If you happen to know of any young people who you’re trying to dissuade from careers in the creative arts, you might want to casually leave around two new books for them to find. Scott Timberg’s Culture Crash: The Killing Of The Creative Class (Yale University Press, $26) and Michael M. Kaiser’s Curtains?: The Future Of The Arts In America (Brandeis University Press, $26.95) both paint dark pictures of the state of the creative arts and where they’re headed, enough to send one right into investment banking if it remains a choice.

Timberg, a former arts journalist at the Los Angeles Times who writes the “Culture Crash” blog for ArtsJournal, predominantly focuses on the music industry and the state of legacy media and journalism, with nods to architecture and literature, while Kaiser, former head of the Kennedy Center and now leader of the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, concentrates on the world of symphonies, opera and dance. As an avid consumer of music and journalism, my interests run closer to those explored by Timberg; professionally my background comes closer to the disciplines discussed by Kaiser, but (troublingly) neither book spends much time at all on theatre, my actual profession and leisure time avocation as well.

As a result, neither book reveals a great deal to me that I’ve not read about before, or experienced personally in some cases. But while both are published by academic presses (perhaps its own comment on broad-based interest, or lack thereof, in arts and culture), neither seems targeted at industry insiders. Instead, they are surveys of where we are now and how we got here, with a limited amount of prescriptive suggestions for how the tide that favors mass entertainment over the rarified or personal might be turned or at least survived in new forms. Both place a great deal of blame on technology for the woes they recount.

Of the two, I was more drawn to Timberg’s book, which, no doubt due to the author’s experience as a professional writer, is the more elegant, immersive read, peppered throughout with specific stories that support his thesis of cultural decline, a vision notably counterpointed with Richard Florida’s The Rise of the Creative Class (with a book cover designed to evoke that oft cited book). Timberg particularly worries about the loss of a wide range of social influencers who could guide existing and potential audiences to works that might interest them, from knowledgeable record store clerks to professional (paid) reporters and critics. While it’s a valid point, Timberg falls prey to making it seem, at times, as if he’s bemoaning his own employment status and that of his many colleagues who have been decimated by the contraction in print journalism, never more so than when he cites the decline in the popular portrayal of critics as having slid from George Sanders as Addison DeWitt in All About Eve in the 1950s to Jon Lovitz as Jay Sherman in the cartoon The Critic in the 1990s. That said, he does make strong points about the fracturing of a common culture even as a blockbuster mentality has overridden many creative industries, a seemingly oxymoronic concept. He also cites a wide array of sources, both from other writing and newly conducted interviews, and his fields of interest are admirably broad.

Kaiser’s book resembles a series of lectures about the state of the performing arts – a look at a golden era in the latter half of the 20^th century, where we are now, where we may be in 20 years time, and how we might make things better. Unfortunately, the lectures seem to spring wholly from Kaiser himself, as he quotes no experts, provides no data, and doesn’t include either an appendix or bibliography. It seems we are to take what Kaiser tells us simply on faith, even such sweeping statements as “While the outlook for the performing arts is dire, museums have better chances for survival” or “Theatre organizations should fare better than symphony orchestras.” In the case of the latter statement, much as I would dearly love it to be true, it flies in the face of recent studies from the National Endowment for the Arts, cited by Timberg but AWOL from Kaiser’s survey. Given how much of his brief book is taken up with prognostication, its unfortunate that Kaiser doesn’t extrapolate from existing data; in imagining 2035, it’s surprising that ongoing demographic shifts, especially in regards to race and ethnicity, in the country play so little role in his thinking. That’s not to say he doesn’t have some interesting observations, among them the thesis that while the end of Metropolitan Opera touring gave rise to more regional opera companies in the 80s, the success of the Met Live cinecasts may now be undermining those very troupes.

Reading the two books back to back, I was struck by the fact that both hit some similar themes (the loss of shared cultural language and experience, the impact of electronic media) yet diverge in their exemplars. While Kaiser’s book also doesn’t include an index, I did a fast pass through to see whether certain areas came up frequently, and found 14 references to The Kennedy Center and eight to the Alvin Ailey Dance Company (both of which Kaiser led) and a whopping 19 mentions of the Metropolitan Opera – all organizations which appear nowhere in Timberg’s index, which lists its greatest citations for areas of discipline rather than particular purveyors (the film industry, the economy, the indie music scene to name three). Both books may focus on the state of culture and its future, but their respective attentions are essentially balkanized.

If I were teaching a survey course in arts leadership, I might well assign both books early in the semester, albeit with a restorative break between them to replenish some sense of optimism. But both are merely starting points for a conversation, each in their own way raising areas of concern, yet stinting on any semblance of how those concerns can be addressed, battled or even embraced. To be fair, Timberg is a reporter, recording and interpreting, but Kaiser is training arts leaders, so its more incumbent upon him to offer something prescriptive. We can bemoan the fact that Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts are a thing of the past, or long for the one on one counsel of record and bookstore employees, but that’s not likely to bring them back. If our cultural appreciation and literacy has fallen, can it get back up – and if so how? That’s the book I need to read. Soon.

“Off record tip: Wondering if you’ve noticed that there’s someone missing from the Women’s Project masthead on their website.”

That’s the direct messaged tweet I received yesterday morning. Another one with essentially the same content, came in the early afternoon, from a separate individual. Of course, by that time, I’d already perused the Women’s Project Theater masthead.

It was readily apparent what I was being led to discover. The name that was missing was that of Julie Crosby, who had been named the company’s managing director in November 2005 and became the company’s producing artistic director in 2007. Her name was gone from the staff list, as was her biography.

The funny thing is, I couldn’t find a single press announcement of her departure, on their site or via Google news search. That fact, and the reticence of my correspondents to even directly come out and tell me why they were writing seemed odd. I was intrigued, but I’m in the midst of a big grant application in my day job, so I had to table my curiosity until early evening.

Since that time, I have sent two e-mails to Bruce Cohen, publicist for the Women’s Project, inquiring about this leadership transition. As I publish this, more than 14 hours since my first inquiry to him, I’ve had to no response.  I wrote early this morning to Arlene Scanlan, co-chair of the Women’s Project board of directors, at her work e-mail as published on her business website. No reply.

