Hold Please

What an actor hears from half-way across the Actor’s Equity Association’s Audition Center:

‘Hello, may I have Dr. S__’s extension please.  Oh, okay.  Thank you.  Good Morning Dr. S__, this is M__, and I’m calling because I was at an audition yesterday for a Broadway director, and he was complaining because he was having very severe back pain, and I said that he should make an appointment with you.  His name is F__, so if you hear from him, please remember that I called and that it was me who told him about you, and give him an appointment please. Okay, thank you, and have a good day….

‘Hello, I just called for Dr. S__’s number because I had an audition for a Broadway Director yesterday, and I wanted to get him Dr. S__’s number so that he could…. This is M__, and what’s your name?  Well thank you very much J__.  Have a good day.

‘Hello, F__.  This is M__ from the audition yesterday, how are you?  Well, I’m just at Equity, and I have just called Dr. S__ to tell him about you.  Oh, well, your welcome.  Well, they are usually open until 7 or so… Just tell them that I called about you.  Oh, you’re welcome.  I told them that I had an audition with a Broadway director and that you were having back problems.  They’re good there, like I was telling you yesterday, when I went in with my back last year.  Yeah, so just give… just give… I’m sorry, I’m at Equity and I can’t hear you that… Just give him my name… Can you… can you… Equity, I’m at Equity.  Yeah, thank you, thank you.  So just, just give him… tell him I told you to call.  Yes, okay.  You’re welcome.  Thank you.

‘Hello, may I have Dr. S__’s extension please.  Thank you.  Hello Dr.  This is M__, I just called and left a message a few minutes ago, but I’m at Equity, and the reception isn’t very good sometimes, and I wanted to make sure that you understood me.  I had an audition for a Broadway director yesterday who was having a lot of back pain, and I recommended that he call you for an appointment.  So please, if you hear from F__, remember that he’s a Broadway director and that I told you –this is M__ by the way- so if you hear from F__ please remember that he is a Broadway director and that I sent him your way.  Okay.  Thank you, and have a good day.’

What an actor needs to hear from across the room at the Actor’s Equity Association’s Audition Center:

His name.

While the second floor at 165 W. 46^th Street is referred to as the Equity Lounge, it’s not a social club.  It is the Audition Center, and that’s why actors go there.  An actor needs to hear his name called for his appointment, especially if that actor is on the alternate or EMC list.  If an actor does not hear his name called he misses his audition, he cannot be seen and therefore, cannot get the job.  There are other places to go if you need to talk on your phone, this is where the actor must go to audition.   Show some respect for your fellow actors, your profession and yourself.  Take it outside.

SPIDERMAN and the Limits of Theatre*

Every art form has its limitations, what it can accomplish given the restrictions of a particular media.  An essay is not a short story, and a short story is not a poem.  A piece of theatre is not a movie or a television show.  The artistic landscape is littered with failed ‘adaptations’ that attempted to be too literal in its translation. 

However as artists, we pride ourselves on expanding these limits and doing feats thought impossible within our milieu.  This act of rebellion confirms the boundaries against which we push, it does not deny them.  What then are we to do when we meet boundaries that refuse to budge and, in some cases, push back?  We are witnessing such a situation now on Broadway in SPIDERMAN: TURN OFF THE DARK.  The problems that continue to crop up in previews are symptoms of the production meeting such boundaries.

This production illustrates the limit of (current) theatrical training.  Actors receive training in movement, voice, stage combat and in some cases circus arts – but rarely, if ever, training in ‘wire work.’  That lies in the realm of Hollywood stuntmen.  Of course, at some point in the future it may be a tool of stage combat choreographers, but at the moment the equipment, the time and people needed to train theatre artists is cost prohibitive. 

