Theater roundup

My entry on arts districts and arts as consumption versus arts as production is about how "the arts" contribute to "local urban revitalization" and "economic development" addresses cultural organization development as an element of local cultural and economic development planning.

I wrote it up as a talk at the national conference of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs ("Reprinting with a slight update, "Arts, culture districts and revitalization"," originally 2009, revised 2019).  The entry discusses arts as production versus arts as consumption, relying on the writings of John Montgomery, the components of arts districts, and facilities as infrastructure.

Because the conference was on theatre I laid it out in terms of how the discipline of theater, at the metropolitan scale, needs to "develop its own cultural plan," including various elements like facilities, support organizations, and audience development.

My most recent related writing was around the sale of the Source Theatre in DC to a restaurant group.

-- "DC's Source Theater sold: cause for a cy pres review?"

Note: the elimination of arts funding by the Trump Administration has crippled many arts groups across the county ("Pittsburgh's theater community reacts to Trump administration's anti-DEI measures, gutting of the NEA," Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

1.  Pittsburgh theater companies look to merge. A post-covid drop in attendance and therefore revenues is affecting theater groups across the country, many of which are closing.  To prevent some of this in Pittsburgh leading groups are looking at merger as a way to reduce costs ("On the brink of ‘financial failure,’ Pittsburgh’s three largest theaters explore a merger," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). 

2.  Seattle too, but linking a facility with a theater company ("5th Avenue Theatre and Seattle Theatre Group form alliance," Seattle Times).

The 5th Avenue Theatre and Seattle Theatre Group have forged a strategic alliance in which STG has taken over the lease of the historical downtown theater space, owned by the University of Washington. STG will also present arts programming in the space, in cooperation with the longstanding musical theater company.

The 5th Avenue Theatre — which will now be known as The 5th Avenue Theatre Company to differentiate it from the physical space — will remain as the building’s resident theater company and present work for approximately 26 weeks of the year, roughly the amount of time required to produce a five-show season. (In recent years, The 5th has usually produced six- or seven-show seasons.)

3.  Theater presentation versus production as an element of arts as production.  The PPG coverage has made an interesting point distinguishing between the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and the Pittsburgh City Light Opera, Public Theater and City Theatre .  

I've written about Pittsburgh and PCT as a best practice.  

-- "The Howard and Lincoln Theatres: run them like the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust/Playhouse Square Cleveland model," 2012
-- "Pittsburgh Cultural Trust maintains diverse real estate portfolio to support arts," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
-- "How the Arts Drove Pittsburgh's Revitalization," The Atlantic

But I missed a subtle point.  They operate the facilities but they don't produce home-grown shows, instead scheduling plays and musicals developed elsewhere, traveling shows with their own crews.

By contrast, companies like produce their own shows, and employ local actors and production crews in a way that contributes to the local economy more broadly than putting on a Broadway play ("'Cultural coffin': Pittsburgh's thespians and universities react to theater woes," PPG).

Ten years ago, the Steel City was widely regarded as a destination for actors and backstage workers, thanks to a vibrant theater ecosystem offering numerous paid opportunities to perform for multiple companies each season.

... As costs rise faster for performing arts companies and acting jobs diminish, Pittsburgh is finding itself at a crossroads. Do residents — and, crucially, donors and funders — care whether the local theaters hire local talent, or are they content to see touring shows from New York, like those put on by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust?

Already there are far fewer paid professional jobs for actors and musicians than in previous years, and local theaters and universities are sounding an alarm. The CLO in recent years has reduced the number of shows it produced in the summer from six to three due to budgetary reasons, for example. 

A merger or consolidation of any kind could lead to a further reduction in jobs and opportunities in the city’s creative sector, and that would have economic ramifications that echo outside the theaters themselves. “This is a big threat to our whole ecosystem,” said Chris Brussalis, president of Point Park University, which has ranked in a national “Big 10” list of performing arts schools based on the number of graduates it has sent on to Broadway.

In Seattle, the STG still places a high value on local production despite expansion to and the need to fill other venues ("Seattle Theatre Group remains community-focused despite expansion," Seattle Times).

4.  Cutting back of the house staff at theaters reduces economic impact of "local" theater and reduces the pool of local talent ("What’s Lost When Theaters Lose Production Crews?," Washington City Paper).  Another way that arts as production ceases to better contribute to the local economy is with cutbacks of highly trained back of the house staff.

5.  Massachusetts offers tax credits for theater production, comparable to film credits ("ATG celebrates big win with launch of live theater tax credits," Boston Globe).

Take a bow, ATG. Your yearslong quest to bring live-theater tax credits to Massachusetts has finally paid off. The idea started with Joe Spaulding, the now-retired president of the two Boch Center theaters, around 20 years ago. He saw how the state’s film tax credits were bringing in business, and wanted something similar for theaters. ATG started putting resources behind the push after leasing the Emerson Colonial Theatre in 2017.

By the time the concept gained traction on Beacon Hill in the past two years, independent theater managers around the state had joined the crusade. They pointed to the money and prestige that show launches can bring, and to the fact that so many shows were starting in places with tax credits. Finally, the Legislature in 2024 included tax credits worth up to $7 million a year in a wide-ranging economic bill known as the Mass Leads Act, to help offset production and personnel costs for Massachusetts launches of Broadway, off-Broadway, and touring shows. (In New York, the opposite is happening: A tax credit program worth $100 million a year, designed to help the city’s theater sector rebound from the pandemic, is about to run out of cash.)

Addams Family theater production, community theater in Davis County, Utah, at Syracuse High School.

