Cornerstone Omnibus

Rounding Third...

2008-05-14T20:39:00.000-07:00

Well I am down to the last several programs...this image of Quentin Drew from Sid Arthur seems like an appropriate one for this juncture.

I just poked around at what I've put up for the past several months (including Sid Arthur, added today), and it's pretty staggering.

Of course it is something of a mess...needs cleaning up all over the place. I wish I could have just scanned everything in, but of course there's not and OCR program in the world that would have made sense of those cast lists. It had to be hand crafted data!

I also asked Shishir a little question about the program and got some good recollections: that will be my daily task from now on. As I'm editing and adding, I'll fire off questions. Need to get some more people thinking about this...and I need to collect more about the shows I know little or nothing about.

I've been telling people for a while now that eventually this thing will acquire its own gravity...perhaps that could begin to happen? It's like a planet...it needs to start pulling together now. "Planet Cornerstone," I think that would have been something Leslie T. would say, no?

Last Lap? Only for the programs...

2008-02-21T21:02:00.000-08:00

Still plugging away on the programs...and in fact, I am down to the last folder of them. Maybe 20 to go?

I am thinking about what to do next: probably a short clean-up period during which I add some more photos, and then a big announcement at some point. I'd really like to start engaging people in adding content. Maybe if I turn to that: contact one person per day with a question/request for elaboration...

Anyways, there's at least a month to go before I get to that stage. Meanwhile, it's all about consistency...at least in terms of entry. I have no doubt that my path is littered with typos.

I particularly liked the directions to that theater I found on the program from THE GOOD PERSON OF LONG CREEK, which I was doing at lunch today:

The Sale Barn

One Mile East of the Traffic Light

Long Creek, Oregon

Bubbleshare photo album

2008-01-11T22:20:00.001-08:00

BubbleShare: Share photos - Lead Free Toys

Fun, huh? Just added this to the wiki last month...I think I found it via Simple Spark...or was it Lifehacker?

I've got this little stack of programs here...

2007-12-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

Now my collection is complete...all I have to do is type it in!

I dropped by the Cornerstone offices last month and picked up copies of all the Cornerstone programs I don't have. I've already enetered the ones I do have, so it's time to start plowing through the pre-1990 stacks.

So far I've managed to keep up a good pace...15 minutes a day is my target. What I really want to do is scan in several of them: those programs from the early years are particularly cool and interesting.

Data first, then more pictures!

The Pictures Are Here!

2007-09-25T09:52:00.001-07:00

This week I've started adding all the (low res) pictures that I can get my hands on.

Lee Lawlor sent me a bunch of text on the shows, so last month I was threading that into the Plays section. I'm hoping to have SOMETHING on every play, and then to go back and start looking at format. A few, like Central Ave. Chalk Circle, are pretty close to what I'd like to see as a finished product...however, I'm going to get some of the Cstoners to look at format too. They are kinda ugly and unformatted right now, but it's all about getting the data out there at this point.

And one more thing: I added a William Gibson quote that I think says it all...about the wiki, anyways....

C20 Video released for your viewing enjoyment!

2007-05-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

At long last, video!

The powers that be at Cornerstone have released my C20 video for your enjoyment and edification. It's half the length of the previous Big Cornerstone Video, but packs in still more info.

My plan is to shoot a couple of stand-up interviews with key staff who will talk about the Institute, Education programs, etc.

Cast Lists

2007-05-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

I've finished a couple more programs...I did LOS BIOMBOS/THE SCREENS most recently. It was huge: multiple casting for some roles, different actors in roles in each scene, etc.

I realize now that what's missing is a space for comments from the participants, so I will be adding that. Also: links to reviews or online resources about the shows. I know there have been a couple of pieces about LOS BIOMBOS. I'd also like to be able to put a couple of minutes of video from each online, but that's a ways down the road.

Pull out your old programs...

2007-05-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

The C20 video is now done...more on that when it's Official. I'll post a You Tube link when the company's ready for it to be seen.

I've started doing direct entry of all the Cornerstone programs I have...I'm hoping that eventually I can get a bunch of data in files. I was able to copy and paste a bunch of material when I started, but now I've got to just transcribe it myself.

