What it costs to make theatre in Nassau, Bahamas

People have been asking, as they do, what makes it cost so much to put on a theatre festival. It's a question we come up against a lot, whether it's asked in a straightforward fashion or whether it's behind some other question or assumption, such as the one I was asked outright last year: "Why can't you afford to pay the actors just a little bit--say $50 a day--for their participation?"

Part of the issue may be that these people see that we're selling tickets for our productions and make the assumption that the revenue we earn from that not only covers our costs but makes its way into our pockets as well....

Hold on. I'll be right back. I'm laughing too hard to see the screen just now....

OK, I'm back. And my laughter has been replaced with perplexity. After all, we all see the world from our own perspective. Maybe they--people, you, whomever--think that theatre is just about getting up on some empty stage somewhere and throwing out a few lines. How much can that cost anyway? And to top it all off, you're selling tickets! Pure profit! Why can't you share a little?

I can only speak for myself here, but I'll try and break it down.

When Ringplay Productions, our theatre company, or Shakespeare in Paradise, our theatre festival, prepares to put on a play, the first thing we do is choose a play. We like to do so based on some agreed-upon criteria. For Shakespeare in Paradise, it's either a Shakespeare play we haven't yet done, or it's a piece that we believe will speak to our audiences. Shakespeare in Paradise is dedicated to the production, preservation and celebration of Bahamian, Caribbean, African-American and African diaspora works because there aren't many theatre festivals out there that have a similar focus, and because the vast majority of our theatre scene in Nassau is introspective, focussed on current affairs and local issues. We seek to fill a gap.

So, back to basics: we choose the play.

Most times it's written by someone else. Many of those times, then, we have to pay for it. That's right! Plays are not free! Playwrights get paid royalties! and so that's the first cost we have to consider. It's a relatively minor cost, and is often calculated based on type of production (professional/community/amateur), but normal royalty payments total about $500-$600 per production.

So off the top: $500-$600 in cost.

Next we have to cast the play. To do that we like to hold auditions. We don't have to, as we could just pick people to be in the play from the people we know, but what would be the fun in that? Or, to look at it another way, that would not be in keeping with our desire to offer experience and exposure to a wide variety of people, so we have to hold auditions.

For that we need:

• a space big enough to hold the people who come to audition

• copies of the audition pieces

• registration forms OR a tablet or a computer to keep track of the people who came to audition

• a camera to take headshots

• pens to help people fill things in

So before we get any further: another $500-$600 in cost (sometimes that cost can be shared or waived, depending on our access to the audition space).

Once we pick our cast, we need:

• copies of the script

If the script is international, we either need to purchase enough books to give to our cast (that's the strictly legal way) or we need to reproduce it somehow.

In the 20th century this meant taking the script to a copying centre and getting copies made.

In the 21st century this means scanning the script and printing the copies out.

Either way, another $100-$200, depending on the size of the cast.

Then we need to rehearse the play.

For this we need a rehearsal space large enough to enable us to lay out an appropriate set, to encourage actors to project their voices the way God intended people to do before humans invented microphones, and to allow us to block and practice the play.

Rehearsal spaces don't come cheap. If we don't have access to an appropriate space, one of two things will happen. Either our rehearsals will not allow us to work in the physical dimensions that we will find on stage, and the final production will suffer and lose us money in missed ticket sales, or else they will cost us an arm and a leg. No, literally. The best rehearsal spaces come at $300 or $400 A REHEARSAL.

And we have to rehearse at LEAST twice a week (preferably 3-5 times a week for at least 4 weeks). Do the math. Rehearsals will cost us in the vicinity of $600-$1200 a week just for the space alone. This doesn't include the cost of keeping the cast comfortable--i.e. providing at the very least water for them to drink while they are working.

Total for rehearsals: $4800 and up.

So before we even get to the other things that make theatre theatre, we've spent a minimum of:

• $500 for the play

• $500 for auditions

• $100 for scripts

• $4800 for rehearsals

for a total $5900 before we can even get near to selling tickets.

So what else do we need?

Well, we need a performance space. A rehearsal space is one thing. It needs to be big enough to hold the cast and to mimic the size of the stage. A performance space is quite another. It has to be big enough for the performers and the audience alike. And it has to be big enough to allow us to generate enough money to help us cover the costs we've already spent.

So let's take the best one out there: the Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts.

The Dundas rents its theatre for a $1000 a performance and up.

The "and up" is often non-negotiable, and can run one to another $300 per performance, so the Dundas can cost you $1300 per performance.

Sounds like a lot (and is) but here's the advantage: for that $1300 you get the basics: 330-seat theatre, parking, lights, sound, security, dressing room, backstage, performers' entrance, performers' bathroom. These things sound simple, but trust me, they're not; NEVER take them for granted if you're doing theatre in this place!

So if you're doing a single performance, your costs have gone up to $7200. And you still haven't started to deal with set, costumes, props, tickets, programmes, or publicity.

So let's do some more math. Let's go back to that selling tickets idea. How much would we have to sell tickets for if we want to cover the costs we have listed so far?

If we sell EVERY SINGLE SEAT in the Dundas, we have to sell tickets at $21.81 to cover these costs.

See where I'm going?

Now let's add in the things that make theatre theatre.

Costumes. These can cost next to nothing if the cast supplies their own clothing, or a couple thousand if we are doing something elaborate, exciting, or unusual. This figure also depends on the size of the cast. A one-person play will cost very little. A large play, like a Shakespeare production or a musical, will cost a lot. Something like 2010's A Midsummer Night's Dream cost in the ballpark of $2000 for costumes, as every cast member had to be clothed in a particular way. Something like 2012's Merchant cost about $200, as the cast all wore street clothes. Let's pick something fairly modest that gives us some room to play with: let's say costumes cost $500.

