Vote like your freedom of speech depends on it (because it does).

Today Arts In Action celebrates brilliant practitioners of the written word, artists in action who daily inspire us to our better angels and inspire us to do good.

Clockwise from top left: Isabel Wilkerson, Resmaa Menakem, Amanda Ripley and Heather Cox Richardson

The past week has seen some abdications of responsible journalism alongside some of the ugliest, meanest, and least true stories ever disseminated in our country's history. 
 
But good and true stories are also being told. They may not be fiction, but it doesn't have to be fiction to be a work of art. 
 
Freedom of expression is an essential right. Honest and accurate storytelling manifests that right. And that makes the art of storytelling essential.
 
There are those vying for power in the upcoming elections who, if they win, will attempt to wield their power by trying to stop truth-seeking storytellers from sharing their stories. Some will want those storytellers locked up, or worse. That’s not my opinion; it’s their stated intent.
 
Believe me when I say that freedom of speech is most definitely on the ballot, and we must vote to protect it. (Click hereto find your nearest polling place and get access to all relevant information about voting in this election.)
 
In that spirit, Arts in Action today celebrates artists who pursue and convey the truth through the art of narrative storytelling. 
 
I’ve chosen to spotlight Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste, Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands, Heather Cox Richardson’s Democracy Awakening, and Amanda Ripley’s High Conflict. These visionary authors profoundly shaped my worldview over these last four years, and these books are as compelling to me as some of my favorite novels and short stories. 
 

Scroll down to read about minds-at-work that have shaped our world for the better.  Their words crackle. Their electrifying stories are game-changers. They are Artists in Action.

Isabel Wilkerson, about to receive the National Arts & Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.

Let’s begin with Isabel Wilkerson.

I first heard her name when her critically acclaimed, chart-topping work of narrative non-fiction, The Warmth of Other Suns, came out in 2010. An account of The Great Migration told through the eyes of three of the millions who partook, it is powerful storytelling that introduced the story of millions of Black Americans to the many more millions of people who’d never heard of it, much less been taught about it. It’s a staggering achievement, and any author would give eternal thanks for a critical and popular success like that.

Ten years later, she gave us Caste, an even more stunning exploration of the pathogenic ways societies around the world and across time have ranked the quality of groups of people’s lives to keep them very much in the lanes they prescribe, no matter how damaging or deadly the consequences. We Americans assume that often comes down to race, but Wilkerson boldly suggests that we’re not looking deep enough.  

“As we go about our daily lives,” she writes, “caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance.” 

I wish I could write like that.

By exploring the Caste system with the same storytelling genius that infuses The Warmth of Other Sun, Wilkerson makes this a global story, lifting the veils to allow readers to see how the powerful around the world have imposed caste systems for as long as there have been vulnerable people to subjugate. That helps us better understand what’s happened in our own country. “Race is the skin,” she writes, “but caste is the bones.”   What an artist Wilkerson is!

A related side note: When I read this extraordinary book, not once did my documentary-inclined mind ever think it would be possible to translate its tremendous scope and scale to film. I’m grateful that I share the planet with Ava DuVernay, who had the vision and talent to turn Caste into what I think was the best film of 2023, Origin.

This is saying something, considering that 2023 was also the year of Oppenheimer and Barbie. Those two films deserved all the acclaim they got, but you won’t find a better screenplay or more accomplished direction than those that DuVernay displays in this extraordinary film. Nor will you find a more exquisite performance than the one crafted by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, portraying Wilkerson as a mind at work, journeying through every kind of loss imaginable on her way to profound discoveries.

Barbie and Oppenheimer were also inadvertently part of a larger cultural debate. Ryan Gosling was nominated for an Oscar for Barbie, while neither adapter/director Greta Gerwig nor star Margot Robbie were for Best Director and Best Actress. And in the end, the more male-oriented and dominated Oppenheimer won Best Picture. Didn’t these turns of events prove Barbie’s point about male dominance and preferential treatment?

 Sure, but when Origin – a film that was based on a landmark book by a Black woman, adapted and directed by a Black woman, starred a Queer Black woman, and unquestionably deserved the accolades bestowed on two films made by predominantly white artists – got zero nominations and disappeared from movie screens and public discourse painfully quickly, then that proves Origin’s point even more powerfully.

Would that all those who read Caste would see Origin, because we’ve largely ignored a profound work of art that could not possibly be more relevant right now. We owe it to ourselves and each other to watch.

The first time I heard the phrase “generational trauma” it was uttered by Minneapolis-based trauma therapist Resmaa Menakem in an interview for NPR’s On Being. Throughout the conversation with host Krista Tippet, Menakem invoked not with generalized abstractions but rather with specific and striking imagery. When explaining how trauma could be passed from body to body, he asks us to consider the terrible things that have happened to Black bodies with their backs turned.

That was the first of many things he said in that interview that stopped me in my tracks. The interview led me to immediately order a copy of Menakem’s groundbreaking book My Grandmother’s Hands. Throughout this thoughtful work, his brilliance as a story-based facilitator and healer helps readers explore with him the ways that generational trauma, particularly that spurred by racism, impacts our communities, our lives, and indeed our bodies. It also gently but firmly cautions us that simply having opinions and good intentions doesn’t make us experts, nor do they set us up for any kind of success to “heal the world,” as progressive do-gooders like myself are wont to attempt. We have much to learn and much work to do before we’re anywhere near ready to be of service to the world.

Menakem is as adept with the spoken word as he is with the written one. He’s as brilliantly challenging in his second appearance on On Being (in a conversation that includes White Fragility author Robin D’Angelo) as he was in his first.

In this conversation for Sounds True, Menakem uses the terrific metaphor of running a marathon to help those rushing into political, social, and cultural battles before we are remotely ready.

And his striking 2024 Commencement Address to the graduating class of the California Institute of Integral Studies is a thing of discomforting beauty, his compelling words innovatively enhanced by the sounds literally gurgling underneath them. (As I first did, you might think something’s off with the audio. It’s not, and it’s beautiful.)

Heavy as the topics that Resmaa Menakem addresses are, his skills as a storyteller, teacher, and therapist leave me feeling lighter. His words and ideas leave me feeling sobered and accountable in a way that persuades me to be more thoughtful and humble. He leaves room for me to be inspired to take genuinely helpful action, rather than believe that it’s enough that my heart’s in the right place.

The vision, wit, and insight of Resmaa Menakem don’t call people out so much as they call us in. It’s therapy, it’s social commentary, and it’s art.

“I just can’t vote for a Democrat,” someone told me in the ramp-up to the 2020 election, “because I’m terrified of America becoming a socialist country.”

Wait, what? America has never been remotely close to being a socialist country (except for the stuff we all seem to want, like Medicare, Social Security, and so on).

Yet somehow, that label gets thrown as an attack, and an anti-American one at that, toward at any politician interested in making life better for everyone, not just a few.

So where did this profoundly inaccurate and lethally fearful “socialism” talking point come from? Thank goodness the brilliant historian, professor, and author Heather Cox Richardson knows and is willing to share it. (More on that in a second.)

During the Trump impeachment drama, and I imagine frustrated by the number of people with platforms telling tales of American history that reflected the weakest of grasps on it, Richardson began daily Facebook posts she called “Letters From An American.” The enormous response suggested that a lot of people out there hungered for Richardson’s capacity to convey history and current events within the framework of social conscience and biocultural psychology, and the post quickly evolved into the Letters From An American Substack column that now has more than two million followers.

These posts led to her terrific book Democracy Awakening, a beautifully conceived, richly textured call to action about the precarious state of American democracy. It reads like a thriller, which makes the fact that it’s non-fiction all the more impressive (and scary).

Even in Richardson’s daily column, which you can both read and listen to as a daily podcast, you never get knee-jerk reactions. When she read what she’s written in response to something noteworthy that may have happened only hours before, you can almost imagine her closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before drawing on her considerable intelligence and experience to adroitly connect the dots between the present moment and the people, places, and events that got us here.  What she writes makes sense because she’s a great historian; the reason it sticks with you is because she’s a great writer.

So when someone hits you with something as absurd as “Democrats are leading us down the road to socialism,” you can rely on Heather Cox Richardson to help you set them straight.

That’s what happened when my acquaintance expressed their fear that socialism would keep her voting for Republicans. As Richardson has explained, that fear is nothing so highbrow as a sophisticated aversion to an economic system employed by foreign governments and everything to do with a cruel and calculated campaign against Black Americans whose acquisition of civil and voting rights crashed headlong into the racism that has haunted our country for hundreds of years and was recast as socialism to be resisted and fought.

Read Richardson’s account for yourself, written in the wake of the 2021 passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. It’s jaw-dropping.

Heather Cox Richardson doesn’t simply challenge her readers with the realities of historical, social, and cultural truth. She writes from the top of her intelligence to the top of theirs.  She treats them like curious grown-ups who might be as thrilled by a promising discovery as she is.

Grand narratives operate from the top of the artist’s intelligence to the top of their audience’s. They leave their audiences changed, charged, and empowered.

Heather Cox Richardson does this, and it makes her work art.

This is how NPR’s On Being described Amanda Ripley when she appeared on the show following the publication of the book that changed my life the most this year:

“Amanda Ripley began her life as a journalist covering crime, disaster, and terrorism. Then, in 2018, she published a brilliant essay called “Complicating the Narratives,” which she opened by confessing a professional existential crisis. We journalists, she wrote, “can summon outrage in five words or less. We value the ancient power of storytelling, and we get that good stories require conflict, characters, and scenes. But in the present era of tribalism, it feels like we’ve reached our collective limitations … Again and again, we have escalated the conflict and snuffed the complexity out of the conversation.”

In between that terrific essay and the one she wrote this week about how to live with uncertainty until the election is decided, Ripley became fascinated with the concept of conflict.

We’re all in it, in one form or another. Not all conflicts are bad or by definition lead to alienation or destruction. Accomplishing great things usually requires going through some kind of conflict.

 And yet conflict is also at the heart of disruption and destruction. That kind of conflict feels entirely different and increasingly prevalent.

So what’s the difference between the two? How do we know what kind of conflict we’re in? And why does it matter?

Not everyone would see the story here – stories, actually – but then not everyone is Amanda Ripley, who did what any good journalist would do. She pursued the story with determination, empathy, and objectivity.

The result is High Conflict, a book of profound insight that reads as compellingly as a great short story collection. It came out in 2021, and while I only caught up with it this year (via its terrific audio edition on Audible), it’s more timely than ever.

Ripley posits that there are two kinds of conflict. There’s good conflict, in which people may butt heads and bruise feelings but, generally speaking, are united by a shared desire to give it up to the best idea in the room.  When they do, they stand a good chance to bring that idea to life.

Then there’s high conflict, in which it’s the fight itself that matters. When the fight is the thing from which we derive our sense of identity, morality, and even happiness, we’re in high conflict and on the road to disaster.

The stories we’ve been telling ourselves for millennia demonstrate that we’ve been wrestling with these concepts since we learned to tell stories. From ancient mythological and revered religious texts to Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Marvel, the struggle between good and high conflict—what we often call good vs. evil—has fascinated us and resonated with us (to the point that some of us are willing to fight over our interpretation of any or all of these narratives).

High Conflict is an essential book.  Ripley’s remarkable and accomplished narrative journalism deftly weaves carefully researched and curated stories that feature an array of individuals from around the world. These people felt extremely well-intentioned in their pursuits (or at least understandably motivated) and fell into high-conflict situations.

This is no abstract treatise on human conflict. This is Light Side vs Dark Side of the Force stuff with real-world stakes.  

From a Chicago gang leader to a British environmental activist, from the California divorce attorney who invented the concept of mediation in divorce law to a political consultant to authoritarian foreign leaders, from the ancient La Brea Tar Pits to the post-Trump American quagmire, High Conflict is chock full of riveting, devastating and empowering stories. It’s a profound journey.

I deeply appreciate that Ripley honors both the subject and the audience by refusing to play the end of the story at the beginning. High Conflict plays as much as a mystery thriller as a piece of narrative biocultural psychology. Every chapter is imbued with wonder as the pieces of this complex puzzle are assembled.

Sure, the book can be unsettling. It’s a scary topic. High conflict is the Dark Side of the Force. As Yoda says in The Empire Strikes Back, it’s “quicker, easier, more seductive.” It can lead to scary behaviors and consequences. Ripley is clear that none of us are immune to its pull and often don’t know we’re in it until the damage is done.

But High Conflict also offers great comfort because she provides ways to identify when we see it, when we’re in it, how we can escape it, and what we can learn to improve our chances of escaping its clutches next time. The takeaway is that with introspection, improvisation, and humility, we can claw our way back to good conflict. 

