The Playgoer: Quote of the Day

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Monday, February 22, 2010

Quote of the Day

"The RSC says that it plans to store its Park Avenue Armory theater "probably in the U.S." at the end of its 2011 residency, and that it will be reused for other productions here and in England....

I have a different idea. The Actors' Shakespeare Project in Boston, American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wis., Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., the Shakespeare Theatre Company of Washington, D.C., the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey—these regional companies and others like them are performing precisely the kind of classical repertory that New Yorkers need to be seeing on a regular basis, and doing it with freshness and originality. So why not leave the stage in place and invite them all to act on it at Lincoln Center Festival 2012?
The obvious reason why this won't happen is that Lincoln Center Festival is for all intents and purposes in the business of bringing foreign artists to New York—and that American regional theater, unlike British theater, is devoid of the made-in-Europe snob appeal that goes over so well in New York."

-Terry Teachout, weighing in on the whole RSC/2011 deal, and putting a word in for the countless classical rep companies in this country (some of whom, gasp, may not be in New York).

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