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Robert Ullman
Earlier this week, about 80 theater people gathered, as theater people periodically do, to moan. Typically, these bitch sessions are segregated by division of labor: actors get with actors, administrators with administrators, and writers (playwrights, critics) with whoever will put up with them to revisit the old themes of the indifference of audiences, the moneyed philistinism of boards of directors, the entitlement complex of artists, the cowardice of arts bureaucrats, the cluelessness of critics, etc. But Monday's crowd was unusually diverse: playwrights, actors, directors, bureaucrats from theaters small (Annex, Theater Schmeater) and large (Intiman, the Rep, ACT), journalists, and even one self-confessed board member. Nobody's comments did much to counter their stereotypes.
As the theater people filed into the Seattle Center House, groundskeepers with rakes and shovels were busy spreading a giant, stinking pile of fertilizer onto some flower beds. "Well, I wonder where there'll be more bullshit," somebody said as she walked past. "Out here or down in the theater?"
Stranger Personals
The occasion for the meeting: the Seattle stop of a book tour for the authors of Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play by Todd London and Ben Pesner, published by the Theatre Development Fund. The book is the summation of a five-year research project about the penury of the contemporary American playwright, the penury of contemporary American theater, and the seething communication gap between the two: writers wondering why theaters keep producing old plays instead of new plays, and theaters wondering why writers don't understand that it's easier to sell tickets to Glengarry Glen Ross—and maybe, just maybe, more artistically rewarding to produce—than something untested and unknown.
The day began with a litany of unhappy statistics and quotes presented by the authors and Victoria Bailey, executive director of TDF:
• An NEA study revealed that the number of American adults who attended a (nonmusical) play in a 12-month period shrank from 13.5 percent (25 million) in 1992 to 9.4 percent (21 million) in 2008.
• Sixty-two percent of the 250 playwrights surveyed earn less than $40,000 a year, and one-third earn less than $25,000. Of that money, slightly more than half comes from day jobs unrelated to writing, with still other chunks coming from teaching or writing for television and film instead of theater. Only 15 percent of playwrights' incomes are affiliated with the production of plays, 3 percent from royalties. As Robert Anderson, author of Tea and Sympathy, said: "You can make a killing in the theater, but you can't make a living."
• American plays have shriveled in cast size for financial reasons. In 1967, The Great White Hope transferred from a regional theater to Broadway with a cast of 63 actors. In 2008, August: Osage County did the same with just 13 actors and New York Times critic Charles Isherwood wrote, "One reason I flipped for August was its superabundance of characters." American plays have also shrunk in scope—for reasons nobody quite understands. A quote from the study, by an unnamed artistic director: "I keep reading all these plays about the big issues by bad writers and all these plays by good writers about nothing."
• Another quote from an anonymous artistic director: "Everyone wants to see the same 10 playwrights." The evidence, not cited because everybody already knew it: A Theatre Communications Group survey about the 10 most-produced plays this decade: Proof, Doubt, Art, The Drawer Boy, Rabbit Hole, Wit, I Am My Own Wife, Crowns, Intimate Apparel, and a tie between The Glass Menagerie and The Laramie Project.
• The form of the American play seems even more limited than its subject matter. "It would be easier for me to do a play like Quills, in which Jesus comes out of the grave with three erect penises and fucks Mary on the floor, than it would to do No Man's Land by Harold Pinter—a play that is abstract in the storytelling," the study cited one director saying. "I'd do it, but that would be more controversial than content."
• And a quote from one of Outrageous Fortune's authors: "A very passionate man named John Booth helped begin this study—unfortunately, he died after reading the first chapter."
But Monday's assembled multitude already knew all that, and once the TDF dignitaries had finished their parade of misery, the fireworks began. One prominent Seattle artistic director (attributions by name weren't allowed) told the room that his theater didn't produce more new works because there "aren't enough good plays" (burn on Seattle playwrights!), but then threw the room a sop, saying theaters needed to invest more "in our own backyard."
A local playwright shot back, asking the AD to put up or shut up: "The only time I hear from artistic directors in town is to tell me how much they adore my plays—you're either being dishonest with me in telling me you like my plays or you're being dishonest right now in saying there aren't enough good plays." Fidgeting happened.
The whole exercise was a backlash against the usual practices: polite lying and saving face instead of engaging in the unabashed, prickish truth. Nobody's innocent and nobody in art/show business owes anybody anything. Some of you playwrights don't get produced because you're not very good. The world doesn't owe you a production. Some of you theaters are breaking because your artistic leadership is conservative and cowardly and your programming is limp. The world doesn't owe you its attention.
And nobody working in theater (justly compensated or not, ignored or lauded) is a victim. But if there's one lesson the casual observer could learn from Monday's event: Everybody likes to behave like one. 
1
Thanks, Brendan, for covering this. I somehow suspect that the TIMES has taken a pass, even though this is book is international theatre news.
My take on the day is here: http://www.paulmullin.org/just-wrought/2…
But I just want to thank Ben Pesner, Todd London, and Tory Bailey for leading the discussion, Karen J Zeller Lane of TPS for hosting it, and EVERYONE that showed up, including those I most vigorously disagree with. It is a testament to this city and its theatre scene that so many different people joined the debate. And it makes me inclined to adjust the odds in favor of Seattle reaching world class stature as a theatre town within four years.
