The Audience That Ain't There - Part One

The Audience That Ain’t There – Part One

My Lockdown Guide to

A Performer’s Diaspora

By Jamie Jobb

Performers of all sorts have been forced to “email it in” these last dozen months as stages of all sorts stand vacant around the globe. While recent vaccines have uplifted hopes for theater re-openings, ghost lights remain lit in dark houses everywhere. Few players can rehearse together, fewer still can perform as lively persons trying to make a creative living through some kind of repurposed “home box office”.

These pages have pecked around the edges of Covid Lockdown’s common sea change to note how actors, musicians, comedians, storytellers, raconteurs, talk-show hosts and other public “professors” have adapted to The Audience That Ain’t There. Most of them have resorted to produced-at-home time-shifted “premieres” or regularly-scheduled “podcasts” to digitally brand and deliver their offerings across internet platforms.

In fact, a few performers possess the where-with-all and technical skills needed to hard-wire anATEM-Mini through OBS for social-media simulcast in 60 fps – while most people have no clue what the heck that mouthful of jargon even means! 

I’m aware of such matters only because my family happened to tour a podunk local television studio in West Virginia when I was a kid in the 1950s and it made a life-long impression on me. We went home and carved cameras out of orange-juice cartons and monitors out of cardboard boxes to create a make-believe “tv studio” in our garage. That didn’t last long, Mom needed to park the car. But now, half a century later, my home studio allows me to virtually “broadcast” out of a basement which no longer functions as a garage.

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“Seven Deadly Sins” – Actors inside, audiences outside in Miami Beach storefront theater

Miami Dice

Unemployed house managers realize how rampant world-wide virus rearranged the deck chairs of live performance for their theaters. And they now know reopening each venue is a roll-of-the-dice. Venerable Berkeley Rep just announced it’s next public offering: A dang FILM!!! It seems that the decision to act more like a movie studio was the best way for such a large company to face its uncertain in-house future. 

Our shuttered community theater down the street offers Bring-Your-Own-Movie night rentals of its “Equity house” (99 seats) to families and other Covid-compliant “crowds” of up to twenty five masked and vaccinated attendees. Five different couples have rented the entire place for themselves, $75-a-pair for each of their own movie/date night(s). The theater intends to host another set of improv comedy shows in the parking lot next door, as soon as they can work out County and municipal permits for further exterior performance. Elsewhere, hybrids are blooming.

Last winter, an exciting new-play-without-a-house ran in Miami Beach where the ticketed audience moved from scene to scene in scheduled groups of a dozen spectators who remained outdoors, all masked and appropriately-distanced. 

Produced by Miami New Drama, these “Seven Deadly Sins” performances happened inside seven repurposed storefronts along Lincoln Road’s traffic-free wide-screen outdoor mall. Seven playwrights wrote seven ten-minute scenes – one for each fatal sin, showcased in windows where manikins otherwise might appear. Actors, who’d rehearsed on Zoom, were isolated on these storefront sets, separated safely from the wandering crowd outside. Dramatically lit so as to be visible, the actors’ dialogue was amplified through each audient’s headphones listening beyond the plate-glass. 

This effort of audience compromise recalls several al fresco performances by San Francisco experimental theater companies at beaches, gas stations, parks, plazas, civic buildings and other outta-sight sites in the 1970s – in those storied days of yore when people without masks freely exchanged hugs-and-kisses in public. Among those pioneering groups, Antenna Theater still has legs. 

The impulse that sparked Miami New Drama also arises from parallel civic efforts by distressed downtowns to use vacant commercial real estate as temporary art gallery space – the so-called “art windows” movement. 

Miami’s inside/outside theater production, which closed at the end of January, has been nominated for a new Drama League Award: Outstanding Interactive or Socially-Distanced Theater, which was one of five new categories the League opened for dramatic works produced during Lockdown. The others: Outstanding Digital Theater or Individual Production; Outstanding Digital Theater Collection or Festival; Outstanding Audio Theater Production; and Outstanding Digital Concert. 

