How Theater Failed America: The Cliffs Notes

If you can see Daisey's show, you absolutely should. It'll be back in NYC in a couple of months. But in the meantime, I thought I'd briefly talk about the show so we could all have a common frame of reference for discussing what it raises.

The show is actually two different things at once... one half of it is an excoriation of the failures of the regional theater movement over the past couple of decades. This section is drawn from Daisey's experience as an actor and as a touring monologist who is often called in to replace (as cheaply as possible) cancelled shows in a LORT theater's season. The other section is about Daisey's own experience in the theatre and how it saved his life and how he found his own voice. (Theatre saving ones life is of course a topic near and dear to my heart). I probably wont' talk about this second (very moving, very affecting, very honest and very beautiful) strand because it is less to the point of what we talk about on this blog.

There are two very important things that Daisey's show is not about:

(1) How America Failed Theater (although he lists rather comically the various things that we're hoping he'll talk about that fall under this rubric-- the New York Times, the NEA, Republicans, Television, the iPOD etc.)

(2) New York City Theatre and the various insanities and failures of the NYC theaters over the past couple of decades.

This is not because either of those aren't worth talking about (and from talking to Mike a couple of times, I'm sure he could easily do a show expounding on either of those above topics), it's just that regional theaters are really what Daisey wants to talk about.... after all, they're where he was raised, so to speak, and where he earns a lot of his money.

I hope to talk soon about topic number 2 based on my own (and my readers) experiences here in New York, but let us briefly run through the story that Mike tells the story that, as he puts it "we all already know".

First on Daisey's list... The Outsourcing of Artistic Talent, Particularly Actors. Which... wait a minute, we happened to be talking about here last week! Hey, cool! Alright! So what Daisey essentially says (And I agree) that the original regional theater model of rep companies has basically devolved into a system in which theaters import all of their artists from other places (mainly New York) and put on shows. And what they don't get about this is that although they think the quality of the show will be "better" and although it's cheaper because they don't have to pay a rep company's salaries etc... No one in the communities they perform for has any real connection to the work they're doing because the casts and crews are these anonymous interchangeable people who rarely come back and with whom you have no connection.

This is how work becomes irrelevant, is the implicit argument that Daisey makes. And it's important to note that Mike doesn't talk about the content of the shows or the aesthetics of them (although he talks about how this business model ultimately hurts both, which I'll get to in a second). he's talking about the business model. And thank fucking god for that. I've largely come to believe over the past year or so that the hidden story behind every story is essentially a business one, and when you look for those stories a more complete understanding of what's going on essentially appears (I can thank Naomi Klein for that realization). So what he's talking about is not that doing Three Sisters as opposed to new plays or whatever is what's killing the American Theater, but rather that doing theater made up of an anonymous interchangeable workforce that the audience has no fucking connection to is what's killing theater (I should also note that this is a point that Scott Walters has been making for years and that he is making again on his blog right about now).

So how does this impact aesthetics? Well, you have a group of people who have never met before or worked together before who now have to be an ensemble and you have a director who is floating from assignment to assignment who suddenly has to care about this show now and who meets with designers to quickly create a "concept" and whip something together. In four weeks. And art is supposed to come out of it. Actually, given this model, it's pretty fucking remarkable how much even mediocre theatre gets produced.

The second thing Daisey addresses is the corporate model that regional theaters have embraced. They are non-profit corporations, but they are corporations nonetheless. And so they must do what corporations do which is show that they are healthy. And that means constantly "grow". But grow has a specific meaning here, and that is grow staff grow a new building etc. And that growth is frequently unsustainable-- the theatres can't afford their new theaters and so they're finances start to fall apart. And eventually what happens is what happens with all institutions from the The Roundabout to the Democratic Party to Marriage-- the institution exists to perpetuate and grow itself rather than support its original mission (to do great theatre, to serve the interests of voters and to transfer property from one family to another, respectively). And so, rather like political parties, theaters begin to support the interests of their donors over the interests of their constituents, and eventually they enter the... well... how else to put it? death spiral of declining attendance and interest that we see now. Part and parcel of this is the subscription model, which encourages theaters to embrace very predictable programming. They will always do X number of plays a year, and fill slots for various shows (a spring show, a musical, a "black interest" piece etc.). And so risks don't really get taken because it's not an environment or a business model that supports them.

