When the Empty Space was flailing, City Council Member Nick Licata decided it was time to draw citizens' attention to the neglected theater scene. He and Theatre Puget Sound cooked up an inaugural Live Theater Week, beginning with City Council Resolution 30765, which opens like a bureaucratic love letter: "Whereas, beginning with the world's first dramatic performance held on the banks of the Nile River in 2000 BC, live theater has established itself as an indispensable form of human expression…" Isn't that sweet?

The first Live Theater Week is a humble effort, but it's a start: From April 26 through May 2, dozens of local theaters are offering ticket discounts, Artpatch is giving $500 grants to small venues like Theater Schmeater and Langston Hughes, and the city council plans to go on a hot group date to the Seattle Rep.

"It's largely a promotional effort," Licata said. "We want to work with local media to highlight theater in Seattle."

For a promotional effort, there hasn't been much visibility, and few local theater types seemed to even know about it. "Well, I'm not the mayor," Licata chuckled. "And it's the first year--but I'm hoping this will become a national movement." Oakland, Cleveland, and Chicago have already signed on and their city councils passed resolutions modeled on Seattle's (no word yet as to whether those distant legislators invoked over 4,000 years of theater history in their grandiloquent preambles).

Live Theater Week follows in the wake of a recent RAND study that has been the talk of the arts world for the last few weeks. According to RAND's research brief: "The policy debate until recently has been too narrowly focused on supporting the production and performance of the arts [supply strategies] rather than stimulating public involvement in the arts [demand strategies]." In other words, we're developing the artists--we need to develop the audiences.

Licata hadn't heard of the report, but Live Theater Week is in unconscious harmony with its conclusions. "Give live human beings a chance," Licata said. "They're more exciting than celluloid."

Speaking of celluloid: I'm sorry I didn't write about the 5th Avenue's forthcoming pre-Broadway production of The Wedding Singer like every other paper in town--I was too busy working on the libretto for my opera adaptation of The Waterboy.

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In much, much more depressing news: Samantha Downing, a 38-year-old director, stage manager, and mother, died earlier this month after two and a half years with a rare cancer. The Downings lost their health coverage just as Samantha was diagnosed (damn you, medical industry swine) and her treatments devoured the artsy family's retirement accounts, college funds, credit cards, and home equity. Anyone who wants to go to heaven can contribute to the Samantha Downing Memorial Fund (care of her husband Todd Downing) at the handiest Wells Fargo.

brendan@thestranger.com