Speaking at the much-anticipated new play development conference at Arena Stage last week, Rocco Landesman put it bluntly: “You can either increase demand or decrease supply,” he said. “Demand is not going to increase, so it is time to think about decreasing supply.” [see Times story]
Fact is, for a long time, I've felt precisely the same way.
Fewer and fewer people are interested in theatre and yet every year it seems more and more of us are so interested in creating it that we actually go out and create new theatre companies to do something that very few of our fellow citizens could care less about. I wrote about this oddity of the American landscape on this site awhile ago, but I think the point still sticks... perhaps even moreso. Check out my 2009 post: Is Theatre Worth Saving? A Uniquely American Question.
And for another interesting POV, check out Trisha Mead's response to Landesman here.
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