Props. These, too, can cost next to nothing if borrowed or donated. But some things have to be bought, like fake knives, or anything else needed to create special effects. So let's say another $200.

Sets. These are non-negotiable. Every set costs money. Some cost more than others. Ours cost between $1000 and $6000, so let's pick a mid-point: $3000.

Lighting and sound. If we've invested in the Dundas, these come built in. We will have to pay for lighting and sound operation, but these are included in the cost of $1300. If, on the other hand, we have chosen another space, we are going to have to invest here. An adequate lighting system (something that lets the audience see the cast's faces) can be rented for $2000-$3000, but if we want more (which we rarely get) the cost goes up. So let's pick $2500.

In theatre, microphones shouldn't be necessary for ordinary plays. For musicals, that's a different matter, but in a play, the actor should have developed the ability to project her voice so that the audience can hear her no matter what; so we shouldn't need microphones. But we will probably need sound effects, music and so on. A basic sound system that provides that can be $200-$500. Let's say $250.

So where are we now?

We've just added another $6550 to our $7200.

Our little play is now costing us $13,750, and we haven't got to publicity, programmes or tickets yet; forget paying personnel.

So let's go there now.

Programmes can cost as little as a few hundred for paper, toner, and the printer or photocopier to duplicate them, or as much as $9000 for a full-cover printed deal. Our festival programme costs us a lot to produce and we have never paid less than $5000 for it. When we were doing one-off shows, though, we would run our programme off on a laser printer. That cost us about $150-$200. Tickets, though, need some investment. They are, after all, the things that make you money. Local printers can print tickets at about $400-$1000 these days, depending on how many you need (or you can order them from abroad, which looks cheap but costs something to bring them in -- either customs at the border or a plane ticket to get them here). So let's figure in another $1000 for programmes and tickets combined.

We'll need somewhere to sell the tickets. Some people use ticket outlets, which may donate their services or take a little in commission. Others, like us, use a stationary box office. That costs us money in both rent and personnel. So let's add in another $2000 for the box office.

And finally, publicity! There are all sorts of ways to get the word out there, but know this: the size of your audience depends very much on the quality of your marketing and publicity. Facebook does a lot, but does not do the whole job. The very best form of advertisement is television. For those who can afford it, cross-channel marketing (in the old days it was a commercial on ZNS during the news) is worth the investment -- but what an investment! If you want to sell your tickets, you have to invest several thousand right here. Let's be kind and add another $2000 to our pot.

Total cost of our production with ONE performance only: a cool $18,750.And that's being conservative in our estimate.

What does that come out to if we have to make all our money back on ticket sales then? How much will we have to price our tickets?

Our tickets have just gone up to $56.81 a head WITH FULL OCCUPANCY.

So what if we added in the suggested $50 per person per day? What would our costs be then?

• Let's say we're doing a small play, with a few people in the cast. Let's say we have a cast of 4. We also have a director and a stage manager. Let's pay them all the same $50 a day.

• Let's say we have a rehearsal period of 6 weeks with 3 rehearsals a week. Let's say that, because there are 4 people in the play, everybody has to be at every rehearsal. And let's say we just have one performance.

• The math is 6 x 3 x 6 x 50 = $5400 for the rehearsal period + 6 x 50 for the performance = $300 for a total of $5700.

Our costs have gone up again to $24,450 for a single performance.

Your costs (cost per ticket) have gone up to $74.09 per ticket with FULL OCCUPANCY.

And we never get full occupancy; our most successful productions get about 60% occupancy. So jack the ticket price up again.

Here's how we make it work.

1) we don't pay local actors with cash. Yes, it sucks, but we want to keep doing what we're doing. And we happen to think that there is an exchange of sorts that's going on. There are no theatre schools in Nassau, and no real opportunity for training; the only way actors can hone their skills is by being in productions put on by experienced people and learning on their feet. So Bahamian actors gain experience and training that they don't have to pay for. It's a bad argument, but it's the only one we've got. The alternative is not to do theatre at all.

2) we don't invest all of the above for a single performance only. Yes, our rents go up when we have more performances, but all of the other costs are one-time investments, and they pan out over time. Once upon a time we would make the investment for a ten-night run; these days we find that we need to do at least 4-6 nights to make the investment worthwhile. Here's how that pans out:

• Extra Rent = 5 x 1300 = $6,500 plus our base cost of $18,750 for a total of $25,250.

• Total seats to sell: 330 x 6 = 1,980

NOW for us to cover our costs, the price per seat at full occupancy becomes a MUCH more manageable $12.75, and the price per seat for the expected 60% occupancy goes back to $21.25. This gives us room to work with less than full occupancy, and gives us the ability to offer bulk sales and discounts.

Maybe you'll get why I was laughing so hard at the top of this article. Pocketing money from theatrical productions is a dream. Covering our costs is the goal. Pure and simple.

That's how it's done.

I'll talk more about this again later, but for now, that's me.

Creating theatre in Nassau, Bahamas

For those of you who may not know, I do theatre in my spare time.

“Spare” may be a misnomer. “Unassigned” may be a better way of putting it. See, I work for a living because I have to; I need that regular income, and most of all I need that health insurance. I’m a college professor. I’m not dissing that. In fact, I happen to think it’s one of the best jobs in the world. It’s the only job in this country that will pay me to do half of what I love to do, which is write and talk, and that will even include that writing and talking when it comes time for promotion, and at the same time also allow me the flexibility and space to do the other half of what I love to do. I bless the people who dreamed up the College of The Bahamas and I bless those people who made it do all these things.

But if I had my druthers, I’d be working in theatre too.

OK, for those of you who do know me, you’re probably saying to yourself: “But she does work in theatre.”

And you’d be right, after a fashion. After all, I am one of the founders of Ringplay Productions, a theatre company that’s been around for the past 13 years, and I’m the founding director of the Shakespeare in Paradise theatre festival.

