“I knew y’all would come. It’s the rest of the world I couldn’t have anticipated.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda (all photos by Howard Sherman)

That was what Lin-Manuel Miranda admitted about his extraordinary recent success with the musical Hamilton to some 200 high school drama teachers in a session on July 7, just two days before he was to leave the cast of the show. He was speaking at the Broadway Teachers Workshop, an annual summer program for theatre teachers from around the country, in a wide-ranging discussion that took him from elementary school to the present day. While questions came to Miranda at first from the moderator Patrick Vassel, the associate director of Hamilton, the session was predominantly Miranda responding to questions directly from the teachers.

For the benefit of all of the teachers (and students) who weren’t there, here are some highlights from Miranda’s remarks, slightly condensed and edited for clarity. Among the material not included here are any topics covered in my prior interviews with Miranda, both for Dramatics magazine and this website.

On being a teacher post-college

When I was about to graduate Wesleyan in 2002, I called Dr. Herbert [Miranda’s high school mentor] and said, “I have a BA in theatre arts, can I come substitute teach at Hunter for a living?” He said, “I’ll do you one better we actually have a part time English position.” So I taught seventh grade English my first year out of school.

There’s nothing better than the people who taught you becoming your friends suddenly being on the other side of that divide So that was enormous fun. And I loved it, I loved my students. I had two seventh grade English classes and I still follow them and they’re still in touch.

They offered me a full-time position at the end of the year and I could kind of see the Mr. Holland’s Opus life ahead of me and I said, ‘I’ll kick myself forever if I don’t even try to work on this musical I’d already been working on called In The Heights.’ I’d already met Tommy [Kail, Hamilton’s director], we were workshopping In The Heights in the basement of the Drama Book Shop while I was teaching. I basically quit teaching part time to be a professional sub, which is much more precarious because you don’t know if you’ll make rent month to month. But it’s much less draining, so your time is free to write.

Lin-Manuel Miranda

So I really was a professional sub until In The Heights opened on Broadway. Elementary school Spanish, physics, science – in the physics classes I’d be like “who wants a song”? I didn’t know what I was talking about. But it was enormously life-changing and it’s in the DNA of everything I do now.

A huge impulse from Hamilton is that impulse to teach. Because what you learn when you’re a teacher, in a lot of ways it’s different from being a performer. You go into being a performer because you get that itch that only applause can scratch. What you realize when you’re teaching is tactually the best moments when you’re a teacher is when you’re laying back and the kids are making the connections for themselves and all you do is keep the ball in the air. You watch them make the connections with each other and my best teachers always did that. You’ll know when those neurons are firing and things are happening and you just get to watch it. They’ve got the information and they’re making the connections, they are debating.

So that was enormously useful as well, because I think the best actors know how to listen. They don’t just scratch that itch that applause provides, they listen to their fellow castmates and they hold them up. They realize they’re twice as strong when they are in an ensemble than when they’re center stage and in the spotlight. Those are the lessons I’ve learned from being a teacher and a performer and they’ve been essential, really essential.

On his earliest musicals and the influence of mixtapes

I wrote four musicals in college. Only one of them was In The Heights. I wrote another one called On Borrowed Time, which was my senior thesis, which if I have my way you’ll never hear. I wrote a jukebox musical called Basket Case; I wrote the book and it was all 90s songs. It was about a school shooting and it started with “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam and it ended with the shooting to “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden. In it was “Barbie Girl” and Destiny’s Child.

It actually came as a result of listening to mixtapes of music I liked in the car. They were starting to form the spine of a story in my head which is sort of how I write scores. I’m really grateful that I was a teenager in a time when to impress a girl you made her 90 minutes of cassette music and that’s an art form unto itself, is it not? Draw the cover art, you have a rise and a fall, you can put in skits. It’s not like a CD, they have to listen to it in the order in which you have arranged it. That is a musical score. It’s usually the musical score of, ‘Why don’t you like me?’

But it’s also a way of making friends, a way of showing of your tastes, or a way of getting a friend into music that they don’t really know about, My knack for eclecticism in music is born of the mixtape era.

On student audiences at Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda at the Broadway Teachers Workshop

To an insane degree, the best shows are the student shows, because they’re prepped. They know what they’re coming to see. You don’t realize how much life has beaten you up until you see a bunch of kids see a show. The things they react to wouldn’t occur to you to react to.

There’s a moment where an American spy passes another spy a letter and a redcoat comes and just twists her neck and pulls her away. It’s not on the album, it’s a physical moment, it’s just before “Right Hand Man.” Adults watch and they go, ‘oh, this is a transition, it’s a stage transition, this is information we needed to know.’ When kids see that moment they go “OH!” Honest. Life hasn’t beat them up yet, they can actually be surprised and afraid and annoyed. It’s such live ammo to have an audience of students but it’s so much more rewarding because they’re there for all of it.

They’re there for Anthony being gorgeous because he’s gorgeous, so when he says “Let’s strip down to our socks it’s like, “Aaah!” – ten kids just started puberty. Twenty girls just started puberty and ten guys just figured something out. ‘Oh. Oh this. I know this about myself now.’ The inverse is true for Jasmine. Jasmine did one of our video Ham4Hams and the overwhelming comment was from teenage girls saying, “I’m so gay, I’m SO GAY.” That’s because they’re in love with her.

All this is to say the student matinees are just thrilling because the reaction is completely unguarded. When our characters pass away there are honest to god hitching sobs. We get that from adult audiences too, but its harder to get to you. It comes unbidden from these kids.

The enthusiasm during the rap battles, holy crap! Rap battles are the lingua franca of these kids. I mean there’s YouTube channels devoted to rap battles, Wilmer Valderrama telling “Your mama” jokes on MTV, so to see the founders snapping on each other, it’s revelatory to them and they’re getting the food of what they’re fighting about almost in spite of themselves. We really tried, we’re threading the needle of, “This is what the debt plan is really about.” This is what they’re for and this is what they’re against – and also ‘I’m going to put my foot up your butt.’ Oh! It is that thing of being able to fly in both directions, therefore all of it, if one thing doesn’t get them, something else will.

