I wrote this in 2009. I still basically feel the same way.]I am at home with a cold. Forced by my body to stop the quotidian forward motion from prep to class to prep to class and then to grading, I find myself propelled instead toward reflection, bleary and slightly feverish though I am.

The catalyst for this introspection, which will likely take an outward turn, is Camille Paglia. On Saturday, in an almost accidental way, I picked up her 1992 book Sex, Art, and American Culture at the local branch library. As I leafed through its pages, it seemed as if the book would spontaneously combust as a result of the attempt to contain Paglia’s intense personality. I happened to open to her almost ritualistic dismemberment of David Halperin and Michel Foucault, and I found myself rubber-necking as if I were passing the scene of a grisly highway accident. I checked the book out, along with a few others, and took it home where the next day my feverish brain fell completely under its spell.

There is a lot Paglia says that I don’t agree with – her aesthetic preferences and mine differ significantly at times, and I suspect that a conversation with her might be more monologue than dialogue – but I was enthralled by her slash-and-burn prose, and her iconoclastic a-plague-on-both-your-houses independence. I was reminded of Emerson’s injuction to “Speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day. " Paglia’s style unleashes an entire arsenal.

I like that in a writer. I like the fact that Paglia, who got her graduate degree from Yale’s Harold Bloom and whose learning is prodigious, writes that with “most academics, I feel bored and restless. I have to speak very slowly and hold back my energy level.” It is her energy level, and her courage, that speaks loudest. I suspect that is why I enjoyed Ayn Rand’s Romantic Manifesto[I shudder to admit this], although I found her aesthetic judgment horrible.. Her writing style was clear Appollonian fire, like the blue flame of a metal cutter. I learned something from her. I like John Taylor Gatto, the anti-education teacher-of-the-year winner whose dissection of the banality of compulsory education is fiery and principled. I like business writer Tom Peters, who wrote in the introduction to his incendiary book Re-Imagine, “I don’t expect you’ll agree with everything I say here. But I hope that when you disagree, you will disagree angrily. That you will be so pissed off that you will…Do Something. DOING SOMETHING. That’s the essential idea, isn’t it?” Yes, it is. In 1956, Jimmy Porter sounded the alarum in Look Back in Anger when he demanded “a little human enthusiasm,” and condemned the fact that ““Nobody thinks, nobody cares. No beliefs, no convictions and no enthusiasm.” Fifty years later, the torpor continues.

Our world, our educational system, and our arts have become Fogelberged. We have traded passion, intensity, and integrity for mushy sensitivity and adolescent pique. We condemn the identification of bullshit as “intolerance” and an insistence on intellectual standards as “insensitive.” And it is the worst in academia and the arts, where we are so fearful that we will damage students' and faculty’s self-esteem that we applaud any piece of garbage that either produce. Graduates take that expectation of easy acclaim out into the world, where they get all in a huff when some critic says anything even mildly critical of them or one of their chums. Members of the theatrosphere justify their unwillingness to write anything less than adulatory on the basis of self-preservation, as if personal integrity was unimportant and honesty the equivalent of a raodside bomb.

After ten years of trying to toe that line, I’ve had enough. Theatre is hard, and there is a lot to learn. Failure will be constant, and should not be seen as anything but failure. You learn more from failure than success, but only if you look deeply at the failure and mine it for its treasure. There are thousands of years of theatre history. and theory, and criticism, and they need to be learned before young artists have the right to be taken seriously. And even then, there is more anthropology and psychology and philosophy and comparative religion to be understood before they have anything to say that will be of interest to anyone older than fifteen.

Our theatre is shallow, and it is because young artists emerge from their undergraduate and graduate experiences uneducated, unread, and unchallenged. If they read more than a couple dozen plays over the course of four years – and I mean read the plays, not the on-line Spark Notes – it is a rarity. Theory? Forget it. The understanding of Aristotle, Brecht, Schiller, and dozens of others is shallow or non-existent. Theatre students spend their time focused on “doing plays,” and none of their time trying to figure out why they ought to be done in the first place, and what they have to say to the world today. They sit bored through any class that isn’t a “how to” subject, and the faculty, most of who themselves are the product of how-to education, condone their apathy as an artistic temperament. Bullshit. Boredom is the sign of a shallow approach to experience. I am reminded of the aforementioned John Taylor Gatto, who wrote about his grandfather: “One afternoon when I was seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else’s. The obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and people who didn’t know that were childish people, to be avoided if possible. Certainty not to be trusted.” I feel the same way. Most young artists aren’t to be trusted with the power that is embedded within the theatre. Neither can their faculty. And neither can their artistic leaders.

