Theatre Education and Critical Thinking

In my previous posts on theatre education, I have focused a great deal on helping young artists develop their own unique voice and way of looking at things rather than homogenizing into another cog for the theatrical machine. This is important not only for artists, but for all human beings. Self-authorship is the first step to making a contribution to the world in which we live (although sometimes the process of making the contribution is the path toward understanding that underlies self-authorship.)

An important part of that process involves the critical thinking skill known as self-reflection. It is crucial that every artist, and every citizen, learn to examine their ideas and their underlying assumptions to make sure that they are doing more than universalizing their own values without thought.

Recently, perhaps because, as Don Hall suggests, I have been thinking about it, I have been noticing how very smart people whose opinions I endorse fail to notice that they are reproducing in their actions the very type of behavior they condemn. Was it Nietzsche who advised us to be very careful about looking into the abyss, because when we do the abyss looks into us? Or did he say something about choosing our enemies wisely, because we will become them? Whatever -- the point I'm trying to make was well stated in Matthew 7:5: "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

An example. Carol Becker, Dean of the Faculty and VP for Academic Affairs at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, wrote an excellent book entitled Surpassing the Spectacle: Global Transformations and the Changing Politics of Art. The introduction, she takes all the political positions I tend to agree with, and when she starts writing about the breakdown of a sense of community especially as evidenced in the rise of the gated community, I wanted to stand up and cheer! Writing about economic abundance, she says :

Abundance, in other words, increases the power to create isolation in communal contacts at the samew time that it opens up "an avenue by which men can easily conceive of their social relatedness in terms of their similarity rather than their need for each other." [ital mine; quote from Richard Sennett's The Uses of Disorder]

I agree wholeheartedly -- one of the problems of American society is that it is becoming way too easy to only have to deal with people with whom you agree. This is happening as far as news, culture, and arts as well as real estate -- we don't want to have to negotiate anything that violates our own values. She goes on:

With the proliferation of gated communities, this type of isoltaion has reached new levels of lietrality. In Sennett's terms, the move to and embrace of suburbia was about escaping the urban and creating a world that could be completely controlled. The illusion of control is equated with the security of sameness. If all houses look alike, if people interact with others only like themselves, if everyone has the same clothes, cars, and aspirations, then life should stay ordered." [first set of italics mine -- "should" is hers]

Now I'm writing "YES!" in the margin of the book. What we need is diversity, the rubbing together to unlike objects to cause friction and change! That's the very basis for democracy!

But on the next page I encounter this:

Aware of and even known to revel in their own otherness, artists desire environments where they do not need to conform to a uniform version of adult behavior, acceptable work, or relationships. They then create around themselves the possibility of living the lifestyle that feels freest and most-encouraging of creativity. These centers of artistic production are in principle the opposite of suburban malls. They are about creative pursuits and fearless originality. [italics, once again, mine]

Really? There's no similarity between the gated community dweller's quest to surround himself with others who share his values and the artist's attempt to do the same? When in the case of the gated community, surrounding oneself with a homogenized environment is a retreat, when artists do the same it is a sign of fearless originality? Just how does that work out, given that the underlying principle is the same: surround yourself with like-minded people.

To me, neither one symbolizes a real sense of community, which involves the necessary encounter with people who do not share your values, and the necessary negotiations and dependence that comes from carving out a life in proximity with such people. As somebody who becomes easily frustrated by people who don't quite get what I am talking about (and this is a daily personal struggle in my work life, for instance), I have great sympathy for the desire to surround oneself only with those whose values one shares. There are days when I want to form my own department so I don't have to explain all my perfectly obvious and obviously brilliant ideas to people who look at me like I'm more than slightly mad. But if I did so, I wouldn't say that I was making a bold strike for a diverse community, I'd say I didn't want to have to deal with different ideas anymore.

And I want artists to be able to avoid failing to recognize when their (most often liberal) values foundationally mimic (most often conservative) values that they condemn. I want them to be self-reflective, in short, and resist the impulse to strike pious poses that are reactionary beneath the surface. Or, on the other hand, be willing to defend the superiority of the value itself as a value. An argument might be made that the liberal values of an artistic community are superior to those of a conservative gated community, but such an argument would have to focus on defending the values themselves based on first principles and definitions of "superior," which in turn would require that artists possess the critical thinking skills to construct such an argument. We must be willing to examine with a cold eye our basic assumptions about the world and build a strong structure of principles and beliefs that rest upon a strong philosophical foundation. And education ought to help people with that process.

