The Memberless Community

This may be your story. It is certainly mine. Please let me know if you had a similar reaction.

The Community Dish. There's a link on the side here if you wanna check it out.

I founded this organization in late 2002. Shortly before this I was deported from England and thrown out of France and moved to the one place in the world that would still let me be me - New York City.

I was and am obsessed with the Beats - Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso and the like. More so when I was 22. Having read almost every imaginable story by them, I arrived in NYC with a feeling of excitement and entitlement - that, due to all of my diligent research, I was due a membership in this grand community of degenerate artists. The romance got me, really.

After about 6 months in NYC, combing the streets for where this "downtown" community of artists, and more specifically, theatre people, met - I hit a wall. There were thousands upon thousands of theatre artists, most my age, living in this city - yet I never seemed to come in contact with any unless I actually went to a show. Being that I wanted so much to be
involved in this world, and did not know where to find it, I founded the Community Dish.

At first it was a selfish desire to go crazy with other crazy people. And then it grew.

We began with 11 groups in December 2002. There are now over 100 members. However, numbers are ever deceiving.

In 2003 I did a study - to see just how many Off-Off groups produced work in NYC that year. The magic number I discovered - 1,019. Of that 1,019 there are maybe 100 who survive past the 3 year mark. Even less after 5. That means the other 919 groups are made up typically of recent college grads who, freshfaced, move to the city to start their own groups and seek out the fame of Wooster Group, Labryinth, Roundabout, The Public and others who started out in the dregs of downtown as no-name, obscure theatre companies. These 919 groups produce 1, maybe 2 shows, and die out due to lack of resources, funding, space, time or basic know-how of theatre production.

One could say - ok - basic Darwinism here - they weren't ready, so they tried and failed and hopefully will try again. Two BIG problems here:

1. Most of them do not try again, and before they even turn 25, walk away from theatre, their so called passion, to pursue a job that is "similar" in order to pay the bills once they realize the struggle of living in NYC.
2. Once they die, there are another 919 companies who show up next year to take their place and go through the same endless cycle.

I have repeated this argument many times to the annoyance of my old NYC peers who all say: "Yes - this is true, but what are ya gonna do...?"

There is a lot we can do.

But first - we have to ask ourselves a very basic question - are we peers?

The Dish is basically dead now as a meeting place, which is what is was intended to be - a PHYSICAL meeting place where we all knew we could at least see each other 6 times out of a year. Hardly anyone goes anymore, last I checked. But the Listserv is alive and grand. It's the most successful thing to come out of the Dish. First problem - we do LIVE theatre, yet we exist on a screen.

Second problem - the listserv is used to promote shows, ask for help with actors, set pieces, and most recently - apartment searching.

There was a letter sent to the Dish yesterday from a prominent theatre company who shall remain nameless. This group was advertising their 10th anniversary fundraiser. The letter was titled: "Starving Artist?" and began with "jokes" - a quote for you:

"... one thought keeps coming back to me - what were we thinking? I mean, it's a crazy idea, starting a not-for-profit theatre company in New York City, home of hundreds of other theatre companies, most of which fail in their first couple of years, with nothing more than a few small donations from a few close friends and family and the hard work and stubborn determination of three intrepid wanna-be theatre producing artists."

Reading this first paragraph enraged me. And it went on with chides like: "You are coming, aren't you?" and reminisced about the good old days at the Theatorium - the great old theatre which is now an empty shell on the corner of Stanton and Ridge - to talking about how they feel so comfy at their new digs at 59E59 (on 59th St.)

We don't fight to preserve what we once had, first off. But that's not what really upset me.

What worries me is that everything said in jest in the letter is actually true. And the subtle jokes of “You are coming, aren’t you?” are true. Without supreme attendance at this event they may not be able to have an 11th year. And so many other groups have the same problem. But we never meet in person, we never see each other’s shows – this person and I haven’t actually seen each other in person in well over 3 years. I don’t think he's ever seen a Subjective show, and the last show of his I saw was at least over 2 years ago. And I only came to see that because I knew one of the actors. We don’t hang out. We don’t do theatre together. We don’t even have friendly (or not so friendly) debates.

But we did when we first met at the Theatorium, o so many years ago.

So I ask a basic question – are we peers? Or are we actually competitors for the same grants, donations, space and audience members?

Because peers do not behave like this. The way that theatre people are behaving nowadays are like corporations - we are friendly to one another when we come in contact, but we don't promote each other and we fight for the same piece of the pie.

Is this art? Is this community? Is this family? What is this?

I am sorry to single out the writer of this letter, to be fair - it's not just him - it's all of us, myself included. We have let this situation get far out of control. My thoughts on symptoms are clear - over saturation and the fact that we all have to work 2 or 3 jobs just to keep our passion alive - so we don't have time to even see our "peers" work.

So let's be honest - we have a memberless community. Now let's fix it for godsakes.

And let's start with not charging $30 for "Starving Artists".