If we wanted proof of the mindlessness permeating the contemporary American theatre, we need look no further than the latest edition of American Theatre. In the midst of a massive social and economic crisis, one that not only will affect the arts but also one in which the arts could conceivably play an important role through the telling of a new story about who we are, Teresa Eyring, the titular head of arguably the most important organization on today’s theatre scene, took to the bully pulpit, Marilyn Monroe-like, to burble a Happy Birthday to Facebook. Could we get a grown-up back in charge, please?

Closer to home, theatre education is a mess. The sacred cow of most theatre departments is production. Everything is fine as long as production after production is cranked out year after year with no purpose beyond simply “doing plays.” Most theatre departments are little more than play clubs, like chess club only with more resources and better cleavage. Production is seen as an end in itself, filled with intrinsic good that comes from the mere fact of learning lines and saying them in front of a set under the bored eyes of general education students required to be there for a “cultural event.” Across campus, other departments actually contribute new knowledge to their field; not theatre. Somehow, we have decided that a production in and of itself qualifies as “creative activity,” and should be taken seriously as “scholarship.” What a con job. Theatre departments ought to be the Research and Development arm of the theatre, where a stable budget allows true experiment, complete with hypothesis, experiment, and analysis all reported for the benefit of the field.

Over the years, I have tried to be polite about this, taking a “bless their heart, they can’t help it” attitude toward the mediocrity that permeates my chosen profession. But enough is enough. I am embracing my inner Paglia, polishing up my Rand, flexing my Gatto, and grabbing my Peters (har har). Back on January 30th, perhaps in anticipation of today’s post, I changed my Facebook status (no doubt a high artistic expression in the eyes of Teresa Eyring) to “Scott is determined not to dumb down what he does.” A friend of mine from grad school days wrote, “What the hell is going on? You probably don’t want me to write the admin at UNC to tell them to back off academic freedom, but I’d like to hear details.” The enemy is us, not the asdmin. It is about lack of rigor, lack of curiosity, lack of engagement. And it is about how four decades of careerist nonsense passing as education has bled our theatre scene white.

Theatre may not be dead, but it sure is dumb. Tony Kushner, about the only contemporary theatre person left with a brain, said it all quite powerfully in 1998 when he published “A Modest Proposal” in American Theatre. The lack of response from the field was deafening. No doubt, Kushner just ought to change his Facebook status.

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, a character is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” he responds. “Gradually, and then suddenly.” He could have been talking about the changes to the American theater in the last quarter of the 19th century. In my February 23 post I described “The Rise of the Combination Company and the Death of the Resident Stock Company.” Today, I want to describe the capture of the American theater by businessmen.

Gradually

You probably remember that the combination company was a single, self-contained production that was cast, rehearsed, and first performed in New York City for a long run, and then toured the country intact via train. In 1870, these companies could be counted on one hand, but by the end of that decade the number had exploded to more than 250. As a result, resident stock companies collapsed, and the theater managers were left to fill their houses with full-scale productions as best they could.

Initially, the booking of combination companies was done very informally: the theater manager would send his assistant to New York City to meet with representatives of the various stars or shows to make arrangements. There were no contracts, just understandings and handshakes. Not surprisingly, there were problems with this system. Theater historian Jack Poggi notes that the actor-manager of a combination company was faced with a difficult problem:

Railroad fares were a major expense, and he had to avoid backtracking and long jumps between engagements. He also had to keep in mind the seating capacity and price scale of the theaters where he was booked (his profits were based on a percentage of the gross receipts), the relative prosperity of the areas he planned to visit, and the type of production that would precede him. In such a complex and changeable situation, both [the combination producer and the local theater manager] tended to look upon their agreements as highly tentative. If an opportunity arose to change a route in such a way as to increase his profits, the producer was quite likely to cancel a contract— perhaps without notifying the other party.

If this happened, it obviously was a disaster for the local theater manager. Poggi goes on:

The local manager might protect himself from such outrages by booking two productions for the same evening, confident that only one of them was likely to show up or that, if both did, he could put one off or (as a last extreme) resort to a double bill. But double bills cut into the profits of both the production and the house, and the local manager was especially disturbed by them if he had nothing scheduled for the following night.

Poggi concludes, laconically, “There was an obvious need for a more centralized system of booking.” Be careful what you wish for.

