TCG National Conference 2003

BEN CAMERON
TCG National Conference, June 14, 2003

BEN CAMERON: Well, here we are, three-and-a-half exhausting, exhilarating, extraordinary days later, and per our custom, it now falls to me to reflect back a bit on the things we've heard together, to offer some thoughts on what this all might mean and to point us toward the outside world and the next 24 months into which we must return.

Looking back, there were so many riches—the thrilling words of Ming Cho Lee on that first night, reminding us of the unique power of dissent as the defining characteristic of this country, his exhortation to make our work dangerous and his charge for "degenerate artists" to unite; the unanimity of the funders who found their inspiration in us; the ever touching Ellen Stewart, dedicated to passion even at the cost of financial gain; and the healing power of The Guys—a palpable reminder of the power of the storyteller, of the reasons that audiences can turn to theatre in times of trouble.

On Day One proper, Ted Halstead threw down the gauntlet: reminding us that change is revolutionary, not evolutionary, and that the moment in which we operate brings together a confluence of events—technological innovation, war, depression, demographic shift and polarization of wealth—events that, in the past, have led us to redefine our social contract. We saw Ann Carlson's Blanket, an exquisite foray into a soundscape/landscape/dancescape that was, for me at least, a journey into our futures—should we live long enough. And there was Tony Kushner—verbally facile, intellectually profound, passionately political and mortifyingly self-effacing: has anyone else ever said, "I have nothing to say" and then said so much with such depth?

On Day Two, Amy Chua charted the collision of markets, democracy and ethnic hatred that made it seem appropriate to retitle her book "World on Fire" to "Woman on Fire," but closed with such lovely moments as "acts of humility and generosity: I don't see how they can hurt." She set the perfect stage for the mesmerizing eloquence of International WOW Company—hopeful, despairing, startling and amazingly adept at navigating the treacherous terrain separating human comedy from the political. Then NEA chairman Dana Gioia came to us open and articulate, but also realistic, tough and honest—an auspicious start in a chapter with our newest federal leader.

And on Day Three, we were treated to political savvy cloaked in the comic stylings of Kirk Watson, former mayor of Austin, TX, and the elegant, contemplative insights of Liz Lerman and her Dance Exchange. With such an exquisitely balanced and deeply satisfying meal, I felt like the fruit and cheese course on a prix fixe menu—wanted by no one, sitting untouched, and probably better off never to have been sent from the kitchen at all.

Initially, I thought that the extraordinary nature of these times made the tenor of this year's conference impossible to predict. In the months that immediately preceded the conference, I attended a number of convenings in the arts community—board meetings, conferences, think tanks and the like. The closer we came to June 2003, the more I was struck by a shift in our collective temperament—by a decline in the generosity in which we heard one another, by an increase in fractiousness, by a marked rise in aggression, by the ferocity with which people set upon one another with whom they disagreed. To the various well wishers who contacted me before the conference and asked my predictions for what would happen and how things would go, I confessed an uncertainty—saying that this could be a year in which we rejoiced in finding others who understood our frustrations and concerns, hugged one another feverishly and sang Kumbaya, or it could be a bloodbath. Only time would tell.

And so, as always, I was fascinated by whatever would happen, both on the manifest level and on the subtextual one. In your presence, I heard a belief in our work, but even more so I heard a need to find allies, to make new connections, to be in a room where others knew your distress and understood the difficulty of the choices that you are increasingly called to make. I found this convening—our second largest ever—a cause for rejoicing. Yet, in the absence of so many theatres—with only 177 of 452 in attendance—as well as in the unprecedented flurry of last-minute cancellations made in the wake of dire balance sheets, I heard the financial distress, the last counting of pennies in the closing stretch of many fiscal years; it is an economic austerity unlike any I have seen in my twenty-five years in the field. I heard in the whispers in the hallways and in the bathrooms that there was more disagreement among us than we allowed ourselves to air, and that more than one worried that the price of disagreement might be political ostracization. When I heard fractiousness—which frankly I heard rarely—I heard the stress of your daily lives, I heard the rawness of your emotional state, I heard the toll it takes on many of you to spend so much energy taking care of others, in weighing the enormity of consequences you are making, not merely in choosing plays but in altering lives with every dollar reduced or frozen—and to feel so alone and isolated and not taken care of by others in these moments. Like you, I have stared at balance sheets and income projections that indicate not merely restraint but retreat. Even as Lloyd Richards's famous pronouncement at NEA meetings rings in my ear: "Every dollar is attached to a human life"—a recognition that our decisions resonate not only in the realm of the creative choices that we allow our artists to make, but also in the life choices of our artists and staffs as they see their already paltry resources dwindle further. It never been more apparent that the artists, administrators and technicians in our field are our largest philanthropic sector, and the work we produce is made on the backs of those who give their lives to see it made.