But nobody pays me to do either. And so I have to do it in spare, or unassigned, or off, time.

Before you ask me, the answer is, yes, I do have a problem with this. I didn’t twenty-five years ago when I started working in Bahamian theatre. In the 1980s, the Bahamas was in its second decade of independence, and had much bigger things to worry about than about providing careers for young artists. I wasn’t raised to pursue such a career, anyway. Even though my father had studied what might well have been the most esoteric thing for a young Bahamian to study at the end of the 1950s—classical piano performance at the Royal Academy of Music, London—my parents brought me up to be employable (my father wasn’t, not in the Bahamas, so a teacher he became). So I did not go to school to study theatre, even though I liked being on stage. I grew up “knowing” that the theatre was something one did for the love of it, despite all odds, and not something one did to make money from. Even though I wanted to write plays I never thought of doing it for a living.

But times change, and people change, and the world changes. In the 1980s we weren’t welcoming five million tourists to the Bahamas and wondering what on earth there was for them to do onshore here. In the 1980s, there were still some things for them to do (although that was the decade when things started to change). There were still cabaret shows in casinos which provided regular jobs for dancers; there were still nightclubs here and there which provided regular jobs for musicians; and there were record stores that bought musicians’ music. Maybe I’m painting too rosy a picture here, but it seems to me that in the 1980s Bahamians liked Bahamian culture.

But we’re not in the 1980s anymore.

It’s the twenty-first century. And if there were every a century in which creativity could flourish, this is it. We live in a time of revolution; publishing and production and filmmaking and composing and making music are in the hands of the creative artists, rather than locked up in boardrooms thousands of miles away in somebody else’s country. And tourism is also changing to reflect this new century. Tourists are not travelling merely for sun, sand and casino winnings. They are looking for unforgettable, unique experiences, and they’re paying premium prices for them. It’s never been a better time to be a creative artist anywhere—except the Bahamas.

Those of you who know me well may remember that ten years ago this October I took on the position of Director of Cultural Affairs for the Bahamas government. Those of you who know me very well may remember what I was like when I took on that job. I am a happier person now, they tell me. I am not so angry all the time. Not so driven. (I would dispute the second, but WTH). I wasn’t always angry and driven. I took on the job believing, as one does, that I could make a difference. I took on the job to help bring back some focus to the Bahamas and to revive a sense of pride in Bahamian culture. It’s important, I believe, to for individuals to have some things done by the collective around them that they can be proud of, but in 2003 too many Bahamians were behaving as though they were ashamed.

I had no idea I was embarking on a wild and crazy ride that would take me through wildernesses and woodlands, across oceans to different continents, to high heights and even lower depths and bring me back right to where I started.

When I worked out that I had gone full circle, or maybe had made a spiral which brought me back to the same point as I’d started from, only maybe further away from where we wanted to be, I left. And started the theatre festival you see me working with today.

Shakespeare in Paradise is now five years old. We have survived by the grace of God and our own hard, hard work. We have grown and done some work that we’re proud of, and because it’s our fifth year and the fortieth anniversary of independence for this country, we’re taking a big, big risk.

And I have no idea where we’ll be by the end of October. In all honesty, it looks like we’ll be tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

The reason?

We dream too damn big.

We’re reviving Sammie Swain, the folk opera that should be my father’s legacy but is dying because it hasn’t been performed for too long.

Why it hasn’t been performed is a long story which I’m proposing to tell here on this blog. There are some villains in this story, and some heroes too, and the villains and the heroes might not be who you think they are. And it’s all part of a much bigger story, which is still being written, but which so far is shaping up to be a tragedy. I want to tell that story too.

So I called this “creating theatre in Nassau, Bahamas” because I had hoped to get to the theatre part of the story. What you have is just the setting and the backstory. Bad storytelling, but live with it.

We’ll get where we’re going if you stay with the ride.

Vaca-Who?

The last couple of weeks have been some of the busiest of the year.

They won't BE the busiest of the year—that time comes in late September/early October for me—but they HAVE been the busiest.

The reason? Well, as soon as the academic year ends for me, the theatrical year begins. Five years ago I was mad enough to imagine and found a Bahamian theatre festival. Shakespeare in Paradise was launched in October 2009 with a handful of people crazy enough to believe in it—and really crazy, because most of them were willing to work for free—and we pulled it off.

This year is our fifth, and it's still going. And we're crazier than ever, because we have determined to revive my father's folk opera, Sammie Swain, in honour of our festival's fifth year, in honour of our country's fortieth anniversary.

These things are crazy because we've added about $100k to our bottom line.

Ah well. We've been here before, more or less. In 2009 we didn't have any money at all. We pulled that festival off through the kindness of many people, and by building bartering relationships that paid off. This year we have a track record and some money, but people are (rightly) not so willing to barter and they're holding their purse strings tighter than ever.

So my vacation has been pretty non-stop grubbing for funds. Translation: my fabulous festival assistant and I have been writing letters, setting up meetings, and looking people in the face, telling them what we need and how much we believe in what we're doing. A lot of little bits of money does the same job as a few big chunks.Money might be slow in coming, but recognition is growing. That's why it's important that we have to stay afloat long enough to make the festival what we know it can and will be. In the meantime, this past Tuesday I was asked to do a photoshoot with Duke Wells to help create a photograph to go along with an interview done by Caribbean Beat Magazine. This is great, because we are getting regional coverage, and from a personal perspective, because I get new profile shots.I like this one:

Nico2013

This is turning out to be a sales pitch and I didn't mean it to be. I just wanted to say that this has been the least like a vacation that I've had in a long time.

And to say keep your eye on our facebook page, and remember the name of Shakespeare in Paradise. It's our fifth year, I've spent my vacations working on it for free for the past five years, and I'm doing it because I believe. I believe in our theatre, I believe in our audiences, and I believe that the Caribbean, and the Bahamas, can produce world-class theatre if we are willing to invest in it.

