This year, we have asked a number of people not involved with The Stage 100 - our annual list of the most influential figures in UK theatre - for their views on our rankings. Here are the views of The Stage’s backstage co-editor and former TMA president AK Bennett-Hunter. Please add your own views below.
If you need to remind yourself of the full list, you can find it here.
The Stage 100 has appeared again and most pretend that it is a whimsy in which they are not much interested.
Pull, as they say, the other one.
After more than ten years the rules seem to have tightened up a bit. Entrants must be ‘directly involved in the artistic process’. Well isn’t that everyone then?
Artistic directors get on the list and executive directors don’t. Certainly this is a change from the old days when I remember that dream teams of artistic directors and their administrative colleagues both made the cut. I know because I was one of them. And how come commercial producers are considered ‘artistic’ and funded producers aren’t?
Enough there for many a bar-room debate.
But what about the ‘Design/technical’ category? Just five names - and one of those is a Uruguayan-born architect! (Architects ‘directly involved in the artistic process’? Discuss.) The others are all designers and none of them are specifically lighting, costume, sound, or video.
OK I could probably name about 50 UK designers of all kinds who could reasonably argue for a place among the influential and subjective opinion must rule, but it does seem odd that not a single lighting designer gets on the list.
And no technicians.
I know very well that it is in the nature of technicians to keep out of sight. It is also part of their job to make everyone else think that they have done it all themselves. Stage managers are at their best when everyone thinks that they have nothing to do. Production managers and carpenters need to convey their ideas to designers without the designers noticing. If you want your name in lights then don’t become an electrician.
Even so I have heard complaints from those who are miffed that, as theatre gets more and more technical, there is not a single technician in the top 100. Well, its a good topic to pass the time in the crew room (if you have one) but let’s not get worked up about it. I suggest that the word ‘technical’ is taken off the heading for next year and then technicians can have the distinction of being the only group who really don’t care who is in The Stage 100.
Well, not much anyway.
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