Jeffrey Mosser: Dear artists, welcome to a different episode of From the Ground Up podcast produced for HowlRound Theatre Commons, a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide. I’m your host, Jeffrey Mosser, recording from the ancestral homeland of the Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee, now often called Milwaukee, Wisconsin. These episodes are shared digitally to the web. Let’s take a second to think about the legacy of colonization embedded throughout the expertise, construction, and methods of considering that we use day-after-day. We are utilizing gear and high-speed web not obtainable in lots of Indigenous communities. Even the applied sciences which are central to a lot of the work we make depart a major carbon footprint contributing to local weather change that disproportionately impacts Indigenous individuals worldwide. I invite you to affix me in acknowledging the reality and violence perpetrated within the identify of this nation, in addition to our shared accountability to make good of this time and for every of us to think about our roles and reconciliation, decolonization, and allyship.
Dear artists, this can be a massive fish. Bob Leonard, a founding father of so many issues “ensemble” has had his arms within the creation of the Network of Ensemble Theaters and Alternate ROOTS. He additionally invokes so many names, together with Steven Kent, a prolific creator; somebody who has touched corporations we’ve interviewed, together with Urban Bush Women—once more, season three, episode one—and Junebug Productions, season one, episode six. He can also be a distinguished member at Alternate ROOTS, which is among the massive arenas we’ll focus on with Bob right this moment. I’ll depart some information about him within the present web page.
Bob additionally mentions Jeremy Rifkin and the People’s Bicentennial Commission, a determine that I didn’t know a lot about till I began my very own Google searches. There are so many different organizations and other people he mentions, together with Jo Carson, the Living Theatre, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Bread and Puppet, Bob Alexander and the Living Stage Improv Theatre, Augusto Boal, Paulo Freire, Myles Horton, the Highlander Folk School, and previous members of the Network of Ensemble Theater boards: Lisa Mount, Carlton Turner, and Linda Parris-Bailey.
While you don’t have to know the whole lot about everybody right here to get pleasure from this dialog, I’ll make sure to hyperlink issues to all of them on the present web page at howlround.com. I say all of this upfront so that I would inform you that talking with Bob was like talking with the Encyclopedia Britannica of ensemble theatre. You learn one little factor that has about fifteen footnotes, after which every of them are additionally the make-up of the American ensemble expertise. Fascinating, to me a minimum of. He additionally mentions Rhiannon Giddens, who’s now in heavy rotation on my Spotify. So, that’s a enjoyable reference in right here as nicely.
A fast notice to you all. I had important audio points within the recording of this episode. I don’t know what it was. This is one in all my first interviews with a brand new laptop, so I’m not precisely positive what occurred. So, I hope you possibly can forgive me when my voice will get a bit uneven about forty minutes in. Deal? Okay. Thanks. I’m so sorry. Again, I’m attempting to take care of it, attempting to determine all of it out, y’all.
Also, Bob needs me to inform you that he misspoke within the episode. He stated “supreme carrot” when he meant to say “sublime carrot.” All proper, cool? That’s a neat little Easter egg so that you can determine what that’s all about once we get to it. To these of you who actually sit up for the sound-check lightning spherical on the finish, you’re going to be a bit bit disillusioned as we really included it originally of this episode.
I do wish to ask all of my friends, “What does ensemble mean to you?” And the best way that Bob responded to this was such an awesome transition into our precise dialog that I simply wished to maintain it on the prime of our episode right this moment. The query is so fascinating to me as a result of it really tells me one thing in regards to the interview I’m about to have. It’s like type of a Rorschach take a look at. And so I like that Bob will come proper out of the gates and mainly open up our episode with it.
Okay. That’s about all for now. Please be a part of me in listening to Bob Leonard, legend of the ensemble-theatre world and instructor at Virginia Tech University, Zooming in from the Moneton and Tutelo lands. We chatted on October 6, 2022.
ROOTS started to develop once we began enjoying collectively. And the form of ROOTS, the organizational form of ROOTS, emerged out of play.
Jeffrey: Can you inform me your favourite salutation, the way you greet individuals?
Bob Leonard: “Hey,” it’s normally one thing I do, or “Hey there.”
Jeffrey: What’s your favourite exclamation?
Bob: Cool!
Jeffrey: How about favourite transportation?
Bob: I actually love my little pickup.
Jeffrey: How about your favourite ice cream?
Bob: Chocolate, however it goes proper to my nostril. I put on it like a young person.
Jeffrey: What does the phrase “ensemble” imply to you?
Bob: Oh, nicely, right here we go. Ensemble, when utilized to theatre— I believe ensemble’s been round for some time within the music world, referring to a bunch of musicians who are usually not carried out by a director however are self-conducted. That’s type of an outdated classical-music body. Of course jazz ensembles— it’s doable to talk about jazz ensembles. And once more, it has to do with the collective steering of the music fairly than a selected conductor or lead.
In the theatre, it’s one other place, however theatre has an extended, comparatively current affection with the director, and organizing of theatre has been predicated round an inventive chief, whether or not it’s referred to as inventive director, producer, government director, one thing like that by which the circulation of organizational route is prime down.
And inside that, there might be an acknowledgement that the artistic course of is just not essentially prime down, however there’s fairly often a type of assumption in up to date, if you’ll, mainstream considering that the director runs the present. And ensemble within the theatre is relative to music—use of that time period in music—fairly current.
When I began out with my firm, I tended to make use of the phrase “troupe.” We had been a troupe or an organization, however not within the sense of an incorporation, however within the sense of an organization of individuals. We didn’t use the time period “ensemble.” But when “ensemble” began turning into round, I spotted that’s certainly what we had been, regardless that we didn’t name ourselves that.
And over time, I’ve turn out to be extra rigorous, significantly within the conversations that emerged as we had been attempting to place collectively the Network of Ensemble Theaters: Okay, what’s it we’re speaking about? And I believe that is true for— within the music world as nicely. But the dedication of a bunch of artists, theatre artists on this case, to a long-term inquiry into the making of theatre that’s collective in nature, that there’s a collective complete, whomever that group may be.
