The Coming Mike Daisey-Teresa Eyring Smackdown?

I kind of figured it might happen -- someone in a public way would take on Mike Daisey and his belief (and monologue) How Theater Failed America. It's odd for me because I consider them both friends and I also think the world of both of them and I also think they both have a learning curve in terms of issues surrounding institutional and nonprofit and regional theatre (if I may trifurcate). But I'm very glad that Mike has posted a long, dramatic and well-reasoned reply to Teresa's editorial in the current issue of American Theatre.

I am myself going to take some time to reread both Teresa's essay and Mike's reply and then post some thoughts. In the meantime, does anyone want to take a side? Or offer a third way?

Comments?

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You know who is cool? Jonathan West

So I'm sitting here at the office with my pupils wildly dilated, not because I'm on some drug but because I just got back from the opthomologists' office for my yearly check-up. Everything is as it was last year, except the pressure in my eyes went up a little bit, after going down a little bit. There's a history of this in my family (thanks so much, Dad, and for the baldness, too), but the doctor checked the optic nerve and everything is normal. I just have to be vigilant, especially now that I'm -- gulp! -- friggin' middle-aged and all.

Anyway, last night was the community board meeting about the Provincetown Playhouse, and I'm going to be posting on that very soon. What I didn't post about -- well, there's a lot that I haven't posted about lately -- was the panel that I was on two Sundays ago at the Barrow Street Theatre, hosted by Mike Daisey and in connection with his monologue, How Theater Failed America. As you, dear reader, surely know, I've mixed it up here and there with Mike, but as I consider him a friend now as well as a colleague, and especially as I think I better understand, courtesy of his monologue, where he's coming from with regard to how we create theatre in this country, I imagine my future posts on all things Daisey will be less hostile and more hortatory. (Side note: Isn't the word "hortatory" fun? It's like Dr. Seuss made it up, but it's really a word.)

Anyway, I just came across what my buddy Jonathan West had to say about Daisey's panel from two weeks ago, which you can -- and really should --read at his blog. He says not much about me and that's cool, other than reassuring his loyal readers that if they want any dish or dirt on me, he's got a barrel full sitting in his backyard. But that's not why I think he's cool. Actually, here's a little history -- and no, he doesn't know I'm writing this. I thought Jon West was cool from the moment I met him, which if memory serves was about 20 years ago when I was working full-time (and rather unhappily) as a receptionist in the NYU undergraduate admissions office on Washington Square North; he was one of a slew of kids that led campus tours. Jon directed the first real play I ever wrote, and he's one of very, very few people I have ever met who I would consider a clear theatrical natural. We did go through a whole bunch of years without being in touch, but ever since we got back in touch two years ago, I have been so very glad of it -- glad for how he has both changed and not changed.

So I'm reading Jon's blog, and he wrote something that, because I knew him way back when, really made me ponder this curious arc we call life:

So it was me and a bunch of New Yorkers and one dude from Boston with a British accent. I felt a little out of my element going into the night, to tell you the truth. All of my anxieties about my career -- or lack of career to be more accurate -- were being tested by having a place at this visionary chit-chat. I have great respect and admiration for all the people I’ve listed. They get into the ring and battle everyday. Me, I left New York after college, never really giving my young rebel a chance to shine on the streets of challenge and change that are New York. I drove back to the Midwest and bought a house and did plays away from a twisted real estate market and kinetically competitive artistic environment like the one found in New York. I felt going in like I should have been sitting at the kids table, but somehow I was just tall enough to take a place at the adult table, so I would need to jump in and swim in the conversational pool.

I was nervous. But all these artists and the ever-gracious Mike Daisey seemed nice enough, so I was committed to putting myself through a possibly humiliating professional experience since I was feeling a little like I had no professional experience when compared to the others in the group. I also have loads of dirt on Leonard Jacobs from our college days together at NYU, so I knew I’d at least be able to put him in a corner if things got out of hand.

But my attitude about my place on this panel and the state of the American theater really started to change almost from the moment I showed up at the Barrow Street Theatre. Magical started to happen that made me realize that, yeah, the theater is broken, and maybe it always has been, but there’s really nothing quite like it. And in terms of the people the theater attracts right here and now in the every unfolding national story of that art form, I can think of no other group of aging enthusiasts, young dreamers, and mid-career battered and leather-tough practitioners to lead the charge towards making sure that future generations of theater fans and makers will understand how to jiggle the handle on the toilet that is American theater and make it work as best as it can.

When Jon writes about leaving New York after college and never giving his young rebel "a chance to shine on the streets of challenge and change that are New York" (gorgeous phrasing!), I have to say that I completely remember when Jon left and how, quite frankly, heartbroken I was. I had visions of Jon and I being a writer-director team for the ages, darers of derring do and don't who would put together theatre experiences that would smash doors and crash walls and bash all the idiocies and platitudes that Leonard, at 20 or 22, felt were so important to bash. I don't want to make this posting needlessly gay (I'll wait...you stop laughing yet?), since it was always clear that Jon is heterosexual and I am not, but I loved him then, truly loved him, for his talent and for his genius and for his strength and for what I think was a really marvelous case of self-actualization -- he was certainly more wholly endows with a sense of who he was and is far, far more I was at that time. And so in my heartbreak -- in my inability to understand why on earth Jon would leave the Big Apple for home in Wisconsin -- I was a little angry, too. Or at least a little mystified and disappointed and unable to understand something that's very, very key in terms of what he posted on his blog about the panel.

Jon returned to Wisconsin and really did do everything in the professional theatre that anyone in New York could do -- acting, writing, directing, and getting his union membership; founding and operating a successful nonprofit theatre; holding one, if not more, prominent positions within an institutional nonprofit theatre; plus forging friendships and relationships and having a family and buying a home and doing all the things that theatre people too often forget to do or wait too long to do as they operate in pursuit of a life on the stage. Because Jon did all this and did it so well, it tells me, as it should tell all of us, that the theatre world is not only about New York, and that I was a fool to think it was. Indeed, what a fool I was to have such a shallow, cloistered worldview at the time (and I did!).

