There’s been more than a little bit of angst the last few months—angst that reached a bit of a crescendo recently—about the future of the Helen Hayes Awards. As a member of the theatreWashington Board of Governors, I’ve been privileged to be part of some heavy-duty conversations about that future, all filled (to my estimation) with well-meaning people trying to wrestle with difficult ideas and complicated emotions and widely-varied visions about how to serve the DC theater community at large. To date, however, despite great effort—much more even than I’m aware of, I’m sure—we don’t seem to have arrived at any clarity. Moreover, there’s been a bit of heat building, too: particularly great disaffection in response to a perceived lack of transparency and a devaluing of the city’s smaller theaters. These are troubling days.
(For the record: my experience with theatreWashington suggests that the organization does actually value inclusiveness—we have always been encouraged to discuss and debate any rules changes with as many members of the community as we can. Moreover, theatreWashington seems to work hard to invite as many smaller theaters into the organization as it can.)
My general impression is that we’re dealing with a failure of imagination. We are all—and I lay this criticism at everyone’s feet—trying to focus on adapting the current Helen Hayes Awards to suit the needs of a theater community that has evolved significantly since the awards were first instituted. We’re doing what we often do when something we created isn’t working: we’re revising. But here’s the hard truth: the current awards system doesn’t suit us anymore… at all. We’re beyond revision. It’s time for us to consider scrapping the whole thing and starting again.
And why shouldn’t we? We are a rich metropolis full of imaginative creators and leaders. Why don’t we decide that we’re important enough, bold enough, to invent an entirely new way to serve and reward and acknowledge excellence in our theater community? Why should we limit ourselves to adaptations of what’s come before us, or to emulating the models we’ve seen elsewhere?
I think the answer to those questions begins with a return to first principles, as it were—to the very goals we’re trying to achieve. Of course… we might not all agree about what those goals should be, so let me start by articulating my own version of them:
- To reward and encourage theatrical excellence in DC
- To build a sense of community among DC theater practitioners
- To promote the value and appeal of theater to DC audiences
- To represent the brand of DC theater to the world at large
If those aren’t, in fact, the right goals, they’re at least close, I hope you’ll agree. And if they are, I think we should ask ourselves—starting from scratch—what sort of event, if any, will help us achieve them.
So I’ve decided to do just that. I’ve asked several theater practitioners—and I’m looking for others—to outline their ideas for an annual event that will respond to the challenges I’ve outlined. I’ll be publishing those ideas as they come in, and—in the spirit of complete transparency—we’ll discuss and consider them together. Some will naturally resemble the current Helen Hayes Awards, but with minor variations, and some—like my own, which I’ll articulate shortly—will consist of radical departures. But they’ll all happen in the light of day, and we’ll all ponder them collectively, and perhaps we’ll find out way out of the thicket. We shall see.
—————————–
I’m going to keep my own idea about what to do as short and sweet as I possibly can. (Not my strong suit, I know.) Here goes.
I think we ought to take our inspiration from the Swedes—specifically, from the Nobel committee. I believe we ought to scrap the entire slate of awards we currently give and instead give out:
- The Hayes Prize for Performance
- The Hayes Prize for Direction
- The Hayes Prize for Design
- The Hayes Prize for Writing
- The Hayes Prize for Theatrical Innovation
And that’s it: that’s the list. Nominations for each prize could be submitted by anyone—absolutely anyone who sees or makes theater in the DC area. Committees comprised of (ineligible) experts in each category would review the nominations and (if and only if they find someone worthy of the award) choose a winner. Prizes would come with money—and who among us doesn’t need money?—and a serious amount of prestige. Much more so than the currently-diluted Helen Hayes Awards, I believe.
Recipients would be announced at a press conference in the morning, and that evening there’d be a ceremony at which they’d receive public accolades, followed by a general celebration of everything that’s been beautiful and wonderful throughout the community the previous year: scenes from great plays, songs from great musicals, and so on. Just a bunch of happy… followed, of course, by a party.
And I would also add one more new element, tucked between the morning press conference and the evening ceremony: a daylong conference for DC’s theater practitioners. The conference would provide artists with a chance to attend workshops, give rousing speeches, connect with one another, and learn from one another; to build a community of practice and nurture our shared heritage and vocabulary; and to help us help each other develop professionally.
That’s what I would do.
What about you?
