Unlike John McKernon (Click on "Pearls" at http://www.mckernon.com/ ), people don't ask me for my opinion enough. So I have to offer it. Here are some of my favorite published "Letters to the Editor." I've supplied a headline where the editor did not. Material in italic brackets [Like this] did not appear in the original publication.. Some letters have been shortened [...]. In most cases where someone else's name appeared in the publication, I have removed it, since they were not asked if they wanted their name to appear on the World Wide Web. The publication links are a courtesy to the original publishers; It's not possible to read any of the items I responded to on-line.
J***** C*****'s letter (TD&T, Spring 1990) sounds like recent lay medical writing, which blames a cancer patient for the contribution his negative attitude made to the illness. But there are real, external causes for the crisis in technical theatre.[...]
My respect for Willard Bellman was increased greatly by his daring article ("Black Thoughts While Writing," TD&T, Winter 1990). But he was far too easy on himself and fellow senior faculty. The days are gone when a degree from a mediocre state university and a (remaindered) published dissertation could guarantee tenure. In fact, the imposition of higher standards by the lower-credentialed is much worse in departments other than theatre.
Most senior technicians paid their dues. But as A. Bartlett Giamatti put it, "...they're very conscious within themselves of who you are and the kind of apprenticeship it takes to become whatever you're going to be. They're medieval...." This means they think it's right for you to work as hard as they remember they did, back when the flats were soft and the platforms were stock! And (this is a first-hand story, not a metaphor) they look in on you and your crew at 4:59 PM for a frisson of show-biz before they drive home for an evening with their families.
When C***** asks if everyone in your department is working together, he overlooks the tremendous imbalance of power among a faculty. Junior members cannot successfully point out the dead-weight "lifer" colleagues, competition between directors and ambitious manipulation by students that result in their unfair workloads. Instead of finding time to design for the nearby regional opera company, the senior technical/design faculty should be (for example) making it possible for their TD to escape uncooperative central purchasing offices.
What bothers me most are the spreading ripples of faculty TD positions being downgraded to staff jobs. "They" present this as a solution to the tenure and overwork problems. But they (and the dean) really want those treasured "Full-Time Equivalents" for use elsewhere. In fact, a TD needs what power even a junior faculty position has to get his job done with a shred of dignity. The senior faculty seem to have overlooked the devaluation of the degrees they're selling by the lost of faculty-level jobs for their graduates.
Outside the academy, things are only a little better. In a not-for-profit theatre, each employee does the job of several in the private sector. Where else would a comptroller also be the personnel officer and the accounting director? I do believe that there is a difference between having to work ten hours a day and 16 hours a day. But it is impossible for a TD to credibly argue for hiring someone to share his work.
A more positive factor in professional theatre is that artistic decisions usually have measurable financial consequences, which unlike the TD's work schedule, cannot be ignored. On the other hand, have you ever read a Pink Contract? There's a medieval indenture for you? [And dance company managements are trying to get one that's even more favorable to them today! T.H.B. February, 2000]
[...]
C*****'s "Eleven Points" are an ironic joke, which might be better titled "Techie Co-Dependents No More." The reason Bellman wrote about his "black thoughts" is that he's seen people intuitively acting on the "Points." That's why there is an increasing turnover among a decreasing quality of TDs.
I am happy to pick up the gauntlet that C***** R***** (TD&T Winter, 1991) has thrown down with his "increasingly radical writing." I can't believe he had anything to do with the reprinting of "A Seasonal Sample" (TD&T Fall, 1990). But doesn't he see the connections between that very important fiction, the disappearing string section in Grand Hotel, the fake singing in several Broadway hits, and his own Juggernaut of "show control"?
The same mail that brought K***** M*****'s reply to R***** (TD&T Fall, 1991) also carried the November, 1991 Theatre Crafts, where K***** R*****'s report on a Macintosh-based MIDI-controlled sound system includes the following comments:
If there is a problem with a cue on a conventional system, R2***** says, "I can look and locate the knob that is wrong." The automated system ... required several screens on the Macintosh SE30 to show all the information. "It takes forever to troubleshoot" ... Furthermore, some cues took time to set during technical rehearsals because they had to be compiled by the computer ... up to two minutes.
