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>> This is being simulcast to Petaluma.
There's some technology things that they had to do,
and when they asked me, "Do I need a mic?"
I'm like, "I'm in theatre; I don't need a mic."
And they're like, "Can they hear you all the way in Petaluma?"
I'm like, "I need a mic."
So it's a -- it's ironic since my presentation's
on live theatre and here I am shackled by technology.
Just sayin'.
Saying that, now my technology's going to fail.
That's okay.
Alright. The Case for Live Theatre in the Digital World.
The 21st century.
Theatre has been described as the fabulous --
I love that term, fabulous -- invalid.
It was credited to George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart in 1938
and it had already been by that --
in 1938, Broadway was always being predicted
as this theatre thing that's just not going to last.
Not in the face of this new entertainment form,
the flickers, the movies.
The artform was already a decaying diva,
outliving its role in society and the interest of the masses.
Theatres were being turned into movie palaces.
There was vaudeville and musicals being replaced
by these new -- new movie theatres.
So with theatre's natural habitat being turned
over to this new entertainment, how could it possibly survive?
And yet it has.
At the end of the 20th century, despite the birth
of the talkies, color film, Panavision, Smell-O-Vision --
yes, there was Smell-O-Vision -- 3D movies, drive-in theatres,
giant floor-to-ceiling giant IMAX presentations, cineplexes,
not to mention TV and video,
live theatre continued to draw audiences.
And much to the chagrin of my parents, this artform
that would not die continued to attract,
appeal to passionate students of the artform, practitioners
of the artform, and many in this audience are attests to that
because you're students of this artform even to today.
Maybe to the chagrin of your parents, too.
As a kid, I wrote and directed my own plays all the time.
I even coerced my little brother
to wear my Mary Jane patent leather shoes because they kind
of looked like tap shoes and we would put on songs and dances
for my -- not only my friends, but our neighbors, our families.
I made up words to songs and put on shows.
They were kind enough to watch.
Later in middle school, I wrote plays to perform
for the local elementary schools.
In high school, I just kept acting, putting on plays.
But I will say this.
I was a full-fledged, straight-up child
of the television era.
I was not -- my parents did not take me to theatre.
I was not denied the entertainment value
of three channels.
You know, I can tell you all episodes of Star Trek,
Gilligan's Island, Hogan's Heroes, Wild Wild West.
I mean, I was a TV child, so it wasn't like I was brought
up on theatre as my formal entertainment.
I was a TV kid, but I still did theatre.
You know, and it wasn't until I went to college,
University of Washington, and I was getting a degree in theatre
that somebody came up to me
and asked me what my major was and I said theatre.
And that was the first time I got that look.
Some of my colleagues, you know this look.
The look and that kind of little laugh, like, "Oh, great.
No, what are you really going to do?"
And I was like, "Duh, theatre.
I'm going to do theatre."
I hadn't -- somehow I did not get the memo
about the fabulous demise, you know, of this --
this artform that I was studying.
That was 30 -- 30-some years ago and I've been doing theatre,
live theatre, ever since, community theatre,
professional equity theatre, college theatre, conservatories,
Salinas to Seattle, glamourous.
I'm a West Coast girl; it's where I live.
Teaching theatre in England and Italy, traveling all
over and seeing theatre.
And so for this -- this invalid artform, supposedly,
it's still getting around quite a bit.
But now -- duh, duh, duh.
21st century, the digital era.
Has live theatre finally, finally met its match?
The threats.
The threat, as identified by Craig Lambert
in the Harvard Magazine, 2012.
The electronic and digital technologies have spawned an
array of media from 3D movies to crowdsource videos
like YouTube to smartphones.
The idea of entertainment cheap and on-demand, any time,
any place, Wi-Fi maybe, but that's starting to improve.
Any time I want, I can have entertainment.
And cheap.
The same article states this statistic: in 2009-2010,
the average age of the Broadway theatre audience was 48.
And that was 2009-2010.
I think they've aged since then.
Add to that the cost of doing live theatre.
That's not a new threat, so I don't list it.
It's always been expensive.