The first step to solving this problem was the empowerment of booking agents who, for a fee, would negotiate with the actor-manager and the local theater managers to plan a route throughout an area of the country. Booking agents were sort of travel agents for the theater.

But Dear Reader, don’t heave a sigh of relief at what seems a simple solution to this coordination problem without recognizing the ramifications: there now was a middleman standing between local theaters and theater artists, whose power was acquired because, well, it was just easier to hire someone else to handle all those pesky details. After all, the actor-manager had to handle a lot on his plate as far as the production was, and the local theater managers had to handle all the details of advertising, public relations, and building management.

But it was by controlling bookings that the members of what became known as the Theatrical Syndicate monopolized the American theater and brought the actor-managers and the theater owners to their knees.

The Power of Real Estate

Once the production of plays shifted to New York and local theaters no longer were homes to resident stock companies, owning and managing a theater no longer required knowledge of how theater was made. It was a real estate deal, plain and simple, and entrepreneurs moved in to with the sole intent of making a buck. These managers had little interest in the plays that filled their theaters beyond whether they would draw an audience. A play was merely the means for making a profit. In addition, theater owners no longer needed to live in their localities, they just needed to hire someone to do the caretaking.

By the 1890s, six wealthy men owned a large percentage of theaters across the country. The firm of A. L. Erlanger and Marc Klaw owned or leased many theaters in important cities and had exclusive booking rights to about two hundred more, mostly in small towns in the Southeast. Charles Frohman, though more famous as a producer, and his partner Al Hayman, owned several theaters and, more importantly, ran a booking agency that controlled about three hundred theaters in the West. In addition, Samuel F. Nixon and J. F. Zimmerman owned the four most important theaters in Philadelphia, as well many first-class theaters in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio.

In 1896, these six men, who together owned or controlled more than 500 theaters across the nation, joined forces to form what came to be known as the Theatrical Syndicate.

Suddenly

That August, they met for lunch at the newly constructed Holland House, a hotel on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. They were frustrated. They believed, not unreasonably, that the “making of routes for theatrical attractions in the United States was in a most disorganized and economically unsound condition.” Sometimes a touring company would arrive in a town only to find another theater offering the same play they had brought; sometimes they had to discontinue a successful run because another production had booked the theater. Worse still, as theater owners, they felt they were at the mercy of the actor-managers who had the power to force them to pay more for a production than they wanted to.

Something needed to change.

They decided, according to Daniel Frohman, Charles’s brother, who wrote an admiring account of the formation of the Syndicate in his biography Charles Frohman: Manager and Man, that the “only economic hope was in the centralization of booking interests… Within a few weeks they had organized all the theaters they controlled or represented into one national chain. It now became possible,” Daniel crowed, “for the manager of a traveling company to book a consecutive tour at the least possible expense. In a word, booking suddenly became standardized.” And centralized.

To put it in business terms, their solution was to create a nationwide monopoly. They had drawn up and signed a contract that would run for five years from its signing on August 31, 1896, and at the risk of testing your patience, allow me to quote from it extensively so you can get a sense of the scope and exactitude of their intentions:

CONTRACT

That during the continuance of this agreement all of the following named theatres and places of amusement, to wit.

• Columbia and Hooley’s Theatres, Chicago;
• Columbia and Montauk Theatres, Brooklyn;
• Museum, Boston;
• California and Baldwin Theatres, San Francisco;
• New Century Theatre, St. Louis;
• Tabor Grand Opera House, Denver;
• Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia;
• Coates’ Opera House, Kansas City;
• Euclid Avenue Opera House, Cleveland;
• Alvin Theatre, Pittsburgh;
• New Creighton Theatre, Omaha;
• Talma Theatre, Providence;
• New Southern and Grand Opera House, Columbus;
• Valentine Theatre; Toledo;
• Lyceum Theatre, Cleveland;
• and Davidson’s Theatre, Milwaukee,

all of which are controlled by the parties of the first part [i.e., Charles Frohman and Al Hayman] or in which they are in receipt of income for services rendered; also:

• the Broad Street Theatre, Chestnut Street Theatre, and Chestnut Street Opera House, Philadelphia;
• Academy of Music, Baltimore;
• Lyceum Theatre, Baltimore;
• Lafayette Square Opera House and Columbia Theatre, Washington. D.C.;
• and Park Theatre, Philadelphia,

all of which are controlled by the parties of the second part [i.e., Samuel F. Nixon and J. F. Zimmerman] or in which they are interested or from which they are in receipt of income for services rendered: and also

