I PUT THE "P" IN RODUCER

Well first off, James Comtois, Pete Boivert, and the whole Nosedive crew are owed a much-overdue congratulations on their latest production, James's Dying Goldfish, a lovely and wry meditation on the way family rituals remind us of our mortality. The story follows a brother and sister over the wedding weekend of a cousin. Both siblings would rather pay attention to their romantic, non-familial concerns, but the obligations of the wedding draw them back into the orbit of their family, particularly their stroke-ridden uncle.

What I loved about it (and yeah, I know I'm being a total dick talking about a play hardly any of you have seen, but maybe James will post the script at some point and anyway there's a funny story about naked girls later on so stick with me) is how it seems loose and meandering at first glance, but at a closer look it's actually beautifully structured. It starts with the contrasting sex lives of the brother and sister. The brother, in his mid-twenties, is on a blind date which he's trying to artificially push into a relationship. The sister, somewhat older and much less romantic, has brought a colleague home for an evening of half-decent companionship and competent sex.

Then, as we move into the next day and into the wedding, we meet the parents of the brother and sister, as well as the stricken uncle. And, as odd as it sounds to say it, it's a visual shock to see actors in their fifties and sixties on an Off-Off Broadway stage. Off-Off is usually the stomping ground of twentysomethings fresh out of college, and this often dictates the concerns of the plays staged there. But James is pushing harder. He starts with a play about romance and sex, the type the Off-Off crowd is used to watching, and moves gradually to a play about marriage, aging, and death.

No one dies in Dying Goldfish, but the second half is strewn with reminders of mortality: a wedding service (shown in full), lifelong vows, aging parents, an older man deprived of emotional or physical self-control by a stroke. The sister is relaxed around her older relatives, including the uncle, but the younger brother can barely get through the weekend without breaking out in hives. The sight of his uncle terrifies and infuriates him, and he lunges at any possible romantic prospect as if it were a life-raft.

To me the play is saying that one key aspect of maturity is a certain relaxation about death. When you wrap your head around the idea that you and everyone around you is going to age, wrinkle, sicken and die - when that stops being a terror and instead becomes a sort of matter-of-fact awareness - then all the societal and familial rituals that gesture toward death become comforting and meaningful.

I thought Dying Goldfish was cool. I hope I'll see it again someday. Kudos to Comtois, Boivert, Philucifer, Yustin, and the whole gang.

*****

I talked to James for a few minutes before the show, and he mentioned that on the dark nights of the Dying Goldfish run Nosedive put on some comedy shows and performance art. I got the sense from him that putting this together was fairly stressful. That wouldn't surprise me.

In October of 2001, my company was going to produce a lesser-known early play by a Well Known Playwright Who Does Good Works All Over The World (hereafter WKPWDGWAOTW). We applied for the rights, not having any reason to think we wouldn't get them, and we rented a West Village Theater That No Longer Exists (hereafter WVTTNLE) for a month. (This was back when we did asinine things like run our shows for a month.) Well, WKPWDGWAOTW's agent got back to us, telling us that WKPWDGWAOTW would not sell us the rights. WKPWDGWAOTW was concerned that our production might affect the sales and the perception of WKPWDGWAOTW's upcoming new play, which would be opening in a prestigious, Off-Broadway production. This was, of course, preposterous. We were (and are) a tiny theater company made up of three people run out of an apartment.

Established playwrights are weird about their stuff being put on in New York. There's always this feeling that somebody important will see some crappy production of their early work by some wet-behind-the-ears kids and their reputation will be somehow ruined. It's like these people forget just how obscure Off Off Broadway really is. Note to established playwrights: Just take the money. It makes no difference. No one's gonna judge you based on a three-thousand dollar production at Producer's Club II.

John Patrick Shanley okays Off Off productions of his early stuff all the time, and obviously his career's in the shitter, right? Obviously the fifteen productions of The Big Funk that have gone up in New York in the past three years totally ruined his shot at the Pulitzer Prize.

Anyway, we couldn't do WKPWDGWAOTW's play, but we were still on the hook for the rental of WVTTNLE. So we kicked around a whole bunch of other ideas (all of which required the elusive rights) before finally deciding to put on my play Mercurial, which features a late-first act terrorist attack on New York City. We went into rehearsals on like September 8th, 2001. A week later we decided we'd better produce something else.

We ended up deciding to bite the bullet and put on a month-long relief effort benefit at the WVTTNLE. This included a number of different performances of plays (including my own play The Second String, dance, comedy, and music. This wasn't a very good idea. It might have been the least successful benefit in world history. We didn't even cover a fraction of our operating expenses. We barely made a dime. And we discovered that producing a festival is just hell on earth. I mean, not compared to being a rescue worker at the World Trade Site, but...

The thing is, you can't promote it. It's a different thing every night. Plus, you're in tech every single day. Plus you're meeting new people and handling new personalities every single day. Even if every person in every act in the whole festival is an angel, it's still gonna be exhausting. And believe, everyone's not gonna be an angel. (To be fair, the majority of the people involved in our benefit were solid and awesome.)

Anyway, a couple of the nights of our festival were devoted to a variety show of comedy acts. One of these acts involved two young women who I would guess were each about twenty. I can't remember their names or the name of their act, but it's probably just as well. My memory is that their comedy involved them behaving like (and dressing like) sexy-pouty Catholic-school-type vixens, and that it was partially improvised. (A word to the wise and unwise: whenever you hear the phrase "partially improvised," run like hell.)

So we were teching their piece, and I told them I needed to give the board op a cue for when he should take the lights down. "What is the very last thing you'll either say or do?"

"Well, we say the last line, and then we take all our clothes off and start making out with each other."

I chuckled politely, but they didn't. They weren't kidding.

Here's the thing.

I'm not opposed to naked women. In fact, I'm the opposite of opposed-to-naked-women. I mean, I felt slightly sleazy to be producing a showcase involving nude lesbian action (and neither of the women was a lesbian in real life; it was purely designed for titillation), but you know, it was a good cause.

The problem was that the contract we signed with the lady who ran WVTTNLE stipulated that she specifically approve any nudity in any of the performances. I told the two women that we would have to run this by the proprietor.

"But she has to let us do it! The whole act depends on it!"

So the following afternoon, a few hours before the performance, I showed the sketch in question to the proprietor of WVTTNLE. She read it silently. "This isn't very funny," she said. And she was right, it wasn't very funny. But you know, it was for a good cause.

Finally she made her decision: "They have to keep their panties on. They can take anything else off, but they can't be bottomless."

Fair enough. I took the deal and ran.

Except when I told the ladies, they were furious. They let me have it. The term "censorship" was used, loudly. I eventually calmed them down, and they did the act for the next three nights and kept their panties on.

I'm fairly certain that I am the only male producer in history to be yelled at by female performers because he would only allow them to get mostly naked. I mean, if I'm wrong, this is the internet, somebody'll tell me. But I think I can lay claim to a phenomenon unique in show business.

Anyway, if you can help it, never produce a festival.

--SlowLearner

Comments

[Mike Mariano]

The Internet has something it would like to say to you, Mac:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22this%20thread%20is%20useless%20without%20pics%22

[Christopher]

Ha! Mostly Naked! That's no way to talk me out of prodicifyin' nuthin'!
Thanks so much for your loyal attendance and kind shout out.

[stephen]

great story, and as i drift toward my first producing venture, i'll certainly be making sure that panties stay on (onstage anyways), as a tribute to your unflappability.

[Andrew Bellware]

I think that all theater would be better if it ended with naked women making out. Just think of how much it would improve Henry V, The Seagull, Cats!