As a result of everything I've mentioned up above, I therefore think there's no question that Jon totally had a place on Daisey's panel. In fact, I'd go even further and suggest that his place was indispensible to Daisey's efforts -- and point. As for Jon's inner rebel, I think by moving back to Wisconsin and choosing the life path he's chosen, he's been most rebellious -- I mean, he totally eschewed the conventional wisdom about a theatre artist's life happening only in New York or Los Angeles or even Chicago; he proved it can be done anywhere and elsewhere.

So, Jon, don't you ever wonder whether you were "tall enough to take a place at the adult table." You are an inspiration to me, my friend. And part of my education, too. I'm so glad that you are, and always were, my friend.

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Thank You, Mike Daisey -- Roundtable Tomorrow, Comedy Tonight

To my unalloyed delight, Mike Daisey has asked me to appear on the first of a series of post-show roundtable panels after Sunday performances of How Theater Failed America, which has just transferred from Joe's Pub to the Barrow Street Theater. This means tomorrow night, folks, so run run run, forget the babysitter, and come listen to me and a whole bunch of other sages and fogeys discuss how we're going to tear the American theatre a new one.

Here's the full breakdown of all six panels. May I add that in addition to being thrilled -- quite seriously, I really mean this -- to be on a panel with the great and legendary Robert Brustein, to also be on a panel with Jonathan West, my old buddy from the NYU glory days, fills me with joy and total apprehension -- because the dude is smart!!

Sunday, May 18: “DOWNTOWN, MIDTOWN, EVERYTOWN” with Robert Brustein (Founder of Yale Repertory Theatre & American Repertory Theatre), Gideon Lester (Artistic Director, American Repertory Theatre), Jonathan West (Milwaukee based actor, blogger), Emily Ackerman (actor, ensemble member of The Civilians) Leonard Jacobs (National editor, Backstage), Sheila Callaghan (playwright, Dead City).

Saturday, May 24: “DO-IT-YOURSELF OR BUST” with Greg Kotis (playwright, Urinetown), Jason Eagan (Artistic Director, Ars Nova), Erez Ziv (Managing Director, Horse Trade Theater), John Clancy (Founder of the New York International Fringe Festival), Scott Shepherd (The Wooster Group), Lisa Kron (actor, solo performer, playwright - Well).

Sunday, June 1: “YOU ARE WHAT YOU WATCH” with Jim Nicola (Artistic Director for New York Theatre Workshop), Mark Russell (Founder, PS122 & the Under The Radar Festival), Steve Bodow (Head writer, “The Daily Show” & Elevator Repair Service member), Morgan Jenness (Literary agent, former literary manager of the Public Theater), David Cote (Theater editor, Time Out New York), Isaac Butler (director & blogger).

Sunday, June 8: “FOR PROFIT, NON-PROFIT, NO PROFIT” with James Bundy (Dean of the Yale School of Drama, AD of Yale Repertory Theatre), Dan Fields (Disney imagineer & freelance director), Stephanie Weisman (Founder & Director of The Marsh in San Francisco), Dave Greenham (Executive Director, The Theatre at Monmouth), Tommy Thompson (veteran Broadway PSM) & Diane Ragsdale (Mellon Foundation).

Sunday, June 15: “ASSEMBLING ENSEMBLES” with John Collins (Artistic Director of Elevator Repair Service, The Sound And The Fury), Tanya Selvararnam (actor, collaborator with Jay Scheib & The Builder's Association), Colleen Werthmann (actor, Elevator Repair Service ensemble member), Heidi Schreck (actor, collaborator with The Theatre of the Two-Headed Calf, Seattle's Printer's Devil), Scott Walters (former Artistic Director of Illinois Shakespeare Festival, blogger), Hal Brooks (director, Thom Paine and No Child…).

Sunday, June 22: “THEATER IN 2033” with Rocco Landesman (Tony®-winning producer, Angels in America, The Producers), Gregory Mosher (Tony®-winning director, former head of Lincoln Center), Oskar Eustis (Artistic Director of the Public Theater), Richard Nelson(playwright, Conversations in Tusculum), Paige Evans (Director, Lincoln Center's new LCT3 program), Garrett Eisler (Village Voice theater critic, blogger).

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New Podcast: Mike Daisey, How Theater Failed America

And now for something...different! The Leonard Jacobs Show is back, and my latest guest is Mike Daisey. Yes, I know, I know, I've tangled with him before in the various and hallowed halls of the blogosphere and the Internets, but this was a really terrific conversation and I'm deeply grateful to Mike for participating. And here's the link to the podcast: download and enjoy!

Also, here's a link to Martin Denton's review of Mike's show.

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An Interview with Mike Daisey

Not mine, silly -- I'll just be meeting him for drinks on Friday and practicing putting on my boxing gloves in the meantime. No, this interview was conducted by one of my dearest friends, Jonathan West, over at his Artsy Schmartsy blog; there's also a podcast to listen to but the link seems down.

Pretty provocative interview.

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My Peep Jonathan West

One of my bestest bestest bestest college friends, Jonathan West -- who is still, miraculously, my friend after all these years -- has been making his own splash in BlogWorld of late.

Check out his Artsy Schmartsy -- and not just so you can read about him and Mike Daisey and me and yadda yadda. He's also got a great post on The Adding Machine composer Joshua Schmidt. All in all, awesome read.

