Yesterday, I got an email from Tricia asking me if I would email her when I update my blog, because the whole RSS thing is too complicated. When I explained (see below), she was delighted and is now done with the whole email thing. Totally 1990s.

EXPLAINED: RSS is just a little peep, a signal, a ping that comes from a favorite blog or site, telling your computer that it has been updated. If you have an RSS reader (and they're free and easy, and two of the easiest live on the web so you don't even have to install anything), whenever a blog is updated, it shows up in your reader and you can catch up on the news. If there's nothing new, it doesn't show up and you don't have to waste time surfing around.

GETTING IT: All you have to do to subscribe to this blog is ONE of the following:

a. Click this icon.

b. Copy the text in quotes below (without the quotes) into your RSS reader.
"http://www.avltheatre.com/forte/atom.xml"

c. Look in the address bar of your browser, you may see the letters RSS on an icon like this , if you click either, it'll take you to the RSS feed for this page.

IT'S EVERYWHERE: RSS is just about everywhere you want it to be. So add other RSS feeds on stuff you care about. And if you want a downloadable reader, just go to google and search on "RSS reader" and the name of your computer OS. You'll find a bunch. (If you're using Mac OS X, I recommend NetNewsWire. It's free and awesome.)

That's it. You're done.

Free, easy, permanent until you undo it and it'll save you time, tire wear and help you avoid male pattern baldness.

Thanks for your help, Seth.

So, theatrebloggers, feel free to take the text above and freely adapt yourself for your readers. Remember an RSS Blog Reader is a Happy Blog Reader.

The economics of producing plays is fairly dismal. It still takes the same number of people to put on a play now (basically) as it did a hundred years ago. There's precious little room for increased efficiency in the process.

It's been a while since we've done a post about blogging itself. So, here are a couple of posts for those bloggers who might be trying to improve their web-worthiness.

Jeffrey Zeldman wrote a great little primer for A List Apart (for people who make websites) called Understanding Web Design. It's not so much a primer for people who want to make websites, more an unpacking of some of the problems that beset those who do. Maybe the best little part of the whole article is his answer to "So what is web design?"

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

Armin Vit at Speak Up asked Where are the Canonical Web Designs? And Joshua Porter of bokardo dot com responds with Do Canonical Web Designs Exist? Here's a lil bit:

You can’t appreciate a web site in the same way you appreciate a logo or a poster. When a logo works, it makes you think certain things. Makes you think about the company, their influence, their reach. It’s about branding. The IBM logo suggests a solidity, the rock that is Big Blue. At this point, after you’ve thought these things, you’re done. There is nothing else to do. Maybe you’ll consider their products in the future.

When a web site works, on the other hand, you’re using it to do something. You might be looking for your next favorite book on Amazon, or searching for a critical piece of information on Google. You’re using the web site…interacting with it, having an experience that, contrary to logos, involves you. You are inputting information, asking questions, getting answers.

There's more to read and much to learn. Please check them out.

George Hunka has yet another essential post today. He's leaning back in the big, leather armchair of perspective and giving us a bird's-eye view of some of the highs and lows of the recent blogosphere times, while delineating some of our failure and successes along the way and most important current challenges.

Whether you're a blog writer, reader, commenter, lurker, lover, or hater, it's required reading.

I'll warn you, though, he ends with a downer.

It's been a lot of fun to watch from the sidelines, but now Isaac Butler has tagged me. That is, I'm it.

Well, it's taken a little bit for me to get around to responding, thanks to the opening of The Thugs. However, the tech/hell week of the show did enable me to get in touch will some of my fortes, so to speak.

For the record, here's the description of this week's meme:

Make a list of five strengths that you possess as a writer/artist. It's not really bragging, it's an honest assessment (forced upon you by this darn meme). Please resist the urge to enumerate your weaknesses, or even mention them in contrast to each strong point you list. Tag four other writers or artists whom you'd like to see share their strengths.

1. Will power.
Much of what I accomplish happens through sheer force of will. I'd be lost without it. It's my ability to push.

2. Slay don't wait.
I get started. That's why I get stuff done.

3. I work hard.
As Mos Def says, "My work is personal. I'm a working person. I put in work. I work with purpose."

4. I can flow in many contexts.
I do a good job of relating well to people from all walks of life. I can do the business-speak when necessary, but I know how to talk to 14-year olds from downtown as well.

5. Merciless clarity.
I know what I want and I edit most everything else out. I'm the same in my writing. I'm the same when I clean my house. I'm a good cruel editor.

So, that's that. I did it. I got it done. Aren't you proud of me?

September the first.

