The Man Who Came to Dinner

We all knew there was money trouble

I think, subconsciously

You know?

But when it got really bad

It sort of caught us by surprise

Like a wave

That just rushed up on us

Suddenly they were talking

About maybe closing the theater for a little while

Or renting out the spaces

To , like, traveling circus troupes or something

I mean, I’m being facetious

But not really

We were starting the thirtieth season

With The Man Who Came to Dinner

And I remember that halfway through the rehearsal process

The rumor was that we were going to have to stop the show

Because it was too expensive to mount

When all that got back to Jim

Good ole Mr. Hollywood started firing people left and right

Trying to keep the gossip under control

But it only made things worse

And it certainly didn’t endear him to anyone

One of the directors

Threw a dinner at her house

Trying to sort of

Make peace

Between Jim and the actors

I went, but right away

Things just…got heated

And yeah, I’ll admit

That I threw a few logs

On the fire

Do you know how much Jim was making back then?

Do you have any idea?

I mean, not that any of us weren’t getting paid

We were getting paid, actually

But he was getting rich, okay?

He was getting rich

While the theater

Was on the verge of closing

I mean, does that seem right to you?

And then he’s sitting there at this dinner table

Talking about how we should be grateful to him

Because the Executive Director

Wants to cut the company in half

I said ‘You’re cutting the company in half anyway

You’re just telling yourself it’s for poor behavior

Rather than financial necessity!’

In the six years he was at the theater

He never once took a pay cut

Even when the shit was hitting the fan

The year we did the worst?

The year the doors almost closed?

He got the Board to give him a twenty percent raise

Then when the check cashed

He took off and went to L.A.

Jim never cared about anything but the money

He had no respect for the theater

For the acting company

For the legacy of this institution

We almost had a fistfight

Right there at that dinner

I may have even thrown a roll at him

Anyway he took off

And I just sat there

While everybody tried to calm me down

Nobody ever said anything to him

Because nobody wanted to lose their job

So we all just sort of sat by

While that theater sunk into the ground

Everybody talks about the acting company

Like we were this team, this family, you know?

When really

We were all looking out for ourselves

All of us

Jim fired me right before he left

And I don’t talk to any of those people anymore

You know, sometimes I think getting paid to do theater

Actually makes you a bad artist

It makes you forget how to fight for things

How to do it just because you love it

How to, you know, stand for something

Yeah, I threw a piece of bread at my boss

And called him a greedy asshole

But at least I did something

While everybody else just sat there

Playing nice

So they could keep getting their paychecks

Just like Mr. Hollywood

None of us had any, you know, honor

I know that sounds stupid

But it’s true

We weren’t working at a theater

We were working at Enron

At Halliburton

The only reason the place is still open

Is because it got too big to fail

You can’t make art at a place like that

I mean, look at the stuff they do now

Back then, it was shit

But now?

It’s something worse

It’s just money, you know?

It’s just a big pile of money