My take on the day is here: http://www.paulmullin.org/just-wrought/2…
But I just want to thank Ben Pesner, Todd London, and Tory Bailey for leading the discussion, Karen J Zeller Lane of TPS for hosting it, and EVERYONE that showed up, including those I most vigorously disagree with. It is a testament to this city and its theatre scene that so many different people joined the debate. And it makes me inclined to adjust the odds in favor of Seattle reaching world class stature as a theatre town within four years.
2
Why is a 13 percent drop during a Worldwide Global Recession such a big deal?
Many for-profit businesses would be happy with numbers like that.
If it persists past say June, then I'd worry, but we're only NOW seeing employment increase instead of decrease.
Main thing they should worry about is rents won't get cheaper as employment picks up.
Many for-profit businesses would be happy with numbers like that.
If it persists past say June, then I'd worry, but we're only NOW seeing employment increase instead of decrease.
Main thing they should worry about is rents won't get cheaper as employment picks up.
3
I love how dismissive you are of moan-fests of theatre people, even though the last one that occurred was the one that you organized.
4
Was this advertised in the community? I didn't hear anything about it. I went last year and I would've loved to go again.
5
@TValley: He wrote a whole article about it. How is that dismissive? I think the comment was more self-deprecating than dismissive. Brendan is, then, now, and forever, one of us.
6
Besides, how many people even KNEW there was a theatre in the basement of Seattle Center House ...
I did, but many people didn't, even if it's part of some of the large events.
I did, but many people didn't, even if it's part of some of the large events.
7
This reflects the nasty squabbles of desperate animals when resources grow scarce. The real problem isn't new vs. old plays (though it's understandable that playwrights see it that way), it's theater vs. the abundance of other media and art available. It's a battle that theater is going to lose, because all these other media are so much more convenient to consume and can be packaged and sold endlessly, not just for 3-5 weeks.
The only hope for theater? Better, more exciting plays for children. The reason all those 60somethings are still going to theater is that they went as children and developed a taste for it. Theater is an acquired taste and it's a lot (a LOT) harder to acquire it as an adult. SCT does some good stuff, but really, every theater in town should be developing a children's program, because if you don't seduce more kids with theater, you're fucked.
The only hope for theater? Better, more exciting plays for children. The reason all those 60somethings are still going to theater is that they went as children and developed a taste for it. Theater is an acquired taste and it's a lot (a LOT) harder to acquire it as an adult. SCT does some good stuff, but really, every theater in town should be developing a children's program, because if you don't seduce more kids with theater, you're fucked.
10
@5 I actually tried to delete my comment after I wrote it, but it didn't take....I withdraw the comment.
12
@7 - I agree as to the nature of the battle (to some extent), but not as to the certainty of theater's imminent defeat. Tales of the demise of our art form are nearly as old as the art form itself. Why hasn't it gone anywhere? Some might praise its resiliency; I'm more inclined to credit its foundational primacy. Theater is, in a sense, the original art form--a person or group of people weaving speculative history or compelling fiction in a ritualistic setting for the tribe.
Not that the hurdles you mention aren't very real. I think the "run" of the average show is a problem. Ideally, a successful show should be able to run until it isn't successful anymore; I'd also suggest that, for some shows, 5 weeks isn't even enough to determine whether it IS successful, since word-of-mouth--theater's primary form of advertising--doesn't really even catch fire 'til about that point.
It's interesting to me that, for all the "convenience" of CDs, mp3s, and other music technologies, live performance is still how most bands make their money. Why do bands get audiences to meet that "inconvenience," but theaters don't? I think it has something to do with the way it meets its audience and adapts readily to changing tastes and new technology. Also, because there ARE CDs and mp3s, college radio, YouTube videos, etc., acts outside the mainstream manage to develop niche audiences before tours even begin. And finally, I think that popular music, like past artistic movements such as Romanticism, surrealism, and the French New Wave, has a long-standing tradition of shunning the academy, whereas theater practitioners (in my experience) sometimes embrace academic approval (and the constraints that come therewith) as a statement against the coarser popular culture. A mistake, in my opinion, but not an indefensible one.
As far as appealing to children . . . I don't disagree. But some artists are of better temperament than others to appeal to children, and even some of those who do well in that sort of venue have exorcisms of their own that are both compelling stagecraft AND suffused with decidedly adult content. Indeed, I think that successful forms like popular music and pornography have survived by being the sort of thing that children aren't allowed to see, but that they want to see, both because it's forbidden and because it's uniquely designed to speak, through the senses, to something primal and reptilian.
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Not that the hurdles you mention aren't very real. I think the "run" of the average show is a problem. Ideally, a successful show should be able to run until it isn't successful anymore; I'd also suggest that, for some shows, 5 weeks isn't even enough to determine whether it IS successful, since word-of-mouth--theater's primary form of advertising--doesn't really even catch fire 'til about that point.
It's interesting to me that, for all the "convenience" of CDs, mp3s, and other music technologies, live performance is still how most bands make their money. Why do bands get audiences to meet that "inconvenience," but theaters don't? I think it has something to do with the way it meets its audience and adapts readily to changing tastes and new technology. Also, because there ARE CDs and mp3s, college radio, YouTube videos, etc., acts outside the mainstream manage to develop niche audiences before tours even begin. And finally, I think that popular music, like past artistic movements such as Romanticism, surrealism, and the French New Wave, has a long-standing tradition of shunning the academy, whereas theater practitioners (in my experience) sometimes embrace academic approval (and the constraints that come therewith) as a statement against the coarser popular culture. A mistake, in my opinion, but not an indefensible one.
