Abolish Undergraduate Art Majors

November 3, 2008 by dennisbaker 

Article Review
“A Modest Proposal” by Tony Kushner, American Theatre, January 1998
Keynote address to Association of Theatre of Higher Education Conference

I don’t think you earn your income as an artist to be an artist. But if you are an artist, the artist is what you do, whether or not you’re paid for doing it; it is what you do, not what you are. I regard artist not as a description of temperament but as a category of profession, of vocation. What we call education in the arts is mostly training; it is, in fact vocational training.

This being the year of my ten-year high school reunion I could not help but look back to see what has become of my twenty-eight years of living. While the creation of social media outlets like facebook and myspace allows one to easily connect with people from the past, one’s ideals, hopes and goals of days gone might not so easily within reach.

The summer before my senior year in high school I just had been through a “mountain-top” experience at the two-week seminar for high school juniors at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. With all the passion and drive of a hormonal seventeen year old, I was ready to enter my senior year and begin my life devotion to the theater. I quit the basketball team to assistant direct the one play that was produced that year and pursued acting and auditioning outside of school.

That January I read the article “A Modest Proposal” by Tony Kushner published in the American Theatre magazine. I was floored by his premise to abolish all undergraduate art majors. Being from a small town in central California, where the cows at times out numbered the people and my total graduation class was a couple of hundred students, I thought maybe this was crazy east coast, liberal arts ideals rearing its ugly head. As I read the article I grew to appreciate the ideas Kushner proposed, specifically the desire for young artists to receive an education and not merely vocational training. I wished I could say I followed his advice, but I fell into the trap of training. I moved to Los Angeles so I could get an undergraduate degree in communication and theater. Like many students I thought it was the best situation. I was able to get a degree, study theater and pursue acting in Los Angeles. Many good things came from that decision, a beautiful wife, life long friends and studying with some great mentors, but looking back I wonder if I sacrificed formative years of education at the alter of vocational training. As I pursue a graduate degree in theater education I decided to re-read Kushner’s article to see what has changed, if anything. Undergraduate art majors are growing more than ever so what can be taken away from the article now?

Kushner’s proposal is simple: abolish all undergraduate art majors. His thesis is wrapped in the idea that the institutions have exchanged education for vocational training, “since the undergraduate arts majors mill is almost as profitable for cash-strapped institutions of higher learning as pesticide development and biochemical warfare research, certainly considerably more profitable than liberal arts departments”. Colleges and universities main goal is to make money and with so many people wanting to pursue the arts, the schools are going to go where the money is flowing. What college would deny eighteen year old students the “right” to pursue a major in theater, visual arts, writing, filmmaking, photography or musical composition? According to Kusher, schools that elevated education over training. “Education, as opposed to training, I think, addresses not what you do, or will do, or will be able to do in the world. Education addresses who you are, or will be, or will be able to be.”

How is one supposed to study to be an artist? Vocational training in of itself is not bad. The article points out there are many graduate programs, conservatories and private schools in all major cities that will be happy to take your money for exchange in how to make it in the profession. Seventeen through twenty-one year old undergraduate students don’t need vocational arts training, they need an education. “Think of the liberal arts, in other words, as meta-Acting Training for Life.”

Kusher continues, “The vocalization of the liberal arts undergraduate education echoes the loss in the world at large of interest in the grand dialectic of life, in all dialectics, in breadth, in depth, in thinking as a necessary luxury, in the Utopian.” Jill Dolan in her book Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theatre and in her speech to the Association for Theatre in Higher Education entitled “Unhappy Thespians: A Manifesto on Training Theatre Students” continues where Kushner left off. She is a practioner of the idea that education should be the focus and models this at Princeton University where the school’s motto of arts education seems to echo what Kushner recommends.

Believing that the best training for a career in the theater is a broad-based liberal arts education, Princeton does not have a concentration in Theater. Instead, we offer a certificate in Theater and encourage students, should they have the inclination, to make connections in their artistic work between their fields of concentration and their love of the theater. The program offers the kinds of courses and co-curricular activities that will allow the student, upon graduation, to move into the best graduate conservatories to pursue advanced training in playwriting, acting, directing, design, stage management, and dramaturgy. But most students who take courses in the program do not elect to enter the certificate program; they simply enroll in the courses that interest them. Students with a particular interest in and commitment to the arts, however, may want to obtain the program certificate.

This mindset seems to be echoed in the work of Dr. Scott Walters in the writings of his blog Theatre Ideas and his work at University of North Carolina-Asheville. In a recent post he describes the sympathy for the students in trying to embrace this type of arts education.

