Scoring

August 2nd, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

Sometime in the 1970s, the once ubiquitous gossip columnist Rona Barrett began reporting box office grosses during her regular appearances on Good Morning America. Prior to that, such statistics were available only to readers of Variety, long the entertainment bible (and perhaps to Hollywood Reporter readers as well, though as a teen I only knew of Variety). What she unleashed was a revolution in entertainment reporting, in which the general public began hearing about weekly grosses for the movies, detailed Nielsen television ratings, volume of record albums (later CDs and later mp3) sold weekly, even the Broadway box office grosses. Across the country, what was once industry information became popular fodder, so much so that the movies manage to get press out of projected box office tallies on Monday, actual receipts on Tuesday and projected receipts on Thursday and/or Friday. Entertainment became about “the numbers.” (Ironically, in this same period, as Variety shrank, Off-Broadway and regional grosses disappeared, even for those in the industry.)

A successor to this awareness came courtesy of Amazon.com, which hourly updates every book’s sales rank, and while the number is based on relative sales and does not reveal the actual count of books sold, it has proven fascinating as well. For authors of newly released books, it’s like crack. Ask anyone you know who’s had a book published. If they don’t admit to checking their Amazon numbers frequently, they’re lying.

But “the numbers” have taken an interesting turn in these burgeoning days of social media. First, it was simply how many friends we have on Facebook (thereby diluting the true meaning of the word ‘friend’ for much of the world), then how many followers we have on Twitter. Most social media platforms provide some comparable measure, and in doing so, set up a competition among users.

We’ve learned just today that the numbers can be gamed, for a while at least: Newt Gingrich’s million Twitter followers turned out to be highly inflated, as the vast majority of them proved to be fictitious accounts created solely to aid those who were collecting numbers across Twitter; others were bots that automatically follow people, often in an effort to get them to click on highly suspect or even dangerous links.

The next step in social media numbers has been the emergence of services that seek to rank users influence in social media across platforms. Klout may be the best known, Peer Index is gaining recognition, and they’re proliferating: Twitsdaq, Twitalyzer, TwentyFeet and Tweetstats are among the many seeking to rank you (and get you to subscribe to their “premium,” paid analytical services). There are also reports that in some industries, employers are beginning to look at these rankings when considering candidates for jobs.

Why do I recount all of this? Because while we may not yet have bar codes tattooed on our arms or the backs of our necks (choose your own dystopian vision) , we are ourselves being reduced to numbers, our worth being determined by our online activity, with little leeway for vacation, illness, or simply the demands of everyday life.

I’m being hyperbolic, I hear you cry. Yes, of course I am. But once out of college and past the arbiter of class rank, we have been judged solely on our achievements. Perhaps those on Wall Street could be judged by earnings, or film stars on their quoted payday per movie, but the people and organizations involved in creating art were judged qualitatively and subjectively, not quantitatively by some unknown algorithm.

I have fallen prey to this insidious practice and its lure of achievement by rank. I am weaning myself from it, although only two weeks ago I took part in a series of e-mails with PeerIndex because I was convinced that their data on me was wrong (in fact, it was, and my ranking has been rapidly rising ever since). I shudder to think that, had I not caught this and some prospective employer decided to check up on me, I’d be viewed as a social media failure. But I’m now controlling the impulse to check my rank on all of these services daily, or to seek new tools of measurement, though I’m not about to forgo them completely (hey, Klout is sending me a $10 coupon because I’m influential enough to sample a sandwich company’s new pulled pork offering).

But I worry about numerical assessments of effectiveness, especially if social media becomes truly ingrained in the national psyche, and it’s certainly well on its way to being lodged there. Having worked in a field where the primary goal is qualitative (read artistic) achievement, albeit with budgetary and audience measures, we may begin to be judged not just on what we put on our stages or produce as individuals, but as influencers or the influenced, those who lead and those who follow.  Now we don’t just hope for a maximum number of stars from a critic for our shows, or the greatest amount of money we can raise, we are being personally quantified, compared and scored.

During my years at the American Theatre Wing, I would often, when discussing The Tony Awards and its peers in film, TV and music, make reference to a fascinating book entitled The Economy of Prestige by James F. English. Boiling the book’s thesis down with utter simplicity, it explores the process of awards-giving for artistic achievement, and how that process will always be imperfect because by comparing, ranking and choosing a “best” among works of art, we are forcing those works out of the creative realm and into the language of the marketplace. So it is with social media ranking.

Klout, PeerIndex and their cohorts now dispassionately judge our organizations and ourselves daily, and their wider acceptance can only diminish our creative achievements. As a longtime fan of science fiction on the page and on film, I see these rankings and I fight against them like so many revolutionaries who fought (will fight?) futuristic totalitarian societies, and I want to shout, “I am a human being. I am a man of the theatre. I am not a number.”

Like all speculative fiction, we’re not going to know for a while what this all means, but maybe we can prevent SkyNet from becoming self-aware, stop the crystal in our palm from turning black, rebel against Big Brother. But it all depends. Are you keeping score?

 

This post originally appeared on the 2amtheatre website.

What I’m Not Telling You

July 27th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

The inquiries, mostly via Twitter, are cordial, casual and polite. “Let us know what you think,” they ask, in response to my mentioning what show I’ll be seeing later that day. “I loved it,” they say, “Hope u do 2.”

Until three weeks ago, I had a standard answer to these conversational inquiries about Broadway shows. I would say that given my role at the American Theatre Wing and The Tony Awards, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to voice my opinions one way or another. People respected that, and often seemed sheepish about having asked. I’m sorry if I undermined the very point of social media by refusing a reply, by being anti-social.

Now I have no cover, so to speak. But I’ve decided, at least for now, to maintain my policy in a general sense. I have been known to send effusive tweets over Off-Broadway or regional work that isn’t in Tony contention and I’ll still do so, while saying little about Broadway work, since I retain a Tony vote. You might ask whether pointing out what I go to see isn’t waving a red cape if I’m staying mum about my ultimate opinion; that’s a fair charge, but I do it mostly so those who have come to know me online will not think me solely a Broadway baby and develop a sense of the range – and limits – of what I see.

Keeping one’s opinion to one’s self is hardly the operative ethos of Internet intercourse. Indeed, many see the Internet as the perfect medium for broadcasting their opinions on a wide variety of subjects, whether or not they have any educated basis for such opinions.  Despite that cavil, I have often applauded the means by which the Internet has afforded every individual a broadcast voice, via Twitter, Facebook or countless other applications.

