Alumni Spotlight
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KEVIN CUNNINGHAM
Why should we as theatre students study all disciplines of our art form? So we can function in the world like Kevin Cunningham, a 1990 graduate of the the University of Houston, who studied with Edward Albee. Kevin and his artistic partners established 3-Legged Dog Media and Theater Group, a nonprofit theatre and media group in New York City that focuses on large-scale experimental artwork. Their work has been featured at The Kitchen and La Mamma in New York City and other venues, such as Ontological Hysteric Theater, PS 122, and Signature Theater Co. After losing everything on September 11, they’ve rebuilt and opened the 3LD Art & Technology Center, which presents some of the most cutting edge art in NYC.
3-Legged Dog. With a name like that there has to be a story?
While I was still a student at UH, I founded Commerce Street Artists Warehouse with Rick Lowe, Robert Campbell, Nestor Topchy, Steve Wellman and Wes Hicks. The space came with an Urban Animals skate dog reject named Sid—who was an adolescent pit bull. At the time Commerce Street was a rutted road and cars would move slowly down the street to avoid potholes and railroad tracks. Sid would sit on the loading dock and when a car came by he’d jump off and chase it. But unlike normal dogs, Sid would chase the front tire and try to bite the sidewall as it rolled past. This is how he lost his left front leg. We took Sid to the Vet Hospital and got him patched up.
A day or two after we brought him back he was sitting on the loading dock with bandages on his left stump and a white Dodge Dart came ambling by. Off goes Sid jumping off the loading dock before anybody could stop him. He makes it up to the front tire of the Dart only this time the leg is not in the way so he actually gets a chomp on the side wall of the tire and we see him flopping on the street as the wheel turns. He bounced off pretty quick and seemed fine when he stopped rolling but Sid became a symbol of persistence of vision in the face of adversity—what it takes to be an artist.
Why New York?
New York is the most densely populated concentration of artists and money in one place in the world. I believe that, because of that density, time actually functions differently here than in other places. In many ways it has been possible for me to live five lives simultaneously here. This is one of the few places in the world where an experimental artist can hope to make a viable career. Things have changed significantly since I moved here and it is much harder to establish a studio or career now. The abusive real estate industry and unrealistic market based ideas about art have made it very difficult to continue making cutting edge art here. Many people now think that Berlin is the center of world culture and they might be right. No one has ever been able to understand why New York, with its high expenses and cramped space, is the center of theatrical production.
How did you get your start?
As soon as I graduated from U of H, I moved to New York at the urging of my teachers Edward Albee and Donald Barthelme. I had been offered a job as the production stage manager for the Blue Man Group. I had worked with them at Diverse Works when they came to town on a PS 122 Field Trip and they became convinced that I would be a good stage manager. So I moved to New York and helped the guys put up Tubes at the Astor Place Theater. It was the perfect welcome-to New-York experience—brutal and really exciting. The production had uptown management and downtown artists and techs so I got to know everyone in town very quickly.
Fortunately I was educated in a school and in a set of programs that advocated that theatre artists learn theater craft (lighting, sound, carpentry, production management etc.) and when I left the Blue Man Group I was able to pick up work on tech crews and doing production management and stage management. I have many stories of Ivy League educated designers and directors who disastrously follow their teacher’s advice to specialize and “never pick up a wrench.” Artists with this kind of elitist attitude have ruined whole production companies with their lack of understanding of the nuts and bolts of creation.
My practical training at UH made it possible for me to make a good living as a freelancer as I established my artistic credentials in New York. Within a year of leaving BMG I was getting small design and directing gigs around New York. I mostly stuck to downtown experimental work and worked at the Public, Signature Theater, PS 122, The Kitchen, Cucaracha, Here Arts Center, the Ontological Hysteric Theater and the Wooster Group finally ending up working with Bang On A Can at Lincoln Center. During that time I worked with Sam Shepard, Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Ron Vawter, Marianne Weems, Mark Morris, Mabou Mines and many other artists. I became the go-to guy to design and run your giant live multi-media nightmare which is probably why Richard Foreman hired me in 1993 as his in-house designer and technical director.
How did 3 Legged Dog come about?
Richard Foreman saw a script for a play I wrote called “House of Bugs: A Biological Tragedy” and offered to let me produce it at the Ontological Theater. We did a workshop in 1994 and a full production in 1996. The crew I used for my bread and butter design, directing and management practice were all artists. They became the cast, design team and crew for House of Bugs. They included people who would later found RadioHole and Collapsable Giraffe and a woman who would later become the head of video product development at Google. And 3-Legged Dog was born.
Since then we have done 17 full productions and many many interactive media installations at La Mama, the Kitchen , PS122, The Signature and the Venice Biennale. In the meantime I invented a computer program that allowed us to run lighting, sound, video and automation from a single MacIntosh interface so we could do the complex overlapping cues that are the signature of my performance work. The company raised $7.8 million in venture funding and had partnerships with major tech companies like NEC Technologies. During this time, our production schedule actually doubled and our company grew to 36 employees.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your career so far?