But for the most part, I heard joy and relief; I heard open inquiry; I heard unprecedented generosity in sharing; I heard the sense of nourishment and release that can only come in the presence of those you trust and those with whom you know you share a common language and understanding. I was moved in virtually every moment by your universal kindness, your candor and your protection of one another.

Clearly, we found much to celebrate. We have, as a field, turned our attention to developing our boards—and what allies they have become, more than doubling their contributions to our theatres over the last five years, and now covering more than 6 percent of our expenses through their donations, as opposed to a mere 2.7 percent five years ago. We have reached out more aggressively to other individuals, doubling their role as well from 7.3 percent to 14.6 percent of our expense line—a reminder of the importance and the unflagging devotion of our managing leaders and our development personnel. We have been creative in pursuing co-productions, in making new partnerships with one another and with the commercial sector.

We have been fantastically innovative in reconceiving many of our most time-honored practices. For instance, Brat Productions of Philadelphia consistently fills its houses by diverting its marketing budget from assorted print materials to matchbooks—matchbooks left in bars and clubs where they are seized by a hip, younger crowd who then go to the theatre. In Atlanta, Theatre Emory launched its Ambassadors program, which gives select audience members backstage exposure and insight into the creative journey in exchange for bringing new friends with them every time they come to a performance. In Houston, Infernal Bridegroom integrated rock musicians into the ensemble and infiltrated rock clubs as performance venues to overwhelming success. San Jose Repertory Theatre exponentially increased attendance by young parents by simultaneously offering classes in creative dramatics for children during performance times—a strategy that acknowledges that we will never be child care professionals, but that exploits the immensity of knowledge we have accumulated in our arts education work. We have seen the New American Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta reconceive its corporate donor universe to embrace law firms—businesses who, like us, share a deep investment in freedom of expression issues and for whom a sponsorship and the opportunity to socialize are now key strategies in demonstrating community investment to potential associates and law students. In San Diego, we have seen Sledgehammer Theatre repackage its subscription series as "Repeat Offenders," no longer selling a single seat, but an entry into a circle where audience members can see any production as many times as they wish—countering the impression of an empty house with every return visit, and bringing new friends with new confidence. Essentially, this strategy does the audience development work for the theatre—and "Repeat Offenders" are renewing in record numbers, remembering not the play they disliked or even the ones they missed, but remembering most strongly the play they loved and that they saw multiple times. In New York, the ever inspiring Melanie Joseph moved to a virtual organization construct with the Foundry Theatre, developing fantastic work with minimal resources and still giving her artists a respectable living wage.

In general, we have seen the benefits of earlier curtain times, more extended artist interaction in talkbacks, and the possibilities of open rehearsals at many theatres across the country. And we have seen, even in the midst of a relentless march to comedy and entertainment, a rise in audiences who are hungry to engage in serious political and social work—work that shot out of the proverbial gate with The Guys just two weeks after 9/11 and that has continued through Homebody/Kabul, The Exonerated, Infernal Bridegroom's We Have Some Planes, the thrilling Lysistrata Project, seen on more than 1,000 stages worldwide, the just opened The Persians in New York, and the International WOW Company performance of yesterday, to name just a few.

But as we return to our lives around the country, we cannot deny that these challenges seem more and more overwhelming with the passage of every day—and that they will, indeed, compound with time. While 44 percent of you expect a deficit, only 29 percent of you expect a surplus; 50 percent of you are looking at frozen or reduced budgets for the 2004 fiscal year; only 44 percent of you saw growth in subscriptions and only 46 percent saw growth in single tickets. The most encouraging sign was that 60 percent of you saw an increase in individual contributions—but only 33 percent of you experienced a rise in corporate or government contributions. And remembering the number of theatres who are absent from this convening because of financial duress, the probability is that the numbers for the field as a whole will be even more dire.