It took memory light boards (as they used to be called) years to overcome these kinds of problems and consequent resistance to their use. Aside from the cost of each minute of technical rehearsal, this is the "Not invented in New Haven" problem again: The raisons d'etre for the rehearsal are the play, the cast, and the director, not the technical features. Anything that impedes the former three entities does not serve our art, and certainly will not help overcome resistance to genuine improvements.
I have run sound for a show that used a MMT-8 Sequencer controlling an S1000 Sampler. There is no question that the system enhanced what one person could do during the day-to-day run of performances. But the invisible events (that is, the "black box" nature of the system) and the time required to make changes meant that cues which could have been automated ended up being done manually for the entire run of the show. I make this point not because a sequencer is more limited than are the dual Macintoshes in the TC story, but because as a dedicated, firmware device, it created more assurance about what was happening than the more flexible system with lots of inadequately tested soft and hardware. Despite that (relative) assurance, the level of uncertainty about what was happening was still at the frightening height of those first memory boards.
Current microprocessor light boards base their now acceptable level of reliability on no longer expensive hardware redundancy. But people who can't lose a show still buy duplicate consoles to protect themselves against failed input-output devices that lock the gates to a still up and running processor. Until digital audio cuing equipment becomes this cheap, quick, and reliable, I say, no thanks. But there remain other reasons to resist Richmond's demands for computer control of the entire show.
His use of the term "paranoia" does not raise the level of debate about his thesis. When I see (for example) a touring ice show well-lit entirely with 50 Vari*Lites, I do fear a loss of work for the less-skilled technicians. But the rest of his article proceeds from three assumptions that may not be correct. They all sound a bit academic to me, so I'd like to challenge them:
1)Most problems can be solved with the application of additional technology.
2)A stage manager's job consists of following a script and calling cues at the appropriate time.
3) Featherbedding is a significant factor in the staffing of live shows today.
The first assumption is illustrated with R*****'s hope to bring this year's empty buzzword into theatre, to "empower" the actor to control technical cues. Some of TD & T's older readers may remember when a lighting submaster was just a wirewound resistor, and contact closures didn't need to be conditioned. Back then, all of us (even if we didn't write a thesis for Stanley, George, or Bill) experimented with having a practical's switch run a light cue. But it doesn't work. No matter how fast the response of the (now digital) dimmer, filament lag makes the cue (in either direction) look ridiculous. Since a live stage manager can anticipate, and a live actor can deliberately fumble, the old, low-technology way is better.
I suspect that a lot of performers would rather not be empowered! They have enough to worry about now, without wondering whether someone is underneath the flying piece that their video scanned gesture is about to bring in. Just as it's a TD's job to insulate her crew from management problems, it's the stage manager's job to insulate his cast from technical worries that could harm their work. Nonsense about "authorize" commands is just frightened static from manufacturer's liability lawyers. Enough people have already been killed in open elevator pits without the intervention of a HAL 9000.
Once the show has opened, the professional stage manager's main job is the artistic maintenance of the production. The less attention he has to pay to the printed words of the script, the better. Besides making sure the actors don't ease off (or make "improvements"), he has to watch new cast members and monitor the appearance (not just the execution) of tech details, like burned-out color, tired casters and worn floor treatment. Since lots of stage managers can read music, the reason opera companies have an assistant conductor reading a score and calling some of the cues is because the stage manager has enough to do already. No matter how automated "Sound Cue 56" is, it's still subject to failure. I think the stage manager would rather have a live body responsible for the production of the cue when he asks for it.
The third fallacy is a seductive one for overworked and underpaid faculty members. But like locomotive firemen, many perceived abuses have receded into the past. I often work in the light booth of a Broadway play. As in most straight plays without microphone reinforcement, I run both the light board and the sound board. In most cases where a show has a large crew, there is at least one cue where every person has their hands full. R***** is wrong when he says that crews are as big as they used to be. Shows like The Secret Garden and Miss Saigon have far fewer stagehands than they would have without mechanization. Regional theatre winch articles in our journals make it clear that this phenomenon is not restricted to Broadway.