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On Critics and Criticism

I've debated for about a month now whether to blog about the February 2008 issue of American Theatre, which was fashioned loosely around the idea of theatre criticism -- its antecedents, its current currency, its future. I was sort of hoping TCG would post the articles on line, but the only one I can find is this Q&A called The Critic as Thinker, with Roger Copeland moderating a trialogue between Robert Brustein, Eric Bentley, and Stanley Kauffmann, who combined have 4,500 years of experience between them. And who, while making great points and offering great advice, insight, and a sweeping sense of retrospection, managed to depress the daylights out of me in the process. That these men are the totems -- that these men, I ought to say, remain the totems -- makes me terribly nervous about the future of theatre criticism. Which is largely what the American Theatre issue is all about.

Sure, sure, Mark Blankenship wrote about his "controlled experiment" in another piece, the well named Should You Take a Critic to Lunch? (the answer is yes), featuring critics and artists from Denver, Nashville and San Francisco, and investigated how, and to what extent, the two interact. Nice work from Mark, although I'd have preferred to have seen, in addition to his piece, a more philosophical think piece that would investigate why such interactive dynamics between critics and artists are seen in our current theatrical marketplace as anomalous -- given that, once upon a time, it was commonplace, perhaps even expected, for there to be casual and professional symbiosis between craftsfolk and those who criticize their work.

I was reminded of this the other day when I wrote about Mike Daisey's essay. Among other things, there's something very wrong with an art form that leaves critics no other choice, if they should want to communicate with artists, but to do so via blog. Not to rag on blogs, mind you; I already did enough of that earlier in the week and clearly have my own talents for unvarnished bloviation.

My point is, I could have of course sent Mike an email directly, but the blogosphere seems to be the current equivalent of the town pub or the theatre lobby -- and so that's where I choose to convene. It also seems much more inevitable that critics and artists will interact in places like Denver or Nashville or even San Francisco because the size of the theatre communities there are so much smaller than places like New York, which I know is integral to the arguments of Scott Walters and Zach Mannheimer that we should take our surplus of artists and haul them, by the train to Dachau if necessary, to those parts of the nation that are theatrically underserved. To me, this argument is weak because articles such as Mark's are proof that folks in Nashville don't need folks in New York telling them what they need.

The critic-artist dynamic is also inevitable in smaller market because critics are, more and more, also functioning as the feature writers and the writers of advance pieces; bloggers are helping to expand coverage of those markets, and bloggers, so far as I know, are more likely to be theatre folk themselves, or at least feel freer about commiserating with theatre folk.

I was particularly interested, too, in what TCG Executive Director Teresa Eyring wrote in her monthly column, to which she gave the title This Art Is Mine:

Theatres and critics stand at an electrifying place in time. More people want to play. And there are more tools to play with, both in terms of content and technology.

And that brings me to another piece in American Theatre: a long essay by Randy Gener that eluded me at times but intrigued me. It's called Notes on Heart and Mind: Or, the Promise of Theatre Criticism in the Republic of Broken Dreams.

Randy's piece partly considers the effects of media consolidation on theatre criticism specifically and arts criticism generally, and there's an understandably sad, lamenting tone to it. Like Randy, I was a fellow at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center's Critics' Institute (him in 2003, me in 2004) and I, too, am somewhat alarmed by the various trends in the field, none of which are especially positive. I teach at the O'Neill every year now, and the prospects for the fellows after leaving the O'Neill are terrible. Yet these writers soldier on because they must.

I should add that there are great blog posts about Randy's article: one from Stage Matters and one from Jay Rasknolnikov; the latter's post has the provocative title "Do We Have the Theatre Our Critics Deserve?"

Jay's includes a few quotes from Randy's piece, and I'd like to post some thoughts about them. The first quote is:

The vast majority of critics languish somewhere in a floating middle, grateful to have managed for so long, their work perennially underpaid, their value in both the theatre an journalism professions constantly under-minded, and yet still in love with the theatre. Over time, some of these long-practicing critics ease into the mind-deadening habit of writing 250-to-500-word capsule reviews, or they con themselves into believing that the seasonal doldrums, come awards time, amount to theatrical sizzle. . . .

I suppose this is true, but let's also be blunt: most critics aren't all that stellar at what they do to begin with. Seriously, from a literary point of view, read some of our critics sometime and see if you can ignore the strain to be clever, to dance merrily with the well-turned jibe, dig, or pithy and cutesy ha-ha-ho-ho-hee-hee.

Part of the problem, too, is that most critics have no practical experience on the stage. That's why, at the end of my response to Mike Daisey, I made sure he's knows that I've written plays and staged lots and lots of plays by others; that I've produced more than my fair share of beer-bust fundraisers; that I've whacked more than a few rusty nails into stolen flats and two by fours; that I've gone into hock on behalf of cockamamie plays I didn't believe in and on behalf of plays I'd have given over my life for; that I've played to four people in the theatre, six people in the theatre, eight people in the theatre, no people in the theatre, and been ignored by the critics regardless of attendance; that I've starved and I've celebrated, done brilliant work and crappy work and I've done enough theatre to understand the goddamn difference.

There is a part of me that finds it incredibly ironic to be known mostly as a critic now because it was the last thing I intended to pursue professionally. Until 1999, I was working temp jobs and developing new work and struggling. I turned 30, directed my 40th play, went to the ATM machine and nothing came out. I was done. Well, sort of.

And I am grateful: having done theatre informs my criticism. That's not a new statement I'm making, nor am I making it particularly insightfully. But my own experience is why I'm not at all convinced that all 500-word reviews are, to use Randy's word, mind-deadening: 100 words is as deadening as 1,000 or 10,000 words if the critic's writing is deadening in the first place. Indeed, I'm on the fence as to what degree the real issue in contemporary criticism is word count. Not all theatre is created alike: is 2,000 words really going to be necessary to review Boeing Boeing, the 1960s play that's coming to Broadway this spring? I mean, ok, maybe it'll be some far-out, revelatory and phatasmagorical paean to free love, gag comedy and potheads, but more likely I think 500 words will furnish readers with enough of a sense of story, plot, casting and value to go back to reading Gawker.

