A View From Stage Right; Part 2by
Stage Right Part 1 of what I half-jokingly called my “Manifesto.”In a fiscal conservative’s utopian dreamworld, there would be no federal funding for the arts (or so many other government agencies or programs for that matter). This has been our position since the inception of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in the early 1970’s. We’ve been saying that if elected, we would abolish these misguided programs and departments and bring our government back to the bare-bones constitutionally described role that it has and leave everything else to the states.
We’ve held the influential bully pulpit of the presidency for twenty of the past twenty-eight years, and what has happened to the NEA? It has grown. While we have stood on principle, we have also stood on the sidelines. The founding fathers would be outraged that the federal government is funding art with taxpayer money, but because we are on the sidelines standing on our principles, all of that money is going to the people creating art with messages that undermine our very existence.
But, I will also say that as long as the NEA exists, and as long as art is to receive funding by the government, we conservatives are on the wrong side of the argument. There is no way to combat the perception that we are “anti-art” or in favor of closing down the local museum by taking away its funding. I know, there ARE logical arguments to combat that perception, but again I ask: How have those arguments been working out for us?
The “Fairness Doctrine” for arts funding.
At the risk of enraging my fellow conservatives and all of you libertarians, I propose that we re-think our position on the NEA given the realities of the past 35 years. The NEA is here and it’s not going anywhere in the near future. And instead of ceding the cultural ground in our country to the leftist voices and artists who have won the lion’s share of all of that funding over the past three decades, it is time for conservatives to get our asses into the game. It’s time for a “fairness doctrine” of sorts when it comes to arts funding.
It’s the stated policy of the NEA to not discriminate due to the content of the art, so I say we make them put OUR money where their mouth is: Start doling out grants to playwrights and organizations who speak to so many Americans who are disenfranchised at the theatre.
The ESTABLISHMENT is the vast network of institutional theatres who have been living high on the hog in their publicly owned “Performing Arts Centers” or “Civic Theatre Complex” and managing their multi-million-dollar budgets under the guise of the altruistic and benign mission statement of “Bringing theatre to the community.” The Lincoln Center Theatre and The Public Theatre and the Center Theatre Group and the Seattle Rep and The Arena Stage and the Goodman theatre… those guys are “The Man” and I’m tired of “The Man” keeping my people down!
A few decades ago, there was a perceived crisis in the American Theatre for the lack of “voices” from black playwrights, Asian playwrights, female playwrights, Latino playwrights and gay playwrights. Almost every single college and major non-profit theatre dutifully set up specific, targeted programs to nurture these playwrights from these target groups, in the name of diversity.
Well my friends… what voices are missing in non-profit, regional theatres today? OURS! We need to demand a full-throated, passionate and intelligent depiction of the conservative “experience” in America. Also, don’t tell me that a revival of “Carousel” counts as a production reflecting “traditional American values.” The crises the theatre community in America faces today is not that there are not enough revivals.
The Audience is staying home.
Go back and look at the comments from
my first post on this subject. You will hear from many people who say they are no longer going to the theatre. And, unlike the conventional wisdom we’ve been hearing at non-profit regional theatres for the past thirty years, it is NOT because of a lack of arts education in the schools. It is NOT because theatre is too inaccessible. The people are choosing not to go to the theatre because of WHAT is being produced. Because, believe it or not, my liberal friends, an adult person does not like to spend over $50 to sit in the dark and get yelled at or called names for two hours.
Unlike any other business, the theatre people who inhabit your local non-profit regional theatre do not look at their PRODUCT and wonder why people are not buying it. They first wonder what is wrong with YOU. I wonder how many folks in that regional theatre in your downtown actually reflect on the content of the plays they are producing and wonder if perhaps the answer to their “audience development” needs lies in the simple fact that about half of the people who live in their area are not interested in hearing the preaching contained within the stories they are telling, no matter how talented the people are in telling them.
For those of you who still find yourselves patronizing the regional non-profit in the major metropolis near your home, I bet you experience something like this: You get to your seat and open your program and three or four pieces of paper fly out. One is an envelope suitable for a donation. One is a letter from the development department or artistic director decrying the current state of funding for the arts. Maybe it mentions that audiences are declining because of the lack of arts in the schools. Another sheet is a survey they want you to fill out (they never give you a pen or pencil). The survey asks questions about your race and age and income and TV or film habits. You look around…. all of these pieces of paper are littered about the floor under the seats around you. Clearly part of the theatre’s green initiative.
Then the house lights dim to half and the excitement builds, it’s curtain time… get ready for the magic of theatre… I love the excitement of that moment, here comes the…. pre-show curtain speech? Oh no! The artistic director or a board member or someone from the theatre staff bounds onto the stage and starts the spiel. First, they describe all of the items that just dropped out of your program and they beg you to read them, fill them out and stick a check in them. These days they throw in a line like: “Thankfully, we now have a president dedicated to supporting the arts and theatre, but we still need …. blah blah blah” - It never occurs to these folks that half of the people in the seats didn’t vote for President Obama. And they often say in their speech some patronizing line like, “We are your theatre, we are a part of this community, we want to hear from you, please give us your feedback, theatre is a living breathing art form and your participation is vital to our growth…”
But, I have a secret to reveal to you: They don’t really think that. Oh, they want you to participate, by subscribing and donating, but it ends there. If you want to meet with someone and express your distaste with the artistic choices, good luck. If you want to complain that too often they bring left-wing politics onto the stage, you’re given lip service. Send a letter asking for an uplifting play that reflects the good in America or perhaps the heroic deeds of our military or perhaps a play reflecting on the negative consequences of the misogyny and patriarchy in the hip-hop culture, and the letter will be treated as a joke from a right-wing wacko bigot. Sometimes the letter is shown around the office and laughed at. They don’t really want to hear from you unless you are calling to make a donation or to tell them how great they are.
