This is my favorite time of year. The air is starting to get
crisper, pumpkin spice lattes are at my favorite coffee shops, the
seasonal aisles are filled with bats and the like, I pick up a seasonal
job at a local haunt (this year, I'm doing two - one as a scareactor two
nights a week and one as an fx make up artist 3-4 times a week), and
the trees around Denver turn gold.
I remember last
late September, I was walking to a docent shift at the Molly Brown House
and thought, "oh my! Those oaks look pathetic! Maybe the irrigation is
busted again." No. I am in a town that has seasons for the first time
in 18 years. :) I could tell the changing of the seasons in Orlando,
but only because I lived there for so long. Here in Denver, it's kind
of blinding. And, as a snowboarder, I am overly thrilled with the trees
turning a full two weeks early and snow arriving in the high country
nearly a month before the snow machines start coating the slopes.
I
wonder what autumn is like in California? I am interviewing for a
position there and am hopeful. Not only because it is a stellar
position that fits right where I want to be, I feel I am qualified for
this position, and I can assist in the manner that they need, but
because of the location. I have several friends in that area of
California, there are areas I have dreamed of visiting since I was a
pre-teen (what can I say, I'm a rocker stuck in the 80s who loves
classic movies and a good cabernet), and, as I understand it, I can ride
the snow in the morning and then ride the waves in the evening. It's
the best of both worlds.
Enough about California Dreaming on a chilly Colorado night, let's get back to the original subject - the season.
I love Halloween. It's my favorite holiday. I love everything about the haunting season. It is the pinnacle of my love for horror entertainment. As a matter of fact, it was the Alice Cooper episode of The Muppet Show that set me on this path to where I am today. I remember watching it as a 4-year-old and telling mom that that was what I wanted to do when I grew up. I wanted to BE Alice Cooper. I'm sure it freaked her out, but I turned out ok. I love that end of theatrics... creeping fog, bats and owls, capes and rock music, weird lighting, and so on. I'm not so much into blood and guts. I much prefer the spooky side of things. Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow is my favorite scary movie, for example. I loved The Woman in Black and get a kick out of Hocus Pocus. Granted, I can quote most of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, but that's beside the point. I also love reading Poe. That brings me to an article I happened across two days ago. It's this:
http://baltimorepostexaminer.com/poe-house-closing-leaves-a-concerned-public-puzzled/2012/09/28
The Edgar Allen Poe House in Baltimore is "nevermore."
Reading the article, I am saddened to discover the lack of funding from budget cuts. So much so that private collectors have pulled their objects from display. I've seen that happen before. The end result is never pretty. It usually results in either closure and destruction or a hostile takeover and destruction. Here's hoping that this is the exception. I give kudos to whomever is on staff that is continuing with the social media updates and contests. Poe is so tightly woven into the American Halloween season that I can only speculate it took something drastic to shut them down two days before October.
So, how to save this icon? First off, the election needs to pass and a budget settled. As I see it, the Poe House relies on grants to stay open. Whomever wins local, state, and federal elections concerning Greater Baltimore and museums in general I feel will be the hinge on the door that will allow it to remain open or close forever. It appears to be at a point where ticket sales and private donations are no longer paying the bills. Relying on grants is a bad option, but sometimes it is the only option. I would also hope that with the Baltimore Ravens' good season so far in the NFL that there could be some cross promotion. I remember vaguely reading a year or two ago that this happened but can't find a source to cite at present. There should be a promotional barter deal that could be struck. Perhaps have Poe-laced NFL merch where the museum gets a cut of the sale. Perhaps something as simple as a fly by shot after a commercial break when the Ravens' games are televised. Perhaps the tourist bureau could help get ad space on the Ravens' website and facebook page. Perhaps a small ad in the Ravens' game day magazine.
I fear it may be too late. I certainly hope not.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Sunday, September 16, 2012
The museum as theater
Ok, so a week is actually over a month. *blush*
After the shootings in Aurora, I became a little busy with end of summer and oh-wow-winter-is-coming-early business as well as a surprise surgery with subsequent recovery. I am fine, and the last thing I want to do is post to my professional blog while toasty on pain killers. Needless to say, this took a backseat. Actually, more like a bury it in the trunk and re-visit later kind of thing....
I apologize.
I had mentioned that I wanted to talk about actors in museums. This is of particular interest to me as it is how I started in the museum field in 1998. Prior to being hired as a museum re-enactor, I had never heard of any museum doing such a thing. At Titanic: The Experience, we gave tours in the first person and interacted with other actors as the case may be. We started with strict scripts (a la Disney-type character spiels) but threw that out the window on opening day when we realized that the 6 months of rehearsing meant nothing. The audience rejected it immediately. We all had some sort of improv background and immediately switched to that, using the scripts as guides more than anything else. We did not allow videotaping, so none of this has surfaced on an easy to link to youtube clip. The tour takes on the timeline of the life of the Titanic from a scribble on a cocktail napkin to the most recent movies and dives. Prior to the collision room (where the ship meets the iceberg... digitally, of course), it is a very lively and funny tour. Funny? Titanic? Does not compute. But it worked. Sure, history had to be bent a little... things like: a historical first class lady would never be seen without her husband around (ours were), our Mrs. Brown was always referred to as Molly (even tho historically that is not true, however, we did get the stamp of approval from her descendant Muffett), officers would never mingle with the passengers (ours did), and the classes never mixed (ours did).
