Was Mission Creep/Diffusion the Smoking Gun of Seattle Theatre’s Decline?

It all started with me bitching about a Stranger review.  (Come to think of it, that’s how a lot of it starts.)  Now, full disclosure, I actually wrote one of the pieces in Balagan Theatre’s outdoor show King Arthur and the Knights of the Playground, but this ain’t my first rodeo, so I can assure you I’m highly unlikely to complain about a review simply because it’s negative.  (Press is press after all.)  What bugged me was that Goldy began his analysis of the show with a quintessentially flawed premise. 

“If the best children's theater amuses and engages adults as much as children, then Balagan Theatre's world premiere … doesn't make the grade. Still, the kids seemed to love it, and you can't beat the ticket price—free—for the next three weekends in parks around the city.” 

So thusly irked, I posted a link to the piece on Face Book along with the following note: “Ah the old, "children's-theatre-must-also-equally-please-adults"  trope.  How tiresome it truly is.”

In flooded the comments and quickly the discussion drifted, fueled at times by troll-power alone, to the larger question of whether theatres should feel free to stray from their missions in pursuit of general excellence. 

Commenter  “I'm not sure why you're advocating for being "middle of the road" and only pleasing your base. I want theater companies to make great theater.”

Paul Mullin Why would a children's theatre seek to have artistic viability outside of being a children's theatre? That's like asking a GLBT theatre to appeal to straight audiences. It's confounding.

Around and around we went, with narrowly scoped opinions glibly offered as evidence for the larger dismaying trends of Seattle Theatre.

Commenter  You're so niche-y! Every theater wants/needs an audience. Yeah, you go after your core demographic, but it also makes sense to go after OTHER demos as well. …. Consistently ONLY targeting one group is boring and not healthy for a theater, artistically or financially.

Paul Mullin  Can you back this opinion up with any facts? Because it seems to me to be a pretty viable business plan to know your audience and target it…. And I would further maintain that it's exactly when arts orgs seek to please the aesthetic intelligentsia that they start going off the rails.

Commenter  Really? So Intiman/ACT/Seattle Rep should only produce shows that appeal to its supporter base, i.e. 65 year old, upper middle class retirees? Constant revivals of Neil Simon and Vanities and Dancing at Lughnasa? Isnt' that why the big rep houses are dying...they're aging along with the subscriber base?

I was just about to beg off the merry-go-round for good when a long-time friend and colleague leaned in with some extremely crisp and compelling insights.

Rebecca Olson*  This is going to be very shocking, but I actually agree wholeheartedly with Mullin on this one. First, we need to separate the idea that having a clear mission (ie: ensemble generated new work) means doing work that isn’t new/interesting/pushing the box. Having a clear mission is exactly what non-profit organizations are required to do, and what a lot of theaters in Seattle are lacking. What makes a theater excellent is consistently excellent work. Having a clear mission that you stand behind does not make that impossible, and having a broad non-mission (ie: “Our theater is here to make theater,”) does not mandate good work. However, history does seem to be teaching us that having both – a clear mission *and* producing consistently excellent work (ie: Wooden O Theater) creates a lasting organization.

One of the most enlightening conversations I’ve had in my theatrical life was with the late (and very much missed) Melissa Hines, who described how when the Seattle theater scene was young, the “big” theaters (Rep, ACT, Intiman, Empty Space) each had clear missions, and filled specific niches. This is a broad generalization (so please don’t nitpick,) but basically the Rep did modern classics and newish but box office safe shows from Broadway, ACT was slightly more edgy but close to the Rep, filling in the summer season when the Rep was dark, the Intiman did classics, and Empty Space did brand new/quirky/edgy work. Audiences could subscribe to all four theaters and have a completely different experience at each theater; thus, there was no “competition” for audiences.

However, at some point the Rep/ACT/Intiman theaters began spreading out and away from their original mission/focus, and all began to look alike (and the Empty Space closed.) As the big theaters homogenized, it became increasingly clear that moving away from their original missions was not allowing them opportunities to push the envelope and try new things. Instead, it was spreading them thin with too many choices and not enough structure; when one has the opportunity to select from the entire canon, from ancient Greece to modern classics to current new regional hits, to plays not yet written, seasons start to look like a dusty college textbook of “what plays are important for you to know about” rather than an exciting collection of stories for artists and audiences to explore together. 

