#359: David Cote (Playwright, Librettist, and Theater Critic) (pt. 1 of 2)

WEBVTT
00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.719
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast, Making Art Work.
00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:30.800
We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion, and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts.
00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:38.960
The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts.
00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:47.920
The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent, or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts.
00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:53.759
The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice.
00:00:53.759 --> 00:00:57.119
Here are your hosts, Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
00:00:57.219 --> 00:00:57.219
Hi, Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise. 
00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:05.840
And I'm Nick Petrella.
00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:08.480
Today, Andy and I are speaking with David Cote.
00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:12.560
He's a playwright, librettist, and theater critic based in New York City.
00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:21.840
His subjects include wrongful conviction, climate change, music therapy, and social justice issues around police violence and the persecution of immigrants.
00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:30.480
At the time of this recording, his opera, Blind Injustice, was performed in New York at Jazz at Lincoln Center and in Cleveland at Playhouse Square.
00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:38.319
Last year, his opera Lucidity premiered with On-Site Opera in New York, and then had its Northwest premiere at Seattle Opera.
00:01:38.319 --> 00:01:42.079
Next year, Lucidity has its European premiere in Germany.
00:01:42.079 --> 00:01:49.599
Previous operas include Three Way at Nashville Opera and BAM and The Scarlet Ibis at the Prototype Festival in New York.
00:01:49.599 --> 00:01:58.400
As a journalist, David's TV and theater writing appears in The A V Club, Observer, Four Columns, American Theater, and Elsewhere.
00:01:58.400 --> 00:02:12.400
He was the longest-serving theater editor and chief drama critic of Time Out New York, and is the author of popular companion books about the Broadway hits Moulin Rouge the Musical, Wicked, Jersey Boys, and Spring Awakening.
00:02:12.400 --> 00:02:20.639
This is a thumbnail sketch of David's professional career, so we'll have his website in the show notes so you can learn more about him and the breadth of his activities.
00:02:20.639 --> 00:02:23.199
Thanks for coming on the podcast, David.
00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:24.080
No, thanks.
00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:25.439
It's great to be here.
00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:30.879
Let's start by having you tell us how your career unfolded after you graduated Bard College.
00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:31.919
Okay, wow.
00:02:31.919 --> 00:02:34.159
This is like an eight-year span here.
00:02:34.159 --> 00:02:37.280
That's really uh, you know, I look back now, I'm like, wow, a lot happened.
00:02:37.280 --> 00:02:38.560
I graduate, yeah.
00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:40.960
I mean, it's like, you know, back then we had time to do things.
00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:43.520
Our brains weren't being atomized by social media.
00:02:43.520 --> 00:02:49.759
You know, there's a thing called time and a thing called space that no longer exists somehow.
00:02:49.759 --> 00:02:51.759
Uh and culture.
00:02:51.759 --> 00:02:53.199
That seems to have gone away too.
00:02:53.199 --> 00:02:58.159
Uh so I'll I'll try to be like enthusiastically cynical as I explain my journey through life.
00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:10.479
Um so yeah, I graduated in '92 from BARD, and uh at the time I literally was looking at headlines of the New York Times saying it's the worst time in generations for you know uh liberal arts graduates to enter the workplace.
00:03:10.479 --> 00:03:12.240
Which is like, oh, that sucks.
00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:12.719
Okay.
00:03:12.719 --> 00:03:16.879
But you know, it was great because I wouldn't I intend to be an actor, so that'll be easygoing.
00:03:16.879 --> 00:03:19.439
Um I didn't really have a plan.
00:03:19.439 --> 00:03:26.960
I really did not know what I was doing, except that I wanted to live in New York, came from small town, New Hampshire, wanted to go to New York, wanted to do theater.
00:03:26.960 --> 00:03:31.039
Um and I didn't really even know what the theater scene in New York was like.
00:03:31.039 --> 00:03:33.120
I didn't know anything about having a career.
00:03:33.120 --> 00:03:37.840
And but I was, yeah, and I was probably like, oh, I'm probably gonna be struggling and be poor.
00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:42.319
And I'm I was uh it's not that I was okay with that, but it's like that was the situation.
00:03:42.319 --> 00:03:50.800
And that might sound like I came from a place of great privilege, but you know, my parents are middle class from New Hampshire, which is different from middle class in New York or Los Angeles.
00:03:50.800 --> 00:03:54.639
Um yeah, so I mean I was just like, okay, let's do it.
00:03:54.639 --> 00:04:02.000
And uh yeah, so anyway, so I was like for about eight years I was an off-off Broadway actor, meaning I didn't get paid.
00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:14.639
I did crazy shows with wild titles and you know, unnecessary nudity and just kind of you know outrageous language, avant-garde, experimental stuff, and I loved it.
00:04:14.639 --> 00:04:15.280
It was great.