Too often I’ve seen this populist medium used as the platform for virulent versions of what professional critics do in the conventional media: declaring a show worthy or unworthy, attacking artists for offenses current or past, saying whatever comes to mind because there’s no editor or editorial standard to which they must adhere. More than once I’ve likened social media to the early days of broadcasting, and that’s still true, but in so many cases it also resembles the Wild West, with its language closer to Deadwood than to Oklahoma!.

We all know that strong, highly opinionated voices get attention and that is proven daily in the polarized messaging that passes for political conversation.  This cannot be the language for the arts. I worry that in trying to make a name for oneself in the online media circus, people seek to be as provocative, as snarky, as incendiary as they can be in order to stand out from the crowd, generating more page views, more retweets, more +1’s than the next commentator. While they may in fact do so from a place of passion about the art of the theatre, their actions, their writing, serve it poorly, since their negative hyperventilations serve only to promote or define themselves, rather than prove of benefit to anyone involved in the making of art.

Now don’t misunderstand me – I am not anti-critic, whether old media or new. I admire and maintain cordial relationships with a number of fairly prominent critics, and enjoy their insights regardless of whether I agree with them or not; I bridle only at those who seem to take pleasure in their pans. Unfortunately, it is those latter critics who the newly enfranchised prefer to emulate.

So, some might say, why don’t I use the internet to become the critic I hope all should aspire to be? There are several reasons, but one is perhaps the most important: conflict of interest. I have been working professionally in theatre for some 30 years, and so it is relatively rare that I see a production where I do not know some artist (in some cases many artists) involved in the production. For me to take on the role of critic now (even though I did so in my collegiate years) would create an impossible dilemma: either I risk offending people who I admire, enjoy and even love (since no one’s work is always impeccable), or I would have to lie to readers, making the point of my taking on a critic’s mantle completely hypocritical.

God knows, I have opinions. Most people can tell that within minutes of meeting me, and certainly those who know me have heard my thoughts about the many shows I see, often at length. But what I say in relative private is measured for each individual who hears it; I rarely dissemble, but I do omit. Social media simply doesn’t afford that degree of narrowcasting and personalization.

I am happy to engage in discussion and debate about theatrical topics, and Twitter and blogging have afforded me that opportunity, far beyond the circles in which I travel here in New York. I’m pleased to enthuse about remarkable aspects of works I see, without necessarily offering a blanket opinion, for broad public consumption. I’m most pleased when I can add a few obscure facts or personal reminiscences to discussions of theatrical work that I spot in the endless stream of online opining.

But what did I think of this show or that? Is my thumb up or down? Unless I’m enthusiastic and the show lesser known, I’ll remain silent or nibble around its edges only, as contrary as that is to my nature. I will not be a cheerleader who loves indiscriminately, but if I cannot say anything nice, as my mother taught me, I will not say anything at all. Readers can read into that silence as they wish. Theatre doesn’t need more people saying what’s wrong with it. I’d rather be someone who reinforces all of the things that are so, so right.

 

This post originally appeared on the 2amtheatre website.

Whether To Adopt

July 18th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

As a result of fairly assiduous Twitter use, I have a very respectable score on Klout. However, now that Klout is about to start factoring in FourSquare activity, I have begun “checking in” these past few days, though I registered at least a year ago and find it somewhat juvenile (Badges? I don’t need no stinking badges). I am one of the select 10 million (an oxymoron to be sure) who has secured a Google+ account, however thus far I have made but a single post, comparing the coming Facebook/Google+ wars to the VHS/Beta wars of some two decades ago. I make only the occasional Facebook post, but at least I no longer restrict my friends to those I met in school. I keep up on LinkedIn, but only connect to people with whom I have genuinely worked, to maintain the integrity of the platform. My PeerIndex score is lousy, due I believe, to a tech error (reported, unresolved) that leaves out the vast majority of my Twitter activity. I’ve largely given up on Quora, because the questions being posed in the areas where I have some expertise are predominantly: a) subjective, b) silly and c) reminiscent of the Monty Python “How To Do It” sketch which offered simple instructions on things like how to be a gynecologist. I captured one of the free Spotify accounts earlier this week due to a car company promotion (I already forget the brand, and I don’t own or intend to buy a car anyway), although I have listened to only a single song.

Enough?

Let me also remind you that these are all personal accounts, as I’m in a job transition. So all of the above is either building my personal brand, providing fun as I decompress from a series of stressful jobs, or completely wasting time that I could be using more productively.

If this is what I’m facing, I can’t help but wonder how arts organizations are wading through the developing, churning world of social media, since every week seems to produce a new site or app designed to revolutionize how we relate to each other, be it as individuals, businesses & patrons, artists & audiences, and so on.

Traditionally, arts organizations haven’t been early technological adopters, largely because of a lack of internal expertise and the high cost of entry. I am old enough to remember Hartford Stage’s first fax machine (a wonder), first computer network (so much better than electric typewriters), first Mac and desktop publishing software (which we discovered didn’t actually design things for us) and first computerized ticketing system (somebody else’s headache, but terrific). But that technological adoption, in the latter half of the 1980s (e-mail became a standard while I was at Goodspeed Musicals), seems slow by the standards of today.

One significant factor in today’s more rapid adoption is that of cost. The most prevalent tools of communication at the moment, many name-checked above, are free. If you’ve got a computer and internet access (and for real convenience, a smartphone as well), you’ve pretty much got what your organization needs to jump into the fray.

But the challenge is deciding whether to do so or when to do so. Certainly if a promising new service appears that requires you to secure your company’s name from squatters (remember the domain name rush that characterized the spread of the internet itself?), it should be done right away. But beyond that, there needs to be a certain amount of wait and see.

If your organization has an in-house IT department (now the norm at large not-for-profits), there are probably one or more technologically savvy individuals forever lobbying every department about a new tool that can make their work more efficient, from the newest in collaborative CAD programs to online donation systems. Development, marketing and p.r. departments are watching social media in particular, both to give the organization an edge and to show the public that the organization has an edge.

But it has generally been acknowledged that just as freedom isn’t free, neither is social media. The cost is one of time and brainpower: does the organization have someone on staff who has the conceptual and technical savvy to figure out how to best use the cascading platforms? Can the organization afford to give over a portion of the time of an existing staffer to that pursuit, or to hire someone to focus exclusively on this area? Is the cost-value equation favorable for being active and meaningful on multiple platforms? What is the ultimate goal for the organization?

