Dear Backers,

The Artist's Path is grateful to The Daily Courier and most especially Karen Despain and Mark Duncan for their two pieces on the mission and work of Path and on the Kickstarter program.

Their pieces can be viewed at

Path Article

and 

Kickstarter Article

We only have 21 days to go.  If you have not asked your friends and colleagues to make a small donation, now is the time to do so.  Even $1 to $5 multiplied across the state of AZ, the nation and around the world can make a difference.

I'm told that if you're in the world of non profit and especially the arts you must not be afraid to ask for money.  Not my forte as my family and friends know.  But in the interest of making this a truly viable project, I will send out another email blast requesting assistance.  I've enlisted the Courier's help, put an ad in a local arts newspaper, posted on Facebook and Twitter and snail mailed to past supporters.  Any other suggestions are most welcome.

As artistic director of Path I am so grateful to you twelve for your support.

Onward and Upward as a French professor once wrote on a final exam,

Gail Mangham

P. S.  Below is the top nominee for Best Love Song Ever.  If you haven't nominated please do so by sending an email to gailm@theartistspath.org  I've chosed Mandy Patankin's version of this lovely song.  So to you Mandy-- Thank you for sharing your huge talent with the world.  Your work is one of many artists that has inspired me to start The Artist's Path.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa9GgtzTx_0

Hi Everyone,

The Artist's Path is pleased to report that we are now partnering with the following non profits in Prescott:

Prevent Child Abuse Arizona

Coalition for Compassion and Justice

Big Brothers Big Sisters

Prescott Area Women's Shelter

One performance will be dedicated to each of these organizations with 10% of the net profit going to that non profit's assigned performance.

Please post our project web address to your friends, colleagues etc. 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/16290980/the-artists-path-festival-love-makes-the-world-go

Every bit  helps.

Warmest regards...

Gail Mangham, Artistic Director, The Artist's Path

The Artist's Path and the Coalition for Compassionate Justice will partner for Path 2012-Love Makes the World Go Round.   A portion of the net proceeds of one of the 5 performances will go to CCJ to help them with all the wonderful work they do in our community.

Dear Backers as I understand this program, this 'update' will be posted on the Kickstarter site and emailed to you. So it really is for everyone who might stumble across this project.  Below you will find some early Saturday morning musings on the challenges we face in live performance of the stage play.  Comments welcome and feel free to share with others.

Live theatre--what makes it special enough that it continues to survive from Broadway to the West End, from Union Station in Kansas City to Vermont’s oldest professional theatre in Weston?  Sometimes it not only survives but even thrives or what passes for thriving in the world of the stage.  Let’s do face the situation squarely.   In terms of live entertainment, Americans prefer, more or less in order of highest patronage:  sports events, rock concerts, musicals/music concerts, the well-known comedy, maybe opera comes here and dance, and the well -known drama.  And finally the new stage play-- unless it deals with sex, drugs, rock and roll, or has an iconic or curse word in the title--drags in at the very end.  This is the way it is.  This is the challenge for those who labor in the oftentimes rocky fields of live theatre and especially the world of the dramatic play.

So why do they carry on week after week, month after month, year after year working to bring a piece (the French word for play) to the stage, begging for funds to pay the artists, the technicians, the writers, turning themselves inside out to fill seats?  How can they compete with a hockey game, a rodeo, streaming  video from their computer, free events at which artists often go unpaid?  Do they ask too much of their audiences?  If the material asks spectators to give attention, to laugh, to cry, to think and perhaps even to consider making a change, taking action, is that too much?  It would seem so.

It’s easier, even if the production lacks competence much less artistry, to gravitate toward the familiar without demands, rather than risk the new with demands.  Humans have ever enjoyed being titillated, so sometimes the promise of a sly laugh, a crude send up of a well-known figure attracts.  Comedy is always popular, for not only do we get to laugh and who doesn’t like to laugh, but we also get to laugh at others while we avoid a close examination of the self.  Of course really good comedy can bring a self-reflective audience to a recognition of self that can cause us to squirm in our seat.

 And music and dance?  No one can deny the power of music and dance.  Even the unfamiliar will have its way.  Opera has been known to capture the rocker; ballet to capture the break dancer. Even the University of Oklahoma football team took on ballet to improve their game.  Music and movement engages us on such a visceral level that it almost seems that thought can be completely by passed.  The music reverberates in our muscle, sinew, bones, nerves.  We feel; but we don’t necessarily think.  Music compounded with words finally begins to ask a bit more of us.  Feel the rhythms, but think about the words.  What are they saying to you, about your life? 

And finally when we come to ‘la pièce de théâtre’, the stage play, we begin to run into problems.   We are embarking on the least familiar, the most demanding.  A play might ask us to follow a path to a critical view of one of our most sacrosanct beliefs.  It might assume a nodding acquaintance with literature, science, history, political science, psychology--a familiarity that is needed to understand the themes, allusions, references that spill forth from the playwright’s mind.  It may ask that we contemplate the worst habits of humanity leaving us sometimes with no redeeming actions in the final moments of the play to take away to the after play supper, the post play dissection over drinks at a local pub.  It may ask us to look deep into our hearts and find that self that we hide from others and most especially from ourselves.  It might demand that we find common ground with our perceived enemies, that we awaken to the world around us and become active rather than passive in our relationship to self, to family, friend, community, body politic, humanity, our planet, our universe. 

Yes, live theatre, and most especially the play, can ask all this and more.  For the theatre artist it demands talent, training, experience, long hours of labor with little or no pay and attention to economics often at the expense of artistic endeavor and growth.  For the most part theatre history teaches us that it has ever been thus. 

So how do you get more people to take a chance on live theatre? Sometimes a lover of theatre or just an adventurous  person will drag another to a play and the ‘dragee’ will discover with surprise that they enjoyed being entertained with live actors using their bodies, minds, and hearts as their instruments, that they had moments of real connection with the characters embodied on the stage.  Sometimes they even come to realize that they are a part of the performance, that their breathing, coughing, sighing, humming, laughing, crying, shouting,  candy wrap crinkling self has completed the circuit between actor and spectator--a circuit that makes live performances unique. 

And sometimes they discover that the demands placed on them in this play were not onerous, that indeed they found themselves moved not only during the performance, but now curious about a line of thought or action--curious enough to do further exploration.  This is the power of the live theatre piece executed by gifted theatre artists and supported by community.

These few paragraphs will not pretend to offer the solution to the basic question asked—how do we interest people in substantive live theatre of quality?  But it will suggest that you investigate what your community is doing in this area.  Take a chance, a risk.  Yes your financial support is so needed, but your presence in the stage house is critical, your gentle but firm prodding towards excellence is required if not always appreciated, and your willingness to network with everyone-- through coffee dates, luncheons, meetings, phone calls, letters, email, social media and shouts across the fence to a neighbor-- is absolutely essential. 

Support the arts in your community however you can.  Remember, when you help to feed an artist, you also feed your soul.

Gail Mangham, Artistic Director, The Artist's Path

www.TheArtistsPath.org

Interior of the 107 year old Elks Opera House, by Bezerenko