Eight Reasons I Work in the Theatre

Like most theatre professionals, I started working in the theatre because I saw a production (in my case, Saint Joan) that awakened something within me. In Middle and High School, I tried my hand at theatre myself, fell in love, and stuck with it. There are plenty of people of who start that way, acting in plays in high school, at summer camp and in college, without deciding on theatre as a profession. There are also plenty of people who start in it as a profession and, when faced with the slim odds of making a living doing it, do the “sensible” thing and get “real” jobs.

Perhaps I’m not very sensible, or perhaps I’m sentimental and can’t let go of those magical moments I had watching plays as a kid, but I’m still directing plays and writing about them. Something keeps me in it, keeps me coming back to the rehearsal room, keeps me plunking down between $10 and $120 for tickets to the latest shows. Over the past year, as more non-theatrical opportunities have presented themselves, I’ve had to think about why I remain, why I work in the theatre. Here are eight reasons I’ve come up with:

(1) Liveness. It is very difficult to discuss liveness without one’s head flying up to the clouds on gossamer wings of vague spiritual language. This is because it is also very difficult to quantify what it is about a live event that gives it a peculiar power and tension that a prerecorded event does not have. There are even entire books on the subject. In the interest of brevity, let me just say that in my experience, nothing beats a truly spectacular live performance, and the sense that anything can happen at any given moment creates a natural tension and excitement in theatre.

(2) Audience. Every art form relies on its audience to some extent. When you read a book, your imagination creates the pictures described on the pages. If you didn’t go to see films or listen to music, there would be no reason for them to be made. Books, movies, and recorded music do not interact with their audiences as immediately as theatre. Theatre is shaped every night by the audience’s response. The Importance of Being Earnest is a completely different play if people are not laughing at the jokes, but the film will stay the same no matter what you think of it. An energetic audience will feed the actors and can transform the performance into something better than it was before. In our age of mass production and “quality control,” we are deeply suspicious of audiences and their impact on plays. We shouldn’t be – it’s one of the great gifts of working in theatre.

(3) Collaboration. Every individual component of theatre can’t really exist on its own. Scripts need actors to speak the words. Actors need clothes to wear and environments to perform in. Directors need all of the above to tell stories. Owing to all of this, theatre is created collaboratively. I love that a theatrical production is larger than any of the individuals in it. I love being able to go into a rehearsal room with an idea and having a group of artists whom I trust take it, run with it, and make it better.

(4) The Learning Never Stops. Every artist I know is worth a damn believes in the power and usefulness of research. One of the core character traits of most good artists is an interest in learning more and learning constantly. For the last play I directed, I got to investigate the roots of the blood libel against Jews, the history of vaudeville in the United States, The Roche Sisters, and the current debates about “the new Atheism.” That was for just one show! Theatre artists are always learning about new things by necessity; it’s how we’re able to create whole worlds on stage. I treasure remaining in a profession that necessitates expanding my knowledge, and it’s also a delight to be able to share that knowledge with others through the production itself.

(5) Completeness. Theatre is not the most powerful art form. That title surely must belong to music. What theatre can do, however, is combine lots of different art forms, take what’s great about them and use it toward its own devices. Sure, music might have that direct line to your cortex and an ability to make even the most respectable stock broker into an air-guitar playing maniac, but theatre can incorporate music and combine it with sculpture (set design), literature (playwriting), dance (blocking and choreography), and a whole host of other art forms. This allows various other art forms to resonate off each other and be transmogrified into something different and unique.

(6) History. Theatre is a very old artistic tradition; performances today do not differ that significantly from theatre a few millennia ago. The theatrical experience still involves an audience seeing people perform as characters in order to tell a story in real time. When you go to see a play, you are entering into a ritual that stretches back to the ancient Greeks in the Fourth Century BCE. Back then, you would have to be a man to get into the show and you would be seeing it as part of an all-day religious festival, but the similarities are vast. Western Drama’s collective history is important not only to the culture at large, but to each individual theatrical production. Nothing flows from nothing and, in theatre, you get to build off of a rich tradition spanning two and a half thousand years. Every new play adds to that river of time, and every revival and reimagining of a classic play speaks in conversation with the productions that have come before it. This is not only beautiful to ponder, but it adds real depth to the work that we do.

(7) Transformation. Theatre is, at its core, an act of transformation. People become other people in a space that has changed into a different space. This alchemy happens live, which means, unlike in film and television, we the audience actually witness the change as it occurs. Theatre, therefore, implicitly shows us all that change is possible. We can all perform as other than what we are – we can transform a moment into something very different than what it is. In this way, theatre works against our natural conservatism, showing us change happening all around us and inviting us to take part in it.

(8) Localness. You cannot mechanically reproduce theatre without turning it into something else. A televised performance of a play is not a work of theatre anymore, but rather a work of television. Since it cannot be reproduced, theatre is, by necessity, local. At its best, theatre takes advantage of this, speaking for and to the community in which it is performed. On a somewhat more prosaic level, it’s really fun to take up roots in an area, getting to know the local businesses and people in the area, and become part of a local scene.

For me, all of this adds up to one simple thing: Theatre is the most human of art forms. We gather together with our fellow human beings, watching people transform and move beyond themselves in real time. Every theatrical experience is one that is unique and impossible to replicate. When it is at its best, it creates an environment where we can imagine beyond ourselves and our daily lives. Those moments are few and far between, and it isn’t long before the everyday comes crashing through again, but they are precious and beautiful nonetheless. This is why I work in theatre and why I believe that more people should experience it on a regular basis.

ISAAC BUTLER maintains the blog Parabasis.