I’m lost, but I don’t think I am the only one…Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales

June 30, 2009 • One Comment

 

 

I am reading Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales.   I first heard about it via Diane Ragsdale from a speech she made at an arts marketing summit in Australia.  Last week when I was waiting for a train in Grand Central I saw the book in at a store and picked it up.  When buying the book I actually didn’t actually remember where I heard of the book.  But the day after I bought it Ben Cameron mentioned it on Facebook which reminded me of Diane.

 

I am only half-way through the book but it is resonating with me in many ways.  The book is a scientific look at why and how people survive under extreme circumstances. I am looking forward to finishing up the book and letting it sink in.  I am very interested to see what thoughts are spurred by it.   However today, I read a passage that I can’t get out of my head.  I re-read it several times during the day.  I even read it out loud to Brian (and I am not the read aloud type of person).  It relates significantly to the the post cris-i-tunity that has been a source of momentum behind this blog. 

 

I reread Diane’s speech today, and I am glad I did – it is filled with enough great ideas to write several posts about.  Which is probably why the book didn’t stick out in my mind, but when I went back to the post, I found Diane was quoting the same passage I was reading over and over today. 

 

Gonzales writes about how one finds themselves lost:

 

Being lost, then, is not a location; it is a transformation.  It is a failure of the mind. It can happen in the woods or it can happen in life.  People know that instinctively.  A man leaves a perfectly good family for a woman half his age and makes a mess of it, and people say, he got off the path; he lost his way.  If he doesn’t get back on, he’ll lose the self, too.  A corporation can do the same thing.

 

The research suggests five general stages in the process a person goes through when lost.  In the first, you deny that you’re disoriented and press on with growing urgency, attempting to make your mental map fit what you see. In the next stage as you realize that you’re genuinely lost, the urgency blossoms into a full-scale survival emergency.  Clear thought becomes impossible and action becomes frantic, unproductive, even dangerous.  In the third stage (usually following injury or exhaustion), you expend the chemicals of emotion and form a strategy fails for finding some place that matches the mental map. (It is a misguided strategy, for there is no such place now. You are lost.) In the fourth stage, you deteriorate both rationally and emotionally, as the strategy fails to resolve the conflict.   In the final stage, as you run out of options and energy you must become resigned to your plight.  Like it or not, you must make a new mental map of where you are.  You must become Robinson Crusoe or you will die.  To survive, you must find yourself.  Then it won’t matter where you are.

 

The stages of getting lost apply to more than just hiking in the woods….

 

The stages of getting lost resemble the five stages of dying described by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the psychologist who wrote On Death and Dying; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  The end result is often the same. ‘Once the stage of psychological disintegration is reached, death is often not far away,’ John Leach writes in Survival Psychology. ‘[T]he ability people possess to die gently, and often suddenly, through no organic cause, is a very real one.’

 

An over simplified summary of the  previous chapters – Gonzales explains how we live life through a series decisions and responses -  a web of feelings, emotions (physical responses to a stimulus we have learned to respond to), and logic.  This is more or less our survival extinct.  He goes on to note that accidents aren’t really accidents.  They are incidents that were bound to happen.  Life is a series of chances and luck – when you take risks the incidents including death are inevitable.   The slight environmental shifts will happen and they contribute to the system.  And most importantly, by training or attempting safeguards we often make the inevitable happen faster through a false sense of security.  Most importantly we live life creating mental maps of our environment and landscapes, this is how we find our way.  Now all of this is told in details analysis with several examples of how this plays out in wilderness survival and extreme sporting.  But the correlation to all of life’s situations is obvious. 

 

The chapter on getting lost continues, using the story of a fireman who separated from his friend and truly lost in the wilderness fights for survival after spending two days going through the stages of being lost as described above:

 

Killig pulled himself together.  He put on his fishing waders and started walking around to get warm.  He made a fire and built a makeshift shelter using his garbage bags. (Both were things he should have done the first day, but better late than never).  For the next two days, he staged put and attended to the business of adapting to the environment, keeping the organism in balance, the process called survival.  Killip had entered the final stage that separates the quick from the dead: not helpless resignation but a pragmatic acceptance of – and even wonder at – the world in which he found himself.  He had at last begun to model and map his real environment instead of the one he wished for.  He’d worked out his own salvation.  He had discovered the first Rule of Life: Be here now. 

