Todd London's keynote speech today at the Dramatists Guild of America's first national conference at George Mason University shook me to my core. He didn't tell me anything I didn't already know but he put it all together in words so clear, so vivid and so electric with their honesty that there was hardly a dry eye in the house. "Playwrights have been pushed aside. Writers have been neglected and abused." I am paraphrasing and by doing so, nowhere near doing justice. Wish this speech would be posted online so we could read and re-read.
But the bottom line is this. I'm full of feeling (cathectic with affect, some might say) after hearing Mr. London sum up the situation we find ourselves in. Let's face it, we are engaged in the creation of "buggy whips," as he said. I believe he was quoting someone here. (Someone help me get the citation right.) The percentage of Americans who attend theatre is steadily dwindling. Over the past decade I think the statistic quoted was a decrease from 13% to 9.5%? Again, wish I'd been taking notes.
But what I wonder is. Do I stop writing for the theatre? I've been honestly asking myself this question a lot lately in spite of the fact that I have a brand new play with a reading Monday night in New York. That's how topsy-turvy I feel. One moment I find a glimmer of hope from deep within or from something inspiring I find outside myself. The next, I recall how few people really want new theatre. As Mr. London reminded us: Robert Anderson had taped to his typewriter the following:
No one ever asked you to be a playwright.
I wrote about this on this blog over a year ago from a different perspective [see: Is Theatre Worth Saving? A Uniquely American Question], wondering why so many Americans still wrtie plays and think they can. Part of me wants to find hope in this fact. Another part of me wants to just run away to the forest and grow radishes.