Don Hall and Diversity
I like it! You know how much I like approaching problems from a non-traditional direction, and Don Hall's latest post does this with the issue of diversity. His solution: subsidize real estate. Arts funders take note: this could actually work. Diversity supporters take note: this could actually work.I think he's right about diversity in the small theatre scene being more diverse. Partly, this may be because it is being created by a younger generation.
There is one fly in the ointment: the artists themselves. If I heard it once, I heard it a dozen times during my couple days at the Arena: playwrights want to "make the jump" to the regional theatres. They don't seem to be content to stay put -- they've drunk the Kool-Aid and see the theatre world in terms of a pyramid, and they want to "get to the top."
That said, if the small theatre scene was the place where the most dynamic, exciting work was happening, then maybe that would outweigh the Ideology of the Top.
There is one fly in the ointment: the artists themselves. If I heard it once, I heard it a dozen times during my couple days at the Arena: playwrights want to "make the jump" to the regional theatres. They don't seem to be content to stay put -- they've drunk the Kool-Aid and see the theatre world in terms of a pyramid, and they want to "get to the top."
That said, if the small theatre scene was the place where the most dynamic, exciting work was happening, then maybe that would outweigh the Ideology of the Top.
Comments
That is where the most dynamic, exciting work is happening. It will never outweigh the the other ideology except among those artists and audience it already does.