And that collectiveness additionally begins to tell the organizational construction. However, I believe that there’s a fairly good vary throughout the apply of ensemble theatremaking that features some type of a vertical construction of energy that has to do with how the group chooses to do. I believe it’s doable to take care of a collective inventive voice in each the instant iteration of any explicit work and long-term development of the corporate, of the group, with out having it essentially imply that you simply don’t have any titled features.
I imply, some of us simply say, “Okay, there is no director, there is no hierarchy. Everybody pitches in and does everything.” But many individuals discover that they’re extra comfy when there are assigned features. A extremely expensive man, a mentor of mine, a colleague by the identify of Steve Kent, favored to make a really cautious distinction between position and performance. I’ve held to that fairly strongly myself.
There are totally different features that have to get completed, and a few individuals are extra in a position to do a selected perform than others. That’s simply a part of actuality. But that doesn’t imply that there’s a position that’s, say, a personality high quality, some type of distinctive character related to doing a perform. Whereas if we discuss roles, then we’re beginning to discuss extra than simply the duty. We’re speaking a couple of sense of the definition of the particular person concerned, and it oftentimes falls into an space of energy.
So, there are individuals who perceive the excellence and may carry a perform of directing a play with out assuming the position of being a direct arm. And I actually like that considering. I believe that it permeates the fixed experiment that ensemble theatremaking really is: How can we really enable for our particular person voices to have presence and a few type of equitable weight and likewise, on the similar time work, as effectively and successfully as we are able to.
Jeffrey: Because there are such a lot of locations that we might begin. And you additionally already alluded to the Network of Ensemble Theaters, which I’ve a query about for you as nicely. But I’d actually wish to know what was the impulse to begin the Road Company in 1975, and what had been you making and who had been you making it for?
Bob: Right. So, the roots of my firm, or I ought to say not a lot the roots however the soil of my firm, included a company in Washington, DC referred to as the People’s Bicentennial Commission. And I began work on what turned the corporate with the People’s Bicentennial Commission in I believe 1972, may need been 1971, however lengthy and in need of it, 1976 was recognized because the Bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence and the sense of the beginnings of this nation.
The Nixon administration had established a Bicentennial Commission to type of prepared the ground for federal recognition of that point. And a small group of folks that I’ve— didn’t know had shaped a People’s Bicentennial Commission, both simply earlier than or simply because the Federal Bicentennial Commission was coming into play. So in 1971 or one thing. And Jeremy Rifkin was the lead, the manager director of the People’s Bicentennial Commission. He’s working with a number of different individuals.
And he and so they had been imagining to have the ability to benefit from 1976 as a time for the general public on this nation to actually develop an understanding and have fun a preferred revolution. What does that imply? What does revolution in our historical past imply to us, and the way are we finishing up? How can we perceive the ideas of that revolution and the way are we carrying them out? And do they nonetheless govern? Are they there? Was the revolution good or not good? I imply, all these questions.
Well, on the time, I had gotten type of fed up with the system of theatremaking. I used to be nonetheless very younger. I used to be nonetheless very inexperienced. I wished to direct. I didn’t know how you can begin directing. I didn’t know how you can get a job as a director. I had been stage managing, and in my innocence thought that stage administration led by advantage of some type of seniority to turning into a director.
And once I started to appreciate that that was totally a fantasy of my very own creation, I mainly left the theatre. I used to be working in movie as a crew and producing crew and so forth and so forth in Washington, DC. And I discovered myself with time for the primary time since I used to be working in theatre. Because working in theatre simply so typically means you’re engaged on the present and there’s nothing else on the planet however the present that you simply’re engaged on and also you’re working like nineteen hours out of twenty-four, or perhaps even twenty-six hours out of twenty-four. And if you do have a while off, all you need to do is drop over and sleep or go ingesting or simply that.
So, within the movie world, I obtained a lot better pay for a lot much less time, and I had time on my arms to do what I wished to do. And I got interested within the historical past of really the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which works by way of Georgetown in DC. And I discovered that the canal was being constructed again within the day by individuals who had been attempting to determine how you can get produce and different types of product from the inside of the United States to the market, and significantly to crusing vessels to the place the commerce occurred, and the Appalachian Mountains represented an actual drawback for that.
And they had been imagining working a canal with system of locks over the Appalachian Mountains into the Ohio Valley. That was an enormous engineering job, however that’s what they had been as much as. And they nicely might have accomplished that besides that the steam engine got here alongside and consequently railroads. And so, the knowledge prevailed: as a substitute of attempting to run a waterway over the mountain, they put in rails.
But that’s later. I used to be within the exploration, the event of the white migration into the continent of this United States and what it was like. Who had been the individuals doing this? Not the large individuals in Philadelphia the place, however the individuals really out— as a result of I come from Western Massachusetts within the rural a part of Massachusetts and have an affection for the East Coast mountains, the entire vary, and have at all times lived in that sphere.
So, that’s what I used to be excited about. And I heard in regards to the People’s Bicentennial Commission and so they sounded attention-grabbing to me. So, I went down, I assumed I used to be going to lick stamps and do stuff as a volunteer. And Jeremy requested me what I did, and I made what you would possibly name the error of claiming, “Well, I was in the theatre.” Before I might end my phrases he stated, “Would you make a play?” I stated, “Well, I’m not a playwright, but sure, why not?”
Because I had this factor happening in my head. I used to be doing some research on tales popping out of the canal. And we talked and I ultimately discovered some actors. I didn’t know any explicit playwrights doing the type of work that we had been speaking about doing. But I reached out to a good friend of mine from a college, Michael Cristofer, who was a playwright and a scriptwriter in addition to an actor. I invited Michael to return to an improv work rehearsal.
I had discovered some actors and we had been utilizing Viola Spolin’s Improvisation for the Theater. And I used to be utilizing these video games as a set of workouts to open up an actor-based script course of, scripting course of. We didn’t have the phrase “devising.” It was nowhere in sight. But I imagined to not use improvisation to do comedy, however that we might improvise our manner right into a script.
