While we're all staying home and staying safe, I wanted to speak with the theater artists in other communities about how they're holding up and what they think will happen next.
Today's interview is with a new friend who has been the Artistic Director of an independent theater for seven years, and also co-founded the theater.
Here's the interview:
ME: How are you doing?
THEM: I've been better.
ME: You've been through it--
THEM: Everybody has.
ME: I can't go into too much of why I think you've been through it more than, uh, some other theaters--without giving away who you are, but I think you've had a few extra dings.
THEM: Things?
ME: Dings.
THEM: Oh dings! Yes, I've had--yes.
ME: So I'm not going to ask you about plans, because we can't plan.
THEM: None of us can plan. It's like--I feel like my skin is crawling all the time.
ME: Because you can't plan?
THEM: Specifically that in addition to everything else. Planning makes me feel better and I can't plan.
ME: Same here.
THEM: I've had to...let go of that--of that thing that makes me feel better. People talk about really giving yourself a lot of what makes you feel better, but...
ME: But what if control makes you feel better in a situation where you don't have any control over anything?
THEM: Right.
ME: One of the things I wanted to talk about was something you said to me the first time we spoke, which is, the difficulty you're facing getting help from the arts advocacy groups in your area.
THEM: Yes.
ME: Are you okay talking about that?
THEM: I would love to talk about that.
ME: Walk with me through where you are with them.
THEM: With the--
ME: You have two major arts funding organizations in your area, right?
THEM: Yes.
ME: What are they doing right now?
THEM: Not calling me.
ME: (Laughs.) Do they have your number?
THEM: You know, that might be the problem.
ME: We'll publish your number at the bottom of this interview in case they're reading.
THEM: I hope they're reading. That would be great. But I know what they'd say.
ME: What would they say--about not calling?
THEM: They'd say I need to call them.
ME: That reminds me of Dead Man Walking when Susan Sarandon says to the victim's family 'Call me' and they're like 'Call you?' Like, you need to be calling us. We're the victims.
THEM: Yes, I am the victim's family.
ME: (Laughing.) You know what I mean though?
THEM: No, I do, and you're right. It's very--I get that they're overwhelmed. We're all overwhelmed. But I don't have the staffing right now to be all over them the way other theaters do.
ME: The bigger theaters in your area?
THEM: Yes.
ME: Now, we're trying not to get too messy with these interviews since it's a time of national tragedy, but also, I think we could all use a little gossip at the moment.
THEM: (Laughs.) That's true.
ME: Can we talk about the memo?
THEM: Oh my god, the memo.
ME: So you get this memo--
THEM: Yes.
ME: That one of the arts organizations--one of the higher-ups at one of the two arts organizations sent to--who did they send it to?
THEM: [They] sent it to another, uh, someone at one of the other theaters here. The main theater.
ME: The big one.
THEM: The big one.
ME: What did the--so it was an email, it wasn't a memo.
THEM: I was going to say, it wasn't a memo.
ME: But memo sounds juicier.
THEM: It does. I'll give you that.
ME: But it was an email. And the email said--
THEM: The email said that this, um, organization--the arts organization--feels that not every theater is going to make it out of this, um--
ME: Alive.
THEM: Alive, yes.
ME: Which is not--shocking.
THEM: It's not shocking, but it wasn't worded that...tastefully.
ME: How was it worded?
THEM: I don't want to say, but it was worded poorly, in my opinion.
ME: Okay.
THEM: The part--so people weren't loving that part of it, but then the next part--or the last part of the email said--and we here have had to make some choices about who we'd like to see survive this.
ME: Jesus.
THEM: Yes.
ME: So they're--playing god with theaters?
THEM: They're triage-ing theaters, yes.
ME: Wow.
THEM: But wait--it gets better. They then list--in the email--to this theater--which theaters they would like to see survive, and, there were--I don't know--four theaters on that list.
ME: Nooooo.
THEM: Yes.
ME: You didn't tell me that part.
THEM: I wasn't sure I wanted to say, but--there it is.
ME: So how many theaters aren't on the list?
THEM: A lot. There are a lot more than four theaters--
ME: Oh my god.
THEM: And and and--all four theaters on the list--none of the theaters--um, it was the big four. The biggest four in this community. There was--It was clear they were good with letting the entire small and mid-sized theater scene here crumble and die.
ME: How did you get that email?