Watch me.

Intellectual property, slavery & reparations

This morning I spent three-plus hours in a workshop on intellectual property. I have to thank the Ministry of Financial Services for it, but the information that we received was sobering, frightening, even. The amount of traditional knowledge that is stolen from our region on a daily basis is staggering. And the legal situation is dismal; retroactive applications of legislation is difficult, almost impossible. Attempting to reclaim our knowledge on an individual basis appears futile.But there is one debt that the developed world, the former imperial world, owed our region that remains unpaid. It is a debt that may be unpayable, but that is none the less real. It is the debt for three hundred years of forced labour on which the developed world developed. And since 2007 disscussions about reparations for the enslavement of our ancestors are tentative.Perhaps, though, this is where our recourse for present situation lies. Reparations are owed. Our ancestors' sweat, their toil, their bladderwater, have yet to be paid for. The slaveowners received compensation for the loss of their "property" at emancipation, but the slaves and their ancestors have never been paid for the generations of their labour.Their labour should be paid for.Our traditional knowledge should be paid for.Is there a linkage between the two?Is it perhaps time we begin to collect everything that you owe me?

Lessons from the East (and it’s not China) | tmg*

Barbados has also taken an aggressive approach towards growing its creative economy and developing its creative class, implementing policies that take advantage of the CARIFROUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement. This agreement allows Caribbean investment in European creative services and makes it easier to supply those services to the European market. In short, it provides easer market access and facilitates the formation strategic partnerships between Barbados and Europe for services from architecture to music. Barbados has also passed a Cultural Industries Development Bill which encourages private sector investment in the creative industries by using tax incentives for investments which support those industries.via Lessons from the East (and it’s not China) | tmg*.

Bahama Pundit's Larry Smith - Running Hot on Culture

We Bahamians are considered such philistines around the region. They laugh at us for stooping so low as to blow up our own culture, and that's not a joke - it actually happened in 1987, when the government demolished Jumbey Village with explosives.The village was an offshoot of a community festival launched in 1969 by musician and parliamentarian Ed Moxey. An earlier and more 'cultural' version of the fish fry, it featured music and dance performances as well as displays of arts and crafts, and local produce, and was aimed at locals as well as tourists.In 1971 Moxey persuaded the Pindling government to let the festival take over a former dump site on Blue Hill Road and build a permanent facility. In the period leading up to independence in 1973, there was a lot of buzz about a popular enterprise promoting Bahamian creative arts."We put the homestead site up and in '73 we had a meeting with all the teachers. And they agreed right there that all the teachers in the system would donate a half day's pay and every school would have a function...and we came up with $100,000 in the space of three months," Moxey recalled."We put up a special cabinet paper, cabinet agreed, and when I pick up the budget, everything was cut out. Everything." Moxey told University of Pennsylvania researcher Tim Rommen in 2007. "That was a little bit too much. Village lingered, lingered...just kept on deteriorating until they came up with this grandiose scheme to put National Insurance there. And when they ready, they blow the whole thing down."via Bahama Pundit.

Shakespeare in Paradise — A Theatre Festival for Nassau and the World

With the curtain call of Julius Caesar, at 10:30 tonight, the 2011 Shakespeare in Paradise theatre festival officially came to an end.We would like to thank all of our performers, directors, volunteers, staff, guests artists, sponsors and of course our audiences who helped to make this year’s festival a success.For the majority of us, this festival is a labour of love as we try to keep theatre alive in our country and give a number of young people the opportunity to do more constructive things with their lives.Your continued support of our festival is most appreciated and we look forward to that support in our 4th annual theatre festival in 2012.via Shakespeare in Paradise — A Theatre Festival for Nassau and the World.

Attention, Government of The Bahamas:

It's a new century. It's the age of culture.When are we going to be joining it?YouTube - Il Volo - EPK.This is the kind of opportunity you are letting your citizens miss. With vision, boys like Osano Neely and Matthew Walker could have done this. Without vision and support, all we can do is bend over and take foreign investment in places where the sun don't shine.Am I angry?You bet.Always.

Love My Bahamas

Just had to share this. Artists Takin Ovah!!If you're on Facebook, go find the Love My Bahamas page and have a look at the art.When CariFringe starts, there will be tours you can take of the art.

Love my Bahamas Downtown Art Experience is a mural project that will enliven the walls of downtown Nassau. It involves 15 local and international artist. Come and visit the open studio space where you can see the artist at work, and learn from the rich visual arts scene in The Bahamas.Share with us this unprecedented art experience by visiting:via Live Positively Bahamas - Journal.

(And they said it couldn't be done.)

Differing Further

I only began to touch on the reasons for my not agreeing entirely with Ward on his assessment of the theatre industry here in The Bahamas. To recap: his take on things proposed that the surest way for any writer to make a living at writing creatively in our country is to do it for theatre. He offers these arguments in his defence:

• Up front costs for the producer-writer are less than production costs of a feature film.
• Audiences for popular shows are immediate and probably larger at one time than audiences for films.
• Selling out shows - playing to packed houses - will give you the kindof return on investment that is needed to maintain viability.

and

• Formulaic writing will ensure the returns for the playwright's investment.

