“Solving the problems of the world with one single piece of charred body nylon!” Wait…what?
On a recent visit to my parent’s house, I was instructed to go through a box of “my stuff” to decide what I wanted to keep and what could be thrown away. On the top of the box was my high school graduation cap and gown, along with other nostalgic items. What I also found were folders and notebooks from Playwrights Horizons Theater School (NYU). Every thing from class schedules to final assignments, contact sheets for second year stage managers and the blue books from my History of Acting class.
As I looked through these things with the wonder of, “Wow, this seems so long ago” — the wonderful thought hit me that, “My god, I really LOVED theater school!” This was amazing! I had forgotten over time the pure joy of studying the development of the acting craft from the beginning of recorded history! I found a copy of a scene I was directing with nearly indecipherable notes scribbled all over the place. My heart felt lite, it was joy.
Now, living in the real world, I realize that I learned a whole lot more than I thought I had. The level of analytical thinking involved in directing or design and the incredibly high end level of problem solving (not to mention historical study, comparative literature, collaboration and visual palette). I think theater students could and should easily beat out any business or finance major for any job in which the desired outcome is not purely scientific.
And then I had a daydream of going into a job interview and being asked about my problem solving skills (or something like that); and telling the story of Pain: Eulalia by Eric Ehn. When in Director/Designer collaboration I was the costume designer for this show and I had to figure out how to get a girl to look burned, and not just burned…baked to a crisp from head to toe, worse than the walking dead. And that was just level one. We also had to deal with the fact that the actress playing the role would have less than 10 minutes to get into this costume (which means no heavy makeup or prosthetic) AND she would have to be out of the costume in less than 5 minutes to re-enter…looking like a pure white angel.
We solved it. It was genius. Just sorry we never got to put it into practical application (because then I would have pictures). However, someone somewhere has the watercolor rendering of both costumes. This is only one, single isolated example of the level of creativity, innovation, analysis and problem solving that any job in the theater requires. I am not suggesting we actually go out and challenge those finance majors for their jobs (god knows they have enough problems already)…BUT explain to me, in purely logical terms, why what brilliant people do in the theater profession is compensated less than 10% of what they deserve?
I cannot give you an answer today. But I think that this particular problem is one that the collective genius within the theater industry could solve.
We just need to have a production meeting…or seven.
Always A Way.
MJZ
Posted on August 14, 2011
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