A Supplement to the Regional Theater Series
[In the December 2003 issue (20.10) of American Theatre, published in, then-Theatre
Communications Group Executive Director Ben Cameron published “An Anti-Annual Report.” In it, he referenced the publication of “Art
Will Out” two months earlier (see Part 1), commenting:
In October 2002, we published TCG National Council for the American Theatre member and SITI Company board chair Jaan Whitehead's "Art Will Out," a provocative depiction of the effect of institutionalization on the artistic side of theatres. We realized that this article would cause some rigorous and potentially painful self-reflection—and, indeed, we welcomed the knowledge that it would. We were unprepared, however, for the firestorm of reaction, ranging from immense gratitude that the unspoken had finally been said to white-hot anger that field conditions had been mischaracterized. Subsequently, the May/June issue of American Theatre conveyed what [Alan] Brown and [Paul] Deguid might have called [n their book The Social Life of Information (Harvard Business School Press, 2002)] shared interpretation: A panel of eight field leaders used Jaan's piece as the inspiration for larger reflections on field conditions, and the ever-articulate and perceptive Zelda Fichandler offered her sage analysis of the bifurcated roles of artistry and management, envisaging the relationship as a "both/and"—rather than an "either/or"—rapport. Requests for these articles continue to pour in; the three pieces are appearing on syllabi for students across the country; and the conviction that the magazine can tackle substantive issues self-critically, through a collective, shared interpretation of issues, has become a linchpin in the work we are currently doing—including the work of re-envisioning the role of, and possibilities for, American Theatre itself (a process that will produce a renewed magazine within the next year or so).
[The first four responses to Whitehead’s article are posted below. (The panel discussion to which Cameron refers above and the response from Fichandler will be posted in Parts 3 and 4, respectively.) Three of the published reactions to “Art Will Out” in this part of the series are letters to the editor of American Theatre—to one of which Whitehead replies directly; the fourth reply is an article from another theater journal (which, you will see, published two responses).]
“GLOOM AND DOOM”“letters to the editor”
[Richard Stein’s letter appeared in American Theatre, volume 19, issue 10 (December 2002).]
While I’m sure it wasn’t intended that way, October’s American Theatre was a very doom-and-gloom issue: “. . . will we cling to old habits and plunge to our deaths” (Ben Cameron [in his “from the executive director” column in the October 2002 issue, “Let Go of the Pole”]); “. . . as for MFA programs, the Emperor is butt naked” (Jeanmarie Simpson [from her “commentary” article, “Some Immoderate Thoughts on the Training of Actors”]); “Now we are being urged back into an all-too-familiar tribalism” (Rick Cleveland’s letter [“Similarities, Not Differences”]); “Art Will Out,” Jaan Whitehead’s overly simplistic indictment of institutional theatres on charges of killing the art; Jane Alexander’s heartfelt obituary of one of America’s theatre legends, that “other” Whitehead (Robert) [1916-2002; Canadian-born theatrical producer; in “in memoriam”] who would likely have been appalled at his namesake’s, Jaan’s, conclusions; and, fueling Jaan’s flaming criticism, Ben Sampson’s overview (“The Season’s Top 10” [in “Season Preview: 2002-03”]), which certifies that all resident theatres are copycats, falling all over each other as fast as they can to produce the same handful of plays.
To be sure, there were other, more upbeat pieces in this issue. And I would be the first to agree that self-criticism is an essential element in TCG’s house organ (which it remains, even when it aspires to be something beyond that). I also welcome the occasional provocation: This issue’s Twenty Questions was far more readable than its typically insipid predecessors—but could Nicky Silver have proven otherwise?
I wondered if the preponderance of downers is purely circumstantial, or if theatre’s self-pitying “fabulous invalid” syndrome is alive and well and the theatre in this country really is in dire need of Viagra. To find out, I guess I’ll have to rush to the newsstands (or, in my case, my mailbox) to get the next issue hot off the press.
Executive DirectorLaguna PlayhouseLaguna Beach, Calif.
