Philip Carlson
I ought to confess at the outset that I have no idea what technically qualifies a theatre for not for profit status. As someone who has worked in and around the theatre for forty years, I can say that I think not for profit theatre lays some sort of a claim to art, to high-mindedness, to improving the human condition. Some sort. Judging from the output of most not for profit theatres, I would say not a large sort. But some. Here and there. At least, that was always the intention.
This will be an effort to understand and perhaps even suggest a definition of what not for profit theatre might truly be. As an agent, all not for profit ever meant to me was that my clients would be making less money than they did in commercial theatre. And I never really understood that. I still don’t. I just thought it was the way things were and I felt sorry when my clients were asked to accept less money. Several of my agent friends have written to say that they agree with me.
Nevertheless, I have other friends who toil in the fields of not for profit theatre and some of them have taken rather forceful exception to my words in this column in the previous edition of this Journal. While none of my friends seem to disagree with my larger point that ticket prices are ridiculous and actor’s salaries have stagnated, the not for profit crowd most definitely objects to my examples and my dismissive tone for much of what goes on in the not for profit world.
First off, they have pointed out to me that most not for profit theatres offer subscriptions by which tickets are available for considerably less than box office price and offer real and substantial savings. Lincoln Center has even launched a program to reach out to young people offering cheaper tickets for theatre-goers between the ages of 21 and 35 in an effort to ensure that there is a theatre audience left in the world by the time Sasha Obama becomes President.
Also, I was accused of leaning a little heavily on Lincoln Center to illustrate what I feel to be some of the more egregious goings on in the not for profit theatres. Let’s just look at the three non-profit theatres that own Tony eligible theatres in New York (Lincoln Center Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club and Roundabout) as a way to examine non-profits across America. Lincoln Center is probably my favorite, certainly the one from which I expect the most so they are probably like an oldest child from whom I expect a higher standard of behavior. Also, as an agent over the last thirty years, clients seemed happier when they were working for Lincoln Center than when they were working for almost any other not for profit theatre. And to make an actor happy is no small thing. Nor is it easy. But my quarrel with LCT is not so much how they do what they do because they frequently do it very well indeed. No, I frequently object to what they choose to do. And that, admittedly, is personal.
When Lincoln Center revived “South Pacific” a few years ago, I often heard it asked by those in and around the theatre, what was so all fired not for profit-like about “South Pacific”? Well, part of the special spin Lincoln Center brought to “South Pacific” was that they had done it with a full orchestra which hardly ever happens (like the rain in Spain) in the commercial theatre anymore. That and they had mounted it just plain beautifully. So now doing things well belongs to not for profit and doing things cheesily and cheaply belongs to the commercial theatre? Well, if that were so, how come the not for profit Roundabout’s production of “Anything Goes” was so cheesy? I know people loved it. Come on. It was awful. Though I guess it wasn’t cheap. I thought it looked like the result of what a dinner theatre might put on if they found themselves blessed with the windfall from some random Daddy Warbucks who had left them his fortune in thanks for the memories of “Send Me No Flowers”. And what bargain was struck by the side of the river Styx that brought forth The Manhattan Theatre Club’s mounting of “To Be Or Not To Be”? OK So I am an equal opportunity spleen-letter. I guess the bottom line is I don’t understand what makes a show belong in not for profit and what makes it belong on Broadway. Does not for profit mean I have to like the show? Please. My delusions are not so grandiose. If “War Horse” employs a boat load of people, does that mean it deserves to be in not for profit? I mean, both reviewers for the paper of record concede that its surface is exquisite while underneath they carp that “it keeps pushing buttons like a salesclerk in a notions shop” and call it “a sentimental pageant”, while at least one Tony winning actress found it a transformative experience. How are we to glean any standards from such subjective judgments? (And I never thought I would be quoting Ben Brantley to make a point. Apparently, I have no shame.)
