Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you should stay in a relationship with them.
by Alan Winner (Performer, Writer, Producer)
When you finally see what all your friends have seen for a while and you’re tired of covering up black eyes with Bobbi Brown, you tell that abusive user of a boyfriend to get the fuck out.
Why then do we miss all the warning signs of the abusive relationship we are in with New York City?
I get it, the arts are pretty barren in a vast majority of the open space in America. If the most exciting thing in your small town is the Ranch & Heritage Center, you’re not likely to have a booming art scene.
Many of us were raised in these small towns where the movie theatre only shows two movies and there is an honest to god soda jerk making root-beer floats for snaggle-toothed tee-ball players.
Then we move to New York to audition and network and take even more classes even though we are still paying back the student loans on the education that was supposed to prepare us for the industry. (Ha.)
New York used to be this festering petri dish for artists to experiment in. Times Square was rife with working girls and you weren’t a real New Yorker if you hadn’t been mugged at least twice. I’m not saying I want to go back to those times, per se, but I do think that if you want New York to be a place for artists, then you’re gonna have to let New York be a place where homeless people can sleep in the park… The dirt of our city has to be in plain sight, so the artists can just look around and tell the truth.
I’ve lived here for five years after spending two years living in London and four years in Cardiff, Wales. My first nineteen years were spent in Lubbock, Texas. I do, honest to god, love New York, but I can no longer say that I want to live here 100% of the time.
So this past January, my boyfriend Drew and I decided to move forward with our plans to start a new film studio in the center of America where some more artists can escape the millionaire’s club of New York and Hollywood and return to the integrity of the script, seeking out new voices and taking advantage of the new platform for distribution that Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon has brought us.
We’re loading up a van with half of our lives and driving to Tulsa on Friday.
Tulsa, Oklahoma. Now the proud home of Nodding Donkey Studios.
We’re keeping a place here, so I will be in New York pretty much full-time during the audition seasons, but otherwise, I’ll be making movies, shows, and webisodes out where the horizon goes for miles and the sky is free from smog. The sunsets light the sky up in oranges and purples and the seasons don’t kick you in the face like they do in NYC.
This is the first of many posts pertaining to Nodding Donkey Studios. We are intent on making it possible for production companies to afford to fly their team out to our studio and still be paying less than they would in a comparable studio in LA or NY.
I’d like to say I’ve never risked it all like this, but my life has been a long series of risks with just enough of them paying off for me to continue thinking I’m doing the right thing.
And I know it’s the right thing for me, or else I would have learned how to play the game better. I have the opportunity to help make a new game. Well, we have to get a sign on the door first, but I promise to keep you posted.
ALAN WINNER co-wrote and starred in his one-man show The Boy Who Loved Bassey. He is currently writing the screenplay for Kitchen, scheduled to shoot this Summer. www.alanwinner.com
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