The DCPA is giving up on the future of theatre in Denver

This blog went on something of an unannounced hiatus last spring when my free time and writing energy were consumed by finishing my masters thesis, but that's all done now, so here is my return to action (at least until April, when I leave with the Peace Corps to teach English in Kyrgyzstan, at which point I hope to transition this into a blog about that experience).

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It should be clear from some of my previous posts that I go pretty regularly to see shows at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and the availability of good theatre in Denver is important to me. In light of that, I was shocked and appalled by the news today that the DCPA is cutting the National Theatre Conservatory. At first glance this may seem to be just one more of the countless tragic minor tragedies of the recession, but a closer look reveals just how much the DCPA board is shortsightedly and dangerously throwing away something of great value to the future of theatre in the city of Denver.

The NTC is one of the top theatre graduate programs and the only congressionally chartered MFA program in the country. Like all forms of education, training top-notch actors is an investment in the future of theatre. In the same way that giving a man a fish is less work on that one day than teaching him how to fish, education rarely looks like a good deal if you only focus on short-term return on investment. The DCPA claims that the recession (including less success from recent touring Broadway shows) is forcing them to end the program in order to save $1.2 million that will redirected toward making sure that there are no cuts to the Denver Center Theatre Company and the Denver Center Attractions (those big Broadway shows). I don't dispute that maintaining the quality of the DCTC should be the top priority, but completely ending the NTC for $1.2 million/year is throwing away the future in order to avoid any uncomfortable belt-tightening in the present.

Like it or not, the value of an education is closely related to the reputation of the institution, and by completely ending the program, the DCPA board is throwing away all of the value that has been accumulated by the NTC name, and the tricky thing about good reputations is that they are easy to lose and very difficult to regain. Whatever the financial situation of the DCPA, their decision to eliminate the NTC rather than simply changing it says one of two things. One possibility is that they are so foolishly short-sighted that they cannot see that completely ending the program to save money during a time of hardship is like a panicky investor who sells his valuable assets when their price is at their lowest and then rues his folly when things recover and he sees how much value he has thrown away. The more frightening possibility is that they have bought into the prophesies of the doom-sayers who argue that theatre is a dying medium, and that they have decided to sacrifice the NTC in order to prop up their core programs for as long as possible until the whole institution goes belly up. Either way, this incredibly short-sighted decision casts doubt upon the future of the DCPA and the whole Denver theatre community.

I've groped for some way to see this as anything other than a disaster, and the best that I could come up with is that maybe the DCPA board is only pretending to be stupid and is really cynical and manipulative. The phenomenon of donor fatigue is well-documented, and one of the best ways to get people to open their wallets is to manufacture a crisis (just look at the way campaigning politicians have mastered the art of spinning each new development into an opportunity for their supporters to give money). They are saying right now that they will be eliminating the program with no plans to ever bring it back, but everyone knows that they would reconsider in a heartbeat if a deep-pocketed donor offered a big gift to keep the NTC going. Sad as it is, I actually find myself hoping that the board decided that making this shocking announcement suddenly and without warning was the best way to galvanize potential donors into providing the support that they need to get through the recession. Unfortunately, it seems equally possible that they might be killing the NTC as a way to spur donors into giving money that will go towards the theatre company and Denver Center Attractions: "Better donate now, or the plays you enjoy might suffer the same fate as the conservatory."

I could keep listing all of the different reasons why this surprise decision is really stupid and dangerous, but there's little to be gained by it. It all boils down to the fact that throwing away the future to "save" the present is a horrible mistake, and I can only hope that we will not someday look back at this as the beginning of the end of quality theatre in Denver.

The World is a Mess, and I Just Need to Flee It

I have been watching clips of Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric (very dangerous if you're already feeling depressed about humanity), but this is the most messed up thing I've seen today.

I may never uncross my legs, but thank goodness for Sarah Silverman:

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

Speaking more than one language? How un-American!

In an especially idiotic expression of xenophobia, a school-board member in Louisiana objected to the use of a few sentences of Vietnamese directed towards their parents by the co-valedictorians in their graduation speech. He has also put forward a policy proposal to forbid the use of any language other than English in graduation speeches.

That sort of foolishness is appalling no matter where it comes from, but it's especially ridiculous when it comes from a part of the country that was originally settled by French-speakers. But wait, there's more! Not only does the location have French roots, but the school-board member in question has that decidedly non-English last name of Pitre (for extra bonus fun, look up what that translates to in English).

There is one possible bright side to such a policy, as it would save audiences from any more commencement addresses peppered with little bits of Latin. Anyway, who would ever want to graduate Magna Cum Laude when you could graduate Mega Super Awesome instead?

