There’s an uproar in certain quarters over Time Warner Cable’s plan to drop Ovation TV from its line-up at year-end. With Ovation currently in some 55 million households, the loss of Time Warner’s approximately 12 million national subscribers is going to be a big hit – in viewers, in carriage revenues and subsequently in advertising revenue. As the only current cable channel dedicated to the arts, this would seem to be a significant blow.

Personally, I can’t say, because I’m a Manhattanite who doesn’t get my cable service from Time Warner, and I’ve never been able to see Ovation’s programming as a result (my cable company, RCN, doesn’t carry it). In theory, I support Ovation’s mission, but Ovation losing some 20% of its viewer base isn’t going to affect me at all. And since I’ve never had a conversation with anyone, in person or online, who has cited a great show they saw on Ovation, I’m not sure it’s going to have much effect on anyone I know. And I know a lot of folks who like, and like to talk about, the arts.

While Alec Baldwin is on Twitter urging people to petition against this heinous assault on American arts, it is no doubt too little too late. There doesn’t appear to be a negotiation going on; Time Warner has simply notified Ovation that they’ll be dropped at the end of their contract, on December 31. And we all know how much work is going to get done in the next 10 days, so a reprieve seems unlikely.

Ovation has taken the position that this is a battle between sports, which they say Time Warner wants to emphasize even more, and arts. Time Warner has retorted that in a review of Ovation’s programming, they don’t actually see much in the way of legitimate arts programming. Time Warner is also not a charity.

I took a look at the Ovation schedule this morning, for the first time in a while, and while the holiday season doesn’t always represent a true picture of any channel’s usual fare, Ovation does seem to be a veritable festival of a handful of Nutcracker performances, a marathon of the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice, and reruns of a couple of their original shows, with which I’m unfamiliar, for obvious reasons. The available schedule does seem to support, in part, the Time Warner “slur.”

Much as I had hopes for Ovation when it was announced, I was hugely skeptical. I had watched Bravo, once an arts network, convert into all-reality TV all the time, while A&E has retained its letters but jettisoned its original commitment to arts AND entertainment, opting for the latter alone. Of course, in an era where a science channel has a series about Finding Bigfoot, names don’t seem to matter much in the cable universe. If you want truth in advertising, you can find veracity at The Food Network.

During its launch, I do recall seeing ads for Ovation, but can’t remember any of late; in this era of targeted online come-ons, where I am bombarded with ads to buy tickets to Broadway shows, Ovation is scarce (though perhaps the algorithms know I can’t see the programming, and bypass me). But if the online schedule is any indication, even if I had Ovation TV, I wouldn’t be watching.

As this has been playing out for a few days, I suddenly hit on an inspiration: what if there was a not-for-profit cable channel dedicated to the arts? I was very proud of my innovative solution, until I recalled that we have one, at least in part: PBS. While it is hardly exclusive to the arts, PBS certainly has high quality programming: look to Live at Lincoln Center and Great Performances as examples; the marketing people, fearing stigma perhaps, have dropped the word “Theatre” from Masterpiece after decades.

I must admit, my PBS watching has narrowed to Downton Abbey and Sherlock; long gone are the days of American Playhouse (1980s) and Theatre in America (1970s), which really appealed to me. And while I do enjoy the occasional James Taylor concert or Doo-Wop reunion, there’s been a drift from arts to entertainment there as well, though thankfully of a caliber vastly higher than The Jersey Shore or Honey Boo Boo. Strangely, some of PBS’ programming competes now not with other material on TV, but movie theatre screenings of the Met Opera, NT Live and the like, proving that people will even leave the comfort of their home for the arts on a screen, and even pay for the right to do so. There does seem to be an arts market.

Whether the loss of the Time Warner audience is a death blow to Ovation remains to be seen, but it’s sure going to hurt, and if the channel fades, or metamorphoses into something unrecognizable like its predecessors, I don’t think it’s going to be a major gap in America’s cultural life, sad to say. While they did air a BBC docudrama about Monty Python I would have liked to have seen, I can probably find Dolly Parton specials and Johnny Cash at Folsom through other means.

The problem, of course, is that each effort at an arts network has required vastly more capital than has been allocated. As a result, instead of creating original programming that becomes must-see cultural TV, a lot of their airtime is filled with acquisitions, much of which is either dated or available through other means (perhaps you’re familiar with TCM, IFC and the Sundance Channel, as well as the intermittently rewarding PBS); it is also repeated ad nauseum in different dayparts. Warmed-over culture is not much of a benefit.

I’m being harsh to Ovation based solely on looking at their schedule, and nothing here should be construed as wishing for their demise. Indeed, I’d like to see some philanthropic media baron decide to make an unwise investment in the channel and ratchet up its original programming, to see once and for all whether the arts can compete in the video marketplace, which seems to be ever-multiplying in its opportunities, and narrow-casting potential.

If we’re going to ever have a viable and successful dedicated arts channel on television, it can’t survive on leftovers from other channels, even if they’re from other countries. It needs new programming, significant financial resources, and genuine originality. The cable universe is a very ugly place. After all, if Oprah Winfrey has had to struggle, just think of the uphill battle for the arts.

The holodeck: a future threat to theatre, or just another contender that will fall by the wayside?

