Open Thread: How Theatre Failed America
Several of us at Forum attended last night’s performance of How Theatre Failed America, over at Woolly Mammoth. The show’s creator and performer, Mike Daisey, is a renowned monologue performer and blogger. In this particular show, Daisey raises questions about the state of American Theatre, how it has failed to live up to its potential, how it is so difficult for artists, particularly performers, to make a living doing it, and many other topics. Some of the topics raised in the show were also in this article Mr. Daisey wrote for Seattle’s Stranger. Then, following the performance, there was a panel discussion, featuring some our community’s leaders and featured artists, where the ideas of the performance were hashed out by the audience. I’ve been to two of these post-show events and last night’s was heavily made up of theatre-makers, which made for a very interesting, passionate, and informed debate. The show starts up again tomorrow, plays until Sunday, and has another post-show on Friday.
Mike Daisey, photos by Kenneth Aaron
Since then, I haven’t been able to stop going over the discussion in my head and all the issues and ideas that came up. We probably could have talked all night as I’m sure many of us had plenty to say and propose. So, I thought I’d continue the talk here. Feel free to add on your thoughts about where we are as an “industry,” where theatre stands in our nation, what are the problems we face, what are the solutions, and whatever else. Like: is it working just fine?
To start, my prevailing thought has been about how we, Forum, as a company, can progress and support our artists. Our organization is structured so that each company member wears many hats–Fiona is an actor-slash-marketing director, Patrick heads up this OpenForum program while also performing onstage. But, at our size, we are far from supporting our members financially. So, it makes me wonder if this is a model that can be sustained as we evolve? Is this a potential solution to supporting artists—an organization where we are all paid regular salaries while performing multiple duties, both onstage and off? It has always been Forum’s theory that when artists are involved with all aspects of the organization, an exciting energy and unity would be created that would be evident in our performances. When the panelists at Woolly have been asked “What advice would you give to future theatre artists?” many of the speakers responded by advising them to become multi-talented. Maybe this is a way forward……?
What’s on your mind?
January 14, 2009 at 12:28 am
An interesting article from American Theatre about designers going into the field:
http://tcg.org/publications/at/jan09/design.cfm
January 14, 2009 at 1:25 am
Thanks for this Michael! I saw you at the discussion but was pinballing from people to people and missed you before I got a chance to say hello.
I was really glad to have this discussion. It was one of the few moments that I have felt a sense of being a part of the theater community in DC. Regardless of what shape I think or feel it’s in, I guess I am a part of it in my own way too. Mike Daisey’s point was, we all share a responsibility in helping create and shape the world around us, and that includes those of us in the theater.
One question still rings out to me: To whom is theater today speaking to? To each artistic director: what populations do you serve? Which groups do you aim to serve, think you serve, and really serve?
You could drop the theater tickets down to zero dollars and would you fill the seats? The DC Hip Hop Theatre Festival is free, sponsored by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and they pack it in. Lincoln Theater regularly pack in its 900-seat theater. But I would argue that those aren’t the people who are coming to see the well-known established theater companies’ seasons. DC is still Chocolate City, though less so now than earlier. DC is also a predominantly working class city as well — probably more so in the past. Do the theater audiences and industry folk represent the demographics of the city? If not, why is that?
It’s a complicated set of factors and reasons. I would argue there is no one answer or no one person or place to lay blame. But these very questions are what fueled me to create, produce and perform my one-woman show, `Capers, a few years back. Based on interviews with public housing residents who were protesting the demolition of their neighborhood down in the Navy Yard. I felt there was a lack of diverse voices on the stage — not just in DC, but everywhere I lived before that. As an actor you are limited to the roles out there. I was frustrated at what I wasn’t seeing on stage nor represented in other fields. So I decided to write a role for me to do. Or in this case, multiple roles.
DC is city of many inequities. I heard it has the largest gap between the rich and poor than any other U.S. city. Theater is not immune from these stark statistics. DC is very fragmented, and I welcome the challenge of seeing a true diversity of people in the same room watching the same theater piece, and having a frank and open dialogue about how it relates to their lives.
The question I ask to other theater practitioners is, what audiences do you speak to through you work — who would you like to speak to, and who do speak to now? And how — given the tight funding and time — are you reaching out to those people? I guess, what are the burning priorities within you as you create and produce work in the city and where does this question of audience and representation factor into that?
And what work does the theater industry need to do in order to reach a more diverse range of audiences that reflect who lives in the city?
January 14, 2009 at 2:39 am
I was there last night too, as one of the Woolly benefactors who got a free ticket to the show.
I’m excited to see so many young companies who are energized by the discussion and by the fact that Daisey is starting a conversation about the future of American theater that seems to be intended to draw both long-time and relatively novice theater artists to the table.
One young artist in the audience, I couldn’t see who it was, seemed to think that there were too few opportunities for young artistic directors (or those with small, burgeoning companies) to learn from more experienced artistic directors, and I wanted to respond directly to that.
First, DC offers an enormous number of opportunities; all three artistic directors on stage at the panel are genuinely giving of their time and talents, and contact information for all of them is easily available on their companies’ websites. Other official resources: the Cultural Development Corporation here (www.cudc.org) holds regular get-togethers of their “Red Circle” partners, membership for as little as $75 per year and it’s a great burgeoning networking group. Also, the Kennedy Center is doing an enormous amount with its Arts Manager program for DC-area arts management newbies — artsmanager.org has some information about it, and maybe you’d have to call them for more information as well, at least as of last year they were doing seminars for arts managers locally in DC but I don’t see anything about that on their site now.
I’d also offer a little tough love here, as someone who loves to be involved in nurturing arts organizations — really visionary arts leaders are un-mentorable, because they’ve got a vision and a drive and an independence about them that makes them insist on going it nearly alone. If you are an arts leader and you think you need mentoring, maybe you’re more of an arts follower, in reality. That’s my opinion.
Some of the discussion at last night’s post-show seemed to me to hone in on a single provocative idea — could anybody run a theater that provided a living wage to a company of actors? And I feel like this is an answerable, or at least researchable, question. 1. are there any theater companies in America that do this now? 2. if so, how are they funded? 3. what constitutes a “living wage”? 4. what do these artists “do” for a living (ie, in addition to performing on stage, or directing or designing or writing for the stage, aka the “art,” are they also administrators or educators or corporate consultants or whatever, under the auspices of the theater company)? I think that answering these questions would help you, Michael, or another artistic director here in town, to take this from the realm of a principle or a wish to an actual realization.
I wonder if your company would be able to undertake that research and maybe a real-world roundtable discussion on what you find?
On a sort-of side note, I also think that some of what was left unsaid last night was in response to the question, what is a “living wage”? More than one artist has recommended reading Lewis Hyde’s book “The Gift” to me, as a very interesting meditation on the artist’s relationship to commodity and compensation. I read it and found the first chapter engaging and relevatory and the rest not so much, but then I’m not an artist. At any rate, I bestow the recommendation onto you and others in this discussion.
Thanks for kicking it off!
January 14, 2009 at 3:09 am
Hi Sara–
Lots of good thoughts here—so I’ll just respond/continue, a bit.
I agree that there are a bunch of opportunities for young theatre leaders, in DC, to be “mentored.” In fact, it’s a really great aspect to our city and our theatre “community” (apprehensive about using that word, all of a sudden!). We are all very close and approachable, as artists and organizations. I have benefited greatly by my relationships with some of the more established theatres in town. I would say that most of these interactions have been informal sessions, as opposed to one of the resources you mentioned. Nothing against them, of course, but I almost feel that I have gained a great deal through these unstructured mentoring sessions that allow me to bounce my “vision” ideas off of these contacts, as opposed to following a model. Again, nothing wrong with an established program, but I’ve always had a clear goal as to how we’d be structured, so it seems to serve Forum best to be a little loose in how me progress.