From my perspective, community requires constant contact between diverse opinions lest it become an echo chamber, which is another word for mob. The basic principles upon which this is built: 1) democracy is the best form of government; 2) community is an important part of a democratic society -- we survive in groups, not as individuals; 3) a democratic society relies upon the "wisdom of crowds," i.e., the compiling of a variety of diverse opinions to create a rich and deep decision.

What Might Have Been

Back when I was in my late teens, I stumbled on American resident theatre pioneer Margo Jones' inspiring book Theatre-in-the-Round (1951). In the late 40s and 50s, Jones brought into existence a resident theatre in Dallas called Theatre followed by the year: Theatre 47, Theatre 48, etc. It was a brilliant idea that created an annual New Year's Eve ritual of gathering patrons together to ring in the theatre's new name each year.

I recently reread this book, which I recommend highly not only for its spirited endorsement of the arena theatre form (and she makes an excellent and very practical rationale for it that still stands up today), but also for an indication of the values of the original regional theatre movement in America. I would like to quote extensively from the early part of the book, and ask you to imagine how the American theatre might have been different had we followed Margo Jones instead of Tyrone Guthrie.

I believe it is imperative in creating new resident professional companies to take a violent stand about the choice of plays. Personally I believe in the production of classics and new scripts, with emphasis on new scripts. Our theatre can never be stronger than the quality of its plays. We must, therefore, have a great number of good plays. The classics have proved their value through­out the history of the theatre, and I believe we should draw on them as great literature and great theatre. But if we ( produce only classics, we are in no way reflecting our own age. Our theatres must not only be professional, they must be contemporary as well. The most excellent seasons in New York are those which bring forth exciting new play-writing talent.

Too many people are saying, "I'll do a new play if I can find a good one." Certainly you must find a good one, but this attitude is not good enough. The plays can be found if you look hard enough. And if you take the vio­lent stand I have spoken about, you will feel obligated to search and search and search until the scripts are dis­covered. I have a belief that there is great writing in America today and that much of it has not yet been un­earthed.

Great theatres have always had their playwrights. Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Moliere, Ibsen—all these were men around whom theatrical companies were functioning. The Moscow Art Theatre had Chekhov; the Abbey Theatre had Yeats, Synge and O'Casey; the Provincetown had O'Neill; the Group had Odets. We must have our new play­wrights, and we will not have them unless we give them many outlets to see their plays produced. This is the best way in which they can learn to write better plays.

The production of classics is healthy, but it is not step in the flowering we want to see in the American
theatre. We need progress, and the seed of progress in theeatre lies in the new plays.

American resident theatres followed Guthrie, an Irishman who came up through the English repertory theatre tradition, in preferring a repertoire dominated by the classics. University theatres followed suit, abandoning the living playwright -- especially the living playwright of a previously unproduced play who might be able to be in residence for the production -- in favor of a series of classics. Tom Loughlin wrote, "the expectation is that universities will present us with “traditional” art in traditional ways, the “high art” that everyone talks about. There is absolutely no expectation that universities will produce any sort of original art whatsoever, but rather act as a museum of art in every possible way. Shakespeare will be done as “Shakespeare,” classics are expected, and high art will be enjoyed by all...the name of the game is not creation; it’s re-creation." The resident theatre has also moved down the road to museum as well, focusing their creativity on the formal production elements, deconstructing the plays to make their own concoctions, and virtually ignoring the existence of the playwrights who are creating our theatrical legacy.

The commercial non-profits (a term coined by Bob Leonard of Virginia Tech) and the universities go hand in hand on this. If you are looking for evidence that Tom's call for a uniting of the artist and the academic is needed to force change, you need go no further than a comparison of Margo Jones and the latest American Theatre listings. Jones believed in full productions, and as a result she encouraged many, many playwrights including Tennessee Williams (she was co-director of the original Glass Menagerie).

The regional theatre movement got highjacked; it is time we took it back.

Fired Up? Ready to Go?