If we start from the point that these founders are human and what we’re trying to uncover is as much humanity [as we can] in two hours and forty-five minutes, what does that mean about the rest of your history textbook? It’s the beginning of a discussion and that’s very exciting. It’s not ‘we spoon feed you a musical and you love history.’ This musical unlocks that history is written by the victors and so what does that mean for history, what does that mean in your mind.

On failing and learning from failure

Lin-Manuel Miranda

There is so much liability for a teacher. There is so much you’re not willing to go out on a limb on, because you don’t know what’s going to come back to you. I felt very lucky that I found teachers that were willing to show up and be present so we could have a student run musical. That’s huge.

I learned how to corral a group of kids when you couldn’t hire them or fire them. If someone missed rehearsal, what could I say? “You’d better come back or…you just really need to come back!” You learned how to get everyone involved in something and do it for the sake of it, as opposed to for a grade or for cool points. It’s about making a great thing and learning to inspire your peers. I think probably half the things I did were probably artistic failures, but they were met with support and I think that’s the sort of important thing.

That’s how we figure out who we are and what we like and what we respond to. One of the great lessons I took away from film and theatre is to watch everything critically. If you’re in a show and you hate the show, don’t turn your brain off. ‘Why isn’t this show working?’ I find myself often imagining my own scenes on the ashes of a failed show that is happening in front of me in real time. ‘What about this isn’t working? Is it the performance, is the set distracting you from the performance, is the set too much for the plot?’

Continue to think critically when you’re watching any piece of art, because even if you say, “I wish I had those two hours of my life back,” you’ll know a little bit more about your taste, about who you are as an artist, about what you respond to. So it’s never really a waste of time. I think that’s a good perspective to have both when it’s creating things that don’t work or seeing things that don’t work.

On policy makers, politicians and the arts

Lin-Manuel Miranda

What I am finding is Hamilton has become a Rorschach test for our nation. Every candidate has been compared to every character in my show. Depending on which way you lean, either Trump or Hillary is Burr, and that’s OK, that’s fine. It’s good for us to have shared things to discuss. That is one of the places where the arts help us, to have water cooler moments in a time when everybody curates their own reality, right?

I think what we’re finding with social media is we have some shared moments but actually they allow us to go into our own windows and take our lessons from that. I’m always grateful for the way the arts can engender empathy. That’s the biggest thing that we can do that a politician, unless they’re really good, can’t do. We can let you into someone’s life and make you feel like you spent a hundred years with Eliza Schuyler Hamilton and been in her world, and that’s going to change you somehow, in a good way or a bad way. That’s what the arts can do.

Music is our secret weapon. It sneaks in past your defenses, it doesn’t matter who you vote for. If you’re not crying at the end of Hamilton or at the end of The Color Purple, you’re not a human. [The arts have] the ability to engender empathy and to see world views beyond our own. When you can’t shut out people as the other, that what the arts can do that nothing else can do.

On writing Hamilton

Lin-Manuel Miranda

I think a part of me is always trying to write the ideal school show. So much of my life, from elementary school, was “What’s going to be the school play.” So there’s a part of me that’s always trying to answer that calling in my work now. That’s my ideal for what a great show is.

The watchword, the phrase I went by is “The personal is political.” It’s not enough to have a song about the debt plan for the capitol, how does it advance our story, how does it advance our characters. If it doesn’t it goes. We get away with all of the information that’s sneaking into your kids’ brains because Burr is like, “Everyone’s in that room, why can’t I be in that room?”

If the personal is political you can get away with anything. That’s the fun of it. It’s making sure you as long as you’re moving the story along, we can feed in as much stuff as we want, they won’t even know they’re learning. They just want to know what happens. We had to be very ruthless about that.

On the big takeaway from Hamilton

What’s the proverb? “May you live in interesting times.” I don’t know that it gets more interesting than right now. I don’t know if that’s a blessing or a curse. To be honest, it vacillates every day. I think that your kids are going to look to you to make sense of all this. We’re all trying to make sense of it. That’s an enormous responsibility, but it’s also an enormous gift.

We get 1,360 kids to see the show a few times a year. They’re not all going to become theatre teachers, they’re not all going to write musicals or songs. But what they do have to reckon with when they see Hamilton is that Hamilton made the most of his time, he made the most of his less than 50 years on this earth.

Charge your kids with that, the notion that life’s a gift, it’s not to be taken for granted, it’s not to be taken lightly You’re born with gifts and you’re born with an honesty that can never really leave you. What are you going to do with your time? What are you going to do with your time on this earth?

I remember being a teenager and thinking, ‘We have so much time, we have time to kill.’ Man, what I would do to get that time back. I think the continuing awareness that being here is a real gift, that whatever is happening in the world, make the most of it and sink your teeth into whatever you’re doing. That’s your biggest charge and the rest flows from there.

*   *   *

Disclosure: I presented four sessions on censorship in high school theatre at the Broadway Teachers Workshop in 2015, for which I received a $600 honorarium. BTW did not solicit this post, but agreed to my attendance at my request.

The cast of Hamilton accepting the Grammy for best cast recording (Photo by Howard Sherman)

I guess my dash from row O to row A the other night pretty much erased any pretence of professional distance. Especially once Entertainment Weekly magazine saw fit to write about it.

My so-called sprint was occasioned by my attendance at Monday night’s live broadcast of the opening number from the musical Hamilton, which was being performed at its home at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York as part of the recording industry’s annual Grammy Awards. My seating shift was in response to a request for someone to fill an empty front row seat. I was happy to help out, and I received a round of applause for my selflessness.

Online, my efforts prompted a number of Twitter followers and Facebook friends to call me a “fanboy”, and while it’s not a term I’d apply to myself in middle age, there are worse things that could be said of me. Since I have always maintained that I am not a critic, seeing myself as someone of the theatre who sometimes writes about the theatre, I’m actually a bit reassured to find that my fandom is showing. Thirty-six years after I first went to work in a box office, there’s something rejuvenating about finding that I am indeed still an enthusiastic fan of theatre, although a long way from starstruck.

Hamilton has certainly been the most public expression of my fandom, as evidenced by the 48 Ham4Ham videos that I’ve shot on the street outside the Rodgers, having begun them simply as material for a blog post I wrote in August, and never stopped. Just this week, my cover story on the musical’s protean creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, comes out in Dramatics magazine, the only national US publication for high school theatre students. But I am not without self-control: I’ve seen Hamilton only twice, and I’ve never entered the ticket lottery for day-of-show seats.