I am hardly the first person to pose these questions. Indeed, my Twitter feed is bombarded by advice — and solicitations to pay for advice — on how to best utilize these resources. In fact, I’m pretty stunned by the number of people who proclaim themselves as social media experts or gurus, in a field that is, in terms of widespread awareness and usage, maybe six or seven years old. I’m not being dismissive of true experts and explorers, as I’ve spoken with some very shrewd folks, but just as companies paid a fortune for their first websites because the practice of building them was so new, I fear the ratio of people with true insight to those who merely post a lot on Facebook poses risks for less sophisticated groups who feel they may be missing an important trend.

So I want to offer a single piece of pragmatic advice about adopting a new platform or, as the once dominant MySpace has shown, when to abandon one. That advice is to analyze, in a full organizational survey, why you’re doing it. What do you hope to achieve? Can the platform conceivably do what you want? Has it reached a tipping point where more than just first-adopters are playing with it?

As an aside, I should say that in most cases, the leaders of large organizations are ill-equipped to make these decisions, because they haven’t the time to understand these new forms of media themselves. They know how to search on Google, they can click on the link for a funny YouTube video, they may have a personal Facebook page, but their jobs don’t afford them the time to delve deeply into these areas. Indeed, I fear that many of them feel they are above it; at a recent LORT conference, I did a show of hands survey of managers asking how many knew their organizations were using social media, and how many had their own presence. Many hands appeared for the first question, but few remained up after the second. Yet these platforms are not just “for the kids,” and they certainly shouldn’t be relegated to intern-level responsibility, as is so often the case. This will change over time, as succeeding generations will take social media as simply the norm, not innovation.

Social media, like it or not, is transforming how people relate to each other, to the businesses they frequent and the organizations where they participate and which they may support. It is ignored at its own peril, but it is also embraced, if not with danger, then with caution.

While adopting a child is significantly more profound on many lives, adoption of social media platforms demands some marginally equivalent level of self-scrutiny and awareness. Otherwise, your organization will find itself making errors in public perception and in allocation of resources. And as we’re learning again and again, we post, tweet and share at our own risk. If a twitter revolution can ostensibly bring down a dictator, think what could happen if you use it wrong – or it turns on you, like an ungrateful child.

P.S. Those who found this essay online probably find it to be obvious, or old news, precisely because you’re far enough into the social world to be ahead of the thinking herein. But perhaps you have some discussion to provoke within your organization, or someone to persuade. Maybe this can help.

 

This post originally appeared on the 2amtheatre website.

Will The Embargo Hold?

July 12th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

It’s a great word. “Embargo.” It seems to come from a different age, or a world in which brinksmanship over major issues comes into play. Oil embargo. Trade embargo. But it’s alive, if not exactly well, in the relationship between the media and those that they cover.

In the past 36 hours, there have been some very interesting comments on Twitter via #2amt about “embargoing” reviews of arts events. The primary participants have been Trey Graham of NPR, Peter Marks of The Washington Post, Alli Houseworth from Woolly Mammoth Theatre and Nella Vera of The Public Theater. As a “recovering” publicist, I’ve lobbed in a few thoughts as well, but I though the issue was worth more than a few 140 character salvos.

In brief summary: there has been a longstanding “gentleman’s agreement” (pardon my patronymic) between arts groups and the media that cover them that while productions may be seen by the press in advance of the official opening at designated performances, reviews will be embargoed for release until that official opening occurs. This has been in place for some time, although it is not theatrical tradition from days of yore – it is something that has been in place in the U.S. for not more than 50 years and is, I believe, an even more recent phenomenon in England.

Social media has upended this polite détente (as has, perhaps, Spider-Man, but for this discussion, let’s declare that an anomaly and move past it), since we now have personal media platforms that allow any audience member to broadcast their own opinions immediately upon exiting a theatre, if not during the performance itself. So the major media, with more traditional roots, finds itself either days or weeks behind in reporting on a cultural event while the court of public opinion renders verdicts left and right, or they have to report on that very public opinion before issuing their own.

Marks has commented that he is precluded from tweeting his opinions in advance of his review appearing; Frank Rizzo of The Hartford Courant was tweeting his thoughts on a show at the Williamstown Theatre Festival the very night he saw it, although in that case it was the press opening. There’s obviously no industry-wide practice and every outlet is formulating its own approach.

I should make clear that none of these journalists are sneaking into preview performances to which they’re not invited. They are respecting whatever preview period the company or producers have requested; they just chafe against having to wait, either out of professional courtesy to an externally imposed release date or an internal policy which dictates adherence to the print date.

I also need to state my belief that the performing arts do not truly come alive until they’re before an audience, and I believe that artists should have a reasonable amount of time to work on their creations in front of an audience (yes, a paying audience appropriately advised as to the show’s inchoate form) before opinions are rendered. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and the like have certainly made it impossible to completely manage such a protected environment and that’s just a reality of our world; to rail against it is foolish and unproductive. The question is whether major media (old or new), with its vast reach, should play by the old rules, or adopt the “embargoes be damned” attitude that the public has unknowingly employed.

For arts groups, one rationale for the embargo has been to achieve a “roadblock” effect with their reviews – a great many come out on the same day, having a better chance of achieving traction in the public’s mind. But as members of the press will often say, they are not marketing arms for the arts, but reporters or writers of opinion, so why must they adhere to a marketing or press plan? Frankly, so long as journalists don’t start writing about works of art before they are acknowledged to be complete, this practice may have to fall under the weight of the populist-driven social media.

As for tweeting a mini-opinion in advance of a full review, I have to say I don’t think that serves anyone. If the public, as some posit, want only bite-sized chunks of information, then critics are playing into their hands and hastening their own demise. After all, if you know a review is pro or con, will you necessarily look for a more nuanced appraisal a day or two later? Will the craft of reviewing at long last be reduced, in all arts, to the thumbs-up/thumbs-down approach popularized by Siskel and Ebert? Does anyone want reviews to be nothing but capsules, star ratings or a little man and his chair?