And that is the biggest limitation in theatre, even in the for-profit sector: Time and Money.  Already SPIDERMAN’s budget rivals that of a Hollywood blockbuster with advertising, a world-famous rock band, and special effects, not to mention the salaries being paid as the previews drag on and on.  The more time that passes, the more money is needed from investors.  That means that the ticket prices have to stay high for the investors to break even.  This leads to ticket prices that are at least five times the cost of a movie ticket.  At some point the audience must ask whether the cost of a ticket is worth the experience.  The investors have to take that question into consideration as well, and at some point, the scales will tip and the show will be shelved.

That can be the only result when theatre attempts to compete with comic books and movies.

Spiderman is a cultural icon and deserves a stage incarnation, but how best to do it in a way that is of and for the Theatre?  Of all the questions raised by Julie Taymor’s production, this one seems to be on the last on the list.

Cirque du Soleil could pull off a production of the sort that Broadway is attempting to give us.  They would not need to bother with a script or U2.  They would use artists who were properly trained and venues appropriate to the style in which they perform.  All this could be done at a fraction of the cost of the current Broadway production.

Across the country, theatres produce their own takes on comic book and movie heroes in theatrical ways that in no way try to be something they are not.  These theatres offer no international stars or movie-style stunts.  The shows are not plugged into large theatres to grow box office returns.  The venues are bars, black boxes and small theatres.  These productions are late night and often the audience is encouraged with the stamp of BYOB on the advertising.  Most important of all these tickets are affordable.

Making everything super-low budget cabaret style productions is not the solution, but it is more in keeping with our media.  However we choose to push the limits of theatre, our tools must be come from within our art not without.  What is happening with SPIDERMAN: TURN OFF THE DARK is the inevitable result of trying to compete with media that play by different rules.  It is not a fair fight.  Perhaps the biggest harm SPIDERMAN is doing to our art is highlighting our limitations, rather than celebrating what is unique and powerful about theatre.  We are not saying ‘Wow!  That’s theatre!’ but ‘Well, it’s not a movie.’

*What exactly is the purpose of Theatre and what its particular strengths and weaknesses are should be examined, and will be in depth in other sections of this blog.

The Survey Says:

On the Actors' Equity Association’s website (www.actorsequity.org) Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is conducting a survey ‘focusing on individual artists who either are or are aspiring to be employed in the not-for-profit theatre.  TCG wants to know how artists feel about their careers, and ways they would like to see the field change to meet their needs.’  Every theatre professional should take this survey, the results of which will be published in the June/July edition of AMERICAN THEATRE magazine.

However, some of these questions seem to miss the mark, and some pertinent questions remain unasked. It seems to focus on the state of our environment, but not on our states as theatre artists.

The survey asks us to identify challenges, but not how we deal with them.  The survey asks us if we work, but not the kind of work we accept.  It asks how many theatres we typically work for in a year, but not whether we return to the same theatres, or about our feelings towards the theatres for which we worked. It does not ask if these companies are itinerate, if they have a permanent staff – or how large it is.  It does not ask what kind of contracts under which we worked.

The survey asks if we consider it a major or minor challenge that we ‘need to accept jobs below [our] capabilities to make ends meet?’  This question holds many nuances that are not addressed elsewhere in the survey.  What defines a ‘job?’  Does a job have to be a paid position?  If so, is a stipend or EMC hours considered compensation?  What about an Equity Showcase code?  What is meant by ‘capacities?’  Does the job adequately reflect the actor’s pedigree and talent?  It is difficult to answer this question when the work we accept does not contribute directly to our financial state.

‘Which of the following describes your artistic approach: Traditional, Alternative, Not Sure.’  The holes in this question do not need to be pointed out.  A better question is: how is your artistic approach perceived?  That perception influences funding and casting more than our opinion of our approach, which can quite often change from production to production, company to company.

The survey wants to know if the lack of opportunities ‘to train and refine [our] craft' posed a major or minor challenge.  This is the wrong question.  There are too many of these opportunities offered.  The challenges are finding the classes and programs that are affordable, and finding the opportunities that are worth the time and money.  Almost every theatre, whether or not they have mounted any productions and whether or not they have a reputation, offers classes in something.  Three pertinent unasked questions are 1) if we are pursuing training opportunities, how much time and money are we spending verses how much we are making through theatre; 2) are we receiving quality training, or acting as a revenue stream for the theatre; and 3) has training with these theatres led to a professional working relationship with them?

