Rose Oser: To lead with the adverse, it will be pretty to listen to a bit about what you suppose is tousled in regards to the nonprofit American theatre and what you have been attempting to do in a different way?
Rob Ready: It appeared like there was a number of pink tape and a number of hoops to leap by to do something. It felt like a number of the enjoyment of theatre was sucked out of the method. The course of was devoid of play, which is true there within the fucking phrase. The extra I examine it and noticed stuff, I assumed: This simply appears actually unfun. If you appeared round, the one stuff that was value doing was very, from my perspective, pretentious. I needed to begin one thing that wasn’t so hoity-toity that wouldn’t make me wanna die whereas watching it.
Duncan Wold: I wouldn’t declare to be an knowledgeable on the nonprofit theatre mannequin resembling it’s, however the different factor that I’ve heard Rob speak about quite a bit that resonates is how a lot older useless playwrights get produced over alive folks. The speculation is that when you find yourself funding theatres by foundations and donors, you’re skewing the work that will get carried out. We have a way more populist angle. I’m in for funding for the humanities, however we’re into issues which are populist in nature. It is smart to base the inventive course on the sort of stuff that sells tickets to audiences that wish to be energetic and patronize the bar and the restaurant. Our angle has all the time been, “Let’s book the shit out of everything and say yes to everything.”
Rose: Were you ever anxious about offending anybody with any of your programming? I do know you didn’t have “hoity-toity” donors to fret about, however—
Rob: No. There was a aim to kinda offend some components of the theatre group for positive.
Duncan: There’s somewhat punk rock within the factor. In the angle.
Rose: And the results of that was it all the time felt like the group at PianoFight skewed a lot youthful than different theatres.
Rob: It was a really anti-theatre theatre crowd, and it was a group that acquired constructed over fifteen years. And COVID actually scattered it all over, which is why we’re closing for probably the most half. But the factor is, theatre sucks a lot in so some ways and was so lame and pissed folks off to the purpose the place folks have been like, “I will literally work with these nobody ass clowns”—referring to ourselves at this level—“because it is better than the endless stream of rejections from auditions or doing boring ass musicals that you’ve seen or done before.” They are simply so turned off by that “theatre world.”
Duncan: There’s this type of ethos round “the theatre.”
Rob: It’s very unique. People need to have the suitable this or that. Thinking in regards to the auditions that we might run; these have been probably the most enjoyable auditions within the Bay Area by a mile. What was nice about these too is that we forged possibly 80 p.c of the individuals who auditioned.
Rose: You’re speaking about New Faces Day, proper? Because even within the title, it wasn’t like The Scary Auditions. It was, “Come meet other people who want to make art right now.”
Rob: Yeah. Put your face in our house!
Rose: Do you wish to discuss a bit in regards to the construction of that day? I attended it earlier than, however are you able to articulate it?
Rob: People got here in and we did a gaggle heat up.
Rose: I don’t suppose folks even had monologues. I had a sketch folks have been studying at one level. What was the music folks sang?
Rob: The music was based mostly on Duncan’s pal. “Do you have any weed, can I borrow your car, what is your girlfriend’s number?”
Duncan: The dust bag anthem.
Rob: We put that to a tune and made everybody sing it. And there was the rattling recreation. And then we took previous sketches and paired folks up and they might learn them and do them. It was very easy. There was no preparation required. They didn’t even must have a headshot and resume as a result of we had Mark taking images. It was very come as you’re. Assuming you’re a pleasant individual, odds are you’ll get forged in one of many PianoFight gauntlet reveals.
To get younger folks in a theatre, give the ball to younger folks.
Rose: It’s all the time been clear the way you opened the house to artists, however when different theatres are grappling with the query of the way you get younger audiences into the house, what do you suppose the trick was?
Rob: The creators have been younger. PianoFight all the time had younger folks in positions of authority: writing, directing, creating the corporate, and pushing issues ahead. That by no means went away. Even this yr, we’re nonetheless working with people who find themselves younger and so they get to determine what the present is and so they get to make it how they make it and that attracts a younger crowd.
Rose: I don’t know, I don’t suppose that’s it. There are different theatres on the town which are run by younger people who don’t essentially have a younger viewers.
Rob: It’s additionally the type and content material. Sure, we did some performs, however it was a number of comedies, recreation reveals, site-specific stuff, magic, drag, and burlesque. Lots of these items are newer to the business mainstream than Broadway. If you give younger folks the ball and say “run with it,” odds are they don’t seem to be going to do George Bernard Shaw. To get younger folks in a theatre, give the ball to younger folks.
Duncan: The house opened a month earlier than I turned thirty. New teams of even youthful folks, together with you and the FaultLine people that have been nearer to the age after we began PianoFight as a manufacturing firm, flooded in and made PianoFight the venue. The venue was spoiled by a brand new group of younger folks. One of the explanations for it not with the ability to proceed is that for the final yr and a half, we haven’t been in a position to get that subsequent group of younger people.
Rose: Why do you suppose that’s? Where do you suppose the following technology is?
Duncan: Either they don’t find out about it, or they don’t seem to be round San Francisco.
Rob: I believe a number of them dwell in Oakland. I believe San Francisco bought its soul to tech within the final ten years and it had a bunch of unintended penalties like driving up the price of dwelling to the purpose that it is troublesome for anybody to dwell right here, particularly fellow degenerate artists who wish to play music with their buddies at 11 p.m. on a Thursday. But it’s not one factor. It’s ten issues. The obstacles to entry now are greater than after we began as a result of we had two to 3 years of individuals being like, “I don’t need to go out anymore,” or “I don’t need to go to the city because I don’t live there anymore,” or “I don’t need to go in to work anymore.”
Duncan: The New York Times had an article about how San Francisco has had the slowest restoration of any metropolis. It’s extra than simply the younger folks, there’s an enormous lack of our bodies within the metropolis of all ages and {dollars} being spent on issues like meals, drinks, and leisure. Where are the folks and what are they doing?
Rose: And the place is the nightlife?
Duncan: That consists of the viewers and the creators. Both sides of the equation.
Rose: Even strolling round Union Square feels totally different. It doesn’t really feel like a vacation spot.
Duncan: And the audiences that do come take part differently. They don’t come as early; they don’t keep as late. A a lot greater share of the viewers simply reveals up for the present and leaves proper after.
Rose: Before the pandemic, I’d come to that house even when I wasn’t planning on seeing a present. I’d get some curly fries and get a beer and determine if I used to be within the temper for improv. Maybe I used to be or possibly I wasn’t. That simply wasn’t the case for some other theatre. I’d by no means enter a theatre for enjoyable with no present in thoughts.
Rob: The restaurant and bar simply felt like good enterprise. In different areas, you deliver a crowd of fifty or 100 folks and then you definately give that enterprise to another person after the present. The people who find themselves bringing the group of viewers collectively ought to be capable to profit from that.