Folks -- I just watched this video of Barack Obama telling a story about a SC alderwoman who inspired Obama and a roomful of people with her repeated cry "Are you fired up? Are you ready to go?" I read it right before reading Tom Loughlin's inspirational final post in the theatre education series we've been doing, and it fit so well. Tom's call to action is powerful and inspiring, and echoed Obama's ringing conclusion: "And it goes to show you how one voice can change a room. And if it can change a room, then it can change a city. And if it can change a city, then it can change a state. And if it can change a state, then it can change a country. And if it can change a country, then it can change the world. Are you fired up? Are you ready to go? Let's go change the world!"

Tom calls for us to raise our voices in order to change a room, and from there we can change the world. Most importantly, Tom writes:

"It is imperative for artists to become involved in this issue as well, both by agitating their own places of education, and by continuing to create a theatre that strikes some sort of chord for every layer of society. The entropic nature of all organic things requires that something new be created to replace what has gained maximum entropy, not to continue to waste time trying to bring balance to the old. If artists and educators can join forces to subvert theatre education from without and from within, we may have some hope of bringing in something new and promising. I’m trying to work on my part from within - can you work on yours from without?"

And by doing so, he reaches out to form a bond between the artist and the educator built on a mutual concern for the health of the art form we love. Yes, this series has been a conversation between two educators about their profession, but its ramifications affect everything that happens in the art form. If theatre education is deadly, it reinforces the deadly aspects of the professional theatre by flooding it with deadly actors, directors, designers and playwrights. But, on the other hand, if theatre education is going to innovate, if we comfortable tenured professors are going to make an effort to teach in a way that inspires and empowers young people, then we need to know that there are artists out there who will join hands with us and with our students to change the face of theatre.

Tom is right -- the academy needs artists to raise your voices and demand a change. To express your frustrations over what you did and didn't learn when you were in college, to call out to education's higher angels and demand that we create artists and not mindless drones. To make us theatre professors do our jobs and serve as midwives to a theatrical future that is vibrant and innovative and exciting.

How do we do that? How can we get this moving? Tom suggests that you talk to your theatre alma mater, or to your local theatre departments, and I agree. And then we need to go further, to create a wide demand for a theatre education redefinition and renaissance that will bring new energy into the professional world.

How do we do that? Please fill my comments box and Tom's with suggestions. Write your own blog posts and give us a link. Share your stories. Tell us what you got from your education that has kept you fired up and ready to go, and what baggage you have had to get rid of in order to stay that way. Tell us what would appeal to your artistic higher angels, and what opportunities we should provide for our students during their years in our care. What in education would help make theatre an exciting, vibrant, and innovative art form that would live up to all the talent that fills it?

And then brainstorm with us -- what's the next level? My first thought, and I suppose it is a typically academic one, is a conference attended by artists and educators who are committed to change, who will issue ringing manifestoes and thundering j'accuses demanding the destruction of the status quo. Something -- anything -- to get us fired up and ready to go. But in some ways, that seems kind of unoriginal and not in keeping with the nature of the effort. So what other options are there?

What's next?

Theatre Education Part 5 -- Suggestions for Improvement

OK, Tom at A Poor Player and I are finally coming to the end of the series, where we make recommendations for how theatre education can be improved. I'll warn you: I've been listening to business guru Tom Peters today, so I am feeling blunt and honest.

I want to start by quoting from a book entitled Making Their Own Way: Narratives for Transofrming Higher Education to Promote Self-Development by M. B. Baxter Magolda, a college professor who writes books about education. She writes:

"Educators have multiple expectations for the journey that is called college education. For example, we expect students to acquire knowledge, learn how to analyze it, and learn the process of judging what to believe themselves -- what developmental theorists call complex ways of knowing. We expect students to develop an internal sense of identity -- and understanding of how they view themselves and what they value. We expect them to learn how to construct healthy relationships with others, relationships based on mutuality rather than self-sacrifice, and relationships that affirm diversity. We expect them to integrate these ways of knowing, being and interacting with others into the capacity for self-authorship -- the capacity to internally define their own beliefs, identity, and relationships. This self-authorship, this internal capacity, is the necessary foundation for mutual, collaborative participation with others in adult life."