THEM: I have a friend who works at the theater and that friend forwarded it to me.
ME: Did you explode?
THEM: I cried. That was the first thing I did. Because a lot of things are coming out now that--that have always been true. These people have always wanted me to fail. They've never had the interests of the small theaters here in mind.
ME: They bet on the winning team.
THEM: They're all about the winning team. I wouldn't have been shocked to hear that that's how they operate. I knew that. Everybody knows that. What shocked me was that--they had just done a press conference--this virtual press conference--where they talked about how they were here for all theaters, and how important it was for everybody to help the small theaters survive, because, um, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to know that we're going to be the first ones down on the cutting board when it comes to donations and selling tickets after this. The whole focus of what they were putting out to the public was--We've got our eye on small theaters. Then I see this email.
ME: So they're liars?
THEM: I--I guess so.
ME: So you cry and then I'm assuming you got mad?
THEM: I--yes. I sent that email to every theater that wasn't on that list, and I CC-ed the person--the higher-up--from the organization who sent the original email.
ME: That is bold.
THEM: I was like--let's do this.
ME: Let's put all the cards on the table.
THEM: Yes.
ME: What happened then?
THEM: There was a big outcry from all the theaters. [The higher-up] didn't respond at first, then a statement came out from the organization saying that they felt the leaking of that email was a breach of trust.
ME: Don't you love when people mess up and then go 'But you weren't supposed to find out I messed up?'
THEM: That's what it was. Then that response blew back in their faces, because it only made all the other theaters angrier, and then they issued, um, another response where they said just because you're not on the list, that doesn't mean we're rooting against you. It just means we have to put our, um, resources behind helping the bigger theaters first.
ME: Why?
THEM: Because they employ more people. They have longstanding histories. They matter more to the economic health of the arts community here.
ME: So--can I play devil's advocate and say--They're not wrong in saying that--
THEM: No, they're not wrong.
ME: But now can you give me your counterargument?
THEM: Sure. My counterargument is, they're also black holes of money. You put a million dollars into [Name of Theater] and it's gone in two years. You give me two million dollars when we're on the other end of this, and I'll be able to employ a lot of people too. I'll be able to--I would hope that they can employ people when these two organizations that fund theaters in our state are funneling so much money into the same theaters over and over again. By the way, of that two million that they--They really did give two million dollars to a theater two years ago and that theater is now on the verge of bankruptcy and they were before this all started, but they're using this--the, um, pandemic--as the reason for why suddenly there's no money.
ME: Oh sweetie.
THEM: Right? I've looked at your books. You didn't have any money before this. Where did the two million dollars go?
ME: But you're not accusing them of anything--
THEM: I'm only accusing them of being too big to fail. Just like banks. Just like airlines. A theater that can't exist without millions of dollars coming in every year has no business existing. Not because theater isn't worth that amount of money, but because I'm not seeing that money anywhere, but what I am seeing are raises happening for the people at the top, so that a million and a half of the two million went to pay for the salaries of the four people at the top. My entire annual budget for last year was not 1.5 million dollars. I--I am very emotional talking about this, because I know now is not the time to be bashing another theater, and that's not what I'm trying to do, but I didn't make that call. Somebody sat down and wrote an email saying that my theater and many other theaters like mine are expendable. They made that call not based on numbers or math. They made it based on--We've already sunk so much capital into these groups that now we have to make sure they stick around.
ME: Because they're in too deep.
THEM: Yes.
ME: So now you're the underdog?
THEM: We've always been the underdog, but to me, seeing that email meant that they might work against us. Before it was like--They ignore us. Okay. Got it. This to me read like--We might come after the small number of donors you do have. We might start to try to close you down to consolidate support around these four groups.
ME: That's terrible.
THEM: Now what's happening is all the groups that weren't on that list have joined together and we're helping each other in a way that--that we've always wanted to, but never--We were never able to pull the trigger until now.
ME: What does that mean?
THEM: We're working on doing joint fundraising separate from what [the arts organization] wanted us to get in on, because most of that money--they had this chart for how the money was going to be divided up, and--no surprise--most of it was going to the bigger theaters. We started our own group fundraising effort and it's going to be divided evenly among us, and we've already doubled our goal.
ME: That's great.
THEM: We're also talking about coming out of this with a small and mid-sized theater organization so we can continue to be our own champions in the fight, and we have some people with development experience who work with our groups, and they're talking about forming a separate funding organization that shows how much further donations and funds go when they're given to smaller groups.