New tax legislation—especially the proposed permanent elimination of the inheritance tax—undermines the charitable impulse, even as it polarizes our nation along new, increasingly extreme class lines. An emerging generation of blue-collar millionaires—a class fascinatingly documented in The Millionaire Next Door—seems wed to a concept of reward and gratification, rather than one of stewardship and responsibility: virtually all the millionaires interviewed for the book seized a $100 honorarium rather than donating it to a favorite charity, saying, "I am my own favorite charity." A report from former senator Bill Bradley—a report undertaken at great expense and that used the same firm that had lauded Enron as the ideal corporation—has told us that not-for-profits waste far too much money by not getting large enough gifts from fewer sources. (Gee, why didn't I think of that? Guess I'll have to stop telling my donors; "Please not so much. A smaller check, please," and stop returning those large checks. And, given that Bradley tells us that we waste too much time on donors who give too little, I guess I should have focused only on those folks who start their gifts at the seven-figure level.) In essence, it is a report that we know to be flawed and ludicrous, but which is setting the stage for larger, wholesale attacks on not just theatre, but the entire not-for-profit sector. We know that tax reductions from Washington, DC, are not a savings but a shift in responsibilities, resulting in the assault on state arts budgets that we are witnessing around the nation and by the increased tendency of state and local governments, who are—following the steps of individual public schools, who are already adept at attracting corporate sponsorships—solving civic problems by attracting private donations. Having long been worried about the blurring of lines between the for-profit and the not-for-profit sectors, we now face assault on the government end, as New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg and the NEA, among others, hire development directors at senior level positions to fund programs. And while we are immensely grateful for our boards and contributors, how long can it be before we max out a limited circle of supporters?

In these moments, our refinements and our creative solutions—as wonderful as they are—are increasingly groaning and stretching to the breaking point. I am in deep sympathy with Adrienne Rich's poem "The Dream of a Common Language," where she says,

	The rules break open like a thermometer 
	Quicksilver spills across charted systems. 
	We're out in a country that has no language, 
	No laws, we're chasing the raven and the wren
	Through gorges unexplored since dawn. 
	Whatever we do together is pure invention. 
	The maps they gave us were out of date
	By years….

Ted Halstead started our time together with his articulation of the current moment—the confluence of war, economic depression, technological reinvention and shifting demographics—as the prelude to a fundamental redefinition of the social contract. In essence, his words are both an invitation and a dire warning—one easier to appreciate if you imagine, even for moment, being in a theatre in the 1920s and early 1930s. I was astounded to realize that there were more than 2,000 professional stock companies in this country in 1918. How easy it would have been, running one of these companies, to have thought in 1929 when the market collapsed, "Gee, if we can just keep our heads down for five or six years, the economy will have recovered by 1936 or so, and then we'll be full steam ahead." But by 1936, the world was fundamentally different: talking pictures had swept the nation, redefining our entertainment options through technology; an explosion of not-for-profits, many of which we now take for granted, were established to meet social challenges. There was social security, a new tax structure, and soon women were in the workplace in record numbers—causing a realignment of family bonds and an entirely new set of social assumptions. There was no return to 1928; and, indeed, there will be no return to 1999. As Abraham Lincoln said in his 1862 State of the Union address, "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew." Our challenge in looking ahead is not how to hunker down and survive, but how to meet the short-term challenges while positioning ourselves for the new chapter, even while we are uncertain as to what that chapter will be.

Consider that it took the theatre decades to recover, and in part, it began to flourish in the 1950s and beyond, not only for the reasons I articulated before, but also because of the changes in the larger environment—indeed, a context that Jerry Yoshitomi in a recent meeting called the "authorizing environment"—that set of conditions that positively impel a group forward, that seed and nourish a movement, which, in our case, led us gradually from that nucleus of 23 theatres to the more than 1,500 we have today. Perhaps the not-for-profit theatre flourished out of the positive impulses that flowed from the Second World War—the curiosity in international relations and culture that GI's brought home with them after years of fighting abroad; the rise in educational achievement and intellectual development afforded to record numbers of citizens by the GI Bill; the belief and optimism of a flourishing economy; and the perception, at least, that the future would see a radical increase in social and self-reflective time. Our economy began to flourish on the heels of a policy that increasingly celebrated diversity and opened our borders to the world's most creative citizens—truly becoming the beacon to the world that our Statue of Liberty had long symbolized.