To return to R*****'s original article, I don't agree that more and better technology will save "the fabulous invalid". In fact, the intrusion of technologically augmented performances into live theatre may well be a cause of declining attendance. I hope that theme park shows do develop a desire for live theatre. But their form of "performance" is not what my employers have to offer our customers. Each day, more of the generation weaned on Madonna (or the Ice Smurfs, or The Six Flags Olde Tyme Revue) lip-synching so that they can appear to dance and sing at the same time grows up. It's no wonder that they've demanded a Phantom, a Will Rogers, and a Miss Saigon who do things no humans actually can do unaided.
If the live event becomes indistinguishable from the video or film one, why bother with the trip and the expense? That's the threat to our careers.
When discussing labor-management disputes, newspaper numbers somehow always become the Sunday-holiday-midnight-overtime rate, grossed-up with payroll taxes and benefits. But in your vision of contented, grateful, plantation workers, "A City Built on $4.25 an Hour"(Feb 12 [1995]), there seem to be no benefits at all. That's possible when you're young and healthy (and lucky). But it's easy to imagine one of Jacksonville, N.C.'s $8,840-a-year workers making the mistake of believing that Social Security is a pension plan. Does Newt Gingrich know that we're all partners with Jacksonville's clever employers? It takes a lot of Medicare to make up for 65 years of no health care at all. It's ironic that the advice given in a town where restaurants are the major employers is, "Don't go out to eat. Don't use credit cards." Where would the United States economy be today if everyone had been forced to follow those recommendations since World War II?
Yes, Korey Stringer's death is sad, and I'm sorry for his family. But let's put this in perspective. In Minnesota alone, an average of 82 people died at work each year from 1995 through 1999, according to statistics from the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.
Let's remember that professional sports are a business, not only a source of civic testosterone. Work of all kinds causes death, just as agriculture did before the Industrial Revolution. If Stringer's death results in training reforms for a immensely profitable industry, that will be of no benefit whatever to roofers, foundry workers, asphalt pavers, and every other "hot" job that has killed people supporting their families.
[This is a response to a patriotic reader who was offended by the animals in this now discontinued comic strip pretending to be airplanes while reciting the poem "High Flight " (1941) by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. It begins, "Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth ...."]
We can all benefit from an example of how a bit of perspective changes completely the meaning of something which seems at first, self-evident. C***** K*****'s letter [July 20] reveals that he either goes to bed at an early hour, or has never lived in an area where the television stations go off the air for a few hours.
The July 8 "Bloom County" [drawn by Berke Breathed, now available only in bookstores] strip was not intended to trivialize the life or death of the poem's author. The choreography (as opposed to the text) of the strip shows it to be a parody of the U.S. Air Force-assisted sign-off film which includes a reading of the poem. Knowledge of the characters in the strip shows the humor to be either at their expense, or at the expense of those of us who stay up late.
[My point of view is certainly not on any stronger scientific footing today. But it continues to be difficult to find valid, double-blind medical research to prove either position. For those of us who work in front of four video monitors, and beside a coil of feeder cable, it's not a purely academic matter.]
P***** F*****'s warning ("Health Hazards from VDT Radiation", TD&T Fall, 1993) is timely and useful. However, it is not a satisfactory summary of a technically complex, emotion-laden, and politically sensitive issue.
Please do not mistake me for an anti-radiationist. While no one can yet "know", I firmly believe that devices which emit electric and magnetic fields do cause injury. I also believe that frequently heard statements that there "...is no hard evidence..." to that effect are false. But the summary in TD&T is just enough to create a vague fear, at the weekly-newsmagazine level of technology.
In the current issue of Mix, Dan Daley (1) makes a splendid comparison with an effort he made to study hearing loss in sound operators regularly exposed to high-level concerts:
The turnout was almost nonexistent. When I asked a few colleagues why they opted not to take the hearing test, the response was reduced to a single phrase: "I don't want to know."
Anyone who is disturbed by F*****'s article should go to the library and read the book version of Brodeur's first three articles, all the way through. You'll finally learn why power company press offices keep referring derisively to toasters and hair-dryers; F***** drops the ball by mentioning them only casually. The point is that you're not exposed to their (very large) fields for eight to 24 hours a day! Brodeur carefully explains how and why an electric blanket is just as dangerous as a video display terminal. If you buy a low-emission monitor and continue to sleep under an electric blanket, it's like giving up eggs for breakfast but continuing to have a hamburger and french fries for lunch every day.
