Lessons of Florence

There is an ex-chiesa (de-sanctified church) called San Francesco which has been the home to an ONLUS (charity organization) which helps the homeless here in Florence.  The homeless need help everywhere but here there is also the challenge of culturally accepting that this sort of service is essential to a city’s health.  When I went to the meeting with the lady who runs the ONLUS - Aurora is the name of the organization - she had many questions for me about how the United States deals with charity and volunteer organizations.  She had heard so much about our openness to help each other and our structures of services.  Then she showed me an article to support her frustrations.  The current Assessore al Sicureza (Minister of Security) has been concerned with “cleaning up” the city.  Part of the direction he gives to his police force is to remove the blankets Aurora gives to the homeless from them at night in order to “keep the city clean.”  This gentleman is a high contender for the office of Mayor in the next election.  We are not sure yet if the scandal and investigation of his association with ‘incentives’ for land development will hurt him or help him.  This is Florence after all.  But - because of him - it’s cleaner for the tourists which is what the city is all about!

or is it……

In this ex-Chiesa Florence International Theatre Company held its first “An FITC Christmas!“  This was an idea I wanted to do for our very first season but we weren’t ready to launch it then.  The concept is very simple - bring our audience into a space with our FITC artists, give them props and costumes and break them into 5 groups and then everyone creates the story of “A Christmas Carol” in five scenes presented one after another.  Then a Christmas Cabaret and sing-a-long.  Of course the challenge here is that - because FITC is here for everyone and this is a community-focused event - we have to do it in two languages.  I’m not sure, but we may have created the very first presentation of “A Christmas Carol” in Italian and English with a cast ranging in age from 2 to 80+ from countries around the world.  Which isn’t incredibly easy if you consider Italians don’t know the story of A Christmas Carol!  We had just under 60 people attend.  My good friend here - Mary Jane - played the redeemed Scrooge in the final scene.  She insists I am ruining her life with these creative opportunities I force her into but I think she has real talent!!

   

It was a truly wonderful event and brought people together in the way FITC’s community outreach was created to do — bridging communities with the arts.  There was the family from Sri Lanka looking for a connection in Florence just as there was a family from Sicily looking for the same (the father is in the picture above as Scrooge with Christmas Past).  Both left ecstatically happy to have had such a unique experience with other community members.  Neither spoke the other’s language…. but they all created something together.

This is the Florence that I imagine.  The one that is living along side the deadening museum aspect which so many come to see.  Deadening only because Florence hasn’t learned how to handle so much international attention without diminishing the city in the process.  Deadening because Florence hasn’t learned how to draw on the power and beauty of its intercultural residents and local and international artists and youth to assist in the process of entering the 21st century while preserving and honoring the magnificence of the Renaissance.  So, we do what we can.  Building FITC is - as most of you know - the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.  Stone is resistant, and there is much of it here.  But things change.  Life continues in positive directions if we work toward them together.

That’s why I’m hoping FITC can work with Aurora to bring attention to the homeless situation in the city.  I’m thinking it will be some sort of large Creative Campus event in fall 2009.  I’m sure the Assessore al Sicureza won’t like it…. but what do I care?  Io non voto qui….. (I don’t vote here) ….. I’m just a visitor building a theatre company.  So “Bah Humbug” to that!  He may not know what that means….. but in aboutt 10 years, everyone here will understand the meaning of those words…. and maybe the meaning of what art can do in this world!  Or, at least, in this corner of it.

Un bacio grande ragazzi!

Bari

That’s what I said to my friend Pauline at our coffee today.  That’s how I feel sometimes when I just want to add 1+1 to get 2 and keep learning that here, in Florence, you can’t do it that way.  You have to also use multiplication and division and then throw in a few fractions because they are attractive to look at and then eventually have a coffee because you’re so exhausted from all of this and don’t remember what you were trying to get to anyway so you have a great conversation about Dante and….

