Mapping Reality
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Mapping Reality
An Introduction to Theatre Charlie Mitchell and Michelle Hayford Nothing has as much potential as a stage. In all of its incarnations, it is a world of imagination, limitless possibilities, and the site of passionate labor. Consider the following moments repeated countless times from antiquity to today. An audience has assembled, full of anticipation, to witness a performance. The appointed time draws near. Perhaps these patrons are seeing this work for the first time. Maybe they have heard or read the opinions of others. It is possible that they have seen another version of the show created by other hands. Nevertheless, it is a certainty that this experience will be unique; every performance has a singular, organic nature —no two can be the same. Among the crowd, perhaps a playwright nervously sits, anxiously waiting to see what will become of his words. The director who shaped this production, once a powerful creative force, is now helplessness. Backstage, hidden from the curious eyes of the audience, actors fight with nerves. As they run their lines and movements in their heads, they adjust their costumes, or check on items they might use in the show. Some may have preshow rituals such as physical and vocal warm-ups. Others may simply enter a psychological state of preparation. All the hours of preparation will now be put to the test. Will the audience celebrate or reject what has been created? It is time to begin. The actors take their places. Suddenly a signal is given to the audience —the theatre darkens, music is heard, a curtain rises, or actors simply enter the performance space. This is the moment of creation. In the next moment, a new world will appear where none existed, crafted to say something about the nature of our existence. This world, in turn, is the product of many others, one of practitioners who 3 have shared their creativity in the service of this experience. If they have done their best, an everlasting impression will be made and lives may be changed forever. This book seeks to give insight into the people and processes that create theatre. Like any other world —be it horse racing, fashion, or polities —understanding its complexities helps you appreciate it on a deeper plane. The intent of this book is not to strip away the feeling of magic that can happen in the presence of theatre but to add an element of wonder for the artistry that makes it work. At the same time, you can better understand how theatre seeks to reveal truths about the human condition; explores issues of ethics, gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and spirituality; and exists as a representation of the culture at large. The benefits of studying theatre can be immense. Think of it as a structure that houses other domains of knowledge. It touches and has influenced disciplines such as languages and literature, psychology, music, science, law, journalism, and business. It enables you to cross cultural boundaries and bridge the distance that separates understanding. In the future, anthropologists will examine our contemporary theatre as a cultural artifact in order to help them understand who we were, how we saw ourselves, and what we aspired to be. Studying theatre also adds a great deal to your overall cultural literacy. Because it has had such a profound social presence in everyday life, understanding references to plays, playwrights, theatrical movements, and production practice helps you eommunieate with the past and present. For example, look at how the theatre has permeated our language. Against a “backdrop” of anticipation, some could be viewed as “acting out,” taking “center stage” or “standing in the limelight” while people “work behind the scenes.” You can be accused of being “melodramatic,” “upstaging” the work of others, or forcing them to “wait in the wings.” And with a nod to the high-stakes struggle found on stage, you can even engage in a “theatre of war.” Of course, the best way to learn about and learn from theatre is to create it yourself; you do not have to pursue a professional career in the arts to gain its benefits. Employers have found that theatrical practice answers the need for enhanced cognitive ability in the workplace. Analysis of texts, the interpersonal and collaborative skills gained in production, and the development of the creative mind gives students an advantage
4 C R E A T I N G A W O R L D in whatever field they pursue. Theatre is a training ground for successful thinkers and doers. Basic Elements For all of the intricate ways that theatre produces meaning, its core elements are simple. Legendary British director Peter Brook puts it best in his book The Empty Space when he writes: “I can take any space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.” This space could be anything from a vintage Broadway theatre to a high school auditorium to a claimed space in a public park. All that is needed are boundaries, agreed upon by performer and audience. A variety of artists and other members of the theatrical community dedicate their time and efforts to supporting the creation of fully realized productions. However, nothing more is required than an actor, an audience, a space, and the intent to create a fictional world. The popularity of improvisational theatre reminds us that a script is not even mandatory. This type of performance also disproves the absolute need for a director, the person usually responsible for providing a single artistic vision for a production. That position, in its current incarnation, has been around for only a hundred years, a small span of time when you think about the lengthy history of the theatre. Prior to its creation, staging had been shared by actors, producers, and playwrights, usually with very