Ah Theatre.

Just read this in the NYTimes. In it Marsha Norman talks about what’s wrong with theatre today which is one of my LEAST favorite topics of all time. But I happen to agree with everything she says (and lord knows I love agreeing). The whole thing is definitely worth a read but I’m gonna quote the last section.

Finally, at least for this go-round, I like what this play represents: a life-long association of a writer with a group of actors and a theater. This is why Shakespeare wrote so much, he had a whole gang of actors waiting to do his work. Go down the list — the writers who wrote a lot of wonderful plays were always associated with a community of actors they could write for: Shepard, Chekhov, Brian Friel, Alan Ackbourne, David Mamet, Lanford Wilson, Caryl Churchill, Richard Foreman, Wendy Wasserstein. Playwrights who live apart from theaters and actors have a lot of trouble getting their work done. Playwrights need to be around actors, need to be a part of a theater’s life.
It is worth noting that Mr. Letts began his theatrical life as an actor. Plays by actors tend to have lots of crazy stuff in them, and whatever else they’re about, they’re always about how much fun it is to be on the stage. “True West” springs to mind here. But this sense of fun is something writers with no acting talent can catch. And it’s definitely something the audience likes. We could use more things happening in the theater, and fewer plays where people sit in chairs and talk.
If we wanted to do one single thing to improve the theatrical climate in America, we’d assign one playwright to every theater that has a resident acting company. People wonder why so much great work came out of Actors Theatre of Louisville in the early days. I was there, so I know it was simply that you had everything you needed: actors who wanted to work, empty stages ready for plays and an artistic director who gave everybody a chance to do whatever they wanted as soon as they could think of it. Playwriting in America has suffered a devastating blow from the development process that keeps writers separate from the rest of the company, working on the same play for years. What playwrights want is what Steppenwolf has given Mr. Letts: a way to get a new play done, see what works, and then go on to the next one. “August: Osage County” is way more than a wonderful play. It is how we get back to having American plays on Broadway. We get them written for actors who want to do them, then producers get on board and start selling tickets.

She pinpoints exactly what I find frustrating about theatre and maddening in my education. I have spent 4 years being taught that playwriting happens alone in a room with a computer. Which isn’t true. As someone who is going to “go out into the world” of theater in.. oh… two months now I feel incredibly unprepared to do good work.
Which I fully recognize is just as much my fault as anyone else’s.
But as someone who would, in theory, like to be a part of American Theatre I am not really sure how to go forward. Should I move to a smaller city, say Chicago or Minneapolis where the theatre world is less cut throat? Should I go back to school in a program where there is more interaction with actors? Should I stay in New York and try to drag all the actors I know into a community around me?
These are questions that I’m going to try to answer within the next six months and while there are no right answers I will probably pick the wrong one at first (and I’m okay with that.)
In closing: I believe that the best undergrad training for playwrights exists at NYU… in the acting program. I have seen some damn fine theatre come out of playwrights horizons (an acting lab at nyu) and communities seem to be built there that do not exist in the department of dramatic writing.