The 2012 NEA SSPA Report

If yesterday’s news that theatre attendance is down more precipitously than any of the arts caused you to spit out your coffee over breakfast, well that’s probably because you haven’t been paying attention. To be fair, I suspect a lot of people haven’t been, with virtually every discussion of the performing arts in since 2008 having been prefaced with either “in these challenging times” or “since the financial meltdown of 2008.” But the time for qualifiers and excuses is clearly past, especially as every news report on American life in general seems to invoke the fairly recent cliché “the new normal.” Things have changed. Things are changing. Things will change. The arts need to change.

In citing slides of 9% for musical theatre and 12% for non-musicals over the past five years, and even more pronounced numbers over a longer range, the picture painted by the NEA shows an overall decline in arts attendance, with theatre hardest hit. Coming just days after some co-mingled summary numbers from an Americans for the Arts report suggested theatre might be looking up, it was certainly startling news. But a closer look at the latter study actually confirms the reported  NEA trend.

Looking elsewhere, the same picture appears. The last Theatre Communications Group “Theatre Facts” report, covering results from 2008 to 2012, shows a 1.8% decline in attendance in the portion of their membership studied – not as pronounced as the NEA figures, but certainly heading the wrong way as well. It’s also important to remember that as expansive as it is, TCG itself is only a subset of overall US theatres. In a more easily defined theatrical realm of activity, Broadway in the same period shows a 5% audience decline, with a 17%  increase in income, suggesting an increasingly inaccessible theatrical realm, and an economic model that will only further stratify audiences.

The Ticketmaster UK Report

The only encouragement that one might wish to cling to is a report from Ticketmaster’s analytics division, which shows stunningly positive stats about arts participation by younger audiences (including a snappy infographic). While it hints that there might be some lessons to be learned, we’d have to go to England to get them, because the study is entitled State of Play: Theatre UK. While it does include some US audience members (as well as a selection from Ireland, Germany and Australia), the US sample represents only 13% of the total, with 65% from the UK. Also, under theatre, Ticketmaster has folded in opera and dance, so it’s not a true apples to apples comparison.

Now I am one of the many who believes that theatre as a discipline will manage to survive the onslaught of electronic entertainment precisely because it is live and fundamentally irreproducible. We may be a niche, but there will always be those who treasure being in the same room with artists as art is created; I have often joked that theatre will only be in real danger when Star Trek: TNG’s holodeck becomes reality. Even these reports don’t sway me from that conceptual position. But I’m not sticking my head in the sand either.

Appreciation of the arts is, for many, something that is learned in childhood – namely in schools. Yet we only have to read about the state of public education to know that resources are diminished, anything that isn’t testable is expendable, and fewer students are being exposed to arts education than they were years ago. Citing the 2008 NEA SSPA report: “In 1982, nearly two-thirds of 18-year-olds reported taking art classes in their childhood. By 2008, that share had dropped below one-half, a decline of 23 percent.” In less than 30 years, inculcation in the arts through the schools declined notably, so is it any wonder that we’re seeing declines in arts participation over time?

In a 2012 Department of Education study, it was reported that “the percentages of schools making [music and visual arts] available went from 20 percent 10 years ago to only 4 and 3 percent, respectively, in the 2009-10 school year.  In addition, at more than 40 percent of secondary schools, coursework in arts was not required for graduation in the 2009-10 school year.” That’s all the more reason to be concerned. Certainly many arts organizations have committed to working with or in schools, but are the programs comprehensive enough? We’ve become ever more sophisticated in how to create truly in-depth, ongoing education experiences, but perhaps in doing so, we’re reaching fewer students. Maybe we have to look at how to restore sheer numbers as part of that equation, while maintaining quality, to insure our own future.

Art from Americans for the Arts report

It’s time to make an important distinction. As I said, I believe ‘theatre’ will survive for years to come. Where we would do well to focus immediate attention is on our ‘theatres,’ our companies. On a micro basis, it may be easy to shrug off declines, especially if you happen to be affiliated with a company that is bucking the trend. But these reports with their macro view should take each and every theatre maker and theatre patron outside of the specifics of their direct experience to look at the field, not simply year to year, but over time. It suggests that there is a steady erosion in the theatergoing base, which hasn’t necessarily found a new level; just as a rising tide floats all boats, eventually our toys lie at the bottom of the tub once the drain is opened.

I don’t have the foresight to know where this will lead. One direction is that of Broadway, where the consistently risky business model favors shows that are built for the truly long run, but only for the select audiences with the resources to support ever increasing prices. Might that be mirrored in the not-for-profit community as well, with only the largest and most established companies able to secure audiences and funding if resources and interest truly diminish? Or might we see a shift away from institutions and edifices and towards more grass roots companies, where simpler theatre at lower prices and more basic production values finds the favor of those who still harbor an appetite for live drama?

