A Poor Player

Dunkirk NY - Upon arriving home from my Thanksgiving break yesterday, I checked in with my survey project I began at the beginning of the month. Using a Yahoo! Group composed of Fredonia Theatre grads, I asked 6 questions which tried to provide some sort of glimpse into how successful our graduates have been in “making a living” in the arts/entertainment theatre. One of my contentions about reforming theatre education is that we haven’t got enough data to really back up why reform is necessary. This is one small attempt in trying to get that data.

“Making a living” was defined as earning money. Income earned through teaching theatre was not included as being “in the business.” Out of a listed 320 members, 85 have so far responded to the survey, which is a 27% sampling of the group. I have prepared a small document which shows the responses and some observations about the results. If you’re interested, you can download and read it here. Responses would be welcome, but in order to comment, please remember you have to register on the site to do so (see the tab at the top of the page). -twl

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Massapequa, NY - It has been one hectic week last week. I thought I’d be able to get a decent post off, but not so. For some reason which I cannot fully explain, the week sort of got away from me. I can’t say I accomplished much of anything critical other than the usual paperwork and class assignments.

But I have been trying as much as possible to keep up with various assorted blogs. I am sure anyone reading this will no doubt have themselves been kept abreast of things like the Local 1 strike and whatnot. At any rate, much that has been going on for me has been mundane in nature. So all you get after a hectic week is nothing but a report of a hectic week.

And notice of an upcoming hectic week. Fredonia has always had a tradition of taking the entire Thanksgiving week off. To do that we sacrifice a few other days here and there in the calendar that might ordinarily be off. So I have arrived this evening at my parents’ home on Long Island, preparing for a week of family visitations. By last count there figure to be about 22 people here on Thanksgiving Day. My brother, who lives about 5 minutes from here in the old neighborhood, is having his house remodeled inside, so he has temporarily moved in with my parents, complete with his two cats (which, combined with my other brother’s dog, makes for an interesting menagerie). But the week is going to be filled with all sorts of family business, so it does not appear I will be getting out to do much more than spend time with people here. So, if you are someone in the NYC metro area thinking I am in town and it would be nice to get together, forget it. I won’t have the time to spare. That’s just the way it is. Not even time to catch a show in NY. Sorry.

And I do like Thanksgiving. It’s my second-favorite holiday after New Year’s Day. I like New Year’s Day the best because it’s the last American holiday left without a single social or card-sending responsibility attached to it. Thanksgiving comes next because I like the meal. So have a great Thanksgiving for yourselves and I hope to get back to some worthwhile posting when I come out of my tryptophan coma.  -twl

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Dunkirk NY - So the strike is on, right as the Christmas rush is about to happen. I really have no clue as to how this is going to play out, but this morning I have been cruising the internet looking for background and information. I am not sure which side is in the right, and no doubt like all such disputes I am sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle. One thing I am sure of, however; the mainstream media will not give the striking union members anything like a fair shake. More than likely the cameras will be focused on theatregoers who came from long distances only to find that their kids can’t get in to see Grinch. Boo-hoo.

In the course of my internet journeys, however, I did run into two blogs which I think people should be aware of. The first is The Humble Nailbanger, a blog written by an IATSE member who apparently works in a TV studio and is a third-generation stagehand. The second is One NYC Stagehand, a guy with 30 years backstage experience in Local 1. Both these blogs are relatively new, and I think over the course of the strike will probably provide some interesting feedback (h/t Theatreforte).

I am generally favorable to the concept of unionization, but I am also painfully aware that, like every human activity on the planet, they are as subject to corruption, stubbornness and self-centeredness as any other organization. Local 1, for example, is notorious for being a “family business” - it’s next to impossible to get in that local unless you have a family connection. So I don’t think there’s any purity to this strike: each side is out to get its cut. After all, Broadway is, in this context, nothing more than a business, no different from watching the UAW strike against Ford, Chrysler or GM. There’s no art at stake here, people - only money and profit for each side. -twl

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Dunkirk NY -

(Mailer) recalled something he had said at the National Book Award ceremony in 2005, when he was given a lifetime achievement award: that he felt like an old coachmaker who looks with horror at the turn of the 20th century, watching automobiles roar by with their fumes.

“I think the novel is on the way out,” he said. “I also believe, because it’s natural to take one’s own occupation more seriously than others, that the world may be the less for that.” -NY Times obituary of Norman Mailer

I remember when Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin ran as a team for Mayor of New York City back in 1969. The more I think about it today, the more I’m convinced that their secessionist platform for the city of New York was a correct one. Make NYC the 51st state in the union. Then perhaps the city would not be bleeding upstate NY so dry. I’d couple that to add Long Island, Westchester, Rockland and Orange County to the mix.

His quote seems so right to me now as I think about theatre as an art form. Even a literary mind as great as Mailer’s understood he was a dinosaur. Simply substitute the word “theatre” for “novel” in the second paragraph and you have pretty much the same situation. It’s not that it’s unusual for styles to disappear, but whole forms like theatre, the novel, poetry and the like; this is something new to current culture. I doubt we’ll see another Norman Mailer. Who reads, anyway? -twl

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Dunkirk NY - As I mentioned in my earlier post this morning, I am currently conducting a small survey amongst alumni of SUNY Fredonia’s theatre department which is trying to determine how successful in financial terms our graduates have been in the arts/entertainment field. We maintain a Yahoo! group of our alums, so with 320 members the group represents an interesting cross-section of graduates who span a period of over 20 years. It’s also a good group to survey because all the members of this survey group have at least an undergraduate degree in theatre.

I have not had the survey up more than 24 hours as of this posting, and have received 41 responses so far. I hope to gain a minimum of 65 so that I would have a statistical sample of 20% of the membership. I thought readers of this blog might be interested in the results so far and open them up for comments and interpretation. So here they are, and I apologize in advance for any formatting issues represented by the vagueries of HTML and font/display issues: [Read more →]

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Fredonia NY - I can’t remember when a post-show hangover has ever lasted this long. I’m still not really back with it, actually. I think the fact that the show ended at exactly the same time the baseball season ended was a double whammy. I have been watching an inordinate amount of TV, mostly I believe as a substitute for the fact that baseball season is over and I keep thinking somewhere, somehow, a game will materialize. I can’t figure out why, if there’s a channel for the NBA, NFL, and golf for crissakes, there can’t be a channel for baseball. Fall season in Arizona? Winter ball in the Carribean countries? Somebody’s got to get with it.

Anyway, I only wanted to write this quick post to say I am slowly getting up off the mat and will pick this up soon. I’ve begun a little data-mining project using some alumni, and I do have an idea that I’d like to suggest which may help kick-start in a simple way some theatre education reform. This weekend I have opera-viewing duties, but hopefully I can squeeze in some of these notions in a more extensive post this weekend. -twl

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