Are there differences between criticism and reviewing? Of course. And there should be a place for both -- and the fact there isn't much of one, as my archenemy George Hunka suggested once, is unfortunate. But I don't think, as George also suggested once, that's because American critics aren't capable of writing long-form criticism, either in book form or in periodicals. I'm not sure critics actually pitch such books in the first place.

And that brings me, more generally, to a little bit of obviousness. We critics lament the lack of space, especially for long-form writing, but we take it for granted that the average reader wants more verbiage. I'm not even sure theatre people want more verbiage. One reason why column inches are cut and cut and cut and cut and cut and cut is because survey after survey indicates that readers don't read criticism that's too long, however one defines that. I know this because I've seen such surveys.

Randy also writes:

American critics are trained to be witty aesthetes, quip-happy gatekeepers who see every play as an invitation to outshine the murk being evaluated. Frequently they are hit-seekers rather then theatregoer; they look fully animated and alive only when discussing a show's commercial possibilities. Will it sell? If it won't why not? Being better read, better educated and better exposed to theatre than most Americans doesn't always ensure that critics see the purpose of criticism, its mission or potential. Why aren't critics arguing that a healthy arts-critics scene is vital to the establishment of a free and advanced society?

Gosh, if only American critics were trained to be aesthetes. Not true. If they were aesthetes they wouldn't laud crap. Period. And insofar as the purpose of criticism, we shouldn't bully ourselves into thinking there's but one philosophy for criticism out there. Indeed, in the Brustein-Bentley-Kauffmann threeway (picture that at your own risk), a reference is made to a phrase Bentley coined: consumer guide. As Bentley is a Marxist (or was, or something), his point is reviewers ought to function as verbal Zagats for the masses. I, however, don't see this is the purpose of criticism (or reviewing). But here's another thing: Bentley is a Marxist (or was, or something). Kindly name a critic who is known in a large way in terms of his (or her) political beliefs and who, owing to that, demonstrates through criticism the manner by which their beliefs infiltrate and determine that criticism. What is gone is the nexus between politics and theatre in terms of criticism. Thank God it's still on the stage.

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Bring Out the Models!

I am getting into the new model discussion very late -- so late that I fear there's already a kind of orthodoxy around this subject that I am obviously flouting by engaging in a discussion (there's the word -- engaging!) with Mr. Daisey.

I should note that Mike and I exchanged emails privately today, and despite areas on which we are likely to agree or disagree, I was actually personally gratified by his interest in getting to know me and, later in March, getting together and breaking bread (and hops). As per my usual policy, I won't get into the content of my emails or of my private discussions with people. But I feel very good about what I've said and done, I think he feels very good about what he's saying and doing, and all of that, in the end, is about getting off one's ass.

Meanwhile, I decided to allow the publishing of a comment by Scott Walters, even though his first sentence asks whether...ugh, I'm too tired at 12:15am to find it to quote it precisely...but basically whether I want everyone to hold hands and sing. No, Scott, I don't want everyone to hold hands and sing. Because if you're holding hands, you're not doing something about problems in the American theatre. And if you're singing, well, Ryan Seacraft wants to check your bulge.

I do, however, want to respond to Scott's terse four-point plan, presented as a comment on a different blog, for how to take a half-century of the regional theatre/nonprofit/institutional theatre business model and chuck it out the window. It is more than likely that some of these thoughts have been expressed elsewhere and better, so please forgive any redundancies. Please understand that if you already know all or any of this, or if you've discussed any or all of this, or if you just want to blow up the carriage containing the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary so as to foment a World War and therefore don't care about any or all of this, that's ok. I do.

And my goal in this case, I might add, is not to refute, really, so much as to elaborate. Scott writes:

1. Decentralization. Get out of the major cities and gather somewhere else that isn't already choked with theatre. No drive-by guest artists from Nylachi.

So the problem is that regional theatres job in actors, writers, directors, etc., from elsewhere? That's fair, I think, if we're talking about regional theatres like the Intiman or the Wilma or New Rep or the Guthrie or the Arden or the Woolly Mammoth or ACT. But I'd gently -- gently, bloggers, very gently -- point out that there are differences between these groups and nonprofit presenters. In fact, here -- take a break from your rabies foaming and visit the website of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. While there is obvious overlap between the business models of the groups represented in APAP and, say, the membership of TCG, fundamentally they are after the selling of different kinds of products. Performing arts presenters aren't really in the business of generating new work but presenting work already created elsewhere. And no, my darlings, I don't mean E-I-E-I-O Repertory Theatre's Kabubi-style revival of Arsenic and Old Lace. I mean stuff like Matt & Ben. Now, regardless of what you think of such things, these organizations employ many, many, many artists -- indeed, many of the same artists who are, on other occasions, jobbed in from elsewhere to the regionals that are held in such low esteem. So when we say "no more drive-by guest artists from Nylachi," could it be too general?

Also, while I support the idea in theory -- and while I admire my buddy Zach Mannehimer for having the guts to put his money where his mouth is and shlep all over the US and land in Des Moines, I believe there is something vaguely paternalistic about this theory, too. And Zack knows that, and time will tell whether my concern is validated or not. (And if not, that'll be a good thing.) Now, perhaps it really is the case that red-state America requires a strong dose of blue-state-generated paternalism. But the idea that there are too many theatres and artists in Nylachi and therefore we must persuade people to go off and tell all the citizens who aren't in Nylachi that they should need our surplus artists, they should want our surplus artists, oh, they should welcome us, "they'll greet us as saviors," etc., is a little on the presumptuous side.

Quite frankly -- and here I speak as the national theatre editor of Back Stage -- there are far, far more artists in the areas beyond Nylachi than you think. Did you know Nashville is a booming theatre town? And booming with real-life Nashvillians? If it wasn't late, I'd actually do a list. Des Moines isn't on it, but I am constantly shocked by where there's theatre, and where there's theatre people fighting the good fight. These people are rightly infuriated by the NEA paying Shakespeare companies to come to their towns -- towns where they've already been making theatre, including Shakespeare -- as if they don't exist. That's paternalism, too. If this first theory is to be put into practice, I simply ask that we do some due diligence -- much on the Zach model, actually.

