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Community Performance Inc.

June 08, 2008

We've opened and played three performances. The show is a major success. The chief of police told an assembly on Thursday that the show "will knock your socks off." The mayor could talk about nothing else and came back two nights in a row. The second night had 60 tickets sold in the morning, by showtime there were only 16 seats left. Even graduation night, last night, two of the three seating banks were full and the third one was half.

I was worried that on graduation night we might have only six black cast members. We had 12. The people black and white are taking the show into their arms and making it family.

Steve, Jules and I had a talk yesterday. For the previous three days the sound system had been driving all of us nuts, Steve especially. Trying to help with sound in mid-show, plus all of his other duties, plus acting, he reached the breaking point, and messed up some entrances and forgot lines on Tuesday night. It was wearing him down emotionally, knocking him off his center, and making him frantic. Our talk said simply let us guide you in the prioritization of your duties. Follow the protocol that has been developed. Check down that list, do your roles, be awake. If something goes wrong mid-way, think twice before plunging in to fix it because during performance, the fix may simply become another species of alteration that throws people off.

The real issue was our counter-intuitive guidance to prepare, then execute with grace and calm only that which can be done vs. his wish to fix everything and help everybody. In essence we were asking a highly energetic, creative, and self-starting person to be still and be guided. To be an apprentice. To be, in Zen terms, the Beginner's Mind. This is never easy for a new team member to hear. It isn't the advice we give our volunteers, it is reserved for the staff that serve those volunteers. Were Steve a volunteer actor, I'd try to use all of his skills, however he brought them, as actor, or set/lights/sound volunteer. But as staff, though still a volunteer, he is now subject to the hierarchy of CPI. And though CPI is a remarkably collaborative structure, it has a modus operandi. When the brainstorming is wide open, everyone's contribution is welcome in every area. Gradually the discussion drops off as we focus on one or two ways, then consensus is reached on THE way. In the rare event that team members disagree, I am the ultimate arbiter. Yet even that is open to contestation, but team members use this option rarely. The newest team members joined ten years ago. Fitting a new person into that structure is a challenge to all, especially the new person who wants to bring their best to the team. Steve is one of the most capable people I've met--he can disassemble a V8 engine, make compound miter cuts, build stunning sculptural props, act and direct. And I'm asking him to follow a protocol.

Yet we know that in order to access those skills eventually, in their full support of the community and the production, he must learn the way of community performance. Often counter-intuitive, it is based on the accumulated wisdom of experience, taught through apprenticeship. And, ultimately, it is open to the transformation of new ideas and new thinkers, like Steve.

Judy and Genny, our project leaders, are simply delighted. The show is starting to soar. We are happy and grateful. Today, Swamp Gravy comes, my beloved first project, to christen this new and brilliant baby sister.

   

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