So, I invited Michael to return and see a rehearsal and he obtained excited about it. And he wrote a play primarily based on the improvs that we had been doing referred to as Americommedia, which was a totally uneducated experiment with commedia dell’arte utilizing American inventory characters, Yankee Doodle and Miss Liberty for instance.
So, we had been simply wanting to inform the story about atypical of us in the course of a revolution coping with powers of presidency and the way they had been dealing with it. And we toured that play across the East Coast with the varied equipment of the People’s Bicentennial Commission. And the Commission, the People’s Bicentennial Commission, was trying to arrange little, not little, however native and particular group chapters, if you’ll, or places of work for individuals who had been excited about using the Bicentennial as a manner of organizing.
So, we had been touring to these websites in numerous communities up and down East Coast, to make use of the play to share our considering and to have fun what we had been imagining as a time for the Bicentennial and serving to to prepare on the native degree.
And we had a fairly good time. We performed in Maine and Vermont and New Jersey and New York City and out within the nation and went on down into North Carolina and Atlanta. In the course of that, I met individuals within the south mountains who had been using artwork as a strategy to give expression to individuals’s craving, individuals’s wants, to individuals’s ache and grief, hammered dulcimer artists, ballad singers, poets, storytellers. And I obtained actually impressed.
And I had been numerous locations, beginning with the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, but additionally simply the place do I discover out— Where do I look? And I started to appreciate native historical past societies have lots of info. So, I spent some time hitchhiking in South Central Appalachia. And I used to be going to historic societies and schools that had theatre departments. And I used to be doing improv workshops in schools that had had theatre departments, brazenly saying, “I’m looking for actors who’d be interested in working on a project.”
But the tradeoff was, it wasn’t precisely an audition, it was an improv workshop for the entire division. And I bumped into many, many, many tales in addition to many individuals who had been curious in regards to the challenge I used to be imagining. And I discovered myself drawn to the historical past of Tennessee, was preceded by a state that existed for a dozen years or so referred to as Franklin.
And it was created earlier than the revolution as a result of the agreements between the French Crown and the English Crown modified the colonial boundaries. North Carolina was at one time all the best way out to the Mississippi and the so-called French and Indian War, the treaty that ended that struggle moved the North Carolina border from the Mississippi again to the jap divide, which left the folks that had been residing in that space considering that they had been below the English Crown and not using a nation. And so, they created their very own nation referred to as Franklin.
Jeffrey: Wow.
Bob: I used to be like, Okay. So, that was what we had been doing to begin with: creating tales, performs round that historical past. And I moved within the strategy of this. I moved first from DC to Knoxville in East Tennessee after which subsequently to Johnson City, Tennessee. Johnson City is in Washington County. The county seat is Jonesborough, and Jonesborough was the capital state of Franklin. And I wanted to go there.
But I had met individuals from Johnson City totally coincidentally in numerous locations. And I used to be drawn to Johnson City due to the individuals I met. When I used to be working with the People’s Bicentennial Commission, we did an enormous challenge in Boston across the celebration of the Tea Party, the act again in 1773 to place dump tea into the Boston Harbor. So, we reenacted that act dumping oil barrels or empty oil, fifty-five-gallon drums of oil barrels into Boston Harbor to type of parallel or equate or join the taxation points and so forth. And the worldwide net of tea and oil and the connection of all that worldwide energy with the atypical citizen.
So, we had this massive occasion in Boston and in organizing that occasion, I met a person by the identify of Ed Snodderly, who was a beautiful guitar participant and songwriter, and we had a good time collectively and he was a part of this complete factor that we did. And he stated, “If you’re ever in the South, I live in Johnson City, there are people there that you would really like to know. So, if you come through, look me up.”
This is in 1973. I obtained to Johnson City in 1975, and I actually didn’t see Ed in between, however he stayed with me. Also, I had discovered my strategy to an organizational middle in Tennessee referred to as Highlander, the Highlander Educational Center. And I had met a number of individuals from Johnson City. A bunch of them had been making a video firm again within the day with actually primitive video gear, Super 8 movie. And that they had entry to the general public tv channel, which has a requirement to have native era of fabric. And in lots of locations, that native is a digicam that’s educated on a clock and a barometer.
But these of us had been working a factor referred to as Broadside TV. We’re reflecting the outdated print factor of a broadside. You put your factor on it, it’s like running a blog otherwise you put your factor on a broadside and publish it round in the neighborhood. So, they had been doing video protection of PTA conferences and native wrestling matches and a wide range of different issues using entry to the general public tv channel. And they had been getting some {dollars}.
And so, that they had an area and so they provided us to have rehearsal area of their area. They had an enormous warehouse that they weren’t actually utilizing, so we might make our work of their warehouse, which is the place we went. So, they drew me to Johnson City for each what they had been doing and the assets that they had that they had been prepared to share in alternate for what we had been bringing as assets.
And I additionally met, as a part of that group, a lady named Jo Carson, who was a poet and a author. And it wasn’t lengthy earlier than Jo was a part of the corporate that I used to be constructing as a author and as a performer and as an ensemble member. And following Americommedia, the following play that we made was referred to as the Momentary Art of State Making. And we opened it on the Fourth of July, 1976, in Jonesborough, Tennessee on the capital of the State of Franklin.
I imagined that I used to be type of completed at that time. I had gotten a small amount of cash to assist this effort, and we had been nearly out of it. And I had no concept what was going to occur subsequent, however I wasn’t fascinated by any long-term factor. I used to be merely attempting to determine a strategy to do one thing within the second that was worthwhile.
We had been in the course of the efficiency and it got here up an enormous rainstorm, and I used to be one of many actors within the efficiency as type of a narrator sort. And I stated, “Okay, fine, we’ll hold for the rain. We’ll all take shelter.” We are outdoors on the principle avenue. I stated, “We’ll be back. This’ll pass. We’ll be back.” And the viewers stated, “No, no, no. This is our story. You keep telling it. We’re here to see this event.” And I used to be completely shocked. And after all, we stored on going, however I used to be advised in that second that I used to be the place I used to be purported to be and that this was far more than simply me making some theatre.