Note that I'm not bashing the theory. Just concerned about its sweeping nature and about the method(s) by which it may or may not be put into practice.

Scott writes:

2. Localization. Form an ensemble that will stay together for a while. Preferably with at least one resident playwright attached who writes plays for the ensemble. Become an active member of the community. Listen.

Fair enough. This is all predicated on economic viability, of course, but I have no problem with the ensemble method of creating theatre. I worry that people would impose it on vicinities in such a way as to make it seem that it is the only way to make theatre, but these things have a way of finding their own way in any event. After all, everyone thinks they want to suck Harold Clurman's teat (and Harold, as we know, only wanted to suck Stella Adler's), but the Group did not last all that long. What it did was birth a new generation of theatre artists. But again, it did not birth a long-term ensemble.

3. Tribal economics. Pool income. Take out what you need to survive. Each member brings more to the table than their theatrical specialty. Ensemble controls ancillary income. Everyone does everything.

Well, this is back to Zach's philosophy, and I'll let Zach speak to that if he wishes. I'm not convinced this is realistic -- I mean, what do you do, point a gun at people and tell them that unless they're willing to do When We Dead Awaken in Phoenix you'll starve them to death -- or make them serve Hamburger Helper for a week? I mean, fine, ensemble means ensemble, ok, we get it, lovely. But how, in this day and age, are you going to actually persuade people to start doing this? That's what I mean by DOING something. Presenting oneself as Karl Marx doesn't tell Lenin how to overthrow the Tsar. Well, actually, the Communist Manifesto does, ok, scratch that. But you see what I mean. Hopefully.

4. Education. Teach young artists the entrepreneurial and collaboration skills needed to control their own artistic lives and truly co-create.

Yes, yes, ok, but where? I mean, seriously, are we proposing a communist theatre? I ask that question not as a political red-flag, pardon the pun, but how does one make this happen in a capitalist system?

OK, done. Go ahead and yell at me some more for daring to question -- or even support with questions -- your orthodoxy. I hope it's not so precious that one cannot question it.

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Mike Daisey Refutes Me...

Mike Daisey's written a response/rebuttal/parry/thrust/whine regarding my earlier post -- and perhaps that's because, in this verbalicious world of blogging and fisking, he had to do both (very Isaac Butler of him). Having been out of the sandbox for awhile, I wanted to jump in before Daisey raises the moat on his sand castle and gets eaten by crocs.

In his response, Daisey fisks my post, lamenting that he was "lumped in" with my thoughts on Marsha Norman's essay on how to make more and better plays a la August: Osage County. This was partly to illustrate my point that there's no unanimity in American theatre theory anymore, aesthetically or otherwise, and while perhaps that's not an anomaly from a historical point of view (at all), what Norman seems to be advocating and what Daisey seems to be advocating are fundamentally at odds with one another. Perhaps Daisey only wants to be viewed in some sort of hortatory political-aesthetic vacuum. It would have helped if he'd taken Norman on, read her essay, thought about it, and -- key word -- engaged with it.

Anyway, due to Daisey's

growing concern for the state of things as I saw them, combined with MANY late-night drinks with actors, staff, board members and artistic directors, as well as TCG conferences, statistic-reading, hard research and emotional stories

he's created his new piece, How Theater Failed America.

That's fine. I have no problem with creating. But please allow me to suggest that Daisey (who I should note does compliment my writing) may be unaware that I, too, have had many late-night drinks -- and lunches, breakfasts, coffees, and phone calls -- with actors, staff and other industry folk. That's part of my job. That's what I did when I was a reporter for five years; that's what I still do as I oversee a lot of Back Stage coverage (even though most of my bylines are attached to my work as a first-string critic); that's what I do as I write for various other publications. I want to add that I don't feel the need to get out there, wave the flag, and scream "I made that story happen, I made that story happen," mostly because editors don't usually get the credit from the outside world for what they do. That's fine, and I'm not after that. But I do want to be sure that Daisey (and you, the reader) are aware that he doesn't have a monopoly on information.

And byline or no byline, I've been reporting on the state of the industry for years. No, it has not involved attendance at TCG conferences (although I've been invited, my company didn't budget travel for it until this year), but it has involved many interviews, on and off-the-record, with TCG executive directors (I had lunch recently with Teresa Eyring), plus familiar faces from ART/NY, plus artistic directors and managing directors at major, minor, and utterly unheard of regional theatres; plus relationships with full-time, name-brand arts advocates across the nation -- organizations that theatre people don't necessarily talk about but are key to its survival, from Americans for the Arts to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.

I have reported extensively from the factual, statistical and anecdotal points of view on the state of the American theatre and I am proud of my record.

Daisey writes:

So when Leonard rhetorically asks:"But what is Daisey doing about it?"I am doing my job as an artist--I am responding within my form to events as I see them, and trying to bring a conversation that is utterly UNKNOWN to audiences and board members out into the light. I think there is inherent worth to that, and I hope that my efforts will rise above dogma and rhetoric to create art that spurs real conversation, especially among people to whom this conversation (as blase as it may be to Leonard, to the point that he's sick of it) is utterly unknown to general audiences, as naturally theaters do their level best to insulate themselves and their board members from anything like it.What does Leonard think I am doing?

You see, I don't know that it's an artist's job to respond to events as he sees them, but I do feel it's an artist's opportunity to respond to events as he sees them. Not having seen his piece yet, I cannot agree or disagree that there will be a conversation "unknown to audiences and board members" that he's trying to bring "out into the light." But if it's a monologue, I ask you, where is the dialogue? After the play? Ah, I see: it's about what "spurs" real conversation after the presentation of the art. I get it. Well, that's ok, I guess. But wouldn't it be even more powerful if the conversation occurred during the presentation of the art? If the art itself was the conversation? Invent a second character and debate it, Mr. Daisey. Possible?

