I’m really glad that the city in which I live cares enough about theater to honor its practitioners so lavishly. The Helen Hayes Awards are, to my mind, a smart (and fun) way to encourage excellence in our art form and to promote what we do both locally and across the country. We have a lot to be proud of, and I think it’s right and good that we say so, loudly and beautifully, once a year.
That having been said, if I were in charge of the Helen Hayes Awards, there are a few things I’d do differently. I share them here with all due respect to the judges, several of whom are friends of mine, and to the organization itself. I know what they do must be very difficult, and I’m grateful that they do it… but I think the awards could be both more meaningful and more effective at inspiring and promoting theater in DC.
First, eliminate the ties, or at least make them far more rare. In this year’s ceremony, five categories resulted in ties. (Or six, if you count the fact that they gave out two John Aniello Awards.) While I wouldn’t want to set a hard-and-fast rule about how many ties should be allowed, I can say with great passion that five feels like far too many; I heard the same sentiment from several fellow attendees, too. My gut wants a tie to be a once-every-few-years phenomenon. The truth is, ties cost credibility. Ties make the Helen Hayes seem wishy-washy. Ties are uninspiring.
A member of the rules committee who shall remain nameless suggested to me that ties were inevitable, thanks to the Helen Hayes scoring system — a comment to which there can be only one response: change the scoring system. I would be more than happy to make recommendations; the trick, I believe, would be (at least in part) to rate the plays on a scale of 1-100, rather than 1-10. It cannot be as hard as I was led to believe, in any event. There are only rarely ties at the Academy Awards.
Next, address the Synetic conundrum. Now… let me say right off the bat that I think Synetic Theater makes powerful, beautiful, authentic art. While the performances they produce definitely tell stories, however, they just aren’t plays. (Not in my book, anyway.) They’re more dance than theater… much more. There are (usually) no lines, for goodness’ sake, only performers using movement to convey a narrative. They have far more in common with the work of the Washington Ballet than the work of, say, Arena Stage.
I’m not alone in making this claim, of course. It’s an annual tradition to gripe about Synetic’s “physical theater” being set side-by-side with the likes of Oklahoma and Clybourne Park. It’s high time something was done to address the issue… but I would suggest that “requiring the play to include lines,” as many have suggested, might be too strong a response. You see… for as strongly as I believe everything I’ve just written, I do acknowledge that there are many others who feel differently. Because of that fact, I believe we should try to keep the definition of “what theater is” open widely enough to accommodate more than one point of view. After all, that’s the beauty (and the difficulty) of democracy.
Still: including “physical theater” (I really hate that term — all theater is physical) doesn’t mean we have to lump it in with musicals and plays and judge them side by side. So what I (strongly) suggest is adding four new categories:
- Outstanding Physical Theater (ugh) Production
- Outstanding Director of a Physical Theater Production
- Outstanding Performer in a Physical Theater Production
- Outstanding Supporting Performer in a Physical Theater Production
The latter two of these categories are intentionally gender-neutral, which is merely a reflection of the fact that there isn’t much physical theater work happening in DC… which brings me to the real reason I’ve made this suggestion. If theater of this type is so important and cherished, then shouldn’t it deserve its own award? Shouldn’t we be encouraging more companies to do this sort of thing? Heck, maybe this sort of thing is already happening more than we realize (I’m thinking of the Taffety Punk Theatre Company’s production of suicide: chat room not long ago) and just needs a light shone on it. An award of its own would make a real difference. And if there are only three nominations for a category in a given year? So what.
Next, we have to solve the problem I just exacerbated: there are a few too many awards. My suggestion: stop paying so much attention to non-resident productions. Honestly, I simply can’t figure out why we honor them at all. Are we trying to encourage them to come back again? Do we think an award does that? I don’t, and I think our main focus should be on honoring the people who live and make work in this city. In fact, I think that’s of absolutely vital importance in an age in which a theater’s connection to its local community will be vital to its survival. If we must continue to do something for the out-of-towners, let’s give one award to Outstanding Non-Resident Production — if only as a nod to the local producers who made things happen — and call it a night. That eliminates three categories right there.