I’ll make a prediction. While in the first half of my life I watched the bourgeoning of the resident theatre movement, which in turn seeded the growth of countless smaller local companies, my later years will see a contraction in overall production at the professional level; it’s already begun, as a few companies seem to go under every year and have been for some time. That means that it will become ever harder for people to make their lives in theatre, because there will be fewer job opportunities for them.

Since I’ve already employed science fiction in my argument, let me turn to it again. We’ve all seen or read stories where someone goes back in time to right some past wrong (and for the moment, let’s forget that they often as not ruin the future in the process). Is there a point where we could or should make some fundamental change in how theatre functions – not as an art, but as an industry? Is there a single watershed moment where one choice determined the course of the field that some future time traveler could set right? I suspect not, unless we were talking about preventing (in succession) the discovery of electricity, the invention of TV and movies, or the creation of the internet.

That’s why we have to shift the paradigm now, and not just worry about selling tickets to the current show or meeting next year’s budget, but focus on what’s truly sustainable in 10, 25 or 50 years time. This week’s data barrage shows one thing we mustn’t ignore: even if we can’t see it in our own day to day experience, what we’re doing now isn’t working and the tide is going out.

My thanks to Mariah MacCarthy, who brought the 2008 NEA SSPA Report summary and the 2012 Department of Education report to my attention.

If you’ve been reading The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times this week, attempting to find out how the arts as a whole are doing, you would likely get a fairly consistent picture coming from the efforts of those two sources, and it doesn’t bode well for the arts in America. But if your focus happens to be on theatre, your head might spin from seeming conflicts.

On Monday, September 23, in The Los Angeles Times, Mike Boehm reported the Americans for the Arts just issued National Arts Index of arts participation, complete through 2011. He wrote, using their executive summary, “The report noted ‘overall increases’ in theater and symphony attendance in 2011, and drops for opera and movies.” Good news for the theatre crowd, right?

Well this morning, Patricia Cohen, writing in The New York Times about the National Endowment for the Arts newly released “Highlights from the 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts,” made the startling statement that “theater is the artistic discipline in America that is losing audience share at the fastest rate in recent years.” Scary, no?

So the question is, are these reports in conflict? Is there some underlying difference in methodology that has yielded markedly different results? Is it because the Americans for the Arts report is only through 2011, while the National Endowment for the Arts report is through 2012?

Much as I’d like to tell you that things are not as negative as the New York Times story makes it seem, the discrepancy is in fact due largely to aggregation of disciplines on the Americans for the Arts summary, while the NEA report keeps each art form distinct – as does the full text of the Americans for the Arts study.  The rosier picture Boehm drew from Americans for the Arts emerged because it merges theatre with symphony and opera and, perhaps to the surprise of many, the latter disciplines had a very good year in 2011.

From the Americans for the Arts Report

Symphony and opera attendance increased by almost 3 million from 2010 to 2011, while theatre attendance was down by about 300,000 in the same period. So in merging, the loss in theatre is masked by the jump in symphony and opera. The discrete numbers in the NEA report, sampled in 2002, 2008 and 2012, show an ongoing decline for theatre, with the rate of change for musicals at -9% and the rate of change for plays at -12%. This mirrors an aggregate decline from 50 million to 45.2 million theatre patrons over the period from 2003 to 2011, as shown by Americans for the Arts.

From the National Endowment for the Arts report

So while summaries may indicate that there’s some upside for theatre, the detail of the reports are quite clear: theatergoing is trending down. If there’s another comprehensive report that actually challenges this data, it would be good to see it, but if the combined results from these two central representatives and supporters of the arts in America have yielded comparable results, the wake up call for theatre cannot be sounded any more loudly and clearly. No one should cling to shreds seemingly offered in a part of one study. To be sure, theatre’s overall attendance numbers far outpace symphony, opera and dance combined, but the trend doesn’t look good at all. And with arts attendance/participation in general decline, can theatre collectively get its act together to stop the bleeding, let alone reverse course?

I urge anyone working in the arts, in any discipline, to study both of these reports carefully. By all means, get beyond summaries and condensations. I’ve only focused on a few pages and I’m quite certain we’ve got a lot more to learn if we’re going to be able to generate good news about the field again and continue to make the case for the vitality and centrality of the arts in American life.

P.S. When a government agency and an advocacy group agree about the problems in American arts, wouldn’t it be nice if our president cared enough to even nominate someone to run the Endowment? The clock keeps ticking, but that’s the only sound we hear.

Iowa’s Ottumwa High School

What is the purpose of putting on shows in high school? Is it educational? Recreational? Is it community relations? Is it a family activity?

I’ve always thought that high school theatre was for the benefit of the students putting on the show – for the education, the team-building, the exploration of talent and so on. That parents, siblings, relatives, friends and neighbors come to see these productions – whether academic in origin or extracurricular – is a byproduct, not a purpose. Although, to be fair, in many schools, the drama programs have to be self-supporting, so a certain amount of general audience development may be necessary, which can mean throwing a wide net.