In addition, this homogenization encouraged audiences to pick one theater and ignore the other theaters; since one season mirrored another, there was no reason to subscribe to all three. This created the climate of competing for an audience.

Finally, it alienated a lot of lifetime theatergoers, who were irritated at being constantly force fed something not to their liking. While some audiences want to see Shakespeare, others want edgy new work, and some want to modern American classics. Audiences began to feel obligated to watch something they didn’t enjoy because it was part of the season they had chosen to subscribe to. Instead of educating and challenging their audiences, over time it simply lost people completely.

Thus the crux of my conversation with Melissa, was that to have organizations that last (which are part of an artistically healthy theatre community,) we need to ask our theaters to figure out what they do that is unique and fantastic, and then ask them to do only that, and do it consistently. For example, I would be disappointed if Strawshop decided to dust off “Guys and Dolls.” On the flip side, it seems natural that 5th Avenue produced “Guys and Dolls” this year –and I would be disappointed if 5th Ave decided to try their hand at “The Laramie Project.” It isn’t that these companies are doing every kind of theater all the time; it’s that they have found their niche, and they are filling it well with consistently interesting, artistically sound productions. If I want to see a good musical, I know where to go. If I want to see productions that are intensely creative and topical, I know where to go.

I am not suggesting an organization become boxed in by a mission that is too confining to allow it to grow, develop and mature over time (ie: Our mission is to produce the plays of Paul Mullin.) I am suggesting that having a mission that is clear but not confining (ie: Our mission is to produce the plays of Northwest playwrights) gives artists/organizations a starting point and framework for choosing their seasons, and gives audiences a clear idea of why they might (or might not) be interested in attending. Missions such as “We want to produce interesting plays that challenge our audiences,” may feel like they allow for more options, but until the statement is so obvious as to be embarrassing (let us all assume that no theater is hoping to product uninteresting plays that bore their audiences), and gives no indication why exactly that organization exists, or what it is offering the community that other theaters are not already offering.

And I am also not suggesting that artists be completely tied to the organizations they primarily work with; if I belonged to a company that produced new plays but I wanted to do an all female version of Hamlet with myself in the title role, I should either pitch the idea to a local classical company or self-produce.  And if the artistic director of a theater who produces classical worked decided that she wanted to direct a production of a new Paul Mullin play, I would encourage her to again, find a company doing new work to pitch the idea to, or self-produce. A non-profit organization’s responsibility is to serve the community – both the artistic community and the audience. If Seattle theatre history has taught us anything, it is that while sometimes fun for the artists who are involved, muddying the water of your organization’s mission and season with random, off point productions is confusing to your audiences and does not serve the organization in the long run.

***

*Rebecca is an actress based in Seattle, performing with theaters throughout the region. She also has worked extensively as a fundraiser for the arts, both on staff and as a consultant to arts groups of all sizes, as well as a volunteer for several arts boards and committees.

Comments

[Paul Mullin]

Patrick? I personally insulted you? I'm sorry you feel that way but I just re-read my comment above and I don't see it. I can't speak to the other instance because I honestly don't remember what you're talking about.

This has always been a rough and tumble place, though I try to ultimately be respectful and I certainly don't allow anonymous trolling. Your "there's no crisis" argument has the whiff of outrageous trollishness about it. That's what I'm addressing. We just lost one of our Big Three Theatres and you say, "Artistically, I don't think they were important." That's an opinion. And a somewhat trollish one at that. When you go there I tend to go with you. But I see nothing personal about my ripostes.

Beginning a paragraph with "Lamenting the fact..." when I've done nothing of the sort, and you know it, is baiting.

Don't hit and run, Patrick. Stay and fight. It's just electrons. They won't hurt you.

[Paul Mullin]

BTW: Gillian Jorgensen and Bret Fetzer have both served as artistic directors of Annex, Jim Jewell serves as Managing Director of NewsWrights United for which I serve as Executive Director. And those are just the names and titles that leap easily to mind. I'm pretty sure nearly everyone who has responded here has either run a theatre or producing organization at some point

In fact, looking at the list of names I couldn't invent one that would be be a better representation of people who "go out and change things."

