1. Enough with the goddamned Shakespeare already. The
greatest playwright in history has become your enabler and your crutch,
the man you call when you’re timid and out of ideas. It’s time for a
five-year moratorium—no more high schoolers pecking at Romeo
and Juliet, no more NEA funding for Shakespeare in the heartland,
and no more fringe companies trying to ennoble themselves with
Hamlet. (Or with anything. Fringe theater shouldn’t be in the
game of ennobling, it should be in the game of debasement.) Stretch
yourself. Live a little. Find new, good, weird plays nobody has heard
of. Teach your audiences to want surprises, not pacifiers.
2. Tell us something we don’t know. Every play in your
season should be a premiere—a world premiere, an American
premiere, or at least a regional premiere. Everybody has to help.
Directors: Find a new play to help develop in the next 12 months.
Actors: Ditto. Playwrights: Quit developing your plays into the ground
with workshop after workshop after workshop—get them out there.
Critics: Reward theaters that risk new work by making a special effort
to review them. Unions, especially Actors’ Equity: You are a problem.
Fringe theaters are the research-and-development wing of the theater
world, the place where new work happens—but most of them can’t
afford to go union, so union actors are stuck in the regional theaters,
which are skittish about new work and early-career playwrights. You
must break this deadlock by giving a pass to union actors to
work in nonunion houses, if they are working on new plays.
3. Produce dirty, fast, and often. Fringe theaters:
Recall that 20 years ago, in 1988, a fringe company called Annex
produced 27 plays, 16 of them world premieres—and hang your heads
in shame. This season, Annex will produce 10 plays, 4 of them world
premieres, which is still pretty good. Washington Ensemble Theatre will
only produce three plays, one of them a world premiere. (An adaptation
of… Shakespeare!) What else happened in 1988? Nirvana began recording
Bleach—and played a concert at Annex Theatre. By the next
year, Nirvana was on their first world tour. The lesson: Produce enough
new plays and Kurt Cobain will come back from the grave and play your
theater.
4. Get them young. Seattle playwright Paul Mullin said
it best in an e-mail last week: “Bring in people under 60. Do whatever
it takes. If you have to break your theater to get young butts in
seats, then do it. Because if you don’t, your theater’s already
broke—the snapping sound just hasn’t reached your ears yet.”
5.Offer child care. Sunday school is the most
successful guerrilla education program in American history. Steal it.
People with young children should be able to show up and drop their
kids off with some young actors in a rehearsal room for two hours of
theater games. The benefits: First, it will be easier to convince the
nouveau riche (many of whom have young children) to commit to season
tickets. Second, it will satisfy your education mission (and will be
more fun, and therefore more effective, for the kids). Third, it will
teach children to go to the theater regularly. And they’ll look forward
to the day they graduate to sitting with the grown-ups. Getting dragged
to the theater will shift from punishment to reward.
6. Fight for real estate. In 1999, musician
Neko Case broke up with Seattle, leaving us for Chicago. (It still
hurts, Neko.) When asked why in an interview, she explained, “Chicago
is a lot friendlier, especially toward its artists. Seattle is very
unfriendly toward artists. There’s no artists’ housing—they
really like to use the arts community, but they don’t like to put
anything back into the arts community.” Our failure abides. Push
government for cheap artists’ housing and hook up with CODAC, a
committee that wants developers on Capitol Hill—and, eventually,
everywhere—to build affordable arts spaces into their new condos.
(CODAC’s tools of persuasion: tax, zoning, and business incentives.)
Development smothers artists, who can’t afford the rising property
values that they—by turning cheap neighborhoods into trendy arts
districts—helped create. To get involved with CODAC, e-mail
frank.video@seattle.gov.
7. Build bars. Alcohol is the only liquid on
earth that functions as both lubricant and bonding agent. Exploit it.
Treat your plays like parties and your audience like guests. Encourage
them to come early, drink lots, and stay late. Even the meanest fringe
company can afford a tub full of ice and beer, and the state of
regional-
theater bars is deplorable: long lines, overpriced
drinks, and a famine of comfortable chairs. Theaters try to “build
community” with postplay talkbacks and lectures and other versions of
you’ve spent two hours watching my play, now look at me some
more! You want community? Give people a place to sit, something to
talk about (the play they just saw), and a bottle. As a gesture of
hospitality, offer people who want to quit at intermission a free
drink, so they can wait for their companions who are watching act two.
Just take care of people. They get drinks, you get money, everybody
wins. Tax, zoning, and liquor laws in your way? Change them or ignore
them. Do what it takes.
8. Boors’ night out. You know what else builds
community? Audience participation, on the audience’s terms. For one
performance of each show, invite the crowd to behave like an
Elizabethan or vaudeville audience: Sell cheap tickets, serve popcorn,
encourage people to boo, heckle, and shout out their favorite lines.
(“Stella!”) The sucky, facile Rocky Horror Picture Show only
survives because it’s the only play people are encouraged to mess with.
Steal the gimmick.
