In this moment of collective upheaval, the existing hierarchies within theatrical practice are reaching their shelf life and it’s time to unearth alternatives. It’s becoming difficult to build deep and meaningful relationships when resources are scarce and we’re all fighting for the same donors, investors, and audiences.
Storytelling is a collective experience. There are prismatic relational dynamics at play in our collaborative artform—between producing organization and audience; between individual audience members; between scenic designer and sound designer. This collective experience is often regarded as the magical ingredient in theatrical practice—the intangible energy that sets live performance apart from solitary artforms. The building blocks of theatre are relationships that demand we enter into the messy work of creating with other humans who have different lived experiences, opinions, worldviews, and vocabulary.
Our artform has channeled these unruly relational dynamics into systems of producing that allow for more efficient creation. We do, of course, provide a product for our audiences based on communicated dates, ticket prices, budgets, etc. The director is typically in charge of the overall production vision, setting the tone and vocabulary for the rest of the creative team. The institutions are typically programming seasons that they feel will appeal to their communities. Playwrights are writing with a vision for how they would like their audience to receive a piece. Our systems have evolved into hierarchies based on very real finite resources.
My work in both the commercial and nonprofit spaces and as Head of Partnerships for Play On Shakespeare has proven that expansive relational frameworks inspire creative thinking surrounding our messy collective endeavor. Below are three proposed ways to expand our thinking around ingrained relational dynamics.
Build A Map
When we enter into a new partnership—a co-production, a relationship with an enhancing producer, teaching or taking a new class—there must be a shared understanding of the direction in which all of the parties are traveling. And before charting that course, there must be a deep familiarity with each partner’s real needs, quirks, and missions.
When we initiate a partnership at Play On Shakespeare, we begin with a level-setting conversation. Play On Shakespeare partnered with Shakespeare Dallas recently on a bilingual production of Taming of the Shrew. We came to the table with our mission of normalizing translation of Shakespeare. Shakespeare Dallas came to the table with a desire to serve their Spanish-speaking communities. We were able to look at both of these needs and use them as a map, outlining the rest of the partnership—including additional funding to bring on a Spanish-speaking playwright to oversee the translation. We honestly communicate our strengths and weaknesses as an organization and we’re sure to be transparent with our potential partners in the initial conversations. In return, we ask our partners to do the same. A clear understanding of each organization’s needs for any given project is required to build the map to the final destination.
Assume Good Will
When a producing partner asks for help or has a need that shifts, assuming good will means turning toward them, believing them, and remembering that you’re both moving toward a goal together. This is not simply staying positive; assuming good will requires deeply examining and trusting that the partner, in all of their complexity, is doing their best. When resources are scarce, we have evolved to get our hackles up. To become prickly and blame or get angry. This is no way to engage in meaningful partnership and only creates barriers to creative and collective art-making.
In my own producing career I’ve struggled to transparently communicate when I do not have capacity. My immediate response is to feel like I’m letting a team down. Assuming good will requires a recognition that getting radically honest with your collaborators is an opportunity to be supported and understood. It goes both ways.
Manage Conflict
I’ve been a part of many productions in which conflict is avoided at all costs, to the detriment of the creative process. All healthy relationships have conflict. It’s how we manage that conflict that matters. Often the conflict is heightened by avoiding it or glossing over the messiness within it. If the goal is to manage conflict rather than avoid or resolve it, there’s an opportunity for deepening that relationship.
This philosophy surrounding conflict also applies to our institutions and audiences. Institutions require funding to stay afloat, and engaging in any conflict with community is terrifying. We must fight the urge to placate and avoid conflict with our audiences. When we allow people to get angry, sad, disappointed, or ecstatic while holding firm to our programming, artistic impulses, etc., we give them the dignity of their own discomfort. Easier said than done, yes. But worth thinking about when it comes time to program.
Managing any conflict is significantly easier when you’ve built relationships full of transparency with a map and assuming good will.
Our institutional and individual survival impulse is to calcify, to dig in and keep grinding away in our familiar trenches. However, Jungian psychologists tout the truth that we understand ourselves relationally. We cannot grow in isolation. Perhaps this is why the collective storytelling experience of theatre continues to deeply move us. For the future of our artform, it’s time to take a look at these myriad relationships and explore them through expansive new frameworks.
Sally Cade Holmes is a two-time Tony-winning producer and Head of Partnerships at Play On Shakespeare.
