Job titles change with time and fashion, writes Ken Bennett-Hunter. Directors used to be producers; stage managers used to be stage directors; stage technicians used to be carpenters or electricians. And yes, executive directors used to be administrators. Does it matter? Has the job changed? Does it affect the process of getting shows on?
Recently Andrew Clements wrote in The Guardian that the senior post in an opera company should be chosen from conductors or directors ?who really know how opera works and what its demands are?. In response Peter Cheesman (for many years Artistic Director of the Victoria Theatre Stoke-on-Trent) pointed out that he felt that in theatre the trend of making administrators chief executive has the effect of ?firmly demoting the artistic director to second place?. The parallels between opera and theatre are not exact. However the success of ENO from its days as Sadler's Wells Opera has been led, in turn, by Stephen Arlen, the Earl of Harewood, Peter Jonas and Nicholas Payne. None of them conductors or directors but all talented and knowledgeable individuals well informed about ?how opera works and what its peculiar demands are?. Equally, it is absurd to suggest that their artistic colleagues over the years, among them Glen Byam Shaw, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Mark Elder and David Poutney, had any less influence on the success of the company because they were part of a team and were thus able to spend less time in the office and more in the rehearsal room or the orchestra pit. The history of Opera North and Welsh National Opera, for example, tells a similar story. Perhaps what they really are is producers.
So what happens in the commercial theatre where the producer is king? Michael Codron and Cameron Mackintosh do not act or direct, but it would be an inadequate history of postwar British Theatre which failed to recognise the positive influence which they, as producers, have had on modern playwrighting or the presentation of musicals. So in changing its job titles is the subsidised theatre finally succumbing to the suppression of the artist or is it belatedly rising to the challenge of producing theatre in the twenty-first century?
Let us look at the yellowing pages of a programme for what we shall call the Repertory Playhouse, Shiretown. In the early seventies thirty-one permanent staff are listed; seven of them are either directors or designers; eight are on the stage management team; nine are technical staff (including wardrobe) and the remaining seven are administration, finance, publicity and front of house. There is no production manager.
Today the small temporary theatre has been replaced a new and bigger building and the programme now lists nearly three times as many staff. Some of this apparent increase is accounted for by the crediting of box office staff, ushers and cleaners who were previously anonymous; but there are additional posts in maintenance, stage door and catering demanded by the new building. The number of craft-based production staff has doubled and there is a production manager. There are still seven purely artistic roles but none of them are designers.
And, of course, there has been thirty years worth of employment legislation, health and safety regulations and revised licensing requirements. There are computers in every department, the Data Protection Act to comply with, disabled access requirements to worry about, twice the number of sources of grant income and a dozen commercial sponsors to nurture. The coffee bar of the nineteen seventies is now a bar and restaurant and must make a substantial net contribution to the theatre?s revenue. Unlike thirty years ago the budget also demands that at least one show each year is a co-production, one goes on tour and that commercial deals are struck with producers who want to launch their latest production in Shiretown.
A bigger job than thirty years ago certainly and one which is conducted under greater public scrutiny. But what has not changed is that the prime objective is to put plays on. I do not know any good administrator who is not absolutely committed to providing the very best quality work on stage. And they know that they cannot do that without artists.
A few years ago six artistic directors appeared in the list of The Stage top 100 names in the theatre; in every case their administrative colleague was also listed. The relationship only works if it is a partnership - a combination of skills - whatever the job titles.
Administrators became General Managers, then Administrative Directors. Today, while Artistic Directors are still Artistic Directors, you will find Chief Executives, Executive Directors, Executive Producers and Managing Directors. Why? And does it matter?
I do not believe that there is anything sinister about these name changes. The theatre needs to deal with the press, with sponsors, with government agencies, with local authorities. To them an administrator runs an office and theatre administrators have always done much more than that. If it helps to be called something else, so what?
The only thing that matters is to seek out and encourage, finance and facilitate the best productions and if you are good at that it is unlikely that you are the sort of person who will let a little thing like a job title go to your head.
Ken Bennett-Hunter is a freelance consultant and producer. He is a former Administrative Director of the Theatre Royal Stratford East and was president of the Theatrical Management Association from 1995-1998. e: kenbh@hotmail.com