* * * *
“POSITIVES VS. NEGATIVES”
“letters to the editor”
[The letter by Roche Schulfer ran in American Theatre, volume 20, issue 1 (January 2003). Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, established in 1922, is one of this country’s premier regional theaters. It won the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre In 1992 and sent many plays to Broadway, a number of which also won Tony’s and other honors.]
I was very disturbed by Jaan Whitehead’s essay “Art Will Out” (Oct. ’02). Her indictment of hundreds of institutional regional theatres is unfair to thousands of artists and other theatre professionals.
Ms. Whitehead clearly believes that institutions have a negative impact on artistic creation. In fact, institutional theatres provide extraordinary support for artistic development. Regional theatres have made it possible for artists and other theatre professionals to have careers in the theatre. There are certainly companies that fall short of their goals, but Ms. Whitehead’s theory that theatre institutions now exist primarily to achieve box-office and fundraising goals is grossly inaccurate.
I have been the executive director of the Goodman Theatre for 21 years. I went to work in the theatre because I believed that artists could cause people to think about the world and possibly change their lives. I wanted to create careers in the theatre for artists and other professionals. I am proud that last year we paid over $8.1 million in salaries to artists and employees (out of a budget of $14.3 million).
I am proud that each year over 300,000 people experience our productions, and I am proud of the service we provide to our community. Our accomplishments, however, are not unique and our institution is not perfect. The larger institutional theatres must hold themselves to very high standards and use their economic base to further artistic development. The regional theatres that have produced remarkable work on stage and in their communities have done it through determination and hard work, not entitlement.
I am not criticizing the companies that Ms. Whitehead cites as having transcended institutionalization. Their work is outstanding, they deserve support and we can all learn from their accomplishments. Every theatre company should be organized and structured in a way that best enables it to fulfill its artistic mission and goals. In reality, many new forms of institutional development should be explored.
But the growth of professional regional theatre in America is an amazing accomplishment that is arguably unique in the world. While concerns about the effects of institutionalization are legitimate, a blanket dismissal of what has been accomplished serves no useful purpose. If American Theatre is concerned about this issue, why not convene a wide variety of artists and other theatre professionals and engage in a dialogue about the challenges and opportunities facing the institutional theatre?
Roche SchulferExecutive DirectorGoodman TheatreChicago
JAAN WHITEHEAD RESPONDS:
A more careful reading of the essay will show that I am not “indicting” hundreds of regional theatres or saying that these theatres “now exist primarily to achieve box-office and fundraising goals.” And I am certainly not making a “blanket dismissal of what has been accomplished” by our theatres. Any such gross generalizations would serve no useful purpose and would, in fact, dishonor the rich variety of theatres we have in this country.
What I am saying is that there are tendencies inherent in the process of institutionalization that favor institutional concerns over artistic concerns, and that enough theatres are experiencing the negative effects of these tendencies that we need to open up a public discussion about them. Tendencies are very different from blanket conclusions.
I think that whether or not the points I make in the essay have validity is best answered by our artists. I could not agree more with Roche Schulfer that it would be great to convene groups of artists and other theatre professionals to discuss these issues. It was my hope that the essay would help open up such a dialogue.
But the one thing I believe absolutely essential to such discussions is that artists be “at the table” in enough numbers for their voices to be heard and that the atmosphere of such discussions be such that artists can express what they feel without fearing it might affect their future job opportunities. Under those conditions, what an exciting conversation could take place!
* * * *“WHEN ACTORS ABDICATE”“letters to the editor”
[James Breckenridge’s response to “Art Will Out” was published in American Theatre, volume. 20, issue 3 (March 2003).]
I very much enjoyed Jaan Whitehead’s essay “Art Will Out” (Nov. ’01). What a wonderfully thoughtful and thought-provoking article on the institutionalization of theatre and its discontents!
While it is true that audience surveys, graphs and the spreadsheets of accountants have dominated the arts for a number of years, it is also true that some of the artists, actors in particular, aided and abetted this shift of power. Many years ago, actors demanded they be set free from seasonal contractual restraints of the repertory theatre and be allowed to move around, i.e., be available for commercial, television and motion picture work. In the process, they unwittingly gave up their seats in the boardroom, the dining room and even at the kitchen table.