• the New Masonic Theatre, Nashville;
• Grand Opera House, Memphis;
• Staub’s Theatre, Knoxville;
• St. Charles Theatre and Academy of Music, New Orleans;
• Walnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia;
• Coates’ Opera House, Kansas City;
• Euclid Avenue Opera House, Cleveland;
• Alvin Theatre, Pittsburgh;
• New Southern and Grand Opera House, Columbus;
• Valentine Theatre, Toledo;
• Lyceum Theatre, Cleveland;
• and Davidsons Theatre, Milwaukee,

all of which are controlled by the parties of the third part [i.e., A. L. Erlanger and Marc Klaw] or in which they are interested or from which they are in receipt of income for services rendered: and all other theatres or places of amusement which may be hereafter (during the continuance of this agreement) acquired by either of the parties of the first, second, or third parts hereto, shall be booked with attractions in conjunction with each other; that is to say, no attraction shall be booked in any of the said theatres or places of amusement (or in any which may be hereafter acquired as aforesaid) which will insist on playing on opposition theatre or place of amusement in any of the cities above named. [emphasis added]

Those theaters mentioned above were not the only theaters they owned–oh no. They also owned many, many more theaters across the country in the small towns between the cities, which they also agreed to only book with Syndicate productions. And so according to the contract, if a touring production refused play in a single Syndicate-owned theater in any of the cities listed above, they were prohibited from performing in any Syndicate-owned theater including in the small towns where individual Syndicate members owned theaters. If a production wanted to perform in a Syndicate theater, they were locked in to the whole shebang.

The members agreed that they would combine all the net proceeds from the theaters listed above and split them evenly, but each were not required to include the proceeds from the smaller theaters they each owned or controlled. The success of the Syndicate, however, was based on their control of the small-town theaters. As theater historian Landis K. Magnuson writes in Circle Stock Theater: Touring American Small Towns, 1900-1960:

“The image of the “circuit” is misleading when called upon to describe the true strength and backbone of the Syndicate, however. Rather, the image of a passage through a narrow corridor is somewhat more helpful in reconstructing the Syndicate’s methods, because the Syndicate put to use its holdings in theater property in a way unlike any other management organization of the period. Although the Syndicate controlled the bulk of first-class theaters in the major metropolitan centers, the fact that it controlled the theaters in communities located between such theater centers provided its true source of power. Without access to these smaller towns, non-Syndicate companies simply could not afford the long jumps from one chief city to another. Thus, the Syndicate actually needed to own or manage only a small percentage of this nation’s theaters in order to effectively dominate the business of touring theatrical productions–to monopolize ‘the road.'”

Let me put this plainly: if you were the manager of a combination company, you were screwed.

If you wanted to keep control of your company and remain independent, and thus refused to sign with the Syndicate, you were reduced to playing in second-class theaters, lodge rooms, dance halls, even skating rinks. The famed French actress Sarah Bernhardt famously refused to sign with the Syndicate and instead toured the country performing in an enormous tent! On the other hand, if you did sign with the Syndicate, they frequently demanded a percentage of the combination company’s share as a “gratuity” for arranging a “good route.” This gratuity could be as much as 50% of the producer’s share!

The Theatrical Syndicate positioned themselves between the artists and the audience by owning the platform that each group used. Thus, they were both a monopoly and a monopsony.

Monopoly

The Syndicate’s monopolistic power derived from its control over theater bookings. By 1903, it controlled all but a few first-class theaters in major cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago, as well as numerous one-night stands across the country. This led to

• Control over Actor-Managers (which we would now call “producers”): The Syndicate’s extensive network of theaters allowed it to dictate terms to producers, effectively creating a sellers’ market for theatrical bookings. Producers who wanted to reach a large audience had to comply with the Syndicate’s demands, which often included giving the Syndicate partial ownership of their productions. Producers who refused faced boycotts, unfavorable routes, or complete exclusion from Syndicate theaters.

• Control over Playwrights: While the sources don’t explicitly mention the Syndicate’s direct control over playwrights, their control over producers indirectly impacted playwrights. The Syndicate’s focus on commercially successful plays pressured producers to choose plays that would appeal to a broad audience. This, in turn, may have influenced playwrights to write for mass appeal rather than artistic merit, as producers held the power to determine which plays were produced.

Monopsony

The Syndicate also acted as a **monopsonist **by controlling access to a vast network of theaters, which constituted the primary market for theatrical productions.

• Control over Theater Owners: The Syndicate’s exclusive booking contracts with numerous theaters effectively created a buyers' market for theatrical productions. Theater owners who signed with the Syndicate could not book productions from other sources, limiting their options and bargaining power.

