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If I Ran the… TCG Member Theatre TCG Conference June 4, 2009
KAREN KANDEL: Reading from If I Ran the Zoo , by Dr. Seuss:
“It’s a pretty good zoo,” Said young Gerald McGrew, “And the fellow who runs it Seems proud of it too.
But if I ran the zoo,” Said young Gerald McGrew, “I’d make a few changes. That’s just what I’d do.
The lions and tigers and that kind of stuff They have up here now are not quite good enough. You see things like these in any old zoo. They’re awfully old fashioned. I want something new!
So I’d open each cage, I’ll unlock every pen, Let the animals go and start over again. And somehow or other I think I could find Some beasts of some beasts of a more unusual kind.
A four footed lion’s not much of a beast. The one in my zoo will have 10 feet at least. Five legs on the left and five more on the right. Then people will stare, and they’ll say, ‘What a sight!’ My New Zoo, McGrew Zoo, will make people talk. My new zoo, McGrew zoo, will make people gawk.
They’ll be so surprised, they’ll swallow their gum. They’ll ask when they see my strange animals come, ‘Where do you suppose he gets things like that from?’
If you want to catch beasts you don’t see every day, You have to go places quite out of the way. You have to go places no others can get to. You have to get cold and you have to get wet too.
I’ll catch ‘em in caves, I’ll catch ‘em in brooks, I’ll catch ‘em in crannies, I’ll catch ‘em in nooks That you don’t read about in geography books.
I’ll load up five boats with a family of Joats Whose feet are like cows, but wear squirrel skin coats, And sit like dogs, but have voices like goats— Excepting they can’t sing the very high notes.
And then I’ll go down to the Wilds of Nantucket, And capture a family of Lunks in a bucket. Then people will say, ‘Now I like that boy heaps. His New Zoo, McGrew Zoo, is growing by leaps. He captures them wild, he captures them meek, He captures them slim, he captures them sleek. What do you suppose he will capture next week?’
In the far western part In southeast North Dakota Lives a very fine animal called the Iota. But I’ll capture one Who is even much finer In the northeastern west part of South Carolina.
When people see him they will say, ‘Now by thunder! This New Zoo, McGrew Zoo, is really a wonder!’
I’ll bag a big bug Who is very surprising, A feller who has A propeller for rising And zooming around making cross country hops, From Texas to Boston with only two stops. Now that kind of thing for a bug is just tops!
In a cave in Kartoom is a beast called a Natch That no other hunter’s been able to catch. He’s hidden for years in his cave with a pout And no one’s been able to make him come out. But I’ll coax him out with a wonderful meal That’s cooked by my cooks in my cooker mobile.
They’ll fix up a dish that is just to his taste; Three chicken croquettes made of library paste. Then sprinkled with peanut shucks, pickled and spiced, Then baked at 600 degrees and then iced. It’s mighty hard cooking to cook up such feasts But that’s how the New Zoo, McGrew Zoo, gets beasts.
pinot grigios. And he blurted out without any warning or provocation: “So, Philip, how much time do you figure you have left?” Now I don’t believe he would have asked that question in the same manner if he knew that every morning when I open the New York Times , and I don’t read the front page, I don’t read the world section, I don’t read the opinion or even the arts. I read the obituaries first. And I read them a little obsessively, and I have this sort of weird response to them. I read an obit, and if it says that the person has died at age 72, I do a quick mathematics on my fingers and I think, 17 years, and I think about that for a while. God forbid it says that someone passed away at 59, I think, “Whoa—four years.” And my daughter has taken to thinking this is hilarious. Now she reads the obituaries and says, “Dad, dad you have like six years left.” So I responded to Christopher by saying, “Well, you know, my parents lived to ripe old age, and if I average the age of their deaths together, I figure I have about 30 years left. And he was shocked and said, “You plan to stay at Sundance 30 more years?” And then I got it, and then I got suspicious. I got really suspicious, because I figured after all I had done for him, he was coming after my job. But honestly he was just curious about how I perceived my future. And I love my job—I genuinely do. It’s a extraordinary job, it’s fascinating, it’s challenging, and I’m blessed to have it. I’m just entering my 13th year, so I’m ready to be bar mitzvahed again. But I do think quite honestly about how many years I have in me, and more importantly than that, how many more years the institution can truly flourish in my care. I know I have a lot to offer. I know there’s a kind of wisdom that comes with being solidly in middle age. But I want to be very circumspect about when it’s time for my institution to grow differently and grow dynamically, and when another, younger individual needs to take the reigns. I think about it a lot. This plenary is not about retirement, and it’s not about a critique of the current scene at any theatres. It’s about acknowledging that a new generation is undeniably and joyfully going to lead the American theatre, and lead the institutions and create new ones, and more likely create new models we haven’t even imagined yet. So just to be creepy, I sent an email to some of my peers and colleagues and sent