9. Expect poverty. Theater is a drowning man,
and its unions—in their current state—are anvils disguised
as life preservers. Theater might drown without its unions, but it will
certainly drown with them. And actors have to jettison the
living-wage argument. Nobody deserves a living wage for having talent
and a mountain of grad-school debt. Sorry.
10. Drop out of graduate school. Most of you
students in MFA programs don’t belong there—your two or three
years would be more profitable, financially and artistically, out in
the world, making theater. Drama departments are staffed by has-beens
and never-weres, artists who might be able to tell you something
worthwhile about the past, but not about the present, and certainly not
about the future. Historians excepted—art historians are great.
If things don’t turn around, they may be the only ones left.
I’m really hoping to hear this same kind of spirited debate on Monday. This has certainly been one of the more interesting threads on the Stranger in quite some time.
“Calcified”? In what sense? The only people I’ve heard complaining about the vetting process, I mean REALLY complaining, are those who express frustration because the process doesn’t grant them license to do the very thing the process is in-place to prevent, namely to exploit people who, by virtue of going through that process, have expressed the desire to NOT be exploited.
I certainly can’t argue with the quest to find ones audience; that’s the dilemma EVERY theatre, regardless of size, has to confront and overcome if they’re going to be successful. And yeah, the punk shows do seem to fill up – at least so I hear, having not been to one in ages (live punk shows being a young person’s millieu – I’m just too old to slam in the pit, or even stand in the back nowadays) but – and someone please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about this – I don’t think the “scene” is so large that it could support more than the two or three clubs and score of local bands who perform in them on a regular basis (out-town-touring bands factor into this of course, I’m well aware). After all, that’s one of the advantages the music/club scene has over the theatre scene; there’s always a new show the next night, so it’s a lot easier to get the same people to show up two or three times a week.
*Sigh!* Things were sooooo much easier in the “olden times”, when theatre’s only real competition was bear-baiting or the occasional beheading, and all you had to worry about was The Plague, or a radical change in the religious beliefs of your rulers, or trying not to burn your theatre to the ground!
🙂
I’m with Comte. I’m not down for a war. As much as he’s simply wrong about the very small and simple point I’ve been trying to make, and as much as he can blather on and on and on with countless red herrings about “professional” versus “amateur” carefully avoiding it (it being that sometimes AEA folks WANT to work with for free to develop new work but can’t here, but can in LA and New York, and not by asking ad hoc permission of some choke point local union don either) as much as all those things, if you come gunning for Comte, figuratively, literally, whatever, assume you’re gonna have to go through me. And I won’t be the only one either.
Yeah, and despite Paul failing to recognize the critical point that, the only reason AEA members in L.A. GET to “work for free” in theatre is because those same members have determined it MIGHT get them a SAG or AFTRA call from the TV & film casting agents who troll the 99-seat waiver houses like Johans on the Reeperbahn,
I’ll be watching his six o’clock just the same.
I may vehemently disagree with him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t TRUST and RESPECT him.
So, Paul, why did you decline membership in Dramatists Guild? I just joined.
Granted, yet another web site won’t solve everything, but anybody have an example of a site that does theater listings and community reviews well?
Seems like that would be more useful than a shitty little blurb buried in the hooker ads in the Stranger.
I’ll let you theat-re types figure the rest out.
http://www.seattleperforms.com
Kurt is coming back wheither you produce new plays or not.
Just for the record, I’m not “gunning” for anyone, and I came out against “war,” if you’ll recall. I will continue to see everyone’s shows here, big house or little junk shop, as I can afford. I like the push and pull between canon and iconoclasm, large and small, mainstream (for lack of a less tiresome and reductive word) and fringe (ditto).
I say “calcified” simply because I mistrust institutions reflexively, and so use “codified” and “calcified” almost interchangeably. My concern is that, as currently run, the vetting process in question keeps actors who seek professional status as defined away from the junk-shop aesthetics that, for me (lest I be accused of laying down maxims) are simply more interesting. And again, I’m not against it happening or existing; I’m only suggesting that we not take it too seriously. I’m hard-pressed to think of an art-form where the “vetted” are responsible for innovation (though, to be fair, it is often the vetted who finally bring those innovations to a mainstream audience). I can’t speak for anyone else, but for my part, it’s not so much that I wish I could “exploit” those actors who have taken that path; it’s usually just a desire to work with actors I already know, trust, and have worked with, only to discover that they’ve become unavailable.
There may not be a practical fix, but then, I’m not making a practical point. I don’t think its possible (or even desirable) to make every play a premier, either, but if we’re talking about points of departure for what we’d like to fix, well . . . here we are.
I don’t really go to punk shows per se; it’s easier to type “punk” than bore you with the hyphens and hybrids that make up my CD collection. But here, in my 30s, I do still like music that makes my fillings rattle. I don’t know if that means I’m young, arrested in my development, or simply suffering from some sort of pathology. Ask me in another 10 years. 🙂 But a quick thought on that–yes, having a different band playing every night makes a difference, and having a distributable product like a CD helps you shore up that audience. But then, an audience for any one night at Neumos could fill a whole run at most fringe houses in town. I’d like to know how we find people with THAT level of specialized interest. Is that something the press facilitates? Or our marketing departments?