By the standards of die-hards, I am an amateur. I have not committed the Hamilton cast recording to memory, like many fans who have yet to even see the show. While I would like to see it again at some point, I am not given to seeing shows numerous times; barring professional commitments, I rarely see any show more than twice, unlike fans I know and read of who happily see the same show dozens of times. My theatre fandom drives me to predominantly see that which I have not seen before. So little time, and so many shows.

As it happens, my front row experience, which also included witnessing Hamilton win the Grammy for best cast recording and a rapped acceptance by Lin-Manuel, came only four days after my latest opportunity to see perhaps my favourite stage performer work his magic once again. Bill Irwin, a gifted actor, clown, mime and so many other things, has returned to New York’s Signature Theatre with his sometime partner David Shiner for a second run of Old Hats, perhaps the 10th or 11th time I’ve seen Bill in a show of his own singular creation. I have been an unabashed fan of Bill’s since I first saw him in the mid-1980s; his particular gifts have the effect of making me grin the moment he walks on a stage (save for his career-changing turns in Albee’s The Goat and Virginia Woolf). Privileged to have first met him 15 years ago, when I greeted him excitedly by ticking off the litany of his work that I’d seen, like Kathy Bates in Misery, I take unbridled joy in seeing him at work – and now going backstage to see him along with an always intriguing mix of acting and circus royalty. I have long been a proselytiser to the cult of Bill, and I’m not in the least ashamed of it or subtle about it.

I think there’s something to be said for maintaining the enthusiasm of a fan even as the realities of raising money, balancing budgets, serving and collaborating with artists and staff, and so on, can abstract and distract from the very reason that drew us to work in the theatre in the first place. Given my career, I’m no longer the teen who stood in awe as James Earl Jones signed a programme for me, but I am also far from a jaded aesthete who deploys 35 years of theatregoing to decry the theatre of today. If you spot me by a stage door awaiting an audience with Laura Benanti or Audra McDonald, or at an event with camera phone at the ready (the better to feed my social media activity), don’t think less of me. After all, I’m still in touch with the kid who fell hard for theatre and never wanted to do anything else, and can still be thrilled by it and the people who make it.

Theatre needs fans not just in the seats, but in its offices, its rehearsal rooms and on its stages as well. After all, it’s not as if we’re in it for the money.

This essay originally appeared in The Stage.

The Woodsman at New World Stages (Photo by Howard Sherman)

During the curtain calls, I watched, as I so often do, while ushers made a valiant effort to stop theatregoers from taking pictures. So imagine my surprise when, barely minutes later, with the cast off to their dressing rooms, the house staff made no attempts to stop patrons from photographing the play’s final tableau, which was unshielded by a curtain and still under moody stage lighting.

I approached a woman who appeared to have a house management function and asked whether it was okay that everyone was taking pictures. “Oh, yes. It’s fine,” she replied.

So I waited my turn as people took selfies of themselves in front of the stage, with The Woodsman (the title character of the show in question and an analogue for The Wizard of Oz’s Tin Man) hanging suspended under the lights, waiting for Dorothy Gale to discover him. But that’s another story.

I found this approach to audience photos quite smart. So much time is spent (and digital ink spilled) addressing how the field can suppress the audience’s urge to commemorate their theatrical experience, that to find the opportunity freely given was extremely refreshing. I wonder how much extra exposure The Woodsman, playing in a small Off-Broadway house, is receiving thanks to this policy. How many patrons walk away from their final moments in the theatre having been welcomed and encouraged, with a truly personal souvenir to show and share, rather than chastised?

To be clear: I want to see phones turned off and cameras put away (often the same thing) throughout performances, to keep from disrupting the actors and other audience members. But I can’t help but wonder whether people might be more compliant with the de rigeur ‘turn off your phone’ messages if they included the invitation to turn them on again and use them after the curtain calls have ended.

Shows with curtains that wish to shield their stages can do so, of course, but why are patrons also prevented from taking pictures of the venues themselves? There are so many beautiful theatres that would turn up regularly on Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook if openly allowed – surely some, shot with varying degrees of stealth, already do. I would love the opportunity to photograph theatre interiors both here in New York as well as when I travel; West End theatres are distinctly different from most Broadway houses and I’d like to be able to have and electronically exhibit my impressions of them, up to and including fire curtains, which we don’t see stateside.

Some Broadway shows have created photo spots outside their theatres, and I’ve encountered one or two in lobbies, but those are obviously manufactured opportunities. We may not care for the selfie society (feel free to check my Facebook page; you’ll find very few images of me), but it’s a part of how people share their experiences nowadays. Why should theatre work so very hard to control what is let out of the walls of our theatres when our audiences are so eager to communicate on our behalf.

I appreciate the concern that unauthorised photos and videos may reveal so much of the show that knock-off versions can be replicated by unscrupulous or amateur producers. But don’t most shows already disseminate enough media to facilitate that already? Indeed, the biggest hits produce lavish souvenir programmes and even hardcover books, filled with pictures and even representations of original design sketches. I’m not convinced that this remains valid as a reason for prohibiting all photos within theatre houses or of show curtains or final stage settings.

One of the many concerns about the continued vitality of theatre is its ability to compete in media markets where exposure is simply too expensive for shows to make a significant impression, if they can afford to make one at all. Since word of mouth remains an essential sales tool, let’s think about how we can facilitate that by, within reason, allowing cameras to come out. After all, that one simple gesture would empower the audience to be advocates and not just attendees, actively promoting shows simply because they want to.

By the way: that photo of The Woodsman at the top of this column. I took it with my mobile phone. Not bad, eh?

This essay originally appeared in The Stage.

Attendees at BroadwayCon (Photo by Howard Sherman)

If the sight of perhaps 750 theatre fans spontaneously breaking into a song from their favourite musical warms your heart, then the conference rooms of the New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue were the place to be on January 22. If the cast of that same musical, having heard about the impromptu singalong, asking some 3,000 theatre fans to sing to them is similarly inspiring, well you should have been in the Hilton ballroom that same afternoon.