Most theatre programs are really good at the first part about acquiring knowledge (or skills) and learning to analyze it (or apply it). But we tend to ignore the rest of the paragraph, assuming, instead, that all that stuff just takes care of itself as a person gets older.

Nonsense.

We need to ask questions that help students develop a sense of personal identity -- how do they view themselves, their art -- what do they value. Make them put it into words -- on paper, in conversation, whatever. Watch it change and grow. Don't just teach them what the French Neoclassical Rules are, ask them what they might be useful for now, today, in their art. Ask them whether they think there are uses for such rules, or whether they are impediments. Draw analogies to current rules that may be less explicitly acknowledged but are nonetheless as inflexible -- for instance, the way that the 30-minute TV schedule structures the way TV shows are structured. Make them decide what from the past speaks to them, and what doesn't. Help them make their values explicit.

Teach them how to construct healthy relationships. No, I don't mean read Cosmopolitan with them. I mean move beyond the master-apprentice mentality that many professors have in relation to their students. Teach them how to work together, how to value the ideas of others, and to value their own ideas as well. Discourage slaves and toadies. Teach them lots of ways to collaborate. Teach them to form partnerships. Put them in situations where they must get involved in the community and meet and talk to people who have power, and with people who don't. Be an example of someone who actively seeks out diverse opinions and people who don't agree with you.

Make your primary goal a student's self-authorship, "the capacity to internally define their own beliefs, identity, and relationships." That will make them stand out more than any theatre skill they might learn. And it will promote happiness, integrity, and authenticity. Now THAT'S what a real artist is.

A few more bullet points, some slightly redundant:

• Ignore "The Biz" -- don't helicopter students onto a sinking ship. You're not doing them any favors preparing them to excel in a dysfunctional system that is doomed to collapse at any moment. Help them to look for lifeboats.
  
• Create artists, not cogs. Artists have original thoughts. They are intellectual, emotional, and spiritual anarchists. There is a video on YouTube of Philipino prisoners dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller. Most theatre "training" for "the Biz" isn't much different than that -- training students to work in lockstep. That is killing theatre faster than any anti-NEA ideology in Congress. Give a class in lateral thinking. Encourage eccentricity. Disseminate wild ideas. Hell, change your syllabus! (Gasp!)
  
• Make students think like social entrepreneurs -- have them think in terms of the system, not just their careers. Look for ways to change the world by creating a new way of doing things. Encourage them to think big, and think outside the box.
  
• Consciously teach techniques for creative cooperation and consensus building. Most theatre people worship the hierarchical theatrical structure because they think that collaboration takes too long and is too frustrating. Not true, if you know what you're doing. Teach them to know what they're doing. There aren't enough geniuses to justify the pyramid system.
  
• Don't encourage specialization -- don't teach young people to just be actors or designers or directors, but all of those and more: entrepreneurs, gardeners, community organizers, marketers. Think in terms of Daniel Quinn's "occupational tribes" -- they need to be able to extend the earning power of the tribe. That might be by growing food for the company in addition to being an actor, or figuring out a way to offer workshops to local organizations in collaboration or team-building or creative thinking. These kind of people are worth their weight in gold. If they can act AND build a costume, they are doubly valuable to a company. Specialization = irrelevance.
  
• Figure out ways for students to use in the theatre what they learn in their non-theatre classes. Don't let theatre students talk about their gen ed courses as "irrelevant," something to be "gotten out of the way." Instead, think about having them create theatre pieces about what they've learned about Cartesian duality, or organic chemistry, or medieval history. Demonstrate how everything they learn can inform the theatre and become theatre. (And as a side benefit, if they can theatricalize academic material, they might be able to write a grant to teach it in the K-12 system somewhere. Extend the earning power of the tribe!)
• Encourage lateral thinking. Make students question the status quo, find a different way to do something, even if the status quo being undermined is what you taught in your class. Which leads to the next point:
  
• Encourage students to kill Buddha. No, I'm not talking about literal murder. I'm talking about letting students attack you and what you've taught without taking offense. Teach them the old saying: "If you encounter the Buddha walking along the road, kill him."You're Buddha. Prepare to die. Like Oedipus, sometimes you've got to kill Dad in order to take your place in the world. It's a good thing (OK, it wasn't so great for Oedipus). If you create disciples of your students, in actuality you're killing them. Not good. Read Ionesco's The Lesson as a cautionary tale. Resolve NOT to be the teacher. We don't need no stinkin' clones.
  