ME: I love that.
THEM: I want to say again, because I think this is important--I want every theater to survive this. I would never have said--ever--that there were some theaters that should make it out of this and some that shouldn't. But when you're talking about--I'm saying this because I think you're right about the positive mentality that everybody is having right now--I know what you mean by that. We got a lot of flack for trying something like this right now, but when you're talking about eighteen months of this, you can't say--We'll put a pause on the business side of it. We'll just sit on our hands. Not when other people are using that time to strategize.
ME: That sucks.
THEM: It does suck. I would love to yell 'Freeze' and come back to all this later, but that email showed all of us that we won't be given that chance. We were told to just relax and it turns out that while we would have been relaxing, they would have been doing things to damage and hurt us.
ME: Have any of the theaters on the list said anything about all this?
THEM: They're pretending it didn't happen and, because I don't know if anybody responded to that email that was sent, they can stay out of the fray for now, because we don't know what their thoughts on it would have been.
ME: Do you think they agree with what was said though?
THEM: That we should die so they can live?
ME: (Laughing.) So dramatic.
THEM: It's nice to be dramatic again.
ME: Honestly, I've been craving it.
THEM: I think it--I don't even really blame them. It's their job to stay open. Not to keep me open. That's cool. It is not the job of the people whose job it is to foster a healthy and multi-faceted arts community to zero in on four theaters as the ones that get to carry on when those theaters produce work that is nearly identical, and, forgive me, but--not that interesting.
ME: Are you confident you'll make it out of this?
THEM: I'm very confident.
ME: How?
THEM: The nice thing about operating without any money for so long is that when you find out you're going to continue to operate without money, it's not as jarring.
ME: (Laughing.) But it would be if you were on the email.
THEM: If I was on the email--I'm sure the 1.5 million club is pretty sick right now.
ME: Then again, you would hope that they've been saving their pennies all this time.
THEM: I hope they have. They might need to donate some of those pennies back to their theater.
ME: Thank you for talking with me. I hope you come out of this okay. I'm pulling for you.
THEM: Thank you, Kevin. We're going to be all right. Last I heard, David beat Goliath.
Them is an Artistic Director with a hell of a slingshot.
Today's interview is with a new friend who has been the Artistic Director of an independent theater for seven years, and also co-founded the theater.
Here's the interview:
ME: How are you doing?
THEM: I've been better.
ME: You've been through it--
THEM: Everybody has.
ME: I can't go into too much of why I think you've been through it more than, uh, some other theaters--without giving away who you are, but I think you've had a few extra dings.
THEM: Things?
ME: Dings.
THEM: Oh dings! Yes, I've had--yes.
ME: So I'm not going to ask you about plans, because we can't plan.
THEM: None of us can plan. It's like--I feel like my skin is crawling all the time.
ME: Because you can't plan?
THEM: Specifically that in addition to everything else. Planning makes me feel better and I can't plan.
ME: Same here.
THEM: I've had to...let go of that--of that thing that makes me feel better. People talk about really giving yourself a lot of what makes you feel better, but...
ME: But what if control makes you feel better in a situation where you don't have any control over anything?
THEM: Right.
ME: One of the things I wanted to talk about was something you said to me the first time we spoke, which is, the difficulty you're facing getting help from the arts advocacy groups in your area.
THEM: Yes.
ME: Are you okay talking about that?
THEM: I would love to talk about that.
ME: Walk with me through where you are with them.
THEM: With the--
ME: You have two major arts funding organizations in your area, right?
THEM: Yes.
ME: What are they doing right now?
THEM: Not calling me.
ME: (Laughs.) Do they have your number?
THEM: You know, that might be the problem.
ME: We'll publish your number at the bottom of this interview in case they're reading.
THEM: I hope they're reading. That would be great. But I know what they'd say.
ME: What would they say--about not calling?
THEM: They'd say I need to call them.
ME: That reminds me of Dead Man Walking when Susan Sarandon says to the victim's family 'Call me' and they're like 'Call you?' Like, you need to be calling us. We're the victims.
THEM: Yes, I am the victim's family.
ME: (Laughing.) You know what I mean though?
THEM: No, I do, and you're right. It's very--I get that they're overwhelmed. We're all overwhelmed. But I don't have the staffing right now to be all over them the way other theaters do.
