Exits and Entrances in 2023 in The NYTimes.
D. P. Quinn
NJApril 22
The entire American Theatre, barely exists,in our time. We do not remember or have read plays by Edward Albe, Sam Shepard, Albert Innuratto, Eugene O'Neill; Arthur Kopitt; Elmer Rise, Clifford Odets; William Inge etc. What is flashy and current is being done, with runs now limited to a few months or weeks, rather than years. I satreted my Career as a New Script Consultant at Manhattan theatre Club; O'Neill Playwrights Conference and read dozens and dozens of awful I wanna be a play scripts. There is no Rpertory Theatre like The Met opera to our shame and cultural ignorance. Full stop. 99% of the plays I read and critiqued were awful. We now think of Broadway as juke box overkill, or satire light. Any one have a match ?
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Robert
OregonApril 22
@D. P. Quinn I have read plays by all the playwrights you list and some of them were awful. Few of their plays ran for years. You must know that playwrights go out of fashion. What was successful in the past; not so now. Maxwell Anderson was successful in his day, but his plays are not produced today. Do you know doing plays in rep is expensive. Repertory Theatre has been tried many times in New York City, all have failed. Someone asked Harold Clurman why there weren't lots of good plays. Clurman replied, "We need lots of bad plays to fertilize the ground for good ones."
@Robert Thank you.
I have very inspired memeories of the Repertory Theatre at Lincoln Center with Al Pacino; Nancy Marchand; Rosemary Harris; Josef Somner; Philip Bosco in Williams' CAMINO REAL; Gorky's ENEMIES; J. Robert Oppenheimer; THE MERCHANT OF VENICE at the Beaumont. Also APA Rep with Helen Hayes at the Lyceum Theatre, and annual revval's at Circle in the Square of all of O'Neill's plays from AH WILDERNESS to ALL GOD'S CHILDREN GOT WINGS; and the Jaso Robard O'Neill cycle too. Thrilling work whenI was in school and nevder forgogtten.
Drutas
New YorkApril 22
@D. P. Quinn
You are so right. I was a reader for many years for several companies, some major, some smaller regionals, but the percentages never changed: roughly 2% were stageworthy, and the rest...
领英推荐
The impediment to production never seemed to me to be gender or race or anything else. They were just bad plays, and no person or institution was helping the almost-competent to get better.
Certainly a Broadway production of a play that isn't "ready" is a bad idea. We do need a better commitment to bringing writers along. And better dramaturgy to guide them.
Robert
OregonApril 23
@Drutas Did Shakespeare, Jonson, Congreve, Sheridan, Ibsen, O'Neill, Miller, William have a Dramaturg? There is an old joke, no one knows what a dramaturg does. Larissa FastHorse uses it in her play. As for the plays you read, back in the day, no doubt were all by white playwrights. The way a playwright learns the craft is in production with an audience. A playwright learns how to listen to the audience.
Mr. Bentley
East SideApril 23
@Robert . . .
Most of the time Lessing is mooring.
D. P. Quinn
NJJust now
@Mr. Bentley
Dramaturgs were supposed to supply historical context and history to ancient or classical works.
Lately, they are disembowelling classics as fodder for the here and now---albeit ever passing time and brevity (lomg past the "sole" of wit aka soul baby.