Required Reading 6/07/06

Hey Parabistas,

Usually my "required reading"s (which I mean as a joke, please don't think I'm that pretentious and condescending and/or schoolmarmish) are links to other sites, often to reviews that I think are horrible, often my someone whose initials are C.I. But not this time, no siree! Parabasis has gotten his filthy hands on a speech given two nights ago by Eduardo Machado at the ART/NY event at the American Airlines Theater (h/t an anonymous, awesome reader). I got a mysterious phone call yesterday telling me I had to get a copy of the speech, which was an excoriating example of speaking truth to power. I'm temping my ass off today, so I'm going to post the speech without comment for now and hopefully write some follow up pieces on it later this week/early next week. In the meantime, please share your thoughts with the world in the comments section.

(PS: Eduardo Machado is artistic director of INTAR Theater, head of the Columbia University playwriting program and a frequently produced American playwright)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every day when I get up. I think about the wall. The wall they are building on the Mexican border to keep Latinos from picking lettuce and mowing lawns and baby sitting. I think about the nine thousand national guardsmen being sent to keep the others, the aliens, away. The fact that the others, the Mexicanos, used to own California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas is an aside. Not an issue, not important.

What is the message? Conquer it and it is yours. History yields no payback. If you are not one of us you are not important. And you do not deserve anything, even though you help our economy function and thrive. Even though we need you. But as a nation, as your neighbors, we have no time or mercy. Not for you.

The only important thing to us is the debate. We hear it every day from a machine breeding racism that looks like patriotism. Spilled out every hour on the hour with a saccharine smile. Filled with Contempt.

Just listen to the hours of rhetoric on our television screens. When will it all end? When they've left? When we deport every Latin American here illegally? Keep them out, they're taking our jobs! Screams Lou Dobbs. Send a million bricks to congress to let them know, we don't want them here!

What's gonna happen when they are gone and a head of lettuce costs ten bucks? Who is gonna baby sit for the family where both parents work for a joint income less than 60,000 bucks. Who's going to pour the water and keep the dishes clean in every restaurant in this country from Seattle to Chicago, New York to Los Angeles, Houston and Miami.

What is the message? Keep out 'cause we don't want you to be part of our world. Spic, beaners, out of here!

I watch TV. I listen to the debate. And I wonder. Does that mean keep me out? I don't know. I did get a greencard at age eight because by my leaving Cuba I was fighting Communism. I was a special kind of Spic, a cold war Spic. But it could be me.

I remember in 2000 when my play "Havana is Waiting" was at the Humana festival. The Actor's Theatre of Louisville realized that it was going to be a hit, so at the last moment they decided that the big party, on the big weekend, should be a Cuban themed party with Cuban food and a very hot band. During the party I was sitting outside on the steps smoking a Habana cigar. And I remember one guy saying to his friend, "These god damn Latinos they want to take over everything." I looked at them and said, "I'm the god dammed Latino and don't worry. It's just one night in forty years. The rest of the parties belong to you." They walked away without an "I'm sorry" or an "I liked your play." I would've been happy with an "I hated your play." But no, just self assured silence.

So what is the message? Maybe it is me that should get out of the American theatre. Maybe the message has always been "This is not your country, not your theatre, get out."

Then again I am standing onstage at the American Airlines Theatre. I have been asked to give a speech... But I was picked by a French woman.

If you don't know me, you don't know my deep sense of paranoia. I am sure you will by the end of the speech. But in all paranoia there is a solid stream of the truth.

I never thought of myself as a Latino til I became an actor. And that's when the balancing act began. I think of my life in the theatre: how it saved me, how much I love it. And how much it's changed, how for the past ten years I have longed for and cried for the theatre I walked into when I became an actor in Los Angeles in the seventies and when I first came to New York in 1981.

I got my SAG card at twenty, so for the last thirty three years I have been a professional in the arts. I wrote my first play in 1980. So for the last twenty five years I have been a playwright. I am a part of the theatre because I have worked for it. If I have any place on this stage. I have earned it.

But I have always felt a separation. I have always felt another kind of wall. An invisible wall. Which are so much harder to walk through or break down. And for a paranoid like me, I wonder, am I imagining this wall? And then I bang my head against it. And I know.