them the following question, promising them that their answers would be completely anonymous. The question I asked was: How many years do you have left as the leader of your institution? What are your plans for succession, both in terms of how you want your theatre to continue after you’re gone and the vision for your own personal and professional future? And these are some of the responses I got back: “Philip: Just a word of advice, and just so you know. At 12 years rest assured that you are bored and others are looking at the expiration date on your milk carton.” Also, “the ‘God I am so old’ has not set in yet, but a way of working collaboratively with the folks around me—a dismantling of a hierarchies in favor of a more shared leadership, and maybe that’s the first step in tooling a succession.” “My timeline has changed dramatically since the collapse of the economy. My retirement package, lovingly put into place by a responsible board of directors, is severely damaged, and I have to try to stay until I can figure out a way to support myself in my dotage.” “We have a successor in place. Should I keel over from heart failure?” “I would probably envision three to five years left in my time as leader, as it has become increasingly hard to be an artist in one’s own institution anymore. My hunch is that the artist as CEO model is probably over, and more and more institutions will be run by producers and executive directors than by artists.” “Who knows. The more immediate question for most of us I suspect is: How
many years are left for our organizations? When I look around, none of the organizations can presume their longevity. So maybe this whole exercise needs to be focused on the nature of a new institution, or rather new institutions, which need to be built in a changed terrain.” Okay, there are four extraordinary people behind me. Backstage they said to me, “Wow. Is this moment going to be the end of my career in the American theatre?” And I told them that nursing was also a very good profession. TCG selected them because they are interesting and fearless and complex and dynamic members of our community. And we paired them with four theatres, four very different theatres, and we sent them off to spend a little time at those theatres, and then they were asked to think and imagine how they would respond to being a leader at that particular institution—not in terms of fixing things so much, but as a reflection of their generation and a particular generational point of view. I actually begged them to include Sundance in this because I’m desperate to steal ideas from the next generation, but wasn’t lucky enough to be chosen. The four panelists are: Andrea Dymond, who visited the Arkansas Rep; Kate Taylor Davis, who visited Imagination Stage in D.C.; Joe Salvatore who visited ACT in San Francisco; and Meiyin Wang, who visited the Baltimore Theatre Project. So what we’re going to do is give each of them a little time to present their vision, and I’ll ask a few questions of the panel after that, then we’ll open it up to question from you. So to begin with, let’s begin with Andrea Dymond, who is resident director at Victory Gardens Theater, where she has directed five world premiere productions in seven years. You have the rest of her bio in your materials. And, Andrea:
ANDREA DYMOND: We really did ask him about ruining our careers, and he really did tell us about nursing. When I was asked to participate, I was of course very excited for the opportunity, and I know I’m not alone in thinking in various situations that everything would be very different if only I ran the world. Of course TCG means a lot to me professionally, and the panel meant that I would get to come to this great conference. But mostly I was just jazzed to really take the time to think about how change is made in organizations, and, more to the point, what changes I would make if I could run a regional theatre. I was invited to consider Arkansas Rep in Little Rock, and in my first conversation with the artistic director, Bob Hupp, he posed the question that I think is key: How do we make the Rep a place that people visit more than six times a year? And that’s what I want to explore. Full disclosure, I think it was mentioned, I do work at Victory Gardens, which is a fabulous midsized theatre. I also run a small ensemble, which along with having spent a lot of time working in organizational development, makes me somebody who is keenly aware of the challenges even in times that aren’t as difficult as ours right now. So what that really means is that I wasn’t going to leap out with guns blazing, because from my perspective what you do is important, but how you do it is at least equally so. Where to begin? I went down to Arkansas for a few days, learned an awful lot not only about the Rep, but also, thanks to the generosity of everyone there, a lot about the community of Little Rock. In addition to touring the facility, I had the opportunity to speak with some of the staff members and also some time with the board president and I sat in on a rehearsal of Tommy , which was great. And since none of us work in a vacuum, I was really interested to get context about the community, at least an overview of Little