(Ward, correct me if I'm offbase here -- this post has been some time in coming and I may have forgotten details, but it seems to me that these are the basic premises you put forward.)My problem in jumping on his bandwagon regarding the rewards adhering to writing for the stage in The Bahamas involve most particularly the fact that theatre (in all its forms -- dance, opera, and drama) cannot take place on its own. Of all the arts, it is the most collaborative. Oh, sure, you can say that film is collaborative too, but it is quite possible for an individual to make films; BIFF is full of them, documentaries that rely on a single camera, a single person, and a catchy subject. The fact that film is a medium that records and plays back (and is therefore infintely portable, theoretically, and therefore able to generate revenue from many markets, not just one) is one of the most liberating aspects about it; and if one wants to make a living as a documentary filmmaker, in The Bahamas or anywhere, I would argue one can do so. In fact, the more exotic the topic the better in most documentaries, so perhaps The Bahamas provides the perfect palette for the filmmaker. We're as exotic as they come, our aspirations notwithstanding.But theatre? Can that exist without collaboration? I'd say not. At the very very least, the artist needs an audience. Usually the artist also needs a whole heap of other supporters as well: technicians to handle light and sound, people to assist backstage, people to sell and market the show, and so on. It is indeed possible for a multi-talented individual playwright to do all of that himself. But easy? No. And not even preferable. The energy required to perform to the audience's satisfaction is far better concentrated on performance, not on hustling and promotion and production. Michael Pintard's success has, ironically, led to his retirement from the stage; he works behind the scenes, while he hires people to deliver his words. Terez Davis, on the other hand, has a business partner who helps her to manage the publicity and dull stuff to allow her to slip into the character of Daisy and remain in front of the audience.So the centrality of collaboration that lies at the heart of theatre, which gives theatre its peculiar power, is also what makes it oddly less able to sustain a long-term living for its practitioners. The revenue might be enviable, and come in all at once. But nobody seems to consider the overheads that are incurred -- or that they have to be spent before the revenue comes in, on faith as it were. One might say that this is not so different from film, and one would be right. But the immediacy of theatre also lends it an urgency that film does not share. Film records and retains, and its preparation can be done in stages over long periods of time. But theatre? The alchemy that drives performance -- especially performance of the part-time community variety -- has an expiry date. When people do not have the luxury of full-time engagement with the stage, their energy comes from a number of sources -- the freshness of the material, the chemistry of the cast, the response of the audience. It's possible, when people are fitting their performances around their everyday lives, for a show to peak and to taper off. Where there is no extensive community of ongoing classes, courses and workshops and no time to engage in them if they do exist, part-time performers find it more difficult to keep things new and exciting, and shows can go stale over time. And so in the kind of theatre that exists in The Bahamas, productions have an optimal rate of investment and return. And as live performance is variable, and unpredictable, that rate will vary over time.In order to make money off your writing, Ward argues, you need to find a formula and stick to it. In order for your writing to be viable, to sustain you, the formula will suffice. This formula will find a ready audience, will allow for a stability of expenditure and revenue that, once it's been fine-tuned and located in fairly predictable spaces (like James Catalyn and Friends' relation to the Dundas), will work. And he's right, as far as it goes. My objection comes from the idea of sustainability. The problem with formulae is that they are boring, especially in live theatre. They can work fine day in day out on apparently "free" media like television, because there's no effort involved in consuming them; they can also work fine in film, because most blockbuster films have the money and clout behind them to create a demand among audiences who might not otherwise be interested in them. But in live theatre? Not so much. I would argue that the formulae that he extols would begin to pale, to taper off, if they had to run day after day after day, if they were mounted on a monthly basis, if they were produced in the kind of time frame that would allow for real sustainability. Even Pintard's shows have expiry dates. Even Summer Madness has a season -- the end (and in good years the beginning) of Summer.No. If we're looking for formulae, I would argue that the true measure of sustainability in contemporary Bahamian theatre lies elsewhere: in Thoughtkatcher's Da Spot, which sustains audiences for weekly performances over two or three months (again, a season), perhaps precisely because it's improv, because of its unpredictability. There is a formula, true, but it's not the writer's formula. It's the performer's, and audiences go back because they never know what will happen next.Or perhaps the other formula that was truly viable and which could be maintained over time was the formula practised by the Dundas Repertory Season between 1981 and 1999, and which allowed for the production not only of formulaic comedy shows but for plays, musicals, new shows and old. That season ran from January to May, and ran a rotation of shows, a different one every month, during that time. Some shows made money, and some shows lost, but for 17 of its 19 years the season never made a loss. The revenue from the season sustained the Dundas and paid directors and technicians (though not actors or backstage crew). And unlike the formula proposed by Ward, the revenue didn't rely on meeting the audience's demand. Rather, it depended (like Hollywood and other truly successful art forms) on having the audience discover a demand for things it never knew it liked before, and thus laying the foundation for future sustainability -- the possibility for growth.So what am I saying? Perhaps I'm agreeing now with Ward -- that theatre allows the Bahamian writer her best chance for making a living. Well, I don't know about that. The whole secret of the Season's success was that it served up a variety of shows for a wide range of audience tastes, and therefore didn't depend on a single writer. But it also spawned a whole crop of new writers as well -- who didn't necessarily make a living off their plays, but who were nevertheless able to write what they were called to write without tailoring it overmuch for an "audience" that they knew only imperfectly. But I am conceding that it may be possible to sustain your living by writing for theatre -- but only if you recognize the need for collaboration, understand that theatre cannot happen with one person alone, and -- perhaps most important -- have the ability to access performance spaces that allow for viability to happen, that are not so prohibitive in their overhead that all one's revenue goes into paying the rent.

Begging to differ

with Ward again (c'mon, what did you expect? I mean, really.) Not that he's totally off base. He's right, as usual, but only partly so.

Here's how he begins his fourth post on the viability of Bahamian art:

If you want to be a professional creative writer in the Bahamas you are going to have to be some kind of playwright. It really is that simple.

Poetry is currently back in fashion, but in its raw form, on the page, or performed at small events, open-mike style, it will not make you any money. The only way that poetry can make you money in the Bahamas is if you package it as a play.

--Ward Minnis, Hollywood, Michael Pintardand the Viability of Bahamian ArtPart 4: Laughter is the best medicine…

K, so let me just say that I don't quibble with this statement. There is some real truth to it -- especially if you're not looking to make a whole lot of money.