When someone tells me, "We are not interested in your play, it's about Cubans, what do we know about Cubans?" What do you know about Russians, Germans and the Brits? But you do them. I would prefer you told me the play was not good enough.

Or, during my play "Broken Eggs," when a producer said to me, "Since the bride's family is Cuban we should just get really tacky costumes on fourteenth st."

Or "Listen Eduardo when they commissioned the play, they heard your name and they were expecting Carmen Miranda... You gave them Ibsen." Who knew a comparison to Ibsen could be a put down?

I have given every piece of my existence to my plays. I have compromised and sacrificed to be a part of the theater. But when I hear things like this I hear the message underneath. You are not one of us. You don't belong here.

Some of you might think I'm being dramatic. Some of you might think I'm making this up. But some of you know I'm telling the truth because I'm quoting you.

Still, I respect anyone who is in the theatre. I have spent so many, many years around you, seen you get old, seen you grow up. Maybe you didn't know what you were saying. You couldn't have known how much it hurt. But just because you didn't know, doesn't mean it didn't happen. You may not know which side you're on. But there is a wall, and it is not just about race.

Prejudice and fear is ingrained inside our molecules. But how far will we let it go? Are we afraid of style? Content? Maybe we're just afraid of Conflict. And where is the theater without conflict? If we are not open and brave where are we going? What is non-profit for anyway if not to risk it all. Right?

I was told I could talk about anything so I'm going to speak my mind. If I insult you, fine. Conflict is not supposed to be comfortable. Let's argue. If we don't start arguing we are all going to drown in a sea of complacency worse then when Treplev was heard saying "when in a thousand variations I am served the same thing over and over and over again - then I feel as Maupassant when he fled from the Eiffel tower, which made his brain reel with vulgarity."

But I do feel we are on shaky ground. And while I may not have an American passport, I have a greencard, and on this side of the wall, I am afforded the right to protest what I see around me.

No matter how well intentioned and believing in their statements, The New York Theatre workshop showed us how afraid of the audience we truly are. And I find that horrifying and the worst kind of censorship imaginable.

As you know, New York Theatre workshop cancelled a play because members of the community warned them against it.

And I quote from the New York Times, "Mr. Nicola originally said that he had spoken to "Religious leaders" in making his decision... that the workshop did a "Wide reaching out into the complexity of the community in New York" that included reading Palestinian views on web sites. Mr. Nicola did say "We had a conversation with one board member who said that his rabbi had concerns about the play. An old friend who is Jewish, also questioned the play's message." End quote.

I cannot stomach a theater that will shut itself down because they're afraid of an audience's reaction. When the invisible wall is erected directly in front of the stage I have to speak. But at this point, I don't have the objectivity to find the right words. So I will defer to some other writers whose deaths have made their authority undeniable.

"The majority is never right. Never I tell you!. That's one of these lies in society that one free and intelligent man cannot help rebelling against. Who are these people that make up the biggest portion of the population- the intelligent ones or the fools? I think we can agree it's the fools, not matter where you go in the world, it's the fools that form the overwhelming majority." Henrick Ibsen.

"I must warn my readers that my attacks are directed against themselves. Not against my stage figures" George Bernard Shaw.

"It is because the public are a mass... inert, obtuse, and passive... that they need to be shaken up from time to time..." -Alfred Jarry.

"Yes the public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius" Oscar Wilde.

How they all must have turned in their graves at the thought of it. Asking the audience... How do you feel? Are you ready to be challenged? Oh you're not? Then we won't insult you. Please let's breed silence and passivity here at home so there's nothing to compare with your fascist wars all over the world. Let's all be happy. Buy those tickets make those donations. And we will please you.

It is 2006. We are the theater in New York. And we are asking for permission. Where does that leave us?

What kind of theatre is it that asks whether or not it should censor itself. Is that even a question? And I am not just blaming New York Theatre Workshop, "Rachel Corrie" is just the most recent example. I am blaming all of us. Myself included. Even if I wanted to say everything all at once. I feel the wall. I know the words I dare not utter. Even in this speech.

What's happened to us?

Lorca died because he opposed the fascists in his community. If Ibsen's producers would have thought about their community the characters in "Ghosts" would not have had syphilis. Nora would have ended up staying home. And not slamming that door. What is going on?

I don't feel we are brave enough. I feel the theatre that I see for the most part is watered down.