change—to see how Gerald went about it, but right away I find that he and I diverge a little bit in our thinking. I’m with him and with a lot of my generation in thinking that how we make theatre, what we put on our stages, needs some investigation, some reinvention, but not because it’s old fashioned. Well, sometimes because it’s old fashioned. But not only because it’s old fashioned. I think it has to do more with theatre we make—for whom and by whom. And yes I do believe, for example, that we should embrace technology, but I believe even more strongly that to bring new audiences into the theatre, we have to go even further afield to make sure that new voices are represented on our stages and that what they say can be said to their peers and to anybody who will listen whether or not we get it or are comfortable hearing it. But more on that later. So, Gerald is making his first mistake, from my point of view. He lets all the animals out. He just gets rid of them. All right, to me this looks like change for its own sake, and apparently Gerald is unfamiliar with the warning and axiom about the baby and the bathwater. I don’t think that the answer is going to be in a total rejection of all that has come before. There is a reason that classics are classic. And there is a covenant made with our existing patrons and subscribers about seeing certain things, certain styles of work, perhaps. No problem. I appreciate that. When I go to the zoo I do want to see a lion. A lion is a majestic beast. The thing is I don’t only want to see a lion. And we all now how often we see the same thing at theatres across the country. Bad enough that we see the same ‘name your classics howh ere.’ But why is it that we have to see that same show everywhere at the same time. I know this happens. And I know you guys know what I’m talking about. More horrifying to me is when this happens to new works and it seems like there’s only one thing that’s being done everywhere. I’ll mention perhaps very quickly most particularly the February shows, and I know you know what I’m talking about. It’s as if you can only take one risk or give one opportunity at a time and in those cases what is on stage could not by any stretch of the imagination be called risky, but we’ll leave that for now. Okay, so Gerald. Let’s get back to the text. All is not lost. He didn’t give up lions entirely. He just wanted a 10 footed lion. It’s still a lion, just a fancier one, perhaps. A reimagined and reinvigorated classic maybe. And I have to give it to him because he calls on his improv chops possibly. He says, “Yes, and.” He doesn’t close down the conversation with the patrons who like lions. They go for it, as you can see. It’s quite possible also that with this new lion he can get some people who otherwise preferring the reptile house ignore lions altogether. Those people might come to give a look see and I think it’s really important to continue to nurture our relationships with our current patrons by giving them what they want, but we’re also responsible to not only challenge their perspectives a little bit, but to open up the world of classic works a little, to create access points, to find a way to give traditional work to nontraditional audiences. Because theatre is a living art form and to live is to change, right? So, here’s where Gerald begins to do something very interesting to me. Building on the idea of the reimagined classic, perhaps, he combines ideas, right? He expands upon existing creatures, creates a new one, evolution, maybe even a revolution, by taking elements from both worlds. Now, check out his audience. When he does this, you’ll notice, they’re surprised, maybe not altogether delighted, except the kid. And that’s not bad, right? That’s okay. They’re not sure they like this new, odd creature. I take encouragement from that one throwaway comment from the one spectator, if you’re
reading there. “He must hunt them in very odd places.” I think that’s instructive. I think it’s about more than outreach in a traditional sense. I think it goes beyond schools, especially in today’s climate when the world is changing around us, I think to hear the stories that we need to hear today there are exciting possibilities working with people who maybe aren’t playwrights or actors, though we love them and want them as well. I think now’s a prime time for devising theatre that expresses concerns and tries to make sense of the lives of the people in our communities, because things are changing so rapidly for all of us. We can encourage theatre by making it central to their lives, a way to tell their own stories. And it’s not a new idea. It’s an old idea whose time may have come again. One in which it could be very exciting because we do have new technologies to bring in the 21st century. All right, so there’s no picture here, because it was really bizarre and I thought it took us off on a weird path. This is where I think Gerald hits his stride, as far as I’m concerned. He begins to deal with what is, I think, the major challenge going forward. He’s committed himself and his organization to boldly go, and he isn’t put off by the inclement weather. He accepts that part of the challenge will be the adversity met along the way, and he steps outside his comfort zone to discover what or who he doesn’t know. But of course this is where it begins to get tricky because Gerald’s going to get it from all sides. He current audience will kick about the changes. And he may not get thanked by the creatures he takes into his zoo either. Gerald does have the best of intentions. But you can see here that he is getting a little nervous. He’s begun to run up against beasts that maybe don’t want to be in his zoo. Or maybe want to be there, but on their own terms. He’s worrying