It's even more expensive now because the cost
of living has gone up and those pesky actors,
as opposed to avatars, we eat,
we need healthcare, we need housing.
Real estate has gone up.
Cost of equipment has gone up.
So the cost of doing live theatre goes up.
And ticket prices, oh, yes, going up.
How can the theatre compete with that?
Dr. Kevin Brown, Assistant Professor at the University
of Missouri in Theatre at Columbia,
in a recent Theatre Communications Guild National
Conference, came up with the top 10 reasons why theatre is still
important in the 21st century.
It's a good list.
But I felt it was too broad.
And many of his reasons generally apply to all
of the arts, not specifically live theatre.
So I'm not here to plead the case
for why theatre is important.
That's a different lecture and it's discussed in many places.
And I'm not even here to discuss why I think it should be a
mandatory part of every well-rounded education,
though I'd be happy to do so at another Arts in Lecture series.
I'm not going to expound on what the benefits of live theatre are
to the health of the individual
or in the creation of a united society.
Aristotle made that argument 300 -- 335 B.C.E. with his treatise
on drama catharsis and the important of mimesis.
But my assertion is that live theatre will survive.
And while my colleague, Dr. Brown, makes his case
in 10, I will do it in five.
See? Five.
In the beginning, there are definitions.
So when I'm talking about theatre --
and there's lots of definitions.
This is the one I'm picking today.
An artform which communicates stories
through live actors performing in front of live audiences.
Does theatre always have to be story-based?
Do we have to have your basic linear plot structure?
No, no we don't.
So I'm using that term "stories" a bit broadly.
I also make the assertion that theatre is global
and it is a timeless artform.
This artform has been around despite wars, regime changes,
cultural changes, new religions,
old religions, and still continues.
We'll just take a quick little theatre history tour here.
Every continent, every culture, some kind of theatre.
Reason No.
1. We as human beings, we love rituals and ceremonies.
We just do.
We have embedded them.
And I saw "we" in the global universal we.
We as human animals have embedded rituals and ceremonies
into every part of our life, birth to death, soup to nuts,
we've got rituals and ceremonies.
And these rituals and ceremonies are full of theatrical elements.
Costumes, dialogue, special effects.
Costumes, dialogue, choreography.
Again, certain songs, food.
I think food and theatre should be better acquainted,
but that's a different lecture.
The idea of the roles people play in these ceremonies,
highly theatrical, costumes, roles, dialogue, choreography.
You even have a director,
although in that case it's a wedding planner.
Props. Audience participation.
In fact, we attend rituals and ceremonies
and expect those theatrical elements
and when we don't see them we get a little bit
secretly unnerved.
When we go to that graduation ceremony or that wedding
and there aren't the expected costumes and dialogue
and there's something changed in those theatrical elements
or missing, we feel something lacking in that ceremony.
So same with theatre.
When we go to the theatre,
in addition to all the familiar theatrical elements,
there are little informal rituals.
The ritual of where you sit.
If you're a season subscriber,
they get actually quite adamant about their seat.
"This is my seat; I always sit here.
I always sit in this row."
Some people are superstitious and they're like,
"I have to have this number.
I got to sit at this number."
And if you change that up, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm.
And there are some people who,
in a more festival seating situation, are like,
"I always like to sit center of the house.
I always like to sit here."
Or there, or next to this person.
That's a ritual.
That's part of the ritual of seeing theatre.
What you expect from concessions,
that's a little ritual.
Is it just going to be cookies?
What do you mean no coffee?
There's always coffee at theater inter, you know, intermissions.
That's part of the ritual of seeing theatre.
Another informal ritual people engage
in before the theatre, where do we eat.
What kind of -- what kind restaurant we go to.
Or where you go after you see the play.
That's a little ritual.
Where do we go for drinks, where do we go for desert,
that's part of that ritual.
Also, how we respond at the end of the play, that's a ritual.
Some of these rituals
and conventions have changed over time.
The idea of no food in the theatre, that is changing.
That is different in different cultures.
How long a play is has changed.
The kind of seating versus standing in the pit.
