a poor player

The chair will be xxxx for one year. I have no idea of what the
status of Visiting Artist is, but I will be finding out at some time
soon I suppose. And believe me, I could bring in a visiting artist
every week and these kids would STILL have no idea what to do when
they graduated.

My standard answer on going back to teaching acting has become the
following: yesandno. Yes because it’s something I know a lot about and
feel comfortable with, but no because I feel like a jerk teaching kids
thing they’ll probably never use because there’s very little art to
theatre anymore, and everyone cares more and more about business and
less and less about art. I have some hope that the indie theatre scene
might be ready to bust out, and I’d like to see if I can steer anyone
in that direction. But the business disheartens me overall. It’s sort
of like asking a brontosaurus if he’s glad to be back in a world where
everyone has become a mammal. No egg-laying? Breastfeeding? Hair?
What happened to the old days? -twl

Student

I hear you – but I guess my question is – especially since you’re coming from New Media – can’t you guys teach more than “theatre?” There are so many ways to be a performer – I think the biggest thing is that you’re a great acting teacher, and that’s gonna benefit the kids in theatre, tv or whatever slice of the “business” they choose to pursue. What you guys need to do is get a couple cameras up in that piece! I mean, I think it’s great to teach the history and styles of theatre in addition to the basics of acting, but, yeah – there’s NO money in theatre. None. Nada. Zip. And obviously these kids dream not of being artists with day jobs, but full-time artists. Naturally that’s not gonna happen for everybody (or even anybody, most likely) but it seems irresponsible somehow to pump out these fresh-faces who think they have what it takes to make it in “the entertainment industry” when really the only thing they know how to do is an act in a play. (If that.) I’m not saying that’s your fault – it’s not anyone’s fault per se – it’s just that the program is outdated, which is a shame because I know it’s good.

I think if you give kids the tools to make it in “the business” they will be more likely to stay psyched about theatre because if you come to NYC and you play around in the theatre scene you quickly realize how sad and pathetic it is and I seem to remember a balding middle-aged spunkmeyer who once said, “Theatre in New York is just community theatre for New Yorkers…” So, so true. So what’s the point?

Teacher

I think perhaps I should take the time to give a more thoughtful
answer to your questions and comments from your last email, so prepare
yourself!

“Can’t you guys teach them more than ‘theatre?’ ” This is actually a
very deep question, because what it does is strike at the very heart
of who we are, and how we, as a department of theatre and dance,
perceive ourselves. All of us are trained as theatre artists; we love
theatre, we believe in theatre, we enjoy theatre. In my particular
case, I love acting. Stage acting. Acting in classics. Acting live on
stage in a scripted play. It’s still a rush for me. I do not enjoy
movie or TV acting. In over 100 stage productions I have dedicated the
better part of my adult life to trying to learn and master the art and
craft of stage acting. It is a hard and difficult art form to master,
and as I have passed each phase of my own life from young adult to
middle-aged schlepp, I have continued to learn more and more about it.
This is why we continue to call ourselves the Department of Theatre
and Dance. We wish to dedicate our careers to theatre’s development
and improvement. It may be that we are flailing at windmills, but
given that the theatre has survived for over 2,500 years to this
point, it may also be that we are merely in an historical lull. No one
can say for sure. But like any other tradition worth preserving, you
don’t get to preserve it if you stop doing it and passing it on.

Now, it just so happens that, in the case of our art form, there have
been over the last century certain developments, shall we say
“spin-offs,” which have taken the craft of acting and moved it from
the 3-D plane to the 2-D plane, from the live to the pre-recorded. On
top of that, the sheer scale of growth in the marketplace for
entertainment of all sorts has been extraordinary from an historical
perspective: never before have so many people been able to partake of
so many different forms of art and entertainment. It was only natural
that acting, as a craft, was subsumed by this explosion of radio,
film, TV and web. The result of all this has been that now, in the
21st century, the cultural assumptions about what acting is or should
be about have seen a seismic shift, a sea change. Where once people
equated acting with the stage, now people equate acting with movies,
TV and other forms of mediated entertainment. The art of stage acting
is generally regarded as an afterthough, a sort of “training ground”
for where the real business is.

These changes have now caused people to look backwards at the theatre
training they may have received in colleges and view it now as somehow
out of date, out of fashion. It is no longer fashionable to teach
students the art of theatre; we must become something else, perhaps a
Department of Show Business. Train people to act for the camera. Get
better head shots. All that stuff.