In my prior post, I went on to write that Daisey "despises the nonprofit business model (that has undoubtedly hired him to perform)..." He writes,

I'm going to have to blow the whistle on this here—this is sloppy. I haven't ever said that I have some issue with the nonprofit business model. I specifically (and I think it's very clear) have an issue with corporations, the fact that corporations have the rights of people, and the effect (corporatization) that this has on organizations ruled by corporations.

I could write a lot here about how I do feel about non-profit and for-profit theater, but that will wait until another time—I'm not an essayist by nature. The long and the short is that I despise the coporatization of American theater, just as I despise the coporatization of American life—and my issues with the regional theater system do not derive from their non-profit status, though many of their internal structures are obviously shaped by that choice of business model.

But in Daisey's original essay, he deliberately picks apart the nonprofit business model. How does the following NOT criticize the nonprofit business model:

....Literary departments have blossomed over the last few decades, despite massive declines in the production of new work. Marketing and fundraising departments in regional theaters have grown hugely, replacing the artists who once worked there, raising millions of dollars from audiences that are growing smaller, older, and wealthier. It's not such a bad time to start a career in the theater, provided you don't want to actually make any theater.

The biggest reason the artists were removed was because it was best for the institution. I often have to remind myself that "institution" is a nice word for "nonprofit corporation," and the primary goal of any corporation is to grow. The best way to grow a nonprofit corporation is to raise money, use the money to market for more donors, and to build bigger and bigger buildings and fill them with more staff.

I mean, Daisey writes that I'm "sloppy" for analyzing his essay as a take-down of the nonprofit business model, but it's Daisey who mentions "raising millions" from a dying demographic, who has to "remind" himself that " 'institution' is a nice word for 'nonprofit corporation'." He actually wrote -- have to post this twice:

I haven't ever said that I have some issue with the nonprofit business model.

Really? Anyway, Daisey goes on:

I'd argue that I loathe the coporatization of the American stage, period—"over" implies that there is a level of corporatization that I would ever be happy with. :)

Here we see the Happy Worker charge—since many theaters are corporatized, and I work at some of them, I must approve of their ways and means...I should shut up and be a Happy Worker. This is a Chomsky-esque argument—taken to its logical extreme, I should be living on the side of a mountain in a yurt to ensure that I don't use anything made by a corporation, since I don't approve of their place in our society.

That's bullshit. Some do that—more power to them. Enjoy the yurt. I'm a monologuist and a theater artist, so I need to reach people for my work to exist, and I work in the theaters of America. I work with corporations every day—I pay them to have an internet connection, I pay them for my phone, I receive money from them...they are woven into every part of my life, just as they are in all our lives. I've chosen, as many have, to engage with them, and seek out ways to call them to account in ways large and small.

If I'm uncomfortable with with my relationship with these organizations, and the way theater is run in America, I should probably do something about that. I could start by talking about it. Perhaps even on stage in some way.

...oh. That's right. That's exactly what I'm doing that made Mr. Jacobs question whether I should be speaking at all.

The following is directed to Mr. Daisey.

Mr. Daisey, please allow me to directly introduce you to Minnie Maddern Fiske. For the last part of the 19th century and until her death in 1932, she was deemed one of the most audacious and forward thinking and artistically progressive actresses on the American stage. Like you, she had a real problem with the corporatization of the American stage -- as exemplified by a commercial entity called the Theatrical Syndicate, also called The Trust. Look it up if you want to research it.

Well, the Trust controlled virtually all live regional theatre in the US, and great swaths of the theatre in New York. Period. No exaggeration. Next to Mr. Rockefeller's Standard Oil, it was one of the largest pure monopolies in America. You worked in their houses, you played by their rules and you didn't complain. There were no unions. There were no other theatres. And none of it even remotely favored actors, writers -- anyone.

For reasons you can also investigate, Mrs. Fiske decided not to play ball. At all. Period. True, she enjoyed the benefits of being wedded to Harrison Grey Fiske, publisher of the New York Dramatic Mirror, a broadsheet, but that was neither here nor there. She challenged the Trust and almost immediately she had a problem -- no place to play. At one point, Mrs. Fiske was shlepping not just herself but her own company of actors around the nation, playing in barns, tents, out in the open air -- anywhere that wasn't run by the Trust. My God, a yurt would have been like Trump's Mar-a-Lago to the woman. So when I suggest that, if you really have issues with the corporatization (whatever that means) of the nonprofit theatre world, you should think about performing somewhere else, it's not such an unfathomable or radical idea. What all of this is is the continuation -- and repitition -- of history, almost exactly 100 years later, with names and some of the circumstances different today. Virtually by herself, Mrs. Fiske managed to take down the Trust through her actions and her bravery. And it took years. Indeed, there were zero financial incentives for her to do what she did. But she did what she did because she elected to put her money where her mouth was.

Let me add: I'm all for engagement. But the idea that nonprofit theatres are going to decorporatize (whatever that means) is unrealistic. First, I know at least as many artistic directors and managing directors as you do, and even off the record I've never had a single one talk about devil's bargains with board members and feeling shackled. Good nonprofit governance, they have told me time and again, is about acquiring board members who support the artistic goals of the institution, not bring their own agendas to bear. So unless you're suggesting that you have proof that company after company is being sundered to the evil agendas of board members -- and if you do, how about some specific names, hm? -- I fear there's something agenda-driven, in fact, about what you may have in your piece.

OK, back to the third person.

As a critic, I engage daily with works whose philosophies, construction, and/or aesthetic I may or may not cotton to. By opting to perform in nonprofits, Daisey may or may not be undermining his greater argument. If he's a monologuist, he could certainly perform anywhere, couldn't he?

