Saturday, March 21, 2009

Mike Daisey calls America's theater establishment on the carpet - The Denver Post:

Denver Post: You have described the slow death of newspapers as "the next great crisis of the American regional theater." Why?

Mike Daisey: Theater is deeply interdependent on the newspaper industry — theater critics have been an integral part of theater's identity for more than a century, woven into the core rituals of opening night, previews and so forth. With the current model of newspapers collapsing, we will lose that support system of critical feedback, and it will strike a deep blow to theater's sense of itself as a relevant art form.

The media that replaces and evolves from newspapers are unlikely to give theater as much attention as it is getting now, and the loss of advertising space will mean theater needs to actually think about how to reach people. It will be a difficult transition that theaters are poorly equipped to handle.