AT25: An Eye on the Future
Joseph Haj, producing artistic director, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Chapel Hill, N.C.
Borrowing from Facebook's ubiquitous "25 Random Things," here are 25 thoughts about the next 25 years in the American theatre.
1. We will recognize that we are the servants in this game, not the masters, and that our theatres belong to the communities that they serve.
2. The sector will realize that all theatre is local.
3. There will be fewer LORT theatres.
4. We'll finally be able to offer a more articulate defense of the value of our work than "we think you should fund it because we like making it."
5. We will make the argument so beautifully that asking why theatre is important will be like asking for a flashlight to find the sun.
6. The next 25 years will include the passing of some of the giants in the field; we will find ways to put young people at their feet to learn everything before they go.
7. There will be many more women and people of color as leaders of our major institutions...
8. ...and so we will see still better guidance of our institutions than we have seen in the last 25 years.
9. There will be increased intolerance of arbitrary, capricious and mean-spirited leadership.
10. There will be more resident acting companies.
11. There will be more artists in leadership positions.
12. It will all be about the Vision Thing.
13. The days of "come admire our work and get the hell out of the building" are over.
14. Fiscal responsibility will be a value held as closely as artistic excellence in all surviving institutions, and not just by the managing director.
15. Deliberate artistic and administrative opacity will make way to transparency and invitation into process.
16. The field will learn how to take care of its artists, particularly actors, more responsibly.
17. Social networking is not the future (not even sure it's the present).
18. Stewardship will not be enough. Leadership is required, and the field will find a comprehensive way to identify and develop it.
19. An end to constructing buildings bigger than the ideas that they hold.
20. An end to vilifying mature audiences.
21. An end to infighting about who is making more meaningful theatre.
22. Finally figuring out how to engage young people meaningfully in our work.
23. There will be no such thing as a newspaper critic.
24. Future leaders will need to do two things: First, learn everything from those who have come before...and second:
25. Take the old way outside and shoot it.