Too Much Freedom to Fail

There's been a fair amount of rumbling from L.A. theater folks I know and/or follow via the indispensable site Bitter Lemons about a coming "war" over the long-contested Equity 99-Seat Plan. I'm not sure if the martial metaphor is really helpful, but suffice to say: What I've heard and read so far makes me very interested to see where the discussion goes.

And it made me think, unavoidably, of things I've written about this seemingly undisentangle-able Gordian knot before; this two-part history of the Equity "Waiver" agreement, for one, but also a speech I was invited to give at the L.A. Stage Alliance's SRO conference in the spring of 2003. I remember it as being a speech that essentially told L.A. theatermakers, to their faces, to STOP MAKING SO MUCH THEATER; and I remember it getting some confused pushback from artists and colleagues I really admired. But I had my reasons, and I laid them out in the speech. I just found the complete text online today at my old employer, and I still stand by every word.

Indeed, I've decided to post the whole thing today to lay my cards on the table and declare my rooting interests in the brawl that may or may not be about to break out. No, I don't just write glowing encomiums to how great L.A. theater has been. I also say things like this:

I saw "avoiding burnout" on the roster of topics for this second annual SRO event, and it got me thinking. I assume that panel will address ways to combat feelings of helplessness and insignificance, and the danger of sheer work overload, among theatre artists. But what about the feelings of confusion, disappointment, and disillusion among longtime observers and boosters of Los Angeles theatre, like myself? How can we who try to keep track of and make sense of this sprawling scene avoid feeling overwhelmed by, well, to put it positively, its awesome diversity and creative fertility and stunning resilience and…

Sorry, I can't go on in that vein. Too often, truth be told, L.A. theatre's awesome diversity feels like utter incoherence; its creative fertility can feel like rampant self-indulgence; its stunning resilience sometimes looks more like the sheer Sisyphean persistence of folks who feel they've got to keep putting on show after show after show or their doors will close because the dues money or the rent will stop coming in. To put it brutally, week in week out, I've begun to feel in my gut that there are just too many goddamn plays in Los Angeles. And that rather than creating a vibrant marketplace of theatrical artistry, or offering that many more exciting consumer options for the region's eager theatregoers, the sheer glut of productions on Los Angeles area stages creates a kind of white noise, a traffic jam through which established theatre companies of quality must navigate to compete for audiences, reviews, editorial attention, grants, and awards.

I never thought I'd say this, but I feel like something must be done to thin the ranks. Darwinian economics alone can't do it; the popular 99-Seat Plan is still such a cheap way to produce shows that not only is it nearly impossible for producers or artists to make any money at it; it's hard for them to lose enough to learn. The cost of failure is often too small to be instructive at all. The freedom to fail is intrinsic to the artistic process, but for failure to have its proper value, artists must feel some of its sting—they must have some sense that they've failed, whether it's from an instructor in the safety of a classroom, or a director, or a critic—or they will have no incentive to improve. The late great actor David Dukes once told me that the interesting difference between working in L.A. theatre and New York theatre, especially on Broadway, was that the economics of the situation focused one's attention; you had to do everything you could to make the play as good as it could be or it would close and you'd be out of a job. That's not the case with any L.A. shows I can think of, apart from the occasional sitdown of a Broadway show, like that one, what's-it-called, at the Pantages right now. For too many L.A. theatres, the 99-Seat Plan's cheap labor and its built-in freedom to fail provide an incentive to keep failing, and when they do succeed, its economics prevent them from building on that success.

As the editor of an actors trade paper, I understand all too well why there's too much theatre here, and why actors can't get paid for it. There are simply too many actors in L.A. who want and need to get up on a stage to act, both as an exercise and as a showcase. It's the same kind of talent glut that fills the town's hundreds of acting classes, and which has created the phenomenon of cold reading workshops, in which actors essentially pay to audition for casting directors. These are all essentially byproducts of an economic bind: The supply of acting talent and the demand for it are so out of kilter that it's a miracle there are still any union jobs on offer in L.A. at all.

If you look at the theatres that do offer union gigs, I think you'll see a common thread: They have a reason to exist other than their actors' need to get on a stage. They have boards to answer to; grants to fulfill; they often have a civic mandate, or at least a good relationship with the city they're in; they have a constituency other than their own company and its self-selecting clique, or they've expanded their clique. They have a mission which matches a demonstrated audience demand.

And I understand that in essence I'm preaching to the choir: You are all gathered here to learn from each other's success, to learn the best practices to build viable theatre companies that sustain themselves and pay their way. That's why Back Stage West is proud to be a sponsor of this event—in fact, it's the only outside event to which our paper actually contributes cash rather than simply advertising space, because it seems to represent a real movement toward making this theatre community more cohesive, and to support its future as an industry rather than as a hobby. And because I think Back Stage West's role is to lift up those theatres which are committed to making great theatre in and for L.A. over the long haul—to lift them up not only because they deserve it but so that they can be recognized above the fray.

I for one look forward to a day when theatre artists will come to L.A. to work in the theatre and will be able to afford to stay here to work in the theatre. I look forward to the day when it will be just a little easier for those of us who love the good theatre we've seen here as much or more than we deplore the mediocre and the terrible theatre we've seen here, to reel off a list of the top professional L.A. theatre companies that could stand with the best theatres in the country, from the Guthrie to Oregon Shakespeare Festival, from the Wooster Group to Lookingglass to Actors Theatre of Louisville. I believe that there are some in our present company who could proudly stand in those ranks, or who are well on their way in that direction. Are there enough of these shining examples to call L.A. a truly great theatre town? I think the jury is still out—literally, the jury is out, combing the wide boulevards of L.A., trying to find that little hole-in-the-wall theatre their friends told them did really interesting plays. I hope they can find it."