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.

“Convicted rapist Mike Tyson starts previews tonight on Broadway,” went the tweet, and there’s no arguing a single one of those words, as they are absolute fact. Since Tyson’s one-man event was announced, his conviction and jail sentence for rape has been prominent in accounts of the 12-performance gig, and surely they’re not being copied from any press release.

When actor James Barbour withdrew from a production of The Rocky Horror Show at San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre last summer, the ostensible reason was to, as the Los Angeles Times reported, “deal with issues of his wife’s pregnancy.” But that was viewed by many as suspect, since a public uproar had begun in the days just prior, when the local community learned of Barbour’s charge of sexual misconduct with a child, which was plea bargained to two counts of endangering the welfare of a minor.

Charles S. Dutton served time in prison for various charges, most notably for manslaughter. Yes, the esteemed Dutton killed someone.

Now I am not capable of discussing the moral relativism of these crimes, or the particulars of the cases and their outcomes; I decry them all. I make no excuses for any of them, nor am I personally seeking to rehabilitate or further vilify anyone or their reputations. What strikes me though is how two of these men are, apparently, forever labeled with their crimes, while another would appear to have transcended them. One is embraced in the theatre community, one’s career is surely severely impaired, while the third has now, as a novice, turned to Broadway for the kind of career renaissance that fading movie stars have sometimes sought.

Perhaps a key differentiation is that Dutton’s crimes occurred before he came to theatre, that he found theatre in prison, before he was known. His story only mattered to people once he had wowed audiences in August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, committing manslaughter on stage no less; Dutton also had an august mentor in Lloyd Richards. Barbour and Tyson were already known (Tyson was truly famous for sports, not theatre) and their crimes were sexual, which may well be more unforgiveable than murder in the court of public opinion; every week Law and Order: Special Victims Unit reminds us that sexually based offenses are “especially heinous.” Dutton has always expressed remorse over the man who died at his hands; Barbour has tried to move on (although he is required to notify employers); Tyson hasn’t necessarily made the public penance some might desire.

Whatever his show may be, Tyson is in a likely a no-win situation. If he ignores his crime, he will be accused of glossing over that part of his biography; if he rationalizes it or attempts to defend himself, he will refuel the outrage that has never fully settled down; if he makes light of it, he will be condemned.

These different histories are far from identical, which is why I can draw no conclusion in which they are united. Indeed, I can only raise their apparent differences within the uniting realm of stage entertainment. Yet I read countless stories of prison programs in which theatre is a rehabilitative aid, and I marvel at the stories that emerge from such programs, about men finding themselves not necessarily as career artists, but through the therapeutic and emotionally revealing process of theatre. So I wonder about the role that theatre plays, as therapy, as career, as vehicle, as another convicted criminal comes to Broadway tonight. Can people transcend their past through theatre, can they come to terms with it, and will audiences accept them if they do? Or are we always in the jury box, dozens upon dozens of angry men and women all, rendering our own particular verdict on a case by case basis?

“I don’t care if I get paid at all. You don’t really do theater for money, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.” – John Malkovich

I’m inclined to give John Malkovich a pass on the statement above, as it was a response to a question about how much he was getting paid for a stage engagement. I’d also like to think that, since the statement was made at a press conference in Mexico, maybe there’s some bad translating involved. After all, Malkovich was an early member of the once scruffy and still ambitious Steppenwolf Theatre Company, so he’s paid his dues. As someone who alternates stage projects with art films (and the occasional Bruckheimer or Bay spectacle), he’s a star who hasn’t sold his soul to Hollywood, even if he has leveraged his name for such projects as a clothing line.  But I have to take note of the quote, because it is emblematic of how theatre is discussed in relation to television and film, and makes theatre out to be something less than those fields, something that is done out of a mix of love and charity alone.

I would have been much happier if that statement was, “I don’t really do theatre for money now.” I wish all celebrities took that tack. Because by generalizing to all actors, they minimize the fact that actors need to make money to live, even if they work on stage out of love; it is only the independently wealthy or the highly successful actors who work in other fields who can do theatre indulgently. The fact is, for everyone working in, or trying to work in theatre, artist or administrator, theatre is a career choice, not a lark. Perhaps most recognize they’re unlikely to get rich, but we cannot (pardon the expression) afford to have it treated as a pastime. We need those who have succeeded to make the case for why it needs to be funded, for why people working in the theatre should be able to make a living at it if they choose, a living that can support them, a spouse or partner, a family; a career that provides health insurance, that allows for vacations, that doesn’t require a second job.

Does theatre pay like the movies or TV? No, it doesn’t (unless you’re Hugh Jackman or the authors of Wicked). But it can be a life, a fulfilling one. If every time a star takes to the stage they rhapsodize about love, and the press points out how extraordinary it is that they’re willing to take such a drastic pay cut to work on stage, the myth of theatre as avocation is perpetuated. Let’s also recognize that “no money” in theatre for celebrities is a relative term when they work commercially: they may not make as much as they do when working in those other fields, but trust me, we’d all be quite content with what I hear Ricky Martin is getting for appearing in Evita.

I have no doubt that when John Malkovich and the many celebrities spawned by or invited into Steppenwolf over the years return to that theatre, they make exactly what everyone else makes, and I applaud them for their commitment to that company and the many other theatres where they continue to work. That’s why I use the quote at the top of this piece as an object lesson, not a battering ram.