Brodeur's two later New Yorker articles (2, 3) are not included in the article's bibliography. They're important because the "injured parties" in those two stories were completely, utterly defeated by their school boards and power companies. After you're infuriated by "Currents of Death", you'd better know what you're in for when you dare to speak up. It's particularly hard to get newspapers to report freely on this subject, because they have tremendous investments in VDT newsrooms, and presumably great potential liability. (Once something is known to be hazardous, Workman's Compensation laws do not shield an employer from liability.) Brodeur's information on how the power industry's influence over research buries bad news and spreads good news is as frightening as the medical data.
For what little bit I can say in the power companies' defense, F***** doesn't mention that there really is a constellation of risk factors. Many important studies involve female fertility and miscarriage rates. Since women were excluded from many jobs for a long time, it's hard to separate the VDT factor from the stresses of data entry work, computerized productivity measurement, or (especially today) fear of layoff. In (4), Dr. William Farland of the E.P.A. makes the reasonable observation that "...the records of disease in the 20th century do not show notable increases as the electrification of the country went forward."
F***** might have said a little more about electric fields. Despite what you remember from college physics, electric fields and magnetic fields are not the same thing. No one knows for sure which are more dangerous. In fact, no one knows that the "Swedish" standards have the right numbers. Any reduction in exposure is good, but as there is not enough research to conclusively prove harm, there are certainly not enough data to say where harm begins! If I'm not mistaken, the 1989 Suffolk County law F***** refers to was later repealed, thanks to industry threats to move out of the county.
But that's all the more reason we should learn the facts. Every steel mill, every machine shop that's empty and rusting today used to have a guy named "Gimpy" or "Lefty" who pushed the mail cart: He couldn't work out on the floor anymore. If the workplace has been unhealthy since the Industrial Revolution, can't we make it safer now?
(1) Daley, Dan. "EMF, A Cause for Concern, Not Panic", Mix, October, 1993.
(2) Brodeur, Paul. "Calamity on Meadow Street" The New Yorker,9 July 1990.
(3) Brodeur, Paul. "The Cancer at Slater School", The New Yorker,7 December 1992.
(4) Hilts, Philip J. "Study Says Electrical Fields Could Be Linked to Cancer", New York Times, 15 December 1990.
(5) Associated Press. "IBM Cuts Computer Radiation", New YorkTimes, 23 November 1989.
[A reply to a full page "testimonial"article to several well-known New York museum and library leaders who wrought significant and important changes in their institutions, with great benefits to the citizens.]
I am genuinely grateful for the positive achievements of these leaders. But there were prices to be paid: T***** H***** "invented" the discretionary admission fee, now applied at a host of American museums that used to be free to all. You can't talk about the Historical Society or the Metropolitan Museum without referring to the invention of the word "deaccessioning." The branch libraries have languished while parties and fund-raising favor the more glamorous research libraries.
[A City Council member in the northwest Bronx replied two weeks later to say that the libraries in her district were in great shape. I guess she hasn't seen the Mid-Manhattan Library or the Lincoln Center circulating library recently.]
[A reply to an announcement of a sculpture display in Central Park, which mentioned that Michael Bloomberg had been an early supporter (years ago) of Christo's plan for "wrapped" gateways throughout the park.]
For someone who can take his private plane to Bermuda for the weekend, it's easy to justify encroachments on Central Park (news article, Feb 27). But for the majority of its users, Central Park is all they have for the weekend. Each new sculpture is one spot less in which to sit or have a picnic.
A few years of rotating art displays in Dante Park brought us the permanent, monstrous Movado Clock. Lincoln Center pays a guard to protect Philip Johnson's work from graffiti. The city's contribution to this worn little triangle consists of rat bait stations ... plus some illegally parked Parks Department cars at the curb.
Until all of the park's comfort stations, water fountains, and recreation pavillions are working and open, let's not spend money on endlessly rotating displays of "temporary" art.
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