As far as appealing to children . . . I don't disagree. But some artists are of better temperament than others to appeal to children, and even some of those who do well in that sort of venue have exorcisms of their own that are both compelling stagecraft AND suffused with decidedly adult content. Indeed, I think that successful forms like popular music and pornography have survived by being the sort of thing that children aren't allowed to see, but that they want to see, both because it's forbidden and because it's uniquely designed to speak, through the senses, to something primal and reptilian.
13
@12: Another reason live music is thriving while live theater is not is because the basic unit of music consumption, the song, is A: reproducible (see also MP3, CD, etc) and B: Not two hours long. Somebody might actually plunk down fifteen bucks to see a band after hearing one three-minute track. There is no theatrical equivalent of which I am aware.
14
I beg to differ with your assertion that there's no theatrical equivalent to the 3-minute song. I invite you to take a look at Moisture Festival, or at any clown, buffoon, or butoh-based piece. Even the average two-to-three-hour play (an increasing rarity, as plays seem to be veering largely toward intermission-less formats, weighing it at 70-90 minutes . . . which, contrary to what my friends say about diminished attention spans, might very well be a good thing) is divisible into beats and vignettes (though they're too infrequently designed to emphasize as much).
Indeed, I think that if we could find ways to capture these vignettes and move them around virally, we could simulate the essential mechanics of singles and music videos (or movie trailers, or product ads, etc.) by suggesting that this consumable unit, and others like it, will be available live at a future date.
Indeed, I think that if we could find ways to capture these vignettes and move them around virally, we could simulate the essential mechanics of singles and music videos (or movie trailers, or product ads, etc.) by suggesting that this consumable unit, and others like it, will be available live at a future date.
15
@14: Why the hell would we want theatre to be like music singles? Ugh. If we have to give up on long form art, we've already lost the battle for consciousness. This is art, not cheap entertainment. We need to make theatre more relevant to people who want to think, dream and imagine on large and immediate canvasses. I didn't get into the theatre business to make easily digestible drivel. If that's where we need to go, then stop the bus, I wanna get off.
16
@14: oh wait, that wasn't what you were saying at all. I'm an idiot. I can't read. Sorry. As you were.
17
This might be a repost; we'll see.
So yeah, la latata, I wasn't suggesting the end of longform art; rather, I was suggesting that most longform art is still made up of smaller moving parts, whether it's an album, a play, a film, a concert, etc., and that we can use the smaller components to sell the larger art in ways comparable to the ways that singles or music videos are used to sell albums and concerts.
So yeah, la latata, I wasn't suggesting the end of longform art; rather, I was suggesting that most longform art is still made up of smaller moving parts, whether it's an album, a play, a film, a concert, etc., and that we can use the smaller components to sell the larger art in ways comparable to the ways that singles or music videos are used to sell albums and concerts.
18
I'm not necessarily saying theater should attempt to "go viral" or market itself with three-minute snippets or whatever, although it might be interesting to see somebody try (I'm going to ignore the Moisture Festival comparison since that sort of neo-vaudeville seems to bear very little relationship to the sort of theater being discussed here, and as far as I can tell their attendance isn't falling.) My comments are more on the order of answering the "why can't I sell a million of my delicious souffles when McDonald's is selling hamburgers by the billions?" question.
And I don't know about you, but I still regularly encounter two-to-three hour plays. Of course, I see a lot of new work.
And I don't know about you, but I still regularly encounter two-to-three hour plays. Of course, I see a lot of new work.
19
I think the notion that there's a useful line to be drawn between neo-vaudeville and "legitimate" theater is part of the problem. Most of the relevant artistic movements of the last century involved attempts to wash away the stench of "legitimacy," not to roll around it. And even art that has no such revolutionary intent is designed--or should be--to be interesting, in which case there is much to be learned in terms of stagecraft and audience identification from vaudeville, magic, clowning, aerial work, etc.
It's worth noting that, for instance, a band like Sleepytime Gorilla Museum manages to maintain a fairly busy recording and touring schedule (to say nothing of more side projects than you can shake a stick at) with obscure literary references set to epic-length blends of prog-rock, world music, and cabaret (among other influences). That is to say, I'm not so much comparing souffles to burgers as I am comparing falafel wraps to combination platters. Still different, but still marketable on the same basis (I think).
I see almost exclusively new work. Maybe I just deal with artists who have shorter attention spans. :)
It's worth noting that, for instance, a band like Sleepytime Gorilla Museum manages to maintain a fairly busy recording and touring schedule (to say nothing of more side projects than you can shake a stick at) with obscure literary references set to epic-length blends of prog-rock, world music, and cabaret (among other influences). That is to say, I'm not so much comparing souffles to burgers as I am comparing falafel wraps to combination platters. Still different, but still marketable on the same basis (I think).
I see almost exclusively new work. Maybe I just deal with artists who have shorter attention spans. :)
20
Hmm, gee, why are bands able to make a reasonable living off their concerts why theater can't?
1. As you yourself mention, the reproducible/easily consumable part of what they do -- the cds and mp3s and what all -- are an art experience of their own AND act as an ongoing marketing campaign for their performances.
2. Those songs can be accessed just about anywhere, any time. The audience doesn't have to go to a particular place at a particular time to experience them.
