Imagine you're in real estate and your specialty is leasing store front properties to restauranteurs. You lease storefronts with big plate glass windows, some with a stoop, others with outdoor seating, etc. etc. Many varieties. One day you look around and you notice that you and a few of your buddies seem to have cornered the supply of all the storefronts with outdoor seating. An idea hits you. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could convince the world that the only restaurants with a fighting chance of success were those with outdoor seating? Never mind that this is New York and it's too cold to dine outside for 7-8 months of each year. You happen to have the direct line on all those storefronts, so, dammit, you're going to do whatever it takes to convince everyone of your axiom that without outdoor seating, any new venture is surely doomed.
Well, that's exactly what you'll find on page 6 of today's Arts section of the New York Times. Except instead of real estate agents, we have casting agents using nearly a full page of the Sunday New York Times (prime real estate, eh?) to promote their favorite myth: no show can succeed in New York without major stars attached.
I suppose if you say something often enough it's bound to simply become true. How sad.
Here's a link to the full Q&A, with the unintentionally ironic headline: The Fine Art of Casting Hits on Broadway.
Brings to mind a quaint old expression that those born after 1980 may be unfamiliar with: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