I must confess to puzzlement about how much the traditional media is approaching social media. Instead of using it to deepen its own coverage, since website space is less dear than newsprint, and the reach unfettered by geography and logistics, some papers undermine their own print versions in their race to populate a Twitter feed. The New York Times, inexplicably, shares virtually all of their Sunday arts coverage through Twitter two or three days before the Sunday paper is out, rendering the section old news by the time it appears fully online or (yes, I’m old) on my doorstep.

I will say I’m intrigued by critics like Marks or the prolific Terry Teachout, who will actively engage with their readers on social media, breaking down the ivory tower mentality cherished by critics only a generation ago. The idea that critics will interact with individuals, and perhaps artists, in a public forum, is tremendously exciting to me, and may well be the best thing to happen to artist/critic relations in many years. Indeed, might early tweets result in critics getting feedback and perspective before their final verdict is rendered?

As for the embargo: I think it has begun to crumble and that erosion will only accelerate as every single person who cares to becomes their own media mogul and true stars of the medium begin to achieve influence akin to that afforded by old media. I say, as long as the artists’ work is done, let’s be happy that the press is so eager to cover us. But I caution the press not to be so eager to adopt the new paradigm that they undermine themselves, leading to ever-briefer, ever-more-marginalized assessments of artists’ work.

 

This post originally appeared on the 2amtheatre website.

New York Times Artsbeat: “Anything But Theater (At Least For A Night or Two)”

June 2nd, 2011 § 2 comments § permalink

This short essay appeared on The New York Times “Artsbeat” blog in June, 2011. You can view the original here.

I stayed home and watched “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” last night and I don’t care who knows it.

I understand that this is not the most dramatic statement one could make. It doesn’t hold a candle to “I am Jean Valjean” or “At last my arm is complete again.” But given my career, especially over eight years at the American Theater Wing, such a declaration seems to surprise many people, who apparently imagine me at the theater every night.

As a Tony voter, I need to see every show that opens on Broadway and as a theater lover, I see far more than just those. Yet while my nights of theater-going per annum far outpace those of the average American (although I fear that’s a low bar to cross), I do not spend as much time at the theater as any critic, as any adjudicator of theater awards that encompass Off and Off-Off-Broadway, or even as many of the diehard fans who populate chat rooms and Twitter.

The fact is, I believe there is such a thing as too much theater.

I don’t mean that there is too much produced. Rather, I believe that – as in all things – going to the theater four or five times a week, week in and week out, isn’t good for you, and indeed, I think it hampers your ability to be a good theatergoer, contradictory as that sounds. I say this as someone with greater access than many — and someone grateful for an opportunity that many desire.

We experience theater very differently than other forms. We can pick up and put down reading at will, start and stop a CD, and now the DVR lets us pause during live events on TV. In theater, unless we are very privileged, we must attend to every moment or we may never see it again. That single-minded focus can be wearying. So like any exercise, muscular or mental, it’s important to vary our routine to insure the greatest gain.

I also believe that all forms of culture — high and low, academic and general — have an impact on our perception of every other form, and to consume only one with a single-minded passion diminishes the ability to appreciate it most fully. I don’t pretend to comprehend everything that Tom Stoppard writes, but I was surely helped along in “Arcadia” by high school science, just as the film “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” provided some context for his“Rock and Roll.”

The connections can be unexpected to say the least. I am frequently stunned to read how many young composers, of rock, of theater, of avant-garde works, cite Kiss (a band whose music I thought simplistic even when it was new) as a creative influence.

But I understand: When an angelic young woman begins Jez Butterworth’s Tony-nominated “Jerusalem” by singing the English hymn of that name, I could immediately contemplate the lyrics in their dramatic context because the song was not alien to me. I had known it for decades, despite being American and Jewish. How? The song was “covered” on Emerson Lake and Palmer’s “Brain Salad Surgery” album, an almost daily listen for my brother and me in our early teens and an infinitely clearer introduction than in a certain Monty Python sketch, where it was sung to a neurotic mattress salesman (if you don’t know, don’t ask).

Needless to say, I’m not advocating that people don’t go to the theater. Please go, and go often. But I strongly suspect that if you attend to more of the world, to all that’s available to you, then the world of theater will be ever richer, and its effects ever more profound.

I’ll even suggest that “off nights” spent just talking with family, with friends, will bolster your ability to connect with theater (since I hope you do not converse with them during shows). Indeed, I steadily cried through much of Act II of Signature Theater’s “The Trip to Bountiful” because it brought to the surface emotions that I had not yet fully addressed about my family at that time. In the character of Carrie Watts, I saw my widowed father, reluctantly moved from our family home into an “independent living” apartment.

So I’m wondering: is there a work of theater that you feel you appreciated, enjoyed or understood better as a result of something you experienced outside of the theater? When you need a break from avid theater-going, what is the palate cleanser that prepares you for the next course – or feast?

From Whence You Came

May 16th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

Reading announcement after announcement about new commitments for TV series for the fall, I have manufactured a vision of Oprah Winfrey running around the theatre district with a magic wand, anointing stage talent saying, “You get a series! You get a series! Everybody gets a series!”

I exaggerate, to say the least, and my imagination has run rampant. Certainly we see theatre folk getting TV work all the time. But in recent days, we’ve learned that Laura Benanti will be on NBC’s The Playboy Club. Cherry Jones and B.D. Wong will play therapists on a new program. Kristin Chenoweth is on her way back to ABC. Jennifer Ehle and Jenna Stern appear to be headed for our home screens, if I interpret their veiled Twitter chat correctly. Kate Burton has a recurring role on not one, but two new series (plus her intermittent appearances on The Good Wife, which is already chock-a-block with legit vets like Alan Cumming and Anika Noni Rose). I read that there may be a new sitcom in the offing for Nathan Lane. And in a class by itself is Smash, a mid-season series that is all about the creation of a Broadway musical, written by playwright Theresa Rebeck and featuring, among many others, Brian d’Arcy James and Megan Hilty.

I have had a complex series of reactions to all of the news.

My first response was to be thrilled for all of these people, because I know that TV work can bring financial security far beyond that afforded by theatre. Among the names I mentioned above are people whose work I’ve admired from afar, people who I’ve met and grown fond of in recent years, and one good friend who I’ve known for more than half my life.

My second reaction, although immediately recognized as ridiculous, was, “Jeez, who is going to be left to be on stage in New York next season?” I point out the foolishness of this reaction because of course the city is filled with so many talented actors, that there’s really no reason to fear for the integrity and variety of performers we’ll continue to see. I also have no doubt that the folks getting TV work will return to the stage again and again. They are not lost forever.

