University of Virginia Library

Discussing Directions In American Theatre With Its Prince

—Ed.)

First of all, Mr. Prince, there
are a lot of people who don't
know what a producer is.
Could you briefly describe in
your own words what you do?

Well, a producer, which is
only half of the job that I do,
is concerned with finding a
property to present, raising the
money for it, assigning the
director—often if it's just an
idea he has in mind he has to
assign the writers - sometimes
all the other creative people,
i.e. the set designer, lighting
designer and so on. It really
depends on how much of the
creative burden the director
can or wants to take on
himself. So it is both a
businessman's job and a
creative man's job. But, as I
point out, I think of myself
primarily as a director.

Did you originally intend
to be a producer or a director?

No, I never wanted to be a
producer. I just fell into it,
backwards as it were. I wanted
to write plays when I was in
college. And what I came to
New York doing was writing
plays. I turned out to be at
best a second-rate playwright,
and the theatre is no place to
be second-rate in any capacity.

Yet you got into producing
before you got into directing.

I got into producing long
before I got into directing. I
came to New York from the
University of Pennsylvania. I
lived always in New York, but
I went to Penn in Philadelphia
for four years, and when I got
out of college I came here and
found a job with George
Abbott. And he,
being probably, or I guess
unquestionably, the most
active and most eminent
director in the theatre, had
available in his office a job of a
kind of glorified office boy
cum writer. I wrote some
television things that he was
involved in at the time. But at
the same time I did office
work: I answered the
telephones and worked the
switchboard and all the rest of
it. So it was a catch-all job. But
it exposed me to the realities
of a theatrical organization
that was active and to the most
prestigious and not to mention
among the most talented
people working in the theatre
that day.

Hal Prince Sitting Pensively At His Desk...

What made you decide to go
into directing?

Well, the juices always had
flowed in that direction. I
wanted to be a
play wright-director in college,
and consequently that's
exactly what I did do: I wrote
some plays and directed them
myself. And so I learned from
Abbott, I learned from Jerry
Robbins, with whom I worked
for awhile, and I fell into
producing with "Pajama
Game." I worked with George
Abbott's stage manager and
together we cooked up
"Pajama Game" and Abbott
directed it. And we had quite a
lot of success, as a matter of
fact we had five hits in a row,
which is fairly extraordinary; I
didn't realize it at the time.
And then I moved slowly but
inexorably in the direction of
directing.

Do you consider yourself an
innovator?

Well, I don't know; it's all in
the area of is there any such
thing as a new idea? I don't
really think so. What you do is
steep yourself in theatrical
techniques that are ageless and
roll them around in your own
creative process and intuitively
come up with something which
people consider fresh. I
suppose that I owe a lot to
German expressionism, I know
I owe a lot to a very active
theatre in Moscow that I've
enthusiastically observed called
the Taganka, and, generally
speaking, I've picked up things
here and there. But they get
filtered through my own head
and my own creative
process-however that happens,
I'm never quite clear. But I
would have said that the
shows, in terms at least of
musicals today, are innovative,
yes.

I detect in your work a
recurrent underlying theme of
moral and social degradation,
to a large extent in "Cabaret"
and "Follies," and to maybe a
lesser extent in "Fiddler On
The Roof" and "Company."
Do you see this in your work?

We live in a period of moral
bankruptcy from which we are
emerging; that was inevitable.
The very first play I directed
from scratch was "She Loves
Me," which was all hopeful and
optimistic and filled with love.
It did not succeed at the box
office, though in my
estimation it succeeded very
well indeed on the stage;
because we were entering the
period which became just
endless self-flagellation, a
period of sort of almost
shocked discovery that we
were no longer going to be
naive, that a pretty girl is no
longer like a melody, which is
what "Follies" is about, and
that the country has lost its
innocence. From that period
now seems to be emerging a
period in which "She Loves
Me" would be appreciated, a
period where we're searching
for an ethic for moral values. I
would think that since I feel
that, my work will reflect it.

Along the same lines, your
shows almost invariably end
with the characters having
resolved themselves to a
particular situation. Yet their
futures remain uncertain...