I had been working on this LORT system. I had my Equity card. I used to be a stage supervisor, and we had been begging for audiences to return to a premiere efficiency, premiere runs, of Lanford Wilson’s extraordinary performs. But individuals wouldn’t come. Or in the event that they did come, they had been actually ornery. And if you happen to had been two minutes late, they had been all about, Where’s your professionalism and bladidy, blah, all that stuff. And I used to be bored with that. I didn’t look after that. It simply didn’t really feel like a wholesome world.
Loved the individuals making the theatre. Andrew Wilson, good, Davey Marlin-Jones, good. But the sphere although, the surroundings, was not good. It was painful. And to face within the rain and have an viewers say, “Please keep going, you’re telling our story,” simply was like, Okay. We had been there twenty-five years.
Jeffrey: Wow, that’s superb. That’s fantastic. So, you talked about simply bringing in Spolin’s e book and simply beginning with some workouts, and also you stated you had been additionally very inexperienced maybe round directing and what it meant to perhaps write and create at that diploma from simply that place to begin. But had been you taking inspiration from some other type of organizations like Bread and Puppet I believe had been based in 1970, and San Francisco Mime Troupe had been round since across the fifties. And so I’m questioning: Were you feeling such as you had been taking motion in the identical vein as they may be?
Bob: I used to be conscious of El Teatro Campesino and Bread and Puppet. I had by no means seen them. I used to be conscious of the Living Theatre. I had by no means seen them once I began. When we had been touring Americommedia, Living Theatre was performing in Judson Church once we had been in New York. And I went to see a present of one in all their reveals.
And it was startling and provoking within the sense of how remarkably highly effective and non-formal it was. It was not a traditional play as I had been educated to consider “What is theatre” and “What is a play,” and the type of immediacy of occasion they had been on the lookout for of their efficiency. And I did have a extremely inspiring relationship with Bob Alexander, who was in DC working Living Stage, which was an improv community-based group that he was creating below the umbrella of Arena Stage.
And Living Stage on the time was the ensemble— had been orienting themselves across the anti-war motion, and significantly with vets who had been in opposition to the struggle. It was a multiracial firm. But their focus of labor, a minimum of what I noticed, was in regards to the anti-war motion, and significantly by way of the eyes of veterans who had been in Vietnam.
And I noticed efficiency and the storyline, and that is type of wanting again on it, type of a Boal scenario, type of a Forum Theatre type of factor. But I don’t assume it was instantly that. What they advised was a narrative of a veteran who had misplaced his arm and was at a medical discharge, honorable, and was coming house and he and his spouse had not seen each other in no matter it was: a 12 months, no matter. And she was upstairs in her house and he was coming as much as see her for the primary time and so they had been arising the steps and it was the primary time that she really bodily understood: no arm and my husband.
And they stopped the play and requested what the viewers thought and the way would you full this play. Here we’re on this couple’s coming collectively and it’s a pleasant setup, there’s an excellent storyline and we care about these individuals. And now right here they’re simply confronting and there’s this shock in, nicely between the each of them as a result of the spouse is seeing, however the husband is experiencing his spouse’s shock and that is his second of, Oh god.
And one in all my firm members put their hand up and stated, “I want his arm to come back.” And they accepted that and so they went again and began the story over once more, and so they had been arising the steps and this man who we all know has misplaced his arm and he’s grieving and he’s in ache and all these things, and the spouse is afraid to see him and all these things that had been arrange and within the stairs. And he sees her and his outpouring of pleasure to see her. He went with each arms and all people within the room— it was like a complete factor of theatrical occasion. It outdated logic and went to actual human occasion.
Of course, he’s not going to get his arm again, however his love gave him a full capability to embrace and overcome that second. And it was so clear and it didn’t should get spelled out. It didn’t should have a complete bunch of language, it was only a second when all people realized, in that day and time we had, entry to like is all that issues. Love is all we want. And that was a second of pleasure.
Jeffrey: That’s superb. But not essentially rooted in Boal. They simply stated, “Hey, we’re going to joker the scene, we’re going to change the scene and you get a choice and we’re going to do it.” That’s superb.
The council I’d give with hindsight is belief your self. A variety of the agony of the work is doubt within the face of bother.
Bob: Yeah, yeah. They simply stated, “Boom, this is it.” And there was a joker within the sense somebody stated, “Hey, stop.” They’re speaking. What would you like? But I don’t know whether or not they had been working instantly with Boal at that time in 1970, that will most likely have been—
Jeffrey: Boal wouldn’t have printed Theatre of the Oppressed for an additional eight or 9 years.
Bob: Bob Alexander is a hero for the ensemble and devised motion. He is a serious piece of the historical past of that world. I don’t assume I ever met Bob. My expertise was along with his firm and in a efficiency. And it was extremely inspiring to me within the brief time period. I had by no means heard of Boal. I didn’t hear Boal for an additional twenty years.
Jeffrey: Wow.
Bob: But it’s very doable. I imply, the actual fact is that Freire, Boal’s mentor, was conscious of and modeled his work on the work at Highlander and Myles Horton, who was the founding father of Highlander. It wasn’t till they had been each of their eighties that they met and put collectively that extraordinary e book referred to as We Make the Path by Walking. Freire—Paulo Freire—and Myles Horton. And after all, Boal was in a way the following era, however he was an advocate within the proponent of Freire’s work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
So, who is aware of, who knew who again within the seventies. But I can see this wanting backwards, I can see that whether or not it was just by osmosis or precise compensation, they had been working in very, very comparable style with some good actors.
Jeffrey: Yeah. And all motivated by political or socially motivated work and content material, that is all—
Bob: Political, and likewise understanding that it wanted to be not within the theatre area within the palaces of tradition, however within the streets and in the neighborhood or communities the place this stuff make a distinction. I simply need to say that by way of references or inspirations, it was not till a bit later, it’d be 5 years into our journey with the Road Company, which by the best way began out because the American Revolutionary Road Company, and that labored till July 5, 1976.