Nonetheless, the recent cancelation of a high school production of The Laramie Project in Ottumwa, Iowa caught me by surprise. Not because I’m unfamiliar with educational administrators being uncomfortable with Laramie, but because the principal there has said “the play is too adult for a high school production but it does preach a great message.” If the message is great, where’s the problem?  What makes it too adult? That it’s about a murder? Murder is in movies, books, plays, and TV shows consumed by much younger kids. Is it that the murder victim was gay? Sadly, homophobia remains everywhere, but it’s worth noting that marriage equality has been the law in Iowa since 2009.

According to reports in The Ottumwa Courier and Heartland Connection, both the principal and superintendent are pleased that arrangements have been made for the production to be done by the students elsewhere in the community. So why exactly don’t they want it in their own backyard or, more accurately, auditorium?

The reason cited is because they feel what the school offers should be family entertainment for all ages, and that the admirable but adult themes of Laramie don’t fit that criteria. So the question is whether this is a long-standing, publicly stated policy, or one introduced only to block the production of this particular play, which is taken from verbatim accounts of the death of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming more than a decade ago.

I spoke with Moisés Kaufman, the artistic director of Tectonic Theatre Project, the company that created The Laramie Project and its companion piece The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later, since he has the best perspective on the play’s production history. Referring to Laramie as one of the most produced plays in America – professionally, amateur, college and high school – Kaufman acknowledged that productions are also challenged or canceled with some regularity, saying it happens in high schools two or three times annually.  Based on my general awareness of theatre news nationally, I was surprised: I thought it was more frequent, but the play’s popularity in high schools is confirmed by Dramatics magazine.

“Invariably,” Kaufman observed about cancelations of Laramie, “it has the opposite effect of what the administration is trying to do – it emboldens the students to be artists and social activists. Students realize that art is an incredible weapon and they have a responsibility and opportunity that comes from being an art maker.”

Kaufman said that, comparable to the figures often associated with marriage equality issue, there’s a big divide in the thinking between people over 50 and those under 50. “Students are very ready for this conversation, they’re living it,” said Kaufman. “It’s adults who are having a hard time with it.”  Describing the typical conflict over high school productions of Laramie, Kaufman said,  “First, it’s a disconnect in ideology and preparedness to deal with contemporary ideas, and secondly, that they’re listening to outside voices that have nothing to do with the education of the students.”

In Ottumwa, if the administration freely acknowledges the value of the piece and expresses support for the students doing it, but off school grounds, it seems that what’s at stake is a fear of outside pressure, an avoidance of potential challenges, with “family friendly” as a smokescreen for conflict avoidance. It’s a shame that the administration can’t back up their own sentiments and advocate for Laramie within the school, rather than harboring school resources and insulating themselves from any personal and professional risk instead of standing up for what they believe in. What kind of example and lesson is that?

The assertion that high school shows should be for all ages is not a new argument to me; I heard it voiced at a Board of Education meeting at my alma mater, Amity High School in Woodbridge CT, when a handful of community members registered their displeasure with a pending production of Sweeney Todd. It suggests that because so many parents and administrators were raised on the anodyne – albeit wonderful and classic – musicals of the 40s, 50s and 60s, that those shows remain exemplars of the only appropriate repertoire.

I think that perspective is deeply flawed. Would we choose to teach students from textbooks that were written with 1960s sensibility? Would we protect our athletes with the insufficient equipment of that era, or even from the 80s? Would literature and music be comparably circumscribed? I doubt it, especially in any district that wants to prepare students educationally, socially and emotionally for the world they’ll soon face, out from under the protective wings of parents and schools. High school theatre may still be thought of by many as a charming and even quaint activity for kids, and an easily expendable one at that, but it can instill great lessons and even save lives, if the students are permitted to engage with the full range of dramatic work, be it classic, new or even original.

The lessons of The Laramie Project are obvious to anyone who knows the piece or even just the facts surrounding Matthew Shepard’s death. High school teachers and administrators should be proud that students want to perform it and should be proud to have it, and other socially conscious, emotionally charged works on their stages.

As someone who had to make do in high school with Don’t Drink The Water and Bye Bye Birdie, I admire and envy every student who has had the chance to engage with material as challenging and important as The Laramie Project and other equally important, thoughtful and moving pieces of theatre. And if some pre-teens have to miss seeing their big siblings in a show, well surely that’s not the only time they haven’t been allowed to tag along. What’s done in their elementary or middle school is for them, and what’s done in high school is for bigger kids – and for every adult in town. Maybe there’s still time for Ottumwa High School to teach the right lesson.

*   *   *

Update: Hear me discussing censorship of high school plays on the Reduced Shakespeare Company podcast

Update, August 9: from The Ottumwa Courier: “Laramie Project Pushes Forward” by Chelsea Davis

MA’s Everett High School, where content
complaints morphed into budget woes.

Follow this with me, will you?

