Summer and Theater

It's the season for profound transitions.

I'm reminded of my family history research and how the season affected life before air conditioning in places where it mattered. Before the Crash of '29 my eastern Kansas grandparents camped for a month annually in the mountains of Colorado. Resort areas of New England and the northeast still show the skeletons of a prosperous past of seasonal migrations before ubiquitous summer air conditioning.

We mark our calendars with seasonal changes in activities, but we seem not to require the amenities we once did. Some areas remain popular for shorter holidays, and amusement parks have become more extravagant. Air conditioning and expressway access have had a significant effect on recreation choices. Summer theater suffered as all theater did with the ubiquity of television, and now internet distractions. A few of the old established summer theater venues remain in the Northeast resort areas, but most do not.

I advocate hard for theater students to plan ahead for a residential summer theater experience, usually between junior and senior year. Often that means foregoing an established paying summer job, so they need to work it out. Most of my public university students live within an hour's drive from the university and remain heavily invested at home, so they don't really "go away to college" in the classic sense. Few had anything more than day-camp experiences when growing up. An 8 or 12-week, multiple-show, residential summer theater experience is a big step for them and requires some sacrifice. Whether they continue in theater or not, the experience is valuable for its own sake.

Some long-established resort playhouses continue to produce in the northeast and elsewhere, and they remain important for the development of theater artists. If students can get hired at least for cost (room and board) at an active multi-show venue, they get some important experiences under their belt:

--Many students face their first adult independence. The experience of beginning college is pre-adult and much more managed. Negotiations of relationships and personal space are more critical in summer theater because of the work intensity and jammed living arrangements.
--Students meet and must live with other artists of comparable or greater talents from other places and with other training. They get a different perspective on their own talents.
--People will be more blunt about the work. If one's work is good one will be highly regarded. If it is not, one will get the message. Usually.
--If they are successful, they will be able to list their first non-school reference.
--It is an important node in the network. Every working theater artist can cite an access or opportunity they had because of an experience or an acquaintance in their first summer theater.
--The learning curve is vertical. In spite of what one is taught in school, there is no definitive way to do anything -- only ways to meet the criteria for better or worse. The world takes practices that work.

Theater is a relatively small and mobile community of artists and the summer theater experience will lead to connections. Maybe it will be somebody who was there, when you were there or at another time. By knowing you shared an intensive theater experience, you have a perspective on each other that grounds a level of trust. Serious theater students need to plan for it.

Scenemaker
May 7, 2011