The American Scene; Summer Theater

Good morning, Mr. Jewel, Zanger, for the American scene. Our subject this morning is summer theater, and to discuss its future, the forces that are molding it, some of the things that are happening in summer theater today and their effect on the quality of theater. We have two guests. Our first guest this morning is Mr. Nowe Ben, who is the producer of the Edgewater Beach Playhouse, who is the owner of the Cherry Lane Theater in New York, and is the editor of a forthcoming book on off -Broadway theater to be published by Grove Press. Our second guest, Dr. Henry Nepler, an associate professor of language and literature at the Illinois Institute of Technology. I wonder if we might start gentlemen with an observation I made simply looking at the newspapers. At one time, some of stock meant, in general, a kind of resident theater with played repertoire. It played a different show every week, same act as appearing, handling a variety of parts, and worked out a season this way. According to our newspapers, we have a present of about a half a dozen summer

theaters in Chicago, not one of which is a repertoire theater. Is this because particularly local conditions in Chicago or is this a kind of generalized trend in summer theater? Mr. Ben, this is really your field. Well, it's become a trend. There's no doubt about it where there are the most summer theaters and where the birthplace of the summer theater or summer stock originated with Long the East Coast. And most of those theaters have now switched into what is called the package. The resident company is gone. What is the package? Well, the package is a show that comes into your theater. It is produced by a very often a producer outside of your theater who sends you the star, either the complete cast traveling with the star or at least the major roles accompany the star. And they come in in the smaller houses, they don't send a complete cast, they'll send the star, they'll send two or three of the feature actors, and then the local

theater will job in the remaining actors. But they hire them production for production rather than for a season. Well, I think there is a trend still towards the other direction, too. There are some. I think, however, only in the smaller summer areas in New England and in the south and so on. The rural areas, the barn theater. Well, the barn theater kind of thing that still does have its local company, usually sort of some professionals, some acting students, isn't that? Well, yes, the overall picture is this, that there are a great many new theaters opening throughout the country, especially in the Midwest and on the West Coast. These are small theaters. They have high mortality rates. The majority of them die, but the following season, even more open up, and each year a few endure and go on. The older theaters, which started off on a resident basis, and have succeeded

are growing larger. They're growing larger in capacity. They're in seating capacity that is in facilities, and they're growing larger in their popularity. They're pulling more audience. Is the kind of production changing? Is it a larger production, in the sense? A more expensive package. Well, if you've had a larger production, just now. Yes. Well, that that depends on a facility. Now, the productions themselves are not the physical production. You mean the scenery and the costumes? No. That isn't changing only in the case of a few of the larger houses, such as the Edgewater, Westport, Detroit, War and Ohio. We have started to go in four larger productions, for physical productions, as well as acting. Caesar and Cleopatra is a huge show for summer theater. It brought at least 20 people from New York with it. It brought some 45 costumes with it. It has 16 scene changes. All of it came

out of New York. Well, the designs came out. We built the sets here, but from a technical standpoint, it's a very big show. I think there are, whether these statistics mean anything to anybody or not, there are 95 sound cues in the show. There are 105 light cues, and all of these things have to be rehearsed with the actors, because if they're not... Which in turn demands more rehearsal time and makes it totally a greater investment. Still, however, it is a package. Is it still a package out of New York? Well, Harry, is this pattern, though, in summer theater? Does it reflect a pattern in winter theater? Does this seem... Well, I think the summer theater is getting closer to the winter theater in the country, not in New York necessarily, but across the country, don't you think? Yes. I think that that there is more and more of this package coming out of New York, also for the summer theaters, in Chicago, for instance, until last year, there was still one company that was resident and performed in weekly

or bi -weekly rotation. And that is now gone. That theater has been turned into the same kind of arrangement, which means the package from New York. Of course, during the winter, you get the same thing in... It seems almost that the downtown theaters, let's say in Chicago, get nothing that doesn't have the hallowed stamp of approval brought way hit on it. With the exception of raising the sun as well. Well, that was an exception. But this is an exception. Yes, that was a local condition. And there may have been politics involved in that too, as to why it was brought in at this particular time... In this particular city. In this particular city, especially when another theater was opening here that did not belong to the Schubert, that came in very closely to the opening of the civic theater. And it always seems to happen with a Schubert House, you know, that suddenly a very good and very strong play comes in as another theater, which is a nine Schubert House opening. Which makes for exciting theater. It happens to the Erlanger. Sometimes you get a good play into the Erlanger