The biggest drawback of the survey is that it does not offer a comments section where we can state how the environment and conditions we are asked to describe affects us.  This would present us a chance to be a bit more specific, and perhaps offer solutions of our own.  At the moment, there is not place for us to illustrate how we would like the field of not-for-profit theatre to meet our needs, or what exactly we feel those needs are.

While the survey does not dig deep enough in its search for the state of theatre artists, it is a start.  When the results are published, perhaps TCG theatres will be asked to put forth ideas for solutions to the biggest challenges we perceive in the industry.  But by that time, given the federal, state and local budget cuts looming on the horizon, theatres and theatre artists may be facing different challenges.

An Audition... or so you thought

The appointment had been on your calendar for over a week.  You practiced your monologue, perhaps your 16 bars every day.  You rehearsed a couple to put in your pocket, just in case.  You printed out new resumes, stapled them to your headshots and trimmed them neatly to look as professional as possible.  Somehow, you even found the time to get a haircut.  

You got up early, anticipating the subway’s usual hiccups.  At the audition, you performed your pieces.  They asked you for another one.  You answered questions about your resume, some theatre or director you’ve worked for.  A common thread appeared between you and the people on the other side of the table.  You made them laugh.  You nailed it, or at least got as close as possible.  You left knowing that you’ll hear from them soon.

Now, there’s an email in your inbox.  Their response did not come as quickly as you thought it would.  In fact, you gave up hearing from them, thinking that it was just a fluke; they were that nice with everyone they saw and you just didn’t get the part.  But now this.  Perhaps someone dropped out of the show, and they need to recast.  They thought of you.  You open the email…

‘Classes starting at Theatre XYZ!  Brush up on your monologues with the help of our company members, only XX dollars!’ Or: ‘Remember that show you auditioned for and didn’t get?  It’s running now.  Here are some reviews and tickets are only XX dollars.  Come and see this amazing piece of theatre!’

How did you get on this mailing list?  You don’t remember signing up for any classes or mailings at the audition or at any time on the company’s webpage.  Then it hits you: this company believes that since you auditioned for them and they didn’t cast you, you need to take classes and they are just the company to which you should turn.

This must stop.

Theatres that use their auditions as an avenue to expand their mailing list, or see as a way to build or expand their audience and educational programs should not be allowed to hold auditions.  It is insulting to tell actors essentially they aren’t good to enough to act with the company, but their money is welcome if they want the company to improve their skills. These companies make actors feel like they accepted a free weekend in Aspen, and spent 23 hours a day listening to real estate sales pitches.   It is tactless, tasteless, and only reflects poorly on the company.

These same theatres would never think of sending out a small note a few days after the audition: ‘Thanks for coming out, however, we cannot offer you a part at this time.’  Instead, they expect actors to wait for days, weeks sometimes for them to decide for themselves that they must not have been cast.  A short note like this one would give the impression those running the theatre understand what the actor goes through in preparation and anticipation of an audition.

Especially if a company is young, this is a way to start building a good reputation and build a following.  Actors say to themselves ‘this is the type of company and the type of people I want to work with.’  Advertising seminars masquerading as auditions only serve to make companies look bad, and actors feel they have wasted their time.

Inequitable Internships

Acting has always been a craft passed down to apprentices from the more experienced members of a company.  Those apprentices would be brought up inside the company eventually taking over the place of the tutor who taught them and becoming a mentor themselves.

No more.

Theatre interns have been reduced to cheap labor.  When brought into a company they are asked to do more work, put in more hours for less pay than company members or equity actors.  Unless the theatre is attached to a training program, and most cases even then, the interns are not taught anything.  There is no system of tutelage in place but an institution of practical experience and trials by fire – which is good and fair and should be included in any internship.  But actor-interns are expected to help in the costume shop, in the office, in the scene shop, hanging lights – all for less money than company members who show up for rehearsals and performances and go home.