I have said one more than one occasion, only half in jest, that until the holodeck, as portrayed on the later Star Trek series, is perfected, theatre’s unique live aspects will sustain it through challenges. Now I’m growing less worried about even the holodeck because, if the current pace of technology holds true, continual upgrades will be constantly rendering that still-imaginary invention obsolete.

I’m prompted to this musing by a recent article from The Atlantic, which chronicles the challenges faced by vintage, though not necessarily classic, movies. In a medium a bit more than 100 years old, the pace of technology may well serve to make it impossible for some older films to ever be seen again. The conversion to digital projection eliminates access to 35 mm projectors, and the economics of conversion from film to digital means that only films deemed most worthwhile will make that leap. We’ve gone from worrying about early silver nitrate films going up in flames to being unable to view movies on stable stock in a relatively few years. And just as the Edison cylinder gave way to the acetate (and later vinyl) record, which in turn fell to the CD which has now been supplanted by the mp3, progress may well leave a significant portion of film history abandoned in its wake.

The new impending crisis in film preservation worries me, because while I have made my career in theatre, I am an avid filmgoer. Indeed, I am a movie Luddite to many, because I do my best to see any film I’ve not seen before in a theatre, not on my 42 inch flat-screen with home theatre sound. Movies (we’re really going to have to stop calling them films in a film-less era) are, or at least were, made to be shown at a grand scale, and watching them in my living room diminishes the experience.

At the same time, the movie conundrum reinforces my unwavering belief that theatre will survive perpetual technological advances. Even though new innovations may well have their own opportunities for wonder (elements of science fiction films from my childhood are now everyday items), the theatre benefits – as does music, dance, and other live performing arts – from the fact that any electronic duplication diminishes the experience. While we can make a record of what happened on a stage, watching it on a screen, even in the finest 3-D imaginable, inevitably distances the viewer from the immediacy of “being there.” When we watch an image, we do not share space with it; our responses cannot influence it in the slightest.

Even when stories were passed from generation to generation orally, and certainly from the time they began to be written down, theatre set an important artistic pattern that is unchanged today. The initial act of creating for the theatre, the invention of the text, was rooted in the establishment of a template, a script, rather than the crafting of a competed object, be it cave painting or sculpture or movie. Even though an artist such as Sol LeWitt created “kits” that would allow for the replication of his work without his direct involvement, they were exacting; museums replicating LeWitt works still were required to obtain his approval.

Because of the practice of script (and score) as template, to which actors, directors, designs are added in ever-changing sets of interpreters, there is nothing fixed but the roadmap. Efforts to dictate a singular, “proper” way to mount a play or musical usually prove detrimental; prior magic cannot be recaptured – even within long-running shows, carefully maintained, there are shifts in style and emphasis; we saw the life return to Gilbert & Sullivan’s works only when they were loosed from the stifling museum of the D’Oyly Carte straitjacket. Even the strictest of authors’ estates, seeking to preserve what they believe to be the original “intent,” can’t entirely quash new visions; theatre’s most importantly innovations aren’t technological, they’re human, each and every time. And even though theatre’s human element may prevent it from being “cost-effective,” there will always be those willing to pay for the live event (though our challenge is to keep it accessible for more than just the wealthy).

As with movies, we tend to be most familiar with the “greatest hits,” the works that have proven most popular or respected over time. But for at least the past few hundred years, even when they go unproduced, plays aren’t necessarily lost forever; they’re just hidden on some back shelf, gathering dust, awaiting rediscovery. They won’t disintegrate, or become utterly inaccessible, or be maintained in some diminished or altered form, as many films likely will be. A theatre script will just wait, patiently, for some group of people to pick it up and breathe life into it once again.

I get your e-mails constantly: “Look at the just-released video for our next world premiere.” “See our artistic director talk about our upcoming holiday show.” “Watch our cast of Marat/Sade lip sync to Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’.”

Aside from the last example, I need to understand why I want to watch your video. Frankly, unless you have a cast of LOLcats performing Cats, the novelty has worn off. I am sinking in the internet video glut.

Let’s be honest: you’re asking me to take time to watch your commercial. My usual practice, when watching television via my DVR, is to fast-forward through commercials. So if you’re going to ask me to take the time to willingly watch your advertisement – oh, I’m sorry, your “trailer” – it had better be pretty compelling.

May I interest you in Eau de Chatte Chaud?

But that’s no excuse for asking me to spend my time watching a series of still photos with voiceover narration. If I want to watch a slideshow, I can haul out my old Kodak carousel projector and narrate them myself.  Even Broadway shows are using still images on video to sell a live, active art, due to financial constraints, and they’ve got more to spend than you do. Yet inexplicably, some look like perfume ads — and I have yet to see one singing child or live dog this season.

Your audience doesn’t know your limitations, and competing forms of entertainment are likely outshining you. You have to do better.

Why is your video low-res, or in a single take? I realize that minimal quality may hold sway in home-made YouTube novelties and on “Americas Funniest Home Videos,” but the work on your stage is so sophisticated. Your videos should reflect that quality. And even your phone can shoot in HD.