From January 22 to 24, the Hilton was home to the first BroadwayCon, a fan convention for theatre buffs. Filled with events, performances and panels not just about Broadway, but about the theatre overall – though admittedly with a tilt towards musicals – BroadwayCon reportedly sold some 6,000 tickets, which had gone on sale 10 months earlier and cost $125 per day or $250 for the weekend.

I went to BroadwayCon with a mixed agenda: first, sheer curiosity, second, the intention to document it for this column, and third, because I had been invited to moderate a panel about production assistants who subsequently ‘made it big’ in the theatre business. I didn’t know quite what to expect, and one press representative I saw at the event confessed that when it was first announced, there was a feeling of uncertainty in their office.

On the eve of the event, The New York Times cited the demographics of the attendees, provided by the organisers: “Nearly 80% of the registrants are female; 75% are from outside the state of New York; and 50% are 30 or younger.” That’s a far cry from the general assumptions about theatre appealing to an increasingly older crowd, and while 6,000 fans certainly can’t sustain the field alone, the sight of multiple Elphabas, Phantoms, and Tracy Turnblads was evidence that theatre still holds a very strong appeal.

What was on offer? Among many options, there were cast conversations with leads from Fun Home, Spring Awakening, Hamilton and Fiddler on the Roof, and a reunion of cast members of Rent (just days before the 20th anniversary of Jonathan Larson’s passing and the show’s first Off-Broadway preview). There were fan meet-ups organised by affinity (a room that was packed by Sondheim fans at 10am was rather sparse by 11am, when the call was for Lloyd Webber buffs), conversations about diversity, design and marketing, as well as audience participation games and variety shows. Both singalongs I mentioned earlier were from Hamilton events.

I experienced a mild sense of deja vu throughout the weekend (I spent time at BroadwayCon on each of its three days) because it was 40 years ago, to the precise weekend, that I had attended my very first fan convention of any kind, the 1976 International Star Trek Convention, at the very same hotel. It is frankly remarkable that with the flourishing of fan conventions since that time, it was only this year that anyone managed to capitalise on the convention model for theatre and Broadway.

While there were occasional snafus with wrangling crowds into the largest and most popular events on Friday, a gigantic blizzard unfortunately prevented many fans – as well as guest speakers and performers – from reaching the hotel on Saturday, and even Sunday. But the organisers scrambled valiantly and effectively to insure a good experience for those who made it. So while the attendance never seemed as high as on that first day, and while the largest rooms may not have always been as filled, I sensed no lessening of enthusiasm among the die-hards who had either stayed over at the hotel or braved the elements to be there.

Like Broadway itself, access to BroadwayCon wasn’t cheap, and presumably there were countless fans who couldn’t attend because of the added expense of a flight and hotel tickets. But this first year should prove that there’s an enormous appetite among theatre fans to gather both with those they admire, and others who share their passions, getting out of social media and chat rooms and into real life interactions. As someone who began the weekend by adopting a slight distance and harbouring even a bit of cynicism, I was drawn back through heavy snow and puddles of icy slush because BroadwayCon successfully tapped into my inner fanboy, and because I was having a good time watching others have a good time. It gave them access to the world I’ve long been in. The theatre must do more of that.

WestEndCon, anyone?

This essay originally appeared in The Stage.

Jonathan Larson’s Rent at PACT in Tullahoma TN (photo by Howard Sherman)

I honestly wish I could figure out what makes one blog post a roaring success, and another a blip on the radar. Certainly the topic under discussion has some impact, but readership seems just as likely to be affected by the title, a photo, the Facebook algorithm, the timing of a tweet, what else is happening in the world, and so on. In short, I have no idea.

In looking over my most-read posts of 2015, I do know which ones took a great deal of research and time, and which were dashed off in under an hour. I know which ones were written after a great deal of consideration, and which were wholly reactive to something I read or heard. They don’t necessarily correlate to readership at all.

I am surprised by the way in which my most-read posts were grouped in the latter half of the year, with seven coming since October 29. Is there any correlation with the fact that I began regularly working out of The New School Drama offices starting in early October, in my new role as director of the Arts Integrity Initiative? I think it’s just coincidence, but it’s possible that the new environment meshed with some significant incidents to yield my most successful writing.

While it may seem paradoxical to offer up my most-read work once again, I have no doubt that there are plenty of people who didn’t read one or more of these when they were first posted, and perhaps there are a few people who would like to catch up with them now. You’ll note I’m not providing them in order of popularity, because it’s not a contest, but I can say that even within these ten, there’s a differential of some 10,000 views.

*   *   *

July 3: Preparing For Anti-“Rent” Messages From Tennessee Pulpits

I had spoken with the leadership of the PACT community theatre in Tullahoma, Tennessee when they first began experiencing resistance to their production of Rent, but they decided that they’d prefer to try to address the opposition on a local basis. But ten days before performances were to begin, they learned of a letter in opposition to the show that was being circulated to the local clergy, and felt it was time for me to take up their cause and make it a national issue. I traveled to Tullahoma for the opening night, where I was welcomed by numerous members of the community, including the mayor, but the opposition had failed and the show played to an enthusiastic crowd. A prayer circle outside the theatre, in quiet protest of the production, drew only four people, including the two pastors who had been most opposed to the show.

August 1: Disrespecting Playwrights And Their Words with Young Players in

Minnesota

Words Players Theatre found itself in the midst of a firestorm when several bog posts, mine among them, questioned their practice of soliciting plays for production with their teen actors, but saying that the director had the final word over the show, contrary to the tenets of The Dramatists Guild. I stand by what I wrote at the time, but I was troubled by the degree of vehemence that some directed at the company, which didn’t necessarily seems the best way to educate students, their parents and the company’s leadership about respect for scripts in production. I ultimately wrote a second post, trying to walk back some of the rhetoric that surrounded this situation, not just mine, by the way.

September 15: Putting On Yellowface For The Holidays With Gilbert & Sullivan & NYU

I was far from the only person to speak out against the archaic, stereotypical use of yellowface in a production of the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players production of The Mikado, but I was among the first, with my blog post going online alongside two others on Tuesday, September 15. The groundswell of reaction grew very quickly in subsequent days, and advocates against the practice of yellowface awoke three days later to find, with great surprise, that the production had been canceled. NYGASP says they will return with a reconceived Mikado that’s appropriate to 21^st century America. Perhaps I’ll be writing about that in 2016.

