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I whole heartily agree with the "Enough with the Shakespeare" idea. I think it has become a crutch for theatre and "bardism" is a problem. However, my parents just saw the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and said it was one of the most modern and innovative productions. So, although it is over done and the new ways of doing it are possibly running out, there are still a few ways out there!
The party idea of come early and leave late is something not to be ignored. When I was helping start a theatre back home, we would never have broke even had we not gotten people out and drinking. They are more willing to donate money if they've thrown a few back too.
This article brings up some interesting points. I can see pros and cons for everything, but overall I agree with what they're saying... try new things, let people know about it, and get down off that high horse that so many artsy fartsy people are on. Theatres are nothing without community support.
While I do agree with the fact that Shakespeare is widely produced in the world of theatre, using the classic stories that everyone knows in clever, innovative ways would be helpful to theaters, not detrimental. What this article should say is that if a theater is going to use something like Shakespeare, they need to do something with it that no one has ever done before.
I do agree with Peter in the Shakespeare idea. I thought about it and more than a few of the plays I've seen this past year have been Shakespeare plays or inspired by Shakespeare plays. Although some companies are retelling the stories in new and interesting ways, like the "Radio and Juliet" ballet, I feel that some new stories need to be told.
The last theater i got to work at was just new works. Every show was a gamble but the audience for the theater was very diverse. I got to work on/see a musical with deaf people in it (was awesome), a one man hip hop show, A new Mammet piece ( keep your pantheon), and a bunch of other works. New works is the way to go because the blue hair crowd lets face it. They die. If you keep your season fresh you have the ability to really fill those seats with a younger crowd who can stay with you for a while. Grad school is worth it if later down the road of life you want to be a teacher or you go for special training. The concept of MFA's being worthless is silly cause um... we wouldn't have any drama teachers...
Ditto about the Shakespeare thing; I can't believe the amount of people, especially back home for summer stock, trying to just do pure Shakespeare festivals. OK, fine, one may be OK as it does attract and audience, but I do believe I've seen up to three independent festivals of Shakespeare in a given summer. C'mon people, branch out a little! I think there's a way to go with that though in the south.
New works should be produced more often. If people hadn't done new works before, we wouldn't have some of the magical shows we have now.
Finally, I can totally relate with the companies fearing their death because the "old folks" might be going away if they produce new works. It's a thing to deal with, but I've seen it happen with good advertising, cheaper tickets, and a little push from everyone involved. That's the stuff worth seeing--in fact, it's interesting that the writer believes Equity needs to be able to break some of its current laws in order to do better theatre. I couldn't agree more, just make sure everyone's being compensated :)
Drama departments are staffed by has-beens and never-weres, artists who might be able to tell you something worthwhile about the past, but not about the present, and certainly not about the future.
Which is why our faculty constantly designs shows in the Pittsburgh area, and why we just had our version of Lysistrata published a few years ago. Yup, pretty stale here. Who is this guy?
Well, they made it very clear that they do not believe in MFA programs. I think their language was a bit strong, and I can't say I agree with it. I think a lot of the other ideas they spoke about were very true. Innovative Shakespeare is rarely ever seen today. I certainly agree that people need to take risks and try to bring in younger audiences, something that should be fairly obvious. I think this article may have been a bit too bold to really be taken very seriously though.
I can think of allot more than ten things, and don't do Shakespeare is not one of them. Building bars isnt one of them either, that just makes for problems. Making theatre and planing to fail where probably the best two ideas on the list.
I think that, while he may be a little rough around the edges, this guy knows what he is talking about. Shakespeare is over done, produce a play from one of his contemporaries, or a greek drama (provided you do it in an interesting fashion). I think that one of the most important aspects is to get young people involved in the theater.
This serves two purposes. The first being that it sells more tickets and, if you get them hooked, these young people will be going to shows for a lot longer than the 60 somethings. How do you get them hooked? Produce new works, old works in new ways, and tell appropriate stories. A second advantage to getting young people involved is that theater is an excellent education tool for history, english, and the fine arts. If it is approached in the right way, going to a show (or working on a show) can be 10 times more effective at teaching life skills, history, or pretty much anything else than classic classroom instruction.
I think this advice would be great input for a lot of the theatres I know of back home (where the article is from.) Theatre is an experience and it seems to me like a good thing to include more in that experience. In today's world, it can be rather hard to get people interested in going somewhere for art, but many folks, especially young people, crave a community. Theatre can provide such a community and hold on as a cultural institution.
I agreed with all but the last two comments. There seems to be, atlest in American theater, this idea that theater needs to be proper, clean, and almost perfect. I'd much rather see a play that was only partially baked if I was guaranteed that it'd be entertaining. The idea of actually getting the patrons involved would make me see more theater as a whole as well. Some plays are just too boring for me to sit there for two or more hours silently watching.
Some of the items on the list make sense, like dropping the Shakespeare. However, I don't agree the the MFA comment. Some of us have other goals than just working in theater and the MFA is going to help us get there. One of the best ideas on the list was to think outside the box and try new things. Theater has gotten a bit stale lately and needs to venture into the unknown again, especially in the financial crisis. We need to hold on to our audiences.
I like the point that theaters should be doing more, newer, diverse shows. I can kind of see why high schools might want to do the same old thing, especially based on the audience. To say that people are doing the same old thing is to suggest that everyone has been around for the same amount of time and has seen the same things. But younger people haven't done that shakespeare or that musical that everyone hates, except of course for the kids who haven't done it. Once you move past that though, expand your horizons and do something new.
A lot of these are really good. I jus wish the whole article didn’t have such a condescending tone. Maybe that’s what’s killing theater. The whole industry needs to take itself less seriously. Which I guess is the overall point of this article so I like it.