• Control over Audiences: By controlling which productions played in which theaters, the Syndicate also exerted considerable influence over what audiences could see. This control limited audience choice and potentially stifled artistic innovation and diversity in theatrical offerings.

The Syndicate’s dual role as both a monopolist and a monopsonist solidified its control over the American theater industry for over a decade. This dominance allowed it to prioritize profits, leading to the commercialization of the theater and a decline in artistic experimentation. This system ultimately benefited the Syndicate members at the expense of playwrights, producers, theater owners, and audiences alike.

Coming next: Criticism of and Resistance to the Syndicate, and the Connection to Today’s Theater

Recap

During the first 75 years of theater in America:

• Companies were independent, semi-permanent, self-contained units;
• They were managed by the leading actor, who chose the plays that were done, when and how long they would be done, and who in the company would play the roles;
• Company members were paid a share of the profits;
• They played standard English fare, especially Shakespeare, in rotating repertoire;
• The theater building was either owned by the company, or were leased long-term;
• The company played in a particular community, but would go on short tours each year; actors in stock companies normally led stable, settled lives and enjoyed working conditions comparable to workers in other fields;
• By the 1820s, a star actor from Europe or, eventually, America would come to town and perform plays with the resident company members before moving on to another town. This practice, known as the “star system,” was the first step toward the dissolution of the resident theater companies.

Canals and Railroads

Touring stars (and anyone else, for that matter) in the first half of the 19th century had a tough go. Wikipedia: “For the common person in the early 1800s, transportation was often traveled by horse or stagecoach. The network of trails along which coaches navigated were riddled with ditches, potholes, and stones. This made travel fairly uncomfortable. Adding to injury, coaches were cramped with little leg room.” The fact that actors would regularly come from Europe to tour under these conditions is an indication of how lucrative it could be. As the popularity of touring stars increased, so did ticket prices, and so did the amount that was demanded by the star. Eventually, the amount paid to the stars became so great that the resident company was taking a loss to bring them in.

Not only was the touring star receiving a larger and larger cut of the box office receipts, but the conditions of travel were vastly improved as the railroad system began to be built out. Wikipedia (again): “Travel by train offered a new style. Locomotives proved themselves a smooth, headache free ride with plenty of room to move around. Some passenger trains offered meals in the spacious dining car followed by a good night sleep in the private sleeping quarters.” This allowed the touring star to bring along a second actor to play opposite them, with the actors of the stock company becoming supporting players at best.

Still, it took many years for the railway to be built out. In 1850, only 9000 miles of track had been laid in the nation; by the end of the Civil War, there was over 52,000 miles, and in 1869 the transcontinental railroad was completed. That, as well as stronger and faster trains, made a coast-to-coast tour a possibility. (Do you see why 1870 ends up being an important year?)

The trains connected the major cities across the country, but while train speed had increased from its starting point of 15-20 mph, the distance between cities was large enough that it was financially beneficial to stop in small towns between the cities to do one performance to make some money–and thus the birth of the one-night stand. (This is important to remember when we start talking about how the Theatrical Syndicate took over the road starting in 1896.)

[This, by the way, is a good example of how theater took advantage of technological change, contra Baumol and Bowen and their “cost disease” argument outlined well by Michael Rushton. The same will be true of film, radio, and television in the future, all of which provide new outlets for theater skills. To see these new media as competition rather than an extension of theater is, in my opinion, a mistake. They are not “the same” as theater, but rather separate outlets for theater artists.]

So obviously the railroads provided new opportunities for touring, but canals???

The Erie Canal

The Erie Canal was completed in 1825 and was the first waterway to connect the Hudson River to the Great Lakes and, according to Wikipedia (my go to information source), “vastly reduc[ed] the costs of transporting people and goods across the Appalachians. The Erie Canal accelerated the settlement of the Great Lakes region, the westward expansion of the United States, and the economic ascendancy of New York state.”

At the same time, the number of immigrants to the US began to soar, and because of the Erie Canal, New York City suddenly found itself the main port of entry for goods being shipped across the country and for people migrating from Europe. As a result, New York became a boom town and population increased very quickly:

• 1820: 123,706
• 1830: 202,589
• 1840: 312,710
• 1850: 515,547
• 1860: 813,669
• 1870: 942,292

The increase in New York’s population led to a surge in demand for entertainment, and so the number of theater companies increased, most of which were initially run on the resident stock model. But soon this began to change. As noted in part 2 of this series, as more and more stars began to tour, local stock company actors began played second fiddle to the stars, and the opportunity to develop one’s career became more difficult. Thus, many of the most ambitious actors headed to New York City to join existing companies, or form their own.