October 29: When A White Actor Goes To “The Mountaintop”

It took three weeks after the production closed for word of Katori Hall’s Olivier Award-winning play being produced with a white actor as Martin Luther King to find its way to general awareness, but once it did, it brought great scrutiny to this production, at a community theatre based out of Kent State University’s Department of Pan-African Studies. What was even more remarkable, and remains still less known, is that the concept of having white and black actors each do four performances as Dr. King never happened – the white actor played the role for the entire run.

November 1: She Has A Name: Casually Diminishing Women In Theatre

I wasn’t exactly mystified as to why an interview with Pam MacKinnon carried a headline that mention her collaborators Al Pacino and David Mamet, both more famous, but it didn’t seem right that the person the paper actually spoke with was subordinated in this way. Intriguingly, not long after I posted my piece, the headline was altered, removing Mamet and Pacino – but it still didn’t mention MacKinnon by name. I was intrigued to discover that in coming up with a headline, I had birthed a Twitter hashtag: #SheHasAName.

November 2: A Seattle Theatre Critic Flies Past An Ethical Boundary

Critic offers his extra complimentary press ticket for sale, via the personals section. This one pretty much wrote itself. But I have to say that I quickly came to regret the tone of this piece, because I let myself succumb to snark precisely because it was so easy in this case. I should have stuck to the facts and let the story speak for itself. My feelings about what this critic did (or tried to do) haven’t changed, but I should have done better.

November 13: Erasing Race On Stage At Clarion University

Coming on the heels of the Mountaintop situation at Kent State, this dispute over racial representation in a college production of Jesus In India at Clarion University led to playwright Lloyd Suh pulling the rights to the show. There was a backlash against Suh from those who didn’t understand, or didn’t wish to understand, what it means to have white actors, even students, playing characters of color. Statements from university figures to the press only fed the uproar. But it has led to multiple offline conversations between Suh and the professor who was directing the show, and between the professor and me as well. Suh and I will be visiting the KCACTF Region 2 festival in a few weeks where we’ll meet for the first time and discuss the issue with the college students and their professors in attendance.

December 2: What Is Being Taught About The Director-Playwright Relationship?

After the heated dialogues that both The Mountaintop and Jesus in India engendered, on social media, in comments sections and in direct correspondence, I was moved to wonder aloud about how the playwright-director dynamic was being addressed in college training programs, both undergraduate and graduate. It prompted yet more comments and e-mails, and frankly helped me to learn a great deal more and provide the basis for further exploration. The post became the basis for a panel added to the KCACTF Region 3 festival, and I’ll be headed to Milwaukee to participate in the conversation right after the first of the year.

December 3: What Does “Hamilton” Tell Us About Race In Casting?

With Hamilton being cited as a reason why white actors should be permitted to play characters of color, I took the opportunity of a previously scheduled and wholly unrelated interview to ask the show’s writer-composer-star Lin-Manuel Miranda for his take on race on stage, both in his own work and the work of others. He was, as always, thoughtful and eloquent, during his dinner break on a two-show day.

December 9: Black Magic Crosses Directing & Design Line in Connecticut

When a community/semi-professional theatre in Connecticut staged a production that looked startlingly like a professional production that had been stage nearby three years earlier, it was an opportunity to address the issue of appropriation from other productions and what constitutes originality in directing and design. While the company in question suspended performances within 24 hours, and have subsequently restaged the show on a new set, the outpouring of anecdotes (and expressions of frustration) about productions that have slavishly copied others came pouring out. I expect to write more on this subject.

*   *   *

October 16: When A Facebook Comment Says More Than a Long Blog Post About Diversity

While it didn’t make the list of my ten most read posts, top on my list of posts that I wish had been more widely read is this one. Written on a day when a combination of medications for an infection laid me low and found me laying on my sofa most of the day, an array of tweets and comments roused me to string together a few sentences which were probably my only coherent thoughts until the drugs wore off. Even if you don’t read the whole post, take a look at the italicized midsection, which is what I actually wrote that day; the rest is subsequent framing.

June 9: If The Arts Were Reported Like Sports

Truth be told, this was one of my ten most read posts of 2015, but that has little to do with what I actually wrote and everything to do with the video I’d discovered and embedded, once again with framing material that isn’t essential to enjoying the video. My greatest contribution was a snappy title. But if you haven’t seen it and need a laugh at year end, this vid’s for you.

*   *   *

My thanks to everyone who read, commented, shared, tweeted or wrote to me in connection with my writing this year, and special thanks to those who brought situations to my attention so that I could explore them and share them even more broadly. You all have my very best wishes for a safe, happy, arts-filled 2016.

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts and interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

Benedict Cumberbatch in rehearsal for Hamlet

Four years ago, I pondered whether, in this age of social media and vastly accelerated information distribution online, “Will The Embargo Hold?” I was referring to the long-accepted practice by which theatrical productions designated a preview period, during which the production would be refined and altered, in view of the public, but with the critical press waiting until the defined opening night to render their verdicts.

The Benedict Cumberbatch Hamlet, now in previews at The Barbican in London, has been perhaps the highest profile test of the arts embargo, with several outlets sending critics and reporters to the very first performance. Some wrote out and out reviews, some claimed they were simply reporting on it, but nonetheless, the production was described with specificity and opinions were rendered. A wave of commentary on the breach of the embargo ensued.

A report in The Daily Beast on Monday, elaborated upon in The Telegraph yesterday, added a new twist to the conversation. According to the Beast, Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy, which had been relocated to the very start of the play in early previews, was now back in its original place in Shakespeare’s script.

There’s no question that the director’s early vision regarding one of the most famous speeches in theatrical history was a surprise, and you may have your own views about whether such a change is advisable. But Hamlet is in the public domain, as are all Shakespeare’s works, which means they can be manipulated, reworked, transformed and pillaged as artists see fit. Director Lyndsey Turner had every right to try this approach.

But because of the reporting on those very early previews, Turner’s directorial decision was subjected not only to scrutiny, but to scorn from some quarters. As a result, we don’t know whether the restoration of the speech to its original place in the script was driven by critical, academic and public outcry, or simply because Turner (and perhaps Cumberbatch) decided it wasn’t working. Deprived of the opportunity to experiment and explore a bit without critical judgment, I expect that even the reviews of the final version will still opine about the placement of the speech, even though it’s back where it began and many critics never even saw the initial, atypical version.

