CRIB$

I watched some “MTV Cribs” to prepare for writing this. “Cribs” hasn't aged well, but it’s aged incredibly. “Cribs” is a time capsule for the early aughts (we couldn't get a better phrase for my golden age!?). The biggest stars of the era gave access to their lives, homes, aesthetic and culture ON CAMERA!! Being granted this access was unique then, pre-influence or brands, and we got an honest feel of what it might be like if Bow Wow were your best friend. Reality television was in its adolescence, a time of innocence and not great media training. “Cribs” is messy. The show has no structure, like none! I felt like I remembered some sort of flow, but in general we are shown a living room, a kitchen, something unique that is owned, the bedroom, and cars in a random order. 

You’re probably wondering… why is there an essay in a theater magazine that’s about “Cribs?” Well, “Cribs” lives in a universe of abundance and transparency. And the American theater, that I dream of, lives there as well. 

In my “Cribs” re-watch, here are some things that I learned:

• There are 18 seasons of “Cribs,” but 13 are the ones we know and love.
• Steve-O was one noise complaint away from being evicted. Pretty sure he got evicted. 
• Usher has a room designed and textured to feel like the essence of his mother, which he would sit in when he missed her. His mother lived on the same street. 
• Lil Wayne and Birdman had a jacuzzi in their living room, which is my new definition of success and fulfillment. 
• Ja Rule featured a house that he did not own, and got sued, which really foreshadowed our general Ja Rule experience. 

Now here’s what I mean about abundance and transparency:

Abundance: Those featured on “Cribs” have dope shit and a lot of it. Hot tubs in the living room. Stocked fridges. Pianos that nobody plays. A driveway full of cars. 

Transparency: Take a look at my bathroom. See the inside of my fridge, I eat like shit, just like you. These are my parents, they live here and I love them. My cousin sleeps on the floor. Here’s the bedroom, I’m going to make an uncomfortable joke about the sex I have here. 

MTV opened up siloed information to the masses. For many celebs featured on “Cribs,” the story is rags to riches, the American dream. As a teen, I could be a voyeur to the lifestyle of the rich and famous, and believe that if I played my cards right and made it to the NBA, I could also have a lot of things and be a cool transparent famous person. 

I thought the reclamation and reimagining of the American theater, which ignited from a racial reckoning in the summer of 2020, would feel like “Cribs” (but more community engagement and health care resources, and less materialism and tax evasion). We move into a suburban ass neighborhood, an exclusionary place, a place we weren't supposed to be; THEN we take over the HOA and put a jacuzzi in every living room.

But unrooting the exploitative and systematically inequitable nature of the art form, to which I have dedicated my life, has been more a grueling slog…akin to the second-worst job I ever had in my life, working for my best friend's mother, Barbara, during the pandemic. (The worst job I ever had was working until 3am on the food line at Mama Margie’s.) Barbara is a hoarder who had a good 10-20 storage units in South Texas. I did various tasks for her including: spray-painting sheds, mowing, raking, organizing logs of wood, freeing opossums from racoon traps, pulling weeds and transferring one storage unit into another storage unit. I couldn't feel progress, only physical aching and the delirium of heat stroke slowly settling in. 

While I was digging through boxes of trash and old furniture, the only solution seemed like setting the storage unit on fire, surely there was nothing salvageable here. BUT just then, I would stumble across a really dope shirt or a photo album from the turn of the century with scribblings from ancestors. Setting the past ablaze and starting over was no longer a viable solution – every item needed to be accounted for. So the work went on, and on, in the Texas sun. 

Strides have been made as we approach the end of the surviving theater’s first full season of in-person productions, which I collectively call the “our bad” season, but we still have such a long journey ahead. Let’s look at the progress we’ve made in two years. 

In this part, I will show you our in-process CRIB, the-new-but-not-entirely-different American Theater. You thought I was done with “Cribs,” HA. 

<< *beats play* >> 

Over here, we have hyper-marginalized folx that have gotten staff positions or been elevated up!! They in there! They also have the burden and pressure of representing a massive amount of community members who remain outside of those spaces. Some of these people are working in spaces that aren't too ready for change, and their ideas will be questioned, they’ll probably smile at something they don't want to. While they might not hold decision-making power, they will continue to advocate, push doors open a little further, and make small victories that add up.

Let me take you to where the well-meaning white people hang out! Some of them are cool and some of them still take up lots of space! One of them questioned my commitment to social justice because I didn't want to change the name Egg & Spoon Theatre Collective to something more “justice-focused,” and a Pulitzer finalist blocked me on Instagram for being an organizer for the resident artists at The Flea! None of my white actor friends tell me it's hard to be a white actor anymore, they’ll just think it! Progress. 

Here’s a table where all the magic happens, all the new artistic directors and associate artistic directors! It’s kind of a cool kids’ club. I admire these people, I also worry about these people. They’ve inherited impossible and unprecedented circumstances. During this time, BIPOC leaders are getting invited to the table, and given the labor of solving all the problems with fewer resources and more restrictions than their predecessors. Without being set up for success, these leaders will assume all blame for decades-long institutional failures. 