00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:20.560
There's a whole scene, it was a whole downtown, you know, believe below 14th Street scene.
00:04:20.560 --> 00:04:25.519
And yeah, nobody was, it was not commercial, it was not going anywhere, but it was a lot of fun.
00:04:25.519 --> 00:04:30.160
And uh I was mostly an actor, a little bit of a director.
00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:34.720
You know, you tried to get reviews, you tried to get audiences, and you know, people came.
00:04:34.720 --> 00:04:36.399
People came and saw shows.
00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:44.000
Um, it's just that you didn't have like talent agents coming to see your show with a hole in the wall and say, hey, let me move it to off-Broadway, and then we could see where we go from.
00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:44.720
It wasn't like that.
00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:46.000
There was no pipeline.
00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:52.319
Anyway, the point is that after about eight years, uh, well, after a few years of that, I was like, I wanted to get into writing about theater.
00:04:52.319 --> 00:04:53.040
Okay.
00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:57.439
So and I felt like the Times and the Village Voice weren't covering the scene well enough.
00:04:57.439 --> 00:05:00.160
So I thought we'd need a zine for Off Off Broadway.
00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:04.720
Um, yeah, so I put out something called Off, a journal for alternative theater.
00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:08.480
Um, so sort of early attempted branding that was half serious.
00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:10.720
And yeah, it was it was great.
00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:12.480
And I got to sort of like write about theater.
00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:23.120
I wasn't reviewing per se, but I was like writing about it, sending out writers to cover things, publishing uh artists' manifestos, and um, you know, we would you know, literally a zine.
00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:35.439
We would have photocopy it at our places where we were temping, you know, we would sneak in at night, photocopy 500 copies, staple them, and then leave them for free at theaters, and try to solicit some advertising and all that stuff.
00:05:35.439 --> 00:05:41.199
And then, you know, for about two years I did that, and yeah, it wasn't sustainable and I couldn't grow it, uh, but it was fun to do.
00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:48.959
I feel like everything I've done has been a combination of passivity and lucky breaks and hard work, sort of a weird sort of combination of those things.
00:05:48.959 --> 00:06:03.040
Okay, so in 2000, uh a job opened up at Time Out New York for a theater writer, and the theater editor was asking press representatives if they could recommend anybody who knew the downtown scene.
00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:11.519
And so, because my work threw off, the press reps would say said to Jason Zinneman, who was the theater editor at the time, contact this guy.
00:06:11.519 --> 00:06:15.439
And Jason's gone on to work in the Times, he covers comedy for them and other things.
00:06:15.439 --> 00:06:17.279
And he liked my writing.
00:06:17.279 --> 00:06:22.800
I interviewed and I got a job, a very low-paying entry-level job at Time Out, New York.
00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:24.800
And I stayed there for about 17 years.
00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:25.279
Yeah.
00:06:25.279 --> 00:06:32.480
So that was how I got, I went from like uh being a uh a college graduate to getting a toehold in like media.
00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:32.879
Yeah.
00:06:32.879 --> 00:06:33.600
Yeah.
00:06:33.839 --> 00:06:34.079
Yeah.
00:06:34.319 --> 00:06:37.839
And you were temping the entire time up until that point?
00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:46.959
Yeah, for like eight years I was doing yeah, uh working in a copy uh coffee shop, copy shop, uh, you know, waiting in restaurants, temping.
00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:51.439
But you know, actually the last couple year and a half or so of before timeout, I got a job at a website.
00:06:51.439 --> 00:06:58.639
So I rode the you know, the the dot com bubble briefly um for a site called uh culturefinder.com.
00:06:58.639 --> 00:07:02.800
And that was sort of a slight step up from temping.
00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:04.560
It was like more of an arts job.
00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:05.360
So yeah.
00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:07.439
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:08.079 --> 00:07:09.519
Earlier you you said something.
00:07:09.519 --> 00:07:12.160
It um a lot of the things you've done have been a combination.
00:07:12.160 --> 00:07:13.680
Did you say passivity?
00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:14.560
Yeah, I know.
00:07:14.560 --> 00:07:15.519
Luck and hard work.
00:07:16.800 --> 00:07:19.680
I was curious just what you meant by what what you kind of mean by passivity.
00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:28.800
Well, I say I say passivity, and I mean just sort of like being part of a scene and just sort of you know observing and not trying to lead necessarily.
00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:33.040
But you know, but of course, saying I want to start as the and I wouldn't do it alone.
00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:40.240
I started with a wonderful actress and and graphic designer named Jenny Woodward, who who was who could who could design on computers.
00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:44.560
So she was and she was a great editor, so we were we worked on off together.
00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:49.519
Um, yeah, I mean that's obviously was like a step forward where you're saying I want to do this, I want to put this out into the world.
00:07:49.519 --> 00:07:51.439
So that wasn't passive, obviously.
