Theaters’ creative collaborations are signs of real change

When I had my first job as a theater critic, in the 1980s at a daily newspaper in South Florida, I found myself continually surprised at how competitive and suspicious of each other the local theater companies were. 

In spite of being a small and necessarily interconnected community, they did not want to collaborate. I don’t remember them ever sharing resources, especially not mailing lists. The bigger ones did belong to a group called the Florida Professional Theatres Association, which held mass statewide auditions every year and sponsored workshops on administrative and artistic topics, but the members tended to snipe about each other’s shows behind their backs and operate as if each company was a sort of walled city-state with a completely unique audience.

The best (worst?) example I can think of is the summer about 25 years ago when three companies within my paper’s main circulation area all produced Jean Kerr”s “Lunch Hour” during the same summer.  Clearly, they thought no one coming to their own theater would be going to anyone else’s  – and made sure of it, too. You’d think at the very least they would have realized that a bored and exasperated critic is an unhappy and vocal critic.

So I’ve been elated in more recent years to see theaters and other arts groups everywhere slowly discovering the value of working together. Though it’s taken the hardship of shrinking financial resources and the danger of collapse to get them to join hands, a great many groups are not only finding ways to help each other make ends meet, but have also realized that collaborating artistically can create fresh ideas and more exciting projects than one group can by producing stuff in perpetual isolation.  

The Cleveland, Ohio, area has some pioneers of this sort, most notably Cleveland Public Theatre. An alternative company started more than 20 years ago, CPT has always lived the mission of creating theater for and with people on the fringes of society and of art: the daring, the eccentric, and the at-risk, from urban teens to convicted criminals. The company was built to reach out to others and has, with educational and therapeutic programs and special production series featuring emerging, local, theater and dance artists and companies. 

Even so, CPT’s co-production of “Nickel and Dimed” with Great Lakes Theater Festival a few years ago was a shock and a milestone – a sign that CPT’s influence was growing, yes, but a more stunning indication that a change in the theater Zeitgeist was transforming even large, glittering, professional theaters such as Great Lakes from artistically exclusive enclaves into involved, accessible, artistic partners. 

That’s why, for me at least, it was bell-ringing news this week that the august Guthrie Theater - probably the U.S.’s most artistically revered regional company – is showcasing innovative productions by young, emerging Twin Cities troupes that are its neighbors. Instead of regarding upstart companies as insects to be disdainfully flicked from their brocade skirts, maybe America’s greatest arts institutions have finally realized that collaborations and nurturing next generations of organizations will help and not hurt them.

Incredibly, theaters seem to get it now. I can only hope that major orchestras get a clue soon, too.

What the Guthrie plans is a series called Singled Out: A Festival of Emerging Artists that will be presented in the Dowling Studio Jan. 14-24. The companies featured include the Four Humors Theater, Sandbox Theatre, Lamb Lays with Lion and the New Theatre Group. Benjamin McGovern, the Guthrie’s associate director of studio programming, curated the line-up – and his reasons for creating the showcase and for choosing these particular companies represent what I hope is a changed philosophy for American theater.

“When the new Guthrie Theater building was built [in 2006], the Studio (which I program) was meant, in part, to be a place where other local companies would present their work,” McGovern wrote in an e-mail to me Tuesday. “There is a kind of synergy that comes from having such a diverse group of artists under the same roof – emerging talent, new and innovative aesthetics, new approaches to making theater. Our staff inevitably interacts with and is inspired by the artists that perform in the Studio, and that ultimately permeates the entire organization and enriches the work that goes on our other stages.

“There is also a considerable value to nurturing younger theater groups and offering them a wider exposure. The Guthrie relies heavily on the strength of the local artistic community and the enthusiasm of the theater-going public. The more we bolster and inspire both of these, the more effective and relevant the Guthrie’s work will be.”

And what made him select these specific young companies?

“I chose these four companies based on a number of different factors. Essentially I was looking for companies that had some history of quality work and were exploring a new theatrical vocabulary. I also wanted a mix of aesthetic approaches,” he added. “My goal was to present some representative work of younger artists that are working outside the mainstream, but whose work would relate in some way to the work that we produce here at the Guthrie.”

A few days later, after I asked whether or not the young companies’ types of work had anything in common, McGovern sent this further comment: “I wouldn’t say that the styles and vocabularies of these companies amount to a trend. In fact, I was specifically looking for companies that were focused on developing different aesthetics and approaches. One company is working in an unusual narrative style and a highly visual form of storytelling, while another is working in a fairly traditional theatrical convention, but thematically pushing the envelope. My interest was not in pushing forward any particular trend or style, but in providing a platform for energetic and promising young companies to get their voices heard.”

Twenty years ago, most American theaters the size and reputation of the Guthrie probably wouldn’t have admitted that worthwhile local start-up companies even existed, much less have invited them to share their space and audience.  It looks like, though arts groups in this country may be in growing economic danger, they’re also growing up.