The American Theatre:

A Cautionary Tale

And there came this vast emptiness.

It wasn’t just that theatre had shut down. We knew that, we felt that, we understood that our lives had changed, irrevocably; even those of us who allowed in the anesthetic denial of “two weeks,” “maybe a month,” “okay maybe six weeks but no more…” followed by the defiant “New Yorkers are resilient…” (yes, but what about domestic and international tourists?) knew, deep down, that whether we liked it or not or chose it or not (and it was invariably, not), we were setting sail into the void.

But the void was more than metaphorical. It was in the streets. It was in the buildings that depended on the brick-and-mortar theatres nearby suddenly abandoned. The businesses that struggled to stay open, a week, a month, and then gradually, put up the signs. Closed due to pandemic. Not just “Theatre…” the theaters themselves. The center of the community. Without it, the community disperses. The economy collapses. And here’s the thing.

It was heading there. Covid-19 just hastened its day.

In this way, a once-in-a-(we hope)-century pandemic is an instructive gift.

We as Americans, as a society, have undervalued the role of the Arts, and more specifically Theatre, on not just our culture, our collective societal identity, and our spiritual health, but most acutely on our economic survival, since the Continental Congress banned playgoing during the Revolutionary War (playgoing was said to mean nothing more than “the loss of the immortal soul”).

We have to reverse this thinking.

That summary dismissal of Theatre is baked into the American system as ever today: The National Endowment of the Arts soldiers on, administration after administration to be sure, but it represents .004 percent of the federal budget. That’s about $150 million, per year. (Not all of that goes to Theatre either, of course, but let’s start there). The original budget for Wicked, say, was $14 million (in 2005).

Not every Broadway theatre holds (nor should hold) a Wicked, but the 40 houses on Broadway alone, in the year before the pandemic, contributed $14.7 billion (that’s with a “b”) to the economy of New York City.

And supported nearly 100,000 jobs.

These are investments in communities all across America, in whatever city is fortunate enough to be blessed by brick-and-mortar theaters in their neighborhoods.

Who are the next Sondheims? The next Kanders & Ebbs? The next generation of Bocks & Harnicks? The next August Wilsons? These are the artists who were nurtured in the time of producers like Hal Prince and Lloyd Richards. Those men are gone now. There is no structure in place to develop artists and give them the space to fail until they succeed. The gatekeepers are enmeshed in the old way of doing business — a business that relies on revivals, movie adaptations, and the next one-off of a shiny new thing.

Commerce Theatre Company is the new way to the future of an American theatre that has been buffeted by neglect, cautiousness and a catastrophic pandemic. There is economic need that traverses outward into the communal, emotional, and spiritual. Art is the soul of a country and the sustenance of its people. Commerce is how art sustains itself.

There is no more time to waste.