The First Episode

Choosing a first episode is the sort of challenge that brings to a neurotic mind such as mine visions of epic battles of lore. The Iliad, The Battle with Mordred, The Assault on the Black Gate- not for any real or imagined similarity, but rather for the hours of pointless conjecture such a choice brings. For example- If Agamemnon could have just kept it in his pants for say another year, perhaps Troy would never have fallen and Achilles would have lived. Then again we would have never have had the Odyssey, the Electra Complex or ultimately democracy- but I digress. Picking a first topic and trying to forsee all the myriad ways it will play out can make you a tad nuts. So we pulled in the big guns. We called our friends.
We first complied a list of all the possible topics that we love to tackle. A list that included Global Warming, Darfur, Katrina, Hunger, Arts in Education, Violence against Women, Violence in Schools, Animal Rights, Gay Rights, AIDS in Africa, Poverty and Clean Water. We then sent the list to our friends and asked them to list in order of personal preference which episodes they would like to see in the first season. The answers came back as varied and different as our friends. We then took another tact. Which episode could we do the best?
A first anything is bound to be plagued by problems, mistakes, missteps etc, and we wanted to pick a topic that we knew something about. After our very successful web videos that we made with Young Audiences NY , we decided to pick Arts in Education. As working artists we have of course been deeply touched by the Arts within our own lives, and in a time of economic crisis, when budgets are being slashed, the Arts are in tremendous danger of disappearing in our schools. But at what cost? And why does it matter? During a time of huge crisis in our country is Arts in Education as important a topic to cover as say hunger, or global warming? We believe it is. And we intend to show you why.
We head out Monday to start production of our first episode. We will keep you posted.