The press’s near-obsession with the Cumberbatch Hamlet is quite extraordinary. It seems that there are news stories almost daily, whether about the production itself, about Cumberbatch’s request that audience members don’t shoot video of it, and so on. It’s not entirely unexpected for a show which sold out its run a year in advance, but surely bigger stars have taken to the stage before; perhaps this is the first UK social media theatre blockbuster and it has forced the mainstream media to struggle to keep up.

While I was fully aware of the increasing permeability of the arts embargo, I’m still troubled by what’s happened with this Hamlet. Has the exceptionally early appearance of reviews and “reports,” which gave other outlets the right to report on that coverage even if they elected not to review the production themselves, had a fundamental effect on the production? Has Lyndsey Turner directly or indirectly been forced to alter her production, in part because the shock impact of reworking the text has been eliminated by the press, and because of criticism of the approach?

While I suspect the slow crumbling of the embargo has been accelerated by Cumbermania, it may last in general use for a while yet. Theatres will likely cling to their stated openings for as long as possible, even when media outlets make their voices heard somewhat prematurely, in the eyes of the producers and artists involved. But it’s possible that, especially for productions with major stars, this may force shows back towards more limited previews, lest the press be allowed to start playing show doctor (or dictator) at their own discretion. And if that’s the case, are artists – regardless of whether they’re working in a commercial or not-for-profit settings – losing out? And ultimately, are audiences losing out as well?

Are you still grumbling about “tweet seats”? Oh, that is so 2013. Time to get with the program and start worrying about the newest development in mobile tech, which could have a vastly more significant impact on the live performing arts.

At this year’s SXSW Festival, a new app, Meerkat, saw a frenzy of adoption by attendees, so much so that Twitter moved to quickly curtail the app’s access to Twitter data. The reason for that draconian move came clearer yesterday when the app Periscope, which is owned by Twitter, was launched as a direct competitor to Meerkat.

So what do they do? Both apps allow you to stream live video from your phone. Now, instead of taking something so pedestrian as a photograph via Instagram, or so cumbersome as shooting a video and then uploading it to YouTube, anyone with an iPhone and a dream can relay what they’re seeing in real time to their connections on these services. This will of course result in streams from countless teens doing teen oriented things for the entertainment of other teens, but it will also turn everyone who wishes to be into an instant broadcaster into one. Yesterday, Periscope immediately became a source for realtime video of the tragic explosion and fire in New York’s East Village.

Of course, as I experimented with Periscope (I’ve loaded Meerkat, but not tried it yet), I realized how significantly this could have an effect on live entertainment. Now, anyone adept enough at manipulating a smartphone from an audience seat might well be streaming your show, your concert, your opera to their friends and followers. If they can do so with a darkened screen and sufficient circulation to keep the blood from leaving their upraised hand and arm, the only thing stopping them would be vigilant ushers, chastising nearby patrons and battery life. For however long they sustain their stream, your content is on the air – and unlike YouTube, where if you find it, you can seek to have it removed, this is instantaneous and so there’s no taking it back.

I should say that I’m not endorsing this practice, any more than say, a play about graffiti artists is exhorting its audience to go out and start marring buildings with graffiti. I’m just pointing out that there’s a big new step in technology which could serve to let your content leak out into the world in a way that’s much harder to control than before (while also offering many new creative opportunities for communication) – and since these apps are just the first of their kind, they and competing apps will be rolling out ever more effective tools to stream what’s happening right in front of you, just as cell phone cameras and video will continue to improve their quality and versatility.

Scared yet?

Some will quickly say, as they have from the moment cell phones started ringing during soliloquies and operas, that there should be some way to simply jam signals inside entertainment venues. But the answer to that remains the same: private entities like theatre owners cannot employ such technology (which does exist) because they would be breaking the law by interfering with the public airwaves. No matter that the photos, video and streams may be violating copyright. That kind of widespread tampering with communications wouldn’t be allowed – and if it ever were, it could very well have a negative effect on patrons’ willingness to attend.

The quality of streams via these apps would leave much to be desired (think of your stream also capturing the heads of those in front of you, and the couple on your left whispering about their dinner plans). They’d hardly capture the work on stage at its best, but if your choice is $400 a ticket for Fish in the Dark or a free, erratic stream, you just might choose the latter.

Movie companies have been fighting in-theatre bootlegging since the advent of small video cameras, and one hears stories about advance screenings with ushers continually patrolling the aisles in search of telltale red lights (sometimes wearing night vision goggles) and assorted laser and infrared technologies designed to mar the surreptitious image capturing. But does that seem desirable or even feasible at live theatres?

I’m not shrieking about this problem because I expect plenty of others will. That said, I’m also not about to just instill fear in your hearts and run away. Having just chastised others for enumerating arts problems without offering ideas on how to address them, here’s my thought on how to try to stave off the onslaught of Meerkat and Periscope and their ilk: we have to solve the issues that are preventing U.S. based organizations from cinecasting on the model of NT Live.

Yes, the Metropolitan Opera has built a strong following for their Met Opera Live series. But we’re not seeing that success translate to other performing arts in a significant way, with theatre the most backward of all. I know it may seem counterintuitive, but if people have the opportunity to access high quality, low cost video of stage performances, they’re going to be considerably less interested in cheap live bootlegs in real time. It won’t stop the progression, but it will offer a more appealing alternative.

Video is now in the hands of virtually every person who attends the theatre, the opera, the ballet and so on. Short of frisking or wanding people for phones and having them secured in lockers at every performance space (can you imagine?), the genie is out of the bottle. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not keen on the ramifications of these advances either, but there’s no point in damning reality. The question now is how do the arts respond – by seeking to police its audiences as if attending a performance resembled an ongoing TSA checkpoint, or by offering alternatives that just might make the newest developments unappealing or irrelevant?

But the field, commercial and not-for-profit alike, needs to get a move on, because even if this is the first you’ve heard of Periscope and Meerkat, it won’t be the last. Just wait until smartphones can record and stream in 3D.

P.S. Last week when I saw the Radio City Spring Spectacular, there was a caution against flash photography – not all photography, just flash. There may well have been a warning about video, but all it would have taken was a fake Twitter account and one of these apps to start sharing parts of the show with you as an untraceable scofflaw. Just imagine if I had activated Meerkat a bit sooner.

