Speed-the-Plow

We’re doing Speed-the-Plow

Next year

Even though I begged him

To do Jesus Christ Superstar

It’s a rock opera

It’s Andrew Lloyd Webber

It’s Jesus

It’s a sure thing

But Tennessee is very—

He’s still interested

In preserving the sort of

Dignified impression of this place

That hasn’t actually existed

Since the sixties

I tell him—‘We’re not really a theater anymore, Ten

We’re a complex.’

An arts complex, yes

But still, a complex

We house shows

We don’t really produce them

We sure as hell don’t conceptualize them

As soon as an audience hears the word ‘concept’

They assume you’re going to be smearing grape jelly all over yourself

And milking goats onstage

So we try to avoid screwing around with things too much

I like to say we ‘present’ things here

We don’t really do productions

Just presentations

And if you’re asking me

Or if you’re going to ask me

Or whatever

If I feel bad about that

The answer is ‘No’

I don’t

Because my job is the business side of things

And presentation

With a theater as big as ours

Is about all we can get away with

And even then, sometimes, it fails us

There was a year we did nothing but Shakespeare

And it flopped

Totally flopped

Of course, that was before my time

Before Tennessee was even here

But still, if you can’t count on Shakespeare

What can you count on?

Tennessee wants to do Speed-the-Plow

Which is Mamet

Which is not awful

Which I can sell

Sort of

Hopefully

Maybe

But I wish he wouldn’t keep sticking a toe

Over the line

I wish he would just realize

That this is the new reality

The new reality is Jesus Christ Superstar

That’s what the audiences want

And, you know, if the rest of us are trying to, like, keep our dignity or whatever

Then we do it by telling ourselves

That if it were up to us

We’d do nothing but weighty, artistic, heavy shows

That really meant something

But until the economy does a one-eighty

Or until people want to learn

How to milk a goat

We do things my way

And if that makes any of you sad

Then just consider it looking at it

From a different vantage point

And then another

And then another

Until you start to see

How these circumstances could actually be beneficial

To the work we’re doing here

After all, I’m in business

If there’s one thing I believe in

It’s the power of perception