“The plays bothered a lot of us,” says a school superintendent, referring to works presented by a high school drama group. “The plays had references to sex and drinking.” In one instance, a male student reportedly doffed his pants, revealing shorts.

Subsequently, the school system, citing an influx of students (reports a news article) announces that all drama classes are terminated, with the superintendent saying (as paraphrased in the article), “The school can no longer afford to offer the classes as enrollment grows.”

Did everyone notice the sudden turn in there?

This is no hypothetical, but a scenario played out at the high school in Everett MA and reported by The Boston Globe. While the school superintendent, Frederick Foresteire, wraps himself in the protective shroud of marshaling resources in challenging economic times (unquestionably a legitimate concern in every public school in the country), targeting a drama program for eradication after registering his personal disapproval of said program smacks of retribution.

The article seems riddled with mixed messages. If there has been the demand for multiple sections of drama up until now, how does increased enrollment warrant elimination of a course of study? It is impossible to determine from the article whether any other academic area was treated comparably, though that would seem germane.

If the school has been content to have a single teacher take responsibility for drama education for six years, why does the superintendent note that “there will not be four or five sections taught by one teacher” if drama classes return in the future? Supposedly this action is not in response to the teacher’s qualifications to teach drama. One teacher with expertise would seem the economically and pedagogically prudent solution down the line, full or part-time.

And while a school system is well within its rights to post teachers based upon need, why would Everett High’s principal make the decision to reassign the drama teacher (who also teaches science) to a K through 8 school? If the high school’s enrollment is an issue, sending teachers elsewhere wouldn’t seem to solve the problem (unless this was some sort of trade) and this teacher could certainly go back to more science courses. And surely where that teacher was sent to address the district’s needs wasn’t the principal’s decision, but that of someone higher up, with a more global view. Like, say, a superintendent.

While drama will remain at Everett High as an extracurricular activity, the article also notes that the school’s new principal, Erick Naumann, “will have more authority over the drama club,” and the drama coach “will have to submit a description of props and, if possible, stage directions, at least two months in advance.”

Does anyone still think this situation has anything to do with budgets?

In the past, I’ve acknowledged that schools and school districts have the right to decide what material is appropriate for their drama groups, academic or extracurricular, but I believe those decisions should be made in the best interests of the students, not the school system. I lobby for the widest range of material possible, but I admit am not charged with the creation of educational standards. When content issues arise, it is usually because administrators have paid scant attention to drama courses or clubs for years and only take an interest when something of “questionable” propriety is brought to their attention, often late in the game, or because of personal biases by administrators. But prop lists? Stage directions? At least two months in advance? That smacks of Big Brother and is impractical if not impossible, as anyone with a basic understanding of how theatre is made would know. It would be interesting to learn by what criteria such a submission would be either challenged or approved.

Also pertinent at Everett High is that some of the “offending” material that drew Mr. Foresteire’s ire was written by the students. Well, you know what? If kids are writing about their lives, topics like sex and alcohol are going to come up. Hiding them from view only serves to deny the opportunity for dialogue and learning — and it’s censorship of the students’ voices in an educational setting. Will Mr. Naumann also be determining which student essays and stories may be read aloud in English classes in his school? I doubt it. But I bet original student dramas won’t soon be seen again in those parts, so long as they need to be approved every step along the way, killing any possibility of creativity, spontaneity or truth.

When high school theatre initiatives are threatened or cut, attention to the issue is predominantly local and discrete, as if each was unique and only of interest to the specific school and town. That the Globe wrote about the situation in Everett is commendable, though it appears to have emanated from a local news bureau; read online, it’s impossible to discern whether it was in a regional edition or in the full run of the print version. The Everett High School drama decision deserves even more attention and investigation, as inconsistencies abound.

Even though the final verdict will occur every time at the local level when school arts programs are threatened over content, funding or both, these challenges to drama and indeed all of the arts need to be taken up nationally in each and every case as ongoing evidence of a continuing trend. That’s why as a Connecticut native and a New York resident, I’m worried about what has taken place in Everett MA, because I know it’s not an isolated incident. It’s just another in a long line of school administrations afraid to allow students to grapple with and learn about the world through art, under the guise of protecting them. Perhaps it’s even something more.

Oh, and by the way Mr. Foresteire: I dropped trou onstage, revealing boxer shorts, in a high school production back in 1977. The offensive material? Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple.

*   *   *

Click here to sign a petition in support of the restoration of drama education at Everett High School.

Julie Hennrikus of Stage Source in Boston wrote about the situation at Everett High School as well, explaining why the arts aren’t extra, but essential.

June 26, 2013

President Barack Obama

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington DC  20500

Dear President Obama:

I realize it’s been a busy week, what with the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act today and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act yesterday. I know you’ve just begun a weeklong trip to Africa and presumably get home just in time for some fireworks (actual, not political) next week. But we’ve really got to talk about this NEA thing.

