Daisey and HTFA Still Stirring the Pot

When Mike Daisey unleashed his monologue "How Theater Failed America" it pretty much set the theater world on fire. Many folks working in theater felt unjustly vilified or indicted by the piece. Many felt that finally someone was speaking out against imbalances and stupidity that had been running rampant through out the world of theater for years. The result of the impassioned points of view??? Lots of discussion, debates and yelling via the internet occurred. So, it was no surprise that some craziness was about to crop up after Daisey took HTFA out for a nation wide tour a few months back. You will recall we had a little heat in the theater blogosphere due to our comments on the Round Table Discussion held after Daisey's L.A. performance.

Now, a guy in Florida who runs an Equity Theater has decided it's his turn to throw a great big rock @ Daisey. Todd Olson is The Producing Artistic Director for a Theater in Florida called the American Stage Theater Company. I always cringe when I see some poor soul with the title Producing Artistic Director. Producing Director and Artistic Director are two separate jobs. So, when I see some person with the 'merged title', I immediately think to myself, they are either some poor schelp who has to do both jobs, because there isn't the budget to pay two people, OR they are in all regards a control freak. But I digress, Mr. Olson basically challenges Daisey to 'balance his budget' and do exactly what he claims should be done in his piece. Pay Actors a fair an equitable wage, while also getting the audience in the door. He 'challenges' Daisey to take up his offer, and if Daisey can do it, he will produce Mike's next show. And if he cannot, then Daisey has to stop railing against the state of regional American Theater. Theirback and forth can be read on MikeDaisey.com.

So, we may be in for another round of discussion about this topic. I, for one, am anxious to see if anyone has changed their model based on what Daisey started a year ago. I hope a new conversation pops up on the radar. Travis Bedard jumps in with his thoughts on this re-examination of the inferno known as "How Theater Failed America." It's a good read go check it out.

My issue in this exchange is the odd train of thought that Todd Collins seems to be riding. You see in my world, the theater is the Actors Medium. It's a place for actors, built by actors and the theater staff should be there to support them. However, in this country the actors are often times the last folks considered when it's time to hand out paychecks. I often hear theater managers talk about how they need all this staff to run a theater, and that of course drives up the budget. If you follow their logic, you need a full time staff person to, run the box office, market the shows, develop business relationships, manage and maintain the technical equipment, manage the facilities, and of course an office manager. So, if you look at that, and you say pay everyone 40K a year, that's a budget of 240K a year for the admin staff. That's a lot of dough. However, Producing Artistic Directors often claim they 'need this'. And without the staff the theater would crumble into oblivion. However, instead of employing multi talented artists to full fill these jobs, they often employe folks without any formal theater training. I remember working at a very well known regional theater, and one day at a company meeting the new 'development' person walked in the room. She had just been hired to drum up some funding for the company. She told us, she'd never really been into theater or studied it, but she knew how to glad hand business owners. She lasted all of a year I think before she ran screaming to another job.

Collins seems more quick to defend the need for his marketing staff and development staff, than to admit to the great white elephant no Producer of theater in this country really wants to admit. These days in theater, you pay everyone but the actors. This is the case in L.A., where I have often heard people say, "We got to pay the stage manager! But when it boils back to paying the actors, everyone will say, "Eh, they get to perform, that's payment in and of itself."

I think this concept of pay the actor last is what really fuels the angst in Daisey's piece. It's also the self indicting message that pisses folks like Todd Collis off, because ole Todd thinks he's doing the right thing. He is keeping the theater up and running. Hence the conflict, Daisey feels the actor is the whole reason the theater exists, and to be honest, he's right. Todd, sees the actor as a whiney baby who will never be satisfied with what they get. Todd has to have his staff so that the actor has a place to perform.

It's an interesting discussion, and I for one hope that Mike takes HTFA out every year so that every year theater producers both large and small get a good ole kick in the nutsackeroo, and have to look themselves in the mirror and think, "Hmmm without actors I have no product. If that's the case, why do I treat them like shit, and I lick the buttocks of my marketing guy, who got us 100 more subscribers this year." It's the theater equivolent of which came first? The chicken (the actor) or the egg (the theater staff).

What Daisey isn't pointing out here, and I think I'll be the one to talk about the Actors White Elephant... there are WAY TOO MANY ACTORS! With the market of 'product' available to producers (i.e. the actors) glutted the producers can continue to pay low wages or no wages to actors, who are willing to take them because it's all that they can get. I'm not calling for a UNION, because, Lord, knows we have several and they all suck. What I am calling for is a thinning of our acting herd. There needs to be less of us out there, because if we continue to offer up a smorgasborg of talent, there will never be enough pieces of pie to go around.