Style Weekly
Rick
Member since Apr 27, 2011
Recent Comments
Re: “Burning Down the House”
I, Rick St. Peter, do resolve to not support the Firehouse Theatre Project in any way until the founding artistic director, Carol Androski Piersol is reinstated as artistic director, pending the dissolution of the current Board. I will not create work, nor be in the audience, nor donate in or in support of this space until this happens. If you are an artist (supporter, ticket-buyer, donor, student, technician, et al) please join with us in posting this.
Re: “Burning Down the House”
So the board's idea of evolving the theatre to the "next level" is to hire an utterly unqualified individual to serve as managing director and then bring in an utterly unqualified individual to serve as the interim artistic director? And Carol lacks business sense? Whatevs...
Re: “Firehouse Smolders”
Everytime you think this board cannot be more inept, they double down on the bungling...at this point, I wouldn't trust anything they say about anything. It seems the board members with a conscience did the right thing and resigned, leaving only a collection of apparent power mad ego maniacs unable or unwilling to admit they made a colossal blunder. One of these days someone is going to write an arts administration dissertation using FTP as a case study on how to destroy an organization from the inside. And by this point, I am willing to indict the managing director as a co-conspirator in incompetence...and people say absurdism as a theatrical style is dead, apparently it is alive and well amongst members of the FTP board, although like most people dealing with absurdism, they probably don't have the first clue about what it all means.
Rick St. Peter
Re: “No Piersol, No Peace”
Oh Sad (and what a perfect anonymous moniker for you)...everytime I think to myself, "Boy I miss Richmond, it really seems to have changed in the years since I have been gone, I wonder what it would be like to go back?" I run across a post like yours and I am reminded of the wonderful (awful) "Richmond way." Carol is someone whose work you profess to admire and from the tone of your post, I daresay you even like her, maybe even consider her a friend...although if you are a donor, perhaps she is no more a friend to you than your gardner is but that is immaterial right now. You observe her in situations you find troubling, do you ask her about it? Do you say, "Carol, are you ok? You seem out of it and I really care about you....are you sure you are ok?" OF COURSE NOT!!! Because what would you then have to talk about at the next United Daughters of the Confederacy or Sons of Confederate Veterans meetings? Worry about her? Well fiddle dee dee...she's just the help...Oh hello there coffee cup!! Let me ask myself: "What would Robert E. Lee Do?" Would you say, "Oh, maybe she brought her coffee from somewhere else...." Or maybe "She must be drinking hot chocolate..." No, because "What would Jefferson Davis Do?" He would "nosily look into her coffee cup..." only to discover (GASP!!!!) "IT DID NOT CONTAIN COFFEE!!!!" OMG!!!! Should I ask her about it? Should I say, "Carol, is it a little early to be drinking?" (And forgive me for assuming you are discussing alcoholic drinks in your post, I may be obtuse and perhaps your suble as a sledgehammer accusations really mean something different) NO, because if you asked her, what would you discuss at the next Monument Ave HOA meeting??? That's not how we do things in Richmond, right? Why throw away a perfectly good piece of gossip? Why I am sure you spent weeks dining out on that, right..."Oh did I tell you what was in Carol Piersol's coffee cup?? Tres scandal!!" The only thing missing in your post to make it PERFECTLY Richmond was if you finished your final sentence with "Bell her heart...." Enjoy your gossip and bless your heart....Sad indeed....
Rick St. Peter
Re: “No Piersol, No Peace”
Balanced Approach....as someone who has experience running a theatre, I must respectfully disagree with some of your sentiments. It is a terribly difficult job being the AD of a not-for-profit theatre, particularly in this economic environment when their are fewer and fewer resources to go around and more and more organizations struggling for them. The two key relationships in any professional theatre are the relationship between the AD and the Board and the relationship between the AD and the Managing Director....they need to be built on ideas of trust and mutual respect and if the trust and respect are broken, your organization will suffer greatly. While I cannot speak for Carol, obviously, I would imagine that her trust of the board as currently constituted is irrevocably broken. I support the call to dissolve the board and begin anew and as Morrie Piersol says, the new board may in fact be made up of members of the current board. But something went tragically wrong in the relationship there and like all broken relationships, a divorce is called for.
In terms of a boycott of FTP, so often, as was the case with this board, the artists are treated as nothing more than the hired help...well in this instance the major way the artists can make their voices heard is to withhold their talent. I would ABSOLUTELY and without hesitation support a boycott of FTP until such time as Carol is reappointed. What other means would you suggest to foster the change that needs to occur? Funders can withhold support, audiences can withhold attendance, what can artists and technicians do? This is a situation where I believe the needs of the community outweigh the short term self interest of a few weeks employment. So by all means, boycott FTP until such time as Carol Piersol is reinstated. I also don't believe the notion that the board had some legitimate reason to force her ouster. The leadership of this board has been so staggeringly amateurish and ham-handed in their approach that I am sure if it was something more than a petty power struggle they would have found a way to get their reasoning out to the community. The fact that they haven't only confirms my suspicion that a faction of board 1%ers thought they had in FTP a plaything they could do whatever they wanted to with and how dare the petty unwashed masses of artists rise up against their wishes...or so it seems...
Rick St. Peter
Re: “Firehouse Director Ousted”
Oh and 2 other questions I am curious about:
1. What is Rejena Carreras' role in all of this? She has already had a prominent role in the closure of one Richmond theatre, was one not enough for her?
2. Where is the new Managing Director in all of this? Carol makes it for 19 years, a new MD comes on board -- one who appears to be painfully lacking in any meaningful theatre experience at that -- and suddenly various factions are discussing Carol's retirement plans without Carol being present? Weird! And I would think an MD would stand in solidarity with their AD and yet we've heard nothing from her and apparently she wasn't present at the rally tonight....curiouser and curiouser....and disappointing as well...but not uncommon unfortunately....
Rick St. Peter
Other Publications
Re: “Sifting the Embers”
So the interloper's comment that it is "business as usual" belies his previously stated desire to find a way to bring Carol back into the fold...With mentees like these who needs enemies...