But let’s recognize it for hyperbole (I imagine if his fee were to go unpaid in Mexico, Malkovich’s agent or attorney would be getting on the phone right quick) and for unfortunate simplicity. Or perhaps everyone who can legitimately do so should immediately call his agent and offer him the greatest stage roles imaginable, the greatest directing projects he could desire. See what happens when you mention you’re asking him to donate his services.

When I first heard it, it sounded strange to my ear. I wondered whether Charlie Rose had just misread his teleprompter, whether some young segment producer had written an introduction without being sufficiently steeped in theatre terminology, or whether it was simply a typo. But as my initial surprise wore off, I found I rather liked the word, and wonder whether it could brought into common usage in the arts.

Allow me to set the scene before going forward.

Having a moderate degree of interest in this week’s barrage of stunts by television’s network morning programs, I was doing a bit of channel surfing to see how the Katie Couric (ABC) vs. Sarah Palin (NBC) counterprogramming might be working, and whether CBS had anything up its sleeve as well. At one precise point, to give you a picture of the ethos of the three programs, Good Morning America had a interview with Camille Grammer directly opposite The Today Show’s visit with Tori Spelling, while CBS This Morning had a feature on what the 1940 U.S. Census reveals. In this particular atmosphere, I didn’t expect to find anything that might make me think deeply about theatre.

So when Charlie Rose, on the CBS program, began introducing an interview with Candice Bergen in conjunction with her role in Broadway’s The Best Man, it was jarring to hear the production described as, “a renewal.” Not revival, not revisal, not reinvention, not revisitation, not refurbishment. Renewal.

I’ve decided I like it.

Now there’s an argument that could be made for avoiding any of these qualifiers about plays or musicals, but there seems to be a deep desire to distinguish new work from that which dates back over some period of time, so I’ll leave that alone for today. Revival is the default mode; musicals which have been altered, whether in part or substantially from their original texts may be called revisals. The other “re’s” I’ve cited above are used on occasion, but they’re not standard terminology, in conversation or in marketing.

Yet whenever I’ve spoken to a director about staging a work which previously received a substantial production or productions some time ago, be it a decade or a century or more, they all say some variation of the same thing when asked about their work with it: “I treat it like it’s new.” Whether the creator(s) are alive or long dead, directors talk about working with the authors, collaborating with them, be it Shepard or Shakespeare. Yet the word revival carries with it, to me, a whiff of the grave, more resurrection or resuscitation of something dead than reinvigoration of something awaiting only light and air.  Yes, I’m parsing these words closely, perhaps pedantically, and through my own associations, but in a field that trades in words, their meaning and their implied or inferred (if not intended) message is tremendously important; I’m quick to challenge obfuscation or misdirection.

So I find renewal a very optimistic word, because while acknowledging history, it seems very forward looking, and indeed may reflect precisely what theatre artists hope to achieve when they look to past work for today’s repertory. It may even be goal setting: that when such works are undertaken, they should be renewed for both the participating artists and audiences, so that they are more than mere replication of something from the past, but are instead made relevant.

Do I expect this to fall readily into common parlance among our peers? No, that optimistic I’m not; it would require endless repetition. But having inveighed against the “er vs re” debate regarding the very name of our field, here’s an “re” usage I’d like to think we can all get behind when the opportunity presents itself or necessity arises.

So whether this morning’s usage was intentional, ill-informed or simply a slip, I salute Charlie Rose and his team. Renewal is refreshing.

I should note that I have not yet seen The Best Man and that nothing in this post should be construed as any comment upon that production.

I had been planning to write about the pros and cons of “Tweet Seats,” weighing the potential of technology to complement live entertainment against its potential for intrusion and distraction. Whatever your opinion may be, I will no longer seek to address it, because such debates could become irrelevant. The reason for that worries me and I hope we will all find consensus as I explain.

Earlier this week, having seen some of my prior tweets and blogs on the topic of Tweet Seats, a regional theatre company (that has asked not to be named) shared with me a letter and supporting documents from the Global IP Law Group in Chicago, in which the firm, representing its client Inselberg Interactive, claims that said theatre has violated patents owned by Inselberg. What had the theatre done? They had a Tweet Seat night last year. The law firm asserted that U.S. Patent 6,975,878 covers the provision of “interactive audience participation at live spectator events,” and indeed that quote is from the patent document itself, which you may review here.

I am not a patent attorney or an expert in the field of intellectual property, but I can read, and I have reviewed this patent; I urge you to do so as well. It refers to a “method” which, among other things,  involves “querying the spectators,” “processing the spectator data into results,” “transmitting the answers to a central processor,” and “broadcasting the results of the processing of spectator data.” It includes two line drawings, one which shows a device not unlike a Motorola flip phone from the 90s, and the other which shows three people using such device at a football game, with scoreboards that read “Answer A, B, C.” Although Tweet Seat events of which I’m aware do not show results on a commonly viewed screen, they are shared with anyone who cares to look at their device, both at the event and elsewhere, which the firm asserts is covered. Interestingly, the patent abstract notes that, “The method includes providing spectators with an interactive device”; while Tweet Seat events require people to use their own phones, but this doesn’t seem to have derailed the claim of infringement. It does seem a bit of extrapolation has taken place.

Deeper into the patent document you can also find what is referred to as a “Detailed Description of the Invention,” but in this case the invention is neither the device nor the software which would make such interaction possible. No, “the invention” is the idea of doing so. Nowhere does the patent suggest that Inselberg invented the smartphone or any of its underlying technology, nor does it make any claim to having invented Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other program, website or application which easily and freely permits people to communicate with each other and with venues, presenters and producers on smartphones. They patented the concept of using such things at some point in the future when the technology became available, and now that it has, they seek to profit from it or restrict it.