I loved fishing out all those programs...I got to look at some of the hundreds of programs for other shows I've collected over the years. If I'm not careful I'll end up sitting on the floor of the garage just re-reading them all.

I've got Cornerstone programs going back to LOS FAUSTINOS...I'll have to get into the files after that!

Collecting Stories

2007-01-09T12:17:00.000-08:00

As of 2007 the Cornerstone wiki has passed 120 pages with no end it sight. I've even had some edits from interested parties, although I haven't really been pushing this out there. I wanted to build the basic structure first.

I just came across another interesting variant on this which might be useful: Folklore.org, which is devoted to collective historical storytelling. Their pilot project is devoted to the story of how the Mac came to be, and it's very intriguing. I'm going to monitor the site and see if it offers any possibilites for Cornerstone and the Omnibus. Maybe we could convert the Durfee transcripts into story segments and then build a collective history that way.

Meantime, I'm just adding bios and cast lists and whatever else I can get my hands on.

Sinclair Lewis was right...

2006-09-27T12:59:00.000-07:00

I heard that he wrote Babbit 15 minutes at a time. It seems to be working for the Omnibus: large parts of it are being structured, and I think in a couple of weeks I'll start inviting people by to edit and add and so on. I think it's going to be very useful.

Meantime, I've just built a brand new Dell XPS to handle the many videos I am working on, and editing Cornerstone bits into the current skeleton is my first task with that thing. I'm doing a couple of photo montages, and once we shoot a last interview, I should have all the pieces.

Lunchtime Wiki Development

2006-09-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

August was a rough month, so I've had a hard enough time getting the C20 video in gear. I finally digitized the selects from the trip and got close to a final rough, but it's been a haul.

Meantime, the whole idea of an Omnibus has languished. I've decided to use the Sinclair Lewis method of composition to get that project in gear. I don't take the subway, so what I'm going to do is 15 minutes of the Cornerstone Wiki at the start of lunch every day.

I just roughed out a basic structure...

Visit it here if you like...and add something!

String Together is finally done!

2006-07-23T16:02:00.000-07:00

I've done a first pass on the C20 video string-together...at last. There are some really wonderful moments in the video thanks to people like Ben Cameron, Dora Hardy, and Teeko Parran. I am still trying to get some of the video I shot in the spring logged.

There is so much more material now than there was five years ago: acres of miniDV tapes. Where once we might have had one tape of a show, now there are three or more camera. Luckily, I think we're just turning the corner on the time when all of that lives on drives. And of course, the software is much cheaper. My $70 copy of VEGAS on my old $1000 homebrew PC does more than my old $100,000 AVID did back in the day.

One more exciting thing...I have been building a Wiki for another client, and I am using Cornerstone as a test case. That might just be the next phase of the Omnibus.

Self-Publishing options

2006-05-09T23:23:00.000-07:00

I'm going to work with Word and Acrobat to draft the book, but after that there seem to be several options for publishing. Naturally I will talk to theater book publishers, but I was reading THE WEEK and came across a little piece about self-publishing.

There's an interesting site called parapublishing.com that has all sorts of advice (mostly aimed at vanity press, I suppose). Even more intriguing is lulu.com, which offers to publish books along the Cafe Press model: you upload the content and they take a royalty for every copy published.

Maybe Cornerstone should consider that for the Methodology handbook. Lulu.com also offers the option of making the book available for download. I think Cafe Press also has this option (in addition to selling t-shirts and mugs). Lulu's Top 100 list is a fascinating snapshot of this end of the business: instant insider tech manuals, religious fiction along the "Left Behind" lines, and all sorts of other stuff.

Advice from Jiddu

2006-04-19T19:19:00.000-07:00

I had my last Board meeting on Saturday, and it was a very moving day. It always is: one thing you can count on about that group...you'll always leave feeling absolutely charged up.

My fellow board members gave me a stunning piece to hang on my wall: I'm too shy to repeat any of the very kind words, but they were crafted by Shishir Kurup and featured a really cool piece of SPARC artwork courtesy of Debra Padilla. I didn't really need any more inspiration, but that was a pat on the back that's good for another 50,000 miles.