As to the “living wage” discussion, this is a great suggestion—to look at what companies have succeeded in their own methods to provide sustainable financial support for their team. Off the top of my head, I’d wonder if SITI has a set-up like that. They have a program where their performers have a repertory of productions as well as a training program for actors and directors, led by the company members. I’m also curious about the organization of Mabou Mines, in that regard.
January 14, 2009 at 3:43 am
I’ve been trying to track down what actors at Stratford (in Ontario) are paid, just out of curiosity. My knee-jerk response to that part of the discussion last night was that we’re not a socialist economy, and those seem to be the only places that these kinds of repertory companies can exist. But then, Daisey is adamant that he is not advocating for a resurgence of Rep companies. So yes–what is this new, un-tested model?
The idea of actors filling other roles in a company is interesting. Is there a fear this would stigmatize an actor? Why are directors not stigmatized for doing many things other than directing? Or is it just a matter of continuing to be good at all the things you do–Howard Shalwitz as actor, director, producer, visionary, find-raiser, teacher–being a prime example?
Dallas Theater Company has an acting company (though this sounds like it is only one year of guaranteed employment): http://www.kera.org/artandseek/content/2009/01/08/the-dallas-theater-center-has-an-acting-troupe-once-again/
Wonder what their salaries are.
I’m curious about a lot of these things as well, and will keep hunting down facts. I also think that Anu has a really worthwhile point, which I hope will be more along the lines of Friday evening’s discussion looking at “Theater in 2034″.
January 14, 2009 at 4:11 am
The thing that both struck me and made me the most uncomfortable last night was the tension in the audience during the panel discussion.
I have to admit – last night I came to the talkback with a secret desire to see the Bigwigs from Signature & Shakespeare get raked over the coals. I couldn’t BELIEVE that they got Michael Kahn to sign on for this – the STC is the most lavishly expensive company in town; an ideal target for Daisey’s rhetoric. I wanted a mini-revolution, to see my friends in the non-equity theatre community rise up in righteous anger, and to have someone to blame.
and therein lies the problem.
Hearing the artistic/managing directors talk in person… it made it harder to blame them. They each worked hard to get where they are. Being divisive does none of us any good. But it’s very difficult to watch the wildly-expensive glossy productions in this town being performed by NYC actors and not get jealous, dismissive, and discouraged.
Young, broke, passionate theater artists like to think that theater with funding is “selling out”. They equate expensive theater with boring theater, and therefore assume that poor, back alley theater is more personal and passionate, and therefore of higher artistic quality. Most of these young passionate people might change their tune if they got a day job in the offices of one of the larger theater “corporations”.
Similarly, high-brow wealthy audiences equate “expensive” with “good”, which keeps them away from the non-eq companies. How can we get these people to take a chance on some of the well-drilled shoestring black-box productions in town? And do we want to? Are those shows being produced FOR them?
The inequity in the population of DC that Anu was talking about definitely shapes the theater community. The lack of diversity onstage is noticeable. The few pockets of locally-focused theater stay isolated – there’s no crossover between the Shakespeare’s subscriber base and the hip-hop theater festival audiences… If the majority of theater-goers are older white college-educated people from the suburbs, should they be seeing plays out in the burbs instead of in the district? Bringing people together with disparate viewpoints is a great idea but very hard to actualize.
I think the most important thing is not to point fingers, and to try enact positive change in the things you can control around you. It’d be great if actors felt less powerless, more involved in the choice of material. It’d be great if designers felt less harried, more supported by the companies they work for. Overall I would hope that young people entering the theater would view it as a collaborative act, as Yes, a business, but also as an opportunity to work side by side with people, instead of frantically trying to climb above them on an endless ladder.
January 14, 2009 at 4:27 am
I agree with Anu as well, I think in a lot of ways it comes down to the audience, and who we’re reaching and not reaching, who is going and not going and why.
Along those lines – and this may be naive, I apologize – but there’s one thing I wonder: Has anyone asked people who don’t go to the theatre why they don’t go? And if not, why not?
(Actually, there’s one other thing I wonder, and that is: what do we count as ‘going to the theatre?’ Does it mean ‘going to OUR theatre’ or does it include community and educational theatre, and dance, or even the hip-hop festival, and so on?)
January 14, 2009 at 4:29 am
Hey guys,
Thanks for continuing the conversation. I have a lot of things bouncing around in my head right now that I can’t quite articulate, but I wanted to pass along the website for the Trinity Rep company.
“Trinity Rep is proud to have the last permanent resident acting company in the country. The company is at the heart of Trinity Rep’s artistry and success, as much today as when we were born in 1963. Our actors, directors and designers have built one of America’s rarest treasures – a company of artists who enhance and nurture one another’s talents. They thrive at Trinity – some for a decade or more – building careers and families in the same community as their audience. The company is greater than the sum of its parts.”
I don’t know much about the company, but I do know that it does indeed bring problems as the ADs were referencing last night. I’ll see if I can track down someone more informed to join the conversation…
January 14, 2009 at 5:22 am
I have a friend who worked for Trinity Rep as an intern for a year…I will ask him about it.
Also I will be joining the conversation after I get to see Mike’s show.
fun reading.
January 14, 2009 at 9:17 am
Are folks thinking of going just for the discussion on Friday? I was considering it.
Mike has a monologue about being the bishop onstage paralyzed by the eyes of a young girl in the crowd, wondering if he should continue with his director’s vision and thereby traumatize this child. It got me thinking also about the weird director-actor relationship, superior-subordinate, that I think the theater culture is infused with — to a detriment. The whole monologue about actors working for cheese and scrambling to stuff their faces with cheese at the cast party “because they are paid in cheese!” got a lot of laughs because of how true it is.
In many ways theater culture is organized around validating the director to an extreme and invalidating the actor to an extreme and there’s a real problematic set of power dynamics that shows up in the smallest of social situations. We live in a class-based society although people don’t talk about class in the US. It would make sense that it permeates everything, including theater. No one person is at fault for this yet we all contribute to this kind of weirdness. I think actors can be respectfully vocal about our boundaries as to how we want to be treated — while at the same time understanding there really isn’t any ‘enemy.’
Also, Brett, I love your point about the definition of “going out to the theater.” Tyler Perry (Creator of Medea, Meet the Browns) whose work is sometimes lambasted as ‘modern day chitlin circuit’ sold out all his theater runs. A friend of mine, who is a native Washingtonian, lives in subsidized housing, a grandmother — never heard of Woolly Mammoth — but paid $50 to see Tyler Perry’s play (I think it was at Lincoln Theatre). A friend who teaches sex-ed at Bell Multicultural High School, organized a performance that brought together African American and Latino students to recognize shared histories within the Afro-Latino diaspora — mixing hip hop and reggaeton and salsa with poetry. It brought the house down, touched and moved everyone who saw it, inspired many, and never made it to the the professional theater scene.
January 14, 2009 at 11:12 am
Michael, thanks for starting this discussion on the blog. I think it is important that we as artists have FORUM (pun clearly intended) to discuss and dissect what it is that we do and why.
The more I sit back and and think about last night’s performance and round table, I think that the Daisy’s show might be titled wrong. I do not think it should be called How Theatre Failed America, but yet How Capitalism Failed Theatre. When theatre or art is a commodity I think it no longer becomes art, it becomes product. Theatre cannot be truly successful once it becomes a product to be bought and sold. Our system, the one that Daisy seems to rail against is a capitalist created theatre system that judges success by money made. It is a system that is based on the idea of competition, putting theatre against theatre to make the most money or win the most awards. Don’t be fooled, the theatres that succeed are the ones that bring in the most money, not the ones that create art. Art cannot compete. The theatres that can’t compete, fail and as in business, will disappear. Leaving only mass produced, clean, corporate theatre sold to the masses as art. But it is not art.
