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In 1992, according to a report from the National Endowment for the Arts¹, an estimated 13.5% of the U.S. adult population attended a live dramatic theater event.  This was up from 11.9% in 1982. 

In 1992, this estimated 13.5% represented between 24 and 26.2 million adult Americans².  Further, the NEA reported that there was a frequency of attendance of 2.4 times per person, meaning that roughly 60.2 million attendances of a live dramatic theater event were recorded in the United States.  As this study was not repeated for 2002, it is somewhat difficult to gauge the trend, but if the trend has been sustained, 15.1% of the U.S. adult population attended a performance in 2002. With an estimated adult population of 216 million in the United States that means that nearly 33 million Americans attended a theatre event in 2002 and if the same 2.4 frequency of attendance applies, 79.4 million attendances would have been recorded. To put this in perspective, in 2007 Major League Baseball gleefully reported 79 million people attended baseball games in the United States³. The data described above indicates, at the very least, that there is great interest in theatre in the United States, and other factors point to the impact that active and successful theatres have on their communities.  For instance, the June 24th Plain Dealer article presents evidence that successful theatres are a boon to revitalizing neighborhoods and increasing economic development⁴.  A fact further confirmed by the same NEA report mentioned at the outset, which concludes that:

Dynamic forces shape [theater] participation patterns in each community, including characteristics of the resident and nonresident markets, the supply of producing and presenting activity, the availability of suitable performance facilities, as well as local traditions and history."  And further, that vital [theater-going] communities will exist where vital theatre producing communities are active and available. 

The report specifically identifies highest theatre participation rates in "Seattle/King County (WA) where a thriving theatre community was observed, including playwrights, actors, and a plethora of small, experimental ensembles known collectively as ‘Seattle’s fringe theaters.’" 

Cleveland, Ohio, certainly has the potential of becoming one of the most successful theatre communities in the United States.  It has a diverse mixture of urban education centers and populations, interested young artists, and established veteran performers, directors, designers, and technicians combined with an historic economic downturn that has left numerous, low-cost spaces accessible and available for use.  This is to say that established, highly-priced, conservative theaters no longer hold the keys to gates of theater entertainment in the Northeast Ohio community. (A fact pointed out in a recent speech on local theater.)

Still, formal external funding sources seem to be the meat and potatoes of most arts organizations: either government sources (such as the newly created Cuyahoga Arts and Culture grants) or foundation sources.  These constitute one set of external stakeholders. While it is easy to see these sources as not only important but a possible bounty, reliance on these sources does not seem to me overly wise or recommended.  Changes in funding priorities or changes in government policies can bring a drought to stream very quickly.  Additionally, one of the dangers in accepting funding from a foundation is that there is some expectation of programming to go along with it, that an organization might, like one sister in Cinderella, cut off her toes to fit the shoe.  This fact is made poignantly clear by Mike Daisy in his article How Theater Failed America, when he writes:

Better to invest in another "educational" youth program, mashing up Shakespeare until it is a thin, lifeless paste that any reasonable person would reject as disgusting, but garners more grant money.⁵

This may be a cynical viewpoint, but if it weren’t true there wouldn’t be a phrase for it in the nonprofit "biz": mission drift.

But if not foundations or government, what then?  Ticket sales are an important part of revenue, but cannot sustain even basic and continuous organizational function, let alone full employment of an acting troupe–unless prices are terribly high.  One plan that came to me serendipitously in the form of an issue of American Theatre was to reach out to universities to cultivate new stakeholders—universities and their faculties, students, and staff.  The plan works like this: a theater sends vouchers to a college; the college distributes them to students; the students go to the theater with the voucher and get in free; the theater then bills the college for the cost of a reduced ticket–and the college takes the money out of the student life budget.  This astonishingly simple strategy accommodates the stakeholder fulfillment of two different organizations at one time, as many universities have, as a part of their strategic plans, some requirement to support the communities in which they live and operate, as well as supporting their more fundamental academic mission.

1. American Participation in Theater, AMS Planning and Research Corporation, Research Division Report #35, National Endowment for the Arts, Santa Ana, Calif. : Seven Locks Press, 1996

2. Stats based on calculation of 13.5% x the U.S. adult population at the time as reported in the Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1992.

3. Bloom, Barry M. 2008. MLB salary increase lowest since ’04. December 4. http://www.ticketnews.com/Major-League-Baseball-sees-attendance-drop-for-the-first-time-in-five-years10810000. (Accessed online, December 8, 2008).

