Features Essays Published 21 September 2012

Theatrical Innovation: Whose Job Is It?

A speech originally given by Howard Shalwitz, Artistic Director of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, at the TCG Conference in Boston on 21st June 2012.
Howard Shalwitz

At the new play convening I referred to earlier, Rocco Landesman famously said that there might be too many resident theatres. I don’t agree, but I think there’s an important caution.  If our theatre buildings become homes for assembly lines that crank out too many plays, and if there isn’t an opportunity for the artists working on those plays to develop a real sense of purpose, beyond just doing a good job and filling a slot in the season, then we’re in trouble.

The most dangerous thing about the assembly line is not that it moves so fast, but that it just keeps moving, demanding more plays. We can deceive ourselves into thinking that if we just find the right plays, we’ll find the right audiences;  and in the short run that may be true.  But in the long run, it’s the purpose behind the plays we make, and the energy and invention with which that purpose is shared on the stage, that galvanizes audiences. It’s not just the stories we tell, but why and how we tell them that determines our success.

So, my conclusion is simple: theatrical innovation is the job of actors, directors, playwrights, designers, dramaturgs, production managers, technical directors, and everyone else who works in our theatres.  But creating the space for that innovation to happen – that is the job of artistic directors, managing directors, and other theatre leaders. And we may need some help from agents, unions, funders, and others, to shake up our model just a little bit, and give ourselves some flexibility in the way we gather artists together.

Our work in the American theatre today sits on top of two great revolutions. The first half of the 20th century saw a revolution of purpose whose goal was to more truthfully reflect the realities of American life. One of the great fruits of that revolution, Death Of A Salesman, is on Broadway today. Its premiere in 1949 featured several veterans of The Group Theatre.

The second half of the 20th century saw a revolution of access, with the spreading of theatres across the landscape, and opening them to artists and audiences from many different backgrounds.  All of us here today are a part of that revolution.

Perhaps we’ll look back on the first half of the ­21st century and see a revolution of process, with deeper collaborations among theatre artists leading to an explosion of innovation. Perhaps that revolution will get us closer to resolving the contradiction between “the advance of theatre as an art form and the discovery of new and larger audiences.”

Thank you.

For more on theatrical innovation and where we go next, read essays by Alex Chisholm and Fin Kennedy.


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Howard Shalwitz is a contributor to Exeunt Magazine

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