Good News About the Arts in Illinois

You read that right. GOOD NEWS ABOUT THE ARTS IN ILLINOIS.

Something happened over the last 26 hours or so that has me stunned, delighted and breathing a sigh of profound relief.

By an overwhelming majority and with strong bipartisan support, the Illinois House and Senate approved a new budget that, among other things, increases support for the Illinois Arts Council by 30%.

I know. That’s a lot to take in. So, let’s go over that again, one point at a time.

• Illinois is on the verge of having a new budget.

• It has bipartisan support.

• And arts funding is going up. From approximately $9 million to approximately $12 million.

We’re not quite there yet. Although Governor Rauner has indicated he intends to sign the bill, he has yet to do so. So let’s add to the forward momentum.

Click here to send him a note urging him to sign the bill.

And click here to find out how to contact your state senators and reps to thank them for their bipartisan support for the arts.

And then pinch yourself. This really could happen.

If you’d like, click here to go to the home page for Arts Alliance Illinois, the organization that has been instrumental in fighting for this support, and for which I’m a proud board member. Even better, click here to get the email addresses for Policy and Research Director Jonathan VanderBrug and Executive Director Claire Rice. They deserve our thanks and congratulations.

Our voices really do matter, friends. Here’s a chance to use them.

Listen Up

Three Tall Women caps a week dedicated to active listening.

Officially, the Broadway League’s 2018 spring road conference ended Thursday afternoon, but for many of us who attended, the big finale was a special midnight performance of Three Tall Women, which stars Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf and Alison Pill, all giving performances that I would imagine would be challenging enough at 8pm, let alone when beginning two hours after the curtain usually goes down.

Many of us congregating in the lobby beforehand began to second-guess the adventurous spirits that led us to sign up for these tickets. Road Conference week can be a lot of fun, but it is exhausting, and as I sat my bleary-eyed self down for the show, I was seriously worried I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes open.

All for naught. These three powerhouse artists caffeinated the house with such presence, intensity and vibrancy that once the show started, dozing off was never an option. They were extraordinary.

What I found particularly energizing was not the speaking that these extraordinary artists did, but the listening. Being drawn to someone’s actions can be stimulating enough, but there’s something even more electrifying about the energy a person gives off when they are genuinely locked in to someone else. Seeing a riveted person is riveting.

Many of us consider listening to be passive, but it is anything but. Glenda Jackson gets the bulk of the words in Three Tall Women and is being justly acclaimed for how she delivers them, but I like to think she’d acknowledge that without the finely focused listening and responding exhibited by her co-stars, it would only be so much babble, and the audience would care far less about what she's saying and doing.

I know for certain that Laurie Metcalf appreciates this. Back when Steppenwolf produced its landmark production of Balm In Gilead, Laurie drew raves for her breathtaking performance of a 20-minute monologue. And, like Glenda Jackson, deservedly so, but, as she and others told me when we were producing our Steppenwolf documentary 25 Years on the Edge, none of it would have worked (or mattered) without Glenne Headly, whose stillness and rapt attention to what Laurie was saying was every bit as important what Laurie was saying.

Seeing this in action at midnight in the Golden Theatre at the tail end of the Spring Road Conference felt particularly appropriate, because the conference's most compelling presentations had everything to do with listening.

Author Celeste Headlee’s opening day speech encouraged everyone to “enter every conversation assuming you have something to learn,” and asked attendees to consider that “communication has increased in our technological age, but meaningful (and civil) conversation has plummeted.”

And in the last session I attended, HMS’ collaborators Rick Miramontez and Mike Karns offered thoughtful approaches to press and marketing that were based entirely on being responsive to both shows and present to the communities in which they are being performed.

I found all of this both challenging and delightful, and very apropos for a conference about a business organized around the arts. As a member of two ensemble-based creative companies, one in media and one in theater, I’ve learned (and continue to learn) that successful collaborations are as much about listening and responding as they are about making bold declarative initiations (and that sometimes the boldest thing you can do is be an active listener).

