BLOG: It's Good For You

The End of the State of the Arts Since I started this gig writing for Minnesota Playlist, I have had two major goals: (1) provide top-notch, entertaining and thought-provoking content about the living, evolving art of live performance and its changing relationship to our modern world; and (2) shamelessly abuse the power of the internet and the human mind's innate ability for distraction in order to drown your eyeballs in a plethora of links so that you will not notice when I do not live up to the previous goal. It's been going pretty well so far. No one has said to me, "Hey! You don't really know what you're talking about most of the time!" EIther I'm succeeding, or Minnesotans really are too nice to tell you to your face when you're an idiot. I guess either one works for me. Before I started this column, I was pretty uninformed about what was going on in the greater theater world. I said in my very first News and Notes entry that I couldn't name anyone who won a Tony. Unfortunately, that is no longer true; I now know far too much about the Tony awards. As I've been forced to become more knowledgeable about the national and local theater scene, I've had one consistent source of intel that has never made me want to throw an empty bottle of Evan Williams bourbon at my screen: Minnesota Public Radio's State of the Arts blog. Headed up by Marianne Combs (who had previously helmed a radio program of the same name), this blog was usually the first place I went when trying to figure out what's going on in the Twin Cities. State of the Arts was almost always out in front on any theater-related news story and gave coverage to theater news that other outlets in the Twin Cities didn't bother to notice. If you noticed that I keep using past-tense language in talking about this blog, then you have probably guessed what I'm about to write next (and, seriously, you pay way more attention to word usage than the average internet reader): unfortunately, after a good five-year run, State of the Arts is ending. Even though the last entry swears that MPR will continue to do the same coverage folded in with their regular programming and a new line of podcasts, it won't be the same. Coverage of the arts, especially theater, has been slipping quietly away from the pages of our local publications, even as the creativity and ambition of our theater scene continues on unabated. I will miss State of the Arts as one of the last bastions of straight up arts coverage in the old media world. Fortunately, in the months to come, Minnesota Playlist will willfully step into the new media world with a slick new website and expanded coverage, and it's all thanks to you, dear readers. (Also, that one poor sucker who had $4,000 burning a hole in his pocket.) So, while I mourn the passing of State of the Arts, I know that something better is coming. In the meantime, I'm down one regular source of column filler. Can anyone out there point me to a new blog that divert my audience's attention to whenever I'm out of ideas of my own? What Do You Like? Remember a few paragraphs ago when I said I now know far too much about the Tony awards? It's because of things like this infographic breaking down the stats on the winners of the coveted "Best Musical" award over the past 20 years. So, here's the stats that make me despair: 55% of them were period pieces, 90% of them were about male protagonists and 85% of them were directed by men. Also, only 15% of them were original pieces of work. The rest were adapted from previous sources (45% based on movies). If Broadway is the captain of American theater, it looks like we serve on a pretty damn conservative ship. Mainstream producers would argue that what sells tickets is what's already familiar, while new experiences scare away people. However, when arts organizations start actually asking their audiences what they're interested in, they come up with studies like a recent one in denver that show audiences have a higher than expected tolerance for new experiences. So, what gives? Are big-time producers so risk averse that they avoid opportunities to innovate? Or is this another case where respondents to a survey give the answer they "know" they should give to make themselves look more sophisticated and intelligent, even though they secretly buy tickets to Mamma Mia and Footloose? As I always say when confronted with a question that I'm either too dumb or cowardly to answer, "Who knows?" Or maybe it means that both things are true at once. The people who are already way into theater and willing to pay for all those Broadway shows are real; and then there's the other people, who are ready to try something else, but are not usually given the chance, because we treat the theater market like it is one giant, unsegmented group. Maybe more people are ready to meet the arts, as long as the arts are ready to meet them. Maybe niches like sensory-friendly performances are needed to create viable new audiences. Maybe theater has to hit the streets (or the tracks) to find people where they are. Or maybe there's a huge, growing demographic group that mainstream theater is basically ignoring, and which deserves its own theater festival. You Know, For Kids When you ask theater types about why watching live theater is a good thing, you're bound to get a lot of vague, wishy-washy language thrown at you about the magic of live performance and maybe something muttered about "catharsis", but you'll be hard-pressed to to get much real talk about what it's actually good for. In the past, I would have said that it's not "good" for anything, and that's the point; but now my contrarian eyes have been opened by science (or should I say "SCIENCE!"). According to a recently published study, students who see a live performance show increased understanding of vocabulary, tolerance and empathy. So, theater world, you now have something tangible to sell: seeing theater makes kids better human beings! Sure, we've always suspected as much, which is why Project Success sends so many kids to shows, why Park Square's new stage is leaning heavily on increased student matinees and why Hennepin Theater Trust is increasing the number of kids it indoctrinates with musicals. It Gets Better Eventually, though, these starry-eyed kids who've had their heads stuffed full of dreams will have to go out into the world and find out for themselves that their fancy little arts degrees aren't even worth the paper they're printed on. As we all know, a liberal arts degree is a sucker's bet. However, a new study from the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project claims that people with liberal arts degrees have high job satisfaction and that the market isn't nearly as dire for them as people with MBAs would have them think. The study doesn't show that liberal arts majors are rolling in dough. They do make less money, but they seem more satisfied. Of course, as the proud holder of a BFA, I am going to gloss over the "less money" portion of that sentence and skip over to the "seem more satisfied" section. What's There To Be Afraid Of? Clowns. The answer is always clowns.