However, after two Facebook messages to Crosby, I received the following statement from her: “I poured my heart, soul, and brainpower into Women’s Project Theater for nearly a decade. It was my privilege and dream to lead the theater and work with so many extraordinarily talented women theater artists, and I’m incredibly proud of how much we accomplished. I would never resign.”

Julie Crosby

So there’s no doubt that Crosby is no longer at the Women’s Project Theater. She has not said that she was fired, but suggests that she did not depart voluntarily.

Jessica R. Jenen, who I know from her tenure at Classic Stage, is now listed as “interim executive producer.” As recently as April, Jenen was identified by the Women’s Project as “executive consultant.”

Several people I spoke with who declined to be named suggested that some, if not all, of the Women’s Project Theater advisory board have resigned. I am unable to confirm this officially. One advisory board member who was willing to speak on the record, agent Beth Blickers, would only say to me, “Julie Crosby has my absolute and utter support and it seems short sighted to me that she is not still the head of that organization.”

Another advisory board member, who counts me among her more than 3,000 Facebook friends, yesterday posted to her wall, “Ironic and depressing that in this crucial time for women artists in the theater that cultural organizations of, for and by women act in destructive ways to that intent…really really bad timing.” But maybe it’s just a coincidence that it appeared when it did; I do not name her because of the grey area of quoting from Facebook posts that may not be fully public.

In the absence of any further detail or comments from the company, all I can do is speculate, based on having followed institutional transitions at arts organizations for many years. I infer from Crosby’s careful statement that the parting was not amicable. The lack of any company announcement, or prepared statement, intimates that the separation was abrupt, and that perhaps there are legal issues to be worked out. If indeed some or all of the advisory board, which is largely filled with artists and arts professionals, has resigned, it suggests the creative community of the company is at odds with the board of directors over what has transpired.

Women’s Project Theater productions

Whatever precisely has transpired, it strikes me as a particularly unfortunate time for one of the country’s premier theatre groups dedicated to plays by women, led by women, employing women artists and administrators in a range of positions, to be undergoing turmoil, however hushed it may be. Conversations about gender parity in the arts, and theatre specifically, continue to grow more eloquent and effective. The topic has been spotlighted most recently by the establishment of The Kilroys and their list of 46 recommended plays by women, for theatres that feel (inexplicably) that they haven’t been able to surface female-written plays to include in their seasons. Having been a leader in efforts on behalf of women in theatre since its establishment 36 years ago, the Women’s Project deserves to be at the forefront of these redoubled and essential efforts to eradicate the patriarchal structure of American theatre, not taking a bunker mentality to even their own work and operations. Other companies have to be taught to include women, even in 2014, while the Women’s Project has taken that as their mission from the very start.

If I am indeed letting a proverbial cat out of a bag with this post, then it’s fair to assume that more information will be forthcoming. I will update this post as warranted, in the genuine hope that both Crosby and the organization will emerge from whatever exactly is going on in a way that sustains their roles as strong advocates for women playwrights and all women in theatre.

I will conclude with one parting tip about transitions: if you don’t want people to know something is going on behind the scenes at your organization, don’t change your website until you’re ready to talk.

Note: while the comments section is open, I urge anyone wishing to post that I do my best to maintain constructive conversation on my site, so attacks will be removed, as will anonymously sourced criticisms of any party. If you want to shed light, do so in full light, not under cover of a pseudonym. Thanks.

Addendum, 11:30 am, June 26: I just received the following e-mail from Arlene Scanlan, co-chair of the Women’s Project board of directors:

We are discussing a release that will come via the WP.  Bruce Cohen is not our current press agent.

It should be noted that, as I write, the Women’s Project’s website still lists Bruce Cohen as the press contact. While the site is being updated for an evolving situation, this change in the company’s media representation has not yet been amended to reflect its current status. My efforts to contact the company since yesterday evening were based on what their site states.

Addendum, 12:45 pm, June 26: The media page on the Women’s Project website now reflects that Marc Thibodeau at The Publicity Office is representing the company. I am reaching out to him for the statement that Scanlan indicated would be forthcoming.

Addendum, 5:15 pm, June 26: The Women’s Project, through Marc Thibodeau, provided me with a statement from its Board of Directors, concurrent with the issuance of a general press release by the company. The material in the statement which is not duplicated in the release reads:

Julie Crosby informed the Board via email on June 4 that she would be leaving her position as Producing Artistic Director and asked that we contact her attorney to discuss the terms of her departure. Since that time we have refrained from making a public statement in order to finalize those terms.

The general press release begins as follows:

WOMEN’S PROJECT THEATER LAUNCHES SEARCH FOR NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Women’s Project Theater has begun a national search for a new Artistic Director to lead the company for the coming 2014-15 season and beyond.  The new Artistic Director will succeed Julie Crosby, who recently departed the company as Producing Artistic Director, a position she held since 2006.  During her tenure, Ms. Crosby led and nurtured the institution immeasurably, producing more than 25 plays by women playwrights and directors, and championing the careers of its alumnae lab artists.

Women’s Project Theater’s Board of Directors remain steadfastly committed to the mission of the theatre founded by Julia Miles in 1978. For the last 36 years, WP has championed work by women theater artists and shall continue to do so for many years in the future.

In the interim, Jessica R. Jenen, the Tony-nominated producer and former Executive Director of Classic Stage Company, will move into the role of Interim Executive Producer during this transition period. Ms. Jenen was to have departed WP as Executive Consultant at the end of June, but will remain with the theater through the transition period to a new Artistic Director

The remainder of the release cites the many achievements of the company over the years.

The statement of course does not agree with Crosby’s assertion that she would “never resign,” so what has taken place remains unclear. The statement also does not address the resignation of advisory board members or, as some have suggested in comments below, members of the board itself. I suspect I will not be alone in asking for greater transparency from this essential company now that the situation has been forced into the open. The public, the theatre community and the artists both past and present who care about the vitality of the Women’s Project Theatre deserve a fuller explanation of what led to this parting.

Addendum, 10:45 pm, June 26: I just visited the Women’s Project website again, to look at the list of their advisory board. It no longer appears on the site. There is no indication that any advisory board remains part of the organization.

