State of The Arts

I see a lot of theatre. I do. I'm just saying that right away. I've seen around 40 shows this season. I direct one or two shows a year. (And in my area, it's a bonus that I get paid to do so!)I love, love, love theatre. That said, I don't claim to like or know any and everything about the form. If I did profess such, then I'd have to also admit that I'd stopped learning, and artists cannot afford that. It might also mean that the form was not evolving either. However, I do wish to address an interesting "phenomena" -- if you will -- that has been sweeping across my fair city for well over ten years now. The cultural and social climate in Austin is decidedly different than most cities in which there is an equally healthy theatre scene. I believe this is mostly due to the average age being 34 in Austin. All the colleges and high tech companies in our area are probably fuel for this youthful statistic. The average age of most theatre goers in the country is MUCH higher, and we in some theatre circles refer to this group as the "Church, Luby's, Theatre," crowd that one sees at any given matinee on any given Sunday. In Austin though, most theatres don't even schedule a matinee. There are at least 87 theatre companies in Austin, more or less. The list includes colleges, companies that perform only once or twice a year, and sub-companies formed from larger companies when they wanna do their own thing every once in awhile. Let's eliminate them and narrow it down to those companies that offer at least three shows a year. Now I'm down to 25-30. Ok, so there are 30 theatre companies that do at least three shows a year. We subtract the childrens theatres (4) and "alternative" theatres (3). That leaves 8 out of 87 theatre companies in Austin that provide a season of "mainstream" theatre. Three of these are Equity, leaving five "community" theatres. The remaining theatre companies are defined as "rebel" based on the Chronicle's interpretation of such, and total 15. So, we can now assume that over half the theatre companies in Austin that present a season of theatre are "rebel." At this point, let's define rebel. Outside of it's political and governmental implications, Oxford English Dictionary defines rebel as a verb wherein one resists authority, control, or convention. So... if a majority of theatres in Austin are defined as rebel and rebel is defined as one who resists convention, then are our rebel theatres really rebel? With such a definition and (admittedly loose) statistics, is rebel theatre really rebel theatre when it's the majority of a city's offerings? Last month Yellow Tape Construction Theatre bloggers suggested the new website ACOT has begun is full of "Fluff aimed right down the middle of the road." (See post and comments at over at The Construction Zone. ) BTW, to answer a question posed on The Construction Zone blog, yes, according to The Theatre Communications Group, Austin does rank up there with other cities as a "National Center For Performance" as we were included in their 2002 study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts entitled The Value Of Performing Arts in Five Communities. To shatter any thoughts that rebel can also flow into the "mainstream," note participating theatre company Salvage VanGuard.) Seems we in Austin have, in ways, given avant-garde and Rebel Theatre far more commonplace credit than we artists are willing to admit. Especially if, regardless of the listings on the new Texas Performs website, we still embrace with such glee the stylings of these rebel companies. I pose a question to our that James Lileks offers in a recent blog on the New Guthrie Theatre: Has avant-garde become tradition? This reminds me to insert here a plug for James Lileks and his blog entry on The Guthrie. What a sight the New Guthrie is! Ack! Is it really rebel theatre if I know exactly what to expect when I attend a production, regardless of how far off the middle of the road it is aimed? If I know the presenting company is offering a style that does not give me something different from production to production, is it rebel theatre, or does the middle of Austin's proverbial theatrical road just look more interesting than the theatrical roads of other cities? Are these theatre companies any different philosophically if they have carved a groove in the road from travelling the same way too often? Could it be that in Austin, rebel theatre is also "community theatre"? Oh, no! Now I've gone too far! Come on now! I return to my definition of rebel. A verb wherein one resists authority, control, or convention. SooOOooo, if most of us in the Austin community spend our pennies on most of the theatres in town and they are rebel theatres, then are we rebels or are we just being self- indulgent? (How many times have I used the word rebel in this blog entry?) What would rebel theatre be really, in Austin or anywhere else? Wouldn't it be a theatre company that pays it's actors and staff at least a middle class income? Wouldn't it be a theatre company that knows how to raise enough funds to do so without sacrificing it's mission? Wouldn't it be a theatre company that sifts through the finest of profit sector and nonprofit sector business practices and marries them to create a theatre that is successful in each and every area of it's operation? (Dare I include financially successful to the list?) Wouldn't it be a theatre company that can give us excellent production values, talent, AND unique work? Should we put Alex P. Keaton and Arthur Kopit in the same room and let them go at it? This company I've got to see. That's rebellious.