The Education of a Theatreperson

The Education of a Theatreperson In an effort to widen the discussion of theatre and its relationship to the university and to the professional world, initiated in PAJ 30's editorial, and which Bruce Wilshire's essay above so eloquently addresses, it seems appropriate to include here other responses to the issues raised in the editorial from those published below. The editors invite further debate on the subject in the pages of PAJ, hoping that it will foster serious examination of all aspects of theatre education in this time of questioning. Your call for more rigorous intellectual standards in theatre education is a sound one. But, in charging conservatories of training with "being trade schools for the profession" and thereby usurping the place formerly given to "criticism, theory, and history," I think you are confusing two different kinds of institutions, each with their own distinctive goals and purposes. I agree that university theatre departments, whether graduate or undergraduate , should be more engaged with intellectual and scholarly matters. Indeed, it is my own conviction that such departments should be closely allied with, if not assimilated into, departments of literature and the humanities. But the theatre conservatory, whether degree-granting or not, is essentially a professional institution-which is to say, as much a "trade school" as Schools of Law, Medicine, Music, and Art and Architecture. And while an actor or director ought to be as familiar with the literature of his or her field as a pianist or a conductor is with theirs, the conservatory student is essentially a professional-in-training, whose intellectual pursuits must be balanced against the development of certain practical skills. By "literature, " though, I mean dramatic texts, not critical "theory," which is of little value to a theatre artist-or arguably anyone else, apart from academics in line for promotion. When you want your appendix out, you don't engage a theoretical surgeon, any more than you would hire an actor for his familiarity with semiotics. 14 Were the universities doing their jobs properly, conservatory students would be as well-prepared intellectually by the time they reach the level of advanced training as their counterparts in law and medicine. But the excessive attention to stage activity on the undergraduate level is leaving us with a generation of theatre illiterates, who come to conservatories not only with little knowledge of literature, society, politics, and thought, but with illprepared basic skills as well. At the ART Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard, we provide our students with a number of discussion courses in stage history, dramatic literature, and general theatrical-social issues, in addition to their practical courses, rehearsals, and performances. Naturally, one wishes there could be more, but there are only so many hours in the day, so many days in the week, for remedial work. As for "critical theory," I admit we don't bother much with that, lest we muddle the heads of theatre artists as badly as those of certain contemporary critics of literature and the stage. Robert Brustein ART Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard I applaud your challenge to the leaders of American educational theatre to embark upon a much-needed reform of our sadly deficient discipline. But important as curriculum changes may be, they are mere window-dressing until we begin to understand the potential contribution of theatre to the entire spectrum of higher education. Alone among the humanities, the study of theatre engages not only the faculty of reason but the entire personality-mind, body, sensibility and imagination -as an integrated whole. Because of its unique combination of thinking and doing and its focus on the development of the whole person, theatre is a practical preparation for a wide range of careers. The reform of theatre education must start with a clear distinction between education for and through theatre. Among the curriculum reforms that indeed are necessary is a commitment to the study of the literature, history and criticism of the theatre as an analysis of these civilizations wherein intellectual, political, economic and social energies coalesced to create a fruitful climate for significant dramatic art. Seen in this light, theatre (as illustrated in ancient Greece, Elizabethan England, Neo...