An Introduction

This blog is started after careful consideration, and although it will not always seem so, it comes from a place of deep love.  It will at times be hypercritical, but never undeservedly so.

Theatre and Show Business demand time and money from both its audience and its artists.  From an industry and art that demands much, much is expected, and when it fails to deliver, it should be held accountable.

But how does a piece of theatre fail?

Theatre fails its audience by not growing it, not broadening it, not affecting it.  That is not to say that every show should be ‘culture,’ and many shows are ruined by attempts to make them so, but even when a play entertains it must entertain in a way that is different from how a movie entertains, or a television show or video game.  Theatre is a medium that works with a different technology, and no matter how much or how quickly other technologies advance and change, human contact will never be obsolete.  By attempting to compete with movies, Theatre and Show Business set up false expectations for its audience, and due to ticket prices most people can’t afford a broad enough theatre experience to judge well.

Theatre and Show Business fail the artists when they fail to give the same kind of support they receive from the people who make it possible.  This is a bone that will be picked to shards throughout this blog.

All this is not to say this blog will be rants.  Credit will be given where credit is due. 

So how does a piece of theatre succeed?

For Show Business, a different animal, the answer is easy: the box office (and often what Show Business does to ensure the success of one production contributes to the downward slide of the industry).

For Theatre, that’s a hard knot to untie.  Is it evoking thought or feeling in the audience?  The discovery of a new play?  Is it preserving a classic, or updating it?  Is it a tour-de-force performance?  Is it the costumes, the lighting, the set?  Does some one thing have to stand out, or does everything have to blend?  Is it the box office? Is it the way in which the theatre takes care its artists?  Is it the way in which the theatre takes care of its community?

But this place is more than a place for thumbs-up thumbs-down criticism.  It is a place for interpretations and discussion.  Comments and debates are welcome and encouraged.  The only rules are:

1) It’s never personal, it’s always about the work

2) Be good or be gone

This is not a place for snide, snarky remarks just for the sake of sounding witty: criticism and contrariness do not equal wit and intelligence.

ABOUT ME:
I am a theatre artists, with many ideas, who has yet to make my voice heard over much of the white noise in professional theatre. Currently residing and working in New York City, I have toured and worked in major markets in the US.  Alceste is not my real name.