[rocky] Professionalism killed the Rocky star

[jrising]

There 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.

Comments

[jrising.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to appear unbiased, but I do think that this can act as a fairly unbiased forum for what I think is an important discussion. I don't think it's the only place that discussion should take place-- I plan on talking to the directors about everyone's comments (the strongest of which is that things are going very *right* with the show), and being clear about who said what so I'm not representing an invisible group. I hope reading other people's comments helps everyone develop their thoughts too and bring them to the directors and to their own attitude to the show independently. It's certainly helped me improve my understanding of the situation.

At the same time, this isn't in any way the public FBC forum. I didn't propose a public discussion, but that's what happened. I'm glad for it. I don't want to change what FBC *is*, but I do question parts of how it functions.

[grypes.livejournal.com]

Actually proposing a public discussion in your blog is exactly what you did.

When you get on live journal and present the opinions of a bunch of anonymous people who had a discussion at an after party about "the state of the cast" and then ask anyone and everyone to reply to a series of questions is exactly what proposing a public discussion is.