Why the veering off course from actual history with our actors? Two main reasons: 1) Our location was unique to the museum world. It was on International Drive in the heart of the tourist district of Orlando, just around the corner from Sea World and Universal Studios. Walt Disney World was about 10 minutes away. Many tourists stay in I-Drive for its affordability. Therefore, we were in direct competition with the theme parks and dinner shows like Pirates and Medieval Times. To effectively compete, we had to draw upon their model of entertainment as opposed to say, Gettysburg for example. 2) Guest Service dictates that if we were to be historically accurate, we would be impolite and even insulting. Some of the historical figures portrayed were not nice people to the general public. Lady Duff-Gordan would likely treat someone approaching her wearing a mouse-ear hat, shorts, and sandals with disdain. Granted, we had a little fun with tourists in this manner, but we spun it so that they would be entertained or, as we said it, "edu-tained." As in, "Ah! I see you've found the swimming bath! Isn't it extraordinary! It's even heated! And look at the swimming bath tile the builders left out for display! Made by Villeroy and Boch! Only the finest ceramics!" We stayed as close to history as possible while still putting on an entertaining show in costumes made of materials more suited to the Florida heat, and educating the public simultaneously.
One of my favorite improv bits, and this came purely from thin air, was when I was portraying Dorothy Gibson, an early movie star. Second Officer Lightoller enters the room as I am explaining the fineries of a first class stateroom (as depicted in our re-creation of suite B-52). I start complaining to him that I need to find the Marconi room to send a Marconigram to my agent in New Jersey. I need to ask my agent why I was booked in a closet on E-deck instead of the suite on B-deck and then fire him. "Lights" then launches into an explanation of the Marconi room, mentions the operators by name, and notices someone lurking in the corner. It's a third class man who has snuck up to first class to see the movie star (actually, it was the actor's turn to go to a different part of the exhibit in our rotation, and we had a rule that when you cross another actor, you must interact). I start squeeling as if I've seen a rat. Lights argues with the starstruck man then, and this was straight out of the movie Tombstone, grabs him by the ear, says "alright youngster, out ya go", and drags him out of the room. The audience enthusiastically applauds and I continue the tour.
The irony of this is that the actor playing Officer Lightoller was a Wyatt Earp re-enactor at another museum in Wyoming prior to joining the cast.
This Dorothy and Lights show, as we called it, became a bit of a legend. Another time, again pure improv, Lights asked me (as Dorothy) in a joking manner if I thought he could be a movie star. I think for a moment and say, "well, you know, you do somewhat resemble that new comedian I saw the last time I was at that chicken farm in Los Angeles.... what was his name... oh yes! Lon Chaney!" And he would get disgusted and the guests would laugh. Actually, there is a lion's share of fact in there. Lon Chaney, Sr. was a comedian in early 1912 in Los Angeles. The chicken farm I mentioned was Universal Studios, also started in 1912, where Mr. Chaney was made into a legend of the horror genre. Mr. Chaney's first film with IMP (early Universal Studios) was in 1913 - Poor Jake's Demise.
During my time as an actor at Titanic, prior to becoming a member of the senior management team around late 2000/early 2001, we toyed with the wandering actor role. Where it is not a tour, but guests intermingle with actors as they wander the museum. This failed miserably. As I've seen more and more actors in museums, I have rarely seen this method of museum theater work. Too often, the actors become bored, do their minimal bits, and wander off - constantly checking the clocks to see when it is time to leave. Improv is a peculiar animal. If the audience is not engaged, more often than not the actor is insulted and bored. I witnessed this recently at the Golden Historical Park in Golden, Colorado. I met one of the actors there and she wasn't even attempting to act. There is a Saturday Night Live skit from several years ago with Britney Spears at Colonial Williamsburg where she is sooooo booooored churning butter that she is no longer engaging the audience. That's how I felt with this situation. It was the same that many of the Titanic actors fell into. Apathetic boredom. The response I got from her, as I was asking her historical questions about the gardens, schoolhouse, mill, etc, was accurate info... but info that I could find just as easily on my smartphone with a couple swipes of my finger. She then went on to complain about how marketing never brings in anyone anymore. They all want to rent a tire and float down the river that flows on the boarder of this truly magnificent park. I can't say that I blame the potential audience for wanting to jump in the river instead of wander thru the park. The park was interesting until she put a negative spin on it. Then, I just wanted to leave and not return. It was 101F that day. If I had known about the tire rental and the river, I would have dressed more appropriately and brought a little extra pocket money to go cool off. Now, as an audience member, I'd rather re-visit Golden for that river and a frozen yogurt place I found. I really have no desire to see that park again.
As a stage manager and fellow actor, I do not care if you are bored. You are an actor. Do your job or go home. A whiny costumed docent does nothing for your organization but alienate your audience. Always play to the audience. Always. Always. Always. In improv, they will dictate where you go next. But, you as an actor dictate where they end up. And, as the saying goes, always leave them coming back for more!