In the end, High Conflict offers the feeling that arguably we want the most out of the art of storytelling: the possiblity of a happy ending.

No argument: the arts are essential, and that’s that.

Renée Fleming, Harry Lennix and Lindsay Jones walk the walk.

There's a saying we have posted on our kitchen fridge that says, "You need not attend every argument to which you are invited."

I thought about that when a colleague of mine – someone I’ve known for years, someone with a history of supporting the arts and advocating for artists – invited me into the "are the arts really essential" argument.

I declined.

It wasn't easy. This person pushed the buttons that could easily lead me to engage in this debate, like telling me that issues like pay equity, childcare, gun safety or climate change are all more important than the arts. How, they asked, could that be argued? In the face of those daunting challenges, are the arts actually essential?

That question has been asked repeatedly and answered definitively.

The answer is, without question, YES. And saying that addressing pay equity, childcare, gun safety and climate change are more important than supporting the arts is like saying that thinking, talking, breathing and running are more important than food. To effectively do the former, you need a healthy dose of the latter.

Disagree? Take a look at how successfully so many of our leaders (and voters) are addressing the pressing issues my colleague describes (spoiler alert: they’re not). Far too many berate and belittle, which does not inspire or persuade; engage in reactive rhetoric, which does not posses that power storytelling; and rely on data to counter propaganda, when the true parry to a bad or false narrative is a good and true one.

We need the arts to understand these differences, and to aspire to more true and honest ways of changing, charging and empowering ourselves and our relationships with others.  The arts provide the rich nutrition that allows us to think more clearly, see more feelingly and collaborate more effectively. Without them, we rely on junk food masquerading as sustenance. With too little of them, we have become malnourished. And it shows.

No question, there are plenty of challenging conversations and a plethora of worthwhile debates to be had about how we create art, fund it, run not-for-profit arts organizations, produce for-profit work, handle workplace issues, explore critically important DEI issues and more. And yes, there are circumstances where it's not just helpful to be able justify the necessity of the arts throughout our society, it's necessary – lobbying elected officials about legislation impacting the sector, for example. We'll explore that and more in future newsletters, and I look forward to robust conversations about the processes by which artists, arts organization and arts supporters carry on.

But I don't think we have time for specious "are the arts really essential" arguments, especially when they're coming from inside the house. We know the arts are basic nutritional requirements for humanity. We see people that are hungry for them. They must be fed. 

Here are three artists who are doing exactly that.

Renée Fleming isn't only one of the world's greatest singers and ambassadors, she's also a groundbreaking arts advocate.
 
In the company of Dr. Francis Collins and the National Institutes of Health, Renée created Music And Mind, an initiative that focuses on the intersection of music and neuroscience and spotlights music's extraordinary healing effect on people dealing with or recovering from an array of conditions, including stroke, dementia, depression and catastrophic brain injury. Renée often leads "Music And Mind" presentations when she's out of tour (and in fact will be doing one in Chicago on May 8 as part of The Chicago Humanities Festival).
 
I've known and worked with Renée for years, including producing the PBS Great Performances special Chicago Voices. She's frequently called “The People’s Diva," but to me she’s always been much more People than Diva. She thrives on collaboration, and you can see it in the way she shares stages, stories and spotlights with others.

She does so in her remarkable new book, Music And Mind, a curated collection of essays from leading scientists, artists, creative arts therapists, educators and health care providers about the powerful impacts of music and the arts on health and the human experience. 

It is an extraordinary achievement. Wonderful essays by artists like Yo-Yo Ma, Anna DeVeare Smith, Ann Patchett, Ben Folds, Mark Morris and Rosanne Cash are juxtaposed with compelling and accessible pieces by scientists, therapists and musicologist like Daniel Levitan, Nina Kraus, J. Todd Frazier, Concetta Tomaino and Julene Johnson, all preceded by perfect prefaces from Dr. Collins and Renée herself. 

I love Sting's description of this magnificent book. “When the bonds of our common humanity are being stretched to the limits at the same time as the intensifying stresses on our personal well-being," he writes, "Renee’s book is a reminder that music is the meta language that connects all individuals and spans all cultures religions and races period music has never been more important.” Amen, good sir.

You've got to read Music And Mind. You'll be both moved and wonderfully informed by the power of art to heal, and startled to consider how the arts, when better and more frequently utilized, could save the world billions of dollars in health care. The book is a perfect depiction of art as both means and ends, and Renée is the perfect embodiment of how to be both an artist and an advocate.

From the first time I saw Harry Lennix act (I believe it was an episode of ER), I've wanted to see, hear or read everything he does. 
 
I’ve failed miserably in that quest (Harry is one prolific artist) but this spring I’ll get to see him not once but twice, in Steppenwolf’s Purpose and Congo Square’s How I Learned What I Learned.
 
My interest in and affection for Harry’s work has been intensified by the generous human behind it. Somewhere between all the gigs listed on his IMDB page, Harry has made time to walk the walk for causes he supports, the issues he believes in and the city from which he comes.
 
One of my favorite of these is the Lillian Marcie Center and African American Museum of The Performing Arts on Chicago’s South Side, something Harry has described as “the Black version of Lincoln Center.” I love big swings for the fences and admire the vision and leadership a project like this requires.

Harry's been a visionary and leader throughout his career, and the causes for which he has crusaded include health care (as Ambassador for the Prostate Cancer Foundation), education (serving on the Advisory Council for alma mater Northwestern University) and childhood literacy (as a board member for Reading Rescue, which serves at-risk elementary school kids by training educators who want to teach these kids reaching skills). He's also hit the campaign trail for candidates in which he believes, and I imagine that's at least partially because he knows that our elected reps make critical decisions that have a crucial impact our field.

That Harry considered a life in the priesthood before dedicating himself to the arts tells me a lot about a man clearly committed to something greater than himself. What a wonderful way to look at being both an artist and an advocate. 

Composer, producer, sound designer, podcaster, performer, teacher and advocate Lindsay Jones is one of those guys who can certainly talk the talk (he is endlessly entertaining both in person and on social media) but who also walks the walk. His talent, currently on display in Northlight Theatre's current offering Brooklyn Laundry, is undeniable.

But it's how he does what he does that makes him a wonderful example of how to advocate for the arts. Lindsay finds genuine joy in celebrating the work of his fellow artists. He possesses a wonderful clarity about how an artist's work can not only entertains but also change how people feel about themselves.

Listen to the way he talks about his work in this wonderful interview. You'll hear the mix of intelligence, confidence and vulnerability that makes him so sought-after not just for gigs but as a guest for interviews, podcasts and lectures. He clearly treasures the interconnectedness of folks who dedicate their lives to theater and sees it as a way of inspiring people to dedicate their lives to each other. 

I suspect this matters to Lindsay because of how the arts, and one arts teacher in particular, transformed his life. The Facebook post he wrote to mark that teacher's passing is so good, so full of grace and gratitude, so infused with humility and self-awareness, so steeped in appreciation for those who serve the world through teaching, so imbued with love for those who wish to transform people through art and such a lovely example of the power of good arts advocacy that I’m going to use it to end this edition of Arts in Action.
 
Enjoy, and see you again in a couple of weeks. Now take us home, Lindsay...
____

Within a traditional education structure, I have always been an incredibly bad student. 

And yet, I’m an endlessly curious person who always wants to learn and have spent most of my adult life teaching and mentoring others. Why is that?
 
The reason is people like Barney Hammond.
 
Look, I’ll be honest: I barely graduated high school. They didn’t have a diagnosis of ADHD back then and when the only solution offered to me was “a good swift kick in the ass” (as one vice principal once said to me while standing very close to my face), I realized that perhaps formal education was not in my best interest.
 
With very few other options available, I managed to weasel my way into the Drama department of what was then called the North Carolina School Of The Arts as the state legislature that year mandated that all NC state universities must have at least 50% of the student population that were actually from North Carolina. I was accepted for a single probationary year in a class of 50 people and was told that my chances of making through to graduation were almost non-existent. As someone who would later be described as “a person who might make a good character actor in their later years”, I knew that I better make the best of whatever situation I could find, or I’d be bagging groceries while asking people about their record collection for the rest of my life.
 
The school’s faculty was largely made up of people who had no idea what to do with me, which I don’t blame them for as I had no idea what to do with me either. Most instruction was given to me through clenched teeth, and lord knows I tried my best.
 
Then I went into Barney Hammond’s class. Ostensibly, he was our Voice And Speech teacher, but he really was so much more than this. He showed me how to connect my voice to the body and how to really tap into the hidden vocal energy within me. He gave me the tools to break down a single line of text to find its meaning, and then break down entire monologues to find clarity in the thoughts behind them. He showed me that Shakespeare’s texts are not just hoity-toity language that meant nothing, but that each sentence carries deep meaning and emotion, and he also showed me how to find those things. All of these things gave me were gifts, and these gifts became the basis for my craft in being an actor. He literally gave me the tools to be an actor and pointed me in the direction of how I could use them.
 
But in addition to that, he showed me something that few other teachers have ever shown me: kindness and patience. Don’t get me wrong, he didn’t put up with any bullshit, he was there to DO THE WORK and you had better be there for the same reason. But he would accept you from whatever point of view that you were coming from and actually encouraged it (rather than try to beat it out of you), and that level of grace and commitment to me as an individual literally kept me from giving up every day.

Out of a class of 50 people from that first year, I was one of six that were allowed to come back for the next year to join a new class of 50 people. From those 50 people, I was one of 15 people to graduate at the end of another four years. Barney Hammond is one of the primary reasons that I made it to the end (and for the record, I barely graduated college as well - that’s another story.)
 
But then after I graduated college, a funny thing happened: I became a composer and sound designer. You’d think I’d leave all of that acting stuff behind when I switched to a new job, but actually all of these techniques that I learned from Barney are things I use in my job every day. I still have to figure out character and through-line and how a line reads and what it means, because I have to provide score and sound design that matches it. I still have to know how to assess a script for energy and pace. I have to be able to find the meaning in any line in a Shakespeare play so that I can make sure that the score supports it. Plus, I need to be able to understand how actors produce their speaking voice in a theatre, so I know how to best amplify it and then surround it with the right sound and music so that I can support it with the best emotional context possible. Everything, EVERYTHING I learned from Barney, I still use every single day.
 
Most importantly, that includes the part in treating people with kindness and grace and encouraging them to be the best version of themselves that they can be. Anytime I’m given the opportunity to teach anyone anything, this is what I lead with, because I want to give to others what Barney gave to me.
 
Even after Barney retired, he was incredibly supportive of all of his former students. I always felt a little self-conscious about not being an actor anymore, but he was always incredibly vocal in his support for me in my career and celebrated my victories as if they were his. I tried to express my gratitude to him a few times, but I don’t know if I was ever fully able to get it across how much I valued him and what he’d given me.

Yesterday, Barney quietly slipped away after a brief bout of pneumonia. By the time I learned he was sick, it was already too late to get a message to him to tell him how much I appreciated everything that he had given me. The best I can do is to carry forth what I’ve learned and pass it on to as many people as I can and try to make sure that they understand why it’s so important.
 
Thanks, Barney. Rest well.

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Arts Advocates Are All Around Us

Just by doing what we do, we can advocate for the arts. Brett Goldstein, Georgia Stitt and Mark Larson provides three perfect examples.

Arts Advocacy can take a lot of forms. Getting involved with national and regional arts advocacy groups and actions is one way, but not the only one. Today I shine on a light on three artists – Brett Goldstein, Georgia Stitt and Mark Larson – who are also terrific arts advocates.

Brett Goldstein is a brilliantly insightful writer, producer, actor and storyteller, and out of all the work he's done – Ted Lasso, of course, but also SuperBob, Soul Mates and Shrinking, among others – my favorite is his weekly podcast Films To Be Buried With.
 
The premise is simple. Brett brings on a guest, tells them they’ve died and that in heaven everyone wants to know about your life through the films that meant the most to you. 
 
Simple and fun, right? Sure, but Films To Be Buried With doesn’t settle for simple and fun.

The first clue is the title: guests will be discussing death. How often they think about death, and why, and what comes after death (if anything), and even how (in the world of the podcast) they've just died. It’s handled with a light and deft touch, but it’s a deep and revealing subject.  
 
And a great set-up for talking about life, which is where this podcast's heart lies. Brett poses twelve questions (more if you're a Patreon supporter) about the films that reflect his guests' strongest feelings and most memorable experiences. How the questions are posed is everything. “What’s the scariest film you ever saw?" would require an impossibly objective and only-so-interesting answer. But “What’s the film that scared you the most?” is an invitation to talk about fear itself. Similarly, “What’s the film that made you cry the most?" and “What’s the film that made you laugh the most?” get guests talking (and listeners thinking) about what makes us sad and happy, and so on.  