little rehearsal by today’s standards. There are not even a requisite number of audience members for something to be called theatre. Take Ludwig II (1845-1886), the eeeentrie king of Bavaria, who took this idea to its logical extreme. Convinced he could not enjoy himself surrounded by others, he arranged more than two hundred private viewings of operas by composer Richard Wagner and others. Unfortunately, this chronic shyness was later used by his enemies as a symptom of mental illness, and he was ousted from his throne. Today, you can still live like a king. Since 2009, the area known as Times Square, the epicenter of commercial theatre in the United States, has been the site of Theatre for One. A four-foot-by-eight-foot portable theatre booth is erected and for six days, only one person can enter at a time. Once a partition lifts, a five-to-ten-minute show is given by a single Mapping Reality 5 performer, a strange oasis from one of the most chaotic places on the planet. Fine Art and the Qualities of Theatre Theatre, along with music and dance, has been labeled a fine art as well as a performing art; it can be found in performing arts centers and taught in colleges and departments of fine art. But these terms lead to larger issues. By the twentieth century, educational programs had been broken down into classifications, all of which were historically tied to economic class. In many cultures of the ancient world, work was done by slaves. Consequently, physical labor was imagined to be degrading and associated with a lack of nobility. The Romans, for example, called any activity where money changed hands the vulgar arts ( vulgares artes) or sordid arts (sordidaг artes), also translated as “dirty arts.” By the Middle Ages, the designation changed. The term mechanical arts was adopted to mean skilled activities aeeomplished by manual labor. In the seventeenth century, useful arts appeared, and with the arrival of the machine age in the nineteenth century, it was replaced with industrial arts, a term still in use today. In the ancient world and beyond, proof of high status was having leisure time to pursue self-improvement of the mind or to serve the public good. Therefore, philosophy, history, languages, math, and science were given the term liberal arts (“arts befitting a freeman”). Now the term simply means subjects separate from science and technology and implies an education that is not particularly specialized. Therefore “liberal,” in this sense, is not a political term and is not meant to contrast any “conservative” mode of thought. The third branch, separate from useful and liberal, was given the term fine arts. Coined in the eighteenth century, it was meant to include sculpture, painting, music, and poetry. Later, the performing John Patrick Shanley. playwright arts were added along “I think art describes the vacuum. Art describes what isn’t there — the thing that needs to be said — the missing element of the current dialogue that is going on in the world.”
6 C R E A T I N G A W O R L D with disciplines such as printmaking, photography, and collage. “Fine” was not intended to suggest art that was “acceptable” or “delicate” —it was supposed to classify artistic endeavors that were beautiful for their own sake and not compromised by serving any practical function. In other words, a craftsman could make a stunningly beautiful cabinet, but once it stored clothes, it ceased to be art. An architect could design a building that was a pleasure to behold, but since it provided shelter, his work was considered only useful. Clearly, the exchange of money and the association with leisure time has been abandoned as a dividing line between fine and useful art. However, the remaining concept of beauty for its own sake leaves us with a variety of conflicts, questions, and ambiguities. Many works eommunieate images or use material that we may not regard as beautiful. Still, we would not hesitate to label them as art. Theatre deals in conflict, sometimes using subject matter that can make some feel uncomfortable. Does it cease to be art when no pleasurable feeling is derived from it? Many would argue that even though the arts do not serve any domestic function, they can be extremely useful as a means of interpreting our world and spiritually nourishing our lives. Is that not useful? When does an object or performance stop being artistic and start being art? Are there rules that must be satisfied or is it simply in the eye of the beholder? Does the quality of something determine if it qualifies as art? To ask and engage with these sorts of questions is to practice aesthetics, a branch of philosophy that deals with beauty and taste. A working definition of art that is elastic enough to bridge different mediums of expression has occupied us for centuries. The Greek philosopher Plato called it an imitation of nature but for that same reason, condemned it as artificial, a copy of a copy, and believed actors should be banned from what he saw as an ideal republic. Many have tried to adopt the poet William Wordsworth’s definition of poetry for art in general — “the “Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.’ Stella Adler, actor Mapping Reality 7 ide** ^ creation i il? r unity i Anisan ” S Я į į Ganius worth & j concepts f ” * Ч reproaoction ‘ ” . _ 2 V re-creation ij 2 communication therapeutic g» Į sell justifying community l! , Nature екрепепсе purgative propagandistic Włjl social artworld aesthetic §*! ____ means V “·»“* ÎSÏ b-«, (ft ĮI feeling ‘ .f »I i_J f I m» L —IH” A A Alt’ WSmH During the medieval period, the Bible was available only in Latin and could not be understood by an illiterate public. To address this problem, the Catholic church used theatre to illustrate stories such as the Creation, Cain and Abel, and the Last Supper. Performed by amateur actors from the community, these plays were funded outside the church and often had elaborate sets and special effects. This print recreates one type of performance called a passion play, which depicted the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. It was presented in Valenciennes, France, in 1547; took twentyfive days to perform; and had one hundred roles for seventy-two actors. On the left, you can see a depiction of paradise with God on his throne surrounded by angels and saints. On the right, Satan and his devils control the entrance to hell or “hell-mouth.” Fire and smoke effects were designed to strike fear into the hearts of any audience members that dared to sin. Courtesy of Bibliothèque Nationale de France. A 2013 passion play presented on Good Friday in Trafalgar Sguare, London. Photo by Elena Dante. Images from a 2008 Hell House created by an evangelical church In Cedar Hill, Texas. A “demon guide” ushers the audience to disturbing scenes such as this simulated school shooting. The Hell House phenomenon began In 1995 with a church In Arvada, Colorado, that went on to sell kits to other churches. Approximately three thousand Hell Houses are presented each year. Some churches have drawn sharp criticism for their controversial Interpretations of Immoral behavior. Soon after the 9/11 terrorist attack, a Waco, Texas, Hell House contained a scene In which a woman’s abortion was followed by her announcement that she was to accept a new job at the Twin Towers. Photos by Marcus Junius Laws. It portrays a good-natured landowner who is destroyed by liquor and abandons his wife and child only to be saved from a life of shame by a wealthy philanthropist. It became one of the most successful plays in American history and was one of more than one hundred plays dedicated to showing the evils of drink. Equally influential were the many dramatizations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an anti-slavery book by Harriet Beecher Stowe, already one of the most popular books of the nineteenth century. Audiences throughout the country could watch the story of runaway slaves Eliza and George and their escape from cruel masters and slave traders along with the travails of Uncle Tom, a faithful slave rewarded only with misery. Because of a lack of copyright laws, some adaptations had a pro-slavery bent, but most questioned the immorality of the institution and humanized its sufferers. Today, plays like The Drunkard might be called engaged theatre, drama that aspires to promote dialogue and social justice through performance. It can take many forms: community-based theatre, theatre in education, health education, theatre for development, prison theatre, museum and memory theatre, and theatre for social change. Engaged theatre also answers to many names: applied theatre, eivieally/soeially/ politically engaged theatre, ethnodrama, and documentary theatre, to name several. As currently practiced, it can trace its emergence to the
20 C R E A T I N G A W O R L D The Metropolitan Playhouse’s 2010 revivals of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (featuring Marele Henderson, directed by Alex Roe) and The Drunkard (featuring Michael Hardart, directed by Frank Kuhn). Photos by Debbie Goldman. early 1990s intersection of anthropological research into theatre and community-based performance. However, if we consider its ethos of democratic participation, we find that its origins are the same as Western theatre itself. Athenian theatre of the fifth century BCE relied on an engaged citizenry for its development. In addition to tragedies, playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides wrote comedies for a demanding democratic public who judged the relevance and relative merits of their work by how it engaged the current political debate. The archetypal characters created on stage stood in for competing philosophies, and major political figures could be criticized for their excesses. Documentary or Verbatim Theatre Some performers have sought to represent not only characters, but pivotal events as well. They do It by constructing plays using material directly from firsthand Interviews as well as historical or contemporary documents. Unlike so-called reality television, which often asks us to negatively judge Its subjects, these “verbatim plays” Mapping Reality 21 ask us to empathize and see multiple sides of a single issue. The following are some contemporary examples. Actor Anna Deavere Smith’s work began in the 1970s when she traveled the country, interviewing interesting people with a tape recorder and then transforming this material into a series of monologues in which she would play all of the parts. Her most famous plays are about race relations that have erupted into riots. Fires in the Mirror takes you to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 1991. Tensions turned into violence in this African American and orthodox Jewish neighborhood after two shocking events: a black child was killed by a car transporting a rabbi, and a Hasidic man was stabbed by a group of black men. By portraying real people from both communities who experienced the riot, she brought both perspectives into sharp focus. Later, she performed Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, a piece she created after the violence following the acquittal of several white police officers who had been videotaped repeatedly beating Rodney King, a black man pulled over for drunk driving. The Laramie Project (2000) was devised by members of the Tectonic Theater Project. They sought to understand the rural community of Laramie, Wyoming, where Matthew Shepard, a gay twentyone-year-old university student, was savagely assaulted and left to die by two local men. They spent fifteen months in the city conductAnna Deveare Smith. Photo by Kevin Fitzsimons.