I say no – we do not have to do that. I do not train people under
false assumptions. I say openly and frankly that I train people for
stage acting. I am not an expert in camera acting, nor is anyone else
in our department. We train for the stage. If you want to learn
something else, if you believe what we do is inadequate or will not
prepare you well enough for your imagined career, then look for a
school which has those elements. We do not, and until we actually
change personnel, I don’t think we will. I do think we may look for
camera qualifications in Mary’s replacement, but I do not think it
will be a major qualification. I mean really, we can only do so much
in 4 years with people. You want a good voice? We can do that. You
want to learn something about creating a character? We can do that.
You want some physical training for you physical instrument? We can do
that. Want to learn how to act in front of a camera? Not so much. A
little, but not so much. We have our limits. There are other places to
get the type of experience you may want after your 4 years at
Fredonia. When you’re starting from scratch, as we do with most of the
students we get, you can only go so far with the limits of time you
have. Your training does not end when you leave Fredonia with that
piece of paper.

And you know, it’s funny to me that, as a college department, people
really begin to question what we do. I mean, asking the question
itself is an immediate indication of how our goals and art form are
being de-valued. It’s like asking a black man if he can be more, you
know, white. No other department in the college has that experience. I
never once while in the art department heard anyone talk about
changing the art department curriculum from one which trained serious
artists to one which taught kids to paint pictures of dogs playing
poker or churning out Pottery Barn ceramics or taking pictures of kids
at Wal-Mart. To my knowledge there are no courses in the History
Department which teach students to write scripts for the History
Channel. There are no courses in the Philosophy Department to teach
students how to write “deep thoughts” on greeting cards. There are no
courses in the School of Music on how to play rock-and-roll or
hip-hop. So why is the Theatre Department supposed to be the
department which teaches kids how to appear in commercials or create
bland, stereotypical characters on soap operas or sitcoms? Simply
because there’s money there? There’s money in all of the other
examples as well. Why are we not allowed to be what we are, who we
are, and what we do best?

Of course, I could go on in my defense by talking about the enormous
cultural shifts that have occured in the past 100 years, all unlike
anything ever seen in human history. The change in cultural
expectations comes into play here, not the least of which is the
current cultural assumption that college should now prepare one for
gainful employment rather than open one’s mind and spirit to a broad
humanistic perspective. Theatre and drama is designed to be an aid in
creating that expansion of perspective, and I would like to preserve
it as such. It may be unfashionable and not profitable, and it may be
that in the end it will inevitably decay and die. But if the fall is
all you have left, then I think it matters which way you fall. In
another 500 years, I quite sure that what you and I both are doing at
this very moment in our lives will appear as quaint as a 12th century
medieval pageant wagon does to us living in the 21st century. If
that’s the case, then I prefer to continue to teach stage acting, and
retain the qualities of a department of theatre. I leave it to the
generation of teachers coming after me to make the conversion to show
business if that’s what they wish and that’s what they were trained
for, and they will be more than welcome to do so.

Now please don’t take any of this personally. I still love and respect
you, and would love to have you come up and speak about your
experiences. But you know what? More than anything else, I would love
to have you come up and listen to you sing. I miss your singing more
than anything else about you. You have one of the most beautiful
singing voices I’ve heard, and often when I read your blog I can hear
a jury piece or a section from Into The Woods in my head. That’s what
I would wish.

Student

Well – first of all – thank you for the compliment! That is so nice, especially considering that I hardly ever sing anymore… it’s always in the back of my mind as something I have to maintain, but when faced with the reality of trying to have a career in this business, my beautiful singing voice didn’t seem to get me anywhere, considering “my type” doesn’t necessarily match it – at this age anyway (though I am moving into another age bracket now aren’t I? Aaaah!) So, thanks on two levels – the second being a nice reminder not to waste one of my talents. My comic friends are always saying “you can really sing” so yeah, I gotta figure out something to do with that. I have performed in a couple cabarets in the past few years, but nothing for the last year. Hrmph.

Re your response – I mean, I can’t argue you – nor do I want to – your feelings are totally valid and I respect all your thoughts. I think my point is a little simpler than you’re making it – I think you should be a dept. of theatre and dance (tho I saw Geli a few weeks ago here in the cit-ay and she told me the dance dept is striking out on its own…?) but I also think you guys bear some responsibility to teach kids real-world skills. I agree – a history degree is completely useless (Mark would tell you the same thing) but I guess that’s my real point: all college degrees are completely useless. Look at me – I worked on Wall Street for 5 years with a BFA in Musical Theatre! What?

