AT25: An Eye on the Future
Matt Saunders, scenic designer, associate artistic director, New Paradise Laboratories, Philadelphia
I was at a production meeting the other night for a show in Philly by a midsized regional theatre, and given the current economic situation, the mood was understandably somber. The first agenda item, in fact, was to issue a 20-percent, "cross-departmental" budget cut. The room fell silent. Then the director speaks up: "Look, I know this is bad news. It's terrible news. But, hey, what are we gonna do? At the end of the day, no matter what, we still have the potential to change people's lives, right?"
I am encouraged by how many of my colleagues share those sentiments. Budgets have been cut on six of the nine shows I'm designing this year, yet everyone around me is unflinchingly passionate. Ideas abound. Artistic conversations are intoxicating. Truthfully, when I think about the next 25 years in American theatre, I am without panic or alarm. I am utterly excited about the possibilities of our evolving work together.
I have so many questions. How can we integrate new technology in ways that are not just "cutting-edge," but also meaningful? What does it mean to "author new work"—is this role in our field relegated only to playwrights and ensembles? What is our relationship to pop culture? Can we continue to incorporate populist trends in our work without conforming to them entirely? How do we maintain a sense of history while embracing the appetite for adventure more commonly associated with the visual arts? How do we draw the line between creator and audience? Are we in the process of blurring that line or drawing it more clearly? How does our commitment to community evolve as the geographical boundaries that define them are fading away? Can we find new and inventive ways of producing work outside the paradigm of big institutions and subscribers? And, yes, of course, how do we engage and excite new audiences?
No matter what the economic, social or political climate may be, our art form will evolve as society itself evolves, because there is something at the very core of our work that is essential to the human spirit. It's an innate desire to gather together, tell stories, sing songs and dance the impossibilities of our existence. In the next 25 years, how do we stay true to that?