“What’s the film that no one else likes but you love unconditionally?" gets us talking about identify and preference. “What’s the film you used to love, but now you look back and don’t like it anymore?" gets us talking about personal growth and evolution. “What’s the film that you relate to the most?” invites us to talk about who we are. “What’s the film that changed your outlook on life?” lets us explore who we want to be.
 
(For the record, my answers to those questions are: An American Werewolf in London, the Albert Finney Scrooge, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Burn After Reading, Neil Diamond’s The Jazz Singer (oh dear Lord), a tie between Breaking Away and That Thing You Do, and About Time. See them all, please. Except The Jazz Singer. I love Neil Diamond, which is why I implore you to never, ever see The Jazz Singer.)
 
Use Brett’s format and substitute any art form you like – theater, books, TV, songs, paintings – and you'll find yourself cherishing how much art describes and defines you, and reflects your feelings about the world around you. You'll be powerfully aware of how absolutely essential art is.

Maybe that’s a good way to convince people about how vital the arts are to our identities: let Brett Goldstein at ‘em. When the power-hungry and the frightened seek to diminish interest in and support for the arts, and where the quality of art is perversely measured by box office, streams, likes and clicks, Brett Goldstein invites us to remember why people make art and why everyone responds to it. He encourages us to understand ourselves and each other through the art that impacts us. The result is a show that makes art and artists feel meaningful to its listeners.

Brett Goldstein is one heck of an arts advocate.
 
(See below for links to "Films To Be Buried With" and a list of Brett’s upcoming stand-up shows.)

Georgia Stitt may indeed be a gifted composer/lyricist, music director, pianist and producer, but I think the technical term for her is “knockout human being.” 
 
Georgia could easily fill all her days and many nights creating and performing work for stage, screen and concerts, and had she opted to do only that, I’d feel lucky and grateful. The world needs all the beauty it can get, and Georgia’s work is certainly beautiful. 
 
But Georgia’s social conscience runs deep, and when it calls, she answers. Already serving on the Council of The Dramatists Guild of America and on the Leadership Council for the Songwriters & Composers Wing at The Recording Academy, Georgia looked around her to see who else was doing the kind of work she was doing  – and more to the point who was not – and that inspired her to create Maestra, an activist organization that provides support, visibility and community to the women and nonbinary people who make the music in the musical theater industry.
 
Maestra produces educational seminars, mentorship programs and technical skills workshops. They host in-person and online networking events. They create partnerships to help deserving people whose opportunities historically have been limited in wildly unfair fashion to somewhere between “scant” and “a little less scant than it used to be.”
 
You can see Maestra in action for yourself on Monday March 25 when Maestra hosts Amplify 2024, its fourth annual spring concert and fundraising event. Hosted by Bonnie Milligan and J. Harrison Ghee, the night will include stories, conversations and musical performances from an impressive array of Broadway stars, composers, music directors and more. 

While I would shower Georgia with accolade after accolade for all she’s done, I suspect she might say that all she did was show up, look around and do the work that needed to be done.
 
Is that not the very essence of an arts advocate?
 
(Scroll down for a link to get in-person or online tickets to Amplify 2024.)

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mark Larson have a conversation that didn’t change the person’s life.

Mark has excelled at so many things: playwright,  theater founder, apprentice to mentors Burr Tillstrom and Studs Terkel, award-winning teacher, education director for museums and zoos, respected author, and most prominently highly acclaimed oral historian.
 
Above all, Mark is a Listener.
 
That should be a real job, and a well-paying one at that. Far too few of us would qualify for the gig. As Kelly Leonard's Getting To Yes And podcast repeatedly observes, most of us are done listening to people and formulating our responses way long they're done talking (or, as Paul Simon wrote, "hearing without listening"). 

Not Mark. If you're fortunate to talk with him, you’ll likely find yourself doing most of the talking. It’s not that Mark has nothing to say; he’d just rather hear what you have to say. If you ever fear you’re not an interesting person, go have coffee with Mark to prove yourself wrong. His capacity to put people at ease with themselves, their choices and their lives is beyond compare.
 
For proof, look no further than Mark's newest oral history, Working in the 21st Century, a sequel-in-spirit to Studs’ landmark Working, which he recently discussed at The Museum of Broadway with legendary Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz, who not only gave the world the scores for Wicked, Pippin and Godspell but was also the lead composer for the musical adaptation of Working.
 
Mark’s engrossing exploration of what it means to work in a post-pandemic world always puts his interview subjects front and center. His point of view becomes clear in the way the book is constructed. I liken Mark's style to what astrophysicists called Dark Matter – we can’t see it or explain it, but we know it exists and that the stars can’t form or shine without it. Mark is the Dark Matter to the shining lights that are his interview subjects, and wow, do they shine.
 
When a few sentences ago I said you could look no further than Working in the 21st Century, I lied. Look a little further to Ensemble, Mark's superb oral history of Chicago Theater. It’s not just the book’s thorough grasp of theater history, its appreciation of the improvisation and ensemble based ethics that have shaped Chicago theater or its magnificent construction, it’s the stellar assemblage of theater makers and the detailed and intimate nature of the stories they share, all because Mark is that good of a Listener.
 
What that does is make a reader want to do is, for the first time or the thousandth, see a show. Support the arts. Support the artists. Support the city, the state and the country in which that art is made and those artists work.

I would call that arts advocacy of the highest order.

Brett Goldstein's podcast Films To Be Buried With is available via Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Audible and virtually any other place you get your podcasts. His Patreon page gives people access to additional content and videos. For the few tickets that remain for his stand-up tour The Second Best Night of Your Life, click here.

In-person and online tickets to Maestra's Amplify 2024 benefit are available here.

Here are links to order Mark’s books Working in the 21st Century and Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago Theater.

If you're not currently a subscriber to Arts Advocacy in Action but would like to make sure you don't miss future editions, click here.

The return of ARTS IN ACTION

HMS Media Co-Founder Scott Silberstein’s blog Arts In Action is back… thanks to a couple of Chicago teenagers.
Today's edition is only 798 words long and will take only 2.6 minutes to read.

It's been almost three years since the last edition of Arts In Action. We'll officially start again tomorrow morning, and then every two weeks after that.

There are reasons for the lengthy hiatus, and there was a catalyst for the reboot. It's a cool story, and if you've got a couple of minutes, I'd like to share it.

Arts in Action began as a series of emails written to stay connected with friends and colleagues with whom I'd gone to Washington, DC to advocate for the arts. Over time, semi-regular emails to 20 people morphed into to a newsletter with more than 4,000 readers.

Arts in Action was never an extracurricular activity, but rather professionally strategic and personally meaningful project intended to grow and inform a community of arts advocates. I loved doing it, and I appreciated the supportive and constructive feedback each edition precipitated.
 
And then, needing to focus on family, depleted by the professional challenges created by the pandemic, daunted by genuine and important social, cultural and political turmoil, I hit a wall. I lost confidence that my voice mattered or that I could make a difference.

So I stopped. Three years passed. And then...

In December, I discovered Let’s Help Regional Theater, a new podcast created by Leo Spiegel and Joanie Cox, two Chicago theater lovers who saw regional theater was in crisis and created a series to talk with theater professionals about how people can rally behind this beleaguered yet essential sector. 

The first two episodes featured Lookingglass Theatre's Andy Whiteand Steppenwolf Theatre’s Brooke Flanagan, knockout guests who are among Chicago theater's heaviest hitters and whose appearance bestowed the series with instant credibility.

I know Brooke and Andy well. They are deep thinkers and feelers with whom I've collaborated on countless creative and advocacy projects. They’ve been hit with the same kinds of overwhelming challenges I have. Yet here they were, making the time to lend their voices to Let's Help Regional Theater.

For not the first (and certainly not the last time) my friends inspired me to step up. I emailed Leo and Joanie, told them that I thought their podcast was terrific and offered to be a part of it, if they felt I was a good fit. We set a date for the interview, they showed up at my door, and...

... Leo Spiegel and Joanie Cox turn out to be high school students.
 
I don’t mean this to read “only high school students," as in, "how is it worth my time to talk with a couple of teenagers?" I mean, "Wow. High school students. High school students made this happen. This is cool. This is impressive."

I remember being their age when my best friends Matt Hoffman, Jon Meyer and I started HMS Media, filled with ideas, hope and that feeling, so specific to teenage-ery, that you see something others don’t and you’re going to do something about it. I sensed those things fueling these two. It was a joy to behold, and it made the interview a delight.
 
Leo and Joanie were smart, prepared and engaging interviewers. They were passionate about the subject because they held a deeply belief that what they were doing mattered because people who work in and support the arts are doing things that matter. Forget age and experience; these two young people were model and natural arts advocates. In creating Let’s Help Regional Theatre – whose subsequent guests include UIC's Monty Cole and Lifeline Theatre's Ilesa Duncan – they reminded me that arts advocacy work is vitally important, can take any number of forms and is needed now more than ever.

So, with gratitude to Leo and Joanie for the inspiration, I'm bringing Arts in Action back, not so much because the arts and culture sector is challenged in unprecedented ways – we know that – but more because it needs and deserves our full attention and engagement.  

No matter what some may say, these things will always be true:

The arts define and distinguish us as people.

They hold the keys to help us address everything that ails us as individuals and communities. 

They are means and ends to better lives and better societies.

And it's up to us to provide both the data and the narratives to make that case.

Arts in Action is my way of doing that. So starting tomorrow (and only every other Thursday after that so as not to be too intrusive), a new Arts In Action will arrive in your inbox. It'll be a short, enjoyable and impactful read about what people are doing, thinking or saying to help our field.

And even if you're too busy on a particular Thursday to open the email, I hope that simply seeing it in your inbox will be a reminder that as artists, craftspeople, administrators, staff members, journalists, board members and any kind of arts supporter imaginable, the work we do matters. And that in doing it, none of us is alone.

See you tomorrow.

PS If after listening to Let's Help Regional Theatre you'd like to support Leo and Joanie's entirely self-produced efforts, here's a GoFundMe link.

If you're not currently a subscriber to Arts Advocacy in Action but would like to make sure you don't miss future editions, click here.

Six impossible things before broadcast.

 HMS Media’s newest PBS special Lookingglass Alice arrives Friday December 15 at 9pm Eastern/8pm Central. Producer Scott Silberstein reflects on making the impossible… possible.

“One can’t believe impossible things,” says Alice, in HMS’ newest national PBS special Lookingglass Alice, a stage-to-screen adaptation of a David Catlin’s staggeringly entertaining original adaption of the “Alice in Wonderland” stories, performed by Lookingglass Theatre Company and premiering December 15 at 9pm Eastern/8pm Central on PBS (and available to stream at PBS.org after that).

“I daresay you haven't had much practice,” replies Charles Dodgson. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

 That might as well be a required pledge that any of us who want to create for stage or screen must take. Most of our hopes and dreams to create something beautiful out of nothing feel impossible. So to bring Lookingglass Alice to PBS, I found that I needed to believe in Six Impossible Things Before Broadcast:

IMPOSSIBLE THING #1: That we could stay alive.

 Because let’s be honest, at the onset of the pandemic, it felt like those folks carrying “the end is nigh” signs might have been right. Survival was not guaranteed. I and everyone I know lost someone they knew to COVID.  We didn’t know if we could afford to believe we’d make it.

But we chose to believe in Impossible Thing #1: that we could survive.

Look what happened.

IMPOSSIBLE THING #2: That we could keep HMS Media alive.

HMS produces broadcast and streaming content with performing arts companies and social service organizations, but come March 2020 the world was neither performing nor being social. There was no good reason to think we would make it.

With government support to prevent our immediate demise, and some nimble and decidedly improvisational thinking within our ranks, we started creating content that people could access on their screens. We believed in Impossible Thing #2: that we could keep our company alive.  

Look what happened.

IMPOSSIBLE THING #3: That we could gather in public and tell stories again.

 After the quaint, halcyon days when we thought we’d be shut down until maybe Labor Day, the harsh reality sunk in: we would not be sitting together in theaters for a long time, if ever.

Pundits throughout the sector, across the media and around the world predicted the end of theater as we know it (they’re still doing it now).

We believed then (as we believe now) that if the performing arts sector could both evolve while staying true to its nature, it would survive, but we believed we could. And so we believed in Impossible Thing #3: that we would gather in public and tell stories again.

Look what happened.

IMPOSSIBLE THING #4: That, having gotten PBS to say “Sure, we’ll air Lookingglass Alice,” we could actually make it.

It does not require a television professional to know that Lookingglass Alice is damn near perfect theater that is equally damn near impossible to capture on camera.  My brilliant director (and HMS co-founder) Matt Hoffman, our visionary editor Christie Fall and I are television professionals, and we agree with you. It’s damn near impossible.