Much of the avant-garde work of the 1960s and 1970s, however new and exciting, fractionalized audiences and broke down standard accepted forms of theatrical communication, smashing the fourth wall, if not the fifth and sixth. In the process, theatres lost a generation or two of audience members. The “collapsing distance between the artists and the audience” was, in part, created by these “artists” and the “art” that many people just weren’t buying.
There are theatres that blame their lack of success on a dearth of institutional funding and, at the same time, say that audiences today are just so bourgeois that they don’t understand what’s happening, what’s “really going on” in the world. They do this while continuing to present works that most audiences demonstrably don’t want to see. Why should we fund projects that have proven themselves to have no audience, no chance to break even and put the very survival of these institutions in jeopardy? Isn’t it curious that Broadway has reemerged today, not through “Kumbaya” programs of dramaturgical quackery, but through productions—many of which originate in regional theatres—that can still tell a story in a way that most can recognize, participate in and respond to?
Ms. Whitehead states that in planning for art, “You would have to ask what is needed to support and nourish playwrights—and actors—and directors—and designers.” My answer is that if you write it, they will come. If you support the playwright, the good old storyteller, you will create projects that will attract and nourish the very best actors, directors and designers in the business, as well as inspiring those still seeking to break in.
It’s time for theatre institutions to get their house in order—-to send the cooks back into the kitchen and set a new table where everyone can participate. To do this, theatres and the people who run them will have to maintain both their financial and artistic integrity. Ms. Whitehead’s article left little doubt that institutions need to be more open in the artistic directions they choose. But, ultimately, alas, if the institution is not financially viable, then the sound produced by its artistic endeavors, however ambitious, will be like the sound of one curtain falling on an empty theatre, with no audience there to hear.
James BreckenridgeDoylestown, Pa.
[James Breckenridge is a creative script consultant with The PlayCrafters Group, which provides script analysis and private consultations to playwrights and screenwriters.].
* * * *“RISKY BUSINESS”by Tanya Palmer
[Tanya Palmer’s “Risky Busness” was published in Theatre Topics, volume 13, issue 1 (Mar 2003). (Theatre Topics is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1991. It is an official publication of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education and covers theater arts, with a focus on performance studies, dramaturgy, and theater pedagogy.)]
As part of the 2002 Humana Festival of New American Plays, Actors Theatre of Louisville commissioned 17 playwrights to write monologues and scenes responding to a photograph by Lee Friedlander [b. 1934; American photographer and artist] entitled, “Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, 1969.” The photograph interested us for a number of reasons, but one of the primary questions we posed to the writers was this: what is our relationship to monuments we inherited but didn’t create? The responses the writers gave us were too inventive and diverse for me to reduce by summarizing them, but there were two seemingly contradictory impulses that I found revealing. The first was a desire to bring the stone faces on the mountain to life, to cast them as contemporaries, or to transform them into reflections of the characters and their personal struggles. In Lee Blessing’s monologue “Tyler Poked Taylor,” for example, a young gay man transforms the presidents into fantasy lovers, allowing the long-dead men to play an active part in his present day [sic] struggle for identity. The second impulse was to represent the monument and the faces that adorn it as distant, irrelevant, or unfamiliar. In Victor Lodato’s scene, the presidents became ghosts, great white faces that looked like coffins and stared down menacingly at the confused, angry, and disenfranchised people below. Through this experiment, we found that the monument was either mutable and still meaningful or distant and dead, depending on the perspective of the artist who was looking at it. But regardless of which lens each artist was peering through, the looking resulted in inventive and exciting acts of creation.
