Why I hate REGIONAL theatre

Now that I have your attention.

What I hate is the word "regional" and what it has come to imply and more or less mean.

It seems like every day I find another person talking about "putting the regional back in regional theatre" or "making things local." When I read the folks post (see below links), I have no disagreement with what they are saying so why in the world do I cringe every time someone says the word regional?

I truly believe that it diminishes what our theatres are/should be doing for their communities and the national (and international) impact that this work can have not only the theatre industry but changing the world and making an impact.

I think Joe Dowling , speaking to the 2007 TCG national conference about the Guthrie as a national theatre center, can say it better than I when looking at the productions impact on the field:

The self designation—a national centre for theatre art and theatre education—helps us to articulate the extent of our ambition. We have no desire or indeed opportunity to become a national theatre. But we do see the potential of developing our work so that it continues to have wide local support as well as attracting national attention. We have defined a national center, here in the center of the country as a place to which work will come and from which work will go. I have long resented the notion that theatres like the Guthrie and many others around the country are deemed “regional” as though there were some center to which we all looked with awe. There’s a pejorative implication in the word regional that I reject and I believe currently there is no center for not- for profit theatre in the United States. Yes, New York is a great cultural capital and there are numerous brilliant companies there both for profit and not-for-profit. But essentially if you examine it, it is the center for commercial theatre. And the focus is on Broadway in the exact same way Guthrie, Zeisler and Ray believed a big change was needed. Almost 45 years later I believe it is essential that we begin to change the language by which we are designated. Many other theatres around the country could equally be designated as national centers and that is why we’ve always used the “a” rather than “the.” By changing our focus, by developing a comprehensive program that serves both our local community and influences the national movement we can fulfill the original intention of our founders and create a momentum that will help to define American theatre in the 21st century as we did in the second part of the 20th century.

Now, to be fair - this speech was in the context of introducing his new theatre complex to 800 of his peers. What I think of the new building and how we have spent the last decade building some amazing buildings (however occasionally at the expense of building the organization who is to live in the building) is another topic all together. But I think Joe's core idea that there is no center to the nonprofit theatre movement so therefore how can there be regions is pretty spot on.

In Putting the regional back in regional theatre on the NEA NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT BLOG David Dower simply and beautifully complements several theatre who are giving the stage to hometown playwrights and artists. At A POOR PLAYER, TW Loughlin's Locally Grown and Produced - Art laments the "big business practice" in our industry. In comparing theatre to the food movement in the country he makes some interesting points - especially about the acting pool basically being forced into two markets.

As for what the word "regional" does to minimize the impact we have on our audiences, we have to all agree we live in a transitory world. Most people don't spend their lives in one place anymore. Gone are the days where mom, kids and the grand-kids all lived on the same block (much the detriment of society in some ways), but this means when we are reaching out to audiences in our local community, we are addressing issues of living in this world, we are preparing them to go live in other communities, and hopefully, we are spurring them to action to make the world a better place (hello - think globally, act locally!).

I also think the word regional used in context with a theatre has come "to mean something less than" as Dowling alluded to - agents don't want their clients doing "regional" theatre. But in reality isn't most of what is being done in New York on commercial stages coming directly through the nurturing and development of these so-called "lesser" regions. In my book - if it is good enough to develop and produce the show than it is as good as where the show end up. Just because it cost more to produce it in New York doesn't mean it makes the show any better - and yes I have spent the majority of my career in New York City, so I clearly know the stakes of doing a show in New York and what it can mean. I just don't beleive that commerical productions are any more valid that nonprofit productions and I fear that is exactly what "regional" implies.


[Make sure to also read the follow up post to this Regional - the word.]