about getting bitten, and he uses a cage to capture his prey. For my money, this is exactly where institutional theatres are today, and maybe where our country is today. How do we get people to participate? How does the majority culture get people to participate who want to say things that we don’t want to hear? Or say them in ways that we don’t understand. These are the conversations that Americans have so much trouble having. Theatres, I think, if they are willing, are exactly the places in which the conversations can take place. The challenge is inviting folk into the place and supporting them and doing what they do, not what you would have them do. And if you want to make a home for new artists and new voices in our institutions, then we have to make a place where those artists can speak their own truth. And it will be sometimes hard to hear. But there will be people, people who may not currently come to our theatres, who may be hungry to hear it. Okay, as Gerald proceeds on his quest, this is one of the most important pieces. He gets it exactly right here, I think. Here we see that Gerald cannot, does not, get it done all on his own. Perhaps it is his vision that is driving the changes at the zoo, but as we see here, he is only able to accomplish his goals with the aid of his team. I think this is probably my favorite picture. Gerald is out on a limb. He’s out there. But his guys are all working away, all attention, all support thrown to him. One of them’s even walking a tightrope to get him what he needs. Total engagement of the team, a truly instructive image, I think. So what did the team members I met at Arkansas Rep tell me? Because if I ran the zoo, their input is what I would use as I consider changes at Arkansas Rep, though I know it will come as a surprise to some board members. The staff, the theatre professionals who run the theatre are the ones who know the strengths and weaknesses of
performance or musical offerings or perhaps here the Rep could have a bar or a restaurant, something—well, anyway, that takes me to the next bit of interest for me. The Rep is on main street, right downtown, and five blocks away is a thriving River Market District. And in between is a whole lot of nothing. An empty warehouse, a lot of places that aren’t open, not a lot happening, and people don’t traverse that space. Since the Rep is committed to staying downtown, I think some of that commitment could be helping to close that gap between the River Market District and the theatre. To do that things will have to move into the dead zone, and obviously they can’t be responsible for all of that, but I think one of the things they might do is change the perception of what happens at their end of it by, perhaps, having a festival. If I ran the zoo, I think I’d have a festival—that has all kinds of stuff, that uses every bit of public space, in the building, but that also spills out into that area between the two. A big party, performances of all kinds, utilizing some of the warehouse space that isn’t being utilized. Tents. Who knows? Maybe a day, maybe a weekend, something that I think should be recurring, something that people should look forward to. And really right now the Rep does draw from great distances away, and it would be another reason for people to come to town and another reason for locals to be downtown and to hangout at the Rep and in the blocks between the Rep and the river. Okay, so this is what I’m going for: a theatre transformed. It may look kind of like a circus, but it’s still a theatre. And what I think is cool is that there are all kinds of exhibits and, let’s say, some are caged and relatively safe, but some are roaming free and they are risking chaos. But most amazingly and I think this is well worthwhile for this reason, there’s all kinds of interaction that’s made possible here with this model, if you’ll allow me to call it that, and just look at all the people who come. Thanks.
PHILIP HIMBERG: Okay, I’d like that mind at Sundance and how great for a director to go to the text. Our next zookeeper is Kate Taylor Davis, who went to visit Imagination Stage. Kate is the chief marketing and communications director for the Olney Theatre in Maryland. She began at Olney in 2003 as their public relations manager, and since stepping into her current position in 2004, her theatre has increased revenue by 73 percent and grown its subscriber base by 20 percent. Kate?
KATE TAYLOR DAVIS: Hi. So my assigned theatre was Imagination Stage in Bethesda. Imagination Stage produces arts education programs which nurture, challenge and empower young people of all abilities. Their vision is of a future where theatre experiences are a fundamental aspect of children’s lives. There’s a little bit more. It’s very beautiful there. Their core belief is making the arts inclusive and accessible to children regardless of their physical, cognitive or financial status. There’s a mini timeline I worked out. [referring to a slide] So they’re celebrating their 30th year, and they actually began as the Bethesda Academy of Performing Arts, otherwise known as BAPA. Seventeen years later they launched a professional theatre for young audiences in a mall. And then, in 2003, they opened up a building which housed both their academy and their professional theatre. Their leadership is a three person leadership team. Their founder and executive director is Bonnie Fogel. Their artistic director is Janet Stanford and their managing director is Brett Crawford.