The problem is that almost
the only realities in the world
which we live in are
uncertainties. There is no such
thing as black or white, we
know that in every implication.
And, consequently, to be
absolutely truthful at the end
of any piece of work you
would have simply an
enormous question mark. I
find that over and over again I
am forced to impose on the
work I do some panacea, some
edge in the direction of a
solution, one that I invariably
don't believe, but something to
give the audience an answer, or
the beginnings of an answer.
And the reason I do that and
go against my own creative
grain, my own sense of truth, is
so that the shows will run. I see
no point in doing "perfect"
shows that no one will bother
to go and see.

Do you feel that the
musical form is or is becoming
the dominant theatrical form
for social and political
commentary, and if so, why?

All Photos On This Page By Steve Wells

The Marquees Of Prince's Three Current Broadway Hits

Well, I just think that they
happen to be the thing we
most uniquely excel in the
United States, that's all. It just
happened that way. Our
playwrights are very good, but
they are not better than the
British playwrights or the
Czechoslovak playwrights or
the German playwrights and so
on. But there is no country
producing dramatic musical
material to anything like the
degree or to anything like the
quality of the United States.

You mentioned British
plays. What's your reaction to
the large number of British
plays produced on Broadway
each season? Is this healthy for
the American theatre, and
what effects do you think it
has had on the American
theatre?

I don't think it's unhealthy
in the least. I think the
American theatre has all the
ring of chauvinism that the arts
can't afford to have. I mean, it
smells of labor unions saying
you can bring just so many
English actors to America, and,
conversely, British Equity
saying you can bring so many
American actors to England.
It's all absurd. Anything that
regulates the natural flow of
creative work from one
country to another is appalling
and unacceptable to me.

What are your present
feelings about Broadway? If
it's not dying, which I think
you agree it's not, it's certainly
changing...

Caricature By David Ritchie

Theatrical Magic

Everything's changing, all
the arts are changing.
Television's forced it, films
have forced it. We must
provide something which is
more uniquely living theatre
than what we used to. They're
paying fifteen bucks a head for
musicals and ten bucks for
straight plays and eight bucks
for off-Broadway and so on.
Sure, they have to get
something that they can't get
for free on television. But more
than that, our audience, after
all, is better read, more
educated, more philosophically
and psychologically oriented,
more intellectual.

"Hair" and "Jesus Christ
Superstar" are two shows
which attract a youth
audience, whereas most of
Broadway is patronized by the
middle-aged, affluent society.
Now, both of these shows are
based sort of on fads. Do you
feel that it's necessary to
capitalize on fads in order to
attract a young audience to
theatre?

No, because "Company"
attracts a young audience and
so does "Follies." "Hair" is
truly innovative and has
influenced everyone's work
right now, I think. The same
does not hold for "Jesus Christ
Superstar."

What do you feel is the
main thing keeping youth away
from the theatre today?

A slow process of
winnowing away which
probably occurred when they
were born. I mean, they've
never been exposed to theatre,
the way I was from the age of
six on. So they have to come
to something that their parents
didn't wean them on. I think
that that, plus the cost, plus
the formality of what
theatregoing was, which is
certainly no longer going to be
true. In other words, I think
it's becoming an informal
experience. I go to theatre in
blue jeans and a sweater. There
are those people who lament
the absence of ritual, glamour
surrounding theatregoing. They
may be right, but it's too late.
If the theatre depended on
that, or returned to that, I'm
afraid it really would be in
trouble.

...And In Front Of His "Wheel Of Fortune"

Well, how do you feel then
is the best way to attract
youth?

Put things on the stage that
interest young people. It's that
simple. There's nothing else
you can do. Things, little
things, qualitative little things:
make tickets available at
half-price for people carrying
ID cards. I have a section of
seats for $2 at "Follies," sure.
But, generally, those tickets
reach people who are theatre
enthusiasts in the first place.
So really what you have to do
is simply put things on the
stage that grab them. And
money isn't really the problem,
the reason that people choose
to make it for not coming to
the theatre.

Do you think anything can
be done to lower the cost of
production and the cost of
tickets?

I think lots of things can be
done, and I think what we have
to calculate is something to do
with supply and demand and
break-even figures. I think we
must have a fair profit margin,
but I think that, for example,
if you're providing a ten
character show with unknowns
in the roles, there is every
reason to expect that you
should be able to charge less
for the tickets than you do,
say, if you're doing "Follies,"
which is providing fifty-five
people in the company and five
of them major stars. Our
operating expenses are then
exorbitant. I think we ought to
be charging in conjunction
with expenses and, also, to a
degree in conjunction with
supply and demand, as other
businesses do. No one ever
gives the theatre the right to
deal with that aspect of itself.

