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The Next Undergorund Arts City — Fort Wayne?

Don't laugh. It's already happening

By Chris Colcorde

Fort Wayne Reader

2004-05-03

As most Fort Wayne trivia lovers know, the city is home to three infamous, fictional pop culture figures: Frank Burns, the square, joy-killing doctor from M*A*S*H; Astronaut Taylor, the Charlton Heston character marooned in the future in Planet of the Apes; and Fawn Lebowitz, the unfortunate kiln-explosion victim in Animal House. Since the three all hail from the Summit City, it would seem that, to screenwriters at least, "Fort Wayne" is a handy euphemism for "boring and provincial Midwestern city."

Until recently, many Fort Wayne natives would probably agree with the label. Yes, Fort Wayne might be the City of Churches, The Great Place to Raise A Family, but if you're looking for a city with a vibrant arts scene, well. . . other terms might jump more easily to mind. Like conservative. Pedestrian. Twenty years behind the times. A place where nothing happens. A place where, frankly, if you're an artist, getting taken out in a kiln explosion might be the best you could hope for. At least you wouldn't die of boredom.

"Ten years ago, there was nothing going on in this town," says John Commorato, a local poet. "Nothing. It was pretty bleak."

But somehow, things started to change.

Perhaps it was Neil LaBute filming his career-making indie film In the Company of Men here. Or the debut of the confrontational Poetry Slams at Cinema Center. Perhaps it was the return of the city's best and brightest, the young ones who lit out for New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago only to discover that "making it" meant "making rent." Maybe it's the growing sophistication of Fort Wayne audiences. Maybe it's a committed group of artists who decided there was no reason why Fort Wayne couldn't become the next Santa Fe.

Whatever it is, it's here.

Don't look now, but dowdy, provincial Fort Wayne is on the verge of becoming one of the best underground arts cities in the Midwest. "The dynamic here is right," says Dominic Manco, a Fort Wayne artist, and, with his brother Donny, co-owner of Studio 13 tattoo parlor. "If Fort Wayne is a diamond in the rough, it certainly is polishing itself right now."

If this is hard to believe, then consider 2003. The past year saw the second edition of John Commorato, Jr.'s Art Attack, a fusion of punk rock, spoken word, and avant garde art; three new productions from the 24Hour Playhouse; the world premiere of Tony Award-winning playwright George Furth's Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, Sex, and Sex,; the growth of Columbia Street West's popular Midwest Original Music Series; the premiere of The Runaround, a local film, at Cinema Center; another successful hors d’ oerves-and-art Trolley Tour; further installments of the Philharmonic's "Unplugged" series; and dozens of events I haven't mentioned, featuring local painters, musicians, actors, poets, film makers, dancers, photographers. All working. Producing. Plying their craft in basements, in garrets, in attics. Here. In Fort Wayne.

"What's been happening is this," says John Hartman, a local film maker who wrote and directed the short film Drone. "Somebody gets an idea. They tell somebody else. The person says, 'Cool.' They call a friend. The friend says 'I'm in.’ Before you know it you've got a core. Then somebody will say, 'You oughta get this guy.' And the circle expands. You need a space? Somebody knows somebody. There are tons of people in town with talent and resources who are just waiting for someone to get the ball rolling."

"The worst sin in this town," says Greg Stieber, a FortWayne theatre director, "is to sit in Henry's and talk about all the great things we could be doing, and then not doing them. And I am guilty as anybody. But now people are starting to put their words into action."

And when the action gets started, the results can be surprising. Matt Stuart, a local filmmaker and musician, assembled a small army of artists, musicians, performers and technicians for the multimedia art event "PopFilter" in January, and the response from the Fort Wayne audience was astounding. In the middle of winter, with competition from George Carlin at the Embassy and Sevendust at Piere's, seven hundred people crammed into Sal Soto's Avant Garde Gallery to witness Stuart's subversive experiment, a synthesis of live performance, filmmaking, video remixing, and art demonstrations. On the award-winning posters for the show (courtesy of Matt Kelly), Stuart had boldly stated that the event would go until four in the morning, and damned if he wasn't right. At three o'clock, there were still a full hundred listening to the bands, checking out the artwork from E4, watching the experimental films on the monitors.

The success of the event convinced Stuart that Fort Wayne can be a viable center for progressive artists to ply their trade, and he intends to build on the positive response with the second "PopFilter" this fall. "'PopFilter' would have been unthinkable in Fort Wayne in 1998," Stuart says. "But times have changed. You look at what Commorato has done with Art Attack--great artists, great bands, two hundred people--what Orene and Jack did with the 24Hour Playhouse, and you figure, 'Why not?'"

