Anchored in Artistry
The tide turns toward theatremaking at
TCG's 2007 National Conference
By Eliza Bent
For a theatre conference focused on artistry, the Twin Cities—with their big Midwestern sky, encroaching wheat fields and bridges that stretch across turbulent twists of the Mississippi River—proved a fittingly dramatic setting. Equally impactful was the event's home base, the new Guthrie Theater. Designed by Jean Nouvel and nestled on the river's banks between historical mill structures, the Guthrie played host June 7-9 to the 17th TCG National Conference. It was TCG's largest gathering yet, with more than 850 participants from 188 theatres and 13 nations. "Artistry in a New Century" was the theme, and from this main current a plethora of tributary topics flowed.
| Related Links: 2007 National Conference transcripts available now. Inside the Guthrie Theater by Joe Dowling (American Theatre) The Viewpoints Book by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau (TCG Books) Awake and Sing Steven Sater on Spring Awakening (American Theatre) Breaking the Sound Barrier, on Mark Bennett and other sound designer/composers (American Theatre) The Civilians: What Do You Believe? on the company’s documentary cabaret style (American Theatre) |
Among these rivulets were new developments in the American musical and art's role in political and social activism. Guthrie artistic director Joe Dowling quoted the 44-year-old institution's co-founder and namesake Tyrone Guthrie, who encapsulated the enduring appeal of theatre in these words: "It will survive as long as mankind demands to be amused, terrified, instructed, shocked, corrupted and delighted by tales told in a manner that will always remain mankind's most powerful and vivid way of telling a story." Dowling spoke of the fervor for theatre as something "we all love this side of madness" as he harkened back to the history of the not-for-profit theatre movement and the Guthrie's essential role in it.
Keynote speaker Molly Smith, artistic director of Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., shared Dowling's zeal for the art form in her opening comments when she spoke about her ardor for musical theatre as a young girl. By getting back in touch with her passion when she directed South Pacific in 2003, Smith rediscovered things she'd nearly forgotten and found herself "deliriously happy to be in a rehearsal hall and theatre" again. Perhaps the focus on American musical theatre—which in recent years has taken a backseat to other theatrical genres at TCG convenings—proved to be the most surprising and dynamic feature of this year's meeting, as subsequent sessions demonstrated.
Indeed, theatrical artistry held the spotlight in both the plenary and breakout sessions of the conference and opportunities to engage in it spilled forth throughout the convention days. As participants registered, for example, life-size bird puppets and taiko drums drew crowds to a water ceremony held on the Guthrie's Endless Bridge—a striking balcony overlooking the Mississippi. Conferencegoers had been told to bring samples of water from their home regions to contribute to the proceedings. The puppets, created by the city's In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, danced and swayed to the drumming as individuals poured splashes from their cups into mixing bowls. Later these waters would be reunited with the Mississippi—an act intended to honor the blending of ideas throughout the conference. "And even after the conference," TCG's end-of-term board president Abel López noted during his opening remarks, "may the nourishment of our time together flow out into the world and sustain us until we meet again."
Equally nourishing were other such art-centric offerings. Global Tapas, a sampling of international theatre, took place at the Children's Theatre Company, which also hosted a late-night party where conferencegoers listened to local musicians. The critically acclaimed play In the Continuum, written and performed by Danai Gurira and Nikkole Salter, was presented as a mainstage conference offering, while Spotlight On and Uncooked: Readings in the Raw featured TCG grant recipients, providing participants the opportunity to see the work of their contemporaries after hours. Particularly popular was Rotozaza's Etiquette installation, which played throughout each conference day in the Guthrie's café.
Early birds to the conference even had the chance to create theatre. A series of artistic workshops included a session on Viewpoints techniques led by director Tina Landau. In "Devising Civic Theatre," Sojourn Theatre's Michael Rohd engaged his attendees by asking what the word "civic" meant to each of them, then quoted a startling statistic. "In the year 2040 it is estimated that there will be 100 million more people living in the U.S., and the majority of those people will be living in 8–12 of the largest urban areas," Rohd said. Using folding chairs and bodies, small groups arranged compositions that posed questions around the future of civic life. A series of vastly different scenes and sketches emerged. One group took part in a heated game of musical chairs to the tune of "We All Live in a Yellow Submarine" while another group showed tableaus of hometowns revisited. One perceptive participant, Zenzelé Cooper, asked, "Where do the marginalized go when there are no more margins?" A murmur of uncertainty reverberated throughout the room.