It's getting ugly out there. Let's show it as much as we can on our stages.

And I beg you let us stop being afraid of the audience. They are supposed to be afraid of us.

But ever since the National Endowment got cut down to barely nothing we have had to follow a corporate model. We have to show profit in non-profit. Isn't that ridiculous? It's like an Ionesco play. We have become Rhinoceri. I know we feel we have to go along with it to survive... by it I mean pandering. Because we think we need a certain amount to make it. But how much are those dollars worth? And exactly how much do we need to survive?

Lorraine Hansberry asks, "Do I remain a revolutionary? Intellectually- without a doubt. But am I prepared to give my body to the struggle or even my comforts? This is what I puzzle about."

INTAR doesn't have a body right now. It was given up in the struggle. Because I decided that to raise 8 million dollars to build a theater had nothing to do with survival. A theater with a million dollar budget does not need a 500 thousand dollar flexible floor and it most definitely does not need to be in the basement of a Luxury Condominium. It needs to produce as many plays as it can, and that's it. This simple goal was not well received at the Department of Cultural Affairs. They kept telling me if I hired the right consultants, everything would be fine. I would be able to raise the millions needed for the building. But where to find the funding for productions?

Which leads me to the biggest headache from the biggest wall that I have walked into every day for the last two years. The language and bureaucracy of grant giving on the part of both corporations and foundations, New York City and State. Their insistence on a for-profit model is really at the heart of our problem. We're back in the land of The Bald Soprano.

We must all fight against this. Non profits theatres should not sell tickets for a hundred dollars a seat. That's criminal. How are we ever going to find a new vital audience at those prices? Even sixty five to forty-five is unrealistic. Not everyone has a trust fund. Not everyone in New York City is rich. The audience we're missing can barely afford 20 dollars. But if we gave them a reason to, they'd get the money together. I did.

We have given into the worst kind of greed. The corporate model. And I'm sorry but our work has suffered because of it.

But we fill out the applications because we have no choice. It's just how it's done. Are we really willing to continue this way? How can we break through this wall of walls?

I suggest that DCA and NYSCA spend their time lobbying for more money for the arts and less time reading forms and policing institutions. We can't steal the money. We have audits that are freely distributed. So why give the same information in form after form? Report after report?

But no. It's just how it's done. I had no idea about any of this until I took over INTAR. And suddenly I realized why artistic directors always look a little mad. It's from the endless hustling. How can we focus if all we talk about is the 5 year plan.

We have to find a way to be ruthless with ourselves. Change the rules. We need an environment where it is safe to investigate. To discover. To fail.

Finally I'd like to discuss one of our biggest problems: Education. By now I think we all know we train too many people. I am guilty of this more then most of you. I run the playwriting program at Columbia and I am required to let in ten student playwrights a year. When I first started working there it was only six a year. It should really be two.

But because the university wants money. Because even at the educational level they feel art does not have to be subsidized, ten playwrights graduate every year from my program. How can they all really be playwrights? They can't and they are not. And since when did theatre people need a master to be actors, directors and playwrights, designers and producers?

I barely graduated from high school.

I went to an acting school that was down an alley in Van Nuys. I learned about playwriting from Maria Irene Fornés in an abandoned building called INTAR 2 on 53rd street, and by having my first three plays produced - not workshopped - at The Ensemble Studio Theatre. No degree. Just what came my way. What I sought out. If we have so many students graduating every year then what happens to the self taught, the inspired, the different? They are buried under piles of graduate scripts, resumes and 8X10s.

There is a wall that is making the theatre a place for only those who can afford it. But who is being kept out? The voices of the hungry and unknown. Of those who don't fit in. Of those whose future is dependent on their ability to Scream.

Let me be frank, I teach at Columbia because I need the money, there is no grand scheme or noble purpose, just dollars and cents. And I try very hard to do a good, professional job.

But is that mentorship? Is it inspirational? I do my best, but I don't think so.

The way we have turned the art form into a factory is criminal and we all have to start talking to each other about this. We need better quality control. At all the schools.

Because not everyone is talented or exceptional. No matter how much they are willing to pay. We are a creating a theatre of the average. That cannot be good.