Addendum, July 23: The Women’s Project today announced the appointment of Lisa McNulty as their new producing artistic director. She has been the artistic line producer at Manhattan Theatre Club since 2006, and will begin at the Women’s Project in September. For the New York Times report of the announcement, click here.

“I got into a brawl one night in a saloon in Greenwich Village. Elia Kazan, a great director, saw me put out a couple of hecklers and figures there was some Big Daddy in me, just lyin’ dormant. And out it came. ”

—Burl Ives, the original Big Daddy

Anton Troy & John Lacy in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof at Repertory East Playhouse

First, to state what I hope would be obvious to anyone who bothers to read me, I believe that hate speech is vile. But in reading the accounts of what took place this past weekend at the Repertory East Playhouse in Santa Clarita, California, while I am angered by the the comments that ended up halting a performance midway through, and ultimately pleased that the speaker was shut down, I am struck by the failure of the staff of the theatre to address the situation properly as it unfolded.

The short version of the story is that during a performance of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, an audience member, reportedly drunk, repeatedly and loudly hurled anti-gay slurs at the actor playing Brick. At a certain point, which I’m guessing to be somewhere during the play’s second of three acts, John Lacy, the actor playing Big Daddy, came off the stage to confront the despicable patron. The situation became threateningly physical, and two patrons, Tim Sullivan and Rob Vinton, interceded to remove the ugly patron. The performance, remarkably, continued.

The upshot? Lacy was fired for physically engaging with a member of the audience and actor Anton Troy, who played Brick, quit in support. The production has been canceled as a result of the loss of two central cast members. For fuller accounts, I refer you to The Wrap, which appeared to be first with the story, and to the L.A. Weekly, which did an enlightening follow-up, including addressing details that had emerged in comments on the first post. I suspect we will see more.

For anyone involved in running a performing arts venue, the Repertory East scenario should become a training case study for any member of your staff who might potentially interact with the audience. It is a superb case study because, it seems, not a single person at the theatre that night did anything correctly. It was an awful situation, badly handled. The best that can come out of it now is that it becomes a teaching tool.

Let’s start with the patron. Free speech does not give anyone the freedom to shout fire in a crowded theatre, any more than it gives someone the right to announce sexist, racist or homophobic slurs in a theatre. Frankly, it doesn’t give them the right to interject anything they might care to say during a live or filmed performance. Even if the drunk at Repertory East had been bellowing in sympathy with Brick’s emotional trauma or vociferously condemning Big Daddy’s own failure to understand his son, the patron should have been warned once and then removed if the behavior persisted.

So where was the house staff during this incident? Was there not one usher, let alone an assistant house manager or house manager, in the auditorium itself to witness this at the very start? I even have to wonder why, at least according to the statement given by the theatre’s management, no one supervisory was aware this was happening. Did any patron exit and seek a staffer and, if so, why didn’t they do anything? If the shouting was loud enough for the actors to hear, why didn’t the stage manager or deck crew contact house management? Could no one hear this on house monitors? If house management felt frightened by the bellowing patron, why didn’t they call a senior staffer for backup, or for that matter, the police? Why didn’t the actors simply stop performing and walk off stage to seek redress?

I don’t know this theatre and I daresay the attention that’s flooding their way swamps any prior national attention they’ve received. But whether they’re professional or amateur, Equity or non-AEA, have just begun operating or have been around for years, if they undertook to bring in an audience for a performance, they should have had systems in place for common scenarios, including disruptions. If they did, the systems failed; if they didn’t, then the management failed. This should have never escalated to the point where an actor should have even had to contemplate coming off the stage to handle it personally, let alone have done so.

If you run a venue, circulate the stories from The Wrap and the L.A Weekly to your staff, and talk about them at your next staff meeting. If you’re an actor, know that when audience behavior goes beyond the pale, your best course of action is to pause and ask for help, not to become an enforcer. If you’re a patron and other attendees are getting out of hand, seek out the theatre’s staff, even if you have to miss a bit of the show.

Oh, and one final note, for those who run venues as producers. If you undertake to fire your actors for handling a situation that you or your staff should have nipped in the bud long before it became explosive, don’t issue mealymouthed statements like this, from Repertory East:

Due to unforseen circumstances, the run of the Tennessee Williams’ drama “Cat On A Hot Tin Roof” at the Repertory East Playhouse in Newhall has been suspended and the show will not be completing its projected performance schedule. The show was originally scheduled to end June 14, however, an incident during the May 31 performance has resulted in cast members leaving the show with no time to adequately re-cast their parts and provide the quality theater experience patrons have come to expect from the REP.

During that evening’s performance, an unruly patron allegedly made discriminatory comments that distracted audience members and a confrontation occurred between a member of the cast and the disturbing party. The management of the REP regrets that this situation was not brought to their attention sooner and would like to assure future audiences that disruptive behavior, including disparaging remarks from the audience, incidents of bullying or hate speech, and racial, discriminatory or homophobic utterances, will not be tolerated and offending parties will be asked to leave the theater.

“We are committed to provide groundbreaking subject matter and professional performances to our audiences,” said Ovington Michael Owston, Executive Director of the REP. “We are extremely sorry that our patrons experienced this disruption and will do our best to make it up to those holding reservations for cancelled performances.”

Repertory East (presumably Ovington Michael Owston and Mikee Schwinn, the executive director and artistic director), you reference the specific, reprehensible language of the disruption in an effort to mask both your company’s inaction the night of the incident and your subsequent actions towards John Lacy, which are deeply questionable. You failed to eject the homophobic lout, but then eject the only person who sought to address his behavior. What transpired at Repertory East Playhouse is already known far beyond your theatre and your community, so why pretend you can control the story with obfuscation and gain sympathy with your declaration of support for essential decency? Your statement is mendacity indeed.

Thanks to Meg McSweeney for the Burl Ives anecdote

Philadelphia, Here I Come! at Asolo Repertory Theatre

Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, Florida is back in rehearsal with their production of Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come!, to restore the script as the fine Irish dramatist wrote it. Their production, which should have been in performance now, had eliminated characters and removed intermissions, among other “improvements.” Frankly, they’re lucky to even have a second shot at it. They could have lost the rights to the show altogether.