And so when they arrive in a class like Dolan’s, or in my own, they revolt against the attempt [from teachers] to encourage them to think, to develop their own ideas, their own beliefs, and develop them as part of a rich conversation that has been ongoing for 2500 years — because they know that it is a lie; that once they leave that particular classroom, they will once again be forced to erase themselves. Why go through the pain of developing as a unique individual when one must rejoin the masses again in order to survive, to be cast? I have sympathy for them, because they have been told that there are no alternatives, and those who have revolted against those limited opportunities by college have self-selected themselves into other departments, other field of endeavor.

In a undergraduate performing arts program the mentality is to shape the curriculum based on the industry. The problem is that colleges and universities are not supposed to be extensions of the entertainment industry, but rather they are to produce what Dolan calls artist-citizen-scholars. Artists that question society and through their art speak for those that do not have a voice. Instead performing art students are trained to accept the fact that they are viewed by all in the industry as an equivalent of a coke can, a product that is to make money for agents, managers, producers, advertising firms and production companies and if they are lucky have some money left over for themselves.

As Kushner pointed out ten years ago, “I can say let’s get rid of it and we don’t have to worry that anything will actually happen.” The same holds true now. As long as it makes money the schools will not get rid of undergraduate art majors or offer sufficent alternatives. As an educator what can I hope for is that there will be more teachers like Dolan and Walters who try to change the system from within. Teachers who show the students an alternative so that one or two might see the current form of arts education as a facade and that an education that can truly benefit an artist is much bigger and broader than what is currently being offered. How is this specifically to be done? Kushner’s suggests, “What I would hope you might consider doing is tricking your undergraduate art major students. Let them think they’ve arrived for a vocational training and then pull a switcheroo. Instead of doing improv rehearsals, make them read The Death of Ivan Illych and find some reason why this was necessary in learning improv.”

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Win Copies of Milton Katselas’ “Acting Class: Take a Seat”

October 17, 2008 by dennisbaker 

We know you just love the chance to win something, so here at DENNIS BAKER LLC we want to start rewarding our loyal readers.
milton katselas acting class
The first giveaway is of Milton Katselas new book Acting Class: Take a Seat. I try to only giveaway books that I’ve read and would actually recommend. I have began to read it and do enjoy it, a full review will be coming soon.

“Previously only available to Katselas’ students at the prestigious Beverly Hills Playhouse, Acting Class presents the concepts and methods that have helped lead a generation of actors to success on stage, in cinema, and on television. Now for the first time, this all-encompassing book is available to the general public, taking readers and sitting them in the legendary acting class of Milton Katselas, where he not only covers techniques and methods, but also includes valuable discussions on the attitude any artist needs to fulfill his or her dream.”

Now you know you want to win it, right? Good, because we have 2 copies to give away!

How to enter this contest? Simply leave a comment below and we’ll randomly pick 2 winners (deadline for entry is 6pm ET Friday, Oct. 24th).

That’s all you need to do! And, if you’re not a lucky winner, you can be a winner anyway by picking up a copy of Acting Class: Take a Seat for yourself.

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Citizen-Scholar-Artist

September 30, 2008 by dennisbaker 

Dr. Scott Walters writes an excellent post entitled Teaching Alternatives around an excerpt from Jill Dolan’s Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theatre.

Walters goes on to describe theater schools as “the place where actors had their individuality erased, where they were beaten down and taunted and diminished as part of a ‘reshaping’ process that is called ‘training’”. The excuse is that the world and the industry will be even worse so the schools have to act in the same manner. Through Walters and Dolan’s classes hopefully students will be able to recognize and desire alternative ways of exploring what it means to train as an artist.

The summary on Amazon states:

What is it about performance that draws people to sit and listen attentively in a theater, hoping to be moved and provoked, challenged and comforted? In Utopia in Performance, Jill Dolan traces the sense of visceral, emotional, and social connection that we experience at such times, connections that allow us to feel for a moment not what a better world might look like, but what it might feel like, and how that hopeful utopic sentiment might become motivation for social change.

She traces these “utopian performatives” in a range of performances, including the solo performances of feminist artists Holly Hughes, Deb Margolin, and Peggy Shaw; multicharacter solo performances by Lily Tomlin, Danny Hoch, and Anna Deavere Smith; the slam poetry event Def Poetry Jam; The Laramie Project; Blanket, a performance by postmodern choreographer Ann Carlson; Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman; and Deborah Warner’s production of Medea starring Fiona Shaw. While the book richly captures moments of “feeling utopia” found within specific performances, it also celebrates the broad potential that performance has to provide a forum for being human together; for feeling love, hope, and commonality in particular and historical (rather than universal and transcendent) ways.

