I’m often asked by journalists for observations about trends, on Broadway, Off-Broadway, or about theatre in general. One recent call queried me about the prevalence of shirtless men on Broadway this season, a topic on which I had little to say.

Although I was taught in my press agent days that two similar items are a coincidence but that for journalistic purposes, three similar items make a trend and get covered as such, I still tend to look at confluences on Broadway in any given season as accidents. Shows come together (or not) at certain times for many reasons, without co-ordination. But it’s hard not to look at the spring Broadway crop of one-actor shows and let it go unremarked.

In a span of only eight weeks, four of Broadway’s 40 theatres will be home to new one-person shows – all genuine plays, not musical revues or autobiographical monodramas – representing four of the ten new plays due this spring. They tell the stories of three influential women, all deceased – Hollywood agent Sue Mengers (I’ll Eat You Last), Texas governor Ann Richards (Ann) and Jesus’ mother (The Testament of Mary) – and those Scottish social climbers, The Macbeths. Not having seen any of them as yet, I know that the Scottish play has a single actor (Alan Cumming) playing every role; whether there are multiple characters portrayed in the other shows is to be seen.

Is this confluence the result of ‘star casting’ run amok? Not really, since of the four actors involved– Cumming, Bette Midler, Fiona Shaw and Holland Taylor (in alphabetical order) – only Midler is a multi-generational ‘big name’ in the U.S. The other three are all accomplished and honoured actors, and Cumming’s star has risen sharply since he joined the cast of TV’s The Good Wife, but none is necessarily box office catnip. Taylor last appeared on Broadway three decades ago in the infamous Moose Murders, while Shaw’s only prior appearance was as Medea during a brief run 11 years ago. Midler, we hear, won’t be singing, the feature of her previous Broadway forays in the 1970s.

So what to make of this monomania? In all likelihood, it’s simply a quirk of fate, but it has potentially lasting effects. As new plays on Broadway are typically launched into long lives in regional and later amateur theatres, is the theatrical canon being expanded with this work? One only has to see how Red and The Mountaintop have flourished around the US to see the Broadway effect on plays’ future lives, perhaps due to their tiny casts helping to balance out large plays elsewhere in a theatre’s season. Will these solo plays make the same journey – or are they taking the place of larger pieces that need a marketing boost to make that leap?

One-person shows place a significant burden on one person’s shoulders. In any venue, there’s the risk of the actor becoming ill or being injured; while subsidised theatres in the US often don’t use understudies – they’ll carry them on shows like these. But  will any audience want to see a substitute for the person truly charged with the singular task of holding a stage by themselves?

If the shows are hits, and do spawn future productions, they could further diminish cast sizes nationally. The economic temptation will be there, and perhaps playwrights who worry now about writing shows that require even six or seven actors will start to think in a smaller scale, to the detriment of the dramatic canon. We can ill-afford a scenario in which God of Carnage is a theatre’s ‘big’ show.

I look forward to each of these plays, which promise a variety of subject and style. But if solo shows become Broadway’s dramatic bread and butter, they’re likely to be met with the sound of one hand clapping.

“Hello? Do you have Tilda Swinton in a box?”

For a certain breed of relatively cultured wags (including the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay Abaire and, less exaltedly, me), Tilda Swinton sleeping in a glass box at the Museum of Modern Art is a comedic source that just keeps on giving. After all, this is an Academy Award-winning actor with a distinctly unique personal style ensconcing herself in a terrarium on random days for hours at a time. Modern art, performance art, personal eccentricity or creative vision – all grist for the humor mill. The piece has a name, incidentally — “The Maybe” — which only serves as a dog-whistle call to those who would poke fun at it; that Swinton first “performed” it in 1995 only increases the volume.

I freely admit I am unequipped to assess “The Maybe” as fine art or performance art. But in contrast to my own tweeted gibes and my enthusiastic embrace of David’s seemingly endless variations on the theme, I’d like to dispense with the humor and take the piece vaguely seriously, stipulating to the court that it is worthy of consideration, since experts have apparently deemed it as such.

If it is art of any stripe, why has it touched off such a sensation? If just anyone was asleep, or feigning sleep in a glass box at MOMA for hours at a time, it would be a curiosity, at best worthy of a squib on websites or the kicker story on local news. On occasion, I happen to talk with some coherence while I sleep, and I am known (by a very select few) to thrash about involuntarily as well; I’d be much more engaging lying in that box, but wouldn’t raise much media comment.

If there was no apparent air source to the box, this would rise to the dwindling level of interest of a David Blaine stunt. If there was an adorable  kitty or puppy in the box it might find attention as an internet video, or arouse ire and concern over the animal’s treatment. If we learned someone was being paid $50,000 a night to do this, it might prove as enraging as the new Virginia bus stop that cost $1 million to build.

The only reason the general public knows about this piece of art is because Swinton already has a level of fame. She’s got that Oscar and she’s a highly respected actress, though hardly a household name. She might be called a star, but certainly not a celebrity; this isn’t Hasselhoff or a Kardashian lounging about on view. But Tilda’s well enough known to raise oddity into spectacle, more than willing to exploit her renown for this “work,” which has surely generated international headlines for MOMA this week. Let’s remember, when she did this in the 90s, she hadn’t yet gone toe to toe with Clooney onscreen.

Some of the same cultural outlets that are quick to question when “name” actors are announced for theatre productions have covered the Swinton event, and while they’ve noted its peculiarity, many have left the withering and witty comments to those on social media. Silly as the whole thing may seem, I feel they’ve given Swinton some leeway, while shows on and off-Broadway with famous actors are damned right out of the gate as “star-driven,” even when the actor is impeccably cast (admittedly, not all are). No one that I’ve seen has reported the weekend grosses at MOMA, despite their surprise deployment of a celebrity and the subsequent press; however, it is often implied that when a stage piece with a star in it does well at the box office, it has somehow cheated its way to success. Are there different standards for museums and theatres? Or am I just not tuned in to the art world?