At one point, Bill Pullman asked about "what we should watch out for," in other words given the seven years I've been watching, what are the pitfalls?

I immediately flashed on a little piece of the interview I shot with George Haddad, better known as "Jiddu" ("Grandpa"), who is 85 and still going 85. I had asked him all my standard questions last month (for the video and for the Omnibus), but he stopped me from cutting camera and said (and here I am more or less approximating):

"I want you to hear my dream for Cornerstone. My dream for Cornerstone is that there is a Cornerstone in every city, every county, every state. There should be a Cornerstone everywhere, for everyone."

I explained that I thought the pitfall would be to see the company as just a company, not as something more: a movement, an idea about theater and public discourse that's a lot larger than just the next show or the next few shows. Jiddu's ambition is right on the money.

Exits and Entrances

2006-04-14T20:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I didn't make it to Kansas in March!

The last couple of weeks have been full of work that's not Cornerstone-oriented, but I'm working to get back on track first with the C20 video and then with the Omnibus. John Luker and I shot a number of interviews for both a couple of weekends back...we have several very nice 15 minute interviews...Teeko Parran, Guillermo Avilas, George "Jiddu" Hadad, Dora Hardy and her daughter Joanne, and Gezel Nehmadi. I also shot a little chat with Ben Cameron when he was in town.

I've gotten a few lessons in digitizing for Final Cut Pro, and once I can get that material in we'll have one of the estimable DECLASSIFIED editors working on it.

There's another milestone coming up for me tommorrow: after a month of Saturdays (that's 7 years) I'll be leaving the Cornerstone Board of Directors. A sad day for me: the BOD meetings have been very rewarding. It's a great group of people, and I'll miss the occassional Saturday we have shared.

You just roll around Denver all day...

2006-03-19T21:27:00.000-08:00

Maybe I'll just quote pop songs for the next few entries...I couldn't help thinking of Warren Zevon when I flew in to Denver tonight, since I might end up dead in the water here. A nasty late winter storm has shut down I-70 tonight, so I guess I'm going to have to wait and see what I can do in the morning. I was planning on getting on the road really early, but that doesn't look like an option.

I've got a big ugly Jeep 4x4...what an awful car. I learned how to drive in a 67 Jeep Commando, and that thing was better designed than the 4x4. My only consolation is that it will get me through to Norcatur if the roads are anywhere near decent.

Leaving WV this morning I was thinking about home a lot. The west end of the Salt Lake valley, which is heavy into mining and industry, was what I kept thinking about when I was tooling around Montgomery and up into the holler with Wanda and her granddaughter on Saturday. The downtown made me think of State Street in SLC, and how it was hollowed out. Perhaps that is one of the other intriguing things about Cornerstone: the more you travel in a Cornerstone mode (meeting the people, meeting the people through the plays), the more every place is like home.

Almost Heaven.

2006-03-18T18:06:00.000-08:00

Well, I know it's the cliche, but being in West Virginia right on the edge of spring is almost heaven. The hills are full of bare branches, and the jagged slate walls along the side of the country roads are wet with runoff, but in the hollows and the flats all those cherry and pear and dogwood trees are popping with blossoms. Still, I guess "heaven" would be sometime right about the end of September or beginning of October.

I had a great day talking to four of Cornerstone's community partners, starting with Wanda and Jamie, and then including Dyann Similie and Jesse Johnson. I've got the pictures and the video, but alas can't upload any at the moment.

I heard a great part of the story that I haven't so far: the many plays that happened AFTER Cornerstone headed west. It's an issue that a lot of people in the Cornerstone I know (the one that's taken root in LA) are concerned about: nice to know it worked here.

On the Road...

2006-03-17T19:46:00.000-08:00

I've gotten to Charleston after a day that made me pine for air travel of yore. Man they have gotten good at packing us in and picking us clean...ah well.

I've got a day in Montgomery tommorrow and I'm lined up to interview Wanda (Daniels) Folden, her daughter Jamie, and a couple of other people...still working out details for Jesse Johnson and Dyann Simile. What a great name: that's probably got to be my first question.