00:07:51.439 --> 00:07:58.399
But sure, I guess passivity is I think when things fall into your lap, um, which is as a result of hard work often.
00:07:58.399 --> 00:07:58.639
Yeah.
00:07:58.639 --> 00:07:59.519
Sure, sure.
00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:16.240
You put you put yourself in those in those positions to to be involved with those types of activities, and you get involved, and to your point, you weren't necessarily looking to be the whatever the leader of that community or that movement or whatever you want to call it, but you were contributing to creating that c community.
00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:26.240
And you didn't know but at the time, but you were gaining two years of experience that led you to, like you said, your first sort of toe hole in in uh in a career.
00:08:26.399 --> 00:08:32.799
Um Yeah, yeah, being an actor was fun, but it wasn't like I don't think I had the guts to sort of really go for that.
00:08:32.799 --> 00:08:42.720
But but writing has always been my I mean, my whole life, it's writing and theater have really been the constants, and I'm I'm very lucky to have that be the thread through my life, you know.
00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:43.759
Yeah, yeah.
00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:50.080
So the writing with Azine for those two years, was it effective?
00:08:50.080 --> 00:08:52.000
What do you think?
00:08:52.879 --> 00:09:04.399
Effective in the sense that it was effective for me and that it sort of it sort of trained me how to write for a for a general audience, uh, and to write passionately and humorously to entertain a reader.
00:09:04.399 --> 00:09:08.000
Um some of the stuff was really kind of like uh what's the word?
00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:10.399
Some of it was it was advocacy for off off Broadway.
00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:11.840
I was sort of a reverse snob.
00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:17.600
I was like, you're you bums on Broadway, you don't know what you're doing, you you brainless tourist pandering jerks.
00:09:17.600 --> 00:09:18.720
You don't know what you're doing.
00:09:18.720 --> 00:09:22.159
You know, downtown is where the brains and the talent and the art really is.
00:09:22.159 --> 00:09:25.120
So I I was sort of uh, you know, I had a lot of attitude.
00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:28.399
And of course it was it was David versus Goliath, you know, commercially speaking.
00:09:28.399 --> 00:09:34.559
So it was effective in the sense that, you know, for some people they really they got their first breaks writing for it.
00:09:34.559 --> 00:09:35.759
So that was effective.
00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:42.720
And some people who went on to do have careers in journalism or publishing, um, it get for some people I think it gave them a sense of community.
00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:55.759
Um, and I if I suppose if I'd really tried hard to like find an investor and someone to to to to um seek advertising, uh maybe I could have grown it.
00:09:55.759 --> 00:09:57.039
But yeah.
00:09:57.039 --> 00:09:58.240
So it was effective.
00:09:58.240 --> 00:10:00.480
It was effective for me as a writer, I would say.
00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:01.200
Exactly.
00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:03.600
And then so I'm wondering, so there's two parts of this.
00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:08.159
One, and that's clear for what you've been doing for the past, I don't know, two decades now.
00:10:08.159 --> 00:10:10.879
Did it bring audiences in?
00:10:10.879 --> 00:10:16.559
Did you get people coming in that maybe otherwise wouldn't have to the performances?
00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:18.720
Okay, I wish I had a yeah.
00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:22.960
I mean, did somebody tell me, oh, you wrote about our play in off and people came?
00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:28.639
I don't know if I ever I maybe somebody told me that at one point, but I don't have a firm memory of that.
00:10:28.639 --> 00:10:35.200
All I know is that when we had our first anniversary of the publication, you know, we threw a party at a theater and a bunch of people came, and that was that was cool.
00:10:35.679 --> 00:10:36.159
Okay, yeah.
00:10:36.159 --> 00:10:37.759
So yeah, you did have impact.
00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:38.240
Yeah.
00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:41.360
Well, you know, it's like the internet, we didn't have the internet in like 99.
00:10:41.360 --> 00:10:42.159
Right, right.
00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:44.960
It was 90, we did this in 96, 97, 98.
00:10:44.960 --> 00:10:57.440
Um, but you know, at every theater downtown, there would be like an area where there are postcards, and you know, it'll be like a dozen postcards for shows, and so people can like sort of pick one up and and off was just part of that.
00:10:57.440 --> 00:11:00.080
It was like a community paper, basically.
00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:02.320
So it was getting the word out.
00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:02.960
Yeah.
00:11:02.960 --> 00:11:03.840
Yeah.
00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:10.080
Yeah, and uh Zine seemed to be making uh a resurgence here, not that they ever fully went away, right?
00:11:10.080 --> 00:11:21.679
But it's always been sort of this part of uh the you know counterculture, subculture DIY mentality of of artists who are are part of these types of communities that aren't mainstream, right?
00:11:21.679 --> 00:11:32.720
So they they kind of have always held on to these um the DIY sort of attitude, uh even with the advent of things like blogs and web pages and stuff uh in the in the uh in the late 90s.