To be a celebrity or to be a star, that is the question.

“The Maybe”’s emergence this weekend happened to coincide with the premiere of a new production of Hamlet at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven. Perhaps you’ve heard about it? Normally, a regional production of Hamlet might not evoke much attention, but this one has lured the New York theatre press onto I-95 and Metro-North almost en masse. Why? Because the melancholy Dane is being played by the very fine actor Paul Giamatti, a screen stalwart little seen on stage in recent years. The announcement of the show generated the first wave of press, given the incongruity of his appearance and manner with most visions of the sweet prince; the performance itself has yielded many more reviews than a typical show at a Connecticut theatre.

Some of the outlets that rushed to see the “famous” Paul Giamatti as Hamlet are the same ones who rail against the damage celebrity casting has done to New York theatre, yet here they are responding to its siren call (along with audiences, who made the show a sell-out even before performances began). I’m not denigrating Giamatti’s considerable talents, but dollars to doughnuts some other fine actor, unexpected or not, but without copious entries on the IMDB, wouldn’t have taxed arts travel budgets. It would have been “just another regional theatre show,” left to the local press.

This is all a long way of saying that whether the box is a small glass display case or grand theatre, fame gets to the head of the media line, even when it comes to the arts, even in media that decry the ascendance of celebrity. I don’t begrudge MOMA or Yale Rep the attention they’re getting, but I wonder whether that attention may play into the hands of celebrity culture, saying to other organizations that they’ll get their shot at the spotlight when and if they too offer the media “names.” Will not-for-profits of every stripe, not just commercial enterprises, be driven towards stunts and stars, even if the examples I’ve given were staged with the utmost sincerity? Or can stardom be made secondary when contemplating the arts?

When we get a gift, part of the excitement is not knowing what’s in the box, the joy of discovery. But if the admittedly embattled media increasingly attends only to boxes – be they glass, canvas, concrete or brick and mortar – because they and we are already attracted to what’s inside, we’ll keep seeing more and more known quantities as companies vie for attention, and without it, it’ll be harder and harder to sustain work that retains the thrill of surprise.

Humor me.

In the wake of my post yesterday about the pros and cons of theatre seasons looking like the New York season from the prior year, and some great responses to it, the beloved phrase “national conversation about theatre” keeps coming to mind. Surely you’ve heard this concept, the now decades-old plaint from theatre professionals of all stripes that media conversation can center on a movie, a book, even a song, but that – perhaps not since Angels in America – neither the act of making theatre nor any particular work of theatre has made that grade.  Mind you, there are conversations within the field of great value; I’m talking about something that breaks past American Theatre, HowlRound, 2 AM Theatre, Twitter and other resources into the general public consciousness.

This is due to many factors, but surely one is the fragmentary nature of the American theatre. With each company choosing its season independently, there may be coincidences in programming, there may be a handful of select plays dotting the country over the course of a year or two. But in essence, outside of one’s own community, all theatre is a one-off.  Perhaps, on occasion, a little – or a lot of – collusion would be a good thing.

By now we’ve all heard of communities that choose a book for a city-wide read, with a concerted effort to promote the idea that a metropolitan bonds if they can all have a conversation about the same thing. This has been going on for a number of years, though not in places where I’ve lived, so I can only admire it from afar, rather than share personal experience. But it is a compelling idea.

Am I now going to suggest everyone should read the same play? No. You’re getting ahead of me. While there’s some merit to that idea, theatre is meant to be seen. I’m thinking bigger.

I wonder whether, say, a dozen theatres, large and small, in different cities and towns, could agree on a single work of theatre (and I’d much prefer that it was a new work, not a classic revival), a play of social and political importance, that could be near-simultaneously produced across the country. Not a tour, not a handful of co-productions, but a whole bunch of theatres doing the same work within, say, an eight-week period.

Now I know that every theatre has to balance its season, struggles with its budget, weighs its logistics. I’m not saying it would be easy. But hear me out.

“Clybourne Park” at Playwrights Horizons

When Clybourne Park was first produced at Playwrights Horizons in 2011, it was followed within weeks by a production at Woolly Mammoth. The following season, it was featured in a number of seasons (as well as in London at the Royal Court), making it to Broadway for the spring and summer of 2012, and now playing in yet more cities in regional productions. Now imagine if all of those productions (sans Broadway, which is irrelevant to my proposal) happened in only a few months time. Think of the conversations that provocative play would have sparked.  The same holds true for The Mountaintop, and Good People, and Ruined, and Chad Deity and many others.

A challenge? Yes. Impossible? No. Let us look to history. Specifically, A History of the American Film by Christopher Durang.

“A History of the American Film” at Arena Stage

In 1977, with Durang barely out of the Yale School of Drama, his pastiche of classic movies had a tripartite premiere, with productions in March and April of that year at the Mark Taper in Los Angeles, Arena Stage in DC, and Hartford Stage. It had been discovered in a workshop at The O’Neill the prior summer; it moved to Broadway, briefly, in 1978. But just imagine: a new play, by a tremendously talented up-and-comer, hitting a trifecta of productions out of the gate. I didn’t see it at the time (I was 14), but I sure remember reading about it.

If we want to be part of “the national conversation,” we have to look to a mashup of the Clybourne-History models, so the country will truly sit up and take notice, regardless of whether a New York berth is in the mix or not. We’ll either have to get over our deep desire to proclaim “world premiere” (or agree that everyone gets to say it); we’ll have to use a microtome to slice up the royalties normally given over to an originating company so everyone gets a share, but doesn’t overburden the play’s ongoing life; we’ll have to tacitly accept that the playwright might be working on the piece personally at only one theatre while revisions fly out to many. But remember that thanks to Skype and streaming video, the playwright can confer with disparate teams, and even look in on multiple rehearsals, without criss-crossing the country on planes. And no one need worry about cannibalizing audiences, since city to city overlap is fairly rare.

