Don’t Cry For Theatre, Academia
The Truth Is You’d Let Us Leave You
There has been a lot of talk back and forth in the theatre world about the time to come after this emergency. When will theatres return? What will be different? Can we capitalize on this time off? How can we keep our presence felt in the absence of live in person theatre? While many of us have been focused on the threat directly posed by Covid-19, it seems that there is a different threat to the “regular” employment of many of us who consider theatre our main source of income: the University sector.
Like many others, while being a full-time theatre professional, I have spent much of my career picking up odd jobs in various Higher Education institutions. I have done quite a deal of adjunct teaching in a variety of theatrical disciplines. I have been both a part-time and a full-time theatre technician in different universities. I have toured shows to academic festivals in local and foreign universities, and I have been a consultant on developing theatre building projects. I have worked in Universities, Grad Schools, Community Colleges, and HBCUs and in those institutions I have run courses and seminars, given guest lectures and presented papers on all matter of topics both during and outside of school hours. I am not unusual in this; a lot of theatre practitioners and, particularly in the US, theatre writers, rely on these university gigs to make their ends meet. I certainly have for years. But I sense a change in progress that will affect professional theatre profoundly, possibly more than the current shutting of the theatres will in the longer run.
Perhaps I am somewhat of a Gloucester reading ill omens to suit my disposition, but I think that the idea of theatre in the Academy has fallen out of favor in a world where we are increasingly selecting people from the business world to run universities. Traditionally, when any Arts program appears in a discussion of those at the business end of the University, that discussion leans towards the questions of value for money, and the short term return on investment for students today. In the case of Theatre Programs, all immediately recognize how vital it is to have a solid Theatre Department in their University, before then looking at the ROI of the tax payer.
It has become like a well learned-line from a poorly trained actor: “We all agree that the Theatre Department is a vital component of Efficiency University — there is no question of that. However, I think we can also agree that when Generic Business 101 has crammed 500 students into a shoebox without an airhole, surely there needs to be some compromise from Theatre”.
On the occasions when I have seen that argument used, the compromise never includes considering reducing class size for Generic Business 101, nor does it include splitting the class into more manageable sizes, nor putting in an airhole. Instead, 500 per shoebox is offered as the standard we should all aspire to. Instead of Business being thought of as too cheap, Theatre is regarded as too expensive. In such conversations, the cost per student for staffing a theatre department becomes a sticking point, and concessions are begged, as the only comparators allowed are of numbers and dimensions, and these are unassailable: if one underpaid adjunct can cope with a shoebox filled with 500 GB101s, how can we justify a theatre faculty of full-time professors, adjuncts, an admin, a theatre tech, and a theatre for a mere 60 theatre majors?
Once the conversation becomes accustomed to this little wedge, the next step is to note the financial “burden” having a theatre program places on the Institution: “The money they make doesn’t even pay the insurance for the space they use — they have to share that space for the good of the Institution”. That is last time we hear anything of the costs of the Program to the Institution, and from here the only figures discussed are how many hours the Theatre Department will have to sacrifice access to their own resources to appease these elusive Insurance Gods, or whichever other ones are invoked. It seems such a small thing to allow other majors to use the auditorium even if it means performance classes must be taught on the stage while the latest GB101 gets to overfill the auditorium, even if that “sharing” means that an overstretched adjunct is frequently asking for quiet from those in the theatre class behind the curtain.
As a consequence, the reputation of the theatre programs start to sink, enrolment in the minor program falls, and eventually the major follows it. After a year or two of this, someone in power starts to seriously question why these cash cow GB101 classes are being held to ransom by the college’s “failing” Theatre Department, and asks how the Theatre Department can make a greater contribution to the Institution with “those Intro To Theatre classes that everyone wants and needs”. After all, “surely we can free up someone who is currently overpaid to be teaching an MA in Directing, seeing as there are only three students, and have them add a few useful classes”. And suddenly, this is no longer a discussion. “Besides”, you hear as they are leaving the meeting, “who is ever going to make a career directing?”
Since moving here to the US, I hear this conversation in relation to so many different Humanities courses. From the students who have followed the lead from the people running the colleges, they see academia like a business: there is a sense that Humanities requirements (and the Math ones), are an impediment designed to delay progress into the vocational world. We see so many specialty humanities courses being cut in favor of more generic intro courses to feed these burdensome humanities requirements. Not so long ago, the former Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky railed against French literature being taught in university. President Barack Obama and Senator Marco Rubio are just two more high profile names to have joined in on that Humanities bashing chorus in the last 10 years.
We like to believe there is still a sense within the world of academia that the loss of Theatre would be as bad as the loss of Philosophy. But Philosophy is being killed one way or another — seldom cut wholesale, but regularly suffering death by a thousand cuts to priority, funding, programs, and staffing. Like a version of Zeno’s Race Course paradox, it is being walked halfway to obliteration, then half again, and again, in theory never getting there, but (to mix my philosophers) in many Institutions, Theseus’ Ship looks neither seaworthy nor ship-shaped. And if Philosophy can be brought down, then Theatre is just a bigger scalp. It isn’t just another “useless” humanities course being cut and the freeing up of a few faculty offices; it potentially means stealing back large, useful spaces. Dozens of eyes regard auditoria as better venues for lectures, stages for storage and AV equipment, windowless storage facilities as additional offices for the latest hapless adjunct, or additional support staff. Reducing a theatre program can mean taking by stealth in a year or five what was built by fundraising and ticket sales over decades.