The discussion last night really had me thinking about the “haves” and “have-nots.” The artistic directors on the stage last night are the “haves.” They have resources. They have capital. They have big theatres with big budgets. Some of the righteous anger or passion from the audience came from people who are the “have-nots.” They are the workers, the practitioners, the technicians, the box office assistants, the real heart of the theatre. Just as in factories or other corporations, the workers are powerless to those who have the decision making power. The workers have no perceived power in what they do. As Mike said, “actors obey.” In this system, the artists have no say or control of their “art.”
Buildings were another topic last night. The reason buildings are important is because they are tangible. They are visible and real, and clear signs of wealth and stability. What is on the stage is only temporary. It lasts only for that one moment in time. Real art/performance cannot be mass produced because in the true nature of performance, it is only temporary and each performance only lives on in the people who witnessed it live in real time. It is not repeatable. Every night, every audiences, every performance is different. This is what makes theatre dangerous, important, visceral, meaningful, and powerful. But, investors cannot make money off of something that is unrepeatable. It is too unstable to build a business with something so intangible. And that is what theatres are in this system, businesses. That is not tangible evidence to give to board members. And small business owners (small theatre companies) are often swallowed by big corporations that can make their product more efficiently and in whatever way they see fit to make more money.
Are some of the world’s greatest paintings only amazing because of the museum in which they are displayed? I am sure the building makes them seem more important. I am sure at the Louvre, the ambiance, the awe of the space enhances the experience of viewing art. If the painting was moved outside, or placed in an empty warehouse, will we see it in a different way? Does the meaning change? Or do we really just see the painting, because it is not longer encumbered by space and building or all of the preconceived notions that come with that space? No, we finally see the painting in the its own context. In the purpose and context it was created. It allows to see the art on our own terms.
Do we think, “it must be important, beautiful, meaningful because it is in this space?” Do we not in some way do the same thing in the theatre? Is there something subconscious that tells us what we go see at Arena or Shakespeare Theatre, or Chicago Shakes or the Guthrie must be “art?” And people think that because it carries with it a brand name and we view in these amazing spaces it must be important. Or better.
Visionary theatre, Brecht, Artaud, Boal, Bogart, Brook, Meyerhold, Stanslavski…the theatre we study and admire was based in the notion that theatre belonged to the people. They saw performance not as something to be bought and sold, or as a commodity or mass produced. Because they knew it couldn’t be. Theatre/Art is meant to work outside of that type of system. Once it falls into that system it is no longer art, it is product. No more than paint by numbers is a Van Gogh. The system can’t be fixed. It must be given back to the people. The “have-nots.” They must have the theatre, it was theirs all along.
The Revolution will not be televised, it will be performed.
January 14, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Matt, while I appreciate your idealism and fervor, I think it’s risky to speak about these things in black-and-white terms. “Have’s and have-not’s”? The artistic directors sitting on that stage last night aren’t trust fund babies. Come on. They’ve given decades of their lives to the theater. And we are to decide that because they lead a theater they are not in any way the “heart” of the theater? Whether or not you like the choices each of them makes in their own directing, or in choosing their seasons, these folks are committed to craft; and yes, committed to making ART. My goodness, the amount of support–Howard and Blake especially–give to young theater artists like those expressing their views on this site! And we decide that what THEY do is not ART because they have MORE FLY SPACE? And a BIGGER COSTUME BUDGET? Seriously, pushing for this animosity, this created chasm in this community will not serve anybody. Have you never heard the stories of how these theaters began? From nothing. Signature was a community theater. Woolly was an idealist’s pipe dream. And so their art grew, and they had the chance to work in bigger playgrounds (Jen Mendenhall’s term, and I love how she phrased it) and they took those chances. And they hit it off with audiences. So we should disparage them for that? I dunno. Maybe young people need to fight against their elders in order to feel like they own a piece of it themselves. But I came from a very strong theater tradition of mentorship and legacy, so I embrace those possibilities. Maybe I’m not as much of a rebel because of that. Maybe I’m a sell out myself. But I just want to tell good stories in beautiful ways. And from what I know of these guys, they aim to do the same thing. They are “the workers” too. Trust me on that one.
January 14, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Shirley,
I think you are right. The artistic directors are not the “haves” that was a mistake on my part, the institutions are. I do deeply respect the work that Howard and Woolly does. I respect what they do for artists and how they foster artists in return.
I think, maybe I did not articulate it well, but I think what it really comes down to is resources and who has them and who doesn’t. Looking at theatre in terms of big business vs. small business.
I have nothing against the space and the theatre building, I would love to have a chance to work in those spaces and they are quite beautiful spaces. I were merely thinking about taking the work out of those buildings and thinking if we see those same works outside of these beautiful spaces, does it change how we view them?
January 14, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Terrific thread. I bring mostly an avid playgoer’s perspective to this, although I do some arts fundraising. To me, there is a bit of a tangle in this thread and in Daisey’s performance, around the need for and sources of money.
I attend a broad range of performances – from the Hip Hop festival to spectacles in the Harman or at the Kennedy Center. I see great work and terrible work anywhere in that range. Lots of money doesn’t insure a flawless production. Tight money doesn’t always deliver brilliant creative ferment. Theater seems to find a way to challenge its practitioners no matter what the available resources are.
I can identify a few operating minimums for conventional theater. A lot of this is going to be obvious, but please come with me on the journey.
1. The performers and audience need a relatively quiet place to spend some time together. That place should be protected from the elements; if you want to be sure you can perform without worrying about the weather.
There are lots of creative ways to skimp on performance space. You could take a play to the homes of the audience. You can perform in public places – at least a few troupes are doing exactly that in other cities; building performance pieces that span whole neighborhoods. Most of these options, though, drastically reduce the ratio of audience members to performers.
2. If the performance involves intellectual property not owned by the people producing the work, they need to compensate the owner of the intellectual property.
You can skimp on intellectual property either by performing only from the public domain, writing your own work (which is, of course, more work,) or by pirating. Most of these options cut you off from a wide range of works you might want to perform or limit your ability to advertise your work.
3. The performers, and the other artists who contribute to the performance, need to obtain the basic necessities of life and enough time to work together to create and refine the performance.
You can skimp on the basic necessities of life to artists by essentially requiring the artists to have day jobs, live in high density group homes, and enjoy few luxuries in life. Most of you are already doing that, so there’s no need to enumerate the disadvantages.
4. The people producing the work need some way to communicate the availability of the work to an audience in such a way as to encourage some of them to attend.
You can skimp on communicating the availability of performance, but this again has the effect of reducing the ratio of audience members to performers. I do think there’s a lot of room for creation and innovation in affordable marketing but that is, like writing your own scripts, largely a matter of substituting work for money.
Most productions want to exceed these minimums. They want the performers to wear garments other than their own street clothes. They want objects in the playing space and in the performers’ hands to enrich the communicative experience. They want artfully designed, precisely aimed, expertly controlled elements of sound and light to punctuate the human performances.
If you want a large audience to see a well rehearsed, effectively designed performance in a minimally comfortable space, you’re going to have to spend money. Not always a lot, but some.
The question then becomes, where do you get this money, however much it is? Members of the audience are one obvious source of money (it’s my favorite source), although having the audience pay for the art seems to trigger concerns about commoditization of art. Government money is no better solution, since that is just money from the audience taking the long way around. I suppose we could try to rediscover art funded by single bountiful patrons; but if I remember my art history correctly, those bountiful patrons often wanted to take some control over the art away from the artists or at least to appear prominently and favorably in the finished work.
