American Theater, DIY, & Me

This week Mike Daisey talked with Gothamist about his latest show, How Theater Failed America. The monologue has touched off a great discussion across the country regarding the purpose and the reality of regional theater. Some feelings have been bruised, but this discussion has been a long time coming and it's vital.

My view: It's about time for artists to take a hard look at their values, their options, and their lives and start thinking of ways to create and present live performance without depending on regional theaters. The regional theater model has been a complete disaster because no one has stuck to its principles, so maybe we ought to accept what theater is, what it isn't, and what we can make it. One way to do more than just survive is to recommit ourselves to a model much older than the regional theater (which came into being in this country only about forty years ago).

The old way? DO IT YOURSELF.

As an artist:

1. Got a basement, a living room, or a garage? Congratulations. You are a theater owner.

2. Create the work you believe in. Don't bother sending it to someone else to consider, unless you know a small company willing to take risks. Get together with other artists who share your passion and dedication. If you have the skills to write and perform the show, do so.

3. Charge an amount that you know people in your neighborhood can afford and will be willing to spend on an unknown project. Use the money to pay for your expenses, and pay the artists. You'll have to buy a business license, short-term insurance, and pay taxes on your ticket sales, but this is actually easier than you think.

4. Stick with fellow artists who get your ideas, and try to remain loyal to one another. You are the only people you can count on. Don't exhaust yourself making the rounds with people who are not going to hire you. Hire yourself.

As a theatergoer:

1. If you see that your local big-budget theaters are not producing shows that interest you, call them and tell them why you are not buying tickets to their shows. Better yet, write a letter to the Artistic Director and the Managing Director.

2. Find out what percentage of the artists employed there are from your community. If the theater is not employing local artists, ask why not.

3. Whether you buy a ticket or not, you are paying for any theater company that receives grants and public funding, so tell these folks what you want to see, and how much you're willing to pay for it.

Plenty of people in theater will tell you the DIY approach is silly and won't make you rich. Ask them if they are rich. Ask them if their house or car is paid off. Ask them if they have health insurance. Ask them if they're offering you a job when they mock your plan to bypass their theater.

None of this DIY stuff is from Daisey's monologue. I don't want to put words in his mouth, especially since he is so eloquent.

This is what I have come to realize after twenty years in theater: You won't get anything from regional theaters, other than a come-on and (at best) a staged reading. So while you have the joy and enthusiasm for this art form, just go for it.

Theater vs. 14/48

Before the memory fades I want to say a few things about 14/48 The World's Quickest Theater Festival.

I was invited to write for the first weekend of the January 2008 edition, where I again encountered the festival's unique standards. In case you don't know about this yet, the invited 14/48 writers are given randomly drawn themes and a cast size (also how many men, how many women) and are asked to write a ten-minute play overnight, for two nights in a row.

The bizarre thing is this: Unlike almost every theater producer in America, the 14/48 Steering Committee LIKES writers. Not only do they like us, they also respect what we do, and what it takes to do what we do. They give strict, clear guidelines: Nothing over six pages, because six pages will perform at ten minutes on stage. Stick to the theme. Give every actor significant work on stage, not a one-liner or a walk-on.

That's it. Those are the constraints, along with the cast size and theme.

And what do WE get?

We get loved. We get a script that WILL be produced. We get a director and a cast who have been instructed to "Go big, or go home!" We get food. We get fun. We get free beer.

But the great thing--the thing that no one can buy or replace--is a chance at RELEVANCE. We get to write a play set anywhere, at any time, with any characters imaginable, from leaders of state to ladybugs. We write it now, tonight, and it is performed tomorrow night.

Back in 2000 I wrote a play set in Seattle, about two rival reporters vying for a career at a (fictional but thoroughly researched) newspaper. The play was about the clash of values I saw shaping up in my adopted city during the latest tech and econ boom. It was a skeptical evaluation of the widely cherished (but in my opinion damaging) Clinton years. It looked at both Boomer and Gen-X practices vs. stated values, and found the next wave of affluence in Seattle to be ominous in moral and ethical terms.

I also thought these cranky themes were woven pretty well--though not as well as they might have been--into a good story with dramatic tension.

I pitched that play--written to cast-size spec in accord with what a local equity theater's literary manager advised would be the best bet for having it produced--to all the people I knew in town, who might be able to put it on its feet and pay the director and actors. The script had not yet achieved its potential, but I thought it could really sing if it had the right director and if we could workshop it for a weekend and make changes as needed. Most of all, I felt that the story had meaning right then, at that moment in my city's history.

No one agreed with me.

Now, of course, every day brings a fresh version of "Hey, Gumby, how come our city has become like THIS?" in our local publications in print and online. But theater isn't addressing this question.

Well, how could it address the questions of the moment? It is not set up to do that. Big budget theater in America is a lumbering idiot. Everything takes forever. Adding to the problem, many equity theaters are run by people who have become so arrogant, they won't read or consider un-agented plays.

This is ridiculous. All sorts of excuses are made, but I have edited enough magazines and newspapers to know that the turnaround time is bogus. It all depends on whether or not you are actually looking for new work.

From past experience with other plays, I know that in the U.K. even the most famous and prestigious theaters bring in a cluster of interns to read scripts, agented or not. (A notable exception is the Old Vic, which is run by an American. I guess we just love to play the aristocrat.) And most of these companies reply with comments, within four months. A few take six months.

In the U.S., you can expect a theater to take at least six months, if they will read an un-agented script at all. More likely it will take a year for your play to be rejected, without comment. Quite a few American theaters do not reply at all. Is there any other industry in which this would be considered OK? Presumably, they just toss out the script and self-addressed stamped envelope and go to lunch.

But, even if you get a play accepted into a theater's season, it will be nearly two more years before it climbs onto the stage. So, how relevant can it be? This is one reason most of the work you see in theater is of the frothy, uplifting, tap-dancing variety, or the very well-known (often boring) classics you recall from high school English. If a social or political play is presented, it will be written by a very famous playwright and the story it tells will be moldy by the time you see it. With all their gears grinding away, the big theaters are so slow they can't possibly offer up-to-the-minute drama.

All the more reason to see the slam-bam style of theater presented at 14/48. You will not see anything ponderous or mundane. It may have a parachute. Or a rain forest. Or a swine maiden. Or a miracle. Most of all, it will be what all theaters promise, and hardly any deliver: It will be NEW.

Check out the great photos from the January 2008 weekends of 14/48.