Czech Out the Possibilities

The scene:

I was honored to be invited to join 9 fantastic theater leaders, educators, and practitioners from 9 other countries to be a part of the Visitors’ Program of Artistic Creation with special focus on Creative Education in Theatre for Young People in Prague, hosted by Czech ASSITEJ and Perform Czech.

5 Days.

2 Cities.

8 performances (plus 2 I saw on my own)

26 amazing people

12 workshops and facilitated discussions

Highlights included a performance for teens from Polarka Theatre titled “The First Time” fearlessly and hilariously exploring virginity and sex through innovative puppetry, movement, song and dance; “Hoops and Loops”, an indescribable delight of storytelling from an architect of micro-worlds, scenographer and puppeteer Dominik Migač; and presentations from terrifica individuals involved with the Alliance for Theater Educators.

Other highlights were fantastic conversations with my cohorts and their lived experiences of making and producing theater (especially my colleague from Ukraine navigating literal war zones to make theater with young people in bomb shelters), navigating arts administration and perspectives on everything from equity to Eurovision.

I experienced a rich variety of different theatrical spaces, from the blackest of boxes to the most opulent of opera halls.

I also got to stay in hotels and have 3 meals a day with people, which isn't how I typically roll through life and was both a revelation and reevaluation of how I'm spending and restoring energy.

The story:

International programs such as these play a vital role. If we look at theater as both art and space, entertainment and provocation, an individual pleasure and a communal effort – we must step outside our own cultural streams to gain a better perspective. I'm so grateful for this opportunity, and encourage my colleagues to seek out your own paths of connection in these fractured times.

The program ignited my curiosity around assumptions we make in theater engagement, and whether what’s needed for this particular moment in history might be some new ways of thinking.

Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have - by disrupting that order - a way of surprising. - Vaclav Havel

I wonder if we are working so hard to build the order – after its collapse, in terror of future collapse – that we forget about the disruption part of the equation.

Disrupting my daily routine and typical conversations felt akin to making theater. I was especially fascinated by the differences in the meanings of the word “engagement” across cultures. Who are we making what for, and why? What are the assumptions embedded in our approaches to programming?

I believe a commitment to audience development needs to be part of the art itself. If we truly believe there is no theater without the audience, then audience development isn’t just an adjunct department of a business organization – it’s part of the art we talk about when we talk about “the work”. There is no “great art” on our stage without the active participation of the audience. And for that participation to be robust, informative, to help the art as a whole transcend to something special – that audience needs context and invitation. They need education and engagement.

In one session of the Visitor’s Program, 20 people from at least 10 countries had 5 minutes to share about our work. I discovered (the hard way) it took up too much time and accomplished little to talk about mission, vision, or values. What resonated most deeply were specific stories of specific projects. It meant nothing to say “we make 30 plays a year”. It meant more to talk about the one play you made last year, what it was about, how it affected artists and audiences.

Why are some theaters turning away patrons, and some theaters unable to fill seats? Are we more invested in the practice of theater-going, or the particular stories being told? Do audiences come for mission statements? A great story? Or something more than either? Modern theater needs to be more than a play, an organization – it’s about how structures and spaces cooperate in the making of collaborative art and engagement of society. 

We make lots of theater, we go to lots of theater, so that we are better able to recognize the one specific moment of transformation. We watch 2 hours of theater for the magic moment of reveal, connection, release. We must consider building institutions that similarly invest widely to impact specifically. One life, then another, then another.

I say this as someone who loves mission statements and has happily devoted hours of her life to wordsmithing them: perhaps we need to talk less about mission, and more about the stories of our history, our present, and our future. The most successful theaters are those that invest their histories wisely, and use their dividends to take risks and reach forward. The  standard American mission statement script looks inevitably like “changing the world through powerful theater”. What if it became something more like “for 20 years we’ve done this. We’ve learned that. Now we’re doing this. Here’s where you fit in”.

Separating Theater Education and Engagement from the Art makes it more challenging to integrate theater-making with theater-as-cultural-space. By understanding that theater IS education and engagement, by positioning the work of audience development as integral to every aspect of play production, we will strengthen our foundation in the present and allow the future to build up. As long as we treat theater education as something extra, some kind of public benefit on top of our real mission of production, we reinforce theater as something extra and inessential, and will forever be asking the next generations to rebuild, start from scratch.

Theater Engagement IS the art. Art is audience development. Philosophy 101 – there is no theater without the audience. A painting hanging on a wall has no point without a viewer. A play requires interplay. Being human is to be in dialogue.

Theater is a beautiful expression of civic society. It’s beauty, power, and possibility are essential. Theater can be, should be, one of our greatest tools in articulating what civic society looks like.

“When civil society languishes, when the life of organizations and voluntary associations is curtailed, then sooner or later political parties will begin to languish as well, until, ultimately, they become degenerate ghettos whose only purpose is to elevate their members into positions of power.” ― Václav Havel,  To the Castle and Back: Reflections on My Strange Life as a Fairy-Tale Hero

Theater can help save the world. We just need to save the theater.