That’s the only way to ensure that the best idea in the room wins. And that's why it was such a great idea to end our week in the room with Three Tall Women.

The Plays That Go Right

"The Play That Goes Wrong," "Carousel" and "Beast in the Jungle" make for one heck of a transformative triple-header

One of the best perks receive if you attend the Broadway League's spring road conference is free tickets to shows. It's fantastic opportunity to catch up on shows I haven't seen yet, and because HMS has alreadys shot much of what's playing here, I've been able to go see things here that I might never see anywhere else, at least not like this. Over the last 27 or so hours, I’ve seen some miraculous stuff.

I don’t know if The Play That Goes Wrong will tour or not, in the midst of an intense week, and living in an intense world, it was a blessing to sit grinning ear to ear in front of a finely-tuned, door-slamming slapstick farce like tihs. One of art's great functions that we often overlook and undervalue is its ability to fill our lives with sheer joy, invite us to laugh at our own frailties and revel in a feeling of “there but for the grace of God go we,” literally shaking with laughter along the way. Shows like this go a long way to make life feel more worth living.

Carousel is a different animal entirely, one of the moodier and more beautiful musicals ever conceived, and, like many classic musicals from days of yore, not without its #MeToo dilemmas. Physical abuse is a running theme in this show, and that had me (and many others) worried at first. But I had a feeling I could trust this production. When you put yourself in the hands of Jessie Mueller, Renee Fleming, Joshua Henry and the rest of this stellar cast, after they have put themselves into the hands of director Jack O'Brien and a producing team led by Scott Rudin, chances are you're going to be able to swim safely in the complexity of the story in front of you. It's not possible to fully know the intentions of those who originally brought these stories to life, but it is possible for contemporary artists to breathe every bit of 2018 into them and see what truths they reveal. “Carousel” did that for me. Jessie Mueller is as honest and present an artist as I’ve ever seen, and that takes genuine commitment (which she has) and a truly good soul (which she is). This is fascinating and tricky time to do this show and play this role (and, come to think of it, an equally fascinating follow-up for Jessie to "Waitress," in which she also played someone neglected and abused, albeit one with more hopes and options than Julie Jordan ever had). Jessie has discovered for us a Julie Jordan that I don’t think many other artists would know to look for, and it was revelatory to behold. And Renée Fleming, her co-star here (and in HMS' PBS special Chicago Voices) could have simply leaned on her vocal prowess and innate charm to blow the house away, but instead offered a deeply thoughtful, lovely and intimate approach to the role of Nettie. I wasn’t sure anyone could still bring tears to my eyes with “You’ll Never Walk Alone” – it’s too much a cliché, right? Nope, not when Renée infuses it with this much sadness, love, empathy, acceptance, experience, pain and hope. Much as when Kate Baldwin sang "New York, New York" in First You Dream, HMS' PBS tribute to Kander & Ebb, Renée invites listeners to discover this song we all thought we knew (and many have therefore dismissed), and her discoveries, and ours, are rich with new understandings.

Speaking of John Kander, about whom I've blogged before and whose impact on my life can't possibly be overstated, he's about to open one of his most daring shows yet. Beast In The Jungle, even though it is teeming with some of the finest and most visionary talent Broadway has ever seen, isn't part of the Broadway landscape, so I ventured on my own to grab a ticket to see a preview at the wonderful Vineyard Theatre. Before the show, John cautioned me that this one was "strange," which meant to me that John was stretching himself even further than he has before (and that's saying something, given his ongoing quest to explore the gorgeously dark places in all of our lives and open the blinds to shine a bit of light on them -- but not too much). Beast, directed and choreographed by the amazing Susan Stroman, is a swirl of dance and theater, beautifully and gently submerging us into those dark subterranean caves where our most primal and personal fears lurk, and reminding us that unless we forgive and heal ourselves, they will stop us from leading the most "alive" life we can. It's both frighteningly cautionary and imploringly hopeful. Broadway doesn't put this kind of daring work on its stages very often anymore, and that's a shame; but it makes it all the more thrilling to venture into intimate spaces like The Vineyard and emerge, in the words of Lookingglass Theatre Company, "changed, charged and empowered."