What it boils down to is that an actor-intern’s time is not as valuable as other actors'.  There is little if any recognition that interns still have students loans to pay, bills, possibly rent.  There has yet to be an internship that pays for all the interns’ meals.

The damage is not limited to the actor-interns, but members of the theatre’s unions as well.  Actor-interns take jobs away from people who have trained to work behind the scenes and want that to be their career.  The biggest chance for an actor-intern to injure himself is working with equipment he is not trained with, and it’s also the theatre’s best chance to end up with broken equipment.

These programs also take acting jobs away from union actors.  Yes, the parts given to actor-interns are usually the smaller or peripheral roles, but still, a union actor could be working and getting paid.  Usually interns are admitted into the EMC (Equity Membership Candidate) program, and hours are given towards eventual union membership.  If union membership is the purpose of the internships, then why does Equity allow extra work given to the EMC members since once they join the union, the actor- intern will never be allowed to do any extra work?  How does it all prepare them for union membership and a future acting career?

The only excuse for such programs to exist is that they save theatres money – but what a poor excuse.  Programs such as these exploit the passion young people have for Theatre through a system of hazing.  Scared that they won’t get other work and hopeful that if they execute their extra duties well they will be asked back, actor-interns accept these outrageous conditions.  In many, many cases, the interns are not asked to join the company, or they are asked to return for another stint as an intern.

Admittedly, while not equitable, such programs can work out for young, young actors or college students who don’t know what direction they want to go in their theatre careers.  On the whole, however, these programs only serve to encourage theatres to offer internships to any non-union actor, reasoning that it will be a good experience to be insultingly underpaid.  The same roles offered in these types of internships, without the extra work, for regular pay would be happily accepted by an out of work actor, equity or not. Theatres feel that they have permission to tell some actors that their time and talent just aren’t worth as much as other actors.

No one would ever go to a plumber and say, ‘Listen, I have this huge apartment building in Manhattan.  Now, I can’t afford to pay you as much as the union guys who are working, but oh, the experience you will get. I have over 200 toilets in the place, 150 showers and 300 sinks.  Now, you’ll also have to hang some dry wall, paint, and take care of the sidewalks in bad weather, not to mention walk Mrs. Sullivan’s dogs, but after a year of this, I’m sure you won’t have any problems finding real work at another building.’

The current institution of internships sets up a class system within the profession that fosters a lack of respect toward younger or non-union actors.  Why should people want to pursue a career in which they are not respected by their peers and colleagues?  Why would the union that governs the profession, calling itself EQUITY, allow such an environment to exist?

Perhaps a change can only occur on a small scale, theatre by theatre, each finding its own solution, not only by changing the expectations of the actor-interns, but of the company members as well.  The institution of internships in American theatre needs an over-hauling so that it can foster future generations of actors who are trained for the stage on the stage.  It needs to bring these actor-interns up in an environment of respect.  (There are some theatres that do so, and the question arises about the relationship these companies have with Actors Equity and whether or not that is a factor in how these companies are run over-all.)  It’s bad enough that in many places actors are still thought second-class citizens.  That attitude should not exist inside the industry itself.

My Namesake, My Inspiration

One of the circumstances that gave birth to this blog is a current production of THE MISANTHROPE by Molière*.  This production uses Richard Wilbur’s verse translation, and like other productions, fails to be as funny as the play one sees when one reads it. 

A big reason for this is that much is made of the period in most productions.  While Molière was writing about and for the French court of the 17^th century, it serves only as the setting and not the substance of the play.  We place Shakespeare’s Ephesus or Athens or Rome in another time, or geography independent from his original intention, and THE MISANTHROPE is just as flexible because its subject is universal human folly.  The restrictions put on behavior by making the play a period piece handcuffs the actors from exploring the follies in the behavior of the characters. 