Also for the record – This has been fun, and fun is the only reason I jumped in to begin with. I’m actually quite pleased that we in the theater are all doing what we’re doing, and I hope we remember that the REAL goal is to do it more, do it better, and do it for more people.
COMTE – independent artists of all types have slacker jobs. Working administration at a big dinosaur of a theatre can be a perfectly legit slacker job, but it oughta be treated as a slacker job.
The dinosaurs are not gonna sheltering us from “the big one” that might hit someday, they ARE “the big one” slowly sapping the life out of our art. If we’re passionate about this art, then we oughta be PISSED to see it sucked dry and fucked up by dinosaurs.
We need to start looking at this as an “us or them” relationship. We need to forgo borrowing the scraps from their props department in favor of retaining the actors they lure out of our companies with empty promises of “hitting it big”.
Thelymhound – That difference between music and theatre is becoming less and less relevant. We’ve left the age of mechanical reproduction, and in the age of virtual reproduction (where recordings can be mass produced by anyone at no cost) CD’s aren’t going to be profitable anymore. If you look at the indie rock community, the emphasis is shifting to live performance.
This is an oportunity for saavy theatre artists to drop our association with dinosaurs and dead playwrights and build associations with these other much more exciting and growing communities.
And COMTE, you’re wrong about selling out. “It’s really only selling-out if you give in to the establishment ethic, and stop doing the radical shit on-the-side.”
Our future lies in making our radical work our focus and center and relegating our slacker jobs with the dinosaurs to “shit on-the-side”. Anything less than that is selling out.
Well, for everyone using a pseudonym, I can only take what you say so seriously. In a recent private email to Kiley, I pointed out that contrary to the literary world there is no strong tradition of acting/writing anonymously or even pseudonymously in the theatre. (AND do NOT start in on the Shakespeare/Bacon thing.) Comte, Kiley and I have all been going at it hammer and tongs here, and staking our names on it. If you can’t bring your name and reputation to the table, I’m not sure how far you’re going to be able to take your “revolution.”
My psydonym is Rex Winsome, google it and you’ll find all my shit’s on the table. My blog is rwinsome.blogspot.com, my theatre company is Insurgent Theatre, our website is insurgenttheatre.org my real name is Ben Turk. We’re currently based out of Milwaukee Wisconsin, but are hoping to be performing in a basement, blackbox, or dive bar in your neck of the woods (every neck of every woods) within the next 12 months.
Now, let’s stop talking about me, and start talking about a revolution.
Well, everyone has their own definition of “selling out”, Rex; some of the people who’ve been involved in this discussion would probably consider attaining professional status as “selling out”; others would probably suggest compromising ones values – whatever they may be – in exchange for “filthy lucre” as such.
But regardless, at some point EVERYBODY becomes a sell-out in somebody else’s eyes, as the line that proscribes ones beliefs is tightened by attempting to achieve an ever-restrictive adherence to some increasingly unattainable definition of “ideological purity”.
So, really, it’s not wrong, it’s just different, keep that in mind.
Yes, we can’t really know if ANYTHING is ever ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ our lives are frought with inescapable uncertainty, blah blah blah. But, we (not just me, everyone) use words like “wrong” as shorthand for “i have a different understanding than you about the concept of ____” See how “wrong” is shorter and more direct? More practical and useful?
I’m not interested ideological purity. But if we consider every assessment as equally valid because we can’t know anything FOR SURE, then there’s no point in ever speaking at all.
I’m interested in getting something done. if radical theatre is only something that we piddle around with on the side, or read about in class and romanticize, or occasionally visit like a tourist at an exotic locale, then shit isn’t going to get done, and your more inclusive understanding of “selling out” is not valid or useful.
Funny, in my dictionary, “wrong” is shorthand for “factually incorrect”…
My name’s actually in my moniker–Lyam is short for “lyam-hound” in the original Welsh. I’m not hiding anything; I just like the tag.
Also, I’m not concerned with revolution; I’m interested in EVolution, and I don’t think anything needs to be left out of it or behind it for not being “radical” enough. What concerns me is audiences who reflexively cringe at the first whiff of transgression, the willingness of (some) larger organizations to cater to such audiences, and OUR failure to find that other audience, and/or to find mechanisms for expanding that audience, and/or to find ways for growing our endeavors into something bigger.
I don’t see much utility in the concept of “selling out”; presumably, we all want to SELL, even if we insist on doing so on our own terms. What interests me is that musicians operating on the cheap and outside the mainstream appear to have SOME avenues for experiencing mainstream success, while one can only “graduate” from fringe theater by refusing to, well, do fringe theater anymore (or radically changing the capacity in which they do so, i.e., going Equity as an actor and directing or producing on the fringe). It’s not that I think there’s something immoral about this, or that it isn’t a valid lifesyle choice (or even a valid aesthetic choice, since, by all means, people who want to see Neil Simon should be able to, and the people who want to do it for them should feel similarly at liberty). What bothers me is that when we get defensive about words like “professional”, when we place too much faith in processes of “vetting”, we essentially imply (and please correct me if I’m wrong; I’d actually LOVE to be wrong on this) that giving up the freedom to do non-mainstream theater is a sign of maturity and/or an indication of “seriousness” as an artist.