Sunday is a travel day (flying to Denver), then Monday I'm meeting Ron Temple at the Cardinal Cafe in Norcatur. Apparently he's going to hook me up with a few folks. And then Tuesday early I'm back in Denver for a flight home.

It's strange to go back to a past I know so much about but have so little experience with. A little eerie, I'd say. I've had that experience talking to people on some of the docs I have done, like all the jazz men and women I talked to around Lionel Hampton, or the vets I talkd to about Tet or the Viet Cong, or the designers I talked to who made all those movies come alive. Memory is an interesting place to be a tourist in....

Travel Plans Set

2006-03-08T13:40:00.000-08:00

OK...I've got an itinerary, and alas I will not be in Port Gibson...three locations just got to be too many. At this point it's...

March 17 ... fly to West Virginia
March 18 in Montgomery, WV
March 19 ... fly to Denver
March 20 in Norcatur, KS
March 21 return to LA

Frequent Flier Miles

2006-02-28T15:21:00.000-08:00

I'm a couple of steps closer to an itinerary for the C20 trip...looks like I will be leaving 3/16 and going to Port Gibson, MI, Montgomery, WV, and then Norcatur, KS. That last one's tough: a five hour drive from Denver. I'm hoping for an early spring!

We've already put Michael John Garces and Ben Cameron on video. I'd like to transcribe Ben's remarks for the Omnibus, and he's graciously agreed to let us use his remarks from the Bridge Awards for the book or for any other uses.

I had an idea for Michael: I think I might ask him to write a Forward, as opposed to a Foreword, and put it at the end of the book...after the index!

We're also lining up a big shoot day for some Sunday in March. Luker and I will be shooting local Company members and some of Cornerstone's notable local contributors.

Ah, to be young, and in Cornerstone...

2006-02-12T11:28:00.000-08:00

I was reading interviews with Gail Berrigan and Doug Petrie today that really reminded me of an aspect of Cornerstone which is at once in plain sight and esily forgotten. Both of them were members in the early years who only spent a year or two with the company, but who were both very passionate about that time in their lives.

Particularly in light of the Institute and some of the recent Bridge Awardees (I'm thinking of Teeko and Guillermo), the life-altering impact that Cornerstone has had on people in their early years is worth thinking about. That was one of the impulses that lead to the Institute: to recapture that electrical charge of being out there at that age. The company has been pretty succesful at renewing itself through work with young artists, and by getting them when they're young Cornerstone has a deeper impact in the field in the long run.

I think that's one of the most attractive things about Cornerstone for so many people: even if you strip away the excellent work, the amazing ideas and methods...Cornerstone is a deeply romantic enterprise.

10 Planes in 5 Days! Woo hoo!

2006-02-06T17:30:00.000-08:00

Well, this might be just the wrong thing to do in the midst of cold and flu season, but I'm planning a big Cornerstone trip for the top of March. At the moment, it looks like Port Gibson, MS, Montgomery, WV, and then Norcatur, KS.

I'm going to shoot interviews with as many old Cornerstone pals as I can, partly for the Cornerstone 20 Anniversary video, and partly to generate more material for the Omnibus.

I'll post an itinerary when I've got it all untangled....

Dramatis Personae

2006-01-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking more about the Cast of Characters for this Omnibus...there needs to be a Who's Who in the Cast in the back because the sheer number of people mentioned in the Durfee Transcripts is making me confused. Who was Patty? How long was James Bundy there? What about folks not in LA (and not part of my experiece of the company)?

Maybe also a list of past administrators, even Boards?

I just read the individual interviews of a couple of people I've never met: Anne Beresford Clark and David Reifel. Ann had an interesting comment about the "non-petty" nature of arguments in the company. In her experience, there were almost never turf fights or such--any argument was likely to concern methods..."Things would be better if we did it THIS way, not THAT," for example. I have to say that turf and/or hierarchy is usually absent from the dealings I've had with Cornerstone. It's there, but very much in the background.