So whether you like Tweet Seats or not at arts events, whether you think anything of their sort is entertaining at sporting events, the intent of Global IP Law Group is to either “license this patent portfolio,” or shut down such uses, theatre by theatre, stadium by stadium, on behalf of their client. Through this patent, they would seek to monetize methods of communication that have already swept the world, albeit they seek to do so in a particular set of locations. They would charge a toll for free speech in theatres.

In the blog post I planned to write, I was going to discuss the fact that social media is extremely new, and that while it has gained staggering traction in a very short span of time (Facebook was only opened to the public in 2006; Twitter debuted even later), it is still in its infancy. A few decades from now, its integration into our lives, our entertainment, and perhaps even our art will be vastly more sophisticated; interactive media 2012 will look like radio in the 1920s or television in the 1940s. It is possible that our current resistance to social media as part of the live entertainment experience will give way to something less intrusive and more organic (if such a word can be applied to the meshing of the innately human performing arts and the fundamentally technological nature of electronic communication). But should we pay in order to explore that possibility?

The performing arts, largely because of their budgetary constraints, tend to not be early adopters of new technology. However, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and so many other resources are available for free (although one still must acquire a computer or smartphone and pay for internet access). But we make an easy target for claims such as those made in the name of U.S. Patent 6,975,878 because the arts do not have the ready resources to fight them individually or even necessarily together, and we are likelier to cease and desist than to challenge and persist, yet avoidance or capitulation would be unfortunate. We are lucky that this incursion on our efforts at creative communication encompasses professional sports, since that field has vastly deeper pockets, and may help to confront the concerns I’m spelling out. However, the Global IP Law Group asserts in a cover letter to their claim that several stadiums and arenas, including the Target Center, Xcel Energy Center and the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome have in fact licensed the technology from Inselberg; if this is verified, then we are already on a slippery slope.

It is unfortunate that this comes to light through experimentation with Tweet Seats, which at this point are far from widespread or de rigeur, but do evoke great passion from their detractors; many would be delighted to see them ended, but again, now is not the time to argue their effects (though I ask you to recall, if you can, the vehement response once upon a time to supertitles at the opera). If Tweet Seats are what alert us all to this wide-ranging patent which could close off a means of communicating with our audiences, of connecting with them in our theatres – perhaps even pre- and post-show and during intermission, which perhaps many would find less offensive  – then I urge everyone to fly the flag of Tweet Seats as a right and a choice, rather than a service we must license.

I have kept the confidence of the theatre that shared this information with me because, sensibly, they do not wish to further draw the attention of the Global IP Law Group.  But I have been able to show you the patent which is public record and, if you are a venue which has already been contacted, I am willing to be the conduit through which you may find others. If you have already held a Tweet Seats event, I certainly understand why you would not wish to alert the Global IP Law Group of your efforts, but perhaps you might use an intermediary to query the firm about its claims, on the grounds of considering Tweet Seats or some other interactive venture. But remember, Google is available to everyone. For free. So these firms may well find you anyway.  They’ll probably find this post within minutes of my publishing it. However, I have spoken with another theatre which held a Tweet Seats event, and they had not been contacted with this claim.

Many people abhor when material that is considered offensive is defended under the principle of free speech, but certainly the arts have had to stand for their rights when they present material which some might find objectionable. In this case, the specificity of the usage to be defended, Tweet Seats, might be seen in and of itself as impinging upon creative work, or disrupting the experience of performance, and therefore an offense. However, commercially restricting the practice does raise issues of free speech using common modes of communication. Whether or not we employ Tweet Seats or something akin to them is a choice every organization should be allowed to experiment with and make on its own, as we work to use the very newest technology to connect with our audiences, in our own venues, and to maintain awareness and enthusiasm for our work when so many other options beckon and so many creative – and perhaps generally palatable – uses of technology have yet to be conceived.

Addendum: Late in the day that this post first appeared, the theatre that went unnamed as the recipient of the claim against their use of Tweet Seats reconsidered their request for anonymity and chose to waive it. The theatre in question is Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam CT, where I was general manager from 1994 to 1998, and intermittently serve as a consultant.

There have been a wide variety of theatre gatherings in the last week: a NAMT conference in Seattle, an industry weekend at the Humana Festival, the traveling roadshow explicating the “New Beans” study, the New York City panel (prompted by the Mike Daisey flap) on truth in theatre. Having been unable to attend any of these, I have learned about them in the modern manner: via tweet, blog, livestream and archived video and audio. So without having sat at each and listened from beginning to end, without the opportunity to ask questions or make comment in real-time, these have all blended together for me.

What I take away from this stew of conversation and debate is an overriding desire for greater connection: between playwrights and theatres, between artists and audiences, between creative talents and administrators, between everyone and the truth. Though I didn’t particularly enjoy reading E.M. Forster’s Howards End, its epigram echoes, even if it has passed into the realm of cliché. Only connect.

