Let’s Put a Bullet in the Ugliest Rumor

Much as I may seem to like banging on Seattle’s Big Houses here at Just Wrought, I am compelled to make clear from the outset of this essay that they are not the perpetrators but rather the victims of the ugliest rumor currently hovering like a toxic miasma over the Seattle theatre scene.  To understand this you need to understand that beyond the Big Houses, and the dwindling mid-sized houses, and even the small alternative theatres, there exists a whole other tier of arts professionals that exercise a huge influence on the operations of these producing entities, while putting little if any actual creative “skin in the game.”  I am talking about the “booster class” of arts organizations-- entities like Theatre Puget Sound, ArtsFund, PONCHO, and the boards of directors at every mid to large theatre in this town.

These institutions tend to be led by well-meaning, “right-thinking” liberal-minded members of the upper upper middle class (formerly the “Upper Class” before the rich began to resent being called “rich”).  The boosters usually come from a corporate background and tend to have adopted standard corporate best practices as articles of faith.  (Full disclosure: I work at a large bio-tech company for my day job.  So I am both tainted by the American corporate ethos as well as intimately familiar with it.)  The Booster Class sees themselves as the noble guardians and advisors of the Artist Class.  They believe they understand quite a bit better than their artistic little brethren how the big bad real world works; and they are convinced that the best way to ensure the survival of the art form they are boosting—in this case theatre—is to apply the rules and philosophies of business to their operation.  Thus, we get general, inoffensive/ineffective, broad spectrum marketing campaigns like ArtsCrush, or the cold-blooded shuttering of the Empty Space because its board of directors decided it was not performing to the standards of a viable Silicon Valley startup.

That sad story brings us to the ugliest rumor: that many of the leaders at or near the top of these booster organizations believe that Seattle just isn’t big enough, rich enough, or cultured enough to sustain three major League of Resident Theatres (LORT) venues like A Contemporary Theatre, Intiman Theatre and The Seattle Repertory Theatre.  One of these will have to go, goes the thinking, preferably in the next few years.  Whether this happens via out right murder, like the aforementioned Empty Space, or merger, like the recent marriage of Seattle Shakespeare Company to The Wooden O, remains to be determined; but either way, murder or merger, what seems to the corporate-minded like a necessary act of cultural husbandry will in fact be an irrevocable disaster for the cultural ecology of Seattle.  We have to make sure it never happens.

I understand that to corporate eyes, the Seattle theatre is overdue for a down-sizing.  No other town of our population size has asmany large regional theatres.  In corpo-speak there are all kinds of economies of scale to be leveraged and redundancies to be eliminated by closing one of the Big Three or merging it with another.  What this analysis overlooks is that theatres are less like widget-manufacturers and more like ecosystems.  Diversity matters.  For Seattle to make a run at world class status as a theatre town, it needs all of its Big Houses, plus a lot more middle-sized spaces, and it needs all of them to be as different from each other as possible.

Of course, sadly the Big Three have done everything possible over the last fifteen years to make themselves less distinguishable from each other as an Applebee’s^® is from a Red Robin^® is from a T.G.I. Friday’s^®.  They hire the same actors, designers and directors.  They fight for the same plays, semi-fresh from New York.  When called on their lack of local freshness, they hold up for cover the same one or two nice playwrights, local or not, call them “local” and call it good, while hoping that the call for “local” goes the way of the Empty Space.  (It won’t.)

Instead, they should privately strive and publicly argue for what sets them apart from their competitors.  (Yes, Big Three, I said “competitors.”  The concept might make you squeamish, but your Booster bosses don’t share your scruples, and your audience actually enjoys an honest rivalry.)  The Bigs should also locally source as many of the stories they stage as possible.  (Just ask Tom Douglas: great local restaurants start with great local ingredients.)  Finally they should develop an aesthetic and stick with it, building their artistic corps around this defining core. 

That’s right, B3: pull the artists you like working with in house.  As celebrated local scenic designer Matthew Smucker once plaintively exclaimed in the comments section of this blog:  “Freelance is killing us all, so give us all a home.”  Oh, and while I’m ranting: stop choosing safe plays.  Theatres are built to contain danger so that audiences can experience it without actually being damaged.  When you consistently choose safe plays, or direct dangerous plays safely, you smother the internal fires of our art form.  Instead of strategizing to survive, strive to make a difference.

