Wednesday, December 9, 2009

The Tweet Heard 'Round The World

Or at least around the block or the Theatre District or wherever. Isaac tweeted the bomb on us and the crowd went wild. The fine folks at the Arena Stage have posted a long excerpt from the upcoming book to clarify. Interesting stuff. When this study hits, I think the theatre blogs will have a lot to chew on (and chew out each other over) for a good long time...

10 comments:

joshcon80 said...

Let's all get together for a collective "No shit, Sherlock."

99 said...

Yeah, I hear you. Though it is pretty shocking to see how much of a closed system it appears to be. Once you attach numbers to it, it gets pretty real, pretty quickly.

RLewis said...

If this becomes the big topic of the theatrosphere it will surely be a sad sign of our screwy priorities; but then again, I feel that way everytime some theater blog posts a movie review, and it gets dozens of comments.

My surprise is that more blogs are not talking about the upcoming "Devoted and Disgruntled" event that Improbable Theater is bringing to nyc next month.

I guess the difference is: yakking about what's wrong in theater vs. actually coming together to do something about it.

joshcon80 said...

@RLewis I had no idea that was happening. That really is exciting.

On another note, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I also think it's important to have conversations and debates about the infrastructure of the industry. I don't see how that's shallow or unimportant.

RLewis said...

Who said, "shallow or unimportant"? Not me.

Every issue is important, but we can't tackle them all. I just think that if we have the best sense of our communial Priorities, we'll accomplish more. It just so happens that blogs are very literary based - it's writing, so playwright and critic issues skew that list.

But I've been reading these blogs for several years now, and I'm not sure if they've ever accomplished anything sort of pissing each other off.

99 said...

Good points, actually. And it's definitely frustrating how little impact on the wider community we seem to be having. Though, with three bloggers being invited to the Arena Stage's convening last week, that may be changing...slowly.

Scott Walters said...

Whoa! Remember the context: this is a diversity issue. If we put everyone through the same schools, they all come out sounding the same, and a few people are making decisions about who will be given access to the national theatre scene. This IS a big deal, and one that is little discussed. Instead, everybody shrugs and tries to get into those schools, which is pathetic. Yes, we are talking about what is wrong -- that is the first step toward action. Focusing on happy talk won't change a system that is dysfunctional.

Scott Walters said...

You don't change the way the river flows by throwing flowers on it.

joshcon80 said...

@Scott Walters Thank you, thank you, thank you. That's what I was getting at in my bumbling sort of way.

Nelson Downend said...

I just read more about the book on TDF's site. I can't wait to read more. http://ow.ly/KHYU

Agreed. I hope this doesn't just keep us talking about the problem but calls us to action. It looks like there is a few of us to spark the masses into action.