J. Michael Miller
The Actors Center Journal Vol. 2, No. 4, November 2010
Founder’s Page
On January 15 and 16, 2011, at 10am, we will convene the Third National Congress of Actors in an effort to change current practices and the prevailing culture of our not for profit theatres. At our first Congress, the question was the “Role of the Actor in this Society.” Our second Congress addressed the “Distancing of the Actor from the American Theatre.” This third Congress will address a practical proposal to restore “Major Acting Companies to our Major Nonprofit Theatres.” There is a sense of urgency in this effort. A growing sense that we are fast losing any hope of realizing a promise made to us over forty years ago, namely that we would be part of a generation of actors in a theatre that was a cherished staple and cultural force in this society. It would be set apart from the entertainment industry, both in practice and in purpose, and we would need to devote ourselves to different standards and purposes if we were to serve the artistic aims and cultural values of that theatre. WELL??? Where have you gone, Red Ryder? There was such a brave start, but has anyone seen that theatre lately?
Last week, I received the following note from a member of our Workshop Company, in response to our proposal:
“Michael, nice to hear from you, and I hope your dream becomes a reality. My husband (Boyd Gaines) and I did a production together last year at the George Street Playhouse, and it was sobering to realize that wages had not only not increased in most regional theatres in 30 years, but in some cases we were making less than what we made when we graduated from Juilliard. Different decades mind you, but the wage increases for both of us is far from keeping up with inflation. Boyd has had the rare opportunity to occasionally make a living wage on Broadway, but that job ends and then he is out of work and the next job has him back in an off Broadway theater or at one of our lovely institutional theatres making a pittance. We would never survive without voice overs, commercials, and the occasional guest spot or film gig, and we would certainly not have been able to provide consistent health care for our child. While I most certainly don’t think that being an actor should demand that you give up having a family, in many cases when you choose to have family it is the acting career that is sacrificed. Or like so many of my friends, they are forced to move to LA where the theatre is nonexistent, but there are lucrative pay opportunities. My friends didn’t want to give up their theatrical lives, but it was either, stay poor and struggle to raise their families on theatre pay, or move. I weep at the talent we have lost because of the sheer economic realities of the theater. This includes the playwrights that write one successful play and never develop a body of work because Hollywood money lures them away. We need both the actor and the playwright to stay in the theater for it to remain vital. Best Kathleen McNenny”
That letter is not really about wages. It is really about the theatre and the society in which it is housed. It’s about a promise made to a citizen, a young woman, at the time, who has dedicated her self and her life’s work and her family’s welfare to a cultural cause that has betrayed her and her generation. Who betrayed them? Probably all of us to one extent or another. Who benefits? Not one of us in this society. Why did it happen? Because there is no singular sense of vision in a pluralistic society. No matter how hard we try, it is still every man and woman for his self or she for herself, and most noble efforts on behalf of efforts on behalf of mankind somehow fizzle out. In the late sixties and very early seventies, when Boyd and later Kathleen were at Juilliard preparing for a life time’s dedication to the theatre, there were role models across America. They were preparing to join major acting companies: Arena Stage in Washington DC, The Lincoln Center Theater, the Association of Producing Artists in Ann Arbor, The Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. All had magnificent acting companies doing great work. Major actor training schools were designed to train particularly gifted young people for a place in those companies. But as that was happening, the people who led those wonderful companies began to disband them. One of the first to form a “permanent company,” Arena Stage was the last to give up its company, but one by one they all disappeared. The then leaders of the non-profit theatres in America basically said we wish only to engage actors when and if we need them, and we do not need them for full seasons. By the late 1970′s, the large majority of actors in America were placed in the category of migrant labor. Just like the commercial theatre. Just like Broadway. Just back to the very situation that led to creating the not for profit, tax exempt theatre in the first place. You would think we would learn. Not in this case. We chose not to understand that live actors of exceptional skill enacting timeless stories are essential to our understanding of ourselves. Live actors of exceptional skill and the courage to share their visceral responses to the human dilemma in a relatively intimate space with an audience that feels a need to be there? If we had the wit to truly believe in that kind of theatre, in that possibility of human exchange, we would support it, and those with the gift to provide it. But there are only a precious few of who have those skills, and fewer and fewer of us who appreciate them. That is why this Congress is important.
In outlining our proposal for four National Companies, the response from most actors I talk to is roughly, “Sounds like a good idea, but what do the theatres think?” Well we know what the theatres think. Most of us work there, or have and choose not to anymore. The theatres are there to do what we all know they should be doing, which is to support and present wonderful performances by highly accomplished artists. Our voice in the theatre needs to be heard. Our audiences need to know what is missing from our stages, if we are to get them back. I believe that responsibility has fallen to us, and I ask you all to join this call to arms, and LET OUR VOICES BE HEARD.
J Michael Miller 11/20/2010