Winter can be a tough season in the theater, Tracy Brigden says.

"Usually around this time of the year, it's the tubercular lounge," with patrons sniffling and coughing like Gatling guns, says the artistic director of City Theatre on the South Side. "It's like -- if you're that sick, don't come," she added with a laugh.

Despite viruses, errant cell phones and the other challenges of putting on live performances, Ms. Brigden believes theater has a vibrant future across the country -- even in an age where people have more and more entertainment choices.

The Thinkers
This monthly series will highlight people from Western Pennsylvania who are on the forefront of new ideas in their fields.

---

Tracy Brigden Title: Artistic director, City Theatre Age: 42 Residence: South Side Education: Northwestern University, bachelor of science, theater department, 1986. Previous positions: Associate artistic director, Hartford Stage, 1997-2000; artistic associate, Manhattan Theater Club, 1988-96. Professional honors: Connecticut Critics Circle Award, best production, best director; directed world premieres at City Theatre of "Gompers," "Lovely Day," "Topdog/Underdog," "The Clearing," "The Credeaux Canvas" and "Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge." The Series Click here to view other installments in this continuing series.

"I love to watch TV and I'm in front of a computer screen much of the day," she said, "but even in this media age, I want to see a human being perform, and I think other people feel the same way.

"There's a different feeling in the theater -- we're all in the room together, the audience and the actors.

"I think people will crave that interaction more and more as time goes on, and crave a reason to gather. I do think there is an element of, 'Let's go meet and see something that's entertaining or challenging and then talk about it afterward.' "

Which is not to say contemporary theater doesn't face some big challenges.

Even though she believes good actors can still get better, meatier roles in theater than in television or the movies, the pay is still dauntingly low.

The latest Actors' Equity Association survey showed that the median annual pay for its members was $7,040, which explains why most actors have day jobs.

"We're doing great work," she said, "but nobody in the theater is being paid nearly what they should be."

Television jobs generally pay much better, and that has had two effects on the theater, she said.

"One of the emerging crises in American theater is that a lot of our exciting playwrights are getting sucked into TV," she said.

Prominent examples include Eric Overmyer, who has written for "The Wire," "Law & Order" and "Homicide: Life on the Street," and Aaron Sorkin, who went from plays to "The West Wing" and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip."

The other impact is a mixed blessing.

The proliferation of urban TV dramas like "Law & Order" and medical dramas like "Grey's Anatomy" has opened up many more attractive roles for African-American and other minority actors, which means they are no longer as available for theater jobs.

"Just think about a show like 'ER.' Ten years ago it would have been all white doctors, but now there are so many shows that have mixed casts with interracial love interests and every other kind of relationship."

But theater still has one advantage to offer, she believes. "In theater," she said, "if you're talented and you have skill and persistence and you're not a crazy person, you're going to eventually manage to get some work.

"In Hollywood, there are many more factors that have nothing to do with talent, but have to do with looks and timing and agents and power and money."

Ms. Brigden has spent her whole career in the theater, so she acknowledges she doesn't know the West Coast scene intimately.

But her impression is that an actor's chance of success in Hollywood "is based on, do you have a powerful agent who will push for you and get you in the door at the right second?

"And first and foremost," she added, "it's about looks."

The emphasis on requiring someone to be handsome or beautiful in the arts has only grown in recent decades, said Ms. Brigden.

"You have to be gorgeous to be successful at almost anything in America these days," she said, "even for men."

"If you go back to the '60s, look at Dustin Hoffman -- he's not attractive; Gene Hackman -- he's not attractive. Think about who we have now -- Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio -- these are beautiful men.

"Men used to be allowed to be ugly and be a movie star if they were good enough actors," she said.

And even though women can get better roles in the theater than in Hollywood, especially after they reach 30, it is still a long way from being a level playing field, Ms. Brigden said.

Even today, she said, most plays are written by men, and when it comes to classic drama, from Shakespeare on up into the 20th century, almost all of them were.

"In terms of juicy roles in the theater, think about it," she said. "Linda Loman (the wife in 'Death of a Salesman'), she's the second part. Lady Macbeth, she's the second part. Most of those plays have the juicy male role as the protagonist, with the women having the secondary roles."

Contemporary women playwrights like Michele Lowe and Eve Ensler create dramas that feature women, Ms. Brigden said, but plays written by women can still face an uphill battle.

"Some male artistic directors will say, 'Well, plays by women don't sell that well.' That's ridiculous, to me. Women are the primary theater ticket buyers, and there have been huge hits by women in the past 10 years."

Like a handful of companies across the nation, City Theatre concentrates on producing new plays, which Ms. Brigden defines as those created within the past five years.

This year, she has added a twist to increase audience involvement in the gestation of a play.

City Theatre has commissioned playwright Keith Reddin to create a political drama, "The Missionary Position," which will feature a character who belongs to an organization similar to the Christian Coalition of America.

Already, audience members have been able to listen to readings of drafts of the script and offer feedback, "and I can guarantee that their ideas absolutely have affected Keith's writing of the play."

The audience members will also be able to watch rehearsals of the play and sit in on set-design sessions, so that by the premiere, she said, "you could have gone from the very first time the play has ever been heard out loud to seeing the production."

"The Missionary Position" also reflects a trend Ms. Brigden has noticed in recent years: a turn toward more worldly, openly political plays. In the past four years, she noted, she has personally directed three plays in which the Iraq War was a major theme.

But even as playwrights have tackled more serious topics, she said, she has noticed that many theatergoers in Pittsburgh are longing for escapist fare.

"They want some Mickey and Judy tap dancing," she said. "What they'd like to do when they spend their entertainment dollars is be entertained, but the writers want to write about these serious issues. It can be a struggle."

Tracy Brigden has wanted to be in theater since she was a teenager. More importantly, she has wanted to be on the director's side of the stage since she was 14.

She had earned small parts in community theater productions in her hometown of Pound Ridge, N.Y., she said, but one summer she missed the auditions, "and the director said, 'No, you can't be a leper in "Jesus Christ Superstar" this year, but you can be my assistant director.' And after that, all I wanted to do was be a director."

She won the position at City Theatre in 2001. She loves her job and being in Pittsburgh -- particularly being able to own a home -- but she has been a little dismayed at how many people here say they have never witnessed a live theater production.

"I have met so many people who have never been to a play or they went to a play in fifth grade and it was a really boring Shakespeare.

"So my one-woman crusade here is to say, 'Just try it once.' I always try to describe it to people that we are like the HBO of theater, because we are contemporary, we are fresh, we are risque, we reflect our world -- so there is a dynamic to it that doesn't make it sort of dry and broccoli-like.

"I say, 'You may be the first people who will ever see this play, and that play could turn around and become "Death of a Salesman," who knows?' "