Stage Right
This is my introductory post at Big Hollywood.
It was a cold November evening in 1994 when I shut off my television and went to a board meeting of a Los Angeles service organization for theatre owners and producers. I had just heard the news that for the first time in almost 50 years, both houses of congress would be under the leadership of the Republican party, MY party. I remember vividly feeling the hope and optimism that for the first time in my life, the Speaker of the House would have the same party affiliation as I had, and my father had.
There was a spring in my step walking to the board room. In the back of my mind I wondered to myself if I should violate my vow of silence about politics in front of colleagues whom I did not have full faith and trust in. Surely this sweeping victory signified that it was “ok” to vote Republican. Surely now I could admit that I had some sympathy for a more center-right perspective on politics. Yes, I’ll mention it during the wine and cheese portion of the meeting…
I opened the door and realized that I was not at a board meeting, I was at a funeral. Everything but black armbands. It was silent. People speaking in hushed tones. Grim faces. Not the usual revelry. And trust me, on any other normal occasion, if you get a bunch of theatre people in one room and open a bottle of wine, a party starts. Not tonight. The meeting was quietly called to order and before the president of the board could announce the agenda, a marketing executive from a prominent non-profit theatre in Los Angeles proclaimed: “Well, I don’t know why we’re even bothering having this meeting since our whole country is going to Hell as of tonight!”. It was at this moment I realized that I had absolutely nothing in common with ANY of my colleagues.
I’ve spent the interim time in the shadows trying to ascertain if I had any allies. I laid out a few rules for myself… only reveal my politics under certain conditions:
1. I had to know the person very well.
2. I had to know a secret about THEM. (I know that seems mercenary, but I actually had to employ the tactic once to stay in the closet)
3. Only reveal it in my home or in my office, never in a public location or at a colleague’s office. (this just seemed courteous and also defensive, who would quarrel with me talking my politics in the privacy of my own home)
So here I sit. After over twenty years of work on Broadway and Los Angeles, and I can’t talk politics with most of my colleagues. And, of course the irony is that my colleagues never blush for an instant to throw their politics around as readily as comp tickets to their latest showcase production at a dirty, hole-in-the-wall 40-seat “theatre” in Hollywood. I can’t tell you how many of my Facebook friends had their own lovely image replaced by that of Barack Obama or just the Big Guy’s “O” logo. And those who could not bear to replace their well-preserved image on Facebook with the Obama’s instead merely adopted his middle name as their own: My friend John Doe was John HUSSEIN Doe for three months and counting. Why do they do this? Because it is just ASSUMED that any friend of theirs MUST be as left as they are. I remember one of my friends status updates: “Peter is thinking that anyone who votes Republican must be either an imbecile or rich….” (I resisted the temptation to comment: Damn, I hope I’m both).
And so it goes, until this week, when Andrew Breitbart launches Big Hollywood, a place where we center-right denizens of the entertainment world can slowly inch our way out of the proverbial closet… Just a little. The term Hollywood has gone from a name of a geographic location, to a word describing the commercial entertainment product and industry in America, and certainly our live theatre industry can be a part of the Big Hollywood brand. I hope readers will stop here now and then as I try to keep tabs on what can arguably be described as America’s most radical venue for the performing arts. My posts won’t always be quite so biographical in style and I plan to tap into my sources inside the industry who are, like me, secretly holding our beliefs close to the vest so as not to be ostracized by our colleagues, or worse, our bosses.
Until the next post, Break a leg!
Stage Right is on Facebook.
It was a cold November evening in 1994 when I shut off my television and went to a board meeting of a Los Angeles service organization for theatre owners and producers. I had just heard the news that for the first time in almost 50 years, both houses of congress would be under the leadership of the Republican party, MY party. I remember vividly feeling the hope and optimism that for the first time in my life, the Speaker of the House would have the same party affiliation as I had, and my father had.
There was a spring in my step walking to the board room. In the back of my mind I wondered to myself if I should violate my vow of silence about politics in front of colleagues whom I did not have full faith and trust in. Surely this sweeping victory signified that it was “ok” to vote Republican. Surely now I could admit that I had some sympathy for a more center-right perspective on politics. Yes, I’ll mention it during the wine and cheese portion of the meeting…
I opened the door and realized that I was not at a board meeting, I was at a funeral. Everything but black armbands. It was silent. People speaking in hushed tones. Grim faces. Not the usual revelry. And trust me, on any other normal occasion, if you get a bunch of theatre people in one room and open a bottle of wine, a party starts. Not tonight. The meeting was quietly called to order and before the president of the board could announce the agenda, a marketing executive from a prominent non-profit theatre in Los Angeles proclaimed: “Well, I don’t know why we’re even bothering having this meeting since our whole country is going to Hell as of tonight!”. It was at this moment I realized that I had absolutely nothing in common with ANY of my colleagues.
I’ve spent the interim time in the shadows trying to ascertain if I had any allies. I laid out a few rules for myself… only reveal my politics under certain conditions:
1. I had to know the person very well.
2. I had to know a secret about THEM. (I know that seems mercenary, but I actually had to employ the tactic once to stay in the closet)
3. Only reveal it in my home or in my office, never in a public location or at a colleague’s office. (this just seemed courteous and also defensive, who would quarrel with me talking my politics in the privacy of my own home)
So here I sit. After over twenty years of work on Broadway and Los Angeles, and I can’t talk politics with most of my colleagues. And, of course the irony is that my colleagues never blush for an instant to throw their politics around as readily as comp tickets to their latest showcase production at a dirty, hole-in-the-wall 40-seat “theatre” in Hollywood. I can’t tell you how many of my Facebook friends had their own lovely image replaced by that of Barack Obama or just the Big Guy’s “O” logo. And those who could not bear to replace their well-preserved image on Facebook with the Obama’s instead merely adopted his middle name as their own: My friend John Doe was John HUSSEIN Doe for three months and counting. Why do they do this? Because it is just ASSUMED that any friend of theirs MUST be as left as they are. I remember one of my friends status updates: “Peter is thinking that anyone who votes Republican must be either an imbecile or rich….” (I resisted the temptation to comment: Damn, I hope I’m both).
And so it goes, until this week, when Andrew Breitbart launches Big Hollywood, a place where we center-right denizens of the entertainment world can slowly inch our way out of the proverbial closet… Just a little. The term Hollywood has gone from a name of a geographic location, to a word describing the commercial entertainment product and industry in America, and certainly our live theatre industry can be a part of the Big Hollywood brand. I hope readers will stop here now and then as I try to keep tabs on what can arguably be described as America’s most radical venue for the performing arts. My posts won’t always be quite so biographical in style and I plan to tap into my sources inside the industry who are, like me, secretly holding our beliefs close to the vest so as not to be ostracized by our colleagues, or worse, our bosses.
Until the next post, Break a leg!
Stage Right is on Facebook.
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