00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:40.480
So uh but yeah, zines seemed to be kind of um uh still still pretty prominent within those within those um groups of people.
00:11:40.879 --> 00:11:47.519
Yeah, you know, I mean there's there's a conversation that's happening now around media and and the arts, but other things as well, about listings.
00:11:47.519 --> 00:11:54.480
You know, when I put together um off, uh yeah, I was definitely modeling it on the voice and on on to some extent timeout in New York.
00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:58.879
And so we had, you know, it was it's it was fashioned like a magazine kind of.
00:11:58.879 --> 00:12:02.399
And so it had feature articles in the front and listings in the back.
00:12:02.399 --> 00:12:08.720
And yeah, people right now, I mean, I think it's fascinating what's happened over the past 15, 20 years.
00:12:08.720 --> 00:12:17.919
It's like somehow listings are, you know, print listings are considered somehow some some ancient, um, inefficient, old technology.
00:12:17.919 --> 00:12:26.960
And it's like, no, actually, you could take this paper thing onto the subway, you know, you didn't you didn't need Wi-Fi, and you could actually scan with your eyeballs all these different listings.
00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:28.879
And it was handy and useful.
00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:32.799
And the editors and critics could say, you really should see this.
00:12:32.799 --> 00:12:35.759
Here's a red star to indicate you should really check this out.
00:12:35.759 --> 00:12:48.240
Um I think that that DIY thing you're talking about is is people like responding to the to the I don't you know there's the there's the mainstream, there's the subcultures, and then there's the internet, or there's what's on your phone.
00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:49.279
What the hell is that?
00:12:49.440 --> 00:12:51.519
Is it it's some somewhere in between?
00:12:51.519 --> 00:12:54.240
It's like it's not even a my smaller microcode.
00:12:54.559 --> 00:12:58.240
I mean it's not a mainstream, it's just like it's a flood of of it's a sewage flood.
00:12:58.240 --> 00:12:59.039
Uh everything.
00:12:59.039 --> 00:13:00.320
Yeah, yeah.
00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:01.519
Yeah.
00:13:01.519 --> 00:13:11.759
So yeah, I think people definitely want to have more local guidance to what's happening outs in the real world, you know, outside their door, for sure.
00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:25.200
So as Nick mentioned in the intro, and as you've you've talked about here a little bit too, um, you've had a multifaceted career as a as a playwright, a librettist, opera uh collaborator, and um a writer and critic of of uh theater.
00:13:25.200 --> 00:13:31.039
And at what point did you realize that you could build a sustainable career out of out of these things?
00:13:31.759 --> 00:13:32.879
Yeah, sustainable.
00:13:32.879 --> 00:13:34.240
That's a that's a key term.
00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:39.120
Uh which could be defined a lot of different ways, right?
00:13:39.120 --> 00:13:47.200
There's certainly financial financial sustainability, but there's also like your own sort of well-being, like mindset, uh mental health, that sort of thing.
00:13:47.440 --> 00:13:59.120
That's how I have to look at it, because you know, uh to the to to get a job that would make the the creative work I do sustainable would be an unsustainable life for me.
00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:01.519
You know, meaning that I can't, I just can't.
00:14:01.519 --> 00:14:06.799
I mean, when I in my acting years, I guess I was just, yeah, I had roommates, I was temping.
00:14:06.799 --> 00:14:10.159
I was you know, temping in the day and rehearsing at night.
00:14:10.159 --> 00:14:14.480
And um, you know, that was, and you know, uh my parents helped me.
00:14:14.480 --> 00:14:20.879
I mean, they they didn't pay my rent, but they they helped me, you know, several years to get to pay some of the bills.
00:14:20.879 --> 00:14:30.559
Um so yeah, that was not sustainable, but it was also like survivable in a way that you know may well probably isn't today because of price uh the inflation, I guess.
00:14:30.559 --> 00:14:37.840
Um so yeah, so so I mean I can't say for honestly that I make a great living off of opera libretti or playwriting.
00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:52.879
Um I mean like there are I mean you know honestly, there are about two or three librettists in this whole country who make a living off of their which says more about the you know the uh the timidity of opera companies than does about their talent, but um it's not easy out there.
00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:53.279
Yeah.
00:14:53.279 --> 00:14:55.440
So yeah, I would say sustainability.
00:14:55.440 --> 00:15:01.440
I mean, I've always you know the the timeout job was obviously a move towards stability and sustainability.
00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:04.159
Yeah, and then I f I freelance today, yeah.
00:15:04.399 --> 00:15:05.519
Yeah, yeah, sure.
00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:19.440
So maybe that full-time gig, uh I don't know if it was full-time, but that first employ employment job of writing um sort of maybe allowed you the bandwidth to kind of think about and explore or consider other things that you could be involved in.
00:15:19.679 --> 00:15:20.480
That's exactly right.
00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:21.519
Yeah, yeah.
