Work in Progress: The Future

Anniversaries have a way of bringing out the inner soothsayer in all of us. And whether you're a "hindsighter" who specializes in predicting the past, or a fortune-teller who's got a 20/20 lock on what's to come, there's satisfaction in picturing the times when simple solutions have been found for chronic problems, when brand-new worlds come crashing into existence without warning, when outer-space gadgets replace the silverware.

In the inaugural issue of American Theatre, back in April '84, the director Alan Schneider, who was board president of TCG at the time, wrote an article titled "Things to Come," in which he made a variety of predictions about where theatre would be in five-to-fifty years. His comments covered the nature of playwriting, the demise of Broadway, the widespread growth of theatre outside of New York, the inherently poetic qualities of theatre, and the price of tickets (by 2034, a weekend top of $888.88, but still half-price at the booth above the World Trade Center, he figured). Schneider made a few astute guesses about developments in technology—including one refrain that ran throughout the piece crediting designers from Yale with rerouting scenery up-and-down and from side to-side, arming themselves with self-propelled lasers, and making sets entirely out of computerized holograms.

Schneider also had compelling and timeless observations about the role of theatre, and how it would evolve. "Theatre [of the future], in whatever form or manifestation, can never be more than a minority preoccupation," he wrote. "But as there has already been a transition from theatre of personal and private truths to a theatre of more public and communal awareness, so the theatre of purely private gain is gradually giving way to a theatre of public benefit. The transition is slow but steady. More people would go to the theatre if they were only stimulated to do so—and if they could afford to go."

That particular point is at the heart of what's on the minds of so many in our field today. While there are many conversations about the challenges facing our industry—why young people don't attend theatre, why we've not succeeded in providing a better life for artists, why we've built so many buildings, why the play-development process is often sub-optimal—there is also, especially now, an honest investigation into the question of how we make theatre that is exciting, that is relevant, that matters in our communities, that stimulates public discourse, and that is accessible enough that people from a wide variety of backgrounds can participate.

The future is not a separate reality. It is always under construction, in an iterative way. In the 1980s the computer scientist and futurist Alan Kay coined a telling phrase: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." He spoke about how, in terms of technology, the gestation period from the idea stage to the launch of something new could take 10 or 20 years. Therefore, what will become the future is sitting in someone's research lab right now—so the best way to get a handle on it is to visit the right places and see what's being worked on.

At its core, TCG has always been about the idea that theatremakers forge new paths through their own processes of invention, but also by visiting with each other and learning what's being worked on. From its earliest days, the organization provided travel funds for the leaders of new resident companies to do just that. Today, increasing numbers of theatre artists are traveling beyond our borders to see what future is being invented in other far-flung places. And artists from other lands are visiting us—TCG conferences continue to be a major point of connection and opportunity in helping see and define the future. And, of course, the advent of American Theatre magazine in 1984 offered up another crucial vehicle for transmitting ideas about what's happening today in theatres, in design studios and in writer's brains—nationally and internationally. These ideas are often the seeds of what will be important in five months, five years or twenty-five years.

As we sit here in early 2009—in an environment where so many assumptions have been called into question and so many systems are clearly in need of reinvention, not just in the theatre world, but in the entire world—this is clearly a moment to think about what it will take for us to truly invent the future.

P.S. With a quarter-century under the belts of all TCG's publications—American Theatre, TCG Books and ARTSEARCH—it's something of a surprise to note that they came about after TCG had itself already been in existence for almost a quarter-century. Did TCG publisher Terry Nemeth or American Theatre editor-in-chief Jim O'Quinn ever imagine TCG's publications arm would grow to where it is today? I think not! Terry would never have predicted that he'd be reading books off of a five-inch, handheld computer screen—but he is. Congratulations to both Terry and, especially, to Jim and his editorial team, past and present, for their contributions to the field. Their work is part of the constant iterative process of invention that makes the American theatre what it is.