David actually says (though not, I think, in response to Anne) that those conflicts were there but buried deep. Sonja brought this out in her book: that was one of the reasons he left. I think this is also linked to a perception that maybe the company got good at smoothing things over, "ignoring the warts" is how he put it. Again, as in my last post, the tension between accepting something the community is putting out as a value and challenging it.

There is a constant thread in the company's past: gay men in small town America. It's a deep subject...Cornerstone's been looking at it 20 years before Ang Lee got to it. There's a entire story right there...a whole article all by itself, if not a book. I've heard and read stories from pretty much all of the early company members who are gay: what it's like to walk into a real cowboy bar, to deal with a religious group, etc. Interesting: nothing from the women's perspective, straight or gay. David mentions Paulina at the end of WINTER'S TALE...but that's it.

One key line from David, "It seemed like the show was only about what everybody could agree to have it about."

Ancient disks and artistic choices...

2006-01-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

I got an email from Alison this week saying that Ben just found some old computer disks with scripts from 3 Sisters, Pier, Rent, Winter's Tale, Toy Truck, and Video Store on them. Excellent news as it will save some costs in transcription.

The disks for the Durfee transcripts also turned up! This is great news...I am still piling through them. I think I'm going to make a set for myself at some point at Kinko's. I was thinking of making two and giving one to Michael John Garces, incoming AD. He'd find them interesting, I think. That whole "collective voice" of the founders and early fellow travelers is most instructive.

This week one of the things I was pondering is the decision to edit or change a show based on community standards. There's an interesting conflict in GOOD PERSON OF LONG CREEK that has an echo in ROMEO AND JULIET. In each case, the company responded differently...the difference is illustrative of a really critical aspect of Cornerstone's aesthetic and political policy.

In Long Creek, OR., the community was notably divided between the folks who went to church on Sunday and the folks who went to the bar on Saturday. The play includes an unwed mother, which was offensive to the church-goers...the company made adjustments and compromises to address the concerns of that side of the community.

Port Gibson, MI., hadn't seen a black man kiss a white woman onstage...when that happened in ROMEO AND JULIET rehearsals, Bill Rauch was invited to lunch by one of the ladies in the "Mint Julep Belles" and told, "They just can't kiss."

So do you censor yourself, or is that the wrong attitude? Is the question more about responding to the community and learning about their perspective?

The kiss is not incidental to the plot, so in R&J both the moral and the dramturgical arguments in favor of the kiss made it inevitable...but I guess in Oregon the moral issue was there, but the dramaturgical arguments were less important.

It seems to me that the most noted example of negotiations with a community, the inclusion of a gay muslim chatacter in LONG BRIDGE, is the latest of a hundred such. That topic in itself would be a fascinating piece for the Omnibus...when do you hold the line? When do you compromise?

Got to run down a few articles from this time...I think they're in the files...Newsweek, WSJ, People and NY Times...and a Today show appearance?

Also, there's mention of something called the "Scatter Project," where company members separated and went back to communities...first time I've heard of that.

Design inside and out, and legacies

2005-11-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

Lynn Jeffries sent me a message that made me think about one of the other fundamental questions in Cornerstone. In one version of the Table of Contents I had located a section on design in a chapter on Ensemble Shows. Lynn said that in the community collaborations, the company has often shot for high production values.

Is this a good thing? The discussion seems to be an ongoing one...Lynn writes...

"The Institute, in particular, has raised discussions about the relative value of creating an exciting spectacle versus doing something more modest, in a material sense, that the community could reasonably aspire to emulate when we’re gone. "

There's also a whole world of questions behind that comment. How pragmatic should Cornerstone's teaching be? How inspirational? What exactly is Cornerstone trying to "leave behind"? What are the responsibilities of the company to past collaborators?

Some of the folks in the Durfee transcripts I read talked about "Cornerstone guilt," which I think had to do with lingering uncertainty about their roles in the lives of people in the communities they have worked in. This operates on a couple of levels: one on one (particularly in cases where company members have worked with folks who have personal problems, maybe substance abuse being an obvious one), group to group (meaning Cornerstone and local groups), and everything in between.

