Emerald Coast Theatre Consultant

Many years go I took over as Managing Director of a Community Theatre in central California.  Shortly after that I had my first brush with alcohol in the theatre.

To say that I was a novice handling this situation would be an overstatement.    Here is the story and how I handled it.

When I first entered the building, the first thing I noticed was the way the “flats” were stored.  A flat is a unit of scenery, like a section of a wall, usually made out of canvas stretched over a wooden frame. Many flats are now made out of luan, which is very thin plywood.  

Up above, around the audience and stage area, there was a walkway about ten feet wide and about eight feet above the floor.   In a U-shape, it surrounded the seating area right and left and upstage of the performance area.   The backstage area of that elevation was completely packed with flats of all different shapes and sizes framed in wood all the way from one by two’s to two by four’s and covered in either canvas or a very heavy quarter inch plywood.    Nothing matched.   No two dimensions were the same.  

They had to go and I had to rebuild.     

I needed someone to work with.    I inquired around the theatre for the best man to work with me and everyone suggested a man who had been working as a volunteer with the theatre for years.  

I contacted him, and we agreed to meet me every Saturday morning and work from seven until we got tired, which got earlier and earlier each Saturday.  I was under pressure to organize the shop so I could meet the demands of the planned six-season shows.

We had been working together for about three weeks when one day I went to get ice out of the refrigerator and there it was: six quarts of beer staring me in the face.    Now, I like a drink as much as anyone, but working in a shop situation is not a good place to be drinking.  

How I handled the problem without losing a volunteer.

By the time of my “discovery” time was getting short before we had to start rebuilding flats in an organized and efficient way.     

When we finished work on Saturday, I asked my volunteer if we could talk and he agreed.     I told him how important he was to the organization and it’s future, how much people enjoyed his work not only onstage but also backstage, and how much I enjoyed working with him backstage.  (I had not worked with him onstage at that time.) 

I then told him that the next thing I was going to say might hurt his feelings, but I had a responsibility to the theatre to make the place as safe as possible.  I noted that I felt the consumption of alcohol while working was not in the best interest of safety in the theatre and asked him not to bring the beer to the theatre.

He thought for a minute, while my heart was in my throat thinking that I might be doing all the tech work myself, and told me that it made sense to him and that he would no longer bring beer to the theatre.  For the next nine years we worked together onstage and backstage and I never saw him take another drink.    

As a young and “beginning” director, I put myself under a lot of pressure not knowing how he would respond to having a  “kid” tell him what to do.   I was lucky with this volunteer.  

The adage  “Always tell me the truth. That I can handle.  It’s the lies I can’t stand!” has worked with me since then.     I think to get problems out in the open and deal with them is the very best way.  It clears out the cobwebs, it airs out the place, and you can move forward on a more solid footing.  It might hurt, but at least it is out in the open and in the clean fresh air.  

After I left this community theatre, I returned to my profession as an anesthetist.  During my time in anesthesia, until retirement, I dealt with many people who were addicted to alcohol.     Nothing is more frightening to an anesthetist than to have to put someone to sleep knowing that they have been consuming alcohol (or, for that matter, any other non-prescription self-medication that they might or might not have remembered to tell you).   Though almost all anesthetics in trained hands today are extremely safe for the patient who is addicted, dealing with addictions in the theatre, though not physical, can be just as potentially damaging to the emotional well being of the addicted theatre participant.    

Actors will kid themselves about how having a drink before a performance helping to calm them down or some other such excuse, but it is potentially disastrous as far as the play is concerned.    But, if the actor is drinking in excess (and to some, one drink is excess), and using their nerves as a reason to imbibe, they are only kidding themselves.  It doesn’t make their performance any better and more often than not will undermine the confidence the other actors have in the drinker.    

I have absolutely no problem working with an actor who has addressed their addiction and worked through it in recovery programs like AA or RR.    I have often searched out and brought back into the acting community talented people who battled with addiction to great advantage for both them and the community.   

Early on I did have one actor in recovery that had, according the precepts of his/her recovery program, to tell everyone that he was an alcoholic and that he was in recovery.    This is long before the wide media attention on rehab and recovery that we have today.    What it did, at that time, was to undermine the confidence of the entire working ensemble.  Again, I was faced with handling the situation.  After talking individually with everyone involved, I brought it out in the open and we talked about it openly in a company meeting, to great success.  We continued to the closing performance without incident.  We were all the better for it.

As far as drugs that I have been associated with in the theatre, I am happy to say that only once was there a major problem.  Fortunately I caught it early enough to replace the actor, recast the role, and get the individual into rehab.   

A few months ago I talked to a man with a doctorate in psychology from a northern university.  I asked him what I thought was a very simple question concerning addiction.   I asked him if there was such a condition as “addicted to your ego” in the psychological canon.    His response startled me.  His answer:  “Well, Gordon, we all have egos!”  And I waited for the next sentence.  And I waited, and waited, and waited.  There was none forthcoming.   I guess he didn’t want to get into the deep well and get mired down in garbage, so we didn’t go there.  I wonder what your thoughts might be on that?  Please feel free to share them with me by leaving a note!

Later, however, I was thinking to myself how easy it would be for someone to manipulate a cast just by telling them how great they were doing.   Wouldn’t that be a revelation for the annals of psychology?  I can see it now in the weekly headlines:   “Cast of (name your performance being performed by theatre of your choice) adjudged addicted to compliments!”   

Now we all like compliments, especially in the theatre where, when working with less than talented directors and coaches, most of the performers are inexperienced and rely on the coaching of the director-du-jour.   

So, addicted to compliments and kudos and rejecting any type of wise input, little changes.   It can’t because there is no input other than a surface, move here, go there, sit here, walk there type of work.   Directors who act simply as “traffic cops” are absolutely able to feed the addicted egos with false compliments, but are not able to feed the latent talent that yearns to get out and express itself.   

I figure there is a personal hell just waiting for directors and artistic directors who simply “use” performers but fail to improve and educate the actor so they are a better artist in their next role.  It probably is very hot down there and very quiet–with no applause.