DECLARATION
A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
by John Clancy
For over twenty years I have worked in the theater in New York City and I have had the great good fortunate to help build a new arts sector in the city: the independent theater community. We share some of the geography and a great deal of the attitude and ethos of the traditional Off-Off Broadway community, but we have grown into something different and new. Our community is still marked by experimentation, innovation and the cultivation of new voices and visions, but we have also developed a maturity and a common commitment to the long-term economic health and security of our sector. What was once a starting place has become a destination. We have our own advocacy organizations, anchor venues, foundations, festivals, award ceremonies and dedicated critical outlets. Recognizing that the larger theatrical system still views our sector as the third rung on a ladder that leads to Broadway, we take the double “Off” label off and declare ourselves “independent” theater artists, self-defined in the ways below:
I am an independent theater artist.
I am constantly developing new work, my own and others’. This development work is done in living rooms, diners and rehearsal studios and theaters which I rent or get free from friends. I am independent of the development wing of the American commercial and nonprofit theater.
The creation and production of my work is not dependent upon either Labor or Management, as those terms are generally understood. I am myself both labor and management and neither at the same time. This workplace division is meaningless to me. I am something else, an “artrepreneur”: an artist who creates the opportunities for my work and actively manages and produces the work. I am an artist and a producer, often at the same moment. I see no conflict or struggle with this dual reality. Because I work independently of the Management/Labor division of the American workplace and mindset, I am actively engaged in public and private discussion to change the operational models currently utilized by unions and guilds that operate in my territory. I am independent of the existing union definitions and decrees.
My work is not dependent on grants, foundations or funders. I put in my own money, raise money or do without. I am grateful for the occasional financial and material support I receive from foundations and arts agencies, but I choose to spend the vast majority of my time making the work and not figuring out how to fund it. I am independent of the granting universe.
The success of my work is not dependent on reviews. I have built an audience and a reputation and it is more important and rewarding to me that a smaller group of people who understands and appreciates my work sees it than a larger group of people who may not get it do. At the same time, I work to increase my audience and welcome newcomers enthusiastically. I grow my audience through social media and word of mouth. I look to the theatrical blogosphere for the support, discussion and informed critical reaction to my work. I am independent of the established, review-driven critical universe.
My ability to produce my work is not dependent on the approval or endorsement of any artistic director, literary manager or other gatekeeper of the American regional theater system, which includes the established nonprofit Off-Broadway companies. If my work finds its way to their stages, I am happy, but I am independent of the regional theater universe.
I create my own opportunities and market my own work. I get myself gigs. I am not dependent on any American literary, theatrical agency or management company to find me work. I am independent of agents and managers.
I am an independent theater artist.
The work I do has created and continues to create a positive economic impact on the neighborhoods in which I work and the larger, city-wide economic impact that all independent theater artists create is significant. But my economic impact is not, finally, important.
It is my cultural impact that means everything, both now and in the long run. I am part of a vital, civic treasure, one member of a vast, powerful and untapped army: the independent working artists of New York City. This treasure has been discounted and squandered for generations, in large part by the artists themselves. I am declaring an end to this misguided and short-sighted personal and civic behavior.
I call on all artists of New York City to join me, not just my theatrical colleagues. Painters, poets, photographers, dancers, novelists, sculptors, new media artists, all artists. We are many.
And we are, collectively, the only hope New York City has to remain a great and vital city. New York has been known and celebrated throughout its history for two things: finance and the arts. The financial sector makes money. We make art. If the city is focused on making money, it will be a bank. And no one hangs out at a bank. If it focuses on making art, it will be a gallery, a performance space, a studio, a rehearsal hall, a salon. This is about civic policy, which we can draft and get implemented.
Join me.