If many people are seeing the same play at once, we can at last have one show that’s reaching more people in a single night than any individual Broadway or touring show can; we’ll have a story that national press outlets can’t ignore; we’ll have a playwright who can dedicate themselves to working in theatre for a season without receiving an inheritance or a genius grant, since the collective royalties will be significant.

With theatres having just announced or on the verge of announcing their 2013-14 seasons, why do I toss this out for consideration now? Because it would take a year to get this together; for the intra-theatre conversations to begin and bear fruit; for a national sponsor or two to be signed up; for a single advertising campaign to be developed for use by all participants; to insure that a year from now, this grand idea could be unveiled to the public.

Collectively, the number of people who attend theatre on a daily basis in America is significant, but because it’s mostly happening in theatres of perhaps 500 seats or less, its hard for the country at large to get a handle on our significance. So let’s all hang together, since hanging separately doesn’t get us the impact we so desire, so need and so deeply deserve.

Now to find “the” play…

With U.S. theatre seasons being announced almost daily, things have been pretty lively around the old Twitter water cooler, with each successive announcement being immediately met with assessments at every level.  How many female playwrights or directors? Is there a range of race and ethnicity among the artists? Is the season safe and predictable or adventurous and enticing? How many new plays, or actual premieres? How many dead writers? How many American playwrights? Any new musicals? The same old Shakespeare plays?

Thanks to social media, what once might have incited some e-mails and calls among friends in the business is now grist for the national mill, and the conversations swing their focus from city to city as rapidly as a new announcement is made. While some of the critiques may strike a more strident tone than I would personally adopt, I have to say that this is evidence of the developing national theatre conscience, under which news of upcoming work is not merely relayed but considered, from a macro rather than micro viewpoint, and not only by artistic directors at conferences or journalists in major media. People are keeping score.

I find this heartening and useful; last year I wrote a column for The Stage in which I declared my belief that the work on U.S. stages must better reflect U.S. society. But even as I applaud every recounting of a season being graded on a variety of balances (gender, race, vintage, etc.), and hope that it informs not only a national conversation but action and change at the local level, I want to strike a note of caution about one of the criteria being applied, specifically: why are so many theatres doing the same plays?

It’s easy if one lives in a major metropolitan area that’s rich in theatre to wonder why certain plays are receiving 10, 15 even 20 productions in a single season, typically works that have been seen in New York, whether on Broadway or off.  We all see the list compiled each fall by TCG and American Theatre magazine; it generates stories about the most popular plays at U.S. theatres and usually mirrors the NYC fare of the past year or two. But at the same time, how many new plays remain unproduced, or receive a premiere and then don’t find their way to other stages?  Have U.S. theatres become ever more safe and New York-centric?

What seems like a herd mentality has a more practical basis. It has been some time since plays have toured the country with any regularity (before the current War Horse, the last significant non-musical tour I recall was Roundabout’s Twelve Angry Men); the days when a play would run a season on Broadway and then tour for a year are long over. So while not-for-profit theatres may have been born in part to offer an alternative to commercial fare that was once available throughout the country, the life of plays has fallen almost exclusively to institutional companies.

Those companies tend to be fairly hyperlocal, drawing the majority of their audience from a 30 to 45 mile radius. This holds true even for larger cities, although they may benefit from some portion of a tourist trade. Generally, only “destination theatres” like Oregon Shakespeare Festival or Canada’s Stratford and Shaw Festivals can lay claim to a wider geographic spread. So while our overview of production may be all inclusive, the communities being served are less transient and more insular than that view.

On top of that, we can’t deny that theatre in New York has a range of media platforms which, even in our online era, few other cities can match. Consequently, a success in New York, or merely a New York production, gets a boost in the eyes of all concerned – theatre staffs, freelance artists, funders, audiences. And as a result, companies which are the major – or only – theatre in their community may feel duty bound to offer those “name” works in their seasons, because their audiences may not have any other opportunity to see them and also because their artistic leadership believes in the quality and value of that work. Of course, in some markets, theatres may compete for these “name” works, especially if they’re accompanied by the name Tony or Pulitzer.

This was brought home to me years ago during my time as managing director of Geva Theatre in Rochester NY. Geva was by far the largest theatre in Rochester; its peers were the former Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo, 60 miles to the west, and Syracuse Stage, some 80 miles to the east. Each city had its own theatrical microclimate, with only the smallest sliver of die-hard theatre fans traveling among all three, an effort hampered by a snowfall season that ran from November to April.

Having come from Connecticut theatre, where a daytrip to New York was commonplace for professionals and audience alike, I wasn’t used to working on “last year’s hits” (though Geva’s seasons were certainly much more varied than that). In Connecticut at that time, doing work recently available in NYC was redundant. Frankly, what had been a source of pride at the places I’d worked had become a sign of elitism in my new setting, and I had to adjust my thinking accordingly – a mindset that has stayed with me as I ventured back into Connecticut and then to Manhattan.

This year, Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop has been one of those frequently produced plays; on the east coast alone I know of productions in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC without even looking at schedules; I could just look at the Amtrak Northeast Corridor schedule for that rundown. Some might call this copycatting, especially after its Broadway run the prior season, but based upon reviews and reports of sales, The Mountaintop has been meaningful at each venue where it has appeared, presumably without overlapping audiences. And on a personal note, I have to say that even in a production compromised by a labor dispute, I found the Philadelphia incarnation to be even more affecting than the Broadway one.