Which is of course why we said, “Let’s do it anyway.”

I’ve wanted to bring Lookingglass Alice to television since the first time I saw it. I always felt that the right kind of capture and presentation could not only boost Lookingglass’ profile and convey the magic it so regularly creates, but it could also do for television audiences what Lookingglass has done for its live audiences for thirty-five years: change, charge and empower them.

Matt’s stellar direction and Christie’s extraordinary editing, all made possible by an all-star  team of video, audio and media artists, have resulted in a show that is both deeply artful and wildly entertaining.

Our team believed in each other, Lookingglass believed in us, and together we believed in Impossible Thing #4: that we could actually translate this decidedly unshootable play into an inviting and compelling piece of television.

And look what happened.

IMPOSSIBLE THING #5: That PBS would be interested in broadcasting a regional theater production like Lookingglass Alice.

Don’t get me wrong, we were hopeful. HMS’ 26 Emmys and 41 nominations are all for programs produced for and with public television. We have a great relationship with PBS, with credits like Great Performances: Chicago Voices and First You Dream: The Songs of Kander & Ebb. PBS is the only American broadcast and streaming outlet that commits dollars and scheduling real estate to the extraordinary American arts and culture sector, one that not only creates work offering us connection, understanding, insight, empathy, compassion and community but also has profound impacts on education, health care both physical and mental, technology and, yes, the economy, to which it brings $1 trillion in activity, more than transportation, warehouse or manufacturing. Showcasing the arts is the smart, responsible and humane thing to do, and PBS does it, one of many reasons they deserves our support (another being that the federal government supplies only about 15% of their budget, making PBS a bit less “public” than most of its detractors would have you unfairly believe).

But even with all of that, how were we going to convince PBS to devote two hours of its national primetime schedule to a performance not by the Metropolitan Opera or the original cast of Hamilton but instead a Chicago theater company? This is something that hadn’t happened since Steppenwolf’s production of The Grapes of Wrath, and even that esteemed production had to go to Broadway first.

Pitching the idea required belief that Lookingglas Alice was the right story, Lookingglass and HMS were the right storytellers, and PBS was the right, the perfect, the only place for this story to be told.

With the deepest possible passion and conviction, we expressed to PBS our belief in Impossible Thing #4. Bless them, so did they.

And look what happened.

IMPOSSIBLE THING #6: That anyone else would be interested in what we’d done.

We sympathize with our friends who work in this media landscape, one where time and resources are tight and in which, against human nature and seemingly the personal feelings and judgement of many who control it, the focus gravitates disproportionately on that which disrupts, alienates, frightens and angers us. It’s easy to dismiss what is arguably 2023’s most genuinely good story about an enormously positive development for American regional theater when there’s a fear that the dark side will lead to fewer readers, followers and clicks.

We who support, live and work in the arts have a different take. We’re in that rare field where we make things and, generally speaking, people want us to succeed. No one wants to see a bad show. They’d much prefer to have a transformative experience. And because we’re practicing our arts and crafts in front of real people in real time, we get proved right over and over. I feel sad for people who don’t have that. It’s much easier to be fearful when you’re isolated from your audience.

The work we do requires being in front of and surrounded by people. We see, hear and above all feel what they want, need and like. And we are reminded that people are in varying ways social creatures who long to belong and connect, who crave understanding and who deeply want to be understood.

That’s why HMS, Lookingglass, PBS, the cast, the crew, the unions, and everyone else who worked on Lookingglass Alice believed in Impossible Thing #6: that it was possible that there were writers and critics who could be inspired by what we had done and editors who could be persuaded to let those writers share their stories.

And look what happened: The Wall Street Journal wrote that HMS’ production of Lookingglass Alice was”acrobatic, slapstick, quietly dramatic and magical,” and invited viewers to “savor the charms of Alice.” Best of all they wrote, “the benefits (of the television coverage) include an intimacy with the performers that a live audience doesn’t get, and makes viewers wish they had been there.”

That is EXACTLY what we aimed to do with this broadcast version of Lookingglass Alice, which the Associated Press described as “innovative and thrilling and a lovely metaphor for life” in a feature review that has since been published in scores of papers and websites around the world.

I have six more impossible things I’m eager to believe, if anyone wants to go grab coffee sometime. But for now, just consider the moral of this story:

Believe in the power of storytelling, the absolute essential nature of theater, that Impossible Things are far more likely merely improbable actually quite possible.

 And then… watch what happens.

Congo Square, Lookingglass and The Who have a chat.

Shows are living breathing organisms. I like imagining what they’d say to each other.

The terrific Willie "Prince Roc" Round

Pretend you’re at a party, expect instead of people, you’re socializing with shows. Hamilton’s over in the corner having a drink with 1776, Time of Your Life is rubbing elbows with Clyde’s and a bunch of Oklahomas are having a heated chat around the backyard solo stove. Me? I’m in a huddle with Congo Square’s What To Send Up When It Goes Down, Lookingglass’ Her Honor Jane Byrne and The Who’s 2022 Who Hits Back tour.

Like people, shows have lives. They are born (and reborn), they grow up (some aging more gracefully than others) and they exist in community with each other. When I meet them, I like to make sure I’ve introduced them to each other, and then lay back and see how the conversation unfolds.

I recently went to Lookingglass Theatre to see Congo Square’s What To Send Up When It Goes Down. I’m not the first to describe Aleshea Harris’s play as brilliant, challenging, engaging and humbling, and as directed by Daniel Bryant and my friend Ericka Ratcliff was deeply stirring.

What To Send Up boldly and appropriately declared to its audience, and itself, that it was created with Black people in mind. It made it clear that while my straight white American male self was absolutely welcome, the show had some uncompromising demands – to listen actively; when spoken to, to speak; and throughout, to be humble, respectful, and willing to consider that however highly I may regard my progressive mindset and actions, as a non-Black and privileged American I am incapable of understanding the fear, sadness and rage of Black people living around and dying at the hands of police.

Period, Amen, and I’m good with that. Empathy, one of my strong suits, is of limited value when the experiences depicted before me are by definition out of my reach and comprehension. Sure, courtesy of my last name and some Catholic school bullies, I’ve experienced some violent and scary anti-Semitism. But there was always escape, and while I can certainly resent authority and be angry at institutions, I’ve also been able to turn to them for assistance. I’ve never had to genuinely fear them, at least where my personal safety is concerned. My biggest anxiety when I see a cop approach is a speeding ticket.

What To Send Up makes damn sure I acknowledge that privilege to myself, the cast and the audience. It implores me to bear witness to the fear, loss and rage that has been passed down and accumulated in the Black bodies with whom I shared the Lookingglass Theatre space and share the world.

I don’t just admire, I’m in awe of the extraordinary way What To Send Up refused to make me feel good about myself simply for having bought a ticket and shown up. It’s a rare and extraordinary accomplishment to create a ritual experience that makes me feel better (as in exposed, enriched and enlightened) by inviting me to safely feel worse. Participating in the rituals of What To Send Up When It Goes Down was both arduously and exquisitely beautiful, something that both dismantled and rewarded me, a show for which I am grateful and one which I will processing for a long time.

About a year earlier, in the same theater space, I saw Her Honor Jane Byrne, a brilliant piece by my dear pal J. Nicole Brooks, a uniquely voiced writer whose plays are often fantasias that use real world events, both personal and historical, as launching pads for surreally transcendent piece of theater.

Her Honor Jane Byrne, for example, recalls the time when Chicago’s first (and up until Lori Lightfoot only) female mayor moved into Chicago’s Cabrini Green projects, amid controversy and speculation that has not entirely ended even today. A lot happens in Her Honor Jane Byrne, more than I can convey here, but one moment in particular thunderbolted into my memory while I watched What To Send Up.

I’d never seen Willie “Prince Roc” Round perform before Her Honor and thanks to the pandemic hadn’t seen him since, so I was thrilled to see him in the cast of What To Send Up. His commanding presence in Her Honor as a character simply and universally named Kid had already worked its way into my core when, with only a few gut-wrenching seconds of dread preceding it, Kid is shockingly gunned down.

A year later, in the same space, here he is again, playing another young black man being murdered on stage, but this time I am watching his character die not instantaneously but gradually, over many minutes. Instead of a body falling to the ground at the deafening pop of a stage prop gun, now we experience a death surreally unfolding as, throughout the evening, it is woven through the fabric of stories of other Black lives demeaned and ended, his end-of-existence thoughts raining on the audience as his life bleeds away. The time and space given this specific individual death embodies countless lost lives and an entire People’s worth of hurt, loss and confusion, ultimately becoming the gravity drawing all the characters, and I imagine the actors enlivening them, together in a moment of howling rage.

Obliterated by how the extraordinary sequence in What To Send Up related to the devastating moment in Her Honor Jane Byrne and knocked out by how Willie played these moments, I was thrilled to introduce them to each other. How excited they would be to meet!

The reality was that they needed no introduction. They have known each other for a very, very long time.

A quick post-script, if you’ll allow.

Seeing What To Send Up was the first of two shows I saw that night. For months, I’d had a ticket to The Who’s Hits Back tour. Married with two stepkids, for me nights out are relatively rare, and so when I realized that my only chance to see What To Send Up would be the same night I was likely to see The Who for the last time, I decided to see the play first and then head over to the United Center and catch whatever songs the band had yet to play.

It felt like the right way to prioritize the performances. Few things scream out white privilege like “I’ve got a ticket to see The Who perform live with a symphony orchestra.” So, small as the gesture is in the grand scheme of things, it felt meaningful to me.

A few years ago, The Who recorded a new track called “Be Lucky,” a title lead singer Roger Daltrey uses as a bit of a mantra. After The Who closed the show with a rousing “Baba O’Riley” and the band linked arms to say goodnight to a rapturous crowd, Daltrey exhorted the crowd “be lucky!”

If you’re at a Who show, lucky is something you likely already are and can afford to feel, in ways that many of the characters in What To Send Up and Her Honor Jane Byrne.

In my mind, I’ve introduced The Who’s concert to these two breathtaking pieces of Chicago theater. They had not previously met. Wisely, The Who are listening quietly.

Updates on Small Business and Payroll Protection Programs

As promised, I have updates on the Small Business Administration and Payroll Protection Plan loan programs.

As of today, April 10, the PPP is now accepting applications from independent contractors and sole proprietors. Also, there have been some changes since Tuesday which are important to know. At least some of this will be of great interest to you, your employers and/or your employees.

I'd like to share a thought before we dive in.

The CARES act, sweeping as it was, allocated approximately $300 million to the arts and humanities sectors (NEA, NEH, Library and Museum Services and other deserving institutions). And that's great.

But as of Wednesday, the cultural sector has already suffered $4.5 billion in economic losses.

That's a staggering discrepancy,

As I've reminded friends of the list before, we're a very large part of the US economy. Most recent estimates put us at 4.2% of the GDP, which is in excess of $800 billion, which is bigger than the manufacturing, transportation or warehouse sectors. Dollars spent on the arts have a significant multiplier effect on other businesses, like hotels, restaurants and parking garages, and for every consumer dollar spent on an arts, another nine get spent on those related businesses. That, plus the $9 billion we generate in federal taxes and the profound impact we have on health care, education, technology and other areas, makes us indispensable.

We deserve this assistance. And we must encourage ourselves and each other to seek the support being offered.

Same disclaimer as before: I'm no expert, just a friendly voice trying to cut through all the noise and chaos sharing what I know. I think these summaries are pretty solid, but please check with your bankers, accountants, lawyers, etc before making any serious decisions.

Let's dive in, Please feel free to pass this along to any of your friends, colleagues and networks!

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There are three big federal loan programs out there:

• The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which the government has so far funded to the tune of $349B. UPDATE: There is talk of adding another $250B, but this is currently in the Senate.

• Economic Impact Disaster Loans/Grants, funded to the tune of $10B.

• Small Business Administration Debt Relief loans, funded to the tune of $17B

(You may have heard about a new "Main Street Lending Program" – this applies to businesses with 500 or more employees. All we're really talking about here are programs for small businesses, sole proprietors and independent contractors.)

And you can see into which program the federal government is putting most of its financial heft: the PPP. So when considering where you might apply for assistance, follow the money.

Remember that applying, getting approved and getting the money are not the same thing. Money is finally starting to flow to borrowers as banks and participating lenders are working on their closing processes. As of the this morning, 587K applications had been processed and $151B approved. There's still a long way to go.

Like any "gold rush," this process is chaotic and not without risks. We should all be cautious and beware of scams.

But that said, take a breath. Be patient, If you're in need and you qualify, dive in. Don't take anyone's word that you don't qualify – read the rules and decide for yourself. Stay close to your trusted banker. If your bank is not going to participate, look for a community bank or credit union with whom you can work. They will likely want you to move your checking account there, but that's an ok request and should not be considered a scam.