Fall is now upon us. Not officially, I don't think, but in my mind, in my life, fall has finally begun.

For me it means grant applications are due, important rehearsals have begun, and marching band practice is well underway. Wait ... scratch that last part. Most importantly, though, it means the theatre season is about to go into top-gear. There will be shows to see, shows to love, shows to bitch about, and lots and lots to read. I'll be praying to find a few gems to hold in my head forever, and hoping I don't have too many nights of pure torture.

For the producer and artist in me, it'll be a flurry of days and nights of trying to get people together to make the impossible happen again and again and again. Our motto becomes "Your response to resistance will determine the success of all your future endeavors." (And yes, that's a bastardization of something Anne Bogart wrote.)

I feel I should address my slowly diminishing publishing standards so our loyal readers don't think I've forgotten about them or lost interest in making Theatreforte as great as it can be.

It's a simple matter of time management. About a month ago I went back to working full time. Obviously that took away most of the time I was spending here. That's not happy news.

About a week ago, some happy news did enter the picture. Namely, a new friend.

We named her Beckett.

So, please stick around as we search for balance. I've continued adding blogs down the left-side and I hope people will continue to use this as a resource.

This is the third in a series of reflections about David Mamet's controversial yet influential book, ten years after its initial publication. Click here for the previous installment.

Let's set aside, for now, whether or not pursuing a career in acting is a good idea. Mamet assumes that if you are reading his book, you have already chosen a career in acting, and now his goal is to convince you to stay out of school. I find this to be pretty sound advice, and I think it can be extended to include other creative disciplines, including film school, music school, culinary school, etc. Despite the tone of my previous posts, I really do find a lot of good and useful material in True and False , which is probably why the book has stuck with me after all these years.

Although he is certainly not the first to say it, this is where I first encountered the idea that acting "is, finally, a physical skill, not a mental exercise." It is not for intellectuals, but for artists, and there's a difference between the two. An actors' time would be better spent in dance or martial arts training rather than vain attempts at scene study.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
- Buckminster Fuller

That quotation is how Scott Walter begins his post The New Tribalism and Theatre. In it he expands upon some ideas from Daniel Quinn's book Beyond Civilization: Humanity's Next Great Adventure. A book that, amazingly, actually uses a couple of theatre companies as examples. The ideas contained within seem to be picking up steam, and have inspired some work by Paul Rekk and Don Hall.

We're looking for a small theatre that needs a website and doesn't have a lot of money to spend on it. It could be your first site, or you could be in need of something better and more useful. The goal will be to create something sexy, user-friendly, highly-communicative, and easy to update yourself - at an incredible, subsidized price. If you're in need of such a thing, please send an email.

This is a first, flailing attempt at something I'll probably try to do in a better, more formal way later.

Who's reading this? I can get only so much from Google Analytics and things like that. So, please, if you're out there, let me know if the comments. Who are you, where are you from, what do you do, why do you read this? Any and/or all of the above, please.

(That said, if you're theatre blogger whose blog is over on the side, and you're reading this, there's probably no need to speak-up at this point. We do thank you for your support.)

Anybody out there from Naperville?

An amalgam in which I remix what everyone said, probably misrepresent it in some cases, and then you have to click on the words to find out where they came from. You might even have to dig through comments.

Yikes. Maybe we shouldn't wish for Salon and Slate to cover theatre more often. It was so perfectly designed to be attention-getting and infuriating that it's hard to know where to begin. It is, though, a real eye-opener to see how people outside the theatre community view the theatre.

Peter Birkinhead is correct when he says that theater is increasingly less relevant, but his conclusions - that theater should become more like TV - couldn't be further off, unless he means that theater should be free or very cheap, infinitely reproducible, and go to peoples' houses.

As part of our "ongoing quest to become the single most useful blog in the history of the theatrosphere" we bring you something practical and fun.

If you look to the left, but not too far left, on our site, you'll see the words "Search Engine". If you click them, you'll be magically transported to the Theatre Blog Search Engine Room. There you'll find a little box, provided by Google, that allows you to search all the blogs listed on this site with a single click. Start with something fun, find something cool. Be sure to let us know how you're using it and how it's helping you.

Enjoy!

What is conservatism's place in the theatre? How do we relate to it? How do we deal with it? And if conservatism exists in the audience, must we talk to them?

These questions and more are occupying a lot blogular real estate this week, mainly as a result of one entry on the Impending Theatrical Blogging Event blog (which we've addressed with the help of the comments here).

Laura Axelrod got pulled in by the geographically political undertow of the ongoing debate at the ITBE and responded on her Gasp! blog:

I’m not sure what Red State Theater is, exactly. Personally, I’d like to have the biggest audience possible for my work, without compromising my vision. Shouting that Democrats or Republicans suck is going to defeat my purpose. Unless, that is my purpose. KnowwhatImean?