I've dealth with this a lot in social service circles: psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and so on have professional codes of conduct that attempt to define those lines. I don't think they're always successful, but their maps are a little more detailed than the one Cornerstone is dealing with.

It's certainly good to remember that there are potentially two ways of talking about everything (ensemble show vs. community collaboration), and that the issue of legacy is still an ongoing debate.

Why Cornerstone isn't the SF Mime Troupe

2005-11-20T11:15:00.000-08:00

I've been reading through some of the articles written about the company (notably "To Work and Be Proud of It" in HARVARD magazine), and there's an interesting twist in the road that comes out in the production of THREE SISTERS FROM WEST VIRGINIA.

There's a sense in which becoming the overtly political, provocative theater company would have been the simple path for Cornerstone. Having completed work on an interracial ROMEO AND JULIET in Port Gibson, Cornerstone went to a town that had been devastated by the cresting and then collapse of the mining industry. The easy choice would have been to go at the politics in plain sight: industry choking a small town, etc. The easy choice would have been AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.

James Bundy, then managing director, says they would have been able to create their niche: people love to fund that sort of stuff. It's still true...tweak the obvious problem and it's easier to explain your work, it's easier on the journalists, it's easier on the foundation committee, etc. Rather, as Peter Howard says in the HARVARD article, "The political thing that we do is to say that the place where you live and the way that you live is a thing worth considering."

So they decided to do THREE SISTERS, but what's really interesting is they set it not in West Virginia but in Detroit...the place the sisters yearn for is West Virginia, not Moscow. So many people have moved in order to make a living that the deeper story of this community and its identity is diaspora.

I am interested in the way that idea emerged. Movements are interesting that way when they don't have a manifesto: when did that idea of approach and engagement become "the political thing _we_ do?" Much of the rest of the piece is taken up with the sheer salesmanship involved in those residencies: working desperately to fill an audition hall, and then deperately again as people begin to drop out! Perhaps the secret to the methodology is that Cornerstone simply drove itself to edge of the world and had to find a way to get back. They did so one person at a time, and stumbled on an idea about art and political engagement that is both epic and obvious.

Other interesting trivia in the THREE SISTERS story is that the bridge show is in the air (although it's called a "reunion" show), and that in this piece and one Peter Sagal wrote about PIER GYNT the company is already trying to figure out how to settle down.

Publishing Plans -- Plays to Ponder...

2005-11-13T11:34:00.000-08:00

I'm talking through the Table of Contents with a number of people, and I hope to have a good solid one before Christmas. I'd like to use that as the hub of a proposal to a publisher, most likely TCG given their interest in and support for Cornerstone. The end of this phase of the project would be a very finished PDF of a proposal/TOC to show publishers.

I think the play selection will be tricky. It was always going to be tricky, because the plays are so specific. Alison was enthusiastic about including THREE SISTERS FROM WEST VIRGINIA in the mix, but pointed out that it was a very tight adaptation. It's not like someone else can just pick it up and do it in Anytown, USA.

At the other end of the spectrum is a production like EVERYMAN AT THE MALL, which is (as Bill pointed out) mostly a creation of the director and the production team. The text is relatively unchanged from the published version.

These are the full-length plays I think I'd include...they span a number of modes/times/places in the Cornerstone experience:

THREE SISTERS FROM WEST VIRGINIA
TWELFTH NIGHT
CENTRAL AVENUE CHALK CIRCLE
STEELBOUND
BROKEN HEARTS
WAKING UP IN LOST HILLSBODY OF FAITH

And I would include scenes from the following:
The Freddy Kreuger/Queen Mab speech from ROMEO AND JULIET
TARTOOF
HAMLET
CALIFORNIA SEAGULL
ANTIGONE
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
GHURUBA
EVERYMAN AT THE MALL
GOOD PERSON OF NEW HAVEN
CANDUDE
A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN I ASK YOU
CROSSINGS
LONG BRIDGE

I'm going to work on a list of must-have articles from other publications next...

What to publish, and how?

2005-11-06T08:33:00.000-08:00

I had a great lunch with Alison the other day...somehow we ended up talking more about me than the Omnibus, which I think is a great talent of hers (more, I hope, than it is a failing of mine).

