[rocky] Professionalism killed the Rocky star

[jrising]

There was a fantastic discussion at the Rocky party about the state of the cast. The vocal consensus was this:

There's an undercurrent of over-professionalism at the show. In small but definite ways, the drive for professionalism stifles some of the fun of the show and makes working at it a chore. Because the show isn't as much fun, it isn't as good, and the audience has noticed. Both directors, theater 3, and Acid's absence were blamed for these problems.

It's so tough to disentangle real harmful effects from nostalgia. So, tell me: do you agree? Have we gained the world and lost our soul (or raised the bar and broken our backs)? The drive for screen accuracy can push us to do better, but if it drives out jokes and connecting with the audience-- if our performance just duplicates the film-- do we want it? The cast members used to work up the audience waiting outside before the show. Does anyone do that now? We have such a great group, and we can fix these problems, but maybe not without big changes.

Feel free to post anonymously or email me separately.

Comments

[asavitzk.livejournal.com]

Please do come to us and talk because frankly I'm not understanding what you're trying to say here. "Over-professional" sounds almost as illogical as "more perfect" to me and if I don't expect people to be professionals then I'm not acting like much of a leader. And please explain how we are disconnecting while over-scrutinizing.

[asmodai.livejournal.com]

I share your confusion.

And I'd like to add that in the cycles of things, I have seen the cast go through eras of a marked decrease in professionalism. And I think those were a function of how much the directors encouraged professionalism and themselves acted professionally. Being this good doesn't just HAPPEN. It needs to be cultivated. It sounds to me like the solution might not be to decrease focus on professionalism, but rather for people with a problem to make peace with said professionalism, and figure out how to have fun while upholding our focus on precision.

[jrising.livejournal.com]

I'll try to explain more what I'm feeling, but I'm happy to talk to you about it in person.

First, I agree with asmodai about how important the role of the director is in cultivating a good show, and I think its shown every week how successful that's been and continues to be.

I think there's a huge difference between perfectionism, professionalism, and putting on a good show. Perfectionism is basically a negative drive. It's a drive against imperfection, and I think people feel it that way, and feel like they have less leniency to diverge. Professionalism is an attitude about how you use that leniency-- you want to choose how you diverge well for putting on a good show and to be respectful to your fellow cast members. Putting on a good show is a further goal beyond professionalism, to which being professional is an important building block.

Please don't take my comment about disconnection and over-scrutinizing too strongly. By disconnect, I mean that there's a (small) barrier between the directors and the rest of the cast. On the one hand, you and Gary are very approachable-- on the other, it can feel like a lot of decisions are going on behind closed doors and decreed from on-high to the rest of the cast. (I understand how that's necessary for decision-making, but perhaps the barrier doesn't have to feel this high.) At the same time, it's the directors which ask us to maintain our perfection, and who are watching and will hold us liable if we deviate from it. Maybe it's a disconnect between our perceived levels of responsibility (which everyone has lots of for making it a good show), and authority (which, if people don't feel they have equal to their level of responsibility, they won't want to do it). I think there are small ways in which these effects are there, but for the most part I feel like you and Gary are good at staying connected to the cast, and that things are fairly laid back as far as mistakes go.