But here’s the challenge. It stands to reason that your theatre is filled with people who know how to make great theatre, but do they necessarily know how to make compelling videos? Yes, programs like iMovie have given the average nine-year-old the ability to assemble footage with great ease. At that age, Spielberg was cutting Super 8 film on his mom’s kitchen table with an Exacto knife. But software is not enough.

“Inge, from Lancome…because life is no picnic.”

Let me digress for a corollary story. In the mid-1980s, when I started working professionally, every company heard that they needed to get into “desktop publishing,” a means by which they could create all kinds of printed materials without resorting to waxing machines, t-squares and razor blades to create print-ready mechanicals. All they needed was one of those snazzy new Macintosh computers (PCs were woefully behind in this area) and a piece of software called Pagemaker. The result was, for a few years, a rash of the worst-designed documents you’ve ever seen. What no one seemed to catch on to was that desktop publishing was simply a new set of tools – you still needed a designer to operate it.

That’s where I feel theatres, and other arts organizations, are with video. The price point for the necessary tools is quite low, but your filmic expertise may be too. Do you actually have someone in-house with the skill to represent what you do well? Is there someone inventive on your staff who can create, with a modest budget, a piece so compelling that we may not realize we haven’t seen a single moment of your show in action and, better still, want to share it with others? Don’t confuse web design with video production – the same person may not be skilled at both.

If you don’t have resources that rival commercial ad production, or images of the work itself, do what theatre has always done: turn your limitations into an asset. Brainstorm creative concepts throughout your building. Find out if someone on staff, but possibly outside the marketing office, has film or video training. Don’t be afraid of humor. Whatever you can use, keep it moving. Remember, as a generalization, the stage is a verbal medium, but film and video are visual. Oh yes, and remember that most people will watch what you create in a screen window of only a few inches in dimension. Don’t make Cinemascope video for smartphone screens.

It’s been years since arts groups got wise to the value of professional and often sophisticated graphic design. It’s time to apply that to video as well.

Oh yes, and if you manage to produce a video of LOLcats performing Marat/Sade Gangnam style, I predict you’re going to go viral.

Every January, the media run features on how to lose those holiday pounds. As schools let out for the summer, the media share warnings about damage from the sun and showcase the newest sunscreens. In Thanksgiving, turkey tips abound.

For theatre, September reveals two variants of its seasonal press staple, either “Stars Bring Their Glamour To The Stage,” or, alternately, “Shortage of Star Names Spells Soft Season Start.” Indeed, the same theme may reappear for the spring season and, depending upon summer theatre programming, it may manage a third appearance. But whether stars are present or not, they’re the lede, and the headline.

The arrival of these perennial stories is invariably accompanied by grousing in the theatre community about the impact of stars on theatre, Broadway in particular, except from those who’ve managed to secure their services. But this isn’t solely a Broadway issue, because as theatres — commercial and not-for-profit, touring and resident — struggle for attention alongside movies, TV, music, and videogames, stardom is currency. Sadly, a great play, a remarkable actor or a promising playwright is often insufficient to draw the media’s gaze; in the culture of celebrity, fame is all.

But as celebrity culture has metastasized, with the Snookis and Kardashians of the world getting as much ink as Denzel and Meryl, and vastly more than Donna Murphy or Raul Esparza, to name but two, the theatre’s struggle with the stardom issue is ever more pronounced. Despite that, I do not have a reflexive opposition to stars from other performing fields working in theatre.

Before I go on, I’d like to make a distinction: in the current world of entertainment, I see three classifiers. They are “actor,” “celebrity,” and “star.” They are not mutually exclusive, nor are they fixed for life. George Clooney toiled for years as a minor actor in TV, before his role on ER made him actor, celebrity and star all in one. Kristin Chenoweth has been a talented actor and a star in theatre for years, but it took her television work to make her a multi-media star and a celebrity. The old studio system of Hollywood declared George Hamilton a star years ago, but he now lingers as a celebrity, though still drawing interest as he tours. Chris Cooper has an Oscar, but he remains an actor, not a star, seemingly by design. And so on.

So when an actor best known for film or TV does stage work, it’s not fair to be discounting their presence simply because of stardom. True stardom from acting is rarely achieved with an absence of talent, even if stardom is achieved via TV and movies. Many stars of TV or film have theatre backgrounds, either in schooling or at the beginning of their career: Bruce Willis appeared (as a replacement) in the original Off-Broadway run of Fool For Love before he did Moonlighting or Die Hard; I saw Bronson Pinchot play George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? while he was a Yale undergraduate (the Nick was David Hyde Pierce); Marcia Cross may have been a crazed denizen of Melrose Place and a Desperate Housewife, but she’s a Juilliard grad who did Shakespeare before achieving fame. But when Henry Winkler is announced in a new play, three decades after his signature television show ended, despite his Yale School of Drama education and prior stage work, all we hear is that “The Fonz” will be on Broadway.

The trope of “stars bringing their luster to the theatre” is insulting all around: it implies that the person under discussion is more celebrity than actor and it also suggests that there is insufficient radiance in theatre when no one in the cast has ever been featured in People or Us. By the same token, there’s media that won’t cover theatre at all unless there’s a name performer involved, so ingrained is celebrity culture, so theatre sometimes has to look to stars if it wishes to achieve any broad-based awareness. But the presence of stars on stage is nothing new, be it Broadway or summer stock; we may regret that theatre alone can rarely create a star, as it could 50 years ago, but we must get over that, because the ship has sailed.