If you really want to “make it” in the entertainment industry (and this goes for stage acting, too, in my experience) you don’t need a degree – you need to know how to sell yourself. And selling yourself means knowing yourself – and I think in order to fully know yourself, you have to be able to see yourself against all kinds of backdrops – not just the backdrop of the stage where a 26 year old girl can play 9 yr. old Pippi Longstocking – but also the backdrop of film, television, commercials, etc. I mean, you teach musical theatre, which for the most part is just as fluffy as selling aspirin, but nobody seems to be complaining about that. (Nor should they.)

I’m just saying, I think what happens to people who are really talented from Fredonia is that they get out here – to NY or LA or wherever – and they go, “Oooooooooh. THIS is what it’s like.” And to some extent, nothing you can teach them will prepare them for the shock of the real world – I’m just saying – there should be more opportunity for kids to understand what they’re going to encounter because tho they are going to “theatre school,” most of them secretly want to be famous in film or on SNL or on Broadway – nobody just wants to train to do regional theatre. Because chances are if you’re a 17 year old from New York State, you don’t even know what regional theatre is. These kids are dumb, man – and I know – because I was one of the smart dumb ones! Once you step outside of your little shell and you see how REALLY dumb you are… yikes! It’s scary.

So that’s what I mean, really – I’m talking more about giving these kids savvy than anything else. I’m sure a lot of what I’m talking about just comes with age (since age brings experience) but I guess that’s the real sucker. If you look at the people who are successful in entertainment – all mediums, at a young age, 90% of the time you’ll find you can either be able to trace them back to entertainment roots (a parent, an uncle, whatever) OR – they were born in and/or around NY & LA. That’s why it’s hard competing for jobs against those people – because they have an inherent sense of savvy that Joe Buffalo does not. That doesn’t mean you should change Joe Buffalo – because he’s gonna work because he is Joe Buffalo – but you have to give him an opportunity to understand the way the windmill works, no?

Blah blah – we could go on for days… I don’t regret my Fredonia training at all. It has given me so many skills that I use everyday and of course I don’t think I would have been happy (or ready) to go to school anywhere else. I just wish upon graduation that I knew better what to expect afterwards. Or what not to expect, even.

You should blog this – it might be interesting for your readership (it seems like you’re drawing the academics in already) to see the teacher/student perspective.

Teacher

I will indeed blog this – verbatim – so I assume I have your
permission and all, since it was your suggestion.

Here are the following observations, followed by a thought I had while
in the shower:

> I saw Geli a few weeks ago here in the
> cit-ay and she told me the dance dept is striking out on its own…?)

There is, I believe, an upgrade from a minor to a new major in dance,
but not a new department.

> but I also think you guys bear some responsibility to teach kids real-world
> skills. I agree – a history degree is completely useless (Mark would tell
> you the same thing) but I guess that’s my real point: all college degrees
> are completely useless. Look at me – I worked on Wall Street for 5 years
> with a BFA in Musical Theatre! What?

And my response is – why should WE be responsible for this? Who
decided that college theatre departments should bear this
responsibility? Just who, exactly, gave us this responsibility? I
personally think professional acting schools like HB Studios should be
responsible for this. Or – here’s a unique idea – the ACTOR
HIM/HERSELF should be responsible for learning those skills. What ever
happened to self-education? I mean, it’s all out there in numerous
books. If, as you state below, that you don’t really need a theatre
degree to be an actor (and you don’t), then why give us this
responsibility? I really don’t want this responsibility, but thanks
for offering.

As to “useless,” I think that’s inaccurate. College degrees were
designed to be useful in ways other than training people to be
employable in certain markets. I still consider this equation of
“useful=marketable” to be false logic. If I gave you an old-fashioned
skate key, and you for whatever reason have the idea it was supposed
to adjust modern inline skates, then of course you’d term it
“useless.” But applied to its intended and proper use – adjusting an
old-fashioned skate onto your shoes – you’d find it plenty useful. The
fact that you worked on Wall Street for five years with a BFA Musical
Theatre degree presents a false logic, because one has nothing to do
with the other. You worked on Wall Street because someone thought
you’d be good at the job, and obviously you had the skills to do so.