If it ever crosses the minds of the artistic decision makers at the major non-profit regional theatres that there may be something about the content of their plays that is negatively affecting their subscriptions or their single-ticket sales, they never consider that it might have to do with the overall message or themes of their plays. They think it’s because they are choosing plays that are risky or edgy and the older, conservative folks out there are just not ready or sophisticated enough to appreciate it. And then they dig in and take an artistic stand. But the problem with the plays has more to do with the themes and the political message they are trying to communicate, not with the edgy characters or nudity or cursing.
Example: A theatre produces “Angels in America” and receives complaint letters about the content. The powers that be at the theatre write it off to homophobia or gay-bashing or just some intolerance from the religious right and they are emboldened with the knowledge that they have made a bold artistic choice and brought this fresh and daring message to their community. But the objection to “Angels in America” that I have and that I’ve heard from others is not that it is fresh or daring, it’s that it’s the same old “Reagan did nothing about AIDS” and “Ray Cohn was an evil closet-case hypocrite” and “Mormons are repressed homophobes” kind of story that we’ve been hearing for years.
But, what if a theatre commissioned a play about the life of the heroic writer Randy Shilts? Shilts was an openly gay journalist who wrote “And The Band Played On” which chronicled the early days of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. He rightly campaigned for the closing of gay bath houses as a logical way to help stop the spread of HIV and he was very vocal in his opposition of the trend to “out” prominent but closeted gay and lesbian actors and politicians. For his efforts he was spat upon on Castro Street. Bob Ross, editor and publisher of the Bay Area Reporter, described Shilts as a traitor to his own kind. This would be a play that deals with the same subject matter as “Angels” but it would take a different political perspective. Most of those conservatives complaining about “Angels” would not complain about this play, I guarantee you that the vast number of complaints would come from the LGBT community and GLAAD and all of those other acronym agencies paid to say the same thing.
Trouble is, this play does not exist. Nor does a play exist about the fall of the Berlin Wall, the single most significant international event in the past fifty years. Nor does a play exist about the heroism of our military fighting in Iraq, or about the negative repercussions of abortion in America over the past thirty years. Nor is there a play written in the past twenty years in America showing a member of the Catholic clergy in an unambiguously positive light (unless a drunk priest is there for comic effect). These plays don’t exist because the environment in the artistic corridors are not interested in telling these stories.
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I promised a solution to this problem in my last post, and I have a few humble suggestions. I’m looking forward to the next round of comments, e-mails, and Facebook messages with your ideas:
A Modest Proposal
I maintain that at the root of this problem is a problem of equal employment.
I remember attending a symposium where a bunch of theatre professionals were getting together to talk about how to get a new audience or keep their existing audience and it was all about educational programs and free tix for children and adding more writing programs for African-American playwrights and I wanted to get up on the stage and say: “Please stand up if you voted Democrat in the last presidential election”… I had no doubt most of the room would stand up… Then I would say… “Look around you… the last presidential election (it was Bush/Gore) was almost exactly 50/50. Now, one of two things is happening here… either your organizations are not ideologically inclusive and that is reflected in your programming and how you represent yourself to your community of ticket-buyers, or some of you are afraid to sit down right now and reveal yourselves as Republicans… either way, we have a BIG problem!”
How can we truthfully say that we are a part of a community and we reflect the sensibilities and tell stories that emotionally move the members of that community when our organizations are staffed with people whose views only reflect half of the community? We can’t, and we don’t. And the results are affecting the bottom line.
Theatres should consider creating a special position, an “ombudsman,” who speaks for that 50% who might have a problem with the message the theatre is putting out. They can also respectfully and sensitively respond to the complaints that might come in and then actually communicate those complaints effectively to the powers that be at the organization. They could also set up after-show dialogues with the writers and encourage people to voice their annoyance at the preaching they are receiving from the stage. I guarantee you that after about a year after the silently suffering patrons are empowered, programming changes will begin to take effect.
Another crucial role for the “ombudsman” would be to solicit plays from a conservative point of view, identify a handful of them that are worthy of development and work with those playwrights to have, at the very least, a main-stage staged reading open to the public so that the artistic decision makers could actually see these plays up on their feet and in front of an audience. Put them in the position where they must justify why they are not producing these plays so we no longer hear
quotes like this:
André Bishop, artistic director of
Lincoln Center Theater for 16 years, said he reads about five plays a week, and from thousands over the years he could not think of a single one that would fall on the right end of the spectrum. “I’m trying to think if I ever read a play that I would call conservative,” he said, pausing a few moments. “I don’t think I’ve come across one.”
Mr. Bishop, if you agree that this is a problem, hire someone to actively find and nurture these plays. If you had gone two decades without ever seeing a gay play or a black play or a Latino play or a feminist play it would not have been acceptable. So, now what are you going to do about us conservatives?
The Artistic Director and the Board President should introduce this conservative watchdog with their arms around him saying “this is our guy and a valuable member of this team.” The Jackie Robinson of conservative theatre could emerge hence.
The above concept is modest because it really amounts to token change, but, it’s more than we have now and it’s pretty easy to achieve. The ideal situation would be to achieve a little more than just an evening of staged readings with the hope of getting a full production. Ideally, the plays in question would be developed and mounted in full production from the get go.
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So, beyond my “Modest Proposal” I also have a “Not-So-Modest Proposal” and I have “A Guargantuan Proposal.” Looks like there’s gonna be a Part 3!
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