Instrumentification

Sam just sent me this lovely commencement speech from playwright Craig Lucas. Much to chew on here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-lucas/leaving-your-artistic-leg_b_102332.html

Here’s a snippet from a grant we just wrote. This is our mojo.

The number of theatres in the Portland area which are able to offer their actors, designers, directors,
and crew a market wage is very small. It is our firm belief that if we are serious about our mission,
and we most certainly are, that it is our responsibility to become one of those theatres. This grant is
one small step on the path to establishing the Re-Theatre Instrument as a vehicle for new actor-driven
work, for showcasing marquee talent, and for delivering great theatre to the community.

There are plenty of other ways we’re going to get there…primary among them being the making of great theatre. Stay tuned.

Jason

Lately we’ve been pitching the new show and getting quite an earful from across the spectrum.  We tell people ‘Lear’ and ‘Baseball’ and they reply: “Are you dropping acid” or “I hate Bud Selig” or “Nobody cares about baseball in Portland” or “Wow, cool.”  My affinity for the latter aside, I did have an authentic and fruitful conversation with an Oregon Ballet Theatre board member recently who was intrigued by our mash-up but cautious of the nature of joining such weighty material with light fare such as King Lear (I kid) (King Lear is plenty weighty).  I believe we are on sacred ground with this adaptation, and I plan to tread with attendant humility and respect, but I welcome the challenge.  New forms?  Isn’t that what K-Trep wanted?

We’ve begun casting our next production, King Lear.  If you’d like information about auditioning, email us:

omnibus@retheatre.org

Thanks,
Jason

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=503829

Reading something like this doesn’t necessarily spark the brightest of bright inspiration. But, you’d have to have your ostrich head in the sand to not recognize that the system is far from perfect. Let’s be realistic.

Alas, here we are building a theatre, building a company of actors, and trying to make the perfect marriage of art and a living. If the world is going to stand in our way, let it. Meanwhile, this is the best way we know to put forth stories and ideas.

It ought to be a challenge, lest everyone would do it.

When government steps in and finally dials up the serious regulation of carbon, green companies will be better placed to compete in the new low-carbon world.  Bit of both ideologies here…free market meets intervention with positive outcomes.

the creator of twitter and blogger talks about building a company based on happy accidents…he predicts that he can churn out a series of accidental paradigm-shifting technologies by pursuing a modality, a process.  one trick he uses is the idea of radical constraint.  “what can we take away to create something new?”

very analogous to our script-writing process.  take away the dialogue, and make something new

The irony of trying to plan accidents, and orchestrate their frequent occurrence is not lost on…Radical constraints, he believes, can lead to breakthroughs in simplicity and entirely new things

Today after long-awaited and necessary passage of the energy bill, the states sued the EPA who was going to try to block them from raising the mileage standards even higher than the federal mandate. This is, of course, a complicated issue. When business has to navigate individual local regulations, economies of scale don’t work as well. However, when the states in question represent the market where more than half of all cars are sold in America, perhaps the auto industry might want to take note of the actual mandate coming from an actual majority. And perhaps, if the industry voluntarily (and admittedly at high cost) met the higher standards they would arrive at a more sustainable business model. Because without a stranglehold on the market, someone will come in and offer the higher efficiency cars that the consumer seems to want. Right?

We’re going to try to move this country towards energy independence in a number of ways.  It has to move in a number of ways because there is no one answer.  But of course, with all major changes, come uncertain costs.  Here is today’s news.

36 billion gallons a year by 2022. That’s five times current production levels. According to this article in today’s Times:

No fuel of the type in question has been produced commercially in the United States. Even in the view of people who back the idea, the technology to do it is immature, the economics are uncertain, and the potential for unintended consequences is high.

Hundreds of new factories will be required, perhaps a billion tons of plant material will need to be hauled around every year, and estimates of the required investment start at tens of billions of dollars.

“It’s not clear that it is doable, but it wasn’t clear you could send a man to the moon, either,” said Mark Flannery, head of energy equity research at Credit Suisse. “You don’t know until you try.”

We’re wrapping up the last of our auditions and set to announce a cast for Faust.