And at that time, it appeared expedient to drop the “American Revolutionary” half in East Tennessee. The second had handed, the Fourth of July, and I used to be realizing I wished to be right here the long-term, and the Road Company made extra sense.
Jeffrey: Got you.
Bob: We had been about 5 years working with Spolin within the rehearsal room, creating play after play utilizing Spolin methods. And I type of ran out of steam with Spolin. I used to be feeling that there was extra to be completed than what was taking place with my understanding of the workouts as I obtained them from the e book. I by no means did a workshop with Boal.
But within the meantime, we had been profitable with working with different theatre corporations within the Southeast to type Alternate ROOTS. And Alternate ROOTS was constructed out of necessity, however it additionally turned, for me and for I do know many, many different individuals, it turned lifeblood, one another, and recognizing that we had been all a part of the identical crew, if you’ll. We had been doing totally different sorts of labor, however all of us had a shared imaginative and prescient for one thing that was essential to us. And we had been studying from each other.
And one of many issues that occurred at ROOTS was that we might usher in individuals from both inside ROOTS or outdoors of ROOTS who we wished to listen to from very particularly. And a fellow named Steve, who I’ve talked about already, was invited to return in and provide a workshop throughout our annual assembly. And Steve had labored with Joe Chaikin, and I’m not precisely positive if Steve was in some unspecified time in the future a part of Joe Chaikin’s Open Theater or theatre challenge.
So, he introduced the work, the experimentation that Joe Chaikin was engaged on, and it was completely informative to me. It was answering to the questions that I had about Spolin. It opened up improvisation, how you can survive the snicker line as a result of the snicker line is at all times the best way out of the warmth. And some actors are fast to go to the snicker line to get the snicker, but additionally it takes them proper out of the second and releases the warmth.
So, how do you dig deeper? How do you transcend that? How do you level out what’s beneath that by way of exploration? And what I discovered was from Joe Chaiken and Steve Kent, who studied with Joe, and the work that we had been in a position to do after that was exponentially higher, richer, much more satisfying. Both for the actors, corporations, ensemble, and the viewers, we had been making a lot better—
And the following place that I personally grew, that type of quantum leap, was my exploration with Impro by Keith Johnstone, who upended lots of [inaudible 00:36:38] very, very totally different method to improv. And so, it exploded the sense enormously.
Jeffrey: I’m glad you jumped into ROOTS as a result of I did need to ask you about that. So, you’re on this second and also you see the necessity to carry everybody collectively. Who are a few of these preliminary members? What total did Alternate ROOTS do for you in that second, and perhaps if you happen to can quick ahead it to now and what’s it doing now?
Bob: Yeah. Well it’s fairly superb. It’s an astonishing historical past. In some methods, it’s rooted in Highlander. Highlander was and is a gathering of individuals. They’re very dedicated to the concept of individuals studying from each other. And as a way to try this, they keep relationships. They keep lists of individuals, contact info. And when a scenario arises, they know individuals to speak to and to usher in from wherever that may be inappropriate.
They’re a college and not using a college, however their college is individuals throughout, actually at this level, everywhere in the world who can reply to a selected want and provide knowledge and sensible recommendation to people who find themselves on the lookout for assist. And the entire premise there may be that individuals study after they want it, when they should.
So, Highlander had a way of artists within the Southeast, and significantly in Appalachia, who had been utilizing their artwork as activists, not essentially as organizers, though some had been, however as activists, as making a poem, talking of poem, popping out of the group of the coal fields generally is a mobilizing factor. It can seize individuals’s hearts and produce them collectively. And artists had been doing that and conscious of that. And Highlander knew about that.
And they really referred to as for a gathering of writers in Appalachian. And the ensuing group nonetheless exists, the Southern Appalachian Writers Coop. And with the success of that individual occasion, of us at Highlander wrote a grant to name collectively theatre artwork within the south. I discovered this story or I discovered this side of this story from Ron Short, who was on the time the interim government director of Highlander. He turned an ensemble member of Roadside Theater. But on the time, he was working as a workers particular person at Highlander.
And he referred to as me and Jo Carson after they obtained this small grant to see if Jo would possibly be capable to do the organizing to name collectively a convention of theatre individuals within the Southeast. And we agreed. Jo was within the firm, I stated, “Yes, this makes sense.” And that they had some cash to pay Jo. So, it was an excellent deal. And Jo and I labored collectively and he or she was the operative who went out within the discipline and talked to individuals and despatched letters and made cellphone calls and gathered individuals.
And it was an open name, any theatre might come. And she reached out to the out of doors drama individuals, the summer time inventory individuals, the tutorial individuals, and as many theatre efforts that had been taking place as she might discover. And the fact was that the community-based artists that had been desiring to make a residing, as say a occupation, within the Southeast actually didn’t have any group amongst themselves.
The theatre group within the Southeast was primarily— the Southeastern Theatre Conference was an educational group. And it associated to the occupation in as a lot because it was attempting, usually talking, the tutorial items had been attempting to get summer time work for his or her college students in order that they associated to the out of doors drama summer-stock individuals and provided audition time. But apart from that, there wasn’t actually an orientation in assist of the establishments that had been making. It was actually in assist of the tutorial.
So, once we gathered at Highlander, and a few of us who knew who people had been and determined to go together with them left Friday afternoon earlier than we even began, all a bunch of hippies or no matter it’s, and that is what I accomplish that goodbye.
And the folks that had been left had been individuals who had been primarily beginning their very own corporations in numerous communities all through the South. Roadside Theater was there. Playgroup from Knoxville was there. The Academy Theatre from Atlanta was there. The Birmingham Children Theatre was there. And I don’t have a full record in entrance of me, however there was this New World Theater… Various firm who had been curious and wished to know extra. And we spent that lengthy weekend collectively.
