So Fresh & So New

I'm back. In Seattle. Writing this blog.

The last entry I posted still had me working at the San Jose Rep box office and freelance designing. For those of you unaware, SJ Rep closed earlier this year due to budgetary issues. I left a year before, but it still hit hard. More on this later.

After moving on from SJ Rep, I freelanced exclusively with a few on-the-side jobs like Starbucks and production management. And then I began work at Aurora Theatre in Berkeley. It was a stretch for me to commute to, but the best decision I've made about full-time employment. More on this later, too.

But just a month ago we made the move to Seattle, a decade-long dream of mine since leaving for college. When my parents moved from Seattle to North Carolina just before I graduated from Grinnell, I was so disappointed I wouldn't be able to move back to my hometown and be a part of theatre where my love of the art began. In retrospect, the journey I took instead--Portland, ME to Dallas, TX to Greensboro, NC to the Bay Area--broadened and deepened my understanding of theatre in this country and my role as a theatre-maker here. Now that I'm back in Seattle, I'm pumped and prepared to do so much more than if I'd come fresh out of college.

Now, after 18+ months hiatus from this blog, I'm also prepared to put the proverbial pen-to-paper to start talking about how I view theatre and how it can be better. When I began this blog I just wanted to write intellectual things and challenge myself to write more. That hasn't changed much, but I also want to open up the conversation. With four years of professional work under my belt in a vibrant, amazing theatre community, I have returned to a theatre community that is near-and-dear to my heart but also seems to be in trouble.

Within the first week of arriving in Seattle, Balagan Theatre, the darling-child of the mid-sized theatre scene in Seattle closed amidst very unhealthy financial practices. The closure has been covered nationally. And I encourage you to read-up because there isn't much need for me to rehash it here.

A short time later, Mike Daisy's article "The Empty Spaces" was republished in The Stranger (original publication was, reportedly, in 2008). The article struck a nerve and I expect it was re-released to coincide with the questions floating around the closure of Balagan AND Mike Daisy's performance at CalShakes earlier this month. I actually found the article, not through any Seattle channels,  but through industry friends in North Carolina. We, as the younger generation of actors and artists coming up through theatre are struggling because, as Daisy says, theatre in America is the place for administrators not artists.

Oh, yes.

Because I work as an admin again and my art is on hold as I get my foot-hold in this new community. And it hurts my heart and makes me sad. BUT! I'm not going to sit idly by. That's what resurrecting the blog is about. I've struggled for the last 18 months about wanting to write about many things but felt too afraid of getting myself in trouble because the community is small. I know I run that risk now, but I can also talk about things that I learned in the Bay Area, now removed from it, that don't run the risk of destroying my professional life. And, damnit, there has to be a way to be critical without pissing people off.

Well, here goes.

The Business of Theatre

I make no claims that I am business-minded in any way. However, having worked at a fair number of theatre companies, from professional to opera to regional to community, I have learned a lot of what not to do. And, as might be expected, what I would do differently if I were heading up the theatre, or, for that matter, my own theatre.

Yesterday, CT and I had a very long conversation about theatre as a business. I've said before that many theatre practitioners do not view theatre as business; they view it as art. The problem is, if you're taking in money for a product, then you've got a business on your hands. And while most theatre companies do not have "make money" as part of their mission statement, it's a necessary goal in order to achieve whatever the mission statement is.

Along with thinking of theatre as business in relationship to your customers (aka audience members), is thinking about how to run the most effective business for your employees. I've worked at some really spectacular, morale-boosting theatres and some soul-crushing theatres (all of which will go unnamed so no one feels called out one way or another). And I know that I've done better work as an artist and wanted to bring more people into the theatre as a spokesperson at the former. But when, as an artist, you are working under crappy circumstances, you wonder, why am I doing this? Do I really want to sacrifice having a comfortable bank account for this? It's not a good thing. And I think, if there is any reason I would want to start a theatre company, it would be as much about having an artistic vision that I believe in, as it would be having a group of artists feel taken care of and happy in choosing a profession that burns you out with little financial reward to show for it.

This is all to say that, more so than ever, both because I'm done with school and was charged by many faculty members (not personally) to go out and start my own theatre, and because I am tired of being taken advantage of (I am more a rug than anything else sometimes) that I am, more than before, seriously considering starting my own theatre. I think it helps that CT seems to have a head for business ;), if I could convince him to take that financial plunge with me. Meanwhile, any of my awesome colleagues and peers want to join me?