Uncertainty in our troubled world permeated Wole Soyinka's plenary. The playwright, poet and Nobel Prize winner used the figures of Aeschylus, Jean Paul Sartre and Louis Farrakhan to frame his speech on the necessity of ritual. In particular, Soyinka cited Farrakhan's Million Man March and its proposed day of atonement as an example of contemporary ritual. Soyinka wondered how we as a society can atone. Children recruited into internecine warfare in some African countries, for example, have been reclaimed by their communities in a ritual process of cleansing. "Ritual binds together the most unlikely sensibilities," Soyinka observed. Though an immense spectrum of theatrical disciplines exists, we all operate under the healing umbrella of theatre. And ritual is inherently theatrical. Does meaningful ritual exist in today's American society? Soyinka did not specify; instead he gravely noted, "Ritual may actually come to the rescue, awakening consciousness and instilling a new sense of vision."
The plenary "Of Truth and Beauty: The Power of the Artist as Activist," moderated by Barbara Schaffer Bacon, co-director of Animating Democracy, brought discourse back to a practical level. Artist/activists Rha Goddess, John Malpede and Kathy Randels spoke of projects they have pursued that address problems in society, and contended that their dual roles are inseparable. Randels, who hails from New Orleans, spoke of creating site-specific shows, such as LakeviewS, which examines folklore and the history of Southern Baptist churches while casting a critical eye on the state of affairs in post-Katrina New Orleans. Malpede, founder of Los Angeles Poverty Dept (LAPD) and an adherent of the motto "create nothing, recreate everything," recounted how he and his troupe remade Robert Kennedy's 1968 journey into Kentucky by using public documents and real locations.
Rha Goddess, who said she became an artist "kicking and screaming," described how the issues she addresses in her work found her—not the other way around. Having friends and family members affected by mental illness propelled Goddess to create Low, which explores the degree to which mental illness is genetic, environmental or interpersonal—and how society can support the agenda of healing.
In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche refers to art as "a saving sorceress, expert at healing" and writes that art "alone knows how to turn nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live." Surely Goddess and Soyinka would agree with the German philosopher. Molly Smith would, too. Speaking with zest about musicals, she said, "It is a subversive art form. Ideas that would have us shifting in our seats during a drama have more points of contact in a musical. After all, we tap our feet as the messages track through our consciousness. For me, this robust, craggy art form is the bones of American culture. It is unpretentious, earthy, forward-looking and optimistic. American musical theatre is our own indigenous art form."
Touching on a wide range of other subjects, Smith contended that despite society's rapid changes, theatres will adapt, "even if it may mean combining for-profit and not-for-profit ideas." She posed an interesting idea for acclimatizing when she asked, "What would happen if we as a theatre community began producing plays for television?" When she added, "Equity needs to figure out a way in which we can use the broadcast media to get our message across," cheers from the audience burst forth. Surprised by the response, Smith proclaimed, "I'm glad you're with that! Now we've got to figure out a way to do it!"
In a subsequent breakout session on musical theatre, participants discussed the mechanics of negotiating with the actor's union and lamented that AEA rules can prevent artists from documenting work or disseminating samples. "That's a huge problem for musicals in particular," one actor said. Negotiating with major unions and organizations was a current to watch.
So was navigating the challenges of international collaboration and exchange. A session on international theatre broached the difficulties in arranging visas and travel for guest artists. Philip Arnoult, from the Center for International Theatre Development, bemoaned the complexity of obtaining continued financial support from American institutions in particular.
Attention was also paid during a lunch salon series to the theatrical accomplishments of such figures as Lou Bellamy, the artistic director of St. Paul's Penumbra Theatre Company, and Luis Valdez, founder of El Teatro Campesino in San Juan Bautista and winner of this year's Theatre Practitioner prize from TCG. Workshops were offered alongside the salons, led by a range of business affiliates according to their expertise. Topics for these included ticketing costs, how to retain single-ticket buyers and mobile marketing.
