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LISTENING FOR NEW VOICES
by Whit Andrews, Literary Manager of The Virtual Theatre Project
When I was asked to co-ordinate the inaugural Pen is a Mighty Sword new play competition, I’d been away from new play development for a while, mired in the tedious redundancies of day-to-day theatre administration. I hesitated, remembering an office full of teetering stacks of manuscripts and the strong probability that my corpse would one day be discovered buried under an avalanche of manila envelopes. Then I remembered what Robert Hughes called “the shock of the new” and the sheer exhilaration of discovery and said yes. I’m glad I did.
I’ve heard a lot of lamentation from colleagues in the theatre world over the years bemoaning the scarcity of compelling new plays in our canon. Oddly, the loudest of these voices often seemed to come from theatres doing little or nothing to foster playwrights and rarely, if ever, producing new work. That is a fundamental disconnect and it has to change.
Admittedly, these are perilous times for non-profit theatres. In the elusive quest for financial stability, many of us are circling the wagons, repeating old successes, rejecting the new in favor of the proven and taking as few risks as possible. For the most part, going out on limbs is not the order of the day. That too has to change.
The Virtual Theatre Project’s core mission is to identify, develop and stage new work. It’s all we do and, since we do not support physical space, we can devote most of our limited resources to doing it. We have no agenda or any particular axes to grind. We’re simply listening for bold new voices and audacious imaginations with passionate new tales to tell.
All the finalists in the 2004 competition had that in common. It was an amazing field of excellent, compelling plays written for theatre.
And now we’re back in the midst of the second edition of The Pen is a Mighty Sword, now under way. It started with a trickle of scripts that has now become a steady flow that threatens to become a flood. We may wind up entombed beneath a pyramid of pages.
But what a way to go.
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An Artists' Road...a Portrait of Sean Mahon
by Kim Terrell
Very few artists take a direct route to where they are ultimately headed. Most artists experience life in many forms and generally settle into a way of living that feeds their soul and their art while firing the passion that keeps their work alive and changing. This article takes a look at Sean Mahon, the managing director of The Virtual Theatre Project, a man who exemplifies the “winding road” path.
Sean says, “I took a less than direct approach in my career and have landed exactly where I should be; using the skills I’ve accumulated over my various “career lives”. Currently Sean applies those skills over a wide spectrum including actor, producer, business consultant, entrepreneur, personal trainer and fund-raiser.
“There was a time in my life when I wished I had focused specifically on one thing and one thing only, but now I realize that we are the culmination of our experiences and it is those experiences that make us richer, wiser, deeper and all the more interesting.”
As a youngster, growing up in Dublin, Ireland, Sean found that he loved to entertain folks. He was never happier than when he was performing in front of an audience. Happy as that made him, pursuit of a career in the arts never seemed like a possibility.
So he went to college, graduated with a degree in business and Marketing, then set about making a living in the “real world”. His curious nature and need to explore took him far and wide At 24, Sean emigrated to the United States. He took up residence in Chicago and worked for the Irish Dairy Board where he was instrumental in introducing the wonderful cheeses of Ireland to the US market place. After a few years in Chicago and a 2 year stint in Wisconsin , Sean realized that working in a purely business capacity did not feed his creative spirit. Looking back on the things that made him happy he realized that he still wanted to act, to create, to collaborate with other artists.
So he took a sharp turn and headed back into the world he has always loved, this time knowing that “making a living” could not be divorced from doing what he loves. He opened a business consulting company to “float” him as he began the arduous climb into the world of professional acting.
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Working in theatre, and studying his chosen craft have paid off. Sean began working in theatre in Chicago, appeared off-Broadway in Ourselves Alone, then moved to Los Angeles to advance his success. He has appeared on a number of television shows, shot his fair share of low, low budget independent films and can be seen this summer playing Lucky opposite Brad Pitt in the block buster, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Last year he worked at The Mark Taper Forum understudying the role of Jake in the 2 man (multi-character) hit play, Stones in His Pockets. Unlike many who understudy, he actually got to go on and did a great job, I was there and saw his performance. It’s hard to spend weeks and weeks understudying someone else, watching them go on night after night. “I almost didn’t do it”, says Sean, “but I’m glad I did, it was a tremendous learning experience requiring great discipline and focus. Getting to work in that space every day was a great reward and the ultimate payoff was actually getting to go on stage. It’s the best experience I’ve had to date as an actor.”
Along the way Sean has learned “that nothing I’ve done is wasted. All of it can be applied to what I’m doing now, because all of it has to do with living ones life. I tend to get narrow-minded and focused on the ‘end result’, instead of just trusting that everything I do has a purpose and that the process of getting somewhere is as important as arriving.”
