Music, theater, gardening, travel, current affairs, and my personal life, not always in that order. I try to keep it interesting, I rarely hold back, because one thing I truly believe in is the shared experience of this reality we call life. We're all in this together, people. More than we even know.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Theater as Church: The Search for Community
Just noticed that StageSource ran a short piece I wrote on theaters trying to build community.
We've had so many conversations about theater, and will likely have many more. But I agree there is something akin to a religious experience about theater - in both the good and the ugly. It does stretch our souls a bit and allows those quiet moments of something in between the knowing and the unknown. On the flip side, it gets cultish and exclusionary. Maybe if more people pursue the true sense of community in theater - not just as a name for the type of theater - there would be less of the ugly bits.
But huzzah for getting published by Stagesource. :)
i hate to say it, because i know i'm going to upset so many people, but the term "community theater" has become negative...too much waiting for guffman and amateurs (even though there are so many very talented people, but there is always that one person in the cast that isn't up to snuff...and it is awfully snarky; i found it to be, at least, and i think it was because so much ego is at stake, instead of a paycheck or the concept that it's actually a profession or a career or even a calling...but the idea of community building in theater, i think, is the way to go to make it more open to a wider range of theater-goers, not just "theater people"...the question that needs to be constantly examined, i think, is what is the theater's role in the community in the face of everything from film to the economy?...
2 comments:
We've had so many conversations about theater, and will likely have many more. But I agree there is something akin to a religious experience about theater - in both the good and the ugly. It does stretch our souls a bit and allows those quiet moments of something in between the knowing and the unknown. On the flip side, it gets cultish and exclusionary. Maybe if more people pursue the true sense of community in theater - not just as a name for the type of theater - there would be less of the ugly bits.
But huzzah for getting published by Stagesource. :)
i hate to say it, because i know i'm going to upset so many people, but the term "community theater" has become negative...too much waiting for guffman and amateurs (even though there are so many very talented people, but there is always that one person in the cast that isn't up to snuff...and it is awfully snarky; i found it to be, at least, and i think it was because so much ego is at stake, instead of a paycheck or the concept that it's actually a profession or a career or even a calling...but the idea of community building in theater, i think, is the way to go to make it more open to a wider range of theater-goers, not just "theater people"...the question that needs to be constantly examined, i think, is what is the theater's role in the community in the face of everything from film to the economy?...
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