Now let's take a deep dive into the biggest of these initiatives, the Paycheck Protection Program.

---

The Paycheck Protection Program

Who is eligible?

• Small businesses with 500 or fewer employees, including not-for-profits

• Veteran’s organizations

• Tribal concerns

• Self-employed individuals

• Sole proprietorships

• Independent contractors

• Faith-based organizations

• Businesses with more than 500 employees in certain industries, including hotel, food, franchises in the Small Business Administration's directory and companies that receive financial assistance from investment companies licensed by the SBA.

• Household employees do not count.

When does the PPP program begin?

• Now! The PPP program went into effect for small businesses on last week, and as of today it is also available for sole proprietors and independent contractors.

• Brace for a “material difference” between application dates and funding dates. You can apply through any existing SBA 7a lender or any federally insured institution, credit union and Farm Credit system that is participating. Other lenders might be approved. If your bank participates, that’s the best way to go.

• SBA.GOV lists 3000 eligible banks but that doesn’t mean they are necessarily participating. Wells Fargo, for example, started in the program, bowed out, and are now participating once again.

• Many banks are still not ready to process PPP applications. Each needs to set up its own process and systems, and the majority are still not ready to process applications.

• If banks take your application, that does not mean you will get funded.

• Banks are taking care of their own first. Applied and funded are two very different things.

• Be patient. This is an overwhelming undertaking for the banks. Keep in mind that they do not stand to make money – interest rates are low and there are no fees. Banks will likely take care of their customers first and make their own decisions on each application.

• Simpler applications get through faster. System designed to process quickly.

• Nurture your relationship with your banker. Make April "HUG YOUR BANKER MONTH."

What does the PPP program cover?

It's aimed to cover payroll. You can apply for 2.5x monthly payroll cost, and you'll need to supply your bank with proof that you have these costs, which include:

• Salary, wages, commissions or tips, capped at $100K on an annualized basis for each employee

• Employee benefits, including costs for vacation, parental, family, medical or sick leave; allowance for separation or dismissal; and payments required for the provisions of group health care benefits, including insurance premiums and payment of any retirement benefit

• Interest on mortgage incurred before Feb 15, 2020

• Rent, under lease agreements in force before Feb 15, 2020

• Utilities for which service began before Feb 15, 2020

• State and local taxes assessed on compensation

• For a sole proprietor or independent contractor, these costs include wages, commissions, income or net earnings from self-employment, again capped at $100K on an annualized basis

• Most applicants will use average monthly payroll for 2019, excluding costs over $100K on an annualized basis for each employee

• Seasonal businesses use alternative time frames per the application guidelines

• New businesses can calculate average monthly payroll using the time from Jan 1 through Feb 29, 2020

• Employers CANNOT include 1099’s in their calculations. Those receiving 1099’s can start applying on their own as of April 10.

• NOTE: The exclusion of compensation in excess of $100K annually applies only to cash compensation, not to non-cash benefits, including employer contributions to defined-benefit or defined contribution retirement plans; payment for the provision of employee benefits consisting of group health care coverage, including insurance premiums; and payment of state and local taxes assessed on compensation of employees.

• ALSO NOTE: Payroll costs are calculated on a gross basis without regard to federal taxes imposed or withheld, such as the employee’s and employer’s share of FICA and income taxes required to be withheld from employees. Payroll costs are NOT reduced by taxes imposed on an employee and required to be withheld by the employer, but payroll costs do NOT include the employer’s share of payroll tax.

What are some of the key terms of the loan?

• Interest rate is 1%.

• All payments deferred for 6 months, but interest accrues over this period.

• Loan is due in 2 years.

• No prepayment penalties or fees.

• No collateral is required.

• No personal guarantee requirement, but if proceeds are used fraudulently, criminal charges will be pressed.

• Credit elsewhere is not applicable. You can have applied elsewhere for loans and it doesn’t matter if you have credit elsewhere.

• All loans have same terms regardless of lender or borrower.

• No lender fees. Agents cannot charge fees to borrowers.

• Nothing says you can’t apply to multiple banks, but please note that most banks are prioritizing and in some cases only taking their own customers.

• Once you accept one loan, you’re in the system and will not be allowed to accept a second loan. So shop around carefully because each bank will have its own terms and processes.

• Once you're approved, the bank has 10 days to get you the money.

• Different lenders will have different requirements. You'll want to complete the PPP Borrower application form and submit all necessary documentation to establish eligibility, including payroll processor records, payroll tax filing, or Form 1099-MISC or income and expenses from a sole proprietorship. For borrowers that do not have any such documentation, the borrower much provide other supporting documentation, such as bank records sufficient to demonstrate the qualifying payroll amount.

Applicants must certify that:

• the loan is necessary to support operations under current economic condition

• that funds will be used to retain workers and maintain payroll or make mortgage/lease/rent payments (otherwise the feds come and get us)

• that all documentation is true.

• The nature of business ownership and the identity of the owners are both important. There are a lot of rules and regs for who counts as an owner of a company, what owners must advise to lenders and what might disqualify owners from receiving funds (usually one or more having legal troubles or a criminal past). These are lengthy, so rather than make an already long newsletter longer, I’ll refrain from posting there here (but feel free to email me if you want more info about them).

• PPP loans can only be taken by participating authorized banks or credit unions.

• Several affiliate rules have been waived; the details are lengthy, so I won't post them here, but if you have questions, email me and I'll send you a link to get that information.

• Paperwork and additional info are available at Home.treasury.gov

Is there a way to have the loan forgiven?

• Yes. The PPP rules do offer loan forgiveness, which could be provided for the sum of documented payroll costs, mortgage interest, rent, lease, utilities, etc., per above.

• However, you will owe money when your loan is due if you use loan amount for anything other than payroll costs, mortgage interest, rent and utilities over the 8 weeks after getting the loan.

• You must use at least 75% of the loan for payroll costs, and not more than 25% of the amount will be forgiven if it used for non-payroll costs.

• Please note that forgiveness laws are not 100% clear at the moment and are changing all the time, so consider this more of a general caution than anything else.

• Forgiveness applications are made solely and directly to the lender that processed the loan.

• You can seek loan forgiveness by submitting a request to your bank which include all docs for all applicable expenses and certification that all the information is true. Lenders must decide within 60 days.

BE VERY CAREFUL.

This environment is ripe for scams, and some questionable lenders and practices have already surfaced. Please note:

• PPP loans can only be taken by participating authorized banks or credit unions.

• Forgiveness applications should only be made directly with whomever processes your loan. Forgiveness rules are still not entirely clear, and we shouldn’t expect them to be made so for several weeks. The priority is getting the money to borrowers and then sorting out forgiveness rules later.

• Agents are FORBIDDEN to charge fees to borrowers. DO NOT PAY THEM.

• A company called Fountainhead has been taking online applications for more than a week, but it is only holding them until it receives clarification from the SBA

• Lendio.com is taking applications, but there remains no public evidence that they can process them yet

• For that matter, consider that yours truly is just a guy with his heart in the right place, passing on what knows and understands but not offering anything that should be considered qualified legal or financial advice. For that, you'll want to call your banker, accountant, lawyer, etc.

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Now for the two other categories of financial assistance.

Economic Injury Disaster Loans/Grants:

• Disaster loan assistance can be found here. That said...

• This program is in deep disarray. Money is flowing very slowly if at all, and the current speculation is that the program is out of money. Even if you apply today and there were money, there are 4 million applications ahead of you that have yet to be processed. The folks at Multifund (from whom I'm getting the bulk of this info) report that they've only heard of one company getting money from this fund; they were applicant #23,999 out of 4 million. So bear that in mind.

• This has similar eligibility requirements as the PPP

• Amounts could go as high as $2 million, with no personal guarantees on loans up to $200K

• Some applicants are getting offers of a $15K working capital loan at 3.75% interest.

• You do not have to have been in business for more than one year before

• There is no forgiveness

• There are no credit-elsewhere requirements

• As of right now, EIDL loans are only available at SBA.GOV.

• Debt relief programs for existing 7a borrowers should be automatic. Check with your existing lender.

• And again agents are FORBIDDEN to charge fees to borrowers. DO NOT PAY THEM.

• In theory, within three days of application you receive a grant of $1K per employee for up to 10 employees, (i.e., max of $10K) which may be used for providing paid sick leave, maintaining payroll, meeting increased materials costs, rent, mortgage, repaying obligations due to revenue losses. One expert lender whose writings and webinars I follow said point blank that he knows of only one organization that has received this loan. ONE.

SBA Debt Relief Program:

This is different from the EIDL program. You can apply here.

• SBA Debt Relief is a straight up loan with requirements similar to the PPP but without the same restrictions when it comes to how the money can be used.

• You can apply for both types of loans but be careful: there is no double dipping allowed, meaning that if you use the SBA Debt Relief Program for payroll expenses, you can't use the PPP money for the same thing, which could hamstring you when it comes to PPP loan forgiveness.

• The SBA will pay the principal and interest of current 7(a) loans for a period of six months

• The SBA will also pay the principal and interest of new 7(a) loans issued prior to Sep 27, 2020

Again, BE CAREFUL!

• EIDL loans are only available at SBA.gov.

• Debt relief programs for existing 7a borrowers should be automatic. Check with your lender.

• Agents are forbidden to charge fees. DO NOT PAY FEES. Agents can be paid by banks (although that is not common).

• And once again, I'm just a guy sharing what he knows (or thinks he knows). Use my notes as guidelines only and confirm everything with your expert consultants.

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Closer To Home...

There are many state and cities offering their own loan programs. You can find a list of those resources here.

In Illinois, where a large number of this newsletter's recipients are based, Gov. Pritzker announced $90 million in emergency assistance programs, including a small business emergency loan fund, resources for the suburbs and rural counties and a downstate small business stabilization fund.

Illinois folks can click here for daily updates; folks from elsewhere can find information through your state government websites. But for reference, here's the latest info I have on the Illinois funds (and bear in mind this info is about a week old, so things may have changed).

The Illinois emergency loan fund

• $60 million in low interest loans of up to $50K

• Companies must have fewer than 50 employees and gross less than $3 million

• No payments for 6 months, then 3% interest for the remainder of 5-year load

• 50% of loans must to go payroll, and require a commitment to hire or retain at least 50% of workforce for at least 6 months

• Applications are active now

$20m for suburbs and rural counties

• This program offers grants up to $25 – that's grant, not loan, meaning it does not need to be paid back

• Businesses with up to 50 employees can partner with local governments to obtain grants of up to $25K in working capital

Again, I'm not an authority on any of these subjects. Before taking action, consult with someone who is.

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Congress, notoriously unable to agree on the renaming of a post office, has moved swiftly to act on behalf of our small business and individuals. Yes, there are some aspects of the relief programs that many of us might find problematic, but given the challenges we face, I think it's still a good idea to express our appreciation for the swift passage of legislation that might make the difference between having a company or career or not.

This link gives you all the info you need to contact your federal, state, county and city representatives. Reaching out to them via email, phone, social media or USPS takes only a couple of minutes and offers you a chance to develop a meaningful connection with your reps.

The Art of Leadership

TL/DR: Get politicians to talk about the arts, and for better and worse, they'll tell you more about themselves than they might realize. Two cases in point (and studies in contrast): the President of the United States and the newly inaugurated Mayor of Chicago.

Welcome to City Hall, Lori Lightfoot.

I’ve had a few opportunities to talk with our new Mayor, and I'm impressed by her intelligence, wit, empathy and spine.

All these qualities and then some were on display throughout a tough campaign. All have been evident since. And they all shine brightly when our new Mayor talks about the arts.

Several times I’ve heard Mayor Lightfoot recount her how the arts make all of our lives (and have certainly made hers) exponentially more beautiful, by showing us the world in ways we would likely never have otherwise experienced. And she readily acknowledges that the way a city embraces the arts is a measure of its soul.

I deeply appreciate that, and it had a lot to do with why I voted for her.

Yes, I know. Lori Lightfoot's feelings about the arts are not what won her the election. Admirable as a candidate's position on arts policy may be, it's never going to be the defining issue that gets them elected to any office, much less Mayor of Chicago.

But if you want keen and unexpected insights into how candidates view the job they seek, the world they inhabit, the government they intend to lead and the people they aspire to serve, then you would be well-advised to listen to them talk about the arts.

Take President Trump.

Money is my least favorite way to talk about the arts, but it’s the President’s favorite way to talk about everything. So you'd think the Dealmaker-in-Chief would find these facts compelling:

• The arts account for 4.2% of America’s GDP.

• They generate $763 billion in economic activity.

• They account for nearly 5 million jobs.

