On Unpaid Internships

Yesterday, I posted on the CRADLE blog a post about class and unpaid internships. I hope you'll visit. Summation:

"Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a deeply corrupt system, one that consciously and shamelessly masquerades as a meritocracy while being, in fact, a plutocracy."

Excellent Summation of Outrageous Fortune Presentation

2am knocks it out of the park.

Heroes of Rural Arts

An overview of a new series on the heroes of the rural and small arts movement at my new blog "Rocking the CRADLE." By the way, will somebody go there and tell me whether they can subscribe to the RSS feed?

Announcing New CRADLE Website and Blog

I am thrilled to announce that the website for the Center for Rural Arts Development and Leadership Education (CRADLE) has just launched a new website and blog. I'd like to thank Charles Olbert (my stepson, in the interest of transparency) for his excellent hard work in creating the site. (He does terrific work, and if you have a website you need designed, check out his work at http://www.charlesolbert.com.)

This website is the first stage of the development of the CRADLE project. It is my intention to make it an information and communication hub for people in the field of rural and small town arts development. Over time, I will continue to add annotated links to on-line reports and resources, and books that might be of interest to the field. I also intend to begin doing a podcast in the future, and provide a variety of ways (Skype conference calls, threaded discussions, even in-person conferences) to increase communication.

There is also a link to the TACT (Theatre Arts Curriculum Tranformation) blog that Tom Loughlin and I began a few months ago. TACT is the educational wing of CRADLE.

What this means for Theatre Ideas, which is now one of four blogs to which I am contributing (the fourth is "Play Analysis 101," which my partner Cal Pritner and I have created to go along with our textbook Iintroduction to Play Analysis), is a likely reduction in the number of posts I do here. Much of what I currently write about here will end up on either CRADLE or TACT, but any commentary that isn't appropriate for those sites will wind up here.

I hope that my readers will follow me to my "Rocking the CRADLE" blog (Chris Wilkinson, I'm talking to YOU), as well as keep up with TACT. Consider this not a shutdown, but simply a move from a rented apartment to my own specially-designed home.

You're all welcome.

Please, Please Stop the Madness

So in the February 24th edition of Stage Directions Magazine, there is an article entitled "URTA Launches National Showcase Calendar." The calendar "provides a way of tracking the many school showcases produced each spring in New York City." Here is the money quote as far as I am concerned:

Each spring more than 70 schools with professional MFA and/or BFA programs in acting, performance and musical theatre produce showcases in theatres throughout the Big Apple. With some schools offering both BFA and MFA degrees, more than 80 showcases are presented over the months of March, April and early May. Each showcase seeks to introduce a graduating class of performers to casting directors, agents and other professionals in the nonprofit and commercial theatre, and in related industries from cruise line productions and corporate industrials to advertising, film and television. Showcases allow training programs to provide invaluable assistance to graduates transitioning into an always challenging job market.

 Some quick math sends a chill up my spine. Let's say that each showcase averages 15 grads -- that's 1200 actors trying to get a foot in the door in NYC. I know that these programs think they are doing their students a service, and no doubt the students think so too, but I just find this horrifying.

First, why are there that many BFA and MFA programs in this country?

But aside from that particular elephant, what rips my heart out is the thought of so much wasted talent pouring into a theatre scene already bursting at the seams, where actors who actually have their Equity cards experience 85% unemployment. How many of these talented young adults will spend five-ten-fifteen years searching valiantly for chances to practice their art, only to come limping home battered and disillusioned.

From an ecological standpoint, it is so wasteful; from a human standpoint, it is almost criminal. There's got to be a better way. Why keep flooding the system?

Tom and My SETC Presentation Now On-Line

Over at our blog TACT (Theatre Arts Curriculum Transformation), Tom Loughlin has been good enough to provide a link to our SETC presentations slides and a recording of the presentation. The volume isn't great -- we were moving around a lot while using a stable mike -- but at least you can listen if you want. Thanks, Tom!

Ian David Moss and the Quality of Discussion

Over at Createquity, Ian David Moss is comments on his post "Economists Don't Care About Poor People" -- one is, apparently, from his boss, which shows a willingness to exchange ideas in marked contrast to the oh-so-careful-about-my-career theatreosphere.

From my extremely limited knowledge of economics (although in the interest of transparency, I should admit that one of my best friends on campus is an economist, and I do spend money fairly regularly, so I guess that makes me an expert), I would like to say that I agree with Ian's distrust of the neoclassical approach to economics, which might have been relevant in the society for which it was designed, a society in which sellers and buyers were more likely to know each other and emotional advertising was not a constant mind-addling drumbeat, but in our media-saturated global marketplace it seems decidedly out of touch.

However, what I would draw my reader's attention to is the level of discourse exhibited in this discussion, which is quite high, carefully argued, and deeply knowledgeable. By calling into question neoclassical economics, Ian is definitely taking on the status quo represented by the Chicago School of economics most closely identified with Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, and yet not a douchebag or asshat in sight.

Thanks for the object lesson, Ian, and good luck with your boss!