RAT Quality Control

[Cat Hebert <virtualdrama@juno.com>]

Audie McCall, 

Hmm. Isn't that the name of a character in ...? Ahhh well..

I actually suggested having a roundtable/panel on Quality Control [esp
for experimental performance] at PhilaRAT, but wasn't exactly overwhelmed
with enthusiastic response.

I really believe that most people want to do *really* good work and are
frustrated by the kinds of constraints that Conrad detailed so nicely.
You can see that some director / producers won't do *anything* that they
think is of substance without doing staged readings, workshops --
*anything* they can think of to increase development / rehearsal time --
but that's pretty much a luxury. World-class theater requires nurturance
and commitment that get-it-up-in-3-weeks approaches simply can't provide.

As I mentioned before (somewhere in the acres of text I've been pouring
out here :)) a big part of the problem is that film/TV have honed [or
hewn :)] audience performance requirements into standards that theater
can rarely match. And so our [small theater] audiences come more and more
to be comprised of people who "do" or have been involved in theater and
can "handicap" performances. "Our" community goes to share the ritual
experience with other members of our community.

I see interactive performance as part of a solution for theater since it
revives that basic community element of theater, and alters audience (and
actor) expectations in ways that distinctly favor live performance.
And... audiences are responding very enthusiastically to the mystery
dinner theater and improv forms -- not to mention pro wrestling. It's up
to us to take interactivity to new and different levels.

Cheers,
Cat Hebert


------------------------------

On Wed, 16 May 2001 06:15:40 -0700 (PDT) Audie McCall
<audiemccall@yahoo.com> writes:
> --- 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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