Yet Daisey doesn't like it when I accuse him of swatting with his "all-seeing, all-knowing, all-generalizing hand the efforts of thousands of people who I think frankly do terrific work in regional theatre more often than not." Well, this is NOT an "I Hate People charge," as he puts it. I'm suggesting that it's unfair and a little bit nasty and hasty to take down an entire group of people because he doesn't like the fact that they're not producing enough new work to satisfy him; or because, in his view, nonprofit theatres are top-heavy with administrators (most people believe nonprofit theatres are grotesquely understaffed). In his original essay, Daisey said that he hopes, regarding the play Nickel and Dimed, that

the irony will reach up and bitch-slap the staff members as they put actors, the working poor they're directly responsible for creating, in an agitprop shuck-and-jive dance about that very problem.

Wow. He does everything but use the phrase "coon show," doesn't he? All actors feel this way about this play -- or about regional theatre? You mean to tell me that the hundreds of actors who have been interviewed -- or have written in the first-person about regional theatre -- have been lying to Back Stage?

Near the end of his response, Daisey writes:

....I wouldn't presume to preach to my peers

And I'm sloppy? Oh, come on. Sure he would. Sure he would. Just practice whatever it is you preach. Just practice whatever it is you preach.

Last note, directly for Mr. Daisey: I would join you anytime, anywhere, in pursuit of effecting real and positive change in the American theatre. You write, "Mr. Jacobs, I know you are passionate about such matters—let me know if you're interested in participating." My thought is: I am already participating. But if you wanted to work with me, or to have me work with you, I'd jump at the chance. Because that's dialogue, too.

And regardless of whether you think I'm a total jerk for calling you on some stuff, at least you are indeed well off your duff and really doing something. That's 10,000% more than most people babbling on like brooks in the bibbity blogosphere. And believe it or not, I really do respect you deeply for what you do. I stopped doing theatre in 1999 for reasons not unlike your friend in Seattle -- after directing 40 plays in New York, running two nonprofit theatres (I hated to fundraise and sucked at it), and writing about 10 plays. I still consider myself one of you, not one of them. I felt for you in your essay and I felt for your friend. If nothing else, I hope you know that.

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The Endless and Boring Bashing of the American Theatre

I'm going to say this and let all of you slam me as you always do.

Everyone who blogs, it seems, seems to have fingers capable of typing all kinds of pissy rants on the American theatre -- regional theatre, I mean -- and everything that is wrong with it. But with the exception of the Zach Mannheimers of the world, I don't see very many people getting off their computer chairs and doing all that much about it. You've got Mike Daisey penning his misty and elegiac boo-hoo, The Empty Spaces; Or, How Theater Failed America, lamenting a system that would allow a "fantastic actress, one of the best" in Seattle, "with an intelligence and precision that has taken my breath away for years," to give up on her career, the human waste of an industry that would let someone talented feel "the fire go out of her from the relentless grind of two full-time jobs: one during the day in her cubicle, the other at night on a stage." And then Daisey plays -- and not without a certain amount of strong justification and ammunition -- another round of America's favorite pastime: the blame game. Oh, it's Actor's Equity's fault; it's the fault of the cruelly overgrown weeds of the institutional-theatre system; it's the evil nexus of arts administrators and the "increasingly complex corporate infrastructure"; it's "the removal of the artists from the premises"; it's ticket prices (and the apparently innocuous unwillingness of theatres, already battered financially, to cut them); it's the fear that the "oldest, whitest, richest donors...will stop supporting the theater once the uncouth lower classes with less money and manner start coming through the door" as a result of cut ticket prices; it's that corporations "make shitty theater"; it's dyed-in-the-wool liberals see no irony in being part of a dysfunctional aesthetic and fiscal dynamic while proferring "another Bertolt Brecht play." Omitted from this list, I'm sure, are all kinds of things, but I'm busy making sure I have enough armor to join the latest class war. Good thing there aren't any lunch counters I can't sit at.

But what is Daisey doing about it? He's creating more and more one-person shows because he knows he can and does make a living -- however much of a living it is, and I'm quite certain it's not what he ought to be paid -- doing such shows. He even admits as much in his piece. So he despises the nonprofit business model (that has undoubtedly hired him to perform), he loathes the over-corporatization of the American stage (that he undoubtedly paid for many of said performances and their development), and he dismisses with a swat of his all-seeing, all-knowing, all-generalizing hand the efforts of thousands of people who I think frankly do terrific work in regional theatre more often than not -- and yet he still solicits and takes their bookings, doesn't he? Here's what I think: STOP PERFORMING IN NONPROFIT VENUES. Will he do that? Will he guarantee that he will never, ever perform in a nonprofit venue of any kind again? How about it? How about putting one's money where one's mouth is. And, at the same time, offer some concrete alternatives to the byzantine and corrupt system he rails against.

Oh, wait. That's right. He's performing a new piece. Yes, I know. And how nice of the nonprofit Public Theater to help him along. Doesn't anyone find some cognitive dissonance in this?

Meanwhile, we've got Marsha Norman writing a New York Times piece called Playwrights and the Theater, lauding the extraordinary August: Osage County as proof positive that the idea of the resident playwright is still viable -- indeed, must br viable -- for more plays of that caliber to be written. Here's the graph:

If we wanted to do one single thing to improve the theatrical climate in America, we’d assign one playwright to every theater that has a resident acting company. People wonder why so much great work came out of Actors Theatre of Louisville in the early days. I was there, so I know it was simply that you had everything you needed: actors who wanted to work, empty stages ready for plays and an artistic director who gave everybody a chance to do whatever they wanted as soon as they could think of it. Playwriting in America has suffered a devastating blow from the development process that keeps writers separate from the rest of the company, working on the same play for years. What playwrights want is what Steppenwolf has given Mr. Letts: a way to get a new play done, see what works, and then go on to the next one. “August: Osage County” is way more than a wonderful play. It is how we get back to having American plays on Broadway. We get them written for actors who want to do them, then producers get on board and start selling tickets.