There’s certainly a healthy skepticism when a star comes to the theatre with no stage background, and it’s not unwarranted. But I think that there are very few directors, artistic directors or producers who intentionally cast someone obviously unable to play a role solely to capitalize upon their familiarity or fame. In a commercial setting, casting Julia Roberts proved to be box office gold, even if she was somewhat overmatched by the material, but she was not a ludicrous choice; at the not-for-profit Roundabout, also on Broadway, Anne Heche proved herself a superb stage comedienne with Twentieth Century, following her very credible turn in Proof, before which her prior stage experience was in high school. Perhaps they might have tested the waters in smaller venues, but once they’re stars, its almost impossible to escape media glare no matter where they go.

The spikier members of the media also like to suggest, or declare, that when a famous actor works on stage after a long hiatus, or for the first time, it’s an attempt at career rehabilitation. This is yet another insult. Ask any actor, famous or not, and they can attest to theatre being hard work; ask a stage novice, well-known or otherwise, and they are almost reverent when they talk about the skill and stamina required to tell a story from beginning to end night after night after night. Theatre is work, and what success onstage can do is reestablish the public’s – and the press’s –recognition of fundamental talent. Judith Light may have become a household name from the sitcom Who’s The Boss, but it’s Wit, Lombardi and Other Desert Cities that have shown people how fearless and versatile she is. That’s not rehabilitation, it’s affirmation.

I should note that there’s a chicken-and-egg issue here: are producers putting stars in shows in order to get press attention, or is the media writing about stars because that’s who producers are putting in shows? There’s no doubt that famous names help a show’s sales, particularly the pre-sale, so in the commercial world, they’re a form of (not entirely reliable) insurance. And Broadway is, with a few exceptions, meant to achieve a profit. But it’s also worth noting that star casting, which most associate with Broadway, has a trickle down effect: in New York, we certainly see stars, often younger, hipper ones, in Off-Broadway gigs, and it’s not so unusual for big names to appear regionally as well, cast for their skills, but helping the theatres who cast them to draw more attention. Star casting is now embedded in theatre – which is all the more reason why it shouldn’t be treated as something remarkable, even as we may regret its encroachment upon the not-for-profit portion of the field. But they have tickets to sell too.

Look, it’s not as if any star needs me to defend them. The proof is ultimately found onstage; it is the run-up to those appearances that I find so condescending and snide. It shouldn’t be news that famous people might wish to work on stage, nor should any such appearance be viewed as crass commercialism unless it enters the realm of the absurd, say Lady Gaga as St. Joan. If stars get on stage, they should be judged for their work, and reviewed however positively or negatively as their performance may warrant.

I’m not naive enough to think attention won’t be paid to famous people who tread the boards, and I wish it needn’t come at the expense of work for the extraordinary talents who haven’t, for one reason or another, achieved comparable fame. I don’t need a star to lure me to a show, but I’m not your average audience member. Perhaps if the media didn’t kowtow to the cult of celebrity, if they realized how theatre is a launch pad for many, a homecoming for others, and a career for vastly more, theatre might be valued more as both a springboard for fame and a home for those with the special gift of performing live. So when the famous appear in the theatre, let’s try to forget their celebrity or stardom, stop trying to parse their motives, and try, if only for a few hours, to appreciate them solely, for good or ill, as actors.

Yes, you read that right. I am advocating getting rid of adorable little ducklings in order to advance the cause of the arts in the United States. Getting rid of them from national television news, that is.

This morning, during the first segment of The Today Show, the portion of the program supposedly dedicated to “hard news,” roughly 20 seconds of airtime was devoted to a story about baby ducks being rescued from a storm drain. I do not recall where this gripping tale of survival had occurred, only that the duckies were safe. Whew.

This follows on the heels of last night’s NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, which included reports on the new low-calorie Slurpee, The Avengers passing the $1 billion mark at the box office, Thin Mints being the most popular flavor of Girl Scout cookies (as if there had been doubt), current trends in baby names, and a segment on the dog that won Britain’s Got Talent.

This is not exactly a new phenomenon, this ongoing degradation of what is considered news, but the aggregation of so many meaningless stories on a single network in just over 12 hours got my dander up. Because I do not have multiple DVRs or an intern, I cannot do a comparison as to what stories were worthy of airtime on CBS or ABC at the same time; I take it on faith that the Slurpee story did not make it on to PBS’s The News Hour (though their sober coverage of such an important dietary advancement might have proven rather entertaining). I suspect I missed some really terrific fluff.

Whenever I see stories like these, I wonder why national television news rarely finds time for the arts. Yes, if Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark starts injuring actors again, you can bet the networks will be right there. When The Book of Mormon introduces the first $1,000 theatre ticket, we’ll hear about how expensive theatre is. But showcasing the excellence and breadth of the arts, even in 30 second snippets? That, apparently, is not news.