Jay Handelman in the Herald Tribune reported on the situation and reading his article in full, it comes clear that this isn’t some isolated incident for the Asolo.

[Producing Artistic Director Michael Donald] Edwards said Friel’s agent heard about the changes and was most concerned about the removal of the intermissions. “We asked if they would come down and see what Frank had done, which we thought was beautiful, but they decided not to.”

The theater has experimented with new approaches to older plays with some success in the past. Two years ago, for example, the theater played around with Leah Napolin’s play “Yentl,” keeping most of the script but adding in original songs by composer Jill Sobule, performed by actors doubling as musicians on stage.

Napolin had a “heads-up about what we were doing,” Edwards said. “But she didn’t know all of what we were doing. We got her down here and she could have said I don’t like this, but fortunately she loved it. She told me, ‘You have rescued my play’.”

If director Gordon Greenberg had gone to Napolin with every idea for changes or additions that came up during rehearsals “it would have killed the creative process. It would have made it a two-year process,” Edwards said.

Mr. Edwards appears to have a fundamental lack of understanding of (or respect for) the rights of authors and their estates. Copyright law and the licensing agreements signed by his theatre prevent him or any director working at his theatre from performing surgery on texts to suit the company’s own needs or interpretations. Why, Mr. Edwards, do you portray their spurning of your invitation as vaguely obstinate, when you’ve broken your word and the law? While some authors may allow leeway, it’s their prerogative, not the theatre’s, to do so. The fact that Leah Napolin was happy with Asolo’s alterations on her Yentl was a lucky break, but to take it as affirmation or precedent for this practice isn’t only foolhardy, it’s just plain wrong. [Please see clarifying update on Yentl at the end of this post.] I must confess, in the Philadelphia situation, I’m surprised by the actions of veteran director Frank Galati as well, though I should allow for the possibility that he was told approval had been given. On a related note: Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout was to have reviewed the Friel play, but was informed that performances were canceled – the Asolo never explained why.

Some might shrug the practices of Asolo as the anomalous act of a single theatre, but it’s only the most prominent recent example of a practice that, for obvious reasons, tries to fly under the radar. Last month, in writing about the efforts of a Long Island high school to perform a sex change on the character of Angel in Rent, I received numerous comments and e-mails telling me that this sort of manipulation happens all the time at not only at high schools but at colleges as well.  One correspondent, who teaches arts management at the university level, reported that the directing program at their school encourages directors to rework texts to make them their own, flouting licensing agreements for work that is given public performances.  While this is kosher for classic works out of copyright, it’s stunning to me that educational institutions are actively advocating such actions on copyrighted work. As a classroom experiment, it’s acceptable for learning purposes, but as soon as an audience walks in, this approach must go right out the window. Students must be taught the difference.

I know of many people who feel that copyrights extend for too long, not just during creators’ lifetimes but long past them, believing works should become available for free revision and reinterpretation much sooner than currently allowed. While I am all for creative reinterpretations of texts, that’s a separate legal discussion. But so long as copyright stands, it is not a matter for selective adherence, and that’s not simply my opinion, it’s a legal compact. Theatre is not the movies, where authors do not own their work and it can be altered and reworked by any number of writers to suit the needs or whims of a studio, a director or a marketing team.

When a situation arises like the one at Southold High, it’s hard not to draw a direct line to the example at the Asolo – after all, if professionals alter scripts without approval, it must be OK, right? If the practice is being encouraged at the college level, why wouldn’t it be filtering into both professional and amateur work? Many resent the restrictive vigilance of estates such as Samuel Beckett’s, and as a manager I once had to counsel an artistic director to veto a Godot design which would have likely drawn the ire of the estate had they become aware of it. Yes, I would have loved to see that jettisoned concept as a theatregoer, but as a manager, I wouldn’t support violating an agreement I’d signed, in addition to taking the risk that we might be found out, putting the organization in financial extremes. “Oh, who will know?” is neither a legal nor ethical defense.

It’s quite impossible to know how prevalent this is, because the vast majority of theatre in the U.S. isn’t scrutinized by authors or their representatives. It is simply impossible to do. So when cases come to light, they are largely because some astute audience member recognizes the manipulation and takes the initiative to contact the appropriate representatives, if they know how. Another way these incidents are revealed are likely when some member of the production recognizes that alteration is under way, and they choose to inform the right people, forcing them to become “informers” on their own employers. And, of course, critics may notice discrepancies with work they’ve seen or read before, and their reportage may bring alterations to the attention of authors and their representatives.

I can’t understand why some artists feel they have the right to unilaterally alter dramatic texts, especially when so many superb reinventions are done with the full cooperation of authors and estates; that said, I fully expect some of those who advocate for this right to take issue with my position as stated here. Although I feel as if I’ve heard it over and over again for decades, it seems that for so many, a basic thesis of the theatre isn’t being said and understood enough: theatre is first and foremost an author’s medium. If you can’t respect that, write the play you want to see instead – or go make movies.

Note: I serve on the advisory committee of Samuel French Inc., the company which licenses the work of Brian Friel. I have not consulted with anyone at French about the situation at the Asolo or this essay at any time.

Update 2:45 pm 1/22: Because, as I often do, I wrote and posted in haste, I neglected to include critics as a resource for bringing unauthorized alterations to light. When this was pointed out in the comment section below, I added a sentence to the penultimate paragraph to recognize their essential role.

Update 9:45 am 1/23: Gordon Greenberg, director of the Asolo production of Yentl, has written to advise me that he and the theatre had the author’s approval to interpolate Jill Sobule’s songs and make minor text changes to accommodate them. Additionally, Greenberg’s revised production of Working was done in collaboration with Stephen Schwartz. 