I’m referring, of course, to the fact that there hasn’t been a chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts since Rocco Landesman stepped down at the end of your first term. While presumably the agency is running smoothly, the fact remains that for six months now, there’s been no notable public effort to replace him. I know how these things go (I watched The West Wing and House of Cards) and there may be elaborate machinations going on behind the scenes, but without a new chair even proposed, you’re giving off the signal that the arts don’t matter.

A lot of us in the arts know that isn’t true. Since you first took office, we’ve been pleased to see you, the First Lady and your daughters taking in cultural events in New York and in Washington and hosting others at the White House. Some of us would lobby for the symbolism of a cultural excursion by your family taking place outside of the aforementioned cities, or your Chicago hometown, to demonstrate how broadbased the arts community truly is, but the girls have school and you and your wife have countless commitments. We get that. But considering how little attention the previous tenants of your house paid to the arts, I would think that your small personal actions would lead you to action on the big picture.

Sure, I know all about the various government positions you’re trying to fill, including serious problems with stalled judicial appointments, and I don’t want to in any way minimize their import. My god, the whole IRS situation alone must keep you awake at night. However, second terms are when people start peeling away from government appointments, not running towards them, since there’s more than likely a ticking clock on their service, depending upon the preferences of the next president.  When Rocco took the NEA gig, he knew he had four years guaranteed, said he only wanted four years, and proved to be a man of his word. His successor might only get three years, even if you act soon.

I know you’re not personally conducting a search or vetting candidates; you have a team of people to do these things and bring names forward for consideration. I’m not presumptuous enough to proffer candidates, especially as my list might be rather theatre-centric, and you may not want to follow Rocco with another theatre-oriented person, since the NEA has an impact on so many areas in the arts. Again, symbolism can be important. Beyond having an advocate in your administration who has the unequivocal authority of the office, we need the affirmation that this is important to you and that you believe the arts are important to the American people. It’s the silence that hurts, especially as we’ve watched the agency diminished over time, albeit with some recent gains that don’t go unnoticed or unappreciated.

Now I don’t know Joan Shikegawa myself, but if the trouble of a search is too onerous and she’s been doing well, then give her the full power. Don’t wait any longer. While we appreciate acting in the arts, “Acting Chairman” diminishes authority, rather than enhancing it. It suggests something transitory, and we need some permanence. We’ve spent too much time over the past couple of decades worrying whether the agency, and federal funding, would even survive.

There are remarkable leaders in the arts, who would be great advocates and great politicians. They would do your administration proud and the arts community could take pride in them. There’s very little the average citizen can do to nudge you on this, although I’m quite certain I could rally the troops on Twitter or Facebook to lob ideas at you via social media. But you probably want more decorum.

Now if it so happens that there’s something we can do, reach out. If there are factors contributing to the delay, give us a sign, so we know where we stand. But what I, and I suspect others, want to know is that the arts aren’t forgotten, and that our president believes they are important enough for his concern, his enthusiasm, and his actions. Name a chairman. Please. I look forward to hearing from you. Not by mail, but in the national news. Soon.

Sincerely,

Howard Sherman

Is there no one in town aware of social injustice?

Part of the compact we make when we go to the theatre is to shut out the outside world and completely immerse ourselves in the world displayed before us by artists, by actors. We can’t shut out our own thoughts of course, our memories and associations, but our gaze is directed, what we see and hear is planned to evoke a desired response.

It is impossible to achieve that focus when your theatre is the visitors room at Sing Sing Prison on a hot spring evening, which is where I was on Friday night, seeing Thornton Wilder’s Our Town performed by a cast of inmates of the maximum security facility, under the aegis of the not-for-profit Rehabilitation Through the Arts. I was one of a couple of hundred outsiders invited to see the production, which had already been performed twice for the general prison population, and my anticipation was as great as any I’ve had before going to the theatre.

Every child born into this world is nature’s
attempt to make
a perfect human being.

It is impossible to contemplate a visit to Sing Sing without riffling through all of the associations it brings to mind. Coming from a upper middle class family, I don’t know people who’ve gone to prison; serious crime has never touched my life or the lives of my immediate community. Crime and prison are something I read about in the newspaper, or see served up as entertainment. Dragnet. Law and Order. “Book him, Danno.” The Birdman of Alcatraz. Our Country’s Good. The Shawshank Redemption. Oz. “Anything you can say will be used against you.” Escape From Alcatraz. Short Eyes. Cool Hand Luke. The Green Mile. Not About Nightingales. Dead Man Walking. Helter Skelter. The Executioner’s Song. Even Nick Nolte in Weeds, a fictionalized account of the San Quentin Drama Workshop.

From the moment I passed the first chain link fence and a complacent guard who merely said, “Here for the play?,” I was relatively at ease. As I waited in an under-air-conditioned visitor’s trailer packed with attendees, I marveled as others in the awaiting audience, attired as if for a Sunday matinee at any theatre, grumbled about the heat, while I was wondering what the prisoners might be experiencing on that 90+ degree afternoon.  I was sweating profusely, but silently.

