Money isn’t Everything… or Anything

My friend Maria’s mom gave me one of those rare koan-ish gifts of wisdom that stick with you for a lifetime, poking you at odd times as you struggle on and off to get to the core of understanding it. I was in high school, over Maria’s house for dinner, and her mom and I must have been talking about my hopes and aspirations. I said something like, “It’ll all work out so long as I can find the money to afford all the things I want to do.” Smiling sweetly, Maria’s mom said, “Oh Paul, don’t worry about money.  Money is the easiest thing in the world to get.”

What?

Okay. Set that notion on the table a moment so that we can compare it with what a former friend and colleague once flatly told me. “Paul, theater is an art form for the Upper Middle Class. Period. End of argument. End of story.” I remember seeing in his eyes the pride of superior conviction as he went on to explain that fundraising, marketing and, by tacit implication, programming itself must be tailored to this essential truth. Furthermore, since theatre is for, by and of the moderately to handsomely wealthy, then raising money for theatre, which was his job at a large West Coast regional theatre, was the noblest and most essential duty one could perform for our art form. 

Now, honestly, that sounds more sensible than my friend Maria’s mom’s enigmatic epigram, right?  We are on much firmer territory with that kind of thinking, aren’t we?

Are we?

After all, what the hell did my sweet earlier friend’s sweet mom mean?  For the longest time I tended to interpret it prosaically. “Well, okay… everything else takes money to get.  Therefore money is easiest, since it requires one less step. Money is freeze-dried effort waiting to be reconstituted for a different circumstance… or something. Got it.”

I guess that makes a sort of sense but only the sort that isn’t really worth much digging for. However, as the years blurred by, and most especially as the struggles for the vitality of my art form have come to a head, especially in my adopted home town of Seattle, I am beginning to suspect something lies deeper in Maria’s mom’s words.  

All right. Let’s dig: if money’s easy and I shouldn’t worry about it, then what is it that is hard and that I should be worrying about? Maria’s mom did not elucidate. I realize now that this is because she knew I had to figure it out for myself. Happily I am beginning to believe that the alternative currency she was pointing me at is one that I, and so many of my true friends, have been blessed with to a richness. The “hard” currency Maria’s mom wanted me to find and treasure was the precious tender of ideas.

“Oh sure,”  I hear my former friend say, “That’s great. Wonderfully idealistic and all, but without money, theatre dies. Raising money is the essential task that makes it all possible.”

What do you think, gentle reader? If one wanted to destroy the essence of an art form, obliterate its fresh ideas and enchain it to defending at all costs the miserable back-ass-wards status quo of comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted, could one employ any more effective strategy than keeping its brightest people constantly courting the almighty upper middle-class dollar instead of trading and paying interest on ideas?

All art is a conversation—theatre doubly so. If my former friend is telling me I can only hold a conversation with the upper middle class of the Western World circa early 21st century I am obliged to either politely ignore him, or firmly insist he go fuck himself. I want to talk with everyone everywhere and everywhen.  And I buy into this conversation with my ideas or I don’t join at all. I will not, nor will the colleagues I admire most, huddle acquiescently on the tiny postage stamp theatre artists are ceded when we are told that money is what defends us and what we must defend. 

Maria’s mom always had faith in me when others didn’t. She is no longer in this world and I have no way to repay her for her gifts so gracious. So in honor of that fine lady, you can have this idea, and everything you find here, for free:

Yours is the territory you refuse to surrender.

Comments

[Badsoviet]

I don't think your former friend is fundamentally incorrect - but he's the same guy that is bemoaning the gray-ing of the audience. It's exactly what Boal was fighting against, the tyranny of coercive drama that mostly tells us what we want to hear.

The thing is, he doesn't _have_ to be correct. There are companies like Minnesota's TEN THOUSAND THINGS or Detroit's THE HINTERLANDS that perform in varying spaces and with different production practices.

Unfortunately, most of what I see in the industry-of-theater has already ceded the territory you speak of. It's all for good reasons - we want career advancement, we want to be paid for our work, we want to be respected. So we work and strive and sell our plays (or produce them) so that we price out some potential audience members.

I could go on, but I'm sure someone else can fill in the white space better.

[Sylvain]

1. Theater needs space, willing participants and light. These things can be found for free all over the world. The more you can control these three things, the easier it is to control the result (note I said easier not easy). Money can help you control these three things.

So money is nice but not necessary. In my experience money usually has a negative effect on theater because it usually leads to lazy solutions rather than the brilliance born of limited resources.

I should say that I like my theater a little out of control and I dislike realistic sets.

B. I think for some people money is easy. I've met them. They aren't happier than me because for them something else is hard. Something like love or friendship or ideas. I think that's what Maria's mom was saying.

For example, someday one of your boys will have some friend over for dinner and they'll say "It'll all work out, as long as I can keep coming up with ideas." Of course you'll respond by saying that ideas are easy, they're the easiest thing in the world to get.

That's true for you, Paul. In fact you have more ideas than anyone I know. On top of that, most of them are really interesting.

III. Your former friend is an ass. Or maybe he was just trying to get you riled up.

[Tommer Peterson]

If one decides to limit what "theater" means to only productions in LORT houses, then your friends has a point. If you decide on a broader definition, then the sky is the limit.

What seems to often limit the creative boundaries of the work is this built-in, and widely accepted, assumption that all work has to be produced to the Nth degree of over-the-top production values. Don't get me wrong, I love fully realized productions, and Seattle is full of the talent to do this. But, if a company opts to ONLY to fully realize every offering, then the number of offerings goes down when money is scarce. And, money is scarce, and like to continue to be so.

If I may sit half a bun on your soapbox for a moment, I would wonder why the financially struggling theaters don't offer a wider range of productions - some readings, some workshop productions, some minimally produced, and some fully produced. It seems like a menu of options like this would allow a company to present maybe twice the number of works in a season, and give their audiences a richer experience in the range of offerings - including the magic of hearing new work in development.

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Here's another thought on this. The nonprofit arts organization model just might be the dinosaur of its time. This system has only been around for less than a generation, and it might turn out to have been an unworkable idea.

[Paul Mullin]

Johnny, thanks for your thoughts and kind words. I consider your compliments to be the highest of praise, coming as they do from a man who helped to found two of the most vibrant alternative theatres in two of the most vibrant theatre cities in the world. I speak of course of Annex Theatre in Seattle and Sacred Fools in LA.

[Paul Mullin]

Badsoviet, thanks for your reply. I feel obliged to tell everyone who doesn't know that you are Kurt Hartwig. One of my good friends and followers here pointed out that you had left your comment under semi-anonymous circumstances.

I have a long-standing, ardently defending policy of no anonymous comments here.

[Paul Mullin]

And Tommer, thanks for your comment. Your insights are always so so welcome here.