This is my feeling in trying to respond to the simple request of creating an international festival of arts this summer in my favorite and - in my opinion - the most beautiful piazza in Florence: Piazza Santo Spirito.  I know I am simply a straniere (foreigner) and an ignoramus artist who knows nothing about business (or so my friend and ‘advocate’ Andrea tells me constantly), but I truly believed there was a process which has been clearly laid out for many years.  Someone says “I want something” you say “okay.  Let me go and make a plan and show it to you.”  But it’s the “show it to you” part… which is difficult right now.  Well, it’s also the ‘exactly what they want’ part which is difficult too.  Well, maybe also the believing anyone is really sincere about this whole thing and maybe the truth is I’m just being used as a political or personal tool for getting certain Assessori (I guess the closest definition would be Ministers) of certain offices to pay attention to a piazza that was once not filled with quite so many drug dealers and crack heads along with their dogs and spiked hair and necklaces.  But I don’t actually, with my many, many years of being in this city (all three of them) believe that these rich men who own all the businesses in the piazza actually want to clean it up with having an international presence of art and culture.  I believe they just want to say they are cleaning it up and get their names in the paper for doing so and then they can — like so many others in this town — pat themselves on the back for actually having done nothing but it all looked nice.  Sort of like the article in “Firenze Spettacolo” which claimed I and Florence International Theatre Company was going to work with them on this.  I found that very amusing since we actually hadn’t had a conversation about it. 

But then again — I’m a straniere.  I’m told often that I simply don’t understand the way things are done here.  And I don’t.  I don’t understand a project proposal to a group of people which requires meeting each of them individually, being told a changing strategy after each encounter (“we are going to form an association with them and FITC”….. “FITC will be hired by their association”………. “we are only going to work with the richest man because he has all the money, the others have no say, they’ll do what he wants”…………. “we are only going to work with the others and the rich man will then want to get into the effort”)  So all these little strategies are going on from my ‘advocate’ Andrea who assures my protests for a simple meeting with all of them to find out who is thinking what and move forward from there are the inexperience of Florentine business culture and also because I am an artist not a business person (here in Italy artists can’t be business people…. but we’ll get into my observations for the reasons on that another time). 

Meanwhile… time is ticking, and other than the pretty article in the paper (with a picture no less!) nothing has happened.  Unless of course “nothing” also includes the hours upon hours it took to create the program proposal (which would be - frankly - HOT!), the calendar and the budget for the 72 programs in 66 days I came up with and then had Clelia translate into Italian.  Or the meetings we at FITC held to make sure we approached this project well and professionally.  Or the meetings since to figure out WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON IN THIS ALTERNATE UNIVERSE I AM LIVING IN!!!!

But then again…. sono straniere (I am a foreigner)….. and for that reason I apply my Hollywood lessons to Florence…. I don’t believe it until it happens and I’m “on the set.”  But even then….. the set could simply be a bella figura but a bruta realita’….. so to quote El Gall from our last production - “The Fantasticks!” : “we’ll see…. we’ll leave them there for awhile… then we’ll see.”

Ciao Ragazzi,
It’s fun to be so close…. and yet… so …. far……

It is, of course, that “living in” aspect that concerns me so much.  When I say “me” I mean FITC.  I mean - well, let’s be honest - my child, my life work, the privilege I get to experience as it unfolds — in all its enormous difficulty — before me.  Today I spent an hour in the final class of one of our English Spettacolare! courses which Carolina had been teaching.  In the final class there is a casual presentation to parents (and grandparents and brothers and sisters) of the work the children had been doing.  Carolina had a class of 8 little girls who were six to eight years old.  Only one spoke any English and this course is created to use theatre to ‘activate’ English.  I sat in the back and watched these little girls act in tiny little scenes in English understanding what they were saying and doing and being so confident and expressive and it was ….. a simple joy.  The parents were ecstatic.  You see in Italy English is - obviously - of growing importance, but the way it is taught no one actually speaks it in school.  It’s all in books and grammer.  And often times the teachers themselves don’t know what they are teaching.  (there’s the example of pointing to a leg and getting the whole class to repeat “egg”  “egg” - among other gems).  This course seemed an obvious assistance to the situation…. to bring FITC into the daily life of this community and work with issues that are important.  It’s these small things which have only taken 3 years to initiate that bring me a sense of gratitude this holiday season.  These “small” things have taken so long to create and do.  A simple room with a talented teacher, a syllabus that’s necessary and needed and 8 little students with happy parents…. here in Florence these things are not easily done.

