CMU School of Drama


Saturday, September 26, 2009

No sleep till Brooklyn…

Backstage at BackstageJobs.com: "Despite Broadway In Chicago’s attempts to make themselves the head of Chicago theatre, with everyone else merely “Off-Broadway In Chicago,” Chicago theatre is not what you will find in the touring houses here, any more than you would find a Chicago-style hot dog under a pile of ketchup."

2 comments:

Megan Spatz said...

Having spent the summer in Chicago I have some strong thoughts on this article. It says that good theatre is good theatre, no matter where it is produced. While I agree in theory, it seems to me that good theatre exists more frequently in cities like new york and chicago. Because there is a larger theatrical crowd in these cities and because they have so many resources available to them, there are more shows produced in these cities and therefore, more "good shows" in these loctations.

ewilkins09 said...

I completely agree with this article. The question that is asked in foundations almost every day is: What is good theatre? and we discuss the commercial theatre and what it means for our industry. At some point or another in the 5 weeks that I have been here in school, in every class we have discussed commercial vs. storefront and I think the topic is very interesting. It is so upsetting that theatergoers only want to see really happy and corny things like the disney shows out now. If a show is a little bit depressing and causes sadness then it won't usually draw a big crowd. Producers only want hits because that is where the money is. When people come from out of town they just want to see a show that they have heard of. I think this article explains all of this very well.