I’ll show you the front yard! AH, this is all of the next generation of artists that aint in the house yet. They used to work for us for free but we couldn't really get away with it anymore, so we gotta keep them outside. They can come inside when we get the money thing figured out, should be any day now.

But what else? What if program and project budgets were simply made available to all collaborators working on the program or project? Documents with these numbers exist, and the siloing of information creates a power imbalance. It's not transparent and it's not hot. Seeing and understanding budgets is empowering. 

One institution told me I could be walked through a 990, but might be too stupid to understand the budget. I am indeed stupid, but I would feel better looking at a paper with numbers, seeing that we are both poor, and nodding a few times. 

Transparency isn't just how you take care of people that are already in the house, it is how you open the doors to future generations. It took a series of miracles for me to believe that I could have a life in the theater.

And the truth is… my mother bursts into song from Golden Age musicals, too frequently for my comfort. It’s memories of Ed Sullivan and elementary school assemblies that influenced her to put my older brother, who needed a behavior outlet, into theater camp at the JCC. It saved his life too. It’s her harddrive memories that dragged me to Fiddler on the Roof and Annie and Jersey Boys, where she would sing into combs afterwards. This is how theater audiences and makers are built. 

Theater has mostly lost the national pop connection that it once held. Theater is culture to a specific group of people: they are historically white and upper-middle-class and Northeastern and love Golden Age musicals. The space is created to serve that audience, and so the cycle of elitism continues. Expanding the group for whom theater is culture, and widening the national connection to this art form, must be the way forward. 

And that might also help fix the money thing! The biggest theater moment of the year for the nation was Lexi Howard’s play on “Euphoria.” (Lexi was also a toxic director for sure, but she’ll grow out of it.) Jeremy O. Harris’s twitter is pop. His tik tok is pop. Theater streaming as constructed for the ‘rona times mostly took a loss, and union negotiations for this were HARD. But still, a season of productions or a series of plays from various institutions should be dropped on platforms, like, all the time! Revenue streamz. 

And why the hell arnt the theaters on the youtube and the tik tok!?! Inviting those that don't live traveling-distance to your theater into the process, into the home. Basically, Adam Greenfield should be vlogging and influencing. Playwrights Horizons dropped a cypher for Dave Harris’s Tambo & Bones and it went CRAAAZY. A cypher to market a play!? With bars that arnt corny!? That’s progress and the standard and I will accept nothing less going forward. For the first time in my life, I had the impulse to make one of those videos where I watch a cypher and react to it, pause the video to hype up bars, etc. BUT Playwrights doesn't have a tik tok to stitch the unreal content they made, forcing my career as a cypher/rap battle commentator to remain unexplored. 

DAMN. There is so much more. A nonexistent work life balance, shitty boards, a fucked up MFA pipeline, an ongoing pandemic that has stolen energy and resources from radical transformation, and the unanswerable. 

How many years can the field survive the pandemic’s stopping and restarting of productions?

Can we all really be liberated?

Can the cycle of oppression be broken? 

I’m tired. I’m tired of theoretical imaginings of diversifying a theater audience. I’m tired of building a new table (how I would love to show up to a nice table that is set). I’m tired of hearing them say “they can pay for it” when I’m not sure “they” always can. At the root, many of the inequities and scarcity of the American theater could be alleviated with support and investment by the federal government. I will not be holding my breath. 

When I got really depressed writing this, I called my fellow TCG Rising Leader of Color and accountability partner Danica Rodriguez (Casting Director STAR). Danica validated the exhaustion these past two years have taken on my spirit and body, but also reminded me of all of the work that did get done. 

• Strides were made in transparency of compensation and hiring practices. 
• There are more people in positions to hold this industry accountable.
• With the time to organize, groups of humans did come together and build community.  
• The collective consciousness of the industry did shift.
• Theaters of Color received funding they had been owed for decades. 
• Artists are joining boards. 
• Playwrights Horizons formed an Artistic Advisory Council, inviting artists from the field into the institution to prod around, very “Cribs” of them! 
• Programming at theaters did shift. (Even when it was for optics.)
• Hoarding power is OUT, very network TV. It’s old, it’s been done. Power SHARING? Oh, it’s in. It’s hot. Everyone is talking about it, ask The Fled or Movement or Wilma Theater! 

We’ve been holding so much grief and anxiety in our bodies. Change is slow and hard. There is no end to progress, but I feel the obligation to continue to push the ball forward for as long as I’m able to, like my theater heroes do. The small wins add up, and one day I hope to look up and see the industry that I always dreamed of. An industry of abundance and transparency. Hard beats blowing out speakers. A hot tub in every lobby. 

ALRIGHT get the hell out of my house, but come back again soon.

Sincerely,

A tired ass theater artist

Adam Coy is a Tejano director, curator of vibes, and actor. Adam serves on The Fled’s leadership circle and is the Associate Artistic Director of Egg & Spoon Theatre Collective. The Playwrights Horizons Directing Fellow, a TCG Rising Leader of Color, a member of Theater Producers of Color.