This whole journey is my endeavor to focus the question on whether the goal is to figure out how to make performances with less money or to try to find a more virtuous source for money to fund performances. If it is the former, what are you willing to give up to save money? If it is the latter what is this more virtuous source?
If there aren’t good answers to either of these, maybe the basic model of non-profit theater isn’t really so broken. Maybe it is just inherently difficult.
January 14, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Thanks, Anu. Your point about my point makes me think of another point I want to make. (Or another couple questions, rather.)
I think in some ways it is a sort of question of survival of the fittest, after a fashion, and not just in a capitalist dog-eat-dog way. If there is a theatre company – or any form of entertainment – that is not connecting to an audience, or whose audience is dwindling, there are only two possibilities:
1) there are problems with communication, publicity, pricing or other practical matters that are keeping the audience away, and which, if remedied, will give way to renewed audiences; or
2) the artistic model is stagnant and has no meaning for an audience of large enough size to support its cost, and thus will either naturally die, or must be replaced with a new model.
The question for me is what is more important: the institution, or the artistic model. If a large artistic theatre company like Woolly or Round House or any other one were to decide to change their model and produce Tyler Perry-style shows, they would possibly see an increase in attendance. But would it really be the same theatre? Or a different model under the same name? Sort of like the old story about the woodsman with a favorite axe he’s had for decades; “I’ve replaced the handle seven times,” he says, “and the blade five times.” Is it the same axe?
I don’t think most theatre companies have the attitude that they want to put people in their seats NO MATTER WHAT, even if it means severely altering their artistic model. (That is what venues like the National do.) No – a theatre company wants people to come see THEIR MODEL of theatre. Which means, I think, that they are subject to the whims of natural (audience) selection – even if they were to overcome any practical barriers to attendance such as pricing, they would still see their attendance dwindle, because what they have to offer, no matter how heartfelt, just draws no widespread interest. It’s niche.
And to reiterate, I don’t think this is necessarily a capitalist matter; I think that while there is a limit to the number of artistic models that can survive, based on how many people can afford to go to, I do not think it is as if every single person who sees Tyler Perry is instantly precluded, financially or otherwise, from seeing Shakespeare.
So this brings me back around to my question in my first post – do we know why it is people aren’t coming? Is it
1) practical barriers, like cost and accessibility, that are remediable? or
2) is the artistic model unsustainable?
And if it’s 2), can tweaks and changes be made without utterly destroying the art (I think this is what Mike Daisey is suggesting, that the artistic model can be tweaked so that it will actually connect, if we change the way we treat the theatre artists and buildings)? Or – like vaudeville, cabaret, commedia dell’arte, or 19th century melodrama – is that particular approach doomed on a large scale?
January 14, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Not meaning to disrupt the conversation, but I thought this link was an interesting one—-about the push for Obama to add a cabinet-level cultural secretary post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/13/AR2009011303264.html
January 14, 2009 at 11:58 pm
Along those same lines, Isaac has been discussing a lot of arts policy issues over at Parabasis recently. Here are some links:
Should There Be a Cabinet-Level Arts Czar?
http://parabasis.typepad.com/blog/2009/01/should-there-be-a-cabinetlevel-arts-czar.html
The Problem with the New Federal Project One
http://parabasis.typepad.com/blog/2009/01/the-problem-with-a-new-federal-project-one.html
More on the New New Deal and the Arts
http://parabasis.typepad.com/blog/2009/01/more-on-the-new-new-deal-and-the-arts.html
Also, Barry’s Arts Blog offers a list of candidates for the Chair of the NEA:
http://www.westaf.org/blog/archives/2008/11/nominees_for_ch.php
January 15, 2009 at 12:10 am
and adding to the discussion of attendance, here are some resources for studies that have been done in the past few years:
TCG’s annual report: “Theatre Facts”
(note: these reports are based on TCG member theatres–which, in the past, meant companies with budgets in excess of 200k, but their requirements have shifted for this coming year)
http://www.tcg.org/tools/facts/
note: from TCG’s membership eligibility requirements:
“Payment to actors equivalent to the Equity minimum for the area (theatres need not operate on a union contract) or at least 20% of the theatre’s annual budget dedicated to total artist compensation (including but not limited to actors)”
Our own Helen Hayes Annual Reports:
2004
http://www.helenhayes.org/sub/files/2004report.pdf
2005/2006
http://www.helenhayes.org/sub/files/report.pdf
DC/Metro Area’s recent numbers:
2004:
65 companies
383 productions
7,582 performances
2,133,731 audience members
383 productions kept Washington as the “second most prolific theatre town in the country”
2005
56 companies
348 productions
7,169 performances
1,952,405 audience members
2006
68 companies
434 productions
7,648 performances
1,945,469 audience members
January 15, 2009 at 12:51 am
When trying to find out if there was a statistic on how many of those 2 million audience members Helen Hayes records were unique attendees, I came across this interesting study from 2002:
http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/quickfacts/audiences/parc.html
According to this survey (which deals with performing arts attendance for symphony, theatre, dance and opera in several major U.S. cities) nearly a full 60% of Washingtonians reported attending at least one theatre producion in the prior year.
January 15, 2009 at 4:33 am
I think that part of the problem is the misconception that we are in the theatre business. We are not; we are in the entertainment/thought-provoking business. I have seen many productions in DC that were excellent theatre, and as such were seen by the same groupies and actual theatre people. But these were insular productions, done by and for the same group. Anu’s question is the central one: who are you doing this for? What will make this person pay their hard-earned money to watch other people for a few hours? Forum Theatre, since this is your blog: why are you doing Angels in America? Who are you doing it for? Why should someone see this instead of renting the TV movie? Whom do you hope to entertain with it? What thoughts do you hope to provoke with it, at this moment and in this city?
This discussion of budgets and scale and (heaven help us) artist compensation is important, but it is fundamentally self-involved. I have seen great theatre on budgets of millions of dollars and on tens of dollars; I have seen high school shows that were better than professional shows, and non-equity shows that were better than Broadway shows. What separates a great show from a bad show – and what makes me forget how much I paid for my ticket – is a sense of a group of artists coming together to affect me. That’s the experience worth paying for. The connection of people in a room. Let’s talk about that before we talk about the institutional problems with the American Theater.
January 15, 2009 at 6:04 am
Abf, I disagree with pretty much everything you say.
Plenty of great theater gets done in DC that gets seen by “small” audiences. All too often, as Brett points out, this is the regrettable result of poor advertising, and sometimes that is compounded by a poor understanding of how to reach the audience we want to engage. But even more often, performing arts organizations here in DC are reaching who they want to, in satisfactory if not earth-shaking numbers, and giving those people radical, amazing arts experiences.
Do you think all artists who perform in venues that seat 80 people, 3 times a week, are somehow failing compared to those that perform in venues that seat 400 people, seven times a week? If so you misunderstand “business” entirely and probably don’t shop anywhere but Walmart since it’s the biggest and draws the most diverse clientele and therefore is clearly the best (gawd, and that’s a thought-provoking notion).
And, aren’t “groupies” exactly what theaters SHOULD be cultivating in great numbers — isn’t that another way to say “repeat, satisfied customers”? The alternative is to be re-creating your audience from scratch for each show, which is, let’s face it, truly stupid.
Sure, all of us could get better at assessing some of the questions you ask about why we do art and for whom. You can never stop being activated about whether your organization is targeting the right audience or reaching that audience successfully, and how you’ll do more of the right stuff and less of the wrong.