But with this seeming exodus, this flurry of decamping for the electronic medium, I hope that all of these theatre veterans will use their newly found or increased clout in the service of an excellent cause. And so I offer this form letter, which I hope to share with many of them in person.

Dear [name of wonderful stage actor with a new series]:

I am delighted to learn about your new TV series. I have already set my DVR and despite my constant theatergoing schedule and ongoing devotion to every iteration of Law & Order, I promise to watch every single episode of your show.

I’m writing because as you commence your new TV project, whether it’s shooting in New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver or Chicago, you’re also going to be trooped in front of a whole new cadre of entertainment reporters, namely the TV writers and reporters for print, broadcast and internet. I should remind you that these are not the dedicated folks who have followed your every move, like Playbill.com or The New York Times theatre desk. These are people who spend most of their time watching DVDs of new series, continuing series and, for research, even series from the past. You’re going to be quizzed by them over the phone, in person and at big junkets run by your network, or the networks working together.

These people, by and large, share one common trait: theatre for them is an afterthought. They probably haven’t seen your brilliant performance in [great play or musical]. They only know you from prior TV or film work. When they research you, they will use the IMDB, not the IBDB, IOBDB or tonyawards.com, so your acclaimed stage work will be little known to them, if it is known at all.

So I ask you, as you submit to fierce rounds of promotional interviews, don’t let your theatre work be a footnote in their reportage. Take control of the interview and make damn certain that they understand how important the theatre was to you growing up, how essential the stage was to the development of your craft, how special and unique it is to perform in front of a live audience eight nights a week, and how you’ll use every break and hiatus to return to the stage, be it Broadway, Off-Broadway or regional theatre.

You are about to be given a platform that goes far beyond the rather insular world of the theatre and the people who love it. After all, even if you were in a smash hit Broadway show for a year, perhaps 600,000 people could see your work. On TV, no matter what your ratings may be (and I know they’ll be stellar), millions of people will see your very first episode, let alone a whole season. What you say will carry a lot more weight than it did before.

So beyond talking about what theatre has done for you, commandeer the microphones, the digital recorders, the note pads in your midst to also declare how essential the arts are for the quality of life in America. Absolutely stump for sustaining or restoring arts education in our schools, but also talk about their importance for people at every age. It won’t be as if you’re politicking for your own employment – after all, you’re on TV. Instead, you’ll be using the bully pulpit that has come to you as a result of your talent and your opportunities to make the case for why the arts matter, for why theatre is a perfectly acceptable reason to record your very own series for later viewing and get out of the house and into a live audience.

Only you can insure that theatre is not a passing mention in your story, or the story of entertainment in America. When you’re not learning lines, shooting or retaining some shred of a personal life while on the treadmill of a TV shooting schedule, please speak up for those of us who remain at work on stage and behind the scenes.

I really am so excited to know I’m going to see you every week (even though I won’t be able to go behind my TV after each episode and tell you how great you were). And I’m so glad that you’ll be in a position to fly the flag of theatre far beyond any single stage.

With affection and appreciation,
Howard

P.S. Please don’t change your e-mail when you get “big.” Otherwise I’ll only be able to reach you through your publicist or agent, and you can’t imagine what a pain that can be.

This post originally appeared on the American Theatre Wing website.

Caution: Memories Ahead

May 2nd, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

The Theatre on Film and Tape Archive at Lincoln Center and the growing trend of “cine-casts” not withstanding, the primary purveyor of theatrical memories is precisely that: memory. We can read about prior productions, or speak with those who saw shows that we did not, if we want to have a greater understanding of what made a particular show so good, to go beyond the words of a script in the page and into the realm of the experiential. It is a time honored tradition, and I have greatly enjoyed being the recipients of the memories of others: A.R. Gurney’s story of being a student at the Yale School of Drama and seeing the U.S. premiere of Long Day’s Journey Into Night during its tryout at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven; Steppenwolf Theatre Company executive director David Hawkanson (my former boss at Hartford Stage) recalling his first Broadway show, My Fair Lady with Andrews and Harrison at the Mark Hellinger; William Goldman’s seminal book The Season.

As my theatergoing memories continue to grow (arithmetically but seemingly exponentially), I am now the possessor and purveyor of my own theatrical archive, one which I happily share at the drop of a hat: from the first Broadway show for which I paid for my own ticket (Beatlemania) to lesser known but indelibly remembered regional productions (John McMartin in This Story of Yours at Long Wharf; Peter MacNicol in All The King’s Men at Trinity Rep) to the original Broadway productions ofAngels in America, Noises Off and even the closed-on-opening-night flop Frankenstein. All of this forms me a theatergoer, as a theatre professional and, at times, even as a theatre commentator.

But there is a danger inherent in memories, and that is their ability to obscure the shows that follow in its wake. I am forever comparing and contrasting productions I have seen in the past with those I see today. And while at times a new production will take on extraordinary power precisely because it tops my memories of or affinity for a particular piece of work (I may have been bowled over by the Nick Dear/Danny BoyleFrankenstein at the National precisely because it told an oft-told tale from a new perspective, namely that of the Creature), too often a show seen years ago and loved has erected a high hurdle for any new production to surpass. Indeed, because memory is plastic and not fixed, newer productions compete with an idealized, selectively recalled version of that earlier production, raising the bar higher still.

This is not unique to me. You need only read a critic of any tenure when they review a revival, or new version of a classic story, to see how memory competes with currently reality. Has any review of That Championship Season not evoked the original production 40 years earlier (one that many of today’s critics were not old enough to have seen); has any critic managed to see David Cromer’s House of Blue Leaves without invoking Jerry Zaks’ Lincoln Center Theater production of a quarter century ago?

This is natural of course, and hardly limited to theatre. When I see Elvis Costello in concert later this month (my 9th or 10th live show by him), I will rank it against earlier opportunities to see my favorite rock performer. Will this compare to my first encounter in 1981 at the Bridgeport CT Jai Alai Fronton (30 songs in 90 minutes) or a more recent show, such as his performance at Central Park’s SummerStage, which I remember most for sitting on cramped, lower-back-spasm-inducing bleachers? No experience can be completely discrete; we bring associations to everything we do, whether directly related or not.

