Thursday, May 26, 2005

 

But Think Of The Unemployed Readers of Stage Directions

Noted this article in the L.A. Times about one of L.A.'s biggest regional theatres (via ArtsJournal):

Center Theatre Cuts New Play Programs
by Don Shirley, Times Staff Writer

The ax has fallen on Center Theatre Group programs designed to develop new plays and playwrights -- including a cluster of labs that has been one of the most distinctive features of CTG's Mark Taper Forum for more than a decade.

Artistic Director Michael Ritchie, who took the helm of Los Angeles' flagship theater company in January, is eliminating the Other Voices program for disabled artists -- a Taper fixture since 1982 -- plus the Latino, Asian American and African American labs established from 1993 to 1995.

...

Ritchie, who hasn't attended a play reading in seven years, is also dropping a system of readings and workshops conducted under the direction of playwright Luis Alfaro -- whose job has been eliminated, along with those of the lab directors.

"I've never liked having a play read to me," Ritchie said. He prefers to read it himself because "it gives me the ability to go back over it."

I suppose I should find the demise of any new-plays program upsetting, but I have to say I sympathize with Ritchie on a few points.

Readings can be useful to the playwright, but they are not a foolproof way to improve a text. A bad performance, an unsubstantiated but forcefully given critique, or just indigestion on reading night can send the writer off in the wrong direction. Further, readings are often a crutch used by theatre companies to demonstrate an ostensible interest in new plays while failing to produce them. In the article, Ritchie promises to increase the number of new play productions, instead of merely leaving them in development. I applaud that. I hope that he will use the money saved by the elimination of the development program to increase his full-time staff in the literary department. Reading and going over new plays on paper is a skill that requires more experience than an intern from the local university generally has.

I'm sure Luis Alvaro worked hard and was devoted to the writers in his program. No one gets into play development for the money and glory. And I'm sure there were many fine plays and productions that came out of the CTG/Mark Taper programs. Most major development programs can claim that. But I wonder if the number of good plays developed in such programs outweigh the number of good plays hopelessly spaghettied by the process? I've seen -- many times -- a hopeful beginning quickly scuttled because a well-meaning director or dramaturg. They convince the playwright to alter his or her vision with spoken or unspoken promises of production, if only they will make the suggested changes. I've been through this myself. The results are often disastrous.

And what about all the plays that struggled through the process, only to be told at the end, "thanks but no thanks?" When I developed a T.V. show, I got that answer at the end, and I cried all the way to the bank. It happens in film and T.V., but there's compensation. The compensation for a long road to refusal in theatre is...a manuscript that you can send to someone else for more development.

Of course, I don't hold these reservations so sacred that I myself would make an example. Given an opportunity to put a play in development at a major company, I'd certainly jump at the chance. What unknown playwright wouldn't? That's the carrot these programs offer. "If you just make these changes, there's a definite possibility you're in the running for the spring slot..."

A friend of mine recently got burned by this. She had a play which won some important awards. A major theatre company announced its intention to produce new writers from its area. She was selected as their flagship dramatist. Two years, several readings, pages of notes and many a lbarrel of midnight oil later, the theatre told her that they were happy with all that she'd done to improve the play; alas, they were going to produce A Charlie Brown Christmas instead.

Really, this kind of bait-and-switch has got to stop. Theatre companies are slowly strangling the one comfort we playwrights do have: control of our work. We're not paid well, there's no fame except for a select few; we only do this for love of the art and some mastery of our destiny. But, being human and therefore desperate, we would really really really like the small comfort of production once and a while, and we do often consider trading power over our material just for the chance of that.

There are important questions that we need to ask about how we shepherd new plays in this country. Michael Ritchie might be doing the right thing, whether or not he's merely considering the bottom line.

posted by Dan 2:05 PM
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