But seriously, what defines a not for profit theatre? There are no not for profit actors. There are no not for profit playwrights. In fact, surely the commercial and the not for profit theatre must be in competition for playwrights and actors. Why would an artist choose to make less money? To do better art? To do art better? And what makes one not for profit theatre different from the other? The mission? How closely they adhere to the mission? Do we as theatre goers, do I, have any kind of impression of the difference between one not for profit theatre and another? Clearly, any not for profit theatre, any commercial producer, must be defined over time and not on the basis of a single production. And clearly, I’ve got more questions than answers here.
I find that some of the other, smaller (and less ripe to be a target of my scorn) not for profit theatres tend to do things with a fair amount of frequency of which I approve. But my point is, whether I approve or not and somebody else approves heartily – or not, there are no real standards. And there ought to be. Who’s to set them?
One of my friends who works in not for profit pointed out to me what I found to be the extraordinary fact that the theatre, alone among the performing arts, is the only discipline to even have separate for profit and a not for profit templates. Has anyone ever heard of a for profit opera company? Symphony? Ballet company? When I was a boy, there was a guy named Sol Hurok who used to cherry pick stars, say Nureyev, and present them in concert for what I am sure was a gigantic profit. But that is hardly an art form. That is a huckster knowing how to make a very tidy buck. So this separate template idea is an interesting point.
Where did not for profit theatre come from? Commercial theatre came first, right? When did not for profit theatre start? When did the concept start? Was it created for theatre? Or music? Or dance? Did Martha Graham ever work under the auspices of anything beside not for profit? I don’t think so. I can’t imagine so. Was The Group Theatre a not for profit enterprise? Was Eva Le Gallienne’s company? I think I know that all the LORT theatres began in the fifties and sixties as not for profit theaters to bring theatre, real THEATRE, excellent theatre to cities across the country. This is why I call myself an amateur. Completely ignorant might be a more apt description. But my questions are germane, are they not?
And since not for profit theatre pays no taxes, a huge benefit for them, they ought to be accountable to somebody for the kind of stuff they present, wouldn’t you think? Shouldn’t they have to deserve that tax break? Shouldn’t they earn it somehow? Most of them seem to take it as their God given right. Not that I am suggesting they restrict themselves to “The Firebugs” and “The Physicists” or that we should all spend the rest of out lives watching Robert Wilson take half an hour to walk across the stage. Shakespeare was for profit, no? Nobody liked a slap and a tickle more than Will. And yet Shakespeare belongs unquestionably in not for profit. Sometimes even, and most happily, in for profit. Remember James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer in “Macbeth”? You don’t? How about Al Pacino in “Merchant”? So what’s the difference? Stars? Huge stars? Maybe. Is that enough?
Let’s take it away from actors for a moment. Anything to do with actors makes me emotional. What about costume design? When Florence Klotz designed “Follies” for Broadway in 1971, she had six weeks and a million dollars to design 124 costumes. When Theoni Aldredge did the same thing for “Follies” at the Roundabout in 2000, she had three weeks and 350,000. Now the cost of rhinestones and chiffon hadn’t gone down. Nor had the cost of the people manning those sewing machines to crank out those 124 costumes. What had gone down was the designer’s price for designing the costumes. And why? So the Roundabout could do a production of “Follies”. What made their production of “Follies” different from the original for profit production? (Aside from the fact that the original lost 2700. A week – at capacity! Different times, I think we can say.) Why should “Follies” be considered fair game for a tax free theatre? Because it was so old and quaint that no commercial producer in his right mind would consider reviving it and we needed to be reminded of this lost treasure? If that were so, why is it opening on Broadway this year? Is an all male production of “Electra” suitable for not for profit and a new musical version of the same play with Patti Lupone only right for Broadway? Not if Todd Haimes thinks of it first, you can bet.
Bottom line, I just don’t feel we have a workable or agreed upon definition of not for profit theatre. And when the benefits of not for profit to the producer/artistic director are so enormous, and the sacrifices to the artists who make it possible are so great, we owe it to the profession to make some meaningful distinctions between the two worlds and live by them.