Do you feel there should be
a greater subsidy of the
American theatre?

Sure, I think it's inevitable.
I mean, it will happen. The
National Endowment is, of
course, the big beginning, and
they're doing very good work.
I serve on a committee for the
National Endowment where we
give out upwards of four
million dollars a year to theatre
groups. It's not a great deal of
money, but it saves them.

If you were the head of
Lincoln Center or John F.
Kennedy Center in
Washington, would you stick
primarily to classical repertory,
would you go contemporary,
or would you use that as sort
of a springboard for new
writers?

I think the only function,
essentially, that a national
theatre should have is to make
available historic continuity in
terms of theatrical material,
and to provide the sort of
theatre which is economically
unfeasible from private
managements, i.e. plays which
employ large casts, a great deal
of scenery, music, and so on,
plays which have been
eliminated from our experience
by labor costs. I do not think
they should provide new plays.
I do not think they should
enter the competitive arena
with commercial theatre; I
don't think it would serve
anyone. I don't think they
could; I don't think they're
equipped to.

Those of us in college with
an interest in theatre are trying
like hell to develop and nurture
audience enthusiasm. Do you
have any suggestions to guide
us from your professional
viewpoint?

No. I'm not terrificly
disposed to organized
education theatrically. My
predilection is towards
experience; in other words,
doing shows, reading
plays-you don't need anybody
to guide you in the reading of a
play. The more plays you read,
the more you learn by
osmosis-it's all an intuitive
process. There are things to
learn in the craft, and God
knows I respect them as much
as anyone, but mostly they are
learned again by experience.
The academic, the book
learning process with respect to
theatre is something I measure
with a degree of cynicism; and
as for the atmosphere of sort
of self-congratulatory
producing that goes on in little
theatre, I think it stifles the
learning process. I really think
what you have to do is do a lot
and expose yourself to as many
professionals as possible. Many
of the colleges are now
allowing as how there's more
to be learned from people who
do it professionally than
perhaps from academicians.
That is not in any way
criticizing the learning of
classical theatre history, the
exposure to theatrical material
which gives you a foundation,
a frame of reference in
contemporary terms. But it does
criticize the whole experience
of putting on a play in a highly
enclosed, protected, uncritical
atmosphere.

There are several thousands
of people getting drama
degrees every year. Now in
other professions you have
businesses coming to the
schools offering interviews to
prospective professionals. Yet
the theatre doesn't do this.
Now, in college you learn the
theory of acting, the theory of
directing. Yet as you indicated,
there is that gap between
theory and experience. How do
you bridge this gap?

You come to the
professional theatre and work.
Professional theatre doesn't
mean Broadway. Mind you
I've left Broadway out of this
except for now, and I'm only
mentioning Broadway to
clarify in case anybody
suddenly decides that's what
I'm saying, that the theatre
exists on Broadway. I do not
say that at all. But I do think
that the professional theatre is
what you then have to come
to. I'm always looking for
talented people. And in the
seventeen years since I've been
producing very few really
potentially gifted, exciting
people have passed through; I
get a lot of letters, and then I
meet people, and perhaps less
than the number of fingers on
one hand have been really
valuable. And in every instance
when they have been we've
kept them on and they've
worked here and gone on to
produce or direct or whatever
it is they want to do. Most
people just want to be
successful.

How do you feel about
critics?

The same way anybody in
his right mind feels about
them: they're necessary.
Without critics we would have
no audiences. Somebody has to
say something to make people
go to theatre. It's lamentable
but accurate, more so in our
country than in some others.
As a matter of fact, it's very
interesting that in some
countries when a critic likes a
play, no one goes; when he
doesn't, they all go. I'm
thinking particularly of
Romania, where I was this
summer, in Bucharest, that's
exactly how they treat their
critics. But not in our country.
On the other hand, we tend to
praise them and give them
awards at the end of their
careers for their faithful service
to the theatre. It's all garbage.

And, finally, after having
achieved such extraordinary
success, what are your present
ambitions?

To continue to work,
because I seem to be happy
only when I am.

Is that work going to center
primarily in the theatre, or do
you plan to branch out more
into films?

I like film work. I don't see
how it could ever usurp the
prior and fairly intense loyalty
and pleasure I get from
working in the theatre.

Copyright, 1971

The Cavalier Daily