I have seen the theatre change so much... Just since the early 90's... from the feeling of being delinquents of society and feeling proud of that. To this farce where we believe we are all entitled to talent and success. No one is entitled to that. All we can hope for is the joy in the work, the joy of _expression, the joy of creativity.

We are the theatre in New York City. We're not supposed to be proper. We're not supposed to be corporate. We need only love creation. Finding value in true talent. In harsh criticism. In hard work.

We're supposed to belong to each other.

I hope you still feel this. This sense of community.

I feel it less and less. Maybe after years of being called difficult I have made myself invisible. Yet I still want to be a part. I want to scream with all of you. In this city. In this theatre.

But I will risk that inclusion. Because as Ms. Hansberry says, "The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely."

Let's forget about budgets and grants and is the audience happy. Let's create. Let's find that part of us that got us here in the first place. The part that does not feel like the rest of the world. The part that wants to rebel.

That part is on the other side of the wall.

And if we can prove that it's worth the struggle of climbing over, the theater in New York will again be something to reckon with.

My thanks to Virginia Louloudes. And the generous and daring Laura Pels for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts with all of you.

Good night and thank you.

Comments

[Doug Howe]

I absolutely agree and I'm sure those in attendance rose to their feet with applause. And sadly, it won't make a lick of difference. Those who actually give a damn have little power to do anything about it. In this country, it doesn't matter if your heart and soul are in the right place, only if your wallet.

[Adam Szymkowicz]

Thanks for posting. I linked.

You go Eduardo!

[CU]

What a narcissistic man. If he really feels that way about Columbia and his students, he should resign. There are other ways to make money. It sounds like, however, he needs to feel the narcissistic gratification of running a program. Like so many pathological narcissists, he glories in his self-image as well as denigrates it. This speech is something Ibsen would truly have marveled at: the master builder with his grand plans and his self-destructive hatred of those very same plans.

It is easy to speak out, to get an audience to rise to their feet. It is harder to live a life where you integrate your thoughts and feelings with your actions. Resign, Eduardo Machado. Make your money some other way.

[Dorothy]

I find it funny that someone speaking the truth is thought of as narcissistic. Obviously CU, something in his speak is hitting a nerve with you. I wonder what that is, because I bet it's not his narcissicim, but something much deeper.

He is not saying he hates his job or doesn't want it. He is speaking his truth about having to do a job based on capitalism.

I've met the man at the TCG conference in Seattle, and he is far from being a self centered man. He is nothing but open to others warm, attentive and kind.

[Malachy Walsh]

The speech is right on.

I've waded through the non-profit forms; the repitition is absurd. As a reader at a major NY non-profit, I've read a lot of scripts; the mediocrity is more than abundant. As someone who has gone to a lot of NY and West Coast theatre (something many who work in theatre do not do), I'm amazed at the timid choices Artistic Directors and Producers make everywhere.

We should try to leave behind the standards that the current non-profit/for-profit establishment has created and now imposes. Our acceptance of these standards only serves to reinforce the cultural status of these institurions and their posisiton at the top of the funding food chain.

Find your own space - any space - and start making your own work, on your own terms, your own way.

That's how it all got started in the first place.

[Dan]

Good speech except for this:

"...in all paranoia there is a solid stream of the truth."

That sounds like a verisimilitude meant to cover for ones own intellectual failings. By this logic, all those nativists -- paranoid about illiterate immoral immigrants breeding the country into lawlessness -- are pissing their own solid stream of truth as well.

That stuck in my craw. Otherwise, a pretty good speech.

[CU]

"He is not saying he hates his job or doesn't want it. He is speaking his truth about having to do a job based on capitalism."

He is saying that his program -- that he runs -- is corrupt. It should accept 2 students. HE TEACHES IN THIS PROGRAM AND RUNS IT. This means he is teaching 8 students under false pretences -- HE ACCEPTED THEM INTO THE PROGRAM!!!!!!

THERE ARE OTHER F*ING WAYS TO MAKE MONEY THAN LYING TO STUDENTS AND TAKING THEIR MONEY UNDER FALSE PRETENCES. It sounds like Eduardo needs to feel powerful and in control -- that's why he stays in this job. "Capitalism"???? -- give me a break!!!! All of a sudden "capitalism" is an excuse to exploit and lie and then HUMILIATE the students you teach and accept in your program?

