Re: RAT Readings/ referencing Brad Rothbart // I'll have the lastword, thanks

[MFarkash@aol.com]

Subj:    Re: RAT Readings//  referencing scrdchao@nni.com (brad rothbart)


Brad, I'm having major problems with your lack of logic.


Brad wrote about underheard playwrights and defining same: "Here's my litmus 
test: walk down a Main street in a large city. Ask people to name 5 living 
American Playrights. If they can ,  ( which is doubtful)
those consistently NOT named are the "undeheard playwrights for your locale.

Hmm . By that standard, THOUSANDS of playwrights are underheard in each 
locale. That's a rather broad litmus test.
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Brad also writes that I should create my own reading series for new, edgy 
work.

Brad, you haven't been listening.  I have said numerous times there is too 
much energy put into readings and not enough into decent productions.  Why 
would I add yet another reading series to a city that has DOZENS? I already 
help develop plays in two existing writers' workshops.

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Brad also responds to my report that the LA Public Library has an unpublished 
play collection.

Brad writes:  So, wait- doesn't that, at its endpoint, obviate the need for 
live theatre
altogether. I mean,  if I can read The Iceman Comet, there's no reasomn to
go sdee Kevin Spacey in it?? Are you a playwright in opposition to actors??

That's kooky, Brad.  Plays are published (or put in collections) all the 
time, and people still go to see productions.

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Lastly, Brad originally said he could name: "fifty wonderful plays I've read 
in two months ... "

I said I wanted to get on his reading list for what I assumed were new and 
underheard plays.  Apparently Brad was talking about "underheard," published 
plays. Bummer. I thought he was privy to a stream of wonderful, new, 
unproduced plays.  Hey, I could find 50 wonderful, lesser-known plays if I 
went to the public library, too.


Michael F