For theatre, and I imagine for all of our experiences with cultural work, this is truly a double-edged sword. Am I a more knowledgeable theatergoer than many, are my critical faculties honed, can I better educate others because of this back catalogue that rests between my ears, often bursting to be let out for the edification (or stupefaction) of others? I suppose so. But can I experience anything but a brand new play with a true sense of openness and discovery? Sadly, no. I followed the muse that led me to a career as part of the recreation I loved most, and as a result, almost every entertainment experience retains a whiff – if not the pungent aroma – of work, even when I attend solely by choice, not because my jobs compel me to go.

I have written previously about significant theatrical works that I have yet to see, but even though I will be a virgin when I experience those stories first hand for the first time, I am already despoiled by every other theatrical work I have seen, by every script I have read, indeed by every story others have told me about their own encounters with these works.

I am overstating the case, of course, and no one should think I am not thankful, fortunate and enriched by all that has come before, by all that I have been fortunate enough to see. I know that others probably envy my experiences, and I would not part with them, nor would I have been willing to forego them, for any reason (except for perhaps a few shows I could have done without, but only a few).

So what is my challenge when I attend the theatre? To put aside my all-too-effective memory, to try each and every time to experience work as I did when I was in my teens and twenties: excited, expectant, and open to whatever is about to come. The memories will be there when the show is over, forcing their way into my consideration of what I have just seen; my critical faculties will inevitably exert their pull, and my opinion will pour forth to friends and especially younger colleagues tomorrow. But each night, I must try to erase the slate and let the play and production tell its own story, lest I become mired in my own memories, instead of forming new ones as the work at hand unfolds.

 

This post originally appeared on the American Theatre Wing website.

 

Hits, Runs and Errors

April 25th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

I am not a fan of professional sports. I have nothing against them (for that, you have to get me started on college sports and the ethical and educational issues involved), I just don’t connect with them the way so many do. For the record, I enjoy the occasional baseball or hockey game or tennis match (live and in-person, of course), but I don’t live and die by the fortunes of any team. And yet I feel that the arts could learn a lot from sports.

Sports certainly command much greater attention overall than the arts. Even the smallest newspaper, in these embattled times for the print media, have a daily sports section; not so for the arts. Local TV stations all have their nightly sports report, while arts related stories (outside of accidents or scandals) are lucky to occasionally turn up as the “kicker” just before the segue to national news, Leno or Letterman. Countless colleges (and here’s where I get riled again) offer various sports scholarships to lure top athletes, while I’m unfamiliar with performance scholarships outside of schools with major performing arts courses of study, and even those are relatively scarce. Broadcasts of sporting events blanket the airwaves week in and week out, while the arts are relegated to PBS, Ovation and twice annually (The Tonys and The Kennedy Center Honors) to CBS.

So what can we learn?

Surely frequency is not the issue, since there are countless “major league” arts performances around the country every night. The audience for live arts performances is (at least according to figures I heard once upon a time) comparable to the live audience for sporting events (and let’s not forget that the trend in stadium building is to go smaller, not bigger). While arts fundraising is at a particularly challenging juncture, sports fans don’t buy tickets and make contributions to support their teams, and in fact plenty make no financial commitment beyond a TV set and cable or satellite service.

It is not too outlandish to think that perhaps sports and the arts have comparable audiences (when you factor in school performances, amateur productions and the like). So perhaps the issue is one of perception and not necessarily participation. Herewith, a few thoughts on the matter.

1. We are not well organized. Despite the best efforts of national organizations like (using theatre examples) TCG and local organizations ranging from ART/NY to Theatre Bay Area, the arts remain a patchwork quilt of activity at the professional level. While artists would surely resist the oversight of anything akin to the sports leagues, the marketing and promotional benefits of such associations provide a highly professional means of advertising each sporting discipline. And while we now have the NFL as a Broadway producer, with the NBA not far behind, you won’t see the League of American Orchestras sponsoring a team at NASCAR.

2. We don’t offer enough variety. Sit down, sit down, listen before you shout. While there is in fact a vast array of arts on offer, each show, each exhibition is, ideally, a fixed event (or that’s our goal, consistency). Whether a production has four performances or forty, the event itself is relatively unchanging from night to night, while every sporting event promises a different outcome. Consequently, a play, a concert, a dance piece, once reported upon, doesn’t necessarily warrant (in the eyes of the media) a second or third write up. Opera seems to have an advantage here, since the major companies rotate casts in the same productions regularly, and as a result, where there is comprehensive arts coverage, a single production can be reviewed many times. Can we do more to change things up, such as Ayckbourn’s infinitely tricky Intimate Exchanges, eight plays with 16 endings, or the various courses one can follow through Sleep No More?

3. We employ a veil of secrecy. Many years ago, I read a provocative essay (which I deeply regret not being able to credit properly or provide a link to), in which the author suggested that sports get more attention that the arts because they invite the press in at every step in the process. There are reporters at spring training, at pre-season games, conducting interviews in locker rooms before and after games. In contrast, the arts tightly control access to artists and perhaps even more so, to process. Can we be more open at every step of creation?

4. Parental guidance is delegated. Far be it from me to denigrate arts education programs, but there’s something a bit curious about them, in that they essentially allow others to take the primary responsibility for educating our children about the arts. While I realize that many parents may not have knowledge of or inclination towards the arts, isn’t it peculiar that I learned the rules of sports from my dad (who is no buff either) from a very young age, while my arts education was all by people to whom I had no particular emotional connection, namely my teachers. Especially at a time when arts education is threatened, doesn’t it make sense to advocate and support efforts in which the arts are a family activity, rather than a school-based one?

To paraphrase a line from playwright Bill Cain, I don’t have all the answers, I just want to ask better questions. And so I am fascinated by fan engagement with sports and I constantly ponder it, examine it for solutions which might afford the same level of attention and enthusiasm for the arts. I don’t mean to minimize the extraordinary efforts made by so many – umbrella organizations, dedicated arts educators, passionate and evangelical fans – but I keep hoping that we can do better, especially when I am deluged by conversations about basketball brackets, world championships (that are, egocentrically, only U.S. championships), and spectacular television ratings. After all, we’re well behaved, why can’t we have nice things?

And maybe that’s it – we’re too well-behaved. The arts have to not merely break out of the box (and indeed, we perform our work in boxes for the most part) but smash the box altogether. If we can be truly unpredictable, infinite in our variety, assiduous in our lobbying for attention and creating our own avenues for that attention, then maybe we’ll get more than we get today, in eyeballs, in funding and in understanding.