Just last week, I witnessed the wandering actor bit work for the second time in the same venue. Incidentally, one of the actors was in both instances. Both times were at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The first was during the touring exhibit Pirates last year. She played a Colonial villager whose sailor brother had not returned from a recent trip. She feared he had been kidnapped by pirates. Come to find out that her brother's story was detailed on a plaque later in the exhibit where he joined with the Pirates to assist with family financing and was subsequently hanged when captured. She was engaging and played to each individual audience member with her story. Last week, I attended a preview of A Day in Pompeii, also at DMNS. It is an excellent exhibit, by the way, and I highly recommend it if you are in the Denver area any time between now and mid-January. The same actress played the Senator's wife with just as much vigor and engagement. I also ended up in another lively conversation with a priestess of Venus as well as an oil merchant and a slave girl (who had just captured a fat doormouse for her dinner).
I ask all who read this to take some time and search The Adventurer's Club at Walt Disney World/Pleasure Island on youtube. When I was challenged with taking over direction of the Titanic cast, I strove to emulate their rhythms and structure. No, we cannot be that vulgar, even if it is Disney's version of vulgarity. It would be degrade the exhibit space. However, the cues are the same: outlines, but no script; timed structure, but a lot of free rein. The audience is an actor's master. However, the actor dictates the story that the audience experiences.
That is what I am getting at: audience experience. We were given two minutes to lecture on anything we wanted during my masters class summer school in Leicester. I chose two subjects for the professors to pick from. They chose both and gave me four minutes. :) The first was on QR codes, a subject for a later blog post. The other was on actors. In the UK, the museum as theater is a novel, unusual, and rarely used tool in museum storytelling. Only a scant paragraph or two was allotted to the subject in our studies. I chose it because it appears to be uniquely American-originating and growing. Out of the museums I've visited in England, I've only seen one with actors and that is the Sherlock Holmes museum, which is a tourist-trap museum.... albeit a delightfully FUN tourist-trap museum that I will gladly re-visit. In order to demonstrate how actors in a museum work, I dropped into my characterization of Marion Thayer, one of the first-class, old-money, millionaire wives on Titanic. Within seconds of becoming Mrs. Thayer, I had an enraptured audience. That sense of being catapulted back in time and speaking with someone who was "actually there" has a mystifying effect that a simple video or static sign cannot capture.
At Titanic, we made it a point to rotate out the actors and their characters on a regular basis with the goal of never having an audience member see the same tour from the same perspective with the same character twice. And we succeeded. It was extraordinarily rare for someone to encounter the same actor in the same character twice during tours, even when visits were months or years apart. Each of us began with two assigned characters, type-cast from the casting director (which, starting around 2002, was me). After the actor masters the two characters, they can bring in other characters to their artistic arsenal as they please, pending approval from either myself or one of the other two senior managers authorized to approve this. That way, as the actor learned the Titanic story, certain personalities "call out" to the individual. And with over 2200 personalities to research, the variety is endless. I felt particularly drawn to Edith Russell, she who carried the musical pig off of the ship and ultimately became the first female war corespondent in WWI. So, with approval, I took her on and she became my primary of 12 different characters I played as the need arose. Even senior managers were expected to don costumes and give tours where needed. Plus, when we brought in the dinner show (a full 3-hour production complete with multi-course meals, bar, musicians, and a multi-character museum tour), it came to light that it was better for the production to have the stage manager for the night be in the show.
Utilizing actors to enhance the story is a delicate matter as it can just as easily fail as succeed. Visitor surveys need to be carefully scrutinized to make sure that utilizing the museum as a theater is both appropriate and financially sound. Working with actors as employees can be a daunting task as the very nature of being an actor is rather nomadic and many tend to double or triple book themselves. An actor working 5-8 gigs at any given time is typical in the Orlando area. This makes scheduling and basic HR a nightmare (not to mention tax accountants working overtime to handle all the W-2's at the end of the year). Then, there is the question of unions. I am familiar with one Orlando museum that is an Equity house. At Titanic, we ran into some trouble filming the actors who were members of SAG. While unions in the theater community are desperately necessary, working with actors makes it equally necessary for HR to comply with AEA/SAG regulations. If a museum wishes to engage actors in their space, the marriage of museum and theater tends to be a rocky one that can go either the way of disaster or the way of repeat business. The goal is to strive for the latter, to create that sense of wonder at the unexpected. Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising mechanism. If a movie is horrible, the world will know in a day or two. The same goes for museum theater. If it is lousy, the world will know. If it is incredible, the world will keep coming back for more. If you can catch that theater magic in the walls of a museum without degrading the exhibit space, you have that golden ticket for a successful museum - repeat business.
After the shootings in Aurora, I became a little busy with end of summer and oh-wow-winter-is-coming-early business as well as a surprise surgery with subsequent recovery. I am fine, and the last thing I want to do is post to my professional blog while toasty on pain killers. Needless to say, this took a backseat. Actually, more like a bury it in the trunk and re-visit later kind of thing....
I apologize.