Further evidence of this phenomenon. Have you ever read about a production of Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class? I’m willing to bet that if you have, it focused on the live lamb the script requires, and the care requirements for said infant sheep. It’s a perennial and always engaging, as they grow quickly, don’t take direction and tend to defecate at inopportune times. Or take last summer, when there was an uproar and significant coverage when the Royal Shakespeare Company skinned a dead rabbit on stage and they were forced to substitute a prop bunny. That, apparently, was arts coverage gold, sustaining my theory. Cute animals = coverage. Endangering cute animals or trafficking in their corpses = even more coverage.

Must America’s orchestras, opera companies, dance companies, and theatres produce only baby-animal themed works? Or must they take baby animals hostage en masse in order to get attention? Has soliciting coverage of the arts been reduced to pandering or kidnapping? I have previously suggested that getting celebrities arrested during protests in support of arts funding might draw attention, but apparently Streeps and Kardashians alike have an aversion to orange jumpsuits, so that’s gotten nowhere.

News directors, please leave the animal stories and pictures to the Internet, which was apparently built specifically to disseminate such “aw”-inspiring material. And with the time you free up, maybe you can spare a minute for the arts now and then. If you do, I’ll spare my pet baby koala from anything untoward. Promise.

March 28, 2012

Mr. Harvey Weinstein

The Weinstein Company

Dear Mr. Weinstein:

I have been reading of late about your struggle with the Motion Picture Association of America over the ‘R’ rating given to the film Bully, which you will now release, in two days, unrated. While doing so is normally box office poison, I have read that AMC Theaters have agreed to show the film despite its lack of MPAA sanction, recognizing the educational and social value of the film; hopefully all others will follow suit. Fortunately, the publicity surrounding your confrontation with the MPAA has no doubt added to public awareness of the film, building upon the growing awareness in the country of the insidious and escalating harm that bullying causes to our country’s children, and countering the negative marketplace effects that an unrated film can face.

From all of the advance press I’ve read, the filmmakers have produced a remarkable film, and you are to be applauded for buying the rights to it last summer. Indeed, you had to suffer through the initial round of press which sought to have fun at your expense, commenting repeatedly that there is an irony in someone so often portrayed as a bully championing an anti-bullying project. But you are no doubt strong enough to have weathered the brickbats, as you have before in the press, and you have worked on behalf of what is by all accounts a valuable and important film. Indeed, “bullying” seems too tame a term for the apparently systematic torture that many youths suffer for a variety of reasons, all of which must be brought to a stop.

But something is nagging at me, namely: where will the profits go on this film? I looked on the website, and while it describes the film as having been financed in part by foundations, and lists partnerships on both the film and The Bully Project behind it, I saw no message that profits from the film would be donated to anti-bullying efforts. I tried, but could not find it. I did find, with a bit of hunting, a page that allowed individuals to donate to the Creative Visions Foundation, a non-profit partner to the film.

I realize that your company is not a not-for-profit, but please, Mr. Weinstein, please tell me that you are not going to make a profit from this film. Please tell me that you will meet your acquisition, distribution and marketing costs and the rest of your profits will go entirely towards further efforts to combat this apparent epidemic. I would like to “like” the film on Facebook, I want people to see this film if it is as effective as people are saying, but I bridle at the thought that someone might be profiting from its release. Please tell me what is happening in that regard. Put the opportunity to donate to fight bulling right there on the film’s home page, along with a declaration of where the film’s revenues will go.

Frankly, you have an even broader opportunity, one that could be of even greater benefit to bullied children and teens everywhere, and which would also reflect your altruistic, rather than capitalistic, goals. Why not figure out how to make this movie available for free? Would the theatre owners consider this? Could you partner with a broadcast TV network (for greater access)? Could it be downloaded as free content online? If the point of the film is indeed the message, shouldn’t it be as broadly available as possible, without regard to the economic ability of those who might benefit to pay to see it? With a call to action at its end, even more money could be raised for anti-bullying efforts, whether through The Bully Project or other initiatives.

I realize that this seems a naive position, and no one would accuse me of being naive. But with a non-fiction film that is reportedly free of partisan political content, one which could literally mean life or death for untold numbers of youths, maybe this is the moment to aspire to something greater than box office returns. I can afford to pay to see your film, and I will, but I’m thinking of all of those who can’t – and should. You can truly elevate a movement here, not just release a film. I hope you will.

Sincerely,

Howard Sherman

once a target for bullies

I always try to keep tabs on Broadway shows and the creative folks behind them on Twitter, so on Monday evening, I began following producer Eileen Rand and writer Julia Houston. On Tuesday morning, I noticed that Julia had followed me back and Eileen hadn’t, so I playfully tweeted that I liked Julia more. Well, Eileen saw that and, perhaps miffed, quickly followed me as well, tweeting that she appreciates what I do for the theatre community (whatever that may be).

A bit later in the day, I saw a tweet between the women, Eileen inviting Julia to meet her at Sarabeth’s, where she’d be all day. I then wrote to Eileen, saying I could be at that restaurant in minutes to speak with her about investing in Marilyn, her new show, but she begged off, contradicting her earlier tweet about hanging out for the afternoon, claiming she had to attend a performance by her niece at NYU. That’s when I knew something was up. Most producers would sell their nieces if it meant courting a potential investor.

