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HOFFMAN SUGGESTS ACTORS. STAFF WORK WITHOUT SALARIESThe Herald-TribuneAsolo^ . ..DrawsBy CLYDE BURNETTThe Asolo State Theater Company presented a two partSunday afternoon program at the Ringling Museum’s Asolo Theater whfcb-£,r ^1 audience, presumably because of the afternoon’s Apollo 11 activities. But the audiencewas attentive and responsive to a panel discussion on theeconomic state of the theater and to dramatic scenes performed by students in the educational division of the companyThe discussion panel included Henry Hewes, drama critic, Saturday Review; Calvin Hoffmancritic and writer on the theater; Richard Fallon, Asolo director and HowardMillman, Asolo manager. John Spellman, Asolo educational director, moderated the program. ,Th§ discussion grew heated after Hoffman made the! -proposal that the company’s actors and staff agree to produce their plays without salaries and on drastically curtailed production regimens “if they are to make the unthinkableMonday, July 21, 1969—15SmallAudiencechoice to remain in poverty or leave (Sarasota).»Hoffman’s statement came after Hewes reviewed the current situation in the United States now, in which he saidthere were “95'* professional companies ff some type in* • •existence, but that they are “faced with cutbacks and recession.” He said that “theater can’t be mass produced . . . hopefully government will recognize its need.” Theater is, he said, “much more essential to the health of societythan we recognize.” But it is “demeaning,” he said, for acting companies to have to ‘‘beg.”Hoffman maintained that “nothing will threaten the theater” as an art form, although he acknowledged that individual companies might be threatened. He maintainedthat acting is such an “ego satisfying form—more than any other profession” that actors should undertake programs of austerity rather than disband themselves.Director Fallon said that it was little appreciated that!PanelIDiscussionHeatedmany of the present company had already “made sacrifices”in terms of salaries and that pay levels for the companywere still very low.ftMillman said he was “violently opposed to such talk, that other people from whom actors have to buy goods and services “won’t make the sacrifice for the actors.”He also said that such a proposal assumed that the “actor would be asked to make a sacrifice in face of the factthat the community would have said, in effect, ‘we don'twant you,’ through lack of sufficient support.”Hoffman repeated several times that he made the proposal that actors take salary cuts or no salary at all, that the Florida State University supported administrative staff of five pledge' their salaries to company operation and that the company make drastic operating fund slashesonly in case “of emergency.”The apprentices and students of the non-professional company then presented four scenes which have been subjectmaterial in thir summer workshop.Cynthia Crisp and Stephen Hannaford presented a scenefrom Shaw’s “St. Joan,” in which Joan appealed for theuse of a horse and equipment to undertake her mission.Mary Jane Hilder and David Rupprecbt acted the partsof Joan and the Dauphine, from the same play, in whichJoan urges the weak prince to turn over the army to her, toclose the afternoon performance.Barbara Alice Shade and Patricia Squires acted a scenefrom Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” soon to be opened bythe professional company and Cynthia Johnson and LeslieUtley played a scene from Shakespeare's “Two Gentlemenof Verona,” which furnishes the basis of the“pop ” WildWest version, “2 Gents,” now being performed by the company. ■ :*.....
Newspaper Details
Sarasota Herald Tribune
Sarasota, Florida, US
Mon, Jul 21, 1969
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 14 Apr 2020
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