Funny thing, this, because to make it happen, we would need to actually burnish, financially and aesthetically, the nonprofit business model for the regional theatre system in the US. Hard to do that when we're bitch-slapping people for being insufficiently leftist to revive Brecht.

And what drives me nuts is how the bloggers react: "Yeah, go for it, Mike Daisey!"; "Yeah, Marsha Norman's right"; on and on. You know what the problem is? There's no unified theory of anything in the theatre anymore. Everything seems predicated on rallying around who can be the most ballsy-sounding, who can be the most petulent, who can weave together words to bring forth the necessary tear, who can sound most revolutionary, who can seem most maverick, who can jockey for position with whom, who can be the biggest twit. (Include me, thank you.) There's just no unanimity anymore -- well, there never was, I guess -- but today it's all far worse. What does the blogosphere stand for? Seriously, what is being accomplished beyond a sort of collective vomiting of dissatisfaction without having to present solutions? Oh, overthrow the commercial theatre system and the nonprofit business model and replace it with...what, exactly? Plays that are written or directed by, oh, I don't know, the bloggers? THAT'S what it's about, folks. It's all about jealousy -- well, maybe not all about jealousy, but there's an element of it. It's "Why did Sarah Ruhl's play get produced while I'm still working in some crap-hole?"

You'll notice, by the way, how craftily Norman blames it all on the critics. Yeah, that's right, it's always the critic's fault. Bubonic plague, the deaths at Masada, the temptation of the snake -- all the critic's fault. No, no, it's never, ever because the script was weak or the direction unimaginative -- or because the director encountered a playwright who thought because they authored the play, knew absolutely everything about everything about the play absolutely, wouldn't engage. No, they wouldn't discuss, wouldn't consider, wouldn't ponder, wouldn't go off somewhere and think that perhaps they might learn something about their play they didn't even know. That perhaps they wouldn't genuinely explore whether the director -- or actor, or anyone else -- might not have a legitimate point about their precious, Antiques Roadshow-ready piece of priceless dramaturgical pottery. I came across this line in Norman's essay that made me nuts:

Once in the theater, playwrights have a much better sense than the critics or the general public of who did what in the production. Quite often, we’ll see a play the critics hated, and realize that the direction was actually the problem. Directors rarely get more than a sentence in reviews, but at least we’ll know what the deal was and can say something to the writer. Sometimes we’ll see a play the audience likes, but we don’t respond to. That’s usually fine with us. Critics, however, don’t seem to know the audience is even there, and rarely mention how it responded. This strikes us as odd, to say the least. In any case, we take it all in when we go. We can usually tell by chatting with the ushers whether or not a piece is going to have a long run. We read the Playbill to see if any of the actors were in plays of ours, and we always see people we know, and almost always have a good time, regardless of our dinner or our companions — another respect in which we differ from the regular audience.

You know what? Critics cannot fully appreciate the directors work because playwrights don't want them in the room. They put up those terrible and morally insupportable walls, and then they whine, "I'm misunderstood!" Mind you, I'm not suggesting critics should be in the process to voice public opinions or to inappropriately butt into their brilliance, but let us, at the same tme, not indulge in ahistoricism gussied up as a pity party: Critics in the first half of the 20th century were regularly and fearlessly welcomed into rehearsal rooms and readings because they were considered fully legitimate, constructive, essential, objective partners in the act of dramatic creation. What Norman's prattling on about is based on fear, on the "Don't touch my baby" theory of drama that makes directors, for example, sometimes want to leap off a roof.

Bottom line: what is Marsha Norman DOING to change things? To change anything? What?

I loved August. I just loved it. Like my colleagues, I gave it a ringing endorsement and I will gladly shout it from the rooftop of your choice (preferably not, though, the rooftop of the director feeling suicidal). However, there's a risk is suggesting we tie umbilical cords from resident acting companies to playwrights -- that somehow we will standardize the manner in which new plays are developed. Many playwrights prefer to write alone. Many prefer writing for specific actors in mind. Many prefer being surrounded by a multiplicity of voices. Yes, let's have more resident acting companies -- if we don't murder arts administrators, that is -- but let's not get seduced by the assumption that it's the only way to birth a play.

Or maybe we should ask Mike Daisey how to do it better.

Or maybe those who launch criticisms should get off their asses and do something about it. To be honest, that's why John Clancy has so much of my respect. (Speaking of the lack of a unified theory of theatre, you can read John's take-down of Steppenwolf here.) You can agree or disagree with his take on theatre, but he goddamn does something about it and doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks. That's a lot braver, in my view.

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The Death of a New Musical

While everyone is flapping their gums and their wings worshipping Mike Daisey and his takedown of the regional theatre movement (I'm going to be weighing in very soon, and no, you won't like my view), everyone should read Chris Jones' analysis in the Chicago Tribune of the life and death of a new American musical at the Goodman in Chicago.

Gosh, remember when first-string critics in New York used to do reporting like this?

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More of Daisey's dizzy doozy

If you scroll down, you'll see that one of the comments on my original Mike Daisey post says that the "religious right had absolutely nothing to do with the Mike Daisey incident," but, in fact, I disagree. No, they weren't wearing tags saying "I represent the religious right," and no, the school isn't officially affiliated with a religious institition. But surely one need not be a card-carrying member of the 700 Club to exhibit, to wrap one's self in the holy mantle of, the sensibilities and the apparently unassailable righteousness of the right to be considered a member of its ranks.

Here's the bottom line: It is singularly un-American -- and it should be a felony -- to desecrate someone else's art, to plunge a knife (or to pour water on) the First Amendment protections of another citizen. And that, dear friend, is the hallmark of the right's belief system. It is among the tactics they worship and employ.

Libertarians these fascists are not.

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