 

Having faced the reality of his situation, having created a mental map of where he was, not where he wanted to be, Killip was now able to function….

 

One of the toughest steps a survivor has to take is to discard the hope of rescue, just as he discards the old world he left behind and accepts the new one.  There is no other way for his brain to settle down.  Although the idea seems paradoxical, it is essential. 

 

Gonzales goes on to talk about those that have “the right stuff” to survive.  He points out there is no standard for who survives and who dies, but there are factors that affect the outcome and that each culture has its own form of survival rituals.  There is simple luck.  There is what a survival trainer who Gonzales works with calls “positive mental attitude.”  Heightened awareness of the environment and understanding that it is constantly shifting is key.  Making mental notes of landmarks along the way is a necessity.

 

Perhaps you are wondering why I am writing this post.  How it relates?

 

I have had several periods where I felt “lost in the wilderness of life” personally and professionally.  I am not ashamed to admit it, because I also know I have survived a lot in life.  Without question I am in a significant one right now.  Hence the cris-i-tunity.  Sadly, many of my friends are in the same whirlwind storm, for that matter a lot of people are trapped out in the wilderness right now.  [Happily I note that I did read ahead and in the next chapter Gonzales mentions that once one is a survivor he or she always a survivor and tend to seek situations to help others to survive].

 

I believe the timing of reading this book is more than happenstance.  I think there was a reason that I picked it off the shelf of the bookstore a week ago.   Many would argue that I am simply reading my current situation into the book, and I say let the cynics be cynics.  Frankly I have no time or energy for the argument.  I am trying to focus on surviving.  I realized today that I have lived the last few months using an out of date mental map.  Deep in my heart, I have known it; I now have words to describe it better; and now I have to find the strength to re-map on a very personal level – where I am, not where I was or where I want to be.  I need to figure out where I am in the stages and move forward.   I have to take that very tough last step and discard my old world.  

 

Ironically, over the last several months, my avoidance of accepting or seeing the mental map of my personal environment has made me focus on being even more perceptive about the re-mapping of parts of the theatre, arts, and nonprofit landscapes.  I have always been intrigued by the small shifts in my professional environment, hypersensitive and aware bordering on obsessive study.  In a way I am an eternal explorer of the theater wilderness.

 

I have seen many organizations on the brink of being lost or that are lost using the definition above.  Certainly we can all think of organization’s with the “right stuff” who have done a great job of adapting to their environments.  But then there are others that are still trying to make the map work.   As we are now seeing clearly these organizations may have been lost for a while.   I think Diane Ragsdale summed this up wonderfully:  

 

Many arts organizations appear to be bending the map, working from outdated mental maps of the cultural landscape, outdated conceptions about the value of their organizations to the community, outdated ideas about who lives in their communities, what those individuals value, and what role the arts do or do not play in their lives.

 

According to what I have read so far in Gonzales’ book – in the wilderness, sticking to the outdated map, conceptions, and ideas lead to death. 

 

But how you might ask can artists, those who are supposed to be most “in-tune” with their environment not able to create new maps.    I think we often unfairly mistake an artist’s understanding of their own inner struggle and the ability to frame and express it in universal terms with the idea of higher level of perception about the human condition.  I remember talking to a playwright and saying I thought he was brilliant and that his work said so much about life.  He laughed kindly and said he wasn’t brilliant, he didn’t really know what his plays meant while writing them, and I was the one placing meaning on them.  The is a common story among writers – I have read countless interviews with writers throughout time, denying any planned symbolism or metaphors in their work.  For some artists leading organizations I think this problem is two fold.  First the aforementioned issue, but also institutions breed a certain amount of ego and bravada – that isn’t an insult just a fact.  The same kind of ego that has an expert who is lost in the wilderness not seeing the world around them because their training getting in the way, I think there are some leaders of institutions who can’t see the environment clearly because a certain amount of humility and humbleness are required to admit you don’t know where you are that your expertise is at times useless.

 

So what exactly should we as leaders do?

