I know you are but what am I?

When I first moved to South Carolina almost 11 years ago, I really hadn’t prepared myself linguistically for what was to come. I mean, I spoke fluent German, I spoke fluent English, what else did I need to know?

I think “y’all” was the first new word to enter my vocabulary. I prefer it actually to what I was saying before: “you guys”. I actually think “y’all” is a more progressive form of address, you know, gender neutral and everything. After “y’all” came “cut on the light” and “mash the button” and “iddn’t” instead of “isn’t” and various other interesting twists on the English of our forefathers, some of which I found more useful than others.

But one day, about 3 or 4 months after I moved to the Upstate, I was standing on my driveway helping a friend load some things into her car. I asked her a question and she stopped what she was doing, looked at me and said “Do what?”.

Uh, what? I just stared at her. I had absolutely no idea what that meant. “Do what?”. I didn’t even know what the proper response was to that question. Was it some sort of game I didn’t know the rules for? What’s the answer to “Do what?”??? And for a brief moment I panicked. It was a total conversation killer. Finally I just sort of stuttered “W-w-what?”.

Well, yesterday I had a similar experience. At the very least it drudged up that same feeling of not knowing how to counter, to be linguistically incapable of response, to panic because you really needed more time to research the query, statement, whatever before you provided an adequate snappy retort, if indeed a snappy retort is what the question called for. I mean you don’t want to get snippy with someone who may have just complimented you, right?

Yesterday, someone called me “ARTSY-FARTSY”.

Shut up! I am not!

Um, thank you?

Sticks and stones blah blah blah

“Artsy-Fartsy”? What’s that supposed to mean? Is it a compliment? Is it an insult? Is it neither?

Well I knew it couldn’t be a compliment. Nothing as patronizingly diminutively cute as “artsy fartsy” could possibly be a compliment. Plus, you know, it includes the synonym for passing gas. “Artsy” sounds nice. But “artsy-fartsy” not so much. So compliment was out. That left me with insult or neither.

So I decided to look it up and here’s what I found. According to www.yourdictionary.com, this is what it means:

artsy-fartsy (ärt′sē färt′sē)

adjective

Slang pretentiously artistic, sophisticated, etc.

also arty-farty art′y-fart′y (ärt′ē färt′ē)

Ah, so artistic and sophisticated I’m okay with, but “pretentiously” artistic and sophisticated, I don’t think so. So I continued looking. According to www.thefreedictionary.com, artsy-fartsy is defined as such:

art·sy-fart·sy (ärts-färts)

adj. Vulgar

Pretentiously or affectedly artistic.

Um, there’s that P word again, and now “affected”, not to mention that the entire word is defined as Vulgar. This is starting to go downhill fast. Maybe it’s internet bias. Perhaps printed sources, such as real books might provide something a little bit less “not on my side”. So here goes:

ARTSY-FARTSY - "adj.; having an affinity for arty things. (U.S. slang, mid 1900s)" From "Slang and Euphemism: A Dictionary of Oaths, Curses, Insults, Ethnic Slurs, Sexual Slang and Metaphor, Drug Talk, College Lingo and Related Matters" by Richard A. Spears (New American Library, Penguin Putnam, New York, Third Edition, 2001)

Okay first off, what are arty things? And secondly why is this included in a dictionary of “insults, ethnic slurs, drug talk and related manners”???? At least it didn’t say anything about affection or pretention. So I looked a bit further:

artsy-fartsy
adjective (artsy-farts, ier)

1. (colloquial) A frivolous or dismissive description of someone or something that is artistic or pretentiously artistic.

Now this one I can live with. And as much as I suspected, the term “artsy-fartsy” may have more to do with the person who uses the word than the person they are attempting to describe. I enjoy this definition, as much as one can enjoy a definition. Maybe in calling me “artsy-fartsy”, this person (who is a friend who is not involved in the arts nor claims to understand the fascination with it) was simply being “dismissive” of a part of me, an interest I share with others, that he/she didn’t really understand. And in doing so, I’m sure they meant no harm, hence the moniker being “frivolous”. The “pretentious” part is still in the definition, but at least it gives the option of being “artistic OR pretentiously artistic”. Never before have I hung on two simple letters so desperately.

So, compliment or insult or neither? I’m going with neither.

Alright, now if you’ll excuse me I have a Metropolitan Opera live feed to watch on my large screen plasma TV, which is located in the pottery studio I had especially built with a state of the art kiln. Now if I could just get the cork out of this bottle of Dom, I could probably finally turn my attention to the private ballet training session I have with the instructor I flew in from the Bolshoi Ballet

Ciao!

What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s a happenin’

All has been quiet on the Spartanburg Little Theatre front for the past few months. After the one two three four five punch of "Peter Pan", "The Jungle Book", "Noises Off", "The Elves and the Shoemaker" and "The Santaland Diaries" (all within a span of 4 months mind you) we've all taken a much needed break to cool our heels and gear up for what promises to be a jam packed Spring.

So what's on tap?

The Spartanburg Youth Theatre is first on the bill and is currently in rehearsals for "Wiley and the Hairy Man" which runs publicly February 13 and 14 (school time shows are February 11 and 12). Directed by Betsy Kneisley, this may not be the most well-known children's play, but it certainly is one of the best, with an excellent script and talented group of Spartanburg youth including Kyle McIntyre who you may remember as "Michael" in this season's "Peter Pan". Come out and support the 2nd oldest Youth Theatre in the state of South Carolina and the ONLY "by youth--for youth" Youth Theatre program in the entire state.

