Nosedive Productions Farewell Gala

(Post by August Schulenburg)

Last night, myself, Heather, Becky and a number of Friends of Flux attended Nosedive Productions’ Farewell Gala. Making a good ending is never easy, but the event was as joyful (and, being a Nosedive event, bloody and balls-out (literally)) as it was melancholy. Nosedive accomplished a great deal in their 13 years together, from the long-running institution of the Blood Brothers Grand Guignol to the deeply fruitful partnership of director Pete Boisvert and playwright James Comtois; and you could feel celebration and loss trading shots at the bar of our mutual hearts.

13 years…more than twice the time Flux has been around. It’s hard to imagine doubling what we’ve been through on our first 6-ish years together, but that’s what they managed to do.

When a theatre decides to become an institution, it invests in buildings and endowments, subscribers and strategic plans; and when founders leave, those tangible things can be picked up and carried forward, sometimes even successfully.

But that’s not how Indie theatre works, and that’s not how Ensemble practice works, either (and Nosedive was an Ensemble, even if they didn’t identify as such). Here, the investments are made in the people and their jangling harmonies of vision.

So when the people leave, what remains? Do we leave not a rack behind? How can you measure what now lives in memory, and the fragments of photos and videos?

I don’t know the answer. I do know that when you see a Flux show, you are also, in some immeasurable way, seeing a Nosedive production. The artists we’ve shared, the shows that we’ve learned from: our shared fates are so bound up the one with the other that at times it feels as if Indie theatre is a single rep company with a whole bunch of different names.

Here is a small, hastily assembled list of Nosedive’s influence on Flux:

• I learned much from reading James’ blog in the early days of Flux, and I know they inspired many others by sharing so generously what they learned about DIY, Indie theatre-making;
• Pete has directed numerous play development projects for Flux, including a brilliant extreme staged reading of If I Did This;
• James has repeatedly written for our ForePlay series;
• Without Stephanie, Hearts Like Fists would have been several swords and gruesome facial wounds less awesome;
• They’ve introduced Flux to so many talented artists, like Rebecca Comtois, Daryl Lathon, my first Qui Ngyuen play, my first Mac Rogers play, and so many more;
• Oh, and speaking of Mac, when you think about a masterwork like Viral, it is impossible to imagine it without Rebecca Comtois’ amazing performance, and Viral continues to have a huge impact on me as an artist…