• Those nearly 5 million jobs generate $370 billion in pay.

• Arts advocates are requesting $167.5 million of taxpayer dollars for the National Endowment for the Arts (which is about half of Bryce Harper’s contract and just over a third of Mike Trout’s). The arts generate approximately $9 billion in federal tax revenue that go straight back to the government (and that doesn’t include the billions more tax dollars generated for state and local governments). $167.5 million out, $9 billion in. That’s an almost 54-1 return on investment.

• The arts export $20 billion more than they import. The President’s misunderstandings of trade deficits aside, you’d think he’d be all over an industry that pulls that off year after year.

And yet.

For the third year in a row, a President who prides himself on his business acumen and brags incessantly about his ability to know a great deal when he sees one has called not for the zeroing out of the budgets for National Endowment for the Arts (and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcast, Museum and Library Services and all arts and culture related programs and agencies), but for their complete elimination.

Forget for a moment that these agencies benefit our country socially, culturally, educationally and medically. They are also clear economic winners, with a profound return on investment. And the President of the United States, whether out of ignorance or malice, wants them gone. It’s for moments like these that Hans Christian Anderson wrote “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

Now, contrast this with Lori Lightfoot.

At the Mayoral Arts Forum hosted by Arts Alliance Illinois, our new Mayor certainly had key facts at her disposal (for example, that the arts have a $2.25 billion-dollar annual impact just on Chicago’s Loop). She also embraced broad social perspectives about the arts, and opined that Chicago’s greatness will be measured in part by how welcoming and livable it is for artists. And, buttoning her remarks with both savvy and sensittivity, she quoted Steppenwolf Theatre’s former artistic director, the late great Martha Lavey:

“We are fortunate to live in a city that recognizes that artists, and the institutions that support their work, are essential to the quality of life in the city, and to its future. Chicago is a city that recognizes the great human need for beauty, for story, for the respite that the arts provide to engage our imagination. The arts permit us to shift our frame of reference, to see the world through the eyes of another, to see and hear the world anew.”

That same Martha Lavey quote headlines Lightfoot’s “Advancing Arts & Culture” policy statement, something none other Mayoral candidate created, in which the soon-to-be-Mayor declared her intention to:

• Prioritize funding for the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events for increased equitable grantmaking and microfinancing to individual artists, arts organizations and arts corridors.

• Audit and streamline city licensing and permitting regulations, including the Public Performance and Amusement license.

• Develop an Artist-in-Residence program to build job opportunities for artists and mentorship opportunities for young people.

• Bring together ideas and resources from the city, philanthropy, culture and the arts to develop policies and strategies to keep artists living and working in Chicago.

• Build investment in Chicago’s public art program by overhauling the Percent for Art ordinance.

• Enhance the voices of socially-active artists to encourage civic engagement and support developing creative conversations and solutions to our city’s biggest challenges.

Mayor-Elect Lightfoot speaks as someone who sees the arts as a unique way to embrace the most essential part of our humanity.

She acts as someone who sees them as a force through which we can shape and improve the way we talk with and learn from each other.

And she appears to think in a way that suggest that “Yes And” actually means something to her.

Time will tell.

But for now, I'm gratified that the arts played a pivotal role in revealing not just what Lori Lightfoot wants to do for our city, but how and why she plans to do it.

And I'm optimistic that our new Mayor will approach arts policy, and indeed all policy, with the kind of creative, improvisational and ensemble mindsets characteristic of the arts in Chicago.

The Year of Chicago Theatre starts January 1. Buckle up, world.

The best stories, told by the best storytellers to the best storylisteners in America. Welcome to 2019, The Year of Chicago Theater.

When I started writing this, I was 38,000 feet above the Labrador Sea, 3 ½ hours from coming home after another wonderful, thought-provoking, challenging and gratifying week in London. Now I'm home, and it's high time to share some of the exciting stuff I saw and did there.

I had a lot on my plate that week, including meetings with the National Theatre, Digital Theatre, Channel 4 and two at the BBC, not to mention six shows, including the NTLive transmission of "Antony & Cleopatra."

The centerpiece of the trip, however, was an event produced by CHOOSE CHICAGO to promote the city’s “2019: The Year of Chicago Theatre” campaign. In the illustrious company of LEAGUE OF CHICAGO THEATER’S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DEB CLAPP, DEPT. OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS AND SPECIAL EVENTS COMMISSIONER MARK KELLY, and BROADWAY IN CHICAGO PRESIDENT LOU RAIZIN, we were given a wonderful platform to speak to an assemblage of London’s arts, cultural and tourism journalists about all the things that make Chicago theater unique and special, and why it’s worthy of being a singular reason to plan a trip to Chicago. Or America, for that matter.

To help add some razzle dazzle to the event, HMS produced a high-energy sizzle reel featuring Chicago’s diverse and thrilling theater scene (with some important nods to dance and opera as well). My HMS colleague KRISTIN KLINGER and I produced the piece, which she edited together in typically fabulous fashion (you can watch it by clicking HERE).

Deb suggested I join her on stage to use the various perspectives I have as artist, producer and advocate, and articulate what I thought was most special about Chicago theater, right after she mentioned the number of internationally acclaimed artists who still consider their Chicago ensemble companies to be their creative homes. Because my remarks garnered some unexpected applause from the crowd, I thought I’d share them with you:

“As an individual artist, as the co-owner of HMS Media, a 20-time Emmy-winning media production company for the arts; as an artistic associate of the Tony Award-winning Lookingglass Theatre Company; and as a board member and arts advocate with Arts Alliance Illinois, I get to observe Chicago theater (and national and international theater as well) from a variety of perspectives. And I can tell you the reason these theater artists come home to their Chicago companies to work with their friends and peers… and the reasons audiences love the theater that is created as a result… and the reason that if you came to see shows in our town you’d feel so welcome and so at home, is because:

Simply put, Chicago artists and audiences create stories that, however dramatic the storytelling or heightened the style, feel real.They feel real to tell and they feel real to take in. That happens because we are bound and inspired by the ethics of ensemble and improvisation, philosophies that keep us rooted to each other and to our audiences.

If you came to our town and saw some shows, you’d feel it too. You’d quickly and clearly understand why, whether the theater you’re in seats 70 or 700, 20 or 2000, you can afford to have the highest expectations of the coming experience.

Chicago loves its teams and its bands. Chicago theater, in the way we create and maintain ensemble companies, reflects that. We like to make work in collectives, both formal and informal. There’s not a lot of room “every person for themselves” where we work. What we do is in the service of creating something together that we could never envision much less create alone.

And we do this for audiences that don’t suffer fools gladly and are not easily impressed, which is wonderful for us. Because, when we work honestly, these audiences stick with us, season after season. They demand that we take risks and break conventions.

And that’s what Chicago theater people love to do. We sometimes fail, we often succeed, and we don’t get too up or down when we do either. We just… work.

Ensemble and improv ethics mean that we’ll never become a collection of theme park rides based on pop culture. Not that those can’t be fun and great – they can be a blast. But our environment is different. It invites and allows us to dive deeper, and so deeper we dive. We aim for that which feels real and true. In that way we are part of the city’s lifestyle and lifeblood. And that’s why making and seeing theater in Chicago is so exciting, fulfilling, challenging, transformational and tasty.”

Later, after Deb offered sneak peaks at the upcoming Chicago theater season, I added:

“Call it coincidence or a nexus of creative energies, but as the Year of Chicago Theater approaches, HMS has been approached by leading distributors in the worlds of broadcast, digital and HD Cinecast to create a wide array of original captures and content, all centered on the unique ensemble style, process and results through which so much Chicago theater is created and through which so many individual artists thrive.

This is an era where we all can see the damage done when the stage, be it theatrical, corporate or political, is ceded to bad storytellers telling bad stories badly. So the recognition that these distributors, underwriters and sponsors demonstrate the appetite, the thrill and the need for the antidote to bad storytelling in all of its forms that Chicago theater. It is an acknowledgement that Chicago Theater will thrill audiences not just in our city but across the country and the world.

That’s why I live, work and collaborate in Chicago, as a media producer, as a theater artist, as an advocate human being hungry to participate in transcendent work. To see and hear the best stories, to work with the best storytellers, and take in those stories in the company of the best story listeners in America.”

The Year of Chicago Theatre begins January 1.

Buckle up, world.

We’re All In This Together

There's no way out but through, and no better way through than a theater.

A couple of years ago, coming home from visiting my mom when she was having a few health issues (from which she recovered, thankfully), I went straight from the airport to Steppenwolf to see Visiting Edna, a play about… a guy in his early 50’s going to visit his mother who was having some health issues.

That might seem to some to a little counterintuitive. At a moment like that, wouldn't a little escapism be in order? But as Steppenwolf artistic director Anna Shapiro said to me when I saw her in the lobby and told her where I'd just been and what I was doing, “This is the perfect show for you to see tonight."

She was right, of course. Seeing that story unfold live on stage in front of me in the company of a few hundred other people with parents and kids (and the accompanying joys and stresses) reminded me that I couldn’t possibly be the only one going through something like this. These are universal experiences -- why else would people write, present and attend plays about them?

And as our world and lives keep changing, our need for stories both timeless and timely is ongoing and growing. When so many in power are either telling bad stories badly or neglecting to tell stories at all, that need is increasingly urgent.

Two cases in point.

A few weeks back, just after the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, I went to Victory Gardens to see Indecent, which deals with anti-Semitism, the holocaust and the way fearful and authoritarian regimes use all the means at their disposal to crush anything they perceive to be different, disruptive or disorderly. Talk about timeless and timely.

With so many friends involved in creating, performing and producing Indecent, I’d have gone no matter what. But to see this show, at this time, was, yes, shattering, but also deeply encouraging and empowering. Indecent wasn’t written this year, nor was it about the attack on Tree of Life. But it feels like it could have been.

As I watched the story unfold in ways that resonate with our past and present all too recognizably, Indecent took my breath away. And then, like most good stories, it gave it back. And so I breathed it in, deeply, first in communion with the audience and then in the lobby during conversations, tears and hugs with the cast. In what other setting do you get to do that?

The next night I went to Rivendell’s world premiere staging of Scientific Method. It’s a compelling and wonderfully acted story about people researching cures for cancer, and how sexism, racism and privilege rear their ugly heads even (perhaps especially) among those with seemingly lofty goals within seemingly lofty institutions.

I’m certain I'd have found myself both entertained and riled up no matter when I’d seen it, but on the heels of the Kavanaugh hearings, and immersed as we are in the promise and rage of the much-needed #MeToo movement, to watch a privileged white man lord his feelings of entitlement over others less white, less male and, to his way of thinking, less deserving, all while in the intimate setting of a great Chicago storefront theater like Rivendell… well, my blood ran even hotter, my heart pounded that much more powerfully and my mind raced that much faster. Here was the perfect way to engage, while also feeling connected to others, immersed in the issues and comforted by community.

I love that feeling.

Exhilarated once more by our amazing regional theater artists, I walked out into the crisp Chicago night provoked, challenged and inspired. And, most of all and once again, I felt less alone.

Not bad for a couple of evening’s entertainment, right?

So much better than running away from the world it is to run right into it, head first into ideas, situations, dreams, nightmares and hopes that excite us, frustrate it, thrill us, and, whether we want to celebrate the world or change it, make us glad to be alive.

If there’s no way out but through – and, as all the great stories tell us, there really isn’t – then there’s no better place to go through, or to, than a theater.

Just WRITE it.

Facing down writer's block and getting back to work.

Writer’s Block sucks, and it comes in many shapes and forms.

For me, there are two. There’s the version where, telling myself I can’t write, I don’t. And there’s the one where I write but don’t show anyone.

When this happens, what I think I’m doing is wrestling with questions like, “Who’s going to read this? Who’s ever going to perform it? What difference will it make? Who cares?”

That’s a hard spot for anyone trying to be creative, not just because it stops us from making work, but also because it's based on a false premise. It isn’t about whether or not others will care, nor is it about what they will think. It's about the primal fear of being exposed, and living with the embarrassment.

When I can parse the difference, I go from loathing myself to forgiving myself, which makes it possible for me to get back to work. That's when I write, feel and behave more interestingly, creatively and thoughtfully.

Getting there is hard, but recently I've been thinking that mayb the best way is get myself in front of as much genuinely and generously confessional work as possible, work that is more about “look at us” than it is “look at me."

So curating a “Look At Us” festival is tricky. But a few weeks ago, over the course of five amazing days, I saw three deeply personal, confessional adventures in “Look At Us” that rocked my world.

It began on a Tuesday at the La Jolla Playhouse with Hundred Days, a show I would have missed were it not for Jessie Mueller's exhortations to get myself to California and see this show as soon as I could (how she knew I needed to see this show, I’ll never know, but I think that’s part of what makes Jessie Jessie).