22 C R E A T I N G A W O R L D ing interviews with its inhabitants. Some were connected to Matthew Shepard and the events surrounding the murder, and others were simply dealing with its aftermath and what it meant to be a resident of Laramie. The result was a play with seventy-two characters played by eight actors. The Laramie Project has been produced worldwide and generated so much interest that a companion epilogue, created from follow-up interviews, was added ten years after Shepard’s death. The following two shows have dealt with the inequities of our criminal justice system. The Exonerated (2002), by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, was constructed from interviews with six death row inmates who were freed when new evidence proved their innocence. Doin’ Time: Through the Visiting Glass (2004) was developed by actor Ashley Lucas by interviewing prisoners in California, Texas, and New York; their families; and people connected to the prison system. She also added material from her own childhood dealing with an DEATH TOAUT ^ ΡΟΚΑ high school production of The Laramie Project. In this scene, members of Westboro Baptist Church protest the funeral of Matthew Shepard. Mar/ Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School, 2008. Photo by Anthony Chivetta. Mapping Reality 23 incarcerated father to help audiences gain perspective into prison life and its effect on families. A perennial favorite in the theatre community is The Vagina Monologues (1996). Eve Ensler conducted interviews with two hundred women about a body part that she thought deserved celebration rather than shame or embarrassment and created an entire evening dedicated to it. Now performed on countless college campuses, this series of monologues is usually presented by a group of women instead of a single performer and has been used as a fund-raiser for charities that deal with violence against women. Do these plays have a point of view, or does the fact that they are made out of the words of real people prove their objectivity? Keep in mind that although they are made from primary sources, they are still forms of artistic expression. Out of the sum total of material collected, points of view are chosen, others go unused, and the texts are arranged for some kind of overall effect. Regardless, they have the potential to create powerful theatre and are an indelible link to historical moments from which we can learn and initiate change. In the words of Anna Deavere Smith, “I think when things fall apartyou can see more and you can even-be a part of indicating new ways that things can be put together.” While we can see the embrace of democratic ideals of participation since the inception of Western theatre, more recent developments in engaged theatre have sought to extend these ideals to their logical conclusions—why not involve the community as creators of theatre instead of solely as observers? To subvert the notion of theatregoers as consumers, this kind of theatre empowers community members to produce their own art—a passive audience is not the goal. Even in work that does not have explicit audienee/eommunity participation in the creation or performance, the content will be relevant to the audience as it speaks to community social realities. So what does engaged theatre look like? Case Studies Hallie Flanagan was an American experimental theatre director who used theatre to address the struggles of everyday people. She accepted
24 C R E A T I N G A W O R L D a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1926 to study theatre abroad, and while in Russia, she attended “living newspapers,” performances that delivered the news and polities of the day through theatre. When Flanagan was called on to serve as the director of the U.S. Federal Theatre Project ( FTP; 1935—1939), one of many stopgap programs to put people to work during the Great Depression, she accepted her post and instituted the same type of performances in the United States. She had already earned a reputation directing a script she had adapted in 1931 with Margaret Clifford titled Can You Hear Their Voices? It was based on a newspaper’s true account of Arkansas farmers raiding a Red Cross station to get food during the Dust Bowl, a time when droughts and violent dust storms destroyed onee-fertile land and left farmers destitute. Flanagans commitment to telling real stories that were vital to local and national communities was evident in the way she organized The 1938 production of One-Third of a Nation, a living newspaper that opened with this scene depicting a burning tenement. Concerned with the poor state of urban housing for the poor, the show included a history of the New York real estate market, newspaper headlines, government statistics, and speeches by political figures as well as some fictional characters. During the run of the show, the content was updated to reflect new developments, and when presented in other cities, local facts were included. The play took its name from a speech by