3. They have almost no overhead. They don't pay rent and utilities, which are above and away the big-ass expense for theaters.
4. Music is still a culturally vital art-form. No one listens to a bad song and says "I don't like songs." People see a bad play and say "I don't like theater" ALL THE TIME. Theater has a lot more baggage and a lot more to overcome.
And that's only the top four off the top of my head. The analogy is pointless; short theater pieces (be they clowns, 10-minute plays, or *shudder* Butoh) just aren't equivalent to songs. Theater HAS to be live; with rare exceptions (say, 'Swimming to Cambodia'), video of theater is painful to watch.
And...I'm sorry, what was your other point? That the popularity of pornography means theater artists don't need to engage children? I'm baffled.
1. As you yourself mention, the reproducible/easily consumable part of what they do -- the cds and mp3s and what all -- are an art experience of their own AND act as an ongoing marketing campaign for their performances.
2. Those songs can be accessed just about anywhere, any time. The audience doesn't have to go to a particular place at a particular time to experience them.
3. They have almost no overhead. They don't pay rent and utilities, which are above and away the big-ass expense for theaters.
4. Music is still a culturally vital art-form. No one listens to a bad song and says "I don't like songs." People see a bad play and say "I don't like theater" ALL THE TIME. Theater has a lot more baggage and a lot more to overcome.
And that's only the top four off the top of my head. The analogy is pointless; short theater pieces (be they clowns, 10-minute plays, or *shudder* Butoh) just aren't equivalent to songs. Theater HAS to be live; with rare exceptions (say, 'Swimming to Cambodia'), video of theater is painful to watch.
And...I'm sorry, what was your other point? That the popularity of pornography means theater artists don't need to engage children? I'm baffled.
21
And I'm not predicting the death of theater; I'm predicting its decline into the total cultural irrelevance of poetry and classical music. Which isn't to say those things are bad -- but when was the last time you had an argument with someone about a poem or a symphony? People used to. They still (rarely) get into arguments about theater...but that's going to stop, and when it does, theater has become inert.
Every city will have its Theater, like it has its Symphony Orchestra and its Opera, with a handful of amateur groups scattered around, entertaining a modest audience of friends and enthusiasts. Nothing wrong with it, but it's not the same as having a conversation with our culture. Which I believe most theater artists would like to be having.
Every city will have its Theater, like it has its Symphony Orchestra and its Opera, with a handful of amateur groups scattered around, entertaining a modest audience of friends and enthusiasts. Nothing wrong with it, but it's not the same as having a conversation with our culture. Which I believe most theater artists would like to be having.
22
@20 - No disagreement on points one and two. Of course, this puts theater at no more disadvantage than, say, installation art or ballet, but I can't say with any certainty that someone, somewhere, isn't sounding a death knell for either of those forms.
Point number three is also well-taken, but I think that this could be true of theater, as well, which is kind of the point. If theatrical works were more mobile and self-contained, they could freely move between venues and cut out a certain portion of the overhead.
Point number four is interesting. I don't know if it's true or not, but if it is, that's obviously a cultural bias we'll have to work to overcome. I mean, why do people give up on theater after a bad experience? Why do people not give up on songs after listening to the literally hundreds of bad songs with which any radio listener is inundated on any given day? There's nothing concrete there to hang the hat on. It's ostensibly predictive, but frustratingly vague. Which isn't, by the way, a criticism of the way you made the point, but a locus of frustration with the point itself. Is the solution to make sure there are no bad plays? And how do we judge that? I doubt (I could be wrong) that what you would call a bad play and what I would call a bad play would be the same thing.
You shudder at Butoh, but it's the basis for pretty much all the J-Horror we've seen over the last couple of decades (iow, no Butoh, no Ringu). Which mightn't make it any more to your liking; I'm only suggesting that there's a demonstrable familial and aesthetic link between supposedly "artier" forms and types and genres of entertainment that appear to have more currency, and some of those forms also happen to lend themselves easily to performance or marketing in excerpt.
As for my reference to pornography, I was only pointing out that there are a lot of things in this world--porn, black coffee, rock & roll, beer--which survive solely on the basis of your having to learn to appreciate it and/or having to wait to be able to consume it of your own volition. I've no objection to engaging children; if this nihilistic fever in my blood ever subsides, it would indeed be my pleasure to write works for children (and, provided someone with less of such fever is writing it, I'm more than happy to act in such entertainments). I was only suggesting that there might be--probably are--ways of re-establishing cultural relevance without scrubbing all the viscera out of the content or the mode of presentation.
Another thought on that matter, and connecting it to some of what you say in @21 - art that still has cultural currency generally manages to stay current through regular upset by anti-bourgeois malcontents, while forms like symphony and poetry fall into irrelevance by being too resolutely bourgeois. While I'd agree that there's a fair amount of subversive art in the world aimed at children, the stated value of "reaching out" to youth is, itself, a bourgeois impulse--not because there's no value in getting the youth on board, but if the parents approve too deeply of it, the interest will likely disappear with adolescence.
(And yes, we're all bourgois--no one more so than I; like the word "hipster," "bourgeois" is one of those terms that if you know what it means well enough to rail against it, you probably ARE it.)
I agree 100% with your points @21. I think we're trying to solve the same problem; where we differ is in what that solution would look like when applied.
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Point number three is also well-taken, but I think that this could be true of theater, as well, which is kind of the point. If theatrical works were more mobile and self-contained, they could freely move between venues and cut out a certain portion of the overhead.