Even as I lobby for artistic directors to be ever more committed to a wide range of essential criteria, I acknowledge the difficulty of their task. Aside from taking into account the questions I highlighted in the first paragraph, they also have to consider issues like budget, educational commitments, work that might prove especially meaningful to their audience or their community. Many have to do that with only five or six shows in a given season and it may not be possible to hit every desired mark.

A national survey across a range of criteria will certainly show us trends in production at the country’s institutional theatres, and I avidly support such an effort. But as we look theatre by theatre, we might allow, slightly,  for what else could be happening at other theatres in the same city, and perhaps for how each theatre’s season does (or doesn’t) make improvements in diversity year over year. We also have to accept that in meeting one of many goals, a theatre might fall short on another; watching how they trend over time will be the most telling indicator. And while we need more and more platforms for truly new work, if a show with a New York imprimatur is a genuine part of a season striving towards meeting a range of goals, it is not necessarily a cop-out.

A final word for the theatres that face this new scrutiny, from playwright Stephen Spotswood during yesterday’s water cooler chat on Twitter: “Dear theatres whose seasons people are complaining about: This means we care and are invested in you. Start worrying when we stop.”

It is not, to my mind, a particularly current phrase. In fact, I think of it as something a couple of decades old, like “Where’s the beef?” or “Whasss-uuuup?” The decidedly selective Wikipedia entry for the saying traces it back to at least 1968, and the song “Time of the Season” by The Zombies, while citing widespread acceptance in the late 1980s. There is a 2004 direct to video comedy that took it as its name.

So when I walked by a subway poster emblazoned with the words “Who’s Your Daddy?” emblazoned over a photo of Annie star Anthony Warlow, sporting the trademark bald pate of Oliver Warbucks, I did a double take. For me, the association between “Who’s Your Daddy?” and “Daddy” Warbucks was immediate, being a theatre guy, but there was also some immediate cognitive dissonance. This shopworn saying, which once had a slight modicum of hip attached to it, seemed out of place juxtaposed with a figure from a beloved family musical.

And I laughed.

Now I’ve already seen the new production of Annie that the poster advertised (my 10 year old niece and I had a lovely evening out for it), so I wasn’t moved to run to the box office, which happened to be just overhead. But I have to say that I admired the poster for breaking through the clutter of advertising that assaults us everyday. It was the rare theatre ad that didn’t take itself very seriously and I’m not likely to forget it soon. Naturally I wanted to analyze it.

So I turned to the expert focus group that is my pool of Twitter followers, linked a photo of the ad, and asked for opinions.  Some shared my surprise and described similar reactions to my own. They told me of other posters I hadn’t yet seen that were part of the same campaign. Others were more succinct in their reactions.

“Ick.” “Ugh.” “Oh, dear.” “Perverse.” “Terrible.”

I understand the response of this latter group. It flitted across my consciousness as well before I laughed. That’s the dissonance I spoke of. And for that reason, I’d like to take a closer look at the campaign.

Annie is now 37 years old, having premiered in 1976 at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut (where I was – full disclosure – general manager from 1994 to 1998 and where I still intermittently consult). Based on the venerable comic strip Little Orphan Annie, it remains a standard in the musical theatre catalogue. Though the strip is gone, the characters and story remain a part of children’s lives for successive generations thanks to the show. The current revival is Annie’s third Broadway stint.

With other family friendly shows on Broadway now (the new Cinderella and Matilda; the long-running The Lion King), many have questioned whether there’s actually too much available for families and whether the audience will be split up, in favor of what’s newest. Although the current Annie is a new production, that’s a distinction the average theatergoer might not make, and even though the show is from the 70s, it’s set in the 30s, replete with jokes about The New Deal and Harold Ickes.

So the new ads, which also feature the phrases “Best In Show” and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” are an attempt to blow some dust off of this perennial middle school musical, but it’s worth noting that they’re not using references to the Kardashians or the Harlem Shake. Those would probably send potential ticket buyers, namely parents, fleeing. What they do is take phrases that are all too familiar to people in their 30s, 40s and 50s (I repeat: parents) and match them with images that will immediately be recognized by anyone who has ever read the Annie comic or seen the musical, on stage or in one of its two film versions. They push the envelope ever so slightly, because we don’t expect these phrases with the images deployed, but they don’t take such a wholehearted leap into pop culture – in my opinion – as to descend into complete incongruity or tackiness. They remind an earlier generation of their own love of Annie without playing directly upon nostalgia (even though foreknowledge is required). That’s what I like about them.

I do have some questions, though. If someone actually doesn’t know Annie, the ads are probably mystifying. Yes, I suspect it would be pretty hard to find Americans who don’t know the character or show, but not impossible, and I do wonder whether these ads leave out foreign tourists, who are an important slice of Broadway sales.  I also wonder about the diminution of the show logo itself, which is unusually small in relation to the image and slogan, and in subway ads, somewhere around waist level – or is this a brilliant scheme for tykes to read  the word “Annie” while the adults get their pop culture chuckle. Do those who immediately expressed a dislike of the ads when I shared them mirror a portion of the ticket buying audience, or are they musical theatre purists who dislike the co-opting of pop catchphrases – but weren’t going to buy tickets anyway? With a new musical from Cyndi Lauper opening shortly, will “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” actually serve to sell some tickets to Kinky Boots?

As someone who is constantly advocating for theatre communications to break out of boring patterns, I’m going to keep an eye on this campaign, to see how long it lasts, to see how the show fares at the box office in the coming weeks and months. I’m not suggesting this irreverent approach, even if successful, will become widespread, or can even be replicated by other shows. But it’s an interesting case study for the moment.

I’m curious to hear more reactions. But you’ll forgive me if I tell those who want to declaratively say I’m out of my gourd for my response to the Annie campaign to, if you please, talk to the hand.