00:15:21.519 --> 00:15:35.840
I mean, after about eight years of like just churning out copy week, yeah, grinding and having a great time with it because you know, of course, these time out reviews were like, you know, 350 words to like 600 or longer, maybe sometimes it was variable.
00:15:35.840 --> 00:15:39.679
And yeah, you were reviewing Broadway off, off, off every week.
00:15:39.679 --> 00:15:43.919
It was fun, and it was uh, you know, it was fun.
00:15:43.919 --> 00:15:47.200
It was it was great, it was great tech, great technical writing workshop.
00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:52.080
Um, but yeah, definitely marinating in plays and musicals, week after week after week, yeah.
00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:54.240
After a while, you're just like, hey, I'm a creative person.
00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:55.360
I don't want to act, right?
00:15:55.360 --> 00:16:00.480
I don't want to act, but I I I mean I've always I've always wanted to, I've always been a writer.
00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:03.279
And yeah, after a while I was like, I want to write plays.
00:16:03.279 --> 00:16:03.919
I really do.
00:16:04.559 --> 00:16:08.960
It's it it was paid research, really, if you think about it, when you look back on your career.
00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:10.639
Paid grad school, yeah.
00:16:10.639 --> 00:16:12.080
Yeah, exactly.
00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:22.000
So, David, if there are listeners who want to become playwrights or librettists, what should they know before pursuing those fields?
00:16:23.519 --> 00:16:31.440
I guess they should know that success is not you know, everything that people say about entering the creative field is hard.
00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:37.120
You're you may have to put in years before you see any any um taking see any uh progress.
00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:40.399
I would say embrace the hyphen, I guess, is the thing.
00:16:40.399 --> 00:16:45.519
Because you you know nobody lived as a as a playwright alone.
00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:50.960
Uh even Tony Kushner, America's greatest living playwright, sure, uh writes spin plays.
00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:56.559
You know, his his next project or one of them is uh an adaptation of Death of a Salesman.
00:16:56.559 --> 00:17:04.880
So the greatest greatest American living playwright is adapting the greatest living, the greatest American playwright of 1949, uh kind of.
00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:15.759
So yeah, any playwright or opera libretta Stephen also maybe they teach, uh maybe they work, they work a job uh in the arts field or not or not.
00:17:15.759 --> 00:17:17.839
Uh maybe they're they're an arts administrator.
00:17:17.839 --> 00:17:24.079
I I know of a librettist who's who is or was you know also working in the administration of a major opera company.
00:17:24.079 --> 00:17:28.880
Uh or they um or they if you or they get a TV job.
00:17:28.880 --> 00:17:41.920
A lot of playwrights now, I think, uh very, very um pragmatically think of uh um a well-received play in New York or Los Angeles or anywhere to be like a kind of audition for a TV job.
00:17:41.920 --> 00:17:46.640
Um if you can get into a TV TV writer's room, that's that pays.
00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:54.720
But being being unless you get like unless you're able to rack up like five, $20,000 commissions in a year as a playwright, you're not gonna be really able to live on it.
00:17:55.200 --> 00:18:01.119
So then just summarize if they want to do this, just plan on a portfolio career.
00:18:01.359 --> 00:18:02.079
Yeah, basically.
00:18:02.480 --> 00:18:02.720
Yeah.
00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:03.200
Yeah.
00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:12.400
And find ways, like, I mean, I don't know if people talk about storytelling very loosely these days, but you know, I think I think storytelling is, you know, we're humans, storytelling's at our core.
00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:21.519
And uh if other areas of the world that are not strictly speaking the arts want to use storytelling, then then you should be then artists should be part of that.
00:18:21.519 --> 00:18:28.319
And I mean, I like if a if a business wants to have a storytelling department, whatever that means.
00:18:28.319 --> 00:18:28.640
Yeah.
00:18:28.640 --> 00:18:30.480
Yeah, be part of that.
00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:42.319
I I I have not personally gone into that area because I don't I know that's there are some actors who like do corporate retreats to help people with I don't know, speeches and presentations and things.
00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:43.680
Yeah.
00:18:43.680 --> 00:18:46.160
We've actually got some guests on who do things like that.
00:18:46.720 --> 00:18:47.359
Yeah, yeah.
00:18:47.359 --> 00:18:49.359
Storytelling, storytelling.
00:18:49.359 --> 00:18:55.759
Yeah, it's I mean, there's that's it's in it's in the medical field, like you know, doctors or yeah, yeah.
00:18:57.039 --> 00:19:02.079
Um I was recently listening to uh a freakonomics podcast episode with the playwright David Adjme.
00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:06.480
I don't know if you've if you're familiar with um the podcast or his work.
00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:17.039
Um but he he described the uh arts as a long game where breakthroughs often take decades and don't always turn out the way uh we maybe expected them.
00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:29.920
Um and so given that opera and theater projects can take years to come to life, how do you think about keeping that momentum going forward uh when sort of it might feel like drudgery?