 

I have always been a big proponent of “I don’t know” being a great answer, and truly I don’t know quite yet.  A lot of my posts over the last year speak to these issues, it is not like the book or a single incident triggered the thoughts and realizations in this post.  Certainly a lot of folks working in institutions, creating art as individual or groups, and out in the blogosphere are all talking about the varying facets of this complex situation (examples of each of the three perspectives can be found by checking out New Play Blog, Parabasis, and Createquity.  There are certainly many more on the ever-growing  blogroll).  I do know I can’t wait to finish reading the book (so don’t expect a post tomorrow!), and I hope to keep the conversation going.

The New York Times continues the discussion on parity for Women in Theater

June 28, 2009 • No Comments

Today’s New York Times takes a look at shows directed by women in New York in Who’s in Charge of This Show? She Is by Patricia Cohen. Links at the end of the post for more of the discussion on Women in Theater.  But interesting points to be made from the New York Times article:

This has been something of a banner year for female directors in New York, a development that wouldn’t be worth noting if it weren’t so rare. In July alone three new Off Broadway shows directed by women (including Ms.[Judith] Ivey [Vanities]) are beginning previews. On Broadway eight shows last season — a record — had a woman in charge, with most of them garnering outsize praise for their work. “Hair,” directed by Diane Paulus, won the Tony for best musical revival this month, for example, while Phyllida Lloyd is one of the few directors — male or female — to have two shows running simultaneously (“Mamma Mia!,” which has raked in a fortune over the last eight years, and the new entrant, “Mary Stuart,” which earned Ms. Lloyd a Tony nomination).

“It’s getting better and better,” said Ms. Ivey, 57, during a break between rehearsals. The fourth-floor studio is air-conditioned to ice-cream store temperatures, so she wears a lime-green scarf wrapped around her neck. On her feet are colorful tapestry slippers. How often, she asked, do middle-aged women without an Olympic-type record get a crack at directing a show? “I feel that’s what Second Stage is doing for me,” Ms. Ivey said. She has directed a few plays in recent years but no musicals before this new version of Jack Heifner’s 1976 show. “They are giving me a chance.”

That chance, however, is something that does not come as easily or as frequently for female directors as it does for their male counterparts, many people in the theater contend.

Leigh Silverman, 35, who directed “Well” on Broadway in 2006 and the musical version of Neil Gaiman’s children’s tale “Coraline,” which is running Off Broadway, is optimistic about the uptick in directing jobs for women. “I think it is really exciting,” she said. “There were multiple women nominated for Tonys this year. In the short range it’s incredibly encouraging.” Still, she maintains: “It’s not a level playing field. There is no parity.”

Pretty much everyone in the business is quick to acknowledge that with so much money at stake, it’s understandable that producers want to work with people they know, and with people who have already had box-office success. Such established directors are generally men.

One certainly can’t deny there is no parity.  We should all be applauding the face that more women have been on Broadway in the last year which hopefully won’t be an anomaly but the new norm.   I have often said to friends that I think female directors have it more difficult than ANY other group in theater – and let’s not even discuss female directors of color!

But I have to take a moment and note that although I applaud the New York Times for writing an article on this disparity, would the reporter have described what say Michael Grief or Joe Mantello was wearing in the rehearsal studio?  Seems a bit stereotypical to me.

The last paragraph is also a bit disturbing, and perhaps a good explanation why in so many seasons we feel like we are seeing the same old thing again.  This past year included a season of more highly acclaimed shows than most seasons of the last decade.   (I have gone so far as to hypothesize that we are entering a new arts renaissance).  I have to imagine that some of the success of the last season is some new folks (or “second-timers”) mixing it up on Broadway with some amazing veterans.

What really gives women in Britain a leg up over those in New York, Ms. Lloyd said, is the nationally subsidized theater. Because of the government money, theaters — including the eminent National Theater and Royal Shakespeare Company — have been more likely to hire female directors, giving them the crucial experience of running a large production, she said.

Maria Aitken, nominated for a Tony in 2008 for her direction of another British import, “Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps,” has a similar view. “You don’t have a structure where young female directors can come and get training,” she said.

The sheer size of the United States also makes a difference. In Britain it’s not hard to lure producers and artistic directors to spend a couple of hours on a train to see a production, she said, while attending a show far from New York most likely requires a flight and an overnight stay.