*   *   *

Update: Less than an hour after I posted this piece, the press office for Annie provided me with original images for the ad campaign (replacing photos taken in the subway), which also showed me the fourth in the series. Regrettably, it has a much more standard slogan than the other three, and I can’t help but think of it as a missed opportunity. Any suggestions of a pop culture catchphrase, song lyric, or snippet of dialogue that might make the image to the left more fun?

There’s a high school musical in jeopardy? Quick, to the Howardmobile.

I’m kidding, of course. But when I got an e-mail at 11:30 a.m. yesterday, saying that parents and groups were going to protest a production of Sweeney Todd at Amity Regional High School in Woodbridge CT at that evening’s board of education meeting, I was extremely, nerve-janglingly upset. While I have spoken out against censorship of high school productions before, most vocally in Waterbury CT, and written about other such efforts as well, this threatened action struck a bit too close to home.

Howard’s back. And this time it’s personal.

Amity was my high school, where I acted in six shows between 1977 and 1980, where I was recognized for my professional work in theatre by being inducted into the school’s “hall of fame.” I was still in high school when I saw the original Broadway production of Sweeney Todd with a group of friends, chaperoned by one of our English teachers. Second only to Buried Child, Sweeney was a major part of why I chose a career in the theatre.

I happen to have Angela Lansbury right here.

I immediately reached out to the drama teacher, the school’s principal and a member of the school board. My instinct was to rush up to the meeting to speak on behalf of the show, but I didn’t want to inflame the situation, or be seen as an outsider, carpetbagging my way into a local issue. I also didn’t want to go if I wouldn’t be allowed to speak. In the meantime I thought, ‘Dammit, if only I had a day’s notice. I would call Hal, I would try to reach Mr. Sondheim, to gather letters of support. I even checked my “world clock” to see what time it was in Australia, where Angela Lansbury is currently performing in Driving Miss Daisy. Alas, she was presumably asleep, and likely wouldn’t rise before the board of ed meeting; otherwise, she is a rapid e-mail responder.

What we have here is a failure to communicate

When I was told by the school board member who I had contacted that my voice would be welcomed at the meeting, I did rush to rent a car. While the bright blue Honda hybrid from Zipcar was hardly the Batmobile, it whisked me to Connecticut, filled with a sense of purpose, as I thought all the while of what to say. I hadn’t had time to write anything; I was going to have to wing it. ‘Avoid inadvertent puns,’ I told myself. ‘Remember you can’t say that the opposition is half-baked, or that this is an issue of taste. You can’t risk inadvertent laughter. Listen and respond to the other speakers. Don’t talk about yourself. This is about the show, the school and the kids.’

No man is a failure who has friends

Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, there was rapid circulation of the situation among many people with whom I went to high school, and though I drove up on a lone mission, I was ultimately joined at the meeting by one of my drama club friends and by my sister, whose older daughter is a senior in the school. My brother, with whom I was not on speaking terms during high school, apologized that he couldn’t be at the meeting to support me and support the production. I learned that one of the “parent liaisons” to the drama club was the sister-in-law of one of my very closest friends and she welcomed me with a hug; her daughter is the stage manager for Sweeney Todd. The Facebook network reached out into the Connecticut media, resulting in a TV crew from the NBC affiliate; my own tweets and Facebook notice alerted The New York Times to the story.

They agreed to a sit-down

The meeting about the drama group was, ultimately, not one of high drama. A member of the clergy spoke first, saying her reservations arose from an interfaith leadership meeting two weeks prior, at which there was discussion about how to curb representations of violence, in the wake of the Newtown massacre. Several parents questioned the choice of the play and wondered whether there weren’t other vehicles available. One of those parents had a child in the show, and she wasn’t pulling her child from it, despite her own reservations. Others spoke of the story’s long history, of the musical’s fame, of the high regard in which Stephen Sondheim is held. So even when I stood up, with notes scribbled moments before, I was not in a lion’s den, but in the midst of a respectful exchange of ideas. (A balanced report appeared in The New Haven Register this morning.)

And so, from my off-the-cuff, at times ungrammatical, remarks: “Stephen Sondheim, who has already been lauded here, is very famous for a song that he wrote in another one of his other musicals in which we hear the line ‘Art isn’t easy.’ Creating art isn’t easy and the content of art isn’t easy…Sweeney Todd can create a learning opportunity. The responsibility of schools is to create a context for young people to understand the world around them and as much as we may want to keep that world away for as long as possible, it is not possible. While we can choose to do other works of literature, to read other books, to sing other songs, we are denying them the opportunity to learn.”

Stand down, but remain alert

No one demanded that the show be stopped. No vote was asked for or taken, and the board listened without response, since the whole discussion was not on the official agenda, but was merely part of “public comment.” To call it civil suggests a frostiness I did not feel, to call it polite suggests underlying anger. Might there be repercussions down the line, as some seek to exert authority over what can and can’t be performed in future years? That’s possible. If so, if welcome, I’ll be at those meetings as well.

I noted in my remarks that this was not an isolated incident, that censorship of high school theatre happens all too often. Some may dismiss it as merely a school problem, but it is important to anyone who loves theatre or believes in the value of the arts. Yes, I have taken up the cause of allowing students to grapple with challenging material before, and while yesterday struck particularly close to home, I’ll speak out in support of threatened high school drama whenever I hear about opposition (sorry, no Grapes of Wrath paraphrase at this point).

But I have only one hometown, one high school. The only way we can insure freedom of expression, freedom in the arts in teens – who will be our future artists and our future audiences – is if we are all aware of what is taking place near us, or back home, and if we speak out.

