Tonight, Northwest Film Forum is saying goodbye to two load-bearing beams of the Seattle film and theater scene: John DeShazo and Susannah Anderson. I had never met either one of them before (go figure, I am a baby to this place), but after speaking with DeShazo over the phone a few days ago I realized he and Anderson have had a hand or a hammer or a paintbrush in a staggering number of productions around town, not least of all in sets for the Stranger Genius awards. Check out this glowing brain he built for the third Genius Awards, back when it was held at Western Bridge:
Anyhow, the couple are leaving for Connecticut to be closer to their aging parents, but before they go DeShazo, Anderson, and a bunch of artists who basically owe them money will gather on the set of PALMS at NFF, a building that DeShazo and a gaggle of volunteers completely gutted and rebuilt.
The whole thing will be a kind of jubilee of seasoned Seattle artists who are still doing amazing stuff. There's going to be some stunning pieces by Casey Curran in the lobby, the Vis-Ã -Vis Society will conduct some thoughtfully wacky poetic experiments, Matt Smith will do an acting thing, dancer/choreographer Paige Barnes will bust a performance dance move, Web Crowell will likely show some hilarious stop-animation work, and the Stranger's beloved Sean Nelson will belt out a few carefully selected emotional numbers on the pianer. It's going to be great.
But before you go, get to know the guy who made so much Seattle art possible.
How long have you been in town and why did you even come here?
Susannah and I moved here in January 1999 from Richmond, Virginia. Our friend Wier Harman, who we knew from high school, told us to move out to Seattle and work for the Annex Theatre.
Oh, you know Wier!
My wife has known him for 40 years, but I’ve only known him for 30 years.
What did you do when you landed here, friend?
I didn’t have any work lined up, but when I got in I saw an ad in the Wiggly World newsletter for a projectionist at the Little Theatre. They hired me. I was projectionist for a week before I became a manager. I was on the staff there for 2.5 years, but I needed to make enough money to live, so I went and got a day job at a wood shop. But starting back in 1999 I worked on just about every large production that went on at the Little Theatre and at the Film Forum.
Weren't you on the board at the Film Forum?
Yeah, I stopped being on the staff and joined the board in September of 2001. I’ve been a board member ever since. And I continue to do a lot of work for Film Forum because I don't exactly have deep reserves of money, so most of what I give is in-kind labor and use of equipment.
Fair. You helped build that place, right?
When we moved into the current space on 12th, I was doing my day job at the wood shop, but then put in 40 or 50 hours per week during the build-out. Jerry Garcia was the architect, so I worked closely with him on the space.
So much of what went into making it came from volunteer labor. The budget was $540,000 or so. If it were done by any large arts organization it would be $1.5 million, easily, but because we had so much volunteer labor we could do it for that price. All the electrical, the plumbing and metal stud work were done by professionals, but all the painting, seat installation, platforms—that was all volunteer.
Hear tell you're a bit of a mover and a shaker, though.
I started off doing stuff with Annex, too, so over the years I’ve worked with them. Allison Narver, who was the artistic director of Empty Space Theatre, directed the first Annex piece I was in. So I worked on all sorts of plays with them before they closed. Over the years I’ve done a number of things at On the Boards, and a lot of independent projects with people from all those ventures.
What's the thing you're most proud of building?
Ah, there's so much. But maybe Megan Murphy's site-specific piece, "Beautiful 3bdrm, 2ba, on Capitol Hill."
I built the house out of scaffolding, and made the lights, sound, and video happen in the empty gravel lot where Cupcake Royale is now. The piece had Megan, Sarah Harlett, Maggie Brown, and Joy Brooke Fairfield in it. We projected some of Gregg Lachow's films on the walls.
What’s the thing you’re least proud of? Did you ruin anyone’s play?
There’s been two times when it’s happened. One time we had a brand new S-VHS deck, but the guy with the VHS tape got there at the last minute, so we didn’t have time to do a sound check. There was an issue with the default setting for the sound quality, which made it sound like there was a loose connection somewhere. So I frantically searched the cords in the soundboard. I found out later that all we needed to have done was go to the onscreen menu and change it from one setting to another.
The other time I was working on a ton of different things at once. (The Ames room for the set in Paul Budraitis's production of Mocking Bird, and also the installation of the claw by Casey Curran that was part of the Genius Award show at the Frye.) I got asked to make one effect happen on a stage. I told the people that I was super busy, but that I’d do what I can. Over the next few weeks I got roped into building most of the set. I didn’t have a chance to try out the special effect, and it didn't work.
What do artists in Seattle need to shut up about / what do you want to see more of?
Finding out ways to work together better.
Matt Richter used to have people from all the theaters gather to have a discussion about the state of arts in Seattle. He called it the Shitstorm. It would always come up in those discussions that there wasn’t enough support, and that it was difficult to get an audience to come in to just make small fringe theater viable, which is a shame. Some of the most memorable and powerful performances that I've seen were staged in small fringe venues with tiny budgets—nothing against the big houses.
Any in particular? Please tell me.
I couldn't possibly mention all the ones that deserve a mention. But some standout examples, off the top of my head are Mary Jane Gibson and Nicole duFresne in Burning Cage, Mary Jane and Scott Nath in Anaphylaxis, Amy O'Neal in the dance piece she did at the Little Theatre, everything about ATF: A Burlesque at Annex, Curtis Taylor's Phantom Limb at Northwest Film Forum...
Okay, cool. Thank you.
Anyway, one of the ideas that Richter would mention was a central repository of costumes, set pieces, and props. But no one wants to build that and run it for everybody. I’ve done what I can. I’ve been able to get resources from Annex for Film Forum and vice versa. On the stage at Film Forum right now there’s a huge black scrim. It was one that the opera used have, and they’d use it for the Ring Cycle. It has some holes in it, it’s a little worse for wear, but it needed a home. Through my connections with the opera I brought it to the Film Forum. If people need it, they know they can borrow it. There’s a bunch of black theater curtains back here which used to be Empty Space’s, too.
Are you going miss it?
We really like it here. It’s been a fantastic place to make art. If there’s anything I need made, I know metal workers and lighting technicians and audio technicians and people who I can call to make anything. And so that is the hardest thing about leaving.
And Film Forum right now is at a great place. Over the past year, with Courtney Sheehan as our new executive director, things have really turned around. There’s a lot of energy, and stuff is starting to happen and pick up again. I really hate to leave, but I will be staying on the board, and also kind of remotely helping to guide the mission and answer questions. Whenever some question comes up on the board about how we used to do something, they usually turn to me and ask what I did to fix some problem. I’m one of the fonts of institutional knowledge around here, so I imagine I'll keep being consulted.
How are you going to keep yourself busy in Connecticut? Will you ever come back?
All of the theaters are 30 minutes to an hour away from where we’ll be. We might try to make a small jewel box theater there, maybe show films and do live theater or make some sort of community gathering place. If we can, maybe we’ll stay there for decades. If that doesn’t fly, sure, we might come back.