I had mentioned that I wanted to talk about actors in museums. This is of particular interest to me as it is how I started in the museum field in 1998. Prior to being hired as a museum re-enactor, I had never heard of any museum doing such a thing. At Titanic: The Experience, we gave tours in the first person and interacted with other actors as the case may be. We started with strict scripts (a la Disney-type character spiels) but threw that out the window on opening day when we realized that the 6 months of rehearsing meant nothing. The audience rejected it immediately. We all had some sort of improv background and immediately switched to that, using the scripts as guides more than anything else. We did not allow videotaping, so none of this has surfaced on an easy to link to youtube clip. The tour takes on the timeline of the life of the Titanic from a scribble on a cocktail napkin to the most recent movies and dives. Prior to the collision room (where the ship meets the iceberg... digitally, of course), it is a very lively and funny tour. Funny? Titanic? Does not compute. But it worked. Sure, history had to be bent a little... things like: a historical first class lady would never be seen without her husband around (ours were), our Mrs. Brown was always referred to as Molly (even tho historically that is not true, however, we did get the stamp of approval from her descendant Muffett), officers would never mingle with the passengers (ours did), and the classes never mixed (ours did).
Why the veering off course from actual history with our actors? Two main reasons: 1) Our location was unique to the museum world. It was on International Drive in the heart of the tourist district of Orlando, just around the corner from Sea World and Universal Studios. Walt Disney World was about 10 minutes away. Many tourists stay in I-Drive for its affordability. Therefore, we were in direct competition with the theme parks and dinner shows like Pirates and Medieval Times. To effectively compete, we had to draw upon their model of entertainment as opposed to say, Gettysburg for example. 2) Guest Service dictates that if we were to be historically accurate, we would be impolite and even insulting. Some of the historical figures portrayed were not nice people to the general public. Lady Duff-Gordan would likely treat someone approaching her wearing a mouse-ear hat, shorts, and sandals with disdain. Granted, we had a little fun with tourists in this manner, but we spun it so that they would be entertained or, as we said it, "edu-tained." As in, "Ah! I see you've found the swimming bath! Isn't it extraordinary! It's even heated! And look at the swimming bath tile the builders left out for display! Made by Villeroy and Boch! Only the finest ceramics!" We stayed as close to history as possible while still putting on an entertaining show in costumes made of materials more suited to the Florida heat, and educating the public simultaneously.
One of my favorite improv bits, and this came purely from thin air, was when I was portraying Dorothy Gibson, an early movie star. Second Officer Lightoller enters the room as I am explaining the fineries of a first class stateroom (as depicted in our re-creation of suite B-52). I start complaining to him that I need to find the Marconi room to send a Marconigram to my agent in New Jersey. I need to ask my agent why I was booked in a closet on E-deck instead of the suite on B-deck and then fire him. "Lights" then launches into an explanation of the Marconi room, mentions the operators by name, and notices someone lurking in the corner. It's a third class man who has snuck up to first class to see the movie star (actually, it was the actor's turn to go to a different part of the exhibit in our rotation, and we had a rule that when you cross another actor, you must interact). I start squeeling as if I've seen a rat. Lights argues with the starstruck man then, and this was straight out of the movie Tombstone, grabs him by the ear, says "alright youngster, out ya go", and drags him out of the room. The audience enthusiastically applauds and I continue the tour.
The irony of this is that the actor playing Officer Lightoller was a Wyatt Earp re-enactor at another museum in Wyoming prior to joining the cast.
This Dorothy and Lights show, as we called it, became a bit of a legend. Another time, again pure improv, Lights asked me (as Dorothy) in a joking manner if I thought he could be a movie star. I think for a moment and say, "well, you know, you do somewhat resemble that new comedian I saw the last time I was at that chicken farm in Los Angeles.... what was his name... oh yes! Lon Chaney!" And he would get disgusted and the guests would laugh. Actually, there is a lion's share of fact in there. Lon Chaney, Sr. was a comedian in early 1912 in Los Angeles. The chicken farm I mentioned was Universal Studios, also started in 1912, where Mr. Chaney was made into a legend of the horror genre. Mr. Chaney's first film with IMP (early Universal Studios) was in 1913 - Poor Jake's Demise.
During my time as an actor at Titanic, prior to becoming a member of the senior management team around late 2000/early 2001, we toyed with the wandering actor role. Where it is not a tour, but guests intermingle with actors as they wander the museum. This failed miserably. As I've seen more and more actors in museums, I have rarely seen this method of museum theater work. Too often, the actors become bored, do their minimal bits, and wander off - constantly checking the clocks to see when it is time to leave. Improv is a peculiar animal. If the audience is not engaged, more often than not the actor is insulted and bored. I witnessed this recently at the Golden Historical Park in Golden, Colorado. I met one of the actors there and she wasn't even attempting to act. There is a Saturday Night Live skit from several years ago with Britney Spears at Colonial Williamsburg where she is sooooo booooored churning butter that she is no longer engaging the audience. That's how I felt with this situation. It was the same that many of the Titanic actors fell into. Apathetic boredom. The response I got from her, as I was asking her historical questions about the gardens, schoolhouse, mill, etc, was accurate info... but info that I could find just as easily on my smartphone with a couple swipes of my finger. She then went on to complain about how marketing never brings in anyone anymore. They all want to rent a tire and float down the river that flows on the boarder of this truly magnificent park. I can't say that I blame the potential audience for wanting to jump in the river instead of wander thru the park. The park was interesting until she put a negative spin on it. Then, I just wanted to leave and not return. It was 101F that day. If I had known about the tire rental and the river, I would have dressed more appropriately and brought a little extra pocket money to go cool off. Now, as an audience member, I'd rather re-visit Golden for that river and a frozen yogurt place I found. I really have no desire to see that park again.
