a poor player

Dunkirk NY – Poor Scott. I seem to get him into a lot of trouble unknowingly. I write what I think is an innocuous post, catching my feelings of the moment; Scott expands upon it because it moves him to think and consider; and the next thing you know – theatrospherical shitstorm! I wouldn’t blame him if the first thing he does when he sees me at the SETC Conference is beat the crap out of me for getting him into so much verbal trouble.

So, to some extent, I feel a bit compelled to come to his rescue and pull out from his post something I think is important to both of us, and why we collaborate in terms of trying to change the face of theatre education. Here is what I’d like to focus on from his most recent apologia:

My desire to increase geographical diversity has never been about rejecting the small theatres struggling to carve out a niche in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles. Many of those theatre are very much a part of their community — I think of a theatre like, say The Classical Theatre of Harlem in this regard. My beef, to borrow Don’s terminology, is the message that theatre people can only have a “serious” career if they are in Nylachi; that theatre in Nylachi is the only theatre worth considering; that there is a geographical hierarchy with Broadway at the top (which has been recognized as a dumb idea for decades now); that “quality” and “excellence” has a geographical component. This is nothing short of an ideology, one that is oft repeated by those who have bully pulpits for the art form such as Michael Kaiser and Rocco Landesman, and that gets passed down to high schoolers across the nation through TV broadcasts of the Tony Awards and TV shows like “Taking the Stage” and “Grease: You’re the One That I Want” and “Fame” that are little more than extended advertisements for the Broadway and commodity-arts ideology.

I think it’s important for me to state as unequivocally and as clearly as I can that I am not against New York City theatre or Chicago theatre or urban theatre or anything of the sort. I am not against any of that, nor do I hate it, nor do I wish to tear it down. Not at all. What I am against is the mindset (Scott uses the term ideology) that has been created around Nylachi, and in particular, how that mindset affects young students studying theatre, and how much waste that mindset creates in our national theatre scene. So that we more or less are on the same definitional page, let’s use the Wikipedia definition of “mindset”:

“In decision theory and general systems theory, a mindset is a set of assumptions, methods or notations held by one or more people or groups of people which is so established that it creates a powerful incentive within these people or groups to continue to adopt or accept prior behaviours, choices, or tools. This phenomenon of cognitive bias is also sometimes described as “mental inertia”, “groupthink“, or a “paradigm“, and it is often difficult to counteract its effects upon analysis and decision making processes.” (italic emphasis mine).

“Nylachi” is a mindset, and needs to be understood and defined as a mindset, not as a dig or an attack on theatre in these cities. It is this mindset that Scott and I are trying to displace among theatre students and within theatre departments. We are trying to do this because we believe that the current system produces a lot of waste: waste in the form of theatre talent that goes to Nylachi, does not succeed according to the program, and becomes so discouraged or dispirited that it stops being involved in theatre altogether. We believe that if we can create an alternative mindset among students that says, “You know, you don’t really have to go to Nylachi. There are other options that might be more fruitful for you, fit your personality and talent better, give you a different and perhaps more satisfying lifestyle, and keep you creating theatre, something you love to do, longer.” That’s all it is – just trying to create options that offer people choices rather than always getting the message that there is only “one way.”

I grew up a hard-core Catholic, and one of the things I resent most in my life about Catholicism is that it has always tried, and continues to try, to present itself as the “one true faith,” painting all other faiths as somehow inferior. And not just inferior, mind you, but downright evil! I think anybody with a reasonable adult mind (who isn’t a hard-core Catholic) finds this pretty easy not only to observe and understand, but to condemn. Since I was raised in this faith, it was not as obvious to me at first, and it probably wasn’t until my mid-30s that it began to sink in that there were many, many ways to seek out God and faith and spirituality.

And this is what I am trying to work for in theatre education – the “de-Catholicization” of theatrical thinking and training that says “Nylachi=The One True Way.” That one must become a “working professional.” That one must earn one’s living completely from theatre/entertainment to be considered successful. That one has to have earned the badge of entry to AEA or SAG or AFTRA or the Dramatist Guild to be treated as a true professional in the business. This mindset is rampant throughout theatre education, and it is reminiscent of medieval Europe’s concept of “Christendom,” when Catholicism ruled the entire world view in every sense. It took bold thinkers like Galileo and Martin Luther to propose ideas that themselves took another few hundred years to break that Christendom mindset. I don’t expect to tear down the current theatrical structure, nor do I really want to, for it produces some beautiful work. But because of its entropic nature, it will soon enough fall of its own accord. I would like to have ready some options to take its place when it eventually falls.

I don’t need to bring up all the statistics again to convince anybody of how much theatrical wasted talent is out there, and how much of that wasted talent is concentrated in Nylachi. All I would like to do is be able to re-direct some of that waste towards other options, such as creating theatre in cities less than 100K in population, or creating theatre alongside non-artists in a community setting. I’m not promising them anything better, or easier, or even promising the potential for them to make a living. I’m only promising them something different, something with a different lifestyle and value and direction at its core, something with a different mindset – something with a different future.

For those of you who revere the Nylachi mindset and that way of doing things – more power to you! I hope you are successful in staying around for as long as possible. I don’t dislike you, or the art you produce, nor do I want to tear you down. Like Catholicism, Nylachi can create a certain level of beauty and mystery (Gregorian chant, or the works of Tony Kushner). But just as Catholic churches see less and less people in the pews as they realize there are other options, so too will there be less and less audience members in the rapidly crumbling theatres of today (the statistics already tell us this). Only the hard-core believers with enough money in their pockets, and the unrelenting dreamers, will remain to keep the niche alive.

I do want to make sure there are options there when the time comes to replace you. I am truly sorry if this offends you, that maybe I am not giving you the respect you deserve; but the world is not flat, the earth moves around the sun, the Bible can be interpreted by ordinary people for themselves, and all things die and are replaced. I have seen the past, loved the past, but I don’t want to cling to it, and I don’t want my students to get swallowed up by it. I want them to have better options, skills and opportunities for creating a stronger, more equitable, and more accessible theatrical future.

And now it’s off to SETC to see if I can face and change a few mindsets.  -twl