Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Just When I Thought I Had Stopped Worrying About My Place in the World…
nine hostage arts: I am a sound designer for theater. This means that, when someone who doesn’t work in my industry asks me what I do for a living, it takes four sentences just to establish the basics. This is not a job anyone would chose for the glory, fame, or respect it brings from the tens of young designers around the country who know our names.
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There are very few things I pretend to understand when it comes to critics and reviewer. One thing that they have always, well up to now, done is give credit where credit is due. Why is this even a problem? What word limit says that the writer can’t take the time nod to the creator? Especially now that when everybody is so concerned with copyright and crediting issues in the music industry. Especially in News Paper where it is literally the editors job to check for referencing errors. In design and technical side of the entertainment industry, our careers rely almost entirely on the words of others. In short we practically require the printed reviews to establish and unbiased view of the quality of our work. With this in mind crediting shouldn’t be in decline, like the article author said what so difficult about 3 extra lines of text ?
In an ideal world reviews of shows would talk about everything that went in to making the show, and the entire production would be able to benefit from it. Unfortunately, that is rarely what happens, but at least everyone involved would still get credit for their work. It probably seems like such a small thing to most people. After all its three lines at the end of an article, many people could probably read the whole review and miss that part entirely. But there are people that do notice, and some of those people may remember those names the next time they need to hire a designer. So much of our lives in theater is affected by who we know and who knows our names that a little thing like being mentioned at the end of a New York Times review can have an impact. There’s another reason too, one that’s less tangible but just as important. It’s a gesture of recognition, and being recognized for your work feels good. In the end, what’s so hard about adding 3 lines of text that give credit to the designers? It’s an online publication so its not like they have to pay for ink, it takes maybe a minute or two to write, there is no reason for them to not give recognition where recognition is due.
Part of why theater is so magical is the immense sense of collaboration that binds a production together. From the run crew to the producers to the star actor, a performance does not come from just one or two of these people, but all of them together. Working in the industry, at least in a designer or production role, you come to understand the importance of this pretty quickly. But for people who just watch, and possibly review, theater, it is easy to see why they start only valuing one side of our creative family. They can see the actors onstage, they get to watch them work, so they know they're important. They also understand that someone wrote the words and came up with the ideas of how it is being portrayed to them, they know an immediate sense of the work of the playwright and the director. But when you're looking at a beautiful, intricate, three story set, its much easier to imagine that it just came being being rather than contemplate the long hours spent designing, drafting, constructing, etc.
This problem with reviews I think is reflective of a larger problem within the industry, which is the designers and technical and production folks not getting the credit they deserve. Think back to when sound design was cut from the Tony's. During my short time here at CMU I've started to see what might be root of this separation between the design and production people and the rest of the people working on a show. The freshmen directors, actors, MTs, and dramaturges all become much more integrated fairly quickly while for the DPs, unless we make a conscious effort to go out and try an meet people in the other disciplines, it would be very easy for us to stay completely isolated in our studio. Even Foundations, which seems like it should be a chance to meet some different people and hear some different perspectives on theater, has been split into an actors section and a DP section with a couple dramaturges in each. How are students supposed to understand the importance of collaboration in theater if we don't even know each other's names, much less get chances work together? And if incoming young professionals are going into the industry with this sense of separation, it will only perpetuate the divide.
And now I shall tell the story of why I fell in love with theatre.
For the most part, I was desperate. All throughout middle school, I was pretty much on my own as far as peers went. That is to say, I had no friends or idea who I was. I survived for two reasons: I liked to make art and I liked to read.
The art I made was more specifically wearable art. Clothing. Renderings and Designs brought to life. I loved it. I was good at it.
And the books? I devoured them, immersed myself into their worlds so as to escape from my own. The books I loved were about outcasts, misfits, kids who started out with no place in the world and ended their narratives as part of a team. These teams, disparate of personality and diverse of background as their members may have been, all came together in the end to be a part of something bigger than themselves and make something amazing happen.
And me? I was alone without them.
When the time came to escape from pre-teen hell I knew it was time to turn things around. My long-time hope was to attend a small arts high school in Houston called HSPVA. What to attend it for, I had no idea. Then my design teacher told me that she knew of a costume design area of focus within the theatre department. My mom researched it and a soon I was signed up for an audition.
My portfolio was a giant garment bag full of clothes I'd made and my monologue sucked. And when my acceptance letter came I had never felt so free in my life.
So I became a theatre kid, although I had no idea what that meant going into it. In fact I don't think I really realized what theatre was until the faculty assigned me my first show; I was chosen to be a production assistant on Sarah Ruhl's "Eurydice."
My only job was to sit in a tiny chair backstage, wear a headset, and cue a guy to fly out the rigging for the string house. It felt like the most important job in the world.
Sitting in that chair, I got to watch a stage manager, sound designer, costumer, set designer, carpenter, lighting opp, director, producer, run crew and actors bring to life an entire world based off of pages. And each of them was a part of it, spinning cogs and wheels all come together to communicate a story which left audiences blubbering every single night. And somehow I got to be a part of this, this insane ensemble of talent and ingenuity, and to have even a tiny part in making that show happen proved to me that I had found my world. I had found the place where the misfits came to be a part of something bigger.
Seeing my name in the program for that show was enough. It was why I decided to stay a little bit crazy and continue to be a part of this world. So when designers go without credit in revered publications, it makes me more than a little uneasy. Am I not a part of this world? Do I not deserve my misfit's honor?
To leave designers and technicians behind in the vague land of "technical help" does a disservice to all young playwrights, directors, actors, and designers looking to find their place in professional theatre. It allows them to mistakenly believe that the person who "made up" the world is the only one who matters. Sure, it's amazing what writers and directors dream up. But it's only a dream until designers bring their visions to the table.
All those years ago when I read all those books to feel less alone, I was in some way designing their worlds while I read, using my unique perspective to provide a vision the author could not fully complete without my eyes on the page. The only difference between that process and being a designer is that now my job is just a little more specified, and in 3D. We cannot make complete worlds without the eyes and hands of the many to envision and construct them. Every little PA in a rickety desk chair knows this as well as I. The only way to continue to produce live what cannot be produced in any other way is to account for the many artists devoted making every show possible. In the end we are all equal parts of a world that makes worlds.
To me, the best part of theatre is its collaborative nature. Arriving at a finished product takes a team of people each contributing their own ideas. A different group of people creates a different show. This is different than the auteur theory mentioned in the article, the one that is being followed by the New York Times. One person cannot make a good theatre experience by themselves. The input of others is vital to the creative process. By getting rid of the names of the designers, the New York times essentially disregard the work of the designers in the process of creating a show, which disregards the process of theatre itself.
This is a very thoughtful, constructive addition to all the blogging and related internet writing about the NYT's decision to stop crediting designers in their reviews. That being said, I'm not sure that you can make the argument that theater critics are going to inflect the industry towards an auteur trend all that strongly. Reviews are important, but a lot of people in theater don't even actually read them. I suppose it's more about the message it sends rather than a direct cause to effect relationship, and that I can agree with. The idea that a production can be summed up to its director and playwright is definitely misleading, and detrimental to the other professions involved in the creation process. Crediting designers is also in a way an acknowledgement of all the people who work to support those designers, their technical and fabrication teams that go unrecognized more than anyone else (which is fine, that's the job). Appreciating the entire creative team is appreciating everyone else who has enabled the project to make it to the stage, and it's sad to see that go.
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