The Labor Theater

a letter from The Labor Theater January 22, 1984 Dear Performing Arts Journal: I picked up PAJ #21 because I was attracted by the cover article on The Open Theatre. I have generally avoided theoretical theatre publications in the past, perhaps wrongly thinking that I would find little of interest or use. I particularly enjoyed Richard Nelson's article on non-profit theatre, "Polite Cruelty," and Peter Hay's article on "The Dramaturg in American Theatre." Having come from the past ten years' experience as being one of the founders of a political theatre, The Labor Theater (based in NYC, but also given to touring), I found Nelson's musings on art and politics particularly thought-provoking, especially his description of the lack of recognition and serious consideration given to work that takes its impetus first from the need to be about something. This, by the way, generally characterizes also the consideration given our kind of work by the peer review process employed by such grant-giving agencies as the National Endowment for the Arts. Harold Clurman, Marilyn Stasio (New York Post), and occasional writers for the Village Voice have been the only critics covering Labor Theater as an ongoing theatre of social commitment seeking a relationship with a working class audience; seeking to involve our audience in an artistic experience beyond entertainment and beyond personal psychology to consider basic issues facing our world today. The critics mentioned above have not always found our productions successful, but have considered them seriously. 89 Regarding Nelson's comment that within the short space of three months no fewer than four artistic directors of major regional theatres lamented, "Where are the playwrights writing about American life today?," it seems to us at The Labor Theater not to be such a difficult problem. We ask our audience , our community, our advisors, our friends, "What's happening in the world today that needs consideration? What are its causes, its effects, its human costs? What about that interesting historic event? Does it have resonance for today? Who can we get to write a play about it? Who finds it as exciting as we do? Can one of us take this on as a writing project in a collaborative way? Is there a personal connection to the event, the experience, the subject, that can render a play that will move the writer and the audience in a way that transcends the specific?" It is an intense and exciting way to work. With not much of a budget and only two people spending any time on administration, we have rarely been able to generate more than two plays a year. With all of the talk about dramaturgy today, it is interesting for us to realize that we have been greatly aided in our efforts to create plays about something by such funders as the New York Council for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities. I think that it is likely that other theatres would find support for employing scholars in the humanities as consultants in advising them on how to make plays about something from state humanities councils. As a description of how this can work, I'll cite a few examples of our dramaturgical collaborations: political scientist Robert Engler advised us on our play on energy policy,Flower; historian Leon Stein advised on the Jewish immigrant experience of the early 1900s for Don't Cry, Child, Your Father's in America; historian Steve Brier advised us on utopian communities for A Peaceable Kingdom and on blacks and whites working together within the Populist movement of the 1890s for Railroad Bill; Phillip Foner and Robert Barltrop advised on the development of Yours for the Revolution, Jack London. The consultants have given us book lists, facts, theories, criticism, and valuable discussion. We try to tour at least one play a year. Relevant to touring is the point that Nelson made about political/social plays generally requiring larger casts than those focusing on individuals. With our touring plays being produced under Equity agreements similar to the LORT B contract, with one-night stands and lots of traveling, economics and logistics require that we travel with relatively small...