Update 5:45 pm 1/24: This post has prompted extensive response, in the comments here, as well as on my Facebook page and via Twitter. A number of people have taken exception to my statement that “theatre is first and foremost an author’s medium.” On reflection, the statement was too sweeping, and has apparently suggested to some a lack of respect on my part for directors, actors and the range of artists who collaborate to put a play on stage and are so essential in collectively exploring and realizing a playwright’s vision; that’s far from the truth. I also wrote from my experience, as I would hope is always evident in my writing, and respecting the author’s intent and rights is something I’ve been taught by theatre artists – not just authors – throughout my career and it is a point of view I embrace. That said, the majority of my theatergoing is American drama first and English writing second; the majority of productions I’ve seen were created in the U.S. regardless of authorship. I understand that in some countries and with some companies, a script may only be a framework that is elaborated upon in many different ways, and while that runs contrary to the majority of my theatergoing experiences, it was not my intention to denigrate it, provided the author is fully aware of the manner of production and agrees to it, according to their legal rights. For classical works where copyright has expired or never existed, I enthusiastically support artists’ free rein to rework and alter the text as they see fit. There are many ways to make theatre and my respect for every artist and their practice and tradition is unstinting. I regret my generalization, but in transparency, I leave it intact above, lest I be accused of rewriting myself surreptitiously. 

The August Wilson Cultural Center

If Trip Gabriel, the New York Times reporter who wrote yesterday’s story about the dire straits of the August Wilson Cultural Center in Pittsburgh, were steeped in Wilson’s writing, he might have noted a sad irony. In August’s final play of his ten-play Century Cycle, Radio Golf, the plot turns on the fate of a decrepit house in the Hill District, the setting for almost all of the Cycle plays. The home of the great Aunt Ester, a seer and guide who reputedly lived for centuries, is standing in the way of urban redevelopment, until one of the men spearheading the project begins to regret the loss of this historic home and fights, at great personal cost, to save it.

That tale was August’s creation. But now two Wilson homes in Pittsburgh are on the precipice. The first is August’s actual boyhood home on the Hill, owned by one of his nephews but long boarded up; the other is the gleaming new downtown cultural center, opened only in 2009, on the verge of being taken by the bank to which it owes the money which funded its construction. It sits without programming and no visitors, used primarily by a megachurch that rents it on Sundays for its predominantly white congregation.

The August Wilson Theatre

With arts organizations like the Minneapolis Orchestra and the New York City Opera all but finished and already buried, respectively, it’s not difficult to understand how a new arts facility that opened in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis has failed to succeed, but of course there are countless reasons that contributed both to its construction and its downfall. The story has been followed in detail in the Pittsburgh press; the Times story makes it a matter for national attention at a time when it may already be too far gone. It is nonetheless quite sad, since there deserves to be a commemoration of one of America’s greatest playwrights beyond the Broadway theatre that bears his name, long the home to Jersey Boys, though that honor is not unwelcome in the least.

Radio Golf At Yale Rep (Photo: Carol Rosegg)

In Radio Golf, Harmond Wilks risks his career and faces possible indictment, largely self-inflicted, in order to preserve history and the soul of a lost neighborhood. No doubt many people have made sacrifices and given support in the effort to create the August Wilson Cultural Center and it must be painful to see it failing so very publicly. I cannot help but wonder what his widow and his children must feel to see what was surely a source of emotional support and civic love rise and fall in just a few years time. That this happens just as reports of the precarious state of many of America’s black theatre companies have also gained national attention makes the story even sadder.

I have never believed in the “if you build it, they will come” school of arts promotion; I don’t know the people who led the Center or their specific plans and where they went awry. As no doubt some of them have, I would like to think that at the last minute some deus ex machina, or more specifically some deep pocketed individual or group, might rescue the Center, but that is the heart of a theatregoer speaking, not the mind of an administrator. Yet the administrator dreams that if by some miracle it happens, the Center is put in the hands of people with the commitment and skill to successfully and creatively run it.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at Yale Rep
(Photo: William B. Carter)

I came of age in the theatre just as August burst onto the national scene. I saw Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in a pre-Broadway engagement on the campus of my college, I saw the premiere of Joe Turner’s Come And Gone at Yale Rep; I saw The Piano Lesson in its first reading in the barn at The O’Neill Theatre Center as well as its final dress rehearsal at Yale; I attended the Broadway openings of Two Trains Running, Gem of The Ocean, and Radio Golf. I have seen many other productions of his work.  Though I knew August only casually, I was to have been a guest on a 60^th birthday barge trip on the Nile that he and his producing partner Ben Mordecai had planned together, because my wife worked with Ben, and therefore August; she was ultimately a producer of August’s final Cycle play. The trip never happened because the birthdays fell in 2005, the year that Ben’s cancer recurred, leading to his death in May, followed by August’s passing only months later.

August Wilson in 2004 (Photo: David Cooper)

So my most direct connection to August is one of a great opportunity missed, and I feel the same sense of lost opportunity as I read about the troubles of the Center in Pittsburgh. I wish I could rush out there and lend whatever help I can, but I don’t have the financial resources and it seems as if I would be much too late regardless. Even if Pittsburgh will lose what could have been an extraordinary cultural and community asset, at least America and the world will always have August’s Pittsburgh (and one fateful night in Chicago) through his writing . As I write this, Ruben Santiago-Hudson is sustaining August’s living legacy by enacting August’s words at the opening night of How I Learned What I Learned, a monologue Wilson originally wrote for himself to perform.

There is one bit of positive news that the Times missed. Wilson’s boarded up childhood home may yet see life again, as a plan to reopen it as a coffee shop was announced just over a week ago. Since August was well known for writing in coffee shops, perhaps that will be the truest memorial, rather than the $42 million edifice that never really become anyone’s home.

Pulp fiction or stealth arts management texts?

The stories of troubled arts institutions abound these days: the closing of the New York City Opera, the end of Shakespeare Santa Cruz and Theater of the Stars, the year-long standoff at the Minnesota Orchestra. That’s just off the top of my head. I’m sure you can think of others.

While the steady decline of City Opera and the intractable situation in Minnesota have been fairly well reported in the arts press, they’re the exception. Typically, organizations in extremis keep their woes close to the vest as long as possible, until they’re forced to go public with what one of my former bosses called a “fire sale”: unless we raise this much by this date, we’ll have to close. Often as not, that’s just the sign that the canary in the coal mine has fallen off its perch.

Because the business of the arts is rarely covered as if it’s actual business (which it is) and because understaffed arts desks don’t have the resources to analyze and report on the fiscal health of companies on a regular basis, the ends of organizations seem precipitous and alarming. To those in the know, they’re anything but, and even when there’s an effort to assign blame, it’s rarely representative of the whole situation.

