Now for Day Three.
Did you know that when you spend three days non-stop talking about theatre and engaging with directors, it makes you appreciate that directing is often a solo exercise? That the past three days have felt like six and I had to revert to being a lone wolf for a couple of hours just to take care of myself. But I quickly jumped into the fray once again.
The despair comes from two panel conversations that dominated our day: the panel of leading LA artistic directors and a more intimate panel with the artistic directors of the Boston Court. The first, while interesting in principle to hear artistic directors admitting that the system of regional theatre has been skewed so that it doesn't represent a "region" any more and admitting that the subscription model is broken and needs to change, was simply depressing to think that these leaders despite seeing the problems in the system they are leading, are not doing anything to change it. As one artistic director stated, "Fuck the subscribers," but then in the same breath talked about courting the subscribers. I understand that they need to keep money coming to the theatres that they are running. Even though they talk about getting "young people" into the theatre, they are still beholden to their older subscribers and frankly it seems like they are going to keep on working the old model until either they leave, die, or are replaced. I think that it is time that we discussed what this regional theatre model was meant to do and really start holding the theatres responsible to that vision. Furthermore, these companies are sticking with the same old format of the new play being created by a playwright and developed by a company. The poor playwright has endless attempts at the development of their pieces at all of these companies but we are not developing the directors to direct them nor are we encouraging directors to create projects and develop different methodologies of creation. I'm beginning to believe that the regional theatre is not the ideal location new creation from an ensemble or from a director (really, I think that the "director-creation" is really an "ensemble-creation" unless we are talking about an auteur and ultimately I think that the "ensemble-creation" is the more interesting of the two.)
This emphasis on the playwright became even more pronounce by the panel at Boston Court. While being very inspiring and engaging hosts, Jessica Kubzansky and Michael Michetti just re-enforce the concept that the playwright, the word, is the central development of theatrical creation. Apparently, they have tried to include the development of the director in their grant language but this has failed. So even with artistic directors that are also freelance directors, the development of the director is sidestepped.
That being said, for all of you in LA, go to the Boston Court. They are the independent theatre that I have been looking for and they are creating interesting and gut-burning work. I can't tell you how exciting their conversation was for me except of course the bit about the relationship with playwrights. I think that ultimately I respect the Playwright and the Script but I want something more from theatre than just those two elements for myself as an artist.
The second half of the day (divide by dinner time) was for me the most interesting and inspirational. First, Gustavo Geirola came to talk to us about directors in Latin America and the work they are creating. I was blown away and had a mad desire to run away to Argentina to work there. Mr. Geirola has interviewed several hundred directors in almost every Latin American country and collected those interviews in several books: Arte y oficio del director teatral en América Latina. Its from this that several of us directors started talking about creating collaborative projects that we can take to the multiple theatre festivals in South America. It was a very inspiring talk, at least for me
Finally, Daniel Stein brought us how coffee creation and theatre creation are the same thing. I'm going to write a separate blog post about this once I have had more time to work through the amazing and inspirational thoughts brought by Mr. Stein.
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