My Agenda
As you know from my previous post, I’ve just made my book DIY Theater MFA available to read on the web (preferable) or as a downloadable pdf. I have a couple more books to make available in the same way (and at the same free price), which I will be working on over the coming weeks/months (depending on how hard it is). Anyway, the first release has got me thinking about what I am hoping to accomplish with these books—what others might call my “agenda.”
Agenda is a funny word. It has come to be a word of suspicion (“What’s that guy’s agenda?”), but it really just means “something to be done.” Since my post about my personal crossroads moment at National Critics Institute seemed to have helped people to understand the context of what I’m writing (thank you to everyone for your feedback), I figure while I’m talking about me I might as well be transparent about my goals.
Rich and Powerful
Let’s start personal: I have a deep-seated dislike and distrust of rich people, and people with a lot of power. I grew up in a working class family in a factory town, and my grandfather’s health was ruined by decades of working the swing shift (changing shifts every two weeks), and when as a result he developed serious heart problems and was told by his doctor to retire immediately he was deprived of his pension by a technicality built into the union contract. My mother died at age 42 from cancer that might have been contracted working around chemicals in a factory. Much of this colors my worldview.
So how does that inform my “agenda”? I want to remove the rich and powerful from the theater scene as much as possible. I want to return the steering wheel to the arts worker, and take it away from people and foundations who control charitable giving; I want to eliminate boards of directors populated by people with wealth and/or civic connections. I want to create a business model that doesn’t rely on contributions of any kind.
Gatekeepers
I hate gatekeepers of all kinds. I bristle at having to ask permission to do something that I know will work and will make things better. I spent my academic career trying to break through walls and work beyond the power of the gatekeepers. I hate that motivated people can be kept out of graduate programs, conservatories, “elite” universities. I hate that the ability to pay stands in the way of experiences and education. I hate that creative people have to audition or interview in order to be allowed to use their talents. I hate that the values and tastes of certain people in charge can determine what stories get told, what performances get created, what gender/physical looks/race/age/ability/social class are allowed to create.
So I have spent my life trying to figure out ways to remove as many gatekeepers as possible by directly empowering creators. DIY Theater MFA eliminates most of them; Building Sustainable Theaters will do the same.
Scale
E. F. Schhumacher’s book title says it all: Small Is Beautiful. Seth Godin’s as well: Small Is the New Big. Adrienne Marie Brown’s principles of emergent strategy says “small is good, small is all.” Thus my lack of interest in large institutions, whether educational or artistic, especially those that grab all the resources in order to support their gigantic appetites. In nonprofit arts organizations, the richest 2% of institutions receive 55% of the funding—that’s a fact; in education, Harvard’s endowment is nearly $55 billion dollars, and people continue to throw money at them—that’s a fact; it cost $75 million for Broadway to make Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark—that’s a fact. Obscene. That’s a judgment.
So I work to create a way for small arts organization to provide a reasonable lifestyle for the creators.
Decentralization
I think the arts should be scattered across the nation, not centralized in a few metropolises. Creators should be able to choose where they will spend their lives, and not be compelled to choose between art and geography. The internet provides an opportunity for people to learn and to create wherever they are, and there should not be a value judgment attached to one’s zip code. There should be business models that can work in a variety of demographic situations (see “Scale” above).
A Balanced, Sustainable Life
There is more to life than art. Creative people should be able to live lives where they want (see “Decentralization”), and be able to create a life that includes friends, family, leisure, learning, and reflection. They should also have enough time to teach the next generation. I have no interest in our culture’s obsession with overwork and expectation of burnout. If your entire life is committed solely to making art, eventually you will have nothing interesting to say to anyone other than other artists.
Sustainable means “enough to live with some extra.” I don’t believe in the Starving Artist; I embrace Jeff Goin’s Thriving Artist. If an art form requires living a spartan, monastic, financially precarious lifestyle, then it should be abandoned. Such expectations are artistic killing fields, and hothouses for abusiveness and harassment. Slavery existed because southern plantations were built on a business model that required slaves to be sustainable so that the wealthy could stay wealthy; northern factories (and today, many aspects of the service industry) had a business model that required paying minimal wages to those who did the work in order for owners to get wealthier. If you can’t figure out how to create a sustainable life for those who do the work, then your business doesn’t deserve to exist. Theater currently is a plantation/factory.
In Summary
My agenda is to imagine ways for theater artists to create:
small, sustainable, balanced arts organizations
wherever they choose to live,
doing the kind of work that they value,
while increasing their knowledge and skills through self-directed study and practice,
independent of the influence of the rich and powerful,
and without having to ask permission of anybody other than those for whom they have chosen to create.
I know— that’s a lot. Some may believe that my vision is impossible, but I do not, and I will not listen to their judgment. Some may believe it is undesireable (they’re committed to the Broadway/Hollywood pipeline), and they are not my intended audience. I’m putting my imagination and my skill as a writer in service to the next generation of theater artists and organizations who want to live sustainable, creative lives.
How’s that? Does that help you to understand where my writing is taking you?