Friday, October 17, 2008
Will we see a Federal Theatre Project Part II?
PRODUCER’S PERSPECTIVE: "If I had a dollar for every time I heard a reporter say that we're in the greatest economic crisis since The Great Depression, I could buy ourselves out of this crisis myself."
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4 comments:
No.
FTP created some of the most radical and subversive theatre in American history. Even more so, all funded by the public dollar. How on earth would this kind of program survive with the limitations on free speech we face now?
No way, no how.
If we do, then we can make "Cradle Will Rock 2" and it can be about struggling college students who just want to create theater. And then years later, students can watch in in Foundations class and learn to appreciate how lucky they are that Playground still exists for them
I honestly don't think that a Federal Theatre Project is necessary or viable these days. Sure, these can be lean times for theatres, but like the article says, it gives extra motivation to improve efficiency and reexamine our ways of doing things. Also, I feel that with the enormous funding of super-shows, theatre won't be going anywhere. The government's money could be spent a lot better somewhere else.
I completely agree with this guy. When I blurb all I could think is "not gonna happen". Whether or not our country is headed for a depression of the magnitude there was in the thirties is debatable, but I think if we get there it really can't be seen as "another Great Depression" and if our leaders look to FDR as the formula for getting us out then we're going to have problems. Not only is our political and cultural environment vastly different and more complex but people forget that what really ended the Great Depression was World War II.
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