A final word, about the title of this piece. One of my former bosses, who shall go nameless, often troops out a timeworn metaphor when talking to Rotary Clubs or government officials about the work of theatre, comparing it to baseball while also acknowledging that everything we do will not succeed. He has honed this particular elevator speech and employed it so often that any staff member can “sing along” with him every time he lapses into it (much to his consternation). But after many years of teasing him about this odd, all-occasion St. Crispin’s Day speech for the theatre, I have come to realize that while it may need some refreshing, there is something very smart at its core: not unlike a politician, he has adopted the language of the competition in order give others some insight into our world, since that language is the lingua francaof the American public, while ours is esoteric and mysterious. Perhaps trying to level the playing field (a phrase surely derived from some sporting event) isn’t the worst idea in the world.

 

This post originally appeared on the American Theatre Wing website.

Welcome to The Whiny Season

April 19th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

Among a small subset of the theatre community in New York, this is The Whiny Season. I have named it thus because every April, as the crush of Broadway shows rush to open before the Tony eligibility deadline, as the not-for-profits rush to open the final show of their seasons, a small group of professionals find themselves compelled to attend the theatre almost nightly for two or three weeks – and on their Sunday or Monday evenings they meet up once again at the plethora of fundraising events that support both artistic and social service causes, all of which clamor to feature our best known musical performers as their entertainment.

As these professionals encounter each other, their first conversational gambit is invariably about the volume of theatre to be seen, usually accompanied by the phrase, “Wow, it’s never been like this before.” I find that phrase pretty amusing, because I hear it annually – each year is always the busiest, the craziest, the most demanding. The evidence, when examined, would quickly prove that most years are about the same, give or take two or three shows, but as they say, the memory can play tricks.

I have not set out to chastise those who bemoan the loss of their evenings for a few weeks due to a preponderance of theatrical riches (and some cubic zirconia as well). I am one of their number, the recipient of these kvetchings, though not a contributor to them. I consider myself fortunate to have access to all of this work, and if I harbor any resentment at the commandeering of my schedule, it is only because I must see a proscribed set of plays in a certain time period, and that often results in my being unable to see other work of value. Most recently, I was disappointed to discover thatKin had closed at Playwrights Horizons, and I had not managed to get to it; I have a list of shows to be seen immediately after April 28, when my theatergoing becomes a matter of choice once again. The whining may cease around me, but my calendar won’t free up for weeks.

So why do I bring up an affliction that besets perhaps a few hundred people each spring, if not to sympathize or ridicule? I do so because I have begun to look at it as a curious social experiment: what happens when the act of doing something we love – seeing theatre – becomes compulsory, becomes work? It can quickly become a chore, especially if you factor in such minor distractions as late season flus, remaining connected with your family, keeping up with your magazine subscriptions, or getting your daily work completed. The very act that has led you to your chosen profession is transformed into a checklist of commitments to be met, rather than entertainments to be enjoyed or intellectual challenges to be considered. And that, I have to say, is indeed unfortunate.

For some time, I have divided my theatergoing into three types: compulsory (anything that is Tony eligible, to be seen in close proximity to its opening), essential (the work of anyone who may be a guest on one of the Wing’s media programs soon or in the future), and the rarest of the three, shows I simply want to see (some of which certainly fall into the prior two categories). I like to think I go to everything with the same sense of anticipation that accompanied my forays to the TKTS booth while a college student, I hope my mind remains open to the experience the artists want me to have, rather than facing the work with a head filled with gossip, news accounts, last week’s grosses and the like.

But I must say that compulsory theatergoing is anathema to the true experience of theatergoing, precisely because we might fight the desensitization to the very thing we love. Perhaps, as in romance, it is impossible to retain the flush of first love, of passion, that marks each new beginning. At middle age, I enjoy having evenings at home, and as I’ve written in various quarters before, I think we actually become better theatergoers if our world is not proscribed by that of the stage; we can appreciate theatre more completely if we follow the news and consume a variety of other culture, high and low, live or digital. Our appreciation may in fact grow from not spending too much time in theatre, because we bring that other knowledge and those other sensibilities with us when we do encounter new creative works for the stage.

I was, in my youth, a voracious theatergoer and I think any young person pursuing a career in this business or any affiliated field should adopt a similar approach. My motto in those days was, “If it’s free, it’s for me,” and I saw work I would never have ventured into under other circumstances. The irony, of course, is that it is only at my age that one has developed the professional and personal relationships which remove the burdensome cost of theatergoing from the equation; those who would most benefit from an onslaught of theatre in their formative years (and I mean their 20s, and perhaps their late teens), have the hardest time seeing it. We all focus our energies on getting schoolchildren to experience the wonder of theatre in order to plant the seed, but we fail to water that young plant (to torture a metaphor) in the time closest to when it will begin to bear fruit.

I am often asked, enviously, about how one becomes a Tony voter; I have nieces who believe I have the world’s greatest job; I have friends who still don’t quite get that for the past eight years, I have had to see – and have indeed seen – every show that has opened on Broadway, along with a variety of Off-Broadway and regional work, and they marvel anew each time I remind them. That is why I face The Whiny Season with equal parts bemusement and annoyance at those who editorialize so freely about the great chore that faces them. After all, isn’t a key factor behind our work in the theatre the fact that we loved seeing theatre and wanted to be a part of it? While it is as regular as typhoon season, or tornado season, The Whiny Season is not a natural occurrence, but a product of our own making and our own desires, I cannot evangelize against it for fear of becoming a boor and a bore, I can say that I hope that the whiners will look beyond their busy calendar and some minor sleep deprivation and remember why it is that they go to the theatre. If it proves to much, if you have become too jaded, too cynical or simply too overwhelmed, know that there are ranks of theatergoers, the people we work to serve, who would happily step into your shoes and, I hope, be forever inoculated from the debilitating scourge of compulsory theatergoing, since it is in fact a privilege, not a burden.

In an era where Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare and the like make it easy to apprise thousands of people at once as to my theatergoing, I want to say (although I was taunted for doing so over the weekend on Facebook) that after 30 some years of avid theatergoing, I still go to the theatre with an open mind and high expectations, and there is no greater joy than seeing something I might have otherwise avoided, and finding it not just good, but great. Indeed, I recently recounted for the actress Laurie Metcalf my story of seeing Balm in Gilead some 25 years ago only in order to help a friend lay off the expense of an extra ticket he held, and emerging having seen an exceptional and still vividly remembered piece of theatre.