As a stage manager and fellow actor, I do not care if you are bored. You are an actor. Do your job or go home. A whiny costumed docent does nothing for your organization but alienate your audience. Always play to the audience. Always. Always. Always. In improv, they will dictate where you go next. But, you as an actor dictate where they end up. And, as the saying goes, always leave them coming back for more!
Just last week, I witnessed the wandering actor bit work for the second time in the same venue. Incidentally, one of the actors was in both instances. Both times were at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The first was during the touring exhibit Pirates last year. She played a Colonial villager whose sailor brother had not returned from a recent trip. She feared he had been kidnapped by pirates. Come to find out that her brother's story was detailed on a plaque later in the exhibit where he joined with the Pirates to assist with family financing and was subsequently hanged when captured. She was engaging and played to each individual audience member with her story. Last week, I attended a preview of A Day in Pompeii, also at DMNS. It is an excellent exhibit, by the way, and I highly recommend it if you are in the Denver area any time between now and mid-January. The same actress played the Senator's wife with just as much vigor and engagement. I also ended up in another lively conversation with a priestess of Venus as well as an oil merchant and a slave girl (who had just captured a fat doormouse for her dinner).
I ask all who read this to take some time and search The Adventurer's Club at Walt Disney World/Pleasure Island on youtube. When I was challenged with taking over direction of the Titanic cast, I strove to emulate their rhythms and structure. No, we cannot be that vulgar, even if it is Disney's version of vulgarity. It would be degrade the exhibit space. However, the cues are the same: outlines, but no script; timed structure, but a lot of free rein. The audience is an actor's master. However, the actor dictates the story that the audience experiences.
That is what I am getting at: audience experience. We were given two minutes to lecture on anything we wanted during my masters class summer school in Leicester. I chose two subjects for the professors to pick from. They chose both and gave me four minutes. :) The first was on QR codes, a subject for a later blog post. The other was on actors. In the UK, the museum as theater is a novel, unusual, and rarely used tool in museum storytelling. Only a scant paragraph or two was allotted to the subject in our studies. I chose it because it appears to be uniquely American-originating and growing. Out of the museums I've visited in England, I've only seen one with actors and that is the Sherlock Holmes museum, which is a tourist-trap museum.... albeit a delightfully FUN tourist-trap museum that I will gladly re-visit. In order to demonstrate how actors in a museum work, I dropped into my characterization of Marion Thayer, one of the first-class, old-money, millionaire wives on Titanic. Within seconds of becoming Mrs. Thayer, I had an enraptured audience. That sense of being catapulted back in time and speaking with someone who was "actually there" has a mystifying effect that a simple video or static sign cannot capture.
At Titanic, we made it a point to rotate out the actors and their characters on a regular basis with the goal of never having an audience member see the same tour from the same perspective with the same character twice. And we succeeded. It was extraordinarily rare for someone to encounter the same actor in the same character twice during tours, even when visits were months or years apart. Each of us began with two assigned characters, type-cast from the casting director (which, starting around 2002, was me). After the actor masters the two characters, they can bring in other characters to their artistic arsenal as they please, pending approval from either myself or one of the other two senior managers authorized to approve this. That way, as the actor learned the Titanic story, certain personalities "call out" to the individual. And with over 2200 personalities to research, the variety is endless. I felt particularly drawn to Edith Russell, she who carried the musical pig off of the ship and ultimately became the first female war corespondent in WWI. So, with approval, I took her on and she became my primary of 12 different characters I played as the need arose. Even senior managers were expected to don costumes and give tours where needed. Plus, when we brought in the dinner show (a full 3-hour production complete with multi-course meals, bar, musicians, and a multi-character museum tour), it came to light that it was better for the production to have the stage manager for the night be in the show.
Utilizing actors to enhance the story is a delicate matter as it can just as easily fail as succeed. Visitor surveys need to be carefully scrutinized to make sure that utilizing the museum as a theater is both appropriate and financially sound. Working with actors as employees can be a daunting task as the very nature of being an actor is rather nomadic and many tend to double or triple book themselves. An actor working 5-8 gigs at any given time is typical in the Orlando area. This makes scheduling and basic HR a nightmare (not to mention tax accountants working overtime to handle all the W-2's at the end of the year). Then, there is the question of unions. I am familiar with one Orlando museum that is an Equity house. At Titanic, we ran into some trouble filming the actors who were members of SAG. While unions in the theater community are desperately necessary, working with actors makes it equally necessary for HR to comply with AEA/SAG regulations. If a museum wishes to engage actors in their space, the marriage of museum and theater tends to be a rocky one that can go either the way of disaster or the way of repeat business. The goal is to strive for the latter, to create that sense of wonder at the unexpected. Word of mouth is the most powerful advertising mechanism. If a movie is horrible, the world will know in a day or two. The same goes for museum theater. If it is lousy, the world will know. If it is incredible, the world will keep coming back for more. If you can catch that theater magic in the walls of a museum without degrading the exhibit space, you have that golden ticket for a successful museum - repeat business.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
"I can touch things!"
My friend, Heidi, and I visited the new Colorado History Center recently and I LOVE her reaction. "I can touch things!" See, she worked in a fine art museum where there is nothing to touch. Just look. Paintings on bland walls with little to no explanations. I work in history and science museums where touching is expected and encouraged.