And one of many key moments in that weekend can be we stopped speaking and went swimming. Yeah. So, what I used to be driving at mainly is that ROOTS started to develop once we began enjoying collectively. And the form of ROOTS, the organizational form of ROOTS, emerged out of play. We determined, for instance, that we didn’t need to have the paperwork of titles.
So, the one that stepped as much as say that they might take accountability for getting sure duties completed was referred to as a “supreme carrot.” And we’re making a salad. And Leanne Davis was a supreme carrot, and all of us had little vegetable names as a way to say, “Okay, I need to be the cucumber and you’re the salad dressing” and so forth.
And we additionally, in that spirit of curiosity and play, we determined that we wished a company by which all of the members voted. There wasn’t going to be a board of six or eight individuals who make the determinations, however that the entire membership is the governing physique. And on the time, we represented with the collective of all the businesses members, we had been most likely, I don’t know, eight individuals, perhaps that, perhaps much less, fifty individuals. But that premise was constructed into the precise constitution and bylaws, and ROOTS now’s a forty-five-year-old not-for-profit group with a board of 200.
And we’re, for my part, an experiment in participatory democracy. It’s onerous work. It calls on extra than simply getting my providers from my vote. I’m engaged within the group, I’m a part of it, and I make a dedication to the welfare of a company. And that has sustained us by way of some very onerous occasions, the least of which isn’t sufficient cash. The actual onerous occasions is when there are critical aesthetic social, political misconnections. And we’ve had many, it’s oftentimes considered typical of ROOTS that someplace alongside the road, any individual’s going to do one thing and the entire thing will get thrown up within the air.
There are moments through the historical past the place issues get thrown up within the air, and generally it’s been round one factor or one other, however one explicit one, and never unusual, was round race, and the way can we perceive what it means to be working throughout variations of race and gender and so forth and so forth.
Well, one explicit second, and I gained’t get into the depth of it, however fairly than shouting in, ROOTS had really developed a tradition of listening and serving to fairly than accusing. And I imply, sure, we had been accusing. Yes, individuals had been damage. Yes, they hollered and spoke up. But someplace within that, there was an understanding that that is a part of being collectively and we have to discover our strategy to it collectively.
Jeffrey: So, I really reached out to Michael Rohd to see if he might ask you a query. And that is really a query from him that I’m going to pose to you proper now that pertains to perhaps proper the place the route that you simply’re moving into. “Knowing that Alternate ROOTS was always a social change–based collection of artists, but one whose relationship to social justice internally and externally has evolved over the decades, if you could time machine back to the circle of folks at Alternate ROOTS’ beginnings and offer council, what might you offer in this specific area?”
Bob: I believe the council I’d give with hindsight is belief your self. A variety of the agony of the work is doubt within the face of bother. Well, the fact that we are able to have a look at over the course of the final many years is that we’ve grown, we’ve discovered from each other, and we’ve been in a position to not solely settle for the problem, however start actually assembly the problem of a pluralistic democratic group.
I don’t assume that there’s counsel to be provided to keep away from the battle. We would possibly wish to assume that, however we needed to study our manner by way of it. We needed to study our strategy to the place we imagined going. Because in some methods, we by no means imagined going wherever. But in some methods, that is what’s actually essential. We simply began doing. We didn’t plan on how you can be an ideal group. We simply began doing.
So, the very first thing we did was to play on the swimming gap. And we realized at that time, “Oh, wait a second. Is this fun working with you guys?” Oh, nobody knew anyone else’s firm. We had been all total strangers to at least one one other by way of our aesthetics and our precise practices.
So, the following factor we wanted to do was to get along with our reveals and share our reveals with each other. So, we deliberate a bit pageant, which was primarily— we had been our personal viewers. We had been attempting to study one another, however it was completed within the context of a public occasion. So, there was public name for viewers, which is actual applicable. But the deal was we simply began performing for each other and we discovered that manner versus, “Okay, so you guys are a bunch of performers, how can we help? Oh, you need some more money. We’ll figure out how to get more money.”
No, no, no. Let’s play collectively. And that was a elementary precept that was by no means articulated. It was merely— it was the apparent factor for individuals within the room and we did it.
Now, that doesn’t imply to say that there weren’t below assumptions inside that play that had been racist, misogynistic, anti-democratic, all of the issues that include human beings.
Jeffrey: Yeah. What I’m listening to you say is that you simply wouldn’t have been as sturdy of a company if you happen to hadn’t had the battle that you simply had. If you wouldn’t have had the battle to work by way of these issues and have the conversations you wanted to have and face, such as you stated in regards to the Chaikin work, of not letting fun line allow you to out of it. How do you retain going deeper and deeper.
Bob: Yes, yeah.
The artwork that reinforces the established order is simply as political because the artwork that’s subversive.
Jeffrey: I additionally reached out to Jerry Stropnicky. And I requested him the identical type of questions like, “If you had Bob Leonard, what would you ask him?” And what he introduced up was that: “Ensemble theatre is so important as a movement, if nothing else, because of the diverse ways of theatremaking.” Jerry continues: “Today ensemble theatre feels like a very vital sector of the American theatre and the makeup with its dedication to devising diversity and community art and social change. You also founded the Network of Ensemble Theaters. And so, can you speak to how Network of Ensemble Theaters and Alternate ROOTS cross-pollinated in these two important movements?”
Bob: I can’t run the record of individuals, however Lisa Mount got here to a gathering, an early assembly of the Network of Ensemble Theaters and simply turned to me and stated, “It’s amazing how many ROOTS people are in this meeting.” Carlton Turner, Linda Parris-Bailey, Lisa, and so forth and so forth. In ROOTS historical past, there have been individuals significantly from California who discovered about ROOTS, got here to ROOTS, after which wished for ROOTS to turn out to be nationwide. And there have been individuals in ROOTS who wished for ROOTS to supply a nationwide platform for ROOTS members.