Some of these rituals have changed over time.
Social media, the use of social media while you're watching a
play, that is also changing.
As technology and time is changing,
our rituals in theatre are also changing.
But we human beings, we just love to create rituals.
We do. And these rituals are always full of theatre.
No. 2. We humans, we love to hear and tell stories.
As chill -- as children we hear and tell stories.
Children make up stories naturally.
Just on their own they make up stories, without our influence,
creating characters and they create dialogue and action.
Picking up rocks and sticks and creating characters
that are fighting each other.
Or LEGOS. We tell stories.
We humans, we tell stories about everything.
We tell stories about creation and the universe
and how plants come to be.
About big things, but also the little things.
We tell stories about how that vase got broken
by the cat despite the fact my brother
and I were throwing pillows in the living room,
but that was not our fault.
That was the cat.
That's a story.
You have told stories.
You all have told stories.
We continue to tell stories, too.
How'd your day go?
Well -- and now I tell a story.
As adults, as adults, we hunger for stories,
narratives that explain our world and the actions,
the actions of other human being
and why they do what they do to each other.
We ask for stories to explain why things happened.
And we get very upset, emotionally, spiritually,
intellectually when those stories are not forthcoming
right away.
When people won't tell us those stories, then we create our own,
and sometimes those stories are noble
and sometimes they are full of fear.
We, like our childlike selves, we create stories
where there aren't even stories to be had.
We invent them.
My apologies to the artists in the crowd who love abstract art.
I am not quite as enlightened and woke as you might be,
but I go to modern art museums and I look
at that blank portrait, blank picture,
sculpture of a thing, and I create a story.
And I look at the title as a clue
for what's the story behind this picture.
What is -- what's going on in here?
We look at that empty blue canvas --
it's not empty; it's blue.
So it's a blue canvas and you hear people talk
about that canvas and go, oh, okay, I know what the story is.
It's -- it's about the vastness of the celestial spirit.
I see in that blue canvas a depth of -- of the ocean and --
we're creating stories.
It's a blue canvas.
It's blue; it's a canvas that's blue.
But we want there to be a story,
and if there's not one readily available,
I'm going to create the story.
And then we think ourselves very clever when we do, like, oh,
I figured that story out.
I know it.
Most of all, we love stories to be told
to us by other live humans.
Live humans performing for live humans.
Theatre, the original 3D entertainment.
A story I tell, and my colleagues, you know this story
because you've probably told it, too, so I did not make it up.
Apologies to the anthropologists and to the crowd here.
Involves what I believe and others believe
to be the first theatrical performance way back in ancient,
ancient, ancient caveman times.
Og comes back from the mammoth hunt
and all his tribe are sitting around, eagerly watching him,
and he proceeds to act out this great mammoth hunt,
playing both parts himself, the hunter and the mammoth,
making sounds and gestures,
retelling the story while his tribe eagerly watch.
At the same time, the first theatre critic is born.
As Oog is watching front row center, he leans over and says,
"That's not a very believable mammoth.
They're bigger and louder than that.
That's not believable."
A more recent and more scientific evidence comes
from a 2007 study out of Florida State.
The study, so fascinating, was on the effect of live
versus recorded music on non-responsive patients
in the Hospice setting as evidenced by physiological
and behavioral states.
It was noted that there was a significant
and quantifiable increase in patient alertness
and physical responses when the same piece
of music was performed by live musicians over that same piece
of music played via recording.
The result was duplicated using human voice recordings
of readings and singing compared
to a live human reading and singing.
It was tested in a variety of settings
from neonatal intensive care units,
clinics for the mentally disabled,
those with dementia and cancer patients.
The same test was recreated over and over and over again.
Each time, patients responded more positively
when the stimuli was provided by an actual living human being.
Another explanation for our attraction to watching
and listening to other human beings can be found in the work
of a Yale cognitive scientist, Dr. Lori Santos.
She did a TEDx Broadway talk about why humans love theatre.
And in it, she mentions the concept of mental contagion,
which sounds kind of scary.
Or the creation of empathy for fictional characters,
the taking on of their emotions as our own.