On Monday evening I was lucky enough to meet with the cast of our next Spartanburg Little Theatre production, the jam up extravaganza "Thoroughly Modern Millie". Just looking out at the cast, I was amazed at the talent that has come together to work on this show. Directed by John Fagan, with music direction from Ed Connolly and choreography by Peggy Magarahan, this show is in good hands. In fact, I believe this is the Upstate premiere of "Thoroughly Modern Millie". Mark the first two weekends of March out on your calendar and we'll see you there.

The Spartanburg Youth Theatre is also gearing up for its third round of classes. Matt Giles, the Artistic Director of the Youth Theatre has revamped the entire curriculum with new levels and longer classes. We're really excited to see some changes happening across the board.

And finally, we have a new coordinator for "Imagine That", our teen improv theatre group. Her name is Sterling Kenny and I know she has a lot of fabulous ideas for "Imagine That". If you've never seen "Imagine That" perform, it really is something, tackling hard to talk about issues with teens and youth.

So that's the haps folks. Now take a deep breath Jay and jump on in....

Judy says it does. So there!

Recently I had coffee with a journalist in town who was interviewing me for a column he was to write for a local newspaper/journal. We chatted about my relationship to local theatre, various roles I had played, productions I had directed, my childhood, my introduction to theatre and various other topics that left me feeling a bit self-centered and narcissistic. To talk about yourself for over an hour and leave not feeling slightly on the self-important side is a talent I haven’t yet mastered. However, towards the end of the conversation my friend, the journalist side-swiped me with a question I hadn’t anticipated and one that I wasn’t necessarily prepared for. His question was quite simple: “Do you think community theatre still has a place?”. I was dumbfounded. Immediately taken aback at the audacity of someone to even ask such a thing or to somehow doubt that something that I hold so dear has a “place” in our community, I was almost became defensive. Of course it does! How could you even ask such a thing?

Days later I was still thinking about this question and I began to understand where he might have been coming from. Those who aren’t involved do not automatically see the significance of something that they aren’t necessarily passionate about. How incensed do you think the local ladies’ quilting bee would be if I waltzed into their meeting and asked “Hmmm, do you really think you all NEED to be doing this? Is there really a ‘place’ for you?” Well, it’s been a few weeks since our conversation and I’m still thinking about it. My answer is the same. But as always I’ve chewed on it almost daily since the question was posed and I started to think about why community theatre does have a place, and more importantly, why it should.

When I was young I lived in Southern California. On Sunday afternoons, after we watched Popeye, a show came on called “Family Film Festival” where this man, who I seem to recall looked like a combination of Mr. Rogers and Jack Lalane, would introduce various movies from the 1930’s through the 1960’s. I remember watching all of the old school “Pippi Longstocking” movies and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” on the “Family Film Festival”. But it was “Summer Stock” an old Judy Garland movie, that I remember with the most fondness and that I still catch from time to time on AMC.

In “Summer Stock”, a big band of crazy theatre folk are using some Judy’s barn and farm to rehearse and put on a big ole musical. I seem to recall that she had a very stodgy husband/boyfriend and that she’s not in the show, but that she’s somehow involved in the production and the lead female is a real brat and the male lead is a stiff poser and that somehow she and Gene Kelly end up starring in the show and falling in love and all that mess. It wasn’t really the love story that was of interest to me, it was that there were all these actors and singers and dancers and designers and directors and musicians AND they were all living on this farm together and they would rehearse their show ALL DAY. I was fascinated. I mean, how cool would that be?

Everything they did was infused with a heightened sense of camaraderie, a “pull this show up by its bootstraps” spirit, and the collective knowledge that “we’ve got to get this thing done and it’s going to be the BEST SHOW EVER!!!!”. Add in the various and sundry “Show-mances”, the drama of recasting, and the discovery of real and fresh talent and I was completely hooked. Years later, this is still what I want community theatre to be and it is still why I keep going back, over and over again.

So I guess my answer is this: Of course community theatre has a place. If the insinuation is that live community theatre is an outdated form of entertainment, that crowds are dwindling because of a wealth of new entertainment options, that children and adults alike have other things they would rather be doing with their increasingly decreased amount of free time, then you may unfortunately have a point. Times and tastes do change.

But go to a rehearsal of 30 eager teachers, doctors, lawyers, retirees, sound engineers, secretaries, students, parents, etc. who are giving everything they’ve got to bring songs and characters and sets and sound to life. Go to a performance where anywhere from 100 to 500 eager audience members are hanging on the actors’ every word, watch childrens’ faces light up when Peter Pan flies high above the stage, watch adults cry as Grizabella sings “Memory”, buy in to the infectious laugher and sense of community you feel when you are laughing your guts out surrounded by a mass of other people who are also laughing their guts out. Get the real stories behind the actors, the crew, the organization: the marriages, engagements, divorces, deaths, diseases, graduations, birthdays, friendships, heartbreaks, successes and the romances. Watch the infectious energy, the undying spirit, the unwavering support, the admirable dedication to doing yourself, each other and your community proud. This is what community theatre is and should be all about.