And so, we turned type of conscious of a stress between the regional side of ROOTS, being the Southeastern or Southern group, and the need for the type of work that we had been permitting ourselves to do to develop to a nationwide degree. And we stored our eye on the regional as a result of it was actually fairly a definition, and we knew how tough it was to prepare at that degree. And the concept of going now a number of quantums bigger appeared completely unattainable.
But what we did need to do is counsel the opportunity of having sibling organizations in different areas within the nation. That by no means has occurred precisely. Although I believe there’s a relationship of widespread spirit with a few of the regional organizations that exist, just like the New England Federation [Foundation for] of the Art. The ROOTS by no means aspired to turning into a nationwide group.
But the eight or ten ensembles that Jerry mainly gathered collectively to speak a couple of community of ensemble theatres turned a extra manageable nationwide effort. Because we weren’t attempting to supplant TCG, type of the entire of theatre on the nationwide degree, however fairly the sector of the ensemble, which has its personal type of definition, self-defined. That felt good.
And I do know that I introduced my expertise with ROOTS into the conversations that we had over the course of a few years going from, “Let’s do a network so we can get a computer.” That was within the sense the primary effort, we had been attempting to get some {dollars} from Apple in order that we might get a pc for each member of the nascent group in order that we might really talk with one another through the pc world.
We didn’t know what we had been speaking about, however we had this sense that we might simply plug in and the whole lot can be nice. But it was mainly— the greenback potential there was round networking through the pc. And as we continued to speak and we discovered a bit bit of cash right here and there to return collectively to have conferences, earlier than we had been a company, it was actually a planning course of. We would constantly play. We had been folks that had been open to joshing and enjoying and speaking in regards to the work and perhaps bringing in one thing or puppet or doing this and that, and that alternate, aesthetic alternate, lay on the coronary heart of the trouble, the best way it had with ROOTS. And it felt very, in that sense, comparable.
So, when Carlton or Linda or I’d discuss a ROOTS reference, it was informative to the considering of oldsters who had been in different areas of the nation and hadn’t had that have. So, there was lots of interaction within the planning, within the conceiving and in planning. And I believe that there continues to be an actual resonance between the 2 organizations.
ROOTS has expanded manner past theatre. At some level formally divorced the concept of ROOTS as an acronym. ROOTS was initially Regional Organization of Theater South, and the pun is fantastic. The acronym is outdated. We’ve obtained poets and dancers and musicians and hip hop artists and every kind of oldsters, visible arts, every kind of individuals. And we’ve type of departed from organizational orientation, which is— I believe there are individuals who eager to have that come again. So, proper now, there aren’t any organizational members of ROOTS. Everybody is a person member.
Jeffrey: I type of need to look again on the group apply the place we type of began and take into consideration: Do you will have a way of the place we’re going with civic apply and community-minded work?
Bob: There’s lots to be unpacked within the query. I simply went to a live performance final evening of Rhiannon Giddens. Do ?
Jeffrey: No.
Bob: Extraordinary. I didn’t know of her both. She’s a Genius award recipient, a musician of extraordinary— African American, North Carolinian by delivery. She performs and sings. She educated as an opera… Italian. She performs the banjo, fiddle. She’s now partnered with a percussionist and a pianist who educated as a jazz musician, and he or she writes music that’s so highly effective, expression of the battle round race, battle what it means to be African American within the United States proper now.
She writes music that simply opens her coronary heart and thoughts in the identical room. She is an activist and it’s pure artwork. I don’t assume you possibly can separate it. When I used to be arising, there was an enchantment to some of us, myself included, to instrumentalize artwork that was in assist of a selected occasion, like an illustration.
So, avenue theatre that will increase the ideologic place of the organizers of an anti-war motion demonstration or feminism, girls’s motion, et cetera, civil rights motion. But that instrumentalized perform of artwork is just not defining of artwork as political versus the non-political artwork. I deeply consider that each one artwork is political and the imaginary that any given piece of artwork could also be working in, both on the bus or off the bus, however they’re virtually imaginary. They’re shifting the creativeness of the viewers, and that’s, in itself a subversive act.
As quickly as somebody sees one thing in a different way from the best way they awakened within the morning due to realizing another person had a unique imaginative expertise, I’ve modified. Now, the artwork that reinforces the established order is simply as political because the artwork that’s subversive. We want to grasp that.
Jeffrey: Can you go into that a bit bit?
Bob: Well, the assist of the established order is a political act. It could also be much less seen as a result of we settle for the set of imaginary which are throughout the type as being “normal.” So, it’s not subversive as a result of it reinforces what I settle for as being the best way I believe the world is. But that may be a political act. It could also be unintended as political act. It might merely be the consequence of uncritiqued consciousness on the a part of the art-maker, however it’s nonetheless political.
And likewise, the artist who’s excited about subverting or difficult the established order or proposing a viable different should even be extremely crucial of my very own assumptions, and the way do I try this? Those are the issues that we should be versus attempting to make a distinction between political and non-political artwork or the artwork that’s primarily based on, type of, proposes social justice.
I imply, in some actual diploma, Henrik Ibsen was a social justice activist, however he didn’t fall below that class. He wasn’t checked out from that viewpoint as distinguished from another type. It’s what, it wrote him, and I believe that’s as true right this moment because it was then. I believe that artists are individuals who can’t assist however give expression that’s then shared and discover resonance with audiences.
The actual query has to do with how can we proceed to develop a critique in an surroundings that’s pluralist? That’s the problem. I imply, we’ve to be a bit provocative. We have a superb artist proper now who’s doing efficiency artwork to what I consider as nice peril to nation.
What Donald Trump is doing is good efficiency artwork. You would possibly say that he’s not working for social justice, however there are those that consider he’s. And we are able to handle and critique the imaginary and the proposals and so forth and so forth, however the type of art-making that he’s doing, he’s good.
Jeffrey: That notion crossed my thoughts someday in 2019 that I had the second of, if that is an act, and he’s obtained lots of of us subverted and he’s obtained lots of of us believing, however in some unspecified time in the future, I assumed it was going all to return out within the wash, it will be an enormous shock that that is all an act. Yeah. Provocative or not, I subscribe with you. I’m with you.