There's a reason why the Second Amendment has all that "well-regulated militia" stuff

Can someone please invent a gun that you fire from your crotch? The gene pool is in danger, and these are clearly not the sort of people who will use conventional birth control.

Television in the Wild Wild Far East

It's fun to watch clips of Japanese television, as they tend to be either delightfully inventive or mind-bendingly weird. Jess recently pointed me in the direction of this lovely example of the first variety:

I love this as the premise for a game show, and they keep it interesting by having misleading openings that force the contestants to think beyond the body arrangement suggested by the shape. Plus, it never hurts to include some uncomplicated physical comedy.

That video reminded me of another one that I came across several weeks ago.

I'm still at a loss for words.

The great American pastime- watching famous people do dumb things!

I don't watch television or read the celebrity magazines, but that hasn't saved me from developing a knowledge of tabloid culture.

Yesterday I had the odd experience of having a writing tutoring session with Heidi Montag's brother, which was especially bizarre because a character sketch of his sister was a part of the descriptive essay he was working on.

It's disconcerting to hear a brother's glowing description of the sister he admires when you already have a clear mental picture of that same person as a vapid, reality-television quasi-celebrity with big fake breasts and a horrible music video. It's probably a good thing to be reminded that even the most unpleasant public figures can still have families who love them.

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In a similar vein, Lindsay Lohan has taken the lead in poor decision-making with her brilliant decision to recreate a nude Marilyn Monroe photo shoot in New York Magazine. It is pretty much a given that to become a movie star or other major celebrity, one must possess an intense desire for attention, and Lohan is one of several celebs who clearly moved from intense to pathological.

I am firmly in favor of nudity that comes from a healthy attitude about sex and confidence about ones body, but it is much less appealing when it's a desperate cry for attention. It also doesn't help that, even though I'm a breast man who finds freckles oddly alluring, she looks only mildly attractive because of how poorly she has treated her body over the last few years.

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I came across this funny video a couple days ago of a man getting rejected after making the foolish decision to propose at half-time of an NBA game, and before I got around to posting it here, I sent a message about it to ESPN's Bill Simmons, who included it in his weekly links page today (towards the bottom of the page). The best part of the video is Tracy McGrady's amused reaction to it as he takes the court to start the second half.

Driving in the middle of a two-way street

As if our foreign policy wasn't dysfunctional enough already, the Bush Administration is trying to use visa-free travel to the United States to bludgeon the European Union into accepting new "security" measures. It's one thing when American citizens are frightened enough to exchange their privacy for the illusion of security, but pitting the EU member-states against each other in order to extract their citizens' personal information (including details about people who aren't even entering the US) is a good way to add to the already impressive quantity of ill-will that exists towards the United States.

Science gets head-butted

One of the highlights of my visit to New York was the American Museum of Natural History, which was amazing for both its size and the quality of its collections. Some of my fondest memories from my childhood are of wandering through the Natural History Museum here in Denver (recently renamed the Denver Museum of Nature & Science), and my experience in New York was quite similar but on a much larger scale.

As I've gotten older, I've gotten into the habit of carrying a notebook with me when I go to museums, and I find that in addition to the actual items on display, the informational panels describing them are often a rich source of inspiration for my own writing. As I was exploring the dinosaurs and occasionally noting little gems of interest, I came across something that reminded me just far-reaching the conservative war on science has become.
It was a standard informational panel explaining the different theories about how pachycephalosaurs might have used their thick skull-caps, starting with the theory that they would have used them to establish dominance by butting heads like bighorn sheep, followed by an explanation that more recent research had indicated that their neck vertebra were too fragile for them to survive head-to-head combat and that they may instead have established dominance by butting a rival in the flanks. What saddened me was that underneath that information there was added placard reminding people in the familiar language of the anti-evolution movement that we cannot be sure about anything when it comes to extinct animals because those theories cannot be tested. It's sad enough that there are people who cannot tolerate scientific progress if it might threaten their fragile beliefs, but to see that sort of language creeping into such an important scientific institution raises frightening questions about the place of intellectual development in this country.

What ever happened to "Render unto Caesar..."?

Reasonable people do realize that Mike Huckabee is a crackpot, right? The Republican party is already in pretty bad shape as a result of the last eight years, and it is interesting to see how the extreme elements now have greater weight as a result of the moderates distancing themselves from the GOP. Part of me would love to see Huckabee win the nomination because he could challenge Goldwater for the most lopsided defeat in history and the GOP would take years to recover, but if he did somehow win the general election I think there's a very real chance that it would tear the country apart.