There's a lot more to Daisey's story than this (which is why I suggest you go see it if you get a chance) but these are two of the main things he takes on in his piece, and I think they're both worth talking about.

I will also say that I do feel blessed to have grown up in DC when I did, because I feel that (at least while I was there, I can't speak to it since I left because my experience is limited) the theaters I was passionate about avoided some of these pitfalls. The Studio Theatre, which has grown tremendously over the fifteen years since I worked there, has always raised the money needed for their construction and has grown their audience considerable each time. Also, the Studio, Woolly Mammoth and The Shakespeare Theater all used a large number of familiar actors. For a long time, The Shakespeare and Woolly had resident companies (I think they still do) and there'd be interplay as well.

Many of those actors retained 212 area codes and didn't (and still don't) think of themselves as locals. But the audiences in DC know better. When someone is performing in 3 shows a year in a city, it matters less what zipcode their PO Box is in. I remember when The Shakespeare started using more and more minor celebrities (Ron Canada, Kelly McGillis etc.) in their shows and everyone I talked to was wondering why they did it. After all, we had our local celebrities-- Philip Goodwin and Floyd King, Lawrence Redmond and Fred Schiffman, Nancy Robinette and Sarah Marshall, Naomi Jacobson and Jennifer Mendelson, Hugh Nees and Craig Wallace and Holly Twyford and Wallace Acton and Jon Tindle and Vince Brown and all the rest. And out of towners like Thomas W. Jones (who directed the best August Wilson productions i've ever seen, and that includes productions by Lloyd Richards and Kenny Leon) and Donald Griffin who we still knew by name because they came back every year and would hang out and drink in the neighborhoods.

This kind of interplay with people from other cities-- which refreshes the waters, fills in important positions thus making a diversity of work possible and creates new links between artists-- was the healthy kind of importation that has become the outsourcing nightmare that Daisey talks about in his piece. After seeing How Theater Failed America I realize how lucky I was to grow up in that environment with those people, and to act with and learn from and be taken care of by some of them.

Comments

[Mac]

I'm such a JACKASS for missing this. I didn't believe Daisey when he wrote that tix were going fast, 'cause everybody says that. Then it turned out in his case, it was true.

This sounds FASCINATING.

[Kerry Reid]

What you talk about in DC is the same thing I feel about Chicago. Ensembles are far more the rule, rather than the exception, even if Chicago Shakespeare and Goodman do import actors from New York from time to time.

Now, as to how many of them are able to live on CAT contracts and occasional film/tv work? Not sure.

[Scott Walters]

So let me get this straight: yesterday, you posted this scathing overview of the broken regional theatre scene by one who has experience in it, and you got TWO COMMENTS??? Are people asleep? Do we need to go back to posting about Christopher Isherwood in order to get somebody to engage? Astonishing.

[barton b]

"Part and parcel of this is the subscription model, which encourages theaters to embrace very predictable programming."

Do we know if there are any regional theatres Out There who eschew the yearly subscription package for this very reason?

[Adam]

Scott, I think the comments were broken. see post above or above the above. Daisey's show definitely made a great case for community-based theater. And the rep model comes out looking pretty great too--you see the same actors over and over play many different parts year after year. That sounds pretty great. I mean that's what a community is.

[COMTE]

The subscription model not only foments predictability in programming, but its main justification for use - predictability of income - has also come under assault in recent years as audiences eschew "buying in bulk" in favor of the "single serving" model. So, companies get caught in a double-bind: it becomes progressively harder to get audiences to commit to an entire season of productions in advance, which means less money coming in at the front end of the season, which translates into increasing aesthetic and financial volitility and instability, all of which contributes to the inevitable fiscal death-spiral.

The end result is that, here in Seattle at least, we have large professional companies with beautiful facilities, built for the most part in the dot.com "boom" of the late 1990's, that are now carrying debt loads in the seven figures in some cases, while the mid-range theatres, the training grounds for the local professional talent pool, have all but dried up completely, and at the bottom, the plethora of "fringe" start-ups and small producers who are struggling just to find affordable places to put up their shows in what has been up until recently, a booming real-estate market.

Although most of the small companies would probably reject the notion that what happens at the big regionals affects them, the truth is that when the top-tier companies are up to their eyeballs in debt, it drags down the entire local "theatre economy", because hundreds of thousands of dollars that could go toward producing actual shows, gets funneled into paying off long-standing, overdue bills, leaving - well, very little left over to spread around to small companies where just a few thousand dollars could mean the difference between producing two or three shows, or producing none.

