Friday, December 19, 2008

99seats: An Experiment:

The problem is the grant language, the corporatespeak that dominates our conversations. It's safe, fuzzy and easy and it's the lingua franca of the arts. You have to be able to convince the suits that you're not some crazy artists with wacky ideas. You're a CEO in the making, a smooth corporate operator. You just have a ponytail and show up to meetings in jeans.

There's a great old Mamet quote about how long ago theatre people were a step above carnies and gypsies. We were seen as dirty, untrustworthy, sketchy and possibly dangerous. What's so bad about that? We were flimflam artists, hucksters, snake oil salesmen. We could use a little of that spirit again. A little dirt from the street on our souls.