Thinking Out Loud in Public

This post could be called “The Enshittifcation of Theater,” and so could the next one.

By 1870, all the pieces were in place to overthrow the resident stock companies across the nation:- a railroad system connecting many of the cities coast to coast;- a canal that connected travel from New York to the Great Lakes;- a large metropolis (New York City) at the head of both the train and canal system;- a burgeoning star system that was much in demand across the country.

As Christopher Bigsby wrote, “The advent of the combination company marked the theatre’s entrance into the modern, industrialized era.”

What is a combination company? If a resident stock company was an independent, self-sufficient, permanent company rooted in a single community and managed locally, a combination company was its opposite: a single production originating in New York City which, after its long run, loaded the entire production–full cast, scenery, costumes, props–onto a train to tour the country over the course of a year. Other than the replacement of trains with trucks and buses, little has changed over the past 150 years.

The collapse of the resident stock companies nationwide happened suddenly. Christopher Bigsby: “the transformation from a resident stock system to a traveling combination system was more in the nature of a rupture, an abrupt cultural shift or break, than it was a gradual evolution.”

As Jack Poggi wrote in Theatre in America: The Impact of Economic Forces, 1870-1967:

“In 1870 the traveling companies played only important cities and did not appear frequently enough to disrupt the local stock companies. But during the seventies they penetrated to the smaller towns, where the custom of the one-night stand developed, and they took up more and more time in the larger cities, where the usual run was a week. The local stock companies were gradually forced out of the theaters. In the season of 1871-72 there were fifty permanent stock companies in the larger cities; in 1880 there were only seven or eight. Even the oldest and most famous companies in the largest cities did not survive.”

At the same time, the number of combination companies touring the US exploded. Alfred Bernheim notes, “during the season of 1876-77 there were already, according to The New York Dramatic Mirror, nearly one hundred combination companies on the road. In the “Dates Ahead” list printed by this publication on December 11, 1886, 282 combination companies are listed.” Almost all of them originated from New York.

According to Jack Poggi, that production for the entire country became centralized isn’t surprising:

“It was easier for producers to cast their plays, rehearse their actors, prepare their scenery, and arrange their bookings in a single location. That New York should have become this center is not surprising either. Even under the stock system, it had been the leading theatrical city since 1830. It had more theaters than any other city, and it had a large population that was growing at a faster rate than the total population of the country.”

Of course, the collapse of the stock companies put thousands of actors out of work, forcing them to pack up their lives and move to New York City if they wanted to continue their career. ¹

And while that was bad enough, it was that they were required to live their lives on the road that was particularly galling. It only took a few years of this life before actors were outraged about the toll this was taking on their personal lives, so much so that, in January 1880, the New York Dramatic Mirror felt the need to weigh in with an “Editorial in Support of the Combination System.” He writes:

“There is very little truth in the oft-reiterated statement that the “combination” system is not conducive to the actors benefit, that it is the means of severing his family ties and home associations, and that it reduces him, in short, to the levelof a genteel tramp. The actor has been a bird of passage since the earliest days of the acting drama. His existence is migratory: the very name of player is associated distinctively with the wandering habits of a bohemian. Your professional bears the objections of the combination in mind when he accepts the life of a nomad. He does not complain of the detriments which are inseparably connected with the stroller’s vocation: he does not lament the stern fact that the figurative berth he has chosen is not a bed of roses, teeming with the delights and comforts of an Arcadia: he knows that the path he has selected is to be the scene of an unflinching, prosaic struggle for bread and butter-a struggle in which a sentimentallove of art is generally made subservient to the puzzling questions of unromantic profit or how to make both ends meet.”

Dear Reader, now is the time that I need you to remember everything you’ve learned in this history so far. Need I point out that this anonymous editorial writer’s grasp of theater history overall is superficial at best–one need only point at the many, many important permanent companies throughout theater history, such as Shakespeare’s King’s Men or Moliere’s company’s residence in the Palais-Royal to destroy this strawman regarding vagabondage. But his willful failure to acknowledge how theater was done just ten years before throughout his own country is breathtakingly shameless.

