Marcus Renner is working toward an MFA in playwriting at University of California, Riverside
and studying community-based theater and eco-drama. He participated in Cornerstone Theater's Summer Institute in 2009 and has a master’s degree in Environmental Studies with a focus on community education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has worked as an educator, community organizer, and youth development specialist for twenty years.Not long ago I was invited to speak with students from Susan Straight and Charles Evered's class, "The Writer's Life," at the University of California, Riverside. I did so because Susan and Chuck are my friends and I rarely, if ever, refuse an invitation from a friend, especially two who are currently teaching at my alma mater, and because I loved the idea of this class and wanted to see how it worked. During the class discussion with the brilliant and engaging students of UCR, Marcus Renner pitched me an idea for a series of pieces to run in our Essays on Art column. Marcus explains it nicely below in the introduction, and he did a great job as the point man for this project--gathering essays, bios, and pictures from the contributors. Thanks to Kamala, Rachelle, Clara, Jason, Tanya, and Marcus. Well done, eveyone!
~Editor-in-Chief, Ken Robidoux
Introduction
Many Master of Fine Arts programs focus exclusively on the “arts” side of the writing equation without helping students understand that writing exists within a broader context that includes publishing, production, and distribution. Students at in the M.F.A. program at the University of California, Riverside begin their studies taking a course entitled The Writer’s Life, which introduces students to vicissitudes of trying to get one’s art out to the wider world. The program at Riverside is multi-genre, so in this class students hear war stories from television producers and small press poets and everyone in between. The first assignment is for students to research the “three-tiers” of publishing or production in their chosen genre. The “tiers” indicate financial heft and do not necessarily correspond with quality or relative value. In class this past fall, we discussed the emerging fourth-tier of self-publishing and production opportunities through technologies such as You-Tube. What follows is a collection of the papers from the fall 2010 class that collectively provide a roadmap to the business of publishing, production, and distribution across the genres.
Drama, by Marcus Renner
As a writer, negotiating the theater world means understanding who publishes plays, who produces them, and the variety of ancillary organizations and associations connected to this world.
The largest publishers of plays that I found online were the Theater Communications Group, Samuel French, and the Dramatists Play Service. Some publishers who appeared to be mid-level are Pioneer Drama Service, Dramatic Publishing, and Eldridge. A few of the smaller firms included the Broadway Play Publishing Company and the Contemporary Play Service. I found two other companies that appear to have a niche market. Playscripts, Inc. will make plays available online for download. You can read 90% of the play before purchasing the text. The Theater Channel, while not a publisher, broadcasts films of performances on stages across the country on a pay-per-view basis. There are also a number of publishers specializing in plays for young audiences, which I would put in the third tier.
In terms of theaters, the well-endowed are the Broadway theaters and the West End theaters in London (though a terrible attempt at re-branding has now christened this section of the city “Theatreland”). To qualify as a “Broadway” theater (and be eligible for the primary Tony Awards), the venue has to have more than 500 seats and be in the Theater District in Manhattan. There are forty Broadway theaters. The smallest is the Helen Hayes Theater with 597 seats, and the largest is the Foxwoods Theater with 1813 seats. Interestingly, almost all of the Broadway theaters are owned by three companies: the Shubert Organization, a for-profit arm of the non-profit Shubert Foundation; The Nederlander Organization, which controls nine theatres; and Jujamcyn, which owns five Broadway houses. Three non-profit entities with Broadway venues include: Lincoln Center Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, and Manhattan Theatre Club. The West End collection of theaters is similar, though their capacity ranges from 330 to 2358 seats. Several non-profit theaters that receive subsidies from the government are also held in high regard. These include: National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Globe Theatre, the Old Vic, the Young Vic, the Royal Court Theatre, the Almeida Theatre, and the Open Air Theatre. Between 12 and 14 million people attend Broadway and West End productions over the course of the year.
The mid-sized theaters in the United States include Off-Broadway venues in New York City but also the plethora of non-profit regional theaters and associated repertory companies throughout the country. Despite rumors of their demise, regional theaters have grown over the past 50 years from 23 to over 1800. Center Theater Group, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and Arena Stage are all examples of well-known mid-level players. Two primary organizations supporting regional theaters are the Theater Communications Group and the League of Resident Theaters (LORT). Most mid-sized theaters adhere to union contracts, which greatly affect the structure and flow of production.
The smaller, third set of theaters include the Off-Off Broadway theaters in New York City, which usually have less than a hundred seats, college and university theater programs, summer stock venues, and smaller companies. Some of these companies and theaters have professional staff and performers, others do not.
Finally, in the “Do-It-Yourself” category I would put street theater and theater produced at fringe festivals around the country. Plays at fringe festivals are typically unjuried, return 100% of box office proceeds back to the participating artists, and remain affordable and accessible to all. The performances usually take place in small places, are technically simple, and deal with experimental material. Fringe festivals are popular, with Edmonton and Winnipeg having particularly large events. The oldest and largest fringe Festival in the United States is the Orlando Fringe. There are roughly thirty fringe festivals in the world.
An alternative form of theater in the D.I.Y. tradition is community-based theater in which artists work with community members to put on shows. Some of the strongest work in this realm is documented on the website “From the Grassroots Ensemble Theater Project,” a project of the Community Arts Network. Some of these theater organizations include:
• Read Carpetbag Theatre Company, Knoxville, Tennessee
• Cornerstone Theater Company, Los Angeles, California
• The Dell'Arte Company, Blue Lake, California
• Jump-Start Performance Co., San Antonio, Texas
• Los Angeles Poverty Department, Los Angeles, California
• Teatro Pregones, South Bronx, New York
• Roadside Theater, Whitesburg, Kentucky
• WagonBurner Theater Troop, Native America
In Latin America, a strong tradition of community-based theater has grown from the work of Augusto Boal that allows audience members to take the actor’s place to create their own endings to plays that discuss community issues. The simplest form of the D.I.Y. theater is street theater that connects back to the Commedia dell’Arte and pageants of Medieval times.