Sean integrates his business expertise into his current world with great success. Since coming to Los Angeles in 2000, he has carved out a career as an actor. He also helped launch a new film school and produced two short films along the way.
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Last year he put his business skills and his focus on health and fitness to great use. He competed in a good faith competition run by The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society called Man & Woman of the year. This is an event where participants compete to raise the most money for those suffering with blood related cancers. Whoever raises the most funds, wins the title of Man or Woman of the Year. Taking a Business approach to the competition, Sean formed a committee and collaborated with the Gym (where he works as a trainer), to raise a total of $63,000 . . . winning him the title of Man of the Year. Says Sean, “It was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. Not because I won, but because it gave me a chance to see how generous people can be and to experience how much good there is in the world (especially during these trying times!)”
This year Sean is heading up the committee for the whole event. He plans on exceeding last years total of $350,000.
Not one to keep still, he most recently teamed with me and The Virtual Theatre Project to produce Gray Area by John Ahlin, winner of the 2004 Pen is a Mighty Sword new play competition. Since joining forces with VTP three years ago, Sean has realized that he enjoys exercising “both sides of my brain”, something that he gets to do a lot of these days working with a fledgling theatre company comprised of artists who, like him, are walking the long and winding road balancing their life long passions with the realities of “making a living.”
“As I said earlier, at some point you realize that nothing is wasted. It’s all about learning and living then being willing to incorporate what you learn into your day-to-day life. I look at life now and realize that we are all unique that there is no single formula for success and that the only way to be happy in life is to march to the beat of your own drum. If I were to give any advice to people working hard in this or any other business it would be to take risks, change things up frequently and take the time to sit back and let the chips fall where they may.”
Following his own advice, Sean recently started a new company, IDENTITY MEDIA, a branding organization which uses 3D animation and computer graphics to help organizations and individuals stand out from the crowd.
“When I’m 60 I hope to be living in Paris, have written a book, raised a family and be excited about what’s next!”
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ADAM S. DOYLE “I create images as a way to share myself . . .”
by Kim Terrell
Adam Doyle works with The Virtual Theatre Project (VTP) as our illustrator and art designer. He is a wonderfully imaginative artist who conceives images that capture and convey the essence of a play, a thought, a whimsy and in our case, a company, with magical strokes of pen genius.
A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Adam has conceived all the mimes that inhabit our website and printed materials as well as the wonderful logo for both our company and our new play competition, The Pen is a Mighty Sword. He designed the cover of our inaugural CD, Aesop Goes Modern and most recently designed the program cover for Gray Area, by John Ahlin.
Currently Adam lives and works in Boston. For a time he lived in Los Angeles to get to know the entertainment industry and before that Rome where he experienced first hand the foundations of western art.
A few months ago, I asked Adam to talk about his thoughts on life in general and his art in particular. What follows are those thoughts.
“What am I thinking about these days? Hmmmmmmmmm. I’m involved in a fairly new relationship that’s long distance right now. My parent’s dog got hit by a car a week ago. American soldiers are still being killed in Iraq, even though the reasons we went in there in the first place were false. I’m going on a trip in a week and didn’t make much money last month. This is where my head is these days. In a year it’ll be different things, but the same sort of life concerns.
When I was a kid it was the stresses of fitting in. Drawing was a way to be accepted. I colored a dragon on my notebook and other kids asked for me to do theirs. I’m pretty much still doing that today. |
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I create images as a way to share myself, to share a common need for something good. I think that’s mostly what art is - the shared experience of living and hoping in the face of adversity. Theatre is great for that – there is nothing quite like the experience of live performance. Music is a heartbeat. Film and books are an escape. Painting seeks to grasp the impermanence of beauty. And beauty means anything from a tulip to tortured souls.”
I find that my own visual language allows me to retain a doorway into my childhood. That innocence flutters in, taking the form of animals, ships, and robots. The world of the child is certainly where I place my greatest sense of hope. Life is damned frustrating. If it isn’t, you’re not living. For me, my art is how I face it all- our infuriating government, our fight against cancer and AIDS, our afflicted environment, our monthly bills, our sore knees.
With each new project I try to bring the image to life in the form that it needs to take. The trick is putting aside ego and really listening. It is scary having no idea how an image is going to turn out, but it’s more honest. Art adapts everyday. When times are tough and all we want to do is forget it all in front of the television, that’s when we need it most.
Sharing our experiences and thoughts- literally, metaphorically, abstractly- unites us as human beings, and gives us hope for tomorrow.”
For more information on Adam visit his website www.adamsdoyle.com
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| ©2005 Virtual Theatre Project All Rights Reserved |
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