So where does all this happen? It happens in Montgomery County, Maryland’s most populous and affluent jurisdiction. It’s a highly educated community. Fifty nine perfect of the workforce holds a bachelor’s degree or higher. And 39 percent hold a post graduate degree. Bethesda is pretty much adjacent to DC. Twenty four percent of the population is under 18. And the median household income is 119,000. The neighborhood is upscale. I pulled a picture of the café, look. There’s lots to do, actually. There’s lots of cafés, restaurants, bars, shops. It’s within walking distance to two other theatres, both Round House Theatre and Bethesda Theatre. It’s metro or subway accessible. And I would say the problem could be the traffic congestion since it is such a popular area, especially around rush hour it can be hard to get in and out of. They have essentially two lines of business. They have an educational line, which is classes and camps, mostly for people ages 1 to 18, though it goes up to 21 for people with disabilities, and also a professional arts integration program for arts education in schools and an access programs. Through these they welcome about 3000 unique students a year. Their professional theatre line does six productions a year, including two new works. Productions range from new commissions to interpretations of children’s classics. Through this programming they welcome 90,000 audience members a year. They also have some ancillary business. There’s a really cute gift shop and a café. The café is outsourced and brings in some percentage revenue. So their budget is $4.9 million. They’re running a modest surplus each year. And they do have some debt, but I believe that it is manageable, and it’s related to the construction of their new building. Observations from my visit. I attended a production of Heidi , which had all the sophistication of a regional theatre that is adult specific, but with content that was manageable and accessible to kids. On a separate visit I had meetings with their managing director, their artistic director and their executive director. And I have great admiration for what they do there. Their facility is beautiful. They have several theatres, state of theart classrooms, easy access to parking, nice amenities like the café, friendly and smiling staff—actually friendly and smiling staff. Everywhere. And I also thought that they’re process oriented, not product oriented. They’re not grooming people to be stars, although Mo Rocca was a student of theirs. They’re really preparing people to be compassionate humans, which—who can argue with that? As their artistic director put it, it’s not being a star, it’s a holistic approach to artistic education. So it’s a pretty good zoo. They have great educational programs. The camps and classes are a hit. They are leaders in arts education. In fact they just got the okay to work with DC public schools to integrate arts into some of those classrooms. They have progressive teaching techniques, quality productions and very forward thinking leadership. I have to say it was difficult, this assignment, because they’re already thinking really big. Their executive director was telling me how she would like to be a place that people can touch even before they ever get to Imagination Stage and after they leave. Sort of like Disney—where kids have a relationship with Disney even if they only get to the theme park once in their lifetime. And their managing director was talking to me about how they need to do downloads on the website for games for kids, for iPods. So they’re already doing a lot of progressive and fun things, and they’ve got vision. But I do have a few suggestions on how to deepen and expand on their current good work. Here’s my zoo. My husband actually drew this for me, and within it are four new zoo ideas: set a trajectory for lifelong learning beyond Imagination Stage, cultivate
theatre out into the world and also better fulfill the Imagination Stage mission. It would get Imagination Stage’s brand out in the world and would result potentially in a new revenue stream for the theatre. And the last one, which is a little gimmicky, but I think a sister city or organization to either exchange work or just content swap would be really interesting. Perhaps an opening night simulcast with your sister theatre’s new production. It also opens up a reason to travel, and who doesn’t love a field trip. So partner and collaborate. There are many ways in which the theatre community, at least in this region, can get better at sharing expertise and resources. Since Imagination Stage has amazing educational programs seemingly down pat, why not convince other theatres, especially those who focus on adults, to let Imagination Stage create fun classes and camps at those places. There would, of course, be some logistics to work out. Revenue share, rental, etc. But it seems to be a win win on a lot of levels. For the hosting theatres it allows the adult centric theatres to focus on what they do best. Camps and classes take a lot of energy, and if it’s not your thing, theatres might be spending more resources than they think on something that’s less focused on their mission and perhaps more focused on their bottom line. If there’s a group with trusted expertise, why not outsource this action? It also gets younger people into the hosting theatres’ venues without much effort on their part. Plus, the hosting theatre could be on the Imagination Stage teen subscription list. I think there are ways to make this circular. For Imagination Stage, it takes the brand outside the building. It reaches parents and kids who might not be able to get to downtown Bethesda easily. And it opens points of entry into other programming. I admit that this is going to be a hard sell to theatres, but I think it’s worth it. I don’t think each theatre needs to do it all. As to the other idea, outsourcing the evening programming to organizations and theatre companies who share common values, the managing director took a look at the overhead and realized that there really isn’t any cost savings because there really isn’t any way to shut the theatre down for any length of time. So if the overhead is fixed, you’ve got to fill it up. The strategy seems to be to put as many things into the building as possible to maximize the revenue, but the theatre has recently eliminated its evening shows, citing low audience participation. This seems like the perfect opportunity to collaborate. There would of course be logistics, but the benefits are good. For the outside organizations they get a really beautiful venue and, in many respects, it’s an ideal location. Space can be hard to secure for nomadic theatres, and there are a lot of them out there. For Imagination Stage these other organizations would hit a slightly different demographic. It would bring more people through the doors, perhaps encouraging them to spend in the gift shop, and maybe even your box office at some point. Plus it brings in more revenue, either in ticketing fees or rental fees and it increases the cred in the community. I think there’s real value in being a convener. My last idea is kind of goofy, but I think there’s room in this mission to address the parents’ needs as well. I would argue that the overall health of the family is helped by finding ways in which parents can be parents with or without their kids. So I have two ideas, one is Parent Survival Night. This is a potentially oncea month class that goes from 7 to 9 p.m. Parents park at Imagination Stage, drop off the kids, then go out on the town. It’s an opportunity to partner with area restaurants, entertainment venues, area theatres. It could foster adult theatrical engagement and it really does maximize the cool,
hip area in which they are situated. The other silly idea is Baby Loves to Disco. Now this is very self serving because many of my once cool and very hip friends have had kids and they used to love to go dancing with me, but recently, on a Michael Jackson versus Prince versus Madonna night at the Black Cat, they all turned me down. Sad, I’m getting old. I’ve noticed that they don’t just turn me down because they can’t get a babysitter, but they love to be with these kids. They’re like their new best friends or something. So why not create opportunities to do things they used to like to do without their kids, with their kids. I remember dancing with my parents in the living room to the Rolling Stones. I’m sure that some of my friends would love to dance with their kids to Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna. Plus, it’s never too early to work on those dance moves and I really think it could be a lot of fun for everyone. Treat it like an adult club with a family friendly option. It could bring a slightly different audience through the doors. It also feeds into the other offerings. Plus, it could be some really good revenue too. So to quote Dr. Seuss, “Yes, that’s what I’d do. I’d make a few changes if I ran the zoo.” Thank you.
