Drip, drip, drip... again.

I happened to be down at the warehouse yesterday -- yes, the very same warehouse on which Lyric has just signed a new multi-year lease -- and found that even after the light rains of earlier this week, we once again have leaks in the roof, as attested by the return of multiple drip-catching trash cans in the boardroom:



As you can see, more seams along ceiling wallboard joints have begun to open up.

Up periscope!

My, my. Can my last blog post possibly have been as long ago as April 11? Have I been "submerged" for as long as that?

Yep. That was also about the point at which the time I had previously been spending on Lyric Theatre evaporated, as the result of getting a full-time temporary job.

That job has now come to an end -- and, as you may have read in our newsletter, The Patter Post, so also has my tenure as President of this theater company (though I remain a member of the Board). There were several reasons for this development, some more interesting than others, but I'll get to those in another post.

I don't intend to stop writing about the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of San Jose. I'll just be doing it from a different perspective -- and pretty freely, too.

So please check back in from time to time, or better yet, include this blog on your RSS feed reader's tracking list. If you're a GMail user, that's as simple as clicking on the Reader link at the top of your GMail Inbox screen and then following the simple instructions.

Surface! Surface!

Sullivan speaks!

Here's an 1888 wax cylinder recording of Sir Arthur Sullivan talking about Edison's recent invention of sound recording. His worries were well-founded!

Queen Victoria WAS amused, after all

This photo is from the cover of Alan Hardy's 1976 book of (almost) the same name as this post's title. The gist of the book is that Queen Victoria, who was nearing the end of her long reign when Gilbert and Sullivan were collaborating, was not at all the sour-faced prude whose public image has been summed up for most people by her famous remark ,"We are not amused." I wrote at some length on this topic in our most recent Patter Post newsletter (which, if you don't receive, can be yours every quarter for a minuscule $25 membership in our organization).

I won't repeat all that now, but I did want to share one example that's just too good to keep to myself.

One of her grandsons told a story of the Queen's 1878 luncheon with an elderly admiral who came to report to her on the wreck and later salvage of HMS Eurydice:

"After she had exhausted this melancholy subject, my grandmother, in order to give the conversation a more cheerful turn, inquired after his sister, whom she knew well. Whereupon the Admiral, who was hard of hearing and had not caught the change of topic, replied in his stentorian voice: 'Well, Ma'am, I am going to have her turned over and take a good look at her bottom and have it well scraped.' "The effect of this answer was stupendous. My grandmother put down her knife and fork, hid her face in her handkerchief, and shook and heaved with laughter till the tears rolled down her face."

Not the reaction of a sour-faced prude, I'd say! For a pleasant evening or two of reading, look for Queen Victoria Was Amused next time you're in your local library.

The Rep and us

Yesterday, many of us read a disturbing story in the San Jose Mercury News: "Rep's financial picture grows even grimmer: Auditors question if theater can last past the summer." That's "Rep" as in our city's splendid San Jose Repertory Theatre.

The collapse of an arts group that the city and private donors have poured so much money into would not be good news for anyone. The Rep was clearly selected as one of the flagship arts enterprises that were going to redefine San Jose's cultural character. And they've earned that distinction, every season.

But if even the Rep's well-deserved artistic reputation, professional staff, and lavish financial support have failed to keep it prospering, some might ask: what hope do the rest of us have? After all, the Rep has benefited from tens of millions of dollars from the city alone; in contrast, Lyric Theatre's annual city grant has hovered between $15,000 and $20,000.

But I think I have an answer to that question about hope. It's not a new one, but it bears repeating.

The word "sustainable" is much in vogue these days, and I think it's very pertinent to this topic. In the arts, we may be seeing evidence in the Rep's troubles that, in the South Bay region of our times, the stunningly expensive task of maintaining a professional theater company may not be financially "sustainable" when things turn badly sour for an unusually long time. Deplorable, if true -- but it would be no less true for being deplorable.

In contrast, a non-professional company like Lyric -- one that can provide quality entertainment to our valley for a tiny fraction of the price of an enterprise like the Rep -- is going to be quite sustainable. Like a hardy native tree, we haven't needed much in the way of resources to keep us going.

That's not happy-talk, nor just a theory; we've proved it over and over. Lyric was born in the middle of the deep recession of the early '70's, caused by the oil embargo after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war (remember those lines at the gas stations?). Then we survived the steep inflation of the late '70's, the recession of the early '80's and early '90's, and the dot-com bust of ten years ago.

And we'll survive this downturn, too, if we have the tenacity, self-searching honesty, and imagination of those who built up Lyric Theatre before us.

Finally, we need to keep reminding ourselves that our enterprise is inherently and permanently valuable for a much better reason than mere sustainability. All of us who make Lyric Theatre happen each year are local people who aren't satisfied just to be consumers of art -- we are makers of art, too. We give that art to our neighbors because we love making it. And when we do it well, we show that talented, educated, energetic citizens needn't depend on big handouts in order to fill their own community with beauty, wit, and music.

So, while we fervently hope that the Rep survives to continue making its superb contribution to the Valley's cultural landscape, we'll continue to plug away here at Lyric -- not, we admit, at their artistic level, but debt-free, dedicated to our art, and looking confidently -- with good reason -- toward the future.

Kismet sets take shape

Basic shapes from Baghdad's legendary past started to emerge in Lyric's set shop last weekend. C'mon now, doesn't this look like fun? Why not come down next weekend and help?

So... what do WE believe in?

Scanning the newspaper this morning, I saw this statement in the sidebar of a story about the buzz over today's product announcement from Apple. It's from Brian Lam of Gizmodo:

Jobs doesn't sell stuff he doesn't believe in.

True, I thought. Since the first iMac flashed its candy-colored case at the all-beige world of computing more than ten years ago, Steve Jobs has seemed genuinely delighted with each and every new product he has shown to the world. There's been a boyish enthusiasm about him at these times (even in later years when his health was iffy) that communicates itself directly to the Mac fan base, and then everywhere.

Yes, the bottom line is permanently important, and I'm not trying to romanticize a very hard-headed business. But there's something about Jobs that tells you that he does, indeed, believe in each product, and that you too would be delighted if you bought it.

Then I read Lam's statement a different way.

Yeah, Jobs doesn't sell stuff he doesn't believe in. And neither does anyone else -- because no one can sell stuff they don't believe in.

Now, any salesman with good technique can counterfeit some enthusiasm for a boring or inferior product. But in the long run, the people who sell like Steve Jobs -- that is, with crazy-brilliant success, over and over again -- can do it because they really do think that the thing they're offering you is genuinely marvelous and worth your attention and your money.

And people can usually tell when you've really got that passion, and when you're faking it.

We need that kind of real passion for our product at Lyric.

And where does it come from? At least in part, it comes from a wholehearted commitment to a clear mission that fires us up and makes us proud. Why is the world going to be better because of what we're doing? Or to put it the opposite way, what should Lyric be doing so that the world (or at least our patrons and our community) will indeed be better off if we do it?

In the next few days, I intend to give a good deal of thought to all that in these pages. But from right now, I'm also asking you to contribute your thoughts through the Comment link, especially if you actively participate in Lyric's operations or are a concerned Lyric patron. What would inspire that Steve-Jobs-like passion in you, when you're telling a friend about our next production, or about why we're here?