6.  Youth theater.  I haven't thought much about K-12 delivery of theater productions.  Salt Lake's East High School is the model for the Disney film and tv show "High School Musical."  Even middle schools produce plays that are marketed to the public.

I never claimed that the points in my original "Arts, Culture Districts" entry covered every element that should be in a discipline-focused arts and culture plan.  A key missing element was education, which is not my forte.  

A couple pieces from the Seattle Times illustrate this, "Where are Seattle’s stages for teen artists and leaders" and "Theater education takes center stage in new program."  From the second article:

For students ages 13–20, the Young Rep program offers training, creative exploration and deeper engagement in theater. This fall, young artists can explore stage management, playwriting and comedic improvisation, and for those eager to take center stage, Seattle Rep is launching a new production intensive. Culminating in two weekends of performances of the play “The Outsiders” — based on the classic novel by S. E. Hinton and adapted by Christopher Serge — this inaugural intensive will be Seattle Rep’s first-ever all-youth production to perform on its Leo K. stage.

... “Then Young Rep — tailored to youth ages 13-20 — offers both shorter themed classes (like playwriting or improv) and immersive experiences such as the 10‑week Production Intensive staging of ‘The Outsiders.’ Students work side by side with professional teaching artists in rehearsals and classes to build acting technique, ensemble collaboration and stagecraft in a fully produced environment,” says Martinez.

Although, just as local theater companies close or cut back on staff, resources made available to K-12 theater programs are diminishing as well.

7.  Pivoting to children's theater in the face of audience decline.  Salt Lake's Plan-B Theatre Company has a traveling theater company ("Utah arts organizations look to the future by inviting and educating young audiences," Salt Lake City Weekly).  After the GFC, the Salt Lake Acting Company started a children's program, including teaching theater, which is something they had to learn to do, out of the belief it would add new energy and audiences to the company.

8. National Theatre of London director Indhu Rubasingham ("National Theatre director Indhu Rubasingham: ‘If I wasn’t scared, I wouldn’t be doing my job’" "Indhu Rubasingham: the National Theatre’s new artistic director takes centre stage," Financial Times).  The artistic director is focused on innovation and providing a diverse array of programs in part to reach a variety of demographics.  Also see "How to get National Theatre tickets for £10," IanVisits.

 “You can’t be all things to all people, but you can try to offer as broad a range as possible — whether that’s a western classic, an international classic, international new writing or promoting the brilliance we have around the country. The National is a flag-bearer as well as an innovator. It’s a provoker as well as populist. It’s brilliant when it’s doing all those things at once.”

Her packed first season, opening next month, certainly teems with exciting possibilities. Classics rub shoulders with world premieres, new voices with famous faces, international work with homegrown talent. The most eye-catching prospects include Lesley Manville and Aidan Turner in a revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Letitia Wright in the British premiere of American Tracey Scott Wilson’s The Story, and a return to repertory (once the staple of the National Theatre), with Paul Mescal leading a company in two complementary plays — Death of a Salesman and A Whistle in the Dark.

We’ll see transatlantic partnerships with Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Shed in New York. And, down the line, there’ll be new work from immersive giants Punchdrunk plus a world premiere — as yet undefined — from Stormzy. Stormzy! How much can she tell me about that?

9.  No national theater in the US.  The articles on Indhu Rubasingham made me realize that the US doesn't have a national theater complex functioning the same way. 

Even before the Trump Administration purge at the Kennedy Center ("Trump Takes Over the Kennedy Center," Atlantic Magazine, "Trump Official Gave Free Tickets to GOP Group to Heckle Black Artist," New Republic, "The Future Looks Bleak for Jazz at the Kennedy Center," Washington City Paper, "Kennedy Center cuts dance programming team, as top producers depart," Washington Post, "Kennedy Center’s New Dance Director Criticized ‘Woke’ Ballet Culture," New York Times), it didn't seem positioned as a "national" unifying center of performing arts in the United States.  

Instead it is more of a presenting organization ("At a changing Kennedy Center, the NSO gets back to business," Post), with theater relegated to showing road theater companies, while holding some national events like the arts awards.

A dissertation on DC's Arena Stage makes the point that it is the closest theater in the city to playing the kind of role National Theatre does in London ("Performing (Non)Profit, Race, and American Identity in the Nation's Capital: Arena Stage, 1950-2010").  

I recall a similar argument about the city's National Theatre and how it played a more national role, when the city was a premier tourist destination, and there was less opportunity to consume theater locally ("National theater or public theater: The transformation of the theatrical geography of Washington, D.C., circa 1970–1990").*

* the memory comes from attending DC Historical Studies conferences in the past.  The sessions are definitely a must see, and cover a wide variety of topics.

10.  The lack of a national theater makes the work of Seattle's Living Voices theater company ("Seattle theater company uses one-person shows to tell America’s history," Seattle Times) even more relevant.

Art that connects us to our past — not just intellectually but emotionally and empathetically — is hard to come by. For more than 30 years, Living Voices, a Seattle-based educational theater company, has been creating multimedia solo shows that blend a compelling fictionalized narrative with rigorous historical research, and presenting them all over the country.

Each show, performed by a single actor/teaching artist in front of on-screen materials compiled a la Ken Burns documentaries, is designed to spark curiosity and conversation about the people and events represented. Living Voices can pack a lot of story into these bite-sized shows, all around 30 minutes, which allows time after for a Q&A session between audience and performer.

In 2025 Living Voices is on track to present more than 600 shows, and this sort of access point to clear-eyed historical narratives, conscientiously crafted with a focus on voices underrepresented in history — not to mention performance opportunities for actors including, once upon a time, future Oscar nominee Lily Gladstone — feels more important than ever.