This puts me in mind of one of my earlier musings, about how sporting events and civic gatherings unite everyone involved through the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem (baseball also reinforces this with the ritual singing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seven inning-stretch). While I acknowledge that it’s not an easy task to find the right material for such a unifying act before the start of a theatrical production, and know of many people who would sooner leave than be forced into audience participation, I still ponder how the artists of a performance could be united with their audience even before the start of the show itself. Yes, a song before Ibsen could be jarring, and how could we unite given what I presume to be a general unfamiliarity with Norwegian folk tunes. But wouldn’t a mournful Irish ballad make a great preamble to many of the plays of O’Neill; what if we all followed the bouncing ball for several verses of “This Land is Your Land” before stories of immigrants, or of the dispossessed? Why must we wait until the end of a show, as with Hair, for the audience to dance together? Director Mark Lamos once had audiences dancing pre-show for a Twelfth Night, so that when the stage cleared and Orsino said, “If music be the food of love, play on,” his mournful plaint was felt by all who had participated in a party, not merely observed one.  Not to in any way discount the value of pre-show discussions, which grow more prevalent, but a unifying experience is emotional and active, not didactic.

Another means of connection is one I’ve also championed for many years, namely that each and every time the playwright, composer, director, choreographer and/or designers of a production – together or separately – are in the house for a performance of a show of theirs, they should be invited to take a bow.  On opening nights, it is not uncommon for the creative team to participate in the ovation, and while at times they can be awkwardly staged (in that they aren’t staged at all, and these unfamiliar people should be introduced), every performance can be an opportunity for the audience to see and respond to the full complement of creative artists who contributed to the production, not only the cast. While many of those artists might prefer anonymity, and of course many have moved on post-opening, they deserve recognition, an awareness of their presence only deepens the experience for the audience that has shared in their work. With better-known artists, the excitement can be palpable; Caryl Churchill’s presence merely as an audience member, not even a participating playwright, this past weekend at Actors Theater of Louisville yielded a rippling thrill across the Twitterverse, far beyond the theatre’s walls.

Most every theatre uses the first rehearsal/first reading as a day to introduce the company and the staff of a show, but in my experience, it’s incomplete. I recall being brought into rehearsal rooms, the staff circling the company, seated at tables, as one by one we did the Mouseketeer roll call of our names and titles. There might be a speech by the artistic director, and then by the production’s director (if different), perhaps a few words by the playwright, maybe a quick demonstration of the set model – and then we were sent back to our desks to go about our regular business. We were not invited to stay for the first reading, often told that it would make the company too self conscious; I wish that we had been required to stay and listen, that even at the most unformed step, every staffer should be made to be there at the birth of a new production, not just drop by for a wave and a bagel before things got messy. The same should probably hold true for that final rehearsal in the rehearsal hall; it further engages the staff in the creative process, and refamiliarizes the company with a staff that they may not have interacted with for some three weeks.  I have heard of some companies that even hold readings of plays long before first rehearsal, with the roles divvied up among the staff – what a marvelous way to connect the staff with what they’ll soon be working on, and to connect the staff with each other.

Some theatres have sought to engage their audiences by making use of the newest technology, with “tweet seats” a cascading topic on blogs and in the mainstream media ever since a USA Today story in the fall. Regardless of your opinion of the practice, which is worthy of separate discussion, it is an effort, however primitive, to actively connect audiences with the work on stage and simultaneously with their friends and followers not in the theatre; depending upon their stage time, members of the company can even participate during the show, and I know of one artist who followed her east coast show in real time while she was back with her family in Los Angeles. While execution may vary, in a field where we talk about breaking down the fourth wall, or even shattering the proscenium barrier, technology is showing ways for artists and audiences to interact with those not even at the performance, with results still to be assessed.

I recognize that this is a laundry list of ideas, practices and possibilities, not a carefully argued thesis, and I hope that you will indulge me one last anecdote/example. As I mentioned above, the divide between staff and performers can be wide; there is not, for example, any essential reason for say, the business office to know the actors unless there’s a payroll problem. As a manager, I learned from example that I would need to make an effort to build such a connection even for myself, even though my name was on the program’s title page, since my work hours mostly ended just as shows began. But I knew that if I was in the building at half-hour, I should walk through the dressing rooms, say hello, see how everyone was feeling, and do the same in the lighting and sound booth, the box office, and so on, depending upon the particular geography of each theatre. I had been urged to do so even before I was a manager; it is one of the responsibilities I have missed most in the past 12 years.

Those rounds were never perfunctory, but they were usually casual, save for one night when we were producing the original multi-theatre co-production of August Wilson’s Jitney at Geva Theatre in 1999, during my first season as managing director there. While professionally Geva was a terrific theatre and work opportunity, it had taken me from family and friends and, personally, it was the most profoundly lonely period in my life. Jitney, as it turned out, broke that loneliness to a degree, because there were several actors in the company with whom I’d worked before and so, itinerants all, we felt a bond, especially on a show that came to us fully rehearsed, further minimizing the connection between the staff and cast. One night, though I knew it was only minutes to curtain, I decided it wasn’t too late to do my dressing room walk-through, only to find that the cast was gathering for their own nightly ritual, a prayer circle. Upon seeing me, the actor Keith Randolph Smith grabbed me and dragged me into the circle, ignoring my protestations of intruding. Although I felt awkward, it would have been deeply disrespectful to truly resist; although the prayers were offered in Jesus’ name and I am a non-practicing Jew, I joined in their ‘amen’ and invested it with true meaning. I was so moved to have been taken into the circle – no other staff member had ever been or ever was, included, I was later told – that I remain deeply honored to this day. I recall it as the first time I felt at home in Rochester. In hindsight, I only wish that every person working the show has been similarly included, each and every night.

Pray. Sing. Dance. Tweet. Discuss. Debate. But foster connection any way you can at the theatre. We are apparently all yearning for it, in our art, our marketing, our lives. And tell us all what you do to foster that connection, and how it works. There’s always new ways, and more to learn.

