DC Theater Arts: For decades, the DC, Maryland, and Virginia region has been well regarded for producing theater with social vision and impact and progressive values. With the election over, now what? What lies ahead for the DMV theater community? Will the region find itself in dark times? Will the theater community be or think itself immune? Will the community be part of some nonprofit resistance to the national shift right?
3 comments:
I think this article really vocalized a lot of the fears that I have for this country once the new administration comes in. There are so many areas of concern that it is impossible to know about all of them, but the theater industry and live entertainment that tends to lean more towards the left is one that is on my radar. I was not aware of a lot of the previous negative impacts on theatre by the next administration’s first term, but I was not surprised in the least to read about it in this article. Their contempt for the purposes of live theater and the inherent progressiveness of it makes it a prime target for the objectives of the next administration. I like that the article also talked about funding from donors, and how it will be unrealistic to rely upon donations when so many organizations and causes will require donations in the next four years.
This article poses interesting questions surely at the forefront of most people within the theater industry given that we likely will see moderate change throughout the next four years. What interested me most though was discussion surrounding the collective bargaining power of the theater industry and the effect that it can have on those who are local to these theaters as well as the effect it can have on larger surrounding communities, if not the nation. It seems as though the theater industry has unique but scarce opportunities to affect the nation although it can be profound when it does (it appears this is almost always centralized to Broadway theaters and some regional theaters), but a much more consistent opportunity to teach their patrons through their work. The change in the presidency may be a sign for theaters to wear their heart on their sleeve even more than we have in the past to continue to show patrons that despite change and hardship that may come about, the theater industry is willing to stand for what it believes in so that the audience may join them in doing so.
Theater has always been a product of the times that it is in and I think that this will become especially more prevalent in the upcoming years. Theater does have themes that are not too popular with the new administration so I can see a future where theater has to go through a few hurdles due to it’s negative perception that some will have of it but it’s truly sad that it may be targeted in the next few years. It’s interesting to hear that theater was impacted so negatively in the past but that only proves that it might happen again in the future. I think this hammers in the importance of supporting the arts to make sure that artists have the support system that they need to continue their work and make sure that they can speak for the communities that they create for and the people the want to uplift
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