This is the fifth entry in a continuing series of guest posts. Our contributor is Karen Lange, one of the co-artistic directors of Pinky Swear Productions, an up-and-coming small theater company in DC. Karen is smart, sharp, and fearless, and I’m pleased to be able to share her thoughts. My intent is that her post will initiate a series of posts and guest-posts on the subject of the Helen Hayes Awards.
———————————————–
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment — from Sonnet 15
The Washington Post is rightly famous for its investigative journalism… and the tradition seems to be living on in the Style section. Move over Woodward & Bernstein, here comes Nelson Pressley. Who ever thought there were so many secrets and so much intrigue in DC theater?
Today’s Washington Post ran an article about the Helen Hayes awards and the public summit meeting they held in June to invite comment from the DC theater community about how the awards should be structured. The liveliest topic of discussion at that meeting was the possible split of the awards into separate tiers for the small and large theaters, each (possibly) with its own ceremony. (In the current arrangement, every professional theater in town that meets certain criteria is judged for the same prizes.) The summit was well-attended—by smaller professional theaters in DC. One group was conspicuous by its absence, however: the largest equity theaters in DC. I call that group Big Theater.
What the Post revealed today is that while Big Theatre may have skipped out on the public conversation, they didn’t remain quiet in private. Signature Theatre, Studio Theatre, Arena Stage, Round House, Ford’s Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre, and the Kennedy Center reportedly sent a confidential joint letter to theatreWashington—the organization that runs the Helen Hayes awards—expressing their views about the potential split. The letter included the not-so-gentle admonition that if theatreWashington didn’t make the major changes the big theaters wanted, those theaters would have to “rethink their future involvement” in the Helen Hayes program. Presumably, the large theaters want to split the awards into small and large tiers based on budget or Equity status, but I have no idea what is in the letter… which is what concerns me. Though theatreWashington declined to characterize the letter as a threat, I see a walking, quacking bird and I’m ready to declare: “It’s a duck.”
Let’s briefly back up to provide context.
Every year, the DC theater community comes out in droves to attend the Helen Hayes Awards. Many of us affectionately refer to the ceremony as “Drama Prom.” We all have a great night dressing up, dancing, indulging in finger foods, and overindulging at the open bar. One of the things we all love about the Helen Hayes Awards is that it’s a big night to celebrate theater being made in DC. And the night has always celebrated all of that theater. In recent years, theatreWashington has been very welcoming to the nascent indie theater community in the city, and you can tell how excited the smaller theater companies are by listening to the hooting and cheering when we see pictures of our shows and our logos on the slideshow during the ceremony. It’s a source of pride.
Though theatreWashington has embraced the full spectrum of professional theater companies in the area, apparently Big Theater doesn’t want us at the party. I have to question why: literally, because their letter was a secret. Which raises another question: if what Big Theater had to say in that letter was for the genuine good of the entire theater community, why did it need to be a secret?
Frankly, it smells anti-competitive. In the business world, when a coalition of companies in the same field bands together to change the game and make it harder for other companies to compete, they get called out. This situation seems to me to be no different. If the letter is well-intended and is intended to be for the good of the whole community, as Linda Levy Grossman suggests in the article, why don’t we get a chance to see it? We’re capable of judging what’s good for us by ourselves, Big Theater. Heck, we might even like your ideas… if we knew what they were.
Why do awards matter to indie theaters? They matter to us for the same reason they matter to Big Theater. Awards bring attention to great work. The opportunities for small theaters to get that attention are few and far between as it is. Nobody’s saying that the awards ought to be an undeserved crutch. We’re asking to compete with the best that DC has to offer, not to be given our own separate category in which it would presumably be easier for us to win. Mixing with Big Theater makes us try harder, try to be more creative, and aspire to do more with less. We don’t need an additional hurdle to cross just to be considered worthy of the top tier.
The Post article goes on to quote the theatreWashington representative as saying that she understands why Big Theater “wasn’t there at the summit to make their case to a reluctant corps of small theaters: ‘Who wants to show up if you’re going to be tarred and feathered?’” That is hardly a good reason; it just means you don’t think your argument can stand the light of day.