[BREAK IN RECORDING]
PHILIP HIMBERG: [IN THE MIDDLE OF INTRODUCING JOE SALVATORE] …George Platt Lynes, Glenway Westcott and Monroe Wheeler, which was featured as part of the 2008 New York Fringe Festival, where it received the Fringe’s Overall Excellence Award for outstanding play. And his current project, open heart , is an interview theatre piece about gay male couples living in open, non monogamous relationships, and will have its first workshop performance in July ’09. [TO JOE] You haven’t interviewed me yet for that. Joe is on the faculty of the Program in Educational Theatre at New York University where he teaches courses in acting, directing, Shakespeare, applied theatre and theatre pedagogy. Joe.
JOE SALVATORE: Okay, so American Conservatory Theater in 20 minutes: Go. So I included this quote from the Dr. Seuss book because I feel it represents where I stand as a theatre artist and educator in this moment, looking into the field and wondering what out of the way places I might need to go in order to take my own next steps. I want to give you a little bit of context about the lens through which I looked at this assignment. Tuesday, June 2, marked 10 years for me of living and working in New York City and when I visited ACT I realized that I had developed a little bit of New York centricity. It was upsetting. This test became a powerful experience for me personally because I was reminded that producing new work does not have to be about ultimately getting a commercial run in New York City, which of course I knew, but having this experience outside of New York was a helpful reminder. The task also reminded me that when I went to graduate school I thought that I wanted to become the artistic director of a large regional theatre like the one that I was asked to visit. I do work as an artistic/education director for a small youth theatre in southern New Jersey, but it’s very different, so I’m grateful for this opportunity that was given to me to go visit this amazing institution and to be reminded about this goal that I had in the past. My visit to ACT took place on May 14 and 15. I met with 15 people in a number of areas during my time there, and I also had a chance to see a production of Jose
the next few slides, but I’m just going to highlight a few as we go through. Looking at the first slide, you’ll notice that the core acting company is in existence and is very important. It functions on all levels in terms of decision making at the theatre. They contribute to the season selection process, they teach in the conservatory and they are doing development and outreach. So they are really part of the theatre, integrated into the institution, and they are on salary 52 weeks of the year. That’s six actors, five men, one woman. Another DNA piece is this notion of mentorship, this notion of passing knowledge. Steven Anthony Jones called it a medieval apprenticeship, and when I spoke to members of the Young Conservatory, they spoke about being mentored by actors from the MFA conservatory. The MFA actors talked to me about being mentored by the core company members. This notion of mentorship is at the center of this institution. The Geary Theatre is another element of its DNA. It’s a 1,000 seat theatre like the one we’re sitting in, and it affects selection of repertoire for the main stage. It affects how actors are trained. They talk about being Geary ready at the end of your three years in that MFA program. And who comes through the door to see the work? Who comes through the door of a 1,000 seat proscenium theatre to see the work that’s on the main stage? That will play out later in my remarks as well. This blew my mind when I learned this. The larger institution pays for the education programs. The training program does not pay for itself and is funded both through endowment and operating funds. In every other model that I know of where a theatre has an education program, the education program is paying for other things in the theatre, in addition to the education programs themselves, so I thought this was really unique about ACT. Also there are two conservatories, the MFA and the Young Conservatory, and I mentioned this shift in philosophy in training where they are taking just eight students. The other element that I find interesting is that they’re also going to be training those eight actors to make their own work because they feel that’s an important element of being an actor now, is how we create our own work, which I think is important. And then the geography. This is a theatre located in a city where people are known for activism and social awareness. There’s an audience for this theatre that engages with material on an emotional and an intellectual level. We see this played out in the outreach work that happens when audiences work with artists in dialogue with academics and intellectuals in dialogue with the publications the theatre puts out. We see that the audience is loyal to this theatre—and later in this discussion I’d like to talk about how that might expand. In the final slide the three ideas that I’ve bulleted here all have to do with relationship. I would say that the leadership of the organization is collaborative, reflective and service oriented leadership, and I feel that that would need to stay. The people who interact with the organization should have a positive experience at every level, and that’s full time employees, artists hired for individual shows and audience members. So I left ACT with three questions that I would consider if I ran this organization, and these come from my own observations and from my discussions with Carey Perloff and Heather Kitchen. Those three questions are: How can the theatre better acknowledge its strengths, successes and accomplishments? How can the theatre share its models? And how can new audiences interface with ACT without necessarily walking through the doors of the Geary? So these questions helped to frame my thinking, but the following ideas that I’m going to unroll don’t always answer these questions in a direct way. These questions were a starting point, so I’d like the share some of my ideas with you.