I have never seen Mike Daisey perform. However, I have been to The Public Theatre many times, I have read many reviews of and features about Daisey’s The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (and his other monologues) and have discussed it with people who have seen it and were, indeed, quite enthusiastic about it. Apparently, by the standards of non-fiction that Mr. Daisey followed, at least until this past Friday, I could have claimed to have seen his show. Yet I never would have thought to do so.

As someone whose primary interests have long been the arts and journalism, “The Daisey Affair” is a train wreck, media circus, artistic bombshell and teaching moment all bound up with a bright big bow of schadenfreude. After declaring to all who would listen, both free and paid, that he was an honest messenger about deplorable conditions, Daisey got his comeuppance when, after repurposing portions of his stage piece for radio’s “This American Life,” someone sought to fully fact-check his claims and found them wanting, insofar as Daisey’s own first-hand experiences went. There have been independent reports of the working conditions at Apple’s China-based supplier Foxconn; Daisey himself did not witness all of the effects and abuses at those plants, and had wholly fabricated certain anecdotes.

Perhaps it is fitting that Daisey was caught out by public radio itself, since the excerpt that ran on their stations was no doubt heard by more people than had actually seen Daisey perform the piece at The Public Theater and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company as a whole (this is a guess, not a fact). Frankly, had it not been for the “This American Life” airing and its tragic sequel, “Retraction,” theatergoers may well have gone on indefinitely believing everything Daisey said to be true as objective fact. So while public radio may well loom larger, proportionally, in overall impact, I would like to focus solely on the theatrical presentation, since that is the world in which I travel.

Am I angry at Daisey? Yes, I am. Not because I feel personally duped, since I never saw the show. But I’m upset for all of the people I know, and those I don’t, who were completely taken in by Daisey’s account, which he declared to be a work of non-fiction, a phrase that with every passing day, accelerated by people like James Frey and Daisey, becomes ever more suspect. Yes, theatre is primarily a world of artifice, but it is also a world in which “truth” is valued, be it literal truth, emotional truth, what have you. In a place where we are normally are asked to suspend our disbelief, where that is an essential principle, we are also ready to believe wholeheartedly in fiction, where we willingly trust artists – and therefore, we do so even more when we’re presented with something represented as fact.

Theatres are not in the habit of fact-checking the work they present; they operate on a good faith basis with the artists with whom they work and unless something seems egregiously out-of-whack, the work of artists like Daisey, Spalding Gray, Anna Deavere Smith, Eve Ensler and others are accepted as art and as theatricalized documentary. Now, of course, Daisey has spoiled the fun for the rest of the class, and artists who traffic in “true stories” may well have to provide footnotes to be printed in the programs or on the websites of the theatres that produce or present such work, or even open their notes for scrutiny, as if every production was a libel suit waiting to happen. It’s interesting to note that Smith makes her original tapes available online already, although this was intended as a guide for those who would attempt to mimic her subjects as she does, but they certainly provide the ability to verify her faithfulness to their words – or indeed to examine how her artistry has taken their words and melded them into a work of theatre.

I am angry with Mike Daisey because he made people I know, respect and like complicit in his fabrication. While both The Public and Woolly Mammoth have appropriately remained rather silent in the first 72 hours of the revelation beyond short prepared statements, I have no doubt (but again, I am guessing) that the people who worked to promote the engagements of Agony and Ecstasy, those who chose to present it, those who helped to mount the production, are feeling betrayed because, so far as we know, they had taken Daisey at his word. The only insight we have thus far are tweets from Alli Houseworth, who was the marketing director at Woolly Mammoth when the show ran there and she is, to say the least, profoundly unhappy. She is also, I imagine, only one of many feeling this way, but the rest must keep silent, be it by employer edict or professional decorum. [Addendum: subsequent to my posting of this piece, Alli wrote her own post expressing her thoughts in detail.]

In addition to theatres’ staffs, those who reported on and reviewed Daisey, and indeed praised him (people I also know, respect and like), feel they have been ill-used; one major critic wrote to me that he felt like he had egg on his face, others have publicly questioned their role in facilitating Daisey’s untruths, as if they had given glowing coverage to Bernard Madoff which caused people to lose their savings (I exaggerate here for effect, and the metaphor is wholly mine). Some have pointed out that they had noted uncertainty about Daisey’s veracity; no doubt like all arts writers, they were too overworked and underpaid to attempt to verify the story independently, or simply felt that by questioning it, they had sufficiently addressed the ambiguity they perceived, because, after all, it’s only theatre.

Mike Daisey failed me, and everyone who attends the theatre, because he has contributed to the degradation of the word “theatre.” Some time ago, I wrote about the fact that, in modern parlance, theatre can either mean the presentation of dramatic and musical works as well as the venue in which that work is presented – but an can also mean any act from which true meaning has been dissociated from visible action. We most often hear this applied to ploys by those who govern, or seek to govern us; “political theatre” is a constant refrain. But now, by attempting to convince us that his work was factually true ,only to be revealed as partially false, Daisey has further eroded anyone’s belief in theatre. Even plays which do not pretend to be “documentary theatre,” but which utilize real-world events as the setting for stories either invented or amalgamated from research, will be called into question. Could audiences value Ruined or Blood and Gifts less in the wake of “Daiseygate”? I fear they might, and that is a shame both for the artists who created them and for the real world situations that they brought into focus in a way that the evening news perhaps never had. The same holds true for the working conditions in China that Daisey sought to bring to light, until the spotlight shifted from message to messenger. Daisey had shown with Agony and Ecstasy, as some often wonder, that political theatre does have a place in American discourse, only to undermine his own platform.