then-president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who said Ί see one-third of a nation, ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” Courtesy Library of Congress, Music Division, ftp0068. Mapping Reality 25 the Federal Theatre Project. The FTP produced many theatrical works and employed thousands of theatre artists to create children’s theatre, community-specific ethnic theatre companies that embraced the nation’s diversity, and productions that dealt with political issues of local and national concern. Plagued by accusations of socialist and communist designs, the FTP was halted shortly after Flanagan was called before the House Un-Ameriean Activities Committee in 1938. In 20Ю, Flanagan’s Can You Hear Their Voices? was revived by the Peculiar Works Project theatre in New York City. Augusto Boal (1931-2009) was a Brazilian theatre director and founder of Theatre of the Oppressed. His early career was spent directing at Arena Theatre of São Paulo, where he laid the groundwork for the theatre’s nationalist productions and directed classical work with an eye to making it relevant to Brazilians. In 1971, Boal was kidnapped, arrested, tortured, and exiled because of his cultural activism, which was perceived as a threat to the Brazilian military regime. During his exile, he wrote Theatre of the Oppressed (1973). In this book, Boal argues for the direct participation of the audience in theatre, rather than their traditional role as passive spectators, recasting the audience as “speet-aetors.” Upon his Augusto Boal In 2007. Photo by Teia/FIiekr.eom 2007.
26 C R E A T I N G A W O R L D return to Brazil, his commitment to working for human rights and issues of citizenship resulted in his serving one term (1993—1997) as a city councilman for Rio de Janeiro and developing a new form named legislative theatre. Boal sought to transform voters into legislators by conducting performative town hall meetings that considered proposed laws. El Teatro Campesino, located in San Juan Bautista, California, was founded by Luis Valdez in 1965 at the Delano Grape Strike picket lines of Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers Union. In order to raise awareness of poor working conditions, farmworkers performed actos (short improvised skits) on flatbed trucks and in union halls. These shows toured and were later honored in Г969 with an Obie Award for “demonstrating the polities of survival” and with a Los Angeles Drama Critics Award in Г969 and Г972. More recently, El Teatro Campesino and Monterey Bay Aquarium partnered to create actos for children that deal with global warming and conservation issues, titled Basta Basura and Watt a Waste. Reverend Billy and the Church of Earthalujah are a New York Citybased performance group that is not affiliated with any religious organization. Through the guise of the Reverend Billy character, Bill Talen and his A performance by El Teatro Campesino, 1966. Courtesy of Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University. Photo by John A. Kouns. Mapping Reality 27 Reverend Billy at the 2011 Theater Festival Impulse In Wuppertal, Germany. Photo by Robin Junleke. gospel choir bring their activist performance art to many fronts where he feels the need to take a stand against consumerism, corporate greed, and the degradation of the planet. Reverend Billy began performing in Times Square, where he preached to any who would listen to cease their thoughtless spending. His act has since grown to include a forty-person choir and a five-piece band. In 2orr, Reverend Billy and the Church of Earthalujah completed an Occupy Tour, voicing their support of the 99 percent of Americans who are not the wealthiest r percent of the population. Juliano Mer-Khamis was an actor, director, and activist who was murdered in 2orr because he created theatre that engaged his conflicted community. He said of his identity: “I am roo percent Palestinian and roo percent Jewish.” His allegiance to intercultural peace and liberal views, including teaching theatre to Palestinian youth by integrating boys and girls together, was controversial to some in the community. His Freedom Theatre at the West Bank’s Jenin Refugee Camp persisted in its difficult work of fostering Arab-Israeli peace since its founding in 2006. The theatre continues today in Mer-Khamis s name. At its heart, engaged theatre practice shares Mer-Khamis s commitment and passion for both art and