Live people don’t understand, do they? They’re sort of shut up
in little boxes, aren’t they?

We began to be taken into the security area in groups of about 25. We emptied our pockets, took off shoes and belts, just as at the airport, although there was but a single line moving slowly through a dingy room adorned with signs and memos of assorted warning that may have been up for 30 years or more (one cautioned against bringing in “alcholic” beverages, a typo of indeterminate age). Then, in groups of six, we passed through one true prison gate – on which stood, incongruously, more than a dozen two-inch Muppet figures. As that gate closed, another heavy door, only six or seven feet beyond it, was opened, and we entered the visitors room, our theatre.

*   *   *

Save for signs about proper behavior, vastly less than in the security area, it felt as if I was entering the cafeteria of a particularly large junior high school. There were guards, some on platforms, some on the floor, but I saw only a few. Having entered on the narrow, northern side of a long rectangle, the room seemed vast, but it was filling with people and it had been set up as a makeshift theatre. Chairs (all numbered for some purpose other than theatre seating) were arranged in a shallow three-quarter thrust, facing the eastern wall, where two levels of risers had been installed. Behind the risers, dark green fabric obscured what I assumed were more signs about proper decorum in the visitors room; the same fabric draped a collection of vending machines on the south wall. Were these standard issue, I wondered, or were they scenery, evoking the green hills of Grover’s Corners?  A collection of inmate art (another initiative of Rehabilitation Through the Arts) was on display, and refreshments were being served. Only by looking west was there a clear reminder of where we were: windows revealed spools of razor wire and fencing, beyond which was “the yard” flanked by what were presumably cell blocks. Beyond that were the tracks for the train lines that had brought me to Ossining, and beyond them, the Hudson River.

The ceiling was low, hung with fluorescent strips. There were no theatrical lights, but a small sound area sat in what might have been, in other circumstances, the stage right wings; there was a mixing board and an electric keyboard and familiar cabling ran out from there into the playing space. A pre-show announcement told us that these productions are usually done in the prison auditorium, which was under renovation this year; it was the first time since the theatre initiative began in 1996 that it hadn’t been available, and the setting was the simplest ever used (although perfectly appropriate for the famously spare Our Town).

There isn’t much culture; but maybe this is the kind of place to tell you
that we’ve got a lot of pleasure of a kind here: we like the sun comin’ up
over the mountain in the morning, and we notice a good deal about the birds.
We pay a lot of attention to them. And we watch the change
of the seasons; yes everybody knows about them.

I was surprised to find inmates, both those in obvious period costume and those in prison drab, freely mingling with the invited audience, greeting many who they seemed to know. They were shaking hands and even embracing visitors, contrary to every fictional depiction in which contact between prisoners and guests was forbidden. I had been told that the cast’s families were not permitted to attend; I assume the obviously pre-existing relationships were because the audience (almost entirely white and over 50) were in some way affiliated with RTA or other prison outreach programs.

Kate Powers, the show’s director and one of my friends from Twitter, introduced me first to her stage manager (the actual stage manager, not the character of the Stage Manager from the play), then to a large man in overalls who I was told would play Howie Newsome the milkman, then to a younger man who would play George Gibbs. The last spoke of Kate’s “unique style of directing,” so I asked whether he’d been in other plays. Only one, he replied, prompting me to wonder what was so unique that someone with presumably little frame of reference would find it so unusual.

Having arrived at the prison just after 5 pm and having been processed through security by about 5:40, it was just over an hour before we were called to our seats, as the last guests were cleared through.

*  *  *

Now you know! That’s what it is to be alive.
To move about in a cloud of ignorance
to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those. . .
of those about you. To spend and waste time
as though you had a million years.
To always be at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another.

Had I wished to, I suspect I could have learned a great deal more about the circumstances of the production from Kate. She had posted the occasional comment to Twitter, or to Facebook, about a challenge (one inmate struggled with an umbrella, unfamiliar with the mechanism) or about an acting breakthrough, or an emotional one.  She did an interview with journalist Jonathan Mandell. But I left it at that. I may well wish to understand the logistics and stories behind putting on a play in such an environment, but this night I simply wanted to react, to the setting and to the production, as I would in most theatergoing experiences.

Seated behind me was Peter Kramer, a local reporter who had seen the production two nights earlier, sitting with the general population; he has written previously about the prison’s theatre program. To my immediate right was a woman who had appeared in RTA’s production of West Side Story (three actresses had been brought in for this production as well, to play Emily, Mrs. Webb and Mrs. Gibbs). To her right was a veteran of the RTA theatre program, a former inmate, who now worked on the outside, counseling others, a man clearly well known to all there.

I guess we’re all hunting like everybody else for a way
the diligent and sensible can rise to the top
and the lazy and quarrelsome can sink to the bottom.
But it ain’t easy to find. Meanwhile, we do all we can
to help those that can’t themselves and those that we can we leave alone.