[isaac]

Hey CU,

I think I understand where you're coming from, and obviously Dorothy's point that it hit a major nerve with you is right on, judging by the caps-lock and exclamation points.

Personally, I feel that what Machado is doing with this speech is not sparing himself from a system-wide indictment. he is part of the system and he knows it. He's owning up to his own failings. You can call that brave or slam him for the very failings he's owning up to, but either way it seems that is what he's doing.

His point about Columbia (and by extension, theater grad schools) is not that they're defrauding their students (promising them one kind of education and then giving them another) but rather that they are overadmitting not particularly good writers. I suppose you could say that admitting them is fraud, but that seems a bit of a stretch.

Can I ask (since you're anonymous): Are you a former student of his? Is that where the outrage is coming from?

Is it humiliating to say that someone isn't very good at what they do?

[CU]

"Touched a nerve" is pejorative -- "passionate" is much more appropriate, I think. And frankly Eduardo's speech is far more inflamatory in spirit and tone than my comment.

Unless Eduardo is telling 80% of his students that they cannot be playwrights, that they are not really talented, then he is unethical. By accepting them into his program he is validating their desire to graduate with a DEGREE IN PLAYWRITING from one of the nation's most prestigious universities. HOW CAN YOU GIVE A MASTERS DEGREE IN PLAYWRITING TO PEOPLE WHO "can't and they are not" playwrights, to quote the master.

Appalling.

[Mark]

These remarks are important and I linked to them first thing this morning. I'm glad Eduardo said what he did and I think ART/NY was a great place for those remarks to land.

That said, there is a point buried somewhere in CU's diatribe. (FYI, CU, if you cut and paste the same comments into different blogs, it makes people think you're a troll.)

After some thought, I reacted to the same line in the speech that he/she did:

"...ten playwrights graduate every year from my program. How can they all really be playwrights? They can't and they are not...not everyone is talented or exceptional. No matter how much they are willing to pay."

A generous interpretation of "they can't and they are not" would be an economic one--that those students won't make a living as playwrights. But that seems to run counter to his other points. The interpretation I think many would read (I did) is that those writers just aren't very good. And why did he have to go and say that to make his point?

Everything Eduardo says is likely true. But that particular portion (about the students) is not speaking truth to power (as the rest is), unless a person's idea of "power" is recent MFA graduates, many of whom are NOT rich and likely attended Columbia by taking out student loans they will never pay back in their lifetime. I have friends who've graduated from that program and I thought of them as I read that implicit dig. (Even if he's blaming the "system" for it, even if he's RIGHT, it doesn't make the remark sting any less.)

It's a good speech with important lessons for us all. And he is, in fact, right on about the overabundance of training. I just wish he hadn't taken the swipes at his past and present students, as it undercut his point, even if slightly.

[Malachy Walsh]

I think it should also be said that no matter what grad school program in the arts you're talking about, over-admission is a problem.

Trust me. I've read plenty of scripts from Brown, Yale, UCSD, Brooklyn and elsewhere - they all have their share of clunkers.

Nonetheless, Machado is not saying he doesn't admit people who display no potential. Only that he knows that most will never be the writers they hope to be: ie, playwrights.

But all arts grad schooling is a crapshoot. It's truly nothing more or less than a few years to do what you want. If you're lucky you discover what talent you may or may not have - and move on.

To think getting into a grad school means you're talented, however, is flat out foolish. It's the same kind of foolishness that says something is good simply because Playwrights Horizons or the Public or the Cherry Lane or the Disney Corp produced it.

CU is simply missing the point - and, I suspect, afraid of being one of the 8 Machado is talking about.

[isaac]

In the interest of continuing building conversaiton, I think it's important not to be dismissive of each other's points. CU, if you felt I was dismissive in my writing "touched a nerve" I apologize. I simply meant that you reacted strongly to it, not in a pejorative, but rather in a descriptive way.

Similarly, classifying Machado as someone who just wants/revels in power is dismissive of the points he is trying to make, and classifying CU as, essentially, coming from a sour grapes perspective is equally dismissive. So perhaps we could cut each other a little slack and see what happens.