4. Litt, Steven. 2007. Energizing Detroit-Shoreway; Theater renovations, new building at the heart of neighborhood revitalization. June 24. The Plain Dealer.

Daisey, Mike. 2008. The Empty Spaces: Or, How Theater Failed America. February 5. The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper. http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=503829. (Accessed online December 8, 2008).

Had a good time at CPT’s 26th season launch party on Saturday night.  They were offering $2 Magic Hat brews, so that was incentive enough–but it was in a theater too!  Well, theater discussion and some rousing Karaoke by some theater people who could actually sing.

I got to see Mike Geither, Mike Sepesy, Chris Seibert, Raymond Bobgan, Mindy Herman and James Kosmatka, among others.  I was especially glad to see Sepesy as I have not seen him in a while and it was good to catch up.  His play The Alice Seed is leading off CPT’s season in October.  I blogged about his second play in that series, The Douglas Tree, earlier.

The highlight of the evening was the reveal of the 2009-10 season and Bobgan’s talk that accompanied it, which I found quite inspiring and which fired me up a bit.  I was reminded of my high school football days and wanted to go out on Detroit and chuck someone, which of course, would be a bad idea for several reasons.

There were at least two points in particular that roused my spirit and on which I want to comment.  The first was Bobgan’s commentary on the state of the economy and its impact on theater and the arts generally.  His comment was directed toward the fact that the arts community felt the need to defend its importance.  That it had to defend itself in economic terms–i.e. we add jobs, we attract visitors, we employ people, we contribute to the economy.  These are things that he expressed a distaste for discussing or arguing and yet which he has been compelled to discuss more and more lately.  I share his distaste for this and have myself emailed congressmen and women from various places regarding this, not the least of which is an especially noxious Jack Kingston, who apparently suggests that artists aren’t real people in the following Boston Globe quote:

"We have real people out of work right now and putting $50 million in the NEA and pretending that’s going to save jobs as opposed to putting $50 million in a road project is disingenuous.”

Regardless, all this overlooks the fact that actors, writers, technicians, artistic directors, assistants, marketing people, etc., all work in the arts and all get paid and contribute to the economy.  It overlooks the role that arts organizations play in revitalizing neighborhoods, as best demonstrated by CPT itself and the following June 24, 2007, Plain Dealer article, "Energizing Detroit-Shoreway; Theater renovations, new building at the heart of neighborhood revitalization."

But all this is beside the point, and was strongly and defiantly pointed out by Bobgan who said, in the end, “art doesn’t need to justify itself.”  And he’s right.

Perhaps the strongest argument Bobgan made, and the one that sticks with me, is that art is to society what dreams are to individuals.  This is something I’ve heard before–I’m not sure where exactly–but the point is profound and it is accurate.  But Bobgan took it a step further and poignantly drove it home: when individuals do not dream they become irritable, lose focus, and even experience psychiatric and emotional disorders that can lead to a lack of empathy and aggression.  Taking the natural step, Bobgan evolved the argument’s premise to that of society.  A society without art suffers the same effects as the individual without dreams.  All we need do is look at the last eight years of U.S. History to see how harrowing the result truly is.

Beyond this, Bobgan looked at the local theater scene and made some very optimistic pronouncements and even made me optimistic too.  He gave shout outs to Theater Ninjas, convergence-continuum, and Karamu.

I found the evening enjoyable and the speech Bobgan delivered heartening.  I only hope he’ll post is somewhere.

I’ve done some strategic planning for convergence for their benefit and for the satisfaction of some class requirements at the Mandel Center.  I’ll post some of that material which discusses the impact of theaters on the economics of a neighborhood sometime soon.  In the mean time, here are some interesting quotes I found from George Dawson in his book Shakespeare and other lectures

Our greatest men, both in art and science, have been distinguished by the clear understanding which they have had, that their art or science was but the outward rendering of invisible truths. It is the common opinion of art that it is something laid on the surface of society; whereas those who watch deeply, see that art is to society as the colour of the check is to the body the result of full bloom and health; for art and all its appliances are the last sign of the full vitality of a people. If you have an unhealthy people or age, it is in vain that you, as it were, paint art upon it by Royal Academies or Schools of Design, and giving of prizes; for art is not so much the product of construction and skill, as the appearance of full health in the body corporate. 402-3

To the unawakened eye, that looks upon art as upholstery work, pretty furniture, and pretty colouring; to those who say, as we often hear them saying before the works of the great masters,  "They are pretty!" to all these such teachings are idle and absurd. 403