I’d really just love for there to be a market for crashing, dissonant theater the way there’s a market for crashing, dissonant music. Maybe it’s a fantasy. Or . . . Maybe there’s something WE can do to make that happen, and maybe this discussion is part of that.
Hello. I was excited to pull up this page and find that the discussion is still going on. I have read everything you’ve said. You* amaze me with your passion, your dedication and your intellect. Having said that, I am writing to represent some groups that haven’t had much play in this blog – I am the audience. Without me, you have no theatre. I am an essential part of the equation. In the best theatre I feel like I am part of the production and I love every magical minute of it. In the worst theatre, I feel ignored, put upon and dismissed.
I also represent another group – I am one of the last of the baby boomers. For better or worse, (not the best time to be bringing this up) we are running the country and we are the “pockets” for which you are competing. You need to make theatre that is relevant to me and my tribe. How many shows here in Seattle have characters 40 and older? Are you talking about issues that are relevant to me? I like my theatre like I like my music – golden oldies mixed in with new stuff.
Theatre in Seattle during my stay (15 blessed years) has taken me to great highs and lows. I have seen some of the most amazing theatre here. However you have hurt me deeply when you made me love you and then you dissolve into nothingness when the money runs out.
I am attending on Monday night because you need our help and support. If we are not part of the solution, the problems will continue. You must let us in. You cannot continue to treat your theatre groups and troupes like special clubs that require hazing and special handshakes. You must stop treating us like we don’t “get” you. Theatre belongs to all of us. You need us. We need you. Let us help.
I too will use my real name. I am the director that gave Paul Mullin his first acting role as the drummer boy in the family Christmas pageant.
P.S. Can we stop the character assassinations, especially on Brendan? I would like to think that we are all playing on the same team.
*please note that “you” in this context refers to all of you who have written in the blog.
Margaret brings up some great points. Theatre’s strength relative to film and television is in it’s visceral connection with the audience. Most Establishment theatre acts like we’re still living in a pre-film world, ignoring this audience interaction advantage. Pre-film theatre traditions are designed to keep the audience passive, uninvolved, even captive, silenced and invisible.
These traditions also serve a demographic that is older than margaret (in terms of age or mentality) people who want theatre to be the status symbol of an exclusive club. These people have to be let go, immediately, because they demand the exclusion of everyone else.
The future of theatre needs to reject the traditions that enforce the old style and purposes. There are a few very simple things to do on a night of performance to make this happen. Mingle with the audience before, during intermission, and after the show. Perform on the same level as the audience. Keep the house lights on. Look at the audience and subtly react to them when performing (preferably without derailing the show). Let people unwrap candies and crack beers during the show. Let people come and go as they please. If you’re doing compelling theatre, giving the audience these freedoms will not result in side conversations, cell phone chatting or other disrespectful behavoir (at least not amung the 16-25 year olds we typically perform for). It’ll take some actors a little while to get used to these distractions, but performing under such circumstances is not impossible. I just did it last night.
Having a crowd of over 50 to 100 people (depending on the show and the venue) at this kind of show might be impossible, but far as i’m concerned, if our costs are low enough, we don’t need more than that on any given night.
on the subject of number 4) Get ’em Young: Seattle Children’s Theatre works their butts off to bring new young audiences to the Theatre and consistently produces many wonderful original works for younger audiences. On top of that they also do shows such as last years High School Musical to attract new audiences to live theater that normally wouldn’t come to see a show with out the Disney name. Audiences who then come back for this seasons “A Tale of Two Cities” or “Good Night Moon”. Here is The Stranger’s review of that show.
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=439291
I mean, this is just silly. Lets be real here.
I like that with this “Ten Things” article you are provoking the Seattle Theater Community to be stronger and smarter and work harder, but it would be nice if The Strangers reviews echoed the same points and values you are making here.
I just moved to Seattle from Chicago, where I majored in theater at Northwestern (not as an actor, not that it matters). I’m currently not working in theater, for many reasons, primarily financial.
I never felt like learning about the range of Chicago theater was difficult, perhaps because I was in the loop as a professional-in-training. Now that I’ve stepped outside of that inner circle, I find myself in a new city where I have no idea where to start finding quality theater.
I agree with the posters who have said there needs to be some sort of a review outlet. If there is one, online or in print, it’s certainly hard to find. Whoever said there should be a Yelp for Seattle theater was genius. I can find a good Vietnamese restaurant near my house WAY faster than I can find out if that intriguingly-titled play downtown is worth $30. Browsing listings is like browsing a used book store– you might find something incredible in an unknown title, or it might be complete crap. Problem is, paperbacks cost under five bucks and do not require too much of a time investment if they’re awful.
Besides reading company’s websites, which always glow in adoration of their own work, where can someone trying to figure out the scene read reviews?
Not to mention– if someone as interested in finding good theater as I am gets lost, what happens to the average person?