This concept also circles back again
to Aristotle regarding the role of imitation or mimesis
and catharsis, the idea
of seeing a noble character struggling, suffering,
and that we are united in that suffering.
We are hardwired from birth to imitate.
It's how we practice being humans.
Lastly in regards to the continued draw of live 3D
over digital, I submit my very own presence in front of you.
After all, it's not the Arts in Lecture film series, is it?
It's you and me in the same space, breathing, coughing,
making mistakes together.
Me talking, you listening.
You thinking about what I'm saying, me hearing you think.
Yes, I do hear you think.
No. 4. Live theatre is live.
It's dangerous and unexpected.
There's no rating system, yet, to tell you about the content
when you go see live theatre.
We do our best.
We've been doing more here at the JC of saying, well,
you might want to consider 14 and above or 12 and above.
But still, even that, you don't know.
You don't 100% know what you're going to get
when you go see a live theatre show.
There's no editing.
There's no filters or safety nets.
Actors, you know this.
We the audience, you the audience, me the audience.
When I see it, we hear and see the good,
the bad, the uncomfortable.
No matter how many days or weeks or months a group
of actors have rehearsed, once the lights go up,
the curtain opens, and all bets are off.
Unlike the film director, who can go in and fix that shot,
fix that line, cut that moment out in post-production,
the theatre director, I'm helpless.
That's so hard.
That is so hard.
I'm helpless.
Once that curtain goes up and the lights go up,
the audience sees what they see no matter what I've directed
those actors to do.
The actors, the audience, the crew,
we're all experiencing the same thing in real time together.
I do know some directors who leave the building
or leave the theatre because they can't watch it.
Some [inaudible] experience it.
I'm not one of them; I do stay
because I want to be a part of that.
I will suffer through with everyone else
and watch whatever mistakes happen,
whatever triumphs happen, I'm sharing that.
But we all know that that performance,
that moment on stage is transitory, it's unique.
It won't be the same tomorrow night,
the next night, the next day.
That's exciting, and we all know it.
We all know we're seeing something that's happening right
now and only know and it'll never be that now again.
Actors are trained to cover all mistakes --
looking at my 10A students -- so the audience doesn't notice.
But audiences, we do notice.
Sometimes we're aware that a mistake could happen
at any minute, that dropped line,
that prop that's not there, that piece of scenery
that doesn't quite work, the door that doesn't open,
the stuttered line, that costume malfunction.
And secretly there's a part of us, well, maybe just me,
that kind of wants to see that to remind me.
We're so used to seeing that packaged perfection
of entertainment on the screen
that when I see live theatre there's a part of me,
if I'm honest, that wants to see that moment
that I go, no, this is live.
No matter how many times they've performed it
or how professional or Broadway they are.
I was in London some years back in the West End
and I was seeing a production of Wicked,
which they had been performing for years and years and years.
Professional cast performing Wicked for years and years
and years, and you're thinking this is pretty standard
for them.
What could possibly --
they must've ironed out every mistake.
They were dancing around with these puppets that had a drape
around them for the rest of the costume.
So you didn't see the actor; they were moving it with a pole
and you saw the head, but you never saw the actor underneath
because of this drape.
Well, at some point, and there's about seven or so
of these dancing heads, one actor steps on the drape
and pulls it off of the costume.
So here's this actor by himself.
There's seven other costumed.
He is now fully seen by the audience holding this stick,
the costume is now at his ankles, and he is in his boxers.
And he just kept dancing, doing the whole choreography,
moving along, and then finished the choreography
and kind of shuffled out.
And we loved him all the more.
We loved that show all the more for that.
And it -- I don't think people in the audience were going,
"Well, I paid for this production
and it's not perfect."
I think a part of them went, "Yeah!"
The good, the bad, and the uncomfortable,
and that had to be uncomfortable.
But I also knew as a theatre artist
that that same actor was going to just pull
up his big boy pants and perform that same show tomorrow
and the next day and the next day and the next day.
Maybe something else was going to happen those days.
But it was.
It made that experience real and admirable.