To continue, then, with the conversation:
I think in that instance, Mark, he was not speaking to MFA graduates, but rather to the people who administer MFA *programs*. I think what he is talking about is a very real problem, and everyone knows its a very real problem-- there simply aren't enough talented people to fill all of the slots given out in arts programs on either a graduate or undergraduate level. I think what clouds Machado's point is that in his anger he appears to be taking it out on the students themselves. Whether he *is actually doing that* or whether he *meant to do that or not* are both points that I think are up for debate.

I wonder if anyone who was at the ART/NY event might be willing to shed some light on the subject? The tone etc? Was there video taken of the keynote address?

[Kyle]

I appreciate Malachy's and Mark's comments, but I also kind of agree with CU. Machado should be commended for his honesty, and I'd bet most professors in all disciplines have such thoughts about their admissions process and their classes from time to time. Still, he's an educator, and saying something like that in public when he has to go teach ten students in the fall who might very well have read those sentiments is, if not appalling, at least disconcerting.

I also think some perspective is needed here. For example, does exclusivity automatically produce superior talent? Is some kind of innate genius the only requirement for challenging, dangerous theater? Are these the only kinds of students we should be educating? Should we not train skilled craftsmen who may very well become highly successful at middle-brow escapism? Should we make some kind of pledge to the theater gods that we will only educate writers who swear on a stack of Beckett texts to write nothing but challenging and dangerous plays?

Okay, I'm getting a little silly, but further, is there only one desirable goal to getting an education? Did those MFA playwrights who are now great dramaturgs or great TV writers or great secretaries waste their time? And how would this kind of exclusivity treat those struggling unheard voices who are trying to break through all of the barriers he is talking about. Machado's argument is passionate as well, and he makes some great points, but it seems to me that he should've thought that passage through a little before sharing it.

[Col]

I took a class at the Flea with Machado and VERY much enjoyed it. I am an actor who was trying to get my head around playwriting (and still am) and I found it meaningful and I found him generous and -- and I think this is a rarity among playwriting teachers -- he took the writers and their work at face value (at least in class) and gave them feedback based on the plays they were writing, not the plays he wanted to see or that he wanted them to be.

I don't see anything shitty or counterintuitive about trying to help playwrights get better, and also knowing that few of them are going to be really great. I mean, look at even the top-notch grad schools. I used to go out with a playrwight who taught playwriting to undergrads and grads at NYU and he said he looked at it this way: that he was a good writer and teacher, that using his expertise and talent did help them, even if only a handful would become great; and that the kinds of skills entailed in the craft of playwriting are eminently transferable to plenty of other areas of life should people decide that they couldn't hack it.

Who says that the teachers should be selecting those good enough to follow their dreams? life will sort it out anyway. It's true, the rich receive a positive bias in terms of opportunity though, especially in those MFA programs.

A lot of people want to be artists, a lot are good and struggle very hard, and a lot are bad and struggle very hard, and there are unfair advantages. And every now and then someone surprises everybody, and a lot of the time, the people who were always extremely gifted do just rise to the top.

I don't think we live in a kind of culture that discourages people from pursuing their dreams.

My 2 cents, 'yall --

[George Hunka]

There's something very dispiriting about Machado's remarks, I think, both on the political climate and on the academicization of the arts. In many ways, there's very little news here, heated and exhortative rhetoric aside. New York theater in many ways is already radically leftist, especially below 14th Street; the Theatre for the New City regularly offers free and low-cost performances of radical work (and by the way also maintains an excellent political bookstore in its lobby; check it out next time you're on First Avenue). It's no brave act to be against racism or xenophobia, or to rail against racist or xenophobic governments. Not in a convention of arts professionals, anyway.

What kind of theater does Machado believe is not being done? "It's getting ugly out there. Let's show it as much as we can on our stages. ... And I beg you let us stop being afraid of the audience. They are supposed to be afraid of us." Interesting words that will rub many people the wrong way. But I begin to fear that he is yelling for yet more anti-Bush, anti-Republican theater. Which is important, and which must be done. But in what sense is this radicalism not enough?

I'm going to suggest here something radical indeed: that our political situation may not have a political solution. Kicking Bush out of office and replacing him with Hilary Clinton [or insert the Democratic candidate of your choice here], like turning the House back to the Dems in November, is not going to eradicate the conditions that led to Bush's election in 2000 and 2004 in the first place. I begin to fear that the problem lies in all of us, not merely those whom we protest against.