Ms. Aitken, 63, who is directing Simon Gray’s play “Quartermaine’s Terms” at the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts this summer, said she wonders whether New York’s “money men” will make the journey to see it. For directors not as well known or experienced as Ms. Aitken, the web of personal relationships is even more important. Just as producers prefer to work with people they know, so do playwrights. “Everybody wants to work with their friends,” said Pam MacKinnon, 41, who is directing the premiere of Cusi Cram’s “Lifetime Burning,” for Primary Stages this summer.

Luck — a frequent character in these stories — helped Ms. MacKinnon get established. Her agent also represented Edward Albee, and he suggested that the two meet. They got together for lunch and hit it off. She has subsequently directed eight productions of Mr. Albee’s work, including the official premieres of “Peter and Jerry” and “Occupant.” She mentioned that the director Anna D. Shapiro, who won a Tony in 2008 for “August: Osage County,” has also had a longtime relationship with the playwright Tracy Letts from their collaboration at the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago. (“August” is closing on Sunday, but it earned back its investment and took home an armful of Tonys last year.)

During her acceptance speech Ms. Shapiro referred to Steppenwolf and Mr. Letts, saying, “I’m pretty sure that the only way that you get to have a life in the theater is if somewhere in your life you come upon a group of people who, although they don’t need to, make room for you.”

Look we all know this business is more “about who you know” in many cases than “who is best for the job.”  A lot of these women are well-known names in the theatre industry, with good reputations about working with others, and I have to believe the producers are at a point where they can’t deny knowing about them – thanks to many of the great nonprofit theaters that have been much better at creating opportunities for female directors.  So, the network is expanding.  Perhaps a good question is how to make it expand quicker – especially at a time when there seem to be more and more female producers running shows.

But I don’t want to dismiss some important points made about the British system.  I think overall the road for young directors, male or female, is a difficult one.  The informal system in place now usually requires being an assistant for little or no pay.  Anyone who can’t support themselves from some source (other than working another job because more or less the assistant is needed endless hours a day) is excluded by time requirements.  There are a few great programs out there that could be models (ever major market in the U.S. could benefit from say a Drama League directing program), but there need to be more.  The current season will hopefully inspire some younger females to stick it out, but I couldn’t fault them if they chose a different path.  After all of the top of my head I can think of at least a dozen wonderful female directors who have never been on Broadway but have great credits for wonderful productions in New York, Chicago, Seattle, etc. but sadly it seems like most seasons only have one slot for such a director to leap to the Broadway arena.

As for Ms. Aitken, she is sick and tired of the whole subject. When she first started directing after acting for many years, she said, “I sometimes felt like a performing bear who could walk and chew gum at the same time.”

It is much better today, but, “it annoys me and upsets me even now that we have to be considered a special case,” she said. “I want to stop being an oddity.”

I couldn’t agree more!

More on the discussion of Women in Theater:

Continuing the discussion on Gender Disparity in theater:  Emily Sands – notes and impressions from June 22 Presentation

Women in Theater: Are all things equal?

Emily Sand’s OPENING THE CURTAIN ON PLAYWRIGHT GENDER full thesis

Emily Sand’s OPENING THE CURTAIN ON PLAYWRIGHT GENDER presentation from June 22

Interesting News Articles from the Last Week – in case you missed them.

June 26, 2009 • No Comments

 

NOTE:  Now that I have added a dynamic listing of interesting blog posts that I am updating 3 or 4 times a day, I am only including articles from other sources below. 