• Encourage students to read. The best way to do this: set an example. Read plays a lot and talk about them in class. Make copies of articles and pass them around. Read books, and comment on them. All of this doesn't have to be theatre oriented. In fact, it is good for students to see that you feel knowing things about the world, past and present, is important. Sure, it takes class time -- get over it. There is nothing you're gonna tell them in your lecture or workshop that can't be found somewhere else. It's the information age, and there are probably a thousand websites that have the same stuff you're going to teach them. Give them a gift they can't get on the internet -- an energetic, curious mind to engage with. If you really want to set an example, create a lunchtime reading group -- have a regular table once a week at a campus restaurant where kids can talk to you about books. Eat. Talk. Share, don't teach.

I could go on and on, I suppose, but I want to leave Tom some room. I've enjoyed working on this series with Tom -- it has been nice to share with someone whose life experiences are similar to my own. I hope my readers have enjoyed it as well, and that they will chime in with their own insights, condemnations, suggestions, and brainstorms.

I take theatre education very seriously. Like the environmental crisis, I believe that the theatre crisis will affect my 18 - 22 year olds powerfully, more powerfully than it will affect an old fart like me. I'm tenured -- I'm wedged in for the duration. So that means I have to take responsibility for those who are just starting out. And I will feel like a total fraud if I don't do something to help them face the inevitable changes that are on the way. And dammit, that don't mean "training."

My challenge is to make at least some of this happen here on my campus. My biggest nightmare is a tombstone that says: "Scott Walters -- 1958 - 200?-- He could have done some cool things, but the Provost wouldn't let him." That'[s my challenge -- avoiding that tombstone.

More on Tasering

"University spokesman Steve Orlando defended the officers' actions in an interview with the Associated Press, but said an internal investigation would be conducted to make sure they acted appropriately.

"He apparently asked several questions -- he went on for quite awhile -- then he was asked to stop," Orlando said of Meyer. "He had used his allotted time. His microphone was cut off, then he became upset."

That's where we are, folks: you get tasered if you go over your allotted time. I think I'll start tasering students who turn their papers in late or show up late to class while I'm talking. Have we lost our mind????

How Is This Justified in America?

I would really like to know why this is acceptable in America? It is outrageous. It should be condemned as police brutality bordering on fascism. Those officers should be fired, and prosecuted for assault. Period. What is this country coming too????

Theatre Education Part 4.1 -- Things We Do Well

Adding on to Tom's post, I think there is something that is being taught very well: skills. Very rarely do I go to professional productions where the direction isn't solid, the scenery isn't interesting, the lighting isn't efficient, the costumes aren't accurate, and the acting isn't believable. (For some reason, that latter comment about acting doesn't apply to Broadway, where I have seen some absolutely awful acting. For some reason, once actors make it to Broadway, they have acquired the habit of mistaking speed, line pickup, and loudness for actual acting. I am regularly astonished at how totally unbelievable as human beings so many Broadway actors are.) Most of the artists responsible for these productions have received their training at university, and their competence reflects well on their alma maters.

I think that theatre departments are generally teaching the how-to's in a solid fashion. Yes, when I attend a college production, the quality will vary from student to student, but often that is more a function of the student's progress within the program more than anything else.

And I agree with Tom -- there is a lot of good mentoring going on. The larger the department, the harder it is for that mentoring to take place, but in medium-to-small departments, or in graduate programs, this is much more likely.

I would also like to link to this post by David Boevers at Carnegie Mellon, whose program, from Prof Boever's description, has benefited from a strong effort to break out of the traditional skill-based training in order to make an intentional attempt to actually educate artists. This is particularly impressive, in my opinion, because as a recognized high-profile program Carnegie-Mellon could have coasted on its reputation without going through the intense reflection necessary for such a curriculum change to occur. I am particularly taken with the OSWALD class, which takes an intentional approach to questioning the generally accepted. It is always nice to be able to point at a department that seems to be making a real effort.

So within a very narrow frame, I think most university programs are turning out competent practitioners.

If that seems damning with faint praise, well...mea culpa.