>
> If you really want to “make it” in the entertainment industry (and this goes
> for stage acting, too, in my experience) you don’t need a degree – you need
> to know how to sell yourself. And selling yourself means knowing yourself -
> and I think in order to fully know yourself, you have to be able to see
> yourself against all kinds of backdrops – not just the backdrop of the stage
> where a 26 year old girl can play 9 yr. old Pippi Longstocking – but also
> the backdrop of film, television, commercials, etc. I mean, you teach
> musical theatre, which for the most part is just as fluffy as selling
> aspirin, but nobody seems to be complaining about that. (Nor should they.)

I agree with all of the above. I simply don’t agree that we have to be
responsible for teaching that. One of the things we quickly came to
realize in digital media is that we should not teach kids how to use
software. They needed to learn how to do that themselves. We needed to
teach them how to have an artistic vision. That’s what we concentrated
on, and I think in theatre we should continue to concentrate on what
we currently do. I never became a full-time professional actor
precisely because the thing I learned about myself (which no one
taught me) was I did not have the ability to sell myself, and I had no
interest in learning. It wasn’t for lack of talent.

Something else also comes with age, I’ve discovered. It’s how things
which appear to be so simple are in fact so complex. All of what you
wrote above has some truth to it, but the root causes of these
conditions – the shock of the “real world,” dumb kids, secret longings
for stardom, lack of knowledge about regional theatre – and therefore
the remedies to these conditions, are far deeper than I think you
perceive. It is simply not that easy to give kids “savvy,” especially
in a rural environment with kids from outside NY or LA. You see the
solution in simple terms: plug Savvy Information Module A into Student
B and get Savvy Student C. I am oversimplifying, of course, but I have
come to believe that many of these issues have root causes deep in the
culture we have created, and what is being asked of theatre
departments is to go with the cultural flow, as it were, and succumb
to the path of least resistance by catering to the prevailing cultural
winds and demands. Provide simple solutions to complex problems.

And finally, it appears to me that you make perhaps the most critical
mistake of all – not questioning the validity of all the assumptions
we have about the status quo in show business today. You do not, as it
were, “question the authority” of show business. Today, women,
African-Americans and other minorities in this country have more
freedom and more rights because they had the insight and the courage
to question the assumptions of their day. Blacks questioned Jim Crow
laws and segregation; women questioned less pay for equal work and the
“good housewife” model. In my humble and insignificant opinion, I
think theatre artists, and most particularly actors, need to question
a system which forces them into stereotypes, shallow characters,
restrictive union practices, and does just about everything it can to
rob them of their talent, their art, their individuality, their
opportunities and their soul. Why should I teach students to
accommodate themselves to such a repressive system? If I am going to
educate them about this system, it will only be for the purposes of
rebelling against it, to “know the enemy.” What disturbs me most
about the theatre scene today is the utter lack of any
counter-cultural activity, any sort of mass rebellion against the
current system. I see some signs of it here and there, especially in
some of the blogs I read, and I hope to be able to expose students to
these trends. Maybe that will grow into something, maybe not. But I
think the system needs more challenge, not more acquiescence. I don’t
want to teach acquiescence.

So here’s my “in the shower” idea, which I will mention to xxxx (and
in doing so I’m actually promoting something I’ve been arguing against
in all the above): trying to develop a series of visiting artists made
up exclusively of Fredonia graduates of all types and stripes: from
Joy Reed to Matt B. to Jen C. to you to Kate Collins, etc. I think it
would be great to have such a series, but if this is so important to
graduates, then I would like to see them fund it. If everyone on the
list gave say $20 annually to such a fund, we’d have more than enough
money to do this easily, and perhaps you’d get $200 back out of it. Or
maybe we’d cooperate and do a matching fund up to a certain amount of
dollars. I think that would be very significant, and present a range
of ideas rather than simply dwelling on “the business.”

Anyway, thanks again for engaging me in this dialogue. it’s really
been a help for me in terms of clearing some thoughts I’ve been
having, some doubts about returning to teach theatre. Just by
dialoging with you I’ve been able to clarify and focus my thoughts and
face my doubts. I promise you can have the last word if you’d like.

-twl

Student

Ha – no last word necessary – I just want you to know that I think our opinions are not as differing as they may seem – but we can talk more about it in person. I’ll be up with or without doing the VAP to visit my darling husband, but I think your idea is great – I don’t know about the money part (if you can get people to go along with it, I mean) but I think it’s a cool idea to do an all-graduate VAP session over the course of the year – as you say it would give the current students a really broad idea of all of their options based on our experiences. Same degree, different paths. Very smart.

Keep me updated – and blog away….