Minor Expletives

“…they’re not wrong”

Funny, Catchy and Not Too Challenging, or “At some point, you’re just an elitist f*ck.”: “…Which got me thinking about snobbery […] I’ve got to say that, for me, those middlebrow shows form a disturbingly large portion of my early memorable theatrical experiences—42nd Street, Miss Saigon, Les Miserables. If I had to say what sparked the interest in theatre in me, I’d be hard pressed to come up with an answer that wasn’t a megamusical.”

(Via .)New Beans – Clayton Lord on new art and new audiences

On a direct level I can relate (for me Phantom and Les Miz.) – and I’ve being thinking about my current interest in returning to musicals and scale, and how I can reconcile that with the focus and skills I’ve developed doing intimate and research performance. I’m less concerned with the “always everyone” option that Lord mentions, and more interested in the possibilities of back and forth.

Intimate and research art are needed for the field and the world and need government and institutional support (since they have less box office and less access to donors) and populist work (that challenge rather than enforce oppressive, status quo beliefs) is also needed and need support in order to not become financially elitist.

AND – artists, producers and institutions should be able to move back and forth. The middle path can lead to awkward nowhereness but the back an forth is what appeals to me.

What are the changes that are needed for this to be more possible?

“The problem is not, fundamentally, to get people to slow down, or to move without being toxic to their environment. The problem is to make people aware that anonymity is as toxic to the ecology of heart as hydrocarbons are toxic to the atmosphere. The problem is how to restore intimacy, curiosity, trust, and play into the happenstance encounter of citizens, in an era when the happenstance and the unpredictable are a threat.” Pier Giorgio DiCicco [also]

On stage, we are not anonymous performers or artists – we use our names. This is different than the non-anonymity of celebrity because we not celebrities – that’s obvious. We are people making some very poor financial choices in order to stand in front of others and say our names in small rooms.