ME: The bigger theaters in your area?
THEM: Yes.
ME: Now, we're trying not to get too messy with these interviews since it's a time of national tragedy, but also, I think we could all use a little gossip at the moment.
THEM: (Laughs.) That's true.
ME: Can we talk about the memo?
THEM: Oh my god, the memo.
ME: So you get this memo--
THEM: Yes.
ME: That one of the arts organizations--one of the higher-ups at one of the two arts organizations sent to--who did they send it to?
THEM: [They] sent it to another, uh, someone at one of the other theaters here. The main theater.
ME: The big one.
THEM: The big one.
ME: What did the--so it was an email, it wasn't a memo.
THEM: I was going to say, it wasn't a memo.
ME: But memo sounds juicier.
THEM: It does. I'll give you that.
ME: But it was an email. And the email said--
THEM: The email said that this, um, organization--the arts organization--feels that not every theater is going to make it out of this, um--
ME: Alive.
THEM: Alive, yes.
ME: Which is not--shocking.
THEM: It's not shocking, but it wasn't worded that...tastefully.
ME: How was it worded?
THEM: I don't want to say, but it was worded poorly, in my opinion.
ME: Okay.
THEM: The part--so people weren't loving that part of it, but then the next part--or the last part of the email said--and we here have had to make some choices about who we'd like to see survive this.
ME: Jesus.
THEM: Yes.
ME: So they're--playing god with theaters?
THEM: They're triage-ing theaters, yes.
ME: Wow.
THEM: But wait--it gets better. They then list--in the email--to this theater--which theaters they would like to see survive, and, there were--I don't know--four theaters on that list.
ME: Nooooo.
THEM: Yes.
ME: You didn't tell me that part.
THEM: I wasn't sure I wanted to say, but--there it is.
ME: So how many theaters aren't on the list?
THEM: A lot. There are a lot more than four theaters--
ME: Oh my god.
THEM: And and and--all four theaters on the list--none of the theaters--um, it was the big four. The biggest four in this community. There was--It was clear they were good with letting the entire small and mid-sized theater scene here crumble and die.
ME: How did you get that email?
THEM: I have a friend who works at the theater and that friend forwarded it to me.
ME: Did you explode?
THEM: I cried. That was the first thing I did. Because a lot of things are coming out now that--that have always been true. These people have always wanted me to fail. They've never had the interests of the small theaters here in mind.
ME: They bet on the winning team.
THEM: They're all about the winning team. I wouldn't have been shocked to hear that that's how they operate. I knew that. Everybody knows that. What shocked me was that--they had just done a press conference--this virtual press conference--where they talked about how they were here for all theaters, and how important it was for everybody to help the small theaters survive, because, um, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to know that we're going to be the first ones down on the cutting board when it comes to donations and selling tickets after this. The whole focus of what they were putting out to the public was--We've got our eye on small theaters. Then I see this email.
ME: So they're liars?
THEM: I--I guess so.
ME: So you cry and then I'm assuming you got mad?
THEM: I--yes. I sent that email to every theater that wasn't on that list, and I CC-ed the person--the higher-up--from the organization who sent the original email.
ME: That is bold.
THEM: I was like--let's do this.
ME: Let's put all the cards on the table.
THEM: Yes.
ME: What happened then?
THEM: There was a big outcry from all the theaters. [The higher-up] didn't respond at first, then a statement came out from the organization saying that they felt the leaking of that email was a breach of trust.
ME: Don't you love when people mess up and then go 'But you weren't supposed to find out I messed up?'
THEM: That's what it was. Then that response blew back in their faces, because it only made all the other theaters angrier, and then they issued, um, another response where they said just because you're not on the list, that doesn't mean we're rooting against you. It just means we have to put our, um, resources behind helping the bigger theaters first.
ME: Why?
THEM: Because they employ more people. They have longstanding histories. They matter more to the economic health of the arts community here.
ME: So--can I play devil's advocate and say--They're not wrong in saying that--
THEM: No, they're not wrong.
ME: But now can you give me your counterargument?
THEM: Sure. My counterargument is, they're also black holes of money. You put a million dollars into [Name of Theater] and it's gone in two years. You give me two million dollars when we're on the other end of this, and I'll be able to employ a lot of people too. I'll be able to--I would hope that they can employ people when these two organizations that fund theaters in our state are funneling so much money into the same theaters over and over again. By the way, of that two million that they--They really did give two million dollars to a theater two years ago and that theater is now on the verge of bankruptcy and they were before this all started, but they're using this--the, um, pandemic--as the reason for why suddenly there's no money.