Hundred Days is a hybrid of a great alt-indie-rock show and The Moth, in which Abigail and Sean Bengson, through extraordinary stories and songs and backed by a dazzling band, tell the story of the three weeks it took them to meet, fall in love and get married. At first familiar and seemingly linear, it turns surprisingly intimate and then powerfully epic. Hundred Days, with both power and fragility, positively rocks.

Five days later, I was back home in Chicago at The Goodman, where I saw We’re Only Alive For a Short Amount of Time. Playwright, performer and songwriter David Cale, under the thoughtful direction of Bob Falls, puts his life on display in a way that is at first comforting; it suggests that this is going to be a relatively standard if also very artful confessional of what it means to become an artist, to come out, to discover one's purpose and passion.

But then it explodes with real-life horror that leaves its audiences' jaws firmly dropped. That Cale's story is true makes it all the more shocking, but he shares in with tender care, and as I recognized that he and Bob created something that could reasonably have been punishing to watch and instead fashioned a gentle and even loving experience, I was swept into sharing Cale's journey of acceptance and forgiveness.

In between those shows, I attended a book release event for Jill Soloway’s new memoir She Wants It, an evening that included vitally memorable teamwork and accompaniment from Jill’s sister Faith, their mom Elaine (who had thoughtfully managed to get me a last minute ticket), and their two guests, the intersex activist, writer and performer Pidgeon Pagonis and the sensational standup Hannah Gadsby (who’s Netflix special Nanette is itself an unforgettable example of a life put willingly and artfully on display). The event’s combination of stand-up, improv, debate, reading and personal confessional was hilarious, poignant, furious and inspiring.

Jill prefaced reading a passage from the book by confessing that no matter how many great things have been happening to them over these last several years (creating, writing and producing Transparent, receiving invitations to The White House, writing the book and so on), they still have to hear and confront that voice that rears its head when it's time sit down to write, that voice that screams the same familiar refrain, “Who cares? Who will read this? Who do you think you are?”

Jill's not the first person to share that anxiety. But because I needed to hear it at the exact moment, I felt profound gratitude that they did. If Jill Freaking Soloway can publicly wrestle fears of exposure in this moment of celebration and vulnerability, then maybe I can get off my ass and get to work.

Because the truth is that all of us have an epic story. All of us have a story asking to be told in some way. Maybe it’s something that belongs on a stage or a screen, or maybe it's something that want or need to share with our partner, a friend, or the family dog. It doesn’t matter. We all have a story, and life gets better when we find someone to tell it to, even if it’s just ourselves.

A few years ago I was strolling through the modern wing of the Art Institute with my dear pal Kristen Brogden, and I joked, “Welcome to the ‘I Coulda Done That’ section of the museum.” (How many times have we heard that about any kind of modern art – “A plain white canvass with a red dot? I coulda done that.”)

“Yeah, you coulda,” Kristen replied. “But you didn’t.”

Time to get back to work.

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.

Canned

Roseanne Will Be Fine. What About Everyone Else?

ABC cancelled Roseanne for its star/creator’s racist taunts, for which she’s yet to genuinely apologize but "deeply regrets," for, among other reasons, the damage she's done to the careers of her co-workers. All well and good, Ms. Barr, but the damage is done, and no amount of Ambien (which she says influenced her middle-of-the-night tweetstorm) can account for your appallingly casual display of racism and ignorance.

There are others who are trying to equate Barr’s tweet with a certain vulgarity thrown at Ivanka Trump by comedian Samantha Bee, suggesting that if Barr should lose her show over saying something racist that disparages entire people, Bee should lose hers for dropping a c-bomb on one particular very rich and public figure. Not a chance. If Bee screwed up, it was not because she made a scathing indictment of the President's daughter, it was because for a moment she crossed a line she almost always walks brilliantly, when she let anger and outrage overtake the content and comedy. Almost anyone can drop a c-bomb; few can conceive and deliver satire like Bee, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver. So, no, not Bee's finest moment and, yes, one worth apologizing for (which she has, unlike Barr, who simply expresses "regrets").

I like to think Bee's as upset with herself for undermining her own valid point as she is anything else. Beyond that, her offense was throwing a nasty and vindictive insult at ine particular public figure; Barr’s, in demonstrating historical ignorance and jaw-dropping racism, was far worse and the far bigger offense. Bee displayed a momentary indiscretion, Barr a lifelong prejudice.

What truly frustrates me about the Bee story is that the furor over it has overshadowed a much bigger, relevant and important story.

Cancellation was a bold and appropriate move for ABC, but let’s not lose sight of who’s really getting hurt here. Like a lot of wealthy Americans who have discovered that money can’t buy you love but it can buy you an awful lot of choices and privileges, Roseanne Barr is going to do just fine, despite her heinous display of racism (and some might argue because of it).

But as Shonda Rhimes tweeted, "The terrible part is all of the talented innocent people who worked on that show now suffer because of this."

Yes, exactly. While it’s plausible to suggest that there are already book deals, speaking engagements, stand-up tours and Fox and Sinclair hosting opportunities on Barr’s desk, it’s a certainty that most of the talented innocent people to whom Rhimes refers who were depending on this show for their livelihood are now left wondering how they're now going to pay the bills.

Let’s not assume that any of the cast, except probably Barr herself, are in a position to never have to work for the rest of their lives. There are precious few actors who can afford not work for the rest of this year. But it certainly doesn't stop there. There’s the camera crew, and all the lighting and audio technicians. The set and costume designers. The editors and production assistants. The hair, make-up and wardrobe teams. The caterers, the studio staff, the interns. And on. And on. And on. People who have every right to believe that Rosanne Barr gives not one good damn about them.

Wasn’t Roseanne was supposed be about the forgotten men and women?

There are those who believe that people who chose to work on a show starring Roseanne Barr are getting what they deserve. That’s a nasty and dismissive swipe worthy of Barr herself, not to mention a certain Commander-In-Chief, people who know a thing or two about making horrendous personal and business decisions and leaving bodies in their wake. Such an assertion stems from the assumption that all of our concerns are cultural. Some are economic. Sometimes we just need the gig. And sometimes we think we're getting into one kind of situation and it turns into another. In any case, a lot of regular folks just got an undeserved kick in the teeth, courtesy of a clueless, bigoted, wealthy person. No discussion of ABC’s decision to cancel Roseanne, correct as it was, is complete without taking them into account.

Which is why there is a bigger point to be made here, and a larger conversation to be had. The Roseanne debacle is a perfect metaphor for so much of what ails our country right now. There is so much pain, inflicted on so many people, by a relative few with so much power and privilege. People whose sense of entitlement and lack of empathy lead them to behave with careless and callous disregard for the consequences of their actions. People for whom privilege is an opportunity to be indulgent instead of responsible, insulting instead of empathic, vindictive instead of compassionate. These are the people who talk about "winning," instead of being and the doing some genuine good. These are the people who crush the folks that Roseanne purported to represent, the folks whose stories deserve to be told and need to be heard.

Who's treating them like "deplorables" now?

If only ABC could pull a House of Cards and write Barr's character off the show, and then put more thoughtful stories in the hands of the actors who would have remained, chief among them the incomparable Laurie Metcalf. Why not a new show with her at the center of it? Seriously, instead of Roseanne, why not Jackie?

How fascinating it would be to watch one of the world's greatest actors embody the stories that Roseanne was never fully equipped to tell in the first place, and how great it would be as a result all of those now-unemployed people got their jobs back.

Now that’s a story I’d like to see.

Reading Rick & Roger, Remembering Sean & Guy and Losing Rachel

A book arrives at just the right moment to help process life, love and loss

Perhaps because I’ve lost so many friends in the theater and dance worlds over these last few years, it took me longer than I would have expected to sit down to read Finding Roger, my friend Rick Elice’s heartfelt, heartbreaking and yet still profoundly ecstatic remembrances of his husband, soul mate and guiding light, the transcendent actor, author, director and deeply human being, Roger Rees.

It’s been almost three years since Roger passed, and just over ten since I met Rick. I’ve loved each of the precious few moments I’ve spent with both. There haven’t been nearly enough, but they’ve all been memorable and inspiring, always life-affirming, and sometimes life-changing.

The room and whatever we were doing in it was simply more interesting and beautiful around Roger. The same is true of Rick, and perhaps even more so, given the way we've watched him come to terms with losing the love of his life, and figure out how to move, in the words of Guy Adkins, another artist and friend lost far too early, “onward, forward and up.” Rick has done so by embracing the kind of messy beauty that characterizes our bravest and most distinguished deep dives into the human heart and soul.

Actually, it’s inaccurate to say I’ve “watched” Rick. I’ve read him. Finding Roger is Rick’s luminous collection of notes, blogs and remembrances of their relationships. It's one of the truly great love stories in the history of love stories.

Finding Roger was published many months ago. I’ve been meaning to read it since the day it came out. On the one hand I feel like a bad friend for taking until nearly June to open its cover. On the other, I feel like I’m reading it at exactly the right time.

The three of them – Rick, Roger and Rickenroger, for their union was a spiritual being of its own – were informed by a kind of courage that, until recently, I wasn’t sure I was capable of. I’m still not sure, but I’m more inclined than ever to find out, which has to be step in the right direction.

The collective Rees/Elice histories are also distinguished by an astonishing breadth of work that is, in a word, humbling. These are, after all, the guys that brought us (among other things) Nicholas Nickleby, Jersey Boys and Peter & The Starcatcher, along with scores of other productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the La Jolla Playhouse and of course Broadway and The West End.

Finding Roger displays such depth of character in these two men and those that surround them. Rick’s ability to recount their story is, much like Rick himself, remarkable. He seems both casually brave in the way that he follows creative and personal dreams, and bravely casual in the way that he works with others (most notably Roger) to make his home and work lives so rich. I find that kind of unassuming determination especially impressive.

Finding Roger is both profoundly moving and completely unsentimental. It doesn’t pander. It doesn't beg you to feel sorry for its author. It doesn’t diminish its subject by begging for its readers' tears. It simply opens a window on a rich life richly shared, after which the tears flow generously and naturally. It doesn’t “do” anything to get its reader to feel something. It just is, and the reader just does.

Like most successful work, Rick’s memoir embraces the specifics of a life with such zest and detail that his and Roger’s story feels absolutely universal. Rick’s heart, worn not just on his sleeve but everywhere, is by his own account shattered by losing Roger. Yet it nevertheless remains exhilaratingly functional.

Finding Roger could have just been about sadness and loss. Instead, it’s about love and life.

Had I read it even last year, I could easily have found myself ashamed that I had not lived as fully as Rick and Roger. But having waited for the world to spin just this one more time before reading it, I find myself at a place in my life where I’m inspired and empowered by everything Rick writes about what he and Roger did and what Roger continues to inspire him to do.

Sometimes a song, a movie, a play or a book come along at just the right moment. And sometimes we have an internal instinct about when and how we can best take it in.

I mentioned Guy Adkins earlier. More years ago than I can believe, we lost that great artist and man as well. The woman I was dating at the time hadn’t met Guy or his partner, the wonderful actor and genuine good guy Sean Krill. But the stories I’d shared with her about them had moved her deeply, in many of the same ways that Rick and Roger’s story continues to move me.

She and I weren’t destined to be a couple, but we remained close friends. Early in that friendship, and still not long after Guy passed, I took her to see Sean somehow manage to get his goofy on as Lancelot in Drury Lane’s production of Spamalot (it’s so much harder to be silly on stage when you’re feeling broken than it is to be tragic, and I don't know how he managed to pull that off, but he did).

When I introduced her to Sean after the show, she began uncontrollably sobbing. She apologized, she said, but she couldn’t help it. She’d never met either Sean or Guy before now, but she knew their story, and it affected her powerfully.

“I know,” Sean said to her, with his characteristic gentle and unassuming nature. “It’s really sad.”

“Yes," she replied. "But it’s also really happy.”

She took a breath before explaining.

“You had this.”

I knew what she meant. Even in our most hopeful days, with others and with each other, she and I had never had this.

Sean and Guy did. So did Rick and Roger.

And you have to be happy for people who have been lucky and brave enough to dive deep into this, even when under the best of circumstances one will have their heart broken by surviving the other. Not for nothing did Tennyson say it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Sean’s story got happier. He found this, again, and continues to be one of my inspirations, for that and many other reasons. And Rick’s story will be imbued with happiness again, too, in whatever form it might take. These are people who invite happiness in, even though the open wounds. That’s the kind of invitation that happiness tends to accept.

I’m in everlasting awe of those who manage – not manage, that’s wrong – choose, really, is the word I’m looking for – choose to stay open to all of life’s rich pageant, even when all they feel they are is an open wound. This is something else to which I aspire.