The first thing that I would do if I ran ACT would be to maintain the resident company. I would keep those actors on salary for the year and continue to have them invest in the theatre as true artistic partners, keeping the artist at the center of the institution. I would not expand beyond eight members of the core company, but I would try to bring in more women into the company so it was four and four or five and three, something. I would also continue to keep this company of actors involved in these decision making processes because I feel that is training the artistic leaders of the future as well. Some of you may know that Marco Barricelli was a company member at ACT and now he’s artistic director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz, and I feel like this is a way of sharing the theatre’s models of leadership. My second idea is to bring a playwright on board for a three year residency. The playwright would enter with an incoming MFA class, and that playwright would write for that class of actors throughout their time in the MFA program. My idea here is to cultivate playwrights who can write for different sized theatres and to develop relationships with a set of eight actors, so the playwright would basically follow the actors through their conservatory training. The actors must act in one play each year by this playwright. It doesn’t have to be a single play for the eight actors. It could be two plays, one for three, one for five, it could be eight monologues. But I would really like to bring a playwright into this training mix. For me it’s about creating space for the relationship to develop between the playwright and the actors. It could be an early career or mid career playwright, but it gives the theatre an opportunity to mentor the playwright in writing for three different spaces. There’s a small space, a 99 seat black box, the Zeum is a larger space, 120 to 140, and then there’s the Geary, which is a 1,000 seat space. Different sized theatres require different kinds of writing and theatricality, and I think we have a responsibility to be giving playwrights opportunities to figure that out in real production opportunities. When the MFA eight finish their time in the conservatory, the would finish it with a performance in the Geary in a play by this playwright. Currently they perform in A Christmas Carol , all third year students perform in A Christmas Carol on stage. I would like to see them perform in a play that’s by this playwright in residence. This idea contributes to the development of the canon, to the development of the playwright’s voice and the development of the actors ability to assist with newwo rk creation. It also potentially establishes long lasting relationships between a playwright and eight early career actors. Then, if all has gone well, the playwright could write for the resident acting company—so maybe we add a fourth year in that residency and he or she writes a play for the Geary stage for those eight core company members. I would pilot this program and allow it to complete a cycle, then I would make a decision about whether to continue it and make a decision about whether to have a playwright attached to each incoming MFA class, which ultimately would mean that we would have three playwrights in residence at any one time. There’s a project that happens right now at ACT called the NIA Project, and Nia is a Swahili word that means purpose. The NIA Project came out of the MFA conservatory. The MFA actors of color got together and started to do work with young kids of color in the Bay Area after school and on Saturdays. And it’s a program that I would like to formalize more than it is. Right now it’s a loosely affiliated program from my understanding of it, and I’d like to formalize it for a number of reasons. The MFA actors are mentoring these young people of color, and they’re teaching them skills that
The final piece for me is about throwing open the doors of the organization and inviting colleagues in to see what happens at ACT at all levels. I think that when we share our strengths, successes and accomplishments and hold them up to be viewed it allows us to hear affirmations about what we’re doing. It also brings up questions and we need to be ready to hear those questions. We need to be open to hear those questions. I would begin this process by seeking out other leaders in the field who are truly committed to transparency and reflective practice. Once I identified these partners and we began these exchanges and developed a relationship, I would float an idea that has stuck in my head since I paid a visit to ACT. Could there be a network of four theatres, ACT and three others, who form a national training network and ultimately a national theatre with four sites? One of the other four theatres focuses on training playwrights and conferring an MFA, another theatre to do that with designers and another theatre to do that with directors? For me, this is getting at the point that the education of artists finds a home in the theatre space in an apprenticeship model. Could ACT’s eight MFA model for actor training be replicated with appropriate numbers depending on discipline with playwrights, directors and designers in these other sites? And then these theatres would do artist exchanges, administrator exchanges, co productions, international tours, civic engagement with web streaming and all that hootenanny, and this becomes our national theatre. Not a sole entity, but a network. I want to thank all the people at ACT for their generosity with time and spirit during the my visit, and in particular the artistic administrator Carly Cioffi for all her organization and assistance, and thank you for listening this afternoon.