Here I am. I’m 22, prime target age. Hell, I have friends who trust me for theater recommendations. I want to give people my money but don’t have enough of it to waste. Show me where I can learn about Seattle theater, so I can get my butt in a seat. Please.
here’s a crazy idea for you to try, Brendan- stop recommending shows (W.E.T., Streetcar) before you actually see them.
YAY LIZ!
Run more theatrical reviews, Stranger! It’s a dying art! I know that you are a Seattle paper, but theatre happens in colleges, in bars, in bedrooms, in the park, in big venues, and even in Kirkland! We in Seattle are known for our Fringe and for our theatre, but you wouldn’t know that if you only read The Stranger.
That being said, I am forwarding this to every artist I work with…
Ionash- write reviews yourself, post em on a blog. Get your friends to start reading and writing them. Soon enough you’ll start getting trustworthy reccomendations of shows to see. You might even get comps if you promise a review.
Don’t like the media? become the media.
Childcare/theatre games at plays.. brillant.. and it would also make the world a better place full of happier children (or at least kids who enjoy a good improv). As a not nouveuriche adult with children, childcare can actually double the price of the tickets- making it more expensive to go, and less of that expense going to fund theatres.
I agree with the plucky spirit of this piece but question some of the advice. Many of the ideas sound good until you think them down to earth. For example, the child care idea sounds brilliant until you remember what a litigious world we live in. Any venue providing child care may open itself up to tremendous liability. No struggling arts organization barely keeping the lights on should beg for trouble with more bad advice as in Point #4 re: alcohol, “…liquor laws in your way? Change them or ignore them.” Fortunately, it’s not that hard to get a license to sell beer and wine and be legit. Also, an attitude like “Expect poverty” only perpetuates an innate lack of self-respect for artists. You might get some of the people some of the time to pledge their allegiance to the good work of a theater in a community, but good will also means consistently paying people for their time, even if you can only pay them a small stipend. Asking a whole company to drink this columnist’s Kool-Aid with the self-loathing attitude of “expect poverty” sounds cultish to me.
w/r/t: cultish
Well-called, Auntie K
I’m a theater critic in Texas. This column has it 100 percent right on. You can’t see me from there, but I’m giving this writer a standing O.
No. Mo. Shakespeare!
I think he has a point…. to a certain extent.
Shame on you. These are hardworking people, people with families and bills, just like everyone else. People who work 90+ hour weeks, and multiple jobs, to just make minimum wage. They deserve a living wage. They deserve to be treated as professionals. They deserve not to have their honest, hard work mocked and patronized by someone who thinks that the entertainment industry is comprised of people selfishly indulging in their hobbies or bloated senses of self-importance. How insulting. We all can’t be doctors, lawyers, and administrative assistants. Get off your high horse and show some support your community.
First of all, to say that someone who has talent and should not have a living wage for it, regardless of whether or not it is a seemingly petty or common talent (cough*ranting writers*cough) goes against the entire idea of, um, working. Is it right for anyone to make a living wage for doing something that everyone else can easily do or be well compensated for a job that is done poorly? Hell no. There is a reason why people get fired or not hired back.
I honestly have no idea where you’re getting your information from regarding quite a few items. For example, M.F.A. theatre programs (and yes, there are ones aside from acting, directing, and dramaturgy, did you know that?) these days, in order to be a professor for even undergraduate theatre programs, or at least the bigger-named players, one has to be a current contributing member of the theatrical community. That means even publishing a certain amount of items in a certain amount of years, going to conferences, having so many designs, accolades, accreditations (which have their own requirements, of course), etc. That’s actually a complaint of some students – that the professors are off doing too many of their own shows and having their own careers so much so that they aren’t teaching as frequently as would be preferred. On top of that, if students go to certain schools, professors have worked on Broadway and other top theatres and tours all over the world. Also, Equity actors can actually work in non-Equity houses — it just takes some negotiating. A trip around the AEA website would have shown that. I’m not even an actor and I found that information within 5 minutes. With all due respect, Mr. Kiley, you do know how to report the news first and foremost, don’t you? I thought they taught that in high school journalism classes, or at least they did in mine. No degree required.
What all cities need to do to in order to prevent the “haves” from taking over the trendy artist neighborhoods is to have rent-controlled areas, buildings, individual apartments – whatever — for artists who are actually producing work. Tax deduction records will easily show whether Sally Sculptor really sells her work, thereby contributing to the community, or merely dabbles with it in her free time. Whatever hobbyist artist the income-earning artist chooses to have on her lease is then her own business.
The childcare idea isn’t a bad one and some company should test the waters. However, also realize that perhaps some parents like the idea of going to the theatre so that they can have a nice child-free date night with a nice dinner prepared by someone else accompanied by a nice bottle of wine. And I’ve got news for you: if people really do want to do something, they’ll find a way to do it and will splurge on a babysitter for an evening if they have to. The parents also need to step up and ask that theatres to have a babysitting service. If theatres see that they can make that much more money off of all of the parents, then why wouldn’t the theatres comply? Money coming in = the theatre stays put. The theatres in turn could offer cheaper tickets to parents who enroll their child/ren in an evening with the theatre babysitter (less than the cost of the full-price ticket/s and the babsysitter’s rate, obviously). It’s a win-win for everyone involved. Or maybe theatres could have a Baby or Youngster Night. Whatever. There are plenty of options — the goal is to find a realistic one. They do exist if you try to come up with them.