and then something else appears. Well, I think that this trend really reflects a sort of short -view history of the American theater that always seemed so interesting to me. Because the summer theater started out as the American theater itself started out 150 or 175 years ago with stock companies, whole companies performing plays. And then it rapidly moved to the acceptance of stars being brought in from the outside. And the star, of course, pre -empts the situation. The rest gets a little worse as time goes on. And in the end, that kind of thing becomes untenable and you get the whole production made up, centrally, in this case, New York. Yes, well, it boils down, unfortunately, to an economic situation. As a theater usually goes into a star system for an economic reason, it is the public identifies with a star, or you hope the public identify with the

star. Is this simply because our audiences have become a little more sophisticated? They want a better quality production and more professional production. Is this what they're getting? It doesn't seem sophisticated to me. It doesn't seem even terribly theatrical to me, necessarily, that you base everything on a star. You base things on sometimes someone who has made his name in television or in the movies or somewhere and then wishes to be on the stage and is brought around. And not necessarily the play doesn't matter, or the production doesn't matter so much, it becomes star centered. And then people go to the theater and see the star, and maybe he isn't quite what they expected, or maybe he's good. But the rest of it isn't necessarily too good, and that leaves them with an dissatisfaction. Mr. Ben, if you have the choice, commercially, I would say opening a new Tennessee Williams or an Arthur Miller with an adequate cast, or doing a repeat of

an older show with a star, commercially, which would be the sound adventure today. Well, for the edgewater... That's a fair question. The situation at the edgewater is a rather unique one, or I'm sure every producer thinks that what he does is unique, but I honestly feel that the edgewater situation is unique. We're in a pre -sale situation. We do not depend on reviews. We sell before the season begins, and what we pick up after the season begins is simply gravy. We can sell a new show. In fact, we've done quite a few new shows. We did the Circus of Dr. Lau, our opening year. This was a very, very big show with Burgess Meredith, an exciting production. It never really came off, because it was too big a show. This was a show that had, I think, 32 scenes in it, and I don't know what else. But it sold very well. But it sold primarily on the basis of the star and the excitement of a new play. Unfortunately,

the new plays that we have tried, or the three tryouts that we have done, have not come off well. Statistically, I would say, if one out of ten of the new shows comes off well, we would be ahead of the game. We're in a very enviable position, where if the star is right, we can try a new show and not get hurt by it. I mean, hurt financially. Critically, we might get our heads handed to it, as we have had. But as a pre -sale house, you have probably not quite as susceptible to criticism as a winter production, I say. Well, a winter, you mean a winter loop production? Yes. Well, I think there are two different standards. Summer Theater has one good thing about it. I feel it is theatrical entertainment at a more human level than the loop theater. When people go to the loop theater, they go in with a high sense of criticism already aroused in them. They look at it more

closely than they will at summer theater. Summer Theater, they're willing to accept the shortcomings. And I think this is the advantage of summer theater. I think it's come to be that it's more fun to go to the theater in the summer than in the winter. There are various reasons that one needn't go into. But I think it's enjoyable. It's a little cheaper. It's a little more relaxed. Are more people coming to summer theater? I think more people are going to the summer theater now than almost. And to the winter, of course, you have these enormous runs of the tried and true, like the music man and my fair lady and so on, which throws statistics off. Yes, well, I think that summer theater's position right now is a very healthy one for the theater movement. In the Chicago area, you do have half a dozen theaters going, doing very well, at least three of these theaters are over a thousand seats. And the other two are three are 500, 600 seats. And they are all doing exceptionally well here, which proves that Chicago is not completely

dead as a theater town is a lot of people claim. And this is happening not only in the Chicago area, it's happening throughout the Midwest. I know it's happening in Detroit, it's happening in Ohio, there's several big theaters going there. And from this point, from the acceptance of summer theater, as entertainment, as being enjoyable, I think people will eventually follow through and go to winter theater when winter stock comes into vogue. And I think it probably will. One question at this point, if it's creating a summer theater commercially a better venture, what is it doing? What's happening to summer theater as a result of the package artistically, aesthetically? Henry, you wanted to say something. Well, I'm not convinced that it's the best thing. The summer theater has often been used for training purposes, for actors and actresses to get their experience. I think in the whole system across the country, in the New York system too, it's terribly

hard in this country for actors and actresses to get as much experience as they might elsewhere. Because they are typed very quickly, they are put into long runs, or at least quite naturally, have to try to be in long runs. You haven't got the versatility that a stock company would provide where you have to do a different thing every week. And where the whole situation of having a reasonably small group of actors forces you to assume quite different roles. And if you get these packages now out of New York and the package goes across the continent, I suppose, or at least part of it for the whole summer, you have again a situation that is comparable to the winter. I think the biggest help now as in the winter for the theater as such, for the actors, for the play rather than the star, is the, I think, the community theater, which has come up immensely, and the university theaters, there are a couple in Chicago that I think do very creditively and do all kinds of different plays from the Greeks to the present. What about, this is from the point of

