This weekend – between packing, writing, and even a shit-load more packing – I managed to make time with that other theatre company that gleefully sucks up my spare hours and keeps me cranking behind my keyboard - the always badass Ma-Yi Theater Company.
What? You don’t know who they are?
Racist.
Just kidding.
Seriously, folks, these guys are some of the best. Truly. Go see their shit. It will fucking change your goddamn neurotic New York lives forever.
But not only are they full of uber-awesomeness at a level only known to Rock gods, sports heroes, and those girls we all knew in Junior High that blossomed early, they also offer out their artistic mojo generously.
This past Saturday, Ma-Yi held an open house allowing any actor who wanted to play with Ma-Yi the opportunity to slap that credit onto their resumes.
Let me break it down. It goes a little somethin’ like this, hit it:
Ma-Yi is one of the multitudes of companies across the nation that’s participating in Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays. For the few (And, what, there’s like two of you out there?) who don’t know, 365 is a play cycle scribed by the brilliant Ms. Parks that is – as the title suggests – 365 short plays that she wrote during the course of a year at a rate of one play per day. As well, as part of the producer’s mission to include everybody, any company in America or abroad who wants to produce the plays is given full rein to do so with the only stipulation that admission has to be free. Individual productions would cover one week (or seven playlets) of the 52 week play cycle. Theatres are free to adapt, interpret, and produce their set of plays in any way they choose.
For Ma-Yi’s production (Week 39), they decided to further pursue and hopefully explode this idea of “Radical Inclusion” set forth by the playwright. How so? To open up their casting pool the same way Ms. Parks’ has opened her play to producers - Ma-Yi will actively cast any actor who wishes to participate.
Ahem. Let me repeat that.
Ma-Yi will actively cast ANY actor who wishes to participate. . (Yes, now would be the appropriate time to say “WHAAAAT!?!”)
Now, remember, this isn’t just some fly-by-the-pants (What kind of expression is that, Qui?) group, this is an 18 year old Obie Award winning Off-Broadway producing entity that’s considered the nation’s leading Asian-American theater company. And they are handing out roles like a vengeful hooker with an STD (Uh, weird analogy alert).
It’s a brave move to say the least. But as I said, Ma-Yi is badass and – as we all know (because we’re all badass or at least students of badass) - ya don’t get to fuck the A-crowd by playing your shit safe.
The Open House served as both an introduction to any actor coming on board the project as well as a day for us to just play, meet a gaggle of new faces, and embolden, enliven, and expose a new crop of actor-types to the community (Or as we members of Ma-Yi like to say “the family”) of Ma-Yi. As a co-director of their Writers Lab (Not an actor in 365 cause Qui don’t act), I was there to just help spread the love.
Approximately 70 folks showed up. And since the mission was bring in the new, the vast majority was a mixture of kids straight out of college and folks who had never stepped onto a Ma-Yi stage.
The five-hour day broke down like this:
Section One: Ice-breaker games
Section Two: Improv games
Section Three: The immediate creation and performance of new plays.
The first two bullet-points are pretty self-explanatory. The third, which by far was the most exciting element of the day, was Ma-Yi’s chance to see what these guys could do and to explore how we could all act as collaborators. After the first couple of hours of playing games, the large group of actors was split into three smaller groups and charged with creating a five to ten-minute play. We were given a NY Times to find a catalyst, an hour and a half to work, and soon after, we would be performing.
Working in theatre, perhaps one of the shittiest aspects to what we do is auditioning. And it doesn’t matter which side of the table you’re on, the process is pretty fucking dreadful. You’re either the one out there trying to show your best shit in three minutes or you’re the one who has to break hearts and figure out who had the best three-minute shit (Ew). Obviously, it’s not a very conducive environment to birth awesome. But it’s what we do and, honestly, there has to be a better way for us to get to know one another.
Thus the Ma-Yi Open House. At the start of the day, Ralph (Ma-Yi’s Artistic Director) put it bluntly, “I don’t cast people I don’t know”. He went further on to say (And I’m approximating here since I didn’t bring a tape recorder), “The truth of the matter is the best way to get cast by Ma-Yi or by almost any theatre company for that matter is to get to know them. At EPA’s (Equity Principal Auditions), I’ll try to take notes on new faces, but that information disappears pretty quickly if I don’t get to see those notable new faces do something soon. So we here at Ma-Yi decided to do this Open House so we could change that – so we can get to know you and for you to get to know us in a period longer than three minutes – so we can begin building a real relationship with one another. As an artist, I believe what we do for this world is important. I also think the only way to change the world is to do it together. But before we can do that, we gotta find a better way to say hello. So here’s the invitation if you needed it, come be part of our community. Don’t be bashful. Now, let’s get to work.”
Around the blogosphere, this term has been trumpeted around a lot. Ralph said it too. “Community.” It’s part of what makes what we do so very special. When I first came to NYC straight outta grad school, I must admit that I didn’t consider how important this aspect would be to me and to all the artists I know. It’s not something taught in school as anything of importance. But living here, creating a life here, having peers and friends in this profession to help motivate, inspire, and push me has become so integral to who I am and what I do. Maybe other artists may feel differently than I do, they may feel that they can create their shit in a vacuum and still have it smelling like roses. But me, I needs my peeps. And I’m not just talking about my direct family of Vampire Cowboys and Ma-Yi Labbies. I’m talking about the whole enchilada – everybody I’ve worked with from LAByrinth to Nosedive to Youngblood, The Brick, Partial Comfort, ALL the folks that make up Off-Off Broadway (Because Off-Off Broadway is where the shit is real), and the bloggers, the badasses, the drinking buddies that keep me going everyday. This is my community and I love ‘em. I fuckin’ LOVE them.
Ma-Yi’s Open House was awesome. It may not have immediately revolutionized auditioning, but at least it was an attempt to make it better. I met an incredible amount of people and actually found ways to connect with each of them individually. I got to see what kind of plays they’d come up with, what kind of characters they could play, and we all had a chance to rock it out. That’s pretty cool considering that in a regular day of auditions, I’d probably go through the same amount of actors, but wouldn’t be able to tell you one thing about any of them other than what their headshots looked like. On this day, however, I could tell you what they did, the funny stories they told, the crazy shit they put together, and found that even in the course of only five hours, any assumptions I had about any of them at 10am was blown to shreds by 3pm. It was a pretty great way to meet folks. And, once again, my community (which just grew by 70) inspired the hell out of me. Don't be surprised to see a few of these guys on a Vampire Cowboys' stage as well. They impressed me.
Not a bad way to procrastinate from packing and writing, huh? Not bad at all.