 

It Is Okay for Artists to Make Money…No, Really, It’s Okay — HBS Working Knowledge – http://shar.es/vpEW

"Our brain may be most actively engaged when our mind is wandering." http://bit.ly/gnrm3 (via Wall St Journal)

Has New York Lost Its Great Chance With Frank Gehry? — New York Magazine – http://shar.es/sLP3

Mind Your BlackBerry or Mind Your Manners – NYTimes.com – http://shar.es/shXN

Twitter Guide Book: Mashable Launches Hub for Twitter Resources – http://shar.es/7HQ3

Theaters across North America deal with economy – http://shar.es/vNa9

Broadway Tourists Finding Closed Shows – Bloomberg.com – http://shar.es/vMMT

Big list of shows scheduled for Broadway’s 2009/10 season: ‘Spider-Man’ to ‘the vibrator play’ http://bit.ly/CXhQB

Nora Ephron: The Play’s The Thing, But It’s Not The Only Thing – http://shar.es/s6wd

‘What I Wore’ Is Tailor-Made for Off-Broadway Run http://bit.ly/mKYWw

Elle article on the joy of Broadway and how to get good deals on shows! http://cli.gs/3dWN9P

IRS Official Stresses Agency’s Role in Governance Matters http://tinyurl.com/nz5qhd

Synopsis of Skylight Theatre situation, incl intv’ws w/ Johns & Dillner, Mng Dir http://bit.ly/xGPrE

From The Answer Desk: How Much Should My Nonprofit Have in Operating Reserves? http://bit.ly/nwvc2

Rose’s Turn: Patti LuPone Responds to ArtsBeat http://bit.ly/2pbitl

What Regional House Might Fail Next? http://www.clydefitchreport.com/?p=2640

Talent Managers Hold on While Industry Shifts – http://shar.es/s64T

Are theatregoers becoming more disruptive? – Times Online – http://shar.es/qyo1

Theater Goes Live into Cinemas – WSJ.com – http://shar.es/qync

Long Wharf Reducing Budget, Staff — Courant.com – http://shar.es/qkLE

There’s Still Hope for NY Tax Credits – http://shar.es/qy15

ATW Announces Last Weeks – http://shar.es/qyXb

The 15 golden rules of theatre etiquette: how to behave on Broadway and in the West End – http://shar.es/qybf

Those Were the Days: Broadway’s Press Agents Recall a Bygone Era http://bit.ly/BnagH

Globe post-mortem on North Shore Music Theater: http://is.gd/18uhK Make sure to read the comments, too.

Reality Shows, Life, and Death

June 25, 2009 • No Comments

 

Today, we are witnessing a perfect example of how much of an effect technology and media has on our lives – both positively and negatively.

 

For the last 45 minutes I have watched Tweets and status updates fly into my inbox about Michael Jackson’s passing.  This afternoon during a meeting, it was from twitter that I learned of Farrah Fawcett’s passing. Over on my Google reader feed there are at least 20 stories already about these two talented artists.  Both who had a profound effect on pop culture during the last four decades.

 

Using social media tools and networks, beautiful messages from across the world are creating tiny virtual memorials.  Through reading others thoughts and sharing our own, we are creating a common experience.  We don’t feel alone, quite the opposite we are with our friends and loved ones, the same people we shared these artists work with.  Our friends from childhood are with us and in a very healthy way we are all expressing the emotional impact that a tragic painful death full of suffering and a shocking surreal passing are having on us.  Over the last few years, we (the collective users) have truly created a new manner in which we gather.  This is undoubtedly going to affect communication and interaction for the rest of our lives.  It is and will have a profound effect on the arts.  That would be the beautiful part of the Life 2.0

 

But both were too young and I hope their families will be able to be strong during what they will now have to endure.

 

Because of reality T.V. and 24 hour non-stop news channels, the public feels empowered and entitled to bear witness to every detail of tragedies like this.  The news media is literally besides themselves.  Tonight’s evening news was supposed to be about Farrah retrospectives and now they have to dig up videos from Michael’s career, find people who worked with him.  CNN is even discussing the fact that their stories are changing – after all Larry King had Farrah guests all lined up.  There is a race to get a quote from family members.  The disgusting hunt for photos of grieving friends and families had begun.  We can only hope the children involved aren’t exploited.  There will be magazines cover stories, endless rumors (already CNN is reporting abuse and enabling by Michael Jackson’s family and how many times did we see the picture of Redmond O’Neil in chains visiting his mother).  We have become a culture of ambulance chasers, disaster junkies.  We are creating a whole new level of schadenfreude that is much darker and parasitic.   The Housewives of several cities, Jon and Kate, Speidi, Brangelina, and others have made us addicts to other peoples pain and suffering so much so that when a speck of joy is seen we question it’s veracity.

