Dear American Theater
SUBJECT: Playwright gives two weeks' notice
It’s not you, theater. It is me. I just need something different. I know we both tried to make it work. I raised all that money, we even hired specialists, hosted our things online on the National Play Network, paid thousands for contests, participated in playwright cohorts, but I’m afraid I’m moving on.
You see, I believed a lie. That the reason my work wasn’t catching traction had something to do with me. And I took that lie that I believed and I internalized it. So I would try harder, work harder, make my thematic core stronger, until I eventually learned it had nothing to do with me.
The theater is simply dying. And I was hanging on when I needed to let it go. If you really love the theater as I do, then you have to let it go. And it is time to let it go.
I think we were in a toxic thing. Or at the very least, it wasn’t based on reciprocity. And yes, it was confusing, the dynamics of the relationship we were in. It was confusing because of the messaging I was raised on. Messaging that I paid top dollar to get from Northwestern University. And that programing ran my worth ethic. You see, I was set out to tackle the real world of making art twenty five years ago with a core belief that nothing in the theater is about me, that life in theater demands sacrifice, and the show must go on at all costs. And when I took stock and challenged that belief after encountering years of evidence that ran contrary to those beliefs, I was left even more confused.
What if the principles I was fed were nothing but elitist academic justification to cover up the fact that I spent money on arts education for a world that no longer exists and the theater is dying. And that the theater is dying because we killed it.
And I know, dear theater, you are going through a lot. You have that identity crisis, the reckoning of who or what the theater is for, you are questioning your implicit bias, have new mandates that require you to fulfill to keep grants, not to mention a subscriber base that simply does’t attend memoir plays that dramatize how Jane grew up on the poor side of Mars and was picked on for having a sixth toe on her left foot. And now you have to treat everyone like employees, pay them a living wage which is sinking you financially. Plus, it feels like you know you simply are not that cool anymore.
The theater kids used to be the cool kids, you know? I know we were not quite as cool as the punk rock renegades, but close. You know? But now… It is a little like the theater is made by people with MFAs in non profit arts management and not theater practitioners who all take turns f’iking each other and living in a barn doing months of rehearsals on like a ten hour version of Mahabharata. Movie actors once spent years learning our craft, now they skip it entirely. Subsequently, our work is a little tepid, trademarked, watered down for mass consumption and dare I say, out of date?
Consequently, in terms of cultural relevance, we are not as popular as we once were. Relegated to a secondary role in society. Celebrated for our legacy, but in decline. And the memory of greatness erodes as more and more of America thinks what theater is can be found on Broadway in mid town Manhattan. Pretty soon, the true memory of our real role in the social contract will be gone and lost forever.
How did we get here? Or more importantly, where do we go from here? But that is the hook. That’s how the theater gets you, with that hope. That promise.
Like any relationship, you think of what it could be, what it once was, in the beginning, before all the not so fun shit, and disappointment, there was a moment of love, beauty and glory. Surely, we can find that spark again amid an institutional crisis rooted in class warfare.
But maybe we can’t. Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe theater has to figure their own shit out. Because what I see, primarily, is a little desperate. It relies on obligation, celebrates mediocrity, is too polite and mistakes shock value for cutting edge.
When I take stock of these tendencies I am left to wonder. Are we simply not just trying to generate relevance by doing desperate things like Rush jukebox musicals or some mass produced version of Artaud for family friendly audiences. We have lost our way. It is what Robert Edmond Jones warned us about a hundred years ago when he urged us to not keep up with film and stick to the magic of what we alone can do, that film cannot
But again, this thought treatise is what theater does to you to rope you back in.
All I know for certain is I am tired of giving you so much and realizing that you don’t have time for me. And my work.
Yeah, I know, anyone who is steeped in making theater, or doing art anywhere in any way, in any time — eventually, if they do it long enough — ask themselves, ‘why am i doing this again? Is it worth it? Is there a better use of my time and energy?”
I remember Stanislavski asking that early on in An Actor Prepares. He insited it was the most important thing to engage with before you even begin or consider a life in the arts. And I did that many years ago when I was detoxifying from being a child actor and learning to love acting again. And I ask myself these questions from time to time to check in with myself. And my motives. I’m in one of those moments again as I look at how finite time is, and where I want to spend it, what for, and who with.
Theater is impossible under normal conditions, but today, it seems extra impossible. It comes with so much pressure and obligation. Plus we all have so much content. So we all compete to stand out. And we all know it shouldn’t cost as much as it does. All signs that our humble endeavor is not sustainable. Something is fundamentally wrong in the models we employ, if so many people are unhappy.
For example, I have a friend I went to college with who used to debut five to six plays a year, and do a few workshops, but lately she is lucky if she gets one call. That trickles down locally and regionally wherever one is in their career.
We have a crisis of a clogged pipeline that no longer feeds our beloved American stage. Consequently, it has forced some of greatest voices away from writing for it by simply demanding so much. And then never matching those demands with genuine access and opportunity. And so without voices, or forums, it fades out of view.
I can’t speak for any of my peers, but I am fairly certain I am not alone in expressing these frustrations. The thing I have taken to heart as something of ballast during these uncertain times is something my friend Daniel Best said a while back. He said that when he let it all go, it helped him to grab hold of the amateur spirit.
AMATEUR- From the French. For the love of it.
Too often in our society things are monetized and lose meaning. That something does not have value if it doesn’t make money, or is worth the money. It simply does not exist if it doesn’t grow and turn profit. Etc.
But what I love about an amateur spirit is that it frees itself from the idea that it has to be anything. It is not even non for profit, and it certainly does not need a subscriber based. It doesn not even need a season or programming, or an identity or a mission statement. It just needs the love. We need to rediscover the love.
When I live in that place, I realize the theater is mobile. It can be in everything and everywhere. Theatre does not even require a theater.
I can take my plays and convert them into small films. That I can share with anyone. And that’s how I am choosing to make my own theater. And the best part is I don’t need anyone’s permission. I can choose when and how to share my content.
The theater can live in the spirit of creation. My friends are doing something similar by inviting an audience to an open rehearsal. They are doing it simply to engage community. To me, it is that kind of perspective, that kind of sustainable effort is what will guide us through this moment. The plague has almost killed the theater many times before. And we have endured two plagues, back to back. One physical, and one that is more spiritual. But we will return. Because people like sharing certain stories together in a common space that cannot be shared any other way. The theater used to wedged in between city hall and the places of healing in the center of town in Greek society, that was the value theater once had. And why did society grant us that honor? Because they trusted us to tell the truth. When their neighbors, because of conflict of interest, could not. But we need to be worthy of that trust again. We need to reinvent our social contract. Till then, I’ll be turning my plays into little movies that I shoot with my friends and sell tickets to.
on set during filming of Failed State… which started out as a play till I realized everyone was saying no.