A production of "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" might have opened debate, but would it have been a radical act? Doubtful (and all the more reason its postponement was ridiculous). And so far as the professionalization of the art goes, well, MFA programs aren't there to provide instruction, they're there, largely, to provide a network of influence and entry into the institutional system. (Not to say there aren't very good teachers in it, but it's not their fault.)

So long live Machado, fine. But I think there's more noise here than content.

[Lucas Krech]

Brilliant article Isaac. Thanks for posting.

[Malachy Walsh]

Isaac, you asked about a video from the event where the speech was given. This isn't quite the same thing, but it does touch on most of the issues Machado brings up.

It's an American Theatre Wing panel including Machado, James Nicola, Lorreta Greco, Neil Pepe, Tisa Chang and Virginia Louloudes (ART/NY).

It's a nice portrait of current small and mid-sized non-profit NY theatre from a creative management perspective.

It's about an hour and half long and you need Reel Player to see it. And a fast connection, obviously.

Machado's take on plays and ideas - about an hour into it - are also very interesting.

The first link takes you directly the video. The second (if the first fails) takes you to the main page of the site where the video lives: search for it from there.

You can also go to yahoo, put "Eduardo Machado" in the search engine and look for video. It's the only link that will come up.

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?p=Eduardo+Machado&sm=Yahoo%21+Search&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8&b=0&oid=77c1e8a0e0476397&rurl=mysite.verizon.net&vdone=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fvideo%3Fp%3DEduardo%2BMachado%26sm%3DYahoo%2521%2BSearch%26toggle%3D1%26cop%3D%26ei%3DUTF-8&vback=Results

OR

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze1k115/id23.html

[Adam Szymkowicz]

I was a CU student of Eduardos and there were six of us per class when I was there. At the interview to get in, Eduardo stressed that it would be a very expensive program. It was almost as if he was trying to talk me out of going there.

If I had to choose again I would in an instant without a doubt go to the CU program even though I have to work too much 9 to 5 now to try to pay off these loans. I got a lot out of that program besides just the letters MFA.

I do think that him saying that he let too many people in to his program might make the program look bad which is unfortunate because no one, especially not current students want to hear that. But it's not exactly a secret. There are a lot of programs out there churning out playwrights. A LOT. and not all of these people are good even int he best of the best programs, and and the lit managers and producers already know this. And all thse "trained" playwrights are not going to remain playwrights either because it's a really hard life with rewards that are always just beyond our grasp.

But I want them to all be good, this surge of new playwrights. How great it would be for theatre if they were all good and they were all doing their work and putting it out there? More theatres would rise up to produce the bounty of good work. It would be a renaissance and I hope that's where we're heading. Although a bit more support from the NEA wouldn't hurt.

[Col]

Well, isn't a bizarre condition of supporting or nurturing emerging playwrights sort of like, "promising until successful, and then, promising until successful again, i.e. having a produceable play that is well-reviewed and popular.

[Col]

Sorry, that was a cracked-out post. I'm in a food coma, pkease forgive me. There was supposed to be quote marks after the word "again" and a question mark at the end of my post. *Ahem.*

[Dorothy]

I agree with Isaac that it would be cool if CU could stay in the conversation and if we could dialogue ( which is the point here) without making things personal.

I think it takes courage for someone with a job like Marchado has to be honest about it and who has a job where they have complete control and do what they want to do ? !! very few people. I suspect, even he, is under pressure from the university itself to accept more students.
He does it because it's that or his job and while , yes , we must have integrity in our jobs, I think he does his job well from what I've heard. But also he is being honest about what kind of pressure he is under and what schools are like these days.
Its an important issue. The one of putting out artists like a product and to have more and more of them when the market for theatre isn't growing at all. That's what I mean by capitalism. That he isn't just the one who decides and he, like everyone else, has to live and i am sure he values his students, but heis just being honest about the challenges and the state of things I think.

[Shawn]

Some thoughts.

Machado seems to imply that it's his job to make playwrights as if there was some test one could pass. You write a play, you're a playwright. Does it matter whether or not you're "good"? Judging by how he was valued in his day, Van Gogh sucks. I think Machado's job is to help his students along on their journey. If he can't see the value in that, then he should probably give up teaching.

Along the same lines, Machado implies that there is "good" theatre out there that's not being achieved. I'm guessing that the people who are making the "safe" theatre he dislikes are making the best art they know how.