No, I have not fallen and hit my head, projecting myself into a fantasy version of Smash. I’ve been on Twitter, where (presumably) the new Broadway-centered program has cleverly created personas for Eileen and Julia, as well as Tom Levitt and Ellis Boyd (so far). As a result, a TV program that already toys with the apparently permeable barrier between its fictional Broadway and the real thing (by casting true-life Rialto figures like producer Manny Azenberg and Jujamcyn Theatres honcho Jordan Roth) has taken a further step through the looking glass by offering fans a chance to have “real” conversations with the TV show’s characters. They’re not tweeting out explicit promos for the show; in fact I don’t recall having seen a single one. Instead, they’re interacting with each other – and seemingly with all who reach out to them – in what would so far seem to be a bit of inspired creativity from one or more knowing social media operatives. Time Out New York’s Adam Feldman has gotten into the spirit of things already: he’s expressed concern at possibly having given offense by slamming Tom and Julia’s hit musical Heaven on Earth as Heavin’ on Earth.

Certainly the Smash doppelgangers on Twitter aren’t the first fictional figures to appear on the platform. It’s awash in feeds from false versions of public figures to anthropomorphized commentary from fauna like the briefly missing Bronx Zoo Cobra or the ambitious, theatrically wise Central Park Raccoon, who as a habitué of the Delacorte, dreams of appearing more than just accidentally in Shakespeare one day (perhaps he should be auditioning for Marilyn instead). In fact, at a time when people wonder what will happen to Facebook pages and the like after their real world creators pass on, we can still find Lysistrata Jones chatting away on Twitter, apparently unaware that Clybourne Park is taking up residence where her basketball court once stood.

I’ve seen lots of discussion online about how theatre might take advantage of social media to extend the entertainment experience, as well as conversations about whether art could be created solely on social media. While it’s far too early to say whether Smash’s efforts will rise to art, they are certainly part of an extended improv that may well grow quite rich over time.  In fact, aside from the tweets, you can find “program bios” for all of the main characters on the Smash website. While they careen between amusingly fictional and patently false “real world” credits (the IBDB and these bios will be at eternal odds), the artifice only extends the concept – and we can all play along.

When I offered to meet Eileen yesterday, I didn’t really expect to find Anjelica Houston at the restaurant, although wouldn’t it have been amazing if I had? I even briefly worried about how I was dressed, as I wasn’t really prepared for meetings. But of course I was testing the tweeters behind the curtain to see how they’d respond, and while I caught them out, they’ve only had two days to work up their act. My main advice to them is to not create too elaborate a fantasy that they can’t make good on, and to remember the first rule of improv: never say ‘no.’

I am genuinely looking forward to more conversation with the characters of Smash online, just as I occasionally chat with some of the show’s creative artists in the same forum, notably writer Jason Grote and actor Brian D’Arcy James. The fact that I’ve never met the former, but chat cordially with the latter when we see each other, only adds to the meta-world that’s developing. After all, how do I know that Jason Grote really is a playwright named Jason Grote and, if he’s not who he says he is in the corporeal world, then who’s getting that writing credit and being interviewed by The Washington Post?

On Twitter, the line between real and imaginary is breaking down bit by bit (wouldn’t it be brilliant if Julia, Eileen and Tom all got “verified” as being who they claim to be; conversely, this is all vastly more labyrinthine if the tweeting characters aren’t via NBC, but are creative fans). So maybe by playing along, I’ll cross over from my theatrical world into theirs at some point, just like Manny and Jordan, occupying parallel worlds like my youthful science fiction heroes, even while I stay fully entrenched in the universe of theatre. My final word on the subject? Eileen/Anjelica/Theresa: call me! I’m waiting to get Smashed.

[Update: 2/8/12 at 2:45 pm Since I posted the above at 11:15 this morning, I have heard from Jason Grote, who informs me that he is in fact fictional. In addition, the character of Ivy Lynn has joined Twitter. Curiouser and curiouser.]

I may take exception from time to time with some of what Ken Davenport has to say on his “Producer’s Perspective” blog, but he and I have somewhat similarly evangelical approaches to the stage and are therefore in pursuit of common goals. He is more commercially minded than I am, but we have come up in the business in different ways, and ply our trade in different areas;  his enthusiastic drumbeating for tonight’s premiere of Smash as a vehicle for Broadway vitality should come as no surprise to anyone.  In a blog post of just 185 words, he exhorts his readers that they must watch tonight’s broadcast because of what it will mean for Broadway – and mentions Broadway nine times. Just in case we missed it.

I fully intend to watch Smash tonight at 10 pm and I hope to enjoy it; I casually know lots of people involved and I wish them only the very best. While I’ve read some pieces that suggest I may find some issues (notably those raised by Rob Weinert-Kendt at The Wicked Stage, Frank Rizzo of The Hartford Courant and Kevin Fallon in The Atlantic), I will make up my own mind. I should point out that I downloaded the first episode several weeks ago, but haven’t watched it like seemingly everyone else I communicate with online; I want to see it in its hi-def glory tonight at 10, like in my youth when TV couldn’t be time-shifted.

Tomorrow by late morning, the overnight ratings will tell us if Smash had a successful first night, but no matter what’s reported, it won’t be a definitive referendum on the show. In light of the unending promotional build up, they could show grainy YouTube videos of high school musicals on NBC tonight at 10 and probably get a decent audience share; only time will tell if the audience sustains as the promotional barrage recedes. Anything less than huge numbers will set off predictions of the show’s imminent demise, but with much of the 15-week season one already in the can, NBC is likely to give the show time to find its audience, so once again, time will tell.

