Adaptation

The Way It Was In the early 1960s, there was a revolution in American theater. A wave of new nonprofit companies rose up and washed across the country, challenging the entrenched for-profit system that came before it. The regional and repertory theaters that sprang up in that time changed the way that Americans thought about and interacted with theater and laid down the foundation for the current landscape we have today. This year marks the 50th anniversary of some of the largest, oldest and most respected theater institutions in America. In the ensuing decades, many of those companies survived, thrived and eventually became entrenched themselves. They all had humble and exciting beginnings, but the multimillion dollar organizations that grew up out of those young upstarts 50 years ago went on to become the current establishment. There are clear advantages to becoming The Man. The regional theaters (like our own Guthrie) had the collective clout to shove the center of gravity of American theater out of New York for the first time. They have the resources available to grab the best talent out there. They have the power to lobby for millions of dollars, even when there's supposedly very little money to go around. But, as I've discussed before, size, clout and power can be its own problem. The Way It Is The Guthrie Theater just announced that its 50th season ended in the red, with a $437,000 deficit. Even though donations to the old blue lady were up during the 50th anniversary festivities, ticket sales were down by almost 50,000 as compared to last season. It's a big drop that Artistic Director Joe Dowling blames on the Guthrie taking risks on new plays (although, much has already been said said about the Guthrie's artistic choices overall). Primrose Path and Nice Fish may not have drawn in the numbers that Shakespeare could have, but the centerpiece of the season, a celebration of playwright Christopher Hampton, didn't exactly grab the audience's attention, either. However, the Guthrie sold over 375,000 tickets this last season. By any objective measure, that is an incredible number of people going through their doors. This deficit represents only a tiny fraction of the theater's $27 million budget; but when there are millions of dollars on the line, any cut can bleed badly. The Guthrie already trimmed a million dollars from its budget going into last season and may well do so again next year. In the meantime, the costs of operating that big blue box on the river haven't gone down. How To Keep Dancing On the other side of the river, the St. Paul City Ballet faced a financial crisis of its own this year, which nearly cancelled its upcoming 2013-2014 season. Instead of falling apart, the company rallied together, and the Ballet has restructured itself as an artist-led organization. Many of the dancers now pull double duty, both performing and overseeing administrative duties. Many small performing arts companies already operate this way out of necessity and dream of the day they can hire people to handle all that annoying business stuff. An outsider may look at this as a step backward; but the dance landscape has been rapidly changing. In the international market, dancers are leaving the safe confines of one major company and acting more like free agents. In the US, an increasing number of dancers are leaving the large, old companies and forming smaller, more flexible outfits of their own. Instead of relying on one-time fixes, gimmicks or stunts to keep themselves afloat for another season or two, these companies are reshaping themselves for modern times. The Sound of Ratings Speaking of gimmicks and stunts… One of the oldest of the old giants, NBC, threw a big brick of nostalgia in the country's face last week with a live broadcast of The Sound of Music. It seemed like such a weird throwback choice, especially since the definitive film version of this work has already been made and the only live events that millions of Americans tune in for anymore involve guys in shoulder pads chasing after an oddly-shaped ball. It sounded like the kind of desperate, out-of-touch move that an old, failing media company would do. But, as it turns out, NBC has the new cynical, jaded America all figured out. True story: Christopher Plummer (Captain von Trapp from the movie version) absolutely hated working on the film (he famously called it "The Sound of Mucus"); and America was lining up to hate this new version in much the same way. So much so, that this new Sound of Music gave NBC its biggest ratings in seven years. The fatally curious tuned in to see if the production would fail in some spectacular way, but aside from Carrie Underwood proving that she cannot act, most critics agreed that it was just kinda' sorta' OK or that it even had a weird, shaggy, unpolished charm. NBC is already making plans for another live broadcast musical next season, so we'll see how much hate and/or joy we can rally for it next time around. Non/Traditional It's incumbent upon art and artists to keep adapting themselves to the ever-changing culture. Whenever an institution, artist or movement becomes complacent, it risks irrelevance and eventual dissolution. However, this is not to say that new and flashy is necessarily good. For crying out loud, the most ambitious, technologically-sophisticated, modern production on Broadway is an unmitigated disaster that will soon be dumped on Las Vegas. But this is also not to say that tradition is always vital, either. This season, New York has been flooded with Shakespeare productions. There have been so many that, we are now dealing with the ridiculous prospect of one high concept version of Macbeth featuring a well-known actor being almost immediately followed by another high concept version of Macbeth featuring a well-known actor. In the coming years, as more Guthrie-sized companies find themselves struggling financially, I will venture to say that you will be seeing more than your fair share of classics and revivals. Is this a good thing? I don't know. I'll reserve my judgement until after NBC picks a new musical to not butcher next year.