Finding the artifact

You're still trying to figure out what I meant in the last post about that box not being able to contain your artistic vision. But you came back; I take that as a small victory. If I haven't lost you by now, this one's where you'll decide I'm a crackpot. I've been troubled for years by a microeconomic oddity. What is it that distinguishes the arts that can exist in a marketplace, are generally operated as for-profit, and those that are mostly nonprofit and funder-driven (and are, incidentally, most often what people mean by "the arts")? In other words, how come some art can make money while others can't? I spent years assuming that it was about mass-consumability, or the lack thereof. "High art" was too sophisticated for the masses, and therefore would be forever doomed to unsustainability without donations. The really good art was a critical part of our cultural heritage and deserved concentrated preserving, despite its lack of commercial viability. I could buy that. This was the attitude I had when I opened a cooperative record store in the 90s. "Challenging" music was important to promote, but it was never going to move units. People liked easily consumable music. But I was wrong. It's amazing what people want to listen to. Some theater is very challenging, but that's only one small slice of the average offerings in any given season. We always bemoan our predicament: this is a very popular and consumable play/topic/performance, but people still don't show up. We come up with more and more elaborate ploys to get people to attend our seemingly mass-consumable productions. And we move the needle a couple percentage points.

What can you take home?

The problem is the artifact. As in, you don't have one. The difference between the art forms that can make money and those that can't is simply: can it be mass-reproduced, packaged, taken home, consumed on demand? Books can, music can, movies can. Theater can't. This has always been a problem, but with the internet the problem now becomes epidemic. You can't get people to attend your show because people don't want to attend anything (let alone something they don't already know they'll like). And this isn't an indictment of people; if I can get a Stan Brakhage film on Netflix or that first Wildbirds & Peacedrums single on iTunes (and I can), I'm feeling pretty good about my cultural choices without leaving my house. You know this is the case, but you don't want to believe it. The problem is that we're grasping on to the idea that what we do we have to do live. Theater isn't theater unless it's in front of an audience, right? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it doesn't. If you're a playwright, your words are still beautiful or poignant or hilarious if they're recorded. An actor's portrayal can still be as compelling on film. Don't get me wrong -- I know this is a huge leap. But it shouldn't be. Broadway now brings in the crowds by casting movie stars; why can't it go the other way? Why should theater performers be deprived of a mass audience unless they leave the art form? Possibly more importantly, why should cash-strapped theaters and actors not want to get a financial return on their massive investments of time, money, and talent? Bear with me. I'm not advocating abandonment of live theater. Once again, let's use music as a model. Live music is not dead. It thrives at many levels. Even in an industry dominated by the artifact (i.e. the recorded song), live concerts are major events. Event and artifact are symbiotic. I can imagine a new approach to theater that is no longer just "theater", but is "performance," that sees the recorded piece and the live piece as two halves of the same artistic vision. I delight at the prospect of a conversation: "I love [insert local actor here]!" "I do too, but you gotta see her live, dude." If we're really as good at live performance as we think we are, it would work that way.

Real multimedia

And I'm not talking about videotaping your productions. God no! Cinema is a different medium, and just like the difference between recorded and live music, it takes a different process and different skills. But the raw material and talent is the same. In our current state of technology, making a decent movie costs a fraction of what it did even five years ago, and there are many more people qualified to do it. And just like with music, the live performance will have good (energy, immediacy, unpredictability) and bad (annoying audience members, bad sight lines, staginess) points that the recorded version won't have. And that's what makes them both viable. In this future, movie actors that can't play live will be the lip-syncers. Just like jam bands, some theater will always be much better live. This is what I mean by "theater can't contain your artistic vision." This town is full of brilliant artists who get seen by a few hundred people a year for no better reason than they think of themselves as "stage actors" and the only screen work locally is in ads. This town is also full of filmmakers dying for some good content. C'mon people! Let's make some theater that people can watch on their laptops. This will take artistic and organizational creativity. I don't pretend that it will be an easy change. But I predict that those who can innovate well in the area of "artifact creation" will be the ones who will see real growth in audience and a real increase in earned revenue. Our current model assumes that a huge portion of a theater group's expenses will be paid by donors -- either individual or institutional -- but we all know that's not going to last. Even if/when the economy bounces back, there's less and less foundation interest in projects that don't clearly "help people." If theater doesn't figure out how to get itself into the hands of a lot more people, it's going to become less and less sustainable, and less and less relevant. Very possibly, our "ephemeral art" can only really grow its audience by becoming more permanent. Next: Trying to make practical sense of all the previous posts.