A Poor Player

“The artist is the only person; his antennae pick up these messages before anybody. So he is always thought of as being way ahead of his time because he lives in the present.” (Marshall McLuhan, 1970)

One of Marshall McLuhan’s most interesting observations on media was the notion of the “rearview mirror.” The metaphor he employed was that media (and technology) acted as a rearview mirror to culture. The technology appears to be “the future,” but actually reflects to you the past. Westerns, for example, were very popular TV shows in the 1950s, and a good example of how this principle worked: a modern device depicting some version of the culture’s past. TV shows you where you’ve been, and almost never does it show you where you are or where it can take you.

I though if that after writing my last post below and the going out to catch up on blogs I’ve missed for the past two days because of a sinus infection. As I was reading, it occured to me how “old-fashioned” I am in my thinking in many ways, despite the fact that I have some technological capability. I am assuming, of course, that most of the people whose blogs I have become interested in are all younger than I am, and so what I’m reading when I read their ideas has something to do with the future. It’s giving me some hope.

I don’t see much in the way of theatrical theory these days. You look at some of the 20th century figures in the theatrical arena who articulated very expansive theatrical theories - Stanislavski, Meyerhold, Brecht, Artaud, Grotowski et. al. - and then you compare that with the relative paucity of published theatrical theory today (who can anyone name since, say, 1980, whose ideas have taken root enough that a whole different type of theatre gets created? Foreman, maybe?) But after my tour this evening, I realize I’ve been looking in the rearview mirror, even technologically. Any new theory will not present itself in a published article, book, or newspaper, even if that particular journal or newspaper appears on the web!. The NY Times on the web is precisely the rearview-mirror effect McLuhan talks about.

There’s stuff going on in New York City, for example, of which I had been totally unaware. Occasionally it will make The Times, but more often than not I now think it’s going to be mentioned - and perhaps even created - through the blogosphere. One person published a small bit of a new script here and asked for comments. Another blogger meditates on global consciousness and much more. Others are combining theatre and politics. A lot of them are playwrights, some are reviewers; all of them are decidedly well-read (where have I been?? Backstage, mostly but oh well…), smart and quite bold. These men and women are not going through traditional methods of getting their thoughts out. I won’t read them in academic webjournals. Yet I sense the kind of theatre they’re writing and creating is both the now and the future. If you’re lamenting the death of Broadway and Off-Broadway, you’re looking in the rearview mirror.

Rearview mirrors work both ways, though. You can see not only what you’ve passed, but what’s gaining on you. Reading what these people have to say made me feel tonight like I’ve been doing 30MPH on the Autobahn. If you’re a stodgy academic like me, you’d better get with it and stop reading American Theatre and Backstage as if they contained all you need to know about the theatre world. Search out and read blogs, nationally and internationally. It’s what’s in front of you that matters. -twl

Tags: by Tom Loughlin
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A few days ago, something came in the mail for which I have been waiting 32 years. I greeted its arrival with a mix of skepticism, irony, humor and a small amount of disbelieve. It was my application to apply for membership to Actors’ Equity Association.

Having completed my recent one-year stint the the American Shakespeare Festival about two weeks ago, I also completed my Equity Membership Candidate requirement of 50 weeks (I had 52). When I originally auditioned for the gig in January 2005, I don’t recall in the audition notice any indication of the EMC program. But on the second or third day of employment, we all filled out our paperwork for EMC and paid the $100 to start. Along the way there was a barrage of misinformation as to whether or not we would actually get the 50 weeks. The rumor said that we would not get credit for our 2-week vacation or for any time when the Equity shows were not running (about 4 weeks). However, a simple call to Equity in NYC verified that we had a 52-week contact, so we were going to get 52 weeks. Sure enough, 10 days after completing the contract, the application showed up in my mailbox.

When I first graduated from undergrad school and went home to Long Island with a high school teaching job in the offing and the New York theatre scene beckoning, I knew getting my AEA card was something I had to shoot for if I wanted to work in the theatre full-time and become a “professional.” I really didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to that fact, however, as I was more interested in working in an ensemble environment and with the people who also migrated to NY after graduation. I did that for three years, until I got into NYU’s MFA program, from which I summarily dismissed 8 months later for telling the master acting teacher he was full of shit. The following fall I left NYC, never to return on any permanent basis.

