For me, this is the most loaded and difficult question in the Holiday Cocktail Party Lexicon. Do I respond with my work as an actor? As a writer? Do I start with one and quickly undercut it with the other? Where did my glass of wine go, anyway?
Here’s why I get confused: I am a self-proclaimed theatrical Hyphenate.
What’s a Hyphenate? Great question. I’m not quite sure yet.
10 comments:
It seems everywhere you go you see actors trying their hand at directing, actors trying their hand at writing, directors trying their hand at writing, and the list goes on. It is very exciting to try new things, and even more so when you have the chance to be paid for it, but I ask, why are there fewer designer hyphenates? Scenography is fairly common in Europe, but even then you have one person wearing two hats at the same time, not doing one or the the other the way described in the article. Perhaps it is because of how intensely designers need to train to be quality professionals, but it still saddens me that we don't often hear about them branching off into different realms of theatre. I think we should open up the possibilities, and let creative juices flow. As a designer, I hope to be able to be proficient at jobs outside of my concentration, whether for extra artistic release, or even just to make some extra money at the end of the day.
This is by far is my favorite article on here. I’m struggling with the hyphenate idea right now. What I’ve found is that it is easy to fall into the system. Identify yourself as one way and do what you’re really interested in on the side, never really bringing the two together. We’re about to declare and are picking advisers and what I’ve been struggling with is combining to unconventional fields, well I know how to combine them, the problem is explaining that process to other people. These hyphenates have to deal with the struggle of feeling like they are giving up one identity for another, having to declare a leader in what they are. Our field isn’t supposed to be like that, the whole point is to allow fluidity of expression and of person, there’s no reason for us to have to put ourselves in a category. Hyper-specialization makes it easy to educate our newest members, but it makes it harder for them to be educated artists.
I found this article very relatable. I know that I haven’t actually declared a concentration yet but unless something changes between now and hallway through next year I’ll be having to choose between scenic design and stage management. This is the same choice I’ve been thinking about for roughly the past year, and like the author says, it makes explaining what I do in theater more difficult. Do I say I’m a stage manager, and then explain what that is and why I’m able to find it enjoyable or do I go with the more easily recognized and understood thing and say I’m a set designer? This is the thought that normally goes through my head when explaining what I do to someone for the first time, and normally I end up going with the second option for the same reason as the author’s friend who just introduces herself as an actor. It’s much easier for non theater people to understand a set designer’s job (in my experience) than a stage manager’s.
Alex actually pointed me out to this article because we've had many, many conversations on this subject. It's a difficult time for the sophomore class right now I think, especially because we've been treated so well with this one and a half years of classes of design and production. I personally find it very hard not to want to take as many classes as I can in all the subjects I'm interested in, because I'm sort of terrified of losing the knowledge I've gained through the past semesters. Reading this article, however, was a little difficult because they only talked about writers, directors, actors, and the occasional prop designer. And that's fine, because it doesn't all have to be about actors, but I find the idea that designers can spill into many different areas of production even more compelling than actor/directors or actor/writers. To be both a costume designer and a lighting designer requires a lot of fine skills that are not necessarily blended. Anyways, I'm proud to be a hyphenate. It's fun not to find yourself pigeon-holed into one category.
Going through this program, it's made very clear to us that we should all consider ourselves artists, even those who declare Stage Management / Technical Direction. At first, I was absolutely skeptical; I had spent all this time distinguishing myself from artists that it was hard for me to integrate myself back into the mindset. However, once I was there, a few months in, everything started to click. Most of the time, when I tell (non-theater) people that I'm a Stage Manager, they have no idea what I do. I usually rattle off a list of duties which, yes, a stage manager does do, but it's so much more than that. In a broader sense, we are all so much more than what our job titles are. We have the capacity to create so much that we shouldn't pigeon-hole ourselves in one category. It's tough though, to market ourselves with multiple titles because then people assume that we are less focused on one or the other. Yes, I'm a stage manager, but I'm also a writer and sometimes I play music. Herein lies the problem. If there's no good way to define ourselves, then why are we defining ourselves in the first place?