This is where the Orlando Museum of Art succeeds where her art museum fails. OMA has the paintings on bland walls with don't touch and no photography signs in abundance. Their signs are abundant in verse. Everything from artist's intent to materials used to open ended questions designed to inspire conversation right then and there. OMA also has areas where kids (and adults) can touch certain sculpture, try our hand at oils, sketch with provided pencils and pads. Her former museum doesn't allow for that. No touchy! No talking! No imagination!
Ah, but that is the key to making museums the spark of the future as well as guardians of the past. At the CHC, you could get in a vintage Ford with a quick movie and motion (little vibrations in the seats) and drive through the prairie to the homestead. You could take "eggs" from the chicken coup to the "general store" (quite literally). You could sit in school desks designed to look and feel like the ones used in the late 1800s and take a virtual class, complete with digital chalk pads.
And let's not forget the spectacularly awesome lego exhibit on the second floor!
Also on the second floor is a walk thru of the Japanese internment camps of Colorado. I had no idea they existed here. It gave an immersive look into what it was like, complete with objects in casing showing where they would be seen. On the portion going into the history of skiing, you can "experience" a virtual ski jump without having to drive the 2 hours to the mountains and go through the years of training to do so.
Now, how do you go about immersion in an art museum where the stereotype is no touching, no pictures, no talking, and afterwards, we're meeting Muffy for martinis in the Hamptons?
Actually, taking the Walt Disney approach would suffice. According to Disney legend (I used to work at Walt Disney World, so this is where I heard this and, given trying it myself, believe it), Uncle Walt would walk around DisneyLand regularly looking at things from a squatted down position. This made him eye-level with small children. If it looked intimidating, bland, or uninteresting, then it was scrapped. Now, I'm not saying to install the Dumbo ride in the middle of a Renoir display. I am saying to put some fun in functional. For instance, at the Astor House in Golden, Colorado (granted, not an art museum but displays art within the historic boarding house), there are actors that portray the different patrons of the house by reading in accents from their memoirs and letters via pre-recordings to give a feel for what it was like. At OMA, there is a sign I remember seeing the disgust on artist felt towards the Nazis in a very Roberto Begnini "Life is Beautiful" sort of way. Also, like OMA, place areas for people of all ages to create simple art projects with provided materials. I have yet to find anyone that is so fiscally tight that they cannot afford a couple boxes of generic crayons and paper in their business budgets. If you can't, then maybe you should eliminate Doughnut Fridays.
So what happens when someone defaces something from museum provided crayons? It doesn't. Why? Because OMA had docents and security (all volunteer from what I could gather) staffing the area. The areas that didn't have art supplies were unstaffed. In other words, no staff means no materials. They were put away.
Hands off the Mona Lisa, but make hands on inspiration nearby.
This is where the Orlando Museum of Art succeeds where her art museum fails. OMA has the paintings on bland walls with don't touch and no photography signs in abundance. Their signs are abundant in verse. Everything from artist's intent to materials used to open ended questions designed to inspire conversation right then and there. OMA also has areas where kids (and adults) can touch certain sculpture, try our hand at oils, sketch with provided pencils and pads. Her former museum doesn't allow for that. No touchy! No talking! No imagination!
Ah, but that is the key to making museums the spark of the future as well as guardians of the past. At the CHC, you could get in a vintage Ford with a quick movie and motion (little vibrations in the seats) and drive through the prairie to the homestead. You could take "eggs" from the chicken coup to the "general store" (quite literally). You could sit in school desks designed to look and feel like the ones used in the late 1800s and take a virtual class, complete with digital chalk pads.
And let's not forget the spectacularly awesome lego exhibit on the second floor!
Also on the second floor is a walk thru of the Japanese internment camps of Colorado. I had no idea they existed here. It gave an immersive look into what it was like, complete with objects in casing showing where they would be seen. On the portion going into the history of skiing, you can "experience" a virtual ski jump without having to drive the 2 hours to the mountains and go through the years of training to do so.
Now, how do you go about immersion in an art museum where the stereotype is no touching, no pictures, no talking, and afterwards, we're meeting Muffy for martinis in the Hamptons?
Actually, taking the Walt Disney approach would suffice. According to Disney legend (I used to work at Walt Disney World, so this is where I heard this and, given trying it myself, believe it), Uncle Walt would walk around DisneyLand regularly looking at things from a squatted down position. This made him eye-level with small children. If it looked intimidating, bland, or uninteresting, then it was scrapped. Now, I'm not saying to install the Dumbo ride in the middle of a Renoir display. I am saying to put some fun in functional. For instance, at the Astor House in Golden, Colorado (granted, not an art museum but displays art within the historic boarding house), there are actors that portray the different patrons of the house by reading in accents from their memoirs and letters via pre-recordings to give a feel for what it was like. At OMA, there is a sign I remember seeing the disgust on artist felt towards the Nazis in a very Roberto Begnini "Life is Beautiful" sort of way. Also, like OMA, place areas for people of all ages to create simple art projects with provided materials. I have yet to find anyone that is so fiscally tight that they cannot afford a couple boxes of generic crayons and paper in their business budgets. If you can't, then maybe you should eliminate Doughnut Fridays.
