Re: RAT In support of in-home, in-class, on-line theater

[Audie McCall <audiemccall@yahoo.com>]

--- Allison Narver <anarver@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dear Cat,
> Where do you live?  What kind of theater happens in
> your town?  It seems like it must be a pretty grim
> little offering to invoke such bitterness.
> Best,
> Allison

Whoa.  Hold on here!  Is it just me, or does this
reponse seem gratuitously dismissive without actually
bothering to deal with the meat of the matter?

It seems to me Cat has some real points here.  People,
by and large, DON'T go to the theatre: good, smart,
feeling people who might get a lot out of the
experience and who might, in turn, have a lot to offer
back.  Can we just blithely assume that it's everybody
else's fault but ours that they're not coming?  Have
our standards really been so rigorous?  Have we really
held our feet to the fire long enough, hard enough as
writers, directors and actors?  Or have we more often
congratulated ourselves for merely have the guts and
gumption to put something, ANYTHING up?

When was the last time an artistic director on the
fringe shut down a show in production 'cuz it just
wasn't good enough?  I can't count the number of times
in my experience that it SHOULD have happened, but of
course, it never did.  Indeed, it often seems that
questions such as "Is it good enough?" are tacitly
verbotten as too "judgemental", etc.

Let's face it.  We've got quality control problems. 
Perhaps it's better to do nothing about that, but it
seems that one then has to let go of bitching about
good people passing on the experience of precious
mediocrity, or worse.


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