Last week, monologuist Mike Daisey took a break from his run of The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at Seattle Repertory Theatre to give a benefit performance for the employees of Intiman Theatre—people who were abruptly laid off last month when Intiman announced it would cancel its season and go on indefinite hiatus.
For the benefit, Daisey chose his How Theater Failed America, followed by a panel discussion with theater artists (freelance director Allison Narver) and administrators (Seattle Rep artistic director Jerry Manning). The audience was filled with familiar faces from Seattle theaters who came to buy their $25 tickets to support their fellow arts workers. (One of the ironies of American theater is its solipsistic economy.)
It was an audience eager to laugh at Daisey’s grimly comic diagnosis of theater’s failures. His riff on the cold rigidity of the regional theater rehearsal process—spoken with Daisey’s typical emphatic delivery—got the biggest laugh of the night:
On the first day, the stage manager walks into a big empty rehearsal room. They flip on the lights and check their watch. A moment later, an enormous box of freeze-dried actors is shot in from New York City! And the stage manager runs over and starts thawing out the actors. The actors leap out: “Whoa! Where the fuck am I? I don’t give a shit. What play are we doing? I don’t care! I’m ready to go!” The director flies in from another direction—he has just done 12 shows back-to-back. He jumps out and says: “What are we doing? Is it Pericles? Okay, hold on, I made some notes on this cocktail napkin. It’s about, uh, [Daisey reads from an imaginary cocktail napkin] innocence and corruption—okay, yeah! Let’s do it!” These are people who’ve never met each other before in their lives, they’re complete strangers, and they rehearse for three and a half weeks. Which, conveniently, is exactly how long it takes to master every play ever written in the English language!
There wasn’t much laughter from the panel. Hans Altwies, actor and co–artistic director of the New Century Theatre Company, said, “We spend so much energy trying to keep theater alive and not enough energy making it better.” He suggested that if he didn’t see any improvement in the quality of theater, he’d probably quit. People onstage and in the audience worried whether Seattle performance had passed its golden age. (The precise dating of that age was a matter of debate—some said the 1990s, some said the ’80s, some said the ’70s.)
Discussions about the closing of Intiman were mixed. “My reaction to Intiman closing is one of indifference,” said monologuist Elizabeth Kenny. “I didn’t go often and I never got hired there. I recognize that I should feel alarmed—but I’ve been making theater for no money with people who have no money for so long. When I think about it closing, I feel a deeper sadness that I have no feelings about it.”
The benefit raised around $8,500. The Rep says the money will be parcelled out among employees who didn’t get a severance package and artists whose contracts were suddenly canceled along with Intiman’s season. 
What a complete waste of an article. Though I’ve grown to know and despise your inability to come up with a relevant thought having anything to do with theatre (calling into question not only your ability to write and understand theatre, but also your ability to put together a cohesive thought or have a valid opinion of any sort), this article is a waste of the kilobytes used to store it on your website. Try writing a relevant, interesting or cohesive article for once Brenden.
@1: At least he knows how to write his name, you spineless moron.
Having been at the fundraiser, I was pretty alarmed by Mike referring to his talk as a eulogy for the Intiman. There was a discussion from the panel about what to do with Intiman’s space, now that they’re “gone”. Did I miss something? Isn’t the purpose of this hiatus to come back as a stronger theater, like ACT did several years ago? It seems premature to me, to be speaking about Intiman as though they’re already dead.
@Holly,
If my spineless comments were read as anything more than a scream into the chasm of the internet, I apologize for confusing you. I didn’t realize, until reviewing your posting history, that you were Kiley’s personal anonymity body guard. Had I know I would incite your ire, I would have been even more anonymous.
Whatever the case, this article is worthless, and as is often the case with this message board, there was an opportunity to continue the discussion of the ideas raised during Daisey’s play, but instead it is just another example of a reviewer in this rag saying “look at me, I was there”
I certainly don’t find the article worthless, but it’s a little disappointing on a couple of levels: First, it clutters the theater section with another purported “dialogue” on the state of theater in Seattle, rather than addressing any of the theater that is actually being produced and performed; second, rather than actually engaging in any dialogue, it reports on the ostensible failure of any dialogue to arise at a fundraiser that we already missed.
Which is to say, really, that the article doesn’t really tell us anything. What would make Seattle’s theater “better,” in Altwies’s view? If there’s disagreement as to when the golden age actually occurred, can there possibly be consensus as what constitutes quality theater? Does talking about keeping it alive, or even of making it better, keep us from the sacred task of making theater, or of pursuing the audiences best primed to appreciate whatever it is we, as artists, think theater should be? Does writing articles chronicling, without really detailing, the discussion about keeping it alive or making it better distract us from the work that’s already being done?
@3:
Unfortunately, the sad truth is that, in most instances when a non-profit takes this same route, the result is not a re-emergence of the organization; ACT was a very notable exception.
Once the board elects to close-shop, even if the intent is for the closure to be only temporary, it’s very difficult to get the organization moving again: many of the board members drift away, and replacing them can be extremely difficult under the circumstances; vendors and creditors can be very reluctant to re-establish a business relationship with the organization, particularly if they’re still owed money; plus, there’s a general reluctance on the part of patrons and donors to re-invest in the organization, if they’ve already lost money from cancelled programming, etc., etc.
Not to say it CAN’T be done – and again, ACT is a good example of a successful re-organization – but Mike is simply being realistic in acknowledging that the odds of Intiman doing likewise are not in their favor.
Go, Holly!
It seems interesting that the “Golden Age” of theater seems to fit nicely into the “Golden Age” of corporate donations to the arts. Back when Boeing, Westin, Paccar, Seafirst, Washington Mutual, The Bon Marche, Nordstrom, Frederick & Nelson, Starbucks (just to name a few) were either locally based or had regional headquarters here, the money was flowing. Today’s big names don’t seem to care that much about what is going on in town. Sure, many of them still write a check, but the personal engagement doesn’t seem to be there.
Here’s an undoubtedly naive and stupid idea for the Intiman space: Make it a community theater. Back where I come from, one of the few interesting arts programs that is still going strong is The Omaha Community Playhouse. Nobody, besides a few administrators and technicians, gets paid, the plays only run on weekends, it’s usually pretty pedestrian stuff (musicals and Neil Simon plays) but it gives normal people the chance to do something fun, and the audience fills up with their friends. And sometimes some really good productions result.
It’s not ground-breaking, it’s not earth-shattering. It’s anything but world-class. But it might just work.