Point number four is interesting. I don't know if it's true or not, but if it is, that's obviously a cultural bias we'll have to work to overcome. I mean, why do people give up on theater after a bad experience? Why do people not give up on songs after listening to the literally hundreds of bad songs with which any radio listener is inundated on any given day? There's nothing concrete there to hang the hat on. It's ostensibly predictive, but frustratingly vague. Which isn't, by the way, a criticism of the way you made the point, but a locus of frustration with the point itself. Is the solution to make sure there are no bad plays? And how do we judge that? I doubt (I could be wrong) that what you would call a bad play and what I would call a bad play would be the same thing.
You shudder at Butoh, but it's the basis for pretty much all the J-Horror we've seen over the last couple of decades (iow, no Butoh, no Ringu). Which mightn't make it any more to your liking; I'm only suggesting that there's a demonstrable familial and aesthetic link between supposedly "artier" forms and types and genres of entertainment that appear to have more currency, and some of those forms also happen to lend themselves easily to performance or marketing in excerpt.
As for my reference to pornography, I was only pointing out that there are a lot of things in this world--porn, black coffee, rock & roll, beer--which survive solely on the basis of your having to learn to appreciate it and/or having to wait to be able to consume it of your own volition. I've no objection to engaging children; if this nihilistic fever in my blood ever subsides, it would indeed be my pleasure to write works for children (and, provided someone with less of such fever is writing it, I'm more than happy to act in such entertainments). I was only suggesting that there might be--probably are--ways of re-establishing cultural relevance without scrubbing all the viscera out of the content or the mode of presentation.
Another thought on that matter, and connecting it to some of what you say in @21 - art that still has cultural currency generally manages to stay current through regular upset by anti-bourgeois malcontents, while forms like symphony and poetry fall into irrelevance by being too resolutely bourgeois. While I'd agree that there's a fair amount of subversive art in the world aimed at children, the stated value of "reaching out" to youth is, itself, a bourgeois impulse--not because there's no value in getting the youth on board, but if the parents approve too deeply of it, the interest will likely disappear with adolescence.
(And yes, we're all bourgois--no one more so than I; like the word "hipster," "bourgeois" is one of those terms that if you know what it means well enough to rail against it, you probably ARE it.)
I agree 100% with your points @21. I think we're trying to solve the same problem; where we differ is in what that solution would look like when applied.
23
I hate to say, "Look at Shakespeare!" but fuck, look at Shakespeare. Which playwrights are writing lusty, bawdy, violent plot-twisty dramas and comedies in interesting settings that thrillingly express universal human experiences? Instead we get the kind of spare, bloodless mood pieces that really fire up Granta and the Iowa Writer's Workshop when in prose form. I like my kooky experimental theatre as much as the next snob but I have no illusions that it's going to find an audience. Who is writing, say, "Sleuth" with a bigger moral canvas and surprising literary quality? Nobody, but that could be a barn-burner if you can get over yourselves long enough to write it.
24
@22 -- The reason I emphasize the need to engage children is because theater is weird. It does not (as do television and film) present you with a full picture of a world; it presents gestures and indications which are meant to spark the imaginations of the audience to fill in the rest (and the experience can be all the more powerful because the audience must take an active role). Kids are willing to do this -- in fact, they can't help themselves, their buzzing brains are constantly engaged with figuring out the world.
But if you're an adult and you've never seen theater before but you've seen a lot of tv and movies and played a lot of videogames, and you walk into this room and look at a few set-pieces and watch people walk around a stage talking and pretending that the audience isn't there -- it's a vanishingly small minority that has the patience to even try to take it in. These non-theater-goers -- and they are the overwhelming majority of Americans -- aren't philistines; they literally don't know how to experience it. They never learned, and their less-elastic adult brains, accustomed to far more intense stimuli from other media, are unlikely to stretch to encompass it. It's not quite as bad as giving a book to someone who can't read, but it's in the same ballpark.
If you don't see theater as a kid, you are highly unlikely to ever connect with it. I don't think it's bourgeois to want to create an audience.
But if you're an adult and you've never seen theater before but you've seen a lot of tv and movies and played a lot of videogames, and you walk into this room and look at a few set-pieces and watch people walk around a stage talking and pretending that the audience isn't there -- it's a vanishingly small minority that has the patience to even try to take it in. These non-theater-goers -- and they are the overwhelming majority of Americans -- aren't philistines; they literally don't know how to experience it. They never learned, and their less-elastic adult brains, accustomed to far more intense stimuli from other media, are unlikely to stretch to encompass it. It's not quite as bad as giving a book to someone who can't read, but it's in the same ballpark.
If you don't see theater as a kid, you are highly unlikely to ever connect with it. I don't think it's bourgeois to want to create an audience.
25
Heh, heh . . . bottsford, I've decided I rather like you. There's not a point @24 which I can contradict, per se.
So yes, there's nothing bourgeois about wanting to create an audience. And . . . I suppose theater is weird. Will you permit me to get autobiographical for a moment, and offer a different take?
All my life, I've had to live with people knowing the theme to Welcome Back Kotter, with my never having actually watched a single episode. Oh, I was aware it existed (it was on during many of my single-digit years, but it struck me as a "grown-up" show, in a sense that I learned to appreciate, but never stopped being at odds with in some cellular way. I remember Land of the Lost, H.R. Puff'n'Stuff, The Muppet Show, along with classic (and some not so classic) vampire (I like vampires) and werewolf (I love werewolves) movies that showed up on Saturday and Sunday afternoons on California TV stations in the '70s. The notion that people found humans talking to each other interesting was . . . odd.
