Honestly, I never expected any recognition, any reviews, or ANY press
taking us seriously enough to even show up to our productions, much
less from the 2 major newspapers and the only cool radio station
around, because in Los Angeles, the whole time I was at the Jewel Box
there was one reviewer that came to one play ever, and I think the
only reason she came was because the play was called "The Sexx Playz"
and advertised having nudity so it sounded like it could stir some
things up. That's all speculation of course, but the point is that I
personally went into this completely humble, and have been excited
and amazed that KDHX, RFT, and the Post have been nice enough to pay
us any attention at all, and have been for the most part very
supportive of us, despite our lack of standard professionalism and
lack of conformity.

I speak for all of Parliament Cheez when I say that we appreciate and
welcome KDHX and any other reviewer to anything we do. Their taking
time out to specifically attend OUR shows is wonderful, and we
appreciate being included, especially considering that we're
the "bastard step-child" of St. Louis theatre (I'm quoting Byron
Kerman's Night & Day description of us from last week's RFT - I love
that, it's so true!)

What better place to do something completely
different than here? St. Louis is wide open! It has a rich artistic
history, it is a cheap place to live (I work 2 part time jobs and
manage to drive a car, make a house payment, buy groceries, have a
cell phone, and produce theatre and films in addition to that, often
out of pocket, and I'm 26), and if you want to put on a show or film
a movie, you don't have police or any other authorities chomping at
the bit to shut you down. That's more than I can say for Los
Angeles, at least for companies like us, Parliament Cheez. As far as
audience support, sure, the audiences could be better, but I think
that the constant feeding of mediocrity by society as a whole is the
root of the problem, here. Personally, P. Cheez's lack of marketing
skills is partially to blame for our lack of audiences. When we
built it, they came...Parliament Cheez sold out the Tin Ceiling
(former Centro Sociale) for a number of shows on word of mouth
alone. It's hit or miss when you're not really getting the word out
or standing up for your cause, I think, or marketing to the wrong
crowd. The Jewel Box had NUMEROUS nights of 5 audience members, and
that's 2 blocks off of Hollywood blvd!

I think that no matter how weird and out of the ordinary something
is, it can be easily accepted by just getting attention. Parliament
Cheez has not really gone out of it's way to get attention yet.
We've been training ourselves, because there was no one else to train
us, at least not to do what we got together to do. A friend of mine
asked me a couple of months ago about a play at the rep and if I'd
seen it. I said no, and followed by saying "I'm not really into
theatre." He stared at me, and said "than what is it you think
you're doing with your life?" I said "I'm not sure, but it's not
theatre." So I, myself, don't define what Parliament Cheez does as
being "theatre" any more than I can define our audience as being a
theatre audience.

I invited my mechanic to our 3rd production a couple of years ago.
It was called "Four Corners." Eddie Silva did an article on it for
the RFT. Sean Ruprecht-Belt reviewed it. Anyway, Pat (the mechanic)
sat through this extremely weird set of surreal pieces, not having
been to a play other than his kids' stuff at their schools, and
thanked Scott Dorough, one of the writers, afterwards. With a tear
in his eye, Pat said that the piece on jazz music preventing alien
abduction really made him understand his divorce. HE GOT IT!!! The
piece was about a man who comes home to find all his stuff gone, he
thinks aliens took his wife and his stuff, and starts listening to
jazz music to keep the aliens away. Now, someone who has seen every
standard musical and every one of the million productions of "Our
Town" may not have gotten it. (I say "may"). Pat did. Pat's wife
left him and he got it, because he's crazy enough in love with his
wife to want to believe anything other than the fact that she just
plain left him. He knows that feeling enough to identify with the
man on stage who listens to jazz to keep the aliens from getting
him. That's everyday life. That's what we're doing. Our metaphors
are just non-standard. Our lights are just $5 shop lights from home
depot. Our set pieces are just built from stuff we find that other
people have thrown in alleys. Our actors are just kids and people
with emotions and usually quite a bit to say, but who lack the
training and experience to say it in such a way that the "theatre
crowd" can recognize.

I believe that if one person is affected by your work, you've done
your job. None of us have ever cared about making any money with our
shows. We've never gone after recognition, at least not yet. We've
never been bothered by a bad review, instead we've been excited to
have gotten a review at all. We truly are doing this because we love
it and have something to say. The goal to keep getting better is
there, but only to tell more people what it is we have to say.
We're not a bunch of high-brow intellectuals getting angry and bitter
because we're "misunderstood."

There's a certain southside working-class feel to the tone of what we
do, I think, for the most part. We're all working class; even our
youngest high-school members know the pains of being on your feet all
day and coming to rehearse afterward, then getting up and doing it
all again. Maybe that's our target audience. Or maybe it's the
sheltered suburbanites who crave more that what they're presented
with. We just have to get their attention.

When anything non-standard is presented to anyone, I believe that
it's acceptance can only be viewed from individual to individual.
How weird is it for overweight guys to beat the living daylights out
of each other in a ring of ropes and have hundreds of cheering
spectators? Yet wrestling is widely accepted enough... How weird is
it that people drag race their riding lawnmowers? Yet I went down to
Paducah last summer and came upon a giant cheering crowd by the Ohio
river, pushed through it only to find men on John Deere's putting
through the streets to win the pool. How weird is it that Americans
spend greater than 2 hours per night sitting in their living rooms
staring at a lit-up box with a laugh track? How weird is it that a
bastard step-child production company doing god-knows-what-it's-
called could be performing on Cherokee street?

My grandfather got an Engineering degree from Wayne State University
in 1930 and became an engineer at GM. That was a 2-year degree at
the time. He was from Winnepeg, Manitoba, and believed enough in
cars to move by himself to Detroit at age 18 in 1924, join the Army
for 4 years, become a citizen, and pursue this. Considering the
rough times for the economy in 1930, none of his family believed in
him, and couldn't understand why on earth he'd come to America for
something as ridiculous as the car industry. Needless to say they
were wrong. What does that have to do with anything? Well, to be
passionate, one has to face lack of acceptance. To be truly
creative, one must face the obstacles of being misunderstood due to
lack of conformity. My father was a Lutheran Minister. He came to
St. Louis because he'd heard of the charasmatic movement here, and
wished to be a part of it. He wore a clown suit at the pulpit. He
brought in a reggae band to lead services. He dressed the sunday-
school children up in sheep suits and had them parade around the
southside German neighborhood telling everyone not to follow the
herd. He was institutionalized in 1985, but was released 3 weeks
later because the psychiatrist could find nothing clinically wrong
with him.

Through all of this, I only hope it is apparent that I, as producing
manager of Parliament Cheez, can speak for us as a whole when I say
that we don't care what our material is called, but we do believe
that we are following our passion. Mr. Ruprecht-Belt's reviews and
those like it only make us try harder for our material to truly reach
PEOPLE, and not their pre-conditioned brains. I'm sure most of our
work could use a lot more polishing on all counts, but we're doing
what we can with what we have, and building upon what we have from
within.

Robin Garrels
Production Manager
Tin Ceiling Arts
Parliament Cheez Productions