Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2010 - 33

2010

ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE

We have the greatest theatre researchers in the
world within our membership in every discipline.
Let's fund more of their research projects.
Technical Production. The Commissions are the working heart
of USITT. They involve several hundred members as volunteers
and thousands of hours of unpaid work. The commemorative
fiftieth anniversary issue of TD&T has articles from each commission, reminding us of the very impressive achievements over
the past fifty years.
Do you know what the annual budget is for all of these
commissions? Given all sources of funding, including conference programming suppoprt, the total Commissions budget is
less than $125,000. Now, contrast that to the overall annual
budget of USITT of $1,800,000. That is tremendously disproportionate. I'd like to see a lot more commission projects
funded. We have the greatest theatre researchers in the world
within our membership in every discipline. Let's fund more of
their research projects.

* Re-Establish Working Bibliography
Can we explain the lack of publication of any ongoing bibliographical resources in an Institute with so many academics? It
wasn't always thus. Commencing with the initial issue of TD&T,
and thereafter on a regular basis, the Institute published nearly
2,000 listings of articles and books collected from all over the
world. This was the work of Ned Bowman, one assistant, and a
small stipend from the University of Pittsburgh. Surely, we have
institutions that would combine library resources and theatre
department resources and maintain current listings of articles
and books published in our disciplines. This should not be
limited to domestic publications. We should be reacting to the
articles published in foreign theatre journals, translating and
publishing at least the titles, and reprinting in translation those
articles thought to be most useful to our membership.

* Protect Our Theatre Training Programs.
I have come to my sixth and final point, and this is the recommendation I am most passionate about. It is clear that in
this economic climate, we are going to have to protect theatre
training programs against college and university administrators
looking for cost savings. Just in the last three weeks, the news
has carried the following stories: Brandeis University, famous
for its graduate training in theatre arts, is en route to eliminating its MFA programs in design and technology, as a cost saving
measure. California State University eliminated the entire theatre program at one of the campuses. The University of Arizona
has just announced the combining of theatre and new media
departments. Unfortunate as that may be, at least the appointed

new Chair is USITT Past-President Bruce Brockman.
How do we protect our theatre training programs? I suspect that technical theatre and theatre design programs have a
high rate of graduate success. But we have never proven their
effectiveness. We need some solid research! We need to document that we are training students for a profession in which
they will find jobs and a future, pay off their student loans, and
start donating to their college alumni funds.
I want USITT to take the leadership, reach out, and form
a consortium with allied organizations to do the necessary research on graduate success. Some likely members of the consortium include: NAST, the National Association of Schools
of Theatre, which accredits approximately 162 training programs out of an estimated 500 to 550 BA and BFA training
programs in theatre. Most of the NAST schools offer MFA
programs in theatre; U/RTA, The University/Resident Theatre
Association, which covers thirty-four training programs; PhD
Programs, represented by the Deans of the thirty-seven programs offering a PhD in theatre-who meet regularly. These
programs currently enroll a total of approximately 650 PhDtrack candidates. (Are there really employment opportunities for some 200 graduate PhDs in theatre each year?); and
ATHE, the Association of Theatre in Higher Education, which
currently has approximately 1,700 members.
Together with USITT, those four organizations represent
the vast bulk of the people and programs in theatre training. We
are the producers of the product, namely, students trained in
theatre arts, graduating, and looking for work.
The consumers of the product are represented in organizations such as Theatre Communications Group. With its 473
member-theatres, TCG is a huge source of jobs for graduating
technical and design majors. The TCG theatres largely depend
on the graduates of our training programs for staffing. LORT, the
League of Resident Theatres, is seventy-three-theatres strong.

S U M M E R

2010

theatre

design

technology

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2010