From the Executive Director

What If...We Had Some New Words

By Teresa Eyring

Throughout history, the simple question "What if...?" has inspired new stories, new models, scientific discoveries and crazy road trips. As most readers of this column know by now, TCG will encourage its 2011 National Conference attendees to consider a variety of "what if" scenarios in imagining the future of our field. The conference kicks off our 50th anniversary—a prime time to tap into our collective and individual imaginations and share the riches we discover there.

When TCG issued a request for session proposals, the "what ifs" came pouring in. We received more than 100 proposals for less than half as many time slots. Not all of the proposed ideas will be formally scheduled into conference content—but I am certain they will be explored in cafés, in hotel lobbies and on street corners as the conference unfolds in downtown Los Angeles from June 16 to 18.

One of my personal "what ifs" goes like this: "What if...we could invent some new words?"

As with most fields of endeavor, theatre possesses its own trade vocabulary. We know what our colleagues are referring to when they use such words as dark (meaning no show tonight), and strike (meaning rip apart the set and throw it in the Dumpster—or, alternatively, stop working now because we've just declared a labor action), and paper (meaning give away a lot of free tickets so the house looks full), and down left (meaning the front of the stage to the right of the audience), and a great house (meaning an appropriately responsive audience), and the Scottish play (meaning...I can't say the title or I'll be cursed).

On the other hand, we don't have a word yet for what happens when the show stops because of a tornado warning, and the actors and audience all end up in the basement together for an hour before returning to the theatre to pick up where they left off. The possibility of this sort of interruption—this "life intervenes" effect—is one thing that makes theatre a thrill ride, unlike almost any other form of art.

Industry terminology aside, what would happen if there were crisper, more direct language to describe the art of theatre and its role in society? What words do we currently have in our everyday theatre lexicon that could benefit from some parsing and shaking up? Along with frequently bandied-about terms such as relevance, innovation, sustainability, diversity and models (a.k.a. the model is broken), there are phrases that are used repeatedly to describe not only the art of theatre but the nature of its very existence in society: its shortcomings, its growth, its environment and its impact. Bob Leonard said to me recently: "We need to stop talking about the arts as needy charities and instead refer to them as problem-solving community assets."

I am not an etymologist, nor am I particularly interested in becoming a full-fledged conlanger (that's a language inventor), but I am curious about whether there is a way for theatremakers, educators and audiences to expand and refine a vocabulary that will support deeper, perhaps more precise, discussions of theatre art and the environment within which it is made. And if we could develop that language and encourage its wider fluency, could that lead to a different sort of engagement and caring about the work?

Online social media outlets have helped in this regard—more citizens can now jump into the public fray and express their thoughts about the art that matters to them. Shakespeare's characters are some of the most regularly discussed topics on Twitter, for example, probably because there are so many Bard productions on any given day and so many secondary school students writing Dane-based papers on any given night. One hopes that conversation translates back into a live world.

In Havana in 2009, I visited the Parque Central, where crowds assemble daily to argue about baseball. They talk stats and individual players, review what transpired in yesterday's game, speculate about a team's readiness to win a world title. People enter and exit the discussion, and the crowd shrinks and grows accordingly.

"What if," in the corners of U.S. city parks, where old and young men play rapid-fire games of chess, there were equally rapid-fire conversations about literature and theatre, or poetry, or any art form, for that matter? Conversations that people would jump into and leave at will.

I Tweeted this thought one day, and a fellow Twitterer replied: "People argue about Shakespeare in parks across the nation every summer." He's right, of course, and his point is proven season after season from San Diego's Balboa Park to New York City's own Parque Central (Central Park).

Imagine then, that you run into your neighborhood barrista, and she's arguing animatedly with the mail carrier. And you say, "What in the world are you arguing about?" and they say, "Hamlet and death, of course," or "What Lynn Nottage should write about next," or "the opening date of Spider-Man."

As the playwright John Guare will tell you, theatre is not an industry, it's a world. Expanding the language of our theatre world, particularly as new generations come to the table as artists and audiences, is an exciting prospect. Perhaps we've achieved a universal understanding of what is meant by "we're dark tonight," and know just how to talk about whether the lighting design supported a particular transition in a play. But "what if" we could invent some dazzling, transformative new theatre words and parlay them into common usage, so that they eventually find their way into the dictionary...?

Come to the conference and help us make it happen.

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