PHILIP HIMBERG: Okay, so rounding out these four people, our next and last zookeeper—and thank you everyone for your sensitivity and your incredibly perceptive questions. Meiyin Wang visited the Baltimore Theater Project, here in town. She is the associate producer of Under the Radar Festival and Symposium in New York, where she has worked under the mentorship of Mark Russell, the great Mark Russell since 2006. In her three years there, she has managed 47 productions, applied for artist visas from 11 embassies and hosted over 550 artistic directors and presenters from 19 countries. She was born and raised in Singapore and served as resident playwright and associate artistic director of Singapore Repertory Theatre before earning her directing MFA from Columbia under the great Anne Bogart. Meiyin.
MEIYIN WANG: Hi. So when I was a kid growing up in Singapore, which is where I’m from, one of the biggest news items of the decade was the creation of the Night Safari Zoo. I’m taking this very literally. The Singapore Zoo was already one of the first in the world to create an open concept—no cages. And now it created the world’s first nocturnal zoo, an open air habitat set in a rain forest. It was a revolutionary thought for me. Instead of reversing the animals’ day night cycle for the visitors and creating an unnatural relationship, the zookeepers created a circumstance in which people could come see the nocturnal animals at their most active, their most awake and their most alive. And, of course, it also mean that they could charge the zoo admission fees twice, once during the day, and once at night. I’ll bring it back home later. Before this conference what I knew about Baltimore Theater Project amounted to the TNT Festival. It was one of the models for Mark Russell when he started the Under
the Radar Festival, where I work. Under the Radar is an international festival dedicated to presenting contemporary theatre and artists that challenge the traditional boundaries of theatre. They work in fluid platforms, visual art, film, technology and investigate our current experience and work outside the normal pathways of theatre. It is a festival where you can get a survey of what artists in the U.S. and throughout the world are thinking about the world. Our Under the Radar secret mandate is also to encourage the conversation between regional theatres and presenters by being a platform and advocate for this kind of hybrid, interdisciplinary, unclassifiable work, and hope that producers and presenters will collaborate on this kind of work—like ERS, yay!—and getting the work to travel: American work going out, and international work coming in. And the the New Theatre Festival—TNT for short—in Baltimore was a pioneer event. In 1976 it presented 35 productions, four of which were international and only one of which was from New York, and that was Meredith Monk, very cool. So I visited Baltimore Theater Project and spoke with the producing director Anne Fulwiler, who has been so generous with her time and information, I saw the opening night of Elizabeth Hess’s Living Openly and Notoriously , took in the vibe of the theatre and I also spoke with a few Baltimore theatre artists and John Barry who writes for the city paper. Theater Project is a presenter of contemporary theatre, dance, music and visual arts, nurturing those who are actively experimenting with the new forms of expression and supporting international and emerging local companies creating new work. Founded by Philip Arnoult in 1971, it was part of an experiment to create learning centers outside of the campus at Antioch College. The theatre has presented Pilobolus, Spiderwoman Theater, Bread and Puppet, Danny Hoch, Karen Finley, Danny McIvor, Squonk Opera, Peabody Chamber Orchestra, just to name a few. At the heart of Theater Project is the theatre. It’s a gorgeous black box space which seats 150 people with a sprung wood floor and backed by a 20 foot high acoustic dome. At present the theatre is incredibly lean with an operating budget of $220,000 and three full time staff, the producing director, a technical director and an administrative assistant, and a part time audiencedeve lopment director. It averages four performances a week for 42 weeks of the year, and last season it served 12,000 individuals, including 550 performing artists. Theater Project operates on a mix of presentations, co productions, rentals, with a top ticket price of $20, with $ tickets for students and artists. And they annually present events like High Zero, the country’s largest experimental improvised music festival, co produced with local companies. Right now they’re presenting Naoko Maeshiba’s dancet heatre piece Paraffin. Go see it. Theater Project has not been immune to the recession, but has done a remarkable job keeping itself lean and flexible. It is the primary presenter of dance and independent touring companies in Baltimore and the programming crosses cultural barriers by presenting spoken word, slam poetry and comedy improv next to opera and performance art. People go there to get a shot into the arm; to get new ideas. So I lucked out. I really respond to the core values of helping artists push the form, being a space for new ideas and the necessity of international exchange. So if I hit jackpot and life turned into a Dr. Seuss book and I get to run the Baltimore Theater Project, the question is, as it always is: What kind of performance do we want to do, and how do we deliver it? How do we engage with the artist and audiences the way we want to? How do you make the creative alliances that we want to? Essentially how do you make sense of this theatre