 

I think we all have to take a moment and really look at how we are using this technology.  We need to reflect on the meaning of privacy.  We have to stop making celebrities out of exhibitionists.   We have to find a way to use this technology to create community based on the positive things in life or at least group catharsis.  Sure reality shows can be entertaining, but they are also becoming damaging and we need to as a culture find some balance before we start telecasting gladiator fights.  We aren’t entitled to use digital means to live anyone’s life vicariously.  There have to be boundaries or we will just become more and more like vultures feasting on one another.

 

 

(Note – I am not picking on CNN it is what is always on in my house, I am sure the other networks are being just insane.)

You should have already seen Norman Conquests but go again or see it NOW!

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You know that I loved Norman Conquests, but now you can get a discount to the best revival around!  Check out the below!

NormanFans.com is the community/fan site for the Tony-Award winning Broadway play, THE NORMAN CONQUESTS. At NormanFans.com you can get discount tickets to THE NORMAN CONQUESTS, chat with other Norman Fans about the show, upload photos or reviews relevant to the show, share your experience of seeing the show, or grab banners to put on your website or blog to send traffic to NormanFans.com. And on the first of each month we give away a bunch of FREE TICKETS for those Norman Fans who are most active on the site or sending the most traffic. So if you love THE NORMAN CONQUESTS, Alan Ayckbourn, Stephen Mangan, Jessica Hynes, Matthew Warchus, Kevin Spacey, or any of the people involved with THE NORMAN CONQUESTS, come to NormanFans.com and share your love for Norman!

Gender Discussion Links – Emily Sands

June 24, 2009 • No Comments

Continuing the discussion on Gender Disparity in theater:  Emily Sands – notes and impressions from June 22 Presentation

Women in Theater: Are all things equal?

Emily Sand’s OPENING THE CURTAIN ON PLAYWRIGHT GENDER full thesis

Emily Sand’s OPENING THE CURTAIN ON PLAYWRIGHT GENDER presentation from June 22

Guest Blogger: Samantha Kindler on Social Media

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[Note from Jodi:  In May I posted about the amazing internship I was able to design this summer for a brilliant future leader in theatre.  It has been going really well.  Thanks to all of my wonderful friends who have helped out with interviews and perspectives.  As most of you know, I think mentorship is one of the most rewarding and essential things we do as arts administrators!  So, enjoy, Sam’s first guest post.]

 

 

Recently, I have been thinking about the use of new social media to attract audiences to theatre. Despite the fact that I am a child of the Millennial Generation, which is supposed to be blinded by the Internet and instant gratification, I have been skeptical from the beginning of using tools like Twitter and Facebook to sell tickets. Does technology really help sell tickets? Or are theatres and shows simply making Twitter accounts and Facebook pages to jump on the bandwagon?

 

Over the past few weeks, Jodi has sent me on a series of informational interviews. Having the opportunity to speak with very knowledgeable people in the business, I asked all of them their opinion on the new uses of these web 2.0 tools.

 

Twitter is one form of web 2.0 that constantly intrigues me. Not being a habitual Twitterer myself, I am very curious if Twittering about shows really helps to market that show. For example, some of these shows Twitter out discounts multiple times a day. Is this overload? If someone sees a variation on the same Tweet from a show over and over again, won’t they just start ignoring it? Also, don’t most people who follow a certain show follow it because they have already seen the show and are not necessarily looking to buy tickets again?

 

I discussed this for a long time with Jennie Greer, the Director of Advancement at New Dramatists. She shared my fear that often these shows are twittering just to twitter. Since everyone else is doing it, it must be effective, right? Yet, she explained to me that many theatres feel the need to keep up with the rest of the world in terms of technology so that they remain relevant.

 

I also raised the subject with Ken Davenport, an off-Broadway and Broadway producer who is known for his knowledge and use of new media tools. He often uses these tools for user-generated content in his shows, but I was more curious about how he believed these tools should be used for marketing.

 

He told me that the use of this technology always depends on the show and who the expected audience is going to be. For example, his current show on Broadway, Blithe Spirit, stars Angela Lansbury and the majority of the audience is older. Therefore, he can mostly rely on traditional snail mail to advertise and can guarantee that Angela’s name will sell tickets.

