The University of Chicago Theater for the City
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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO THEATER FOR THE CITY: PROFESSIONALISM AND CULTURAL DEMOCRACY IN MINNEAPOLIS, 1946-1976 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY SUSANNAH MARIE ENGSTROM CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2016 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………iii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………...vi INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER 1: Amateur Theater as Civic Theater in the Postwar Twin Cities………………......35 CHAPTER 2: Developing a Cultural Resource: National Arts Policy in Postwar America….....79 CHAPTER 3: Civic Theater in a Postindustrial City…………………………………………...128 CHAPTER 4: The Effects of Professionalism………………………………………………….173 CHAPTER 5/CODA: Responses to and Developments from the Professional Civic Theater…224 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………247 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I received significant assistance and support in the research and writing of this dissertation. Countless kind people opened doors for me during my research trips to Minneapolis and St. Paul. Members and former members of the Twin Cities theater and arts scene provided resources, granted interviews, and pointed me in interesting directions, especially Sherwood Snyder, Sheila Livingston, Mim Solberg, Bill Ratner, Bain Boehlke, Herman Milligan, and Linda Hoeschler. I relied heavily on Cecily Marcus at the University of Minnesota’s Performing Arts Archive, as well as archivists at the Hennepin County Library and Minnesota Historical Society, and Jill Vuchetich at the Walker Art Center. I also benefited from helpful guidance at the Special Collections of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the University of California, Davis, and especially the Rockefeller Archive Center, which is staffed by some of the most knowledgeable, helpful, and friendly archivists I have had the privilege to meet. Throughout the process of researching and writing I received invaluable financial support from the University of Chicago History Department and Division of the Social Sciences, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, and the Rockefeller Archive Center. I am very grateful for the Harry Barnard Dissertation-Year Fellowship in American History, which made completion of this project possible. Friends at the University of Chicago and members of the Social History Workshop provided invaluable feedback as well as good humor and comradery, especially Sarah Miller- Davenport, Celeste Day Moore, Emily Remus, Chris Dingwall, Jacob Betz, Korey Garibaldi, Sam Lebovic, Aiala Levy, John McCallum, Shaul Mitelpunkt, Katy Schumaker, Aaron Shkuda, Peter Simons, Katie Turk, and Sarah Weicksel. I am also grateful to members of the Newberry Library Urban History Dissertation Group and the University of Chicago Urban Doctoral iii Fellows for their feedback, and for the many fellow panelists, commentators, and audience members who asked helpful questions and offered insight at conferences and workshops. I could not have asked for a better dissertation committee. Neil Harris was kind enough to serve on my committee despite his emeritus status, and I am so grateful to have drawn on his deep knowledge and wisdom. Christine Stansell helped me formulate my inchoate ideas in early meetings. Through her brilliant teaching and input as a committee member, I learned from Amy Dru Stanley how to think, ask good questions, and craft a precise argument. James T. Sparrow was consistently enthusiastic, responsive, and ready to introduce me to new scholarship and intellectual possibilities. Adam Green patiently waded through my earliest ramblings and helped me make sense of the large ideas with which I was grappling. He showed understanding and kindness as I made my way through the stages of this project, generously shared his brilliance and insight, and continually stretched my intellectual capacity. Finally, I thank my family. Bob Asher asked stimulating questions and provided intellectual and emotional support. Stefanie, Chase, Jennifer, Matias, Colby, Alexandra, Camilo, my wonderful mother-in-law Jane, and late father-in-law John helped me keep my sense of humor and provided warmth, love, and childcare. My sister Katherine listened with patience and understanding to my uncertainties and worries, and has been a best friend, voice of reason, and source of inspiration and encouragement. My father’s natural optimism and belief in my capabilities are behind everything I do. In undertaking a PhD program I was inspired by the intellectual curiosity and deep critical thinking of my mother. Together, my parents taught me the importance of a healthy work ethic and sense of personal responsibility, and gave me the kind of unconditional love that makes a happy and productive life possible. My husband Chris is the most patient and kind human being I have ever known, and his steady belief in me is an iv inexplicable gift. Our son Gabriel has given me perspective, purpose, and joy that I never imagined. v ABSTRACT This dissertation examines a major transformation in the American experience of the arts through a close look at live theatrical performance in Minneapolis and St. Paul from the late 1940s through the mid-1970s. Focusing on a distinct urban center and a single art form, the dissertation examines the emergence of a new concept of urban civic theater, from a provisional model defined by participation in the creative process to one defined by professionalism, institutionalism, and participation through financial contribution and audience appreciation. This professional turn emerged from a convergence between local urban revitalization and a high level campaign to enlist the arts as a national resource, with the latter movement critical in tilting the scale toward professionalism. Through the move to this more institutional model, understandings of what it might mean for a theater to belong to the community, as well as the very conception of artistic experience itself, were negotiated and re-defined. Importantly, the development of this new civic theater took place during a time marked by political democratization and aesthetic experimentation, when the traditional view of the arts is one of increasing freedom and radicalism. Indeed, the move toward a more professionalized notion of civic theater took place under the auspices of democratization of culture, during a push to decentralize the arts and expand institutions so as to allow for greater exposure to high quality work for Americans of all kinds, while freeing artistic creativity by removing the pressures of commercialism. Yet this decentralization and democratization was pursued through the creation of major professional arts institutions, especially in the newly legitimatizing regional theater, for which Minneapolis’s Guthrie Theater was a model. vi INTRODUCTION This dissertation traces the emergence of a new concept of urban civic theater, from a provisional model defined by participation in the creative process to one defined by professionalism, institutionalism, and participation through financial contribution and audience appreciation. Through the move to this more institutional model, understandings of what it might mean for a theater to belong to the community, as well as the very conception of artistic experience itself, were negotiated and re-defined. The new ideal civic theater institution, well established by the mid-1960s, was the result of a confluence of local and national factors which pointed the arts, and theater especially, toward a more credentialized, rationalized organizational structure, one that privileged professionalism above participation in the creative process, and changed the expectations of artists and audiences as to the theater’s role in the urban context. The development of this new civic theater took place during a time marked by political democratization and aesthetic experimentation, when the traditional view of the arts is one of increasing freedom, radicalism, and the breaking down of boundaries, during which “formal barriers between different modes (painting, sculpture, theater etc.) as well as the reputed self- sufficiency of art itself, fell before artwork made in mixed media, the imitation of commercial artifacts and use of industrial materials, and the embrace of political relevance,” according to Howard Brick.1 Indeed, the move toward a more professionalized notion of the civic theater itself took place under the auspices of democratization of culture, during a push to decentralize the arts and expand institutions so as to allow for greater exposure to high quality work for 1 Howard Brick, Age of Contradictions (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1998), xv. 1 Americans of all kinds, while freeing artistic creativity by removing the pressures of commercialism through the nonprofit organizational form.2 Yet this decentralization and democratization was pursued through the creation of major professional arts institutions, especially in the newly legitimatizing regional theater, for which Minneapolis’s Guthrie Theater was a model.3 Subsidized professional theaters with a mission to produce drama as high art existed previously, but theaters like the Guthrie presented a new mode of artistic organization, bolstered by powerful foundations, corporations, and eventually government sources, professional in administration and production, adamantly distinguishing themselves from both commercial and amateur operations in both structure and artistry.4 Early subsidization