Obviously I’m not party to these awards and have my own history with another set of theatre awards, but I’ll note that your suggestion bears some similarities to the Village Voice’s Obie Awards. They don’t have any set categories though, and no specific limit on the number of awards in any given category, although they’ve always kept it within reason. Oh yeah, and no public nominees there either: just winners. Just FYI.
That’s very much the sort of thing I was going for, with a bit more of an intellectual flavor. The Nobel Prizes + the Obies… which would give us, as I cannot resist saying, the Nobies.
I love it. You leave the best part in, communing with other practitioners and members of our community that work in theatres of all sizes and production value. I’ve always yawned my way through the awards ceremony anyway. It’s the people at the after party that I want to see, talk to and celebrate with. Just a bunch of happy …. 🙂
Thanks so much for this. You make many wonderful points. At its very best the awards articulate to a general public what we, as artistic directors, cannot convey on our own. A few years back all Artistic Directors were given the American Express Award. I have that award in the front window of my theatre. I can tell you that without language it clarifies what I am doing on a tributary street just off of Main between Baltimore and Washington DC. Not having to explain that this isn’t a community theatre but a small professional storefront blackbox, frees up my time to do the important artistic work and maintain and cultivate the vision. So, at their best the awards serve in terms of cultural and societal clarity. They say, this is professional, this is reputable, this is connected to an artistic community of vision. I’d encourage defining and celebrating that membership. It has meant so much to me both personally and professionally. In terms of the awards themselves, the work that I do never seems to truly qualify so I don’t think I can speak to that without sounding oppressed. We have a diverse group of theatres in Washington, DC. And, as I’ve tried to convey in past meetings, we need to define what theatre is with clarity in this organization. Is it musical? Is it classical? Is it contemporary? Because that’s a bowl of apples, oranges, and banana’s right there. Throw in new works and the up and coming trend of work for young audiences and you’ve got a bowl of competing objects competing for best value. This is determined by the very subjective opinions of people who spend much of their evening lifetime going to the theatre. No offense, because that is an insane commitment. But finding a reflective demographic to represent the work that’s really going on is a seemingly impossible task in and of itself. Listen, we need cohesion. We need support. We need to respect one another and to understand there simply cannot be enough theatrical expression in this world right now. On every level. But this is a professional level so there are qualifiers for that. The problem is it quickly turns into a strange classist structure devoid of diversity and clinging to the known elements. In my view, that’s just not what theatre serves to do best. The awards give us a nonverbal signal that we are on the warpath of expression. That we value process, collaboration, and diversity should be at the center of this. In my world, I question the Charles McArthur Award in terms of it’s process and structure as well as the perception that world premieres are so significant but second and third productions are not. We are on our 45th script on C Street, mostly all new plays, and only one has ever been considered for a McArthur. I have a peeve with this because if you read Helen’s bio you’ll see that when he went out the Hollywood he specifically researched strong female characters and had scripts written around them for her to play. She just didn’t like the way she looked of film. So, I think when we invoke a name we have to take that very seriously. It takes three productions to find a work. We need language around what this means, about what we are creating. I think sharing our ideas and accomplishments could go a long way. We don’t need administrators, we need creators. Talking to each other openly and respectfully. The problem is there is so little resource and it’s becoming less and less. It would be hard for me to find a day to spend talking about what I do because I am too busy doing it. So, the people who have time to talk about it are the ones that likely aren’t being ignored. Now, you gift my company an amount of money that frees me up to have more time and I will gladly share some of that time with my artistic peers. I’ve watched this strange class structure arise over the years, to secure funding. So, that the big houses get the big awards because they need the big money. The new works, the companies in existence 5-10 years and producing regularly are given lipservice/pats on the head for trying. The paradigm is a structured classist, sexist, racist one. It doesn’t mean to be. It just is. And, the key to fixing it is growing through it. Laying down the hostility and resentment and talking about who we are now and how we can all thrive best as the beautiful and necessary diverse collection of companies that we are. We could all use money. So, I say you choose 40 of the 80 companies, Gift them $5,000 each and hold a weekend retreat of which we must attend to receive the gift. Then, next year, flip the group and do it all over again. If I had my druthers…(;
Pingback: D.C. Police Pulls Plug on "House of Cards" Motorcade: Arts Roundup - Arts Desk
Pingback: Daily District Line: The Education Issue - City Desk
Pingback: What Would Make the Helen Hayes Awards Better? - Arts Desk