Had I learned the backstories of the actors, they surely wouldn’t have resembled a Playbill bio. I might have been able to find out their crimes, the length of their terms, whether this was their first incarceration. Perhaps I should have. But I was not there to judge them, since they had already been judged; I was not there to second-guess the judicial system or the penal system, flawed as it may be. Most of what I know about jurisprudence and incarceration, as I’ve said, is via fiction. Reality is vastly more complex, but I am not sufficiently versed in the subject to explore that. Theatre is what I do, and what I can, respond to.

*   *   *

Detail of art for the RTA production of OUR TOWN by inmate Robert Pollack

And so: Our Town.

No differently than attending a student production, it would be unfair to write anything resembling a review. The casting pool is limited, as is any prior experience. While we know the stories of Rick Cluchey or Charles S. Dutton, former prison inmates who ultimately became acclaimed professional actors, future acting careers surely wasn’t the point of the show. It was about the teamwork, the self-esteem building that surely we all know if we’ve ever been in a show, a music group or (I imagine) a sports team.

What I can tell you is that Wilder’s play came through loud and clear. There were some minor alterations: George’s kid sister became a kid brother; Grover’s Corners was re-situated in New York along the Hudson River, there’s a mosque up the hill in town these days, and the religious affiliations of the community include a sizable share of Muslims. Historically accurate interpolations for Wilder’s drama set at the turn of the century? No. Perfectly in keeping with the meta-theatrics that power the play? Absolutely.

Everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal,
and something has to do with human beings.
All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that
for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised
how people are always losing hold of it.

There was no bashfulness in the cast, but no showboating either. No one peered out and waved to those they knew in the audience. No one flubbed lines, or goofed around. Every word, every action came through loud and clear, enough so that the play worked its sad magic on me once again. As I know more and more people who live in that cemetery among its conversing residents, I find the play increasingly moving, almost painfully so. When Emily spoke of loving George “forever and ever,” my knowledge of what was to come brought me deep sorrow. No matter that I was in prison, watching amateur actors with backgrounds that might have evoked pity or fear. I was in Grover’s Corners once again.

Cover art from a 1961 paperback edition of OUR TOWN

The outside world intruded upon the production in one way that wouldn’t have been possible in the cloistered environs of an auditorium. With the performance commencing at 6:50 and coming down, intermissionless, at about 8:50, the wall of west-facing windows provided a natural illumination that, at first, overrode the institutional lighting. The actors were lit up by blazing light during the time movie-makers call “magic hour” when the sun approaches the horizon, casting a particularly rich, orange glow. As the play progressed, Grover’s Corners shifted from daylight to magic hour and then, by act three, as darkness took over the prison yard, the train tracks, and the river, the inner light became only the unvaried white of fluorescent bulbs. Nature had receded leaving only the cold surroundings of the visitors room, brighter than a wet funeral afternoon, but harsh in its own way, and surely as unforgiving.

Beyond nature’s magic, Kate Powers achieved her own coup de theatre, less instantly startling than the one employed by David Cromer in his rightly hailed Our Town, but one organic to the venue and this cast, and deeply, quietly powerful. As act two bled directly into act three, as the wedding seating was shifted to become the gravestones, nine men, inmates, dressed in green work shirts, green work pants and heavy boots (the other actors wore costumes that were a rough approximation of the play’s original period), made their way in slow motion up to the top riser. There they proceeded to seat themselves in one long row and stare out at us, unmoving, for the entire act. These were of course, within the context of the play, more gravestones, more of the deceased. But as these nine men sat and stared out, unspeaking, I could not help but see them as prisoners and actors all at once, locked away for crimes I knew nothing of, for how long I did not know. Were their lives over, as in the play? Was the play itself their escape, or even a sign of their eventual redemption? Their stares gave away nothing. No threat, no sadness. No heaven, no hell. Perhaps those in the audience with deep faith saw hope, perhaps those who believe only in this life saw nothing but emptiness. I saw Wilder by way of Beckett,  I saw beauty and the abyss, and I saw superb theatre.

They stay here while the earth part of ‘em burns away and burns out;
and all that time they slowly get indifferent.

*   *   *

It’s worth pointing out that Sing Sing is one of five prisons where Rehabilitation Through the Arts works, and that there are prison arts programs in many places around the world, and have been for many years. I have read about them often, and shared their stories with others through social media. Nothing I’ve written should suggest that this experience is singular or unique – it is simply the first time it ceased to be an abstract idea for me, and became reality.

I’m going to be grappling with the experience of seeing Our Town at Sing Sing for some time, I expect, because I have to process so much more than I do when simply seeing a professional production. I probably have to learn more as well. Even if I see another theatre production in a prison, it cannot possibly have the same impact as this one did, this first foray, ever so slightly, ever so briefly, behind prison walls, into a human drama far greater than any work of fiction can encompass.  But as someone who attends theatre relentlessly, and who at times despairs for it, this was one of those evenings that reminds me why theatre is my life’s work, and more than simply make-believe.