Stage and screen actor John Lithgow describes it as a kind
of tremulous rigidity because anything can happen,
a kind of breathlessness.
There's not even a guarantee regarding absolute start
and end times with theatre.
There's no button that you push and go, "Okay,
this play's going now."
Lights could come up, but if the actors aren't there,
there's no play.
You never know.
We may hold the house.
Somebody may be sick.
Audiences, you're part of that production.
You're part of the live event.
If you're not all seated,
sometimes we don't start the show right away,
though I'm not encouraging lateness, by the way.
But the fact that your presence effects what you're going
to see.
Depending on the audience reaction,
the backstage crew efficiency, and the health of the actors
that night, that two-hour comedy may be an hour forty-five.
Somebody forgets a page of dialogue,
it becomes a much shorter play.
Or that two-hour comedy becomes two hours fifteen minutes
because the audience is laughing more.
The audience -- the actors have to hold.
Maybe there's some coughing in the audience.
Maybe they're applauding a lot and the actors are responding.
They're holding a bit so the show's going to go longer.
Unlike film or video, regardless of the reactions of the audience
that two-hour film's going to be two hours.
Two hours, five years from now,
10 years from now, 20 years from now.
It's still going to be a two-hour film.
Or a two-minute video clip.
They're set by celluloid and -- and digital time codes.
That's not going to change no matter what you do,
no matter how many times you boo Keanu Reeves.
Is this on?
Oh. Theatre audiences are unique in that I think, again,
I think there's a part of us we hope
for those little improv movements.
We hope for those little moments that surprise us.
And despite the complaints to the contrary
about some modernist interpretation of Romeo
and Juliet, theatre audiences are unique
because we want those surprises.
Even when they're stories we know and we've heard over
and over again, we hope that maybe that story's going
to have a little twist to it.
And this is what makes live theatre audiences different
than other performing arts audiences.
When you go generally to the symphony,
I don't think symphony audiences are expecting
that Vivaldi Concerto to suddenly for this time
to be played with steel drum and kazoo.
I think they might be a little disappointed.
Or for that audience who's expecting to see Swan Lake
to see the genders reversed or to see live swans somehow.
They -- they sort of expect what they came to see
and they want it done that way.
The other thing, too, with live concerts
and dance is you are structured with tempo.
The music is pretty much not going to change.
There's not going to be one day the conductor goes,
"You know what, I'm going to play that Bach piece much slower
because I just feel like it."
As for needing to compete with onscreen entertainment,
it's a fact that the image of a thing isn't as exciting
as seeing the thing in real life.
Despite the fact that there are 360-degree amazing H --
uber, uber HD virtual tours available of the Smithsonian
and the Louvre and, you know, the Duomo en Firenze.
Or Muir Woods.
That doesn't stop millions of people wanting
to endure the cost and the hassle and danger of travel
to come see it in real life.
A picture of a thing isn't as dangerous
as seeing the real thing in life.
I wasn't going to pull out a real gun.
[Laughter] But I could've.
Would've been the last thing I did here at SRJC, actually.
But everybody in theatre knows that, about a gun onstage.
It heightens everything.
Live theatre.
There are mountains of studies that conclude
that humans are a social species.
I don't have to prove that point.
We crave inclusion.
As a mother -- she's going to kill me.
As a mother of a 15-year-old, I walk that bumpy path with her,
finding where her people are, how do you fit in,
and despite access to Netflix, Amazon Prime, and the Internet,
and her iPod, which seems to be never out of her hand
or in this hand her phone, she still hungers.
I see her hunger to be a member of a group.
It's not enough to be friends on Facebook.
There is something more that needs to be fulfilled in her
and I think in all people.
She's not unique that way.
Being part of a theatre group
or theatre audience helps fulfill that.
We as human beings, we seek community and fellowship.
There are community theatres all
over the country celebrating local community actors,
directors, writers, designers, theatres primarily run
by community volunteers.
And the residents of the towns and cities
that have these community theatres have great pride
in attending their local community theatre.
Many of these theatres have been producing plays
for almost a half a century.
