Art for art sake is simply no longer viable in most cases and the closing of the Pasadena Playhouse is the most recent sad reminder. The Playhouse’s Executive Director is quoted in the LA Times saying that if the Playhouse is going to exist…”our position in the community needs to be redefined as it relates to the city and the funding community.” He gets it. It’s time to redefine what we do for the public and how we do it. Clearly not enough people cared about the work the Playhouse was doing, however excellent the plays might have been.
LA city is now trying to eliminate Cultural Affairs Dept (along with many other city depts.) and this time it is for real. Last month’s NEA stats show nationwide attendance at arts events are down to the lowest point since the 80’s. The LA Opera had to be bailed out by the LA County Supervisors to the tune of $14 million so they can just stay afloat until July. I was recently in Sacramento with the California Arts Advocates and we visited legislators who seemed to be unaware that California is 50th in arts spending, behind Mississippi and Guam. The art we are making, folks, however dear to us, is simply not making a huge impact beyond our small circle. There will be no riots in the streets of Pasadena because the playhouse is closing. Too bad, as there should be. But if they’d cancel American Idol, there’d be wall-to-wall cable news coverage of the social unrest in every city in America.
Now, don’t go jump off the nearest abandoned theatre, please! The news is not all bad. If you’re a theatre with sold out shows, then this doom and gloom seems completely irrelevant. And it is, I guess. For theatres that have a strong audience base and funding to do play after play, there may be no reason to really look at the bigger picture. If “art for arts sake” works for your theatre, then great! It’s all about demand, and if your theatre productions are in great demand, then you’re happy. I’m thrilled when my shows are sold out and I feel like crap when audiences are small. It’s not even about money at all. It’s just feeling like you’re doing something that matters. But let’s be honest, most of us are looking for more audience most of the time. Can you think of a single theatre that doesn’t want more audience? Even the most successful theatres need more audiences. There is plenty of evidence out there to show the trends in how people are consuming art these days, and fewer are going to live theatre. It’s a fact that for most theatres, audience development ranks as one of the biggest concerns.
I really enjoyed this year’s Ovation Awards (even though my theatre didn’t win the award we were nominated for…tiff tiff). I enjoyed the celebration and the camaraderie more than usual this year. I guess I really needed a shot in the arm. So great to be in a room where we were all in the club. No theatre haters among us. But as I sat there, I did notice that it was all about …art for arts sake, this unsustainable model. I wondered how many of these people would still be in the theatre business 5 years from now. Yes, we can all manage to mount a theatre production, or two, or maybe even five if we’re really determined to keep going for a few years. But how do we make our work have a powerful impact to the general public? How do we get the millions of American Idol viewers to want to see our work? If that lame TV show has a million times more impact on our world than our live interaction with audiences, then we have to reexamine our approach. And while it’s great for the theatre community to celebrate excellence, we also need to talk seriously about the hard stuff. ‘Cuz if we just keep talking to the choir, I don’t think most of us will be able to keep doing theatre.
So I ask again, for us, as a theatre community to ponder; what if we really did the kind of art that the people need and want? What would that look like? What if we really asked the people who live near our theatres, or those on our mailing lists…what they wanted? Not what shows they wanted to see, but what would fill them up on Saturday night? What would they really be thrilled about being part of? I know it’s scary to ask these questions, but I think we have to.
Jay McAdams
Executive Director
24th STreet Theatre
Los Angeles
More Than Just Plays
www.24thstreet.org