But I need to add one back in, because (speaking as a playwright) the Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical is a woeful mess. The first issue is that the award lumps plays and musicals into a single category. The second is that the award can be given to both resident and non-resident plays. It’s as if the Helen Hayes organization has very publicly stacked the deck against local theaters developing and producing new work, especially work by local authors.
As a playwright, this really, really makes me angry. One award needs to be given to an Outstanding New Play, another to an Outstanding New Musical, and both should be resident productions. (If you want to go crazy, you could also add Outstanding Adapted Play or Musical… but let’s hold off for now.) To really turn this city into a net exporter of culture — a city that honors and values storytellers — we need to do this, and we need to do it starting next year.
Bottom line: I added four new awards for physical theater and one for writing, then eliminated three for non-resident productions. That’s plus two: not the direction I wanted to head. But you know what? Eliminating the ties will keep the evening shorter, and my final suggestion — decreasing the nominations — will get us the rest of the way there.
Can anyone explain why there are more than five nominations in any one category? I suspect it has to do with the same scoring system that results in all those ties. Please: end it. If the Academy Awards can figure out how to do it, the Helen Hayes can, too. No more than five nominations in a category. It’s more than enough.
Before I sign off, I want to share one final thought. There’s a reason I use the word “change” in the title of this blog post instead of “fix.” I really want to be clear in communicating that I’m sure others have struggled with these (and other) issues and that there are probably factors I haven’t considered. I know I don’t have all the answers. But I do have a few ideas, and I wanted to share them.
Update: I note that the Helen Hayes organization seems to have removed the tag I used when I posted this story to Facebook — in an attempt, I assume, to make sure it didn’t show up on their Facebook wall. This is an understandable but woefully old school attempt to control the conversation, rather than join in. I wish they had simply engaged with the ideas I’ve offered instead.
I just read the Drama Desk Nominations and one of their categories is “Unique Theatrical Experience.” Perhaps something in that vein would solve the Synetic issue.
That gets closer for sure, though it strikes me as a somewhat condescending phrase. Also, it would include things like Sleep No More, which are surely going to start popping up…
I’m very surprised that you would be narrow minded when it comes to what constitutes theatre. Doesn’t it have to do with telling a story, regardless of whether it uses words or not? I’ve seen some truly remarkable international theatre – one where the actor hardly uttered a sound, and many where I didn’t understand what was said but understood the story being told. Does the Helen Hayes Awards define itself as a theatre awards, or just a “Play” awards? And you’ve been much more open in the past when you talked about what constitutes a play anyway. Why pigeonhole yourself this time?
It’s interesting that you took that away from what I wrote. I can see why you did, but… well, that’s the fault of my writing, not your interpretation.
I would say that I advocate (and I think I’m clear on this above) keeping the definition of theater as wide open as everyone wants it to be: to err on the wide side, as it were.
I would also say that while I think what Synetic does IS storytelling, and IS theatrical (in some hard-for-me-to-define sense), it isn’t the SAME as (and thus shouldn’t be judged against), say, Clybourne Park.
I would also say, finally, that if you put a Martian in a theater and showed him The Washington Ballet, Synetic, and the Shakespeare Theatre all doing versions of Othello and asked that Martian to say which one was most unlike the others, the Shakespeare Theatre would be that Martian’s choice 10 times out of 10.
Why Synetic doesn’t get nominated for dance awards (or does it?) I’ll never know.
Synetic provides us with a challenge covering their new form – I’ve thought it would be interesting to occasionally assign a dance reviewer to a Synetic performance.
