Let’s Get Small

I don’t have to go to bed, I’ve got a small day tomorrow…

Oh, noes! In a fit of petulance, the production company for Hamilton has cancelled plans to perform at the Kennedy Center next year after the Trump Administration’s replacement of the Center’s leadership. How banal, how recherche. NO, how theater. Entertainers (not to be confused with “artists”) have responded predictably to times of crisis as far back as the WWI days of James M. Cohan: “Hey, the rooming house is being foreclosed! The General is going to lose his ski lodge. Children are starving in Africa. Let’s put on a show!” Folks might shell out hard cash to see Hamilton, but no body’s gonna pony up to not see it. Their loss, and possibly America’s gain. Taking a closer look at cancellations, you can see a lot of shows “cancelled by artist” surrounded by a few honest guys who ‘fessed up “low ticket sales.” I suspect audiences have staying away in droves for years.

Now all those big wheels
With all their big deals
Are gonna need their sleep
But I’m a dropout
Who’d rather cop out
Than run with all the sheep…

That’s Bob Dorough’s Small Day Tomorrow. I met Bob several years ago when he came for a small performance in San Antonio, sponsored by my favorite local jazz station, KRTU. The funniest thing I remember about the meet and greet afterwards was Bob’s merch experience. All he had was a couple dozen CDs in a ratty little gym bag, and he was surprised that an audience of fewer than 50 people bought everything in the bag. What kind of weird hipsters live in San Antonio, Texas? You’d be amazed. Austin is full of blowhard hipsters; San Antonians keep their cool to themselves. We got depths.

All of which circles back to that foolishness with the Kennedy Center. Next year, our Republic will celebrate 250 years as history’s finest democracy. How about celebrating something so BIG with a whole lotta SMALL?

The Kennedy center should think BIG in a SMALL way. Spend the entire semiquincentennial with small artists from every part of the nation. No big productions, no overpromoted self-indulgent divas, no red carpets, no overwrought TV “spectaculars.” Instead, each week could feature performances from the different states (50 states + D.C + Puerto Rico) . Why waste our time and attention on a self-important gang of big wheels with their big deals when all of Small America wants to sing?

I don’t have to go to bed
I’ve got a small day tomorrow
Small day tomorrow…

Update: I like this idea so much that I fired it off to the Kennedy Center. Of course, no one there knows me, so I picked on one of the n00bs on the board whose opinion I respect, Maria Bartiromo. Here’s what I sent.

Ms Bartiromo:

President Donald Trump promised to transform the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts during a visit Monday to the iconic cultural institution, where he presided over a board meeting after ousting the center’s leadership last month and naming himself board chairman.

“We’ll make it great again,” Trump said during the stop, which included a tour of the facility. “I’m very disappointed when I look around. The bottom line: It has tremendous potential.”

“I never liked ‘Hamilton’ very much,” Trump said. “But we are going to have some really good shows.”  Me neither.  When I subject myself to a road-show performance at San Antonio’s Majestic Theater. I started out annoyed, progressed to outraged, and made a strong finish at insulted.  The rapid-fire rap dialog might be fine for lefty bwana types who consider themselves “down with the brothas” but never visit the East Side for some fine home cooking.  For hearing-impaired little ol’ me, it was nothing but unintelligible Jibber-jabber. Call me highly annoyed.  Then there’s the cast and costumes.  An all-black cast dressed up in18th century finery, as though everyday pre-America were one continuous Grand Ball.  I get it that some Black folks like to dress to the nines or over the top, but really? Isn’t this a bit a-historical?  Like 1984 a-historical.  Call me outraged.  Of course, the all-Black cast was a creative stretch, but not a good one. Not single signer of the Declaration of Independence was Black; the Declaration is White America’s gift to the World.  Casting any black person as one of the Founding Fathers is cultural appropriation on the scale of the Bolshevik Revolution.  Call me insulted. 

Next year, our Republic will celebrate 250 years as history’s finest democracy. How about celebrating something so BIG with a whole lotta SMALL?

The Kennedy center should think BIG in a SMALL way. Spend the entire  semiquincentennial with small artists from every part of the nation. No big productions, no overpromoted self-indulgent divas, no red carpets, no overwrought TV “spectaculars.” Instead, each week could feature performances from the different states (50 states + D.C + Puerto Rico) . Why waste our time and attention on a self-important gang of big wheels with their big deals when all Small America wants to sing?