Hard Times Even Harder For Local Actors

This Seatlle Times story is getting a lot of theatrosphere play. Basically, the issue is that as budgets decrease, the larger LORT houses are shrinking the cast sizes of their shows, and the lower the cast size, the fewer opportunities for actors. This gets compounded by the use of out of town talent.. the few roles that are available are generally cast out of town or, in the case of touring one-and-two-hander shows like Wishful Drinking or The 39 Steps, already have casts. 

I imagine that- given that it's still not clear (as far as I know) that Kate Whorisky is even moving to the city where she'll run the second largest theater in town- that the worries are fairly well founded.  But then another issue gets raised that often doesn't get talked about in these conversations... actor quality:

Traditionally, artistic directors are free to cast whomever they like, from wherever they want, within budget restraints. And Whoriskey recently told The Seattle Times that she just wanted the best actor for each role — which didn't offer local actors much comfort.

Intiman's new managing director, Brian Colburn, didn't know casting was a burning issue here when he relocated from California last year. "Kate [Whoriskey] and I are now aware of it, and want to be very supportive," he says, "not just with roles but also ongoing training opportunities for actors."

Yet beyond local pride and lower travel costs, why should theaters give Seattle actors priority? Is it too artistically restrictive? And what's in it for the audience?

This is where these conversations tend to break down for all sorts of reasons, including simply that actor quality is at least somewhat subjective. I would posit that there is indeed a richer and deeper talent pool for actors in New York. Its the Capital of the Industry after all. But that doesn't mean that there aren't great actors in other cities to use in shows. And there are other side benefits as well-- you don't have to pay to house them, and there's the "home team" effect that Mike Daisey talks about at length in How Theater Failed America. It helps a theater have a community when it's actually part of a community. 

Since I'm not part of the Seattle scene and don't know it well, the question for me is... how much time are the Big 2 spending investigating the actors who are already right there in Seattle? 

Part of the issue here it seems to me is that using local actors and building a local actor pool is a long term strategy, and theater season planning is a short term enterprise. 

Comments

[Mike Daisey]

"Training opportunities" gives you a sense of what their engagement is--they see local actors as students, not as colleagues.

You are dead on about short versus long term strategy...and they don't really see it as a long-term one, truly. It just isn't a value for them at all.

I was just in Seattle for a month, and you could cut the atmosphere with a knife at some of the meetings I had with artists.

[Josh]

If you were here in person you'd be able to here my screaming and see me shaking my computer screen.

I'm a proud Seattle-ite and was trained there. Mike Daisey hits the nail on the head, and I could see all of this happening years ago when I interned at the Intiman. Bart Sher was still in charge then and it was evidently clear how little regard he had for Seattle artists. Seriously, you could see him manipulating his move to Broadway in his head even then.

Also, in that Kate Whoriskey interview where she discusses her plans to make Seattle a part of the "international" scene is putrid. Everything she describes sounds awful and dull and not at all as if it were being curated for the people of Seattle. Theater isn't film. I'm I crazy to think it should be created for its community? I still don't understand why Sheila Daniels isn't the new Artistic Director, but I guess that's neither here nor there.

Also, I love that these assholes blithely ignore how many of New York's great talents are actually FROM Seattle and might still be there if they could ever get work. Mike Daisey, Heidi Schrek, Kristin Kosmas, Kip Fagan, Kristin Newbaum, and Adam Greenfield from Playwrights Horizons are just a few that come to mind immediately.

New Yorkers are more talented? I love New York like crazy, but Seattle is my heart. Seriously, fuck those fuckers.

[Josh]

Holy hell. I just read my above comment. In the future I'll wait until my rage subsides a little before I comment.

[COMTE]

This has been an ongoing issue in Seattle for - well, I've been here for 25 years and people were kvetching about it when I hit town in 1985. It's one of the reasons fringe theatre exploded here in the late 1980's; too many talented new artists in town who got tired of banging their heads against the closed doors at the professional companies.

OTOH, I would point out the "local companies should hire local artists" argument has a double-edge. If one were to go to Spokane, or Coeur d'Alene, or Missoula one would hear exactly the same thing said by the locals there in relation to actors from Seattle. Granted, their talent pools aren't going to be nearly as broad or deep as Seattle's, but neither is Seattle's as broad or deep as New York's, so I think one has to be very careful in terms of framing this particular argument.

And lets face it, what Seattle REALLY needs is a stronger pool of local directors who have developed long-term relationships with local actors getting into the big houses. The biggest obstacle to the local hiring situation as I see it is simply that, so long as the big theatres continue to hire out-of-town directors for their productions, those directors are understandably going to want to cast actors with whom they've worked before. When you only have 3 1/2 weeks to put up a show, the natural tendency is to get people on board you already know, who know you and your working style, who won't need to use up scarce and valuable time getting "in sync" with your approach and methodology. Whether that is actually true or not, I think it's perceived to be true, and as a result directors don't feel they have the "luxury" of taking additional time to audition local talent, or to integrate them into the working process when it's so much easier to just work with someone with whom you're already familiar.