorded tracks that seemed akin to what you might hear in a Looney Tunes piece. But after the first reading, Stan, Dani and Nina (Executive Director of Bay Area Children's Theatre) were convinced that the music needed to be experienced live. This would mean, of course, that instead of a score with multiple parts, it would most likely come from a single keyboard. However, everyone was willing to trade in the multi-layered, pre-recorded score for a simpler, live one. We talked about how seeing a pianist play while the show was performed would be a unique experience for a young audience member, and it would also add charm and character to the work, similar to the days of silent film. I have nothing against pre-recorded tracks, since I used them for Tales of Olympus. But I have to agree that the flow of Bad Kitty On Stage will feel much more connected and well-timed with the action on-stage if the music is performed live.
5. I love what I do.
I had a few moments in Portland when I looked around and thought, "Am I really here? Am I really in a room with people who are enthusiastically playing domesticated animals? Is my job really where I get to write something, talk about it, then make changes to what I wrote? Will I really see this script I've written on stage with full costume, sets and lights?" Three years ago, when Tales of Olympus was opening, if you had told me that I'd be flying to Portland for a two-day workshop, I probably wouldn't have believed you. So, when I was in Portland, enjoying this wonderfully new experience of a co-commissioned workshop process, I was reminded how lucky I am to be doing what I love, and loving what I do.
Creativity Quotation #10
"Every human being needs an outlet for his inborn creative talent. If you feel you would like to write, then write. Perhaps you are afraid that lack of a higher education might retard you from real accomplishment? Forget it. Many great writers, Shakespeare, Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw, to mention a few, never saw the inside of a college.
Even if you will never be a genius, your enjoyment of life can still be great."
- Lagos Egri, The Art of Dramatic Writing
Creativity Quotation #9
I should not have waited.
It would have been better
To have slept and dreamed,
Than to have watched night pass,
And this slow moon sink.
Yasura wa de
Ne na mashi mono wo
Sayo fukete
Katabuku made no
Tsuki wo mishi kana
- Lady Akazome Emon
Translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Visit of Remembrance: Angel Island and its Comic Interpretation
Episode 1 of Henry Kiyama's The Four Immigrants Manga, translated by Frederik L. Schodt.
The Four Immigrants Manga opens with an episode in which two of the four main characters, Charlie and Frank, are detained on Angel Island at the Immigration Station. Charlie even reads a Chinese poem carved on the wall of their room. As a result of this episode, I put Angel Island on my list of places I wanted to visit for research purposes. I wanted to see the Chinese poems with my own eyes; I wanted to stand in the room depicted in the comics.
I made it to the island last fall, but unfortunately did not have any cash with me when I reached the Immigration Station. It felt like a punchline to one of Kiyama's strips. But last week, I once again took the Tiburon ferry to Angel Island with a wallet full of cash - I was not missing my chance again - and a pen & notebook ready to write down any tidbits of information that might be interesting or applicable to the musical.
I ended up taking no notes. As I made my way through the different rooms open for viewing, my eagerness for "research" gave way to a more overwhelming sense of reverence. I don't want to make it sound magical or even unique - I often get this pull towards reverence when I walk into historical sites. I think I just quietly realized that this portion of my research was going to be more about considering the stark reality of what had occurred, rather than collecting data.
From 1910-1940, hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants were held like prisoners for extended periods of time in order to enforce The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Other Asians and immigrants were detained as well, but most of the discrimination was targeted specifically toward the Chinese. Interestingly, Henry Kiyama probably never spent time detained on Angel Island because the year of his arrival was around 1904 - six years prior to the Station's opening.
It's very simple to read these facts and have a fleeting reaction - even if it is an honest and heartfelt one. I knew these facts prior to visiting the Station, and easily "knew how wrong it was" without thinking too much about it thereafter. But to actually stand there and stare at one of the poems hand-carved into the walls, to feel the lack of privacy in the cramped quarters, to see the beautiful San Francisco Bay through windows barred by a chain link fence - it is difficult to have a mere fleeting reaction when phantoms of the terrible truth are made available to your own senses.
One of the remaining Chinese poems on the walls of the Immigration Station.
This experience makes me ask an unanswerable question: Why did Kiyama choose to capture this difficult history in the form of a comic strip? Immigration Station isn't the only tough historical topic covered in the book. Kiyama takes things like the horrific events of The Great Quake and Fires of 1906 or targeted violence against Japanese immigrants, and he wraps them up into quippy, sometimes-whimsical-sometimes-flippant 12-panel strips that conclude with a punchline. One could reason that Kiyama was distant enough from these events that he ignorantly depicted them with insensitivity to their gravity.
But this also feels too simple an explanation, partially because Kiyama also depicts himself going through terrible times which are dismissed with a joke. In one episode, the character of Henry (who is based on Kiyama) loses all of his money when a bank fails. Henry is in tears, but his friend Charlie casually glosses over the tragedy with a final joke riddled with wordplay. I can't say whether this financial loss actually happened to Henry, but the fact that he shows himself undergoing misfortune that is treated with levity indicates to me that there is a more complex intention behind Kiyama's choice to combine real life events with comic strip fantasy than merely ignorant humor.
What exactly all this means I haven't quite sussed out, but I'm interested in using the remaining work on my musical to explore these problems. My use of American vaudeville as the primary stylization for the show brings with it similar questions of levity vs. gravity, and that became even more clear to me as I stood in the rooms of Immigration Station. My upbeat opening number during which the boys are held on Angel Island felt simultaneously wrong (for not-at-all accurately reflecting the history) and right (for mimicking Kiyama's own approach to the matters). It's a tense and awkward place to be in - a sort of historically transgressive limbo - but something tells me that herein lies the soul of my show.
If you've never visited Immigration Station, let alone Angel Island, I highly recommend it because even if the history-stuff gets too heavy for you, you can always take a beautiful hike around the Island and catch the best views of San Francisco and the Bay. (Just remember how odd it is that such beauty exists with such a complicated backstory.)