Thursday, November 12, 2009
Ravenhill - 'theatre is failing playwrights because it is obsessed with new writers'
The Stage: "The playwright said theatres should instead be investing more time building relationships with talent to produce a number of their plays, but claimed this required a change in the way theatres and companies currently think."
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3 comments:
This seems like a one sided whiny opinion. Maybe the theaters are having problems finding writers who are work building a relationship with. I am just playing devil's advocate, but maybe they need to write better work. It is also not the theater's responsibility to support a writer, unless that's their mission. I don't know many theaters who's mission is to support "emerging" writers. If the writers want to be supported, then they should go back to school.
One point the article does make that I think is spot on, is that writers should consider writing for all types of theater. Pigeon holing yourself only limits yourself.
I think what Ravenhill's vision is a series of resident playwrights that are attached to a theater producing new work continuously for that theater as a staff member. The problem is that it is extremely common for writers to try and shop their script around, so why would a theater find it necessary to retain a "relationship" (AKA-formal agreement)with Ravehill? I think that there is a niche out there for resident playwrights (either formal or informal) but Ravenhill just hasn't found someone to help him out yet.
I see both sides of this, I do think it would be good for producing organizations to build a relationship with writers, and if they are good, to produce more than one play, focusing on the human not the product (script) but it's hard (especially as he's working off of such a famous work) to not see this guy as effectively discouraging significantly new plays. I think it's better that theatres have too short of a relationship with writers than the more comon problem of producing only very common work, while it has its place, I support a field that is broader, not deeper.
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