In general, please do not mislead the public with your own uninformed opinions and please also attempt to offer actual solutions. Saying things such as “produce dirty, fast, and often” would, for example, only saturate the market and lower the overall quality and standards of theatre. Who in their right minds and shrinking wallets would be willing to pay to see trainwreck after trainwreck after trainwreck after trainwreck? Instead, we all need to let theatre OWNERS and PRODUCERS know what you want (believe it or not, the actors don’t pick which shows the theatres perform — they just do what they enjoy and accept a paycheck like everyone else) and how badly you want it and they will have only one option: to comply.
Radically Realistic:
I just had to post [ Hulk. Smash. Stupidness]. I am a theatre producer, owner of a production company, and also one of those *ranting writer*s you’re insulting. While accusing Mr. Kiley of skipping journalism classes and somehow not offering solutions (uhm, check the title of his piece??), you forgot how to even read. Oops!
He does NOT say that AEA talent cannot work non-union houses. He said, in #2, “fringe theatres are … the place where new work happens—but most of them can’t afford to go union, so union actors are stuck in the regional theaters, which are skittish about new work… “. Yeah- can’t afford: no joke. Oh, and I’m not even an actor either, and I found THAT in 2 seconds – in the same article to which you were responding.
Epic. Fail.
The point is unions need to do more than arrange a ‘possibility’ of cross-mingling: they have to evolve to help not just their dues-payers, but help the industry that provides those dues/paychecks; allow more new work exposure to more union talent (and vice versa). ‘Separate but equal’ don’t work. The increase Kiley suggests in shows/scripts = more good work out in the world = more work for all of us AND happy audiences. It’s one of those ‘win-win’ things. And it was clear as day. Oy!
Ok, since I’m responding -next: Have you seen a fringe festival? THOUSANDS are willing, worldwide, to watch/pay for trainwreck after trainwreck. [ see also: Hollywood films, pulp publishing, post-Dark-Knight-Returns-works by Frank Miller, American politics… ] Because occasionally these things yield a few nuggets o’ gold.
‘Lower the overall quality and standards of theatre’ is a separate function (usually of bad design, directing & acting), and has nearly nothing to do with the programming of a season. The standards of theatre, by the way, clearly need changing, otherwise natural selection will kill theatre where it stands. Saturating a market? That seems about as worrisome as pouring a gallon or two of water on the Sahara in this case. Saturate away. Plenty of theatres are shrinking seasons and they are also crap, so increasing programming is no proof of crap, lower standards, nor what will generate income. Kiley even gives an example: and Annex did not oversaturate the market nor die out from trainwrecks. Audiences are brave; they don’t fear the occasional trainwreck, just like some folks like a good rollercoaster or horror movie or Mariners game.
Those theatre folk stuck in old thinking, the ‘realistic’ or defensive “But we caaaaaann’t… that’s tooo harrrrrd” arguments, like yours and a dozen others here, are contributing to the momentum of the problem, not the solution. Grow legs and Evolve already. Be audacious & sanguine. Drop your excuses -pretend none of them exist (odds are you need to examine why you’re making excuses). Pretend that theatre could be anything you want. Act like a grownup who wants success, not someone who fears change. Create a new paradigm.
I take Kiley’s comment about MFA’s, (though unnecessarily acerbic toward a teaching community perhaps only half-dysfunctional), to really be directed to the fact that most celebrated theatre luminaries were no less shiny before grad school than after.. it isn’t often skill or education that separates grad school theatre successes from non-schooled, it’s 5-digit debt. But if you’re lucky enough to have money to blow, have a fabulous time.
Learning from ‘working’ artists does not = able to learn to be great. In fact, some of us, when we were in school complaining about teachers always doing shows, were actually lamenting the fact that these accoladed ‘professors’ can be quite incompetent at the science/art of teaching, and would have made much better ‘guest artists’ than professors. American colleges could use more balance, and less ‘accredited, conference-going contributors to the field’ in theatre departments and replace their sorry parttime asses with better experimenters, innovators and educators.
One more thought about Brendan’s #10 & 9: Lending $40K of mid-to-high interest credit/debt for a degree (seriously, look into the list price for tuition at SPU, Cornish, and others) to then make $8 to $15/hour, part-time & seasonally, for the following several decades? Doesn’t seem any more ethical than sub-prime loans or kicking a sick puppy. We have enough theatres in town to offer plenty of hands-on education. I think loaning money for these pricey degrees should be criminalized.
Otherwise, yes; the free market should help determine if we get a living wage or not. Yes, a baby night, ala Reel Mom’s is totally in order. A new business model for artist housing is overdue. Audience surveys must be utilized as often as possible (hell, even my car dealer calls me after a $20 oil change to make sure there isn’t anything different he needs to do or any other way he can serve me). And there’s at least a dozen other things that should change too.