In announcing these new honors, Playbill quotes Drama League Artistic Director Gabriel Stelian-Shanks: “In this most difficult time, when stages across America were forced to darken, theatre artists responded with light, producing bold new work in ways most of us never dreamed of.” 

Although the pandemic scuttled last year’s Drama League Awards, they’ve been repurposed this year as The Gratitude Awards in special recognition of theatre community activists committed to The-Show-Must-Go-On. See: Full list of current nominees.

* * *

Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra’ 2020 Worldwide Zoom Gala on YouTube

Worldwide Wynton

Pulitzer and Grammy prize-winning New Orleans trumpeter Wynton Marsalis understood early in life that his family’s magnetic musical home offered him a sublimely unique advantage that very few people ever would know. So it’s no wonder that later in life Wynton would take advantage of Lockdown to expand his domain as Great American Music Guru with his “Undistanced” series of Zoom chats featuring other artists. 

Always an avid improviser, Marsalis also has been able to arrange and conduct his 16-piece Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra from each musician’s own home-bound funk. See how Wynton herds all his cool cats out of isolation here. JLCO’s treasure-trove of complete concerts devoted to iconic American composers can be found here. Anyone who appreciates the efforts of Marsalis and mates can contribute to their cause here.

Indeed, musicians of all stripes have been able to boost public exposure while working from home. Many innovative YouTube bands – Gregory Brothers, OK Go, Postmodern Jukebox, Walk Off The Earth, Front Country to name only a handful – have been creatively mining music video for years, so no pandemic upsets their workflow. 

In fact, Postmodern Jukebox founder Scott Bradlee offered this May 2020 Facebook pep-talk on the matter: “Musician’s Rescue Kit: How To Make A Living As A Musician During The Pandemic” (just over seven minutes). Basically Bradlee says home-bound musicians need to think of themselves as “a record label, just on a small scale” and to concentrate on these main tasks: recording, manufacturing, world distribution, marketing, publicity and eventually, tours. Of course, Bradlee’s exceptional talent is discovering exceptional vocal and instrumental talent to populate PMJ’s unique music videos. Nothing mines an audience like great talent.

* * *

Ukulele Ladies

During Lockdown, some performers have gotten downright giddy in their attempts to spark applause at a distance. To see that dynamic in stark dramatic relief, watch The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain below in two settings, one before a massively pumped-up live audience in 2009 and another where the band appears locked down tight at home on Zoom in 2020:

The Royal Albert Hall - “Ode to Joy”:

https://youtu.be/MJabN8VP8Gk

(6:48)

Smartphone screen – homebound Christmas cheer:

https://youtu.be/Us6H2wIGt0E

(2:00)

During United Kingdom’s easing of restrictions last year, UOGB was able to gather together on stage without masks, but socially distanced, for a few pay-per-view concerts without a present audience. One tune they chose to cover in those sessions – “Satisfaction” – is a true treat for Rolling Stones fans. 

However, a resurgence of Covid cases forced the band to retreat and establish another on-line front known as “Lockdown 2” where they remain until further notice. With four decades experience performing round the world, UOBG should be able to handle a few more homebound gigs.

And of course, what other musical instrument signifies the rugged individual performer than the Vaudevillian’s portable friend: that small and simple four-stringed wonder, the ukulele. Walk Off The Earth (linked above) makes particularly clever use of flying ukes in many of their videos. And, of course, Google finds no dearth of such bands: The Memphis Ukulele Band, The Funstrummers Ukulele Band, etc. And not to mention scattered uke clubs, societies and meeting groups. And of course, who could ever forget this classic tune by Jim Kweskin and his Jug Band:

https://youtu.be/94A4lNuaPhk

(3:56)

* * *

Roy Firestone turned active listening into a unique career

Firestone Chats

Emmy-award winning broadcaster Roy Firestone may be renowned not so much for his name, but for his face. Like Hoagy Carmichael or Fernandel, Roy has an extremely unique mug – a face we can’t forget. And one that’s well-recognized by Hollywood. His is that most-famous-face brilliantly cast into the movie “Jerry Maguire” as himself in the classic Not-Gonna-Cry-Roy scene – where he plays the astute interviewer into whose arms wide receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Goodings, Jr.) leaps with reckless enthusiasm.

