There's a feedback loop which keeps playing out allowing even an on old article to "go viral" over and over again. People are discovering "Charlie Bit My Finger" even today.

I really enjoyed seeing Black Like Us at Annex. It's such a fun play and has spawned many days of thinking about race relations and the history of Seattle. And the crowd at the little theater was fun and a little rowdy. Really makes me want to see more plays there.

It seems sad for a theater to get into a loop of plays do they every few years, but on the other hand I appreciated the Rep producing American Buffalo so I had a chance to see it.

Maybe the theater group I worked with for twenty years is not the sort of company to whom this advice is addressed--I was involved in community theater in Stanwood, the hinterlands--but these recommendations, if followed, would have bankrupted us quickly. (To be clear, we were not an inferior company despite our location. We had lots of talent and made lots of money. My most successful directorial offering made $10,000 profit, not gross, at $7.00 per ticket.) The audience wanted lighthearted familiar things; Neil Simon, Agatha Christie, etc. They certainly didn't want to be "surprised." Despite this, we were able to do very good work and branch out a little; I wrote eleven original plays and we did some heavy stuff (Ibsen, Arthur Miller etc.) But the challenging things usually made little money, they were mostly for our own pleasure as actors. Mount a production of Arsenic and Old Lace, though, and we'd sell every seat. Our company finally folded after 25 years not for lack of audience but lack of workers. Probably urban audiences can be challenged to branch out, since they get out more, but I'm sure even the pros have to fight this addiction to the familiar.

I hadn't read the "Ten Things" article before, so there is benefit in a feedback loop.

Some of it I totally agree with, some interesting to consider, and some...well. yeah. But I also love how a bunch of these amount to poking bears with sharp sticks, even if they are sincerely offered. Gotta love a sharp stick.

A question for Mr. Kiley: Regarding item #3 (and kinda #2)...I try to keep up on performance articles here and I'm pretty sure I've seen you write about shows where your main criticism is that it wasn't done, needed more development, was underwritten or under rehearsed, etc. Normally a totally reasonable criticism, but in context of this manifesto, how do you resolve that value statement with those reviews?

"Our company finally folded after 25 years not for lack of audience but lack of workers."

What @2 said. I was involved in community theatre during my first couple of college years, and took turns at most of the major jobs outside of directing: acting, stage managing, lights, sound. Theatre is probably still an important refuge for "different" kids in high school, but it's difficult enough these days to get other adults away from their screens and out of the house for a one-day hike or road trip, a local political club, a lecture, a computer-user group, or just about anything else besides hitting a bar, let alone anything involving a multi-week commitment.

It's encouraging that quite a few people still seem to want to SEE a show, but more should take the opportunity to help one come together.

Interesting, and sad, that the American Association of Community Theatre website doesn't seem to have a "Find a local..." tool, or anything, really, to pull in anyone who's not already involved.

Re: 4, how could I forget set-building?! No set, no show, and that's where I first learned about painting and power tools (my dad was, and is, a brace-and-bit, hand-saw kind of guy).

Dumping Shakespeare is a terrible idea. People like Shakespeare, people want to see Shakespeare, people are willing to pay to see Shakespeare and will pay to drag their kids to Shakespeare. Given that Shakespeare is so reliably popular with theater audiences, why the fuck would anyone drop Shakespeare?

Seems to me that this list writer isn't trying to save theater, he's just trying to make theater conform more to his personal taste, which favors novelty. Well, not everyone shares his taste and he should get used to that and suck it the fuck up.

I think the reason theater audiences prefer the old to the new is because theater itself is an archaic medium. People go to the theater in lieu of turning on the TV or going to the movies or surfing YouTube because they are looking for a classic experience, something that connects them to the past, to share something with people who lived decades or centuries or millennia ago. When people want novelty they turn to the newer media.

Speaking as someone who was bored to tears by The Consul, which, since it was composed within the last century, counts as a "new" opera, I find these kinds of suggestions a little ridiculous. Most people don't want to see new plays because too many new plays are painful and boring.