The Regional Rebellion

I wanted to submit the following resources with some thoughts on the current chatter in the blogosphere (am I really using that word?) about the Regional Theatre model (discussions happening here and here and here and here).

I'm wondering if what's going on is really a kind of a natural progression of the American theatre - as in Broadway leads to Off-Broadway leads to Off-Off-Broadway, etc. I've been trying to turn up some data on how long it actually took the Off- and Off-Off movements to generate, and I haven't found anything too concrete, but I'm going to take an educated guess and say like 30-40 years? Anyway, by those figures the Regional model is way overdue for a malcontent child. "Alt Regional"? "Off Regional"? I don't know.


Food for the malcontent child:

A recent article from the Beacon Journal Arts (Ohio) about The Bang & The Clatter Theater Company. This brilliant company is creating a kind of Regional alternative in Ohio (Akron to Cleveland). Who wouldn't love these guys? From the article:

At first, word of the free beer and wine given out at performances might have enticed audiences to check out the unprepossessing (OK, makeshift) theater upstairs in the Summit Artspace building in downtown Akron. But people keep coming back for more of the raw, unpredictable drama that co-founders Sean Derry and Sean McConaha began producing at Akron's Bang and the Clatter Theatre Company in October 2005.

An amazing article from the Harvard Business Review ('96 I think) about how strategic collaboration between arts organizations, such as shared ticketing initiatives, not only improves the finances of each arts organization, but improves the local economy.

The New Radical Theatre Notebook, by Arthur Sainer. Have you read this? Sainer's discussion of the birth of Off-Off Broadway, which he witnessed firsthand, is nothing short of inspiring.


One more thing I'd like to point out: as far as I can tell, girls have been conspicuously absent from this debate (besides commenters and now myself, I guess) . For that matter, I can't think of any girl-written performing arts blogs. Yet another area where the wider Nonprofit world trumps the performing arts: Rosetta Thurman, Katya Andresen, Beth Kanter, and many other brilliant women write regularly on nonprofit technology, management, marketing, and other issues of interest. Am missing something? I would love to be corrected.