Two Weighty Issues
Theatre Facts 84 (March ’85) indeed gives all of us concerned with nonprofit professional theatre cogent reasons for long-range planning. This reader nevertheless finds Robert Holley’s interpretation of his data perhaps overdrawn.
An aggregate deficit of a little more than one-and-one-half percent is not to be ignored. But the comparisons over the past three years (“real progress seems to have ceased”), if they indeed show an “increasingly erratic pattern of contributed support,” cover the whole nonprofit universe. The 1981 federal initiatives put that whole universe into a competitive bag so far as organized donors were concerned, and only gifts from individuals could remain truly selective. We all used to complain that the arts lagged behind in philanthropy. Temporarily we are caught more by equal justice than by special neglect, except for the lamentable picture in the large national foundations.
But three years are not sufficient as a base for such gloomy forecasts, as TCG almost alone in the service field has long understood. It was not the attempted cuts in NEA funding (normally frustrated by the Congress) but the large federal reductions in the other nonprofit areas of public life which created any “increasingly erratic pattern.” The record productivity, the audiences, the continuing growth of private and corporate support, the beginning layer of endowments, the persistence of state councils—these will still be having their effects when three-vear fluctuations have been extended into a post-recession period that really did not begin until last fall.l
As Mr. Holley cogently observes, we need to concentrate on two weighty issues: protecting the growing base of philanthropy above the so-called 2 percent cap on tax deductions and convincing the national foundations all over again that theatre is a cultural resource comparable to music and the visual arts.
W. McNeil Lowry
New York City
Life, Not Death
When the Goodman Theatre’s fine artistic director Gregory Mosher is quoted in American Theatre (“Beginning at 60,” Feb. ’85) as saying that “Subscription is death. It’s that simple,” my first thought is that this statement must come right out of the Theatre of the Absurd. For, by all that’s reasonable, Gregory has had a gold mine in his subscribership (currently at an all-time high of 20,154), and a launching pad for the realization of his artistic aspirations, one of which is the soon-to-open New Theatre Company which will operate in tandem with the 683-seat mainstage (but at its own 350-seat location, and without subscription).
Sometimes we tend to think of subscription primarily as an economic boon, forgetting its enormous educative aspect, whereby the subscriber’s repertoire acceptance threshold is raised. In Chicago, the Goodman can now draw upon the thousands of already sensitized people who have been faithfully attending such heavily subscribed local theatres of high quality as Steppenwolf and Wisdom Bridge. And, outside of Chicago, there’s so much chapter and verse on this theme that one doesn’t know where to begin—Jon Jory’s Actors Theatre of Louisville has 18,000 season ticket-holders who are the stable audience for the annual Humana Festival of New Plays; San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre has 48,000 subscribers; nationally, our nonprofit theatres reported subscription gains this season of 30 percent over last year.
In 1961, when the single-ticket buyer was king, there were only four resident professional theatres in this country. The infant Theatre Communications Group made subscription promotion a key plank in its platform; the season-ticket concept played a critical role in the Great Burgeoning that followed.
I submit that subscription for Gregory—and for his colleagues all over North America—has meant life, not death.
Danny Newman
Chicago
Danny Newman, author of Subscribe Now!, has advised performing arts organizations on audience development for well over a generation.
Bad Dreams
Kenneth Cavander’s impression of Joseph Campbell’s latest thinking (“Heroes When We Need Them,” Feb. ’85) is disturbing—and it’s giving me bad dreams! How does pop culture resonate eternal values or represent archetypes? It preys on the general lack of fulfillment and disharmony of contemporary life. It devalues critical and independent thought. Conformity and fear are its aims and produce its best results, namely consumption as a form of compensation and the love of money. It’s not so much an insult as an ironic hustle to draw from a “hero” like Michael Jackson in order to illustrate the universality of a thinker like Campbell or Carl Jung.
Its unfortunate parallel to the theatre is that the same greed, shallowness, and lack of artistic courage that makes pop stars has also put Off-Broadway into business and consequently out of the position to reflect our psychic lives with any degree of clarity or insight.
Kirpal Gordon
Staten Island, N.Y.
Guarantee for Actors
Your article “No Play, No Showcase” (Feb. ’85) states that the conversion rights rule [contained in some Actors’ Equity Association agreements] has been “in effect since 1981.” Actually, the conversion rights clause has been an integral part of the Showcase Code since its inception in the mid-1960s. One of the basic rationales for allowing actors to work for up to eight weeks for minimal reimbursement (as low as $1.80 per day) is that they will be guaranteed the role or “buy-out” should the Showcase move to a contract.
Lawrence G. Katen
Business Representative, AEA
Editor’s Note: Mr. Katen correctly points out that the Showcase Code has long contained conversion rights provisions, and we apologize for the ambiguity. The article intended to note that only recently have LORT theatres agreed in their contract with Equity to assume responsibility for “subsidiary rights” (of which conversion rights are one example).
Challenges from Elsewhere
I’m impressed by American Theatre’s focus on art and artistic matters, as opposed to the standard trade journals dealing with administration. Particularly important is its increasing emphasis on avant-garde work, which receives little credibility through other publications with wide readerships.
I also note the beginning stirrings of interest in elucidating just what is happening in dance, music and performance art, and how that should challenge theatre artists to move more quickly and decisively. In fact, I urge you to increase your attention to the other arts, where so much exciting work is being done.
Gregory Kandel, president
Management Consultants for the Arts
Greenwich, Conn.
Corrections
The recent production of Shaw’s The Devil’s Disciple at Milwaukee Repertory Theater was directed by Gregory Boyd, not John Dillon, as noted in the Stages section of the March issue. The company in Dallas which produced Eric Overmeyer’s Native Speech (“Asking for Trouble,” Jan. ’85) was incorrectly identified as Theatre #1. The company is known as Stage #1 and is devoted to producing contemporary American plays.