Yes, that self-effacing guy!  Firestone joined ESPN in 1980, shortly after the network formed. A well-known local sportscaster in Miami and LA, Roy quickly became recognized as the new national sports channel’s primary interviewer.  In his enlightened series of “Close Up” conversations, heapproached omnibus subjects much like NBC’s fabled Renaissance Sportscaster-At-Large Bob Costa. Both journalists were always well-read and well-prepared.

With more than five thousand interviews and counting, Firestone has chatted with myriad athletes, actors, musicians, filmmakers and other Prime Time players. Clearly those interviews prove he’s a consummate listener. That quality shows not just from his questions, but also in his reactions to the answers in the moment. And all that Big League on-camera experience has formed and informed his own unique toastmaster’s comprehension of how to stand and deliver on stage. 

After he left prime time tv, Firestone began to fashion a new solo career with a pair of seemingly spontaneous stage shows: “The Performer” and “The Broadcaster”. Roy’s one-man efforts actually are bespoke showcases – unique backstage glimpses into the memory of somebody who’s been there for us, all recounted by a vastly talented story-teller who pays rapt attention to changing times. 

And, it turns out Firestone’s a darn fine mimic with his hilariously well-studied celebrity impersonations of Sammy Davis, Smokey Robinson, Tony Bennett, Neil Diamond, Frank Sinatra and all-three-Bee-Gees-at-once! Who knew the inquiring sportscaster could fashion such entertaining shows? Perhaps his genes are covered in Vaudeville sawdust? 

However along with everyone else, Firestone’s ability to present himself is greatly restricted in Lockdown.  So he’s been adapting to his audiences as diaspora. With his roots in Miami Beach – where New York expatriates amassed for retirement – Roy seems to have grown up with an innate understanding on how to unite common people separated by more than social distance. And that’s a skill whose time is again now ripe.

This week Firestone announced his new series of custom-made virtual performances designed for industries, businesses, institutions, groups, individuals and teams who need help with professional branding. More information: 

https://youtu.be/W9fZ0eHWv6w

(1:40)

When theater venues are deemed safe to reopen and audiences again enjoy in-person live performance, we hope Roy “The Broadcaster” would surprise us further with his evolution as Roy “The Performer”. While many Firestone fans might wish that he’d appear in more tv shows and films as a gregarious actor in character, others among us hope he moves beyond episodic variety-show formats to find his inner Anna Deavere Smith on stage. 

Then the man might begin to turn all his interview notes into more personal, dramatically-arched theatrical works – true fictions based on anonymous facts of his face-to-face chats. So an audience really knows – from the inside out – how and what it means to be someone in the shadows of such celebrity.

* * *

Three-Legged Clown Geoff Hoyle

Hoyle Slaw

Solo performing playwrights also must adjust to finding their proper footwork off stage. With five decades of live-audience experience, San Francisco genius Geoff Hoyle is one premiere solo performer who made a galant effort to create a Fake Audience in his recent MarshStream special: “What Will I Be When I Grow Up”. Previously Hoyle had nailed down similar coming-and-going-of-age scenes in his absolutely hilarious “Geezer” which enjoyed extended runs on the Marsh Mainstage before lively audiences which included us on more than two occasions. 

We also saw “What Will I Be ... ” as a streaming show at home twice and were astonished at how well Geoff the Mime could mimic how a video image can crackle apart during a random digital interruption. That single sight gag alone launched Hoyle show with a gangbuster bang. But that initial gag could not hold as the screened show progressed. 

