Ask My Friends - Where Would You Work

Again with the Wednesday series “Ask My Friends.” If you didn’t read the Tony Post please go back and read what Jackie wrote a week ago. This week I asked my friend Clayton Smith to write something. Clayton is a young and upcoming theatre professional. He received his Journalism degree from University of Missouri, Columbia and is currently getting his Masters in Arts, Entertainment and Media Management from Columbia College Chicago. He is a very bright and really talented writer and marketer. I asked, “If you could work for any theatre in the country after graduate school, what theatre would you choose, and why?”

"Let’s face it; there is a correct answer to this question, and it is “In this economy?! I’ll take what I can get!” But hey, I’m an optimist, and I like to think that in one year, when I strap on my new Master of Arts Management degree, the theatre world will be my oyster. My cautious, just-off-a-hiring-freeze, “please God don’t let that happen to us again” oyster.

(Optimism ain’t what it used to be.)

If I could work anywhere in the world after graduation, it would be…are you ready for this?…St. Louis. Not theatre capital New York, not arts-heavy Chicago, not beautiful, brilliant, captor of my heart Vegas…St. Louis. And not only that, but I’d work for the St. Louis Rep. The REP, for God’s sake, when I could choose any theatre in the country.

Before you decide that life dreams also aren’t what they used to be, bear with me a second.

If you’re not familiar with St. Louis, you’re at least familiar with a city like it…a sizeable metro area with a lot to offer, but still struggling to find a solid identity. The city has been through a lot of changes in the last decade, and one of the most significant is the push for more arts. Independent theatres have sprung up like mushrooms, but they’re struggling. Like so many independent theatres, they produce art for art’s sake, and the would-be patrons, the ones who want to see quality shows selected for them as part of a target market, are being left behind.

On the other hand, St. Louis has the Fabulous Fox Theatre, an enormous, gorgeous Broadway touring house, the theatre that understands the commercial nature of the arts business and attracts crowds because its offerings are safe and familiar.

Then, in the middle, we have the St. Louis Repertory Theatre. Under the direction of artistic genius Steven Woolf, the Rep has managed to bridge the gap between the listless indies and the commercial monolith, offering line-ups that are just this side of mainstream, but doing so with so much talent and solid focus that even the art-wary citizens of the St. Louis area pack the house time and time again. In a city still trying to boost its artistic reputation, the St. Louis Rep is a bright red flag that screams, “Yes, by God, we are here, and we are quality!” It’s an accomplishment you gotta respect.

And that’s what’s important for me. I’m sure I could get a job at other theatres that would pay much better, and who knows, maybe I will…but nothing can replace the idea of working in a theatre that does high quality work to a public that is sometimes ungrateful or, at best, not understanding, a theatre that works diligently and tirelessly because the people there know that there is value in the work they are doing and believe that, with their help, the entire city can be so much more.

Great work with high ideals; sounds like quite the pearl to me."