McNulty on the State of Regional Theatre

Very very interesting article from Chuck over at the LA Times, mostly focused on the effects of the economy on the quality of theatre around the regions. Check out the full article here.

Chuck does some excellent work here starting with what he sees as the crux:

The problem in a nutshell is this: Established theaters have by and large grown larger, public funding has become a monumental challenge and artistic directors have moved in an increasingly commercial direction, adopting a bottom-line mentality that has put publicity and profitability over bold and substantive choices.

Yes. That really is the nutshell right there. Chuck goes on to give examples of the many leaders leaving these companies and the companies taking on a more “corporate” feel:

The business of theater has become just that — a business. The managers, either from behind the curtain or boldly out in front, are running the show. The most egregious case has been at the Old Globe, where Louis G. Spisto, an executive at the theater, was named CEO/executive producer after O’Brien assumed emeritus status in 2008. Spisto’s corporate title was the first sign of danger. It wasn’t the last.

I’m not sure I completely agree with this statement. A good business certainly takes care of its loyal customers (subscribers) but a good business also knows it must change with the times and look for new markets (audience) to survive and the best way to do this is to know who your audience is and give them a product that they want and need (good stories).

I don’t see a lot of the leadership in the large theatres doing that. And I believe it has everything to do with the old and outdated subscriber model and the old and outdated non-profit and not-for profit models. The newer models, for my tastes, would be a merging of the membership model and perhaps something we could call the “not-ONLY-for profit” model. Frankly, I think most theatres should just become for profit and just get on with it. The only reason for the 501c3 or whatever the hell it is is the tax breaks it allows for donors and the company itself.

But for me, this strange brew flies in the face of risk-taking – which McNulty hits on very well in his article. My only problem is that he never even posits the idea that perhaps the non-profit status might also be behind the lowering of quality theatre. Check out this from the article:

But the Mark Taper Forum, the theater founded by Davidson that was once the flagship of Center Theatre Group, has lost its preeminence. One would think that the tax breaks CTG’s nonprofit status affords would be in the service of producing daring new work and invigorating revivals, but the Taper has become a Broadway beltway. At the moment the theater is helping to launch Playwrights Horizons’ superb production of “Clybourne Park” onto the Great White Way, and its arms are outstretched for “November,” “Red” and “Other Desert Cities,” making 2012 in L.A. feel like a replay of the last few seasons in New York, with a couple of world premieres in the mix.

Again, yes, Chuck is right on the nose here, but again, he goes off on a tangent that doesn’t seem to get to the meat of the matter, touching on ways of funding, the dynamics of boards of directors, artistic leadership, never really asking quite the right question: Why aren’t audiences going to see the theatre that is currently being made?

Here’s more from Chuck on leadership:

Legacies, of course, must be safeguarded, which is no doubt the reason Geffen Playhouse board chairman Frank Mancuso took the highly unusual step of becoming the theater’s interim producing director after the sudden death of Gil Cates last fall. (Where this leaves Geffen artistic director Randall Arney is a real cliffhanger.) But theaters that want to ensure their future need artistic leaders with backbone, as risky and expensive as that can be.

Again, yes, but in which kind of climate would risk taking truly blossom into quality theatre?

And then Chuck gets a quote from Robert Brustein, critic and founder of Yale Rep, and pretty much the whole thing goes off the rails:

“If the NEA and private foundations can increase their subsidies, there may come a time when theaters will recover their adventurousness,” Brustein elaborated via email. “But fame as much as money is the spur that drives contemporary theater artists off their true path. And until we start respecting those playwrights, directors, actors, and designers who have chosen the relative obscurity and lower income of the nonprofit world in exchange for artistic freedom and institutional satisfaction, Red State self-interest will triumph over Blue State collectiveness, leaving a once great movement in the same sterile populist void that created it in the first place.”

No. No, no, no.  This is not a Red State-Blue State thing, this is not another “let’s get our cut of the government funded pie”, this is something deeper that speaks to the essence of theatre as unique entertainment and a means to tell the stories about ourselves, the stories about who we are and what we want to be. Some theaters could use a little more “Red State self interest” and a little less “Blue State collectiveness” and then there are other companies that would benefit from the exact opposite.

The question should be, “How do we wrestle the ancient art of theatre into the Twenty First Century?” Not as a creaky old thing, but as an art form that remains viable and essential to our cultural fabric. For me it all lies in good relevant stories, well told. That’s it really. That’s all it’s really been about since the beginning of theatre. What’s changed now is how you reach your audience, that has certainly shifted in the last twenty years.

So, well done, Chuck, for asking some tough questions, but I challenge you to dig a little deeper next time and ask even more. Maybe of yourself and perhaps how you are contributing to the very things you are warning against. Something we should all be asking ourselves.