If you haven’t realized it at this point, the italicized sections that punctuate this essay are all dialogue from Our Town itself. They stood out in bold relief when they were spoken on Friday night. Even though they weren’t emphasized or called out in any way, they took me away from the play in startling flashes with meaning beyond what even Wilder might have imagined, given the setting, and the speakers. Even by accident or coincidence, great works reveal the world to us in new ways each time we encounter them, even – or perhaps most especially – behind bars.

My, wasn’t life awful – and wonderful.

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

Do Kevin Conway and Mercedes Ruehl look liberal or conservative to you?

There is an oft-repeated cry from certain corners of the creative community lamenting the lack of political theatre on our stages. Yet I seriously doubt that the Republican Theatre Festival is what they had in mind.

I say this not to criticize the festival, currently on in Philadelphia, but because the conventional wisdom is that theatre is almost exclusively a liberal art. Those who want more stage politics presumably seek more activism on the part of left-leaning artists, not right wing-rhetoric.

Personally, I think there’s a place for theatre that addresses opinions across the political spectrum. But first and foremost, it needs to be good theatre, and I’m not sure that proclaiming theatre as liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, right or left wing does the work any favors either. Those labels are most likely to limit potential audience, rather than letting the work on stage speak for itself, artistically and politically. I don’t advocate telling any audience precisely what they should think of what they see, regardless of its content.

I can easily identify some well-known works of theatre that could be, at least on their face, considered conservative. In Annie, doesn’t the mega-rich Oliver Warbucks (wonder how he made his fortune, given that Dickensian last name) use his wealth to manipulate the Democratic administration to aid him in his efforts on behalf of a single child, while thousands go homeless? Doesn’t Our Town promote an idealized vision of a bygone era, leaving us longing for the simpler days when small town life was a microcosm of the world at large? How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying may poke fun at corporate ideals, but it seems to retain healthy affection for the very thing it gently satirizes.

These are, of course, simplistic and selective viewpoints presented for effect, not out of conviction. So let me turn to a popular play of almost 25 years’ vintage that can legitimately be viewed as conservative, or Republican, in its values, yet was a significant popular hit in its day: Jerry Sterner’s Other People’s Money.

OPM is the story of a privately-owned wire factory that becomes the subject of a takeover by a corporate raider, pitting the business mores of the 1980s against a small firm that is, in the view of the predatory protagonist, “worth more dead than alive.” It ran for several years Off-Broadway, played in numerous regional and stock productions and even spawned a Danny DeVito movie of the same name. At no time do I recall it being taken to task for its politics, even as limos lined up on narrow Minetta Lane before and after performances on behalf of the Wall Street crowd that embraced it; its dramaturgy was oft-questioned, but not its worldview. I was paying close attention, because the production that played in New York had originated at Hartford Stage while I was its public relations director.

I recall observing, and running, some of our post performance discussions of OPM in Hartford, where the audience consistently sided with Garfinkle, the raider, against Jorgensen, the factory owner, deriding the latter as out of touch and deserving of what came his way. I remember the line of businessmen at our box office windows at lunchtime, overturning the perception of women as theatrical decision makers and ticket buyers in their households. I watched throughout the brief Hartford run and lengthy New York run as a previously unknown playwright because a favored speaker at corporate annual meetings and business gatherings.

Coming at the end of the Reagan presidency and playing well into that of George H. W. Bush, OPM was an emblem of its era. But, cloaked in the comforting guise of a boulevard comedy, it was dismissed by serious critics for perceived theatrical deficiencies – although audiences lapped it up – allowing it to stealthily spread the philosophy of Milken and Boesky far and wide even as their era of rapaciousness began to wane.

I have often spoken of OPM with affection, for a variety of reasons – it was the first successful commercial transfer with which I had a role (albeit small); it gave me a chance over its long run and subsequent productions to see how a play changed every time a different actor went into the same production; I grew very fond of the show’s lead producers, who belied any stereotype of that profession. It is only in retrospect that I have considered the show’s messages, both implicit and explicit, more deeply.

But the play serves as a superb example of catching more flies with honey when it comes to disseminating a specific philosophy in the realm of theatre. The production didn’t shy away from trumpeting the bold-faced business names that attended with regularity, or its business setting, but it didn’t label the show as being for any particular segment of the audience either. In one of its slogans – “Greed. Lust. Power. Laughter. Nightly.” – certainly exploited some deadly sins, but I daresay that could have been applied to many shows, including those seeking to denounce those principles.

I have no qualms about the current Republican Theater Festival, especially since it may introduce some previously unheard voices to mainstream theatre and I applaud it for attempting to bring infrequently heard theatre viewpoints to light, even if I might not agree with them at all. As the now archly conservative David Mamet recently said of avowedly liberal Tony Kushner, “I’ll let [him] work his side of the street and I’ll work mine.” Indeed, there are two sides to every street, but all of those roads lead us to the theatre, where art trumps didacticism every time, no matter the perspective.