Audiences began to demand a steady stream of stars, and as a result the actor/manager’s job began to change: their primary responsibility became making contractual arrangements with the stars’s representatives in New York. Nevertheless, even as stars began to gain greater control, the actor/managers still retained decision-making power over their seasons, and their success relied on their understanding of the tastes of their local audience. They also continued to own their own theaters. The balance of power, however, was starting to tilt toward the stars.

By 1852, when the population of New York City topped half a million people, an important new wrinkle appeared in theater’s business model: the long run. Prior to this, audience demand for a specific play rarely was strong enough to justify a long run–in 1844, for instance, the temperance play The Drunkard ran for 140 successive nights in Boston and 198 nights in New York. But it was not until 1852 that “the long run was generally recognized as the formula for Broadway success.” The play that made that happen? Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which ran for 100 performances in Troy, NY where it opened, and then transferred to New York City where it ran for 300 more performances. (Who says political plays can’t be popular?) “By the end of the 1850s,” writes Christopher Bigsby in volume 2 of The Cambridge History of American Theatre, “the phenomenon popularized by these two productions had become established practice for managers seeking maximum profits from their investments.” [italics added for reference in later posts]

Touring these productions in the usual way, however, posed a problem. Because a hit new play on Broadway could stay in one theater for a long run, elaborate spectacle became increasingly common (does this sound familiar?), which posed problems for touring to theaters that lacked the stage and wing space, and the budgets, necessary to accommodate the production. Consequently, the stock settings of the resident companies could not be used, making it impossible for the leading actor or two to follow up their Broadway run with a tour of the country.

All of these problems were solved when the train system made it possible to take an entire production–cast, scenery, costumes, and all–on the road. This was the birth of the Combination Company, which we’ll discuss next.

Yes, we’ve finally gotten to oft-promised and much-anticipated 1870!

I wrote this in 2008, and it still is true today:

From Daniel Quinn’s deceptively simple and inspiring Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure:

The river I mentioned earlier is the river of vision. Our culture’s river of vision is carrying us toward catastrophe. Sticks planted in the mud may impede the flow of the river, but we don’t need to impede its flow, we need to divert it into an entirely new channel. If our culture’s river of vision ever begins to carry us away from catastrophe and into a sustainable future, then programs will be superfluous. When the river’s flowing where you want it to flow, you don’t plant sticks to impede it.

Old minds think: How do we stop these bad things from happening? New minds think: How do we make things the way we want them to be?

No Programs at all?

Programs make it possible to look busy and purposeful while failing. If programs actually did the things people expect them to do, then human society would be heaven: law enforcement would work, our justice systems would work, our penal systems would work, and so on.

When programs fail (as they invariably do), this is blamed on things like poor design, lack of funds and staff, bad management, and inadequate training. When programs fail, look for them to be replaced by new ones with improved design, increased funding and staff, superior management, and better training. When these new programs fail (as they invariably do), this is blamed on poor design, lack of funds and staff, bad management, and inadequate training.

This is why we spend more and more on our failures every year. Most people accept this willingly enough, because they know they’re getting more every year: bigger budgets, more laws, more police, more prisons – more of everything that didn’t work last year or the year before that or the year before that.

Old minds think: If it didn’t work last year, let’s do MORE of it this year. New minds think: If it didn’t work last year, let’s do something ELSE this year. (p 8-9)

I’m trying, as best as I can, to think of something else. To not come up with a new program – more government funding, more foundation support, better marketing, higher wages – but a new vision of things the way we want them to be. Or at least, the way I and a few others who are following this blog want them to be. But let’s be clear: if you’re happy where you are, and you’re happy doing what you do the way you do it, then by all means keep doing it. Don’t mind me. This blog does not exist to make you feel guilty, or foolish, or craven, or misguided because you are following a more traditional path.

But if the way things were done last year didn’t work for you, then let’s try to do something else this year. I’m piecing together my intellectual Legos one way; there are many, many other ways they snap together. I can’t guarantee I have found The Way. Hell, I’m still trying to determine through the mist of my imagination and knowledge what my way is!

My latest weekly newsletter in which I talk about Brown’s elimination of the MFAs in Acting and Directing (apparently, the highly-regarded playwriting program emerged unscathed), Trump’s turning the NEA into a military marching band, and a dream about the 5 types of stories in the world (I only remember 2).