There’s no question that Smash can have a salubrious effect on Broadway if it succeeds, although I wonder whether there’s been a true cause-and-effect between Glee and participation in show choirs and drama clubs. I pray that, along the way, Smash doesn’t bash Off-Broadway and regional theatre in an effort to idolize the Great White Way, because countless theatre professionals do superb and varied work without setting foot on Broadway or even in New York, work that is enjoyed by and meaningful to audiences nationally. I hope that Smash’s truthful insights from its creative staff of theatre pros outweigh its dramatic license; after all, the only U.S. TV series to grapple with theatre recently were the hokey “reality” competitions to cast a replacement for Legally Blonde and the leads in the most recent revival of Grease (at least the latter launched the luminous Laura Osnes). I’m sure Smash can do better. I dream that Smash aspires to the giddy, funny and moving heights of Slings and Arrows, to this date the best television series ever about theatre, IMHO.

But must you watch Smash tonight? No. It’s not your job to be a cog in the marketing machinery of NBC, Broadway or anyone else for that matter. Frankly, if you’re reading Ken Davenport’s blog or mine, you’re already part of the core group that is taken as a given in the show’s viewership (which caused Entertainment Weekly’s Ken Tucker, demonstrating that magazine’s usual respect for the stage, to observe that “the Broadway-show audience, if every ticket-holder tuned in, would probably fit into the bodice of The Voice‘s Christina Aguilera”), so you’re not going to make the difference. What will truly matter is whether the storytelling, the time slot, the marketing and all the other variables that matter on television align with the mass audience required to make a successful TV show.

Watch Smash. Don’t watch Smash. Watch Castle. Read a book. Go out with friends. Get to bed early post-Super Bowl. See a live performance. Do whatever you like at 10 tonight. Perhaps Smash will become “appointment viewing.” But god forbid it’s seen as “assignment viewing.” That’s the fastest way to take the fun out of anything. And I’m really hoping that Smash is a lot of fun, instead of just good for business.

I have just used Google News to see how many times the odd little word ‘snub’ has been used in the past 24 hours. I came up with 2,020 articles that fit the bill (I wish I’d checked a week earlier as well, for comparison; this number will surely grow for several more hours). The articles are, based on my cursory review, almost all about the Oscars. If I were to read each of these articles, I am fairly certain they would annoy me equally in their use of this word. I believe this vocabulary choice would hold true for radio and TV coverage as well.

I have a particular disdain of ‘snub.’ My antipathy to it was honed to a fine point during my eight-year tenure as executive director of the American Theatre Wing, where my responsibilities included shared oversight of The Tony Awards. Every May and June, I was deluged with press clippings about the awards and, just as with the Oscars (and the Grammys, and the Emmys, and the Globes, and, and, and), ‘snub’ would appear with startling regularity in press coverage of every possible stripe, from before nominations until after the awards were handed out. I took it pretty personally, because while I was not a Tony nominator and only one voter among hundreds, I was one of the public faces of the Tonys. I was uncomfortable with the fact that a process meant to honor people was being subverted into one in which people were supposedly being rebuffed or insulted, as ‘snub’ implies. In some cases, friends of mine were among the ostensibly snubbed.

‘Snub’ does not mean simply to leave out, as some might have it. Let me quote two dictionaries on the word, as both my beloved Reader’s Digest Great Encyclopedic Dictionary and Dictionary.com offer the same definition: “1. To treat with contempt or disdain, especially by ignoring; slight. 2. To rebuke or check with a cutting remark.” It is, first, a verb; it can also be a noun, but there is foremost an action indicated. When you snub, it is with hurtful intent.

Now we can all list the many flaws we might find in awards processes, and surely none is perfect; you may even wish to rail against their existence. But for the purpose of this post, please accept them as a given, since I am not examining awards themselves today, but how this particular word has become so insidiously ingrained in discourse about them.

To my knowledge, all cultural awards are affirmative, in the sense that at each level, there is a process of selecting the top or best examples of the category or genre being awarded. There is no organized effort to explicitly blackball anyone or anything; by dint of rules which limit nominees and winners to certain numbers, not all in contention can pass each threshold (this is not nursery school where everyone gets a ribbon for showing up). But at no time does any group, like grown-up versions of high school jocks or mean girls, develop a consensus about who to exclude or berate. The process is about favorites to be sure; even the Golden Raspberry Awards choose films that are the best exemplars of bad films; they don’t, I suspect, spend time saying, “The Descendants? Nah, it’s a bad example of a bad film, so it’s out.”

Consequently, why is ‘snub’ so prevalent? I believe it’s because in both popular and high culture, feuds and insults are infinitely more interesting to report on than praise and achievement. We have long heard that local news broadcasts tend towards the “if it bleeds, it leads” strategy; when it comes to reporting on awards and prizes, the operant methodology appears to be, “those who lose are news.” Awards prognostication is almost its own industry, and so those who cover this aspect of the entertainment world opt to hyperbolize their reportage in order to add to the drama, essentially creating conflict for a better story. Select current examples: in The New York Times’ main story on this year’s Oscar nominations, ‘snub’ appears four times, and a separate story on their Carpetbagger blog has it in a headline.  The Hollywood Reporter headlined, “Oscar Snubs for Michael Fassbender and Tilda Swinton Spark British Frenzy” (was there rioting?). Hollywood news maven Nikki Finke headlined an article, “OSCARS – Who Got Snubbed By The Academy.” Snub is the go-to weapon of choice and it was deployed in every direction, seemingly by reporters firing on automatic.