But to say that this “connection of people in a room” problem is job one and that thinking about things like organizational structure, artistic motives in all their myriad facets in addition to audience enhancement, and longterm strategy, is somehow an off-limits topic until … well, until whatever absurd thing you think is going to happen to make things better by dissing our loyal audiences and never again producing Angels in America on a stage or something … I can only sputter, who died and made you the Theater Discussion Topics Czar? Because I’m staging a coup if this is the new world order.
Whew! Now I feel better. The blogosphere is (for good or ill) well suited to this sort of trash-talking — so I say: bring it, Abf!
January 15, 2009 at 6:20 am
Consider it “brought,” then:
Nobody made me Czar of Theater Discussion Topics. Did I say we shouldn’t talk about the other topics? I said “before”, not “instead of.” Would it make you feel better if I designated these Topic 1 and 1A? I work in theatre, and I want to see theatres manage themselves more effectively. I’m an artist, and of course I worry about the way artists are treated. But I’m sorry, we have to start with the work itself – though I think there is certainly room for a discussion of whether better treating one’s artists creates better theater.
At no point, however, did I say that a theater with small audiences was less valid. I think I said the opposite: that a good experience was more important than the scale or even the size of the audience. I don’t think an audience will magically show up just because something is great. The reason these big theaters pull 400 people 7 times a week has more to do with their advertising and subscription budgets than quality, of course. But people show up to Tyler Perry’s crap because it speaks to them, just as others show up to crazy experimental theater if it speaks to them. And theaters get followings by speaking to audience members, so perhaps good theater (assuming the connection is cultivated by the organization) may lead to bigger audiences.
When I say we are not in the theater business, what I mean is that we tend to assume that people who like theater will show up anywhere there’s someone on a stage and settle for that as theater. So “groupies” (a recurring audience of about 100 in the DC area, I’d guess) and “theater people” may, but is that the audience we want? No offense to them – I’m one of them – and their passion is an important part of the scene, but who are we doing these plays for?
January 15, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I gotta say guys, this is pretty exciting. The discussion after Monday’s show and this thread are both signs that something is indeed a little stinky in Denmark but it’s fantastic to see people fired up. There’s several round table discussion’s worth of subject matter to cover in this can of worms we’ve popped open and though they’re all tied together in some way, I have to agree that the most compelling and the one that I was itching to ask the other night is the one most recently raised. Here it is again, in my words: in this particular time of economic uncertainty and political rebirth, this mixture of hope and despair, in this very moment, in this city, the nation’s capital, what do we have to say? And who do we want to hear it?
The question of audience is an important one, especially in our fragmented society. I’m all for diversity—I’m tired of 95% white people audiences as much as the next guy. But let’s remember ideological as well as ethnic and cultural diversity, because I’m just as tired of preaching to the choir in an echo chamber, if I may remix my metaphors. Our country is at a crossroads. We’re being asked to question and challenge the many barriers between us: economic, political, racial, generational, cultural. What would theatre look like if it sought to move us beyond those barriers and bring us back to our most basic shared common denominator experience? What are the plays we’ve done that embody that aspiration? How do we foster that kind of work?
At it’s best this work we do is at once a vocation and a gift, though to greater and lesser degrees, we are part of an unconscious system, chugging along, just like the rest of the world. But we don’t do this for a lot of money and so the least we can do is to spare ourselves from the spirit draining national habits of workaholism, perfectionism and commercialism. Are we artists or are we theatre industry workers? We need to be fresh and inspired and vibrant in order to capture and keep people’s attention. And whether they’ll admit it or not, they’re starved for something real. Oh sure, they’ll settle for less, but right now the time is ripe for something new. And if we can create truly indispensable work that speaks to our most bedrock human fears and aspirations in this pivotal moment, then I’m pretty sure we’d have no trouble supporting ourselves. We need to make what we do essential to the ongoing evolution of this society. This isn’t about making political theatre, it’s about making theatre that’s relevant, challenging, and moving while at the same time (gasp) accessible.
Blame is useless here, and so is the US vs. THEM game. But if we are going to point fingers, then let’s point them at the underlying thinking that drives this system and then work towards rebuilding it. Take a look under the hood, maintain what’s working and fix what’s not. That to me is what this conversation is really about. All the very important practical stuff will fall into place and be motivated by a new found sense of purpose if we were to step back and take another look at what we’re doing and why.
January 15, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Patrick,
Great stuff. The questions you bring up are really important ones. I am going to take a quick stab at the question of what do audiences want in this time of economic downfall.
If we look at theatre history in the US, the most popular form of theatre during and after the great depression was musical theatre. People did not went to spend their hard earned money to go see something that would depress them more, or talk about what was acutally going on in their life. They wanted something that would allow them to escape and laugh and truly enjoy themselves.
Maybe Forum needs to be working on Hello Dolly instead of Angels?
January 15, 2009 at 8:20 pm
No response
January 15, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Angels in America: The Musical?
January 15, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Ha! Touche, monsieur, touche—that’s hilarious. Obviously everyone will have a different answer to this question and I’m definitely not suggesting that we all go out and write today’s “Waiting for Lefty”.
But we’ve come a long way since the 1930’s in our national consciousness and our ability to look reality in the face. Using your own words, we could rephrase the question: how do you talk about what’s actually going on without depressing people?
And I think musicals are great—pure entertainment has a place and many musicals are more than that. Ultimately I believe theatre’s at its best when it’s entertaining and challenging at the same time. How do we shoot for that?
January 15, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I think this is a bit of the same argument Brecht makes about theatre. He felt that theatre must always be entertaining and innovative. At the same time he saw theatre as a tool for social change and action. It can be argued whether or not he was successful at this. Brecht’s theatre and structure of his work created a way for people to come to the theatre and think about what they saw while at the same time being entertained. He hoped in turn, they would be moved to action. One way he did this was to always look at a modern topic through the lens of history. And he did this through his German cabaret style that was very popular. So he used a popular style, with maybe “unpopular” political opinions.
I am not sure if this is answering the question posed, but Brecht was an artist who thought that theatre had to always be entertaining and socially instructive. So it is an idea.
Don’t worry, I am not working on an Angels Musical, even though I do think Roy Cohn and Ethel Rosenberg could have a mean duet.
January 15, 2009 at 11:53 pm
“Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”
-Bertolt Brecht
January 16, 2009 at 12:11 am
Reaching a new audience with any kind of medium is conceptually simple, but it can be a lot of work.
1. Identify the new audience you want to reach: What characteristics make them members of a distinct audience? How large is the audience?
2. Learn how to communicate with this new audience: In what physical locations do they gather? What established media do they consume? How can you get numbers of them together to talk with you?
3. Learn from members of the new audience what they require from a new medium in their lives. Do they have any unmet needs that your medium might fill? What value could your medium add to their lives? Are there kinds of stories they want to experience? Are there technical factors in a medium that they find either attractive or repellant? Are their constraints that bound their interest in a new medium – factors like location and time of medium availability, costs to consume the medium, perceived appropriateness of the content delivered by the medium, language(s) in which the medium is presented? If the medium includes people, are their particular characteristics they would like those people to display? Do they want a medium through which they just receive communication or one in which they participate as creators of content as well? Once the medium exists, what is the most effective way to communicate its availability to the new audience? This is a huge endeavor but can be very interesting and fulfilling all in its own right.
4. Decide whether you are interested in and capable of producing a medium or adapting a medium you already produce that will meet the identified needs of the new audience. Is there sufficient overlap between your own artistic interests and the requirements of the audience? Do you have or can you obtain whatever resources are required to craft such a medium? Is the value to you of reaching the new audience worth what it will take from you to craft such a medium? Are there particular things you want to communicate to or learn from the new audience?
5. Assuming the findings from step four support moving forward, create or adapt away. If not, start examining the next most interesting new audience.
