"Collaboration is the biggest word in the theater. It is the most important element in theatrical success. Not just the collaboration between an author and a composer, but the total collaboration in every play, the convergence and co-ordination of all the different talents, producing, writing, directing, choreography, acting, scene designing, costume designing, lighting, orchestration, theater management, company management, public relations - the mixture of all these ingredients is essential to every theatrical meal that seeks to make itself palatable to the public. To get along in the theater you must enjoy working side by side with other people. You must be willing not only to give your best to them but to accept their best and give them the opportunity of adding their efforts to yours to their full capacities. If you want privacy in your work, and if you want to make your flights of fancy solo, stay away from the theater."
Oscar Hammerstein II
Collaboration requires a solid corpus of staff. I´m just watching a (doubtless temporary) breakdown of collaboration in the theatre I recently left.
ReplyDeleteThe metaphor of the "theatrical meal" is pointful. A cook is in a very similar situation. Every situation which is small enough to allow that all the collaborators know each other obeys to the rules of organization Hammerstein has described. There are not very much fulfilling professions for lonesome wolfs or dogs or cats. And even an "independent" professionist or enterpriser has to deal with offices and the persons working in those offices, applying a recepy which satisfies every single actor and factor.
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