This is what happens to Alceste.  He is never as big in performance as he is on the page.  The word ‘rage’ is invoked several times in reference to him, but we never see rage, only agitation. Alceste is written for Sam Kinison or Lewis Black, and is always performed by Dennis Miller.  He is supposed to rant and rave, and all we are ever given are well-reasoned arguments.  When he is thus inhibited in his tirades to Philinte, his friend and sounding board, how are we supposed to laugh at his attempts to control himself and sound reasonable around Oronte, or at his infatuation with Célimène?  We need to see why the other characters consider him ridiculous, why they laugh at him, and why they are amused enough by his abuses to keep him around.  Alceste is ridiculous, and must be allowed to be so.

The play is called THE MISANTHROPE, but that does not mean that we are meant to sympathize with Alceste.  Everything he suffers he brings upon himself.  While his criticism of the other characters is justified and spot-on, so are theirs of him.

We are not, in fact, meant to take sides with any of these characters, only to laugh at their behavior towards one another.  No one is wholly innocent.  The closest are Philinte and Eliante, but their story only serves to throw more egg onto Alceste’s face.  They have the closest thing to a real moment in the play, but are always interrupted, for to have a real moment of feeling in the piece is awkward.  Unfortunately, productions try to give meaningful moments to the misanthrope, the coquette, the fops, and they all ring false and out of place.

THE MISANTHROPE suffers because it is by Molière, the French Shakespeare, and must be put on a pedestal just as high.  That mistake dries up the comedy in this essentially plot-less play and turns what should be belly laughs into polite chuckles.  The characters are never big enough, and until they are allowed to be, THE MISANTHROPE will never be as funny as everyone claims it to be.

*I am giving my readers the benefit of the doubt, and assuming that they are relatively familiar with major works of theatre, and will dispense with play synopses.  Of course, I do recommend reading any play that is new to you, and apologize for any spoilers appearing in this blog.

An Introduction

This blog is started after careful consideration, and although it will not always seem so, it comes from a place of deep love.  It will at times be hypercritical, but never undeservedly so.

Theatre and Show Business demand time and money from both its audience and its artists.  From an industry and art that demands much, much is expected, and when it fails to deliver, it should be held accountable.

But how does a piece of theatre fail?

Theatre fails its audience by not growing it, not broadening it, not affecting it.  That is not to say that every show should be ‘culture,’ and many shows are ruined by attempts to make them so, but even when a play entertains it must entertain in a way that is different from how a movie entertains, or a television show or video game.  Theatre is a medium that works with a different technology, and no matter how much or how quickly other technologies advance and change, human contact will never be obsolete.  By attempting to compete with movies, Theatre and Show Business set up false expectations for its audience, and due to ticket prices most people can’t afford a broad enough theatre experience to judge well.

Theatre and Show Business fail the artists when they fail to give the same kind of support they receive from the people who make it possible.  This is a bone that will be picked to shards throughout this blog.

All this is not to say this blog will be rants.  Credit will be given where credit is due. 

So how does a piece of theatre succeed?

For Show Business, a different animal, the answer is easy: the box office (and often what Show Business does to ensure the success of one production contributes to the downward slide of the industry).

For Theatre, that’s a hard knot to untie.  Is it evoking thought or feeling in the audience?  The discovery of a new play?  Is it preserving a classic, or updating it?  Is it a tour-de-force performance?  Is it the costumes, the lighting, the set?  Does some one thing have to stand out, or does everything have to blend?  Is it the box office? Is it the way in which the theatre takes care its artists?  Is it the way in which the theatre takes care of its community?

But this place is more than a place for thumbs-up thumbs-down criticism.  It is a place for interpretations and discussion.  Comments and debates are welcome and encouraged.  The only rules are:

1) It’s never personal, it’s always about the work

2) Be good or be gone

This is not a place for snide, snarky remarks just for the sake of sounding witty: criticism and contrariness do not equal wit and intelligence.

ABOUT ME:
I am a theatre artists, with many ideas, who has yet to make my voice heard over much of the white noise in professional theatre. Currently residing and working in New York City, I have toured and worked in major markets in the US.  Alceste is not my real name.