The forms are evolving, merging, overlapping, and we who report on them need to find ways to flow with that. Just recently we had a similar discussion about opera. Porgy and Bess gets covered by musical theatre, but it’s an opera of the old school. Contemporary musicals can be sung thru, the old def of opera. And now operas are going pop, performing in intimate settings with contemporary themes. (We just covered UrbanArias, with two pieces by Ricky Ian Gordon, who was nominated for his musical Sycamore Trees.)
It’s much simpler for DC Theatre Scene to adapt to new forms than for a complex institution like the Helen Hayes Awards. Your ideas are good, and I hope you send them along to the organizers.
While we’re wishing for new recognitions, I wish we had more honors for playwrights. The only Award is for new work. Otherwise, the producing companies get to take home the trophy.
When you enter the lobby of the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in WV each year, you see banners, not for the plays, but for the playwrights. So my wish list would be that playwrights nominate and award plays and musicals (and whatever new forms emerge). And, what the heck, while we’re at it – why not give them a parade?
Lorraine Treanor
Publisher
DCTheatreScene.com
I bet Synetic does present reviewing challenges; I would think that a dance critic would have far more ability to do the work justice than a theater critic.
I hope the organizers do find what I’ve written, but I don’t intend to reach out to them. They didn’t ask for feedback, and I don’t want to be presumptuous.
As for playwrights: a parade would be lovely, thank you. 🙂 And I certainly won’t turn down more honors. But there is at least the Charles MacArthur Award… though now that I think about it, that isn’t given to the playwright, is it? If that’s correct… why the hell isn’t it? That’s a big problem.
I would love for someone to send a dance critic. That would be a great experiment. I’m betting their response would be “…this isn’t dance. Why am I here, again?”
Damn it. I couldn’t stay away from replying.
Gotcha.
Yeah I have to go with Steve here. Although most of the general public would agree with your definition of theatre, it shouldn’t be the definition. Theatre should be a wide tent that brings people together not segregates them. Now if you want to have the discussion that what they do aren’t plays, then yeah I think that would be a much better discussion, but theatre is a big wheelhouse and should be.
Lee —
I never said Synetic wasn’t theater; I said I thought it wasn’t quite theater,
but that since others (you two) disagree with me, it should stay in the
definition… and in the ceremony. I just said it deserves its own award
category… and for reasons that have to do with me LIKING what they do, too.
I also think that as theater practitioners we need to learn to share our
authority with our audiences. They get to help us decide what theater is and
what it isn’t. I know that’s a radical point of view for some, but I believe
it’s essential in the 21st century.
——————————
PLEASE NOTE: I am making the transition to a new email account. After May 2011,
you will be able to reach me solely at suilebhan@gmail.com. Please, if you
wouldn’t mind, update your records. Thank you.
Gwydion Suilebhan
Cell: 202.258.1993
@GwydionS
http://www.suilebhan.com
http://www.2amtheatre.com
http://www.theatreface.com
________________________________
II’m also in agreement with those here that are happy calling a Synetic show a play, and I think the best thing about their continual recognition in the Hayes Awards is that it might encourage others not to also make apple cobbler, but to try some entirely new recipe. Would you then suggest that we make separate apple mousse or souffle categories? I’m happy to see the American theatre define plays not by some historical parameters, but by the way it is being expressed by modern practitioners!
M. (whoever you are — and I’m curious why anyone comments anonymously anymore)
I’m a bit perplexed by your comment. My argument is that creating a new category for work like the work Synetic creates, whatever you call it, would be more likely to encourage similar work. WAY more likely than the status quo, which hasn’t resulted in an outpouring of movement-based work to date. Do you disagree?
I’ve long ago lost the thread of the dessert metaphor, so I can’t respond. Sorry.
As for your last notion, that American theater should be defined not by “historical parameters,” but by modern practitioners… that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. Creating a new category to reflect the new ways in which work is being created. We might even add a “Devised Theater” category as well to reflect that burgeoning movement, which has far more adherents than movement-based theater in DC anyway.
