Higher Theatre Education Creates Audiences Not Artists
Colin Mitchell | Dec 30, 2009 | Comments 4 |
Is this true?
Well according to this somewhat tongue-in-cheek post from Tom Loughlin over at his always educational site A Poor Player - yes!
It’s been awhile since I reached out into the blogosphere-at-large – beyond our sometimes meager resources here in LA – and tapped some of the provocative minds out there. Well this is worth it. Tom is riffing on the NEA Study that says theatre audiences are shrinking – and turns it back on itself. The audiences aren’t shrinking they are simply focusing.
No longer is theatre being made by the people for the people – it is an elitist circle jerk that creates its own demographic and then force feeds it with what it apparently “wants” or was told it was SUPPOSED TO WANT. Or what we like to call “higher education”.
Interesting. Something to ponder as we head into the next decade of this New Millennium and wonder not so much WHY we’re doing this – but WHOM we’re doing it for. Which in a sense actually answers the former, doesn’t it?
Happy New Year, Elitists.
Filed Under: ponderings
Right, theater was once for the people. When was that? I’d like to know.
For kings? for New Yorkers? For Wealthy society donating to form regional theaters? For a social place to see and be seen? YES. For people? The freaking educated elite, which is utter bullshit by the way and as someone from that system I’m happy to go into why a bit later (but I’m running out the door to see some theater) , is just another line of elites that are the primary theater audience and are the closest thing to the general public we’ve gotten to in a long time. Why do you think the audiences are shrinking? The new elite that we’re serving doesn’t have money, they blew it all on school to try and keep an otherwise un-elite drawing industry going.
And what about this LA Times article pointing out that as our theater audiences have been shrinking, they’ve been shrinking much less than the audience for Movies and Sporting events!
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/19/entertainment/la-et-nea-survey19-2009dec19
Uh, Shakespeare? Certainly his plays were seen by Kings and Queens and Lords and Ladies, but his plays were tailor-made for the working classes, especially his comedies. And the prices were low for them as well. Certainly they had to “stay in the their place” during the shows (general admission anyone?) but his work was a classic example of writing “for the people” and then embedding high art in the lowbrow.
How’s that for an example? Only the greatest playwright in the history of mankind.
And don’t get me wrong. I have no beef with the “elite”. The word simply means the best of the best. Elite athletes, elite musicians, elite writers – what’s the problem there? None. It’s ‘elitism” that brings in the problems.
Also, I agree, audiences are primarily shrinking because of the economy. No argument there.
Remember, I’m just framing the question based on Loughlin’s thesis.
But I will say – theatre in America is in trouble if it doesn’t try and speak to the working and middle classes of the country. The time is ripe. Because the circle jerk – as I’ve said before – will in the end only leave one hand free. And the sound of one hand clapping?
Exactly. Happy New Year, Ian. Hope we actually get to meet in 2010. Peace.
Okay, why this is bullshit, and my comment to Tom’s article:
–
But what about the data that has shown that while, as the NEA study shows, arts attendance is down, that sport events have lost audience at nearly twice that rate and that movies at four times? That all leisure activities are showing declines, arts participation actually showing the least amount of decline and that the main difference is that the arts required a live event while sports and movie attendance compete with home viewing and alternative distribution?
–
And I’m so glad we look at a narrow window at the beginning of the last century to compare today’s theater industry to. Let’s not look at the centuries of essentially commercial theater created for the upper echelon’s of society as the rule, instead we’ll look to the small period of time when, because it was valued by that elite that still had money in a global depression, they saw to infuse cash into the production system because they had it and they thought it was important.
–
Should we point out that this white upper middle class is about 80% of the united states demographically?
–
Should we point out that 1/3 of the people in the US live in the top 10 urban areas, each at 5 million people or above?
–
So you’re saying that those making theater, the majority of which by law of numbers are going to be white and from comfortable families, shouldn’t be looking at trying to work in urban centers, where the people live? And that by those numbers, they shouldn’t be making theater that appeals to the largest swath of that local population when In fact the numbers say that those working in theater are doing a pretty good job compared to other live leisure experiences?
–
Theater, aside from this utopian ideal you cling to from our most for-the-people era, has been for elites, just like every other art form. And as we move from that to a more open system ruled by the masses instead of a commissioning ruling cultural class, maybe it’s a good thing we’re training a audience in college, because we keep cutting the funding in compulsory education.
–
Maybe comfortable white girls are the biggest part of the theater going population because their parents can afford to send them to schools or live in school districts where there is still theater programs in grade schools?
–
Maybe our industry is smart enough to train it’s own audience so it continues to have an audience made of people after all other audiences of the past had disappeared? And maybe the decrease in ticket sales and attendance has more to do with the lucky audience we built not having any more from being in debt and the real lesson is to accommodate those people, the audience we made instead of trying to hold onto that old moneyed elite of an audience that is dying off?
–
These maybes are all hypothetical though, with no data to back them up, so who knows. I suppose is we had another NEA study to look at those numbers and decided not to compare that with anything but itself, that we’d be able to really talk about it though.
–
But, I suppose i’m looking too far out side of the world of theater, and that our critiques must remain insular and talk about theater amongst theater makers calling to account for the theater they make in front of other theater makers. That’s the irony of this, you’re a theater maker talking about making theater and your audience is other theater makers interested in what you’re saying about making theater. Its the EXACT same demographic you’re pointing out and can never be another one, because that is the audience for this type of writing.
Well you asked “When was that?” and I gave you an example from what could arguably be the Genesis of modern theatre and now you want to qualify it? Okay. How about Group Theatre, or early Actors Studio, or hell, even some of the stuff Colony Theatre is doing here in town might qualify.
But a couple of last thoughts on this – cuz I think this string may have played out (although I’m trying to get Tom to respond which might make for some new grist) – if it’s true that MFA’s are creating more audience than artist – I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. We need savvy audiences. And to be honest, alot of the people I know who went to grad school had the “original” studied right out of them anyway. Not all. But alot. I’ve already always liked the self-made artists myself…
And a final thought: why so defensive to the idea that we should try and build our audiences where we live – from the shop owners and neighbors and bar dwellers and churches, the so-called “uneducated” – why does the audience need to be so “sophisticated”? Certainly our art should aspire to that, but I’d rather speak to the middle classes – tell their stories – and expect them to rise for the occasion.
Okay, I’m done.