A couple of years ago, in conversation with a childhood friend on Facebook, we began recalling the hours spent in my basement listening to the early comedy records of Bill Cosby. Suddenly, a business associate from my adult life joined in, demanding to know how we could reminisce about this, given the many allegations made against Cosby, and the one out-of-court settlement, regarding his sexual assaults on women. Because the dialogue was focused on fond memories, not Cosby himself per se, and because this associate wouldn’t let it go, I unfriended him. I did so despite the fact that I knew of the charges, believed them, and had already ceased to enjoy Cosby’s new work. At that moment, however, I just wanted reverie.

I did not then, nor do I now, countenance any of the actions with which Cosby is charged. I abhor them. I feel deeply sympathetic towards, and supportive of, any woman who may have been harassed, drugged or assaulted by him. I wish that he could stand trial for what he’s been accused of, so that he could be tried in the judicial system and not solely in the media. This is a case in which justice will likely never be done, in which there will always be unanswered questions – especially from Cosby himself, whose silence, as they say, speaks volumes.

But I can’t deny how much Cosby’s comedy meant to me in my youth. Long-unseen friends recall it readily at a distance of 40 years. The only time my brother and I came together peacefully as kids was to listen to comedy recordings, which we committed to memory. Later, when I lived with my parents for a year post-college, my family gathered in the room in our house where my godmother spent the final year of her life, promptly at 8 pm on Thursday, to watch The Cosby Show.

So what do I do with treasured recollections in which an alleged predator played a central role? How can I even remember the work with warmth – work which in and of itself seems timeless in much of the material – even as I disavow its creator?

Audiences in England faced these same questions when the pedophilia scandal at the BBC arose, first over the late Jimmy Savile and a bit later over Rolf Harris. I followed those stories in horror and disbelief, though it was Harris whose work I actually knew: his novelty hit “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport” was a staple on the Dr. Demento radio show, another touchstone for me. In the case of Harris, who also became known as an artist, communities began removing his paintings and eradicating his murals. This is akin to what TV Land has just done by removing The Cosby Show from their line-up, to dissociate themselves from the now irrevocably tarnished brand and likely because no advertiser would accept the association. But in each case, those who were entertained, unknowing, must reconsider their relationship, to the men, and to the work. Let’s not forget that Stephen Collins, who portrayed the father on the popular family drama 7th Heaven, is under scrutiny for what appears to be self-admitted incidents of child abuse, surfaced during his contentious divorce proceedings.

In the cases of Savile, Harris, Collins and Cosby, the issue is criminal actions against others. Unconscionable. As an aside, it’s worth recalling that Paul Reubens was immediately shunned two decades ago following his arrest for masturbating in a porn theatre – a crime, at odds with his role as a Saturday morning children’s performer, but in that case a victimless one. Though he managed to secure acting roles intermittently, it’s only in the past few years that his Pee Wee Herman persona has been publicly embraced once again. I wonder whether his resurrection would have been possible had his transgression occurred in the era of social media – or whether he might have been rescued by it. Certainly it is social media which has allowed the long-standing allegations against Cosby to engage the public consciousness at last.

I could go underground with my appreciation of Cosby’s work, but that feels hypocritical. I cannot rewrite my past, even as it is – and should be – impossible to reconcile it with what has reemerged in the past few weeks, with greater traction than ever before. Given the enormous influence of The Cosby Show, I’m certainly far from the only person in this confused state; I suspect my affinity for the comedy recordings may be somewhat more rarified, especially among those younger than I am. No doubt I Spy and Fat Albert fans are experiencing profound dissonance as well. In fact, I hope they are.

I normally write because I have something very specific I want to say. In this case, I write because I’m grappling with deeply conflicted feelings. What do we all do when our childhood heroes are alleged, or revealed, to be profoundly different from the work and personae for which they became famous? How do we stand with victims, and against all such crimes, yet harbor genuinely warm memories created by the same artist? I can rethink my feelings about Cosby the man, and I have, but I don’t know that I can rethink my childhood, and the role he played in it. Should I? Can you? And if we truly can’t, where does that leave us? Are we hypocrites, or dupes, or forever divided as truth intrudes, maybe forcing us to even rewrite our own memories.

Addendum, 5 pm, November 20: As I discuss this post on Twitter, Facebook and e-mail, another corollary presents itself, though its not as clearcut. Phil Spector was convicted of murder, yet no one seems to shun the classic records he made as a producer. Is it because he’s not the named artist, and so the line is less clear? But let’s remember, whatever Cosby has done, his alleged crimes aren’t Phylicia Rashad’s, or Lisa Bonet’s, or Robert Culp’s, and so on. Must their work be excised and shunned because of their co-star’s actions? For that matter, have people stopped watching the Police Squad movies because of O.J. Simpson? It may be difficult not to view them through the prism of true-life revelations, but there seem to be no correct or consistent actions or reactions.

I realize I’m writing this blog post for a very specific subset of readers, but after nine months of writing my “American Stages” column for London’s The Stage newspaper, I have a request of those cited in the title.

Now mind you, I’m prepared to stipulate that many of you still may not be aware of the column, despite my own efforts and the efforts of the folks at The Stage to promote it. So if you’re reading this and thinking, “What ‘American Stages’ column?,” allow me to direct you to the index of the columns thus far. I’ll also agree that the column is somewhat New York-centric and probably east coast-centric. But there’s a reason for that.

None of you are sending me press releases. Not even theatres I’ve called in the past and asked for material for use in this very column.

Perhaps I should have been more explicit in asking for releases. So I’m writing this instead. Now before you all deluge me with material on every single thing you do, including grants you receive, ‘best of’ lists you appear on, one night only readings and the like, let me take a page from Wall Street Journal critic Terry Teachout, who is quite clear about what he’s likely to be interested in and when you’re barking up the wrong tree.

So here are my rough guidelines:

1. I’m not a critic. “American Stages” is meant to highlight work that might be of interest to readers in the British theatre community, but I don’t review shows. I do like to see as much as I can, but there’s no correlation between my seeing a production and my featuring it in the column.