28 C R E A T I N G A W O R L D Palestinians demonstrating in Ramallah on April 4, 2012, the one-year anniversary of the murder of Juliano Mer-Khamis. Despite their urgings, the Palestinian police have not found his killer. Photo by Oren Ziv/Aetivestills.org. community. Most simply put, it is a creative representation that is produced out of intimate engagement with a community. Living newspapers and groups such as El Teatro Campesino have been referred to as agitprop theatre, a blending of the words agitation and propaganda. Designed to provide new information and galvanize the public to act upon it, this type of political action is often practiced as street theatre. Humor has been an effective tool to spread the message of its creators. The following two groups have employed the same strategymocking conservative ideology and practices by acting ridiculously conservative themselves: Ladies Against Women (LAW) began in the rçSos as a feminist reaction to Reagan-era politics and periodically surfaces to attack what it considers repressive attitudes toward women. Both sexes dress up as 49503 housewives and hold public “consciousness-lowering” events. With protest signs such as “Make America a Man Again” and “Abolish the Environment,” they have marched in parades and held bake sales for national Mapping Reality 29 defense, pretending to sell Twinkies with a million-dollar price tag. Here is an example of one of their songs: (sung to the tune of “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean”) My body belongs to my husband Decisions do not concern me My thoughts must not stray from my housework So please make my choices for me Please make, please make Oh please make my choices for me My body belongs to our nation The judges know what’s best for me My ovum have more rights than I do So please make my choices for me. Billionaires for Bush (or Gore) was another group that used irony as a form of protest. However, they used it to target corporate welfare and the influence of money on the political system. Creator Andrew Boyd writes: The Billionaires campaign was devised to educate the public about the twin evils of campaign finance corruption and economic inequality. With the pay gap between CEOs and workers at 475 to r, both Democrats and Republicans renting themselves out to big money donors, and 97% of incumbents running for re-election being returned to Congress, these problems had reached crisis proportions by the 2000 presidential election. Our idea was to create a humorous, ironic media campaign that would spread like a virus via grassroots activists and the mainstream media. Their performances were often designed to coexist with serious events. The campaign kicked off with a “Million Billionaire March” where activists wearing tuxedos, top hats, and cocktail dresses arrived at the Democratic and Republican conventions waving fake money, holding signs such as “Corporations are people too!” and chanting slogans such as: One, two, three, four, we just want to earn much more! Five, six, seven eight, don’t you dare tax our estates!
30 C R E A T I N G A W O R L D THANK YOU I FOR PAYING OUR FAIR SHARE | £: Billion:» ForBUSll.com TAXES ARE NOT FOR EVERYONE —'”‘”’”wr-·,…- – A 2007 Billionaires for Bush performance In New York City. Photo by Fred Askew. Whose president? Our president! Whose money? Our money! Whose media? Our media! Materials about starting your own chapter were made available on a Web site, and soon independent groups sprang up in different cities, tailoring performances to their own message. After Barack Obama was elected, the organization morphed into Billionaires for Wealtheare and has shown up at Republican fund-raising events pretending to oppose healthcare reform and to lobby for corporate loopholes so the wealthy can avoid providing healthcare to their employees. A Serbian youth movement called Otpor! (“resistance”) used this same kind of humorous, nonviolent consciousness-raising to overthrow Slobodan Miloševič, the president of Yugoslavia accused of war crimes and corruption. It began in 1998 when fifteen students at Belgrade University decided to protest repressive laws that attacked freedom of speech. By 2000, the organization had expanded to 20,000 members, but unlike traditional political parties, Otpor! expressed dissent in unusual ways. For example, barrels with Milosevic’s face were made available on the Mapping Reality 31 street and people walking by could hit one with a stick for one dinar. Theatre-like events became an important part of these protests. When arrests of activists became common, Otpor! arranged a parade of mock support for Miloševič populated by a small herd of sheep carrying signs that said “We support the Socialist Party.” Other movements have since adopted their methods and their symbol of a clenched fist. Theatre and Propaganda Sometimes theatre has been used for abhorrent propaganda. Before World War II, the Nazi regime held elaborate outdoor pageants called thingspiele (“meeting or judgment plays”) in specially built theatres called thingplätze such as this one near Heidelberg. With thousands of performers collected Into huge choruses, these plays tried to conjure upa mythological German past in order to celebrate German fascism and Nordic supremacy. After a short period of success, the public lost Interest In these spectacles and the program was scrapped. Of the two hundred theatres planned for construction, approximately forty-five were built. Today, the few theatres that survive are used for rock concerts and other events. A thingplatz near Heidelberg, Germany. Photo by matthiashn/Fliekr.eom.