These steps are pretty much the same whether you are trying to reach a new audience with an existing medium – in which case you are most focused on finding out how your current medium can meet the needs of the new audience and how to communicate its availability to them – or if you are launching some kind of new endeavor.
As I was walking through this, it occurred to me that one of the questions under step 4 – the one about whether you’ve got particular things you want to communicate with the audience about – could lead to a very powerful, driven mission for a theater company. Most of the missions of theater companies I’m aware of in DC are process, style, or community based. If there was a particular change someone wanted to bring about in the world and communicating to some audience was a pathway to that change, a task force theater company could be formed specifically to bring that about.
Final thought for this post: I think there is a spectrum in those producing theater of how they view the goal of theater and therefore the role of the audience.
There are people who see theater as a free standing art form, valuable whether anyone ever sees it or not. A great marker for such a person is the comment that the rehearsal process is more important than performances. At the extreme (and I don’t think there are many people this far over) the audience is a necessary evil – a source of money and applause without which the rehearsal process could not be afforded.
There are people who view theater as a communications medium, most valuable in the ephemeral moment of communication between theater makers and audience members. I can’t at the moment think of a single encapsulating phrase for this attitude. At the extreme the audience, and the particular effect one wants to have on that audience is the only reason to produce.
We’re human beings, so we can sit anywhere on this spectrum and even in several contradictory spots at the same time. It might be a worthwhile exercise to think about whether you agree that such a spectrum exists and where you would fall on it. Do you believe a particular spot on the spectrum is best, or are there many valid positions?
January 16, 2009 at 1:05 am
I have to say that this is a great conversation you’re having here, and I’ve linked to it from my site. I wanted to remind people that there’s one more roundtable this Friday, and if people are available please attend–it’d be great to have people in the room who’ve been thinking about these issues over the last couple of weeks.
January 16, 2009 at 2:00 am
I am planning to join the Friday night round table and would love to meet up with the participants in this blog afterwards. I’m asking Woolly whether any of us can infest the upper lobby for a post post show discussion discussion. If I can get clearance for it, I’ll have a few growlers of home brew to keep our throats from getting too dry.
January 16, 2009 at 2:09 am
More info on the way, but we are putting together an actual event for Monday, January 26, at Woolly, to meet up and continue this discussion. More details very soon….
January 16, 2009 at 2:33 am
something like ‘Next to Normal’ at Arena seems to be a musical that is addresses real human problems – mental instability. evidently it’s touching and uplifting without being hokey. they can exist!
p.s. but for god’s sake don’t do Jane Eyre the musical, that’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back
p.p.s. and I would add… who are we commenting FOR??? what are we trying to SAY with our comments?? how can we bring a larger and more diverse audience of web-surfers in to appreciate our analytical yet respectful brain vomit?!?
January 16, 2009 at 3:49 am
Geesh. Don’t get me started on my defense of the art of musical theater. I’ll talk your ear off with that one. Home brew sounds good Pete…
January 16, 2009 at 4:29 am
So much to discuss….
I will say that the topic of “why do we do theatre, certain plays, and for who?” is of particular interest to me, as artistic director. The question of what makes a play a “Forum play” is one of constant debate at our company meetings, which is a very good thing. While I think the term ‘political theatre’ can be limiting and even misleading, we have always produced work that we felt had an immediate message of truth and particular relevance to our community–both local, national, and global.
Since it has been mentioned a few times, I’ll use ANGEL IN AMERICA as an example of how we go about choosing what stories to tell. Not sure if Abf’s related questions were meant to be rhetorical or not, but I’ll use them as a springboard. “Why ANGELS?” Well, our discussion stemmed into 2 threads: the topic/story based, and the industry-based. When it comes to the message of the play, this script almost has too many to choose from. In fact, it’s varied messages were a big turn on for us. In one sense, it’s a play about America. The identity, make-up, reflection, and progress of our nation. In a funny parallel, the play debuted at the transition of the Bush and Clinton administrations; a time when the nation was looking at itself and saying “how will we move forward?” Pretty similar to today, no? Even more so (or just as much, to avoid trendy exaggeration), when we look at the play’s discussion of how we relate to each other as a nation of varied backgrounds and diverse points of view.
Then you look at an issue like AIDS, which has fallen out of fashion as a national topic despite its all-too-real nature in our own city. One in twenty adults living in DC is infected. DC’s rate is 10 times higher than the national average and too little is done to highlight this fact, much less to respond to this crisis.
“Why should someone see this instead of renting the TV movie?”
Well, from the industry angle, I believe that it’s very important for people to have the opportunity to see this important play. Maybe it’s for the “theatre groupies,” but this play has really shaped American theatre in the past 15 years. It has not been produced in the DC/Metro area in 10 years, before thousands of area theatre-goers moved to this region. While I enjoyed the HBO film very much, it falls short of the innovative and exciting theatricality that this play possesses when presented live. For a generation who only know the script as a high budget movie or a high budget Broadway production, we are excited to produce a version that harkens to playwright Tony Kushner’s original intent of a “pared-down” production that “let the strings show.”
So, not a specific response to the discussion, but I just wanted to share some of the thinking we do when choosing our plays. Forum is dedicated to telling stories that matter. Stories that strike chord and reflect who we are, as an audience, as a community, right NOW. And, stories that spark the discussion and facilitating a place to have that discussion with our peers.
January 16, 2009 at 4:33 am
and PS: When did HELLO, DOLLY! become the whipping-boy for substance-less theatre discussions? After WALL-E, I’m sold on its power.
January 16, 2009 at 6:08 am
I think the Hello Dolly! comment came from me.
Angels in America first opened right around the election of Clinton. In the canon of AIDS theatre it brought about a big change. That change was a real sense of hope to the AIDS community. A cleansing if you will.
The tumult in which the play was written was during the economic and social disaster of Regan and Bush the Elder administrations. Two presidents who mostly ignored HIV and AIDS. The play opened on the eve of Clinton taking office, a president who offered hope to the country (and openly campaigned for AIDS research, equal treatment for PWA, ending discrimination against immigrants with AIDS, and supported the Ryan White CARE Act).
This is a play filled with hope. Especially part two in which cleansing rituals and forgiveness take a major role. I think this play is as important now as it was when it first opened and one of the reason it has endured.
January 17, 2009 at 3:33 am
Couple of quick things:
The City Paper has linked to this conversation in its review for FAILED AMERICA:
http://washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=36698
Also, on the last episode of Studio 360, they discuss the future of American art and culture under this new administration, including an interview with departing NEA chairman and poet, Dana Gioia about various topics like a cabinet-level culture/arts position and arts funding in the US.
ARTISTS AND OBAMA
http://www.studio360.org/episodes/2009/01/16
January 21, 2009 at 2:01 pm
There are many things in this thread that I agree with, and many others that I do not. However, one thing I will say is this.
In regards to the comment on the lack of substance in musical theatre, I think that there is a big dilemma that extends from comments like this and similar to this. We are in a time where audiences are increasingly more difficult to get. The last thing we as an arts community should be doing is putting down one art form over another. Getting someone to go see a musical, may mean they may just one day walk into your theatre to see a play; getting someone to go see an opera may one day get them to see your musical, etc, etc. Dance should be in there too – hell anything performance even orchestral concerts. All these arts lead to trying others.
Similarly, this idea of big theatre versus little theatre. When we talk with people and they say “I am going to see a show at Shakespeare” I’ve heard people say to a virgin audience member, “Don’t do that, they put on crap”…etc etc. We begin to set up these negative connotations in which people go to see theatre. Then who knows if they’ll ever go back out. Maybe the mindset becomes if that was a show at big theatre x whats a show at smaller theatre y going to be. I know it may be competition between companies for audience, but at this time we should stop looking at how we can build each individual company or “class” (for lack of better terminology) and start supporting each other. Maybe work out deals between companies where I can come see a show at theatre X and then get a discounted price to theatre Y to see something different. We should be trying to get audiences out (through more than just post cards) and encouraging them somehow as opposed to what I often see as discouraging.
