The Art of the Breakup

One of the touchstone points of discussion to emerge in the wake of the publication of Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play was that of transparency between artists and institutions, and its perceived lack among many playwrights who feel that they are essentially being given the run around, or led into a gerbil wheel of play development without a clear purpose in mind.

This transparency problem is real, and only further muddies a field in which individual artists’ feelings about access and opportunity will always be fraught, and tilted toward a sense of “why can’t it be me?” Theater leaders need to address this issue, however, at least as much because it is in the interest of clearer, better programming, and more efficient use of their artistic staffs’ time as out of a sense of fairness to playwrights. As someone who has been on both sides of this conundrum, as a director and more often as a producer, I can attest that in the interest of “preserving relationships” I have sent mixed, mealymouthed signals to fellow artists about the real status of their work within the organizations for which I’ve worked. All this did was lock me into a kind of mobius loop of frustration and self-flagellation, and steered me resolutely away from influencing a strong sense of artistic vision for the theater.

As I see it, the source of this problem within institutions is manifold, and born out of mainly good intentions and a desire to build relationships and community. Theaters have limited slots in a season. Depending on their mission, they may only have limited room for new plays. Artistic staffs and literary departments are charged with creating robust lists of new plays to choose from, and are expected to maintain at least superficial contact with a wide range of playwrights, so that they are somehow poised to pounce on the right play at the right moment with the reasonable expectation that the writer will warm to the offer because there is some pre-existing point of connection there. Or in the more usual case that a given playwright’s play is not chosen, they are somehow “cultivated” rather than rejected to preserve that individual’s predisposal to want her work to eventually be seen at a given theater. I’ve watched fellow associate artistic directors, literary managers, and dramaturgs at many different organizations struggle and founder professionally because of the challenges of managing everyone else’s expectations while feeling or being disempowered from expressing their own mission-centric artistic goals and ideas.

It is time that we as artistic leaders stop trying to be all things to all people. No theater can serve all audiences or all artists who may want to be produced by them. We owe it to playwrights, who are doing a very difficult, and rarely lucrative job, to make clear decisions and communicate the truth to them cleanly and without vague, apologetic language. (Apology is condescension in this scenario. We are not actually sorry to be passing on a play. We are sorry that the playwright will potentially be upset or angry about this, and thus we are sorry for ourselves.)

The job, as I’ve observed, and done it in my time, can amount to feeling a charge to “make friends with everybody, and try to disappoint no one.” Except that it is also the responsibility of literary managers, dramaturgs, and associate artistic directors to evaluate and, yes, judge material and cull from innumerable submissions the relatively few that they deem to be most excellent and in line with the goals and mission of the company. This is where the trouble lies. The general model of artistic management in our institutional theaters has created a paradox for our artistic staffs. It is our job to choose. And it is our job to make it seem like it’s not our responsibility to choose, so that those we may not choose still like us.

It is a bit like we’re all like high school students who are desperate to be popular, and thus wish to be very picky about who we date. But we also believe that we can will all of those that we turn down for the prom to adhere to the notion that we’re dreamy and dateable. Sensible, compassionate adults would generally not spend endless energy explaining to someone who has just asked them out why they don’t want to go out at just this moment, but maybe, just maybe, if that person could work on a few things—work out, get a new hair style—and come back and ask again at the right moment, they might get a different answer. Nor would a kind, thoughtful individual meet with or write a lengthy and involved letter to someone he or she has just dumped to enumerate all of the reasons why the dumpee is essentially unworthy…at least at this juncture. And yet this is exactly what we’re doing daily to our playwrights. No wonder they’re confused.

It is time that we as artistic leaders stop trying to be all things to all people. No theater can serve all audiences or all artists who may want to be produced by them. We owe it to playwrights, who are doing a very difficult, and rarely lucrative job, to make clear decisions and communicate the truth to them cleanly and without vague, apologetic language. (Apology is condescension in this scenario. We are not actually sorry to be passing on a play. We are sorry that the playwright will potentially be upset or angry about this, and thus we are sorry for ourselves.) Artistic directors, first of all, must finally decide to stand behind the decisions of the people they have hired to filter submissions for them, and find a fair system of checks and balances in the reading process so that they can trust that good work that should be on the programming list is not being off-handedly dismissed by the least experienced on the staff or because of individual peccadilloes.