I was going to post a comment on the Impeding Theatrical Blogging Event Blog, but I figure the writers of that blog probably aren't spending too much time reading it anymore. But, I am having difficulty engaging the discussion, so maybe someone somewhere out there can help me with this.

I'm referring to this:

There is this odd notion in certain corners of the theater blogosphere that theater must speak to, or represent the concerns of, red state conservatives ... red state conservatives have had the entire government of the most powerful country in the history of the world speaking for them for six years now. The idea that theater should somehow also be responsible for promoting their agenda is bizarre.

I'd like to enter the following documents into the records of our ongoing discussion about revising our non-commercial theatre entities.

Jaan Whitehead
To Have and Have Not
and Art Will Out

Writing Life x3
My Fantasy World: A Living Wage Theatre

Parabasis
Some Interesting Reading to Chew Over
and Some Thoughts From the Lab
and Dana Gioia Earns His Salary

The Playgoer
NEA's Gioia: How's he Doin?
and Speaking Congress' Language

Theatre is Territory
10 Questions: Scott Walters

I'm working on a longer post and I'm trying to incorporate this stuff, especially Jaan Whitehead's pieces. They're old, but they still have a lot of fire and wisdom.

Admittedly, this has very little to do with theatre, per se. But I rather enjoyed this review of David Mamet's newest book, Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business. I stumbled upon it in an unexpected place, and wanted to cross reference it here.

The Hollywood System exists today for the purpose of continuing the Hollywood System. Those in power want to keep that power so they maintain that system, even though it won't help movies or the industry, in the long run. Those trying to work their way up are willing to be exploited and paid a trifle for the chance of breaking in. This way, they can rise up and exploit the next generation.

In Seth Godin's new book The Dip he describes eight types of dip curves. I believe our non-profit theatre model (or the ages-long project of perfecting it) is stuck in type #6 - a Conceptual Dip.

You got this far operating under one set of assumptions. Abandoning those assumptions and embracing a new, bigger set may be exactly what you need to do to get to the next level. The heroes who have reinvented institutions and industries (everyone from Martin Luther King, Jr., to Richard Branson, from Zelma Watson George, to Jacqueline Novogratz) all did it in exactly the same way - by working through a conceptual dip all the way to the other side.

Isaac at Parabasis titled a recent post "Some Thoughts From the Lab." That's how I feel about these project posts, like I've got a machine in the basement, and every few days I shut-out the world while I go down there and hack away at it, knowing it's probably not going to work for a long time, if ever, but the effort is satisfying, and if it ever does work, I'll be a proud man.

There have been one, two, three posts already in this "series".

I was about to get the point of Gifts of the Muse when we left off. Having re-evaluated Art's actual, practical, and abstract value to the world, and closely examined how one develops a healthy art-going habit, Gifts moves on to make some concrete recommendations. And they don't beat around the bush.

The study's key implication is that policy should be geared towards spreading the benefits of the art by introducing greater numbers of Americans to engaging arts experiences. This focus requires that attention and resources be shifted away from supply side of the arts and toward cultivation of demand.

Isaac at Parabasis linked to this great article from Firedoglake about successful blogging and I was reminded that I wanted to repost a few older things about blogging that I put up before this site started getting a larger audience. So, my apologies to anyone who's already seen this, but to those who are newer here, hopefully this will be of some use.

First of all, let me say that WE NEED MORE BLOGS.

In our last episode, I mentioned Gifts of the Muse, which is a 120-page document created to "improve the current understanding of the arts' full range of effects in order to inform public debate and policy." (It's available for purchase or free here.)

They come to some really important conclusions that could have very real, but not necessarily comforting, consequences for those of us making art now.

The study begins by focusing on the two types of value the arts can offer, dividing them into instrumental values and intrinsic values.

Simply put, instrumental values are those offered when art is used to accomplish other goals, which usually have nothing to do with art per se. These are the values we're promoting when we mention that listening to classical music improves your math skills and that building theatres and galleries will help the downtown area grow economically. It's why we care about every single redundant study that proves that art improves elementary education. It's the reason arts organizations are so thrilled with Richard Florida's "creative class" work. "See," they cry, "See?!? You need us!" The larger the institution, it seems, the more pressed they are to focus on instrumental values when they sell their programs to public and corporate funders. It's a product of our current culture.

How did this happen?

You should probably read Part 1 first.

So, while the bloggers are re-mapping reality, what are we to do with the brick/flesh/mortar/blood theatres to help shift the paradigm? Let's get back to that manifesto.