As someone who has not yet begun who they are as a/an theater/performance/entertainment professional, this article was an interesting look at what could be my future. While none of the individuals profiled in this article are nearly as indecisive about their identities, labeling what they do, especially when introducing themselves to non-theater demographics, poses a unique challenge. I daresay no notary-accountant has ever had to re-evaluate their professional priorities to start conversation at a cocktail party. (In fact, all they probably had to do was to decide which term to put first.) In such a field as ours, when conventional education and experience do not necessary belie a person's profession, such accepted measures cannot be always be used as labels. A person with a degree in acting may as well be an English teacher, as script analysis is not a field-specific skill. This is where the difficulty lies, from what I can gather from the article.
While it is sure to be a while before I can consider this an issue in my life, I have bookmarked this article to help me whenever that point may arise.
I love this article. The idea of hyphenate is something that more people should embrace because to lock yourself into only one thing gives you the mindset of never learning about different areas. And while there are plenty of people who only identify as one job who do know a lot about different fields, when you explore them completely by yourself in the way that a practitioner in that area would, it is much different. For example, I am going to declare technical direction, but I’m also going to have a dual career as a fine artist probably. I think it’s great when people want to explore more than one thing because that’s what I struggled with all through high school because I didn't know what I wanted to do. But because I went here, and they force us to do all design and production and management, I now know more and so I realized everything I really want to be doing.
This concept is very intriguing and relatable to me, as it seems to be for many other CMU drama students as well. It seems that in this industry, the first thing many do is label. At other schools I looked at, they asked their students the declare right off the bat what area of technical theatre they wanted to major in. Stage managers would not get to have the experience of designing and vice versa. However, this difference is what made CMU so appealing to me. It is giving us the opportunity to hyphenate our labels. I already see this at work in the freshman class, even though we have only been here for two months. Many of us (including myself) are realizing there are many areas of theatre, as well as ourselves, that have not yet been explored to their full potential.
Finally - Someone said it! As a lifelong student of many different art forms I rejoice at articles like this, and at the acknowledgement that my many interests do not have to exist in a hierarchical system of stock for them to be valid. Sure, I am a costume designer through and through, a lover of fashion and an engineer of clothing - but I have also studied playwrighting, acting, visual art, violin, even cabaret singing. And I have in one way or another loved them all. More so, under the blanket of "costumer" I am more than one thing not because I was told I need to be but because I choose to wear different hats at different times. Sure, it may still be a means for survival that I can drape, stitch, and assist as well as design a full-fledged concept. But it is also a means for artistic expression, the personal acknowledgement that I belong to more than one category no matter which role I am currently playing. In high school, I loved the day I could sing my heart out to my friends, bring an audience to tears in a heartfelt goodbye, and then march right back to the costume shop to steam choir robes for the night's show. It was liberating to be that much of an artist in both rather than one or the other fields. I think Carnegie Mellon provides its drama students a unique opportunity for hyphenation with Playground, as well as with its many other opportunities for production and artistry. The more colleges and training programs acknowledge their rising hyphenates, the better they can prepare those students for a life of equal passion in both fields. At the very least, they make better cocktail party conversationalists.
Thank god somebody wrote this down! I feel like there is a lot of pressure for theatre-artists to find a discipline and stick to it. But that’s not what theatre is about really. It’s about creating and collaborating in whatever way will best get the message across. And if in one project I’m acting and the next I’m directing, then that’s how that is. And in reality, a lot of the positions in theatre are fluid. I’m not saying that it’s easy to learn to be an actor, or a director, or a designer. But let’s be honest here, a few simple classes can give a pretty decent start. And it’s not unheard of to learn through experience. A large part of learning to be any of these disciplines is to learn to work in theatre. That lesson is universal. I see things like this a lot here, people put themselves into a box and won’t break out (and I’m guilty of it too), but that’s really damaging to developing our skills. I think things should be more fluid than that, and I think playground is a perfect example of how that works so well. It gives people the opportunity to be something other than what they are training for. I hope that as an industry, we can move away from such rigid assignment and toward an environment where people can do what makes them happiest, even if it means not knowing how to answer the question “What do you do?”
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