This interrogation of the monument and its ongoing place in our world was reflected in two recent articles in American Theatre magazine, which focused on a very different sort of monument: the large institutional theatre. Both articles sought to address what the writers perceived as a pressing concern about the way that large institutions relate (or perhaps more to the point, do not relate) with the artists whose work they present, produce and purport to nurture. In “Art Will Out: Can We Put the Art Back In Our Arts Institutions?” author Jaan Whitehead frames the problem like this:
When a theatre grows, the very elements that generate growth—income from ticket sales and fundraising—need to be reproduced each year for the art to be sustained. Theatres become more and more dependent on the box office and on the marketing and fundraising departments to generate this income . . . The institution now needs to feed itself as well as fund its art. ([Jaan Whitehead, “Art Will Out,” American Theatre October 2002:] 32)
She goes on to argue, “[A]s the art becomes increasingly subject to the economic needs of the institution, the institution starts to drive the art rather than the other way around” (Whitehead 32). In the following issue, an article entitled, “The Shape of Plays To Come,” by New Dramatists’ Artistic Director Todd London, asserts [in “The Shape of Plays to Come,” American Theatre November 2002] that there is no longer a unified theatre community, but rather two cultures, with individual artists on one side of the divide and large institutional theatres on the other. There seems to be something in the air. Both articles identify what the writers perceive as a disconnect between the playwrights, actors, designers, and other artists who create the art, and the administrators, marketing directors, and board members who manage the resources. But beyond that, they also identify the cost of that disconnect to both cultures—what happens when institutions suppress or distance themselves from the creative impulse, that “anarchic energy,” as Whitehead describes, that artists possess. These questions, along with our own experiment in monument gazing, have led me to reflect on my own place as a literary manager and dramaturg at a large institutional theatre that is engaged in trying to embrace the new, primarily through the development and production of new American plays. I want to explore the difficulty of embracing the new in the institution, whether it is new plays, new audiences, or new ways of working. And, more precisely, I want to spend some time investigating the way that institutions relate to and manage risk.
It seems like a fairly widely held belief among producers, artistic directors, and audiences alike that producing new work is a risky undertaking. It is not difficult to locate the source of that assumption—new work implies an unknown quantity, with no clear history on which to reflect back that will provide us with lessons on how to proceed. From the point of view of the publicists who must connect with potential audience members and the development departments who are responsible for finding funders, it would seem that a work by a new writer or theatre collective poses unique challenges. if it is a work by a single playwright who is “emerging” or relatively unknown, there is not the comfort of name recognition with which to sell that ticket or sponsorship. With a work that is created by a collective or in some other way pushes the boundaries of traditional models of creation, there may be the additional problem of finding ways to articulate the nature and scope of the work. And from the point of view of the producer or artistic director, there is also the problem of trust—-how do I know that this young writer/director/theatre maker will be able to create a “product” that meets with the standards or expectations of the institution? And even if the artists involved are well known, the play itself remains “untested.” So while there may be a slightly increased sense of security—their work has succeeded in the past—there is no guarantee that this next new play will produce the same satisfying result.
Producing a play always entails a leap into the unknown, whether it is a new work by a young writer or a classic by someone famous and long dead. At large institutional theatres, the process often involves gathering together a group of disparate artists (often strangers) and relying on their ability to engage with the material, to collaborate effectively with one another—not to mention remember their lines and blocking—all within a matter of a few short weeks. Add into that mix a playwright and a play that is still in the process of becoming, and the risk, it would seem, grows exponentially.
So why produce new work? As humans, particularly humans living in an increasingly cutthroat free market economy, one could argue that we are generally fighting to minimize risk. Minimize risk of failure, of financial loss, of bodily harm, of humiliation—all natural and generally healthy responses to an increasingly dangerous and unforgiving world. But art entails risk. Artists are there to challenge the status quo, to shake us out of our sense of safety, to take us in new directions, “think outside the box,” and whatever other cliche you can come up with for refusing to remain asleep, for presenting the world as it is or could be, for dreaming big and behaving badly. This, it seems to me, is why we value artists—or at least it is why I value them. Yes, art can be soothing and affirming rather than dangerous and disturbing, but if that’s all it is why not just eat a big meal, fall asleep in front of the TV., and call it a day?