Then, and here’s where the real shift will be apparent, the rest of us on artistic staffs who write letters and make phone calls to playwrights, have to own where we stand in the decision-making process. Enough of blaming the fact that a play has not been chosen on unseen programming forces which mysteriously failed to align in the playwright’s favor. Enough of the implication, or worse, the overt statement, that an artistic director is at fault for not appreciating a play when she or he has never read it. If the buck is stopping with me, I owe it to the person I am letting down to be honest about that. And if, as is sometimes the case, I am responsible for breaking news about a play that I’d rather not, because I really do love it, and did not win the battle, I must absolutely feel free to say so without feeling like I am throwing any of my colleagues under the bus.

I am so tired of having lunches, drinks, and meetings with playwrights who cannot decipher the messages they are getting from theaters, and show me copies of endlessly nit-picky and detailed letters offering critical dramaturgical feedback from people they don’t know, and who, in most cases presumably don’t like their work enough to advance it. Playwrights need to solicit and accept feedback only from those people that they respect, trust, and rely on. Just as the man who has just been rejected by the girl or guy of his dreams really doesn’t need to turn around and look to that person for a list of his perceived flaws and grooming failures, so playwrights should not be forced to swallow dramaturgy from people they’ve never met or people who are saying no. Please, let’s simplify things and spend our presumably hard earned and well honed abilities to stir and inspire playwrights or those people with whom we actually want to work. Rejections, as in “real life,” should be gracious, clean, and quick. We must resist the impulse to justify the rejection for ourselves by offering unsolicited detail about why. No one likes to get a form letter. By all means, let’s write letters that reveal that someone did indeed read the play. If there’s something good to say about that by way of inviting someone to send future work, so much the better. Say it. If good dramaturgical feedback comes with some degree of emotional investment in the outcome of the play, then let’s save everyone’s time, deepen our relationships, and enrich the good developmental work that is happening across the country by keeping the notes for those writers to whom we wish to offer opportunity as well as insight

If artistic staff really were empowered to develop relationships with an eye to programming and equally were trusted to claim the decisions they make as their own, we might break the cycle of playwrights feeling obliged to take or seek notes from a theater that is rejecting their work in order to preserve a relationship. Artistic directors should think long and hard about whether they are hiring people to implement and support a vision that they are developing alone or already espouse, or whether they seek a cohort of people to contribute collectively to an artistic vision that will be based in commonly held goals and values. Either can work, but each has very different implications for how all of the artistic staff surrounding the artistic director interact with artists outside the organization and reveal and assert their leadership potential within it. On the flip side, all artistic leaders also have to get comfortable with the idea that in some cases, when rejected, talented playwrights will feel hurt or angry enough that they will not actually submit their next play for consideration. The fact of the matter is, though, that if we answer them politely, in a timely manner, and are encouraging in the right way if we believe encouragement is due, they are more likely to come back to us than if we string them along, answer them in mealymouthed language, and shower them with vague notions of affection as we usher them out the door.

There are, of course, times when I feel a vested interest in the success of a play or playwright that, for whatever reason, is not going to have an opportunity this time around at my own theater. Even in these cases, though, it makes most sense simply to lay that fact on the table, so that any conversation that happens about next steps with the play, or even dramaturgical suggestions, are given simply in the spirit of friendship, collegiality, and generosity. Too often we manage to imply that playwrights should rewrite to please us, and inadvertently we dangle the carrot of a door being reopened on a given play when we know it will not be.

Of course, if we are going to do the work and own the emotional risks of transparency on the theater side, playwrights will have to be prepared to hear a more unvarnished truth about the programming process. Much is made about the ancillary reasons why plays don’t get produced: cast size, technical demands, the old saw of blaming the audience, etc. But most of the time, it boils down to one thing. Someone, somewhere on the totem pole didn’t like the play enough to advance or choose it for the season when she or he had the power to do so. When artistic directors really love a play, generally speaking, they do it. These other concerns fall away.

One of my true mentors, without whose influence and support I would not be in this profession, is the estimable and under-produced playwright Kevin Heelan. Many years ago, as I was looking to find my way into the professional theater, he was instrumental in giving me my first teaching job. His first words of advice about teaching ring in my ears every time I step into a classroom to this day: “Don’t try to make them like you. Teach them. If you love the subject and you do your job right, most of them will like you. And those that don’t will have to respect you.” We as artistic leaders at all levels could stand to apply this wisdom to building the relationships we seek with playwrights, and other artists for that matter. If we stop focusing on the rewards of being liked, and devote all of our energy to making excellent work, we will suddenly find that we truly have deep, fortifying, transparent relationships that will last our entire careers and beyond. Isn’t that why we all got into this in the first place?