*   *   *

Addendum, March 16, 10 am: On the Friday immediately following the Board of Education meeting described above, which took place on a Monday evening, Dr. Charles Britton, principal of Amity Regional High School, sent the following e-mail to the district. I hope it becomes a model for other schools that face such challenges:

“This past week, the media widely reported some objections that have been raised against this year’s spring production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Some members of the Amity community and parents believe this production is too graphic for a high school audience. The administration and Drama Department at Amity High School respectfully disagree with these objections. The production is PG-13 and designed for a high school level audience. The show is produced in high schools across the nation. When carefully considering all academic material for Amity students, the faculty and administration at Amity never select material that is gratuitously violent or purposefully titillating in nature. All material is selected for the deeper meaning and value of the work of art, literature, or related academic resource. In the hands of talented teachers and directors, this academic material engages students more effectively and promotes our efforts to stimulate critical and creative thinking.”

*   *   *

Addendum, March 16, 3 pm: I have discovered some additional local reporting on the Sweeney Todd discussion, and will provide links with no comment, other than to say that it is worth reading not only the articles, but the comments that follow each of them. It is also worth noting which outlets reported from the event, and which reported solely from other news reports.

“Controversy Over Sweeney Todd: Let’s Take a Breath Here,” from The Naugatuck Patch, March 11

“Sweeney Todd Pros and Cons Aired at Amity High,” from The Orange Patch, March 12

“Sweeney Todd Protest: Residents Denounce Staging of Violent Musical at Connecticut High School,” from The Huffington Post, March 12, updated March 14

Nonprofit? Not-for-profit?

Do you have a preference between the two? Do you use them interchangeably? Has your company determined a “house style” for the use of one over the other?

This may seem a semantic game, but I would argue that it is vastly more important than the “er vs. re” argument that rears its head over the spelling of theatre every so often. That silly debate is largely etymological and cultural, while this one is about meaning and understanding.

To get the simplest issue out of the way: hyphens are primarily a style issue. It may stem from the country you live in, or what manual you use as a guide. The hyphen is, basically, irrelevant, at least in regards to meaning.

Legally, there is no real difference between “nonprofit” and “not-for-profit.” Numerous resources confirm that they are essentially interchangeable, save for the Internal Revenue Service. Our friends at the I.R.S. say that “not-for-profit” is an activity which does not undertake to produce revenue, like a hobby, while “nonprofit” is an organization that doesn’t seek to make a profit from its activities, and does not consist of individuals or shareholders who personally benefit from the revenues of the company. You can find helpful descriptions of these terms at Idealist and Grammarist; the Merriam Webster online dictionary is caught in a endless loop, merely defining one as the other.So for organizations’ fine print on fundraising solicitations, since that’s about tax benefits for donations and status with the I.R.S., “nonprofit” appears to be the correct term. But we don’t speak in strict I.R.S. language on a daily basis, and that’s where my interest lies.

Although numerous sources say nonprofit and not-for-profit are interchangeable, I think they carry different connotations. On a purely anecdotal basis, I have arrived at a preference between them; it would be fascinating to test them to see if this bears out.

Over the course of my career, I’ve had a number of occasions where I have been asked to explain what a “non/not-for” company is (for the moment, before I explain my conclusion, I’d like to hedge and call these “N/NF”s). While it has always been second nature to me, and to the people I talk with on a daily basis, it’s actually not something, apparently, that comes up in a lot of people’s education, institutionally or practically. It almost seems anomalous for those working outside of fields where the status is prevalent (social service, health, religion, arts).

My friend Michael, who has an engineering degree, summed up the confusion best when, years ago, he said to me, “So your company can’t make a profit, right? What’s with that?” And that’s where my semantic preference was born, after what was a very lengthy conversation.

While N/NF’s are focused on generating profit, they are not forbidden from ending their fiscal years showing one. Certainly many N/NFs struggle to get out of the red and into the black, but it is hardly unheard of for these organizations to yield a surplus (a more proper term than “profit” in this context). Where they differ from commercial enterprises is that the funds stay within the company; they’re not distributed to partners, workers or shareholders. In fact, when these groups seek funds, donors often like to see that they’ve had a surplus: not so small that it looks like bookkeeping shenanigans, not so large that it looks like they don’t need support or are operating too close to a for-profit mentality.

Consequently, I have developed a strong resistance to “nonprofit,” because it seems to suggest that any company operating under that status is prohibited from showing a surplus. Secondly, I think it also suggests that the organization is the opposite of profitable, which to many businesspeople, would indicate failure. Without profit, how does a business survive? While those who travel in the significant universe of N/NF organizations may have no confusion, those we seek to cultivate and secure as donors may experience significant cognitive dissonance when they encounter “nonprofit business.” To some, it may be an outright oxymoron.

I think that “not-for-profit” suggests a mindset, rather than an operational stricture. It does not seem so hard and fast as to preclude profit or, again, surplus. It intimates that the company has something else on its mind, whether it be fostering the creation of art or assisting those in need. It doesn’t mean we can’t succeed financially beyond breaking even, and that exceeding that goal is wrong; it means that when we do, we use the funds to further the organization’s goals. I think “not-for-profit” is less likely to prompt people to an immediate conclusion, and while it may open up a conversation, that can only be to a company’s benefit.

Yes, perhaps it’s just the English major in me that invests “-for-“ with such meaning, but coupled with my real-life experiences, I’ve come to believe there’s more to it than that. I don’t expect you to just take my word for it; at least have a conversation with the key communicators in your organization about it, test it, make a decision. This may be a question of degree and nuance in the words we choose to speak and write, but to everyone fighting the good fight in not-for-profits, every little advantage helps. Even if that advantage is simply two hyphens and three letters.

P.S. For those in the arts, god save us all from “charitable.”

“There is nothing quite as wonderful as money! There is nothing quite as beautiful as cash!”