Because it's harder than Ward makes it seem. Even Michael Pintard doesn't hit home runs all the time, and supplements his income as a writer by doing other things -- in short, by hustling to make opportunities for himself every day of his life. Terez Davis' Daisy character may earn her money, but surely there's a reason for why one writes in the first place -- and if one is locked into formulaic theatre for the rest of one's life, then there's not a whole lot of point. Better to do it as a hobby.

I'm still convinced that it's easier to make a living off films in The Bahamas than off theatre. The main reason is that theatre requires you to work with other people, while film does not. And the up-front overhead for theatre is substntial.

But more on that later, when I have more time on my hands. For now, go read Ward's post, and then go think about your own position for yourselves.

Ward Follows Up

Following up on the last article, Ward Minnis in his series of meditations on the viability of making a living off of art in The Bahamas writes to illustrate his position. First, he clarifies the sticky point of "viability":

...when I ask is it ‘viable’? I am not asking ‘is it possible?’ Because, of course it’s possible. What I am really asking is this: if this is what you love, can you live off of it?

And then, clever man, he makes reference to the Day of Absence observations in Nassau:

Bahamians who want to exercise their talents in the cultural industries are faced with the choice of pursuing their callings as hobbies at home, or of leaving home to make a living by their gifts elsewhere. And we are all the poorer for it.

If you haven't done so yet, subscribe to Ward's feed, because what he's doing is provocative but important. What he's developing in this series is a blueprint to change the state of affairs for artists in this country. The lament of those of us who established the Day of Absence -- the whole purpose of establishing that day of observance (which will be coming again in February 2010, have no fear) is that although it is indeed possible to create viable economic activity in the arts in our Bahamaland, everything in the society is ranged against it.

This is being written against the backdrop of TaDa's ArtOvation (internet-streamed, thanks to Star 105.9), and she's talking with guests about possibilities, viabilities, and so on.

In order for this viability really to exist, though, the society as a whole has to buy into the idea of supporting Bahamian culture with more than their lips, but also with their pockets. We are avid consumers of culture -- but we prefer other people's. Last semester students at COB conducted an on-campus survey that indicated that young Bahamian college students (who spend, on average, around $50 a week), are more willing to pay money for parties or live concerts (nationality of the musicians not specified) than they are to pay money to see Junkanoo, our premier festival, and the one which, if supported, could actually generate real employment. Perhaps that's pushing the issue a little too far, or in a direction which has its own built-in controversy, but perhaps not. What I'm hoping to show is that we have the disposable income as Bahamians to support far more artistic activity than we do; but it all depends on the choices we make as consumers.

So once again, I want to stretch the debate. The reason I disagreed so strenuously with the idea that we can't have a viable film industry here is that film is a potted medium. Like the visual arts, it can be separated from its creation and have a life well beyond its making. It doesn't all have to be assembled in one place and one time.

For instance. One can be an animator and do all one's work at home, alone, and not have to pay anybody else but oneself, and make a living; one can be a cinematographer or a set builder or a location manager and make a living (both off local films and off those foreign producers who shoot in The Bahamas on location). One can make art films and get grants from international agencies and inject them into the film festival circuit and make a living; or one can be a documentary filmmaker and make a very good living indeed, with only oneself and one's camera, one can make filmmaking viable.

What's a whole lot harder is to provide enough work for other people to give up their day jobs and enter the film industry. Neither film nor theatre has generated enough revenue yet in The Bahamas to enable actors, for instance, or front-of-house personnel, or box office personnel, or playwrights, to make a living off the performing arts. Unlike musicians, filmmakers and others, actors, playwrights and others must work in other jobs for a living. Unless you are willing and/or able to diversify, to become a Michael Pintard (who is a public speaker, an actor, a playwright, a poet, a producer, a landlord and a consultant), viability is difficult. Part of the issue, of course, is the question of payment. It's just possible for a filmmaker to make enough money to keep herself alive; but the development of these industries depends on helping to keep other people alive as well, and that's where the difficulty comes in.

So though I'm going to wait till Ward's finished and moved on to theatre (which he believes is a viable industry) before I continue this argument. But I'm going to encourage you guys to be like me -- keep your eyes peeled and check out Ward's blog for updates!

Ward Minnis on Bahamian Artists Part II

Hollywood, Michael Pintard and the Viability of Bahamian Art Part IIPart 2: So, you want to be in the movies…What are we to make of the current passion for movie-making in the Bahamas? Is it possible to apply the logic of Hollywood to our local situation and create an honest-to-God indigenous film industry here? Films made by Bahamians for Bahamians?This is an enormously appealing prospect and, truth be told, we have a long and intriguing historical association with Hollywood. To start off we have produced bona fide movie stars like Sidney Poitier, the academy award winning son-of-the-soil, and Calvin Lockhart. There has also been a long line of Hollywood films made here, from the 1916 silent film, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, to its 1954 remake, to several James Bond films and countless others.But despite this esteemed history, I believe that hopes of a movie industry by Bahamians and for Bahamians is a pipe dream. I also hope that those involved in making local movies have some kind of well thought out financial back-up plan.

--Ward's Life :: wardmin.org

It's a good article, but I don't agree with him. Maybe one of these days I'll have the time to explain in detail why ...

Ward Minnis on Bahamian Artists

Something of interest to read:

When I walked out of Transformers 2 the other day, I had an epiphany. Or more precisely, I had an extension to another epiphany that I had had a few days before.My revelation was about art, how to be an artist in the Bahamas and most importantly, how to make a living while doing it. Yes, it’s that big a deal.I’m working out the ideas a little here first and then I will probably put a full, fleshed out essay on Mental Slavery when I’m done. Hopefully, you the audience, will correct me when I go wrong and extend and help transform these ideas in the process and in the end we may all end up somewhere that we didn’t expect. If you consider yourself to be any kind of Bahamian artist, I am talking directly to you; so please, everyone, comment away!

