Theatre Development Fund – TDF: You've probably never heard of Elizabeth Baker, and the Mint Theater Company, which specializes in reviving lost plays, aims to fix that. A British dramatist who enjoyed a fair amount of success in her homeland in the early 20th century, she's barely known stateside, and was more or less forgotten in her native country until recently. But with an oeuvre that examines issues of class and gender with intelligence and insight, it's easy to see why Mint producing artistic director Jonathan Bank thought the time was right to introduce New York audiences to Baker.
2 comments:
I do not think that you can make a comparison between the plot of The Price of Thomas Scott and the case of the Colorado baker and the cake for a gay wedding. If you are going to compare these two stories, you are equating the opening of a “public dance hall” to two people of the same sex getting married to each other – and those two things are not equal on any plane except that some people do not like either action. Comparing a man questioning his decision to sell his property to another man who wants to turn it into a social gathering place to a man refusing to bake a cake because he did not like that his customers were gay is essentially equating this night club to being gay, and that is not an appropriate comparison. Other than that one sentence in this article, I have little else I protest about the production of this play – I am always here for supporting female written work.
I love to see companies like Mint Theater take the time and effort to produce female written work. And not only is this company producing one play, but they are also exposing the world and New York to many of Baker’s plays. I like that they are not just doing these shows because they feel pressured or that it is the right thing to do. I like that the choice to produce these shows came from Jonathan Bank believing that there was something in these plays that needed to be reintroduced to the world and introduced to New York. He connected with something in these plays, so they are being produced out of passion. I think the plot of these plays also sound very interesting and that the messages that are being shared in Baker’s works from the early 1900s are definitely still relevant today which gives her plays even more reason for why they should still be produced today, so I am very happy that Mint Theater Company is taking that step to produce these works. However, I do very much agree with Katie that the plot of The Price of Thomas Scott seems to have very little in relation to the Colorado baker, but I think the story is still relevant in other ways.
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