Grant Wood

"For years our stage has been controlled by grasping New York producers. The young playwright or actor could not succeed unless he went to New York. For commercial reasons, it was impossible to give the drama any regional feeling; it had little that was basic to go on and was consequently dominated by translations or reworkings of French plays and by productions of English drawing-room comedies, often played by imported actors. The advent of movies changed this condition only by creating another highly urbanized center at Hollywood. But we have now a revolt against this whole system -- a revolt in which we have enlisted the community theatres, local playwrights, and certain important university theatres."

With a few minor tweaks, this paragraph could have been written today about both our commercial and nonprofit theatre scenes. However, it was written by painter Grant Wood in his book Revolt Against the City in 1935. Seventy-five years later, little has changed, despite the advent of the regional theatre that was supposed to alter the face of American theatre. So much for artists as innovators.

To those who are impatient with the discussion of supply and demand, and who are wanting to get back to talking about artistic matters, I would argue that you've had the floor for at least 75 years -- it isn't too much to ask for a couple more weeks.