To justify artist's professional, parasitic and elite status in society, he must demonstrate artist's indispensability and exclusiveness, he must demonstrate the dependability of audience upon him, he must demonstrate that no one but the artist can do art.

Cameron couches his arguments in an exploration of "value", taken to mean our standards as well as our worth.

Yes, the meaning evanesces and shifts according to context but ultimately each of these value-facets inform one another — and, I think, must inform us in our attempt to raise the profile of arts in America. Let me suggest we approach this through four key questions How do we individually clarify and identify our values? How do we individually convey our values? How do we gather people around our values? And how do we collectively establish our value?

This is the first part of a long post I've been mulling over for a week. Isaac Butler's post today spurred me on to start putting words together for real.

Maybe the answer to "What's a theatre Blog For?" is self-evident. Or, maybe it's this-

Blogging is part of a larger project. The project is the complete overhaul of the theatre industry And the blogs are a BIG part of that project too, or at least they have a huge potential for it

Mr. Excitement pulled this great quotation from Chris Bowers at MyDD. [Which you should read everyday if you don't already.]

The Blogosphere is a counter-institutional formation that seeks to relocate the primary purpose of political and opinion journalism in agitation toward action rather than in profit-based consumption.

What is a theatre blog for?

I've been contemplating this question on and off for the past couple of years.

My first attempt was something called the Theatre Summit, dedicated to chronicling the local scene. It existed off-line too, in a magazine form that we printed-up every 3 or 4 months, it even had a comics section. It was a lot of fun, but didn't end-up going so well. We were making something no one wanted but us.

So, this is my second attempt at a blog (that's not specifically for a company). Our mission here is clear and simple, covering theatre all over the country, etc., etc. But a lot of people have blogs with less-well-defined guidelines, so what are they for? What does a theatre blog do? What's the ultimate goal of a theatre blog? If your blog had a mission statement, what would it be? It it simply reportage? Are you the ultimate chronicler of what you see? Are you trying to give voice to the voiceless, expose the under-exposed? Are you trying to bring down the current system of media dominance?

(Click through for much more.)

Welcome to Theatreforte, oh teeming hordes of readers from Theatre Conversation, Variations on a Theme, Freedom Spice, On Theatre and Politics, Venal Scene, Laura Axelrod's Gasp, Jason Grote, Working Group, Parabasis, Adam Szymkowicz, and anyone/where else who/that has been kind enough to spot us some linkage. We're glad to have you here. Please stop in regularly to check out some theatre news, and to get your click on up and down our feeds.

Does that sound kinky to anyone else?

Thank you Seth.

One of my big pet peeves is the incredibly low quality of the websites for theatre companies that are currently on the net. Most of them are ugly, most of them are out of date, and many of them are useless. (What company has the best website? Post your ideas in the comments, please.)

There are a lot of reasons for that, firstly the fact that most theatre artists don't have the time, resources, or expertise to put into building a website that's attractive and keeping it up to date. I know a lot of theatre folks who outsource the work to someone willing to work cheap, but then can't get their site updated to save their life. (I learned that lesson the hard way.)

So, what to do? Well, as far I'm concerned, your first priority with a website should be that it's useful. Enter Seth Godin, with another brilliant post about blogging.

He begins:

Step one: head on over to Typepad and sign up for their cheapest service. It's about $5 a month. Pick a 'quiet' and professional blog layout. Your first post should include the name of your business, your address, your specialty and your hours and phone number. Click the button that says "Feature this post." From now on, this post will be at the top of your blog (which is really your 'website', so first time visitors will see it front and center. When you go on vacation or stock a new line of products or have a story to tell, just blog it.

Read the whole thing here.

Okay, I'm begging for more blogs, so I figure I should try to be helpful to those who want to get online. So, this is the first in a series of posts.

These tips are all from Seth Godin. He is the MAN.

1) Be selfless. Link to other blogs. Do it a lot. Have a blogroll or a list of friends, or both. Learn how to trackback.

2) It's not who you are, it's what you say. Be specific, be clear.

3) Start conversations. Then don't try to control them. Passion.

I'm gonna quote myself here.

WE NEED MORE BLOGS.

Are you an avid theatre-goer or a devoted artist living outside of New York City? Then please start a blog! The internet is a conversation and there's not enough noise coming from 49 of our blessed states. (Though, I gotta tell ya, I LOVE the noise coming out of The City. More of that wouldn't hurt either.)

Anyway. we'll be here, linking, feeding, reading, and highlighting some of the best stuff we come across. If your work isn't highlighted here, please email us and make sure we know of your existence.

Thanks.