ME: Oh sweetie.
THEM: Right? I've looked at your books. You didn't have any money before this. Where did the two million dollars go?
ME: But you're not accusing them of anything--
THEM: I'm only accusing them of being too big to fail. Just like banks. Just like airlines. A theater that can't exist without millions of dollars coming in every year has no business existing. Not because theater isn't worth that amount of money, but because I'm not seeing that money anywhere, but what I am seeing are raises happening for the people at the top, so that a million and a half of the two million went to pay for the salaries of the four people at the top. My entire annual budget for last year was not 1.5 million dollars. I--I am very emotional talking about this, because I know now is not the time to be bashing another theater, and that's not what I'm trying to do, but I didn't make that call. Somebody sat down and wrote an email saying that my theater and many other theaters like mine are expendable. They made that call not based on numbers or math. They made it based on--We've already sunk so much capital into these groups that now we have to make sure they stick around.
ME: Because they're in too deep.
THEM: Yes.
ME: So now you're the underdog?
THEM: We've always been the underdog, but to me, seeing that email meant that they might work against us. Before it was like--They ignore us. Okay. Got it. This to me read like--We might come after the small number of donors you do have. We might start to try to close you down to consolidate support around these four groups.
ME: That's terrible.
THEM: Now what's happening is all the groups that weren't on that list have joined together and we're helping each other in a way that--that we've always wanted to, but never--We were never able to pull the trigger until now.
ME: What does that mean?
THEM: We're working on doing joint fundraising separate from what [the arts organization] wanted us to get in on, because most of that money--they had this chart for how the money was going to be divided up, and--no surprise--most of it was going to the bigger theaters. We started our own group fundraising effort and it's going to be divided evenly among us, and we've already doubled our goal.
ME: That's great.
THEM: We're also talking about coming out of this with a small and mid-sized theater organization so we can continue to be our own champions in the fight, and we have some people with development experience who work with our groups, and they're talking about forming a separate funding organization that shows how much further donations and funds go when they're given to smaller groups.
ME: I love that.
THEM: I want to say again, because I think this is important--I want every theater to survive this. I would never have said--ever--that there were some theaters that should make it out of this and some that shouldn't. But when you're talking about--I'm saying this because I think you're right about the positive mentality that everybody is having right now--I know what you mean by that. We got a lot of flack for trying something like this right now, but when you're talking about eighteen months of this, you can't say--We'll put a pause on the business side of it. We'll just sit on our hands. Not when other people are using that time to strategize.
ME: That sucks.
THEM: It does suck. I would love to yell 'Freeze' and come back to all this later, but that email showed all of us that we won't be given that chance. We were told to just relax and it turns out that while we would have been relaxing, they would have been doing things to damage and hurt us.
ME: Have any of the theaters on the list said anything about all this?
THEM: They're pretending it didn't happen and, because I don't know if anybody responded to that email that was sent, they can stay out of the fray for now, because we don't know what their thoughts on it would have been.
ME: Do you think they agree with what was said though?
THEM: That we should die so they can live?
ME: (Laughing.) So dramatic.
THEM: It's nice to be dramatic again.
ME: Honestly, I've been craving it.
THEM: I think it--I don't even really blame them. It's their job to stay open. Not to keep me open. That's cool. It is not the job of the people whose job it is to foster a healthy and multi-faceted arts community to zero in on four theaters as the ones that get to carry on when those theaters produce work that is nearly identical, and, forgive me, but--not that interesting.
ME: Are you confident you'll make it out of this?
THEM: I'm very confident.
ME: How?
THEM: The nice thing about operating without any money for so long is that when you find out you're going to continue to operate without money, it's not as jarring.
ME: (Laughing.) But it would be if you were on the email.
THEM: If I was on the email--I'm sure the 1.5 million club is pretty sick right now.
ME: Then again, you would hope that they've been saving their pennies all this time.
THEM: I hope they have. They might need to donate some of those pennies back to their theater.
ME: Thank you for talking with me. I hope you come out of this okay. I'm pulling for you.
THEM: Thank you, Kevin. We're going to be all right. Last I heard, David beat Goliath.
Them is an Artistic Director with a hell of a slingshot.
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