Since Big Theater chose not to communicate with us, indie theaters are left to assume that the changes the Big Theater asked for must be self-serving. We assume Big Theater is saying: “We have all the money, and can throw our weight around at theatreWashington. We have our own, beautiful buildings that you cannot afford to rent. We get the lion’s share of DC audiences. Now we would like the only awards in town, prestigious name included. You can have a new prize that even fewer folks in town have heard of—have fun building on that.” If that isn’t what is written in the letter, then it might behoove Big Theater to show us what is written there.
Representatives of the indie theaters at the summit generally agreed that if the awards got carved up, you would only widen the gap between the major theaters and the indie/lower budget/wandering companies. We are all making art; I don’t see why the theaters who wrote that letter are so concerned with mixing with the rest of us. The folks at theatreWashington got a lot of other input in from the companies who showed up for the summit, too. It would have been nice to discuss that input with Big Theater. For example:
- What do does Big Theater think about the oft-maligned non-resident awards, which are met with near silence at the ceremony? Those awards were quite unpopular at the event. Do they dismiss that unpopularity because it doesn’t directly affect them?
- How about the yearly Aniello award? Mandatory or optional?
- How about the judging criteria? An overhaul of the judging system seems like a fine place to start with changes, as splitting up awards means splitting tiers of judges, who are stretched pretty thin as it is. Do the judges need to be paid rather than volunteering? Perhaps there could be additional training.
These questions were all part of the discussions we had, and many people had great ideas for solutions. But now we’re worried that our input is meaningless, since we don’t have the financial power to scare theatreWashington into accepting our demands. What’s the point of a summit if what we say is less important than some secret letter?
In closing, I want to issue an invitation to Big Theater: publish your letter, and let’s talk about it. Engage with the community. After all, most of your organizations started small—the founding artistic director’s basement, a garage, a former burlesque house, a roving school theater program. You’d do well to remember that your founders had to build their establishments, too. The next generation is opening the doors of its own garages and coming up from its own basements. Please: welcome us to the party.
———————————————–
The ideas expressed above are a contribution to the ongoing intellectual discourse about theater. Though I’m honored to share them, they represent the thinking of their author, not necessarily my own. If you’d like to make a contribution, too, just let me know. Provocative, smart, and even dangerous discourse is always welcome.
This potential split of the Helen Hayes Awards would be a
bad thing for Washington Theatre though it certainly reflects what’s happening in our country – the growing divide between the wealthy and the not so wealthy. Economics aside, the once upon a time
wonderful thing about the Awards was the level playing field. All the judges saw all the plays to which the nominators sent them. As I understand it, nowadays different judges see different productions. How can true objective choices be made? I very strongly believe that the problem with the awards is that the playing field needs to be leveled not carved up.
When we started the awards (God, I feel old – it was before many
of you adventurous, brave and courageous theatre practitioners were born!) …when we a started the awards, there was discussion
about the wealthier theatres having an edge over the “small theatres” but
primarily in the design categories … but who won the first set design
award? Lewis Folden for LYDIE BREEZE at little New Playwrights’
Theatre.
I remember talking with Helen (way back when) about how wonderful
it was that 21 Washington area theatre companies were participating in the first year. And we were bringing them all together with this new program! The Awards were created to solidify the theatre community. They should not now be used to fracture it.
Harry’s passion is wonderful and a boon to the conversation. However, his thoughts about, specifically, the design categories don’t match up with reality. Since the inception of the awards in 1989, there have only been about 8 or 9 smaller companies (New Playwrights, Source, Washington Stage Guild…) that have won in the design categories. In the area of set design, in the last 10 years, The Shakespeare Theatre has won 7 times. In the area of costume design, the award has been won only 3 times by smaller companies. I don’t understand how this doesn’t point to either an issue in judging or in how things are grouped. I do feel that performance, musical direction, and even direction should stay combined as a great individual performance is great no matter the setting.