Clearly, many of these positive factors in our authorizing environment have eroded with time. Education increasingly has become a source of concern and derision, as American achievements have notably slipped behind in relation to our counterparts; we find ourselves facing record unemployment levels; social and self-reflective time seem to be at an all-time low; the increase in entertainment options has exponentially vaulted beyond our wildest imaginings with the creation of online technology, DVDs and casinos to name a few. Recent events in Iraq suggest that we are now pursuing a national policy counter to diversity and border openness; a policy that insists on homogeneity, uniformity and closed, insular self-protectionism. Subtle changes run more deeply: the shift in the expectation that, for the first time in human history, our lives will outlive the work we are charged with doing. This is a shift symbolized by the disappearance of the retirement gift watch—an eloquent reminder, perhaps, of human mortality but also an embodiment of a legacy of achievement, a testament to the value of an effort by the bestowing of a gift that, like the work achieved, would be an heirloom, handed down to generation after generation. Now instead, we have the Swatch; we expect our computers to be discarded with frequent regularity; and we have adopted attitudes of disposable relationships, disposable residences, disposable employment. The average American now changes jobs every three years, and the average American under 30 changes jobs every six months—surely a shift in attitudes that promotes consumption rather than stewardship, that reinforces our allegiance to mass entertainment and undermines our own quest for longer meaning, for substance, for a dialogue that transcends time and that emphasizes the quest for the eternal rather than the ephemeral.

Clearly it is easy to despair, and, perhaps, we should despair. But the authorizing environment, like an actor's objective in the classic Method way, must be predicated on a positive influence. Finding those positives to which we can attach ourselves, aligning ourselves with those trends in preparation for the new chapter, is our challenge; being sensitive to the possibilities of the current authorizing environment moves us past deploring the present to mastering the future.

Now I wish I had the crystal ball and the power of a Vatican Sibyl, so that I could predict the future with confidence and ease. But there are some positives that I think might warrant our attention. Robert Putnam, in his famous Bowling Alone, traces the disintegration of the American social unit—for example, our new found preferences for individual jogging and weightlifting over team sports, our love of individual computer games over bridge clubs and canasta groups, our withdrawal from a political sphere as seen in the decline in voting and the preference to participate on an individual level—writing letters and sending contributions rather than attending meetings, participating on committees and the like. And yet, Putnam notes three counter trends that are compelling:

In short, in this moment—a time in which texts on spirituality are the fastest growing section of book sales—people are searching for meaning in their lives and for the opportunity to engage in exploration around ideas and feelings of substance. If we cannot attach ourselves to these impulses, we are missing perhaps the most powerful opportunities for us—opportunities to now position theatre productions not only as the culmination of individual and collective energies and imagination, but also as the prelude to deeper social engagement, deeper self and community understanding, deeper meaning, the ability to engage in and to engage within.

If we heed Ted Halstead correctly, this is an invitation for a redefinition of our own social contracts—an invitation that is deeply frightening and more intellectually tangible than easy to pursue. Many of you might have heard the story of the Wallendas—of the elder family leader who had trained for years and had always been told, when a wind comes and you begin to fall, let go of the pole and grab the rope. And, of course, one day he's on the high wire and a huge gust of wind appears: intellectually he knows what he is supposed to do, but this pole has saved his life time and again, this pole has made it possible for him to survive, this pole has been his mainstay, and so he maintains his grasp on the pole—and falls to his death.

Part of our challenge is to overcome this natural fear and find the liberation implicit in the moment, a dialectic that is less about repair than about reconception, to invite audacity while avoiding irresponsibility.