I can’t possibly think that my little blog post is going to change the ingrained habits of the cultural media. But if you’re reading this, I urge you when you consume information about awards, substitute the correct words in place of snub: “left out,” “didn’t make the cut,” “missed their chance.” They are perhaps only marginally less negative about those who aren’t nominees or winners, but they are facts, not commentary (or representative of invented affronts). Don’t buy in to the not-so-subtle sense of insult that is deployed so often around awards, not because the awards are so pristine or perfect, but because the people who give awards aren’t doing it to demean people in the fields they recognize, only to elevate and reward through whatever means they have.

Am I naive? No. I just wish the press would do better. I was a kid who grew up being picked last at recess, eventually finding comfort, affirmation and purpose through performance. I’d like to think that those who entertain us (and those who follow their careers) shouldn’t have salt rubbed in their psychic wounds, in public, when they – fairly or unfairly – aren’t picked for the all-star team.

A year ago, I wrote about the inability of most audiences (and many theatre professionals) to distinguish between a play and its production, especially in the case of new works. A few weeks later, I used the two versions of the film True Grit as examples of how one might begin to understand this distinction, as they struck me as two significantly different versions of a text that was largely the same (and since theatrical revivals can rarely been viewed side by side). Now I can add another corollary to my original post.

Steven Spielberg’s film of War Horse opened over the long holiday weekend and, as I tweeted the moment it ended, it is as if some splendid family film from the early 1950s had been made and then disappeared, only to resurface last week in glorious Technicolor. I happened to see it at a theatre on 67^th Street and Broadway, only two blocks from where I had seen the National Theatre/Lincoln Center production of the play War Horse about nine months ago.

There are, of course, significant commonalities in the stage and screen versions (Spielberg acknowledges that his film is adapted from both the original novel and the National’s theatrical adaptation); the overall shape of the story, its emotional core and its reliance on almost Dickensian coincidence at key moments are intact. Even the pesky goose steals moments in both. The film has a few more episodes in the life of Joey, the equine protagonist, than I remember from the play, but that’s not a huge point of differentiation.

The enormous difference between the two is that the animals in the film are in fact animals, while on stage they are embodied by the exquisite puppetry design and movement by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company. Every moment that the horses are on stage at Lincoln Center, even as we are swept up in the story, we marvel at the craft and technique that has made it possible for us to witness this story live. In the film, to borrow an unfortunate phrase, a horse is a horse, of course, and we marvel instead at the scale and beauty of the film making, even as the same story carries us along.

Having seen much advance skepticism that the film could measure up to the theatre version, I went to the film somewhat grudgingly, ever the advocate for theatre. My doubts were erased within perhaps 20 minutes and I found the film – even with its scenes of battle and loss – a joy to behold, as I was transported back to my childhood and teen years, when a book like Misty of Chincoteague or a film like The Black Stallion could endear horses to me in a way that they don’t manage to do in real life.

The War Horses serve as a lesson not only in play or production, or two versions of a common text; they show the magic and the limitations of the forms of film and theatre, each of which demand different yet equally valid creative solutions. Although many films are made of plays (and, nowadays, vice versa), the War Horse film bears not a hint of stage origins; it has not simply been “opened up,” but rather imagined anew, since it draws on two literary predecessors, both Michael Morpurgo’s book and Nick Stafford’s adaptation.

While not normally given to writing anything approaching a review, I would encourage people to see both, in order to grasp this difference between these two art forms, film and theatre; I particularly hope that the two versions are used by junior highs and high schools to illustrate and impart this understanding to any students who display interest in either, or both forms. Which to see first? I can’t truly say, because I happened to see the play first, so that seems best to me, but one cannot unsee what has already been glimpsed. Both stand on their own four feet (or eight, if you count both puppet and puppeteer on stage).

A final thought: I have not read the original 1982 Morpurgo book, though I plan to soon, but understand that it is told entirely from the point of view of Joey the horse. One can (I think) anthropomorphize an animal most believably in text than on film or stage, and it is telling that neither version of the story attempts to do so. Were it still a common form, or a remotely commercial one, I suspect the truest adaptation of War Horse could be achieved via radio play, where Joey could indeed speak directly to us, since he would be neither flesh nor fabric, but entirely a product of our own imagination.

Tuesday, December 27 at 7:30 p.m. I’m adding this about seven hours after my original post because, thanks to a Twitter follower, Daniel Bourque, I learned that the BBC produced a one-hour radio version of War Horse in 2008, after the play had opened at the National but before it was seen in the United States or on film. It starred Brenda Blethyn, Bob Hoskins…and Timothy Spall as Joey, who narrated the story. I regret I couldn’t find the broadcast available online, but perhaps some enterprising reader will figure out how to share it with us all one day.