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jrisingThere was a fantastic discussion at the Rocky party about the state of the cast. The vocal consensus was this:
There's an undercurrent of over-professionalism at the show. In small but definite ways, the drive for professionalism stifles some of the fun of the show and makes working at it a chore. Because the show isn't as much fun, it isn't as good, and the audience has noticed. Both directors, theater 3, and Acid's absence were blamed for these problems.
It's so tough to disentangle real harmful effects from nostalgia. So, tell me: do you agree? Have we gained the world and lost our soul (or raised the bar and broken our backs)? The drive for screen accuracy can push us to do better, but if it drives out jokes and connecting with the audience-- if our performance just duplicates the film-- do we want it? The cast members used to work up the audience waiting outside before the show. Does anyone do that now? We have such a great group, and we can fix these problems, but maybe not without big changes.
Feel free to post anonymously or email me separately.
There's an undercurrent of over-professionalism at the show. In small but definite ways, the drive for professionalism stifles some of the fun of the show and makes working at it a chore. Because the show isn't as much fun, it isn't as good, and the audience has noticed. Both directors, theater 3, and Acid's absence were blamed for these problems.
It's so tough to disentangle real harmful effects from nostalgia. So, tell me: do you agree? Have we gained the world and lost our soul (or raised the bar and broken our backs)? The drive for screen accuracy can push us to do better, but if it drives out jokes and connecting with the audience-- if our performance just duplicates the film-- do we want it? The cast members used to work up the audience waiting outside before the show. Does anyone do that now? We have such a great group, and we can fix these problems, but maybe not without big changes.
Feel free to post anonymously or email me separately.
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Date: 2007-05-23 07:28 pm (UTC)And I'd like to add that in the cycles of things, I have seen the cast go through eras of a marked decrease in professionalism. And I think those were a function of how much the directors encouraged professionalism and themselves acted professionally. Being this good doesn't just HAPPEN. It needs to be cultivated. It sounds to me like the solution might not be to decrease focus on professionalism, but rather for people with a problem to make peace with said professionalism, and figure out how to have fun while upholding our focus on precision.