2. I am committed to representing interesting work around the country. Because of the curation of arts stories that is a significant part of my Twitter feed, I often surface interesting productions worth writing about on my own. But Twitter is a rush of information, and there’s no guarantee that I’ll be seeing your tweets when you happen to send them.

3. I’m looking to highlight new work or major productions that might prove interesting to UK readers. The fourteenth production of one of the most produced plays in the country isn’t likely to get in. Neither is your Christmas Carol. But even with new work, it needs a hook beyond “a new play,” so think about tipping me to something that might cause theatre pros across the pond to take an interest.

4. If there’s an English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh hook, make sure I know it – whether it’s a playwright, actor, director and so on. It is a London publication after all.

5. Because the column is online, even though I’m writing with a certain focus in mind, remember that it can be shared as widely as you and I both like. There’s no paywall and no geographic limitation to who can read it.

6. Photos are helpful (if they’re good photos) and videos are sometimes even better. While there’s typically only one main photo a week, I can embed several videos with my copy, and I’ll use everything from trailers to interviews to musical numbers to humor.

So far as I’m aware (and by all means, feel free to correct me), there’s no other UK outlet with a regular column dedicated solely to US theatre news. Sure, big stories like Kenneth Branagh in Macbeth get covered in international media as they happen, as do the Tony Awards. But new musicals in San Diego? Not so much. So use me, because I want to showcase the entirety of US theatre, within my word limit and my fortnightly schedule.

As an aside, I write a second, monthly column for The Stage’s print edition, which unfortunately I can’t share online effectively. I’m writing specifically about aspects of the business of theatre in those pieces, and I eventually post that material to my website (though I’m far from up to date). But new initiatives and thematic stories are my bailiwick there, and can showcase trends and innovations wherever I may learn of them.

As some of you may know, I used to be a publicist in not-for-profit theatre. I’m all too aware of the challenges posed by the explosion of online outlets in how you do your jobs and you can’t give one-on-one service to every writer out there. So add me to your national list using howard AT hesherman DOT com. I’ll let you know if it’s too much (or too little). Frankly, if I was still a publicist, I’d be all over me about “American Stages.”

I am going to take it for granted that, since you’ve opted to read this article, you care about the arts. I’m also going to save time and typing by assuming that you appreciate media coverage of the arts and that you realize that without the attention of the media, it will be ever harder for the arts to share their news, their work and their value locally, nationally and internationally.

Since we are agreed, I will proceed directly to my point.

If you want to see intelligent, comprehensive coverage of the arts – features and reviews alike – then you’ve got to start clicking. Journalism is well on its way to being a numbers game for most outlets. How many people clicked on a story or video, how many times was it liked or shared, how much time was spent looking at it? We are already seeing journalism sites paying writers base salaries with bumps or bonuses based on online metrics; outlets say they are dropping certain types of coverage because it’s simply not generating enough traffic. It’s not enough to be happy that arts coverage exists, you have to actually engage with it to insure its survival and the job survival of those who create it.

Clicks mean eyes and eyes mean advertisers. As print becomes an ever-harder sell, online advertising grows ever more important to outlets. Even back in the days pre-internet, I encountered cuts in arts coverage because the arts didn’t generate enough advertising revenue (whereas advertisers loved sports sections and we get regular features about new cars because auto dealers buy big ads). Even now, arts spending online is a small sliver of online advertising, so our best means of supporting arts coverage is by actually reading it.

Let’s face it: anyone with a WordPress blog knows how many people read each piece they post (yes, I’m watching you). But that’s amateur hour compared to the realtime and cumulative algorithms and analytics applied at big media outlets. There are teams of people looking at clicks, links and likes for every story, and media empires are being built on click-bait methodology (why, hello BuzzFeed). It’s running the show in many places and it can’t be ignored.

So here’s what I propose. Every morning, when you get online, go to the arts section of your local media outlets, seek out their arts and entertainment stories, and click of them. Don’t click on each in rapid succession, but spend 30 to 45 seconds on each one (remember your multiple browser windows). You have to wait a bit because one analytic is stickiness or hang-time or whatever it’s called now, namely whether people are really engaging with coverage. A click on and immediate click off looks like you got there by mistake. And needless to say, it certainly won’t hurt in the least if you actually read a story or watch a video while you’re at it.

I should also note that just liking or retweeting a story isn’t enough: you actually have to look at it. Sometimes you’re just liking a friend posting about a story, not the story or video itself, and that’s an important difference. There have been studies that show that many people retweet items without ever actually reading them, and anecdotally I know that to be true: I often see my own tweets with embedded links that have more retweets than clicks. You’ve got to stop and look. That said, on Facebook likes and shares feed into an algorithm that’s sure more people might see the post featured in their feed, and retweets do the same, so be liberal with those too.

You need to share this idea with your staffs, your audience, your donors. This can’t be an effort by a couple of thousand core die-hards; this has to be a movement and it has to be sustained. I do my part every day in curating the articles I share on my twitter feed. You don’t need to be as exhaustive as I am, but whether you seek out a story or if it comes across your social media feed, click on it (often click on opera and symphony stories even though I rarely attend them). If the arts generate eyes, if they generate numbers, you’re going to have a direct impact on how the arts are viewed by the media decision makers. Clicking on the occasional ad next to an arts story matters too.

I’d like to give this idea some snappy name that the field can adopt, but I’m only coming up with corny and possibly inexplicable ideas like “Click 10 For The Arts,” which in my mind is shorthand for remind you to click on 10 arts stories daily. I hope that if people buy into this idea, someone will come up with something clever.

But unlike the world of journalism 25 years ago, where outlets only knew how many papers they sold, it’s now exceedingly easy to know what gets traffic and what doesn’t. No need for audience surveys when our every move online is recorded. If we don’t actively work to pump up the stats for arts coverage, it’ll continue to erode.

To quote Joni Mitchell, “you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til its gone,” and we’ve lost too much already. So next time you want to take a quiz about what Shakespeare villain or what Sondheim character you are, at least spend the equivalent amount of time reading articles about Shakespeare plays or Sondheim shows. Because while the former may be fun, it’s the latter that will actually sustain arts journalism and sustain the arts.

P.S. Thanks for clicking on this story. Now would you be so kind to like it, favorite it, share it, retweet it and so on? And yes, I’ll know if you did.