For perspective on this, I turn to Michael Crichton.

The late author specialized in a certain brand of fiction that would usually take some kernel of present day fact and extrapolate stories in which he imagined how that fact would impact us at some future date. Some of what he wrote was sci-fi (The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park) while some was social or cultural dynamics (Rising Sun, Disclosure); what he lacked in literary cachet he made up for in plotting and invention, even if some disliked his penchant for long asides about scientific or technological facts deployed to underpin his sometimes overheated stories.

In one of his less popular works, the mostly forgotten corporate espionage thriller Airframe, Crichton described in detail how airplanes crash. While I no longer have the book and wasn’t about to buy it again, I remember the central concept very clearly. Crichton explained that, save for an explosive device either onboard or launched at a plane, a crash doesn’t occur because of any single event. Typically, they emanate from some failure which then triggers others; Crichton notes that a swift and proper response to the inciting incident by the plane’s crew can usually avert disaster. It is when one or more of these smaller failings go unchecked that they multiply, eventually resulting in a crash. Crichton described the sequence of proliferating crises as an “event cascade.” That term has stayed with me, long after the rest of Airframe has been forgotten.

The fact is, arts organizations crash because of event cascades as well. It is rarely a single unforeseen occurrence which brings down companies; it is a series of actions, or lack thereof, that result in closure. They are of course best seen in hindsight, since boards, artistic directors and executive directors don’t have anything on their desk that will begin insistently flashing red the moment the first failing occurs. Absent such an indicator, it’s easy to overlook the first events in a cascade: the belief that consecutive operating deficits will somehow be solved at a future date; the utter conviction that a couple of seasons underperforming at the box office will be righted by some future succession of hit productions; the surety that going over-budget on a show will yield that long-sought hit; the expectation that funders will always step in insure the company’s stability for the long-term.

What if arts orgs had controls like this?

The lack of any alarm that goes off when bad decisions are made, decisions that often arise from from a place of  passion and the very best intentions, means that arts organizations are subject to event cascades that are out of hand before anyone realizes they’re taking place. Shrewd, successful boards and staff leadership are constantly on the alert for warning signs, not out of pessimism, but from a position of cautious responsibility. Even as they do well to embrace risk in order to possibly yield the greatest achievement, they also know when steer the safest course.

Just last week, Carnegie Hall settled a stagehands strike in a matter of days (with undisclosed terms), even though it was over a matter with long-term ramifications for the company. Did they solve a problem or trigger a cascade? Time will tell. And that’s the other challenge for arts organizations: our event cascades happen in slow motion, sometimes played out over months or years, making the inciting event even harder to spot. They are only evident in retrospect, as seen by the many post-mortems that have flourished in the wake of City Opera’s closure (this one from Bloomberg News is particularly blunt). Then, of course, it’s too late.

No one dies when an arts organization goes down in flames (an oft-used metaphor), but many lives are disrupted and vital cultural resources are lost. That’s why vigilance is called for at all times on the part of everyone with operational and organizational responsibility. To use an image from a better-known Crichton creation: you can have the best containment system money can buy, but when the electricity goes out, it’s useless. And then the raptors are loose.

I don’t mean to make anyone paranoid, but if your organization has unpaid interns, you need to start thinking about whether they may start legal proceedings against you for back pay. In the wake of a federal court ruling that found Fox Searchlight Pictures violated minimum wage laws in their engagement and utilization of unpaid interns, any number of shrewd interns may well be considering their options even as I write.

‘Well that’s Hollywood,’ you respond, ‘They’ve got piles of money and absolutely should have been paying their interns.’ But the minimum wage laws, in existence for years, don’t consider the assets of any company in deciding whether an internship is legitimate, only whether the proper criteria apply. While I’m no labor lawyer, I have long been familiar with the general guidelines of internships, which in essence say that an unpaid internship is legitimate only when there is a clear educational benefit to the intern (best ascertained when the internship is approved for academic credit, not by a ‘they get to see how things work while doing the copying’ justification) and when the internship does not involve labor that would otherwise have to be undertaken by a paid employee.

As Isaac Butler astutely points out on his blog this morning, the arts (and no doubt countless other businesses, both commercial and not-for-profit), operate under “an assumption of not paying people, with narrow, specific contexts as to when that won’t be the case.” Internships are ingrained in our culture and the resistance to change is due in part to the mindset of ‘that’s what I did when I was young and it should still be that way today.’ This same logic long ruled over medical education, with doctors-in-training working insane hours as if under some prolonged fraternity hazing – until people started noticing that patients were dying as a result. ‘That’s the way it’s always been done’ is not a legitimate excuse.

No one may be dying because of unpaid arts internships, but the legal and ethical issues are certainly brought to the forefront by the court ruling. Organizations are well advised to review their intern practices against the wage guidelines and applicable laws as soon as possible; this is not a blanket jeremiad against internships, only those which aren’t legit. On the upside, perhaps this new finding (again, based on long-standing laws) will prompt more organizations to develop and institute true internships, with defined training regimens for a limited time. Still other companies may realize it’s smarter to begin paying at least minimum wage as soon as possible. (Don’t get hung up on your personal interpretation of what “stipend” means; that’s another easy out, and a trap.)

Of course if those employees are full time, you’ll have to provide benefits as well, such as health insurance and paid time off, so minimum wage times 40 hours a week is only part of the true price tag here. While in the short term, absorbing these costs will l be difficult, it beats the looming prospect of legal action, resulting in not only making payments in arrears, but also bearing the burden of penalties. Whatever your company considers, get professional counsel to make sure you’re doing not just the right thing, but the correct thing.

Some may choose to debate whether the transition away from unpaid internships/jobs will place a greater burden on smaller companies. As a veteran of what most would consider large organizations, it’s difficult for me to assess the relative impact. I would certainly hate to see small or even nascent companies derailed, but as we’re taught, ignorance of the law (or willfully ignoring it) is no excuse for breaking it (a recent employment tribunal in England has prompted a reexamination of unpaid fringe theatre work). The arts ecosystem must absorb the lessons of the Fox Searchlight decision and, as a field that is perpetually challenged, we will find our way through. Indeed, we may ultimately be stronger, since in many cases, it is only young people of means who can afford to work for nothing; this will be a step (though by no means the whole solution) in insuring that arts careers are available to everyone.

