Heaven for the bean-counters

Let's start with a quote that got me thinking:

As David Mamet told Tablet last year, “I’ve started a couple theaters. Had the time of my life. And at some point if a theater is successful the bean counters come in and … in any business there’s a situation where the bean counter drives the other guy [the artist] out and that’s what happened in the regional theater.”

That's from The Toxic Gentleness of the American Theater over at Tablet magazine. So many things in the music world signal that yes, the bean counters are in charge, and have been in charge for a very long time. There used to be some interesting hold-outs: Frank Zappa, the Talking Heads, even David Bowie and in the classical world, most ensembles just clinging to a few donors and government subsidies. The truth is that the money is always in appealing to the greatest number. In restaurants that means McDonald's and Starbucks over your local joint or your gourmet palace. In music that always means the easily consumable over the challenging and complex or, hell, it doesn't even have to be complex. But it does have to not be easily consumable. That way lies Zamfir and Kenny G. Oh, and Taylor Swift of course.

The regional theatre world seems really different from the classical music world and one wonders why. Here is the take from the above article:

Things have been changing for a long time now, but the changes were accelerated by the pandemic, with the power shifting heavily in favor of ambitious, angry, younger members of the community. The pandemic shut America’s theater doors. Then, while everyone was on Zoom trying to figure out how the show would go on, the principles of the Black Lives Matter movement—including the idea that “show must go on” culture is “driven by fear” and disproportionately harms nonwhite artists—became the new religion. If theaters couldn’t put on shows, they could certainly change their mission statements, promise to cull white staff and creatives to achieve diversity quotas, and scare off any wrong thinkers who might still be lingering in the wings, including unvaccinated artists.

Much of the revolution has been led by youthful millennial Bolsheviks with little to no experience starting a theater, producing a play, or fundraising at scale. (Forget about focusing a light, sewing a dress, or building a backdrop.) What they do have are extremely strict ideas about how to enact “justice” in their industry, a desire to maintain a bourgeois lifestyle in a profession that requires some degree of lack, and a mission to fundamentally change the purpose of theater, from being dedicated to the goal of sharing some transcendence with their audience to making everyone involved in the production feel “seen.” They are proponents of what I call “toxic gentleness.” The reality now, as one perceptive theater-maker pointed out to Tablet, is that most of the younger generation coming up in the industry are far more interested in activism than art. The elders, meanwhile, have been under such unrelenting pressure to prove their loyalty to the cause of progressive goodness that they would rather retire than attempt to guide the kinderlach on their mission. And many have.

The forces of progressivism seem far weaker in the classical music world. Perhaps it is the highly demanding technical requirements that screen out the activists. Perhaps it is the more or less conservative audiences or perhaps it is still the tenuous influence of the European and historical background. But whatever the cause, it seems as if the classical environment is pretty far from the situation described above. But maybe it is just down the road. Or maybe we are just not worth the trouble of killing off.

I've always noticed or been drawn to the music and artists that are not the most popular. Well, with the exception of the Beatles who somehow managed to be both hugely successful and hugely good. But usually it is the more obscure that draws my interest: The English Beat and the Incredible String Band over The Rolling Stones and U2. The entire world of classical music is just a financial rounding error these days so preferring it puts you into the weirdo category, something I am entirely comfortable with.

As long as I can listen to, stream, purchase or attend concerts by those artists and repertoire that interest me, I don't care what the hell the rest of you are listening to. I just hope there are enough weirdos like me to support a few artists who are, you know, still artists and not just crowd-pleasers beloved by bean counters.

Here is a fun concert I just stumbled across. I have actually played two of those lute pieces.