So as artists we take risks. But why? For individual artists the reasons may be personal and idiosyncratic-a kind of compulsion, an obsession with a singular vision, or a commitment to a certain kind of truth. Or perhaps the reasons are political, reflecting a desire to change the world by unmasking certain assumptions, or presenting untold stories, or creating alternative worlds. Or maybe they’re a bit of both. But there seems to be a distinction between the kind of risks that individual artists engage in and those that large institutions undertake. Clearly, an institution is made of people, and when that institution is a theatre, it is made up of (hopefully) artists and people who support, believe in, and advocate for artists. But it is also, in many ways, an entity in and of itself, with its own set of constraints and demands. just as individuals are responsible not only to themselves but also to their families and/or communities, institutions are responsible to their families and communities as well. And because those communities represent a diverse, sometimes conflicting group of interests, risky behavior requires that much more weighing and balancing and clarity of thought and purpose. Now, clearly, risks exist on a continuum. Okay, you take a risk just by getting up in the morning. But some decisions don’t require group consensus. If, however, you’re about to leap off a cliff, the 150 people who depend on you for their livelihood, and the hundreds of other supporters—volunteers, donors, loyal audience members—will probably want to know what they’re leaping into, or at least why you think it is a good idea to jump.
One of the reasons that we take risks is the desire, on the part of individual artists and institutions alike, to be rewarded. And the greater the risk, the logic goes, the greater the potential reward. But the nature of risk demands that we take more risks. Leapt off a cliff and landed on a luxurious fluffy cloud? Great. Next time it might be a bed of thorns. And sometimes, the reward prevents us from taking the next leap. Because the more you are rewarded, the more you desire to hang onto that reward, and risk doesn’t seem too enticing anymore.
As Jaan Whitehead’s earlier quote suggests, as institutions grow, their need to sustain their growth begins to influence the decisions they make. Growth implies success—the reason theatres grow and flourish is that they are able to reach an ever-widening audience and raise the funds sufficient to keep them afloat. In order to maintain that success and to sustain that growth, institutions, like individuals, will often seek the comfort of past rewards, perhaps forgetting the risk that led to the reward in the first place. But if it is the artists’ responsibility to take risks, do theatres owe their communities an explanation when they cease to take risks other than the most calculated kind? The question that keeps arising for me is this: if you are about to engage in inherently risky behavior (i.e., the producing of new work), is it better to spend your time and energy coming to an understanding of what the nature of that risk may be and articulating the importance of taking it, or to find as many ways as possible to reduce the risk, so it is the least risky risk it can be?
Unfortunately, it seems that much of our time is spent doing the latter. Why leap off a fifty-foot cliff when you can leap off one that’s only ten? There can be very good reasons for reducing risk, reasons that (hopefully) reflect the needs of the individual artist as well as the institution. Take new play development programs, for example. Many of the ways in which new play development programs are created and positioned around the country seem to reflect this perceived need to reduce risk. Context is everything, and by creating relatively low-stakes situations—a reading or workshop, for example—the organization producing a new play series can provide an artist with the time and space they need to experiment, to make mistakes, to throw away and start anew. These things are often impossible in the pressured environment of a tight rehearsal schedule with an opening night hovering above you. And for the institution, these readings or workshops can provide that much needed time to reflect on the nature of the risk that’s being undertaken. What challenges lie ahead as we embark on this journey? What questions do we need to ask ourselves? And sometimes it becomes clear that some risks aren’t worth taking. But the real problem arises, it seems to me, when the risk is so calculated, so disingenuous that it is no longer a risk at all—it is a sheep masquerading in wolf’s clothing.
But what about those institutions, like the one for which I have the privilege of working, that do take the big leap? What of theatres that commit to full productions of new work, that invite playwrights into the room to tangle with a group of collaborators, and at the end of the process open the doors to audiences and critics who will make of it what they will? Are these brave and courageous souls who’ve got what it takes and are willing to take the heat? Perhaps. But just as new play development programs seek to reduce risks by altering the expectations of the audience and reducing the financial investment involved in full production, theatres that fully produce new work have their own way of modulating or “managing” risk. The festival model, like the Humana Festival of New American Plays, is one of those ways. When former Producing Artistic Director Jon Jory started the festival, one of his well-articulated ideas was that if Actors Theatre put up a bunch of new work and created an event around that, then audiences who might otherwise be resistant to unfamiliar voices and visions would embrace the idea of the festival, and the sense of event that surrounds it, even if the individual plays themselves were not always to their liking. The strategy was a remarkably effective one, and while the festival has continued to grow and evolve through the course of its 28-year history, the basic structure has remained essentially the same. But the structure of the festival is only one way in which the balancing act between perceived risk and perceived safety is achieved. Because, much like the theatre that has grown around it, the festival has become an institution—with many of the same institutional needs and restraints, but with one very unique feature—this is an institution dependent on its ability to continually reinvent itself. [n.b.: The Humana Festival was shut down permanently in 2022.]