Despite still film and TV, people are getting
out of their houses and going
and watching their local community theatre.
Where are the community film production companies?
Or the local community volunteer-run movie theatres?
To be in community with other human beings
and share experiences.
Diane Paulus, Artistic Director
of the American Repertory Theatre,
found that younger audience members want to socialize
in the presence of others.
This is bizarre to me, but interesting.
Like being -- it's kind of like in the Elizabethan period, yes,
you could sit up in the balcony, sure, and the galleries and sit
up there and watch the play, but there's something fun, exciting,
thrilling about hanging out in the mosh pit
with the penny groundlings watching that Shakespeare play.
There's something visceral about it.
Or being part of that 14,000 spectators eating, drinking,
laughing, holding their breath in the theatre of Dionysus,
watching Oedipus Rex struggle.
There's something exciting about being part
of that big group seeing the same thing together,
reacting together.
Humans, people, are desperate for experiences.
All the news and media, while it is stimulating
and it is convenient, doesn't
yet provide the shared experience feeling.
Healthy examples of this are found in destination theatres,
like Oregon Shakespeare Theatre up in Ashland.
Not an easy place to get to.
Not exactly convenient.
And yet despite -- in 2015, despite a year of forest fires,
flood, OSF, Oregon Shakespeare Festival,
claimed an annual attendance of 390,870,
drawing 85% of its audience from an average of 200 miles away.
People coming to see theatre, to see live theatre.
And after these many, many years, New York City continues
to be a destination theatre spot.
People not just coming to see the usual sites,
but they're actually coming, spending,
saving up to actually go to New York, an easier place to get to
but a costly place to be, to see theatre.
Still. Broadway has had a record year with 62% of the attendees
to theatre being from out of town.
These aren't just the local people in New York going, "Hey,
what should we go see?
Let's go downtown, see a show."
This is 62% of people coming
from other places filling those seats.
Yeah, apparently a lot of people still want to see this invalid.
I also find it interesting that the most popular,
or one of the most popular, shows currently on Broadway,
breaking all of the attendance records,
is also one of the least technologically advanced.
It has some special effects, but it's not really a whole lot
of bells and whistles.
It's actors, live human beings, tell the story
of another human being who died a long time ago being told
acting, singing, dancing in front of other human beings.
What's the No.
1 show?
I suspect there's also the reason --
that's the reason why so many mega churches have come
into existence.
This is another lecture, someone else can do it.
This digital age gives us a lot of entertainment;
it doesn't give us fellowship.
Many of you do theatre.
I have a lot of colleagues and students in the audience,
so I'm kind of preaching to the choir in some ways.
You already know the power of theatre to tell stories,
to inspire hearts, to present ideas and messages,
to create a united community out of an audience of strangers.
Then I end this lecture with a humble request.
In response to the current sociopolitical tensions,
concerns over the free exchange of ideas in an atmosphere
of divisiveness and fear, making many of us want
to withdraw from community.
I borrow from Kenny Leon, Artistic Director
of the True Colors Theatre Company in Atlanta, Georgia,
and he suggested, as do I, use this opportunity
to bring one new person to the theatre, to sit in the dark next
to a person who doesn't look like them or think like them,
and share our stories, human to human, each in the presence
of the other, laughing, shouting, singing, crying,
coughing, in real time together.
And then in the end, we all perform that ritual
of appreciation and closing.
We applaud.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
Questions?
And I will bring one up.
There was so much material that I could've put in that I didn't.
But one of the things that I really wanted to put
in is something that I struggled with, which is --
and I know that you have them here, too, at your theatre,
the broadcast of the National Theatre productions,
where it is live theatre being broadcast.
And I say this understanding the irony
that I'm being simulcast into Petaluma.
I'm not live there.
How did that affect the National Theatre?
How did that affect the audience?
What were their concerns
about broadcasting worldwide some of their plays?
Was that going to -- was that going
to affect their live audiences?
And it was a fascinating -- another TED Talk,
love TED Talks, with David Sabel,
who is their digital media person at the National,
and he was asked that exact same question.