32 C R E A T I N G A W O R L D Show Business: An Interview with Broadway Producer Ken Davenport Ken Davenport has produced such shows as the Tony Awardwinning musical Kinky Boots, Godspell, Chinglish, Oleanna, Speedthe-Plow, Blithe Spirit, and Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome America. How would you define the role of the producer? It’s a difficult question to answer, but the analogy I often use is that the producer is very much like the CEO of any business or chairman of the board. We are responsible for all aspects of the business of putting a show together. We have to hire the management team. We have to find a product that we are going to sel I—that would be the show. We have to find a location to sell that product So it’s similar to owning a hardware store or restaurant or anything else. In fact, especially nowadays, as I hear every politician on both sides of the dial screaming about how the future of this country is in small business, that’s what we are: we are small businessmen and small businesswomen. How much influence does the producer have over the finished product? We have a lot of control over the finished product At the same time, theatre is one of the most collaborative art forms there is. You’re counting on a producer, of course, and for a musical, you’re counting on a book writer, a composer, a lyricist, a director, a choreographer. Obviously, we are bringing money to the table and the distribution of that product To the inventor of that product, which is the authors, we certainly have a big say in it. But at the same time, I don’t hire artists that I don’t trust and believe in. So often, we are just facilitating their voice, to make sure that it’s heard. I often say that my goal as a producer is to make sure that my shows run as long as possible because the longer a show runs, the better chance my investors have of getting their money back. And the longer a show runs, the more people have a chance of hearing my author’s voice and spreading whatever messages they want to spread. So I have a lot of control or influence over the finished product, but it’s a collaborative effort Mapping Reality 33 How do you find material worthy of producing? A number of ways. Many of the shows that I have produced I’ve developed myself, Ideas that were born out of my head or something I was Inspired by, something that I saw as a kid, or something I have always just been very passionate about Or sometimes It’s from writers, scripts… I have people that look for shows. Inspiration for a production can come anywhere. I just kind of live life with my eyes open, looking for something I believe can have an effect on an audience. Can you give me an example of something that leapt from your mind and found its way onto the stage? The very first show that I ever produced Is a show called The Awesome 80s Prom, and It’s an Interactive show set at a high school prom In 1989. It’s basically the dream, fantasy prom that I always wanted to have when I was In high school. And I’m also a big fan of the John Hughes movies, and that’s what It Is, a kind of a John Hughes movie live on stage, happening all around you. That’s something I was very passionate about, thought I could make a lot of fun, and It’s still running eight years later. How did you get started? I started as an actor. When I was about five years old, my parents dragged me to an audition for The Steadfast Tin Soldier and I was obsessed with It until I was about twelve or thirteen when I became too cool for It. I thought I was going to play for the Boston Celtics. I stopped growing, so that didn’t work out so well. And then I was going to be a lawyer. I went to a small, private college prep school In central Massachusetts that churned out a lot of doctors and lawyers, and I said, “I’ll be one of those lawyers.” But I got re-bit by the bug my senior year of high school when I did the musical Les Misérables and saw the kind of effect It could have. I went to Johns Hopkins University for a year and ended up doing more theatre there than anything else so I transferred to Tisch School of the Arts at NYU, where I continued to act. And then I got a very fortunate position as a production assistant on a Broadway show, and that opened my eyes to all the other different roles that were available on a Broadway production
34 C R E A T I N G A W O R L D including the producer and company manager, which is what I did for about ten years. And I learned the ins and outs of how to make a musical from the administrative side and the marketing side. Then I left and leapt out into producing about nine years ago now. What is the most difficult part of being a producer? There are two parts. Finding product that you love is a very difficult thing to do, which is one of the reasons I started coming up with it on my own. Raising money is certainly a difficult part, but that being said, when you find great product, money is very easy to raise. I do believe in the philosophy, “If you build it, they will come.” I think the hardest thing to do these days is marketing and advertising a show. We live in a very cluttered advertising world now and, especially in New York City, live entertainment is a cluttered sphere. So to make your show stand out in that group is very, very challenging. So what is a good guality for a producer to have? It’s passion. Theatre producers have to be unbelievably passionate about what they do, about the theatre and about their shows. With that kind of passion you can accomplish anything. Without it, they’ll never produce a show. How has technology/the Internet/social media changed what you do? We found another way to reach audiences, find audiences, and see who is talking about us. We’re still catching up with the rest of the world in terms of how we deal with it. The theatre industry is