Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Stick Your Government Arts Subsidy in This Hole
An Angry White Guy in Chicago: "One of the aspects of the diversity conversation that seems to be avoided is questioning the assumption that more diversity is good or desired. Why is it so goddamn important to us that theater present a rainbow of experiences? After all, most of the audience is white - is this about teaching that predominantly Caucasian crowd the intricacies of ethnic lifestyle and culture? Is it to bring more blacks and Latinos and Asians into the theater or to expand our box office take? To get some of that juicy Diversity in the Arts grant dough?"
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2 comments:
When talking about statistics in theater its always really important to look at all sides of the spectrum, this article may show how American theater is not at all as diverse and misrepresenting the great melting pot of culture and diversity that we actually live in today. And although that may well be true to some extent as the statistic that 92% percent of American theater has been written my white males now deceased and performed thousands of times, the statistics in the article America's Favorite Plays still shows that American theatergoers are taking risks in some ways by not only embracing the original ideas of new playwrights (many of them female) and plays such as the Laramie Project. It maybe that actors in plays aren't realistically portraying our world, but it seems that American theater has been progressive in other ways.
Providing free spaces for the performances would be an interesting way to provide subsidies to the performing arts. If that is truly where the majority of the expenses are then changing from a model where each theatre company needs to operate its own facility to one where several companies share a stage (and presumably a shop, rehearsal spaces, administrative support, etc.) could produce a considerable economy of scale over individual facilities. It would let the companies concentrate on producing the artistic works as opposed to worrying as much about how to heat the theater and repave the parking lot.
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