So in addition to keynote speakers, colloquies, staging sessions, and performances, we have plenary sessions where amazing scholars present amazing papers. One paper I particularly enjoyed was The Bear Essentials: Cost-effective bears in original practice productions of The Winter’s Tale by Melissa D. Aaron of Cal Poly Ponoma - and I want to apologize in advance if I butcher her words. I didn’t take notes during her presentation and I’m seriously regretting it now.
I’m an arts management wonk and amateur Shakespeare lover and this presentation spoke directly to my soul. Aaron studies theatre practices from Shakespeare’s time through the lens of economics, and this paper looked at the good financial sense of putting a bear into The Winter’s Tale.
So, what I learned: The Winter’s Tale premiered in the 1610/11 season. In 1609, a few white polar bears were brought to London and were quite the sensation. People were still talking about them and when the King’s Men (the company to which Shakespeare belonged for many years) acquired a white polar bear suit - why wouldn’t they use it? In fact, they used it as much as they could. It was a part of a few of the plays they put on that season. And you know what? The audiences loved it.
But here is why it is truly perfect: if you know some theatre history, you’ll know companies were going through some economic uncertainty as theatres across London were closing (you know, surviving the plague ain't no joke...). Being frugal was a necessity and you had to give the audiences something to make sure they came back.
Now, let’s fast forward 400 years. I’m sitting in the balcony of the Blackfriars Playhouse here in Staunton, Va. I’m enthralled. I’ve never thought of Shakespeare in such an arts management way! Why did he write the things he wrote? Can what Shakespeare and his contemporaries did teach me about what I’m doing today? What are all these new thoughts I’ve never had before?!
(You know, in grad school we had a professor try to convince us that P.T. Barnum was the first arts manager. I have this feeling she would hate everything I’m about to say.)
Non-profit theatres know the fear Shakespeare and his contemporaries knew. Faced with economic uncertainty, we ask the same types of questions: how can we manage smarter to create the most return on our investment? How do you creatively solve problems while speaking to our community and stakeholders? How do we give them exactly what they need while meeting our bottom line?
While not a Shakespeare scholar, I can tell that Shakespeare knew his audiences. The theatre company was a part of the neighborhood so he knew that people would love the bear. (Which is great, because I’m sure a bear suit was expensive and a rather obscure costume piece to have on hand…) Faced with the threat of financial insecurity, the King’s Men turned to their audiences and the resources the company had. How often do we do that in modern theatres? Are we re-using sets, costumes, and props in ingenious ways or are we spending money unnecessarily? Are we hiring in a smart way - do we have people who can just do the job or people who want to have conversations about the best way to do the job? Could unnecessary spending go to something else - another aspect of our mission? Could we look at what we have, like Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and say (as I’m going to imagine they did, usually in my head with a terrible British accent) “this is what the community knows, this is what we have, and it will be genius”.
The catch here seems to be: the artists were arts managers. Now, this is my little soap box and I’ve talked about it before, but I don’t see a huge difference between what an arts manager does and an artist does. I acknowledge both roles have different functions and tap differently into right and left brain, but the process is often the same and there's so much room for collaboration between the two - they have to talk to each other and be on the same page. Communication is key. Arts managers can see the bottom line and artists can see how the work is being reflected back from the audience. While both can be leaders and innovators in their field, without each other they are just sort of existing and not being as efficient as possible. It seems like Shakespeare and his company were both: looking at the bottom line and changing the art to make sure they had a sustainable product that spoke to the community. (All right, it was probably a little more practical and maybe even more cynical than that - but I’m choosing to see this as a rose-colored glasses situation. In truth, I believe there is a very important line between using the art and resources you have to see a higher ROI and speaking down to the audience. I'm actively choosing - and urging for you - to see the bear not as pandering, but as sheer ingenuity.)
I can’t help but remember the times I’ve been at organizations that have been faced with economic uncertainty and we didn’t have a white polar bear suit (or, you know, Royal Patronage - there's a lot to keeping a theatre afloat) to keep audiences coming back. Backed into a corner, decisions are made. How do we stop living on the edge, or do we in fact need to be on the edge, overworked and about to break, in order to make a real change in our practices? Are we all just secret (or not so secret) martyrs for our organizations?
So… It would seem that in the arts management world - dating all the way back to Shakespeare’s time - genius is often born out of necessity. There’s a quote that I love from the TV show “Slings and Arrows” (also Shakespeare/theatre related, if you haven’t seen it, check it out) the theme of which is repeated over and over:
Cheryl: We’re hanging on by a thread
Geoffrey: And the very best things happen just before the thread snaps.
And I realize that this is a niche market now-a-days, but… if it weren’t for living on the edge, we wouldn’t have all those Shakespeare-related bear jokes.