Movies have long ago degraded the phrase “based on a true story” as a catch-all to exploit tales which may have their roots in real world events, but which take creative liberties with the historical record. Must theatre now apply very specific disclaimers – or claims – to any production which seeks to be perceived a something more than pure fiction? I have already seen a real world application of such efforts, in the London program for the play with music Backbeat, about the very earliest days of The Beatles, and it remains one of my favorite program notes ever. In order to assure the audience of what was true and where they had strayed from fact, they went so far as to excuse a small flaw in their casting by noting that, “And, of course, Paul was left-handed,” lest everything else be discounted. Interestingly, Claude Lanzmann, who made Shoah, which many consider the definitive documentary of the Holocaust, refuses to use the term; because he staged moments with some of the survivors he interviewed, he prefers to call his epic document “a fiction of the real.” If only Daisey had done so as well.

Finally, I’m upset with Mike Daisey because he has provided a theatrical scandal for the media to feast upon once again. Theatre is, beyond those specifically charged with and invested in reporting upon it, rarely able to break beyond the ghetto of the arts page into the larger consciousness: the electronic media, new media, the front page. We only find ourselves there when something goes spectacularly wrong, and though you may think this an unfair comparison, the Daisey brouhaha is the biggest “beyond just the arts” theatre story since Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark began its troubled journey to the stage.  Just as the Daisey story broke on Friday, I wrote a post musing on the attention that George Clooney’s arrest might focus on the Sudan and wondered whether some celebrity might be willing to get arrested to promote the arts, since that appears to be the only way to get attention these days. Daisey wasn’t a celebrity, nor is he a criminal, but he has achieved his greatest fame to date for engaging in actions which are ethically questionable. He has made theatre relevant to more than just those who love it, but in the worst way possible.

Let me return to my opening sentence, the fact that I have never seen Mike Daisey perform, because there’s a tremendous irony. I never chose to see him because, based on what I had read, and despite the glowing remarks of those who knew his work, I conceived a bias about the work, however unfair it may have been to do so. I did not wish to spend my money to go to a lecture, no matter how artfully presented. Just as I tired quickly of Michael Moore, I assumed that an evening with Mike Daisey would be somewhere between a profoundly biased 60 Minutes segment and a partisan polemic – and that’s not why I go to the theatre. I go to see and hear the world transformed by an artist into something that is, indeed, emotionally true but filtered through a creative sensibility. Fiction may be a lie, but it is a lie I willingly participate in, whereas I mostly leave my fact consumption for other media. If only I had known what Daisey was really doing, I might have been more willing to see him, not less. Now, I look forward to his next play.

I know, I know, sometimes they’re just kidding around. The people doing it on Twitter yesterday probably were (though on that platform, without emoticons, it’s sometimes hard to tell). But for every playful exchange, there’s a pedantic discussion about origins, venues, style books, nationalities and so on…and on and on.  I refer, of course, to the ongoing “re” versus “er” contretemps over the spelling of the art form in which I have made my career, which, for the purpose of this essay, I will avoid naming, lest I be seen as a partisan.

One can only marvel at the evergreen nature of this tedious discussion. There are those who wish to make it an “American” versus “British” skirmish, entirely avoiding the fact that we a) both speak English, and b) the “re” spelling would seemingly have its roots in France in any event. People argue passionately that the “correct” usage is “er” when referring to a venue but “re” when discussing the making of the art itself (or is it the other way around?). Some helpless folk like myself have worked for companies that each spell it differently, and therefore have to assimilate to another “house style” every few years; as a result, I cannot manage any individual consistency, consequently abandoning any personal position on the matter. The all-powerful Google will often field search results in differing orders depending upon which spelling you opt for.

If you happen to be part of the profession in New York, the question is sometimes decided for you. The New York Times — which acquiesces to the wish of a rock band that opts to name itself “Fun.” with the period as part of the name (which just stumped my spell-check) to the horror, I’m sure, of the puncuationalist academy; which freely refers to “Lady” Gaga when her honorific is self-imposed rather than a birthright or a legal name, as it did years before for the comedian Lord Buckley — is quite clear on the “er”/”re” divide. The only accepted spelling at the Times is “er,” even if you happen to be a company whose very name has chosen the “re” option. At that paper, and perhaps others, this is non-negotiatble.

I grow weary of this petty debate, if only because, be it on blogs (and I can’t believe I’m wasting time on it) or tiny tweets, it just keeps going and going like some bizarre Energizer bunny in an etymologist’s recurring nightmare. There are so many more pressing issues: are dramatic companies still producing work of relevance? Will we ever conquer the racial and gender inequality that pervades our business? How will we insure a passion for the form in future generations when it is out of reach economically for so many and removed from school curriculums? Can the rising costs of production and adnministration be contained in a way that insures access while providing a living for those who choose to toil in this field? Aren’t these topics what are worth even our brief time instead of the round-robin minutiae of what order two letters should appear in?

Some time back, I jokingly suggested on Twitter that perhaps we adopt a different solution, and start referring to it all as “teatro,” but I realize that this will only spark further nationalistic and provincial dissension on this so-far-from-pressing-it’s-ridiculous topic.  But now I believe I have stumbled upon the ideal solution.

Theatr.