00:19:29.920 --> 00:19:34.640
And um how do you how do you manage that unpredictable nature of of the work?
00:19:35.119 --> 00:19:37.039
Yeah, I I I I heard that podcast.
00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:39.279
I I I know David a little bit.
00:19:39.279 --> 00:19:47.519
I mean, we're Facebook friends, but but uh But I mean I I interviewed him ages ago, like god, like in 2000 2009 or something for time out.
00:19:47.519 --> 00:19:49.680
And um he's yeah, he's brilliant.
00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:59.359
He's like one of the top ten playwrights, you know, who are you know like under fifty or I don't know how old he is, but uh who are like just doing really amazing work.
00:19:59.359 --> 00:20:00.720
Um Yeah.
00:20:00.720 --> 00:20:02.960
I mean, yeah, that's really honest.
00:20:02.960 --> 00:20:07.680
It's i you know, stereophonic took to ten years to to right to get up built.
00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:16.720
Um mostly operas, I mean, I guess with opera I've been luckier because it's a real it's a collaboration between writers, between a composer and me.
00:20:16.720 --> 00:20:21.920
Um so often those have taken like five years from initial idea to production.
00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:22.240
Okay.
00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:31.759
I don't think I have most operas begin because a composer uh because an opera company wants a composer to to do a piece.
00:20:31.759 --> 00:20:33.279
So they'll commit they'll commission it.
00:20:33.279 --> 00:20:36.559
And they they don't care as much about the librettist, which is very foolish of them.
00:20:36.559 --> 00:20:39.680
You know, you really shouldn't care about what words the people are singing.
00:20:39.680 --> 00:20:46.000
Uh but uh people in the opera world are much more fixated on music, although I think that's changing.
00:20:46.000 --> 00:21:04.319
But yeah, no, but David David was really I mean, David is such a strong personality, and he's very frank about holding on to your dream until into, you know, uh even if you feel like you're being you know compulsive or it's driving you a little bit of crazy, you should keep keep doing it.
00:21:04.319 --> 00:21:05.599
And I and I believe that too.
00:21:05.599 --> 00:21:07.200
I think writing is a compulsion.
00:21:07.200 --> 00:21:18.160
But you know, David is uh is very lucky in that he found collaborators like the director uh Daniel Auken and Will Butler of Arcade Fire to work with him on that project.
00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:31.519
And I mean I I have some directors I work with uh who are great dramaturgs, you know, they they're like play whisperers, they're able to read your read your draft and tell you what's what's going well with it or what needs fixing.
00:21:31.519 --> 00:21:40.160
Um collaborators are key, whether or not you're in production putting up a show, but just like you're just gestating something, a collaborator is really key, I think, at that.
00:21:40.160 --> 00:21:43.200
And I think that's that's that's part of like finding your community.
00:21:43.200 --> 00:21:55.440
And even if your community is like three or four people that you really trust, I think I think being a writer, you know, you should definitely when you have a draft and it's messy and ugly and stupid, you should show it to your the person you trust.
00:21:55.440 --> 00:22:00.240
Uh and that's that's a great way to keep the keep the flame going, I think.
00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:01.119
Yeah.
00:22:01.119 --> 00:22:16.799
It also makes me think about like, do you have multiple projects in the pipeline, like that you're sort of, you know, because of that long timeline, now you're kind of thinking about the how these things um sort of release in phases or go through different phases uh throughout that that time period.
00:22:17.119 --> 00:22:17.519
Oh yeah.
00:22:17.519 --> 00:22:30.960
Um when we were doing uh this opera that we took to Cleveland called uh Blind Injustice, when we we opened it in um in Cincinnati in 2019, um and you know the run was pretty short, it was like a week and a half or two weeks.
00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:44.079
And but we uh yeah, in the middle of it, I was to we were I was getting drinks with Scott uh Davenport Richards, the composer, and Robin Guarino, who directed it, and I you know I had been wanting to talk to Scott about this for a little while.
00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:48.480
I was like, I was like, have you ever thought about doing an opera about Paul Robeson?
00:22:48.480 --> 00:22:50.400
Because I'd had this idea for a while.
00:22:50.400 --> 00:23:06.400
Paul Robson was a great singer and activist in the in the 20th century, who um uh great towering figure in black arts, in in black politics, and you know, he was a he was a sort of lifelong uh supporter of the communist experiment.
00:23:06.400 --> 00:23:26.400
Uh in 1934, when he visited Moscow, he saw a side of Moscow that was very, very curated and cultivated to win his to win him over, but he saw a society of the future that he believed in, about that had equality and was was oriented on justice and equality, which he did not see in America at the time.
00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:34.079
And so it created a sort of problematic political bind in his entire life, obviously in the 50s with McCarthyism and all that.