--Ward's Life :: wardmin.org

On the need for cultural capital - Richard Florida on Montreal’s Creative Class

I've already blogged about why I think that our government's cancellation of CARIFESTA was a bad idea. (I think the word I used was "terrible"). Now the rumours I am hearing about the future of Bahamian culture and its development are as bad or worse. Rather than serious investment in the development of our cultural identity, "economics" appear to be inspiring the exact opposite -- the dissolution, real or effective, of the Cultural Affairs Division of the Government of The Bahamas.Now there may be not much wrong with a government's decision to gut the only agency that is even vaguely (if poorly) equipped to deal with cultural development. At the very least, it moves us one step away from the hypocrisy that has inspired cultural decisions throughout the 21st century (lots of lip service paid, no money, personnel, or real plans to back it up) and allows the Bahamian people to see the true value of our culture and identity to the people who we have elected to make decisions for us. There is something to be said for ending the pretence; honesty is good, and encourages honest decisions.However, it betrays once again what the cancellation of CARIFESTA made clear: that our politicians and our leaders, the people who make those decisions, have no comprehension whatsoever about the world, about history, or about what will keep our nation successful.Just in case people think I'm making this stuff up, here's a little something-something from Canada, where the citizens have sussed it out better than we have. (The highlights are mine).

We are living through a great turning point in world history. In just a few short months, our economy and our society are on their way to being transformed.The U.S. and Canadian stock exchanges have lost as much as a third of their value. Gone are the days when regions will grow wealthy from ephemeral finance capital. Only those that build their real economy from the only true capital we possess – the creative energy of our people – will enjoy sustainable prosperity.Gone, too, are the days when one’s identity can be purchased literally off the shelf through designer brands and a Sex and the City lifestyle. Times are tight, credit is no longer freely available, and the house is no longer an infinite piggy bank that can be used to finance luxury consumption. The regions that will succeed and be attractive are those that offer history, authenticity and realism – and where the price tag is more affordable.

via Richard Florida on Montreal’s Creative Class « THE INCUBATOR

You will note that the above has very little to say about harbour extensions or road improvements. The capital that Florida is advocating is not infrastructural; it's human.

And to say that our most recent track record in the development of our human capital is poor would be kind. From the Minister of Education's statement that the College of The Bahamas will not become a university for "two to ten years" to the Prime Minister's assurance that the only things he has not cut from this coming budget are the hundreds of millions of dollars his government will spend on roads and on dredging the harbour, while everything else, everything that has to do with laying the foundation for social or human development, has been slashed, our leaders are dancing us into obsolescence.

The solution? We, the people, need to show them they are wrong -- and we need to do that without waiting for 2012. We, the people, need to develop ourselves. We need to change the discussion, and we need to invest in the human capital that our leaders refuse to amass.

How do we do that? Pay attention to the world, to what our tourists tell us we want, to what we know we need in order to survive in the twenty-first century, in order to sustain our wealth. Invest in our own culture. Think out of the box. Support the initiatives that cultural artists are taking. Spend our money on Bahamian creative activities. Call Ivory Global Promotions this week and buy your ticket to one of this weekend's events during Jazz Summer Festival. Skip a movie or two and buy a ticket to see Light, or Guanahani, or Treemonisha, or the concerts put on by Eurhythmics Dance School or any one of the National Cultural Entities. Contribute to the discussions on Nassau's revitalization going on here and here, invest in the development of Creative Nassau, believe in the festivals that will occur as this year and next year develop. Spend your cultural money at home; believe in our culture, and support the music festivals that will take place on the Wharf this summer, attend the Seagrape Bahamas Literary Festival in September, Shakespeare in Paradise in October, Islands of the World Fashion Week in November, the Bahamas International Film Festival in December.

There's a good Bahamian saying that we'd do well to take to heart, especially if we believe that the world has changed, and that culture now lies at the heart of economic prosperity. I'm referring, of course, to the statement "I could show you better'n I could tell you." If you don't believe me now, believe me when you see the fruit -- Bahamian cultural artists are taking that attitude as we move forward. CARIFESTA may have been officially cancelled, but the festivals that will unfold as 2009 and 2010 go on will demonstrate that even though our leaders have committed themselves to wasting our money on frippery and nineteenth-century foolishness, we know which century this is.

Back to Montreal and the creative class, and imagine what could happen if we believed this here at home (again, I've highlighted what I like):

Creativity is in the region’s DNA. More than just about any other region, Montreal has the underlying capacity to broaden the reach of the creative economy to service business, manufacturing plants, and even agriculture.

But the city and the region need a government that can help get them there. Governmental structures in Montreal and most other places are not up to the task. They are fractured and fragmented and filled with contradictions – complicated and clumsy. Hardly anyone who isn’t involved full-time can understand them. In Montreal, there are local boroughs, municipalities, the agglomeration council, and a regional administration as well.

I saw similarly overbearing structures in Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., and many other places. It leads to what people in Montreal call “immobilisme” – the tendency for nothing significant to happen because governments, business, social groups and unions are so at odds and so stuck in their ways that no one can provide clear direction and make anything happen.

Many people say a strong leader is the answer. They look back to Mayor Jean Drapeau and the successes of Expo 67 and other landmark projects. They ask what’s happened and worry that Montreal has become gun-shy. How does the region get its mojo back?

But today’s regions are too complicated for top-down, single-leader strategies. The key is to create a broad shared vision that can mobilize the energy of many groups – an open-source approach that can harness the energy and ideas of  networks of people.

Some may say the region needs a large-scale marketing or branding campaign to overcome this legacy. In the creative age, the best marketing is viral.

We live in an age of true democracy -- where power truly resides in the actions of the people. Let's not complain about our government -- we after all get the governments we want. Let's focus once and for all on changing ourselves.