It’s late so my thoughts may not be 100% clear, but I think you get the gist.
January 22, 2009 at 2:32 am
[...] by the ongoing discussions both at Woolly Mammoth’s How Theatre Failed America and here, on the blog, we will be holding a special OpenForum event on Monday. The “round table” will be [...]
January 23, 2009 at 8:01 pm
I originally posted this on my Facebook page, but thought I would contribute it here as well. In general, I think it echoes much of what Anu has said… but in the event that I can’t make the discussion on the 26th, I thought I’d share.
—————
Is Theater Really Failing America?
Short answer: yes and no.
Yes, we are failing America… and, in return, America is failing us. I think we’re failing each other. We have a bad relationship, frankly, and we’re going to have to dig in and make it work.
For our part, as theater practitioners, I think we need to begin immediately by telling more of the stories people want to hear, not the stories we want to tell. Our collective liberal bias, whether we like it or not, immediately alienates a great many people. (I’m as guilty of that as anyone, at times, and I’m starting to get more ashamed of it.) We cater so strongly to each other’s tastes, and to the tastes of our (diminishing) well-heeled, well-educated, mostly-white, mostly-liberal audiences, rather than to the people who AREN’T coming to see shows.
What do you think would happen if we started telling human stories, rather than subtly-liberally-biased stories? What would happen if we started writing plays about superheroes and action figures and romatic comedies about frat boys and sorority girls (without mocking them)? I’m guessing a whole new slew of people, in time, would start trusting us again with their entertainment dollars.
This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t be using theater to wrestle with the great questions America asks of us: we absolutely should. But we should look beyond ourselves, our limited bi-coastal, latte-sipping lives to find those questions. Again, I’m a latte-sipper myself, so I say this as self-criticism, not as accusation.
It’s natural for us to want to make ourselves happy, first and foremost, with the theater we make, because we aren’t getting paid well enough to make it, so we look for compensations where we can find them. But I’m relatively certain that if we went about our business tyring to be of service to others, rather than ourselves, the money we need would flow our way.
Trying to get often-petulant, often-childish theater practitioners to think beyond their own noses, though… man, that can be hard. The more we grow up, though, the more we behave like adults, the more people will want to (and pay to) listen to us.
I also think that, with all the fancy new buildings we’ve built for ourselves, those oh-so-polished-and-shiny spaces, we’ve got to resist the temptation to make polished and shiny plays. People want roughness, sharp edges, imperfection. Those are the spaces in which audiences can often enter a play. If the play is “too good” for them, they won’t feel welcome… but if it’s a bit ragged around the edges, it’ll be more human, more accessible. I’ve seen this work with a company I’ve been closely associated with, and it works like a charm.
If we do these things, we will not be failing America. We will be doing our part.
America, however, needs to do its part in return. It needs to start by remembering how valuable the arts are… how empty and meaningless and soulless and dead our lives are without the stories we tell and the symbols we hoist up onto stages. It needs to invest in us; it needs to free us from some of the finanical obstacles that keep us worried more about the rent than, say, the third act problems of a new piece. (We shouldn’t be entirely free of such troubles, though, because by having them we are living lives very much like most of the population of the country, and thus connecting with them.) We’ve all heard the myth that artists crave the wild lifestyles with which they are so often associated, but I’ve never met an artist who wouldn’t rather have steady health insurance and even a minimal salary and some of the middle class comforts we’re often denied. After all, stability is what really leads to creativity, NOT a wild lifestyle.
So what do you think, America? How about a Secretary of Culture cabinet position? Someone in the government to look after our creativity as a country? How about tax breaks for working artists? How about nationalized health care? We’d be ever so grateful… and we’d promise in return to make stories you’re really dying to hear.
January 24, 2009 at 4:10 am
Here’s an unflattering metaphor that came to me after Daisy’s show …
If McDonald’s were only open for business 3 hours a day, they’d have to charge $24 a hamburger and set up a fundraising and donations office the rest of the time, too. But that doesn’t mean the value of the hamburger has increased with this bizarre business model.
Mike Daisy tells the story of a major regional theatre that recently upgraded to a fancy-pants facility so beautiful you want to give the lobby a standing ovation and so expensive that they have to rent it out for weddings and bar mitzvahs the rest of the time. It sounds absurd on the face of it, but I actually think it’s kinda cool that this theatre is a community place first. It is a venue, a piece of territory, first. I can’t help but wonder if the extra traffic from weddings and bar mitzvahs doesn’t ultimately help channel new people to the theatre the rest of the time. Now, according to Daisy’s testimony, this space-for-rent model has resulted in a mellowing of the work that gets done there (his own scheduled performance was cut short because, in a sense, it couldn’t out-bid competing demands for the space) and that’s a downside I don’t want to minimize or pretend away.
And yet whenever we start talking about public subsidy for the arts, I return to this McDonald’s metaphor because I always wish the government would pay for the venue first. If the prohibitive obstacle of real estate and hard capital (lights, seats, fly space) were handled at the civic level, would we be free to channel our efforts and our capital campaigns back to the company of actors? It seems to me that the American stigma against arts funding might be abated by the same prejudice to “visible, tangible building projects” and we would all be better for it.
When I kick back and indulge in utopian American Theatre projects, I imagine a theatre that lives as a place for people to gather every hour of the day — even if it’s just serving coffee for profit late at night or doing open mic stuff on Mondays or, yes, having other groups come in during the day. Otherwise, we’re quintupling our crapwork to pay for the empty space the rest of the time. The electric bill is big, yes, but it’s even bigger when you’re essentially paying for a ghost-light most of the week. A theatre that doesn’t breath with the traffic of the community at all times creates an excruciating uphill task for itself.
In DC, the Capital Hill Arts Workshop and the H Street Playhouse and the new Source Theatre, the Atlas Theatre … these are places first and the forces behind their sustenance owe more to the place as a necessary, communal good than they do to any of the dozen or so theatre companies that call them home. Catalyst, Forum, Theatre Alliance, ACTco, Keegan, Actor’s Theatre, and others all benefit from this, yes?
I’m not an administrator, so I don’t know for sure. But one of the other major discoveries from Daisy’s roundtable two Mondays ago, was that performers and company artists need to have an active stake in the administration side — for two reasons:
a) to help carry the weight of office and foot work that makes a theatre run and …
b) to enfranchise the artists in the financial side of things so that the chasm between the artistic imperative and the financial imperative can be narrowed
A company of actor-administrators or designer-administrators might result in a smaller staff of people doing many different things to make something closer to a living wage … instead of a big staff of specialists doing one thing for less than a living wage.
I wrote about the larger, weirder monster that is “American Theatre” this past summer …
http://tundratastic.blogspot.com/2008/07/against-national-theatre.html
… but I have yet to test any of my half-baked conclusions. Kudos to Forum for continuing the discussion here!
January 24, 2009 at 4:17 am
Great work Michael and everyone! What a discussion.
Can’t make the roundtable because I’m in callbacks, and haven’t made the show because I’m running Venus and trying to cast four plays at once just now while meeting all of the other goals of the company as well and fortifying relationships with the playwrights. That said, I really should get out more and do apologize for speaking without seeing the work. Getting out to see theatre that I love is really really tough when I’m trying to also make theatre that I love.