This is where the disconnect happens, and what I’m trying to solidify in my brain for a 2amt post. In this extended analogy, you are looking at the word “play” and thinking it means “apple pie.” I am looking at it and thinking it means “desert.” Or, maybe at the most specific “apple-based foodstuff.”
And I don’t think creating a new award will increase the amount or diversity of cobbler. If people are making cobbler only to win an award and not because they have a deep-seated need to make cobbler, it’s going to be crap cobbler.
Shit…now I’m hungry.
At some level, yes, we have a semantic difference here. But which of our definitions of apple pie — okay, let’s lose the metaphor — of theater do you think the general public is most likely to hold, mine or yours? Pretty sure it’s mine. For me, that’s the trump card.
As for the other matter, I don’t claim that an award would directly make people make more physical theater. It would simply reward excellence, and call attention to it, and create the potential for more of it. Nature abhors a vacuum.
That may be the case. But here’s another possibility: Synetic starts marketing itself as dance; they start getting nominated for (and winning) the Martha Graham Awards (made that up); dancers all around the city (I’m not alone, you must realize) start wondering why they get to compete in the same category as the ballet.
There have to be plenty of companies like Synetic in NY. You don’t see them getting noms for the Tony Awards or the Obies, do you? I wonder. I don’t really know.
I honestly believe that if the HH folks wiped their judge slate entirely clean and proposed a new slate of people, Synetic would stop winning, too. Or at least less often. And as judge turnover happens naturally, they will win less often. They didn’t even win much this year.
I don’t think they’d ever win a dance award. Because the language they’re performing in isn’t dance. They’re telling a very defined narrative using movement in a way so the audience knows exactly what the story is. Modern dance is a much less specific artistic language.
And I think the HH judges nominate Synetic so often because they’re doing some of the most consistently exciting and interesting work in the city.
Instead of putting them in another category, why not consider them the bar for theatrical excellence that must be reached and exceeded?
Modern dance is a less specific artistic language than what I’ll call the Synetic language, for want of a better phrase. I’ll agree. But what about ballet?
Furthermore: I’m almost certain that at least some dance choreographers would tell you that they’re telling a very defined narrative, too.
Still, it seems to me to be a matter of degree. One is a more abstract “physical storytelling” than the other, but they’re still both physical storytelling… which is to me, as I argued in my post, at most a subset of theater and at least a close cousin of dance.
I won’t argue that Synetic is doing interesting work; again, I praised them above. But I completely disagree that the work they’re doing is as consistently as good as the track record of their Helen Hayes Awards would suggest. It’s just not possible that they outperform Studio, Woolly, Signature, Arena, Shakespeare, Olney, and Theater J year after year. No theater in the area should dominate that much, if ever.
(What IS possible is that a number of Helen Hayes judges have a consistent bias toward certain kinds of theater, which is why there’s so little diversity, year after year, in the nominees… but although I’ve heard whispers in that regard, I have no evidence to go on.)
(Second side note: another troubling fact about the awards is that they seem to subconsciously reward shows with high production values, a metric that’s only achievable by well-funded theaters… but this is, I hope you’ll agree, a very problematic bias.)
So… why give Synetic their own award? Again, there are two reasons:
1) Right now it’s an apple pie contest, and they keep entering apple cobbler. It’s a damn fine apple cobbler, but it’s cobbler, not pie. They’re winning at least in part, to my mind, because they stand out. They aren’t setting the bar for apple pie excellence, or for dessert excellence, but for apple cobbler excellence. Admirable as hell, but it’s confusing the issue. There’s a category error that needs to be corrected.
2) Because giving them their own apple cobbler award will help to INCREASE the amount and diversity of apple cobbler in DC. It will inspire other artists to take up the apple cobbler cause, and continue to reward Synetic for their apple cobbler excellence at the same time. If you like what Synetic is doing, you really ought to be standing behind this proposal, I believe.
The second of those two arguments is, to my mind, the most important. It’s also the reason that lumping plays, musicals, and theater for young audiences in the Charles MacArthur award is a ridiculous oversight.
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