The Playgoer: Workshop Hell

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Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Workshop Hell

A little theatre than can, in St Paul, MN, commits itself to actually producing new plays, without workshops. Including Wellstone! The Musical. Read about here in the St. Paul Pioneer Press (free registration req'd)

And just in case you always assume our British counterparts have it so much better, here's a sobering piece from the BBC suggesting that while we may salivate at all state subsidized attention young playwrights there get, theatre in England is just as marginalized in mainstream culture there as in ours, unless it's on the West End (i.e. their Broadway). Unless TV comes to the rescue...

But reality TV show The Play's the Thing could do for budding playwrights what Operatunity did for emerging sopranos. Due to air on Channel 4 next year, the show challenges [producer Sonia] Friedman and her "expert panel" to uncover a new British playwright and open their play in the West End. So far, the panel - with the help of some 40 readers - have whittled down more than 2,000 entries to just 30 plays.

The Brits still have it better even in this regard, though. Perhaps such a show could exist in the US. But it would have to be a musical.

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