view of the young actor looking for experience. What about, from the point of view of the play gore, is the New York package, a better show, is it slicker, is it better put together? It usually is, yes. What has happened is, from the New York standpoint, that with the death of television in New York, and with that plus the higher prices that the actor now gets in the stock package, that a better actor, that the feature actor, is now going out in the package. If you take a look at Caesar and Cleopatra and go down the cast list, you'll realize that of the 20 people that came in from New York, 15 have had at least five or six feature roles on Broadway. Well, this would suggest that the summer theater is not perhaps the training ground at all, for the longer it is. No, not when you get into the packaging, because, or when you get into the even the larger resident companies now, because the summer theater has come a

beige from an artistic standpoint, and from a off financial standpoint, you can now get a trained actor, and with the package, and type casting, which is what you're talking about, you can get precisely the actor you want for whatever the role you want. You do not have to rely on someone who has no experience. This, of course, cuts away a training ground that is very important to the young actor. Has this ever existed as a training ground for the playwright? Playwrights? Well, you're right. We have done a few, but not too often. There are certain cases of plays that have been tried out. View from the bridge, had a summer stock tryout, I believe in film, before it went to Broadway. But usually, the conditions for a Broadway tryout have to be more, have to be broader than you can give them in a summer season. Could you be to the more precise? Well, yes. When you

have a Broadway tryout, you need all the technical facilities that are available to you. You need complete stages, you need complete and trained crews, you need high -priced cast. You have to take your authors along, you have to take your production staffs along when you go out of town. Well, summer theatre simply cannot afford this. If you have to redo a scene, that means the writer and his secretaries have to be there, the designer has to be there, they have to probably, we'll have to change light kills, sound kills, it takes a big crew to do this, and it takes very skilled people. Play doctoring is impossible on the road, in that in the summer. That's right, you cannot. Let's say tall story, which is going to open with Hans Connry this week, let's say it was a new play. Well, we have just so much time that we can rehearse it and put it on, and then once it is on, we have just so much time that we can tinker with it and tighten it up.

It is financially impossible to do any more than that, because of our situation, we have just such as so many seats at such a price, we can make just so much money, and the play can cost just so much. I was wondering you speak of tinkering. Do you as the resident producer who brings in a package from New York, do you have any directing control over the show? Can you alter it in any way? Well, we can if depending on who the package you're is. Now, in the case of Caesar and Cleopatra, this was a combination of Westport or the theater guild, summer theater, and ourselves. It was done primarily by them, but it's only playing for engagements, or three engagements, the edgewater Detroit and then Westport. Now, in this case, we worked very closely with the guild, or more precisely with Henry Weinstein, of Westport, on this production, although he did do the casting,

and I might not have hired the people that he had picked, and I might have had a closer rapport with the director. I'm just saying this, I'm not saying this is the case. I'm just giving you this as an example. In the case of tall story, which is completely our own show, we hired the cast, I hired the director, everything is under my control. But it's still a technically a package, because you brought it in from outside. Well, no, this technically it is your package. Yes, but technically it is not a package, because it's only playing the edgewater. It isn't going out. It's being mounted just for the edgewater. A package refers to a play that will play more than one theater. What distinguishes such a package, like Caesar and Cleopatra from a touring company? Well, Caesar and Cleopatra is a package. Yeah, but what distinguishes it from a New York company that goes on the road, or the whole version. That's the only difference. That's right. If Caesar and Cleopatra was coming into the loop, then it would carry a full complement of actors. It would carry more elaborate costumes. It would

carry a set with it, instead of having the local theater build it, and it would be a much more complete and ornate set. Well, that's the kind of thing that makes me wonder sometimes. I wonder whether we haven't put too much emphasis on the completeness, on the finishedness of the production, whether there wouldn't be audiences to take a little less and a little more variety. Do you think that you can? You have the cherry lane in New York, and that is surely not a house that goes on the tried and drew Broadway hits. You do quite different things that you think it is possible. I'm if possible to do outside New York, what you can do in New York. Can you find the audience here? I think you can. If you try, I think it's been tried. It hasn't too well succeeded in the past, but it's been tried. I think that is what I'm looking for from my possibly very uncomfortable point of view. Well, let me say this, that it will have to be outside of New York,

where new things are tried, because even off Broadway is no longer what the outside world thinks it is. You can no longer do the things that you want to do off Broadway. To give you an example, a show we did five years ago for the total cost of $500 off Broadway, doing that we have a revival of that show planned for the beginning of next year, that same show using the same people and possibly the same director, the same show that five years ago cost $500 will cost $12 ,500 now. So that's how the prices have jumped off Broadway. So off Broadway is no longer in a position to experiment or to develop new theater. It is being forced into a commercial situation. Isn't there possibly the happy solution of big fleas having little fleas, just as the off Broadway theater was created in response to the need for a place where