It can be used in all English speaking countries, is pronounced the same as the words we already use (since only spelling is at issue),  and maybe even the countries that use the romance languages can twist their tongues around it without sacrificing their indigenous patois.  At a time when we need unity on the dramatic form and the work that underpins it, perhaps this can be our rallying point, our common principle. If we can shorten “web log” to “blog” and crown unwanted e-mails as “spam” even when they are not a processed meat food, we can – much as “Mrs.” transformed or birthed “Ms.” some 40 years ago to dispatch a paternalistic strain in our culture – eliminate a ponderous and seemingly intractable debate simply by discarding a spare vowel.

I have made the first step. Whether I am innovator or crank, at least I offer you a passage out of inane rivalry and dispute. Do with it what you will.

In the meantime, whatever your decision, I look forward to seeing you at the theatr.

P.S. [Smiley face]

To my great regret, I did not see the fabled flop Broadway production of Carrie The Musical in 1988, therefore I cannot offer comparative information on how the new production by MCC Theater has or hasn’t fixed any problems with the show. My only frame of reference for the musical I saw this past Saturday afternoon is Stephen King’s original novel, which I read about 30 years ago, and Brian DePalma’s terrific film adaptation, which I manage to watch every few years, though I missed its original release. But I do know the bloody history the theatrical Carrie drags along like Marley’s chains.

On the other hand, in two weeks, when I see Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton in Sweeney Todd, they will be doing battle with countless other duos I have seen as Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett, among them George Hearn & Dorothy Loudon, Hearn & Angela Lansbury, Bob Gunton & Beth Fowler and Michael Cerveris & Patti LuPone (I have seen, at least, three additional less-famous pairings, not including the film). In addition, I have the original cast recording with Len Cariou & Lansbury burned into my brain from hours of playing and singing along, so much so that I have to remind myself that I never saw Cariou in the role, even though I can easily ape his timing and inflections.

For the avid theatergoer like myself, good memory is a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that I have no trouble recalling Brian Dennehy as Willy Loman, Mandy Patinkin as Che, or Kathleen Chalfant as Vivian Bearing. The problem is also the fact that I have no trouble remembering them and they will loom over me in the coming weeks when I see Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ricky Martin and Cynthia Nixon take on these roles that were so indelibly played for me in the past. I must work, rigorously, to remain open to new performers, new interpretations, new productions.

Of course the productions are different — and of course I am different. My responses at 17 are bound to be different than my responses at 27 or 37 (and so on). The impact of seeing any show for the first time rarely can be repeated; more than once I have seen a play that I loved as a teen and wondered how I was ever so naive to like it (though I have also found plays that I’ve come to understand better and thus admire over time, such as Fugard’s The Road to Mecca). My life experiences, my theatrical experiences, inform my reactions to shows and performances. At the same time, my recollections are fallible; memory is not fixed but plastic — we construct our memories over and over again, they are oral history even to ourselves, rather than a pristine digital record.

As I have become ever more of a veteran and ever more informed, it becomes harder to thrill me, and harder for me to keep fresh as an audience member.  Will I see Hamlet again and again? Yes, but whoever next plays the Dane for me is fighting with the ghosts of Christopher Walken, Richard Thomas, Kevin Kline, Ralph Fiennes and Jude Law (to name but five) and that’s to their detriment, and mine.

This challenge is surely amplified among theatre critics; I have seen perhaps 2500 productions in 34 years of earnest theatergoing, while critics probably reach that threshold in less than half the time, and are charged with not only assessing but contextualizing work as they go along. For me, although theatre has always been my profession, theatergoing remains an avocation, and save for my required attendance at Tony-eligible shows since 2003 and those shows produced at theatres where I worked, I see only what I want to see and, at certain times, what I could afford to see.  I recently turned down an opportunity that offered (and required) seeing another 100 shows each year. While I may well see close to that, the compulsory aspect frightened me and, as I’ve written before, I want to insure I have time for experiences other than just theatergoing (like family, friends, travel, movies, TV and books).

To those without the opportunities I’ve had, I imagine I’m evoking little sympathy. But the fact is, I’m not seeking any. What I do look for is every way in which I can continue to approach theatre with the most open mind, without constantly analyzing, comparing and judging what I see by the standards set by other productions and performances. “Only see new plays,” you might suggest, and surely this is rarely a problem in those instances. Yet sometimes the theatrical spreadsheet in my head is an asset for new plays, as prior knowledge of A Raisin in the Sun, while not necessary for Clybourne Park, surely lends another layer of depth to appreciating Bruce Norris’ work. “Avoid the major classics,” I hear you cry. But the next Lear, the next Viola might be even better than those that came before in my experience, and I love Shakespeare too much to miss out if that’s the case.

So I’ll just keep filling up the faulty hard drive that is my brain, hoping that the accelerating rise of video won’t become so prevalent that the oral history of theatrical production I’ve cultivated for so long becomes obsolete. And I’ll fight against my own instincts and keep shaking my internal Etch-a-Sketch, entering the theatre with as rasa a tabula as I can muster. But if you ever want to hear about shows that went unrecorded that you never saw, or compare your own memories of shows to see how they check out, I have a flawed and opinionated database waiting, ready to be accessed.

“Can’t believe that a MAJOR theater is producing [play title redacted]. Crazy talk. Does its “non-profit” mission mandate producing community theatre?”

I know. It’s just a tweet. Let it go. But it’s emblematic of bias I read and hear constantly. It’s about time I said something.

I would like everyone to stop using “community theatre” as a punch line or punching bag.

