a poor player

Birmingham AL – The Prof and I finally met up face-to-face here in Birmingham AL. We delivered a joint session on re-inventing the theatre curriculum for small and mid-sized schools at the Southeast Theatre Conference. Scott was gracious enough to invite me in on this gig, and I took advantage of the offer. We pooled many of our ideas about re-structuring theatre curricula together into a joint panel, and I think it went well. Scott got about nine names for his <100K theatre project. There really was little resistance from the audience members. As Scott noted, they seemed to have the air of people who have been thinking the same things themselves.

Now here comes the rant.

I have not been to a theatre conference in a long time. At some point way back when in the dark ages I came to the conclusion that these types of conferences were only for people committed to the status quo. These are not the sort of things you attend if you want to have intelligent discussions about theatre. For the most part, everyone involved with the whole affair is really committed to the concept of spreading positive messages and positive experiences about theatre. There is absolutely no sense in these affairs that anyone connected with it really wants to think differently. In other words, my ideas for reform weren’t welcome to the party.

Fair enough, but at least at this point in time there are really no alternative conferences to go to. At places like SETC, NETC, and ATHE (Association for Theatre in Higher Education) the emphasis is 97% on “how to succeed in the theatre business by trying a little harder.” It’s self-perpetuating, narcissistic, and almost cult-like. Anybody interested in having an adult conversation about what might be wrong, what might need reform, etc., is faced with the reality that everyone else there has drunk the kool-aid of pre-professionalism. You might as well be talking to a wall.

I think the saddest experience of my day yesterday was attending the keynote address at which Beth Leavel spoke (or rather performed). A graduate of Meredith College and University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Ms. Leavel won the Tony Award for her performance in the title role of The Drowsy Chaperone. Her IBDB listing indicates she’s been in exactly 6 shows on Broadway since 1980. Almost 13 years of her career has been performing in 42nd St., the original and the revival. She was in the right place at the right time with the right show to win her Tony. She is funny, and she appears to have a very quick comic mind. She enjoys playing the comic diva. She had the assembled multitude of college theatre majors eating out of her hand.

But she had nothing serious to say, really. Neither did the  theatre majors. All the questions and all the talk was about how to succeed on Broadway and be like her. As I walked through the halls of the hotel complex during the afternoon I grew more and more sad watching all these young dressed-up kids with their audition numbers pinned to their chests waiting for their turn to show everyone what they could do and begin their climb up the great Broadway ladder. They know nothing else at all about theatre except this professional business model, and they have no sense of independent thought in terms of thinking about how to push back against it. They’re just buying it hook, line and sinker. And we, the educators, are tossing them the baited hook.

In a recent Washington Post article by Ron Charles (free registration to WP may be necessary to access the article online), the author laments the fact that young college students do not read any radical literature and are all fairly middle-of-the-rod to conservative. This is certainly true among theatre students. I do not know what we have to do to get our young people to conceive of theatre in a different way. Perhaps we cannot. It has led me to some despair over the past 24 hours. I want to follow this up a bit with some more thoughts, but for today I am going to check out the Civil Rights history that Birmingham has to offer. I think it will be far more inspiring than How To Create a Sure-Fire Resume.  -twl