This work will require us to be our most creative, to husband those emotional resources that we need to survive, to be clear and fearless in our pursuit of core values. It will require us to reconceive the artist-administrator dialogue—to see the artistic home not as the home provided, but as the home mutually created, to overcome the polarity that has relegated the vision without responsibility to the artist and the responsibility without conception to the manager, heeding Zelda Fichandler's extraordinarily simple description of the institutional schism as "not about this or that, but about this and that." It will lead us back to basics and reinvention—and it will be fatiguing and fraught with setbacks. It will call on us to reach most deeply and to be most clear. And in these times, it will call on us, not to protect our structures but to protect and husband our creativity—artistic creativity, managerial creativity, administrative creativity—all born of seven impulses:

It is for this sense of wonder that I am returning now to the theatre—the ability to wonder, to try on the lives of others and see how they fit, to imagine life other than how it is lived now; the wonder of every production, a sort of minor miracle of effort and coordination and power; and the wonder of the inability—of even the most difficult moments—to squash the human impulse to produce art. It is the invincibility of this human impulse that fills me and inspires me most—a wonder I experience to some degree every time I take a seat and the house lights begin to fade—and it is the central conviction that any dilemma we create is a human-made dilemma that, therefore, can be "human correctable."

Perhaps the enormity of this unknown lies at the heart of a new cross-generational dialogue that I am seeing in the field—the value of conversations between our founding generation and our newest artists, a dynamic Peter DuBois of Perseverance Theatre likened to a conversation between grandparents and grandchildren, characterized by an openness and candor that was impossible for those founders to have with their immediate heirs. I am struck by National Black Arts Festival executive producer Stephanie Hughley's pronouncement that "I never make an important decision without three generations in the room, with at least one person who doesn't look like me"—a reminder that innovation properly begins with recollection. As we stand at the brink of a new chapter, we have so much to learn from those who went before and who created the paths where there had been none to see.

In that spirit, let me close by summoning the voices of three generations. For those of you who support the arts and search constantly for those reasons the arts are worth supporting, I give you the words of W. MacNeil Lowry, that same visionary from the Ford Foundation, whom we recalled on our first day together. In his 1963 essay "The Arts and Philanthropy," Lowry offered 10 arguments for the importance of the arts (beautifully phrased) that feel perhaps even more powerful 40 years later:

For those of you who create the art, the words from a slightly different generation—Martha Graham—resonate powerfully:

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost and the world will not have it.

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares to other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open, to be aware directly of the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.

No artist is pleased…there is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive… But for all of us, whatever our perspective, a story attributed to Fred Adams of Utah Shakespearean Festival is perhaps the ultimate benediction. Fred relates a wonderful story about his mission work in Norway. As a Mormon, Fred spent the obligatory year or two ministering to others the story of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. He was assigned to Norway, where the combination of language barrier, darkness and cold made the experience dispiriting, to say the least. In a country where darkness comes before 3:00 pm, there were many days where a knock on the door would be followed by unfailingly polite invitations to step inside, blank looks while retelling the story of the Mormons, and Norwegian folks songs sung at length and accompanied by odd alcohol and mysteriously prepared fish. One such night could be dispiriting enough, but months of them began to take its toll, and one night was particularly hard: the snow was especially deep, and as Fred and his companion struggled up a fjörd to head home, Fred found that he was angry and depressed—he had never been colder or more tired or wetter. But suddenly his companion stopped, grabbed Fred's arm and said, "Look up!" And there in its splendor was the aurora borealis, shimmering in the night, exploding in color, reminding him of the deeper, more profound mysteries of which we are but a glimmer. That, says Fred, today is what we do in the arts: we tell people to look up. Yes the times are historically hard; yes we can despair; yes we can yield to our own anger in these times. But as Amy Chua said, we have a choice at this moment, and while Tony Kushner may be right—that theatre is not enough to change the world—we know that it can at least be a start by the way we change lives. We know that if we continue in our work and promote change, one person at a time, one audience at a time, one community at a time—change will come.

This conference has, I hope, reminded you that you are not alone—that you are surrounded by friends and colleagues and collaborators in the war for better times. When times are hard, reach out.

This conference has reminded you, I hope, of the strength, the resilience and the power of spirit we all carry. When times are hard, dig deep.

But never forget what we can do. And never forget the lesson we convey to our audiences each time that we take the stage: Look up. Look up. Look up.

My name is Ben Cameron, and I am honored to stand before you as the Executive Director of Theatre Communications Group. God speed you in your travels, and God bless you in your work.