Rocco Sock-o

by 99 Seats

Um. So. Yeah. Rocco Landesman made some news at the Arena Stage covening this week. It was the opening keynote address heard 'round the theatre world, I suppose. Well, it's not often you have the director of the NEA say that we need less arts in the country.

Except that's not what he said at all. And he didn't say we need to close small theatres, or regional theatres, or anything of the like. Even in the moment, though, people reacted as if that was what he said. Basically he was treated as if he'd announced the NEA was only going to fund Broadway shows. Which is largely the opposite of what he said, especially in context.

Trisha's post give a really good rundown of the main points he went over. If I were to sum up what he had to say in one sentence, well, I'd rip off another guy who stirred some shit up when he said it: the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Rocco started off railing about enhancement money and how it was corrupting the missions of non-profit theatres. Ironically, this is a practice he basically started with the La Jolla production of Big River back in the '80s:

Enhancement money is key to the Dodgers approach. "I'm feeling very old," says Strong, "because I can still remember the first time Jujamcyn's Rocco Landesman used the word 'enhancement,' talking about giving money to La Jolla Playhouse for Big River—somewhere around $75,000 in addition to what they had budgeted for it. The enhancement monies were to cover additional costs of sets, lighting, and so on."

Now, though, he's very much against it and against the cozy relationship between commercial producers and non-profit theatres. And most of disgust is directed at the theatres, not the producers. He basically stated that he thought the relationship has been of greater benefit to the Broadway community, but great detriment to the non-profits.

The guy was a great quote generator, right from the start. It all kind of blew by us so quickly that the larger implications behind what he was saying didn't really take root for a couple of days. When he started off talking about the difference between the commercial theatre and the non-profit (or regional or resident) theatre being more than what tax return you file, it sounded kind of cranky and, especially coming from a somewhat reformed commercial producer, like a smackdown. But it's a real point. Underneath the skin, shouldn't they be different? Shouldn't they have different missions? And isn't really the complaint about the major non-profits that they are functionally operating like commercial producers?

He was full of bile, making it clear which theatres he had disdain for. I think you can guess the name of the elephant in the room when he was talking about theatres that are functionally commercial producers, but taking advantage of non-profit status to pay artists and techies less and produce at a lower cost than competing commercial producers. You know, roustabouts like that. Anyhoo. It was in that context, as I saw it, that he started saying we have too many theatres.

Here the commercial producer in him really reared its head. He mentioned the new numbers out from the National Arts Index to say that demand is dropping off, so supply should be. But it's not. And that's a fair question. Several people, both at the convening and on Twitter and the blogs after, have pushed back at the notion that "demand" had dropped off. Scott Walters was one, as was my friend Jeni Mahoney from the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference. Both of them noted already well-known coastal/urban bias in NEA grants and LORT theatres. To his credit, Rocco was pretty receptive to them and to Kirk Lynn from RudeMechs, who was legitimately apoplectic over Rocco's suggestion that NEA should shift to giving fewer and larger grants.

But, I think, when you add up what Rocco was saying, it seems less like he's aiming at taking the little guys out of the equation and more like he's re-evaluating his funding priorities on the basis of what kind of work a theatre is doing. If a theatre is effectively a commercial producer, but still needs the NEA to survive, it's doing something wrong.

But his point about supply and demand...what if he's just...right? And actual demand for our product is waning and won't significantly rebound. We offer, in most cases, a luxury good, inconvenient, time- and resource-intensive, an experience that can be more reliably replaced with other art forms. Is flooding the market with more theatres necessarily going to create more interest, in and of itself? But that's what we're doing: 3,000 new arts organizations have cropped up in the last three years, when the economy is in the tank. It's like we're opening Hummer dealerships. We're opening Five Guys, next to Fuddrucker's, next to McDonald's, next to Burger King. Maybe we don't need all of them. Or maybe we don't need all of them to be serving the same needs and audience.

Obviously, though, the place to trim isn't at the bottom, but at the top. If you look at the list of NEA grantees over the last couple of years, you're going to see some familiar names, some large (in some cases, VERY large) theatres that are receiving grants. Maybe the NEA needs to look at its grant requirements and make some small changes. Maybe it needs to shift its focus. Well, not much in the way of "maybe" there.

But maybe we also need to look at the field differently. Stop building quite so many institutions that need to last forever, or that grow and grow well beyond their own capacity and support. If you can't support yourself, maybe you do need to close. And something better get built in your place.

