Let me take you back in time to the mid 1990s, when I was running a summer stock theatre in Jackson Hole. During the off-season, we donated the space to a local production company that had free reign of the place for next to nothing. They generally abused the privilege, damaged our equipment, and made life miserable on just about every front.<\/p>\n
We were struggling financially, so we eventually acquired projection equipment to allow movie screenings in the theatre, and we started showing midnight movies during the summer and throughout the year. That meant that this theatre group was going to be somewhat inconvenienced \u2013 they\u2019d have to end rehearsal earlier than they were used to, and there were new limitations on the timing of when they performed.<\/p>\n
So how do you think they responded?<\/p>\n
Remember, folks, these were artists. Or at least, they thought they were artists. What they lacked in talent they made up for in ego. And despite the fact that the space was still being given to them for free, they were absolutely up in arms. They called me into a meeting where they excoriated me for \u201cbetraying\u201d them and for being a soulless, corporate raider with no appreciation for the delicate genius that was necessary to produce a community production of Annie<\/span> or The Wizard of Oz.<\/span><\/p>\n I tried to patiently explain that we were still giving the space to them and we were doing so at a financial loss, and all this meant was that rehearsal would have to end by 9:00 PM, and their performances would have to be scheduled further in advance. We would like to have just kicked them out entirely, but I wasn\u2019t willing to go that far if they were willing to be reasonable.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can we end a rehearsal at 9:00 PM?\u201d one of the Granola People asked. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s 1:00 in the morning before I can see the colors the director sees and can bring them to life.\u201d<\/p>\n Swell.<\/p>\n She and her colors were booted out entirely about a week later, along with the rest of the group.<\/p>\n Folks, I don\u2019t know what it is about artists that makes them think they\u2019re somehow immune from the practical responsibilities that bedevil the rest of us. I don\u2019t understand what it is about talent that makes people think they can treat others cruelly; that they can walk out on family commitments that \u201cstifle\u201d them; that they can indulge every excess in the name of artistic freedom and expect the world to bow to their whims.<\/p>\n I once fancied myself as being something of an artist, but I never fully felt at home among the granola set \u2013 I was always a bit of a stuffed shirt in their eyes. Then I went back to business school, and suddenly I was the wild-eyed bohemian in the group. The difference, which I found refreshing, is that the supposedly staid and uptight business folks were much more tolerant of a real weirdo like me than the Official Weirdos were of squares and suits. Orthodoxy and rigidity are far more strictly enforced among the Elite who advertise themselves as being enlightened and tolerant.<\/p>\n And yet, in all of this, I keep being drawn back to a theatrical world that has essentially rejected me time and again. I\u2019m never quite comfortable where I am. I have yet to find a middle ground where I truly belong, where I can finally paint with all the colors of my wind. Where shall I find my bliss? When shall my soul sing? When shall my bowels be unloosed?<\/p>\n Whoooosh. That answers the last question, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Letme take you back in time to the mid 1990s, when I was running a summer stock theatre in Jackson Hole. During the off-season, we donated the space to a local production company that had free reign of the place for next to nothing. They generally abused the privilege, damaged our equipment, and made life ... Read more<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stallioncornell.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}