Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2010 - 32

FELLOWS ADDRESS AT THE
but it also provides great experience. Coming up through the
ranks seems to be excellent training for those who undertake
the rigors of such office. Within the ranks of all Past-Presidents
of USITT, over half have been or are Deans and Chairs of Theatre
Departments, and we proudly include one College President,
Richard Durst.
In November of 2009, before the December board meeting, and again just two weeks ago, twelve of the fourteen living
Past Presidents of the Institute asked the Board of Directors to
postpone and reconsider taking any action on any restructuring
of the Institute. We thought it was for the most part unnecessary;
we were worried that the current fragile state of the economy
would affect USITT; and we were concerned that USITT's assets
had dropped by over $100,000 in the 2009 fiscal year. Hiring
an Executive Director would not automatically fix the financial
problems, and in fact could easily consume another $375,000
in salary, benefits, travel, etc. over the next three years. For those
of us who had seen the Institute near bankruptcy on several
occasions, the induction of Christine Kaiser as Treasurer some
twenty years ago and her careful policing of Institute spending
had been a seeming miracle. Her successors have operated in
the same careful manner. Adding the expense of an Executive
Director takes USITT far away from that careful path.
All of us can see the effects of the current recession around
us: closed store fronts, and family members or close friends outof-work. In the performing arts for example, just recently you
read of a "shortened season" at the Columbus Ohio Symphony
Orchestra, which the NY Times describes as endemic among
symphony orchestras. Likewise endemic among communitybased organizations is the closing of the Pasadena Playhouse,
the loss of the Harlem (NY) School of the Arts, and the Denver
Conservatory of Music. Also to be considered is the lack of new
tenure positions in teaching institutions, the consolidation and
elimination of departments, and the downsizing of budgets in
those institutions due to deficits. This is particularly critical in
state institutions. The NY Times recently reported: "Angered by
increases in tuition and cuts in state aid, thousands of California
students, parents and faculty members staged protests at public
schools, colleges and universities." All of these are harbingers
that even USITT may meet rocky times ahead.
Fellow members, I hope, given the drastic nature of the
changes proposed in USITT's governance and their economic
impact on USITT, that the Board of Directors will take you into
its confidence. I challenge the Board to provide all members
the time and opportunity to evaluate the proposed changes
and to allow the members the opportunity to cast their votes
on them.

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S U M M E R

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Recommendations
I want to share with you six recommendations for protecting
and extending the vitality of USITT into the next fifty years.

* Extend Our International Programming.
USITT has supported a strong international program since the
mid-1960s, largely thanks to the Samuel H. Scripps Fund. The
program has been much enhanced under Alexandra Bonds'
leadership. But we could enlarge our program of student travel
grants, provide research grants to members for international
studies, and resume our program of international artists delivering master classes around the country.

* Revive Costume Research Journal.
It was one-of-a-kind, a unique publication. I found it fascinating reading, although costume is not my field of expertise. CRJ
needs a paid editor; its cost might be in part sponsored by
some of the costume and fabric firms that are already sustaining members of USITT, or we could look outside to some of
the design houses such as Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, Oscar
De La Renta, and Vera Wang. The subject matter of this journal
would appeal to a broad international audience

* Publish More Monographs; Widen Their Distribution.
The Publications Committee has also had very strong leadership under Bobbi Owen. I applaud the continued excellence of
the journal, Theatre Design & Technology, under the guidance
of David Rodger, editor, and Deborah Hazlett, art director. I
also applaud the publication of USITT's series of monographs
on master designers. These monographs fill a great void. They
are lasting and definitive books. USITT needs to do more of
them. Let's finance and add one or two additional volumes
each year to the existing schedule for the USITT Master Designers book series. Robin Wagner and Oliver Smith would be
my initial suggestions for monographs. Expert knowledge of
these designers' work resides in USITT members Eric Fielding
and Tom Mikotowicz, respectively. Unfortunately, knowledge of
the USITT monographs is limited primarily to our members.
If you search on Amazon, the individual titles in the series do
not link to the others. We need to make contacts at the two
large bookstore chains and at the major wholesalers that service independent bookstores. We need to get these books onto
sales shelves. These books deserve more attention than the few
hundred copies that USITT will sell or place in college and university libraries.

* Fund Commission Projects.
The Commissions deal with the working disciplines within
our overall profession: Architecture, Costume Design and
Technology, Education, Engineering, Health and Safety, Lighting Design, Management, Scene Design, Sound Design, and

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