16 comments:
I whole heartily agree with the "Enough with the Shakespeare" idea. I think it has become a crutch for theatre and "bardism" is a problem. However, my parents just saw the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and said it was one of the most modern and innovative productions. So, although it is over done and the new ways of doing it are possibly running out, there are still a few ways out there!
The party idea of come early and leave late is something not to be ignored. When I was helping start a theatre back home, we would never have broke even had we not gotten people out and drinking. They are more willing to donate money if they've thrown a few back too.
This article brings up some interesting points. I can see pros and cons for everything, but overall I agree with what they're saying... try new things, let people know about it, and get down off that high horse that so many artsy fartsy people are on. Theatres are nothing without community support.
While I do agree with the fact that Shakespeare is widely produced in the world of theatre, using the classic stories that everyone knows in clever, innovative ways would be helpful to theaters, not detrimental. What this article should say is that if a theater is going to use something like Shakespeare, they need to do something with it that no one has ever done before.
I do agree with Peter in the Shakespeare idea. I thought about it and more than a few of the plays I've seen this past year have been Shakespeare plays or inspired by Shakespeare plays. Although some companies are retelling the stories in new and interesting ways, like the "Radio and Juliet" ballet, I feel that some new stories need to be told.
The last theater i got to work at was just new works. Every show was a gamble but the audience for the theater was very diverse. I got to work on/see a musical with deaf people in it (was awesome), a one man hip hop show, A new Mammet piece ( keep your pantheon), and a bunch of other works. New works is the way to go because the blue hair crowd lets face it. They die. If you keep your season fresh you have the ability to really fill those seats with a younger crowd who can stay with you for a while.
Grad school is worth it if later down the road of life you want to be a teacher or you go for special training. The concept of MFA's being worthless is silly cause um... we wouldn't have any drama teachers...
And yes the bar thing really works!
Ditto about the Shakespeare thing; I can't believe the amount of people, especially back home for summer stock, trying to just do pure Shakespeare festivals. OK, fine, one may be OK as it does attract and audience, but I do believe I've seen up to three independent festivals of Shakespeare in a given summer. C'mon people, branch out a little! I think there's a way to go with that though in the south.
New works should be produced more often. If people hadn't done new works before, we wouldn't have some of the magical shows we have now.
Finally, I can totally relate with the companies fearing their death because the "old folks" might be going away if they produce new works. It's a thing to deal with, but I've seen it happen with good advertising, cheaper tickets, and a little push from everyone involved. That's the stuff worth seeing--in fact, it's interesting that the writer believes Equity needs to be able to break some of its current laws in order to do better theatre. I couldn't agree more, just make sure everyone's being compensated :)
Drama departments are staffed by has-beens and never-weres, artists who might be able to tell you something worthwhile about the past, but not about the present, and certainly not about the future.
Which is why our faculty constantly designs shows in the Pittsburgh area, and why we just had our version of Lysistrata published a few years ago. Yup, pretty stale here. Who is this guy?
Well, they made it very clear that they do not believe in MFA programs. I think their language was a bit strong, and I can't say I agree with it. I think a lot of the other ideas they spoke about were very true. Innovative Shakespeare is rarely ever seen today. I certainly agree that people need to take risks and try to bring in younger audiences, something that should be fairly obvious. I think this article may have been a bit too bold to really be taken very seriously though.
I can think of allot more than ten things, and don't do Shakespeare is not one of them. Building bars isnt one of them either, that just makes for problems. Making theatre and planing to fail where probably the best two ideas on the list.
I think that, while he may be a little rough around the edges, this guy knows what he is talking about. Shakespeare is over done, produce a play from one of his contemporaries, or a greek drama (provided you do it in an interesting fashion). I think that one of the most important aspects is to get young people involved in the theater.
This serves two purposes. The first being that it sells more tickets and, if you get them hooked, these young people will be going to shows for a lot longer than the 60 somethings. How do you get them hooked? Produce new works, old works in new ways, and tell appropriate stories. A second advantage to getting young people involved is that theater is an excellent education tool for history, english, and the fine arts. If it is approached in the right way, going to a show (or working on a show) can be 10 times more effective at teaching life skills, history, or pretty much anything else than classic classroom instruction.
I think this advice would be great input for a lot of the theatres I know of back home (where the article is from.) Theatre is an experience and it seems to me like a good thing to include more in that experience. In today's world, it can be rather hard to get people interested in going somewhere for art, but many folks, especially young people, crave a community. Theatre can provide such a community and hold on as a cultural institution.
I agreed with all but the last two comments. There seems to be, atlest in American theater, this idea that theater needs to be proper, clean, and almost perfect. I'd much rather see a play that was only partially baked if I was guaranteed that it'd be entertaining. The idea of actually getting the patrons involved would make me see more theater as a whole as well. Some plays are just too boring for me to sit there for two or more hours silently watching.
Some of the items on the list make sense, like dropping the Shakespeare. However, I don't agree the the MFA comment. Some of us have other goals than just working in theater and the MFA is going to help us get there. One of the best ideas on the list was to think outside the box and try new things. Theater has gotten a bit stale lately and needs to venture into the unknown again, especially in the financial crisis. We need to hold on to our audiences.
I like the point that theaters should be doing more, newer, diverse shows. I can kind of see why high schools might want to do the same old thing, especially based on the audience. To say that people are doing the same old thing is to suggest that everyone has been around for the same amount of time and has seen the same things. But younger people haven't done that shakespeare or that musical that everyone hates, except of course for the kids who haven't done it. Once you move past that though, expand your horizons and do something new.
A lot of these are really good. I jus wish the whole article didn’t have such a condescending tone. Maybe that’s what’s killing theater. The whole industry needs to take itself less seriously. Which I guess is the overall point of this article so I like it.
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