Throughout the years I eventually decided that a teaching career was more what I really wanted, and began to pursue that goal. I worked at non-union summer theatres to build my resume. When I finally got my current position at Fredonia, I began to work in Buffalo, which has had its issues with AEA over the years. Even though AEA now has an agreement in Buffalo/Rochester, I was getting so much work in Buffalo as a non-union actor, as well as building enough of a reputation, that I was basically getting Equity-level pay without having to belong to the union. In fact, when I negotiated my upcoming contract, the managing director thought I was already AEA. When I told him I wasn’t but expected to be so by the time the show went into rehearsal, he said, “Look, Tom, it doesn’t matter. The offer is $384/wk regardless.” In other words, AEA pay without having to pay AEA dues.

I’ve toyed with the idea of not joining. I have a habit of doing things like that. I toyed with the idea of not accepting tenure when I became eligible, until I was told that not taking it would really screw up the contract and set a dangerous precedent etc. etc. The same is true with Equity. I’ve had numerous issues with them over the years. I particularly dislike their method of admitting members. They are the only labor union I know that thinks it’s good to have less members rather than more. They work hard to keep people out, unlike any other union. For the dues they take the membership really receives very little back, as they have nowhere near the power of unions like IATSE or the musician’s union. Their EMC program is very hard to complete; I was fortunate in that I had a full one-year gig. Most people have to put together 6-8 weeks at a time to get 50 weeks, which means finding at least 6 EMC gigs. Should I really join a union which is more like some sort of exclusive club, and no guarantee of quality?

The answer is yes. The reason is that, whether I like it , agree with it, or not, the card is a credential which carries at least psychological weight. When I’ve told people that I was not Equity, I always get that quizzical look in response which says “Why not?” Some, of course, verbalize that, to which I reply that I’ve never had the opportunity. Which is true. I left New York at 28. I never really settled in another major city. I did non-union summer gigs. Only Studio Arena in Buffalo could hand out AEA contracts. For reasons which remain a mystery to me even now, I was never offered even a walk-on role at Studio Arena, the LORT house in Buffalo. I believe that the AD at the time either didn’t like me, or I lived so “far” away that he would have to provide me housing under Equity (FYI the distance is 47.5 miles).

This Equity/non-Equity divide of course hurts theatre as a whole. it separates actors into “haves” and “have nots.” The best person does not necessarily get the job if the theatre is union. You can’t even get a chance to audition. Even at universities, if two candidates apply for the same acting teacher position, the union actor has the upper hand simply because they carry the credential. Students think Equity actors are better because they are “professionals” (it doesn’t even matter if they haven’t been on a stage for ten years, they have “the card”). You can work as steadily as any actor in the world, but if it’s all non-union work, the impression is it’s not “professional.”

So I guess what I’m really saying here is that I want the cred. I don’t want to have to defend myself anymore for not being a “professional.” When I walk in the classroom I want the students feeling like they’re getting instruction from a professional. And yes, it will be nice, once I’m offered a part, to know I can’t make anything less that the union minimum. And after 32 years of waiting and wondering, it may finally silence the small insecurities yet lingering in the back of my ego.

But is “professionalism” a concept that has any relevance anymore? Is the notion of “professional actors” hurting or helping the theatre in this postmodern age? Has the model outlived its usefulness? Are there other models of being a theatre artist we should be employing to bring theatre alive again in communities large and small? In reading one of Matthew Freeman’s recent posts, he asks the question about the work/life/art balance. It’s a very critical and important issue to address, especially for someone like me who spends time talking to and training the artists of the future. I am one who believes that the concept of the “professional actor” is one that will not serve the growth or health of theatre in the 21st century. I hope to tackle that issue in more detail in the very near future. -twl

Tags: by Tom Loughlin
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By way of introducing some of my academic topics, I offer an essay I wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education back in 1997. In reviewing the article, I find that after nine years, the article remains as current as when I initially wrote it. Rather than post the entire article as a post, here is a link where you can download or read the PDF version of the article. Here are the first three paragraphs:

From their humble origins within departments such as English or speech, departments of theater arts have blossomed on university campuses across the United States in the past 30 years. Presenting thousands of plays each year, they not only serve as a source of culture and entertainment in their locales but also prepare many young artists for careers in the entertainment industry through rigorous programs of pre-professional training. Many successful actors, writers, directors, and designers have come through these programs, which have tied their curricula and training methods to the needs and demands of “the business.”
Yet there is a dark side to this outward success. People such as casting agents and artistic directors of professional theaters have been quietly complaining that while students are highly trained in technical theater skills, they cannot articulate any intellectual understanding of the material they work with, nor are they capable of expressing their own artistic sensibilities. In short, they have well-trained bodies, but shallow artistic souls.
American theater desperately needs college and university theater departments to rethink how they train artists. The practice of studying and understanding theater from an intellectual standpoint is rapidly disappearing in the face of the pre-professional juggernaut. Without a vigorous reordering of educational priorities, American Theater could very well lose what little significance it retains in American cultural and artistic life.

I’ve been reading a little buzz these amongst theatre bloggers these past few days about the need for evolution/revolution in theatre today. I suggest that the place to start this revolution might be in the halls of academia. It’ll be a tough nut to crack, because the vested interests which control university training are well-entrenched, and universities are notoriously conservative institutions. But we need to start soon, as we’ve probably already lost a generation of theatre artists as it is. -twl

Tags: by Tom Loughlin
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Buffalo NY is a city that is instantly recognized by everyone as a place of hard winters and cruel jokes. Over the past 55 years, it has become a city fallen on hard times. Once a thriving and prosperous blue-collar steel and chemical city with a hardy population of working-class people, it is now a shell of its former self, struggling with high unemployment, a city government operating under a financial control board, and dwindling population - from half a million people in its heyday to about 285,000 today. Called the Queen City due to the fact that it is still the second-largest city in New York State, Buffalo remains one of the few places in America where it might be possible to buy a single-family house for $100K. Perhaps its greatest theatrical claim to fame is that it is the home of A.R. Guerney, whose plays often draw their characters from amongst the upper-class WASPish denizens of Buffalo.

I’ve been practicing my craft in the city of Buffalo since 1989, and as incongruous as it may seem, theatre in Buffalo is actually a thriving enterprise. By “thriving” I mean that there are many theatre venues in the city. Most of them run on a shoestring budget, but year after year they continue to produce a wide variety of theatre, from traditional fare to musicals to new plays to experimental productions. There is one regional Equity theatre, Studio Arena, and one roadhouse, Shea’s Buffalo. Several of the non-union houses work under an agreement with Actor’s Equity to allow AEA actors to work in their venues. And for the past 20 years, Buffalo has celebrated the opening of each theatre season in the fall with an event called Curtain Up!, which includes black-tie dinners, attendance at a show, and a downtown tent party after curtain. The Theatre District in Buffalo is a two-block stretch of Main Street, which houses Studio Arena, Shea’s, Smith’s Theatre, Alleyway Theatre, Buffalo United Artists, and the Irish Classical Theatre Company. In close proximity to Buffalo are major Canadian theatres, including Toronto (a 2-hour drive), the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake (30 minutes), and the Stratford Festival (about 3.5 hours).

The growth of theatre in this city beyond Studio Arena (which began as a community theatre and blossomed under the artistic direction of Neil DuBrock and the marketing of Blossom Cohan) began about 20 years ago, and as near as I can tell, was fueled by the energies of people who had graduated from the theatre departments at SUNY Buffalo and Buffalo State College and had remained in the city, or had recently returned from spending a few years elsewhere. Also part of this growth was an influx of artists from England and Ireland. A central component to this growth was Flynn’s, a smoky dive of a bar 2 blocks up from Studio Arena run by Tommy Flynn. It had been the bar of choice of the newspaper people who worked at the late Courier Express, and when the newspaper shut down, became the theatre bar where theatre artists all over the city showed up to meet, greet, network, and get drunk. Now closed, it was the place where theatre was not only talked about, but where ideas were hatched and collaborations were born.