So what’s the solution? How to do you train judges to look past the polish and judge based on how the design concept supports or elevates the story? So if a small company has an excellent design and a large theatre has an excellent design, is it so far fetched to believe that execution of the design is not coming into play with the judges?
With all the talk about how this will rip the community apart, the point that gets lost, is that it already has. A change should be made to reflect the diversity of product in DC. I work for a small company and I in no way feel that if we were competing against only other theatres of our size as a demeaning act. In fact, you could say that the point this article and the below comment are making, in a way, is that simply competing amongst the other small theatre is not ideal, which is insulting. Let the big guys have their awards and we will show them the originality and resourcefulness or our own.
If there is a small theatre Artistic Director out there who says that they do not wish to spilt, you are doing a diservice to the health of your company. When wanting exposure, or access to donors, or filling out grant applications, how is it worse to be nominated or win in a small theatre category, then not even being mentioned in an all for one system? A general audience member will not parse between what category you are placed in. All they will see is that you have been honored for excellent work. Why is that so bad?
Our main objection is secrecy. As I say in the article, we might even *like* their ideas and rationale, if only we knew what they were. We just want them to engage with us. The whole “tarred and feathered” thing is just plain weird. If we don’t know what they wrote, why would we attack them? We all expressed our opinions professionally and rationally during the summit meeting – kudos to HHAs for a great structure to the event. It makes us sound like an angry mob.
I get the impression that there’s this constant, on-edge fear amongst the Big Theater folks that anytime they interact with the Non-big Theater folks, they’ll be grabbed at, complained to, etc. They seem to feel that the Non-big folks are bitter, jealous and blame the Big folks for all of the theatre world’s problems, and that any open conversation will devolve into a “why-won’t-you-share-with-us!” snipe fest.
Maybe someone else can speak to whether this is true – by which I mean whether 1) it’s true that the Big Theater folk feel that way, or 2) it’s true that the Less-big folk have acted that way and ‘deserved’ that reputaton?
I’ve heard that sentiment from some Big Theater folks. I think that in the rush to demonize them, we forget that a) Those are PEOPLE, and b) They aren’t evil, even if they might be wrong, and c) They mean well, and d) They do good things, too, and e) Most importantly, they are US. There is no us vs. them; there is only, really, a “we.”
I personally wholeheartedly agree, but
(for good or ill) I think a lot of this debate is about defining an “us” and a “them” and just who “we” are. For everyone involved on every side. It’s about various theatre folks wanting to clarify their identity as being either the same or different as ‘those other folks’ in certain critical ways. It’s a question of whether the folks (at both big and small theatres) want to be identified as nothing more or less than theatre-makers and thus all ‘the same’ as each other, or whether they want to be differentiated via other, externally-validated aspects of who they (as artists) are.
Karen, I agree with you wholeheartedly with you on that. They should have gone to the meeting and voiced their opinions instead of a letter sent in secret. If anything, it just shows that they are highly aware of the talent and abilities on display and we are nipping at their heels.
What I want to know in this whole discussion, and which I’ve yet to see even brought up (maybe I’m not looking in the right place), is any sort of question of what’s best for *the audience.* Are the Helen Hayes just about the theatre folk appreciating themselves? Or are they not a marketing tool, intended to have some meaning for the average theatregoer?
If the latter, I’d love to see some sort of research (from other cities or something) about whether splitting leads to more theatre being seen and appreciated, or whether it leads to the devaluing of the smaller theaters – or SOMETHING about the actual impact on anything besides theatre-makers’ self-esteem.
(Disclaimer: esteem is not an unimportant thing – artists are people and the artist’s self-esteem affects the art being made – it’s just not EVERYthing.)
Pingback: Ceiling Collapses at Go-Go Swing Gala: Arts Roundup - Arts Desk
Pingback: District Line Daily: The Cash From Nantucket - City Desk
What about a monetary award to a young actor or writer? How much money is spent on the party? Does anyboby know?