Just wanted to say as someone carrying a company on my back for about 15 years that there is no clean answer to any of this. The city is changing in leaps and bounds. And for those who poo-poo the burbs I’ll just point out that according to Helen Hayes, the DC theatre community stretches into Baltimore. So, my need to defend locating Venus in Laurel is now met.
I think you have to do good work that you believe in deeply, and you have to be willing to take a HUGE risks in doing that. It sucks. And, it’s fabulous! And, I think if there is anything else that would make you happy in life you should get out of this racket and get to it. We have to build on top of shifting plates. The ten companies that got in when funding existed and before Jamar and THE WIZ bought the city are doing better, they’ve been here longer, they could walk on land where the rest of us come upon massive oceans today. Timing. Boat Building must be added to our to-do lists. Not to mention the need for navigational maps and all the rest of it.
With regard to space, I can quote Virginia here in saying that all an “artist” needs is a little bit of money and a room of her own.
Truth is, it’s a different game about every five years. And, with this new administration there is hope on the horizon.
As a founder and artistic director of a nonprofit it has been IMPOSSIBLE under the Bush administration to compete for funding with natural disasters, homeless pets, starvation in 3rd world countries, soldiers without proper armour, and diseases that need curing. I kind of feel like an ass for even typing that. But, it’s true. My reality. A culture that understands the arts and appreciates and places a value on expression over war will help us TREMENDOUSLY.
The thing about being an actor is that you have so little power as a rule. Unless you are a soloist/playwright, once you decide to audition you have no say over the play, the part, the location, it’s maddening. And I tip my hat to actors. But, I hope they understand a lot of the frustration lies in the nature of the beast. As someone building a Company I often find that no matter how much I create, the actor feels slighted. Because actors cannot SURVIVE without egos. And egos usually need a lot of things, including more money. And if there was a way to wave a magic wand…LIVING WAGE! presto!
You know, I’d sell my ovaries if they were worth anything in the black market but I’ve aged out of that. Those of us who build companies are taking HUGE risks everyday.
For me a large part of the problem is the absence of the reality check. We live in a very specific climate. I’m so glad to see the fact-gathering here. Whenever a work gets produced, it’s essentially a miracle. A miracle. And we should make it a Mardi Gras in the streets after every curtain call. Because it’s a miracle.
If there is an enemy, it’s the very thing allowing us to connect here…it’s two dimensional media. It’s being able to access masterpieces in an instant and forgetting about the process, the flubs, the discoveries, the slips it takes to get strong footing. All of the work to build up the muscle is critical. An artist MUST HAVE permission to fail or else – no more risk. And money, would help a lot in the way of security and safety to make the jumps and daredevil leaps more plausible. It’s hard to take risks when you’re not sure if you’re gonna have heat. Perhaps, impossible. Miracle. Mardi Gras.
The need that we as humans have to be in a room together has been pushed down and repressed in exchange for virtuality. The reason the hip-hop format is working so much better has to do with Baptist Church culture and a demo accustomed to showing up and singing and dancing LIVE.
The rest of us check out too easily. We disengage. So, showing up is key, doing what you love is key, and more power to the artist who dares! And, in the spirit of my own hypocrisy, please forgive me for not actually attending any of this. POWER ON!
XOdb.
February 1, 2009 at 1:24 am
So we, as a theater community, are “dying,” and our solution is to dust off a widely seen (though not for ten years! A lifetime!!) show yet again? Apologies to Forum for singling you out, you’re certainly not the only company in town to brush off a chestnut in the hopes of reviving the theater scene, but do you really think this’ll work?
How many companies in town need to attempt a moldy remount, hoping for it to spike sales? How many productions of Hamlet does one town need in a year? Why do we keep digging from the 19th or 20th century well, or even the 15th, to solve a 21st century problem?
How many companies in town are actively commissioning new works? How many are fostering the talents of the next voice of our generation? I know Woolly and Charter and a small handful of other theaters are committed to new work. The problem is, why aren’t the rest of us?
We keep thinking that all we need to do is flash up yet another production of, say, Winter’s Tale, and it’ll speak to the next generation. We’re woefully missing the point. This generation is beyond us, they’re beyond theater, and only if we speed up, catch them, and overtake them, and stop this notion that a play like the Cherry Orchard or another outdated Brecht, theater will always be a dying art form, right along side our aging audiences. And Brecht?! Really? We’re trusting the ideas of a man who died before cable TV, bit-streaming, youtube, or home videos, a man who wrote drearily long plays, to tell us how to save performance art?
So we’re at a point of mutation, either we need to evolve, or maybe it really is time for us to die out.
February 3, 2009 at 3:13 am
“America, however, needs to do its part in return. It needs to start by remembering how valuable the arts are.”
There’s an underlying theme being said here, that theater is more special than other things and needs to be appreciated just because it’s theater. But there is no requirement for people to have to appreciate anything. If peoples’ lives are empty without it, then you should be able to advertise that somehow and get more asses in seats. “This show will complete your soul” would work as a tagline.
Theater has to compete with all other forms of entertainment and art just as much as any manga novel or Larry the Cable Guy movie. The presumption that it’s inherently better than other forms is just part of an ongoing sense of narcissism to appeal to the conspicuous consumption of fancier theater goers. It’s only now that we’re seeing that audience slowly fading away that there’s a rush to find a replacement. For some reason, younger audiences aren’t as excited at seeing Macbeth more than once in their life. Lots of others are turned off by the standard tropes that would only appear to die-hard theater nerds or unique focus groups. Tack on high ticket prices and uncomfortable seats and I’d be hard pressed to wonder why people are going at all when there’s 80+ years of movies available via Netflix.
There is a huge swath of unique entertainment that theater provides that could trump 80+ years of filmmaking, but it needs to find out what those elements are and highlight them rather than appealing to it’s own sense of elitism.
February 4, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Fernando, you say plays that are written by dead fellows who existed before cable TV, bit-streaming, youtube, or home videos are plays that are not worthy of being produced? We should never look back? I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of new plays. Personal preference, that’s all–most are just not up to the standards that I like in my theatre–or they are too ephemeral, existing only to comment on a brief moment in time, and thus to slip away forever. Granted, we have some talented new-play writers here in D.C.–and I’m glad to see some of them getting the recognition they deserve.
There’s something magical about works that continue to resonate–even long after their authors have expired. Simply because generations before us produced successful versions of these plays, does not mean we cannot have our take on them too. Our versions will be different from those of our older peers–as they will be different from the interpretations of our younger peers.
Peakheads, Winter’s Tale, Angels in America, Cherry Orchard….yeah, we’ve all heard of these plays. But have we seen them–other than on an Introduction to Drama syllabus?
These are good plays, with substance…we’re not talking Cats here, or I love a freaking Piano.
Substance. Whether it’s a new play, or an old one…you cannot shy away from substance. We need to present plays with something engaging and dare I say theatrical to our audiences. My personal opinion is to say no to all these kitchen sink dramas that have sprung up like mad. Throw them down the kitchen sink drain. Theater is theatrical. These ‘close-up’ plays, one-person shows with a chair and a glass of water, women talking about their hoohaas–out with them!!! Give me nazi caricatures, flying angels, left-leaning bears and loaded guns anyday.
February 5, 2009 at 4:28 am
[...] since Judas closed. Time to plan and announce a big show for next season, time to debate the the current and future state of our craft, and time for some plain old [...]
March 26, 2009 at 2:57 am
Hey, I remembered that Elissa had brought up Trinity Rep here. Did you see on today’s Backstage column that the former ED of Trinity Rep, Edgar Dobie, is coming to Arena as Managing Director? Now you’ll only need to stop by the Arena offices to learn more about running a resident-company theater from a first-hand practitioner!
March 28, 2009 at 2:49 am
Thanks for the info Sara!—-you better believe I will follow up on that…..