Editor’s Note: If you haven’t read Parts 1&2, do it. They add more dimension to what follows

continuing
Chicago Confidential
or, How I stopped worrying about White folks and learned to love my Black friends.

o there we were... exhausted but glowing! We’d staged the pilot for the NEA’s regional arts festivals and it was a huge but individually costly success. We opened a wide door to the rich and often neglected arts talent in bovine Chicago. We were about to embark on a new repertory season, our most complex and original to date. But the air around us was troubling. Little signs, little indications that our “patronage “ still wanted a bigger piece of us. Mildly paranoid, we waited for the hits. The first knock on the door was a big one.

Though our grant of facilities was under the aegis of the NEA and the state arts council, it was administered by the board of the social service organization that owned and shared the building. This board of community-spirited folks had managed to acquire control of our facilities grant and now they wanted to play a major role in our work. Some of them weren’t too happy about the Chicago Poor Arts Festival... it didn’t quite relate to their view of “community”. Particularly true of the wealthy muck-a-muck who had donated all the money to build the theatre a few years before. His “community” was the community of his friends and fellow country-club-ers. They also didn’t like the kind of theatre we did, all of that avant garde, original stuff! They wanted to see more Neil Simon, maybe a musical or two, how about “Time Out for Ginger”? They wanted to review our repertory before we announced it and they wanted their special executive committee to meet with our executive committee (moi) on a regular basis, say, once a week. They wanted – and this time, sadly and joyfully, I lost my “cool”. All of those years and months of dealing with issues and concerns that had little or nothing to do with the art of it all and the colossal pressure of the recent festival summer erupted, rather exploded in that smug room full of smug people. My tirade lasted about a half hour. And I ended it on a high note (no I didn’t moon them, my ‘tush’ was reserved for more discerning eyes!). I announced that we (the company) were leaving and then I left!

In the next days, this upheaval prompted a series of calls from our funding sources. They wanted to assure me that this matter could be arbitrated and that the facilities grant could be co-administered. But I had a “Plan B”.

Our American Indian friends had a huge building near by. It was a former Masonic temple left to them by a little old lady who thumbed her nose at her neighbors and willed this marvelous property to the “savages”. We negotiated a deal, took over the upper floors including the former Masonic ritual hall (lots of vibes and late night moans and whispers!)  and built ourselves a theatre from scratch. It delayed our season, but we did it. We packed up our equipment, our costuming, our tools, our props, our champagne corks and our music.. . we took our toys and went to play in another sandbox. Then came the second loud knock.

The NEA had teamed with three of our major funding sources and they all decided and demanded that we accept technical advisors on our board. With voting rights, asked I. Well, said they, not quite, a kind of oversight. They wanted to control our activities and planning because they saw the Festival as a major “feather” in their bonnets and they didn’t want us to move away from producing it again. I simply refused. They simply began to turn the screws. Paperwork rained down on us as if it came from a giant dustmop. Checks were delayed. Payments were agonizingly slow. Again, there was never any question of wrong-doing, just a question of conformity, a question in baseball terms, of playing hardball!

We had a very good season, some of the best work we ever did. The audiences were good, the reviews were good but the late opening and the relocation took its toll. We hadn’t toured in over a year, and we had to forgo our children’s program in the new facility. Along with this, and the continuous administrative harassment, cracks began to appear in the company. Everyone was weary, wary, and wan. The core of the company had worked together for six years, had developed a performing ensemble and a unique vision of actor and audience. But they, rather I had lost hold of the delicate thread that defines art and an artist’s life. It was time to go back to the real world.

That was our last season. I announced that we would no longer apply for support and we turned down the next year’s budget. The Ensemble became part of my theatre history and evolved into the Atlantis Theatre Company, a for-profit touring group which evolved into four later incarnations up to the present, the Talos TheatreEnsemble. I swore I would never touch patronage money or stick the tip of my nose into the non-profit circus again. Sigh, as any good Gypsy knows, if you’re going to swear an oath, you need to sign it in blood. I must have forgotten that part. Some years later, I found myself in the midst of another non-profit imbroglio, this time with the New Vision Theatre, an innovative company of blind and visually -impaired actors. It was again a situation of social politics unrrelated to the art. After kicking that monkey off my back for the second time, I’ve been clean ever since.

One bizarre note. About three weeks after I announced we were getting off the dole, the NEA asked for a meeting. They flew in a smiling assistant director who took me out for a drink and a steak at the Palmer House. After we got warm and chummy, he opened up an envelope and spread a bevy of papers in front of me. It was an application for funding for the coming year. It already had panel approval and was signed by the executive staff. What was missing was the budget. Just fill in the numbers, he said with a laugh, within reason, of course. Knowing the NEA and the bureaucracy, I asked him, “Gordon, how is that  possible.”  He winked, that Chicago-style wink, and said, the director has certain discretionary powers, she can exercise a special budget. I winked back and said (pre-dating Mel Brooks), “It’s good to be a director!”.  “To each his own”, he said as he got into a taxi to the airport. That about summed it up!

Point to be made... as I said in the beginning, for all of the good the born-again arts support did... there was a price to pay. It actually began somewhat before the 1970’s gush of gold. The price was, and still is... mediocrity! It is a malady of non-profit, especially non-profit theatre. It exalts the community, the boards of directors, the “friends of...” and too often takes art out of the hands and mouths of the artists. The audience becomes the show!

There’s a wonderful scene in Tom Stoppard’s “Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” (the film). The two dimwits are on the road and come across a traveling band of players. The players’ manager looks at them and says: “Aha, an audience!” With that, the stage unfolds, the actors jump into costume, and the performance begins. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what it’s all about.

Part 1: Click Here

Part 2: Click Here

Arthur Meiselman is a writer,
director, playwright and zingaro

© 2000 A. Meiselman ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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