 

For his shows with younger audiences, however, he has to use new forms of marketing. He told me that he uses Facebook and Twitter for Altar Boyz in particular because younger audience members who like the show will follow it and spread the word to their friends. Unlike other shows, the Alter Boyz Twitter account tells its followers little stories about the characters. Ken believes that many people misuse these tools by overloading people with information about buying tickets. But, when used correctly, he thinks that these new forms of marketing can really help sell a show.

 

Nella Vera, the new marketing director at the Public, had many interesting insights into the importance of using new technology. I asked her if she really believed that having a state-of-the-art website and a Twitter account helps sell tickets. She explained to me that there is not one specific thing that sells tickets. Yet, if a theatre or a show has an updated, advanced website and reaches out to people using Twitter, it gets people excited about the show. Even if they have already seen the show, they will tell their friends or go on the website and see another show from that theatre. We discussed the concept of the new cultural consumer and how, as a marketing director, she must figure out what an audience wants and then give it to them.

 

After interviewing several theater professionals about the use of web 2.0 in theatres, I still have not come to a conclusion. Only time will tell if technology really has an impact on not only ticket sales but selling a show or a theatre as a brand. My working theory is that social media tools have a greater efficacy when used sparingly and specifically; building a following rather than appealing to one time audiences with daily ticket discounts.

Emily Sands Opening the Curtain on Playwright Gender – Full Thesis

June 23, 2009 • One Comment

 

I have had some requests for Emily’s full thesis.  It is available through the NY TIMES as well.  Please show respect for her work and copyright.

 

Opening the curtain on playwright gender-Full thesis

Emily Sand’s Opening the Curtain on Playwright Gender – Complete PowerPoint presentation

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The brilliant Emily Sands has allowed me to post her PowerPoint presentation from yesterday for readers.  I am grateful to be able to get this to a wider audience.  I know folks will be respectful of her work by referring people to this post rather than mass distribution without permission – I will leave it stored on the blog with a link under favorite posts so it is always easy for you to access when you need it.  For a little background please read the post about yesterday’s discussion before exploring the slide show.

Continuing the discussion on Gender Disparity in Theatre: Opening the Curtain on Playwright Gender

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Last week I posted some questions about gender disparity in theatre – did it exist, was it industry-wide, etc.  The post got some really interesting comments and I encourage folks to keep adding thoughts there.  The post was inspired by conversations I had been having with friends and the invitation I got to a presentation on a study of gender equality in Playwriting.

Yesterday I was among the 150 or so people who attended the presentation hosted 59E59 Theaters and the wonderful Primary Stages (go subscribe to their next season – with GREAT plays that all happen to be written by women).

I was pleasantly surprised as the audience filled the theatre that there was a nice diversity to the audience (sadly I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had all been women under forty, but it wasn’t).   Of course it would be great to know who was really there as we all know many times events like this are moments for “preaching to the converted” and there are a lot of producers from the commercial and nonprofit world that I didn’t see in the room who I thought would have been interested in the event.

First I want to congratulate Julia Jordan who has really rallied the troops over the last year to make several conversations happen about the field and for using some great personal connections – most importantly Steven Levitt (Freakonomics) to get a real study of the issue done.

The exceedingly well spoken, entertaining, and obviously intelligent economist (yes, economist) who undertook this study is named Emily Glassberg Sands who used the study as her thesis, for Princeton, before she heads off to Harvard for her PhD.  The information she uncovered is fascinating and more importantly, she seems to have been bitten by the theatre bug and it looks like she will continue exploration in the theatre and the arts.

Before I share my notes and quick impressions of the presentation, I want to note that I have emailed Emily for a full copy of the study as well as her PowerPoint summary from yesterday (she was nice enough to offer so of course I took her up on it.)  I look forward to reading all 170 pages of her work.  With her permission I will post her presentation as well.

I truly hope and will be suggesting to organizations like Theatre Communications Group, ART-NY, The Broadway League, the Off-Broadway Alliance, and others that they immediately schedule a presentation by Sands for their membership, but that they actively assist her in finding funding to further her work.  Those of you who run foundations that fund theatre don’t be surprised if I suggest she call you!