The differences matter; and as happy irony would have it, they better ensure your survival.  When theatres are truly diverse, audiences will care about diversity.  Then they will make ticket purchases based on it.  People will go to all three venues to marvel at the differences, like enjoying varied species at the zoo.  As it is now, they aren’t convinced they are missing anything if they fail to catch Intiman’s latest because they are fairly certain that eventually they will see something similar at ACT. 

Now, in all fairness, I could be wrong.  The rumor could be baseless.  When I recently checked my sources,  a certain much more knowledgeable colleague of mine said:  "The movement toward ‘consolidation’ of big houses, which was at one time aimed at ACT and Intiman, and then at the Rep and Intiman, is now largely over.”  What’s more, apparently there is a counter rumor circulating that the booster organizations which were originally pushing for these mergers (ArtsFund and PONCHO, to varying degrees) are now in worse shape than the theatres themselves.  There might even be a movement afoot to merge them.  Hah!  True or not, you cannot help relishing the poetic justice.

Still, we have to stay vigilant.  Seattle cannot lose even one of these Big Houses, and the boosters who seek to “right-size” Seattle theatre need to be convinced that our theatre scene is fatter than an average city’s because Seattle is destined for greatness.  Let’s put a bullet in this rumor once and for all.  Let every leader at every booster organization even remotely associated with the survival of the Intiman, ACT and the Rep publically avow the following:

I understand that for Seattle to rise to its rightful place as a world class theatre town it cannot afford to lose any of its three LORT theatres.  I will do everything in my power to ensure the survival of the Intiman Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre and the Seattle Repertory Theatre in perpetuity, and I will reject any attempt to destroy or dilute their potential diversity whether by murder or merger.

Further, I will demand that these institutions maximize the differences among themselves, so that a truly vibrant and viable theatrical ecology can thrive here, such that the loss of any one of these theatres will be utterly irrevocable, and thus unthinkable.

Now, this is not too much to ask, is it?

Step forward, Boosters!  And take the pledge!

Comments

[Scot Augustson]

I agree with you about wanting to keep the big three theaters separate organizations (Although my reasons are probably different than yours.)
BUT, it got me thinking about other possible mergers. Imagine if WET merged with Seattle Opera (And tried to do a full ring cycle at the place on 19th.)
Or, if the Symphony did the score for the Brown Derby.
Or, if Intiman was the victim of a hostile take over by the Gilbert and Sullivan Society.

[Paul Mullin]

I like all of those, Scot, very much!

But what if also, you and I finally merged and wrote that sitcom we know we have in out collective heart.

[Scot Augustson]

Paul: Do you mean the sitcom about the wacky adventures of Jonas Salk and his quest to rid the world of that pesky polio?

[Omar Willey]

Actually, I'm all in favor of the Intiman being taken over by the Savoyards...

Intiman is the only theater in town that I actually pissed off so badly that they requested I not review their productions back in 1993. It might have had something to do with my writing:

"Out of the 104 producing theater groups in Seattle, the Intiman has possibly the least distinct identity of all. Is it classic? Is it modren?[sic] Should it have two stages again? Or should it consolidate and staff its plays solely with Cornish interns? Can it seek to be as boring as a Rep production of Moliere? Should it?"

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as the Frogs say.

My recollection of theatrical identities at that time is jaded, but something like this:

Intiman: Seattle's "classic" theater (or so they advertised themselves)

ACT: Contemporary plays, and whatever Steven Dietz happened to have lying around.

The Rep: a place to go to look at expensive sets and period furniture. And August Wilson. Lots of attempts to draw "marquee" names (Cleavon Little, Tom Hulce, Laurence Fishburne, etc.)

Empty Space: Contemporary plays that might actually deal with meaningful things but in an inoffensive way. Like ACT, except substitute Kurt Beattie for Steven Dietz, and add more talent.

The "fringe" theater groups and mid-sized theaters had much firmer identities. Everyone knew what Alice B. Theater did, or Seattle Children's Theater, or Seattle Public Theater, or Greek Active or New City or... (fill in the blank). And yet despite the diversity of theaters, there were nevertheless plays that were dying for an audience and a theater to produce them.

Part of what made Seattle attractive to theater groups in the late 80s/early 90s, I think, was the identity crisis that had set in among the "Big Theaters" was the semi-delusion that there were many unfilled niches, and that "if only we moved our theater group to Seattle we could teach those backwater hicks what theater really is" attitude I found so vulgar then as now.

I can only hope this current identity crisis leads to something similar, only without the attendant territorial pissing among smaller theater groups that unravelled the LOFT and other such noble ventures.

[Paul Mullin]

Omar, thanks as ever for your long-armed insights.