Earlier this month, I wrote about the apparent lack of actor-managers in today's theatre culture. It was good to learn from the various people who responded that there are more of these types around than I had suspected. But it does seem that performers are often alienated from the process by which much of their work is created.
Scott Walters draws attention to a post on this subject by Tony Adams. Adams argues that there is a perceived hostility between those full-time administrators running theatres on a day-to-day basis and the actors who occasionally get a chance to perform in them. To back this up, he cites a blog by administrator Adam Thurman, who says, "It seems like the current trend in the theatre world is to make that term 'arts administrator' a dirty phrase."
Adams' response to all this is that the divide between artist and administrator needs to be torn down, and that artists need to take over the jobs backstage. "Hiring artists as staff is not only sensible, it is logical. Employees who have a sense of ownership of their company almost always outperform those who are just there for the money. Artists who have a sense of ownership of their company almost always outperform those who are just there for the money."
Parabasis has a slightly different approach to the problems faced by actors. He makes the fairly obvious point that it is very difficult to make any kind of a living as an actor, and that this constant struggle makes it harder to produce good work. But he goes on to argue that many performers make things worse by internalising "this state of affairs in a kind of Panglossian way".
This, he says, has four effects: "The first is an antipathy towards the business side of making the art and especially towards those who are good at the business end, and those (aka development folk) who make it their business to be good at the business end so that art can be made ... Next is the glamorization of the difficulty of making a life in the theatre. Third is the dismissing of protestations about the living and working conditions of theatre artists as whiners looking for handouts. Finally, and this is the justification under which most of the non-profit world functions w/r/t its employees on all levels, is the idea that if you love doing something, it's okay not to adequately compensate you for doing it." He goes on to outline how this mindset can be altered.
In a related post, Karl Miller makes the case for performers becoming a more valued part of the creative process itself. Miller is an actor and screenwriter and he asks why it is that people like David Mamet or Edward Albee often deride actors as being only interpretative rather than creative artists. Miller points out that the script is the only part of the creative process that can be "mass-produced and disseminated with perfect fidelity". Because of this, it is the actors in each different production who make that show unique and keep the script relevant to the community and time within which it is being performed. As a result, he says, "It is therefore foolish and insulting to relegate the actor to the status of 'watchable' meat-puppet when a true understanding of their primacy only expands what is possible in dramatic literature and dramatic performance."
But perhaps we should return to Scott Walters for the final word on the attitude that actors need to develop. Responding to a question posed by Praxis theatre ("Any tips for recent theatre school graduates who are looking for work in the theatre sector?") , he writes: "Take control of your career, don't let others control it. Develop your own artistic vision. Remember: there is no plan. If you want to hear the gods laugh, make a plan."
