SallyPAL

Fail, fail Again, fail better - Samuel Beckett

Welcome to the show notes for Episode 46 of Sally’s Performing Arts Lab Podcast. Chris O’Rourke, playwright, director, Irishman and critic joins me from Dublin, Ireland on episode 46 of SallyPAL. To hear his authentic (and very appealing) Irish brogue, you need to find the episode on your favorite podcast platform. Just type in SallyPAL and look for Episode 46. I’m podcast host, Sally Adams. I talk to people about creating original work for a live audience. Send an email to me anytime by sending to [email protected]. Share your story with me and let me know about a creator you’d like me to interview.

Copyright Update

Podcast Guest Chris O’Rourke

Chris O’Rourke is also the artistic director of the award-winning Everything is Liminal and Unknown Theatre troupes specializing in originating works with young people from high risk backgrounds. Unknown Theatre’s groundbreaking production, “If Walls Could Talk” played at The 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival to rave reviews.

I hope you’ll click the podcast link at the top of this blog entry to enjoy episode 46 with Chris O’Rourke. I also invite you to go to your favorite podcast provider and download past episodes. There are dozens of wonderful conversations with people creating original work in the world of performance right now. I interview choreographers, playwrights, musicians, scholars, designers, technicians and performers from stages all over the world. Every interview includes a section titled Concise Advice from the Interview that highlights the best nuggets of wisdom, as well as Words of Wisdom from George, a brief bit of insight from my husband, the coolest guy on the planet.

Concise Advice from the Interview for Episode 46 includes five bits of advice from Critic and Playwright, Chris O’Rourke:

5 Be honest in your criticism. As long as there’s no vindictiveness you can be share what you see.

4 When working with young people, do work that is relevant to their lives.

3 It’s important to tell stories of people whose voices aren’t ordinarily heard.

2 If you’re working with young people, let them have fun, find their voices, and express themselves.

1 Respect your audience by keeping them engaged and entertained.

Thank you for reading, following, sharing, subscribing, reviewing, joining, & thank you for listening to the podcast. If you’re downloading and listening on your drive to work, or reading the blog after hours, let me know you’re out there. Shared storytelling is the most important thing we do as a culture. That’s why I encourage you to share your stories because you’re the only one with your particular point of view. And SallyPAL is here with resources, encouragement, and a growing community of storytellers.

All the stories ever expressed once lived only in someone’s imagination.

Hi Friend, Welcome to a special 2018 Christmas Eve Episode of Sally’s Performing Arts Lab Podcast. Today, we’re going to talk about my upcoming guests now that 2019 is right around the corner. I’m your SallyPAL podcast host, Sally Adams. I talk to people about creating original work for a live audience. Send an email anytime to [email protected].

Although I’ve been away from podcasting for a few months, I am still out here supporting new works wherever I see the opportunity. As 2018 draws to a close I wanted to share some thoughts before I kick into twice a month podcast uploads again. After producing over 50 episodes of SallyPAL, I took a break from podcasting. It was only supposed to last a month to make time for some other projects. But I got out of the habit of regularly editing and posting and after a few more weeks I was almost embarrassed to start again. It’s like that feeling you get when you forget to send a baby gift and then 2 years later you figure it’s probably too late to send that onesie you were maybe going to buy. But enough about me and my nieces… There are some things on the horizon that are really too exciting to ignore and I want to share them with my Sally PALS! So let me start by letting you know about the guests I have coming up in the next few months:

1. Upcoming Guests

1. Chris O’Rourke is a playwright, director, drama coach and critic with a Masters in Modern Drama. Chris was National Theatre Critic for com until July 2016 when Examiner.com ceased. During that time he extensively reviewed in Ireland and abroad. Chris is artistic director of Everything is Liminal and Unknown Theatre which specializes in originating works with young people from high risk backgrounds. 