So some quick and eye-opening information from the presentation:

Julia Jordon did a quick introduction of how all of this evolved.  She and Sarah Schulman had two “town hall meetings over the last year.  The first was attended by playwrights who expressed frustration at the discrimination or bias they felt existed in the field.  For the second, they invited several artistic directors to join in the conversation.  Essentially the artistic directors argument was that there just weren’t as many good plays by women as here where by men.

I was struck by a comment she made that related to a similar discussion I had regarding the industry as a whole.  Basically Julia noted if there was some sort of standardized test for playwriting her rough study of the field would support the idea that women would likely do better and would have a easier time in the field.  Similarly I had been discussing that if theatre were more quantifiable like say sales – women would have it easier being on an equal playing field.

She also noted rough figures – 31.6% of CREATIVE jobs held in the calendar year of 2008, nonprofit subscription houses, were held by women (writers/actors/choreographers/lighting/setdesigners/directors).   SAD FACT

Julia then turned the stage over to Emily Glassberg Sands.  Now I should note through out the presentation Emily explained the methods used for the study and for validating the data.  I am sure the newspapers and magazines (see links below) will delve into that, I just will list the things that I jotted down while listening.  There was so much wonderful information, I am still digesting what it means to the field.

I should mention by the end of the presentation, Sands proved the playwrights were right – there were perceptions in the industry that were creating biases against and discrimination against female playwrights—the “bar was set higher”; however, importantly she also proved that there were fewer “quality” scripts by women as the artistic directors has stated.  “Quality” was defined through plays getting produced and how often to remove subjectivity.

Sands essentially did three studies – (1) analysis of the field through data on www.doolee.com to determine if there were “too few scripts from which to choose” (2) Is a script received better if written by a man – she sent same scripts with different gender names to 250 theaters (3) Is the bar set higher for female playwrights – using Broadway profits for analysis.

Basically the answer to all three was YES.

Analysis of the field through data on www.doolee.com to determine if there were “too few scripts from which to choose”

  • 25% of produced plays were written by women
  • the rate of attaining production was the same for men and women
  • plays with more female roles were less produced
  • women tend to write smaller shows which was the reason (compensating factor) that the rate for attaining production were the same

Is a script received better if written by a man – she sent same 4 original scripts (donated to the study by 4 female playwrights) with different gender names to 250 theaters and had folks fill out a questionnaire (cheers to Princeton for awarding four $1000 grants to theaters to participated in the study even though the theaters didn’t know what the study was fully about).

  • the scripts “submitted by” women were perceived differently: the characters were considered less likable, the prospects for production were less likely, it was assumed the audiences would not receive them as well and the plays didn’t align with the theaters mission as much as those “submitted by” men.
  • all of the bias was directly attributed to women responding the survey.  Statistically the men who participated rated the scripts the same whether submitted by men or women. [read that again, yes it is true]

Is the bar set higher for female playwrights – using Broadway profits for analysis using the last 10 years of new work presented on Broadway.

  • shows written by women make more money over the course of a run (18% more)!  Note that commercial producers – the stats chart was really clear about that!
  • shows by women on a weekly basis had 16% higher sales than those by men
  • the length of run of the shows was equal whether written by men or women
  • basically scripts by women face higher scrutiny by producers when it comes to keeping them open

Some thoughts by Sands from her work:

  • the bar is higher for women playwrights so the script have to be better to get produced
  • theoretically there are better scripts available from women that haven’t been produced than men
  • women have likely been discouraged from the field by the biases or perceptions of biases

I think it is vital to keep this conversation going and to expand it to the obvious effect it has on the industry as a whole (i.e. less female roles).  Needless to say the last week has been filled with a ton of issues for the field to think about – firing of artistic directors to save money, the disclosure of complete financial mismanagement of North Shore Music Theatre, and budgets cuts and staff reductions (Long Wharf Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Met Museum).  Of course all of these require immediate attention and warrant conversation, but we can’t lose sight of underlying long term problems like gender disparity, creating new financial models, non-profits focusing on mission, and truly serving our audiences.  Lots of work to do folks!

Emily Sands Presentation Deck from her study

Articles on the presentation and study:

New York Magazine

New York Times

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