But I believe in my heart that when they are done - and done well - they are honored and appreciated.  I was proud of Carolina today who hadn’t taught theatre or children a year ago.  The girls held to her neck with great love and the parents have deep gratitude to have seen their children so happy and loving English and theatre in this way.

They gave her a rosebush and asked to continue in the New Year.

They all gave me a small moment in my life where I saw something unfold which I envisioned two years ago.

For that sono molto grata.
Ciao ragazzi,
Bari

Here is a list of the challenges that were met to put on FITC’s first musical.  And… MY first musical! (I love directing musicals… I get to fantasize I can be in one!)

- no rehearsal space (rehearsed in an apartment more than half the size of the stage).  We lost our rehearsal space that the city had given us because they changed the person who oversaw that and we didn’t have a relationship with her (and learned the other guy was doing us “favors”…. how was I to know???) Note to myself: the maffia DOES exist … it runs all aspects of Florence.
- no stage manager (yet again)
- no costume designer (I now have a new credit for my resume)
- no choreographer (I now have a new credit for my resume)
-  no technical director (I now have a new credit for my resume)
- 8 actors of many different backgrounds.  All ended up equally wonderful and gave stellar performances with:
    1 - young woman (21) who was classically trained singer and resisted me every step of the way on all my direction and guidance (I won in the end)
    1 - El gallo who was Italian, an opera singer/dancer who has never acted text in any language and is not fluent in English.  He has performer instincts, but no acting instincts.  However, I learned that if I speak to him in regards to rhythm, we all get what we want in the end.  He was great.
    1 - Mortimer who didn’t speak a word of English.  You would NEVER know from his performance.
     1 - Henry who speaks somewhat good English but has had too many acting classes in clown work and not enough in stanislavski.  He ended up being absolutely fabulous however…..
    1 - an improv performer/puppet master from French Canada who speaks English as a third language and has never done a musical before.  He now has launched a new career - musical theatre performer.  His funniest moment was the end of “Plant a Radish” closing night when he sang “A very Hairy Vegetarian” (the word was “merry”)
    1 - a Filipine woman who played in “Miss Saigon” in Germany for years before moving to Italy who I had play one of the “fathers” as a sexually repressed mother.  It worked wonderfully.
- then there was my amazing musical director who is a specialist in baroque music, never heard of the show (or any show for that matter written after 1863) and still has a hard time understanding how it is possible that “The Fantasticks!” is done as much as it is when the music is so very challenging (he REALLY worked our actors).  He did an amazing job.

Let’s see, what else?  Well, it was fun directing Mortimer, Henry and El Gallo in their scenes in Italian and watching Alessandro and Riccardo help Rosario with his Cockney accent (remembering that Rosario doesn’t speak English at all)….. arguing why the songs were not to carry more value than the scenes with our two classical singers……(Florence is - if anything - a town of people with very ‘precious’ ideas about singing and vocal practice as well as somewhat… prejudice against the American musical.)  It was… informative to say the least…..

Now…. what did this all add up to?  A truly glorious production that “surprised” the Italians, “delighted” those who knew it and deepened even further FITC’s presence in the community as truly creating high level international theatre in a way not at all presented in this city.  The production was incredibly strong - funny, moving and wonderful to listen to and the set - thank you to our amazing set designer - was imaginative, and great fun to work on.  I had an interesting discussion in the lobby with the director of what is going to be the most exclusive residence (like a time share) for rich people in Florence.  He equated our work and value to his membership as equal to the Strozzi Foundation (a big old palace devoted to contemporary art exhibits then the Uffizi Gallery and international exchange and that has something like a 5 million euro budget and gets grants from everyone) and told me to “hold on” until he was set up in April and he would begin an engagement with FITC.  Our mailing list grew from the production, it was the first time we received a couple of unsolicited donations, we are already talking to someone in Rome who may be interested in bringing the play down there and all-in-all I would say it was a successful event of which I am very proud.  A great deal was accomplished on many levels and I know my Italian colleagues are pleased because they call me “Grande Bari” now which is an endearment.

Here’s the link to the photo gallery on our website….. “The Fantasticks!” photos!

Ragazzi…..I can’t tell you how much I WISH you all could have seen this.  If we do it in Roma… venite?  
Bari