Here Be Sea Monsters..But No Actors

So I was sort of hedging my bets when I made the vague statement a couple days ago that the Honolulu Symphony was the largest professional performing arts organization in the state. Turns out my suspicions were correct and the symphony is, with a minor exception, the only professional performing arts organization in the state in terms of paid artists.

The one exception is Honolulu Theatre for Youth whose small company of actors heroicly stagger along supplementing little pay with night jobs. (Since most of the performances are school matinees.)

As poorly paid as the symphony musicians are, it is even worse for actors and dancers. In truth, it may be easier to make a living wage as a non-classical musician, visual artist (depending on medium), or luau performer than any other type of artist.

It may come as a suprise to people to think that Hawaii which has enjoyed record numbers of tourists (7.6 million last year, 7.5 year before) doesn’t have a strong entertainment industry. People can’t spend ALL their time on the beach and shopping after all, right?

It is true though. In terms of theatres you have the university based student theatres and amateur groups. A couple theatres have full time administration and production staffs but I don’t even know if there are any guest artists even performing under Actors Equity letters of agreement. (There has been a spate of news personalities performing in lead roles lately though.) The actors getting the most work are the ones on Lost and most of the regulars aren’t local performers.

The operas and ballets are the same. They bring in paid guest artists, but the chorus and corps are comprised of volunteers or students. A couple modern dance companies pay dancers a token on a show by show basis to acknowledge their talent and contribution but don’t maintain any sort of paid company.

There are a handful of presenting houses and bar/club venues of note and that is about it for live performance in the state.

There are certainly a fair number of things to do for people to be sure. But now that I have started to settle in to my position and have an opportunity to assess my surroundings, I have begun to wonder why there are no other professional performance entities other than the luaus organized to take advantage of the tourism and employing local performers full time.

The IATSE unions employ a fair number of people in some of the presenting houses (and on the Lost series) and there seems to be money to pay us evil administrators. Why aren’t the performers getting their due I wonder.

I am going to have to look into this a bit while I am not terribly busy this summer.

About Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice.

I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/)

My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA.

Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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2 thoughts on “Here Be Sea Monsters..But No Actors”

  1. Joe – been reading your blog for a couple of months now. As a former resident of Hawaii, graduate of UH’s theatre program, and current arts administrator, I enjoy your musings as both nostalgic and thought-provoking. In response to this latest entry – do you think there is a phenomenon of providing affordable quality entertainment such that audiences expect too much for nothing? I remember that Diamond Head and Manoa Valley theatres both offered terrific shows, at community theatre prices. Beyond the headaches of transforming a local theatre into an equity house, how does one combat local perceptions that such fine work is par for the course? Having traveled a bit since leaving Hawaii, I’ve seen this attitude repeated in a number of towns. The local community theatre offers quality work by non-professionals. Moreover, when the local theatre offers miracles, with volunteer actors and artists, the community expects miracles.

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  2. More There Be Sea Monsters…

    I set out to answer the comment made to my last entry with a comment of my own. But as I am wont to do, a short response morphed into bloviation and by the third or fourth paragraph I decided…

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