One thing we both agreed to talk more about was the possibility of the different publishing efforts assisting each other. She and Bill are intent on writing a history, and of course there is also the publication of the methodology book. Alison told me to ask her for materials, since she has a ton of them as it is. I'm going to get one of the older plays from her (3 SISTERS?) and try to create an e-version of that.

I also started thinking this week about other modes of publishing. This Omnibus has to be a physical book, and it has to be relatively inexpensive...but I have also thought about publishing it or part of it online. Perhaps there is ancilary material available online? The COMPLETE transcripts of interviews, or MP3's of music, or clips of shows?

One thing I have on my laptop here is the Bill and Alison presentation of the slideshow from I2. There's another little side project. It seems to me that it could be like one of those New York Times multimedia presentations. I just looked at one this morning about the new production of Sweeny Todd...about 2 minutes of Patti Lupone and Michael Cerveris talking over photos of the production. The slideshow does need to be married to that text, either using Powerpoint or Flash.

Then I had another interesting idea: what about a podcast archive of Cornerstone interviews/talks? It could be like a reference library of Cornerstone available for audio download. If you're going to collect the audio anyways, might as well put it to use.

This project began for me in part because I wanted to help the company (and especially the writers) exploit their own intellectual property, but the more I think about it the more I just want to see about ways of getting this out there for potential users. There are two prinicples at work for me: information wants to be free, and Cornerstone is a movement. The challenge is to spread the word as rapidly and effectively as possible.

Interviews and transcriptions...

2005-10-30T13:15:00.000-08:00

I'm working with a preliminary version of the Table of Contents, and I thought I'd pull out a list of the interviews to see what the scope of that part of the project will look like...

I think in some cases people might want to write their own articles, or have that option. In some cases we might use snippets of the Durfee material, but there are some people who will need to be interviewed and then transcribed. First...the straight interviews:

First Impressions of Cornerstone (An Interview Roundtable with Community Partners)

Ensemble Interview: Amy Brenneman (to talk about the beginnings? Insider/Outsider perspective?)

Cornerstone on the Road(An Interview Roundtable with Community Partners)

Ensemble Interview: Chris Moore (to talk in depth about rural years, ensemble shows)

Ensemble Interview: Peter Howard (to talk in depth about rural years, ensemble shows)
Ensemble Interview: Page Leong (LA, joining the company in progress)
Story Circle: Cornerstone in L.A. (Key Community Partners)
“Working With Cornerstone” by A Very Famous Collaborator/Commissioner
Interview with Ensemble Members who have worked on CC’s…maybe just a few paras on each play, a roundtable?
Playwrights on Working with Cstone from the outside: Lisa Loomer, Chay Yew, and?
Interviews with students of I1 & I2
An interview with Community participants of Institute 1 & 2…
Ensemble Interviews: Newer members

...and it's possible that the search for a new AD might make an interesting roundtable discussion. Perhaps even a chain of emails among the Search Committee members?

Here are pieces that could be interviews, but could also be articles or essays by the participants...

“The Cornerstone Impulse” by Bill Rauch OR Interview
“Adaptations” by Alison Carey OR Interview
“Designing Cornerstone” Lynn Jeffries OR Interview
“Finding a Home for Cornerstone” by Leslie Tamaribuchi OR Interview
The Technology of Cstone by Geoff Korf
Stage Managing a Cstone show by ???
The Institute by Paula Donnelly
Education and Cstone by Deb Piver

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So that looks like at LEAST 13 interviews...say 15 just to get a round number. My first problem is transcription. I'd guess that having that many interviews transcribed could cost around $2k. Next up I need to think about articles and play texts. Many articles will be available as e-files, but the older texts and news letters will need to be scanned in using OCR or typed. I think I have a pretty good setup for OCR....

Newsletters and other details...

2005-10-23T12:41:00.000-07:00

Last night was the Bridge Awards which started with a really fantastic speech by Ben Cameron. Here's hoping he can persuaded to contribute that or something else to this collection. Ben Cobb also contributed a letter from Bill which could easily be part of the BEGINNING section. It was a wonderful evening...easily among the best of these the company has created...mostly because of Alison, Bill, and Chris. Of course I sat there all night thinking, I've got to get this book together...it is needed now....