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Burbank students protest to perform Laramie Project

July 1, 2008 by dennisbaker 

About a month ago students from John Burroghs High School in Burbank performed The Laramie Project off campus at the near by professional Colony theater after the principal prohibited them from performing the play at school. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the students did not take no for an answer and begin to rehearse the play at a student’s backyard. “They dubbed themselves the Don’t Tell Bailey Theatre Company in honor of their drama teacher — who could not be involved because it wasn’t school-sanctioned — and started to advertise the play via e-mail and a MySpace site. That brought an unexpected bonus: Leigh Fondakowski and Kelli Simpkins, two of the creators of “The Laramie Project” as members of the Tectonic Theater Project, decided to join the 23 cast members for three days of rehearsals this week, flying in from New York City and Chicago.” The students asked the Colony theater if they can perform on their stage and the theater not only allowed it but provided them with costumes, props, programs and help with sound and lighting.

This feels like a small world as I substitute taught for four years in Burbank and subbed specifically for Scott Bailey’s drama class. As an actor and teacher his class was one I always enjoyed having the opportunity to teach. The students were excited and serious about theater. They had fun and enjoyed the class. This was all a reflection on the good job Bailey was doing.

With al these thoughts I was shocked by the lat paragraph of the article. Principal Emilio Urioste Jr. took away Bailey’s drama assignment for next year, although Bailey will remain on the faculty teaching English. The article states that Bailey is challenging the decision with a union grievance. I hope this is continued to be reported on because I feel this news to be just as shocking as the students’ story. The only details given about the reassignment was that Urioste “noted that he and Bailey have disagreed over the direction of Burroughs’ drama program — Urioste hoping for big musicals that can merge talents from the drama, music and dance departments, while Bailey has stuck to his preference for more intimate and adventurous plays.” Something more had to happen for Bailey to be reassigned or was media scrutiny enough for Urioste to not only recount his decision regarding the play, but to also remove Bailey as some sort of threat. Hopefully the decision will be reversed.

UPDATE: Scott Bailey He has taken a post at Charter High School of the Arts — Multimedia and Performing, which is also known as CHAMPS, where he’ll teach English and be involved in the theater program this fall as reported by the Burbank Leader.

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Teaching Theater and the Theater Teacher

June 29, 2008 by dennisbaker 

Teaching [theater] is like writing a play. If I write from an idea about writing, or structure; if I write something I am assigned to write that I am not very excited about; if I write with a view of getting it over with, getting the paycheck; and if I do not have blood on every page, I do slovenly work. But if I write from my deepest self, with strength and raw passion, with respect for my characters and the structure they dictate, I have a play, and I have a classroom. Teaching drama is, in fact, writing drama. A class can only succeed if the dramatist, or teacher, makes the right choices. Are the most dramatic choices always the right choices? And is it possible that a dramatist of my sensibility can make dangerous choices as a teacher? choices that, like high diving, can produce either spectacular results or, possibly, tragic accidents? - Judith Thompson, How Theatre Educates

Flashback to undergraduate years. Modern French theatre at New College, University of Toronto, 1986. Professor enters. I glance quickly at my Beckett text before the lecture begins. I probably owe my great affection for French theatre to him. Here was someone who acted in the Shaw and Stratford festival companies, who performed on stages in Canada in both official languages, who had worked with major Canadian film directors. But what was most remarkable to me was his brilliant pedagogy. He was an inspired teacher in addition of (because of?) his extraordinary experience in the theatre. For John Gilbert, the world of teaching and the world of theatre was inseparable creative projects. They required the same capacity to communicate clearly and “let the text speak for itself.” I learned much about theatre from John, but I learned more about good teaching. Education, like theatre, is not meant to induce agreement, but to shake foundations. - Kathleen Gallagher, How Theatre Educates

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School: Teacher & Student

February 12, 2008 by dennisbaker 

So you might be wondering what is next in regards to school for me. I applied/auditioned to four MFA programs: USD, Delaware, Fullerton, and Shakespeare Theater in DC. I have the Shakespeare Theater audition this Saturday and I have completed the other auditions. Fullerton at first seemed like they were interested, but I have researched and heard that the main acting teacher is very similar to the one at Rutgers. If that is the case, I will probably not attend. Unless the Shakespeare Theater audition goes amazingly it looks more and more like an MFA program will not be in my future.

We know we will be living in the east coast for at least another year so I applied to the M.A. in Educational Theater at NYU Steinhardt. I have mixed feelings about the program. They have a focus for people that want to teach at the college level which interests me, but I always told myself that I would not fall back on an MA program. With that said this has been a year of complete change and slowly comes the realization that one does not get to choose everything in life. Some paths in life are chosen for him/her. The program is 36 units total and can be completed in three semesters. If I am accepted and start this summer I could be done in the spring. That sounds very appealing.

In regards to teaching, I have applied for a part time drama teaching position at the Brearley School in New York. It is a position that will begin in the fall. It would work well with the NYU program as I could teach during the day and take classes at night and on weekends. I was also was hired on last week as a substitute teacher for the Grace Church School. They hired me and put me in a classroom all in the same day. I spent most of the week teaching various subjects from ages K-8th grade.

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