Michael Rushton does it again, this time calling BS on arts districts. open.substack.com/pub/micha…

I began a new project a few days ago. In many ways, it is the opposite of the Learn in Public orientation. In fact, it is intentionally Learn in Private. I have been writing (and learning, and sharing) in public for 20 years, and it has been great. I’ve learned a lot, and I flatter myself in thinking that my writing made at least a little difference to those who were trying to re-imagine theater.

“The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world, full stop. Unless we can inhabit that distinction, we will end up defending the world as we have known it at all costs, no matter how monstrous those costs turn out to be.” At Work in the Ruins by Dougald Hine

The Resistance The attempt by the six members of the Theatrical Syndicate to create a monopoly of the road was, of course resisted. But for the rank-and-file actors, the war was over in the 1870s when the combination companies killed the resident stock companies and actors were forced to move to New York in order to pursue their careers. They had no ability to resist this change--Actors Equity didn't appear until 1917.

You know what I think is weird? That people will condemn you for not keeping up with the news while they think nothing about ignoring philosophy, literature, theology, cultural criticism, history. You will be at the mercy of spinmeisters if you lack a worldview that structures the news.

I wrote this in 2009. I still basically feel the same way.]I am at home with a cold. Forced by my body to stop the quotidian forward motion from prep to class to prep to class and then to grading, I find myself propelled instead toward reflection, bleary and slightly feverish though I am. The catalyst for this introspection, which will likely take an outward turn, is Camille Paglia. On Saturday, in an almost accidental way, I picked up her 1992 book Sex, Art, and American Culture at the local branch library.

In Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, a character is asked how he went bankrupt. “Two ways,” he responds. “Gradually, and then suddenly.” He could have been talking about the changes to the American theater in the last quarter of the 19th century. In my February 23 post I described “The Rise of the Combination Company and the Death of the Resident Stock Company.” Today, I want to describe the capture of the American theater by businessmen.

As always, Alan Jacobs (@ayjay) calls our attention to extraordinary writing, not only his own but of others as well. In this case, it is Nicholas Carr writing about the act of contemplation, both of art and of nature. And while I will have to think more about his preference for what he calls “unenchantment,” this essay is worth reading if only for the lengthy Nathaniel Hawthorne quotation in which he describes sitting in Sleepy Hollow just…being aware.

Michael Rushton is doing an excellent job of dismantling all the ways we miss the boat when we’re trying to run an arts organization. This one is about why metrics don’t work: open.substack.com/pub/micha…

“With the broad acceptance of scarcity, the drawdown of resources ensues, and business begins: the race for the best education in a world believed to be short of good teachers; the race for the best-paying jobs in a world believed to be deprived of respectable work and access to resources; the competition to acquire land and housing in a world where we believe there is a housing shortage; the pressure to buy all the right advantages and implements for our children in a world that is believed to have limited space and opportunity for them; the hustle to work hard and bank and invest and save in a world where we believe money is the only means of having our needs met.

This post could be called “The Enshittifcation of Theater,” and so could the next one. By 1870, all the pieces were in place to overthrow the resident stock companies across the nation:- a railroad system connecting many of the cities coast to coast;- a canal that connected travel from New York to the Great Lakes;- a large metropolis (New York City) at the head of both the train and canal system;- a burgeoning star system that was much in demand across the country.

“The change I am talking about appeals to me precisely because it need not wait upon “other people.” Anyone who wants to do so can begin it in himself and in his household as soon as he is ready-by becoming answerable to at least some of his own needs, by acquiring skills and tools, by learning what his real needs are, by refusing the glamorous and the frivolous. When a person learns to act on his own best hopes he enfranchises and validates them as no government or policy ever will.

Recap During the first 75 years of theater in America: Companies were independent, semi-permanent, self-contained units; They were managed by the leading actor, who chose the plays that were done, when and how long they would be done, and who in the company would play the roles; Company members were paid a share of the profits; They played standard English fare, especially Shakespeare, in rotating repertoire; The theater building was either owned by the company, or were leased long-term; The company played in a particular community, but would go on short tours each year; actors in stock companies normally led stable, settled lives and enjoyed working conditions comparable to workers in other fields; By the 1820s, a star actor from Europe or, eventually, America would come to town and perform plays with the resident company members before moving on to another town.

I wrote this in 2008, and it still is true today: From Daniel Quinn’s deceptively simple and inspiring Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure: The river I mentioned earlier is the river of vision. Our culture’s river of vision is carrying us toward catastrophe. Sticks planted in the mud may impede the flow of the river, but we don’t need to impede its flow, we need to divert it into an entirely new channel.

“My poetry is basically a poetry of praise. It’s an affirmation of the world, of the beauty of the world, and, at the same time, it’s a protest against cruelty. I cannot accept the cruelty of the world … “ — Czeslaw Milosz

When i largely disconnected from social media, I remembered what it was like to have only my own thoughts to entertain myself. It was the main reason I started reading so much – to make me more interesting to myself!

My latest weekly newsletter in which I talk about Brown’s elimination of the MFAs in Acting and Directing (apparently, the highly-regarded playwriting program emerged unscathed), Trump’s turning the NEA into a military marching band, and a dream about the 5 types of stories in the world (I only remember 2).

Dear Programmer types (e.g., @manton (although you shouldn’t reply–you have enough with answering micro.blog questions), @mtt, @amerpie, who am I missing…): I need some help. Here is what I’m trying to do. I use a nearby academic library to get many books for my research. Many of them have very small print for my aged eyes, so I bought a CZUR scanner and I scan them and convert them to epub to read on my tablet.

I just made the mistake of checking in on Threads. Good God, it’s just one person after another hyperventilating. I was never so glad to get back to micro.blog as now.

playbill.com/article/b… Brown and Trinity Rep shutting down MFA in Acting and Directing. Let me take this opportunity to plug my book DIY Theater MFA.

playbill.com/article/b… Brown and Trinity Rep shutting down MFA in Acting and Directing. Let me take this opportunity to plug my book DIY Theater MFA.

My friend Michael Phillips at the Chicago Tribune discusses the changes of “emphasis” at the National Endowment for the Arts here. I agree with the reactions of Chicago arts leaders. At the same time, this is why I have argued against seeking government funding in Building a Sustainable Theater. As we saw when Congress eliminated the Federal Theatre Project during the anti-communism scare in 1939, the political winds change and suddenly your business model is on shaky ground.

Every once in a while, rarely, I have one of Those Dreams. These are dreams that have a very different form than my normal dreams, and usually communicatre something to me in a language very different from the way I think. In other words, these dreams (of which I have had a total of three in a decade) seem to come from someone other than me, and are not action oriented, although they can be narrative.

[Since I just sort of launched into The Rooted Stage Series without really explaining what I was trying to do, I think I ought to pause an provide some context. I’ve tried several times to write a Preface/Introduction, but got bogged down. Here, I want to do this as if I was being interviewed by a slightly skeptical version of me, in dialogue form. So: Me is, well, me; and MeToo is the skeptical questioner.

Before it turns into a celebration of Substack, Sophia Efthimiatou’s post has some wonderful thoughts about having nothing to say as the entryway for true receiving, especially artistic receiving. “What has been lost,” she says, “is a quality that never came easy to us to begin with, and that is our ability to receive. To receive, as Steinbeck put it, “anything from anyone, to receive gracefully and thankfully, and to make the gift seem very fine.