Frenemies? Robert Brustein and Rocco Landesman.
At the beginning of day two — and the beginning of act two — of the In the Crossroads conference, critic and former ART artistic director Robert Brustein looked around the comfortable conference room at Arena Stage and offered a monologue about his position:
[There] are certain ideals that were constructed for the nonprofit theater, which I have not heard a word about in the last two days. We all deviate from the ideals — ideals are meant to deviate from. But you have to know what they are in order to deviate from them. And what I’m not hearing is the fact that there was a time when we were different theaters, we did different things. We didn’t join together to do the same things to please the largest number, to bring in the greatest amount of money, and the greatest subscribers. We did, as a nonprofit theater, most of us did these things because nobody else would do them! We did Robert Wilson, we did Andrei Serban … Because Broadway wasn’t going to do them! And they needed a voice! They needed an outlet. They needed a stage. And they’re not going to get that stage if we are thinking about filling our large buildings — and that’s one of the problems I have.
They’re beautiful buildings, I adore them. They are handsome, architectural contributions to our culture. At the same time they produce certain problems. … You have to fill it. You have to pay for it. … The smaller buildings, the little ones, you know, the fifty-seat, sixty-seat houses, were the things that we were leading. We were doing much more adventurous work. We weren’t worrying about finding partners from the commercial theater. And certainly the commercial theater was not thinking about finding partners with us. It was only when these certain things began to succeed, that we were doing, that we got these looks, and we got these alliances.
Uh, and I, personally — not to beat my own drum (but of course I’m doing that) — tried all my life, forty-six years of running these theaters, to not have these relationships with commercial theater. We spoke about one yesterday. I didn’t know that was a relationship. I swear to God. It was my friend Rocco Landesman, a former student and former friend.
It was that last line that got the laugh. Brustein had meant to say “former enemy,” and whether this was a Freudian slip or a more benign mere slip of the tongue is for Brustein’s therapist to say. But one wonders which camp Diane Paulus, who currently runs the American Repertory Theater that Brustein founded in 1980, would fall into. On the ART schedule for this season are two revivals — Pippin, a musical; and The Glass Menagerie, the classic Tennessee Williams play — at least one of which has an eye firmly on a Broadway transfer, as had last season’s Porgy and Bess.
To be fair, there is a new play currently running at ART, Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge, which is playing at the ART’s “second stage” Oberon, a club space which seats (as far as I am able to tell) 100 people. This points to an interesting development in the life of the new American play over the past ten years, the creation of second stages for the presentation of new plays. A response to the perceived lack of production opportunities for new American plays, a few of these new production spaces have opened up, including LCT3 and the Arena’s Kogod Cradle. Neither has a capacity of more than 200; the larger stages of these resident theatres are still given over primarily to play revivals (and therefore known quantities with a certain audience appeal) and musicals (both new and revived). Which is all well and good, unless you’re a playwright who thinks in terms of more ambitious theatrical palettes and larger audiences.
I suppose we can argue whether, as not-for-profit organizations, ART should be in the business of producing revivals of Pippin or the Center Theatre Group revivals of Funny Girl — and indeed, at the two-day conference, there was a great deal of discussion about this. It could be argued that the amusement and entertainment of the greatest number of community members possible constitutes a community service of some kind, even if it’s a community service that commercial producers can provide just as well. But given the breeding and health of the new American straight play — which was one of the major themes of the conference — it seems that, in this particular theatrical community, the American straight play is in danger of becoming a second-class citizen.
The picture may not be as bleak as Brustein paints it. We still have frequent visits from both Wilson and (more rarely) Serban to New York. Ivo van Hove and Elevator Repair Service (neither of whom seems likely to visit Broadway stages soon, though who knows?) have regular New York homes at the New York Theatre Workshop and the Public Theater. But van Hove is a director, Elevator Repair Service a company. And as excellent and innovative as these may be, they are not playwrights. Dramatists who write for a more coterie audience will be less attractive to commercial producers, as they always have been, because the commercial rewards are more limited. As the partnership between commercial producers and non-profit theaters develops, it will be interesting to see whether this perceived commercial appeal will limit the kinds of plays that are produced, the kinds of commercial enhancement money that can be attracted, even on these new smaller stages. And — as it happens — productions of either new or revived straight American plays, and many musicals, almost never arrive on Broadway without having been developed or first presented by a non-profit resident theatre.
But what have the playwrights to say about all this? More on Thursday when this mini-series continues.
Hi again George – re “Club Oberon” – please be aware, unless things have changed over at the ART, that a significant portion of the bar tab from Club Oberon goes directly into Diane Paulus’s wallet, through the wallet of her husband, Randy Weiner. And of course the space is a “club” so it can permanently accommodate “The Donkey Show,” Paulus and Weiner’s other moneymaker. Remember my earlier comment about rudimentary internal controls not being followed at nonprofit theatres? This is what I’m talking about. Artistic choices at nonprofit spaces should not be tied to the personal finances of the artistic director – period.
I am myself unaware of any such arrangement and can’t comment about this without further details. If you can cite some kind of authority for this, such as a news story, Thomas, it would be appreciated; otherwise I must remain cautious about responding to accusations like these.
George,
The revenue streams to which Tom refers are detailed in a profile that the Boston Globe did on Randy Weiner two years ago, in which he freely offered these examples as testament to his business accumen:
http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2010/03/28/theater_is_one_party_after_another_for_weiner/
Indeed, a questionable relationship to be sure, though this is less about commercial/non-profit partnerships than it is about ancillary revenue, which was not discussed at the conference. Club Oberon seems to be another example of the kind of relationship that Joe’s Pub has with the rest of the Public Theater — different from European theatres that have bars and restaurants (Riverside Studios, National Theatre) that are not themselves identified as presentation venues. I’m not sure that this has much impact on new play programming, since these club productions are more revues for musical and variety presentations (Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die at Joe’s Pub, for example).
