A Labor Day Salute to the Back Office Folks

Well, here we are: it’s Labor Day Weekend already.  And every year since I started writing here, I’ve marked this unofficial end of summer—and the real start of the fall theater season—with a tribute to the various folks who work so hard to make the theater so many of us love. I’ve shouted out actors, playwrights, musicians, stage managers, set designers, drama teachers and even unions. 

But to be honest I thought I might take a break this year because I’ve got a lot of other stuff I need to do. But then this morning I read my latest copy of “Nothing for the Group,” the terrific weekly newsletter that the dramaturg Lauren Halvorsen sends out each week (click here to learn more about it) and one off her entries in this recent issue made me rethink taking a hiatus.

Tucked in among Halvorsen’s usual roundup of premieres and other productions opening around the country was a feature she calls “not a living wage,” which lists jobs in the industry and compares their salaries to what it actually cost to live in the city where the theater offering that position is located. None of the jobs paid a living wage. And yet, I’m pretty sure that all of them are going to be filled, mostly by people who not only love the theater but who rarely get a chance to share fully in the glamor of it.  

The folks who plan the budgets, clean the theaters, work in the box office, order the supplies, manage the marketing campaigns and coordinate the educational programs don’t walk red carpets, get Tony, OCC or Drama Desk awards or have TikTok followings. And they don’t make a lot of money. Those who work in the increasingly financially-squeezed regional theaters make even less money. 

But the theater doesn’t work without them. And so the least I can do is to take this time to acknowledge all the marketing associates, literary managers, outreach coordinators, casting directors, props supervisors, logistics technicians and the scores of others who work in the back offices but whose labor plays an important role in producing the pleasure I get each time I walk into a theater. To all of them I say: Bravo—and thanks.

A Highly Subjective List of the (So Far) Best Plays and Musicals of the 21st Century

The New York Times recently published a fancy interactive list of what it considers to be “The Best Movies of the 21st Century.”  The editors say they assembled the list by asking more than 500 filmmakers—including directors like Pedro Almodóvar, Sofia Coppola and Barry Jenkins; movie stars ranging from the recent 26-year-old Oscar winner Mikey Madison to the 79-year-old vet John Lithgow and influential film fans (whoever they are)—to name what they believe to be the Top 10 movies that have been released since Jan. 1, 2000. Then the folks at the paper tallied up the results and came up with the final list (which you can check out by clicking here). 

Like all lists, this one says more about the people making the list than it does about the films on the list. But it got me thinking about what a similar list of the best plays and musicals that have opened over the past 25 years might look like. The Times weighed in on that back in 2018 when its then theater critics Ben Brantley and Jesse Green put together a list of “The 25 Best American Plays Since ‘Angels in America’” (click here for that one) but I didn’t agree with everything they had on their list. So I’ve put together my own. 

I started by listing all the Pulitzer winners and finalists since 2000, then I threw in all the shows that got Tony nominations for Best Play and Best Musical during that period. Finally, I added in the shows that made it onto the annual lists of my favorites that I’ve published in each of the past 18 years that I’ve been writing this blog. 

Whittling down the list proved easier than I thought it was going to be. I ended up with 10 (hey, it's just me and not 499 other people) and I was delighted to see that without even trying to make the list diverse, it more or less is in terms of gender, genre and race.

Now my 10 may not be the best shows (whatever that slippery adjective means) or the ones with the most awards or longest runs but they are the shows that regardless of when I saw them have stayed with me, changing the way I look at theater and the world. 

Of course what I’d really love to know is what your choices might be. In the meantime my contenders are below: 

Casa Valentina by Harvey Fierstein, 2014: A deeply moving piece inspired by the real-life stories of pre-Stonewall-era men who found comfort in dressing as women but also a work that courageously acknowledged the battles that can occur within a community struggling to self-define its place in the broader society

Cost of Living by Martyna Majok, 2016: A beautifully rendered meditation on the need to love and be loved and also a powerful reminder that disabled people should not be defined solely in terms of their physical limitations 

Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar, 2012: An uncompromising look at an assimilated Muslim attorney and his white wife in post-9/11 America that sidestepped all stereotypes.

Downstate by Bruce Norris, 2018: An unsentimental challenge to the ideas of empathy and forgiveness that centers around a quartet of pedophiles who have served their time in prison but who still have to figure out how to reckon with the burden of their sins

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Kristoffer Diaz, 2009: A laugh-out-loud satire that used hip-hop and pro-wrestling to examine America’s ongoing fixations on celebrity, money and race

Fun Home music by Jeanine Tesori, and book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, 2013: The poignant musical adaptation of Alison Bechdel's graphic novel contrasting her coming out as a lesbian and her father's closeted life as a gay man 

The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia by Edward Albee, 2000: It’s far from the most famous of Albee’s works but this challenging exploration of love, taboos and the meaning of fidelity rocked me to my core in a way that few things have

Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda, 2015: The reframing of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton's life not only revolutionized—and made cool again—the American musical but made the case that the passion, idealism and daring that went into making this country is shared by all who live here

The Hot Wing King by Katori Hall, 2020: A big-hearted rumination on black masculinity viewed through the experiences of a loving gay couple and their extended family and friends 

Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz, 2011: Dysfunctional family plays are the bread and butter of theater but Baitz added a new spin that goes right to the core of the right-left divide that has defined this country since the Baby Boom generation came of age