Humility in the Stars

Lin-Manuel Miranda and other Broadway royalty act like anything but that

Hello from NYC, and day 1 of the Broadway League's Spring Road Conference, the annual gathering of producers, general managers, press reps, marketers and all kinds of other folks working in the national Broadway touring scene. Folks from all over the country are here to take deep dives into what's happening now on Broadway and on the road, and what shows currently playing on the Great White Way will be heading out on tour in the next year or two.

Each conference is highlighted by Creative Conversations, 30-minute sorbets of energizing creative goodness in which attendees get to witness moderated conversations with current Broadway "royalty." Yesterday we got two such wonderful moments.

The first was for Mean Girls, the 12-time Tony nominated new musical version of the great Tina Fey's film, which included not just Tina but three of the Tony nominated cast members, all of whom (based on what they said in the panel) would want me to give special mention to fellow panelist Rosalind Wiseman, whose 2002 non-fictionself-help book Queen Bees and Wannabes provided the basis of the movie and the musical (and what other non-fiction self-help book can make that claim?). Most striking: the cast emphasizing that the joy of working on this show was established immediately by Tina posting The Four Agreements on their call board: "Be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personally. Don't make assumptions. Always do your best." Having worked with Tina years ago when making Second To None, I can say without hesitation: Tina is a graceful bad-ass. Always has been, and I'm confident always will be. (Click here to see the Mean Girls montage, which HMS shot.)

The second panel was for Angels in America, now playing in a rapturously received revival starring Nathan Lane and Andrew Garfield, who offered this fantastic observation about a remarkable monologue he delivers at the end of the two-part magnum opus, in an environment which co-star Lane describes as the "special kind of silence" you only get at live theater. Garfield said that those final words are a remarkable moment that he sometimes feels he's earned, and sometimes not -- and that either are okay. Essentially the message is, if you've earned that moment, then fully appreciate what's been given to you. If you haven't -- not by lack of effort, but simply because you weren't at your best, if only in your own mind -- then accept it with gratitude.

As if this wasn't enough to make the most hardened cynic admit that the arts, on any scale, are filled with humble and deeply appreciative people, the Angels panel was moderated by Lin-Manuel Miranda. The creator of a once-in-an-industry international phenomenon said, with no trace of irony, that had he not been graced with the opportunity to moderate the panel, he would have paid top dollar to watch it. He knows what inspired him, and that while what he's done will inspire what's to come, he himself has been inspired by what came before. (Click here to see HMS' montage of the Chicago production of Hamilton.)

One thing connects these remarkable creative spirits. Okay, two -- talent certainly figures into this. But it's humility, a quality -- and a choice -- that has led them to a commitment to ensemble work and an abiding respect for those around them -- those that came before, those just arriving and those still to come. It's wonderful and refreshing to be around these people.

This Will Just Take a Minute. Seriously. One Minute.

Welcome to a new addition to the HMS blog.

Today marks the start of a new addition to the HMS website: a second blog, something short and sweet.

I love writing the longer pieces that tie together all kinds of artists, projects and perspectives, and I deeply appreciate all the wonderful feedback I get from those. They will continue under the "Adventures in Yes" banner.

And starting today, I’ll also post more concise pieces, things you can read in a minute or less, reflecting on the events of that particular day. They'll be posted under a new monicker, “In The Moment.”

Tomorrow we’ll begin in earnest, with reflections on my first day at the Broadway League’s Spring Road Conference, which included encounters with some Broadway royalty, including Tina Fey, Nathan Lane, Andrew Garfield, Susan Stroman and John Kander.

See you tomorrow!