On the topic of money and theater

As the theater began to re-emerge from the pandemic and BIPOC artists, wrestling with choices, began to stake their claims in our future - I started to witness an alliance that truly surprised me; the emergence of the commercial theater producer as social justice artists. In droves I saw artists of color get sought out, seek out, or in other ways ally themselves with Broadway.  There has been a distinct shift of focus away from the non profits, hoping and praying that they might give you a shot, as artists aim for bigger and more impactful relationships.  The financial reasons for this are clear - “you can’t make a living in the theater, but you can make a killing”.  As numerous artists have reported, you can work all year back to back on non profit theater gigs and still not be able to pay your rent.  But working on Broadway, you can buy yourself an apartment - or at the very least, you can pay your bills and go out to dinner with your friends.  Plus there is the added appeal of a bigger audience - commercial houses in NYC are typically three times as large as non profit houses.  Still, it came as a great surprise when BIPOC artists threw their weight behind commercial theater producers and landlords that run these buildings - but who can deny the way in which these producers threw their support behind black and brown artists, committing to their projects and promising to lift them up?  Surely more commitment was given from them than the leaders of our non profit theatrical institutions, which took longer to open, had less money, and who had pipelines backlogged with promised productions that stretch for years into the future.  

Flash forward a year later, and we are now seeing a pattern of musicals and plays by artists of color not succeeding in the way that was promised.  Great plays are getting the plug pulled on them even after amazing reviews, groundbreaking musicals are not succeeding in the way that they should.  And the community cries out for justice!  Why won’t commercial theater producers keep these plays by artists of the global majority open?  Why won’t Broadway learn how to make the extra effort and work to reach out directly to BIPOC communities, who would love the shows if only they knew about them?  Why won’t they just keep these brilliant shows open, until they can find the right audiences, especially if they are so clearly speaking to this important moment in history?  

“Why are you stinging me?”  

My father used to tell me the story of the scorpion and the fox all the time - I’m sure you’ve heard a version of it: a fox and scorpion are on the banks of a river.  The scorpion tells the fox that if he lets it ride on his back across the river, he promises not to sting him.  The fox agrees.  Halfway across the river, the scorpion begins to sting the fox, and as the two of them are drowning in the river, the fox turns to the scorpion and asks “Why are you stinging me?  Don’t you see that we will both drown?”  And the scorpion replies “Why?  Because I’m a scorpion.  It’s in my nature.”

I will confess, now, that my point of view on commercial theater producers is not unbiased.  On one hand, some of them are my friends - and I work with many on a regular basis through their commercial enhancement on projects with theaters - and I’m hired independently with them just as frequently to be dramaturges on projects that they grow from the ground up.  These days I probably have three or four commercial theater projects running at any one time.  Additionally, commercial money has become an intrinsic part of the season planning process for many theaters. And thus, none of us can claim to not be in deep relationship with them or their influence.  And on the other hand, over the last year I have found my trust abused by commercial theater producers as well - some who have used me for information and then attempted to cut me out of projects, others who have been blatantly racist in our processes.  I’ve often struggled with what to do with these problematic relationships - should I call them out publicly online?  Name names and try to drive these powerful people from the industry forever?  I have unfortunately been taught the limitations of my power in the theater world the hard way through conflicts with these powerful people.  And I have left those interactions with my scars.  So I’m not presenting myself as some Switzerland in this ongoing war of commercial money in the theater.  I’m just as influenced as everyone else.  And I am just as wounded.  And for the commercial theater producers I work with or love or who have stabbed me in the back quite publicly, who are reading this essay right now, first of all, how did you even find this section of my website?  ha. This essay may seem like a drag, but I believe that despite my biases, it is truthful.  

Commercial theater producers and the landlords that they work in collaboration with, if they were thought of in the way we think of our non profit institutions, would have the most clear and straightforward and easy to understand mission statement around.  Their mission is to make profit.  Their values are selling tickets, appealing to audiences and marketing.  They are clear and they are honest about this.  And I applaud them for it.  Non profit theaters use a lot of fancy words and flowery language to describe their missions and for the most part the entire community is confused about what they do anyway.  What a blessing to have a place where we know where we stand.  Except that it’s become clear to me as BIPOC artists have protested their treatment by Broadway, that we don’t understand commercial theater at all.  

“It’s in my nature.”  

I dunno bro.  Don’t go trying to squeeze blood from a stone?  And don’t go to broadway for justice.  They’ll give you justice I guess, if they can sell it.  They’ll give you EDI, if people wanna buy it - they will rename theaters after James Earl Jones and Lena Horne quick as ya like.  They’ll give you stories by and about people of color - if their audiences want that sort of thing. If it turns out no, then that is that.  Instead of working to diversify broadway audiences and paying for expensive tickets for people of color to see broadway plays to make broadway more inclusive, I wish that we would put the pressure back on our non profits theaters, spread all acorns this country, to fulfill the promises of change that they gave to us in 2020.  Because that is where the real innovation occurs.  I say this with the understanding that asking our communities to reinvest in non profits is challenging, knowing that our NYC and regional theaters have, so far, made cosmetic changes while strategically ignoring their structural issues.  But still, I wish we would use our momentum and collective energy to hold them accountable, change their leadership, create new systems for them, get livable wages for ALL of us - instead of falling into what seems to me to be a capitalist trap of playing the commercial theater lottery and hoping that we are lucky enough to be the ONE chosen to be lifted up while leaving all our colleagues behind. I’d rather we stay on the earth.  I’d prefer we take the path of sustainability, the path that will lay out stones in the road so that the people that come after us to create great art, have a road to walk upon.