A lot of folks, and, in particular, the marketing folks who were in attendance for (or have heard about) Rocco's speech were suitably apoplectic about his flippant comment about the lack of demand for the work we do. I absolutely agree that there are ways to reach new audiences that aren't being served. I sincerely and absolutely do. BUT. If we're talking about finding new audience who will like what we're serving just because we asked them to come in a different way...we're going to be sorely mistaken about that. If we want new audiences we have to think about new things to give them. New stories. New people on stage. New ideas to feed them. What is absolutely waning is the audience taste for the work we are doing. Doing more of the same isn't the answer.

The other section of the Great Rocco Smackdown that really shouldn't go unnoticed was his full-throated defense of providing actual living wages for artists. Part of his point about having less theatres was that, then, with more resources focused in fewer places, we could maybe, just maybe, start pulling our artists out of poverty. The idea that a theatre could consider itself successful or even solvent without paying its artists a living wage should be offensive to all of us. And yet, we accept it. I was very, very glad to see the NEA chairman even bring this up.

There was even more there, like the bubble that's being created in our field by the proliferation of arts training programs at the undergrad and grad level...but, you know, this is enough to get started on, isn't it?

UPDATE: In case you're not following it, there are great comments happening at Arena Stage's New Play Blog. Also, Adam Thurman weighs in and kicks ass. And Travis Bedard was the first out of the box on Rocco. All worth taking a look at.

Comments

[Scott Walters]

I agree with you, J -- some bloggers' references to NEA-run "death panels" misrepresents Rocco's statements as much as the Teapartiers did about health care. Rocco is the head of a granting agency, and part of what someone like that has to do is define priorities. Now, he DID justify his priorities by talking about the field being "overbuilt," which coming from the NEA sounded ominous and a bit like a betrayal -- he's supposed to be fighting FOR us, not against us. But the other thing you noted is correct: this was in the context of seeking to provide a livable wage for theatre artists. At any rate, while I likely wouldn't agree with his priorities, I think the place of entry into the discussion is to talk about the priorities, not about entitlement.

[99]

I hadn't heard about the NEA-run "death panels." Heh. But yes, I think we're both in agreement about the priorities. But not any language that puts the arts on the defensive. And I think artists and group should be wary of any decision to put more money into fewer orgs. How that gets decided is likely to disadvantage smaller organizations without an effort made not to. Not out of bad intentions, just out of operational biases.

But we can't expect the NEA to do it all for us.

[Ian Thal]

Honestly, not being at the conference, I really couldn't get a grasp of what he was saying based on the responses that were showing up on the blogosphere prior to Landesman's own statements.

[Aaron Andersen]

I generally agree that if artists are to be paid more, all else equal, there will have to be a concentration and reduction of the quantity of "product" for sale. But you can't really enforce that. If all the theater artists were going to get together and agree to this scheme, it would mean some would not work at all. And we know that there are lots of theater artists who would rather work for free than not work at all.

Luckily "all else equal" doesn't exist in the real world. I think the expansion of theater outside of currently saturated urban hubs is a smart move to discover unmet demand (Scott has been saying this for a long time). Just convince more theater artists that it is better to work in theater with pay, in a place where that pay can actually cover rent, than it is to chase after the attention and approval of the urban demigods of the industry.

[Verna Derosier]

Money wouldn't corrupt a non-profit's goal if it's managed by a professional, in my opinion. I needed help with ours back then, since each and every one of us want to do something different with the funds. I researched about ways to manage funding and donation. Friends suggested a lot of nonprofit fundraising software to help but I'm just too slow to figure these out on my own. Well, I liked the one named SAGE fundraising software, so I tried to research more about it and ended up doing the accounting for our group myself!

[V. Worried]

I think it is worth noting WHEN Mr. Landesman made his remarks: at precisely the moment when 50 state legislatures were convening to consider how to divide up a rapidly shrinking pie. If Mr. Landesman wanted to say "we should have fewer large arts organizations", then he could have said that and there would be no doubt as to his position. But the unclear language he used allows him to communicate to those legislators that he supports giving whatever money is available to the large groups while cutting loose the smaller ones - while not having to stand up and speak those words directly. It is a cowardly statement and he really needs to resign his position immediately. The arguement for a "living wage" for artists is a great argument in and of itself, but when paired with his other argument, it reinforces the notion of fewer small arts organizations, since it is well known that only larger organizations have the budget to pay anywhere near a living wage. But Landesman won't tell you this: the larger an organization gets, the larger PERCENTAGE of its budget must go to administrative needs. That means that smaller arts organizations provide a far greater bang for the buck than do larger ones. If he really were interested in "the arts" as an NEA chair ought to be, then he would be advocating for, if any cuts at all, then cuts to the very largest organizations. That is the best way to serve the arts.