Although unemployment rates are down, it’s well known that job opportunities for recent college graduates are still relatively slim, and it’s not unusual for young people to do multiple internships on their way to paid work. The current arts internship culture benefits from that harsh reality, since the demand for entry-level opportunities is possibly even greater than in the past, when internships and apprenticeships were already the norm, especially in glamour industries. Though it may not seem that way day in your day to day tasks, every single arts job is in fact part of a glamour industry – it’s not reserved for movies, TV, fashion, sports and publishing. But the nation’s economic issues, our own belief in the inherent value of the arts, and the unending stream of people desperate for their show business break, should not be used as a reason to avoid paying those who are, for all intents and purposes, employees.

*   *   *

Update, 4 pm, June 13: Hours after I posted this story, The New York Times reported on two interns filing suit against Condé Nast for underpayment of wages for summer internships over the past several years. This situation will only keep growing with each filing, and with each success by plaintiffs.

Full disclosure: I am a relative rarity in the arts, in that I never had any unpaid employment in my career. My financial aid package in college included 20 hours of “work study” each week beginning with my freshman year, which paid me minimum wage to work in the box office of the campus performing arts center, home to several professional companies. I parlayed that position into a public relations gig at a small professional company during my junior year, at the rate (as I recall) of $4 an hour. I was extremely fortunate to have had these jobs, as I knew my parental support was to end the day I graduated, and these opportunities set me up to start full employment immediately, since I already had professional experience.

It is unfortunate that “zirkusschadenfreude” is not an actual German word, because there seemed to be a lot of it flying around last week, that is to say, “joy at the unhappiness of a circus.” Many news outlets and commentators were pulling out the wordplay a bit gleefully last week on the news that Canada’s famed Cirque du Soleil was laying off 400 employees after almost three decades of spectacular growth and acclaim. “Is the sun going down?” asked England’s The Independent.

The layoff announcement was the latest in a string of bad news emanating from Cirque, which has of late dealt with several shows closing much earlier than expected; Iris at the one-time Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles is the most recent casualty. A couple of years ago, New York witnessed the protracted birth and rapid death cycle of Banana Shpeel (which inexplicably went on national tour); Zarkana limped through two seasons at Radio City Musical Hall before being packed off to Nevada, where an Elvis-themed show had recently underwhelmed. There have been failures internationally as well.

Needless to say, the Canadian press followed the story most closely, given that this is a major employer and national treasure downsizing. On one newscast I watched, the anchor blithely asked Globe and Mail reporter J. Kelly Nestruck whether “greed” was a factor, seemingly misunderstanding or disliking the idea of commercial success that Cirque has enjoyed in spades. To his credit, Nestruck parried by saying it was perhaps a certain lack of attention and over-accelerated growth.

Now I should say that as an audience member, I’m wildly ambivalent about Cirque. I’ve seen them six times as I recall: their first U.S. tour, of Nouvelle Experiénce, in Seattle in 1990; Mystère at Treasure Island in Las Vegas circa 1998; the Dralion tour in Santa Monica in 1999; O and Love in Vegas in 2010, and Zarkana at Radio City Musical Hall in 2011. You’ll notice a 10 year hiatus, and that’s because after my enthusiasm for Nouvelle, my second and third experiences seemed diminishing returns; only years of emphatic recommendations brought me back two years ago, to my utter delight.

Then Zarkana brought me crashing back to dismay, and their 3-D movie this winter, Worlds Away, was a particular letdown. The movie, which hasn’t burned up U.S. box offices, was nothing more than a flimsy premise connecting pieces of their Vegas shows. I had been hoping that Cirque might reinvent film narrative the way they reinvented circuses, only to find myself watching a minimally conceived and eccentrically shot and edited greatest hits package.

I take no pleasure in the retrenchment of Cirque. But frankly, while I feel for those losing jobs, a company that has proven that live artistic undertakings can reach mass audiences can only be strengthened by reminders that they are not infallible, even when they’re working at such astronomically budgeted scales. I would dearly love to wield phrases like, “What clown was keeping their books,” but that fails to draw out what can be learned from the current troubles.

One has to applaud the entrepreneurship of co-founder and owner Guy Laliberté, who took the company from street performers to veritable rock stars, making it almost impossible for most circuses to survive unless they dropped “circus” for “cirque”; I am less sanguine about Soleil’s efforts to monopolize the word. As the world has grown more sensitive to the treatment of animals at circuses, their completely human entertainment carries no whiff of exploitation or cruelty, even as we may wonder how people learn the superhuman skills on display.

My own back and forth opinions on the shows themselves may be reflective of erratic quality control and perhaps overproduction (they recently began producing several new shows annually instead of one), but O and Love were so remarkable that I’m eager to see them again, even at $150 a ticket, and I’m regretting having skipped Ka, which I hear is also incredible. I’m not the first to suggest that Cirque is most successful when they’re in venues specifically built, or radically refurbished, for their sit-down shows; perhaps they have grown too big for the big top.

Producing to “fill slots” is often the bane of performing arts organizations; they have to put on something to give to their audiences, and perhaps they don’t always have sufficient brilliant ideas to fill the available holes. By creating more slots, surely Cirque has created the same problem for itself. The news reports also suggest that expenses weren’t carefully controlled, and that will fell any business; outside of real world arts, we can watch the same problem played out on Downton Abbey.

It’s very hard, when you’ve come so far, so fast, to stop and take a breath and reassess. But Cirque is no different than any performing arts organization, even if it no longer relies on public subsidy. It may need to get back to its core values. It can look to the simpler, grittier and altogether wonderful Les 7 doigts de la main (known in NYC for Traces), a mini-circus at the most human level. They succeed in no small part because the performers seem like people you might meet on the street, who go out of the way to personalize the performance and ingratiate themselves with the audience, making their feats that much more awesome. There is no wailing of indeterminately ethnicized pop music, no waddling oddballs spouting gibberish, just skill.