I have made no secret of my disdain for the practice of announcing theatre grosses as if we were the movie industry. I grudgingly accept that on Broadway, it is a measure of a production’s health in the commercial marketplace, and a message to current and future investors. But no matter where they’re reported, I feel that grosses now overshadow critical or even popular opinion within different audience segments. A review runs but once, an outlet rarely does more than one feature piece; reports on weekly grosses can become weekly indicators that stretch on for years. If the grosses are an arbiter of what people choose to see, then theatre has jumped the marketing shark.

So it took only one tweet to get me back on my high horse yesterday. A major reporter in a large city (not New York), admirably beating the drum for a company in his area, announced on Twitter that, “[Play] is officially best-selling show in [theatre’s] history.” When I inquired as to whether that meant highest revenue or most tickets sold, the reporter said that is was highest gross, that they had reused the theatre’s own language, and that they would find out about the actual ticket numbers.” I have not yet seen a follow up, but Twitter can be funny that way.

As the weekly missives about box office records from Broadway prove, we are in an endless cycle of ever-higher grosses, thanks to steady price increases, and ever newer records. That does not necessarily mean that more people are seeing shows; in some cases, the higher revenues are often accompanied by a declining number of patrons. Simply put, even though fewer people may be paying more, the impression given is of overall health.

I’m particular troubled when not-for-profits fall prey to this mentality as part of the their press effort, and I think it’s a slippery slope. If not-for-profits are meant to serve their community, wouldn’t a truer picture of their success be how many patrons they serve? In fact, I’d be delighted to see arts organizations announcing that their attendance increased at a faster pace than their box office revenue, meaning that their work is becoming more accessible to more people, even if the shift is only marginal. If selling 500 tickets at $10 each to a youth organization drags down a production’s grosses, that’s good news, and should be framed as such, unless our commitment to the next generation of arts attendees is merely lip service.

From my earliest days in this business, I have advocated for not-for-profit arts groups to be recognized not only as artistic institutions, but local businesses as well. While I think that has come into sharper focus over the past 30 years, I’m concerned that the wrong metrics are being applied, largely in an effort to mirror the yardstick used for movies. It’s worth noting that for music sales or book sales, it’s the number of units sold, not the actual revenue, that is the primary indicator of success, at either the retail or wholesale level (although more sophisticated reporting methods are coming into play).

In a recent New York Times story about a drop in prices at the Metropolitan Opera, I was startled by the assertion that grosses were down in part because donor support for rush tickets had been reduced. Does that mean that fewer tickets were being offered because there wasn’t underwriting for the difference in price? Does it mean that the donor support was actually being recognized as ticket revenue, instead of contributed income? What does it mean for the future of the rush program if the money isn’t replaced – less low-price access? No matter how you slice it, something is amiss.

That said, the Met Opera example brings out an aspect of not-for-profit success that is, to my eyes, less reported upon, namely contributed revenue. Yes, we see stories when a group gets a $1 million gift (in larger cities, the threshold may be higher for media attention). But we don’t get updates on better indicators of a company’s success: the number of individual donors, for example, showing how many people are committing personal funds to a group. The aggregate dollar figure will come out in an annual report or tax filing, but is breadth of support ever trumpeted by organizations or featured in the media? I think it should be. I also can’t help but wonder whether proclaiming high dollar grosses repeatedly might serve to suppress small donations.

Not-for-profit arts organizations exist in order to pursue creative endeavors at least in part in a manner different from the commercial marketplace. Make no mistake, the effort to generate ticket sales for a NFP is equivalent to that of a commercial production, but the art on offer is (hopefully) not predicated on reaching the largest audience possible for the longest period possible. When NFP’s proclaim box office sales records, they are adopting a wholly commercial mindset. While it may appeal to the media, because it aligns with other reportage of other similar fields, it disrupts the perception of the company and their mission. And look out when grosses drop, as they inevitably will at some point.

We all love a hit, whether it’s the high school talent show or a new ballet. But if all we can use to demonstrate our achievements is how big a pile of money we’ve made, well then forgive me if I’m a bit grossed out.

As I said in Part 1 of this series, Matt Trueman’s piece for the Financial Times got me thinking about a variety of issues relating to the exchange of new plays between England and the United States. After focusing on perceived favoritism or bias, and then the common issue of support beyond the box office and its apparent impact on new work, let me circle back to focus more directly on the original issue.

I agree with Trueman, and the people with whom he spoke, that despite a handful of big name plays traversing the pond every year, each country only scratches the surface of the vast number of plays produced by the other. Now, unencumbered as I am by more comprehensive data, what could be the causes for this?

Personally, I don’t really hold with the idea that some of the plays are mired in cultural differences not readily understood. I have certainly seen plays in which cricket plays a role (I don’t understand anything connected with cricket), but the plays aren’t about cricket, and the minutiae of the game is typically irrelevant. We may mention footlong sandwiches in a play, calling them subs, grinders or hoagies, but so long as it’s clear its an item of food, either from other dialogue or stage action, I don’t think English theatergoers would be lost in incomprehension. We may not know the particulars of the National Health Service, or the English may not understand the nuances of city, county, state and national government here, but those are mechanics, not meaning. If we can find common ground in Monty Python and Downton Abbey, I have no worries about plays – even those that require specific regional accents.

I certainly think familiarity and awareness plays a role, and it amplifies a frequent intra-country challenge: if a play is produced in a regional theatre outside of a major media area, how does it get noticed? I don’t doubt that large theatres in both countries have the means and the inclination to look beyond New York and London alone, but how do they look? Literary offices are likely stocked with unread homegrown material, even if they only accept work by agent submission. Media websites may offer reviews of work, but who has the time to scan it all on a daily basis, hunting for a lesser known but worthwhile work. If a play doesn’t get published, or added to the catalogue of a major licensing house, how does it get attention, at home or abroad? Some may like to decry the influence of reviews, but good reviews distributed by theatre or producer may have the most impact, but is there a readily accessible list of artistic directors and literary managers in both countries (and other English-speaking countries) to make the dissemination of that material efficient? To be interested in a play, one first has to hear or read about it.