[Patrick Lennon]

You haven't respected by opinions on this thread. Neither did you when the discussion was about resident playwrights. Rather than say "I disagree with you, and here's a point to refute yours" or even "That's a good point, but what about?", you dismiss me as a troll, or as a child in the previous case.

If my opinions don't matter to you, I'm not likely to share them with you again.

Yes, several of the people commenting here have run/do run companies (Brandon Ivie at Contemporary Classics is one you missed). But are any of these companies in crisis? Do any of them need "fixing"? I'd say no.

And I applaud your and Jim's efforts with NewsWrights United - but how about instead of writing endlessly about the Empty Space or Intiman being dead, you put that extra energy into turning NewsWrights into the next "important Seattle theatre"? Imagine the day that NewsWrights had a permanent home in the Playhouse at Seattle Center (or even a funky little space in Fremont, or Cap Hill), and was a thriving union house putting actors, directors, designers and writers to work.

We talk entirely too much in this town (and I'm guilty of that, no question). There isn't enough doing. The viaduct (whatever your opinion) is a case in point.

The real question is, why are we all blogging and commenting instead of doing? So I'm going to stop. And go back: to teaching the next generation of theatre goers and doers; to doing what I can to save Seattle Public from being the next theatre on Brandon's list; and maybe, if I'm feeling it, to helping start the next theatre on my list.

Actually, and I swear no snark is intended here, isn't that what you'd said you were going to do, Paul? And you've pulled us all back into cyberspace. We're all to weak to resist the siren call of the interwebz.

[Brandon Ivie]

I don't think the passion of this conversation comes from lamenting these fallen companies, but the hope that our current companies don't follow in the same footsteps (and the fear that they will). How do we keep those companies you speak of (Book-It, Seattle Shakes, Wooden O, Seattle Public, WET, etc.) from following the same fate as these other companies? A sense of history and perspective is helpful in understanding the difficulties and trends in running and maintaining a theatre company in Seattle. To keep saying, "Oh well, theatres come and theatres go" means that theatres will keep going. Imagine if all those theatres were still around.

What's interesting is that, as far as I know, almost none of the theatres you mention were founded because these other theatres went under. Book-It, Seattle Shakes, ArtsWest and Seattle Public were all founded in the late 80's/early 90's while those theatres were all still around. WET sprung out of a class project at UW, and Balagan was formed after a trip to Israel. To my knowledge, only New Century was formed in response to the current "crisis". So to say that there will be a chain reaction of a new theatre surfacing to take the place in the community of a fallen organization doesn't really work, especially when most of these companies you mention have clear vision statements for the kind of work they do, none of which directly align with any of our fallen compatriots. I have yet to see a multicultural theatre company, a gay theatre company, an experimental theatre company, a multidisciplinary arts company, or a fringe festival spring out of the closure of these companies. There is hope (like the recent festival of playwrights of color at ACT and the Hansberry Project), but none have reached the stature or regularity of the ones who came before.

I think its the conversation about what happened at all these sadly defunct companies that will help keep our current theatrical landscape alive while being able to grow more companies. There's no denying that Seattle has a great theatre scene, but just imagine if we had the forsight in the 90's to know how to keep those theatres alive. Let's learn from those mistakes, and the only way to learn from them is to talk about them.

Finally, while some may or may not call the current theatre climate in Seattle a "crisis," if we don't call it that then no one will do anything about it.

[Paul Mullin]

Once again Brandon, you say exactly what I wanted to say only WAY better than I could have, and I thank you for it. For that reason alone I believe talking in *addition* to doing is crucial to bringing the level of Seattle's Theatre up to World Class. Virtual conversations like these help us all think things through so that we can sharpen our approaches. Scientists have these kind of informal shit-shooting sessions all the time, in which they share information and argue and encourage and generally better get to know each other. It's not empty effort. It actually helps. And I can't drink with ALL of you, as much as I would like to. ;-).

I know I promised to shut up, but as everyone will recall, this post began with my advancing the thinking of Rebecca Olson. I didn't say I would shut everyone up. I didn't even say that I wouldn't speak when spoken to. I've said it before: there's a whiff of the kapo about someone who insists we don't talk about our problems. Just who are we seeking to please by being silent?