There is a famous story about Katherine Hepburn and the formation of the Group Theatre. During the summer of 1931, the company members of the Group left New York to take up residence in rural Brookfield Center, CT to spend the summer getting to know each other, developing the acting style that would make them an ensemble, and rehearsing their first production.
Co-founder Harold Clurman would often gather the company together on the lawn outside the large house they all shared together, and he would lecture, often hours at a time, about his vision for the Group and its role in the American theater. It has been said that he talked the Group Theatre into existence.
One night, a young woman was invited to visit, a yet unknown Katherine Hepburn. She listened to Clurman discuss the the idea of an ensemble in which members of the company might one night play a leading role in one play, and the next night play a small role in another, and the power of collective creativity without ego. And when he had finished, Clurman asked her whether she’d be interested in being a part of such an endeavor, and she replied she had no interest in being part of a group, she wanted to be a “great big star.” And she left.
And good riddance.
There are many who would applaud her ambition; I do not. The idea of a company that I am writing about has no room for such steely-eyed ambition, and if a current-day Katherine Hepburn said such a thing to me, I would not hesitate to show her to the door, no matter how talented she might be. I have no interest in artists who use theater instrumentally, as a means for acquiring fame and fortune.
To those who justify our current American Idol-like system by saying “the cream rises to the top,” I respond “So does pond scum.”
The singer-songwriter Harry Chapin, who was known for using his music to tell stories, has a song that has always affected me called “Mr. Tanner.” I invite you to listen to the whole thing before reading what I have to say about it.
For many, and perhaps even for Mr. Chapin, this is a heart-breaking story about somebody from Dayton, OH who just wasn’t “good enough” to “make it” in New York. But I see it differently.
I’d say New York wasn’t “good enough” for Mr. Tanner.
Mr. Tanner is the anti-Katherine Hepburn. He is someone who loves music as an end in itself, one who found it sufficient to sing “while hanging clothes. He practiced scales while pressing tails and sang at local shows.” He was content with his life, and he had a loyal following of people in his town who “praised the voice that poured out from his throat.” He was not driven by Hepburn’s burning desire to be a “great big star.” Instead, he was a servant to music, and his joy came simply from the singing itself: “He sang from his heart, and he sang from his soul. He did not know how well he sang, it just made him whole.”
I write for the Mr. Tanners of the world.
I write to encourage them to ignore their friends who, with the best of intentions, push them abandon their joy in order to join the toxic world of show business.
I write to encourage people to recognize that Dayton OH is enough, and there is nothing magical about the 212 area code.
I write to encourage people to believe in a life in which the ultimate reward is the fulfillment, the joy, and the wholeness that comes from sharing one’s gifts with others.
For the Katherine Hepburns of the world, who seek the validation of the “right” gatekeepers, Hollywood and Broadway will always exist, and they are welcome to it. But they should not be the model.
For the Mr. Tanners of the world, the rest of the country is hungry for your gifts, hungry to share in the imaginative feast that you can prepare just for them.
Your artistic livelihood is a side effect of the sharing of your heart, it is not the goal.
It is time for teachers at every level to stop holding up the pursuit of fame and fortune as the ideal, and instead teach people that the magic that happens during their high school musical, their college production, their community theater performance is at root the same as the magic that happens during a Broadway show.
The quality is not to be found in the virtuosity of the product, but in the vibrancy of the circuit forged between artist and audience. And that can happen anytime and anywhere.
The tragedy of Chapin’s song is not that Mr. Tanner wasn’t “good enough,” but rather that he didn’t know that sharing what made him whole with others allowed them to experience what wholeness, fulfillment, joy, and generosity looks like. And that that was more than enough. In a world in which there is a continual pressure to monetize everything, we all need to be reminded that the generosity of giving and beauty of receiving is what gives life value.
The real tragedy is Mr. Tanner is so damaged by his experience of treating his talent as a commodity that he never sings again “excepting very late at night when the shop was dark and closed. He sang softly to himself as he sorted through the clothes.” The connection between the singer and the audience has been severed, and the world is a grayer place because of it.
I write to remind you that the world is filled with people who have gifts to share, and we are impoverished when those people are silenced.