Wes Andrews, the New Media Analyst and Dramaturg for NewsWrights United, asked each of our creative team members to write a short essay for our blog on why this project matters to them. This one’s my stab.
Fresh theatre is living theatre.
I hold this truth to be self-evident.
I have held it so for a very long time, but have only argued it publically and formally for about 9 months, since launching my blog Just Wrought, and its first in a series of essays, “Theatre Takes Place: Why Locally Grown Plays Matter”. By itself, the notion is not terribly controversial. The argument comes when we theatre professionals attempt to determine whether you can make something fresh with 10 year-old, 20-year-old, 50-year old and 500-year old ingredients. I say, “Well… sometimes.” My esteemed adversaries in this ongoing argument defiantly avow “Always!”, and then they sink a staggering amount of effort into convincing their audience, and more importantly, themselves that that so long as one has excellently trained and accomplished actors, insightful and renowned directors and designers, plenty of money from donors and a cultured public, one can always make the already existing great plays of the canon fresh.
I disagree.
In reality you need actual fresh content to keep theatre relevant and alive. And fresh content only comes from creating new plays. Thus, as much as the ascendancy of “The Director” in the 19th Century, and “The Artistic Director” in the 20th, seemed to herald the demise of the playwright, the playwright remains a necessary component— perhaps the necessary component—of ensuring theatre remains a living—and not merely a museum– art form.
We at NewsWrights United believe that employing the theatrical form of the living newspaper to cover local news is one of the best ways of injecting fresh, locally compelling, material into the theatrical canon. That alone, however, is not enough to answer why this project matters. Happily, when we produced our first edition It’s Not in the P-I: A Living Newspaper about a Dying Newspaper, we noticed an added bonus. The people came—and we sold out nearly every night—not to see excellent theatre adeptly presented by trained professionals but rather stories about a local newspaper that they loved (or hated) that had died recently. In other words, they came to see themselves.
When theatre offers the new and the relevant, it matters and lives. When it offers only the polished and perfect– plays we all already know– it dies a museum death. We are doing this project because journalism matters. We are also doing it because theatre matters. When blended they achieve an almost explosive synergy.
Why?
It’s simple. Audiences matter. Stories matter. The rest is icing. Sometimes icing is delightful, but it will not keep you alive forever.
I hope you will join us Monday evening, November 15 for . . .
Tickets for the event are $20 and are available at Brown Paper Tickets (http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/133319) or may be purchased at the door.
Or if you cannot make it, please consider helping us out with a donation. Below is our support hat. You can start filling it by clicking on it. It’ll take you to our Shunpike donation page.
Early support is always deeply appreciated support. So thanks.