On September 11, 2001 our offices, rehearsal space and headquarters for both the theater and software company were destroyed when World Trade Center 7 fell on our building. Since then we have worked tirelessly to re-build and have built a new 3 studio 12,000 square foot state of the arts experimental arts facility just below Ground Zero called 3LD Art and Technology Center. We do our own work each year in the space and host other artists from all over the world for long-term residencies (6 weeks to 4 months). 3LD may be the best equipped experimental arts production studio in the U.S. We host 500 artists a year and have an international production consortium with 5 major European venues already.
Tell us about some of your productions.
Our last production, Chuck Mee’s Fire Island involved 108 artists and used a 160 foot long surround HD videoscape and two large Eyeliner panels which allow us to project full HD resolution video into the air like a high resolution dense hologram. The piece is scheduled to tour Europe in 2009. We have also hosted very well known experimentalists like Björk and Laurie Anderson and emerging groups like Collapsable Giraffe or Foxxy Productions the new company by former Wooster Group designer Reid Farrington. We also develop new technology for the arts like Isadora and Production Designer and feature new technology performances like the 56 piece robot orchestra created by LEMUR (the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots) which played compositions by They Might Be Giants and electronic music pioneer Morton Sobotnik. Since we opened 2 years ago 900 artists from 17 different countries have worked in our space.
What was the most important thing you learned at UH?
To be autodidactic, to learn all the crafts in your discipline, to learn other disciplines (I have degrees in Sculpture and Creative Writing from UH and worked in the arts, writing and theater departments) and to bring your ideas into reality immediately.
How did you use your education to further your theatrical aspirations?
My mentors at UH were Donald Barthelme and Edward Albee. It is very important to have strong mentors. Art is not taught in a classroom. It is best passed on individual-to-individual across generations and best learned by doing. The programs I participated in at UH were strong experiential studio programs with intense person-to-person critical components. This training and the relationships I had with my mentors were critical in my attempts to move out of academia and into the real world.
Who influenced your views on theatre (either UH or non-UH)?
I have many influences: My most powerful direct influences have come from artists I have known well: Edward Albee, Donald Barthelme, Mel Chin and James Surls from Houston had a profound effect on my work ethic and my ability to immediately act on my artistic impulses. They also passed on to me a conviction in the importance of apprenticeship. I have also been deeply influenced by, Wooster Group founding member, Ron Vawter with whom I worked in the months before his death on two works “Queer and Alone” and “Roy Cohen/Jack Smith.” Bill Forsythe has also had a very profound effect on me as a self-producing artist. All of these artists have an amazing ability to cut through to the heart of the matter and have incredibly generous spirits. They also have in common that they do what it takes now to make their work, taking full responsibility for its creation without excuses. All of these artists are talented administrators or businessmen (although some of them would take offense if I said that to their face). Historically my ideas about theatre have been most profoundly influenced by Thomas Pynchon, Kobo Abe, Haruki Murakami and Marcel Duchamp— and of course Samuel Beckett.
If you could give our graduating students one (or two) piece(s) of advice what would it be?
First, if making art is not a driving passion for you, get out now.
Second, in the United States if you are an independent artist, you are a small business person. Many people mistakenly think that that means you have to “market” yourself and “sell out.” In fact, your passion for your art and your artistic integrity are both the core focus of your business and your “brand.” Commercializing your “brand” will make it lose it’s uniqueness. Do what you do with as much focus and passion as you can muster, don’t give up on or water down a good idea (don’t compromise) and think of fundraising and management of your art as a necessary part of the artistic process. If you have an idea for a work, the most important thing is to make it happen--NOW. Just do what it takes to make the work and don’t waste time making excuses or complaining.
Artists have a clear function in society. We sacrifice financial security and our time to think about and explore essential ideas that other people don’t have time to explore. Don’t waste time on wondering if what you are doing is worthwhile. If you don’t understand the value of art and culture maybe you should be doing something else.
What’s next for you?
As I work to stabilize my company, we continue to constantly make new work. In the next two years we will help other members of our company create their work, Allison Keating’s “Rods and Cables” will premier this year as will several interactive installations by our artists. Another UH alumnus, Victor Weinstock works with me as the Managing Director of 3LD and in a year we will be working on his new piece, “Vonnegut.” We will be preparing “Fire Island” for tour and I will continue to keep working on my next performance/installation script and design, an experimental film script and several installation works as I collaborate with Chuck Mee on dramaturgy, directing and design of a new work called “Fete de la Nuite (Paris Orgy)”, set in Paris. All of this is a little easier now that we have a fully equipped state of the art set of studios and now that I have the Hewes Design Award from the American Theater Wing under my belt. 3LD will continue to help other artists create new ambitious works and to train them in the use of powerful new tools for production.
