By the time this issue hits your mailbox, Network for Cultural and Arts Policy (NCAP) will be well into analyzing the data received from you for a research project undertaken by SDC and SDCF entitled Empowering Stage Directors and Choreographers: Investigating, Articulating, and Enhancing the Livelihood of Theatrical Leaders. This project will illuminate the touchstones that propel directors and choreographers to and through various points in their careers and provide us with a deeper understanding of the correlation between education and career progression, the relationship of employment patterns in various sectors and a viable career, and the role that work in other mediums plays in piecing together a living-wage life with opportunities to create a vibrant body of work. The study will give us a baseline assessment of how you survive (or don’t) in today’s ecosystem and provide insight into the resources available to you in the various stages of your careers. As we rely on the results of this study to inform and evaluate our priorities and strategies, we hope to simultaneously leverage them to increase the resources dedicated to strengthening the professional welfare and status of directors
and choreographers, and through that, the field. We are grateful for support from the New York State Council on the Arts and the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, without which this study would not be possible.
Even as we engage in this study, we continue to educate ourselves about the ways Members cross over between forms. It seems there is an increased porousness today, a fluid movement back and forth, from coast to coast and from stage to screens, large and small. Although that’s not new, is it? SDC Founders and early Members were a bicoastal gathering, mixing their Broadway careers with film and TV in the early days of Hollywood. They were directors, producers, writers, and even actors.
What is it that’s different today about how SDC Members move between mediums? Is it that the back-and-forth is more like in-and-around, a web of diverse and surprising opportunities? Is it the advancement of the digital world? What are the ways in which Members leverage their skills staging live work to secure other employment? Wendy C. Goldberg’s experience in video game creation demonstrates one such application. This has us watching and wondering—many hoping—that this vast industry may be an avenue for stage directors and choreographers to ply their trade. Then there are radio plays, a traditional form made new by the opportunity cyberspace provides and by audiences’ insatiable thirst for content. There are Audible’s groundbreaking commissions, L.A. Theatre Works’ ever-growing library, Gimlet, Playing On Air, and others adding to the range and style of theatrical work that can be found on-air, 24/7. Member Ruth Pe Palileo discusses with some of our leading directors this unique work and the dynamics of the producing entities who anticipate that this is a growth area in the years ahead.
This issue also features two exceptional artists whose accomplishments are impressive by any measure. You can find their work on expected and unexpected stages and screens, and when combined with our interview with Wendy Goldberg, these conversations make for a powerful, tangible representation of how SDC Members create a vibrant body of work across mediums. Annie-B Parson has mined, with rigor and vision, the possibilities of bodies and space—inviting us, pushing artists and audiences alike, into something new and wonderful, and at times foreboding. And Michael Mayer. When you talk about the busiest director in town, there is a good chance you are talking about Michael. In a single season, you can see his work in midtown Manhattan, up at the Met, in the movie theatre, and then at home on TV. With extraordinary craft and a smile, he expands his list of credits exponentially season after season.
SDC Founder, director/choreographer Michael Kidd certainly built a body of work across mediums. Even as he earned five Tony Awards (11 Tony nominations), his work in Hollywood included more than two dozen credits. And he was nominated (with Paula Abdul) for a Video Music Award (VMA) for his work on a Janet Jackson video. It’s possible that in 1987, MTV VMAs may have seemed as much like a new frontier as video games like Red Dead Redemption 2 do today.
In closing, Harold Prince, 1928–2019. Hal. When I heard the news that Hal had died, I immediately connected with Susan Stroman and Lonny Price. My heart was heavy. Truth be told, I could have reached out to any number of people; the list of Hal’s colleagues and friends is very, very long. Because, while being one of the most prolific and impactful theatremakers we have ever seen, he was a great human being. His generosity of spirit was matched by his generosity with his time. I have never crossed paths with anyone who has said they approached Hal and got no response. He lived with an open-door, open-heart policy. When arriving at SDC 10+ years ago, I made a list of people I had to meet if I were to understand the responsibilities of my new post, SDC, its history, and its promise for the future. Hal was one of my first calls. Within days of calling to ask if he might see me, I was sitting with him in his office at Rockefeller Center. Trying not to be totally distracted by my sense of awe, I settled in and sought his advice and counsel. What was his experience of SDC? What should I consider as the 50th anniversary was approaching? What did he see as the Union’s strengths? What had we overlooked? Where on the horizon should we set our sights? With candor, support, and wit, he gave me what I needed that day, as he did many times over the subsequent years. He loved this Union very much, although he was very clear that we must always remember that our reason for being is to support what he cared for so deeply: you—his peers, directors and choreographers. That day, by the time I made it back to my office, I had a message in my inbox, thanking me for the visit. Hal…
Look to the winter issue of SDC Journal for a fuller and more fitting remembrance of this great man.
In Solidarity,
Laura Penn
Executive Director