a poor player

Dunkirk NY - Having given a history of how current theatre educational came into existence and the general framework of how their curricula were developed, Scott and I will now look to examine whether or not theatre education programs live up to the promise of their curricula and training. On the whole, I am going to come down on the side of saying they do not. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most theatre departments engage in what I call “the big lie.” I could, I suppose, modify this slightly by calling it “the big myth,” and if I did so it would not be inaccurate, but I don’t want to do injustice to the concepts of myth and mythology, because often myths can be very positive forces for societies. It is when myths are taken to be truths that they become lies. Since theatre departments are largely in denial about their situation, I think “the big lie” is more accurate.

I should point out as I begin that I will be talking in some generalizations. I do not believe one can have a rational discussion about any subject without making some generalizations. Nothing in this world is absolute, and talking in generalizations always acknowledges that exceptions probably exist to the generalization. I do not have hard facts about each and every single theatre program in the country, and it must be acknowledged that many theatre programs training students for the profession do excellent jobs and do produce students who come to be successful. But they are very few and far between, and perhaps are the exceptions that prove the rule. The remainder of theatre programs, however, produce far more students than can ever find success in theatre or entertainment, and at some point they have to acknowledge that to be the truth. That’s all I am asking: truth in advertising.

What I will do is take 5 aspects of what theatre programs generally offer in their marketing and try to compare them to what the reality is in the marketplace. Here they are:

1. “Our Students Work.” Open the pages of any issue of American Theatre, and you will see advertisement after advertisement of the major players in theatre education promoting the idea that, if you graduate from their program, you will work and be successful in theatre. The reality is that only a handful of theatre education programs have the type of connections which can truly get people work. The vast majority of them, however, do not. Once you leave their ivory tower, you are pretty much on your own.

All the glossy production photos in the world cannot hide the reality of statistics. The AEA Annual Report for 2005-06, the last report available from AEA detailing the 04-05 season, cites the media number of work weeks for 04-05 at 11.9. What that means is that half of all AEA worked more weeks, while half worked less. The average number of work weeks is 16.7. The percentage of Equity actors working was 44.7% to generate that 11.9 (that means 55.3% of AEA members had no work at all in 04-05). On any given week, the percentage of Equity members working was 14.4% It’s important to point out that all these statistics include weeks worked by stage managers, since they are members of AEA. Equity does not break out in its report of number of members working which of those members are actors and which are SMs. Total work weeks for principal and chorus were 249,663, with 44,338 being the number of stage manager weeks. As low as these numbers are, pulling the stage manager weeks out of them would lower these numbers.

As far as dollars are concerned, the media annual earnings for an Equity member for 04-05 was $6,675. Again, that’s the median: half earned more, half earned less. Of the $292,451,823 total earned by all AEA members in 04-05, 50.3% of that ($147,188,192) was earned under the Production Contract, which governs most Broadway houses. LORT contracts earned 16.5% ($48,396,346). No other type of contract earned more than 4% of the total earnings.

Health care? Interestingly enough, Equity itself notes that some of the work weeks reported do not count as full work weeks, and thus do not count towards health care. Only 89.5% of the work weeks reported counted towards health care (and again, including stage manager weeks. Note also that the work weeks generated by the Disney contract have separate health coverage through Disney). If 11.9% was the median, that means in 04-05 half of Equity members did not work enough weeks to qualify for health care.

No theatre education program that I am aware of tells the potential actors it trains or recruits these facts. They instead try to create the illusion that at the end of their training, you will be working on a beautiful stage in a gorgeous costume in a glamorous situation. The reality is quite, quite different. The fact is that there are far too many actors out there for the amount of work there is.

2. “Theatre training is the best training.” There are less theatre opportunities than any other type of opportunity for an actor in terms of finding paying work. Day players, background work, under 5s, and many other types of employment provide a better payday for the average actor, and for less work, than theatre. How can a type of training for which there is the least amount of work be the “best training?”

This lie is used to hide the fact that most theatre departments are training students for a theatre scene that was in existence maybe 30 years ago, but not now. But because they cannot or will not change their approach, they simply defend their programs by saying that theatre training is the best training. It’s rather like trying to tell a would-be farmer that, even though you’re probably going to driving a mega-tractor or combine to work your land, horse-and-plow training is really the best training for farming.

3. Training in realistic acting technique. This is in some manner related to the above. Most actors are trained in Stanislavski realism, but this particular type of training has precious little value in today’s marketplace. With some few exceptions, we have moved away from an understanding of the actor’s craft as trying to create realistic characters different from themselves to the concept of the “personality” actor, wherein an actor generally plays some slight variation of themselves.