unusual and non -profit -making productions could be produced cheaply. Well, these in turn produce the, where will they be? Off -off -new or off -off -road? No, I don't think it will happen because the off -roadway theaters are once again limited by their seating. They range anywhere from 50 seats to 200 seats and it is a situation that can't probably cannot be helped. When it was in its inception, maybe seven or eight years ago, no one paid any attention to it. As Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times said, off -roadway has nothing to fear but success. Now that everyone thinks it is successful, this includes actors, stage hands, publicity, men, everyone who was connected with the production. They now want to get paid for their labor, where very honestly, seven or eight years ago, no one was paid. You did it as a labor of love. Well, even at minimal salaries and an actor getting $40 a week,

which certainly is a sudden manner. I don't know what the stage hands get, but it's all, even though there's only one man and one press agent at low, very low wages, it is becoming financially impossible to take chances off Broadway. Because you have to realize that theatrical financing is never done with your own money. At least in our case, it isn't in most of the theaters I know, it is not done with your own money. This situation where you simply can't take a chance, because it's not your money, this limits you to in effect the sure fire response, or at least the gamble where the probabilities are very high. Well, from what happens to the, can you do a play which you know from the outset is not going to be commercially successful. Where's to be done today? You said outside of New York. Does that mean conceivably in Chicago? It means Chicago. It means any of the community theaters, the small theaters throughout the country, which I believe are growing by leaves and bath. I believe there are from what I've heard and from what I have seen. There are dozens of these

theaters almost in every large, in the area of every large city. One shouldn't make a fetish of non -success. One shouldn't distinguish in the drama the successful, which is thereby step forward by definition not as good as the unsuccessful, which is the better play. That is not true in the theater. I think a play by and large has to stand for audience acceptance on a certain scale. And you can't say as with a novel that it will build its audience over the years. You've got to find its audience now. That's the condition of the performance. We have a variety of available audiences. Well, yes, you do. Now, I'll tell you a case, two cases, where the off -broadway situation has been very successful. Two years ago, we brought the Cherry Lane production of Endgame to the University of Chicago for four days or three days. And it was very successful. This last year, we brought the Irish players, another off -broadway group, to

the University of Chicago for a week. And once again, was very successful. There are audiences. And there are audiences, I agree, for all types of plays. I think the University audience is one of the best untapped sources for, let's say, the off -broadway type play, the classic or the semi -classic or the experimental play. And I'm sure this will be developed. I know a lot of people who are working on this right now of getting these plays that are getting them out to the universities because this is what the university wants. But you feel this is, as an area, distinct from the area of the summer theater. The summer theater is a math appeal type theater. When you have a thousand seats and you're playing 11 weeks, you know, you have eight performances a week. What do you have? You have 88 ,000 people who are going to see this show. Well, this is a large

segment of the population from a theater standpoint. So you are doing a different type of show. It is still theatrical entertainment. And I think on the development of a summer theater audience, if you once get that audience developed, you can certainly extend their taste. You can change the type of play. Would you see this as possibly the future of summer theater? Because I like you at this with possibly a minute left if you'd each of you care to stick your necks out and make a short term prediction say 20 years. What's going to happen in summer theater? Henry, what do you feel? It's coming forward. Well, I think that the, to me, the paramount fact is that in a city like Chicago, you can now see about three times as many plays, different plays. Just that I'm not speaking of anything else. Just different plays in mostly good plays in the summer than you can in the winter. There is much more variety of winter audience. Is it not creating a winter audience possibly? It may create a winter audience. If so, I haven't seen any signs of it because the number of plays in the winter has not particularly increased. But it is

creating some sort of an audience. It is, I think, drawing on a suburban audience and therefore on a somewhat different kind of audience than the downtown theaters which are by now in modern traffic conditions a little hard to get to. I think it is as a way out for the, for the large cities too. Mr. Ben, would you care? Well, I think two points. It is keeping the live theater audience intact. It will certainly extend it in the future and it is proving one important thing that we overlooked that the geographic situation of theaters, summer theaters are usually in the outskirts of a city. And this, I think, will be the trend that the theater will grow, the physical theater will grow away from the business district. I'd like to thank you, Mr. Ben. I'm afraid our time is up. I'd like to thank our guests this morning as you recognize there are a variety of possible opinions about summer theater, where it's going, if it's getting better, worse, if it's creating that audience. May I suggest that you attend the summer theater soon here in Chicago. Good morning for the American

scene, Mr. Jules Anger.