As people with a vested interest in building and sustaining interest in theatre, pretty much everyone in the business is supportive of and in many cases evangelical for arts education. We applaud academic drama programs and productions from kindergarten to graduate school, recognizing that such programs can give voice to the next generation of artists as well as the next generation of audiences. We decry funding cuts to such programs for their impact on creative as well as intellectual development. Of late, there is also recognition that these programs may offer refuge to those who seem “different” from student bodies at large, safe havens from predatory classmates (“bully” seems a bit tame these days) among those similarly inclined, close-knit teams for those who shy away from sports.

But once school is over, those whose lives and careers take them away from the arts, but whose love of performing doesn’t abate, become part of a maligned yet integral part of the theatrical ecosystem which, when spoken of by most professionals and media voices, is summarily disparaged. Why on earth does this happen, and why is it allowed to propagate?

While I’m quite certain there are some fairly sophisticated community theatre groups, I’ll cede the point that a great deal of the work done in community theatre likely doesn’t measure up to professional, or perhaps even collegiate, standards. But that’s not the point of it. If the participants wanted to be professionals, they might be pursuing those goals; perhaps some of them did, and didn’t succeed. But I’m willing to go out on a limb and say that the majority of the participants in community theatre never sought a professional theatre career, and are happy to be teachers, dentists, attorneys, mechanics, stay-at-home parents or what have you. The fact is, community theatre is a hobby, a passion and an outlet for people who truly love theatre; it’s the bowling league, the weekly pick-up basketball game, the book group for the performance minded. The participants are, I’m willing to bet, ticket buyers at local theatres, tourists who flock to Broadway or national tours, parents who encourage creativity in their own children. In some cases they may even provide the only theatre their community gets to see. They are the people we need.

Drawing on data from the American Association of Community Theatres website, which surely doesn’t include every community group out there, we know that AACT itself “represents the interests of more than 7,000 theatres across the United States and its territories, as well as theatre companies with the armed forces overseas.” They claim more than 1.5 million volunteers [participants], over 46,000 annual productions per year, an audience of 86 million and a combined annual budget of well over $980 million. That’s a lot of theatrical activity.

Before you accuse me of being a hypocrite, I will admit to enjoying Waiting for Guffman, an at times cringe-worthy satire of community theatre and a touchstone for many in the business now for a number of years. But like other Christopher Guest films, particularly Best in Show and A Mighty Wind, Guffman is an affectionate and at times absurdist view, which celebrates the passions of its offbeat thespians just as it lampoons them. There is no such affection in the tweet quoted above, or in the often-used critical riposte that labels sub-standard professional work as approximate to that seen in community theatre.

A couple of years ago, when I worked on the American Theatre Wing’s book The Play That Changed My Life, I was struck by the fact that this collection of independently written essays ended up including several paeans to community theatre, with both Beth Henley and Sarah Ruhl writing about how their parents’ community theatre experiences informed their own theatrical lives; Chris Durang wrote of play readings held in his living room which transformed his mother and the local newspaper editor into the elegant personages of a Noel Coward play one afternoon. Surely these are not unique stories. I even had my own experience with community theatre, when at age 16 I successfully landed the role of Motel in Fiddler on the Roof (playing opposite a 27-year-old school teacher); to be a high schooler cast amongst adults was my own moment of breaking into the big leagues at that stage in my life. Community theater can matter.

Let me swerve to a corollary issue, also invoked by the opening tweet, which is the suggestion that certain plays belong solely to the community theatre repertoire (I redacted the play named in the tweet because I don’t care to debate its relative merits, but rather address the broader issue). “Community theatre plays” share a common trait with many “high school plays,” in that both often feature large casts, casts that most professional theatres would happily employ if they could afford it.  But because for these groups, inclusion is essential, both in a desire to be welcoming and because inclusion can drive ticket sales, the large-scale plays common to the mainstream theatre in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, and the larger scaled musicals from across the past 100 years are staples. The value of the pieces should not be diminished because they flourish in these non-professional settings; they may not always be the most current work (though, again, I know many community groups do recent, smaller plays too), but their only opportunity to be seen may be in the community theatre arena.

Size isn’t the only issue; current tastes dismissively relegate shows to “community theatre” status as well. You Can’t Take It With You stumbled on a recent effort at Broadway, but surely Kaufman and Hart, staples in community and school theatre, are no less important because of it. Neil Simon is not in critical or commercial favor right now, so his work can be tarred with the “community” slander, but if the upcoming West End production of The Sunshine Boys, with no less than Richard Griffiths in the cast, proves revelatory, a shroud may yet be lifted from Simon’s bust in the theatrical pantheon. We’ve seen somewhat of the same thing happen recently in England with the long out-of-favor Terence Rattigan; the acclaimed David Cromer attempted Simon’s resuscitation on Broadway a couple of years ago but was undone by finances. The non-profit theatre producing a “community theatre” play should be applauded for reexamining a work not often professionally staged — at least until it opens; then judge it on its own merits, not on a collective and peremptory assumption about its worth. There’s a corollary in “family” or “children’s” theatre, where You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown and Annie are seen as staples, yet those shows weren’t written for or sold to children in their original runs any more than Wicked is subsisting solely on sales to 14-year-old girls today, as some would ignorantly suggest. This reductive labeling is detrimental on so many levels.

We are part of an industry that constantly worries about its future, but can be our own worst enemy. By slagging community theatre, we’re undercutting our own best interests and evidencing our own cultural elitism; by allowing others to do so we join the juvenile yet dangerous bullies who taunted us in high school — by doing the same to adults whose only wrong is to enjoy doing that which we’ve made our careers. Even if you’ve never uttered a word against community theatre, but merely have never given it a moment’s thought, you are doing it disservice. Is theatre so healthy that we can afford to be so blithely arrogant?