He said, or he was asked, "Are you" --
were they concerned that this new broadcasting
of their plays was going to cannibalize their live audience.
And he said, "It hasn't.
In fact, it's done the opposite.
It's brought people to the National."
And he cites one specific show where they really studied this.
One Many, Two Governors had been running at the National
for some time and during their last performance of it
in the National Theatre, where it was originally produced --
they were going to move it to the West End later,
but this was the last performance at the National.
They did a simulcast broadcast for free.
They broadcast it at the Waterloo Bridge, giant screen,
free, anybody could see it, it was on TV.
And this was before the very successful UK tour,
the very successful continually running on West End
of this show, and before it came to Broadway.
So apparently here was a free broadcast of this play and
yet people were still going to see it.
More people wanted to see it live.
So they found that it has not affected their attendance
to the theatre, but in fact brought their theatre
to communities to wet that appetite of now I want
to be a part of that audience, I want to see it live.
[ Inaudible background speaker ]
Okay, and I don't mean to be glib with this.
I really do think food has something to do with it.
It's a lot easier.
People do moan the fact, "Well, back in the day --
" Plays used to be five acts, in fact.
You know, three-hour long plays.
Look at Shakespeare.
Shakespeare performed without any intermission.
They must have an amazing attention span.
Well, you're also being able to buy food during the show.
It was kind of like a baseball game.
There were people, "Oranges!
Mead! Turkey legs!"
That's very Ren Faire, but still,
you could eat and watch the show.
And in -- and we've --
I've talked about this in my multicultural class.
The idea in Asian theatre, it's tradition
to eat during -- in my seat.
And so we're not having to go, like go get snacks.
We can eat -- it's a whole event, right.
So I think food and theatre helps attention span,
because I know that's true with kids.
But despite the fact that we --
and I grew up with that half-hour TV show and
yet if you tell me a good story, I'll sit for a lot longer.
Anybody who's been a parent, you know this with your kid.
You can tell that 10-minute story or five-minute story
and hope -- short attention span.
They're kids, right.
Five-minute story and done.
No, tell me another.
No, tell me another.
And it's not because they don't want to go to bed,
although that's part of it.
they want to hear a story.
More story.
Tell me more stories.
Keep -- keep having fellowship with me.
Keep taking me to exotic interesting places.
I -- I think we are capable, and kids prove it over and over
and over again with their ability to listen to stories,
if you play a good story, they'll listen to it.
I think there are neurological studies going on now about,
you know, how -- how much information we can take
and how that's affecting our hardwiring.
Whether it is a five-minute play or a three-hour play
or a 10-hour play or a play that takes place all night long
through the night, if it's a good story with characters
and ideas and passion, it's still live theatre.
[ Inaudible background speaker ]
The experience.
We long for the experience.
Go ahead.
>> Yeah, thanks for your presentation.
And I agree with much of what you say and I think one
of the obstacles to continuing live theatre continues
to be cost.
So [inaudible] make theatre accessible.
We -- we, you know, support it that way.
But then if you want to go see Hamilton or you want
to go see some of the plays in New York or even going to --
[ Inaudible background speaker ]
>> I absolutely agree.
And I would -- boy, I wish I had that magic bullet.
I'd be a very -- I'd be a very in-demand person
if I knew the answer to that.
I think we can look -- like you say, there are a lot of models
out there of accessible theatre, making it part of --
part of the normal, I guess, rather than the exotic
or luxury experience of the, oh, well, I'm going to see one show.
It'll be on Mother's Day.
I'm going to take my mom.
I'm going to save up and we're going to go out to dinner
in San Francisco and we're going
to see Hamilton, and that's theatre.
I think some of it can be found in --
I bring up community theatre.
I'm starting to see a resurgence of that, of people involved
at a very ground community level of doing theatre.
Quality, I'm not going to debate that, but I think it's
that re-appreciation of theatre not just as a luxury item
for others but as something that is ownership,
something that I can do,
something that I'm interested in,
something that I can see locally.