Unfortunately, one obstacle to the institution’s ability to take on new risks is the prevalence of critics who offer few rewards for daring leaps, lauding instead only impressive landings. After a disappointingly reviewed Humana Festival of New American Plays, I was down in the theatre’s basement sifting through the storage room, assembling boxes to be taken away and catalogued by the University of Louisville’s archival staff. There I found a packet of reviews from the early 1980s. In an article entitled “Louisville Letdown,” Village Voice critic Don Shewey decried the festival’s failure to live up to the promise of its former successes—plays such as Crimes of the Heart or The Gin Game [Village Voice, 31 March 1980]. (The festival in question, interestingly enough, featured John Pielmeier’s soon-to-be award-winning play Agnes of God.) After spending some time feeling comforted and vindicated by these early examples of privileging past rewards over current risks, I came to an understanding of the obstacles that lay ahead for the institution and the artists working in it, not to mention the artists that we hope to invite in as we move forward. Hard won success by our predecessors is what has allowed us the privilege of presenting new work of the scope we now do-but it is that same success that makes the next leap so much harder to contemplate.
I’d like to return for a moment to Todd London’s thoughts on the current state of institutional theatre in America. “It’s the American way,” he argues. “The innovative becomes the established. Yesterday’s geek-renegades become today’s corporate titans. The institutional theatre in America still sees itself as the alternative theatre, though the pioneers are gone, replaced by second- and third-generation artistic and management leaders without the pioneering spirit. It has become our Broadway, that which the new theatre must rebel against to get free” (London 21). If we accept London’s premise, then what is to be made of those attempts to embrace the new within the institution? Is it possible to make these monuments our own? To transform them in our own image? Or are we so distant from the moment and context of their creation that we’ll inevitably be engaged in a disheartening and futile attempt to resuscitate a corpse?
I am a person who has always struggled with my relationship to the past. As the daughter of a historian, I was always made aware of the importance of looking back to understand where we are and where we’re going. But as a former punk rock girl, who is all around distrustful of authority figures, I am reluctant to look towards mentors and models to chart my course for the future. However, the longer I live, the more I realize that I have no choice in the matter. The past is with us—whether we like it or not. We can try to abandon or destroy it, but I wonder if it might not be a more productive use of our time to try and understand it. The question for me is, how do historic models of innovation assist us in our search for new ways of working? How do we escape our desire to seek out the new risks that emulate past successes? How do we allow the new to be new again? One essential element is to look back at the impulse, not the product of that impulse. As a dramaturg, I feel that my role is to ask why—what informs the artistic decisions we are making? Who do we invite into the room, and who do we exclude, and why? There is nothing wrong with building on the work of our predecessors. We stand on the shoulders of giants. But if we are to honor them, truly, we must stand tall and not be afraid to look further along the horizon, to dream larger and wider than they were permitted to dream. Otherwise, we are simply hiding in their shadows. We are sheep in wolves’ clothing, and our risks are muted-and managed-by fear.
[Tanya Palmer was the Literary Manager at Actors Theatre of Louisville. (ATL was founded in 1964. It was designated as the State Theater of Kentucky in 1974 and is another of the United States’ major regional theater companies. ATL received the Regional Theatre Tony Award in 1980.) Palmer left ATL to become the literary manager at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. She was promoted to the Goodman’s Producer and Director of New Play Development, coordinating the annual New Stages Festival. She’s also the co-editor of two collections of Humana Festival plays, published by Smith & Kraus.
[“‘Art Will Out,’” Part 3, will be posted on Friday, 9 August, with the AT panel discussion in response to Jaan Whitehead’s American Theatre article. More responses will follow, including Zelda Fichandler's essay. Please rejoin the thread to read what other theater people had to say.]
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