So what happens when someone defaces something from museum provided crayons? It doesn't. Why? Because OMA had docents and security (all volunteer from what I could gather) staffing the area. The areas that didn't have art supplies were unstaffed. In other words, no staff means no materials. They were put away.
Hands off the Mona Lisa, but make hands on inspiration nearby.
Friday, May 18, 2012
It's International Museum Day and all I hear are crickets....
As the title says, today is International Museum Day! Everyone go out and visit a museum today or this weekend!!! *crickets*
Really?
I follow about 100 major and minor museums on my facebook page as well as twitter and no one mentioned it. The only entity that did was the AAM. I took a look at the official IMD page and scrolled thru the pictures and activities. Most of the action is in Europe, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. Some action in Canada is observed. But Stateside? Not so much.
http://network.icom.museum/imd2012
So, for the US museums that did say they were doing something for IMD, what did they do? Answer: mostly nothing. Some had free days. Whoopee. If you look at what the other countries' museums did, they held parties, ceremonies, and events!
The thing about museums is that, by and large, they are an international medium. They are seen as great holders of knowledge, storage of history, display areas for art through the ages. Therefore, most museums (including niche museums and historical houses) have objects and stories that draw from around the world. With the world getting smaller and international law getting easier to abide by (see NAGPRA for an example), one would think there would be cooperation and exuberance between museums. I proved this wrong in my dissertation when investigating why museums don't turn to each other in times of need for disaster recovery. Just because this is the norm doesn't make it right.
Another issue I see is the lack of utilizing social media as a tool to market museums. Many museums have facebook/twitter/g+ accounts and post occasional information. This was brought up in summer school at the University of Leicester's Museum Studies program in forum while I was there last year. The feedback is a shunning of technology as a whole from the establishment. Why? All three services as well as other social accounts (foursquare, tumblr, etc) are free, even to businesses. You only pay if you want to have an ad show up from time to time on people's feeds. Then, as far as facebook is concerned, you pay by the number of times "like" is clicked on the ad. I can't speak for the others as I have not worked with them yet on a professional level. What few museums that did something with the IMD stated their events on, you guessed it, facebook.
I remember the old Spaceship Earth ride at Epcot (back when it was still EPCOT - the acronym). It is a slow moving ride through the history of communication, from cave paintings to papyrus scrolls to transcriptions by monks to the telephone to video conferencing. At the end of the ride, you "fall" backwards past lines and lines of neon strings that represent people talking to each other from opposite sides of the globe. This is supposed to be a good thing. A GLOBAL community.
I am too much of a Polyanna about this. I am of the opinion that most people are so overwhelmed with the rigors of basic survival that they are so bogged down with simply getting through the day (or fiscal year) and cannot look forward into the beyond.
We are no longer a nation of dreamers and doers. We are just trying to survive and falling behind the rest of the world in the process. Which brings up the old biological axiom:
Evolve or die.
My generation, gen x, is stepping into the management positions and bringing our cynicism with us. But, mark my words, we are a transitional generation. We started with no computers and now are masters of IT. We started with incandescents and now design with LEDs. We are the evolution in process. We are stepping into roles long held by an establishment that hasn't changed in generations. Behind us are the Millenials. Those who have never gone a day without computers and cell phones. These two generations and their children are the new audience. The challenge is to evolve to fit their needs, to make them aware of museums, what museums are, and why collections are important: a marriage of transcendence and tradition. I see this not only in budget and design battles but in the current political climate.
So, where do we, as museum professionals, go from here?
Forward. We go forward.
Really?
I follow about 100 major and minor museums on my facebook page as well as twitter and no one mentioned it. The only entity that did was the AAM. I took a look at the official IMD page and scrolled thru the pictures and activities. Most of the action is in Europe, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. Some action in Canada is observed. But Stateside? Not so much.
http://network.icom.museum/imd2012
So, for the US museums that did say they were doing something for IMD, what did they do? Answer: mostly nothing. Some had free days. Whoopee. If you look at what the other countries' museums did, they held parties, ceremonies, and events!
The thing about museums is that, by and large, they are an international medium. They are seen as great holders of knowledge, storage of history, display areas for art through the ages. Therefore, most museums (including niche museums and historical houses) have objects and stories that draw from around the world. With the world getting smaller and international law getting easier to abide by (see NAGPRA for an example), one would think there would be cooperation and exuberance between museums. I proved this wrong in my dissertation when investigating why museums don't turn to each other in times of need for disaster recovery. Just because this is the norm doesn't make it right.
Another issue I see is the lack of utilizing social media as a tool to market museums. Many museums have facebook/twitter/g+ accounts and post occasional information. This was brought up in summer school at the University of Leicester's Museum Studies program in forum while I was there last year. The feedback is a shunning of technology as a whole from the establishment. Why? All three services as well as other social accounts (foursquare, tumblr, etc) are free, even to businesses. You only pay if you want to have an ad show up from time to time on people's feeds. Then, as far as facebook is concerned, you pay by the number of times "like" is clicked on the ad. I can't speak for the others as I have not worked with them yet on a professional level. What few museums that did something with the IMD stated their events on, you guessed it, facebook.