Both times, Geoff lost his momentum by trying too hard to fake an audience without an audience there to boost him. Indeed, his whole art IS his unique presence, which we knew was not actually present on our big screen. I’ve seen Geoff perform live more than a dozen times, starting with his days clowning for Pickle Family Circus. Once, at Berkeley Rep, an usher pulled me aside before one of his shows and said “Geoff wants to know if you’ll wear this.” 

It was a loud yellow necktie with an odd dark pattern. I said “Sure” and put on the tie.  The usher said “Don’t say anything. Just let him do what he does.” I said “OK,” and took my isle seat on the first row.

In my grey Harris tweed, that noisy tie certainly stood out in a Berkeley crowd.  As house lights dimmed and the show began, Hoyle approached me directly and said with that cagey Mister Sniff smile: “Nice tie!” Then he untied it from my neck, jammed it into his pocket, and quickly turned tobegan his show. 

So any audient of Hoyle knows the singular showman has belittled respect for “the fourth wall”.  Our second time through Geoff’s recent MarshStream show, he again tried to eliminate The Wall by cutting away from his “live” performance to previously recorded scenes, complete with costume/character changes that were edited awkwardly into the moment – a trick he could never accomplish as an individual alone on stage, unaided by projections, as a clown right there, in our faces!

And Hoyle’s streaming cutaways functioned as the worst kind of unintended Brechtian diversions to derail his story. My wife and I could not finish his show either time as we wandered off to the kitchen … the home theater equivalent of Vaudeville’s Hook. 

It seemed Geoff Hoyle this time suffered from dim comprehension of his performance as a video-maker. But the show suffered most from its lack of an actual audience to feed his attention, unnoticed in the moment. 

* * * 

Anton Petrov’s t-shirt:

“Hello Wonderful Person”

What Da Math?

How many times have we heard “Hi, guys!!!” at the top of a YouTube video? That commonsubscriber-weary tagline has become such a crude cliche that smarter alternatives have emerged. Addressing your audience in the plural makes sense “in the house” but not necessarily “on the phone”.  And of course, it sounds totally lame to address your audient as: “Hi, guy!!!” – a statement that’s probably closer to the truth.

YouTube’s highly-informative, albeit self-appointed, science educator Anton Petrov introduces his daily videos on his “What Da Math?” channel, with this perfectly reasonable catchphrase: “Hello wonderful person!” (see t-shirt above). On their channel, the band CocoPilots offers a synonymous: “Hello incredible person!”

These “guys” get it right, there’s no massive audience of YouGuys sitting presently with the performer in that particular narrated real-time moment on screen. The singular audient arrives at her own time and his own pace. Any assembled plural audience is difficult to achieve all at once on line, unless some kind of Flashmob or advanced “premiere” strategy is at play. 

Yet, so many YouTubers seem content to think they’re commanding Their Very Own Royal Albert Hall crowd. Unfortunately for these star-gazed performers, ours is an invisible crowd as nobody can actually see any single one of them through our phosphorescent screens.

It isn’t difficult to imagine all the “holes” in Albert Hall filling up a Zoom screen well beyond the point of oblivion. Question for those of us perpetually waiting for some kind of internet “station identification” … How many people can NOT pay attention to the same thing all at the same time? AsSadhguru often says: “… Hello? …”

My wife recently attended a mass meditation on Zoom where people talked while attempting to quiet their minds. I declined invitation to a Zoom call because I couldn’t understand what writers-watching-other-writers-write thought they’d accomplish sitting there in silence. Bored homebound creativity confronts harsh Lockdown truths as a performer’s attention gets filtered through wifi. Rendered bits get lost in the translation of excited electrons. 

People who are born-to-perform understand the truth of their existence: nothing beats an actual audience, sitting there right in front of you. Breathing the same oxygen, in the same room, at the same time. With earned applause that’s spontaneous and not at all “tracked”.

* * *

To Be Continued …