Continuing on through the Durfee transcripts...which oddly enough were NOT mentioned in the midst of the celebration of Durfee's contributions. They are truly a fantastic resource...I must find out if there are e-versions of them.

The transcripts also reference company newsletters from the early years which might be a great resource. I'll read it all...it's really a lot of fun. I am getting confused though...people whom I do not know are popping up: James and Johnny and Sabrina...sometimes transcribers miss the names. Proper nouns are the worst at 130 WPM.

I am really struck by something that Chris said last night and that Peter says in the transcript: the presence of gays and lesbians in small town America...the connection of Cornerstone to that particular constituency. That another item to hang on to...another one of the important sidebars....

AD interviews are coming up...I'm going to try and attach Omnibus dinners to both days...here's hoping I can get some momentum with this.

Corner Store, Stepping Stone.

2005-10-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

Everyone's getting busy with the new AD search and the Bridge Awards. I've had a hard time getting to this today. I'm setting aside at least an hour when Risa and the boys are at Sholem to work on the Omnibus. No matter what, I have that time.

Shishir and I talked about it a little today: I really do have to make the time to sit down with people and talk. So far it hasn't gone much beyond Bill and Lee.

I am enjoying the Oral History tapes...looking into the "beginning" material. I didn't know until now about "Corner Store" as one of the original names...all the nicknames and stories are intriguing. I didn't know that Lynn and Bill met within a week of arriving at Harvard--she said they called themselves the "Bill and Lynn Show." It's also intriguing to see Peter Sellers as a character who was in the atmosphere at the creation, although tough to say whether he wasa positve or negative example (seems like both, The Amazing Dialectical Man, I always like to call him). Bill's Aunt Grace and Dean Wall Flerie (sp? transcribers can't be expected to be great spellers)...a hit and run story..."North Dakota...the Badlands...that's where my stomach dropped out..."

It's interesting because the speakers aren't always ID'ed...sometimes it's like the Cornerstone Super Ego going round and round the stories it remembers about itself.

Durfee, right? Not Durphy!

2005-10-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

Lee Lawlor was kind enough to dig out the 27 pounds of transcripts that were done from the company's week-plus sojourn/retreat provided courtesy of the Durfee Foundation. I've started to read them, and it's really a treat. It's fun (knowing the CTC members I do) to "hear" them captured in the transcript, and imagine their new-to-LA and ten-years-younger selves. I read a lot of transcripts in my work as a documentarian, so I'm used to it and to making the leap.

I particularly liked Chris Moore's dry introduction of himself as a Nobel Prize winning chemist, and Page Leong's modest description of her newcomer status.

These pages were one of the suggestions Bill Rauch had when we talked about important source material. I'm also going to be looking for a few articles as well. And then what to do with it all? I'm certainly going to need to use some sort of OCR software to turn those typed pages into e-text...and perhaps some voice recognition software as well?

For now it's a lot of fun just leafing through this material. It's a happy break from some of the other (very heavy) material I've been working on this year. Stalin, the Tet Offensive, the Klan...ahhhh! Cornerstone!

Editing in Public...

2005-10-09T12:04:00.000-07:00

In my quest to get the Cornerstone Omnibus off the ground, I'm opening shop on this Blogosphere. Here's hoping that editing in public will help the Big Book O' Cornerstone be the book it needs to be for all the people who will need it.

I'll be using this space to post updates on the book and its progress, and to solicit advice and comments about its content. I'm going to make proofs of some of it available, but I think I need to think for a bit about what to put out and how to put it out there.

Above all, this is meant to be an open-ended story circle devoted to the story of the Cornerstone source book we're all working towards.

Finally, I think it's worth mentioning my vision for the Cornerstone Omnibus...I am editing this books for someone who probably isn't even even born yet. This book if for some young person who's going to wander through a library (real or virtual), picking through the stacks until the find the story of this amazing company. This book is for that young man or woman who will then go on to create the new Cornerstone for a new theater....

JJF