"Visions of Tomorrow's Theatre: A Roundtable Discussion," hosted by HERE Arts Center co-founder and artistic director Kristin Marting of New York City, provided a refreshing discourse by six young artistic leaders. The panelists began by describing their personal aesthetics before turning to the difficulty in finding funding for new and unconventional work. Sean San José, artistic director of San Francisco's Campo Santo, expressed the need to articulate the value of a project in both social and artistic terms when requesting financial support. Panelists concurred. Joseph Haj, producing artistic director of PlayMakers Repertory Company in Chapel Hill, N.C., also expressed skepticism over how some theatres reach out to the communities they attempt to serve. "We handle this cynically," he said. "I don't think we believe that the communities [we reach out to] are the bright, sensitive people that we believe ourselves to be. I think they know when they're being 'played.'" Instead, Haj contended, "If we're going to ask [communities] to participate, then they have to know that they own the place"—meaning the organization and the theatre building itself. On that note he added, "Nobody in the history of the world has ever taken a rental car through the car wash. If we want [communities] to take care of our institutions, they have to know that [the institutions] belong to them!" Laughter and applause from panelists and audience members seemed to confirm a consensus.
Lively audience reactions also marked the plenary "Creating and Producing the New American Musical," which featured the use of interactive video conferencing, a first—and one hopes not last—for a national TCG meeting. Musical theatre specialist Sue Frost moderated the discussion among three musical-theatre couples, and began by asking the pairs for the backstories of their creative process. Bookwriter/lyricist Steven Sater and pop composer Duncan Sheik—Tony-winners for Spring Awakening, who dialed in from New York City and appeared live on a large screen—talked about their inspiration, Wedekind's controversial 1891 play. Steven Cosson and Michael Friedman, of the New York-based troupe the Civilians, described their unique interview/documentary style for the episodic musical (I Am) Nobody's Lunch. Composer Mark Bennett and bookwriter Jessica Hagedorn, on the other hand, described how they felt moved by the high-profile murder of fashion icon Gianni Versace to create their unusual, eclectic musical Most Wanted. "The story of [killer] Andrew Cunanan had real profound resonance for me," Hagedorn said. "It's got everything I love—class, race, sex. What more do you want?"
Panelists also spoke of the lengthy development processes in which they took part in order to realize their finished musicals. A particularly droll moment came when Frost tried to recap the history of Spring Awakening's development but got sidetracked over how many years the script languished. As she searched her notes, audience members watched as every twitch and whisper that Sater and Sheik exchanged was broadcast in perfect detail on the large video monitor. "It was four years" that the script lay dormant, not two, Sater tersely corrected from the video screen, prompting howls of delight from the audience.
Not all musical-development comments were negative. Bennett admitted that though elements of the process can be overwhelming, workshops "are these amazing moments of open-heart surgery, and you get to really discover something new." The three sets of panelists acknowledged the positive influence of Sundance Institute producing artistic director Philip Himberg and extolled the important role Sundance has played in recent years developing new musicals.
Selections from each of the three musicals enlivened the plenary and proved the success of putting art center stage. Before presenting his song from (I Am) Nobody's Lunch, Friedman joked, "We realize that doing a panel on the future state of the American musical with a number called 'The Song of Progressive Disenchantment' seemed a complicated thing." The song, in the style of Kurt Weill and sung by Caitlin Miller, was a jumble of clever wordplay delivered in a jolted, endearingly neurotic manner. It was later followed by "Aria" from Most Wanted, a powerful lovers' duet entwined with operatic arias. A broadcast version of Spring Awakening's selection, "The Bitch of Living," with its catchy melodies and glossy arrangements, launched the panel at high speed.
Frost asked panelists which classic musicals had influenced them. Like students referring back to great teachers, the panelists excitedly rattled off names of musicals and the creators behind them. As one panelist spoke, others murmured approval. West Side Story came up more than once, and nontraditional inspirations such as the Lars von Trier film Dancer in the Dark and the various incarnations of the Muppet movies drew vigorous nods from the teams of artists. "My entry into the theatre as a suburban kid was musicals," Cosson confessed, echoing Smith's sentiments from the opening session. "You know, you do musicals, and that's what theatre is."
Panelists expressed frustration, however, that musicals seem to be frequently mounted for economic ends rather than artistic ones. Bennett elucidated: "I think theatres use musicals as a way to buttress attendance. But what if we begin to educate our audiences with newer forms of musicals, or with alternative forms of musicals, or with the larger spectrum of musicals? So that way an audience can support a theatre developing new musicals and new musical artists, and suddenly it's not this crazy animal that exists in the second space of the theatre."