I end our podcast “Downstage Center” every week with the phrase, “No matter where you live, I hope we’ll see you at the theatre.” After saying it for almost 100 programs, it remains utterly true. And I hope we’re both there, even if we have to be, because we want to be.

*   *   *

As a final note, let me say that the aggregation of openings in April, and sometimes in November as well, is the result of many factors, both economic and strategic. To tease apart the many strands behind this agglomeration of theatrical activity in compressed periods is a separate topic altogether, more suited for a graduate course in arts management and producing than for this blog. Its foundation is both practical and perceptual, but I have chosen to opine only on its effects, not its causes.

 

This post originally appeared on the American Theatre Wing website.

It’s The Pictures That Got Small

April 11th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

Having written only last week about the elements that I believe will sustain theatre over the long haul, I was intrigued to open yesterday’s New York Times and find that film critic Manohla Darghis was lamenting the loss of communal attendance at movies. The coming-together of audience is an intrinsic part of theatre, now and forever, but is no longer an essential part of seeing movies precisely because movies can be replicated and shown on an ever-expanding variety of platforms, which increasingly insure that you can watch whatever you want whenever you want, without leaving the comfort of your sofa.

I happen to remain dedicated to seeing movies in movie theatres, however challenging and dispiriting that can be in so many venues. Well, I hear you say, you’re conditioned to going to theatres to see theatre, so you like the same experience for movies.

Actually, no.

Except when I’m seeing a comedy, when I do enjoy being a part of group merriment, I am not seeking a communal experience at the movies. In fact, I’m delighted when I manage to catch an under-attended showing: I can throw my coat on an extra seat, chomp on Raisinets to my heart’s content and my arteries’ dismay, and be blissfully unbothered by someone behind me kicking my seat every time they cross or uncross their legs. It doesn’t even matter when I’m at the movies with someone else, since I am always so intent on a film that I will accept no conversation around me or including me for the duration of the film.

I know that regardless of others surrounding me or a vast sea of empty seats, the movie will be unchanged, since the audience acts upon a projected image no differently than it does upon the printed page. That is to say, not at all. What surprised me about Darghis’ paean to the lost movie audience (and she seemed so bereft I feel I should invite her to the theatre so she can experience a live audience once again) was that it failed to hit upon the single element that makes movies in a theatre such a distinctive experience that cannot achieve equivalence at home, their unique selling proposition, if you will. That element is scale.

Movies are a visual medium and the best of them were and are conceived, shot and meant to be shown on a large canvas, figuratively and literally. I’m not talking about 60”-diagonal-plasma-wow-those-insects-look-cool large, I mean stand-in-line-at-New-York’s-Ziegfeld-for-hours-to-see-Star–Wars large. Theatre can offer any story with grand imagination and scope, but only the movies can magnify the players, so that a twitch of an eyebrow can be seen in the very last row of any theatre, so that an embrace is viewed from a distance so close it’s almost as if you’re in it, so that human fury can seem the size of battling redwoods.

Let me seemingly digress for a moment. My college roommate Steve, who used to travel on a lot on business, saw a number of movies on airplanes over the years, and came to develop what we call The Inverse Proportion Theory of movie quality. The theorem, which is pretty infallible, is this: A great movie is great on a movie theatre screen, and a bad movie on the same screen is quite bad. But if you change the scale, watching those movies instead, say, on your home TV, or even further reduced on an airplane or your iPod, a funny thing happens. The good movie loses its impact, while the bad movie suddenly becomes, though not good, passable. Think about it: Lawrence of Arabia on a three-inch screen has sequences that would be interminable or impenetrable writ small, and the same goes for 2001: A Space Odyssey, while Happy Madison on the same screen isn’t quite as grating or overbearing as any Adam Sandler film can be at greater than life size. I developed a corollary movie rating system, which folds in the cost-value equation: See in a theatre; in-theatre at the bargain matinee; second-run theatre (where those still exist); rental (now obsolete); cable or Netflix; cable or Netflix if you’re sick; better to sleep.

I wrote last week that theatre’s key point of distinction from the other narrative dramatic forms is that it is performed live; in the case of movies, the distinguishing feature is that they can be so big. Audience presence is not in a defining attribute of film, and the diminution of its in-theatre audience is shared with so many formerly public activities as to be endemic to society; the prevalence of “Bowling Alone” came about even before we could bowl with a Wii, as the personal schedule took precedence over the desire to congregate and share most experiences. But since there is no live theatre when you have an empty venue, the stage has been forced to adopt a contrarian, Luddite and life-saving stance against the prevailing sentiment.

Had it not been for Ms. Darghis’ essay, it had been my intent to avoid any manner of follow-up to last week’s blog, which incited a variety of interesting comment, both pro and con (among them from Chris Wilkinson; Rob Weinert-Kendt; and 99 Seats). And my point here is not to rehash my prior message, but to brashly offer my prescription for the motion picture industry and particularly their exhibitors, even as the studios themselves seem so resigned to the loss of theatre revenue that they keep shortening the window between theatrical release and home viewing availability.

For god’s sake, embrace size and scale. I don’t mean that you should make big, loud movies; I mean that if the movies are conceived and executed in a way that demands they been seen on screens no home theatre can approximate, then people will go to see them in the theatres, where visionary films have triumphed even with the advent of radio, TV and home video, if only you’ll let them. They’re more than commodities to be exploited on multiple platforms, they’re creative enterprises in a commercial setting, and the movie theatre is filmdom’s Broadway, with the added benefit of existing in markets large and small. Home video, regardless of BluRay, SurroundSound, and streaming on demand, is still the bus and truck version of the real thing.

I love the movies in a different way than I love theatre, but dare I say it, I love them each in their own way equally. When I see a play that has rapid-fire, short scenes with a literal and linear construction, I wonder why it wasn’t a movie; when I see a great film like The Hurt Locker I know it could have never been realized as well on stage.

But just as I feared that theatre was shrinking even more and forcing its creative artists to write to fit a more constrained model, I am flabbergasted that movies may be doing the same, accepting that the paradigm has changed, instead of fighting to sustain its most distinctive features. Don’t let movies get smaller, folks. There’s no need. We’ve already got that. It’s called television.

And if someone wants to sit by me at the movie theatre, I’ll move my coat.

 

This post originally appeared on the American Theatre Wing website.

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