[NEohioPAL]WARNING: The Economy Stinks!

Sun Mar 23 21:46:07 PST 2003

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<P>NEOhioPAL,</P></DIV>
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<DIV>          The economy may suck, but theatre doesn't have to.  Sure, we may all have to take day-jobs now (those of us who don't get cast in Pearl Harbor the stage play or whatever else we'll be seeing soon) but this could be a good time for us as opposed to bad.  Certainty of economic failure can be liberating in a sense (not in the sense that you're liberated to pay your rent with it).  Look at the Japanese cinema of recent years, which because of its tiny domestic audience is able to produce strange and beautiful cult films by the very fact that anything it produces will more or less flop compared to other national markets.  We may be working in garages and basements, but this is a chance to improve the quality and message of our product.</DIV>
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<DIV>          First of all, we need to seek out a new audience, a more committed one.  Rather than theaters traditional and ever tiresome appeals to an ultimately fickle upper-middle-class audience who lets face it aren't really getting things shaking these days, lets appeal to the kind of audience that really needs are help: the disadvantaged, the marginalized, the generally malcontent.  (not to say that there aren't some really good people and audience members in our current audience group)  If theater's not making money as a business, let's not run it like one.  If we cut costs and lower ticket prices and take a more grassroots approach, we can eventually find an audience, and probably one which will create a more vital theater atmosphere.  Rather than consistently cutting off pieces of our limbs and selling them, let's do something to improve the situation.</DIV>
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<DIV>          This will not help some of you who have been paying the bills off of theater.  I don't know what to say to you.  We may not, as a community, have the strength to pull you through and get you the revenues you need to keep doing what you were doing.  But that doesn't have to stop you from making art altogether.</DIV>
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<DIV>          Lastly, we need to pull together on some level.  Rather than a "get behind this" attitude, we need to meet together on an equal footing and take some real actions.  People, don't be afraid to use this list to ask for whatever you need, and to put your messages out there.  Because as much as we like to bicker, we're all -- every fluffy professor, idealistic radical, crusty high school directing egomaniac, or various other species of theater people -- pretty much in the same boat.  We've been locking each other out and making excuses too long.  If we want this thing to continue, and get a real audience, we need to work at it.  We can no longer dumb down our product enough to get the current audience and still be saying anything productive at all other than such simple and banal messages as "racism is bad" or "thought is good."  If things continue much longer like this, the world around us will be a chaotic wasteland, but the work we see on stage will be something akin to a patriotic icecapades (okay I can't spell Icescapades).  Of course, there are enduring exceptions to this epidemic, but the point is that we should open ourselves up to each other and the possibilities, as artists and as people.</DIV>
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<DIV>             Thank you for reading my tirade.</DIV>
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