By Maria Shaplin
We ain’t gonna lie, its hard being a small performing arts organization. Applied Mechanics has been making weird and awesome performances for almost 7 years now. We have come a long way since our first show, which was produced with a $100 budget and a lot of sweat equity. Organizationally, we spend a great deal of our time and energy writing grants to keep the creative work afloat. Our “Get Money” Committee (Insert Junior M.A.F.I.A hook here) is a well-oiled machine these days. It churns out dozens of grant applications a year. The success of this committee has kept our company afloat.
Yesterday a bunch of us in the theater community heard the news that Flashpoint Theater Company is closing its doors after 11 seasons. We are lucky enough to have snatched up one of the founding members of Flashpoint, Mike Osinski, after he returned to Philly from grad school in Chicago. So now Mike and I are sitting here in Saxby’s Coffee doing our weekly office hours, listening to soul music and semi-mourning the end of Flashpoint. When I was a fresh-faced lighting designer right out of grad school, Flashpoint was one of the first companies to hire me. They were committed to taking chances on young artists. Its those kind of gigs upon which I have built a great reputation. It feels a little sad that youngsters these days may not have as many of those opportunities. But is it really a loss? Do the companies who can’t get it together to raise money, or build enough of a community of artists to sustain their goals… is it better that these companies fizzle out and let the stronger ones survive and evolve?Mike, are you sad about the death of Flashpoint?
I am, though I think my feelings are more complex than that. Flashpoint was my artistic home when I was first in Philadelphia, and I miss that. When I returned to Philadelphia, I realized I’d have to find and/or create a new home for myself. Flashpoint had grown into something different, and I had evolved into a different kind of director and theatre artist. So on a very personal level, I’ve been “mourning” the loss of my artistic home for a few years now, but in the same way some of us mourn our childhood homes.
Will there be a void in the producing world in terms of- are the kinds of plays that Flashpoint produced still in need of a home? Is Philly gonna miss out on some new exciting shit now that Flashpoint is gone?
I don’t know. I still read new and “newish” plays and think, “Wow, this would be a great Flashpoint play.” Maybe that’s the theatre gods telling me I have to find these plays a home or just produce them myself. I think places like Azuka and Orbiter 3 are doing good stuff – both have proven their commitment to new work in this town. I’m glad to see the Wilma going in such an artistically adventurous direction. For a big institution to commit to new ways of making work is huge. Frankly I think the work to watch is the work that’s coming out of more experimental groups like Sam Tower + Ensemble, The Berserker Residents, Lightning Rod Special, and of course, Applied Mechanics. (Interviewer makes an aaawww shucks face)If you started Flashpoint all over again, what would you do differently?
That’s a good question for ALL the co-founders to answer. Years later I have such a different understanding of what an Artistic Director’s role in the company and in the greater theatre community really is. I think I would’ve tried to make world premieres a higher priority in our artistic programming. But honestly considering what the artistic climate was in Philadelphia at the time we founded the company, I think we did a lot of things right in our first few seasons.What was the name all about anyway?
If my memory serves me, Derick (Loafmann) came up with it. It’s the name of a Rolling Stones album, which may be how he initially thought of the name, but then when we looked up the definition of the word, it felt like it encapsulated what we were trying to do in Philadelphia. “A critical point or stage at which something or someone suddenly causes or creates some significant action.”
What flavor of ice cream would flashpoint have been?
What was your favorite show that you guys produced?
This will not surprise any of my co-founders, but my favorite show is the production of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away which I directed. That might be because it feels like something I’d still direct today. It had a strong message, but it made the audience do a bit of work to figure out that message. It was artistically ambitious, and it required the whole company to come together in a way we hadn’t before, in a way which made our subsequent productions stronger. And that’s saying something, because the decision to produce that show was NOT a unanimous one. It’s also the production where I met my current partner of 8 1/2 years, which might further explain my bias.THANKS MIKE!!!