From the Boston.com article, I don’t know whether this is damning, or a sign that Weiner’s ability to engage new audience should be distilled and bottled:
“Darren Sussman, the president of the marketing and ticketing company Theater Mania, which has worked with shows at the Box and Oberon, calls Weiner the Howard Stern of theater.
“On one level, he’s married to his high school sweetheart, he’s got two kids, goes home every night, doesn’t drink or smoke,’’ says Sussman. “In his theatrical performances, he pushes the envelope with challenging, cutting-edge work in nightclubs. Like Howard Stern, he’s not his own customer.’’”
Despite his non-NFP dealmaking instincts — or perhaps because of them — if we adapt his production techniques on a larger scale than his circle of profit, they could serve as a model for how NFP houses survive the post-big grant era.
As with the cash-cow big stage / new-work small stage paradigm, the trick is not to lose sight of why we want to earn all that non-grant cash in the first place: To stage the works we believe in.
I’m not entirely convinced, Cathy, that Sussman’s alternative model is entirely practicable, except perhaps as a more outrageously expensive 21st-century Cafe Cino. But we’ll see.
I observe, by the way, that commercial producers say that they also “believe in” the works they stage, and not only that they can turn a profit — that they have contributions to make to the body politic and to the art. They aren’t in the business of producing plays and musicals that are “designed” to make money, at least many of them aren’t. This was the position of those commerical producers who attended the Arena Stage conference, and whether you look upon these statements with clear or jaundiced eyes is a matter of perspective.
George, the revenue from Joe’s Pub does not go directly into Oskar Eustis’s pocket. Or if it does, it shouldn’t! To cdthomas – sure, you can turn other non-profit houses into burlesque clubs if you want to. They will, I guarantee you, become more popular. (One Club Oberon ad once made it clear just how close the audience was to the boobs on offer.) Of course, as is the case with Oberon, once the brassieres come off, you will not see important new plays on their stages. But tits aside, even then the artistic director should not have his or her hand in the till. Seriously, the way you people refuse to speak out against obvious corruption is very disheartening.
I do not know enough about this to comment further, Thomas. If there is a story of corruption here, Geoff Edgers, the Globe reporter who wrote the story, or even yourself, is in a better position than I am to pursue this.
Sorry, George, but Edgers can only do what his editors will allow (I had an email tussles with him once over another Boston arts figure he refused to investigate), and let’s be honest, they are not about to jeopardize their relationship with Harvard, which is a financial behemoth in Boston. I was stunned they published this much, and at any rate it tells you everything you need to know. In the end, I’m not asking you to throw yourself on a sword, I’m just asking you to use some common sense.
My common sense tells me at the moment not to come to conclusions after reading a single article at boston.com. At any rate, to my mind, it’s not relevant to the more general issues raised in my original post.
I think the larger issue’s not whose hand is in a Harvard till (since both their endowment investment arm and their former President have left many questions unanswered about their much larger… adventures), but whether the perceived corruption of A.R.T. is ominous for the larger NFP theatre sphere.
A good case can be made that A.R.T. was, and ever will be, sui generis — bankrolled by one hell of a sugar daddy during the Brustein years, as an insult to Yale (which meant Brustein could be as risky as he wanted to be — Robert Wilson, *Andrei Serban*, people….), then dropped down in favor during the Woodruff era. Diane Paulus probably won’t midwife plays the caliber of those during A.R.T’s early years, but I bet Harvard doesn’t care. Money is money, after all.
Well, let’s put it this way – the entire “report” that Hunka has been discussing is obviously an attempt at containing Paulus’s influence. Will it succeed? Perhaps not. But perhaps it will – people realize no one can reform Harvard, of course, and its enormous money and power keep a tight lid on what can be said about it. But privately, Paulus is widely considered an embarrassment. And honestly – if something walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I don’t need to call up a reporter and the Globe to find out if it’s a duck.
Well, of course, universities and colleges have been playing a major role in the education and development of young playwrights since Eugene O’Neill signed up for George Pierce Baker’s course at Harvard in 1915, and though the role of universities in the development and production of new plays lay somewhat outside the purview of the report, it is true that they have their place — and the incursion of commercial money into these university theatres is worrisome from that point of view. But while even Eric Bentley cited universities and colleges as one of the great hopes of the American theatre and American drama in the closing chapter of The Playwright as Thinker, he was still somewhat ambivalent about the wisdom of new play production at these theatres. But, again, that’s another discussion.
Dear Thomas –
Randy Weiner does not receive a cut of the bar at OBERON nor has he ever. This is a falsehood you have repeated too often. Weiner receives a weekly royalty based on ticket sales as co-creator of The Donkey Show, which is the anchor production at OBERON.
Anna Fitzloff
Director of Marketing and Communications
American Repertory Theater
Dear Anna:
I read the same 2010 Boston Globe profile of Randy Weiner that Thomas read, and was left with the same impression. Did Mr. Weiner misspeak or did Geoff Edgers misquote him?
Thank you, Anna, for that clarification.
I would prefer, ladies and gentlemen, that this post and its comment section not turn into a kangaroo court or a debate about the activities, real or alleged, of two individuals. I try to allow a broad range of commentary, but most of the participants here have their own blogs and outlets for their opinions, and if there is mud to be slung, I’d rather it be done there instead of here.