I have enjoyed every minute I’ve spent working in theatres in Buffalo. The community is close-knit and supportive, and you find yourselves working with many of the same people, but in different venues. This promotes a de facto ensemble effect, a working environment where artists know each other’s work and ability. We are not strangers to each other jobbed in for one show and then out. We produce good theatre, and sometimes we even produce great theatre. While it is very difficult to make a living solely as a theatre artist in Buffalo, I do know two or three people who do so. I happen to think that Buffalo practices “community theatre” in the best sense of the word and the concept; a community of experienced theatre artists who live and work in their city and are committed to giving it the best product they know how. In my humble opinion, it may be one of the best-kept theatre secrets in the country after Milwaukee.

Rather than giving you a blow-by-blow of each theatre, you can check this link and this one to get an overview of what’s available in the city and neighboring suburbs. Some theatres might be missing and there may be some outdated material, but it’s a quick and easy way to provide you with a summary. You might also want to check out Artvoice, Buffalo’s “alternative” weekly, which covers the arts in detail.

The next major event in Buffalo’s theatre season is the opening of Shakespeare in Delaware Park on Thursday June 22nd. Now entering its 31st season, SDP was founded by Saul Elkin, the “grand old man” of Buffalo theatre and a Distinguished Service Professor at SUNY Buffalo (he is also the AD of the Jewish Repertory Theatre of Western NY, which he started three years ago). It is the second-largest FREE Shakespeare festival in the country as measured by attendance (Shakespeare in Central Park is #1). This year features productions of Love’s Labour’s Lost and Twelfth Night. I’ve acted in seven seasons with this company, and it has its unique charms. I’ll be offering my thoughts and comments on their productions this season, so look out for those posts. I’ll also be appearing in the Kavinoky Theatre’s Curtain Up! production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, running from mid-Sept.-mid-Oct., and no doubt blogging as I go along. -twl

Tags: by Tom Loughlin
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Ever wonder why struggling theatre companies can’t find enough money to fund what they do? Well, all you need do is read this, then this, then this, and you’ll have some idea where all the money goes (some links may require free registration).

My first teaching job upon graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was in a small rural town called Fairbury, about 70 miles south and west of Lincoln. During my time there, UN-L received a bunch of money from a very successful car salesman, enough to consider building a brand-new Fine Arts Center. Upon hearing this news, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Lincoln Journal-Star, claiming that the rural communities of Nebraska would have more access to the arts by using that money for $500,000 grants to arts communities in every other major city in Nebraska except Lincoln and Omaha. Naturally my suggestion went nowhere, and the $16 million Lied Center was built.

Does the Guthrie Theatre really need to expand and monopolize the theatre community of Minneapolis? Does DC really need more Shakespeare downtown, or does it need more Shakespeare in its poorer neighborhoods? Does the RSC really need a re-vamped home, or can the West End stand to have some more development money to develop new works (see The Playgoer post for a bit more information on this). it breaks my heart every time to see millions of dollars spent on “high culture” and next to nothing spent to support grassroots theatre efforts anywhere. -twl

Tags: by Tom Loughlin
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I’ve been back from Virginia and the American Shakespeare Center for a little over a week. I have rested a bit, done some puttering about the house and the land, played some poker, watched some baseball. I’ve also spent a great deal of time working on this site. Wordpress offers many options and themes, but finding a theme that was minimalist, unobtrusive and flexible proved to be a chore. But thanks to Scott Wallick at plaintxt.org, I found a style I really like. So it’s time to get up and running.

The past week has been one of re-adjustment. I really enjoy being back home and having my own space again. I miss my colleagues, and now and again their faces will come into my mind and I wonder what they are doing. I had an opportunity to talk to Daniel early last week, and it took some adjustment to realizing he was not next door, or a block or two away, but actually 450 miles away on Long Island. I’ve visited my campus, seen my office, and have been doing some tidying up of loose ends for the department. I’ve opened my pop-up camper to air it out in preparation for a vacation I hope to take in early July.

On the sidebar to the left, check out the page Why This Blog. It will give you an overview of what I hope to achieve with this blog. Also check my Links page for an assortment of links I’ve discovered over the past week. I’m quite excited to have found so many good theatre blogs, and I think any serious theatre student or practitioner should be reading these blogs. -twl

Tags: by Tom Loughlin
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