http://heywriterboy.blogspot.com/2010/02/dum-dum-bullet-bouncing-round-brainpan.html

“innovation and technology is constantly making things cheaper and faster, which should give us more time and money to focus on things like art.”

This is one of the contradictions of unchecked capitalism – efficiency and low cost at the expense of any other benefits – someone should write a piece that references the communist manifesto in that case….

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ft20091225a1.html

This is excellent context. It seems there are a number of similar problems our two cities share. Chief amongst them seems to be that it is possible to get funds committed to fancy high profile projects with ribbon-cutting opportunities, but funding the actual 90% of the iceberg that supports that work is a different story. That’s why I keep using the word ecosystem to talk about this.

ECOSYSTEM, ECOSYSTEM, ECOSYSTEM!

I think if we repeat it over and over hopefully we can change the lens that’s used to inform some of these decisions.

Yeah, so to continue these thoughts above, as twitter seems to be super-down for me right now…

From a sustainable model perspective, you’re right on – the true test of success these days as big-box high-ticket-price theatre has a crumbling subscription base is what is the health of your small-scale independant theatre playgrounds in your city. These playgrounds manufacture future stars, generate future great plays, support a livable artistic lifestyle, and if they lose the little funding & press coverage oxygen they require, your large regional-size theatres lose their connection with locality and they start over-importing art from NYC or London.

This is Don Hall’s central political point for Chicago theatre – it’s largely about real estate. That’s what Chicago has devoted *some* of but needs *more* of. We need to be spreading a portion of the comparatively-massive-but-still-tiny budget and overhead to create a downtown arts community around to much-much-much-lower cost neighborhood venues.

The #1 cost for theater is space. Remove that cost through city funding, partnerships, grants, etc for many small-scale venues instead of the flashy one-stop downtown megatron and suddenly you have a theater / arts engine that generates hyper-local arts loving communities, supports many many many companies and allows them to move rental funds towards artist fees, and by extension provides a diversified income to keep and develop your in-town talent.

This is where I think Chicago’s discussion is right now: not everyone agrees about this. Our central critical infrastructure and the city government pretty much thinks this idea is bologna, and here’s why: The giant exports that we’ve done – Addams Family, August: Osage County, David Cromer – those things equal hometown glory, and the investment is following the glory. But that’s really shortsighted to much of the community – not to speak for them, but most of the producing theaters, League, and the storefront community agree here but aren’t heard by some critics and the city – you don’t get David Cromer without all the opportunities and experiences he had in Chicago: Famous Door, Columbia College, Next Theatre, Hypocrites, and I’d wager 40 other companies he directed for. Each one of those ‘playground’ shows gave him dozens of directorial skills, and it’s that forge that you want more of. You want many, many theaters, and many, many approaches, and many, many neighborhoods, and all of them able to pay their bills and a little bit more.

That’s what a modern renaissance looks like.

So… Chicago is in progress. We need to agree on what the central goal is – which I think is creating a model that’s a bit more sustainable as we’re closing mid-sized theaters down now too, and will continue to do so until we reengage with our local audiences on a bigger scale. Once we agree on what the central goal is, our initiatives will start to align more and more, and I think you’ll start to see them fit together.

At a certain point, it tips. At a certain point, you get to say “the broadway model doesn’t work,” and now it’s tiny hot-ticket but low-cost storefront shows that giggling high school students flock in from across the continent to see and quote awesome lines from to their friends. Exporting your work to other towns just happens, because 500 people have heard of you in Poughkeepsie and you’re like an awesome indie rock band now, so they call you up and you hit the road. Then, it doesn’t matter who is 1st, 2nd, 3rd. Then you have something that actually keeps you making better and better theater and not building nothing but debt while you do it.

@nickkeenan (http://twitter.com/nickkeenan), a Chicago theatre maker, had this to say:

“Interestingly, I wouldn’t make those assertions about Chi-town theatre as strongly as he has. He’s not wrong, but Chicago definitely shares some probs as Toronto still.”

I asked, “What would you say about Chicago theatre? Where has it succeeded or failed?”

And he said:

“Its not success or failure, it’s just more “in-progress”. We’re just beginning to agree on where we’re going, for one. In this way, much of Chicago has its eye on the real ball – we need to build a sustainable theater ecosystem. The ranking of the ‘greatness’ of that ecosystem next to London, NYC may make great pullquotes, but is beside the point. Those rankings are about one thing only: Theatre tourism, not about a theater community’s relationship to its city.”

I think the question of a theatre community’s relationship to its city is a really interesting one. And I would argue that there isn’t anywhere that has totally figured this out. But I think having the conversation is the first step…

I was kind of blown away by the attacks on Nestruck for that piece. I mean, yeah, it wasn’t perfect, but it basically seemed like a wish-list for improving theatre in the city. It wasn’t an attack on the theatre industry, it was a call for more support of the industry.

So, yeah, thanks for this.

Also, kinda loved the caption for the pic.