In a sense, I grew out of that, and in another sense, I never did. Like most kids growing up in the '70s and '80s, I cut my teeth on Spielberg's ouvre, and became fascinated with the early works of folks like Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam.
When I first discovered theater (aside from some school plays here and there) in my early teens, what intrigued me as an audience member (as opposed to a participant, where my interest was--in the early days--solely in being looked at) was the almost aggressive unreality of it. Even a realistic play had the unrealism--the cheesy sets, the obvious makeup--of the movies and television that most captured my imagination with its puppets, aliens, monsters, and unreality.
I guess I think of myself as not having been exposed to theater as a child; I still remember thinking that plays were something people did to practice until they got good enough to be in movies. But if I think back, I remember seeing The Nutcracker when I was young, and that (in combination with the old monster movies) being the gateway drug that led me to Burton, who provided the gateway drug that led me to theater.
Then there was my exposure to music--the rush of discovering alternative rock in '87 (or at least finding out, for the first time, that there was a whole genre of popular music that I may have passively apprehended without knowing that it had a whole genre), at age 15. I won't go too far into how that played out (because I've already gone on too long), but suffice it to say that coming to that awareness concurrently with my early awareness of theater . . . well, it had an effect.
So for me, Lecoq inspired bouffon work has a familial relationship with cartoons and monster movies; Butoh relates to zombie flicks and slow-crawling metal made by the likes of the Melvins, Earth, Boris, or Sunn O))). It's easier for me--for whatever reason--to see the connection between experimental forms and certain genres of more ubiquitous popular arts. And as chemically imbalanced as I may be, I've been successful enough in maintaining healthy relationships and gainful employment to imagine that I'm NOT so chemically imbalanced that my experiences are so unique that there isn't some reasonable population out there looking for live, visceral art that pushes strange and exciting buttons.
I'm thinking, now, in terms of genre, rather than form; I wasn't introduced to the form until later, but found it interesting as a result of (rather broad) connections made through genre (or the appearance of genre, or the appearance of certain tropes--unreality, viscera, wordplay--that related, if only superficially, to my juvenile perceptions of genre).
So maybe introducing these things to children is useful; maybe it's not. I certainly never meant to dismiss the notion. All I know is that my relatively late exposure to live theater bore fruit because theater appealed to that part of me of which my parents and teachers didn't approve (though they realized, subliminally, that it was probably the source of the charm on which I've gotten by in life ;)): my tendency toward fantasy, violence, deviant eroticism, and broad symbolism.
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So yes, there's nothing bourgeois about wanting to create an audience. And . . . I suppose theater is weird. Will you permit me to get autobiographical for a moment, and offer a different take?
All my life, I've had to live with people knowing the theme to Welcome Back Kotter, with my never having actually watched a single episode. Oh, I was aware it existed (it was on during many of my single-digit years, but it struck me as a "grown-up" show, in a sense that I learned to appreciate, but never stopped being at odds with in some cellular way. I remember Land of the Lost, H.R. Puff'n'Stuff, The Muppet Show, along with classic (and some not so classic) vampire (I like vampires) and werewolf (I love werewolves) movies that showed up on Saturday and Sunday afternoons on California TV stations in the '70s. The notion that people found humans talking to each other interesting was . . . odd.
In a sense, I grew out of that, and in another sense, I never did. Like most kids growing up in the '70s and '80s, I cut my teeth on Spielberg's ouvre, and became fascinated with the early works of folks like Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam.
When I first discovered theater (aside from some school plays here and there) in my early teens, what intrigued me as an audience member (as opposed to a participant, where my interest was--in the early days--solely in being looked at) was the almost aggressive unreality of it. Even a realistic play had the unrealism--the cheesy sets, the obvious makeup--of the movies and television that most captured my imagination with its puppets, aliens, monsters, and unreality.
I guess I think of myself as not having been exposed to theater as a child; I still remember thinking that plays were something people did to practice until they got good enough to be in movies. But if I think back, I remember seeing The Nutcracker when I was young, and that (in combination with the old monster movies) being the gateway drug that led me to Burton, who provided the gateway drug that led me to theater.
Then there was my exposure to music--the rush of discovering alternative rock in '87 (or at least finding out, for the first time, that there was a whole genre of popular music that I may have passively apprehended without knowing that it had a whole genre), at age 15. I won't go too far into how that played out (because I've already gone on too long), but suffice it to say that coming to that awareness concurrently with my early awareness of theater . . . well, it had an effect.
So for me, Lecoq inspired bouffon work has a familial relationship with cartoons and monster movies; Butoh relates to zombie flicks and slow-crawling metal made by the likes of the Melvins, Earth, Boris, or Sunn O))). It's easier for me--for whatever reason--to see the connection between experimental forms and certain genres of more ubiquitous popular arts. And as chemically imbalanced as I may be, I've been successful enough in maintaining healthy relationships and gainful employment to imagine that I'm NOT so chemically imbalanced that my experiences are so unique that there isn't some reasonable population out there looking for live, visceral art that pushes strange and exciting buttons.