Without searching too deeply, since the start of the Covid-19 crisis, I have counted about 6 Universities and Colleges that have announced either staff cuts or program cuts that affect theatre there. The University of Alaska, Anchorage announced in late February that they were cutting 9 programs, the BA in Theatre one of them. Bradley University in Peoria Il have divided their programs into quintiles based on cost, income, popularity, etc., and are just eliminating the bottom quintile, which of course means theatre, as well as a few more — cold comfort that they say theatre will continue to be offered through their “core curriculum” — another department, it would seem, reduced to “Intro to Theatre”. University of Arkansas, Little Rock are looking at “consolidating” Theatre and Dance — the department looks set to lose 10 full time staff members, while their website lists a total of 12. The Department of Theatre, Dance, and Cinema in Missouri Western is to be phased out over the next two years. Minnesota State University Moorhead announced the closure or suspension of 10 majors, including Theatre. Most recently, on Friday April 17th, Vermont State announced it was planning to close three full campuses under a restructuring plan, which would spell the end of the one Musical Theatre program in Vermont.
Unfortunately, this is not simply a reaction to the current crisis. Look again at Vermont — these three will join the two already announced as closing in the past year. The University of Tulsa announced in April 2019 that their theatre program was going to be cut for its relatively low enrolment — in total 68 programs were being crushed to 36, with the Arts being the hardest hit. There was a staggering recent announcement from Billings, MT that MSUB is losing another 82 courses, having shed 37 last year. This announcement doesn’t affect theatre there, but only because the Department of Communication and Theatre already does not appear to provide any programs in theatre, just in Communications and PR.
The current emergency is simply a convenient time to announce it, rather than the cause for these cutbacks. When we have all been vaccinated and can laugh about our current fears, the cutting will no doubt continue, though perhaps at a more sedate pace.
Ultimately, the U.S. university sector — or those who govern it — appears fixated on vocational training, and all the Arts programs are therefore being hit. And there are some good arguments about the money spent on university being better set to help train people to elevate themselves to improve on their starting point in life. But at what cost? While work-place skills are certainly important, traditionally, the values of a Humanities degree include being able to see beyond what training can give you owing to a grounding in critical thinking, as well as offering versatility in an age when the average worker can expect to have 12 jobs in their lifetime. In their 2018 book, The Future Computed, Microsoft’s EVP of A.I. Brad Smith, and researcher Harry Shum recently wrote “As computers behave more like humans, the social sciences and humanities will become even more important. Languages, art, history, economics, ethics, philosophy, psychology and human development courses can teach critical, philosophical and ethics-based skills that will be instrumental in the development and management of AI solutions.” It doesn’t mention Theatre by name, but it sounds to me like a Theatre Department that produces for instance The Tempest, A Doll’s House, and We Are Proud To Present… in a season will have exceeded this requirement.
Beyond the training for a new workplace, it is clear during this crisis that the desire for higher quality entertainment is no longer exclusively the preserve of an elite, and the need for well-trained actors, writers, directors, etc. is increasing, rather than the reverse. And the training to develop that kind of skill is not something that can be uploaded in a 500-person lecture. Between the need for entertainment, and the arguments made from many angles for STEAM Education — Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math — this is arguably the best time to have a grounding in the Humanities under your belt. But the focus on STEM education seems to have banished the A from the University board room, and instead seems to support demands to turn Universities into Employee Dealers and Repair shops.
My fear is that we have arrived at the beginning of the end of theatre in the Academic Institution. One can presume that the best departments and programs in the country are probably going to be safe (but inevitably trimmed). So too for the departments in the Ivy League Universities and Ivy League Wannabes, who’s name reputation rests on being able to “carry” the prestige classes — expect to see “materials costs” skyrocket there though. There will also be a few liberal arts colleges who can keep it going too, owing to the odd successful Alum either funding them or using their name to promote them. I would recommend to any who have some say in a theatre department to prepare now, regardless of what assurances are being offered.
As for the future for theatre education after high school, as more theatre departments are further diminished and limited while expected to increase student capacity, a lot of “Intro To Theatre” courses will be added. It has been creeping in over the past decade or more, and if anything will accelerate thanks to the narrative of getting through University with minimum interruption on the way — motivated understandably by the fear of crushing student debt. However, I believe that theatre training and education beyond high school could be increasingly delivered by the conservatories, perhaps in the form of more vocational training, in the form of night courses, and part time training. I would expect that many in the administration of Conservatories around the country are making plans to expand their offerings to allow for more mature learners, be it people coming to theatre in the afternoon of their lives, or people investigating it in retirement. And if they are wondering where they will find the staff to provide these courses, the good news is that the University sector is in the process of answering that question for them.