Bob: I don’t assume this can be a significantly ingenious thought. I believe individuals in every single place, significantly of efficiency artists, are actual— Oh, I do know what he’s doing. I can see what he’s doing. But that then comes right down to the problem of how can we carry into the general public sphere critique? How can we perceive critique? How can we perceive deliberation versus debate? Can we come collectively to deliberate on our personal future, or are we debating about which future we have to take? Those are two various things to do. And we’re being physique checked into debate, divisive rhetoric. I don’t assume we’ve to rise to that event. And it’s awfully tough to not.
Jeffrey: Is that the artist’s job proper now? Is to proceed to replicate and display and produce this concept ahead of subverting and difficult what’s already current?
Bob: Well, I wouldn’t name it the job, however it’s what arts do. And I say that within the sense of inclusion of the entire panorama, not simply these artists that had been proposed to not be or not be anyway on an ideological type, however that is what artists do, and we have to turn out to be higher and higher and higher, not solely in our craft, however in our capability to critique our personal assumptions: What’s beneath my selection?
And wanting again at ROOTS, for instance, there was a substantial quantity of white male assumption units within the organizing of ROOTS originally. And we needed to work our manner by way of. The tough factor about assumptions is that they’re assumed and the best way issues are, and “Of course we’ll do it this way” and all people says, “Yes, of course, we will.” Down the highway, oops. But then you definitely’ve obtained a combat happening that’s constructed on one thing that wasn’t critiqued originally, and also you begin coping with the superficial of it fairly than the depth of it. How do you get to that deeper query on a regular basis? That’s the one which’s difficult.
So, I don’t assume it’s the job, however it’s what artists do. We see one thing, we give expression to it. If nobody acknowledges it as something that they join with, then the artist doesn’t have an viewers. But if there may be an viewers for it, then there’s a resignation and that complete factor begins to advance contained in the artwork expertise after which maybe outdoors the artwork expertise as an organizing software or mobilizing software or no matter. But the problem is find methods to actually critique the assumptions beneath and inside any given inventive expression.
Jeffrey: Bob, thanks a lot in your time right this moment. This has been enlightening in so some ways. And simply thanks a lot for the depth and the breadth and the dialog— of your dialog right this moment. I actually recognize it, and I actually recognize reconnecting with you after so a few years. This is precisely what I hoped it will be, so thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks.
Bob: Yeah. Well, thanks very a lot for the questions and for considering to name on me. This is figure that’s half of an entire big variety of individuals and other people have given their lives for it. I consider John O’Neal, who was completely unflagging in his religion within the human expertise of art-making and connecting with individuals by way of artwork, by way of storytelling, by way of telling reality that may be heard. And I simply assume that what you’re doing is absolutely essential to be gathering tales and to be sharing these tales out and to acknowledge that that is one thing that’s vastly horizontal in its energy.
Jeffrey: Yeah. In not so many phrases, I’m simply hoping to catalog all of those tales and display a few of the paths that we’ve been on. And one of many causes I actually wished to attach with you is as a result of we’re on this path of social justice in America proper now, and ensemble theatre particularly, however the place we’ve come from with ensemble theatre is social-justice associated as nicely. And to me, it’s all one, however yeah, as you stated, it’s very horizontal. It’s only a continuation of the road.
Bob: Absolutely.
Jeffrey: Thank you a lot once more in your time and have an awesome remainder of your week, and I hope we are able to join once more quickly.
Bob: I hope that that does occur, Jeff. Thank you a lot.
Jeffrey: First, a particular because of Quasimondo Physical Theatre for letting me use their Zoom line for this uninterrupted interview. Second, an enormous because of Michael Rohd, an interviewee from season two, and Jerry Stropnicky, a thought associate on numerous initiatives with me, for providing up the inquiries to Bob. Both of whom are board members on the Network of Ensemble Theaters.
Right out of the gates with Bob, he’s answering the query of ensemble, and he ties it as soon as once more to Jawole’s ideas in season three, episode one. The concept of ensemble in music. I like that. It actually has me fascinated by the cross-pollination, that we have to study from different mediums whereas fascinated by theatre and ensemble-based work.
Where is ensemble in different processes, in surgical theatres, in organized sports activities, in animals? Let’s maintain considering: Where can we draw an increasing number of connections in regards to the ideas of ensemble work? I additionally like what he has to say about an organization, not within the sense of a enterprise. This had a extremely sturdy tie for me to our interview with Coya Paz of Free Street Theater in season one. Ever since speaking to her, I haven’t been in a position to carry myself to say “company” a couple of theatre or an artist except I do know it’s already of their identify, because it has such a powerful connection to company meanings.
There’s obtained to be some actually fascinating entomology of the phrase “devising,” proper? This is just not the primary time that we’ve heard of us point out Viola Spolin or Augusto Boal as a way of creating work that’s improvisational at first.
Furthermore, Bob invokes the Living Theatre as nicely, Joseph Chaikin, and the quote about how you can survive the snicker line in a few of the social-justice associated works was so significant. Don’t get out of the new second, keep in it, which is a extremely good rule for all times as nicely.
Speaking of Living Theatre and Joseph Chaikin, just a few episodes from now we’ll be talking with Karen Malpede, a playwright who labored very intently with the Living Theatre of us. I do hope you hang around for that convo within the coming weeks.
Last factor I’ll say is that I actually recognize how Alternate ROOTS started with a way of play. As Bob stated, “The first thing we did was play at the swimming hole.” Yes. I hope that all of us have that area to find out about one another as individuals earlier than we learn to assist each other in our objectives.
All proper, of us, right here we’re the top of one other episode. I recognize you being right here. Thanks for becoming a member of me on this path down the highway of ensemble historical past, and I sit up for having you be a part of us once more From the Ground Up.
This has been one other episode of From the Ground Up. You can discover, like, and observe this podcast @ftgu_pod, or me, Jeffrey Mosser @ensemble_ethnographer on Instagram, and @KineticMimetic on Twitter.
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