Interview with Ron Short

by Interview with Ron ShortDarren Mustek Darrell MusickRon Short Musick: Could we begin with you talking about the role that music and drama have played in your life. Short: I think music and drama play an important role in everybody's life. Without drama we would lead pretty uncolorful lives; and music is a natural part of who we are. But for some people there is a need to go beyond that. I don't know what makes a writer. I've given up on trying to figure that out, but there is something different about people who have to write. It's like what somebody once said about preaching: "I don't preach 'cause I want to; I preach 'cause I have to." I think that's about the same way with writing, and for the past ten or twelve years I've been able to focus on writing and acting. Musick: Who are a few of your favorite singers, writers, and actors? Short: I don't know about "favorites" exactly. In music, I like a wide range of stuff. I think Merle Haggard is just one of the best country music singers around. I like Gene Watson. I think Randy Newman is one of the most underrated songwriters. I love Jenifer Warren-such a pure, clean, clear voice. But the people I know and whom I make music with are my favorite singers. They're real to me, and I can get a real sense of who they are from what they do. The same with acting. I'm not enough of an actor to say very much. I used to tell people Fm not an actor; but now I can t really say that because after you do a hundred performances of the same piece, you tend to find out you really are acting after a while-calling up emotion over and over again and making it believable. But really, the artists I admire most are the ones I know and work with. I've known a lot of talented people and I've seen and heard them firsthand. It's real. It comes from a "place" and I can understand it. I can't identify with a lot of television and movies. I don't know who creates that work. It's just so big, and it just doesn't focus down on the reality of living in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. It's a world created for its own purpose, to maintain its own existence, and I don't think it represents the same kind of community that our work represents. I think the work that we and others do comes out of a real community and a real place; and the work exists because of that place and in relation to that place. I don t know anybody in hfe that lives the way they do in television. Musick: In contrast to commercial art, is what you're doing "folk art"? Short: In the way that "folk art" is available to all people. It's not exclusive like the stuff you see on television-not a star system that says because you look better than another person you're more important. Folk art comes from real people's lives and eventually returns to help those people see themselves. Music: And that's what Roadside Theatre is all about? Short: I think so. In some ways the arts have become exclusive. When taken out of the context of art being a part of everyone's life, people begin to see art as something that's out of their reach or as something that doesn't interest them. Musick: For specialists only? Short: You know there was a time when art was specialized, when it got to the point that only kings could afford it. That was the theatre, and it was totally taken out of the hands of ordinary people. It was only those who had extraordinary amounts of money who were capable of "owning" art. They owned the art and the artists, too, in a way. As an example, we did a snow in Charleston, South Carolina. We ran for a week and the...