I'm thinking, now, in terms of genre, rather than form; I wasn't introduced to the form until later, but found it interesting as a result of (rather broad) connections made through genre (or the appearance of genre, or the appearance of certain tropes--unreality, viscera, wordplay--that related, if only superficially, to my juvenile perceptions of genre).
So maybe introducing these things to children is useful; maybe it's not. I certainly never meant to dismiss the notion. All I know is that my relatively late exposure to live theater bore fruit because theater appealed to that part of me of which my parents and teachers didn't approve (though they realized, subliminally, that it was probably the source of the charm on which I've gotten by in life ;)): my tendency toward fantasy, violence, deviant eroticism, and broad symbolism.
26
@23 - That's an interesting take, mostly because what constitutes the "mainstream" of theater over the last 10-30 years--Neil Simon, David Mamet, etc.--is what strikes me as "dry," built as it is around people talking, while "experimental" forms like Butoh and bouffon seem to have more of the broadly symbolic monstrosity that I enjoy in, yes, art films, but also in most effects epics. The emphasis in mainstream theater in art for "grown-ups" (whatever those are) is the notable turn-off.
I love Shakespeare, by the way, so long as he's edited to tolerable length. Bawdy and violent, yes. I have little faith that there's such a thing as a "universal human experience" in any communicable sense, but that's probably fodder for a different conversation.
I love Shakespeare, by the way, so long as he's edited to tolerable length. Bawdy and violent, yes. I have little faith that there's such a thing as a "universal human experience" in any communicable sense, but that's probably fodder for a different conversation.
27
@26: The modern canon of plays is exactly what you'd expect from any artform that ceases to sustain itself with butts in seats and instead lives off of grants and the snob appeal of being a dying art form. The neo-vaudeville stuff you mentioned earlier finds an audience the same way theater did in the days before radio -- as entertainment that people without a degree in theater can enjoy; Dancing ladies, trapeze artists, clowns and oom-pah bands.
It's this art with a capitol "A" ethos that isn't playing with the public, and the main reason is that it's not supposed to play with the public. It's supposed to get granting organizations to write checks and to make the elderly people in the audience feel smart. If it turns out to actually be entertaining or, you know, good, so much the better. But the "audience" for much of serious theater is actually the organization that writes the grant checks.
It's this art with a capitol "A" ethos that isn't playing with the public, and the main reason is that it's not supposed to play with the public. It's supposed to get granting organizations to write checks and to make the elderly people in the audience feel smart. If it turns out to actually be entertaining or, you know, good, so much the better. But the "audience" for much of serious theater is actually the organization that writes the grant checks.
28
I actually don't disagree, @27, though I'd drop in a (perhaps minor) caveat that "entertainment" is a highly subjective notion, and that one can build an audience based on niche interests as easily as one can based on more "general" interests. It's also worth noting that some theater that one might call "arty" actually arose from precisely the kind of entertainment oriented disciplines we're talking about--Beckett, Ionesco, and Brecht were influenced by vaudeville, cabaret, and cirque, which is precisely why I think newer capital "A" art can be sold to a popular audience if it looks to our own current, popular forms (say, serial television, YouTube, pop music) for inspiration about how to relate to the audience.
Because production requires so much up front investments, I don't begrudge the notion of grants, but I think there needs to be some sort of mechanism for moving grant-fueled art toward a more audience driven model. I don't know what that would look like; perhaps granting organizations could become "stakeholders" in arts organizations (its certainly not any more of an imposition than is, say, a board of directors), and grants could be treated more as investments. Or maybe not; I admit to having no head for business. Just throwing ideas around.
Because production requires so much up front investments, I don't begrudge the notion of grants, but I think there needs to be some sort of mechanism for moving grant-fueled art toward a more audience driven model. I don't know what that would look like; perhaps granting organizations could become "stakeholders" in arts organizations (its certainly not any more of an imposition than is, say, a board of directors), and grants could be treated more as investments. Or maybe not; I admit to having no head for business. Just throwing ideas around.
29
I once became loggorheaic about Seattle Theater,
and here's the link to that if anyone is interested in my thinking.
http://artscritic.blogspot.com/2005/12/i…
A few more smaller theaters have gone down meanwhile, and I don't think the audience for whom theater is an essential ingredient of life has increased. That is the fundamental problem as I recognized soon after coming to these parts in 1994. Most of the problems flow from that: the larger theaters needing to compromise, the death of smaller theaters,
the quality of the art directors, etc, etc.
The lack of critical discourse.
MICHAEL ROLOFF
http://www.facebook.com/mike.roloff1?ref…
Member Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute and Society
This LYNX will LEAP you to my HANDKE project sites and BLOGS
http://www.handke.scriptmania.com/favori…
http://www.roloff.freehosting.net/index.…
"Degustibus disputandum est." Theodor Wiesenthal Adorno
"May the foggy dew bediamondize your hoosprings + the fireplug
of filiality reinsure your bunghole! {James Joyce}
"Sryde Lyde Myde Vorworde Vorhorde Vorborde." [von Alvensleben]
"Siena me fe, disfescimi Maremma." [Dante]
"Ennui [Lange Weile] is the dreambird that hatches the egg of
experience." Walter Benjamin, the essay on Leskov.
http://analytic-comments.blogspot.com/
http://summapolitico.blogspot.com/
http://artscritic.blogspot.com/
More...
and here's the link to that if anyone is interested in my thinking.
http://artscritic.blogspot.com/2005/12/i…
A few more smaller theaters have gone down meanwhile, and I don't think the audience for whom theater is an essential ingredient of life has increased. That is the fundamental problem as I recognized soon after coming to these parts in 1994. Most of the problems flow from that: the larger theaters needing to compromise, the death of smaller theaters,
the quality of the art directors, etc, etc.