And I think that's going to build up to support
of theatre more subsidized theatre as an important role
in -- it seems like more than ever we need
to practice being humans again and what humanity means.
And if theatre is that gymnasium where we need to practice that,
then hopefully others will see its importance
and start helping to fund that.
But I really don't have the magic bullet answer for that.
>> Ticket prices are higher in the United States
than they are anywhere else in the world, from what I've seen.
And I'm going to get on my soapbox for a minute,
but that's because except for the four years
of the Federal Theatre Project as part
of the New Deal [inaudible],
that's the only time the United States has ever had a
nationally-funded theatre
and we are the only industrialized nation
in the world that does not have a nationally-supported theatre.
Theatre is expensive.
It has always been supported.
The Greeks, it was an honor
to be the rich person who paid for the --
>> It was a civic duty.
It was like -- yeah.
>> Person who would pay for it.
[Inaudible] from the government to make it happen.
And if you don't have that, yes, you're going
to be paying that much to see it.
>> Yep. Yeah, and then theatre will always be considered
something -- a luxury item, a thing of the elite.
Yeah, the privileged get to see theatre instead
of seeing it as a human right.
>> I was just going to tack on to that, it seems to be --
and going back to your statistic about 61%
of out-of-towners going to New York [inaudible] and it seems
to tie together with the ticket prices being higher in America
than anywhere that somehow
or other the United States is very ego-dominated
and if the cache of going to Hamilton allows me some sort
of prestige in Clinton, Iowa, and I can go back and say,
"I went and I did this," it seems to be
that that is a driving force
that makes people feel that it's exclusive.
And because I can go, I fit in there.
And I'm wondering is the real desire
to experience the communal ritual that you spoke of a part
of that mentality or is it an externalized view that maybe
if I fit in I will be considered better?
>> Well, yeah, I think that's the exceptionalism
of "I can afford it; can you?"
Look at me, you know, I have my --
well, and that goes with the Ren -- good or bad, you know.
I have my pet theatre.
I have my own playwright who writes plays on behalf of me.
I think -- the idea is butts in the seat, butts in the seat.
However they got there, whatever's their motivation
for why they're there, because they're like, "Oh,
look at me, I'm artistic.
I'm going to see a play."
Great. I'm happy you're there.
The kids that are brought
in because it was a forced field trip.
Great. I'm happy you're here.
You got in the door.
And those people are experiencing the same thing
as that person up there who paid $500 for that ticket,
who's there because it's fashionable and they can go back
to Clinton, Ohio, and say, "I went and saw Hamilton."
And Linn Manuel really --
and I'm using Hamilton as a perfect example of that.
He really embedded in his show as much as he was able
to the ability to have lotteries, the ability to bring
in kids, the ability --
it's brilliant to bring all of these different classes together
in that same audience to experience that story.
I wish other people had the power he does to be able
to dictate that kind of thing with the audience.
I'm going to dovetail with what Leslie said, Leslie McCauley,
about -- I think part of it starts
with how does your education system government see the
theatre as important and it starts with children.
At the Vic, and this was Kevin Spacey, ironic, not British,
he was asked about the educational program
and audiences to come see his shows
when he was artistic director in London.
And he said too often in American theatres schools,
the cheap seats are given to people
and they're way in the back.
They're like in the nosebleed section.
They're in the like back-back galleries behind the post.
That's where we're going to put the school kids, the subsidized,
you know, cheap seats.
And his philosophy was, no, you put them right upfront.
Absolute -- give them the best seats
so they can really see theatre and experience it
and that's going to give them a love of it.
Not forcing them to come see it
and then giving them the crappiest seats.
Give them the best seats so they can start to love theatre,
see that they own it, it's part of them, and then later
on when they become voters, when they become tax, you know,
people who vote on where it is their taxes go,
they will appreciate and fund the theatre because they learned
at a young age it's for me and I love it.
It's exciting.
I felt part of something.
Because I was right upfront and I saw those actors.
How exciting!
I think that's how we do it.
We build people who love theatre and feel that it is for them
and a part of them, and then they will support it.
Other questions?
Alright, thank you so much.
[ Applause ]
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