Should NYTW have produced Rachel Corrie? That's really their choice. A choice they may regret, I have no idea. "Should" is akin to "good".

I have an MFA in playwriting from Yale. I guess that's why my plays aren't getting produced more.

MFA programs do seem to be a place to network and make connections. Unfortunately, I went to learn.

I was accepted at NYU. I was told that they accepted 20 students a year. 5 students were the ones they wanted, and those 5 received financial assistance. The other 15 were there to pay for the 5. I did not go to NYU.

The main reason I didn't go to NYU is that they did not guarantee productions of your work. Yale did. That was probably the greatest thing about the program. Granted, I've established that I missed out on the networking thing.

I take Machado's speech as an expression of anger and frustration. He wants to argue, he needs to argue, so he's going to say some provocative things. Do the specifics really matter? I don't know. All I know is that tomorrow I'm going to do some more writing and the next day, too. When I feel the play is ready, I'll send it around. If it gets uniformly rejected, maybe I'll gather some friends and do a production in my living room. Then I'll start the next play. Who knows, maybe my work will be more successful when I'm dead. If that happens and if he's still alive, maybe Machado will quote me in his next diatribe.

[George Hunka]

I suppose you can learn to write plays, and that writing plays can be taught. But writing your own plays, plays that haven't been written before, plays that speak for you and not for the forms or ideas you've picked up via osmosis, is a much more difficult project and can only be pursued in solitude.

Fortunately one doesn't need labs or seminar tables (or large checks to graduate arts divisions) for this: one only needs to read, to think, to write. It might be better if, instead of attending classes and preparing exercises, a young playwright spent that time in the stacks of the Lincoln Center performing arts library: it's free, and you can even take the books home with you so long as you bring them back when you're done with them. No tuition, no expensive textbooks. If it weren't true that even successful working playwrights like Machado still need paying jobs, and that the best teachers continue to inspire and open perceptual doors for their students, I would say that we should shut down all the MFA playwriting programs: just close them up. Let this sort of training take place in places like the Flea's Pataphysics playwriting workshops. It would save budding playwrights a lot of money, it would deacademicize drama, it would level the playing field for whose who don't attend these programs. It would open the network.

[Shawn]

I agree with George, if places like the Flea's Pataphysics offer productions. One has to have productions to learn to be a playwright.

Which leads me to alter something in my previous post. I wrote, "You write a play, you're a playwright." I should have written, "You have a play produced, you're a playwright."

Which leads me to agreeing with Machado. A playwright, an artist, needs an environment in which it's safe to fail.

However, it seems to me that that environment is not viable in today's society. At least not in NYC. Unless, of course, one is willing to pay for it. However, if one does, then the project is dismissed as a vanity production.

[Malachy Walsh]

If I undersatnd what Petaphysics is - a writing workshop - I'm not sure that's really an answer to the MFA problems being discussed since the difference between that and an MFA program is a difference (seems to me) of degree. You pay for it; it's structured; it has a "teacher" and "students"; the people who go into it expect to be better for it; some may even expect that they will meet someone who can help them; many certainly plan to put it on their resume as a credential connoting talent.

Less costly than an MFA program, but the similarities are obvious - and the similarities are the troublesome things.

As perhaps a better answer, I like collectives like 13P a little more. And whether or not I like what they present, I wish more writers recognized and embraced the power of self-production the way they have. They are doing something about their situation. That is good.

But, also, not exactly an earthshatteringly new idea.

I'd say, as someone who did the MFA thing, that many of the writers in my class, all talented in different ways, thought it was someone else's job to produce their plays. Some even thought it was the job of the program to rewrite their work (don't know how many times I heard: I wish he'd tell me what to cut and what to put in it) as well as find productions for their plays.

These people left the program disappointed.

Machado lets 10 people in because that's the quota. His job is to do what he can to help those people write better plays. He's decided that one of those ways is to say to those 10, only a couple of you have what it takes to become a real playwright.

If that discourages someone from trying any further, that person would be one of the 10 that doesn't have what it takes.

Welcome to the real world.

Don't be surprised that having money helps, getting lucky is good, talent alone isn't enough and that it's hard work no matter what.

If we don't like it, then we should DO something about it.