Theater and the Memo

How's everybody doing?

I'm all right.

I have to admit, I've enjoyed doing the more uplifting interviews and helping people out when I can, but a little part of me also misses doing a deep dive on some theater craziness, so this interview is a little of both.

First, you need to read this interview, and maybe you already have:  http://thiscantbebroccoli.blogspot.com/2020/04/theater-and-underdogs.html

After I read that, I desperately wanted to get the author of that email (that we're calling a memo, because it's more dramatic) on a call, but unlike many of the people who talk to me, they were wayyyy too smart to do that, so I gave up, because--confession--I'm not a journalist and nobody pays me to write these, so I have to devote my time to more important stuff, like producing Mame in my living room and playing all the parts.

But while that was going on, the community in the piece got angry.  Really angry.  And they made a list of demands that they gave to this arts advocacy organization and the person who wrote the memo, and one of the demands was that they talk to...guess who?

Why me?  Why not someone who actually knows how to conduct a professional interview?

Well, here's why--

Because newspapers all over this country were already hurting in the arts writing department, and right now, those departments don't even exist.  There are creative communities right now that desperately need objective advocates and do not have them.

This particular community had nobody else to talk to this person, and because they wouldn't accept printing the press release apology and calling it a day, they asked if I could speak to them, and I said, "Mhmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" then I got them on the phone.

Here's the interview:

ME:  Thank you for speaking with me.

THEM:  Thank you.

ME:  How are you doing?

THEM:  It's been a bad couple of weeks.  The--Some of the politics here haven't made that easier, I'll say that.

ME:  What do you mean by the politics?

THEM:  The controversy that you're aware of.

ME:  The reaction to the memo?

THEM:  That's part of it.

ME:  To be clear--you wrote that?

THEM:  I was representing [Name of Organization] when I wrote the email and I apologize--I have apologized--for the way the email was written.

ME:  But to give you the benefit of the doubt, you didn't sit quietly in a room and come up with that email and what the content of it was.  That was something that obviously had been agreed upon in your organization.

THEM:  I'm not sure what you mean by that.

ME:  Well, I should ask it as a question--Did your organization at that time feel like it would be beneficial to larger theaters if smaller theaters closed?

THEM:  That wasn't the feeling in the organization, no.

ME:  So was it just your feeling?

THEM:  It wasn't anybody's feeling.  It was put in a way that was--

ME:  You wrote--I mean, I have the email.

THEM:  I know that.

ME:  The email is pretty blunt.

THEM:  We were also--

ME:  Whose we?

THEM:  All of us.

ME:  But we, as in--we, who wrote the email or--

THEM:  I should--

ME:  You're also the person in charge of--You're essentially the theater liaison for this organization, right?

THEM:  That's one of my responsibilities.

ME:  So, it's not like there's another theater person that you didn't check with, right?  You're the person.

THEM:  I was facing a lot of stark realities about what was going to happen to some of our institutions.

ME:  You were worried about big theaters closing?

THEM:  I was worried about everything closing.  We were looking at a city-wide--

ME:  But we just need to get this straight, because I don't want to go to the trouble of copying and pasting your email on my blog, because it's--I mean, I was really taken aback by it.

THEM:  I understand that, but it had nothing to do with you.

ME:  I think if you run a small theater and you read an email saying 'I think we need to let the small theaters fail,' it doesn't matter if that directly refers to you when--

THEM:  That's not what was said.

ME:  Do you want me to go through the email word-by-word or--?

THEM:  That was an email that was meant for staff at a theater and not for the general public to be looking through--

ME:  You got caught.

THEM:  I wouldn't say that.

ME:  People who get caught don't, right?  I mean, you didn't kill anyone, but you said what you said.

THEM:  I apologized.

ME:  But can we not pretend that you didn't mean what you meant or that [Name of Organization] didn't want to take the approach that was mentioned in the email?  It was a detailed plan.  It wasn't you just spit-balling a philosophy for how to survive this.  You were talking about--

THEM:  That's our job.

ME:  So let's see if we can meet here--Do you think that you might have more of a responsibility to keep a bigger theater going than a smaller theater?

THEM:  I would say that we might feel like we have more of a responsibility to keep a long-standing theater going than a theater that's only been for three years.

ME:  And a theater that employs three people instead of three hundred?

THEM:  Yes.  Thank you.

ME:  That's what I mean--I'm not coming into this with--with this goal of attacking you, but I'm really trying to figure out where an organization like yours is coming from now that we're in uncharted territory.  Your job is to keep theaters open.  You can't keep all of them open.  You also could take the 'First do no harm' approach and say, 'We can't assist everyone to the point where they stay open against every oncoming tide, but we don't have to kneecap anyone either.'