Stopping to remember that circus is in fact a form of theatre, and never more so than when it eschews animals, I’m eager to see Cirque’s Amaluna, directed by American Repertory Theatre’s artistic director Diane Paulus, to see how her theatrical sensibility infuses the Cirque formula. It’s interesting to note that Paulus is also coming to Broadway with a Cambridge-bred Pippin revival created in collaboration with 7 doits, further exploring theatre as circus and circus as theatre. The two may well be worthwhile case studies for Cirque (though Paulus is not the only theatre director to collaborate with them).

Despite avoiding them for 10 years, I remain hopeful for Cirque du Soleil, as performing arts wunderkind, as entrepreneurial model and, believe it or not, as “my” circus. I was never taken to a circus in my youth; my only “regular” circuses are the Big Apple Circus in 1984 when I was 22, Circus Vargas in about 1989 and Circus Flora (at the Spoleto Festival) in 2003. The only other experiences I’ve ever had at a circus have been with the Canadians — that’s right: no Ringling Brothers. That means that 66% of my lifetime circus-going has been with Cirque du Soleil (Traces was performed in a 499 seat theatre). Cirque has thrilled me and disappointed me, but for better or worse, it’s what I’ve known.  Unless they are overwhelmed by hubris, mismanagement or both, Cirque should to be around for a long time, and reports of their doom are not merely exaggerated but unfounded.

Yes, Cirque is a corporation now, with 14 million tickets sold a year and $1 billion in revenue; sympathy may be in short supply. It needs to ground itself before it flies again, econonomically and creatively. Cirque might look to the late 70s and early 80s, when people said Disney was on the ropes as well, and the company came back only stronger, proving that family entertainment can endure. Cirque du Soleil is not too big to fail, but the company is too inventive and successful to quickly start counting out, like so many clowns in a car.

As I sat at last week’s session of The Shakespeare Forum, watching performers present monologues that led to highly supportive critiques from some 50 gathered peers, I was bombarded by thoughts.

Most immediate, of course, were my reactions to the presentations. While the format was for everyone present to feel free to ask questions and make observations, I spoke only once in the two hours, a single query limited to seven words. I might have engaged more, but as a newcomer, I was uncertain as to how to best frame my comments in this protective environment. Consequently, I became contemplative.

I had, needless to say, my own responses both to what was performed and the recommendations that followed. While I am no critic, I can be highly critical, but this was no place for the snap reactions that come upon seeing a finished show. I was watching people test their talents, as others sought to teach and learn from the conversations that ensued. Yes, I wanted to tell one woman that in an audition, it was highly unlikely that she could clutch the wall as she did; I wanted to share with one man that by his posture and position, I had guessed he was about to perform something from Hamlet even before he spoke; I wanted to debate some of the suggestions as wrong-headed. But that was what I wanted to say in the moment, out of habit, not necessarily what anyone in that room needed.

My thoughts turned to my unfortunate tendency to verbalize perceived flaws first; then I began to worry whether I was watching too intently. I have an unconquerable tendency to furrow my brows when I concentrate, which I have often been told makes me look angry when I am anything but. The last thing this room needed was negative expression of any kind.

As suggestions and admiration flowed, I wandered back to my two collegiate efforts at directing, which no doubt had all the finesse that an untrained, unschooled 19-year-old (who looked angry when thinking) brought to the table, which is to say almost none. Yes, at that age we’re all learning, but how brusque I must have been, how unsupportive, in pursuit of the production I saw in my head.

When the Forum group, as advised, snapped their fingers in support of statements they heard to express concurrence without interrupting to verbalize agreement, I realized that I had no idea whether this was a common practice in theatre courses and workshops, or whether this was something unique to The Shakespeare Forum. What else do I not know about performers’ education? This was simple; surely there were processes more profound.

I even was thrown back to the extreme awkwardness of my high school years as I realized how many in this group came regularly, and knew each other well, fostering safety. I was once again the awkward outsider, unsure of how to act except when with my own friends. Yet my discomfort was surely nothing compared to those who came to give voice to monologues, perhaps for the first time in front of others. Did I have that courage, as I did, irrepressibly, in my high school performing days?

Finally and most importantly, I realized how long it had been since I was “in the room,” that is to say, an actual rehearsal. As someone who chose theatre as a profession based on my love of the form, and my deep desire to play some constructive role in it, I was reminded as I sat on a folding chair in a basement room south of Canal Street that as my career advanced, I had extraordinary opportunities to see productions, but that the actual process of making theatre had become distant. I was reminded that for as much as I may know about the business and even perhaps the art, I’ve never been schooled in nor benefited from the practical experience of speaking the language of the classroom, rehearsal room, the audition, the performance.  I was a stranger in my own land.

This week, Michael Kaiser of The Kennedy Center wrote of his belief that arts managers are frequently too content in their jobs to be creative, and I challenge that assertion on the grounds of sweeping generalization. While I have no doubt that, as in any profession, there are those who are always growing and learning and those who find comfort in the status quo, arts administrators are always grounded in creativity, namely the work they support. Do some grow too complacent? Perhaps. But the ever-changing financial and entertainment environments virtually dictate that creativity is at the forefront of administrators’ and producers’ thoughts, as they struggle the sustain the frameworks that allow for production.

But rather than sweepingly and publicly castigating an entire class of arts professionals, I find it more constructive to offer a suggestion to ward against any potential stagnation, because of last week’s experience: namely that arts administrators must find the time, on a regular basis to get back “in the room,” namely the rehearsal room. It’s thrilling to work on behalf of great productions, but the core of what we are a part of is there within the drab beige walls, the mocked up scenery, the conversation, the camaraderie, the repetition and the revision. That is one essential part of the administrator’s continuing education, sustenance and success.

Even within a construct aimed at developing actors’ skills, not leading to any particular production or even necessarily to a better audition piece, my visit to The Shakespeare Forum, unexpectedly, unintentionally even, showed me some fundamentals of theatre, my chosen profession. I have no doubt that this would hold true in music, in dance, in opera, and so on. As administrators, we try to create simulacrums of this integral work – the master class, the open rehearsal, the invited tech – for our audiences, for our donors, for the media, to stimulate their knowledge, their loyalty, their generosity. But as insiders, we have access to the real thing. I urge everyone to use it.

I, for one, can’t wait to get back in the room again. I look forward to seeing you there.