about twelve years behind, or ten years behind in terms of its use of technology, partly because our audience is about ten years behind. Remember, we cater to an older group. We are not the pop music world where they need to be on the cutting edge of technology because the kids that are downloading the top forty are already there. The average theatregoer is about forty-four years old and female, and the average age of a Facebook user is thirty-eight. They haven’t picked up as fast as some other demographics. But it’s a way for us to find new audiences, cultivate new audiences. It’s very important and certainly will be for the audience of tomorrow. Mapping Reality 35 How do you see the future of Broadway? How would you like to see It change? If you follow Broadway statistics, you’ll see our gross has been going up every year. Like a telethon, we are very proud to say, “Hey, look! We did better than last year!” Which Is fantastic. But If you look at the other statistic about how many people are coming to Broadway shows, you’ll see that attendance Is typically very flat. So we’re grossing more money, but we’re not putting any more butts In seats. That Is not a sustainable business model. It means that we are raising ticket prlces-same numbers, just paying higher prices. And at some point, that will cap out. I would like to see those graphs rise at the same proportion. I would like to see us adding dollars and putting more people In the seats, because that means we’ll have a big audience for tomorrow. Origins of Theatre So how did theatre come into being and why does it persist? It is commonly believed that Western theatre began with the ancient Greeks. But if we are to include the performance traditions of the rest of the world, images from unrecorded history remind us that this impulse to perform has always existed. In various parts of the world, records of artistic human expression have been found in the form of drawings on cave walls that are more than forty thousand years old. Even before written language, our need to record life experience was so great that we represented ideas in symbols that could be understood by others. Looking at images such as people, bison, and horses on cave walls, it is hard to imagine that all of these images were merely decorative. Instead of mere imitation, it is far more likely that many represented a story, one important enough to live longer than its narrator. For all the technological trappings that come with todays theatre, we often forget that storytelling is still its primary concern. For all of our imagined sophistication, we still yearn to be emotionally involved in the lives of others and live vicariously through their struggles. The primary question we still ask of one who has witnessed a show is not of theme but of story. What is it about? It is no accident that all world religions teach through parables. Stories allow us to
36 C R E A T I N G A W O R L D put ourselves into someone else s universe, feel their anticipation of the unknown, and learn from their actions. Theatre artists are not trained to be solely self-expressive—they are taught to tell stories better. Our propensity to engage in ritual can also be considered a factor in the origin of theatre. Long before we singled out art as a distinctive experience from the rest of everyday existence, human beings have looked to influence uncertainties around us, organize our lives, and satisfy our psychological needs through formalized action. Although every culture has developed performative rituals to positively influence fortune, good weather, plentiful crops, fertility, and victory in war, when we learn about the formal rituals of non-Western cultures, we often make the mistake of viewing them in a paternal way. In other words, we see them as currently existing in a primitive state that eventually evolves into something similar to our own. However, if you look beyond religious observances that we readily acknowledge such as church services, weddings, and funerals, you will notice that we engage in a host of civic rituals that also establish landmarks and transition people from one state to the next (graduations, award ceremonies, and sorority/fraternity initiations, to name a few). Although we now tend to identify ourselves as members of nations and not tribes, we still create and seek out ritual experiences that provide a fundamental need. Theatre can be seen as part of that impulse for collective experience and our need to be transformed by it. Many historians look to Africa for the first example of impersonation performed as part of a ritual. Sometime between Г870 and 1831 BCE, there was a yearly festival in Abydos, Egypt, commemorating the death and rebirth of Osiris, a king who came to be worshipped as an important god. During this festival, there is evidence that a priest played Osiris’ son, Horus, and told exciting parts of the story along with other priests and priestesses who played other major roles. Next, thousands of participants bloodlessly reenacted the combat between the forces of Osiris and Set, his brother. We can find the same type of commemorative performances today in the re-ereations of famous battles from history such as the American Civil War or the English War of the Roses. However, you cannot have impersonation without a natural impulse to play, a willingness to pretend. Today, this impulse is under siege. Since the r970s, children have lost an average of nine hours of free playtime per week. Television, smartphone, and video game use are not the only culprits. Parents have increasingly structured the lives of their children Mapping Reality 37 Like the ancient Abydos participants, we continue to duplicate important cultural events. This photo shows a 2008 Civil War reenactment In Moorpark, California. Photo by Kent Kanouse. ■Щ’