Interview - Antilles: the weblog of the CRB

I count Nicholas Laughlin as one of my cyberfriends, though I think we really met over the telephone during the last CARIFESTA (such arts festivals are always, truly, such a waste of time, are they not? They make no connections, advance no careers, clearly, and they are so much a waste of money that we prefer to spend our millions on, oh, Miss Universe. But I digress.) Since then we've been communicating and collaborating online, and he has been a champion of tongues of the ocean.Anyhow, Nicholas is the valiant editor of the Caribbean Review of Books, which he continues to publish in the face of opposition, failing finances, exhaustion, fed-upness, etc.In the spirit of massive support that he'd already established, he recently interviewed me about tongues. Go check it out.And then, if you like it, go subscribe to the Caribbean Review of Books.Antilles: the weblog of the CRB.

Many Antilles readers are familiar with tongues of the ocean, an online poetry journal based in the Bahamas, which was launched in February 2009. Edited by poet and playwright Nicolette Bethel, and focused on poetry from the Caribbean and its diasporas, tongues plans to publish three issues per year, with the contents of each issue appearing gradually week by week.Soon after the second issue of tongues — dated June 2009 — began appearing, Bethel answered some questions via email about the journal’s background, influences, and modus operandi.

Hope, in the cyber age

If you're wondering where I've been for the last month or so, I'll tell you. I've been working on a project that is risky, especially during these recessionary times, but that has so much potential for wonderful stuff I can't not work on it. I'll let you know what it is later -- it deserves its own post -- but take it from me, it's frightening in its potential.But what I wanted to write about today was this story. There's a small press in the UK, Salt Publishing, that was so hard hit by the recession that it almost went under. Wait -- I'll tell it in the owner's own words:

I've had better years. Last April at our year end we'd enjoyed 70% growth for our tiny literature business. We were on target for a third of a million turnover by 2011. We weren't cocky, but we were confident we could make it. Then the recession hit, it came on slowly and ate away at our growth until, with the utter collapse of March's sales, we were 11% down on 2008 and £55,000 down against budget.I've never faced bankruptcy before. While I was a director at CUP I never felt a personal connection with business performance. It wasn't my home, my children's futures on the line.

So what did he do?He started a very simple internet campaign. Again, his words:

I was Skyping my wife looking for answers, for some way forward when I said, "Hold on a minute, I've an idea." The idea was risky—it was to go public and to use our Facebook presence to announce a campaign. "Just One Book" was a simple offer: you could save an independent literary press by purchasing one title. That's all it would take.

And it worked. It went viral, as these things can do. Once more, here he is -- Chris Hamilton-Emery of Salt Publishing:

Within 18 hours of posting that first note over 300 orders arrived from Kazakhstan to Japan, from Denmark to Australia. Over the past five days we've taken close on 1,000 direct orders and generated over £20,000 of sales: trade sales have tripled. For a little family business like ours this has been humbling and exhausting. No one likes being on the brink, now we've stepped back a few paces. We're not out of danger, but we've seen that linking a viral campaign to drive sales to bookshops and our own website can have dramatic effects. People are saving us one book at a time.

So here's the thing. We live in an extraordinary time. It's one of those times when a fundamental revolution is taking place around the world. When we call it "globalization" but we really don't understand it; this is the kind of revolution that took place when Gutenberg first printed his Bible on that first printing press, only at warp speed, or, more accurately, at cyber speed. Too many power-brokers, especially those who sit in chambers of government, do not understand what is going on; the election of Barack Obama demostrated that, as does the extension of the old ways into his new campaign by his detractors. When one appeal can save a bookseller by involving people all over the world, there's no limit to what a people, united, can do.So back to the project. It's risky, yes. But maybe, just maybe, cyberspace can offer a path around the risk.

Brussels Declaration by artists and cultural professionals and entrepreneurs

Just FYI.from the Newsletter on Cultural diversity

“Today, all countries face a profound crisis: financial, economic, and social. In addition, particularly for developing countries, there are climate, energy, food, and human security crises. Current policies on development cooperation do not respond adequately to the challenges of sustainable development. We must, therefore, rethink our approach to development. And, without wishing to overstate the power of culture, we are convinced that, as already stated by Léopold Sédar Senghor, ‘culture is at the beginning and the end of development.’“Many surveys and studies show us that culture and art is one of the most dynamic economic sectors in terms of employment, economic growth, and wealth creation. It also promotes social cohesion and democratic participation in public life. Finally, unlike mineral resources, social and cultural capital is a renewable resource. Regarding North-South cooperation, it can not succeed without the improvement of human rights, democracy, and governance. By stimulating individual and collective imagination and creating links between communities, culture and artistic creation contribute to the establishment and development of democracy.“Because culture contributes to economic development, well-being, and social cohesion and impacts other sectors of development, we, artists, professionals, and culture entrepreneurs are making three key requests:

• First, that culture be the subject of public structural policies at national, regional, and international levels
• Second, that the cultural dimension be taken into account by other sectoral policies and defined in a integrated approach to development
• Finally, that artists and creators be fully recognized as actors in development and have a professional and social status adapted to their own context

Download the PDF here.

Day of Absence responses

Well, the Day of Absence idea got far more responses than I expected or hoped. Not that it makes a whole lot of difference in real terms -- yet -- but I'm impressed by the number of people who appeared to be touched by the matter. There was even coverage in the national dailies -- on Page 3 in Thursday's Tribune (pretty big -- *I was gonna link to it but they're playing around with their website so I can't*) and today in the Arts Section of the Guardian.And the discussion has proliferated across cyberspace and across the airwaves. On the Ringplay blog, we'll link to all the different posts we come across (lots of them are on Facebook).But here, the most interesting response that I received was by email. I'm going to post the exchange as we go on. It's between Patrick Rahming and me, and he makes some solid points.Check back to see the discussion unfold.