Why not indeed. "I started the theatre for one reason," says Orene Colcord, who founded the 24Hour Playhouse in 2001 with Jack Cantey. "Because I wanted to be in one. And I figured, if I don't do it, no one will." The 24Hour Playhouse accomplishes just what its name implies--new plays are written, rehearsed, and performed by the troupe in one day. "The company meets at 8 pm on Friday. Actors and directors are matched with playwrights. The playwrights write all night, the director gets the scripts at eight, the actors start rehearsing at nine. At 8pm, it's curtain." One of five "24Hour" companies in the U.S., the playhouse completed its tenth production in November 2003. "It's the funnest thing I've ever done in theatre. Complete madness, meltdowns galore, but absolutely exhilarating." And the response? "Terrific. We've been near capacity for virtually every show," Orene smiles. "Even the really terrible ones." She credits the audience for understanding the experimental nature of the company. "There is this misconception that Fort Wayne audiences are lazy and only want 'safe' entertainment," she says, shaking her head. "And it simply isn't true. Look at the poetry slams. At Art Attack. They did a play at IPFW that had "Sex" in the title seven times. Obviously people are a little more adventurous than they're given credit for."

Fighting the perception that Fort Wayne is a hick town can be a daunting task. When George Furth--who wrote the book for the landmark Sondheim musicals Company and Merrily We Roll Along --decided he wanted Greg Stieber to direct a preview of his latest drama, some heated discussions occurred concerning where the play should open. "George wanted the play to be performed under the radar screen, but he didn't believe Fort Wayne could pull it off. Apparently he thought we were gonna perform in a barn or something. Finally, I had to say, 'George, this isn't Mayberry. There are artists here who can do this as well as anybody.' And he said, 'Prove it.' And we did." Sex… played July 25-26th at the IPFW Black Box Theatre to sold-out houses and very positive reactions. Lee "The Jackal" Armitage, a New York theatre professional who came to Fort Wayne to see the opening, was impressed with the quality of the production. "You walk into this college setting thinking, 'Uh-oh, this could be amateurish.' But the acting, the vision, the technical merits were all first-rate. It was terrific." And the playwright was certainly pleased. "George was knocked out," Greg says. "I think he was surprised to see such a fully realized production and the quality of the actors." And a full and responsive audience certainly helped. "At the curtain speech, I checked out the audience. Usually in theatre, you rely on a strong contingent of family and friends. But most of the people I had never seen before. With virtually no publicity, in the deadest week of the summer, the place was full."

Perhaps the people most in need of convincing that Fort Wayne can produce major artists are Fort Waynians themselves. "When I got here, people kept apologizing for Fort Wayne," says Charles Shepard, Executive Director of the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. "And yet there is so much more going on here than where I was." Shepard has been making a concerted effort to connect the underground arts scene with the city's most venerable art institution. "The Museum is not a mausoleum," he says, and to that end he has kept his door open to representatives of the smaller galleries. And he, too, has caught the energy. "There is a definite momentum right now. There's not an inertia to overcome."

And while Fort Wayne will never have the resources to be a New York or a San Francisco, there are definite benefits for artists living in a small market. For instance, Moments cost your theatre-goer all of three dollars. Three bucks. To put that in perspective, you can travel to New York City, pay a hundred bucks and see an overproduced Twentieth Century starring Alec Baldwin and Anne Heche, and not get the same entertainment value.

Another benefit? "Everybody knows everybody," Dominick says. "There is less than six degrees of separation for everybody that comes into our shop." To prove the point, Dominick refers to a framed picture of John Commorato, Jr., displaying some of Studio 13's handiwork on his arm--a tattoo of Mona Lisa cradling a machine gun, with the words "Art Attack" underneath.

Commorato is currently planning stages for Art Attack 3. "It is an insane amount of work, and sometimes I weary of it," John admits. "But then I'll find somebody new, doing terrific, daring stuff, and I get re-energized." The easy part is finding the talent. "I could give you a laundry list of artists constantly creating new work, constantly turning out new paintings. Constantly getting better. And just because we don't see them in public doesn't mean that they're not doing viable things that'll surface at some point."

And odds are, when it does surface, it won't be in New York, or San Francisco, or Santa Fe. It will be in the hometown of Fawn Lebowitz, kiln-explosion victim. "I love this city, and sometimes I love to hate it. But I'm not going to leave," Commorato says. "It's like the card table analogy — you play, you lose, you keep playing, you keep losing, then suddenly, you and your friends start winning. You don't leave the table on a hot hand."

It's Saturday afternoon as I write this. I'm readying myself for a performance of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure at First Presbyterian Theatre. Before I get there, I'm gonna stop by Handmade Candles on Wayne Street to see new works from Jason Hart and Kathleen Gregg. After the performance, I’ll hang out in the lobby at First Pres and look at the lithographs by Ben-Zion and Marc Chagall. Then on to the Brass Rail, where Matt Cotton takes a break from fronting Weary and serves Pabst Blue Ribbon to a punk clientele while the Street Lamps and Vandolah rip up the stage. Because of the play I’ll miss Nick Ridley's book signing, but I know I’ll hear about it. Funny, in a town where nothing ever happens, there's always something going on that I can't get to.