1. Big news in public domain works and what it means for creatives: If you’re not sure exactly what the term public domain means, according to Google’s online dictionary, “public domain is the state of belonging or being available to the public as a whole, and therefore not subject to copyright.” This is a pretty big deal for creatives in general. But especially for arts teachers. Many of you may remember being admonished by your choir teacher or your drama director to get rid of your photocopies after a performance because the works were copyrighted and you did not have permission to keep those copies. In just a few days that will no longer be true for works published in 1923. Works published in 1922 and before have been available for 20 years. I know this because in 2013 I wrote a musical for my students that borrowed songs from 1922 and earlier including the well-known, “Be It Ever So Humble, There’s No Place Like Home”.

A recent article in the Smithsonian magazine highlights a lot of the things that are important to artists regarding works in the public domain. According to the article on January 1, 2019, “all works first published in the United States in 1923 will enter the public domain.”

Because of a weird discrepancy with the law, it’s been 20 years since there’s been any mass release of work into the public domain. The last time it happened was 1998 and Google didn’t even incorporate as a company until September of that year. That means the explosive growth of digital art hasn’t legally included variations on work from this period in part because works published in 1923 haven’t been in the public domain. Some of the work has been available, of course, without alteration, through publishers and for a price.

1998 was the year that public domain releases stopped because the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act added 20 years to the wait time for published works to enter the public domain. The bill was named for Congressman Bono posthumously although he did put his signature on the legislation. It’s complicated, just like copyright law so I’ve included some deep dive links for anyone who needs more. And don’t get me started on global copyright. It’s a hot mess.

Next week, though, you’ll have total and free access to things like Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” which, although written in 1922, was not published until 1923. The laws for these earlier works is different from works in the digital age. Nowadays, a work has a copyright as soon as it’s created. I’m not kidding when I say this stuff is ridiculously complicated. I’ll include a link to a great Brad Templeton website on copyright, plagiarism, and some other topics you might find interesting.

Other things entering the public domain? Well, how about the unforgettable pop hit, “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” or the songs “Who’s Sorry Now?” and the flapper hit, “The Charleston”. The film debuts of Marlene Dietrich, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Fay Wray will be available for general public use. There won’t be any Disney fare available until 2024. At the time the law changed, Mickey Mouse’s film debut, Steamboat Willie, would have been public domain in 2004. But the Disney Corporation lobbied to retain the rights to its creations over two decades into the next century. They didn’t have to lobby all that hard as both the House and Senate had corporate-leaning Republican majorities and President Clinton wasn’t looking to make public domain law a part of his platform. The 1998 law gave Steamboat Willie an extra 20 years before he would steer into un-copyrighted waters.

What’s really exciting now is that digital collections like Internet Archive, Google Books and HathiTrust will be storing seminal works from the early days of American Modernism. D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolfe, Claude McKay, Sigmund Freud, George Bernard Shaw, Louis Armstrong, Gertrude Stein, and so many others. Members of the Harlem Renaissance, the DaDaist school, and the Algonquin Roundtable all feature prominently in 1923. This new surge of old works in the digital age allows for current creatives to freely play with the works of important artists of the era bridging WWI and the Great Depression.

Works entering the public domain can be altered indiscriminately. You could even claim p.d. work as your own, but that’s not art, that’s plagiarism. As artists we are always standing on the shoulders of giants. Give attribution whenever you can. And do your homework. Look at the context for works that you use. Collaborating with ghosts expands our artistic horizons. It’s an exciting way to learn from our predecessors. Teachers will be free to share these works with their students and scholars can print important poems and essays many of us have never read. It’s only one year, but I think you’ll find that 1923 was a very good year, indeed.

1. SallyPAL Shoppe opening – Stay on the lookout for the SallyPAL Shoppe. I’ll have t-shirts, coffee mugs, all the usual fun high-quality performing arts kitsch at decent prices. If you don’t see anything in the store yet, stay tuned!

