Next Steps: Personal Virtue / Advocate!

Finally we turn to individual artists and our small theatre companies and what we can do to improve things.  And here we get in part to the whole idea of personal virtue which I've discussed before. To recap:  the whole conversation about Personal Virtue is all about whether or not individual actions really matter in terms of fixing larger problems.  It is most frequently discussed w/r/t environmental issues, particularly global warming. Was the end-credits advice in An Inconvenient Truth a gigantic cop-out or a helpful series of suggestions?  The case for Personal Virtue is best made by Michael Pollan in the New York Times and can be read here.

I think it's pretty obvious that any forward progress on any issue is going to need a mix of Government, business and personal actions.  Buying locally grown vegetables, for example, is not be as important as revising the farm bill, but it's still a piece of the puzzle. 

And the obvious way we as individual artists can make theatre better is to do better work and to do our work better. This is kind of a no-brainer, but I do think it's important to remember.  On both a process and product end, as artists it is our duty to dedicate ourselves to growth, development and improvement.  We've all seen work by stagnating artists, and you can feel it. Let's not join their ranks!  Furthermore, it's important to focus on how we do our work, and making sure that our working methods match up with our values.  Anne and I believe that artists should be paid for their work, so we pay all the artists who work for elsewhere while (for now) declining to pay ourselves for our producing work, because the artists are our priority.

Another way, however, has to do with idea of Advocacy.  We as working theatre artists and members of the artistic community are in a very good position to advocate for the art form and for exemplary examples of theatre that we know of.  

Part of this means that we have to train ourselves in how we talk about theatre and the arts.  Many artists I know (including myself) have difficulty speaking with pride about their work, with cutting out the de rigeur self-loathing and self-deprecating humor that signals to the person you're talking to that they don't need to have respect for what we do.  It also has to do with us not equating Broadway with Theatre in conversation, as Playgoer mentioned awhile back.  I'm sure together we could come up with a list of ways to talk about theatre that are helpful and ways that are un- (and if you have any, please fire away in the comments)  but the other thing I'd just mention briefly is the importance of wonkitude.  

One thing the internet is very very useful for is finding and disseminating information (that roughly 90% of it might be about Wookies or Halo 3 is a totally different issue). There is a great deal of information for the budding arts advocate to get for free. There's this article on the history of arts funding in the United States, there's Americans for the Arts where you can find all sorts of studies, join a rockin' listserv etc.  There's also the various studies of the Rand Corporation and the Critical Links Study which is a free downloadable 170 page study about arts education.  Most of the information I've dug up about the NEA over the past 6 months of posting is readily available on their website. The links in this paragraph are the tip of a veritable iceberg that can help fuel our discussions, ideas, debates etc.

Another aspect of advocacy is joining arts advocacy organizations and providing needed time and (wo)manpower.  There's Americans for the Arts (and its various State offshoots), there's the League of Independent Theatre, there's A.R.T. New York, there's probably at least one-five others in your geographic area.  The arts are in many ways a very individuated industry... artists work as freelancers in ad hoc coalitions etc. It makes it hard for us (by nature) to follow each other's leadership, but I'm increasingly seeing how important it is. For example, there's stuff about the proposed showcase code reform that I disagree with, but that's less important to me than getting off-off-bway producers, performers and Equity at the table to discuss what's going on and how to make it better.

And another aspect of advocacy is doing all of the above about the theatre we like. A lot of people I know really really dig 13P, and they're really excited about 13P, so they volunteer for 13P and spread the word about 13P etc. Those people are a key part of why 13P has gotten as big as it has as quickly as it has (on top of the quality of the work, the innovativeness of the business model etc.).  Similarly, I've decided to start sending e-mails to non-theatre-folk friends about plays I see that I think they might like. There's lots of interpersonal micro type stuff we could be doing to get more people into the idea of seeing theatre.

So those are just some ideas of what we could be doing as individuals and in small groups. I'm sure you, dear reader, have many more. Share 'em with us. Let us know what you think!

Comments

[RLewis]

Just wanna say that I've enjoyed this series, but you sure do make it difficult to comment. It's hard to find any idea you've put forward that I'd disagree with.

I bet we'd all second your "to do better work and to do our work better" - those just have to be the most important. But some argue that there must be a place to fail, that failure can be a good thing for the artist, and that the Indie Theater world is the place to do that. I can kinda agree as long as I don't get two postcards and a dozen emails to come see that show. Fail all you want - just don't create a population of future indie-haters.

Which leads me to believe that the indie community can do a much better job at contextualize our work for audiences. Back in the 60s/70s there was a group of work labeled "experimental", and when ya went to see that work, you know what you were getting into.

But today, it's harder to tell a traditional play play from an avant garde testdrive until you get to the theater. And with all the marketing advances, a show that is just a few rehearsals more than a staged reading can promote itself as professionally as an indie mainstage. Also, in the past the theater where the show was playing might be some hint. Now, so few of us have our own spaces that few downtown spaces are really known for a certain kind of work. So there's no telling what you're getting into before the lights go down.

I think this indie darkness makes for fickle audiences who are less willing to go through "another one of those". I don't think that audiences aren't willing to take risks; I just think they have a harder time finding the risk they want to take. So, more and more our audiences end up being folks who know us or know someone in our show (god love those s&m friends!).

I think more Personal Virtue could be a thing that helps address this audience apprehension and insularity, but it's clearly a community discussion that has yet to take place.