00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:40.799
So anyway, uh but uh yeah, so I asked Scott if he was had ever, and he's like, well, actually, I have written a little bit about Paul Robeson.
00:23:40.799 --> 00:23:46.480
Uh he had written a sketch, uh part of a larger piece, I think, that has a scene with Paul Robeson in it.
00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:52.319
Um but he was intrigued, and because we liked working together, that became the seed of our next project.
00:23:52.319 --> 00:23:53.759
And yeah, yeah.
00:23:53.759 --> 00:23:57.519
So yeah, I'm always hopefully working on two or three things at the same time.
00:23:57.519 --> 00:24:11.359
And then you know the operas are on the one side and the plays are on the other side, and and um yeah, I've got I've always have I always have ideas that I'm just sort of saying you have to look at all your folders and be like, okay, which one really do I need to start start next?
00:24:11.359 --> 00:24:11.759
You know.
00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:19.839
You know, as you're talking, I'm wondering, do you approach writing differently when you're working with music and composers as opposed to plays without music?
00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:21.039
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:21.039 --> 00:24:31.440
Um when I first started to do to do wanting to do any of these creative projects, I thought I thought I I want to start with a libretto because I feel like that's playwriting on training wheels.
00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:35.440
Because uh the words don't have to carry it all.
00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:38.559
You have music that can also fill out the blanks.
00:24:38.559 --> 00:24:50.559
Um so I um Yeah, so I mean I I uh well all I can say about technically, like with libretti, uh the language is a lot sparser, a lot more concise.
00:24:50.559 --> 00:24:52.640
I guess you could say it's lyrical.
00:24:52.640 --> 00:24:55.440
Um sometimes it goes into straight-up lyrics.
00:24:55.440 --> 00:25:07.359
Uh if if you sort of if within the fabric of a sung through opera you actually have a song uh that people are singing within the story, then you can sort of drift into like song structure, which is always fun because I love Broadway.
00:25:07.359 --> 00:25:11.119
Um now I love Broadway, even back in the 90s I hated it.
00:25:11.119 --> 00:25:11.440
No.
00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:12.880
You've evolved.
00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:13.839
I evolved.
00:25:14.400 --> 00:25:14.799
That's not true.
00:25:15.119 --> 00:25:19.519
In college, somebody turned me on to Sondheim, and I was like, okay, yeah, this is pretty this is pretty amazing.
00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:22.640
So um I love love my Stephen Sondheim.
00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:32.559
I'm not not very not very unique in that way, but uh um yeah, so and then of course the plays are just like yeah, the the with the libretti, the the the language is sort of singing to you first.
00:25:32.559 --> 00:25:44.720
I don't know what the music is gonna be like exactly, but I believe in the music of the words, and they're like sort of carrying me along by their by their sparseness and energy and and the poetic quality that they might have.
00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:54.160
Whereas in I think in playwriting, first of all, there's more of a story that I'm trying to tell in playwriting that's this happened, then this happened, this happened, and then the characters are talking to me in playwriting.
00:25:54.160 --> 00:26:02.720
Um the language, obviously, I I want to have as the as much delicious language as possible in the play, but uh the characters are sort of driving it.
00:26:02.720 --> 00:26:10.480
Um so yeah, with the libretto, you're just sort of like, how can I do the least amount here to inspire the composer?
00:26:10.480 --> 00:26:11.599
You know, you know.
00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:12.240
Okay.
00:26:13.440 --> 00:26:28.640
I mean, you want powerful language, but you know, the thing about opera writing is like you can have the most banal friggin' line, like um, like we sit here into our gazing into our screens, trying to make sense while the world around us burns.
00:26:28.640 --> 00:26:34.720
You know, and then you can somebody can set that to music, you know, and and it'll be like apocalyptic or something.
00:26:34.720 --> 00:26:35.359
Yeah.
00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:35.920
Right.
00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:37.119
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:26:37.119 --> 00:26:43.599
Do you think of yourself as an entrepreneur or as entrepreneurial?
00:26:44.079 --> 00:26:46.880
Yeah, I mean I immediately think that my mind goes to capitalism.
00:26:46.880 --> 00:26:48.480
You know, like I of course, yeah, yeah.
00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:50.319
I haven't made enough money.
00:26:50.319 --> 00:26:57.200
I think uh yes, because you know, there's a the the root sense of that is like a self-starter or or just good.
00:26:57.599 --> 00:27:01.119
I I should say you don't have to say yes either because of this pod the normal podcast.
00:27:01.519 --> 00:27:03.279
Well, I'm not I don't know if I'm a businessman.
00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:12.960
Like one I've been I've been told I should self-incorporate, you know, or you know, I but I don't think that's necessarily necessary for the amount of money I make.
00:27:12.960 --> 00:27:18.160
Uh or I you know I would love to get an agent if that would help me get more work, but I don't really have an agent.
00:27:18.160 --> 00:27:23.119
So I but I yet I yet I start a lot of projects and some of them get realized.