      You’ve heard from my son Will Inman before and he’s back to talk about the new release of 1923 published works into the public domain, plagiarism, sharing your work, educational theatre, and some other cool stuff. Will’s plays have been produced in theaters from Texas to New York. He is currently a Cadence Pipeline New Works Fellow with Cadence Theatre in Richmond, Virginia. He’s been a featured student playwright with the VSA Kennedy Center plays, been performed with Tulsa SummerStage and Fringe festivals, Writopia Labs Comedy Playwriting Festival Houston University, Rogers State University, a portion of his play, The Lesbian Exhibit,  was performed at Torrent Theatre in New York City, and last year he won the inaugural Edward Albee Playwriting Award by Theresa Rebeck for his play Winners.

Concise Advice from the Interview - 5 bits of advice about using public domain work:

1. DO give attribution when you use someone else’s work. It’s not a requirement, but it’s important to recognize the work of other artists, especially if it inspires you.

Check out the blog, SallyPAL.com, for articles and podcast episodes. You, too, can be a SallyPAL. Thank you for following, sharing, subscribing, reviewing, joining, & thank you for listening.

If you’re downloading and listening on your drive to work, or commenting and reviewing like my sister does, let me know you’re out there. Storytelling through performance is the most important thing we do as a culture. That’s why I encourage you to share your stories because you’re the only one with your particular point of view. And SallyPAL is here with resources, encouragement, and a growing community of storytellers. All the stories ever expressed once lived only in someone’s imagination… Now… Go Pretend!

Charly Wenzel is a dancer, choreographer and virtual reality filmmaker. You may be able to tell from her accent that she’s originally from Germany. She moved to New York nearly 15 years ago to continue to study dance. It was there at the Alvin Ailey School that Charly met Teresa Fellion who you may remember from Episode 25.

Charly danced for Teresa in the early days of Teresa’s company. After a few years exploring other creative venues including film, Charly joined forces with Teresa once again. Charly recognizes both her and Teresa’s styles have evolved over time making their collaborative efforts richer and more exciting. She currently works as the rehearsal director for Body Stories: Teresa Fellion Dance.

Charly Wenzel is a big fan of immersive art. She currently performs in Third Rail Projects' immersive dance theatre piece, Then She Fell. The long-running performance piece moves the audience from room to room to meet different characters in the story. Then She Fell is based on the writings and life of Lewis Carroll and his interactions with Alice Liddell.

Charly Wenzel just started working on a new piece for Body Stories set to premier in December at Triskelion Arts in Brooklyn, New York. Starting a dance piece from scratch begins with experimenting in the studio where the artists must imagine audience reactions while creating movement that tells a story. According to Charly, an immersive show gives performers an intimate experience with the audience.

Charly believes audience intimacy helped her develop her skills directing dancers because anything can happen. An audience member who interacts with storytellers becomes part of the performance rather than passively watching a show. Cynthia Hennon Marino talked about this as well in Episode 41.

In addition to live performance, Charly experiments with the storytelling possibilities of film. Her independent dance films use location, angles, and the ability to move in and out with a lens. Charly collaborates with a film director to create clear story focus. In filmmaking, as in theatre, each artist brings a skill set to the medium that makes it more exciting. Her film projection designs for Body Stories created a conversation between the live performers onstage and the images on screen.

Currently, Charly is working on an immersive virtual reality dance piece on film. According to Charly, film festivals focusing on virtual reality films are creating a demand for experiential viewing. In virtual reality filming, the camera shoots 360 degrees. It creates some challenges as the 360 view can reveal crew members, equipment, and things you might ordinarily be able to avoid. The compelling part of virtual reality filming is that it creates choice for the audience. A 360 director must account for audience choice while shooting.

Concise Advice from the Interview:

9 Keep your overall vision for a performance clear

8 Good ideas are like a ingredients that you can come back to or choose not to use

7 Every project helps you grow as an artist

6 Surround yourself with people you can learn from

5 Find people who want to work together to achieve a common goal

4 Keep an open mind

3 Find your own voice by immersing yourself in your art

2 Don’t worry about what you think people want to see

1 Stay true to your voice

Check out the blog, SallyPAL.com, for articles and podcast episodes. You, too, can be a Sally PAL! Don’t forget, Emile and I will be at New York’s Town Stages with a live feed on Wednesday, August 8 starting at 2pm EST. Join me and Emile to celebrate one year of SallyPAL and performing arts “in the greatest city in the world!” The link for the August 8 live feed is: https://youtu.be/_lXNAtZiIvM.