But for fuck’s sake, read the article and don’t ‘mislead the public with YOUR uninformed opinions’. Then read it again, between the lines – like designers, directors, actors, playwirghts, et al, do.
offs – SP: playwrights.
Educational institutions and houses that seat under 400 do indeed have to pay royalties. You’re just incorrect about that, Will.
About theatre education: There are a large number of people who work unpaid in fringe theatres whose day jobs are teaching in university theatre departments– myself included. We’re not all has-beens or never-wases– there are plenty of us doing the work right now. My own company specializes in new plays by emerging playwrights– precisely what you think we should be doing– yet you would have people believe that I’m a worthless prat because I teach at a university.
Unions are what have made professional theatre possible in the 20th Century in the US. Without them and the living wage and minimum benefits negotiated, we’d all be watching plays in Aunt Millie’s front room, underscored by her piano accompaniment. The intermission cookies would be decent, though.
Wow, Kev. That’s a fancy union card you have on that lanyard there.
Holy shit, it’s laminated, too?
Dayum, fanboy!
a) some of us have left the 20th century behind – look into it.
b) Pro theatre existed way before unions, outside of unions, and will surivive well past
c) Millie plays a mean set of keys, no matter the venue. Respect.
d) perhaps 20th century american, union-possible, minimum-bennies theatre isn’t what we should strive for? *horries!*
Two (very late) cents:
– Only one person (that I spotted) brought this up, but: most people working in theatre are terrible with money, accounting, finance, etc. They don’t have to be I-Bankers, but if you have any competent experience with this, walking into production meetings and administrative offices as I have is mad frightening.
Ditto with other “simple skills” that aren’t strictly necessary but debilitating in absence: technology (most theatre folks I worked with still struggle with Office) and organization. There are exceptions, obviously, but in my time as an actor it hurt to see us struggling for money and have it leaking out from so many efficiencies (and makes the entitlement arguments so much less credible).
– This has been beaten to death, but stop blaming critics. The Stranger is harsh, crude, and self-loving, but it is 30% of what most audiences are thinking in their heads watching the same performance. Don’t blame them for publishing their honest opinion when you delude yourself into pretending “real people” are much kinder “in real life.” No, they aren’t.
– Everyone deserves a chance at a living wage, and that is exactly what standard jobs are for (the kind my illiterate great-grandfather did to get his first house shortly after immigrating). But if I drop my job at McDonalds to manufacture specialty costumes for emperor penguins, do I deserve a living wage? No, because there is no need in society for emperor penguin costumes. Society tells me this by not buying them.
Similarly, when you become an actor you risk society deeming you as worthy of its dollars and attention as a penguin-costumer. This isn’t kindergarden, this isn’t GWB presidency: you are rewarded for your RESULTS, not your effort or ideology.
Sadly, we don’t go out and pay for theatre as much as we used to (and should). This is a risk theatre artists take.
um.some of you must have your heads up your asses or you don’t actually do any theatre in the professional world. brendan kiley’s comments are not researched and have no basis whatsoever in reality. get a clue. he doesn’t think people should be paid a living wage for their talent? WTF? okay, i will make sure to tell my plumber that the next time he fixes my kitchen sink.
Unions are going to bring theatre down???? yes, i am sure he’s right. I mean, Actor’s Equity has only been around since 1919. what a fuck wad.
couldn t agree more with all your aforementioned ideas about theater.
you forgot to mention overfocussing on Aristotle (who wrote as response not ant prescriptive dogma)
read read alot alot of the comments
all these souls need to put all this energy into theater productions and stage them
EVERYWHERE!
Protest all over
not just kvetch and not think about tired old plays written in cause to effect linear narrative ways
YOUNGER PEOPLE face a devalued languagethey communicate intuitively and instinctively withmany many interruptions
these are the post-cyber wellpost-mtv impatient ones
theater is not nor will it be even what it was 5 yeaRS AGO
IT S NOT WORTH BICKERING ABOUT
SHIT OR GET OFF THE POT
A third world psychehas infiltrated our sad superannuated economy
the Chines will disassemble our alphabet
“Find new, good, weird plays nobody has heard of. Teach your audiences to want surprises, not pacifiers.”
Oh, really? You try doing new, good weird plays nobody has heard of in a community theater and see what kind of audience you get, zero!
SG: that reads alot like
a) your audience doesn’t trust you / the producer [ evidence: several ‘community theatres’ have a faithful following that will put up with a little weird once/year because they are loyal to the talent/quality of the season].
or
b) you’re being blind to your market/venue – if you need edgier theatre, get into the city (or away from community theatre) where there are edgier people.
As an actor, possibly one of the last things I want to happen is to be booed and jeered while on stage WORKING. Especially to an audience that showed up an hour earlier to get liquored up, as suggested. Most drunk audience members won’t have the wherewithal to discern if the acting is bad, or if it’s the directing or the writing, before they start throwing the veg like in the Bard’s days.
Now, granted, SOME shows encourage such interaction, and so be it. But there’s already too many instances of theatre audiences behaving like they’re in their living rooms.