The lack of critical discourse.
MICHAEL ROLOFF
http://www.facebook.com/mike.roloff1?ref…
Member Seattle Psychoanalytic Institute and Society
This LYNX will LEAP you to my HANDKE project sites and BLOGS
http://www.handke.scriptmania.com/favori…
http://www.roloff.freehosting.net/index.…
"Degustibus disputandum est." Theodor Wiesenthal Adorno
"May the foggy dew bediamondize your hoosprings + the fireplug
of filiality reinsure your bunghole! {James Joyce}
"Sryde Lyde Myde Vorworde Vorhorde Vorborde." [von Alvensleben]
"Siena me fe, disfescimi Maremma." [Dante]
"Ennui [Lange Weile] is the dreambird that hatches the egg of
experience." Walter Benjamin, the essay on Leskov.
http://analytic-comments.blogspot.com/
http://summapolitico.blogspot.com/
http://artscritic.blogspot.com/
30
As Managing Director of Wing-It Productions, I would have loved to have been invited to this event. We produce 5-7 NEW mainstage plays each year. And our audiences are very steady -- growing in fact. Our demographic is teens, 20-somethings and 30-somethings (rarely a blue-hair in our seats), all hungry few new, exciting and experimental work. I would have loved to have share these figures at the Center House, but over the past decade my company has gotten used to being "outside" of the Seattle theater community - ie, not on Capital Hill, rarely recognized by the media, and producing an artform (improvised, interactive plays) that is low on the respect-scale in the Theater world -- but I guess we are being recognized by those who really count: the ticket buyers. - Brandon Jepson
31
Brandon --
Anyone could come. I don't think you even had to be a member of TPS. I don't know anyone who was "invited."
Anyone could come. I don't think you even had to be a member of TPS. I don't know anyone who was "invited."
33
@29
I made the mistake of looking at your link. Nothing there but a lot of boring blather, ravings from a dullard. If you're looking for, uh, "critical discourse"--you sure ain't got it.
I made the mistake of looking at your link. Nothing there but a lot of boring blather, ravings from a dullard. If you're looking for, uh, "critical discourse"--you sure ain't got it.
34
@30 Brandon-
Not to denigrate what you're doing, but the five-six new shows you are doing a year are improv shows, which are completely different than having a playwright produce a written work and put that up.
Not to denigrate what you're doing, but the five-six new shows you are doing a year are improv shows, which are completely different than having a playwright produce a written work and put that up.
35
Um, to return to an earlier point, how many bands make a living playing music? Not many. Most of them have day jobs--even a lot of the "famous" ones.
At the same time, how many artists of one kind or another are employed in our era compared to those in the past? A lot. They might be employed writing scripts for video games instead of plays. They might be employed sculpting maquettes for cars instead of gargoyles on cathedrals. They might be writing music for a television show rather than a noble family. But I'd say that a creative person has a much better chance of making a living doing something related to their talents today than at almost any other time in history.
Let's also not forget that most art produced in any era is garbage that gets immediately forgotten.
Also, there's absolutely nothing wrong with serious theater surviving as a hobby pursued by amateur enthusiasts. Just because some people happen to like theater doesn't mean they should get paid to do it.
If you want to get paid to do it, learn some skills, entertain your audience, and make it worthwhile for someone to spend $15 and an evening on your "art." What play could not be improved with some juggling, fire-eating, or a few good songs?
At the same time, how many artists of one kind or another are employed in our era compared to those in the past? A lot. They might be employed writing scripts for video games instead of plays. They might be employed sculpting maquettes for cars instead of gargoyles on cathedrals. They might be writing music for a television show rather than a noble family. But I'd say that a creative person has a much better chance of making a living doing something related to their talents today than at almost any other time in history.
Let's also not forget that most art produced in any era is garbage that gets immediately forgotten.
Also, there's absolutely nothing wrong with serious theater surviving as a hobby pursued by amateur enthusiasts. Just because some people happen to like theater doesn't mean they should get paid to do it.
If you want to get paid to do it, learn some skills, entertain your audience, and make it worthwhile for someone to spend $15 and an evening on your "art." What play could not be improved with some juggling, fire-eating, or a few good songs?
36
On The Boards understands the business model of the future. They have started putting well produced and well photographed videos of their works online. For the cost of a theater ticket their stagecraft can be seen by anybody, anywhere, anytime.
I predict that in ten years there will be Netflix-type services online distributing new American plays. It's inevitable, and the sooner theaters and playwrights wise up the better.
As much as I despise the Right's idiotic use of the term 'elitist', it is truly elitist for theater folks to fantasize that live theater will be diminished or destroyed by video.
Stage works are generally progressive and liberal in tone. Digital distribution of plays just might give a few red states a nice purple tinge.
I predict that in ten years there will be Netflix-type services online distributing new American plays. It's inevitable, and the sooner theaters and playwrights wise up the better.
As much as I despise the Right's idiotic use of the term 'elitist', it is truly elitist for theater folks to fantasize that live theater will be diminished or destroyed by video.
Stage works are generally progressive and liberal in tone. Digital distribution of plays just might give a few red states a nice purple tinge.
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