Thank you for following, sharing, subscribing, reviewing, joining, & thank you for listening. If you’re downloading and listening on your drive to work, or falling asleep to my live feed like my sister will, let me know you’re out there. Storytelling through performance is the most important thing we do as a culture. That’s why I encourage you to share your stories because you’re the only one with your particular point of view. And SallyPAL is here with resources, encouragement, and a growing community of storytellers. All the stories ever expressed once lived only in someone’s imagination… Now… Stay true to your voice!

Hi Friend! Mark your calendar for August 8 at 2pm when my daughter I will be doing a live feed on YouTube Live! We'll be interviewing fellows from Town Stages as well as some other amazing artists! We're still hashing out the details but I can't wait to share this very special event with you from 2pm to 5 or 6pm Eastern Time on YouTube Live! I'll share the link as soon as we have it set up. I hope you'll join us. All you have to do is click on the link and you can even help me and Emile with our interviews by posting your own questions!  

To see the video for the podcast you just heard, go to: https://youtu.be/NYK1N7LFqto 

Welcome to Episode 42 of Sally’s Performing Arts Lab Podcast. I’m podcast host, Sally Adams. And every week I talk about creating original work for a live audience. I interview guests from all over who are doing just that! Send an email anytime to [email protected]. Your ideas keep great conversations coming every week.

Check out sallypal.com/join for a free Creator’s Notebook. It's a great resource for people producing original work. Also, you can be a Sally PAL just by joining. There are lots of other good reasons to join. SallyPAL has free theatre cartoons and inside scoop on fresh productions. And I want your help building a creator community I've named "The Clearing".

Today, my awesome guest is Professor and Playwright, Jenny Kokai. Her book, “Swim Pretty”, explores mermaid culture. She looks at feminism through shows like the Weeki Wachee Mermaids in Spring Hill, Florida. We talk about that and a whole lot more in Episode 42.

Jenny Kokai is a theatre professor at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. For anyone paying attention to pop culture, mermaids are a thing. They're moving past the traditional pretty white female. You'll see them in TV, movies, and comicons. Interpretations include transgender, disabled, and racially diverse mermaids. The reinvention of culture isn’t limited to aquatic life. According to my guest, there are ways in which theatre of all kinds is making an impact on the way people view 'difference'.

Jenny Kokai and her eleven-year-old son, Oliver, recently co-wrote a play called "Zombie Thoughts". It explores a child’s anxiety disorder through gaming. Jenny and Ollie recently received National Endowment for the Arts funding enabling the show to tour.

In addition, Kokai explores ways her students can take ownership of their learning. I know you’ll enjoy hearing this interview with well-regarded scholar, professor, and playwright; Jenny Kokai. Be sure and listen until the end of the interview for Concise Advice from the Interview, and Words of Wisdom from George.

Concise Advice from the Interview is where I share bits of advice from my podcast guest. On Episode 42, that's professor, author, and playwright, Jenny Kokai:

Check out the blog, SallyPAL.com, for articles and podcast episodes. You, too, can be a Sally PAL. And you can sign up for a Creator’s Notebook insert at SallyPAL.com/join. Thank you for following, sharing, subscribing, reviewing, and joining. Most of all, thank you for listening.

You can download and listen to SallyPAL on your drive to work. Or if you're falling asleep to my nattering narratives like my sister does, let me know you’re out there. Storytelling through performance is the most important thing we do as a culture.

Finally, I encourage you to share your stories because you’re the only one with your particular point of view. And SallyPAL is here with resources, encouragement, and a growing community of storytellers. I want you to tell your stories. All the stories ever expressed once lived only in someone’s imagination. Now, If you have something to say, you should say it!