[Mac]

Good news!

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/114263.html

[Adam]

I posted my thoughts on this on my blog. Check it out here:

http://missionparadox.typepad.com/the_mission_paradox_blog/2008/01/who-do-you-love.html

[Phillip]

Ah, this old stalking horse. Yeah yeah, regional theater is broken. New York actors are all soulless automatons who can’t relate to US here in Lower East Rubberboot Idaho! Come ON!

First, young Mr. Butler concurs with Mr. Daisey that regional theaters are bankrupt, corrupt and spiraling down into mediocrity and apparently this is all because they have eaten of the forbidden fruit, (*gasp* New York actors) and strayed from their, “…original regioinal theater model of rep companies…”

Well, I question whether there ever was an ‘original regional theater model’ in the first place. The notion that these many and diverse LORT theaters were all working from the same hymnal or even the same church of theatricality, strikes me as perhaps wishful thinking?

Regardless, let’s move on to another of Mr. Butler’s arguments, “…although it’s cheaper because they don’t have to pay a rep company’s salaries…”
Does Mr. Butler seriously think it’s cheaper to HOUSE an actor from NYC or DC or LA and provide a PER DIEM over and above a SALARY, than to engage members of the existing artistic community in their particular locale? If so I would suggest he peruse the balance sheet of any ‘bankrupt’ lowest common denominator, regional theater and learn the ugly truth.

I fear I’m not done yet. Mr. Butler then makes what I consider to be his most specious argument thus far, to wit:

“No one in the communities they perform for has any real connection to the work they’re doing because the casts and crews are these anonymous interchangeable people who rarely come back and with whom you have no connection.”

I submit to you that this sentence is wrong in part and in whole. Mr. Butler presumes to speak for all of those people who go to regional theaters and he pronounces them disconnected from whatEVER work is being done, BECAUSE those automatons are from ‘elsewhere’?

One has nothing to do with the other. If the work is engaging it does not become less so based upon “The Artist’s” place of origin. He is saying that “Of Mice & Men” or “Flying West” or “A Bright Room Called Day” aren’t relevant to an audience in Columbia S.C, Boise Idaho or Lowell Massachusetts, based on where the artists who design the sets, costumes, lights, sound or act upon the stages are from. And I say to you that this is absurd. Mr. Butler also fails -conveniently in my view- to recognize that all of these theater artists are from somewhere. They didn’t all spring from the ground in NYC. They/we come from California, Alaska, Hawaii, and every small town, hamlet and burg in these United States. We all have a connection to this country and to the people in it. We are OF America not divorced from it.

What I find even more reprehensible is that Mr. Butler then uses this specious argument to hammer home his notion, (fallacious in my view)
of the “…anonymous interchangeable workforce that the audience has no fucking connection to is what’s killing theater…”

How ironic then that Mr. Butler waxes eloquent about all of the wonderful theater artists he remembers from DC and despite the fact that many of these actors maintain New York residences, he feels they are a part of his theater past and thus not a part of that ‘…anonymous interchangeable workforce…’
Ah but they are, sir, they are and you refute your own argument from out of your own mouth.

Only one more point and then I am done. Mr. Butler seems, to put it charitably, naive about the process of making theater, hence this quote:

“So how does this impact aesthetics? Well, you have a group of people who have never met before or worked together before who now have to be an ensemble and you have a director who is floating from assignment to assignment who suddenly has to care about this show now and who meets with designers to quickly create a “concept” and whip something together. In four weeks. And art is supposed to come out of it. Actually, given this model, it’s pretty fucking remarkable how much even mediocre theatre gets produced.”

Mr. Butler? We’re artists, it’s what we do and we’re quite good at it, your protestations to the contrary not withstanding. The fact is, whether it’s at one of our esteemed regional theaters, in NYC or in Europe, we are gypsies and this ain’t our first rodeo. And amazingly enough, Mr. Butler? Many actors and directors connect up numerous times thoughout their careers.

In conclusion, I have been in this business, man and boy, for over 40 years and all during that time various individuals have decried the imminent demise of theater, it’s mediocrity and its corporatization. I am glad for everyone of those prognosticators of doom, for they shake the tree and keep us awake to the pitfalls inherent in the juxtaposition of art and income. Where I draw the line is when their arguments aren’t based on sound factual observation but rather upon conjecture, prejudice and navel gazing.

That is all