Lord knows if I’m any good at it. I’m not sure that I have experienced the kind of losses that make my choices significant enough to qualify. But having people like Rick, Sean, and far too many other friends and family members than I would like endure these kinds of losses, and seeing them choose to share their stories and lead these lives assures me feel that, even in moments of profound loss and disorienting depletion, the world still offers invitations, or at least opportunities, to discover, and possibly experience, and maybe even create a little more beauty, even when we might have found ourselves believing that there was none left for us.

I’m especially glad I’m reading Finding Roger now, because something’s just happened that had made this book a perfect and necessary companion. As I was writing this – literally, as I finished writing that sentence about having people like Rick and Sean in my life – I received word that we lost Rachel Rockwell.

Rachel is – I don’t yet know how to use the past tense for her – a dazzlingly talented director and choreographer, a person who has lit up every stage and process of which she’s been a part, and a flat-out lovely, energizing and inspiring human being. She was another friend I didn’t know as well as I’d have liked. But our lives and careers intersected at important times and in game-changing ways, and I'm going to miss her

She’s been ill for a long time, and so her departure isn't entirelty unexpected. But it's still a shock. And I’m having a very hard time comprehending that she’s gone, just as it’s difficult for me to think that way of Roger and Guy. And Molly, and Bernie, and Nana. And Eric, Mariann, Martha, John and so many other friends and colleagues to whom we’ve had to say goodbye these last few years.

My hope – my prayer, actually – is that I will find a way to honor my fleeting time with them by choosing to live as beautifully and bravely as Rick, Sean and all their loved ones continue to do.

To The Stars

Some say that expanding classical music audiences is a fantasy. But fantasy might just be what expands classical music audiences. 

I was only seven when I first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey,which might be an absolutely perfect age to see this most maddeningly mysterious of sci-fi epics. I was too young to get too caught up in trying to figure the damn thing out, and hadn’t yet gotten so old that figuring it out was even a thing. I simply liked how it felt, and looked and, especially, how it sounded.

The marriage of Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra to the scenes depicting the human race’s major evolutionary steps forward couldn’t have been more ominously majestic. Johann Strauss' Blue Danube was the perfectly playful accompaniment to the space station docking scene. And Aram Khachaturian’sGayane Ballet Suite added a sense of forlorn melancholy to the sequences on the Jupiter-bound Discovery.

This was music I understood. It sounded like it could have been made by the same musicians playing on the Beethoven and Mozart records from my dad’s LP collection. It sounded familiar. I got it.

It wasn’t until my dad brought home a 2001-inspired album – not the soundtrack, but a new collection by Leonard Bernstein – that I understood that the freaky sounds accompanying the eerier and most baffling scenes in the movie (like the uncovering of the monolith on the moon or the journey through the Star Gate) weren’t sound effects. They had actually been composed (by some guy I'd never heard of named Gyorgy Ligeti) and performed (by musicians just like on the Strauss and Khachaturian tracks).

How in the world was that possible? I mean, who was this Ligeti guy, and how did he even think of this stuff?

It got weirder from there. The second side of the Bernstein collection contained a suite from an opera about a spaceship colliding with an asteroid, and HOLD THE PHONE, you can write operas about spaceships colliding with asteroids?

My second-grade mind was officially blown.

That’s where Imy love for finding the weirdest and wildest music imaginable was born. After hearing that record, I spent many a Saturday afternoon listening to a show on the Cincinnati classical music station called Do You Know This Composer,which was jam packed with bizarre but beautiful sounds made by contemporary composers from Iceland, Denmark and other countries nowhere near any place that Bach, Beethoven or Mozart ever gigged. Seth Boustead’s similarly conceived series Relevant Tones, distributed by Chicago’s WFMT, takes me back to those childhood explorations while feeding my ongoing and insatiable appetite for new music. And it’s why every Friday, when new music gets released, I go to iTunes and buy a contemporary classical album, just to see what’s going on out there in the musical cosmos. (Sure, I could stream it, but it feels a lot better to buy it. The people blowing my mind deserve some compensation, don’t you think?)

Thirty years after venturing into outer space with Mssrs. Strauss, Khachaturian, Ligeti & Strauss, I was dating a woman with a wonderful and precocious seven-year-old boy who, through absolutely no experience of his own, absolutely knew he hated classical music (because that’s what his father, and presumably others around him, did). Classical music was just something to be hated, avoided and deried, seeing as it was – must have been – made for and played by snooty stuck-up know-it-alls who thought they were better than everyone.

In other words, they’d never heard it.

Nor had this young boy, or so he thought, but having recently discovered Star Wars and, like most people, fallen hard for the John Williams soundtrack, he didn’t know (or care) that all those great sounds he heard while the opening title crawled and the Millennium Falcon zoomed were made by a symphony orchestra.

All he knew, and all that mattered, was that it sounded awesome.

I was careful not to play gotcha about this. It was more important that he love these sounds on his own terms that it was for me to be “right” about the eternal beauty and power generated by the sounds of an orchestras. And so Star Wars led to Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Harry Potter, among other movies, until lo and behold, we had ourselves a new classical music fan.

Sci-fi and fantasy films, books and comics are ideal places to explore real world themes and feelings in a safe and surprising context – that’s one of their many powerful allures for writers and readers alike. And they’re also a path to broadening our artistic experiences. Snug in the feeling of enjoying a space opera or fantasy adventure, amazing sounds sneak up on us, intriguing and attracting us on their own terms (and ours), and bypassing conventions, expectations or judgments about what we “should” be listening to or what’s “cool.”

I’ve heard symphony subscribers and self-proclaimed “purists” bemoan the fact that orchestras devote entire evenings to playing contemporary film scores, as if this somehow degrades or diminishes their beloved institutions. For the life of me, I have no idea what upsets them. If they don’t like these works artistically, that’s fine, but surely these aren’t the only evenings of music on an orchestra's season that are not to their liking.

And the point isn’t to like everything, anyway, is it? It’s to be exposed to everything.

If these movie nights are drawing newer, less experienced or younger audiences to concert halls, that’s nothing but a good thing, if for no other reason that it brings the next generations into buildings and experiences which have traditionally made them feel excluded, unwelcome or intimidated. This is an easy, enjoyable and (not for nothin', profitable) way to accomplish that, and an important step to keep these institutions alive as gathering places to share communal creative experiences and stop them from being anything other than high-end social clubs.

That disturbing trend must end, and sci-fi and fantasy aficionados are the perfect people to help end it. They (who am I kidding here, WE)are devoted fans, bordering on being obsessive about what we like and care about. We follow our favorite artists to the end of the earth, talk endlessly about how the new works stack up against the classics, and even crowdsource funding efforts to make sure that new work gets made and published.

Aren't we exactly the kind of people who belong in concert halls?

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!

After the Fall

In Which We Explore The Joys of Falling on One's Face.

That’s the incredibly talented Chicago actor Heidi Kettenring to your left, demonstrating her supreme skill in the art of falling in Indiana Repertory Theater’s current production of Noises Off. (If you’ve never seen Heidi live on stage doing Shakespeare, cabaret, Broadway, drama, comedy, you name it – then get thee to Chicago and do so. We’ve got ourselves a national treasure here.)

I've been thinking a lot about the art of falling Not for nothing did Hubbard Street and The Second City choose that phrase as the title for their genuinely groundbreaking marriage of dance, theater and improv. The phrase also puts me in mind of one of the best lines from “The Lion in Winter," when Geoffery says to his brother Richard, “As if it matters how a man falls," and Richard replies, "When the fall is all there is, it matters."

I've been thinking about this because three big broadcast projects I've been developing, all of which felt promising a few days ago, have fallen apart or been put on hold.

None of this spells the end of the world for me or HMS. Not even close. Several other broadcast, online and cinecast projects are moving ahead just fine. And besides, anyone who develops projects will tell you that they fall apart all the time -- more often than not, in fact. I get that.

Still, after you've had the kind initial exciting brainstorm and seemingly productive meetings and conversations, when the real world comes knocking on your door with a few notes and your great idea is brought to its knees, it leaves a mark.

Being somewhat notorious for dating analogies, I'll describe it like this. When you meet someone who fills you with hope for that perfect romantic outcome (was that ever better committed to film that Joseph Gordon-Levitt's dance of romance in 500 Days of Summer?) that intoxicating infatuation is the most tasty and wonderful feeling in the world. But then for any number of perfectly understandable reasons -- again, more often than not -- one or both parties either lose interest or can’t find a way to keep moving forward. You do the dating dance long enough, and you develop a sense of understanding, acceptance, perspective and maybe even a sense of humor about that, but in that moment when hope is first dashed, none of those soften that crushing jolt to the chest cavity.

So I'm feeling that professional jolt right now. But rather than wallow, I want to take advantage of the moment and process the best way to bounce back. Maybe you're bouncing back from something right now, too?

One of many great things about a life in the arts is that so much of it involves failing.

I say that without sarcasm -- that really is a great thing about it. Failure is, in many ways, the dominant experience in our world. We always aim for the perfect creation, performance or production... and they almost never happen. We know that, and we do it anyway.

This is why it’s essential to surround ourselves with the smartest, most honest and challengingly supportive friends and colleagues possible. It’s the company of people like that which makes the difference between an amazing life and a lonely one. In their company, we can begin to discover how enjoy that frustratingly, tantalizingly tasty space between perfection and the best result we could summon in pursuit of it.

During an interview for HMS’ documentary “Steppenwolf Theatre Company: 25 Years on the Edge,” John Malkovich told me that the nights where everything on stage goes exactly right occur about once every 10 years, and so “one mustn’t get too expectant.” By that math, over the space of a quarter of a century, John Malkovich had enjoyed 2 ½ such nights.

He certainly did not seem to be complaining about this, or asking for sympathy. On the contrary, he seemed to be dining out on perfection’s elusiveness, fully understanding that without failure, there's no way to know what constitutes success.

The first edit of “Second to None,” our documentary about the making of a mainstage revue at The Second City, was, to put it bluntly, flat. Despite it being filled with one smart and funny sequence after another, featuring rehearsals and performances featuring one of the all-time great Second City casts (Tina Fey, Scott Adsit, Rachel Dratch, Kevin Dorff, Jenna Jolovitz and Jim Zulevic, under Mick Napier’s direction), that first cut was dreadfully dull. At first I was baffled. How could that be?

And then the answer became clear. We never showed them having a bad show or a flat rehearsal. We never showed them failing.

So we went back into the edit suite, adding in a sequence in which that incredible cast had quite possibly the worst improv set of their collective careers, as well as the conversation that followed. And then the doc came alive, because now there were genuine stakes. When the viewer understood that failure was a real possibility, even for the best improvisers in the country, witnessing their successes was a far more emotionally engaging experience.

Among the many tenants of improv is that it's best to avoid attachments to particular outcomes. Not that we can’t or shouldn’t get hopeful about an idea or event, but it's better to stay present to what an idea or event actually is, in the moment it actually exists, and then play with it in that moment, as opposed to force a particular outcome or ending. The former sets the players up for success; the latter virtually guarantees failure.

You can find examples of this in your own life everywhere you like. If for example I base my enjoyment of a U2 concert on the band playing “Until the End of the World,” I might not only be in for a fall, but also might miss out on what would otherwise was a great show. Likewise (and only because I haven't beaten the dating metaphor to death just yet), if the person I have a crush on doesn’t return those feelings, and I write off a friendship with her just because she’s not in love with me, then I might well miss out not only on a potentially wonderful friendship, but all the other great things that might have happened (like, who knows, she might be the person who introduces me to the woman of my dreams -- you never know, right?)

Not that either of these outcomes are foregone conclusions, either, but the truth is that there’s real beauty in having absolutely no idea what’s going to happen, and real fun in enjoying the process of moving forward anyway. This is what I think about when I remember my friend Guy Adkins' expression "Onward, Forward, Up." Wherever you are, Guy, you knew what you were talking about.

Back to why I started writing this in the first place.

A little time has passed since the most recent project melted down, and you know what? Life has gone on, and I got an idea for a blog out of the deal. Further, in the midst of writing it, another show -- one which I previously thought had died many months ago -- has unexpectedly shown new signs of life. And based on something I learned as that project started to resurrect, I may just have come up with a way to resuscitate one of those newly presumed dead projects. Truth is, this new idea might be better.

Maybe. We’ll see.

All of this brings us back to that image of Heidi, falling beautifully and hilariously, in a play that celebrates both crash-and-burn failures and this deep-seeded compulsion to bounce back. As she and I discussed recently -- appropriately, just before seeing some friends open a new show -- the former is inevitable, but the latter is up to us.

Personally, I’m in favor of the bounce. Because sometimes what goes down just might come back up.