Find an actor with charisma, with camera presence, with a particular look, or with some other sort of “something” that can sell, and that person can become an actor with little training of any sort. Most well-know actors today have no realistic acting training at all, and if you talk to them about character creation they probably would have no concept of what you’re talking about. Broadway has become full of stories about actors who come from film to work on the stage and just become undone. Realistic acting training and its usefulness in today’s marketplace is a smokescreen that training programs use to mask the realities of the situation to their students.

4. “We produce full productions in state-of-the-art theatres.” Yes, in fact, they do, but this practice in and of itself creates a false sense of reality. For four (or seven) years, young actors are hoodwinked into thinking that the kinds of theatres they work in, and the full-production values they experience in their college careers, will be the sorts of experiences they will have in their careers. In fact, very few of them will ever again work in such ideal and perfect surroundings as they will in college. Surrounded by full technical support, well-equipped proscenium theatres, fully-equipped black boxes, and so on, not until they get to at least the LORT C level will they ever see anything like that again. Students often have to find themselves adapting to found spaces, not enough lights, no designers, little technical help and so in in the real world they come to work in. Nothing in their training teaches them to work under those circumstances.

5. “A college degree will get you noticed in the profession.” There seems to be a very deep rift between those who work in the profession and those who work in academia. By and large, in the acting world at least (technical theatre programs may not be so unrelated to their actual professional counterparts as performers), performers realize sooner or later that it was something other than their degree that got them in the door of their profession. People in the profession may notice you have a degree, but you can be pretty sure that deciding to cast you or not has nothing to do with your degree. No statistics exist as to how many actors have degrees, but I am willing to bet that the majority do not if you include film and TV performers.

I approximate that I have “trained” maybe 300 students in my time at Fredonia. I can count on the fingers of one hand (with fingers left over) the amount of students who now make their living solely through acting. A few more make the majority of their living through acting, combining it with some other side work. And of those few, I think it’s safe to say that they came to Fredonia already possessing the qualities that would make them successful. I even have had one student who took an acting class for non-majors that I taught, and a few years later sent me his head shot and resume. He had an agent and a fairly successful string of work on daytime soaps. Did not take another class in theatre other than “acting for non-majors.”

I could go on, but these are at least five of the big lies that theatre departments currently perpetrate on students. Don’t misunderstand me – I am all for a quality education. I think any education has value, and in writing about these issues I am not suggesting that a theatre education under today’s realities is valueless.

But when you have students who invest $75,000 and more in their undergraduate and graduate education, as well as 4-7 years of their lives, and come out substantially in debt, don’t you think you should be telling them the truth about what they’re getting into and what you really have to offer them? Take that same $75,000 and 7 years, don’t go to school, and use it as a stake to move to LA or NY to begin finding work and making connections, and what might you have after that? It could be exactly the same thing, but as an educator, that question alone often keeps me up at night and makes me feel guilty as hell. It’s why I think about and talk about reforming theatre education every chance I get. Truth in adverstising; that’s all I ask.

In closing, I’d rather give Eduardo Machado the last word. In June 2006 Machado gave a speech which was widely quoted in the theatrosphere (Scott linked to the posting of the speech at Parabasis written by Isaac Butler). In a post like this, Machado’s words are worth re-visiting:

Finally I’d like to discuss one of our biggest problems: Education. By now I think we all know we train too many people. I am guilty of this more then most of you. I run the playwriting program at Columbia and I am required to let in ten student playwrights a year. When I first started working there it was only six a year. It should really be two.

But because the university wants money. Because even at the educational level they feel art does not have to be subsidized, ten playwrights graduate every year from my program. How can they all really be playwrights? They can’t and they are not. And since when did theatre people need a master to be actors, directors and playwrights, designers and producers?

I barely graduated from high school.

I went to an acting school that was down an alley in Van Nuys. I learned about playwriting from Maria Irene Forñes in an abandoned building called INTAR 2 on 53rd street, and by having my first three plays produced – not workshopped – at The Ensemble Studio Theatre. No degree. Just what came my way. What I sought out. If we have so many students graduating every year then what happens to the self taught, the inspired, the different? They are buried under piles of graduate scripts, resumes and 8X10s.

Let me be frank, I teach at Columbia because I need the money, there is no grand scheme or noble purpose, just dollars and cents. And I try very hard to do a good, professional job.

But is that mentorship? Is it inspirational? I do my best, but I don’t think so.

The way we have turned the art form into a factory is criminal and we all have to start talking to each other about this. We need better quality control. At all the schools.

Because not everyone is talented or exceptional. No matter how much they are willing to pay. We are a creating a theatre of the average. That cannot be good.

-twl