I would remind you that actors, working within the resident stock system, “normally led stable, settled lives and enjoyed working conditions comparable to workers in other fields.” (Bigsby) This is a rewriting of history by someone who has skin in the game–this is, after all, the New York Dramatic Mirror, a newspaper that was benefitting greatly from the centralization theater in its own city.

Pardon my outrage, but this editorial pushes all my buttons. It bandies about many of the same arguments still being used today to shut down reasonable complaints concerning the abominable pay and working conditions of theater artists today: “you knew what the theater is like–nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to go into the theater. You chose it. It’s always been a tough life. So either quit complaining or do something else.”

And while actors saw an enormous change in the way their professional lives had to be conducted, if anything the lives of the actor/managers were disrupted even more. Remember that, prior to the emergence of the combination company, the managers of resident stock companies were leading artists who owned the theater buildings themselves and made all the decisions regarding what plays would be done by the resident company.

Suddenly, everything changed. Poggi:

“Under the combination system the functions of producing and housing plays were split: the local managers remained in control of the theater buildings, but all the producing was done in New York. The job of managing a playhouse became very much like that of managing any other piece of real estate, and those managers who retained an interest in the art of the theater gradually gave up their jobs.”

In other words, as Douglas McDermott writes, there was a “gradual shift in control of the theatre from those who were artists or who were motivated by a love of the art, to those who were not artists and who were motivated solely by profit.”

What a horrific sentence that is. This is the birth of “show biz,” to which we owe the abysmal nature of today’s commercial theater.

With the artists disempowered and the theaters bought up by real estate men, the situation was ripe for abuse. Our next, and final, article about the destruction of the rooted stage, will describe the birth of the Theatrical Syndicate in 1896, when our current centralized, commercialized theater was locked in.

“The change I am talking about appeals to me precisely because it need not wait upon “other people.” Anyone who wants to do so can begin it in himself and in his household as soon as he is ready-by becoming answerable to at least some of his own needs, by acquiring skills and tools, by learning what his real needs are, by refusing the glamorous and the frivolous. When a person learns to act on his own best hopes he enfranchises and validates them as no government or policy ever will. And by his action the possibility that other people will do the same is made a likelihood.”

Wendell Berry by Jason Peters

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 poetry is basically a poetry of praise. It’s an affirmation of the world, of the beauty of the world, and, at the same time, it’s a protest against cruelty. I cannot accept the cruelty of the world … “

— Czeslaw Milosz

When i largely disconnected from social media, I remembered what it was like to have only my own thoughts to entertain myself. It was the main reason I started reading so much – to make me more interesting to myself!

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).

Dear Programmer types (e.g., @manton (although you shouldn’t reply–you have enough with answering micro.blog questions), @mtt, @amerpie, who am I missing…): I need some help. Here is what I’m trying to do. I use a nearby academic library to get many books for my research. Many of them have very small print for my aged eyes, so I bought a CZUR scanner and I scan them and convert them to epub to read on my tablet. It mostly works very well. However, when I export the scanned document as txt, all of the formatting is stripped out, which is particularly troublesome for things like footnotes, sections headings, etc. I’m trying to figure out if there is a way to convert a document to epub and maintain the formatting.

The export options I have from the CZUR are: Word, pdf, searchable pdf, TIFF, txt.

I’ve tried formatting in .md and then converting to .epub, but what I get is markdown syntax **word** rather than the formatting. If I buy the ebook, the formatting is there, so it must be possible. (So why don’t I buy an ebook version? Because academic publishers are pirates who charge exhorbitant amounts for their books and I’m on a fixed income.)

Any suggestions?

I just made the mistake of checking in on Threads. Good God, it’s just one person after another hyperventilating. I was never so glad to get back to micro.blog as now.

playbill.com/article/b…

Brown and Trinity Rep shutting down MFA in Acting and Directing.

Let me take this opportunity to plug my book DIY Theater MFA.