Something a playwright friend of mine suggested years ago that I actually think is quite brilliant and will encourage better work, is if audiences can leave, during the show at any time if the work doesn’t draw them in. They go to the box office and get a refund based on when they leave. If the show’s bad, you’ll know RIGHT AWAY. (I do acknowledge that this idea is of a similar nature to booing and heckling, maybe just more passive-aggressive.)
Brendan, feel free to disagree, just know that I may show up at your office and boo you while you work should you write anything that sucks.
NY actor here. Ask me and I say there is a valid reason to be doing and re doing Shakespeare. Simply put, the work is the best. Not meaning to take anything away from contemporary playwrights but some of this new crap is sickening. Anything merit worthy should be produced over and over. Be it Mamet, Letts, Williams. August Wilson!!! If it’s good it’s good. Stop looking for ways to promote mediocrity. Some of these weird playwrights could use an ‘MFA’ to get some structure to their work! And we wonder why theater audiences are diminishing! But back to Shakespeare, any real actor will agree that remounting of a good production you happen to be involved in HELPS YOU. And ‘that’ you cannot say about every writer. I was sent this link and had to get in on this but I am not a recurring here so if you want to comment on my comment hit me at briandcoats@gmail.com, I ain’t scare of y’all. Haha.
A lot of great ideas, but I disagree with #2. I’m from Chicago and see a lot of theater, and the very worst experiences I’ve had in the theater were new works. I’ve seen world premieres of stunningly bad scripts at the most respected theaters in this town (Steppenwolf, Goodman) and tiny storefronts too. I see no reason for theaters to put crap plays into the world, and I see no way that the push for new works that you recommend could help but lower the bar. Practically any play ever published has life left in it; unlike television or film, the audience who has already seen a certain play is too small to be worried about, the vast majority of people haven’t seen it. The only plays that are truly “over” are the ones successfully adapted to film. I’m willing to call “Streetcar” dead.
Will,
Perhaps you should review copyright laws and the fair use criteria our theaters in our country and our educational institutions have to obey.
Number of seats has nothing to do with whether you have to pay a royalty. Also, it being for educational purposes also does not preclude your from paying for the Dramatic rights or Royalties. Non-musicals can be produced for $75 per performance musicals are in the 150 -300 range per show. High school theatres usually are in the 500 to 700 seat range because the student body has to be able to attend assemblies in one day, so they are usually have the size of the student body.
As for new plays and such and plays with the age range close to the students, I agree, but even with Playscripts.com that caters to the high school scene, finding a play that is not a one gimmick play or teaches the students how to act and grow as performers is very difficult to do. The new plays are usually more expensive, also.
As for Greek, you try putting The Orestia or Medea in front of a group of today’s adolescents and see if they will want to perform it. At least with Romeo and Juliet they can sword fight and connect to raging hormones making them do things they shouldn’t do.
Kiley makes good points, but must realize that the regional system was designed to model after the rep. system in Britain and Canada. The Federal Theatre Project helped get them started and now they are institutions. Institutions don’t change overnight. That is why they last. They endure through the old, rich people donating money to them because they believe in the art they produce. To say theaters need to change and produce all new work, is to doom theatre to theatre that only caters to the iPod generation that would rather watch Hulu than be engaged with a real discussion of human desire and pathos.
Shakespeare is still valid, so is Miller, and with a few exceptions the reason why their plays are produced more than new playwrights by Regional Theatres, is because they are better playwrights and their plays reveal things about the human condition that other playwrights have copied and continue to copy, period.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
All grand advice! Here’s some more: do your plays in places which make their living otherwise–cafes, coffeehouses, bars, art galleries, churches, schools–so that your show’s success or failure is not crucial.
If you want to see 59 Picture Pages about the Caffe Cino, where it all began, they start at
http://caffecino.wordpress.com/
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Some valid points, but I’m sick of smack talk, and The Stranger is so bratty. You pooped your diaper– congratulations. Number 9 upsets me. A society that pays artists a living wage is a goal to shoot for, however unrealistic at this time. #2 and #4 are right on the money. Again, overall, this is so soapbox-ey and random it makes me want to gag. Next time spend more than 20 minutes writing a piece like this. The world of theatre deserves more thoughtfulness and less petulance. From one attention whore to another.
Show me any fringe theatre that has a “rehearsal space” on site where they can hold babysitting/theatre games (and boy, does refereeing that mess sound like a riot!) during the show without ruining the show and I’ll give up Shakespeare for 5 years. And if they DO have a rehearsal space besides the stage itself, don’t you think it is probably being used for, um, REHEARSAL for the next exciting new
project–number 22 out of 27 this season! I am sure it is, since the actors don’t deserve to get paid and they work during the day at Starbucks and they can only rehearse at night… unless they can’t because of a conflict which you can’t object to because you aren’t paying them, after all. So let’s see, we have 8 of our cast of 15 available tonight….which scene can we work on? What’s that? The reheasal room is booked for babysitting? Oh yeah, I forgot. Let’s go drink some alcohol cause that solves everything.