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labricoleuseThe sad news of the demise of Minneapolis' internationally-reknowned, innovative Theatre de Jeune Lune should be duly acknowledged. After thirty years of highly visible, daring, innovative productions and despite winning the Tony for regional theatre three years ago, they are now a million dollars in the hole and have chosen to dissolve the company, selling off their theatre to settle the debt.
It's funny, reading the articles about it in the press and in theatre fora online, a lot of doomsaying is going on about regional theatre, how Jeune Lune's tanking portends the fall of regional theatre as an institution. There's also a lot of (IMO naive) rebuttals about capitalism and how "if regional theatres sold more tickets" no one would have to worry. I feel like all of this is reductive and somewhat blinkered. No professional regional theatres operate on a budget funded by ticket sales alone. I remember being surprised when i worked at the Utah Shakespearean Festival and read the statistic that something like 80% of their operating budget does come from ticket sales, because that's a huge percentage. Amateur community theatres don't operate on ticket sales alone. And if the only art that survives is the art that makes Big Money, wow, is that a culture i don't want to live in.
Almost all regional theatres are in the hole. The thing is, there isn't a single formula to fix the problem. (In fact, i believe that is part of the amazing possibility of regional theatre, each one is particular to its home region.) It's contingent upon each theatre's community, its direction and the type of art they produce (or wish to produce, or are willing to restructure to produce). It's the universal theatre challenge, in fact, to make the kind of work you want to make at the level of quality you feel it deserves, within the budget you have to work with and for the people who come to see it.
With Jeune Lune, it's telling that they found themselves one million dollars in the red three years after winning the Tony. Winning the Tony is usually a huge boost in a theatre's fundraising machinery. A lot of people are griping about Artistic Director Dominque Serrand being at fault, but i don't row that boat--Serrand is the Artistic Director. His role is to steer the theatre aesthetically. Jeune Lune has tanked not because Serrand drove it into the ground, but because someone or a collection of someones in the administration and development of the theatre mismanaged the financial side of things, and/or was afraid to rein in the scale of the budget. (Full disclosure: I worked on Serrand's production of The Miser when it was remounted at the American Repertory Theatre some years ago. I think i met the man once, but i figure i should acknowledge that i worked for him.)
If the institutional culture at Jeune Lune was such that no one wanted to discuss finances with the artistic staff, that's a problem in and of itself. I have worked at a few organizations where that was the general way of things--that the artists were allowed to exist in a hermetically-sealed creativity-bubble, and no one in the administration ever placed financial restrictions on them. That's certainly one way to run your theatre, but it's a dangerous gamble of a way to do it. As a member of the technical production community, i know for a fact that budget is not a be-all end-all limitation--you give me an outlandish design, cool; i don't need a limitless budget (though i can spend a limitless budget if it's there), i just need to know whether i have $100 to work with or $1000 or $10,000. Or $10. I can find ways to make something performative and magical for any cost, honestly. That's MY job. Hell, some of the most amazing production values i've ever seen were costumes made from salvage for street Butoh. Cut your materials budget, not your creative staff.
I believe too that some of the loss of Jeune Lune can be laid at the feet of its location--Minneapolis' professional theatre community is huge and vital and well-known. It's harder to be a big fish in Minneapolis, funding-wise, due to the number of really excellent companies drawing from the pockets of regional donors. Since government support is in the toilet and international reknown doesn't always translate into international financial backers, Jeune Lune perhaps paid a price in that fashion as well.
Regardless, I am certain that the theatre community mourns the loss of Jeune Lune, and my heart goes out to her creative and technical staff, left jobless and artistically homeless in such a last-ditch fashion. Best wishes and luck to you, Lunies, on whatever the next great adventure holds.
It's funny, reading the articles about it in the press and in theatre fora online, a lot of doomsaying is going on about regional theatre, how Jeune Lune's tanking portends the fall of regional theatre as an institution. There's also a lot of (IMO naive) rebuttals about capitalism and how "if regional theatres sold more tickets" no one would have to worry. I feel like all of this is reductive and somewhat blinkered. No professional regional theatres operate on a budget funded by ticket sales alone. I remember being surprised when i worked at the Utah Shakespearean Festival and read the statistic that something like 80% of their operating budget does come from ticket sales, because that's a huge percentage. Amateur community theatres don't operate on ticket sales alone. And if the only art that survives is the art that makes Big Money, wow, is that a culture i don't want to live in.
Almost all regional theatres are in the hole. The thing is, there isn't a single formula to fix the problem. (In fact, i believe that is part of the amazing possibility of regional theatre, each one is particular to its home region.) It's contingent upon each theatre's community, its direction and the type of art they produce (or wish to produce, or are willing to restructure to produce). It's the universal theatre challenge, in fact, to make the kind of work you want to make at the level of quality you feel it deserves, within the budget you have to work with and for the people who come to see it.
With Jeune Lune, it's telling that they found themselves one million dollars in the red three years after winning the Tony. Winning the Tony is usually a huge boost in a theatre's fundraising machinery. A lot of people are griping about Artistic Director Dominque Serrand being at fault, but i don't row that boat--Serrand is the Artistic Director. His role is to steer the theatre aesthetically. Jeune Lune has tanked not because Serrand drove it into the ground, but because someone or a collection of someones in the administration and development of the theatre mismanaged the financial side of things, and/or was afraid to rein in the scale of the budget. (Full disclosure: I worked on Serrand's production of The Miser when it was remounted at the American Repertory Theatre some years ago. I think i met the man once, but i figure i should acknowledge that i worked for him.)
If the institutional culture at Jeune Lune was such that no one wanted to discuss finances with the artistic staff, that's a problem in and of itself. I have worked at a few organizations where that was the general way of things--that the artists were allowed to exist in a hermetically-sealed creativity-bubble, and no one in the administration ever placed financial restrictions on them. That's certainly one way to run your theatre, but it's a dangerous gamble of a way to do it. As a member of the technical production community, i know for a fact that budget is not a be-all end-all limitation--you give me an outlandish design, cool; i don't need a limitless budget (though i can spend a limitless budget if it's there), i just need to know whether i have $100 to work with or $1000 or $10,000. Or $10. I can find ways to make something performative and magical for any cost, honestly. That's MY job. Hell, some of the most amazing production values i've ever seen were costumes made from salvage for street Butoh. Cut your materials budget, not your creative staff.
I believe too that some of the loss of Jeune Lune can be laid at the feet of its location--Minneapolis' professional theatre community is huge and vital and well-known. It's harder to be a big fish in Minneapolis, funding-wise, due to the number of really excellent companies drawing from the pockets of regional donors. Since government support is in the toilet and international reknown doesn't always translate into international financial backers, Jeune Lune perhaps paid a price in that fashion as well.
Regardless, I am certain that the theatre community mourns the loss of Jeune Lune, and my heart goes out to her creative and technical staff, left jobless and artistically homeless in such a last-ditch fashion. Best wishes and luck to you, Lunies, on whatever the next great adventure holds.