THEM:  We would never try to harm a theater.

ME:  You prioritized some theaters in a list.  There was a list.

THEM:  I know--

ME:  There was a list.

THEM:  I know that.  

ME:  You can't say we weren't doing any harm.  Not giving someone a seat at the table is doing harm.  Not introducing donors to groups that they might be interested in investing in based on their interests rather than which places you like the most is doing harm.  There's all kinds of ways to do harm that are passive and that don't involve setting the theater on fire.  Most of the ways groups like yours do it, when they do it, are very subversive.

THEM:  To your point, that list was the list of the theaters that have longevity, that employ the most people--

ME:  And that cost the most to keep going?

THEM:  Because they're larger and because they employ people and because--

ME:  One of the people they employ is an Artistic Director that makes a hundred and thirty-seven thousand dollars a year.

THEM:  I don't know what the salaries are for--

ME:  Well, you should.  You should.

THEM:  Kevin--

ME:  You should--

THEM:  I--

ME:  No, let me say this--if you think if the new reality we're entering, it's going to be cool for you to run a black-box and make six figures every year, I have bad, bad news for you, honey.

THEM:  I have no control over what someone makes or doesn't make.

ME:  But when you made a list of what theaters you wanted to see survive, you put a theater on the list that spends twenty percent of its yearly operating budget on the salary of one person.

THEM:  You don't know the particulars of this community.

ME:  The community wants to eat you alive.

THEM:  That's not true.

ME:  It is, and also, I don't need to be in your community to know that a theater that needs to do Twelfth Night twice in four years to keep paying their Artistic Director as much as a surgeon makes needs to change the way it does things or close, not be put on a list of theaters we have to save no matter what even if it means closing ten small theaters to do it.

THEM:  [Name of Organization] deserves artists deserve to be compensated.

ME:  Do you think the people working in the box office deserve to be compensated closer to what the guy at the top makes?  Or the designers?  The directors?

THEM:  Do you understand what reasonable artistic payroll is?

ME:  Do you understand what 'Too Big To Fail' is?

THEM:  These theaters are not too big to fail.

ME:  No, because now, they're actually going to fail, but that's after you close all the other theaters to try and keep them going and then they're going to fail anyway.

THEM:  We have--Since that email--we have put together a better plan that is looking to give assistance to all the theaters in the area.

ME:  So you weren't planning to do that initially?

THEM:  We weren't--To be honest with you?

ME:  I love a little honesty.

THEM:  We weren't sure how much assistance we could give at first.  That's the truth.

ME:  Cool.  Now we're getting somewhere.  If you're recognizing that you can't help everyone, but you can help some people, would you agree that just by helping some people, that neglect is harming others?

THEM:  I would say that's fair.  Yes.

ME:  Making progress.  How do you balance those two things?

THEM:  We're learning how to do that.

ME:  Would it be fair to say you weren't trying to find that balance even before this pandemic?

THEM:  I would say that it's been an ongoing issue for us the same way it is for many other funding organizations.  It is an issue.  I will say that.

ME:  Thank you.  Does part of the plan you're putting together to help the smaller theaters involve giving them an advocate in your organization?

THEM:  We don't have a different person for that, no.

ME:  So it's you?

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  I want to say this as tactfully as possible, but, um, nobody there really...trusts you?

THEM:  I know I'll have to build up some more trust.

ME:  While you do that, can I make a recommendation?

THEM:  You can.

ME:  I've been working with some of the people in your area, the theater people, as they're known, and we have found someone who we think would be a great advocate for the smaller theaters.  They are willing to work pro bono, you would just need to agree to work with them.

THEM:  [Name of Organization] would need to approve that.

ME:  But you can't approve it, right?  I mean, you can decide to recognize someone and work with them as they're representing other groups, right?

THEM:  I'd have to check.

ME:  I really want to end this interview with you agreeing to do this for this community.

THEM:  Kevin, I need to check.

ME:  This person is going to be the only person willing to speak with you for the time being while you build up trust.  Can you just agree to work with them?

THEM:  I--I will speak with them and I will--I am eager to hear what their--

ME:  Don't give me bullshit PR language, please.  It's exhausting.  I'm exhausted.  Just say you'll work with them, please.

THEM:  I--I will work with them as best I can to help as many people as possible.

ME:  So you'll work with them?

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  Thank you.  I appreciate that.  They are very excited to get to work.

THEM:  I look forward to speaking with them.

ME:  I'm going to send you their contact information once we get off the phone.

THEM:  Thank you.

Them has been in arts advocacy for six years.