Mike Lawler over at EcoTheater has an interesting post entitled “Lost Plane: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” about the ethics of traveling and how it relates to the migrant artistic lifetsyle prominent within the regional theatre scene. He includes an email discuss with sound designer Lindsay Jones, who says that he logs between 150,000 and 200,000 miles a year doing dound gigs around the country. Jones writes: ““I don’t think I’d be able to continue my career as a freelance theatrical designer if I just worked in Los Angeles.” Asked by Lawler about “localizing and supporting the theater in L.A. — or wherever theater artists may live,” Jones replies, “There are hundreds of theatre companies in Los Angeles, that’s not the problem. It’s that quite a few of them do not pay anything close to a living wage, and have very primitive working conditions from a technical standpoint. To a lot of people in L.A. theatre is just something you do until you get a job in TV.”

There’s a piece missing here — or rather, an underlying assumption that needs to be brought up to the surface for examination, and it is located in Jones’ first sentence. Lindsay Jones wants to make his living as a specialist — a sound designer. So his analysis is probably correct, at least to some extent, given his assumptions. I would assert, however, that such specialization is not desirable for the regional theatre. I don’t think that regional theatres can afford to have people around who do only one thing, whether that one thing is act, direct, design, or market. While a specialist is likely to have more skills than a non-specialist by virtue of focusing solely on one thing, such “narrow-casting” simply assures that a migrant life is necessary. If I am operating a regional theatre tribe, I am willing to trade that extra bit virtuosity that a specialist brings for a multi-disciplined artist who will maintain an ongoing relationship with the company and with the audience.

I know that goes against our national values, which puts the specialist ahead of the generalist. I would argue that, given the economics of theatre, the generalist is vastly more valuable than the specialist, and that theatre history bears this out. Moliere was a great playwright AND the leading actor for his company AND the head of the company. Shakespeare was a great playwright AND and actor in his company AND one of the owners of the company. The specialist is a symptom of our industrial approach to the creation of theatre art, a model that is fast becoming economical unworkable.

Original post by noreply@blogger.com (Scott Walters)