But let me come back to “homegrown.” In America, we constantly see mission statements that, rightly, talk about theatres serving their community. This can take many forms and be interpreted in a variety of ways, but the fact is that even those not-for-profit companies which also speak of adding to the national and even international theatrical repertoire must first and foremost serve their immediate community, the audience located in a 30 mile radius of their venue, give or take. Many theatres are also making an increased effort to serve the artists in their local community as well, instead of importing talent from one of the coasts. I have no reason to suspect that it is any different in England.

So the question about producing plays from other countries is less one of interest than adherence to mission. If your theatre is the only one of any scale for 30 miles, or the largest even in a crowded field, where should your focus be? Unless your company is specifically dedicated to work from other countries, on balance it’s going to be wise to focus on homegrown plays, especially if your company does new work.

Several months back, the artistic director of a large U.S. theatre and I were discussing a British playwright we both hold in high regard, but the A.D. said he couldn’t make room for that author’s work in a season, even for a U.S. premiere. “If I do that, that’s one less slot I have for a new American play.” With most theatres having perhaps four to seven shows a season, not all necessarily new, it is in fact a tricky political prospect to debut or produce foreign work. Look at the flack Joe Dowling took for his season of Christopher Hampton plays at The Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis.

Add to that the necessity of balancing a season for gender and race, plus the desire to show the audience work that may have debuted elsewhere in the U.S., as well as classics and the challenge grows greater for foreign work (though it doesn’t justify our significant blind spot towards our neighbor Canada or the limited awareness of theater from Australia and New Zealand either). I suspect this comes into play in England as well, but I’d need to speak with more English A.D.’s to know.

When I surveyed the Tony nominations it was quickly apparent that if one removed David Hare, Tom Stoppard, Martin McDonagh, Brian Friel and Yasmina Reza, foreign presence on Broadway would drop precipitously; the same would happen at the Oliviers if one excluded Tony Kushner, August Wilson, and David Mamet. Yes, England has premiered work by Katori Hall, Bruce Norris and Tarrell Alvin McCraney, but they are exceptions to the rule, not exemplars of a new trend.

I support the exchange of dramatic literature and artists between countries – all countries –not just the U.S.-English traffic that has been the focus here. Improved communication about that work might help to foster an increase and, as I said originally, a survey of past productions on a larger scale might reveal more than we’re aware of. But when it comes right down to it, English theatres and artistic directors must focus on what’s most important for their audiences, and American theatres and A.D.s must do the same. What that yields in terms of exchange is simply part of balancing so many necessary elements, tastes, styles and budgets; trends may appear when looking from a distance, but up close, it’s a theatre by theatre function.

In the process of debunking the idea that English and American plays experience bias, for or against them , when produced in the their “opposite” theatrical cities of New York and London, I began to notice something extremely interesting about the origin of plays nominated for the Olivier and Tony Awards. Thinking it might be my own bias coming into play as I assembled data, I expanded my charts of nominated plays beyond simply the country of origin for the works, adding the theatres where the plays originated. What I found suggests that the manner of theatrical production in the two countries may be even more alike than many of us realize.

In the U.S., of the 132 plays nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play between 1980 and 2012, 61 of them had begun in not-for-profit theatres in New York and around the country. That’s 46% of the plays (and even more specifically, their productions) having been initiated by non-commercial venues. In England, 99 of the plays came from subsidised companies, a total of 75% of all of the Oliviers nominees.

Together, these numbers make a striking argument for how essential not-for-profit/subsidized companies are to the theatrical ecology of today. And, frankly, my numbers are probably low.

To work out these figures, I identified plays and productions which originated at not-for-profits. That is to say, if a play was originally produced in a not-for-profit setting, but the production that played Broadway was wholly or significantly new, it was not included. As a result, for example, both parts of Angels in America don’t appear in my calculations, because the Broadway production wasn’t a direct transfer from a not-for-profit, even though its development and original productions had been in subsidized companies in both the U.S. and England.

These statistics also don’t include plays that may have been originally produced in their country of origin at an institutional company, but were subsequently seen across the Atlantic under commercial aegis. So while Douglas Carter Beane’s The Little Dog Laughed is credited with NFP roots in the U.S. it has been treated as commercial in London. Regretfully, I don’t know enough about the origin of all nominated West End productions in companies from outside London to have represented them more fully, which is why I have an inkling that the 75% number is low.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that in England, the Oliviers encompass a number of theatres that are wholly within subsidized companies, in some cases relatively small ones, which needn’t transfer to a conventional West End berth to be eligible; examples include the Royal Court and the Donmar Warehouse, as well as Royal Shakespeare Company productions that visit London. While there are currently five stages under not for profit management on Broadway (the Sondheim, American Airlines, Beaumont, Friedman Theatres and Studio 54), imagine if work at such comparable spaces as the Mitzi Newhouse, the Laura Pels, The Public, The Atlantic and Signature were eligible as well.

Why am I so quickly demonstrating the flaws in my method? Simply to show that even by conservative measure, it is the institutional companies, which rely on grants, donations and government support to function, which are producing the majority of the plays deemed to be the most important of those that play the major venues in each city.

Since we must constantly make the case for the value of institutional, not-for-profit, subsidized theatre, in the U.S. and in England (let alone Scotland, Ireland, Canada and so many other countries), I say tear apart my process and build your own, locally, regional and certainly nationally. I think you’ll find your numbers to be even stronger than mine and, hopefully, even more persuasive. While it may seem counterintuitive for companies outside London and New York to use those cities’ awards processes to make their case, the influence is undeniable.