I remember the old Spaceship Earth ride at Epcot (back when it was still EPCOT - the acronym). It is a slow moving ride through the history of communication, from cave paintings to papyrus scrolls to transcriptions by monks to the telephone to video conferencing. At the end of the ride, you "fall" backwards past lines and lines of neon strings that represent people talking to each other from opposite sides of the globe. This is supposed to be a good thing. A GLOBAL community.
I am too much of a Polyanna about this. I am of the opinion that most people are so overwhelmed with the rigors of basic survival that they are so bogged down with simply getting through the day (or fiscal year) and cannot look forward into the beyond.
We are no longer a nation of dreamers and doers. We are just trying to survive and falling behind the rest of the world in the process. Which brings up the old biological axiom:
Evolve or die.
My generation, gen x, is stepping into the management positions and bringing our cynicism with us. But, mark my words, we are a transitional generation. We started with no computers and now are masters of IT. We started with incandescents and now design with LEDs. We are the evolution in process. We are stepping into roles long held by an establishment that hasn't changed in generations. Behind us are the Millenials. Those who have never gone a day without computers and cell phones. These two generations and their children are the new audience. The challenge is to evolve to fit their needs, to make them aware of museums, what museums are, and why collections are important: a marriage of transcendence and tradition. I see this not only in budget and design battles but in the current political climate.
So, where do we, as museum professionals, go from here?
Forward. We go forward.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Back from unintended hiatus
It has been entirely too long since I last put pixel to screen. I apologize. I picked up a one day a week volunteer position at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science as a collections technician for the conchology department assisting them in digitizing their hand-written ledgers into a database. I am meeting new people and networking there, hoping this will lead to a permanent, paying position soon. I have also interviewed at 6 other museums. Two of those interviews are still on-going. Which leads me to one little rant....
If your open position is only full time for three months out of the year and weekends only for the rest of the year, please say so in your advertisement. I wouldn't have wasted your time with my application and writing portfolio if you had. /end rant.
So, besides that, I have been busy with family events and issues, a minor surgery on my part (it's all good now), the 100th anniversary of Titanic's sinking events, illness, beginning writing a book with a friend of mine, and picking up a part time job at a local clothing store that I like for some extra money and the in-store discount for some new casual professional outfits in addition to working my full time sales job. I also attended Starfest, a local "nerd convention", and built my costumes for it. Needless to say, this blog took a back seat. But, I'm back. :)
I'll be posting again soon. Upcoming topics will include fashion in the unique museum workplace, costumed docents, QR codes, and plagiarism. I welcome any requests for topics or discussion.
If your open position is only full time for three months out of the year and weekends only for the rest of the year, please say so in your advertisement. I wouldn't have wasted your time with my application and writing portfolio if you had. /end rant.
So, besides that, I have been busy with family events and issues, a minor surgery on my part (it's all good now), the 100th anniversary of Titanic's sinking events, illness, beginning writing a book with a friend of mine, and picking up a part time job at a local clothing store that I like for some extra money and the in-store discount for some new casual professional outfits in addition to working my full time sales job. I also attended Starfest, a local "nerd convention", and built my costumes for it. Needless to say, this blog took a back seat. But, I'm back. :)
I'll be posting again soon. Upcoming topics will include fashion in the unique museum workplace, costumed docents, QR codes, and plagiarism. I welcome any requests for topics or discussion.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Workshops and Events
Today's entry has to do with workshops. It's a rather short entry and can be summarized thus:
Attend them.
That's it. Any and all workshops that you can afford (both time and money wise), just go. I have attended four recently. One was a networking happy hour for Emerging Museum Professionals at a local Irish pub. One was a networking/lecture event for the Denver Young Professionals Non-Profit Network at the Stock Show Rodeo. One was in Ft. Collins for disaster training. One was a grant writing workshop. They each served a purpose. There was to be one more but it was unfortunately cancelled due to lack of attendance.
If I could attend more, I would. I learn soooo very much. The BIG one is coming up in April, of course. The American Association of Museums annual meeting. This year, it's in St. Paul if memory serves. I have tried my best to manipulate my budget to make it and not touch the relocation fund I have set aside for myself for when someone hires me. I simply cannot afford it, even with my discounts as a travel agent (my night job). Perhaps next year, I can. Perhaps next year, I can even attend as a representative of a museum. I encourage anyone reading this who has the means to make the journey to attend.
And take notes and pictures please! I would love to discuss what goes on there!
Until next time....
Attend them.
That's it. Any and all workshops that you can afford (both time and money wise), just go. I have attended four recently. One was a networking happy hour for Emerging Museum Professionals at a local Irish pub. One was a networking/lecture event for the Denver Young Professionals Non-Profit Network at the Stock Show Rodeo. One was in Ft. Collins for disaster training. One was a grant writing workshop. They each served a purpose. There was to be one more but it was unfortunately cancelled due to lack of attendance.
If I could attend more, I would. I learn soooo very much. The BIG one is coming up in April, of course. The American Association of Museums annual meeting. This year, it's in St. Paul if memory serves. I have tried my best to manipulate my budget to make it and not touch the relocation fund I have set aside for myself for when someone hires me. I simply cannot afford it, even with my discounts as a travel agent (my night job). Perhaps next year, I can. Perhaps next year, I can even attend as a representative of a museum. I encourage anyone reading this who has the means to make the journey to attend.
And take notes and pictures please! I would love to discuss what goes on there!
Until next time....
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