Power In The Rehearsal Room

Power is such a strange thing. People who need power, are perhaps some of the most interesting people. And no, I’m not being facetious. As humans we are driven to connect. Our very survival has conditioned us to want to reach out to each other. So it’s always interesting to me, when someone exhibits behaviours that go against one of the most powerful human needs. What could have possibly happened to this person, that they act in this manner?

Partly it’s interesting, because in our work in the theater, so much of it is collaborative. There’s this unity of ideas, that intermingle and coalesce to create the final product. It is this fusion of artistry that drives so much of meaningful art-making. Of course, we hear of this more than not, in the Arts world, in the theater and film worlds; The ego maniacal director, or the studio that gives notes until the film has lost every ounce of soul in order to be marketable. So much of Me too, was about power- of course, much more complex when we’re speaking trauma.

The need for power is ultimately a situation in which the person who needs power, was easily over-powered at some point in their life. In hierarchical situations, the power is always top down, the rules come from the top and trickle down to the people below. This is true, generally in the case of a managerial style of work. The CEO, the manager, the worker, the client. In our case it’s the Artistic Director or the Producer , the director, finally at the bottom of the totem pole the actors. And of course race, and ethnicity come into this, as does gender, and class structures. Whenever you’re asked where did you train? It is a question of status. It is as my Marketing professor said back in college- product positioning. And the positioning of that product tells us where you come from, and how much access to wealth you have. It is the capitalist way, and I am no means a socialist- as someone with roots in a dictatorship I choose to eschew the socialist in all things. And no, the democrats aren’t socialists. But I digress.

The question is: who has access to power in the room? Do the actors have the power? As it stands in American theatre the answer to that question would be a resounding no. But when it comes to fame, then that answer isn’t so clear. Does the producer? It depends- are we talking about someone starting out , or are they producing on…