On February 20th, 2010 the Denver Center for the Performing Arts abruptly announced its decision to close the National Theatre Conservatory. The class of 2012 will be the last to graduate from the prestigious MFA acting program.
In our current economic climate it is hardly a surprise that funding for the arts has rapidly dried up. The last several years have seen the closure of several MFA acting programs across the country, but the Denver Center’s announcement marks the first closure of a top five school. Unfortunately, it’s the third closure (in as many years) of a conservatory linked to a major regional theatre. Economic hardships have forced both Asolo Repertory Theatre and Alabama Shakespeare Festival to sacrifice their conservatory programs as well. The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco houses the last MFA acting program not linked to a university.
The tried and true system for training the next generation of great American actors is on the verge of collapse. Art itself demands passing along the artform; how does the American Theatre propose to advance itself without strong regional conservatory programs? Without an educational arm, a regional theatre becomes solely a venue for entertainment and not a source of creative renewal. If our national theatre is a regional theatre, is the collapse of the regional conservatory system a bellwether for the death of the American theatre itself? What is our National Theatre?
In 1935, as part of the Federal Theatre Project, Congress chartered the American National Theatre and Academy (ANTA). This organization became a major Broadway producer on behalf of the American people, helping to establish the Vivian Beaumont Theater at the Lincoln Center where ANTA produced “Man of La Mancha,” “After the Fall,” and “Incident at Vichy”, among others. In 1984 Donald Seawell, chairman of ANTA, fulfilled the last part of its mandate (the Academy portion of ANTA) by creating the National Theatre Conservatory at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. In twenty-eight years, this conservatory evolved from a dream of a National Theatre into an unprecedented powerhouse in the Rocky Mountain Region. This is an institution that pioneered free tuition, a truly American approach to classical text, and assembled an all-star team of master teachers from across the country. This is the institution that will be closing its doors in 2012.
If this trend continues, our National Theatre will become a theatre of roadhouses: multi-thousand seat venues that play Hello Dolly for one night only, theatres interested in revenue and not reinvention, in second-hand Broadway entertainment and not true community creations. A true People’s Theatre, if there is such a thing, depends on people from all walks of life, from every corner of the nation. Passing along this tradition demands a community investment not only in local theater, but also in local training programs. The American Theatre cannot depend only on coastal academic institutions to shape the future actors of America.
The demise of the National Theatre Conservatory is a tragic wake-up call to all those interested in salvaging a piece of that dream from 1935. In tough economic times, often fraught with real-world tragedy like the earthquake in Haiti, the Arts tend to take a backseat. Theatre is a perpetual invalid: always ill but never dead. The imminent demise of the conservatory system forces the American people to decide whether times are tough enough to let the invalid die.
Editor’s note: This online-only guest commentary was not edited.