Dowling's recounting of the Guthrie's history during that same speech has some good nuggets from our past leaders that some of us may want to pay attention to so here are a few more excerpts:

It was some 47 years ago that three great men of the theatre Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Ray, and Peter Zeisler—a name indeed well known to TCG circles—met in Guthrie’s ancestral home at Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan in Ireland, the place to discuss the profound, and somewhat original then, notion of providing the best in world class theatre to an American audience far from the bright lights and the big budgets of Broadway. They announced their intentions through the good offices of the New York Times and they were somewhat delighted when they had seven cities express an interest in hosting a new repertory company around the country. And so it was in 1960 that managing director Oliver Ray and artistic director Tony Guthrie ventured forth to find a place to plant an artistic garden in the heart of the country. Peter Zeisler stayed back in NY because he was stage managing The Sound of Music. And a small plane brought the crew to Minneapolis/St. Paul. When they stepped on the tarmac, according to Guthrie, "The temperature was 30 degrees below zero and the wind was a bright sharp sword that pierced your bowels through and through." Here they met a steering committee headed by John Cowles Jr. and this committee was determined that they were going to win out over their 6 rivals. And later Guthrie wrote, "We wound up offering our rather runty apple of our artistic mission to the Twin Cities because we wanted to work there. Why? Was it the weather? The people? The river. It was the river, itself, that most charmed and amazed us. It had not yet frozen over and was flowing with a lively sparkle through winding forges that are still beautiful despite being exploited in the interest of trade. Eventually,” Guthrie wrote, "the Twin Cities will realize that their river can be and ought to be a wonderful and life giving amenity. It has taken London 2,000 years even to begin to appreciate this about the Thames. Perhaps it is not unreasonable to expect the Twin Cities will make the most out of the Mississippi in a mere 100."

While it’s widely regarded as one of the flagships of the not-for-profit theatre movement in America the foundation of the Guthrie Theater in 1963 was not, as many of you here know, the beginning of the resident theatre movement in the United States. For some years before our dramatic arrival on the scene, pioneers such as Margot Jones in Dallas and Zelda Fichandler at Arena Stage in Washington among others, had the vision to recognize that if theatre as an art form was to prosper and to thrive throughout the country, it was essential to establish resident organizations in different regions that would serve their own community with a balance between contemporary and classical work. However, the creation of the Guthrie was significantly different from other pioneer theatres, I would argue. Because while the founders of many resident theatres around the country were brave, brilliant and resilient artists, they were mostly young and untried outside their own areas. But Guthrie and his colleagues when they decided to decentralize American theatre and to create a new movement with a different theatrical energy, they were already major figures in New York, and indeed in Guthrie’s case, throughout the world. He was—at that time—the preeminent director in the English speaking world. So inevitably, the fame of Tyrone Guthrie and his original company that included Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Zoë Caldwell and George Grizzard was such that the new institution was seen immediately as the hope of the whole movement.

While the Guthrie has continued to evolve into a major resident institution of vital importance to its own community, it’s clearly not and never could be a national theatre for America. Nor do we ever aspire to such a status. Given the vastness of this country, the geography, the diversity of its culture, a single American national theatre is not a realistic prospect—and in my view not a desirable objective. What the Guthrie Theater has aspired to do is what so many theatres around the country also do and that is reflect back to its own community an awareness of the continuity of human feeling and experience through great dramatic literature, whatever the culture, whatever the century. It’s also been responsible for creating a standard of excellence and of community involvement that has been emulated throughout the country. Quality of life in our community has been enriched beyond measure by the emergence of the Guthrie and the subsequent flowering of a rich theatrical tradition that has become the envy of many cities twice our size.

The founder of our theatre, Tyrone Guthrie, put it very well I believe 40 years ago when he said, “I believe that a theatre where live actors perform to an audience which is there in the flesh before them, will survive all threats from powerfully organized industries which pump pre-fabricated dramas out of cans and blowers and contraptions of one kind or another. It will survive as long as mankind demands to be amused, terrified, instructed, shocked, corrupted and delighted by tales told in a manner that will always remain mankind’s most vivid and powerful manner of telling a story. I believe,” Guthrie said, “that the purpose of theatre is to show mankind to himself and thereby to show to man God’s image.” The coming together of a group of people in the theatre as we all know is to experience an act of artistic creation has indeed a spiritual dimension. An audience relates to one another and to performers both in a physical and a spiritual way and the influence of one on the other can be profound. What makes theatre special and indestructible is that bond that is created in the immediate time and space. No two performances can ever be the same and each separate audience sees and hears a unique event. The immediacy of human connection is such a part of what attracts people to theatre. The strength of theatre lies in that power of that interaction between actor and audience. But in the case of this theatre, and so many others, it also is about the importance of a broader relationship between the theatre and its community.