00:27:23.119 --> 00:27:25.440
So yeah, I guess I consider myself an entrepreneur.
00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:26.079
Sure.
00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:27.039
Okay.
00:27:27.039 --> 00:27:30.319
I mean, I guess there's room for improvement.
00:27:30.319 --> 00:27:34.079
I mean, you know, I guess there's room for more ambition, perhaps.
00:27:34.079 --> 00:27:36.720
I'm Gen X, so you know, ambition.
00:27:36.720 --> 00:27:42.720
Ambition is like, I mean, uh, you know, it takes me a long while to decide I really want to sell out, you know.
00:27:42.720 --> 00:27:46.400
Maybe by the time I'm in my in my 60s, I'll really want to sell out, you know, by then.
00:27:46.720 --> 00:27:48.319
Well, it's it's not always about money.
00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:49.839
It could be freedom to do what you want.
00:27:49.839 --> 00:27:50.720
You have the income.
00:27:50.720 --> 00:27:52.880
So there's that there's that aspect too.
00:27:52.880 --> 00:27:55.359
And you're influencing a lot of people.
00:27:56.240 --> 00:27:56.559
Yeah.
00:27:56.799 --> 00:27:57.119
You know.
00:27:57.599 --> 00:27:58.720
Yeah, I mean, yeah.
00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:02.079
The well, you know, just getting the work out there, I mean, is is yeah.
00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:03.200
That's the important thing.
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:08.319
Yeah, I think that's um I think that's at the core of entrepreneurship, right?
00:28:08.319 --> 00:28:11.359
You create something new and different that didn't exist before and you get it out into it.
00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:11.920
Exactly.
00:28:11.920 --> 00:28:17.359
The act of getting it out into in front of an audience or customers or fans or whatever you want to call them.
00:28:17.359 --> 00:28:17.759
Yeah, right.
00:28:17.759 --> 00:28:24.160
Um, I think that that is entrepreneurship is that that creative act that gets it out and money's a byproduct.
00:28:24.160 --> 00:28:26.960
Figuring out how to figuring out how to do it.
00:28:26.960 --> 00:28:29.839
I mean, there's no one way to make it happen, right?
00:28:29.839 --> 00:28:32.160
It's yeah, you do what you can.
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:37.039
And maybe there's a sense of indep um outsider-ness or independence to it.
00:28:37.039 --> 00:28:41.920
I mean, I guess you could be an entrepreneur, you can be an entrepreneur inside of a corporation, I suppose.
00:28:41.920 --> 00:28:42.480
Maybe that's true.
00:28:42.480 --> 00:28:42.720
Sure.
00:28:42.720 --> 00:28:47.920
But I mean is that a term?
00:28:47.920 --> 00:28:48.960
It's a term.
00:28:48.960 --> 00:28:49.759
Yeah, okay.
00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:56.079
But yeah, to me, the the sense of it also is like, okay, I'm going to yeah, I'm gonna start this myself.
00:28:56.480 --> 00:28:57.039
Yeah, yeah.
00:28:57.039 --> 00:28:57.519
Right.
00:28:57.519 --> 00:28:58.319
Yes, absolutely.
00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:02.559
Yeah, it's Andy was talking, I spoke over him there, but it's money's uh that's okay.
00:29:02.559 --> 00:29:04.160
The the money's a byproduct.
00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:06.960
Nobody got nobody goes into the arts to make money.
00:29:06.960 --> 00:29:08.079
That that I've met.
00:29:08.079 --> 00:29:08.799
I don't know.
00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:17.200
Maybe you have to well, yes, I know but uh or they go into the arts with money, with with with with uh that's totally different.
00:29:17.440 --> 00:29:18.160
There's that too.
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:19.200
Yeah, totally different.
00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:29.519
Or they or they go into the arts because they really think the system sucks, and they really think we need to like, you know, as a civilization, we need to change it and not starve starve our artists, you know.
00:29:29.759 --> 00:29:30.319
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:38.240
I mean they're not starving artists, they're starved artists, you know, starved by by you know by a system, which sounds very vague.
00:29:38.240 --> 00:29:45.039
But yeah, more subsidy, more more money for the arts, less money for I don't know, weapons or other things.
00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:46.079
Yeah, right.
00:29:46.079 --> 00:29:47.279
Yeah, yeah.
00:29:47.279 --> 00:29:52.799
So and money is just one money's just one line on the scorecard, too, right?
00:29:52.799 --> 00:30:00.880
I mean um it happens to be useful, you know, pretty useful, but um, yep, not not a motivating factor necessarily.
00:30:03.759 --> 00:30:04.880
Thanks for listening.
00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:07.200
If you like this podcast, please subscribe.
00:30:07.200 --> 00:30:15.039
Visit arts entrepreneurship podcast.com to learn more about our guest and how you can help support artists, the arts, and this podcast.