The categorical separation of musical theatre from non-musical theatre was critiqued as well. "I think we end up with this idea that there's musical theatre over here, and there's theatre theatre over here," Friedman said. "For those of us who write musicals, that gets very sad. So I think that [it's important to remember] there's a whole continuum from 'capital-M Musical' to an Albee play that is literally not allowed to have music in it. There's a big spectrum, and so to not find yourself trapped in between these polar opposites is really important."
TCG executive director Teresa Eyring concurred with Friedman in her closing remarks, and encouraged the theatre community to engage in an act of shared imagining, which is perhaps the very essence of art. She suggested conferencegoers, like the queen in Alice in Wonderland who imagines "six impossible things before breakfast," dream the unimaginable. Three of these were:
Community engagement. Looking back to before the onset of the Iraq war, Eyring recalled worldwide protest readings of Lysistrata. Though these reading didn't stop the war, Eyring asserted, "It was a big, bold, seemingly impossible undertaking that opened a public dialogue." She referred back to artist-as-activist panelists Goddess, Malpede and Randels as example-setters, and lightheartedly quoted international theatre maven Martha Coigney who, during the course of the conference, quipped, "The role of theatre is to teach people about other people, because if you know them you're less likely to kill them."
The issue of technology. "Can theatre command some aspect of the rapid-fire development in the cyberspace metaverse?" Eyring wondered. Theatre should not compete with the tech universe but rather work with it, she contended. The theme of technology's role in the creation and survival of theatre art and management was a central stream of discussion—one that mirrored the past several TCG conferences and will likely swell in coming years.
Structures and funding. "Changing the very model and way of organizing that is currently used in our field and in our [art] form," Eyring suggested, is a crucial element for artistry in the future. Solutions to funding might include "revised structures, new ways of providing income, enhanced partnerships, a major positioning campaign to get a larger piece of the philanthropic pie—or something entirely different that we haven't even thought about."
Eyring thanked a roster of generous funders who made the 2007 conference possible, including the Bush Foundation, General Mills Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Michael Margulies/Lindquist & Vennum PLLP and the Twin Cities legal community, the McKnight Foundation, the Minneapolis Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Moore Family Fund for the Arts of the Minneapolis Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, the Ruth Easton Fund, Target, Theatre Development Fund, Travelers Foundation, City Pages, Fisher Dachs Associates, I.A.T.S.E. Local 13, Jefferson Lines, the Stage Channel, U.S. Trust and Village Voice Media. Judson Bemis, Scott Mayer and Penumbra Theatre were also thanked for their support and assistance.
And throughout the conference, with all its artistic babble and chatter, Eyring reminded her audience, "The profound and deep silence of the Mississippi River has been running by just outside these walls, taking itself to New Orleans." The ideas discussed at this year's national convention, like the waters of the Mississippi meandering through a varied American geography, will surely nourish our theatrical landscape for years to come.
Education: A TEAM Effort
Before conference participants descended on the Twin Cities, 80 theatre education leaders met at Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul for a pre-conference training session to discuss models of assessment in theatre education. Building a National TEAM: Theatre Education Assessment Models is a special TCG initiative, in the planning stage for two years, developed in response to field need. How can we accurately assess what students are learning through the array of education programs offered by our theatres? Robert Southworth, president of New York City's SchoolWorks Lab, spoke about the need to devise a precise national language for theatre assessment and stressed rigor in doing so. "We should be able to assess a student's progress in theatre just as we now do in math and English," Southworth said.
In small group breakout sessions, Carol T. Jones, director of the Institute for Educators at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, reminded participants that "all assessment starts with observation of some kind." Theatre educators explored various types of assessment models in workshop sessions, learning to adapt them to their own programs. "Performance assessments need to be built to capture the complexity of theatre knowledge," Southworth explained.
Where can educators find resources to help them further develop their methods of assessment? Theatre educators were encouraged to visit TCG's website to continue developing their assessment practice at home. Concluding, Southworth said, "Theatre Education Assessment Models (TEAM) has begun the national conversation, built a website to display that, and even constructed some models for performance assessment. We hope the field will see this as a beginning to a wonderful conversation about assessing the complexity of human performance in the theatre." Sponsors for this event included the National Endowment for the Arts, Travelers Foundation, the Esther B. Kahn Charitable Foundation and the Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation. —Bent